Overview

As mentioned in the initial class update post, one of the biggest change to Monks is thematic. They're pivoting away from the elemental theme toward a more traditional spiritual one. Most of the original Monk kit remains intact with the exception of Way of the Water, which has been removed with its associated group heal.

Styles

The four “Way of”-stances have been remapped to three styles:

• Sun Style - Assume a sun-based fighting style, increasing your Offense. Additionally, Celestial Strike reverberates through to your target's soul, dealing Magic Damage after a few seconds.

• Moon Style - Assume a moon-based fighting style, increasing your Dodge and Block. Additionally, Celestial Fury further increases your Block and reduces your Physical Damage received for its duration.

• Wind Style - Assume a wind-based fighting style, increasing your Movement Speed. Additionally, Celestial Fury grants you a chance to strike your target a second time on melee attacks.

Feign Death and Pulling

In this patch, we fixed a long-standing bug that prevented any chance of re-aggroing mobs after standing up from a feign. Though re-aggro after a feign is now possible, the chances of it occurring have been massively reduced to allow Monks time to adapt. Considering how long this bug has been present, it'll probably take a bit of tuning to dial this chance in.

We’ve also introduced a new change to how NPCs loiter after a successful feign. NPCs that have been damaged will loiter much longer than untouched ones, giving you a little more control over the timing when they reset. Maximum loiter times have been reduced overall as well.

Furthermore, Monks are gaining a couple abilities that should assist them with pulling and splitting packs of mobs:

• Pinning Throw - Throw a weapon at your target, dealing Weapon Ratio Damage and immobilizing them. (This is an upgraded version of Throw that briefly pins the target in place, allowing you to stagger one of the pack a bit behind the rest.)

• Double-Handed Strike - Strike your target with both hands, knocking them back and decreasing their Movement Speed.

Mobility

Monks gain a couple mobility tools beyond their Wind Style buff:

• Flying Kick - Leap toward your target to deliver a devastating flying kick, dealing Physical Damage. This ability scales with your Dexterity. (This is your gap closer.)

• Fleet of Foot - Hasten your steps, increasing your Movement Speed. (This is a short-duration speed boost.)

Melee Attacks

• Round Kick - Deliver a crushing round kick to your target, dealing Physical Damage and granting you a chance to reset the cooldown of your Celestial Strike and Hundred Fist abilities. This ability scales with your Dexterity.

• Celestial Strike - Squarely strike your target, dealing Weapon Ratio Damage plus Physical Damage, granting Celestial Fury, and granting you a chance to activate Celestial Vitality. This ability can be enhanced by your active Style. (This ability is mostly unchanged, but now also procs Celestial Vitality if your opponent’s Chakra is fractured. See Quivering Palm.)

• Hundred Fists - Pummel your target in rapid succession, dealing Weapon Ratio Damage four times. Additionally, if your target is off balance, you have a chance to stun them. (This attack shares a cooldown with Celestial Strike and can be reset by the Round Kick ability. The stun component can be triggered by Quivering Palm or a Fighter’s Feint ability.)

• Quivering Palm - Strike through your target and into their soul, inflicting increasingly debilitating effects with each strike. One strike knocks them off balance. Two strikes block their Chi, reducing their Physical Damage dealt. Three strikes fracture their Chakra, increasing their Physical Damage received. (This ancient and mysterious technique layers debuffs on your opponent, several of which amplify your other abilities.)

• Disarming Strike - Strike the wrist of your target, temporarily removing their weapon and reducing their Physical Damage dealt.

• Sweeping Kick - Trip nearby targets with a sweeping kick, stunning them. (This ability now also knocks your opponents off balance.)

Body Mastery

Monk training hones both the body and spirit, giving them a number of disciplines they can choose from. However, you can only have one body alteration ability active at a time:

• Spirit Sustenance - Suppress the need for sustenance, decreasing your food and drink consumption.

• Slow Breathing - Slow your breathing, decreasing your air consumption while underwater.

• Falling Petal - Move with the grace of a falling petal, reducing the effect of gravity on your body. (This ability compounds with your Safe Fall skill.)

• Ascendant Body - Ascend your body to a state of perfection, simultaneously decreasing your food, drink, and air consumption, and reducing the effect of gravity on your body. (At the highest levels of mastery, Monks can command all of the body disciplines at once.)

Defense and Cooldowns

Monks keep their existing Mend and Stone Stance cooldowns, while gaining:

• Perfect Focus - Perfect your strikes through deep focus, causing melee attacks to temporarily land as Critical Hits.

• Cyclone Staff - Spin your staff rapidly to deflect incoming blows, greatly increasing your Block chance and dealing Weapon Ratio Damage with each successful block. (This is a channeled ability that requires a two-handed staff.)

• Iron Fists - Forge your fists into iron, temporarily nullifying the effects of Damage Shields.

• Ethereal Body - Become nigh ethereal, increasing your Agility and Dodge chance.