The Monk Toolkit As It Stands

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  I'm not one to respond with an outcry of "homogenization!" every time I disagree with a decision that brings classes closer together.  I thought it was great when mages got their own version of Heroism/Bloodlust.  Yes, shaman lost part of what made them "special," but I think a lot of the frustration came from not having an easy in to a raid group.  I don't think one can make the argument that giving the option to additional classes is going to be bad for raiding as a whole.

Well...as long as we don't give it to EVERYBODY.  And that's where uniqueness or flavor comes in.

You see, there's a fine line between what actually is homogenization, and maintaining balance.  That's why I'd like to talk about tank parity today.  Let's do an audit of how the monk is shaping up so far on the beta (no I don't have my invite yet [RAGE]) and compare it to the classes who we'll be competing against for jobs.  Or, rather, WOULD be competing against if the tank supply was anywhere remotely close to the demand.  You know what I mean.

You do a good job with icons, Blizzard, but I submit that only one of the eleven monk races will actually look like a panda.

Necessities
There are some things that every tank needs to be successful. You know why people were going nuts about warlocks getting a taunt?  Every tank needs a taunt.  And while it turns out that warlocks won't actually be tanking, the community had the right idea by making an inference based on one of THE iconic tank abilities.  It just so happens that some factors have to be equal between tanks, not for "pointless homogenization," but because there are plain ol' job requirements.  Think of this stuff as the minimum, baseline background needed to apply for the job - the candidates will differentiate themselves with the rest of their resumés.

- Taunts

I know, I know.  I literally just used this as an example.  It wasn't hyperbole when I said that it's something all tanks need, though.

Death Knight - Dark Command
Druid - Growl

Paladin - Reckoning [named "Hand of Reckoning" on live]
Warrior - Taunt [still named "Least Creative Thing Ever" on live]
Monk - Provoke

There's not a whole lot to say here.  Tanks need a taunt, we have a taunt.  I suppose the speed boost on enemies is interesting.  I'm not sure I can think of any useful applications, to be honest.  The sooner something gets to us, the sooner it starts hitting us.

- Secondary Taunts 

I almost labeled this "AoE Taunts," but that wouldn't be strictly true, thanks to one of the most recognizable death knight abilities.

Death Knight - Death Grip
Druid - Challenging Roar
Paladin - Righteous Defense
Warrior - Challenging Shout
Monk - Provoke, Leer of the Ox

So maybe DKs break from the AoE taunt trend, but we sure don't.  It's also worth observing that the first is the same ability as our regular taunt.  I foresee this actually being a small quality-of-life issue.  Imagine that you're stacked on your Ox with a flood of mobs.  You'd either have to /target, or switch from enemy nameplates to friendly ones in the heat of combat.  I won't call this any more than a "small" issue, though, because a simple macro will have it target your Ox with no hassles.  That said, I thought Blizzard was moving away from anything that wasn't intuitive exclusively with in-game resources, such as Armor Penetration. A rookie player won't know how to make a macro (or even that they should), and they'll be locked out of the secondary function of their taunt until they bother to alt+tab and do some research.  I don't see any reason why we couldn't have a second button that makes our Ox AoE taunt by itself.

Except we totally do.  That's what Leer of the Ox does.  Sort of.  It doesn't taunt enemies to hit you. I'm not aware of a healthpool for the Ox Statue or anything.  This will warrant some testing to see whether these taunts have any kind of synergy or just feel redundant.

 

- Crit Immunity

This is what makes tanks tanks!  In ye olden days, tanks had to worry about crushing blows.  In Wrath, collecting 540 Defense prevented a raid boss from hitting you with a critical strike.  Currently, we become crit immune through talents.  In Mists, these required abilities will simply be picked up as part of our specialization.

Death Knight - Improved Blood Presence
Druid - Survival of the Fittest [I can't find it on Wowhead at the moment, but it's learned at level 14]
Paladin - Guarded by the Light (Currently Sanctuary)
Warrior - Unwavering Sentinel (Currently Bastion of Defense) 
Monk - Stance of the Sturdy Ox

There's something I don't like about having our crit immunity attached right to our stance, and it's the same reason that Improved Blood Presence exists.  If the immunity is available to all monks at the flick of a switch, Mistweavers and Windwalkers have a serious advantage over, say, Fury warriors and Frost DKs, when the shit hits the fan.  It's hardly make-or-break, but there's no reason not to separate the two.  That is, of course, assuming that the other specs even get access to our stance...at the moment, the tank and healer stances are ONLY available to their respective specs.  In which case I also have to ask what use they think we'll have for Stance of the Fierce Tiger, since they deliberately left it open for our use.

- Resource-Building Attacks

If we're going to make a boss hate us, we've gotta poke it.  In fact, we've gotta poke it more painfully than everyone around us (except for the rogue...let them pull threat and die, and then continue as you were).  Still, we don't give half a damn about DPS, generally speaking.  And for the most part, threat isn't actually a huge concern.  So we need to build resources in order to use our other abilities.  At this point I'm going to give examples of abilities instead of listing every bloody one.

Death Knight - Heart Strike (generates Runic Power), Rune Strike (regenerates runes via Blood Tap, Runic Empowerment, or Runic Corruption)
Druid - Mangle
Paladin - Crusader Strike (generates Holy Power)
Warrior - Shield Slam
Monk - Jab

Bingo, there it is.  We'll be generating some of our Chi through Jab, which costs 40 energy.  We've got some additional energy regen, as well, through Recoil.


- Boss Debuffs
I'd like to say an extra word on these.  Currently, on live, every tank has a pair of debuffs that they apply to enemies that slows attack speed.  For the most part, they come out automatically from abilities you'd be using anyway, and they universally serve the same two functions.  On the beta, however, we seem to be be only using one debuff, although it can still be brought by any tanking class.  Except for Brewmasters, from what I can tell.  I'm sure that's an oversight and will be corrected, although it's interesting to acknowledge that shaman can also apply the debuff.  Since Weakened Blows is new, I can only assume that this is intentional...they would have had to deliberately add the effect to Earth Shock.  Curious indeed!

Things are about to get REALLY interesting.

Where it gets interesting
Obviously, tanks aren't identical to one another.  If they were, there'd be no point to having five of the damn things.  Now let's get into the things that make each tank a special little snowflake.

- Defensive Abilities
Death Knight - Death Strike (still not proactive, I see)
Druid - Savage Defense (hefty rage cost prevents this from being a free, +10% block cap)
Paladin - Shield of the Righteous
Warrior - Shield Block
Monk - Sparring, Guard, Shuffle

This doesn't really seem all that much like active mitigation, does it?  More like short, kinda powerful buffs.  Not that I could realistically complain about that.  Regardless, this doesn't really solve Blizzard's problem of making threat stats valuable to all tanks.  That's not the point of this article, though.  All that matters right now is that, as far as current design goes, we are indeed in line with the other tanks.


- Mobility
Death Knight - Glyph of Bone Shield (that's it?...ouch, man)
Druid - Wild Charge, Stampeding Roar
Paladin - Speed of Light, Long Arm of the Law, Pursuit of Justice
Warrior - Heroic Leap, Charge (Juggernaut, Double Time, Warbringer...you warriors are great at this)
Monk - Chi Torpedo, Tiger's Lust, Roll (Celerity, Momentum)

We've got this.  Ohhh, have we got this.  Roll is going to be the bread and butter of our mobility, by all accounts.  And it's not only usable in a forward direction.  I'm curious to get my hands on the ability, though, largely to see if it's always a guaranteed set distance like Blink.  If you can't stop on a dime at will, I can see us having some problems a la warriors Charging Kologarn.  Minor concern, admittedly.


- Defensive Cooldown Suite
Death Knight - Icebound Fortitude, Vampiric Blood, Anti-Magic Shell, Anti-Magic Zone, Lichborne (paired with Death Coil), Dancing Rune Weapon, Death Pact, Dark Simulacrum
Druid - Frenzied Regeneration (in particular with Enrage), Barkskin, Survival Instincts, Might of Ursoc
Paladin - Divine Protection, Guardian of Ancient Kings, Ardent Defender, Lay on Hands
Warrior - Last Stand, Shield Barrier, Shield Wall, Enraged Regeneration
Monk - Jinyu Cider (if you desperately need Chi to Guard), Ring of Peace (probably not functional on bosses), Fortifying Brew, Elusive Brew, Grapple Weapon (potentially), Purifying Brew

I don't know about you, but reading about these makes me really itch to start raiding with a Brewmaster.  Cooldowns always give me the craving to tank.  The CD that catches my attention the most is Fortifying Brew, and I have questions.  Does that function off of current health, or total?  Does that no-healing show up as a debuff, so you can't wait until after a big hit and just remove it?  Does it share a cooldown with the other brews?  The answers to these questions will definitely impact how I perceive it, though I concede it's definitely a unique and welcome part of our arsenal.  I'm not sure how I feel about our cooldowns on the whole, though.  Unless I've missed a spell, we're the only tank without a straightup damage-reduction cooldown.  If that's the case, I think it's gotta change.


- Utility
This is a difficult section to talk about.  Utility can be described in many ways, and players don't always agree.  I've seen Blizzard's own declare Innervate to be bear utility, while contenders point out that a Guardian doesn't exactly have enough mana to make that very useful.  Paladin Hands or the infamous raidwall (gone in Mists) definitely bring a special something to the raid, though, as does a warrior's Rallying Cry and the tank-available battle rezzes.  So, what do monks bring to the table?

Avert Harm, Disable, Dizzying Haze, Meditation, Life Cocoon, Chi Bind -or- Rolling Force Globe -or- Chi Torpedo, and Transcendence, though I expect that last to be exceptionally situational (though always fun).  These don't seem bad at all, but something does feel lacking.  I feel like we could use something that's less strictly about just damage or movement speed, y'know?

I applaud Blizzard for not considering gimmicky 3D tech.  That gropey hand can stay leashed within the plane of my monitor, thanks, if it's all the same to you.

Where do we stand?
Monks are coming along.  Blizzard's doing a pretty good job so far, I think.  Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad that this is still only beta.  There's still work to be done, for sure.  My wishlist includes more interesting utility, a damage-reduction cooldown, the missing boss debuff, and a crowd control ability that works at range (since, as I discussed here, we are not filthy rogues and can't stealth to use Paralysis before a pull).

But still!  What do you guys think about all this?  Personally, I remain pleased but continue to keep an eye on the directions the devs take. 

Have a good week, folks!
- Stonepalm -