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Windwalker Monk PvE Guide

This guide is designed to be the full guide for Windwalker with all the information you need. For more in-depth, advanced information follow the links to those pages in the "Further Reading" sections or in the "Advanced" section in the menu above.

This guide has been updated for Midnight Patch 12.1 and is regularly updated when discussion, theorycrafting, or testing yields new information.

Talent Builds​

There is a lot of flexibility with talents, so if you prefer a different setup or like to change a talent here or there then you can likely do that without dramatically lowering your damage. It's a game, play what you'd like.

There is a lot of flexibility in what you can pick in the Monk Class Tree.

  • Green = Always Pick
  • Blue = Pick as very strong default optional Talents
  • Purple = Pick based on your demands in the content of your Choice
  • White = Pick for very situational Niche Situations
  • Red = Never Pick

In-Depth Guide

Abilities​

Instructions

Windwalkers generally prioritize our abilities by how much damage they do and the resources (Chi, energy, execution time) that they cost. There are a couple of general goals while playing Windwalker that should help with the bigger picture before diving into the priority lists below:

  • Manage Energy and Chi - Outside of big Haste cooldowns, Windwalker's damage is restricted by how many resources we can generate and spend. This means that sitting at the Energy cap or generating more Chi than you have space for typically results in lost damage potential. Your focus is balancing having enough Chi for spenders and using Blackout Kick just enough to prevent overcapping without using it too much and not having the Chi you need when a bigger spender becomes available.
    • During major cooldowns, you will often have more Energy and Chi than you can use due to the GCD and cooldowns of Chi spenders, making avoiding the caps less impactful, but still something to be aware of.
  • Keep Abilities on cooldown - With most of our Chi spenders having their own cooldowns, it is important to reduce the amount of time that these harder-hitting abilities are sitting off cooldown without being used. There will, inevitably, be overlaps where you'll have to choose what to press based on the priority list. A key part of playing Windwalker recognizing that one of these situations is approaching and trying to have enough Chi for what you need to do.
  • React to procs - Windwalker has several procs that you'll need to manage in order to maximize damage potential. The main ones are Dance of Chi-Ji and Blackout Kick!. Both of these can stack to 2 so that you don't need to immediately use them. However, you will want to avoid risking overstacking, as that is lost damage potential. These procs can play an integral part in helping you balance your resources while still benefitting from Mastery: Combo Strikes. They can also throw off what you were planning, so being able to react intelligently and quickly is important.
  • Do not break mastery. Simple as that, do not repeat the same ability twice in a row. For a full list of what counts for mastery, see here. There are currently no situations where it is worth it to break mastery as there have been in the past.

Following these rules is the largest part of playing Windwalker. You may notice that "always be casting" is not one of our core tenets, as you are only pressing something if it aligns with these rules (something comes off cooldown, you are close to capping energy, etc). This means that as a natural consequence of following these, you may not always fill every GCD. WINDWALKER IS A SPEC WITH NATURAL DOWNTIME. This is not an indication that you are playing incorrectly or that you need more Haste (which will not really affect this). To execute these rules in the most efficient way, follow the priorities below with the goal of never using something lower in the list if it will delay something higher in the list.

Cooldowns

As said above, the safest bet is to use things as close to their cooldown as possible. However, if you can use most cooldowns at the same time without losing a cast of them, you'll get the most out of them. You can read more about it in this article by Talby.

Celestial Conduit

Celestial Conduit is a powerful ability to use, but the most powerful aspect of it is that it adds the Heart of the Jade Serpent buff. However, because this buff can also come from using Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch, you need to stagger these uses for maximum benefit. This generally means using Celestial Conduit spaced out between casts of Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch. This attempts to insure maximum uptime and value.

The instance of Heart of the Jade Serpent that is triggered from using Zenith stacks with the version of Heart of the Jade Serpent that comes from Celestial Conduit, Strike of the Windlord, or Whirling Dragon Punch. However, the instance of Heart of the Jade Serpent that is generated from Celestial Conduit does not stack with the instance that comes from Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch.

This means that you can cast Zenith when you already have Heart of the Jade Serpent up, and you should because they stack very well. You want to try and avoid casting Celestial Conduit if you already have the buff that comes from Strike of the Windlord or Whirling Dragon Punch and visa versa.

Key takeaways are:

Priority Lists​

The lists below assume you are doing what you need to do to avoid capping resources, avoid breaking your mastery, and using above cooldowns appropriately. Right now Heart of the Jade Serpent doesn't require its own priority, but that may change in the future. We've included a "simplified" version of each priority if the "detailed" one is a bit much.

Single Target Priority

NOTES: Skip steps that don't apply to your Talent build. Those priorities are meant to be used by people regardless of their build, and will include some steps that don't apply to the recommended builds.

  1. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch
  2. Cast Zenith Stomp if low on Chi or Zenith is almost over
  3. Cast Tiger Palm to avoid capping energy outside of Zenith and Bloodlust or if not enough Chi to cast Fists of Fury
  4. Cast Fists of Fury
  5. Cast Rushing Wind Kick
  6. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji and with an active Unbroken Rhythm buff
  7. Cast Rising Sun Kick
  8. Cast Blackout Kick with Combo Breaker OR during Zenith and talented into Obsidian Spiral
  9. Cast Spinning Crane Kick during Zenith AND either more than 4 Chi OR Dance of Chi-Ji
  10. Cast Tiger Palm if less than 2 Chi
  11. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji
  12. Cast Tiger Palm without overcapping Chi
  13. Cast Blackout Kick

Losing Combo Breaker or Dance of Chi-Ji procs by overcapping or their buffs running out should be avoided by using their respective ability with a slightly higher priority than the list shows. Don't overthink that too hard.

AOE Priority (Generally 2 or more targets)​

NOTES: Skip steps that don't apply to your Talent build. Those priorities are meant to be used by people regardless of their build, and will include some steps that don't apply to the recommended builds.

  1. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch
  2. Cast Strike of the Windlord
  3. Cast Zenith Stomp if low on Chi or Zenith is almost over
  4. Cast Tiger Palm if missing the Chi to cast Fists of Fury
  5. Cast Fists of Fury
  6. Cast Spinning Crane Kick with Season 2 4-piece bonus, Unbroken Rhythm
  7. Cast Tiger Palm to avoid capping Energy outside of Zenith
  8. Cast Rising Sun Kick to enable Whirling Dragon Punch
  9. Cast Rushing Wind Kick without Season 2 4-piece bonus, Unbroken Rhythm
  10. Cast Spinning Crane Kick during Zenith with at least 5 targets
  11. Cast Rising Sun Kick with either Bloodlust or Zenith but without Season 2 4-piece bonus, Unbroken Rhythm
  12. Cast Blackout Kick with Obsidian Spiral talented AND Zenith active AND Rising Sun Kick on cooldown
  13. Cast Spinning Crane Kick
  14. Cast Slicing Winds
  15. Cast Blackout Kick with Combo Breaker
  16. Cast Tiger Palm with less than 5 Chi AND no Zenith active
  17. Cast Blackout Kick with Shadowboxing Treads talented
  18. Cast Rising Sun Kick
  19. Cast Blackout Kick

Openers​

Use these ability orders to start pulls, these may change frequently over time. If you are starting a pull with more Chi, such as in M+, then simply skip the steps that get you to the necessary Chi level. See the Trinkets section further down for how on use trinkets may change your opener.

NOTES: Skip steps that don't apply to your Talent build. Those openers are meant to be used by people regardless of their build, and will include some steps that don't apply to the recommended builds.

  1. Cast Tiger Palm
  2. Use Potion of Recklessness (if Algeth'ar Puzzle Box equipped and your sim tells you its the better potion)
  3. Use Algeth'ar Puzzle Box (if equipped)
  4. Cast Zenith with potions, racials and trinkets (make sure to use stat buffs prior Zenith is cast to buff Zenith Stomp)
  5. Cast Strike of the Windlord (if talented)
  6. Cast Fists of Fury
  7. Cast Rising Sun Kick
  8. Cast Fists of Fury (if #7 did reset your Fists of Fury cooldown)
  9. Cast Whirling Dragon Punch (if talented and #7 did not reset your Fists of Fury cooldown)
  10. Continue with normal priority

Ability Usage Notes​

Advanced Tricks

Gearing​

Stats​

General stat priority for each Windwalker Hero tree.

Agility > Haste = Critical Strike = Mastery >>> Versatility

Stat priorities can and will change for your character depending on your current gear, stats and talents. Stat weights are largely an outdated thought. Sim the gear you have through Top Gear. If you're looking for what gear to aim for, use Droptimizer.

Crafting​

Generally, we recommend simulating your character through Top Gear to find what piece is best for you. For everything else, here is a flowchart.

Weapons and 1H vs 2H​

2H is better.

For specific situations or item level gaps, sim your character's options with Raidbot’s Top Gear Tool.

Trinkets​

Ideally you want Voracious Heart of Ula'tek and Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique. As always, sim your options to see what's best for you in particular.

Honorable Mentions:

"Best-in-Slot"​

Sim the gear you have through Top Gear. If you're looking for what gear to aim for, use Droptimizer.

Gems/Enchants​

Gems​

Use Raidbot’s Top Gear Toolfor the most specific and accurate results for your character. In general, it will usually follow the stat priority above.

Enchants​

Venomcores​

Bonus Rolls​

Best explained in a flowchart:

Gear Upgrades​

Weapon > On-Use Trinket > Passive Trinket > Necklace

Miscellaneous​

Consumables​

Racials​

Currently, all races sim within a small range of each other and reshuffle constantly. Other than that, pick whatever race you prefer.

Using the racial available to you depends highly on the exact racial. In general, they are divided into three different groups. Buff racials, direct damage racials and special racials.

Buff racials are the following racials:

Those are used with your cooldowns and can be put into a Burst Macro like the macro you can find in the macro section. Direct damage racials are the following racials:

Those are very undertuned and are used at the very end of the priority or whenever you are unable to cast something else. The only special racial existing right now is the Blood Elf racial Arcane Torrent. This can be used whenever you need a quick chi for your big spenders and you are not able to press a tiger palm for it.

Professions​

Professions have no bearing on your ability to perform your role. Pick whatever will make your playing time easier and more enjoyable. As a starting point, many players take Engineering and/or Alchemy for some small perks.

Macros​

Don't Clip Things​
#showtooltip Tiger Palm
/stopmacro [channeling:Fists of Fury]
/cast Tiger Palm

OR

#showtooltip Tiger Palm
/cast [nochanneling:Fists of Fury]Tiger Palm

Change Tiger Palm to whatever ability you want. This macro prevents you from cancelling the channel of Fists of Fury. With 12.1 cancelling Celestial Conduit is now a thing which makes us return to the old format of using a single stopmacro line rather than conditionals that prevent your cast from being executed during specific channels. It is recommended to use this on your main rotational abilities as it's very very unlikely that we'll look to cancel these abilities.

Here is a version of the Don't Clip Things Macro that swaps between Whirling Dragon Punch and Strike of the Windlord depending on what you have talented.

#showtooltip [known:392983] Strike of the Windlord; Whirling Dragon Punch
/stopmacro [channeling:Fists of Fury]
/cast [known:152175] Whirling Dragon Punch
/cast [known:392983] Strike of the Windlord
Fists of Fury and Unity Within​
#showtooltip Fists of Fury
/cast Unity Within
/cast Fists of Fury

This macro is required due to a slight issue with the execution of things in the game. If you cancel your Celestial Conduit with a Fists of Fury the end of channel happens at the exact time the new channel is started resulting in the application of your Heart of the Jade Serpent window that you get from Unity Within happening after your Fists of Fury channel has already snapshot the duration of the channel. Unity Within is affected by your global cooldown while it doesnt cause one itself. This behaviour requires you to use this macro right after the current global cooldown has finished to execute Unity Within properly in time for Fists of Fury to snapshot the duration of the channel properly. There is sadly no other solution for this at the current point.

Zenith Stomp and Tiger Palm​
#showtooltip
/cast Zenith Stomp
/cast Tiger Palm

This macro layers Zenith Stomp on top of Tiger Palm so you can treat Zenith Stomp as a glorified Tiger Palm. It abuses the fact that you unlearn Zenith Stomp as ability once either Zenith Stomp stacks are consumed or Zenith ends. It can bug out if you enter any loading screen while you still have stacks remaining so pay attention to that. If you want to add the Don't Clip conditionals feel free to do so.

Burst Macro​
#showtooltip Zenith
/use [pet][known:450615]13
/use [mod:shift,pet][mod:shift,known:450615]item:212971
/use [mod:shift,pet][mod:shift,known:450615]item:212265
/cast Zenith

This Macro uses your on-use stat trinket and potions in the correct order to allow your Zenith Stomp from casting Zenith to be affected by the stat buffs as well. However, this macro has a few nuances you need to adjust for your personal use, so here is an explanation for all lines and how to change them appropriately. /use [pet][known:450615]13This line uses your trinket in slot 13 whenever you have an active pet OR when you are talented into Shado-Pan by utilizing the very first passive point Flurry Strikes. For Windwalker the only active pet that triggers this condition is a summoned Xuen from Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger by talenting into Conduit of the Celestials. If you have your on-use stat trinket on slot 14 you need to adjust this line. If you don't use a trinket that should be used that close between Xuen and Zenith or don't have one (example for the first would be a trinket like Algeth'ar Puzzle Box) you should delete this line to make sure you don't accidentally misuse the trinket you have. /use [mod:shift,pet][mod:shift,known:450615]item:212971 /use [mod:shift,pet][mod:shift,known:450615]item:212265 Those two lines allow you to use less binds by using a shift modifier to pop your potion at the same time as your trinket, right before your Zenith Stomp from casting Zenith. The used IDs are the Fleeting Tempered Potion and the normal Tempered Potion, both at rank 3. By using this order given in the macro, you will first use your existing Fleeting Potions before starting to use your personal property. If you use rank 2 or even rank 1 potions, you can add those lines by using the same format with the IDs you can find on wowhead. If you want to use different modifiers, you can also replace shift by ctrl or alt or even get rid of it fully. Just be aware that you may end up consuming all your precious potions in content you may not want to use them for if you remove the modifier condition. /cast ZenithSimply casts Zenith as the very last thing inside this macro.

Seperating Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger and Celestial Conduit​

When you want to seperate Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger and Celestial Conduit as seperate keybinds, just because you are used to it from your time in The War Within you can use the following two macros. This is for Xuen:

#showtooltip
/cast [nopet]Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger

And this is for Celestial Conduit

#showtooltip Celestial Conduit
/cast [pet]Celestial Conduit

If you want their icons to properly show you have to hard assign the icon through the pre selection of the icon yourself.

Focus Cast Macros​

Windwalker has a number of spells you may want to target using the /Focus targetting option. You can replace the sample textin the macro below with spells such as Spear Hand Strike, Paralysis, or Detox depending on your preference:

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,exists] Sample Text
Mouseover Macros​

In some cases being able to cast spells/heals on targets without having to switch targets is extremely useful. You can use the following macro to make the desired spell cast on the target you are currently mousing over instead of your active target. Replace the sample text with the desired spell name:

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover] Sample Text
Ring of Peace Placement​

The following two macros will place Ring of Peace without having to use a targeting circle to do so The first will place if at your feet when pressed immediately:

#showtooltip
/cast [@player] Ring of Peace

And this will place it where your cursor is currently targeting:

#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Ring of Peace

Changelog​

  • Aug 10, 2026 - Updated for Patch 12.1
  • March 5, 2026 - Adjusted Talentbuilds, Priorities and Openers.
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