Windwalker Monk DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

This is a simplified version of the Rotation that leaves out some minor min-maxing gameplay.

1. Touch of Death
2. Strike of the Windlord
3. Whirling Dragon Punch
4. Fists of Fury
5. Rising Sun Kick
6. Slicing Winds
7. Spinning Crane Kick
8. Blackout Kick
9. Tiger Palm

This is the general priority list on how to use your abilities. This is not a list that should be followed step by step; it simply serves as a good idea of which things to prioritize in your moment-to-moment gameplay, as you will often be faced with multiple choices on which buttons to press. The priority list simply highlights which buttons are more important than others. You can find a sample opener sequence further below on this page.

Conduit of the Celestials is focused on managing the additional cooldown of Celestial Conduit and the effects from Heart of the Jade Serpent. This burst window accelerates how quickly your abilities come off cooldown and how quickly you channel Fists of Fury allow you to squeeze a large amount of damage into its buff window.

1. Touch of Death
2. Celestial Conduit
3. Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
4. Strike of the Windlord
5. Whirling Dragon Punch
6. Fists of Fury
7. Rising Sun Kick
8. Slicing Winds
9. Spinning Crane Kick
10. Blackout Kick
11. Tiger Palm

This is the general priority list on how to use your abilities. This is not a list that should be followed step by step; it simply serves as a good idea of which things to prioritize in your moment-to-moment gameplay, as you will often be faced with multiple choices on which buttons to press. The priority list simply highlights which buttons are more important than others. You can find a sample opener sequence further below on this page.

Shado-Pan focuses most of its damage in an even spread of most abilities. With the changes in the Midnight Pre-Patch, many of the extra things that you used to have to track, like Energy consumption and stacks of various buffs are gone and things are much simpler and easier to manage.

1. Touch of Death
2. Strike of the Windlord
3. Whirling Dragon Punch
4. Fists of Fury
5. Rising Sun Kick
6. Slicing Winds
7. Spinning Crane Kick
8. Blackout Kick
9. Tiger Palm

This is the general priority list on how to use your abilities. This is not a list that should be followed step by step; it simply serves as a good idea of which things to prioritize in your moment-to-moment gameplay, as you will often be faced with multiple choices on which buttons to press. The priority list simply highlights which buttons are more important than others. You can find a sample opener sequence further below on this page.

Conduit of the Celestials also changes very little when shifting to AoE damage as most of the damage comes from the additional casts of Fists of Fury that you get with the cooldown reduction brought by Heart of the Jade Serpent.

1. Touch of Death
2. Celestial Conduit
3. Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
4. Strike of the Windlord
5. Whirling Dragon Punch
6. Fists of Fury
7. Slicing Winds
8. Rising Sun Kick
9. Spinning Crane Kick
10. Blackout Kick
11. Tiger Palm

This is the general priority list on how to use your abilities. This is not a list that should be followed step by step; it simply serves as a good idea of which things to prioritize in your moment-to-moment gameplay, as you will often be faced with multiple choices on which buttons to press. The priority list simply highlights which buttons are more important than others. You can find a sample opener sequence further below on this page.

The transition to AoE for Shado-Pan is rather simple with very minor changes to the priority. Much of the increased AoE damage comes naturally from Shado Over the Battlefield as it splashes Nature damage to all enemies around you.

1. Touch of Death
2. Strike of the Windlord
3. Whirling Dragon Punch
4. Slicing Winds
5. Fists of Fury
6. Rising Sun Kick
7. Spinning Crane Kick
8. Blackout Kick
9. Tiger Palm

The Single-Button Assistant system offers an easy introduction into the spec and its many buttons, but it comes at a cost. Due to the increase of the Global Cooldown you will naturally do lower DPS already. The One-Button rotation is also missing out on some of the finer nuances of the rotation in order to make it more accessible for players who have just started their journey into the game, so even when using the Assisted highlight feature, you will be trailing a little behind those who have already mastered the ins and outs of the spec.

That being said, the DPS difference compared to the most complex and detailed rotational gameplay is not as big as you might think. You can expect to do ~25-30% less DPS than you would do with perfect rotational gameplay, so if you want to get your bearings before moving on to the Beginner DPS Rotation, using the Assisted Highlight or even the Single-Button Assistant is a great starting point if you have just taken your first steps into World of Warcraft.

Conduit of the Celestials runs a very prescribed sequence of abilities that tends to fall toward the middle of the length of most openers. The goal for this opener is to maximize the uptime of Heart of the Jade Serpent while using the hardest hitting abilities and as often as possible. The opener is also the same for single target and AoE.

1. Tiger Palm
2. Rising Sun Kick
3. Tiger Palm
4. Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
5. Slicing Winds (if talented)
6. Zenith with potions and trinkets
7. Rising Sun Kick
8. Strike of the Windlord (if talented)
9. Fists of Fury
10. Whirling Dragon Punch (if talented)
11. Tiger Palm
12. Rising Sun Kick
13. Celestial Conduit
14. Rising Sun Kick
15. Fists of Fury

The Shado-Pan opener aims to get stronger abilities like Fists of Fury and Rising Sun Kick on cooldown as quickly as possible so that you can use it more often. Generally, the opener follows the priority closer than openers often do. The opener is also the same for single target and AoE.

1. Tiger Palm
2. Rising Sun Kick
3. Tiger Palm
4. Zenith with potions and trinkets
5. Rising Sun Kick
6. Strike of the Windlord
7. Tiger Palm
8. Fists of Fury
9. Rising Sun Kick
10. Whirling Dragon Punch
11. Proceed with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.

Conduit of the Celestials runs a very prescribed sequence of abilities that tends to fall toward the middle of the length of most openers. The goal for this opener is to maximize the uptime of Heart of the Jade Serpent while using the hardest hitting abilities and as often as possible. The opener is also the same for single target and AoE.

1. Tiger Palm
2. Rising Sun Kick
3. Tiger Palm
4. Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
5. Slicing Winds (if talented)
6. Zenith with potions and trinkets
7. Rising Sun Kick
8. Strike of the Windlord (if talented)
9. Fists of Fury
10. Whirling Dragon Punch (if talented)
11. Tiger Palm
12. Rising Sun Kick
13. Celestial Conduit
14. Rising Sun Kick
15. Fists of Fury

1. Tiger Palm
2. Rising Sun Kick
3. Tiger Palm
4. Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
5. Slicing Winds (if talented)
6. Zenith with potions and trinkets
7. Rising Sun Kick
8. Strike of the Windlord (if talented)
9. Fists of Fury
10. Whirling Dragon Punch (if talented)
11. Tiger Palm
12. Rising Sun Kick
13. Celestial Conduit
14. Rising Sun Kick
15. Fists of Fury
16. Proceed with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.

Outside of big Haste cooldowns, Windwalker's damage is restricted by how many resources we can generate and spend. This means that sitting at the Energy cap or generating more Chi than you have space for typically results in lost damage potential. Your focus is balancing having enough Chi for spenders and using Blackout Kick just enough to prevent overcapping without using it too much and not having the Chi you need when a bigger spender becomes available.

During major cooldowns, you will often have more Energy and Chi than you can use due to the GCD and cooldowns of Chi spenders, making avoiding the caps less impactful, but still something to be aware of.

With most of our Chi spenders having their own cooldowns, it is important to reduce the amount of time that these harder-hitting abilities are sitting off cooldown without being used. There will, inevitably, be overlaps where you'll have to choose what to press based on the priority list. A key part of playing Windwalker recognizing that one of these situations is approaching and trying to have enough Chi for what you need to do.

Windwalker has several procs that you'll need to manage in order to maximize damage potential. The main ones are Dance of Chi-Ji and Blackout Kick. Both of these can stack to 2 so that you don't need to immediately use them. However, you will want to avoid risking overstacking, as that is lost damage potential. These procs can play an integral part in helping you balance your resources while still benefitting from Mastery: Combo Strikes. They can also throw off what you were planning, so being able to react intelligently and quickly is important.

Zenith doesn't provide any provide any direct damage increase without the addition of the Apex Talents of Tigereye Brew. However, it does reduce the cost of all of your Chi spenders by 1 and increases the cooldown reduction provided by Blackout Kick by an additional second. When you press the button it resets the cooldown of Rising Sun Kick and provides you an additional 2 Chi to use right away.

While Zenith is active, Blackout Kick becomes free, so it is your primary filler in order to get Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury back from cooldown as quickly as possible. This also means that you can very quickly feel like you have too much Chi if you're also using Tiger Palm too often. Due to getting your cooldowns back faster, it is even more important to have the Chi that you need to cast them right away.

If talented into Obsidian Spiral then Blackout Kick generates a Chi rather than consuming one. This causes it to function as both your primary filler and primary Chi-builder. Tiger Palm can be used in between Blackout Kicks to add a stack of Teachings of the Monastery for the ensuing Blackout Kick. This can result in overcapping your Chi at times, but this is preferable to casting nothing.

Zenith has two stacks, so you do not need to use it as soon as it is available but can plan its use for the best possible time. Through talents, Zenith can have a cooldown that takes 60, 70, 80, or 90-seconds to return. With two possible stacks, this means you can safely use it based on when you get the most value out of it, during a high-damage phase of a fight, a time with many targets to hit, or during large buffs like Bloodlust or with your trinkets.

Celestial Conduit is a powerful ability to use, but the most powerful aspect of it is that it adds the Heart of the Jade Serpent buff. However, because this buff can also come from using Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch, you need to stagger these uses for maximum benefit. This generally means using Celestial Conduit spaced out between casts of Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch. This attempts to insure maximum uptime and value.

The instance of Heart of the Jade Serpent that is triggered from using Zenith stacks with the version of Heart of the Jade Serpent that comes from Celestial Conduit, Strike of the Windlord, or Whirling Dragon Punch. However, the instance of Heart of the Jade Serpent that is generated from Celestial Conduit does not stack with the instance that comes from Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch.

This means that you can cast Zenith when you already have Heart of the Jade Serpent up, and you should because they stack very well. You want to try and avoid casting Celestial Conduit if you already have the buff that comes from Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch and visa versa.

With the changes in Midnight Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger is mainly a button you press so that you can then channel Celestial Conduit afterwards. This means that you'll want to plan ahead slightly so that you are not wasting a GCD summoning Xuen when you want to be dealing damage.

There is a large window after casting Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger where you're able to cast Celestial Conduit. Because balancing the above Heart of the Jade Serpent buff generally means a somewhat strict sequence of abilities, you will want to avoid deviating much from the above opener, even if it's the middle of a fight.

Touch of Death seems like a straightforward ability to use but attempting to min/max it can lead to losing damage rather than gaining it. With the change to Fatal Touch in Midnight, it no longer provides a damage increase after using it.

While this generally means that you'll want to use it as soon as its available and you have space to press it without delaying another ability, it also means that you CAN try to use it right before the target dies when your target has less health than your maximum health so that it deals 100% of your health rather than just the 35% of your maximum health that it deals if you use it on a target that is at 15% health or lower.

This is a very small window and Touch of Death can sometimes have a delay before being usable if you just swap to a target to try and hit it with Touch of Death. This delay can be the difference between making or missing the very small window. Missing the window generally means that you don't get Touch of Death off and thus lose damage that you would have done if you had cast it sooner.

Touch of Karma is, first and foremost, a defensive ability. Its primary use is to absorb some damage in order to lessen the damage that you are dealt. However, the secondary function of Touch of Karma is that some of the damage that the shield absorbs is redirected back to the target that you cast the spell on. This means that Touch of Karma can be used offensively if you do not need its defensive value.

Most fights in most content have times where you will be taking damage and can cleanly use Touch of Karma for both its defensive and offensive value. However, sometimes the damage you are taking isn't enough to necessitate a defensive cooldown like Touch of Karma. In these situations it is, technically, optimal to find some damage that you can then absorb and redirect. This can be done through standing in some damage effect on the ground, or in extreme situations, casting Provoke on a target and taking a few smacks.

Needing to Provoke a target to get the benefit from Touch of Karma should be used as a last resort and only ever be done with the express permission of your tanks and healers as you're often likely to get killed once the shield ends without direct intervention.

Do this at your own risk.

Fortifying Brew increases your maximum health, so it also increases the damage that Touch of Death deals and that Touch of Karma can absorb. Because of this, using Fortifying Brew before you use Touch of Death or Touch of Karma is a damage increase. This can be used to further improve your defense in a time of need, but it also has the secondary effect of increasing the amount of damage that is redirected back to the target.

If you are not going to need the defensive value of Fortifying Brew on its own, like if large damage intake is more frequent and you need to stagger your defensive cooldowns, then you can stack them together for added benefit. Just be sure to use Fortifying Brew BEFORE using Touch of Death or Touch of Karma as both snapshot on use.

A real good way to use this is to find a way to use Fortifying Brew then Touch of Karma at a time when you'll also be able to use Touch of Death during the duration of Fortifying Brew. This gets you both benefits for one use. If you're already going to use it for DPS purposes, then you might as well be efficient about it.