Based on our new skills and what the Devs did a few updates ago... Reposting a post I made in another forum to maximize monk DPS:
I've noticed there isn't a section for monk burns. Kind of understandable since for the longest time Monks have been left by the wayside over the past 6-8 years when it comes to DPS. Well, thanks to the irc chats and the latest patch it seems the Devs have finally agreed to do something about it. They've put in a few really nice changes for them and I just wanted to let people know about some of them since I'm still active in the monk community.
First Tiger Claw. At some point recently they put Tiger Claw and Flying Kick onto separate timers. You can now use both at the same time. Along with that, they upgraded the max skill level on Tiger Claw to 410 (start skilling up if you haven't noticed yet; and don't worry, it didn't affect your achievements if you already had your "Ashenhand's Specialized Proficiency, lvl 100" achievement already). This was done mainly done for two reasons: 1. The Two Finger Wasp AA line (debuff on mob to make it vulnerable to tiger claw strikes); and 2. To give us another attack to try and boost our dps gap so it was higher than a wet leaf. Time to rebind another key to Flying Kick!
Second. Flying Kick. They boosted the crap out of it, and the rate Thunderkick procs (twincast Flying Kick). During the IRC chats they had strongly suggested that our DPS was going to be made up within the Flying Kick Ability. They didn't lie. Speed Focus and Terrorpalm are no longer the ways to go for maximum dps. I was parsing on my monk and Heel of Zagali killed the other two hands down. I preface with these two topics cause I'm gonna share my new burn line ups and they reflect these new changes.
Right now all I have is my 3-5min burn set up as a 'write up'. I can post something in the future that shows how I convert my 3min burn into a 5-10min burn and even my 10-20min burn. That is.. if anyone cares to hear it. Hell, you may read my burns start to wonder... wtf is this cleric doing trying to tell me anything about DPS? Whatevs... couldn't find any write up for monks, so just trying to fill a gap here. I've never really used hotkeys and multibinds for my monk.. I kind of just clicked things in the right order to maximize dps. But as I've gotten some tells from other monk friends from the years, and others I decided to make some burn keys so it's easier to share what I do.
Ok, as any rogue, zerker, beasty could tell you, Melee dps is all based on the shammy/bard epic, if you have them in your group that is. So after the burn is called this is what I end up doing:
As it's coming to burn time I prep by clicking 3 things before the shm/brd epics:
Zan Fi's Whistle (5m buff to all dmg)
VoA/RoF BP (procs to fists, plus on fade procs a big DD to the mob)
7th Wind (endurance regen)
Sometimes I'll also be ready to hit my epic, but I sometimes also save it as an extra heal if I know it to be an AE heavy fight.
Once my Bard/shm epic AT's go off I hit my first two hotkeys:
HK1~
/alt act 1235 (Two Finger Wasp)
/pause 1, /alt act 1361 (2nd Spire)
/pause 1, /alt act 945 (Infusion of Thunder)
/pause 1, /disc Drunken Monkey Style Rk. II
/pause 1, /disc Heel of Zagali Rk. II
(Obviously if you have rk. III you'd do that instead. Also the /pause is there to compensate for server/client lag. If you're especially laggy you can go from 1-5 and it'll cover most cases)
Once I make sure HoZ is running I IMMEDIATELY hit my second Hotkey:
HK2~
/disc Shadewalker's Synergy Rk. II (big FK, +debuff to all FK's for 30s)
/pause 1, /disc Crane Stance Rk. II (double mega FK)
/pause 1, /disc Cloud of Fists Rk. II (Fist Pet proc)
Theses keys get my DMG+ AA's going that stack with everything, turn on Drunken monkey, start Heel, then the important part, get the FK debuff on the mob and nail him with the double FK kicks. Was testing it last night and I kicked 4 times (with twin-kick) for 175k each. And for the next 30s HoZ is going, so the rest of your FK's are gonna be hitting hard.
If you're maxed in your Synergy line timer AA's you'll get another crack at using Synergy while HoZ is still running. Which is nice...
As SOON as HoZ fades (30s disc), I'll activate key 3:
HK3~
/disc Eagle's Balance Rk. II (adds procs to all your attacks)
/pause 1, /disc Drunken Monkey Style Rk. II
/pause 1, /disc Speed Focus Discipline (over, over overhaste)
/pause 1, Zalikor's Fang (new magic strike same timer as CoFists 1m reuse)
This key not only puts procs on all your attacks, but also makes you attack even faster, getting more procs. It's also a 30s duration and if you follow the bard/shm epic timers (1min), you'll notice you'll get all three of these keys and all these discs during 1 click of their epic.
Once that first minute is done, I'll move into the next series. I don't have hotkeys for the rest because this is the part that will change depending on how long your burn is going for.
Still on a 3min burn:
-Drunken Monkey /disc Drunken Monkey Style Rk. II
-Terrorpalm /disc Terrorpalm Discipline Rk. II (quad damage line, 30s)
-Five point palm /alt act 1012 (big dmg punch)
-Shadewalker's Synergy /disc Shadewalker's Synergy Rk. II
I provided the macro lines in case people want to make a key.
I do these next because once your Terrorpalm is running you'll have just a few seconds left on your BP click. You can either click your BP buff off to trigger the proc, or just let it fade on it's own. Either way, it'll hit during your Terrorpalm, and since it's considered melee dmg, it is effected by Terrorpalm. Also your next Synergy will proc and all your FK's will do more damage during.
Once Terrorpalm fades, I go through the next set of discs:
-Drunken Monkey
-Jab Through
-Eye of the storm (when JT fades 1tick)
-Zalikor's Fang
From this point out it's just Synergy, Synergy, Synergy and Zalikor's fang when it pops.
Also, after Terrorpalm fades since DM is a 50 cycle, and 30s recast, once that first 30s is up, you can start using Vigorous Shuriken for those last 20s, about 3-4 clicks of it (extra 1-3k dmg every 5s depending on your distance from mob)
After EoStorm the mob should be dead. But that's when the next Shm/Brd epic are up. If it gets that far I go into Ironfist Discipline and just let it run it's course. It boosts Zalikor's Fang, Synergy and 8-Step Pattern. Two Finger Wasp will also refresh at the same time as the brd/shm epic, so I'll refresh that during Ironfist too.
Side Note: I rarely use 8step because of the benefits of the FK debuff. Way back in the day I used to rotate Synergy with other monks on the raid so the debuff was always on the mob and others could use the 8step line. But nowadays it's only 1 monk on a raid so, should always be using Synergy because of how much damage we get from Flying Kicks now.
I've provided a spreadsheet showing this line up and the timers/fades if you care to look at it.
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnjlueoORF7YdE1hUkRRbWtVWElqdlZMOFV0Nm5RWHc&usp=drive_web#gid=0 <<--------
For longer fights I will switch up the middle discs and ensure I only click them during shm/brd epic clicks but that's another post for another time if anyone wants me to make one up.
Anyways, Monk DPS has been upped considerably. There are monks posting parses in the 130-140k range for 60s burns. Of course they have really good coordination with the other classes and are in the melee burn groups, but monks aren't completely useless anymore.
Hope this burn line up helps anyone who is struggling on their alt or is wondering about the monk class in general. If anyone has any comments, suggestions, complains; I don't mind hearing them. Anything to help people out as a whole!
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