Midnight Season 1 OverviewWindwalker Monk Guide
Learn about the iconic abilities and talents that might still exist in your spell book but you likely won't be using in Season 1.
Collapsing Star - Devourer DH
Hogstrider - SV & BM Hunter
Melee Healing - MW Monk
Healing Rain - Resto Shaman
Note: This article was written prior to the Patch 12.0.5 development notes being released.
"Xuen’s Battlegear may now additionally trigger from Spinning Crane Kick, reducing the cooldown of Fists of Fury by 0.5 seconds for each unique target struck, up to 2.5 seconds."
There is a strong chance that this change fixes the problem of Spinning Crane Kick being so rarely used. However, it is not a guarantee as Shadowboxing Treads keeps Blackout Kick relevant in higher target numbers and when playing with Conduit of the Celestials there is still the problem of limited available Chi and GCDs to cast Spinning Crane Kick. The announced changes should be positive design changes toward helping this problem, but not guaranteed to fix it outright until we're able to see the whole picture in a few weeks.
The article and information below will remain relevant up until 12.0.5 and potentially even after if the above changes aren't enough.
___-Less Playstyles
Throughout Windwalker's existence there has been several times where Windwalker has dropped a "core" ability either nearly or completely from the priority list. Compared to how things are now, the original iterations of Windwalker used Fists of Fury mostly as something to do to fill the time rather than a button you wanted to press. During Battle for Azeroth, Windwalker went through periods of time where we barely cast Rising Sun Kick and barely cast or ignored Fists of Fury, all in the span of a few weeks.
As recently as the Midnight Pre-Patch, Windwalker spent a week where Fists of Fury, which you'll notice tends to be the most common victim of these situations, was pretty much ignored in favor of casting as many Rising Sun Kicks as possible. One ongoing issue that many Windwalkers have noticed since the Midnight changes were announced, has been the consistent question of "where is Spinning Crane Kick in the priority?"
From 1st to Last
Indeed, for anyone who has been around for awhile, Spinning Crane Kick being so low, or even absent, on the priority list is a strange occurrence. For many years, people were used to seeing Windwalker high on the AOE damage meters with Spinning Crane Kick topping through Mark of the Crane scaling, the craziness that was Bonedust Brew, or the big AOE burst of the original Dance of Chi-Ji that also boosted its damage.
However, with the clear design decisions to push much of Windwalker damage into Fists of Fury, the primary driving force for the priority is "how do I get as many Fists of Fury as possible?" This is accomplished by casting Fists of Fury on cooldown, casting as many Rising Sun Kicks as possible to reduce the cooldown of Fists of Fury through Xuen's Battlegear and spend any remaining Chi on Blackout Kick to reduce the cooldown of both and provide a chance to fully reset Rising Sun Kick. This leaves little to no space for Spinning Crane Kick even in AOE where Spinning Crane Kick used to dominate but has now been supplanted by a stronger Fists of Fury. Although many people enjoy Fists of Fury dealing more damage and being more of a centerpiece of the spec, doing so at the expense of Spinning Crane Kick doesn't feel as good.
Solutions
There are a few options to "solve" this problem. The "simple" solutions are to reduce its Chi cost so it more easily replaces Blackout Kick at higher target numbers or to simply increase the damage that it does to make it more worth casting. Because Blizzard seems to want to avoid casting Spinning Crane Kick in single target, an increase in its damage would likely need to come via a mechanic where it scales with more targets hit, like Windwalker has in the form of Rushing Wind Kick. This could allow for a pseudo-Mark of the Crane situation, which is what kept Spinning Crane Kick relevant much of the time. Doing it with a behind-the-scenes damage increase rather than a debuff you have to maintain should solve the problem without creating a new one.
The more "difficult" solution, but one that may fit the best with the other design decisions that we've seen going into Midnight is for Spinning Crane Kick to mimic Blackout Kick and reduce the cooldown of Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury. By tying this cooldown reduction to targets hit, such as "reducing their cooldown by 0.3-0.5 seconds per targets hit, up to 5 targets" (the choice they seem to have made), better target scaling would push it over Blackout Kick at higher target levels. Similarly, another option could be to turn Jade Ignition back to its last iteration, but in reverse, with targets hit by Spinning Crane Kick increasing the damage dealt by Fists of Fury. This was never really a buff that we tracked, so it wouldn't need to break Blizzard intent to cut down on things you have to pay attention to.
Any combination of these options could be successful in "fixing" the problem and making Spinning Crane Kick more relevant while still keeping much, or even all, of the power in Fists of Fury, which seems to be what their goal has been for the past few months.
Do you prefer using Spinning Crane Kick in AoE or the current iteration of Windwalker? Are you excited about a potential return in Patch 12.0.5?
