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World of Windwalker
The experiment continues.
I remember when I first started leveling my Windwalker monk. I figured I’d play around until level twenty or so, pick up the daily quest (which gave a 60m xp buff), and probably lose interest. Playing him in PVP seemed amazing, but that had more to do with what I expect was the Call to Arms for PVP being Warsong Gulch, given the amount of xp and honor I was getting per match. Once the sweet perks dried up, and I kept dealing with Alliance groups who seemed to forget which way to go to find the Horde flag, I began to feel like the Windwalker experience was starting to sour.
Then I remembered that PVE is also a viable way to level. Better, some might say. Especially with a 50% xp buff through heirlooms, and 50% through a daily quest. So I booted up my Zygor Leveling Guide and decided to try my luck with AI mobs.
Merculees is now level 34. Zoom.
I enjoy playing the Windwalker monk but I can’t pin down exactly what the draw is. I’m still using the killswitch macro (which you can read about HERE) but even if I wasn’t, there isn’t any complex patterns when it comes to killing with the Windwalker. Healing, rez, debuff, silence, all things the Death Knight can do. Maybe it’s the rolling, or the flying dragon kick that I like so much. Maybe it’s just something different than the plate-wearing killers I’m used to playing. Judging by the Crash Course video, things don’t change all that much at endgame either.
The drawback to leveling so quickly is that my professions are falling behind. I only have one – Mining – but I’m now in zones I can’t mine in because my skill level is too low. My playtime is still limited, so I can either continue leveling my monk, or go back and level my professions. I had considered getting skinning as well, given the amount of animals I was killing. I’d get xp leveling both professions (not so much with the skinning until the animals turned at least green), but I’d make more by completing a single quest at level.
I also started running dungeons. The xp is nice, the other players are hit and miss. No comments about anything I’ve done, good or bad (but how often do random players in a group make positive comments about anyone other than themselves anyway). No news is good news I guess.
The PVP is something I still want to do. But I admit, it’s frustrating. It’s tough running to a flag, or a node, and being the only one nearby. You look at the map and see your teammates either clustered together somewhere way off from where they should be, or so spread across the map it looks like the zone has measles.
Serenity now, serenity now.
Windwalker Monk in WoD
Monks. I remember when I first started playing the Monk class like it was yesterday. (You should, it was only like a couple of weeks ago — Editor) My monk is still nowhere near end game, and has barely unlocked any abilities that could be considered monkish. Which is probably why I’m not breaking a sweat about Preach’s review on the Windwalker Monk in Warlords of Draenor. That might change once I get him to level 30 though. Oh the anticipation of impending doom!
Or something.
Monk PVP Leveling
As you can see, there have been changes with Merculees. Where to start…
Low Level Monk PVP?
After running a few quests in Westfall I decided that Merculees the Shirtless would queue up for some PVP action. I was curious was the XP was like in BG’s. I didn’t have to wait long before Merc appeared in Warsong Gulch. No one commented on his cloth shoulders, or even his lack of shirt. Maybe they were intimidated at his manliness. Maybe they just didn’t care. In any case, the horn sounded and off to the bloody races we went.
Low level PVP is a real treat when you only have three buttons to mash. Despite still having only a vague understanding of how to Monk, I found myself slowly figuring things after multiple gruesome deaths. Before I knew it, we had won Warsong Gulch and I popped out of the Battleground and back into the farmer’s field where the quests had been taking place. I looked at the xp bar and was disappointed to see it had only moved a few ticks. A bit dejected, I was finishing up the quest I was running when I happened to look at my character pane. Was that right? I scrolled back through the event window and realized that, yes, I had done more than get a few bubbles of xp. I had gone up an entire level!
No way. That couldn’t be right, could it?
I queued up again for another BG, and got back in right away. Another fifteen minutes of dying, less than before at least, and another win for the Alliance. Boom, another level! Also, more honor in the bag. At this rate, I thought to myself, I could be ready to buy some sweet transmog gear – or actual useful gear – in no time!
With each battleground win, Merc leveled. Not bad for twenty minutes of work (if that). I was so impressed with the leveling in battlegrounds that I stopped to weigh the pros and cons between leveling through BG’s rather than through questing.
Pros:
Higher levels? Was I actually thinking about taking this monk past the level twenty cap I had initially placed on him?
Cons
Reading that list, the cons really came out weak. Plus, by focusing on leveling through BG’s I knew exactly how much time I had to commit, which is good if you only have so much time to play. At best, I could commit to a twenty minute session to gain a level. At worse, probably forty. Depending on the quest, I couldn’t guarantee the amount of game time I’d need to level. So to maximize my xp/time ratio, PVP was going to be the way to go.
Dress For Success
If I was going to make a serious run with Merculees, I decided that I needed to get all the xp bonuses I could get. That meant it was time to get the man a shirt. Step one was using some of the Justice Points on Herculees to buy the leather heirloom chest piece. Step two was mailing it to my Enchanter on another server. With the new (new to me at least) change where any level enchant could be put on an heirloom item, I dropped Greater Stats on it and let it scale down. I sent it to Merculees and got him ready to party.
The Lazy Man’s Way To PVP
Like I said, there were only a few buttons to master when it came to playing the PVP game with a low level Monk. Roll to the target, Jab to get Chi, Tiger Palm for the buff, then Blackout Kick. Fists of Fury would be an option if the target was rooted or otherwise incapacitated. If Merc was incapacitated, there was the Human racial or Monk talent to get him free. Seemed simple enough, but it got to be annoying to try and get everything working as smoothly as everyone who continued to gut Merc.
There had to be a better way. Between Master Youtube and Sensei Google, I found the answer.
And by answer I mean a one-button macro that I could hammer on to do everything I needed to.
I went to Curse and WoWInterface to find an addon that would let me extend the macro character limitation. SuperDuperMacro was one of the one suggested. If you’re so inclined to try this yourself, feel free to pick it up.
After that, it was just a matter of copying and pasting into the box to generate my own single button killswitch.
The Killswitch Macro:
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,0,0,
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,0, jab
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0, tiger palm
/castsequence reset=0.3 0, blackout kick
/castsequence reset=0.3 rising sun kick
/use energizing brew
/use tigereye brew
/use 13
/use 14
Here’s the explanation of the macro, more or less:
Now this macro was obviously not designed for low level monks. Rising Sun Kick, Brews, and Trinkets are not even on the character radar. But Jab, Tiger Palm, and Blackout Kick certainly is. In theory, the button would cast or use whatever was applicable, which meant it could still work for me.
This macro is also not for the PVP pros out there, or even players who like to squeeze every drop of dps out of their character. This is for people like me, who are okay with just being somewhat competitive (or at least borderline functional).
Results
With ten hours of casual /played, Merculees dinged 22. Most of the level ups I didn’t even see since the battleground results board would pop up and block the notification. The only time I’d really notice the “ding” was when a new ability would float onto the action bar. From reading various PVP blogs, Merc just stepped into abilities where he could really shine in PVP.
But is the experiment over? Will I continue with my Human Monk, or should I start one Horde-side? I’m having fun with him, and I’m not doing horribly in PVP. I may continue with the Main Monk and see how thing progress. At some point, maybe the learning curve will catch up with me. Maybe I’ll get sick of PVP, or get tired of getting stabbed in the neck/back. Until then, low level PVP with Merculees the windwalker Monk may be the way spend some quality time.
Quality Time and PVP. Never thought I’d see the day, at least for me.
Give Peace A Chance
I… am… Merculees!
Monks. Peaceful, introspective, serene.
*Yawn*
Blessed with the power to destroy things with their bare hands.
…
Destroy things, and people.
Well hello, beautiful.
I don’t know why, but for some reason I just could not get into playing the Monk class. I’d played Monks in D&D, AD&D, and was a fan of Ken and Ryu in Street Fighter. Serenity now, but violence forever. Probably not the best way to approach it, but that’s how I roll. Needless to say, I am down with what Monks bring to the table.
A knuckle sandwich.
There’s definitely plenty of appeal to playing a monk – new techniques, new mechanics, the ability to tank/dps/heal without too much gear swapping. After a quick search, I also found they even had more class-specific podcasts than Death Knights did. A strong multimedia representation tells alot about the leetness of a class.
After my alt culling and accumulation of various heirloom items, I thought I would give the Monk a fair shake. I would use my two most effective leveling techniques – heirlooms and theZygor Leveling Guide – and take a Monk to Level 20. From what I’d read, that was where the Monk picked up some kind of class quest / daily quest that buffed them or something.
Whatever. Twenty levels would be enough to see if it would be a class worth continuing with.
I decided to go with a Human monk for two reasons. One, the Pandaren starting zone took too damn long to navigate between quests. The Human starting zone was compact, and the starter quests would be quick to knock out. Two, because my boy would be rocking The Rock’s look as Hercules (or as close as reasonably possible).
Drawing muscles on armor is so Batman. At least there’s no nipples on it.
And thus was born Merculees.
Do you smell what the Merc is cooking?
From the picture, you might notice a couple of things. One, his shoulders are cloth heirloom, not leather. Second, dude is bare chested. Let me try and explain both points. The cloth heirloom is there because I needed an heirloom item a leather wearing class could use, and I didn’t have the leather shoulders. The number crunches out there will point out that the stats on a cloth item do not help a monk worth a damn, since the AC is piss poor and Int doesn’t do shInt for DPS monks. I will point out that I’m leveling to twenty, not raiding Garrosh’s panty drawer. The only stat I care about on the shoulders is the one that buffs my XP.
As far as bare chested goes… dude’s got a wicked six pack. Why wouldn’t he want to show that off? And before you ask, no I don’t have the leather chest heirloom. I do have a cloth one, and I guess if I wanted to I could transmog it to look like something interesting instead of a robe. But like I said before, I’m only leveling to twenty. He could probably do that naked, and if I wasn’t in a hurry to reach twenty maybe he would.
I’ve gone ten levels so far, and I admit I’m liking it more than I had in previous attempts. But we’ll see what happens in the next ten levels. Who knows, maybe the Main Monk will find himself a shirt.
Rokk Talk 