I leveled my pandaren monk from 71-80 today. It took a fair amount of time but at the same time the entire episode felt quick. It might take me anywhere between a week or two to get him to 90. However, I wanted to share my thoughts on this class thus far.
Right now, there’s a not a whole lot abilities left for me to obtain. I think I have the majority of the ones I’ll be employing until 90. But getting here was pretty fast overall. The main thing with the monk, especially a pandaren monk, is that you gain a lot of bonus experience compared to other classes. You gain double rested experience as well as having a daily which provides 50% increased experience. If you combine these elements, you can find yourself with 95% increased experience. Also, if you obtain the bonus potion which provides another experience boost, you’ll find yourself zooming through the content.
Playstyle-wise, the monk has been described as a very “spammy” class. That means, you’re constantly using abilities. And it’s not just a few abilities but quite a few. Mike Preach compared the Pandaren monk to an enhancement shaman. While the enhancement shaman does have a plethora of abilities, it feels that the monk in practice makes you constantly use a few more and more frequently.
So far I find that mobs go down quite quickly. Sometimes surprisingly fast. There has been relatively few challenges thus far. Most of the challenges are executing a clean rotation. I’m sure that when he reaches 90, the game will change quite a bit and I’m looking forward to that moment.
The thing that makes a monk great is the wide variety of skills. You can perform all the main roles (except ranged attacks). Your utility is that you can do a little bit of everything, besides your spec. For instance, you have interrupts, disarm, one shot hits, stuns, crowd control, damage reduction, healing, movement boosts, buffs, good AoE and cleanses. What’s great is that you can use these abilities just as a DPS so your offering a pretty wide range of skills.
I haven’t decided how my monk will play in terms of the rest of my toons. He might be a sleeper class like my shadow priest. But I am looking forward to gearing him up. I keep a lot of the BoA items from the Timeless Isle in his bag so that he’s ready once he hits level 90. One thing that I am setting up though is for him to be a secondary alchemist in my team. I figure that the living steel will be worth the effort in the long run. Either way, can’t wait until he hits 90.