Mists of Pandaria Info on Monks! Beta Opt-In?

Mists of Pandaria Beta

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Mists of Pandaria Info

Yesterday, the Mists of Pandaria Press Tour NDA was lifted and the fine folks over at MMO-Champion have got a ton of great information about all the things that are going to be happening in the next World of Warcraft expansion. If you haven't taken a look at all the information (and there's quite a lot of it there), take a look at the Mists of Pandaria Press Tour page. There's a lot of great information on all the new lore, story, PvE, raiding changes and upcoming content, and more.

Check out the full Mists of Pandaria info on MMO-Champion

Mists of Pandaria PvP implications

Monk skill and talent details are out! There are going to be three talent specializations Monks can take: Windwalker Monks are going to be focused on melee DPS combat with both Energy and Chi as their resources, Brewmaster Monks will specialize in avoiding damage and are going to be the tanking spec also using Energy and Chi, and Mistweaver Monks are going to be the healing spec, and will have a mana bar and a Chi bar to heal with. Many players are predicting that Monks are going to be as... powerful as Death Knights were in Season 5, so if you're interested in that kind of thing or if you want to learn as much as you can ahead of time on how to combat these powerful martial art based fighters, you're going to need to read about them ahead of time.

Monks seem to have a lot of really interesting abilities with PvP implications. Let's talk about a few of them that seem interesting or potentially overpowered. Click here to view the full list of Monk Skills and Talents.

Baseline Monk Skills

Auto-attack
- Instant
- Automatically attacks a target in melee with an equipped weapon. This ability can be toggled on or off.

Monks are going to have Auto-attack back. Skilled players rejoice, as you're going to be able to get behind targets more and deal more white damage because of this over a long match.

Detox
- 520 Mana, 40 yard range, Instant Cast, 8 sec cooldown
- Eliminates ailments from the friendly target, removing all harmful Poison and Bleed effects.

Feral Druids and Warriors, watch out! Notice that this ability removes all harmful Poisons and Bleed effects. This is a baseline class ability, and with the 8 second cooldown this ability seems really powerful, given that anywhere from 30-50% of a Feral Druid or Warrior's damage can come from Bleed effects. Rogues might suffer a bit too, as getting rid of a Crippling Poison and Wound Poison can really turn the tide of a battle.

Disable
- 15 Energy, Melee Range, Instant
- You attempt to disable the target's movement, reducing their movement speed by 25%. Stacks up to 2 times.
- If you use Disable a third time on a target while they have 2 stacks, all stacks will be consumed and they will be rooted for 8 seconds.

This seems like a really powerful two in one ability, a slow and a root on the same skill. However, with up to three global cooldowns needed to root someone, and two full uses to get back to a 50% slow, it might be a bit cumbersome to use all the time. The Monk's GCD looked like 1 second when I played it, but taking 3 seconds to root someone might be a bit too much.

Fortifying Ale
- Instant, 3 min cooldown
- Increases your health by 100%, but you cannot be healed. Lasts 20 seconds.

A really interesting take on the typical defensive cooldown. I can see players using this when they know they're going to eat stuns as a healing Monk, or when their healer is Crowd Controlled and they're about to die. I assume this ability will be able to be clicked off to receive heals earlier than 20 seconds, but how will the extra health and damage taken will be distributed?

Meditation
- Channeled, 3 min cooldown
- Reduces all damage taken by 99% and redirects to you all harmful spells cast against your allies within 30 yards. Lasts 10 seconds.
- Being the victim of a melee attack will break your Meditation, cancelling the effect.

Talk about overpowered! Monks might be nigh unkillable against enemy caster based teams, though this might be an ability that can be locked out. Still, being able to run behind a pillar and act as a permanent Grounding Totem for 10 seconds for your team is going to be something really useful in Arena.

Paralysis
- Melee Range, Instant 15 sec cooldown
- You cause the target's muscles to contract, incapacitating them for 30 seconds. If done from behind the target, the duration is doubled. Only one target can be victim to Paralysis at any given time. Any damage taken will cancel the effect.

Gouge and Blind on a 15 second cooldown. Enough said.

Quaking Palm
- Melee Range, Instant, 2 min cooldown
- Strikes the target with lightning speed, incapacitating them for 4 seconds, and turns off your attack.

Another incapacitate move, though compared with Paralysis this seems really underpowered. I'm sure we're going to see these two abilities changed quite a bit, otherwise Monks are going to be Crowd Control masters.

Roll
- 50 Energy, Instant
- Roll a short distance.

Roll is like a Blink, but without a cooldown. How well this ability behaves will likely be the difference in success and failure of a Monk's mobility. I also question how the Energy>Mana conversion will work with Roll for Mistweaver Monks, with their presumably high mana pool.

Spear Hand
- 30 Energy, Melee Range, Instant, 30 sec cooldown
- Requires Ox Stance, Tiger Stance
- You jab the target in their throat, interrupting their spell cast and preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 5 seconds.
- If the enemy is facing you, when they cast, they are also silenced out of all schools for 5 seconds.

A strong, double cooldown Interrupt ability (keep in mind Pummel, Mind Freeze, Kick etc are all going to be 15 second cooldowns in MoP) with a silence effect if you're facing the Monk. This is going to be a tricky situation for casters, risk facing the Monk to get locked out for a long time, or turn your back and have Paralysis get a full duration Crowd Control on you.

Let's look at some of the Talent Specialization Based abilities and Talents themselves.

Windwalker Monk (DPS spec) Skills

Fists of Fury
- 3 Chi, Melee Range, Channeled, 45 sec cooldown
- Requires Tiger Stance
- Pummel all targets in front of you with rapid hand strikes, stunning them and dealing 1 damage every 1 second for 4 seconds.

This ability may seem as powerful as Warrior's Shockwave, but in fact since it is a channeled ability it isn't as strong. However, if this skill has a use in PvE rotations, we can imagine that it is going to do a lot of damage over the 4 second period, almost 4 globals worth. You wouldn't want your whole team to get caught in a Monk's sights when he casts Fists of Fury.

Flying Serpent Kick
- Instant, 25 sec cooldown
- Soar through the air forwards at an increased speed.
- While traveling, use Flying Serpent Kick again to land yourself, dealing 300 damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and slowing them by 70% for 4 seconds.

An intercept like ability that might take a bit of aiming and skill to pull off perfectly. Potentially, this ability also has defensive uses, as a Monk may be able to use Flying Serpent Kick to get away from is enemies by aiming to a safe spot. We'll see if you're able to change direction while flying, though the extra slow right after landing is going to give Monks the extra leeway to get on their target.

Energizing Wine
- Instant, 1 min cooldown
- Requires Tiger Stance
- Regenerates 60 Energy over 6 seconds, can only be used while in combat.

Do you remember Thistle Tea? Feral Druids have got a similar ability in Tiger's Fury, and Monks also are going to have a drink of their own to restore energy. How many Rogues are going to re-roll Monk because of this?

Sparring
- Requires Ox Stance, Tiger Stance
- When you are attacked by a melee enemy in front of you begin to spar their attacks, increasing your chance to parry by 5% for 10 seconds. This effect has a 30 second cooldown.
- When you attack them back, Sparring is amplified by an additional 5%. Stacks up to 3 times.

This is going to make a Windwalker Monk a tough cookie to focus in Melee Combat. They're going to have 30% parry against anyone they're fighting, so Stunning Monks or getting behind them is going to be really important for melee characters. This is going to add even more incentive for melee classes to really out-position each other.

Muscle Memory
- Your fighting technique improves over time during combat. Anytime you Jab a target from behind, your chance to critically hit with Jab increases by 1% for 30 seconds. This effect can stack up to 100 times.
- Leaving combat or an encounter will clear your Muscle Memory.

Woah! Let's think this over. This ability clearly has PvE implications, where a Monk's DPS is going to ramp up slowly as they get Muscle Memory stacks. However, depending on how strong Jab is going to be, this might make CCing Monks every minute or two to drop them out of combat a big priority, or else their critical strike is going to go up too much.

Mistweaver Monk (Healing spec) Skills

Cherry Mana Tea
- Channeled
- Requires Serpent Stance
- For each 3 Chi you consume, you gain a charge of Mana Tea
- Use Mana Tea to consume the charges. Each charge restores 5% of you maximum mana. Mana Tea must be channeled, lasting 1 second per stack. Mana Tea can stack up to 50 times.
- Cancelling the channel will not waste stacks.

As a healer, this makes mana management really interesting. First, at 50 stacks and 5% mana per stack, this means a Monk may store up to 250% of his maximum mana via Cherry Mana Tea. At 5% mana per second, the regeneration rate is half that of Evocation, which in my opinion is going to be plenty enough. The only way a Monk is going to go out of mana, it seems, is if they're constantly under pressure and crowd controlled a lot where they either don't have time to generate and spend Chi, or they don't have enough time to drink the Cherry Mana Tea.

Jasmine Force Tea
- 0 Mana plus 1200 per second, Channeled
- Requires Serpent Stance
- You regenerate 1 Chi every 2 seconds for 3 seconds.

I can see Monks using Jasmine Force Tea out of Line of Sight to get extra Chi, dumping it into Chi Wave, Uplift or Thunder Focus Tea to get instant easy to cast heals, and get the mana back via Cherry Mana Tea. Interesting.

Mistweaver Monk's Heals

Chi Wave
- 2 Chi, 40 yard range, Instant, 20 sec cooldown
- Requires Serpent Stance
- You cause a wave of Chi energy to flow through friend and foe, dealing 3,843 damage or 3,843 healing. Bounces up to 5 times to targets within 10 yards.

Soothing Mists
- 200 Mana plus 200 per second, 40 yard range, Channeled
- Heals the target for 5,144 over 7.33 seconds.
- If your healing done by Soothing Mists is completely effective, you have a 25% chance to generate 1 Chi.

Surging Mist
- 1000 Mana, 40 yard range, Instant Cast
- Requires Serpent Stance
- Heals the lowest health friendly target within 40 yards for 12,865.
- If cast while channeling Soothing Mists, Surging Mist will be instant cast and heal that target over all others.

Renewing Mist
- 400 Mana, 40 yard range, Instant Cast
- Requires Serpent Stance
- You surround the target with healing mists, restoring 1,406 health every 0.92 for 10.08 seconds to up to 3 friendly targets within 8 yards.
- Renewing Mist travels from friendly target to target when it heals, up to $n times.

Uplift
- 2 Chi, Instant
- Requires Serpent Stance
- Instantly refreshes the duration of all of your Renewing Mist periodic effects on allies, and heals them for 3,304.

Thunder Focus Tea
- 1 Chi, Instant
- Requires Serpent Stance
- You receive a jolt of energy, doubling the healing done by your next Surging Mist or Uplift within 10 seconds.

There seems to be a combination of Restoration Druid's Heal over Time spells and Shaman heal buffs. It's really hard to tell which skills are going to be the effective PvP heals, which are going to be mana efficient without looking at ability scaling at the new gear levels. There is also a baseline ability that heals a target in melee range (Expel Harm), and this ability does not have a cooldown for a Healing spec monk. Monks also heal their allies for whatever damage they deal with Jab. I am not sure how the exact specifics are going to work, though. As a high level healer, you generally do not want to get on top of your enemies too much unless you've got cooldowns available and you're going to use some sort of crowd control, like Hammer of Justice or Psychic Scream, otherwise your opponents are going to swap onto you or crowd control you easily. Going in melee range might be a double edged sword for Monks.

Renewing Mist and Uplift seem like a stronger version of Lifebloom/Wild Growth, and a HoT duration extension that I'm jealous of as a Druid.

New Arena and Battlegrounds

We've still got confirmation that there is one new Arena and two new Battlegrounds scheduled for release with Mists of Pandoria. The arena is most likely to be the Tol'vir Proving Grounds that we've heard about during this year's Blizzcon, based on the widely successful four pillar Nagrand Arena design.

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This is what Tol'vir Proving Grounds layout is like

The two new Battlegrounds are The Temple of Mogu and Silver Shard Mine. Blizzard is trying to make the battlegrounds feel different from the ones in existence. Players in The Temple of Mogu will fight over positioning and control of an artifact that will increase damage dealt by the player holding it, but also in the same time have a stacking healing reduction debuff. This Murderball style gameplay is said to be very fast paced and full of action. The Silver Shard Mine will have opposing teams fight over the Goblin mineral-rich mine, and more specifically around mine carts that move out from the center of the map. Controlling the mine carts themselves and checkpoints that act as switches will be the key to directing the carts to win the Battleground.

What do you think about some of the Monk's skills? Are Monks going to be really strong and the go to PvP and Arena class in Mists of Pandaria? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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