As always, things on this page are subject to updates as we discover new things or things change.
Class Changes
-
Mark of the Crane has been removed, no more needing to track debuffs on targets. -
Mastery: Combo Strikes has been increased by 35% making it a very desirable stat.
-
Ordered Elements has been made much easier to use, no longer needing to consider or maintain the Rising Sun Kick chi reduction.
-
Last Emperor’s Capacitor has been dramatically buffed, making it a much stronger talent.
-
Dance of the Wind has been buffed and is now a strong defensive “passive” for physical damage.
-
Heart of the Jade Serpent now triggers each time you cast Strike of the Windlord, but its duration has been decreased to 6 seconds.
-
Xuen’s Bond now reduces the cooldown of Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger by a static 30 seconds.
What To Do
Talents
The first, and biggest, change for 11.1 is that Conduit of the Celestial has become the recommendation for Raiding and Single Target. This is because Undermine has quite a few fights where burst on a 90-second window is very useful and Conduit has pulled ahead of Shado-Pan in the sims.
For Mythic+ you can play either Conduit or Shado-Pan as both are roughly equal in AOE situations. Conduit will be stronger in smaller packs and groups where you plan things around the 90-second cooldown cycle. Shado-Pan is more consistent, less reliant on a strong cooldown window, and scales better with big packs.
For more information and our currently recommended talent builds, CLICK HERE.
Stats
With the buff to Mastery, it moves into a close 1st place in front of Haste, so the overall priority looks like this:
Agility >> Mastery = Haste >> Versatility = Critical Strike
2H vs 1H
With Embellishments being weaker and the improved stat scaling, 2-handed weapons have passed Dual Wielding for the general recommendations. There is a caveat that if you only care about Single Target damage, you will want to grab either both Capo’s Molten Knuckles and Gallywix’s Iron Thumb or one of them, a crafted off-hand with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension, and another piece with Writhing Armor Banding. This is only better in pure single target and drops off quickly with more targets.
Embellishments
Embellishments are at an all-time low for strength, as they don’t scale as well as the rest of your gear, so having the “wrong” embellishment is not very problematic.
- If you’re only interested in single target damage then craft two items made with Elemental Focusing Lens.
- If you’re interested in more than just single target damage then craft two items with Duskthread Lining or Dawnthread Lining .
- They’re practically equal, so which one is largely irrelevant and whats “best” will change based on your other gear, but never so much that it matters.
- If you, for some reason, cannot get a 2H weapon at 678 item level, then you can craft one with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension and another piece with Writhing Armor Banding.
- This does require 3 Crests instead of 2, so it should be an absolute worst-case-scenario option.
- Your lowest item level slot, preferably the ones with smaller stat budges.
Tier
The tier set is largely passive, so there’s nothing you need to worry about with it. If you played in TWW Season 1, that tier bonus isn’t very strong, so its likely that you will replace it for the Season 2 set rather quickly, potentially as soon as you can get 2-Set Bonus. As with most things, it is always best to sim the options you have to know what is best for your character.
Trinkets
Consumables
- Food – You may reach the point of stat food being better than Agility food, sim your options to know for sure, but any difference is doing to be nearly negligible.
- Weapon Enchants –
- Single Target: Enchant Weapon – Authority of the Depths (use 2 if dual wielding)
- AOE: One of the Stat enchants is likely to be best and change depending on your character, sim for your character through Top Gear.
Sim your gear set up again to double check any changes that are needed.
Cyrce’s Circlet
Due to its throughput increase, Windwalker Monks will use the Cyrce’s Circlet ring for all of Season 2. With the buff to Mastery’s power, the Mastery increase from 
Fathomdweller’s Runed Citrine is too much to pass up. As with everything, its best to confirm this for your own character through sims.
When using the 
Cyrce’s Circlet, you will be looking to use the following gems:
- Stormbringer’s Runed Citrine: Stormbringer’s Runed Citrine
- Fathomdweller’s Runed Citrine: Fathomdweller’s Runed Citrine
- Legendary Runed Citrine: Legendary Skipper’s Citrine
