Since there is so much going on with the change over to Shadowlands, I thought I’d write up a quick reference for people to see what is changing. This has come with a bunch of new changes, including a brand new Windwalker PvE Guide, so check all that out too as it will have the same information as in here. Both will be updated as things change.

Unchanged

• Talent Choices
• Priority
• Stat Priority
• WeakAuras
• Macros
• Racials
• Professions

Changes

Consumables

• Flask – Spectral Flask of Power
• Potion – For pure single target, use Potion of Phantom Fire, and make sure you pair it with Shadowcore Oil. For all other situations, use Potion of Spectral Agility. As always, you can also use Raidbot’s Top Gear Tool for the most specific and accurate results for your character.
• Rune – Veiled Augment Rune
• Food – Feast of Gluttonous Hedonism
• Weapon Enhancement – For pure single target, use 1 Shadowcore Oil, and make sure you pair it with Potion of Phantom Fire. For all other situations, use 1 Shaded Weightstone/Shaded Sharpening Stone. If you are dual wielding, the second slot will always be 1 Shaded Weightstone/Shaded Sharpening Stone. As always, you can also use Raidbot’s Top Gear Tool for the most specific and accurate results for your character.
• Armor Kit – Heavy Desolate Armor Kit, though this is mostly utility/optional. Technically, it can provide a very small DPS increase, as Touch of Death and Touch of Karma use your max HP as a reference for damage values.

Enchants

Major DPS Enhancing Enchants:

• Weapons – Use Raidbot’s Top Gear Tool for the most specific and accurate results for your character, but here are some general recommendations: for single target, use 1 Enchant Weapon – Sinful Revelation. For AoE, use 1 Enchant Weapon – Lightless Force. If you are dual wielding, use 1 Enchant Weapon – Celestial Guidance on the other weapon in all situations. It doesn’t matter which hand each one is on.
• Chest – Enchant Chest – Eternal Skirmish
• Boots – Enchant Boots – Eternal Agility
• Rings – Use Raidbot’s Top Gear Tool for the most specific and accurate results for your character. In general, it will usually follow the stat priority above.

Minor Utility Enchants:

• Cloak – Enchant Cloak – Soul Vitality. Technically, this is a DPS enhancing enchant due to Touch of Death and Touch of Karma using your max HP as a reference for damage values.

New Things

Covenants

If your focus is….

• Raiding: Kyrian
• Mythic Plus: Necrolord
• Both: Night Fae

Kyrian is the best Covenant for single target and Necrolord in sustained AOE situations, making them the best for their respective contents. However, Night Fae is 2nd in single target and 2nd in AOE, which makes Night Fae the best covenant for people who want to do both at an equal level. You won’t be 100% optimal for either, but you’ll be close enough for both.

Link to sims courtesy of Scurch

Currently Night Fae is simming about 2.24% behind Kyrian in pure single target and 4% behind Necrolord in DungeonSlice. Necrolord is only simming 4.75% behind Kyrian for Single Target and Kyrian is only simming 5.8% behind Necrolord for Dungeon Slice. This means that you can reasonably choose any of the three and not see it dramatically hinder your DPS, although the recommendation will stay Kyrian for Raiding, Necrolord for Mythic Plus, and Night Fae if you’re looking to split both.

There is almost certainly going to be more tuning going on, despite how horrible of a thing that will be; so don’t feel that you HAVE to choose a Covenant based on sims. They’re a huge part to the expansion and a decision that’s a real PITA to undo, so don’t just blindly follow sims and what gives the highest theoretical DPS.

Legendaries

Generally you’ll craft them in this order:

1. Invoker’s Delight
2. Jade Ignition (Multi-Target)
3. Last Emperor’s Capacitor (Single Target)
4. Keefer’s Skyreach
5. Xuen’s Battlegear

Invoker’s Delight is miles ahead in single target and only slightly behind Jade Ignition in AOE. This does mean that you may want to wait until you complete the first raid to craft your first legendary, but if you focus on Mythic Plus then you can safely start with Jade Ignition.

**NOTE*** If you know that someone else will be using it, Judgment of the Arbiter should fall behind Invoker’s Delight in single target and Jade Ignition and Invoker’s Delight in Multi-target.

My Thanks

So, I know many won’t read this part since you’re only here for the information. However, now more than ever I feel the need to publicly thank several people that have gone above and beyond to help this website and the Windwalker guides be what they are and will continue to become. This expansion cycle has 1000% been the most stressful for me and my life, and that’s not even considering the added stress of COVID-19 (wear a mask). There is absolutely no way that this guide would be completed if I was doing all the work, and in fact this is the least amount of direct theorycrafting I’ve done for Windwalkers in years. I’ve taken over writing the guide for IcyVeins in addition to already doing WowHead and Peak, so there’s no way I could have also done all the theorycrafting.

• Mik – I feel the need to start with Mik because they were relatively new to doing community things and spent months posting bug reports on the forums, checking dozens of bugs, and doing things that no one else wanted to do. Very little came out of this devotion, but it was not lost on many of us. Any bug that gets fixed for Windwalkers may have come from a direct result of Mik’s hard work, and so we all owe our thanks.
• Scurch – Another relative-newbie to the scene, but an invaluable help when it came to running and aggregating sims. The amount of work that he did to get sims ready and to run the combinations of legendaries and Covenants, field questions, help new comers to the Discord, and all other manner of assistance has been invaluable to the success that the site continues to have in recent months.
• Mickey – Although not a new name, Mickey continues to be a strong 2nd in handling the Windwalker side of the Monk community. From monitoring Discord to monitoring my grammar, Mickey’s work and drive to help this website and this community is one that deserves special recognition.
• Hinalover – A name that has been thanked for expansions past and hopefully expansions still to come. Hina’s personally responsible for a large portion of why Monks are able to use Raidbots and SimulationCraft. He’s the rock that we build our theorycrafting upon and a person that we literally could not do what we do without.
• Talby – While PvP has always been his focus on Peak, Talby’s guidance as a Forum MVP gives Windwalkers at least some colored text on the Forums as well as someone to help guide the community on that side of things. A long standing and experienced member of the community, he helps to bring perspective and experience to what we do.

I know there are more than my guide-addled brain is forgetting, and if you are those people then I’m sorry. Never before have I asked so much of people to help make this website Countless times the people above, and others, would fill me in on the hard work they had done and the conclusions they came to. I knew that I didn’t have to sit and spend all my time reading Discord because there were people that I trusted to keep me up to date and to correct my mistakes. I look forward to another expansion working with this fabulous community and the people that make it so great. I look forward to hopefully seeing everyone at Blizzcon again whenever we’re able.

As always, if you’d like to support the website, Discord, and the people who make it what it is, consider becoming a Patron through Patreon, donating directly through PayPal, or buying some sweet PeakofSerenity Merchandise. While the site is never designed to generate revenue, all the work that goes into it does cost time, and like Goblins say; “Time is Money friend”.