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Taiwei
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Joined: 31 Dec 2013
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re: Advanced monk shenanagins

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Monk 202: how to make your raid think you're a goddamn magician/tank Jesus

 

Avert harm. It's not a raid cooldown. It's literally the worst raid cooldown ever. It's like taking all the shitty things about AMZ and all the shitty things about hand of sacrifice and putting them all into one shitty poorly implemented raid cd. That being said. It makes a fantastic personal cooldown. The reason being is the wording of the cooldown allows you to stagger magic damage. This means that you can apply the ridiculous power of stagger to magical damage. 

 

Healing sphere. It's not just for mistweavers and being a jackass in pvp. It scales stupidly strong with vengeance and has a half second gcd making it a powerhouse heal in high vengeance scenarios. This being said it is not without cost. It is a whopping 40 energy and unlike expel harm does not generate chi. This means that if you run low haste you will have to make use of is judiciously. Furthermore it is only really powerful with vengeance, and it costs us offensive resources that are also exceptionally powerful when amplified by vengeance. However if your healers are struggling this is an amazingly powerful tool. It is also way to use energy that would otherwise be wasted during periods of a fight without damage. Examples being placing spheres pre fight or times like in between waves on galakras. The times I've found using healing spheres most useful are as follows

 

-galakras wave downtime

 

-healing the poor bastard getting chased by the laser on juggs (he's usually out of range of the healers and as a tank it's much easier to safely go away from the aoe healing and save that hoe)

 

-soloing kardris without a healer (really need these spheres here)

 

-super quick bounce back from an execute on naz vengeance lololol

 

- dropping one in the melee puddle on malkorok (since you usually only have one melee soaking they usually run out of defensives pretty quick and as such a healing sphere to top off their shield before the pop, or to top them off after the pop can be a lifesaver)

 

-dropping three where you know a blue puddle on immersius is going to land. Pretty much heals them to full instantly. Can also be used to waylay several blobs to give your healers time to top them all off.

 

-throwing one beneath where ill land after soaking a bomb on iron juggernaut.

 

Zen meditation. Again, not a raid cooldown. But it is a pretty fucking baller personal. It breaks on melee swings so being able to weave it between melee swings is a skill you'll need to practice for things like dark shaman and juggernaut However if you are soaking a casted ability there's no need to try and weave it, unless there's another mob beating in you. Getting a quick disable root on them and rolling away will usually buy you enough time to soak whatever you're soaking.

 

Grapple weapon. Drastically reduces the damage of melee swings (or things like frost storm strike) on anything that can be disarmed. Also gives you a 5% less damage taken buff. Always a worthy use of a gcd in place of something like tiger palm if you're playing defensive. Remember you have it, and use it often.

 

Tricks (mostly used in challenge mode).

 

Using clash as an aoe stun on mobs already clumped in melee range. The best way I've found to do this is to first use provoke on the most dangerous mob that is not the closest or the furthest mob. Then roll at a ~30 degree angle away from the pack in the direction opposite from where the mob closest to you is. I.E if the closest mob is kinda on your right side roll left. Then clash the mob farthest from you. The reason you provoke the most dangerous mob in the middle is sometimes pathing sucks and some of the middle mobs aren't stunned, the speed increase from provoke ensures that the mob is in the epicenter of the clash. Also rolling at a 30 degree ish angle will get you to the optimal distance for stunning a pack of mobs, not too close, not to far. 

 

Leer of the ox. This spell is really strange, and on its face does not really seem to merit the glyph spot it costs however it does have some functionality. The most artistic and my favorite use of it is to eat a spell. Doing this requires some good timing and clever use of game mechanics. So the typical problems with this spell are, it can't taunt bosses (a non issue in challenge modes), and the fact that the statue has no way of holding threat, meaning that keg smash will immediately pull back whatever your statue taunted. Now here's where the magic happens. Mobs much like players cannot switch targets while casting. So if I'm mid cast of a fireball on you and then target gramps while I'm casting, the fireball will still be directed at you (sorry Dave I still love you). So we can use this principle on mobs as well. So the sequence looks a little like this.

 

-Leer of the ox on scarlet evangelist

-scarlet evangelist top threat target is ox statue

- evangelist begins casting holy fire

- passive keg smash/rjw pulls threat from statue to you, you are now top threat for and the target of evangelist

-evangelist finishes cast and the holy fire hits your statue

 

By doing this you have diverted the only dangerous thing an evangelist can do, put that ability on cooldown, and not used an interrupt or a cd of your own. The problems with this trick are the fact that it gets you no vengeance, and the timing is extremely difficult. To execute this properly you must know exactly when your target is going to begin its next cast, and get the leer off in the small time frame between before they begin casting and before you pull threat back.

 

Some other nice uses of this spell are using it to make sure you get a clear zen med. So if there is a target in melee that you rolled away from so that you could zen med a cast, you can use the slow from the taunt on the melee to keep them from punching you and prematurely breaking your zen.(the taunt is the statue itself and therefore doesn't cost a gcd or break your zen). It can also be used in emergencies to tank very dangerous melee mobs in desperate situations. An example of this would be an accidental pulling of one of those murderous monk packs in scarlet monastary. In this situation, you can't face tank 3 of those mobs, so you would drop a statue in bumblefuck and leer. The reason you want to drop it in bumble fuck is so that your passive aoe, and healing threat from the healer don't aggro the mob. Even if the taunt doesn't hold the mob is slowed and going in the wrong direction for a second or two buying you precious time. 

 

One last use for the spell that I almost never use, but should be included is, as a prerequisite for the disable root. So if you don't want to spend the 15 energy on a second disable to root the mob, leer's slow counts.(this was shittily worded if you have questions hit me up)

 

One thing you should keep in mind for cms is using provoke in Los pulls.

So when Losing a pack you should always provoke a target. Provoking a target does a bunch of stuff. The first is it staggers the melee swings of the group because the one you provoked will be way ahead of the pack. The other thing is it allows you to get shuffle up before everything else gets there and shit gets real. This means you don't have to take the initial melee swings from the whole group without shuffle. Lastly it lets you get more uptime. You spend less time not hitting a target. Furthermore it allows you to spend energy that would otherwise be wasted sitting behind a corner.

 

Transcendence. Simple spell nice for Los juking casts and such in cms. Can also be used to avoid things like swirl on immy and ashen walls on Shammies. 

 

Just a general thing you need to know as a monk in challenge modes is how to pull. You really have to take care not to get hit as you pull. If you get hit you'll have to spend one of your heals early without vengeance, or burn a cd early, or your healer will pull with healing threat. All of these are really bad things that will put you very far behind. So to begin don't waste your movement CDs trying to get somewhere. By this I mean save your rolls for when a pack of mobs would make contact, not to get to the next one. If you are not in danger of having mobs hit you, you shouldn't be rolling. You want to use roll to avoid contact with one pack of mobs as you move to pull the next. The same is true for your tigers lust, you want to use this to minor the uptime mobs have on you while you pull, not to get to your destination. Since you will typically be using dizzying haze or keg smash in multi group, mobs will be slowed anyway. You will be able to outrun them with just base movement, you just need to create that initial distance after establishing threat, use your movement CDs for that. Your healer should never get healing aggro because you shouldn't be getting hit while you round them up. Your dps should also not get aggro because unless they got misdirect, they should be sitting the fuck down till everything is in a convinent murder ball. As such you should not need more than a dizzying haze to pull things. 

 

Something to note about the fancier tricks. These things are nice small gains if you're already doing the basics. You should not attempt any of these in lieu of the basics. If you spend any time fumbling for the key binding to do any of these, you will have lost more than you would've gained by executing them properly. Master the basics, and become comfortable with the keybinds to do these things before attempting them.

 

This one isn't really challenge mode related but it's good to know nonetheless. Chi burst can be a thing sometimes. So mathematically chi wave is vastly superior in damage and healing throughput. And as a rule is the best choice for your personal survivability. However it can be used for some bomb ass raid support if your healers are having trouble. It's big aoe bursty style fits very well into the current giant aoe spike damage of death. So for predictable big spikes you can use chi burst to become captain save a hoe. I found myself using it on fights like juggernaut after knock backs, calamity on protectors, on cooldown for galakras, after screeches on thok, etc. It takes good  aim, and timing so as to not snipe your healers heals. Also the longer cooldown and lack of sustainability makes you much more vulnerable, so only use it when you are comfortable, but the raid is struggling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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