Windwalker Monk DPS Guide — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

The Midnight Pre-Patch has arrived, and there are a large amount of changes to Windwalker Monks, both for the Spec itself as well as changes to the Monk class in general. The main goal behind these changes is to prune the excessive number of buffs and mechanics that you could track but largely ignored and to shift damage back into the base abilities.

As a result of these changes, a lot of skills have been pruned or re-designed, and we have outlined the most impactful changes below, highlighting how they affect your regular gameplay compared to the version of Windwalker that you might already be used to. Fret not, however, as the rotational gameplay loop is still very similar to the one that Windwalker has relied on for years, so even if you are returning to the game with Midnight after a longer break, you won't feel lost!

Keep in mind that this is not the entire re-design of the spec, as more changes are forthcoming with the launch of the Midnight expansion on March 2nd, 2026. Once Midnight launches, we will be gaining access to 3 more Hero Talent Points, as well as our new Apex Talent: Tigereye Brew.

Conduit of the Celestials is mostly the same as The War Within, except with the addition of Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger as a button you press so that you can then press Celestial Conduit. Activating Heart of the Jade Serpent has also been added to Zenith instead of Slicing Winds which will take some getting used to.

Shado-Pan has also remained mostly the same, but has seen much of its Hero tree simplified. Windwalker no longer has to track how much Energy you've spent in order to maximize your Flurry Strikes, Wisdom of the Wall has been simplified and the Shadow buff that provided considerable AoE has been moved to a separate talent node with Shado Over the Battlefield.

For the most part, the core playstyle and priority has changed very little, with the design focus being on cutting out excess rather than changing what was already there. Because of this, the general playstyle and button pressing remains largely the same from The War Within, just with fewer buffs to track or ignore.

The largest changes to Windwalker is that Storm, Earth, and Fire has been replaced with Zenith, Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger has been moved strictly into the Conduit of the Celestials talent tree, and the large haste buff from Invoker's Delight has been removed.

Zenith functions almost identically to Ordered Elements except is is now a cooldown that you can use. Because it has two stacks and a variable cooldown, able to be 60, 70, 80, or 90-seconds, Zenith provides an enormous amount of flexibility in how often you use your cooldown. Zenith can pivot between 1-minute, 90-second, 2-minute, and 3-minute cooldown usage easily with minor changes to the talents. However, with the loss of things like Invoker's Delight and without Tigereye Brew during the Pre-Patch, Windwalker lacks most of its burst capability that many people will have been used to from The War Within. This is largely the new norm for most specs, but it will be quite different at first.

With the changes for Midnight, most of Windwalker's AoE damage profile is squeezed into Fists of Fury and Slicing Winds. Spinning Crane Kick is very week compared to other abilities and will rarely be used, even in AoE. Because of this, Windwalker will likely be considerably weak in AoE, even compared to The War Within.

We hope this summary helped you prepare for the Midnight launch on March 2nd, or February 27th with Early Access. If you want to prepare for your leveling journey in Midnight, make sure to check out our recommended consumables and items that can help you reach max-level in Midnight faster!