Blizzard finally got around to adding the Monk legendaries to the PTR, so we have an idea of what they are and can start thinking about how strong they may be.

What are they?

• NEW Bountiful Brew (Necrolord)  Your abilities have a low chance to cast Bonedust Brew at your targets location.
  Inventory Type: Shoulder, Chest
• NEW Call to Arms (Kyrian)
  Weapons of Order calls forth Xuen, the White Tiger to assist you for 12 sec.
  Inventory Type: Legs, Feet
• NEW Faeline Harmony (Night Fae)   Your abilities chance to reset Faeline Stomp is doubled. Enemies and allies hit by Faeline Stomp are affected by Fae Exposure, increasing your damage and healing against them by 8% for 10 sec.
  Inventory Type: Waist, Hands
• NEW Sinister Teachings (Venthyr)   Fallen Order summons 1 additional [Ox][Crane][Tiger] adept for 24 sec. While you have an active adept your abilities that critically hit reduce the cooldown of Fallen Order by 3 sec.
  Inventory Type: Wrist, Finger

How Strong?

So this is the real reason that everyone is here, and since its super early (these were posted less than an hour before I started writing this), I’m going to do my traditionally completely made up way of figuring these things out.

Kyrian

• Call to Arms (Kyrian)
  Weapons of Order calls forth Xuen, the White Tiger to assist you for 12 sec.
  Inventory Type: Legs, Feet

My Math

This is a nice easy one to figure out since it basically increases Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger‘s damage by 50%. So looking at a quick sim for my character with Invoker’s Delight taken out, we can see how much of the damage comes from Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger: about 527 DPS. If this legendary increases that by 50% then that’s a gain of 263.5 DPS. In reality its likely slightly larger than this since you’d have it up for the first 15 seconds of Weapons of Order, which is the heaviest part of the damage and would augment the Empowered Tiger Lightning damage.

Managing to find a log of someone being Kyrian and NOT using ID on Hungering Destroyer, it looks like their first Weapons of Order did 130k damage during the first 12 seconds. The 12 seconds after that, which admittedly does include running out from a stop, they did 103.8k damage. So even if we assume that intense discrepancy of doing 55.6% of your damage in the first 12 seconds, which is probably about right. This doesn’t dramatically change the results above.

If you compare it to a quick sim for my character using ID, you can see that the log with Invoker’s Delight wins by 477 DPS, meaning this new one is not even close to be considerable for Kyrian Windwalkers.

For AOE situations, its best to look at a fight like Stone Legion Generals, where it was still hard to find a parse without ID. Katinkil’s Xuen’ Empowered Tiger Lightning did 511.7 DPS, increasing that by 55.6% using the numbers from above, thats an increase of 284.5 DPS, which is very minimal especially on an AOE fight.

A current problem with this legendary is that when one of the Xuen’s despawn, the other one stops casting Empowered Tiger Lightning. This is certainly a bug that will get fixed, but it does really hurt the damage of this legendary right now. The two Xuen’s casting Empowered Tiger Lightning do not play well with each other.

Sims

• Patchwerk: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/9z8GddsAbkPo8sdZcyUFQv/simc
• DungeonSlice: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/k9LUZp3a4pQhLkjM3nK7XH/simc

The above is pretty well shown in the sims for Kyrian. There are some other things that still need to be worked out, but Kyrian, with Pelagos, and Invoker’s Delight being at 6,865 DPS and with Call to Arms being at 6,627 DPS in single target is pretty consistent with the math and what our expectations are of it. The gap is much smaller with Mikanikos in DungeonSlice, being nearly even. However, using Invoker’s Delight still resulted in more priority target damage in the sims, so sticking with Pelagos and Invoker’s Delight will still be the play based on the current information.

My Opinion

Double Xuen is one of my favorite things about Windwalker and something I miss dearly from Battle for Azeroth where you could have it happen with Fury of Xuen, I even had a WA set up to let me know when it happened. However, Kyrian didn’t need any help to be strong, so I am happy that this legendary is behind Invoker’s Delight.

The current bug of the Empowered Tiger Lightning not playing well with each other means that you’ll not want to have two Xuen out at one time, which dramatically devalues things since you can’t stack them.

Night Fae

• Faeline Harmony (Night Fae)   Your abilities chance to reset Faeline Stomp is doubled. Enemies and allies hit by Faeline Stomp are affected by Fae Exposure, increasing your damage and healing against them by 8% for 10 sec.
  Inventory Type: Waist, Hands

My Math

This one is a little bit harder to figure out, but not much more so, especially since I have the predilection to use averages. Looking at the top log for Hungering Destroyer that is a Night Fae (and in a language I can understand); Stinmix cast Faeline Stomp 15 times over the course of a 5:34 fight. This means that, if the casts were evenly spread out, he would have had the Fae Exposure buff for 150 seconds, or 44.9% uptime. This would have increased his damage by an average of 3.6% or just shy of 200 DPS.

Checking out the increased chance to reset is also pretty easy. Completely ignoring  mechanics, Stinmix should have been able to cast Faeline Stomp 11 times over the fight, which means he got 4 reset casts. If the chance is doubled, then, theoretically (not practically, back off), he could have had 4 more casts of Faeline Stomp, for a total of 19, which would bring his uptime on the debuff to 190 seconds or 56.9% uptime for an average increase of 4.6% damage in single target. DAYUM!

You can also, automatically get a reset of Faeline Stomp by using Chi Burst nearly every time. Since, in that length of time, you could theoretically use Chi Burst every 30 seconds, thats another 10-12 casts that could give you 10-12 more Faeline Stomp with more uptime. Obviously you’re getting into the realm of overlapping debuffs which will cut down on the uptime, but if you somehow, magically and beyond all reason, had perfectly spread out resets, with Chi Burst, and had about 30 Faeline Stomp casts over the course of that 5:34 duration fight, you’d have 89.8% uptime on 8% increased damage, or 7.2% increased damage.

Looking at my #2 Night Fae parse for Huntsman Altimor, I cast Faeline Stomp 12 times, which means I got 6 more casts through resets than I would have otherwise. Looking through the logs, about 3 of the resets could be attributed to casting Chi Burst because I guess I wasn’t doing a great job of maximizing it on that pull. So even if the 3 non-Chi Burst resets became 6 for a total of 15 Faeline Stomp casts, I could have had as high as 79% uptime on the debuff, for another 6.3% damage, maybe even more if I had maximized the resets better and gotten well spread out debuff casts. Its probably not a realistic thing to assume, but it would be theoretically possible. This would have been another 520 DPS on that fight, factoring in the increased casts of Faeline Stomp. This would have just barely fell within the top 100 for all Windwalker parses on the Huntsman, but that moves it up 180 or so rankings. Probably a little less since I was using Invoker’s Delight in that log and its hard to factor out the increased damage from that.

Looking at JFunk’s #1 Night Fae parse on SLG, he cast Faeline Stomp 24 times, with 18 of them being expected. So another 6 from the doubled resets would give him 30 total, for an uptime of 54% on the fight and an average increase of 4.3% more damage. This would have moved his absolutely insane #3 parse for all Covenants up to #1 by about 400 DPS.

This is assuming that everything is affected by the increased damage from Fae Exposure, which is currently not the case. As could be easily predicted, it does not increase the damage of Storm, Earth, and Fire or Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger. These can probably be considered bugs that will be fixed based on the history of such interactions.

Sims

• Patchwerk: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/9T3ZmhyENFZTK6k3t8JNN7/simc
• DungeonSlice: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/iQ2SELjZtCKfCXusqHa5KB/simc

As expected, this is a pretty sizable increase over the current Night Fae damage since ID remained the top for Night Fae, but didn’t synergize particularly well with the covenant ability. Now having a legendary that works so well with the covenant ability pushes Night Fae much higher. In the sims, it had a 72.59% uptime of the Fae Exposure buff/debuff in single target and 64.5% in DungeonSlice, which is pretty high, especially considering that we haven’t tested different APL changes to see if playing to maximize the debuff’s uptime is best, such as delaying casting Faeline Stomp even if you can until the debuff falls off.

The sims are, however, including the “bug” where Fae Exposure does not increase the damage of Storm, Earth, and Fire nor Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger. If this were to be fixed, and sims reflected to that, then it should equate to another 90 DPS in single target, bringing the total to 6,933 DPS for single target. In DungeonSlice, that fix would add roughly 126 DPS, bringing the total to 9,295 DPS.

My Opinion

I haven’t been shy about my dislike for Kyrian and my enjoyment of Night Fae, so this legendary and its strength makes me quite happy. Either way, this legendary should move Night Fae into a very competitive place against Kyrian where Kyrian may shine in single target or burst oriented fights but Night Fae shines in multi-target or sustained damage fights. If that’s the case, I’m happily going back to Night Fae.

However, given how long Kyrian, Pelagos, and Invoker’s Delight were permitted to be several % higher than anything else, I don’t think that Night Fae and Faeline Harmony being best by a few % is problematic if kept the same.

Necrolord

• Bountiful Brew (Necrolord)  Your abilities have a low chance to cast Bonedust Brew at your targets location.
  Inventory Type: Shoulder, Chest

My Math

Apparently the proc chance of this is 1.25 procs per minute, non-hasted. This more than doubles the frequency in which you would have Bonedust Brew on targets. The top Hungering Destroyer log who’s a Necrolord and didn’t use ID, got 278.6 DPS from Bonedust Brew. With the new legendary he could theoretically gain 348.25 DPS from it. Not bad, but not as much as the others.

Looking at a more AOE focused fight, Stone Legion Generals, the top Necrolord log that doesn’t use ID shows that they got 432.9 DPS and 27 Chi back from Bonedust Brew. With the legendary that would be increased to 974 DPS and 61 Chi back. That extra 34 Chi would mean 17 more Spinning Crane Kick throughout the fight, which would be another 438 DPS, bringing the total gain to 979 DPS assuming the debuffs never overwrite each other. This seems impressive in an AOE situation, but its unlikely to find a fight thats going to get more out of Bonedust Brew than Stone Legion Generals, and almost impossible that the reality would be equal to this theoretical.

Its also impossible to just arbitrarily take out the benefit of Invoker’s Delight from the other parses, so its hard to know how this compares to being a Necrolord with Invoker’s Delight.

Sims

• Patchwerk: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/tKpfe3dikfmeCjeEK4LnPV/simc
• DungeonSlice: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/5DGUHfywRPqLhagGiex19Z/simc

Sims are showing that, in single target, using Invoker’s Delight is still going to be better than the new Bountiful Brew. This is likely due to Invoker’s Delight lining up with every other use of Bonedust Brew, making those casts a lot more powerful with more things fit into the window and the value of Bonedust Brew and thus Bountiful Brew being primarily in AOE.

In AOE they are much closer, but Invoker’s Delight still pulling ahead, again likely due to Invoker’s Delight lining up with every other Bonedust Brew.

My Opinion

I think this is a great legendary for Necrolord and I’m kinda bummed its not best, not that I’d ever play Necrolord. I do normally lament adding RNG to Windwalker, but I think this is frequent enough, and doesn’t really change how you play during it, that its just an extra bonus when its up.

Venthyr

• Sinister Teachings (Venthyr)   Fallen Order summons 1 additional [Ox][Crane][Tiger] adept for 24 sec. While you have an active adept your abilities that critically hit reduce the cooldown of Fallen Order by 3 sec.
  Inventory Type: Wrist, Finger

My Math

I’m not going to spend a ton of time on this, Venthyr‘s just not very strong, nor is this legendary going to fix it. Looking at the top Hungering Destroyer Log that is Venthyr and not using ID (since the haste from ID would buff the Fallen Order Monks), they get 85.6 DPS from Fallen Order, which is just embarrassing. Because it summons 1 Fallen Order Monk for the first 3 seconds then you have 2 active for the remaining 21 seconds, your average number of Fallen Order Monks over those 24 seconds is 1.875. This legendary would increase that to 2.875 Fallen Order Monks. This is so bad its not even worth putting in the effort to figure out what the gain is.

Sims

• Patchwerk: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/eBDdMLi8eqWm1TCEHQmgCG/simc
• DungeonSlice: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/uhC5nXdwnepnVQWRBy27Nj/simc

The damage here is so laughably bad that its no shock that Invoker’s Delight is still best. The legendary just about doubles the value of Fallen Order, but its value is so low to start, that doubling it just doesn’t have much of an effect.

My Opinion

If you’re already playing Venthyr, its unlikely to be for its sweet sweet DPS, so you keep doing you. Its a game, play it to have fun. Crit scaling is something I’ve long been asking to have for Windwalker, but putting it here is so far from being useful that its very disappointing.

Overall

Sims

• Patchwerk: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/iJCbCcdEi3UdzBhbcSLhWe/simc
• DungeonSlice: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/cnc2mjWneUYTctA7L9sJwa/simc

As you can see, Night Fae with Faeline Harmony is in the top spot for DungeonSlice and 0.9% behind Kyrian in Patchwerk. Again, that is with Fae Exposure not increasing the damage of Storm, Earth, and Fire and Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger which would add about 90 DPS to the single target sim, putting it slightly ahead of Kyrian in single target.

I think it just comes down to whether Blizzard’s design goal is to make the Covenants more competitive or to just have it not be Kyrian for a bit.

Discussion

If Blizzard’s goal was to make Windwalker have more choices when it comes to Covenants then I believe they nailed it with current tuning. Night Fae sees a strong boost in damage, enough to rival King Kyrian in PvE. Night Fae‘s damage comes more spread out and sustained, with an emphasis on AOE. Kyrian‘s damage comes in big bursts with an emphasis on single target. This means that these two Covenants may have their own domains of dominance. From a design standpoint, this is great. From a practical standpoint, its garbage. Since you can’t switch very easily between Covenants, you may have to actually choose between being better in AOE and sustain or single target and burst.

The next raid tier looks to have a decent amount of AOE damage, but burst generally is king in raids. My assumption now is that general recommendations will be to play Night Fae, but some people may light up the charts on specific encounters as Kyrian if the encounter is more suited to that burst potential, such as larger quantity but less frequent add spawns. It may very well come down to what kind of damage you want to be best at or simply which one you like the most, or really a flip of a coin.

I know I’ll personally be going Night Fae as its always been my preferred Covenant, and the possibility of doing competitive damage with it is fantastic.

Necrolord got the shaft when it came to these legendaries as they were reasonably close enough that a strong legendary could have pushed it higher into consideration.

Venthyr should feel insulted. Crit scaling is a fantastic idea, but to strap it to something so meaningless is just a big bummer. Toss that Crit scaling into the reset chance for Faeline Stomp please and make me very happy. I’d love to go Venthyr as I think they’re the best from a Lore standpoint, and the prospect of hitting one button every 3 minutes is very appealing to me, as the slower the better, but there’s no way to even consider it without significant changes.

I highly recommend you read JFunk’s PTR post on the legendaries as he sum them up very well. There is still going to be a decent amount of work going on over the next few weeks until 9.1 goes live to improve all these things, so some may change, or the gaps between them may change. Not everything is currently working perfectly in sims, nor in game, and further tuning may happen if Blizzard wishes.

As always, we’ll keep you updated with articles and posts in discord when necessary.

TLDR

• Night Fae has a strong chance at being the top overall Covenant in 9.1
  • Kyrian may still be best in pure single target and burst encounters.
  • Night Fae will almost certainly be best in sustained and AOE encounters.
• Night Fae will use the new Covenant Legendary, Faeline Harmony
• Everyone else will still use Invoker’s Delight.
• Read JFunk’s PTR Post

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