Wednesday, July 31, 2013

The #1 Reason to Play a Monk

Everyone has their favorite abilities, mine has always been feign death.  If there were one ability that I could choose to have on every single character I play it would be feign death.  I love that ability.  But with mists came a new class and with that new class came new abilities.

I have a new favorite ability and it is a monk ability.  It can not unseat feign death as my favorite ability over all in the game but it is really making the climb up the ladder to become my second favorite ability in game and one I would love to have on every character.

Spinning Crane Kick

It is awesome and has recently moved my monk into my favorite character to solo old content with.  No, I am not about to be putting my hunter on the shelf any time soon, hunters still rule, but when it comes to soloing old content spinning crane kick does make it a lot easier to burn through it.  Where I would run out of focus on my hunter doing multi shot it seems like spinning crane kick is nearly endless with the super fast resource generation of the monk.

I am still trying to get the raiding with leashes II achievement and as such I solo the old instances and hope for drops that never come.  I do them on multiple characters to increase my chance to get the drops.  11 or 12 chances at a drop a week are better than just one wouldn't you say?

So in the past few months I have soloed all those BC raids on every class in the game.  Now we all know I've been soloing them on my hunter since 80 but most other classes I never did any soloing on.  Most certainty not a monk as they are new.

Monks are so easy to solo that older stuff.  Not like it is hard on any character now thanks to the gear level we are at but when you are talking a monk you are talking one thing and one thing only.  Spinning crane kick.

As a tank, healer or damage dealer, just spin.  Everything is easy when you spin.  When even healers can pull 200K DPS while farming mobs in the barrens by using spinning crane kick you know an ability is awesome.

I do the barrens with spinning crane kick and as many mobs as I can pull together.  I do those BC raids trying to get those pets with spinning crane kick only.  I just walk forward and spin.  Or should that be I just spin forward.

If you wanted to go back and do old content for achievements, like grinding those BC reputaitons that take killing a million mobs nothing is faster than just spinning.  Want to run old content for mount runs nothing is faster than just spinning.  Doing your daily quests and need to kill 12 mogu nothing is faster than just spinning.

Just spin baby spin.

Spinning crane kick is quickly becoming my second favorite ability in the whole game and as such it is the number one reason to play a monk.  As a tank, damage dealer or even healer, soloing almost anything just by spinning is simple and easy.  What is not to love about that.  Simple and easy is good sometimes isn't it?

So for those of you that have not leveled a monk yet, I suggest doing it, because not only is spinning a powerful tool I have grown to love, but it is fun.

17 comments:

  1. My Favourite Monk spell is Touch of Death. Marksman should have something similar, "Shoot Between the Eyes".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Boom Headshot!

      Now that would be cool. Would be perfectly fitting for a marksmen too.

      Touch is nice for soloing, one shot bosses when you have enough health in old content. Yeah, that is nice, but I like spinning them to death. :P

      Delete
  2. It's funny, I thought ToD would be my favourite monk ability when I first got it but I found it to be cumbersome to use... needing 3 Chi was a problem (and glyphing for it... well, for some reason I don't) and stuff (even when soloing) tends to die too quickly to get it off, the window of opportunity is often shorter than my latency. Also, at max level with gear, it barely does more damage than my rotational abilities. I'd be happier if they turned it into an Execute, since monks don't have one... keep the 3 Chi cost, put a 10s CD on it, only useable sub-20% and have it do twice your health in damage to make it scale a bit. That would probably be worth pushing, roughly on par with a Warrior's Execute but not spammable.

    SCK is a lot of fun (even if it didn't generate Chi it would be in my rotation) but even it's not my favourite Monk button that nobody else has. It may be my favourite melee AoE ability in the game, though.

    For quite a while now, ever since I actually read the tooltip and figured out what it did (I don't pay much attention to defensive cooldowns when I'm leveling), my favourite button in the entire game has been Touch of Karma and it gets surprisingly little love in Monk discussions.

    When soloing, my monk has 500K health, more or less. I have that button macroed to the DR/more health brew (blanking on the name) which bumps me up to 600K. That turns that one ToK button into a combination 600K bubble (INCLUDING environmental effects, I can't recall anything that pushed through it, including Eye Sores) PLUS a 600K reflected damage ability for up to 10 seconds. All in one button that has no resource cost. There are predictable usage periods for it on every fight I've done in ToT, basically making me take no damage AND do 600K more damage at the same time.

    No matter what the content, I love that button and man, do I ever miss it on other toons. If I'd done this same favourite button discussion in Cat, before monks, I doubt a defensive button would have been on my top 20. Crazy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your idea for touch would make it a lot more useful. I know what you mean in a raid environment. By the time you get to the point you can use it, the boss is dead before you can even hit it. Still fun for solo sometimes however.

      I must admit I rarely use it, but you talking about it makes me want to find some more uses for it. That sounds awesome. Perhaps I should read up on it a little more too. It sounds like it could be very powerful and fun.

      Delete
    2. I have to admit, I took ToD off my bar once I stopped doing the monk dailies on my main... my alt monks still have it there for those fights, though, it does save some time and is necessary for that one fight with the increasing defensive shield. Other than that, though, it doesn't really save any time so I don't bother with it.

      ToK also works very well in combination with SCK... as an example, the monk daily with the dudes on the posts. I knock them all down at which point I'm at about half health... I hit ToK, Chi Wave and spam SCK, by the time ToK wears off I'm back to mostly full health and they're all dead. It's also great for packs of mobs in the Barrens. Or Island elites.

      Only has a 90s CD, too. :)

      Delete
    3. Thanks for the awesome tip. I am going to have to add that to my farming fun.

      And it just made SCK even better. Woot.

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hate when people do that. I was skinning the other day in a zone that was packed and had lots of people killing stuff and every mob I walked up to wasn't looted. I hate that stuff.

      I even walked up to one of the people that were not looting and got on my mammoth. Hint hint, sell stuff so you make bag space and you can loot. Seriously, I did that. Didn't work, he still did not loot.

      Can't blame that just on the super spinning whirlwind of death that monks do.

      Delete
    2. Yeah, and if anything a melee toon is more likely to loot (since the body is right there) than a ranged toon (where it can be 40yds away).

      What they need to do is change the bodies so they can be skinned and just leave a pouch or something that the original looter can either ignore or loot. Seems pretty basic.

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    4. @Anon

      I would like if there were a two minute timer or something. Say 2 minutes after the person is no longer within range of the body, it become skinable.

      Or even better, make it that if a body is not looted, someone else can loot it after 2 minutes.

      I bet that would get everyone looting because they would say "I am not going to let that person take my loot". As if that loot is suddenly valuable because someone else might get it. Trust me, I think that would work. People would loot just so someone else can not get it.

      I am sure some people do not loot on skinable mobs for the sole purpose to keep people from skinning it.

      Delete
    5. @Roo

      You make me laugh so hard sometimes. "touch of lunacy locky's do" made me laugh out loud, not sure why that is but it did.

      I think you just ran into a jerk. There are tons of them and they come in every race, class, or faction. Can't blame the monk because of the jackass that plays him.

      Delete
  4. Hahahahhahaha Roo you make me laugh too.and grumpy just for the record when I go skinning I always start with empty bags and make sure jeeves is on cool down so I can loot and sell.then contimue until bags are full then hearth and my most annoying pet peeve when you finally loot the 20 goats you just killed and some jerk comes over and starts skinning them!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have my personal linger rules. If I see someone near a skinable mob killing I wait to see if they skin it before walking away. As soon as they go to walk away it is okay to skin.

      I hate people that do that too. It is why in some of my skinning areas I pull smaller now. Thanks to AoE looting if I have a huge pull when I loot it loots them all and someone comes up and starts skinning off my kill pile. Go kill your own mobs you lazy jerk. Just makes me want to say that.

      Delete
    2. Oooh. I'd consider paying for AoE skinning in the Blizzard store.

      (yeah, still thinking up ideas that would be useful but not game-breaking)

      Delete
    3. I hear lots of people asking for that. I don't see it coming however.

      What if you made a big pack of mobs and don't have it and someone walks up that does and skins your whole pack in 1 second. Yeah, it would piss me off too. That is why it won't happen. In part.

      Delete