On this page, we present the viable talent and glyph choices forWindwalker Monks in World of Warcraft MoP 5.4. We detail what each of the talents andglyphs do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other pages of our Windwalker Monk guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.

1. Talent Choices↑top

• Performance-enhancing
• Survival
• Crowd Control
• Movement
• Utility
• Situational

There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents arenow viable. They can easily be changed, thanks to Dust of Disappearance(and Tomes of the Clear Mind from level 86 to 90).You will frequently find yourself changing talents and glyphs betweenencounters, in order to adapt your play style to different mechanics.Therefore, it is important to understand what each of your talents does andhow they affect your play style.

2. Tier 1 Talents↑top

Tier 1 talents offer you a choice between 3 ways of improving yourmobility.

• Celerity passively increases the number of charges of Roll and Chi Torpedo by 1, and reduces their recharge time by 5seconds.
• Tiger's Lust removes all immobilising and movement-impairing effectsfrom the target, and grants 70% increased movement speed for 6 seconds. Ithas a 30-second cooldown. It is targeted, so it can be cast on yourself or onanother ally.
• Momentum passively causes each Roll and Chi Torpedo to increase your movement speed by 25% for 10 seconds,stacking up 2 times.

While the choice of talent here is somewhat encounter-dependant, we believethat Tiger's Lust is preferable in the vast majority of situations. Roll (which both of the other two talents in this tier improve) ismostly sufficient on its own. Tiger's Lust provides an additional movementspeed burst, and the snare-removal component is also useful in some PvEsituations.

3. Tier 2 Talents↑top

Tier 2 talents offer you a choice between 3 hybrid, DPS-healingabilities.

• Chi Wave is essentially a chain-heal that bounces to the 7 nearesttargets. The bounces target friends and allies alternatively. Each target thatthe wave bounces to is healed or damaged, depending on their alignment. Thehealing portion of Chi Wave is a smart heal, in the sense that it prefershealing low health players. It has a 15-second cooldown, and it is free ofcost.
• Zen Sphere summons a sphere above the head of a friendly target(yourself included), which lasts for 16 seconds. Every 2 seconds, the sphereheals the target, and deals damage to the nearest enemy within 10 yards. Ithas a 10-second cooldown, and it is free of cost. You can have a maximum oftwo spheres at one time. Finally, the Zen Sphere will detonate, causing it todeal a moderate amount of damage and healing to all targets within 10 yards,whenever its target drops below 35% health, or after its duration runs out.
• Chi Burst heals all friendly targets, and damages all hostile targetsin a 40-yard cone in front of the caster. The spell has a 30-secondcooldown, a very short cast time, and it is free of cost.

Chi Wave is used in your single-target rotation, and it provides youwith a solid single-target DPS increase. In AoE situations (when hitting 3 ormore targets), Chi Burst is a better DPS increase.

Zen Sphere is not a viable DPS alternative.

4. Tier 3 Talents↑top

• Power Strikes passively causes Jab, Expel Harm, Spinning Crane Kick (when it hits at least 3 targets), and Crackling Jade Lightning to generate 1 additional Chi. The effect has a20-second internal cooldown. If you are at maximum Chi when this effect procs,a Chi sphere will spawn next to you. A Chi sphere grants you 1 Chi each timeyou walk through/over it, consuming the sphere in the process.
• Ascension increases your maximum Chi by 1 (from 4 to 5), your maximummana by 15%, and your energy regeneration rate by 15%.
• Chi Brew instantly restores 2 Chi, and generates 2 stacks of Tigereye Brew. It has a 45-second cooldown.

In the vast majority of situations, we believe that Chi Brew will bethe best choice. It is very good for moments in the fight when it is importantfor your raid to do a lot of burst DPS (such as to a very dangerous add).

Ascension is also quite good. In addition to increasing your Chi poolby 1, which makes management easier, it also boosts your energy regenerationthroughout the fight.

The only reason to take Power Strikes is if there is a lot of regulardowntime during the fight, because Power Strikes' internal 20-secondcooldown would continue to tick while you are unable to attack, but this israther rare.

It is also worth noting that Ascension is ideal for AoEing, sinceif you are AoEing you need energy to maintain Spinning Crane Kick (or Rushing Jade Wind, a Tier 6 talent you are probably going to take if youare interested in AoE damage), and not Chi.

5. Tier 4 Talents↑top

Tier 4 talents offer you a choice between 3 crowd-control abilities.

• Ring of Peace is an ability that can be cast on a friendly player.It creates a ring with an 8-yard radius around the player, lasting 8 seconds.When Ring of Peace is cast, enemy players who are inside this area areinstantly disarmed for 4 seconds and silenced for 3 seconds. Enemies insidethe area who cast spells or use any abilities other than melee attacks aredisarmed for 4 seconds and silenced for 3 seconds (the disarm and silenceeffects both being subject to diminishing returns). This ability has a45-second cooldown.
• Charging Ox Wave summons an ox that stuns all enemies located ina 30-yard path in front of you for 3 seconds. It has a 30-second cooldown.
• Leg Sweep stuns all enemies within a 5-yard radius of you for5 seconds. It has a 45-second cooldown.

These talents have no meaningful impact on your gameplay and will not affectyour performance. Therefore, you can choose them based on your own preferenceor the crowd-control requirements of the encounter.

That said, Leg Sweep is quite useful in certain Tier 16 raidencounters, while Ring of Peace can also have some fruitful situationaluses in the current content tier.

6. Tier 5 Talents↑top

Tier 5 talents offer you a choice between 3 survival abilities.

• Healing Elixirs heals you for 15% of your maximum health each timeyou drink from a Brew or Tea. The effect has an 18-second internalcooldown, and it does not proc when you are at full health. It procsautomatically when you have less than 35% health.
• Dampen Harm causes the next 3 attacks against you (within 45seconds), which deal 20% or more of your maximum health in damage, to havetheir damage reduced by 50%. It has a 1.5-minute cooldown.
• Diffuse Magic removes all magical debuffs from you. Additionally,for 6 seconds, it reduces all magic damage taken by 90%, and reflects allspells back to the caster.

We believe the best choice is either Diffuse Magic or Dampen Harm.

• Diffuse Magic is mostly the best option. It will help you greatlymitigate magic damage against you (most raid damage is magic damage), as wellas clear harmful debuffs from yourself.
• Dampen Harm can also prove beneficial, but it will always providea smaller damage reduction than Diffuse Magic. Despite the ambiguous wording ofits tooltip, Dampen Harm does work against magic attacks as well as physical.Due to its 45-second duration, you can also use this to mitigate the damage ofseveral large blows that are spread out over a longer period of time.

While Healing Elixirs may provide substantial self-healingover the course of the fight, the fact that this healing is tied to yourusage of other abilities makes it less flexible. Therefore, you will often haveto either have the healing be wasted, or you will have to delay using animportant ability just to benefit more from the healing.

7. Tier 6 Talents↑top

Tier 6 talents offer you a choice between 3 multiple target abilities.

• Rushing Jade Wind is an improvement over Spinning Crane Kick, whichit replaces. It acts exactly like Spinning Crane Kick, but it only deals80% of its damage/healing. At the same time, it is instant, and not channeled,allowing you to continue casting spells while the spell is on-going.
• Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger summons a tiger that will attack yourcurrent target, and 3 other nearby enemies. The tiger persists for 45 seconds,and it can be controlled by means of a pet action bar. It has a 3-minutecooldown.
• Chi Torpedo is an improvement over Roll, which itreplaces. It causes you to roll a short distance in front of you, dealingdamage to all enemies, and healing all allies in your path.

Currently, Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger provides the greatest single-targetDPS increase of the three talents.

Rushing Jade Wind is a better alternative than Invoke Xuen, the WhiteTiger if you are cleaving 3 or more targets for most of the encounter.

Chi Torpedo provides a hybrid role of DPS and healing. Currently,from a DPS standpoint, it is undesirable.

8. Major Glyphs↑top

There are several Major Glyphs that are interesting for Windwalker Monks,although they do not offer anything in the way of performanceimprovements. We only mention those which we consider to be the mostimportant.

• Glyph of Touch of Karma increases the range of your Touch of Karmaability. Touch of Karma is a very powerful survival cooldown, and this glyphallows you to use it even if there isn't an enemy in your melee range.
• Glyph of Zen Meditation allows you to move while channeling Zen Meditation. This is particularly useful since Zen Meditation is oftenused to soak damage, so having the ability to move away from the raid whileZen Meditation is active is a great benefit.
• Glyph of Fortuitous Spheres causes a healing sphere to be summonednear the Monk, when their health drops below 25%. It has no cost, and it hasa 30-second internal cooldown. This glyph is useful when you have a spareglyph slot, and especially so in fights where your health often drops below25% health.
• Glyph of Touch of Death removes the Chi cost of Touch of Death,but increases its cooldown by 2 minutes. Since using Touch of Deathagainst a raid boss will be extremely difficult (you must cast it when the boss'health is between roughly 400,000 and 0), removing the Chi cost will makeusing it exactly when you want to somewhat easier.
• Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick removes the movement speed penalty whilechanneling Spinning Crane Kick, which makes it a viable way to performAoE DPS while moving.

9. Minor Glyphs↑top

Interestingly, there is a performance-enhancing Minor Glyph forWindwalker Monks, as well as a few Minor Glyphs that can prove beneficial insome situations.

The following glyph stands a chance to increase your DPS:

• Glyph of Blackout Kick causes Blackout Kick to act as thoughit was cast from behind the target (dealing an additional 20% of its damageover 4 seconds), regardless of your positioning. As a drawback, you no longerbenefit from the self-healing component if you attack the target from thefront. This glyph will probably have little applicability in normal situations(since you should be attacking from behind), but it can come in handy whenthe targets move, or when you are unable to attack targets from behind due toencounter mechanics.

Finally, Glyph of Spirit Roll and Glyph of Water Roll allow youto use Roll and Chi Torpedo while dead, and while travelingover water respectively. They have no raid applicability, but they can proveto be very convenient.

10. Changelog↑top

• 31 Mar. 2014: Removed an outdated mention of Glyph of Retreat.
• 16 Oct. 2013: Updated the tier 2, 3, 4, and 6 talent discussions.Added Glyph of Fortuitous Spheres.
• 11 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
  • Updated the descriptions of the talents that have been modified withthe patch (minor changes, mostly).
  • Updated the relative value of Tier 3 talents.
• 23 May 2013: Updated Ring of Peace description forPatch 5.3.
• 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing to change.
• 06 Apr. 2013: Made several updates and improvements.
  • Reworded the Tier 1 talent discussion to better emphasize the fact that Tiger's Lust is usually the best choice.
  • Reworked the Tier 3 talent discussion to state that Ascension isgenerally the best talent, and to better explain when the other two talentchoices are preferable.
  • Added mention that Leg Sweep has several uses during Tier 15raiding.
  • Fixed an error in the description of Dampen Harm, and a typo in thesubsequent discussion. Also clarified this section a bit.
  • Added Glyph of Touch of Karma and Glyph of Zen Meditation.
• 11 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated explanations for all Tier 2 talents to include the addition ofcooldowns, and the removal of Chi costs. Also further updated the explanationof Zen Sphere to account for the fact that now two spheres can be activeat once.
  • Removed explanation for Deadly Reach, following its removal from thegame.
  • Added explanation for Ring of Peace, a new talent introduced in Patch5.2.
  • Updated Healing Elixirs explanation to mention that the healingprovided is 15%, up from 10%.

Introduction

Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities