Windwalker Monk DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — 12.0.5

Over the course of Season 1 in Midnight, Windwalker has ended up sticking with one set of talents for single-target and one set for AOE/Cleave. Both Hero talents, Shado-Pan and Conduit of the Celestials, use the same Class and Spec talent setups, but Shado-Pan has proven itself as the most flexible and powerful Hero Talent setup, pulling ahead due to a mix of its own strength and relatively "simpler" playstyle.

• Single Target - Just as before 12.0.5, Shado-Pan is far enough ahead over Conduit of the Celestials that it is used in all single target situations.
• AoE - Similar to single target,, Shado-Pan continues to be the primary choice in AOE and Cleave where it can flexibly adjust to different timings, pull sizes, and fight types.

In pure single target scenarios, Shado-Pan is ahead of Conduit of the Celestials, while also doing a decent amount of cleave damage, or easily swapping into a few more cleave-focused talents. Due to this, we recommend playing it on all boss fights this tier. In AoE encounters, Shado-Pan is ahead due to its more flexible cooldowns, simpler gameplay loop, and AOE damage.

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The builds listed above are popular recommendations, covering various different loadouts suited to each style of endgame content. Each Talent Build will have it's own rotation, and can also be manipulated further for specific types of content and to better benefit your group.

Combat Information

Rotations and Mythic+

Want to dive deeper? These guides will teach you how to utilize our Talent Builds in endgame content!

RotationMythic+

Midnight introduces new Apex Talents, unlocked between Level 80 and 90. Windwalker Monk gets:

1. Tigereye Brew
2. Tigereye Brew
3. Tigereye Brew

Tigereye Brew is the new Apex talent node and is a callback to Windwalker's original damage cooldown, although mostly in name only. As the tooltip suggests, during combat you generate stacks that are then spent when you cast Zenith to increase your chance to Crit. Outside of combat it stacks back up to 10 very quickly, or will maintain its stacks if you are already at or above 10.

Generally you do not have to play around this buff, as you should be naturally using Zenith frequently enough to not need to worry about the cap of 20 stacks. The primary way that this buff affect's your thought process is that it lessens the incentive to use both charges of Zenith back-to-back because the second use will have very few stacks. Most of the time, spreading them out is a reasonable choice to make, but sometimes you will still want to use them one after the other. This talent can be taken and ignored outside of the more extreme min-maxing situations that may be figured out as time goes on.

After the first talent point, the other three are passive damage increases that don't change anything.

Windwalker gets to pick between two distinct Hero Talent choices: Shado-Pan and Conduit of the Celestials. These are available at level 71 and are mutually exclusive.

Shado-Pan can be described as "baseline" Windwalker, with no additional buttons or mechanics that you need to worry about. This Hero Talent tree is focused around increasing the power of the base kit that Windwalker has to work with.

The tree does add the damage source of Flurry Strikes, which are additional strikes of damage when you cast abilities like Fists of Fury or Rising Sun Kick, and Spinning Crane Kick during Zenith. These are further augmented into AoE damage with Shado Over the Battlefield and become a decently large source of additional damage.

This Hero Talent tree is recommended for beginners, as none of the talents or Flurry Strikes change how the spec is played at all.

Conduit of the Celestials leans heavily into the lore of Monks and Windwalker, leveraging the assistance of the August Celestials to provide additional power. This Hero Talent tree comes with the familiar spell of Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger and Celestial Conduit and is generally considered to be noticeably more complex and different from Shado-Pan.

Playing as Conduit of the Celestials revolves around managing the windows of Heart of the Jade Serpent that are generated when Zenith, Celestial Conduit, Strike of the Windlord, or Whirling Dragon Punch are used. These buff windows dramatically increase the speed that the spec plays, with faster channeling of Fists of Fury, and dramatically reduced cooldown times on abilities. Learning how to balance and manage these buff windows is essential to maximizing the power of Conduit of the Celestials and contribute to the belief that it is both more complicated and faster than Shado-Pan.

War Mode offers several benefits for you in the open world.

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• At least 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and the possibility of being "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of all PvP Talents for Windwalker Monk

1. Wind Waker grants you and allies affected by Windwalking an effect that makes them immune to slow and snare effects once every 30 seconds.
2. Reverse Harm doubles the healing of Expel Harm and provides an extra Chi when used.
3. Disabling Reach increases the range of your Disable to 10 yards.
4. Alpha Tiger grants you 30% Haste upon attacking a new target with Tiger Palm. This can happen once every 30 seconds per target.
5. Grapple Weapon grants you an additional spell which prevents your target from using their weapons for 6 seconds.
6. Turbo Fists causes Fists of Fury to deal full damage to all targets hit and reduce their movement speed by 90%. It additionally grants you 100% Parry chance during the channel.
7. Ride the Wind causes Flying Serpent Kick to increase the movement speed of allies in its path by 30%. This applies to yourself. It also increases Flying Serpent Kick's cooldown by 10 seconds.
8. Pressure Points reduces the cooldown of Touch of Death by 60 seconds if you kill a player with it.
9. Tigereye Brew generates stacks of Tigereye Brew whenever you spend 3 Chi. Using these stacks makes your attacks bypass armor but deal slightly less damage for 2 seconds per stack.

Turbo Fists, Reverse Harm, and Alpha Tiger are the three talents that will benefit you the most when doing PvE content. They grant you sustainability, as well as survivability.

Babylonius

Guide Author

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This guide is written and maintained by Babylonius; Long time raider in Occasional Excellence; Thirteen year veteran of Windwalker; Founder and owner of the dedicated Monk website, Peak of Serenity; and Admin/Owner of the Monk Discord, PeakofSerenity. You can find him on Twitch, Twitter, and occasionally YouTube.