Windwalker Monk DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.0.5)

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.

In the Single-Target and AoE sections, you will find a highly detailed priority list breakdown of the Rotation, as well as optimal openers.

1. Tiger Palm
2. Rising Sun Kick
3. Tiger Palm
4. Invoke Xuen
5. Storm, Earth, and Fire
6. Rising Sun Kick
7. Strike of the Windlord
8. Tiger Palm
9. Fists of Fury
10. Rising Sun Kick
11. Whirling Dragon Punch
12. Proceed with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.

1. Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
2. Strike of the Windlord
3. Whirling Dragon Punch
4. Rising Sun Kick
5. Fists of Fury
6. Blackout Kick try not to overcap Teachings of the Monastery stacks
7. Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji buff
8. Chi Burst
9. Crackling Jade Lightning try not to overcap Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks
10. Blackout Kick

When talented into Dance of Chi-Ji, Chi-spenders have a chance to cause the next Spinning Crane Kick not to cost any Chi and deal extra damage.

It is important to use Spinning Crane Kick before you use any other Chi-spender to ensure that the proc is not overwritten; that said, any abilities with a cooldown should be used before Spinning Crane Kick, so there will be times that you need to risk overwriting a Spinning Crane Kick proc to not delay a cooldown.

1. Tiger Palm
2. Rising Sun Kick
3. Tiger Palm
4. Invoke Xuen
5. Storm, Earth, and Fire
6. Rising Sun Kick
7. Strike of the Windlord
8. Tiger Palm
9. Fists of Fury
10. Rising Sun Kick
11. Whirling Dragon Punch
12. Proceed with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.

Against multiple enemies, the rotation is also based on a priority system, and it depends slightly based on how many enemies you are facing.

Keep in mind that Tiger Palm and Blackout Kick (as well as Rising Sun Kick) apply a 15-second debuff on their target, called Mark of the Crane. Each instance of this debuff increases the damage of your Spinning Crane Kick (against any target) by 10%, up to 50%. Therefore, your Tiger Palms and Blackout Kicks should be distributed among your enemies in such a way as to keep the Mark of the Crane debuff up on as many targets as possible.

Moreover, you should make use of Storm, Earth, and Fire by using it once at the start of the fight and then using its next charge when Fists of Fury becomes available again. From then on, simply reuse it with Fists of Fury, making sure that you never let both of Storm, Earth, and Fire's charges remain available.

1. Tiger Palm if <5 Chi AND about to cap energy
2. Spinning Crane Kick with Dance of Chi-Ji buff
3. Rising Sun Kick then Whirling Dragon Punch
4. Strike of the Windlord
5. Crackling Jade Lightning try not to overcap Last Emperor's Capacitor stacks with Power of the Thunder King talented
6. Fists of Fury
7. Rising Sun Kick with Xuen's Battlegear buff and 4 or fewer targets
8. Jadefire Stomp
9. Spinning Crane Kick
10. Chi Burst
11. Blackout Kick