Monks need to have access to several skills on quick notice, I would even go far as to say this class requires the most effort when it comes to organizing your UI so that you can more efficiently play the class. If you disagree with my UI than you can die in a fire.
There is a lot of theory crafting put into what the optimal rotation for this job is based off the potency calculations from flank and rear use in skills but at the end of the day you will pretty much have two patterns you are working with and your dps will come down to how much you suck at using them at the correct time.
Please keep in mind that Demolish and Snap punch are in a reverse order in these pictures and I will explain that later.
I have on my keyboard bound Shift 1, 2, and 3 to Z, X and C. This provides me with two rows additionally to work with allowing for easy maneuvering through abilities.
An opening rotation of mine may look like this
Z X C -> Z X 3 -> 1 2 3
You will be focusing on using the Dragon Kick and Twin Snakes to apply a debuff and buff on both yourself and the target. This will allow Snap punch to deal additional damage from the flank as that is your normal finisher.
As soon as the buff and debuff are active, your next rotation should focus on the rear for Bootshine and True Strike.
Bootshine will be a guaranteed crit at the beginning of a rotation which is huge over the course of a fight. True Strike however is in my opinion the most powerful ability you have, I have easily crit over 1k before in a single punch, albeit its damage will be entirely dependent on if you were able to maintain three stacks of GL and apply your buffs/debuffs properly.
Once you have finished a rotation of Rear, ending in Snap Punch, you will most likely need to return to Flank to reapply your buffs/debuffs. There is no, you must do the rotations in x y z order for optimal dps, each fight will determine if it is best to do a rotation in flank -> rear -> flank pattern or whatever as it is up to you to adapt to the boss to optimize your dps, skill speed is also a major influence on this.
Applying Dots
Once you have a grasp on the rear -> flank rotations and when it is best to use them, try to incorporate dots.
Demolish Touch of Death (circled blue)
Firstly is Demolish, this will last 18 seconds so I would recommend reapplying at the end of every third or so rotation, dependent on your skill speed and situation awareness don't be afraid to lose the debuff on the boss as it will not be too detrimental to your dps as it would be for a SMN. It should be easy to keep up as well so long as you keep an eye on your stacks/buffs/debuffs. A lot of people like to use this at the end of a rear rotation as it will have increased potency, the increased potency however does not affect the actual DoT damage and the overall damage of this ability is such shit I could care less if it is used from behind or flank so long as the DoT is reapplied.
Secondly is Touch of Death, this one is perhaps the easiest one to apply that people make out to be the hardest, ToD last 30 seconds but is not part of a standard rotation and is on a shared GCD with your other spells which would interrupt a normal rotation. I would use this at the same time as the ability Steel Peak to compensate for sustained dmg loss between your rotations. Steel Peak is an instant stun off of the gcd which can be used at any time on a 40s CD. I know what your thinking, thats like a 10 second delay between ToD expiring and SP, actually its more like a 5 second because the ToD has a stupid animation length and the dps loss is hardly anything. Odds are either way you are on a fight where the boss will be making transitions or jumps or whatever which will provide you ample time to sync the cds. Either way make sure to use ToD and then SP as the animation clips will balance out the CDs better.
A third optional DoT is Fracture, this is a cross class ability from Marauder. During 2.0 and 2.1, with the maximum stats allocated from the ilevel back then it was a form of optimizing your overall dps by keeping Fracture up, this no longer is applicable due to increases in overall stats but may or may not make a comeback in the future.
Both abilities are off of your GCD that can be used whenever, however I would recommend following the above rule for Steel Peak.
Howling Fist can sometimes be held on for specific moments in a fight when you know two adds will be stacked on one another. The second boss of the second coil, if you use Howling Fist at the beginning it has a strong chance, dependent on your groups dps, of being up in time for the first add to spawn in which it can then hit both the add and the boss for double damage. Otherwise if you are not comfortable with timing this ability because you do not know the fights well enough, its best to just use it the second it goes off cd because theres really no negatives in spamming it.
Buffing Abilities
You have three buffs you will be using,
Internal Release - Increase crit chance Blood for Blood - Increase dmg Perfect Balance - Any ability can be used at any time without form (circled yellow)
I have all three of these macro bound to my mouse, I would recommend binding them to something as it makes it much easier to activate them in a battle without losing time on your rotation.
I will generally use Internal Release and Blood for Blood whenever they are off CD however I will always wait for my second rotation before using anything. My first rotation will cycle through the forms and apply Demolish My second rotation will apply buffs/debuffs My third rotation I will weave in both Internal Release and Blood for Blood at the start and following Snap Punch use Perfect Balance.
With Perfect Balance and all buffs/debuffs up I will spam either Snap Punch or True Strike (Depending on the boss) until the Perfect Balance wears off and then I will restart my rotation. Why? This does a stupid amount of dmg if lucky, I once had crits between 900-1050 dmg for 10s straight. A lot of people use Perfect Balance as a tool for getting quick stacks of GL but I prefer to use it for burst dmg on bosses.
Until the CD for Perfect Balance is off feel free to use Internal Balance and Blood for Blood whenever as they are on different cds from each other, I would personally only hold off on using those two if Perfect Balance is close to coming off CD but that will generally only happen 3 times a boss fight (In Coil).
Stances
Earth - Redueced dmg taken by 10% Fire - Increased dmg + 5% Wind - Useless
You should stay in fire stance, forever. Unless you are tanking titan or are trying to survive a bosses 2 hour because your group is garbage. Then switch to Earth stance as it just might save your life.
Quickly covering
Shoulder Tackle - Allows you to easily navigate a boss fight. Mantra - Can save your raid, or at least yourself. Second Wind - Guess what it heals you. Invigorate - Gives TP back, imagine that. Featherfoot - Pray to your god. Mercy Stroke - Extra dmg if mob has low health, no gcd.
PVP
Will do this later, 2.3 later.
If you play your monk any other way, I don't care. If you bring up BiS, use the term Pre T9 or compare Crit, SS, and Acc optimizations on gear, you have probably not even cleared second coil and can suck a fat one. If you have cleared T9 and care that much about dps on Titan Extremes, more power to you. But otherwise enjoy monk, its fun.
Eva replied
585 weeks ago