Mists of Pandaria Leveling Intro

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The Hunter in Mists of Pandaria

Pandaren Hunter with Wolf Pet

This page covers the various Hunter abilities and Glyphs as they will be in Mists of Pandaria, it does not cover builds. Yet. As this is written it’s still two months to the M of P launch and things might change. For now, check stuff out and think about what you will want for your Hunter, since the Cataclysm system will be scrapped.

Feel free to add comments, if you’re so inclined.

Any spec of Hunter can choose any one talent from each row. You will have six talents at level 90. You do not have to spend points in any given talent (or any ability,) you just pick ‘em and use ‘em. Obviously this means that any flavor of Hunter can have Silencing Shot.

The Hunter Talents in Mists of Pandaria

Again, you can pick one from any one row, regardless of your spec.

Posthaste - Your Disengage breaks free from movement impairing effects and increases your movement rate.Narrow Escape - When you Disengage you leave webs, snagging all targets for a few seconds.Binding Shot - Enemies are tethered to your arrow and stunned if they move away.Dire Beast - Summons a mighty beast to attack your target.Lynx Rush - Your pet charges from target to target, attacking each.Glaive Toss - Throw glaives to slow target and increase their damage taken.Powershot - A mighty shot that knocks back opponents.Barrage - A spray of shots that damages the target and enemies between you and the target.These talents are gone, though some of the functionality may have been rolled into other abilities or glyphs or talents.Sic em!, Bestial Discipline, Efficiency, Hunter vs. Wild, Improved Kill Command, One with Nature, Pathing, Rapid Killing, Improved Mend Pet, Improved Steady Shot, Suvival Tactics, Point of No Escape, Counterattack, Ferocious Inspiration, Hunting Party, Killing Streak, Longevity, Noxious Stings, Resistance is Futile, Resourcefulness, Sniper Training, T.N.T., Termination, Toxicology.Beast Mastery – BM Ability exotic beastsBlack Arrow – Survival abiltyBombardment – MM abilityCareful Aim – MM abilityCareful Aim – MM abilityChimera Shot – MM abilityCobra Strikes – BM abilityConcussive Barrage – MM abilityCrouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera – tier 1 talentEntrapment – Survival abilityFervor – tier 4 talentFocus Fire – BM abilityFrenzy – BM abilityGo for the Throat – BMImproved Serpent Sting – Survival abilityInvigoration – BM abilityKindred Spirits – BM abilityLock and Load – Survival abilityMarked for Death – now a glyphMaster Marksman – MM abilityMirrored Blades – now a glyphPathfinding – now a GlyphPiercing Shots – MM abilityPosthaste – tier 1 talentRapid Recuperation – MM abilityReadiness – now a general abilitySerpent Spread – Survival abilitySilencing Shot – tier 2 talentSpirit Bond – tier 3 talentThe Beast Within – BM abilityThrill of the Hunt – tier 4 talentTrap Mastery – Survival abilityTrueshot Aura – general abilityWyvern Sting – tier 2 talent

Previously all specs of any class shared a pool of common abilities and the talents made the difference. In Mists of Pandaria there is a smaller pool of abilities, the talents (which can be accessed by any spec,) and then a set of abilities unique to each spec.

All of the abilties are acquired from your trainer as you level. As with talents you will not have to spend any points in any of these abilities.

These are the abilities that all Hunters will eventually receive on their path to level 90. Naturally you’ll pick these up from your trainer as you level. If you want to level as fast as possible, then go here.

Fetch – new , pet loots for you.aimed shot is now a Marks abilityCobra Shot is a Survival ability

Most, not all, of these abilities have been tweaked from their Cataclysm versions. A couple are new, some were talents. Hover over the links for descriptions. Remember that you can still use the Dual Build ability (learned from your trainer.) As with the regular abilities you will learn these from your trainer as you level.

These are all the Hunter Glyphs in Mists of Pandaria. You will notice, right off, that Prime Glyphs are gone. You’re left with Major and Minor, three of each. They’re gained, 1 of each, at levels 25, 50, and 75.

If you hover over each link you will also notice that all glyphs are level 25, which means you can buy them all at that time and swap them as necessary. (And they’re likely to be pricey at launch, go here if you need more gold to buy them.) As before, you will need some stuff from your Inscription Supplies dealer to do that:

Under level 80: Vanishing PowderLevel 81 to 85: Dust of DisappearanceLevel 86+: Tome of the Clear Mind

The third weapon slot is gone, but you can still equip ranged and melee weapons, just not at the same time. You can have your two swords or you bow/gun, but not both. Make a macro to swap weapons or use the equipment manager if you really want to use melee weapons. Or go fishing.

Note in the “dead abilities” section that some of your melee  strikes are gone.

Hunters can fire ranged weapons in melee range, Pandaren hunters have a point blank stun which will be rather nice for getting out of tight spots.

Pet talents are gone, rather they will have abilities appropriate to type and spec.

It’s possible for your ranged attacks to be dodged, so the Expertise stat might become valuable, up to the dodge cap. It’s exact value will probably depend on the exact situation, gear level, PvE Vs. PvP, etc., just as it does in Cataclysm.

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The Druid in Mists of Pandaria

Take all your Cataclysm builds and chuck ‘em.  They’are all dead and useless. Mists of Pandaria is revising everything. All classes will share a pool of abilities, as they always have, but each spec in each class will have a set of unique abilities that define that spec. These abilities will be learned from your trainer, as you level, just like any others.

By the way. Druids will have four specs in Mists of Pandaria. In reality, they always have, now it’s just official.

Note – this page is a work in progress. If you find something wrong, leave a comment.

Updated

7/26: Added a video on the Druid ability Symbiosis. This one ability make make Druids the essential class in raids and maybe PvP.12/13: Corrected the abilities table.

The talent system from Cataclysm is gone, as mentioned above. Many of the old talents (and some glyphs) have been rolled into abilities learned from your trainer. Many others have been ganked outright.

Talents are now available to any spec. You have six tiers of talents, learned at levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90. Each tier has three talents and any spec can pick any one talent from each tier.

Weapon usage is unchanged.

Relics are gone.

Glyphs (for all classes) are changed. Prime glyphs are dead. Many individual glyphs have either been slain or have been changed in some way. primes and Majors have, more or less, been merged. Minors are similar to what they were before. You will have six glyphs at level 90, three major, three minor.

Battle Pet Training is a new ability, for all classes, that you get from your trainer. There are a few new abilities, in the table below, and check out what Symbiosis will do.

This is the new talent page, many of the old talents have been rolled into abilities that you will get from your trainer.

Hover over the links for more info. Any Druid spec can pick any one talent from any row. You will have six total talents at level 90. Notes that there are no points to be spent in any talent, you will get the whole thing when you make your pick.

Displacer Beast – Activates Cat form and Prowl and teleports you up to 20 meters forward.Nature’s Swiftness – When activated various spells become instant, free, and castable in all forms. The healing and duration of the spell is increased by 50%.Renewal – Instantly heals the Druid. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Cenarion Ward – Protects a friendly target, causing any damage taken to heal the target every 2 sec for 6 sec. Gaining the healing effect consumes the Cenarion Ward. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Faerie Swarm – Causes 3 applications of the Weakened Armor debuff and reduces the target’s movement speed by 50% for 15 sec. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible.Mass Entanglement – Roots your target in place and spreads to additional nearby enemies. Affects 5 total targets. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Typhoon – Summons a Typhoon that strikes targets in front of the caster, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Soul of the Forest – Aessina’s blessing grants a benefit which varies by your combat specialization.Incarnation – Grants a superior shapeshifting form appropriate to your specialization. You may freely shapeshift in and out of this form for the duration of Incarnation.Disorienting Roar – Invokes the spirit of Ursol to roar, disorienting all nearby enemies. Any damage caused will remove the effect. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Ursol’s Vortex – Conjures a vortex of wind at the destination location that reduces the movement speed of all nearby enemies. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Mighty Bash - Invokes the spirit of Ursoc to stun the target. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Heart of the Wild – Increases Stamina, Agility, and Intellect by 6% at all times. When activated, dramatically improves the Druid’s ability to perform roles outside of their normal specialization.Dream of Cenarius – Wrath, Starfire, Starsurge, and melee abilities increase healing done by your next healing spell by 30%. Tranquility is not affected.Nature’s Vigil – Increases all damage and healing for a short time. While active, all single-target healing spells also damage a nearby enemy target for some of the healing done, and all single-target damage spells and abilities also heal a nearby friendly target for some of the damage done.

This is the list of general abilities for Druids, all specs get all of these. See below for abilities unique to each spec.

There have been a few changes and a couple of new abilities. Some of the abilities have had their level requirements changed and I’m not certain how correct these are. (WoWhead’s databases disagree.) I’ll update when possible.

As mentioned above, you now have the four specs. Dual builds are still available, so you can still pick two. The old Feral tree and been split into Feral (Cat) and Guardian (Bear.) Each spec will now have a set of abilities, not talents, unique to that spec.

Points are not spent in any ability, you will get the whole thing when you get it, and they are all learned from your trainer.

The specs are: 

Balance – Super Chicken bolt lobberFeral – Kitty formGuardian – Bear formRestoration – Everyone’s favorite healing tree to hug.

These are in addition to the abilities listed above. Notice that some of these used to be talents. All of these are picked up from your trainer at the appropriate level.

Some are dead, some are abilities, some have been rolled into other things. I probably missed a few, leave a comment if you see a problem.

Sunfire, Blessing of the Grove, Feral Swiftness, Furor, Natural Shapeshifter, Naturalist, Nature’s Grace,Nature’s Majesty, Predatory Strikes, Starlight Wrath, Feral Aggression, Fury Swipes, Genesis, Improved Rejuvenation, Moonglow, Perseverance, Primal Fury, Feral Charge cat form,
Feral Charge Bear Form, Fury of Stormrage, Revitalize, Brutal Impact, Empowered Touch, Gale Winds, Nature’s Bounty, Dreamstate, Efflorescence, Endless Carnage, Natural Reaction, Nature’s Ward, Primal Madness, Blood in the Water, Gift of the Earthmother, Pulverize, Rend and Tear,

Heart of the Wild – talentBalance of Power – talentInfected Wounds – talentMaster Shapeshifter – now a glyphEuphoria – talentKing of the Jungle – now an abilityLiving Seed – now a Resto abilityMoonkin Form, Shapeshift – Balance abilityNature’s Swiftness – talentShooting Stars – Balance abilityStampede – Now an ability (Stampeding Roar)Thick Hide – Guardian abilityTyphoon – talentLeader of the Pack – Guardian abilityMalfurion’s Gift – resto abilityNurturing Instinct – Guardian abilityOwlkin Frenzy – Balance abilitySolar Beam – Balance abilityForce of Nature – talentNature’s Cure – Resto abilitySurvival Instincts – Guardian abilityWild Growth – Resto abilityFungal Growth – now is “Wild Mushroom: Detonate”Lunar Shower – Balance abilitySwift Rejuvenation – Resto abilityBerserk – Feral cat abilityStarfall – Balance abilityTree of Life, shapreshift – now an ability

In a nutshell – The druid can both give an ability to another character (for an hour) and borrow one at the same time. Druid an player need to remain reasonably close to each other, 30 yards. The spell you receive isn’t quite as nice as the original, but is still useful. No one loses a spell, but the recipient gains it for an hour.

Keep in mind that the M of P launch is two months away as I write this, so this ability may change. Given how overpowered it might be right now, change might be very likely.

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The Priest in Mists of Pandaria

There are some changes coming with Mists of Pandaria. The Cataclysm talent system has been completely scrapped in favor of a newer, simpler one. Many of the old talents are dead and gone, as are some of the abilities. Others have changed a bit or become the new talents or abilities.

The Prime Glyphs slots are gone, but some of those glyphs  have been rolled into the Major glyphs. Minor Glyphs are now pretty much cosmetic only.

The wand slot is gone, though you can still use wands.

Release is still a month away, so some changes will still be coming. We’ll update appropriately as we find them.

Comments? Thoughts? Questions? Use the comment box at the bottom of the page.

The talent page. This is about what you will see when you check the talents on your Priest. Any Priest spec can pick any one talent from each row. You will have six total talents at level 90. All of the old talents (and some of the old abilities) have been either slain or rolled into these talents or the current abilities.

Some of these have obvious PvP use or are utility talents.

In Mists you will be able to swap talents exactly the way you do with glyphs. You will need one dose of the appropriate level item and then you can change any one talent. So if you need to change something and have no ready access to your trainer, you can do so. If you’re inclined to do a lot of swapping then keep a full stack of the appropriate materials:

Up to level 80: Vanishing powder81to 85: Dust of Disappearance86+ Tome of the Clear Mind.Void tendrils – roots a group of targets. Maybe better for PvP, but offers some control for A of E times in PvE.Psyfiend will send mobs fleeing all over the place, but might be fun in PvP.Angelic Feather – place feathers at up to three locations, people moving through the feathers get a speed buff. You can also cast it right on a target and on yourself. With a litle care this looks like it could be quite useful.Body and Soul increases the target’s movement speed, briefly, when you cast Power World Shield or Leap of Faith on them.Phantasm greatly improved your Fade ability and looks like it’d be very nice in PvP.From Darkness Comes Light – Vampiric Touch ticks give a chance for a free, instant, Mind Blast with increased damage and that doesn’t consume your DoTs.Mindbender replaces your Shadowfiend. It’s attacks restore your mana.Angelic Bulwark throws up a shield to protect you when you go below 30% health. Again, this looks like more PvP use than PvE.Twist of Fate – Finish Him! you do more damage as the target gets low in healthPower Infusion increases casting speed and reduces mana costs for 20 seconds. Nice for when that burst is needed.Divine Insight: Your SW; Pain ticks have a chance to proc free Mind Blasts.Halo: A Ring of Power extends outward from your location damaging enemies and healing friends and doing max power at 25 yards. This one just sounds cool and might a pretty nice in a raid or mass fight.Cascade: Your Holy Bolt bounces from target to target, doing damage to each, preferring longer range targets and never hitting the same one twice.Divine Star: Your star blasts outward, staight away from you, damaging enemies and healing allies along its path, and does the same on its return.

Previously all Priests shared a pool of abilities and the talents defined the individual specializations (specs.) In Mists of Pandaria each spec will share a pool of common abilities as before, then they will each have their own set of unique talents. You will pick each of these up from your trainer at the appropriate level.

All Priests will receive all of these abilities at the appropriate level. New or greatly changed talents are linked. Some of the old abilities have moved to become specialization abilities.

Some of the old talents have been moved, others have died. Some of the dead talents are dead in name only, their effects having been moved to other talents.

As mentioned above the Prime glyphs are gone. Major glyphs now enhance the functionality of your spells and the minor glyphs offer cosmetic changes. All glyphs are level 25 and you can only have three of each, total, at level 75+.

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Mists of Pandaria Preview

Thanks for stopping by Mists of Pandaria Leveling!

Mists of Pandaria Leveling will be a site dedicated to find the best ways to leveling your WoW Mists of Pandaria toons as quick and efficiently as possible. We will be experimenting in different questing guides for all different wow classes for Horde and Alliance alike. We will take an in depth look at the many different WoW leveling guides and addons offered on the web and break down what they offer as well as how effective they are and How much they cost ( if it applies ) .

For those of you who haven’t yet seen any info on what to expect with the new WoW Mists of Pandaria expansion just below is a trailer for the new expansion.

Because of the fact that this expansion has not been released. In the earlier stages, just before the expansion is released, we will break down which WoW guide companies will have leveling guides ready to go for the actual release day of Mists of Pandaria. We figured this was important since many people will want to have great leveling guides to chose from on day one. We fully understand that and want to make sure people are getting exactly what the are looking for for Mists of Pandaria Leveling. In addition I know several leveling guide companies have offers that include downloading their current “Pre-Pandaria/Cataclysm” leveling guides with the added bonus or incentive of – “If you order our current leveling guide, you will have free access to download the Mists of Pandaria leveling guide the same day/actual day Mists of Pandaria is released. Which is what many of us will actually do because we want them RIGHT AWAY/ASAP.

Check out the new trailer released on Youtube by Blizzard. This will get you excited to get your freak on in the new WoW expansion.

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New Leveling Zones for Mists of Pandaria

Leveling Your Toon 85-86

You have arrived on Pandaria and start your grandiose new adventures into the newest addition to the World of Warcraft family of MMORPG. You are fresh off the tuna boat and your head is spinning with ideas, first of which will be, “where do I go first?”. For starters you will want to head off to the Jade Forest. This should be pretty simple, since I think it’s the only option, to start out with, also, since it’s set up best for players between level 85 or 86 and. It’s the only real starting zone in the land of Pandaria and fittingly has critters that are of level range that will be perfect for 85-86. Quests of course will also be right up your alley, in the Jade Forest. You will first be in the area where, whatever your faction happens to be, Alliance or Horde, will be gaining a foothold in the land. You will want to quests around that area for a while and then make your way to the Temple of the Jade Serpent (Sounds Mysterious… doesn’t it?) which will be a new instance for MOP. The main questing hub in the Jade Forest is the Dawn’s Blossom which will have quests for both Alliance and Horde. Dawn’s Blossom will also have portals for you to get back to Azeroth in an expedient manner.
Leveling Your Toon 86-88

When get to around level 86 you are going to end your quests in the Jade Forest area and you will be choosing to carry on to either the Valley of the Four Winds or to the Krasarang Wilds. These zones are best for toons between levels 86 and 88. NPC’s and their quests will have you traversing between the two areas along your journey . I recommend starting in the valley of the four winds, as it seems to flow with the storyline better, but this is just opinion as both options are good ones.

I will be using the in-game leveling guide I written about on this site. Which will have me flying all over many areas in the most efficient way possible, which is too complicated to get into here in this post just now. However, If you don’t want to use an in-game add-on leveling guide and you have top tier raiding gear from Cataclysm 4.3.4, you could work your way straight to this zone on Sep.25th and to try to get the jump of the hordes of players cramming onto the shores of Jade Forest. Do so at your own peril… or great success!
Leveling Your Toon 87 -88

You can make a move out of the previous zones a little early if you feel like it’s the right move for you. If things are too easy for you or if you just want to keep the pedal to the metal. When you do move on to a new area, you will want to move to the Kun-Lai Summit in the northern part of the continent. This zone is huge and you will have no problem working your way from 87 to 88 here. While things are already interesting, this is where the war between the Alliance and Horde really gets come to a boiling point. Both factions will be trying to manipulate the Pandaren and offering their respective brand of help in helping  them out with a problem they are having with a fourth party who is giving the Pandaren let’s say “a hard time”. Both Horde and Alliance factions will take over control of villages of the Pandaren as the story unfolds. The gigantic Shado-Pan Monastery which has both an instance and a raid location is also located in this zone. There are many quests and story lines revolving around the Shado-Pan as well. This is a really cool Instance, but more on that later.
Leveling Your Toon 88-90

Many more choices will reveal themselves to you at around this time. You can trek your way to the Townlong Steppes or to the Dread Wastes in the western area of the continent or the lovely and aptly named, Vale of Eternal Blossoms which is in the middle of Pandaria.The actual storyline here, if you care about that, really goes from the Townlong Steppes to the Dread Wastes, but, this is WoW. Nobody says we have to do things by the book. I probably won’t be following the exact path, but something similar. since I will be using the most efficient path available as I want to burn through fast. Then go back later and “smell the flowers” so to speak. There are some cool bosses and plot twists in this area, but I don’t want to give away too much just yet.

There are some things you can do to accelerate your leveling speed on your own. If you decide to create a new Pandaren Monk character, or new “any” character for that matter. Try to get your hands on as many Heirloom items as you can as this can shave a ton of time off your leveling to cap. They level up with your character and make for less time spent having to scrounge and buy as much new gear when you could be out leveling up. It’s also important to know the following: What to carry with you, what to leave behind, when to hearthstone, where to find quest items, what they look like, where to find certain quest related creatures, what order in which to receive and complete quests. All these thing and more are important to speed. Having this and much more info and tools right on your screen when I need it is huge for me. You can click the link right below to get it for 40% off the original price or even try it for free before deciding. Enjoy MOP! I will

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Suggestions for Leveling Up Quickly in Mists of Pandaria

Suggestions for Leveling Up Quickly in Mists of Pandaria

So, now you know where should go and when to go there and some of what to expect to see when you get there. However, that is just one part of Leveling up efficiently and quickly. There are many little things you can do to speed up your Leveling in Mists of Pandaria.

1. For newer players and characters; open up and carry bags and backpacks that offer a lot of space and keep them as open and free whenever possible (Other than important things I will show you below). You will pick up lots of trinkets while leveling and you will need the space. You want to travel back and forth to towns to unload and stock up on important items as little as possible. Sell or stash at the bank anything you don’t need at the moment, while you are in a town in which you can do such.(not including current quest items)

2. Stock up on quest while you are in said town or location as well as turning in any completed quests while you are there..

3. Stock up on all food, water, bandages, potions, elixirs, flasks, and any class oriented essentials. (MAKE SURE YOU HAVE WHAT YOU NEED FOR A LONG OUTING) This sounds like it should be automatic, but people often forget to fully do this. Having enough of all these things can keep you from dying and wasting time reviving and traveling.

4. When you log out for the day, do it in an Inn. You will get rested experience the next time you log in and play, of course determined by how much time since your last log in. It is something that can speed up your leveling quite a bit and is totally free.

5. If you are in a zone or questing area that is packed with other questing players, skip the quest and go do another one. Don’t get bogged down in a bottleneck. If it looks crowded ahead of you but not behind you and you have quests behind you, just do those, then come back later.

6. If you are not already in a guild, join one as soon as you can that is at least level 6 and has the level 2 Fast Track. This will give you 10% more XP on all your experience gaining activities.

7. If you are going to be switching back and forth between solo questing and Group Leveling or Instances and you have an alternate spec for this, carry the gear you need with you, so you can switch on the fly and keep right on leveling, without having to go back to a town to access your stash.

8. Use Heirloom Items whenever you can so you don’t have to buy as much new gear while trying to level up fast. Heirloom item level up with you as you level. The get better as you do.

9. While you are out leveling and looting and you find gear better than what you have equipped, put it on quickly and keep on Leveling. This will help you unload, sell or disenchant your unwanted gear quickly when you get back to town.

These are all effective tips for speeding things up. There are many more tips that are difficult to tell you in a post like this.The best thing you can so if you really want to level on the fast track, is get a great in-game guide like the one I’ve been using for 5 years. It does many things that you just can’t do other wise. It’s not like the free quest trackers either. It’s much more focused and in depth. It shows you on the screen where to go to pick up quests and in what order to save time. It shows you where and when to set you hearth stone. It gives you an optimized for time, questing paths. It shows you pictures of what you are looking on quests, so you aren’t ever lost or confused. It tells you when to mount up and fly/move to the new location and use your hearthstone. It will even pick your leveling talent spec for you, for all classes and specializations.(If you want it too do so.) And much more. I’ve only scratched the surface. It’s always kept up to date for game changes. It’s designed by pro-WoW players to be easily used by total newbs and experienced WoW players as well. Anyway, I’ve been using it for 5 years and have no problem promoting it. It’s the best and totally legal, will never get your account banned. Click the banner below to get a free trial or check into it for yourself.

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Mists of Pandaria Cinematic Trailer

August 16, 2012 in Mists of Pandaria, WoW

The Powers That Be (Blizzard) have unleashed the Official Trailer for Mists of Pandaria. I think it’s pretty cool and, by Hellscream’s knuckles, I wish the in-game characters looked that good. Patch 5.3 maybe?

So what’s your take?

Tags: Blizzard, Pandaria, Trailer, Video

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Monk Leveling in the Mists of Pandaria

The elder masters of Pandaran Martial Arts have made the decision to train outsiders. Perhaps they felt that the discipline of Martial Arts study would help to cool overheated heads and ease the Horde/Alliance war. Perhaps they weren’t so wise, after all.

Monks fuel many of their abilities with various beverages, giving their skills a certain resemblance, if only in concept, to Drunken Kung Fu.

Monks, like Paladins, are extremely capable in every role: damage, defense, and healing.

As a Brewmaster, a Monk can tank dungeons and raids. While leveling they can round up groups of opponents and smash them down with their strikes. Brewmasters use Energy and Chi as their resources.

Mistweavers use mana and chi to heal the most grievous of wounds and keep their team battle ready at all times.

Windweavers inflict punishing melee damage and, like Brewmasters, use Energy and Chi as their resources.

This page covers what you need to level your monk quickly, but it does not cover end-game stuff, such as PvP and Raiding. For those Monk guides, see our Brewmaster tanking, Mistweaver healing, and Windwalker DPS pages.

Quick notes for MonksRace ChoiceMonk Abilities Stats for levelingTalents Gems, Enchants, GearingPvP and Dungeon levelingBuffs, Stances, ConsumablesProfessionsLeveling tipsLeveling Faster

Weapons and Gear As a Windwalker or Brewmaster you will be using the same gear as a Rogue or Feral Druid. Mistweavers will use the same gear as Resto Druids.

Agility and Stamina for Wind and BrewInt and Stam and Spirit for Mist.Use a 2-handed weapon, because good ones are generally easier to find than than a pair of decent 1 handers.You can use Cloth or Leather armor, but leather will have the right stats and there’s a bonus at level 50 if all your armor is leather.Heirloom gear is nice and will take enchants that can be applied to level 1 items. Check your guild vendor for pieces if you have a character with appropriate guild rep and a higher level guild. You’ll need a bit of gold to get them.

Stats

Agility is #1 for Wind and BrewInt for Mist.Stamina is your #1 survival stat at low levels.If you find gear with gem sockets then pop in an appropriate gem, Delicate for Agility, Brilliant for Int.Enchants if you want ‘em: for your primary stat and for Stam. Haste is also a good choice.Don’t worry much about secondary stats (Haste, etc.) until you hit 90.

Specializations (Spec)

Windwalker is the best choice for damage and general ease of leveling. This is our choice for general leveling. You can enter the dungeons as “damage” (DPS) or smash face in PvP.Mistweaver is great for healing groups, but not so hot for smashing opponents. You can level quite nicely in the dungeons or with a PvP (battlegrounds) group, but questing will be slow since the damage isn’t there.Brewmaster is a decent tank, so leveling in dungeons will be fast and easy enough. As a tank your wait times for the dungeons will be close to zero. PvP will be painful due to lack of damage. Questing can be fun if you can round up groups of enemies to mash. One on one is slow.

Race

Anyone, except Goblins and Worgen, can be a Monk.Trolls and Orcs have a nice damage cooldown.Humans, Gnomes, and Undead have useful escape abilities (especially in PvP.)Night Elves get Shadowmeld, which has its uses.see below for more.

Leveling

See the build, tips, and info belowSnag a copy of Zygor’s Guide to go really fast.

The #1 reason to pick any given race is to play something you like. The racial bonuses are all pretty small, though some are definitely useful. The details are below if you really want to be “efficient.” Pandaren

Can choose to join either the Horde or the Alliance upon earning the right to leave their starting area.Melee range stun has definite uses, even for Mistweavers, as it allows an escape from melee.Rested XP lasts longer for faster leveling.Increased benefits from food buffs is generally a very nice ability.Being “Bouncy” means you take less falling damage; it is just the thing if you’re into cliff jumping.Good with cooking.

Human

Increased Spirit is nice if you’re Mist, useless otherwise.Bonus to rep gain can save a bunch of time. There are a lot of factions to gain rep with and some of them in Mists of Pandaria are well worth it for items and perks.Expertise with Swords and Maces is a nice ability if those are your weapons of choice. Using them will also add to your Spell Hit if you’re Mist.Break Free ability is very nice and allows you to replace a PvP trinket with a different one.

Dwarf

Stone Form washes away some annoying effects (such as bleeds) and decreases damage.Expertise with Ranged Weapons is useless to you, though expertise with maces is nice if that’s what you’re equipping. The expertise will also add in to your Spell Hit.Good with Archeology.

Night Elf

Shadowmeld is great for those “Oops” situations as it drops enemy (not player) aggro. Get in with too many opponents and ‘meld will send then back to their patrols. Also a good way to ambush unsuspecting players.Being a bit more difficult to hit is a small, but nice benefit.Faster movement while dead is, hopefully, something you won’t have to use very often.Faster movement while stealthed is of no use to you.

Gnome

An escape from “speed altering effects” has its uses, especially in PvP. It won’t often pop up outside of PvP, but is nice when it does.Mistweavers will like the increased manapool. Brew and Wind won’t care.Expertise with 1-hand swords is nice, if that’s the weapon of choice. The expertise adds to a Mistweaver’s Spell Hit.Good with engineering.

Draenei

A self heal, while not big, is still nice to have for Wind and Brew. Mist won’t find much use for it.+1% Hit is nice for raiding.Good with jewelcrafting.

Orc

Blood Fury is a nice damage cooldown. Fire it off when you start your attacks.Resistance to stun effects in nice, especially in PvP.Expertise with Axes and Fist Weapons is useful if either of those is the weapon of choice. The expertise also adds into your Spell Hit.

Undead

Removing Fear/Sleep/Charm is very nice for PvP, occasionally useful elsewhere.You can eat dead bodies to regain health, which frees up a bag slot that you might use to carry food.You can drain health from enemies, which also heals you for a small amount. This ability is automatic and will add to your overall damage done.

Tauren

War Stomp is very useful for Brew or Wind, Mist might find it useful to get away from melee.Maximum health increased by about 5%.Good with Herbalism

Troll

Berserking is a nice speed cooldown. Your casting and attack speed is increased for a short time. Use it at the beginning of your assault.You won’t notice the increased regeneration, ever.Your damage increase versus beasts will speed up your leveling by a small amount.Expertise with ranged weapons is useless to you.Reduced duration of movement impairing effects is more useful in PvP than elsewhere.

Blood Elf

Can restore a small amount of Mana or Energy.Can silence all nearby opponents for a brief time.Good with enchanting

Generally speaking, the Windwalker will be best for most leveling. Mistweavers can heal groups, so will be in demand for dungeon and PvP teams, but do little enough damage that questing will be slow.

Brewmasters can tank the dungeons, but with the low damage will find PvP tough. Being a flag carrier might be an option, though. While questing, even though your damage isn’t hot, you can do fine by rounding up groups of enemies and smashing them down. (This can be more fun than one on one battles. )

For this reason most of the discussion below will be oriented towards Windwalkers. If you like to do dungeons or just want info on the different specs, then check out our PvE pages for each spec, with builds, rotations, gems, enchants, etc. They’re aimed at  raiding, but you can pull some useful info from them for leveling:

Chi points are like combo points or Holy power. You use your abilities to build them up and then spend them on other abilities. Jab (gives two points) to Blackout Kick (costs two points,) for example. Abilities like Fists of Fury will use more Chi. Drop by Curse and grab the NugComboBar addon if you want a nice way to track Chi.

Energy is your other resource and is consumed by abilities such as Legacy of the Emperor. None of you abilities will use both resources at once.

(P) = a passive ability

These are the abilities that all Monks will learn as they level. See below for the abilities learned by the different specs. All abilities are learned automatically as you level.

Jab – Your basic attack. Use this to generate the Chi for your bigger attacks. Costs Energy to use.Way of the Monk (Passive) – Get more auto-attack damage when dual wielding one-handers or more attack speed when using a 2-handed weapon.Tiger Palm – Uses Chi, does some damage, weakens opponent armor.Roll – Quickly roll a short distance. A bit like a mage’s “blink.” Two uses every 20 seconds. Your first tier talents modify this ability.Blackout Kick - Uses Chi, also enables a small amount of healing to your team.Tiger Strikes – Chance for increased attack speed and extra strikes.Provoke - “Yo momma is so fat…” This is a taunt and the mob will run towards you.Detox - Remove poison and disease.Zen Pilgrimage - Teleports you to the Peak of Serenity, leaving a marker behind. Cast it again to return to the graveyard nearest your marker.Touch of Death - Insta kill a non-player enemy with health <= yours. Requires 3 chi.Swift Reflexes (Passive) – A successful parry attacks the opponent for a small amount of damage.Expel Harm - Instant heal that also does some damage to a nearby enemy. Generates 1 or 2 Chi (depending on stance.)Disable - Reduce the target’s movement speed.Spear Hand Strike - interrupt spell casting, also silences casting if used in front of the opponent.Surging Mist - Heals the party member with the lowest health. Also generates 1 Chi.Paralysis - Put your target to sleep for a while. Costs energy.Spinning Crane Kick - Damages all nearby targets, costs energy, generates 1 Chi if it hits 3+ targets.Crackling Jade Lightning - Cast lightning at the enemy causing damage over 6 seconds. Might generate a Chi point. Enemies affected by the lightning will be knocked back if they attack within melee range.Healing Sphere - Place a healing sphere which will heal any ally that walks through it.Path of Blossoms (being removed in patch 5.2)Zen Meditation - Stand still, meditate, reduce incoming damage by 90%, and attract enemy spells to you. A melee attack will break the effect, but will still be reduced. Could be very useful if you anticipate imminent massive damage.Transcendence: Split your body and spirit, leaving your spirit behind. Such as at the top of that cliff.

Monk abilities by spec. Note that most of these are passives.

This section, and the parts below, will mostly focus on Windweaver Monks, since they’re the best choice for general leveling.

Agility is your #1 stat (Windwalker or Brewmaster.) You have no use for Int, Strength, or Spirit. They’re useless to you.Intelligence is your #1 stat if you’re a Mistweaver. Str and Ag will be useless to you.Spirit is only of use to Mistweavers. If you’re often running out of mana then you will want to get more Spirit, either through gear, gems, or enchants.Stamina  is your health. If you find yourself getting beaten up too often then either find gear with more Stam or buy some Stam enchants off the Auction House (they’re often pretty cheap.)Strength is useless to any Monk.

As a general rule while leveling you will want to stack as much of your main stat as you can. The secondary stats provide an assist.

At times there is a Cap on the value of stats. Go over that cap and there is less, or zero, value to getting more of that stat. For example, if you are using a 2-handed weapon there is zero value to grabbing Hit rating past 3% for opponents of the same level. If you are Dual Wielding then there is some value to the extra Hit.

Generally, don’t worry too much about the secondary stats while leveling. Wait till you’re 90.

Hit rating is generally the most useful of the other stats for Brew and Wind. Missed strikes do no damage and build no Chi. Heals don’t need Hit so this is less useful for Mist. Melee attacks need: 3% Hit to never miss mobs of the same level, including same level PvP.4.5% for +1 level opponents6% for those at +2 levels7.5% for those at +3, such as raid bosses.Dual wielding imposes a large Hit penalty for you auto attacks, not your main strikes (such as Blackout Kick.) You will need 27% Hit to always hit with these auto-attacks. Don’t worry about getting that much, it’s impossible and not worth the effort anyway. Just go for the base numbers, above.Expertise goes against your opponent’s Dodge chance and follows the same percentages as Hit.Haste speeds you up in all things, including energy regeneration and how fast your “over time” effects work. It’s “the best of the rest” of the stats.Mastery is gained at level 80 and improves some aspect of what you do. For example, with Windwalkers you will get strikes that cost no Chi.Crit is random. It can double your damage or heal, you just can’t count on it.Dodge and Parry should be avoided by all Monks. Not that they’re useless, just that other stats are significantly better.PvP Power is PvP (Player Vs Player combat) only and you won’t see it on gear until 90, so ignore it even if PvP leveling.PvP Resilience is also PvP only (zero value outside of PvP,) but it does appear on some gear, long before 90. If you’re doing much PvP then you will want to get as much as you can.

Depending on your exact situation (healing, tanking, quessting, ganking, battlegrounds, etc) you might want different talents.

This set is intended for Windwalkers and generally for questing. Talents are easy to change, though. Just click the new talent, a popup will appear and ask you to spend one unit of material. Do that, make sure the correct talent is highlighted, click “learn” and you’re good. Glyphs can be changed in the same way.

You can get the materials to change your talents or glyphs from your reagents or Inscription Supplies vendor, or from the Auction Houise Tier 1 talents: Movement

Celerity - more rolls on a shorter cooldown makes for a pretty useful talent. This gives you speed when you want/need it. A nice way to escape when things are tight.Tiger’s Lust - Clears roots and snares and gives you a speed boost. Take this if you’re doing much PvP.Momentum - Increases your roll/torpedo speed, but does nothing for cooldowns or other effects. For leveling though this one will let you keep up a good movement speed without mounting up.

Tier 2 talents: Ranged Healing Abilities

Chi Wave - Nice ability for one on one fights, but if you use this in a crowd and you’re not the tank you’ll have more company than you want. For one on one fights, or PvP, with no worry about bringing in extra enemies, it can be very nice and several of the bounces will be healing you. If you’re a Brewmaster then this is the one to take. You can also use it to pull mobs, just beware of pulling a crowd.Zen Sphere - Takes a long time to do its healing, your fights won’t usually last that long so this talent is weaker than it looks.Chi Burst - Heals in a path, rather than a burst, making it a lot less likely to attract unwanted attention. Has a cast time, but looks cool.

Tier 3 talents: Chi and Energy/Mana

Power Strikes - Use of certain abilities adds an extra point of Chi. This is especially useful in longer fights.Ascension - Looks nice, but running into your Chi cap isn’t a big worry. Extra Energy and mana regen are pretty nice, though.Chi Brew - Build up your Chi, use it, restore it, and use it again. Pretty nice. Great for those times when you need to lay down some hurt.

Tier 4 talents: Stuns

Deadly Reach - Increases the range of your Paraysis.Charging Ox Wave - This would be fun with a large mass of enemies, if you can handle/avoid the retaliation when they become unstunned. Probably pretty nice for Brewmasters.Leg Sweep - Sweep and stun all melee range enemies. Great for all melee situations and pretty nice as an escape.

Tier 5 talents: Defense

Healing Elixirs - A passive talent that turns your brews and tea into a small, but useful, heal. Not a bad choice.Dampen Harm - Good for those times when you’re in over your head, which happens from time to time.Diffuse Magic - Great if you’re facing casters in PvP or while tanking cartain dungeons, much less useful while questing.

Tier 6 talents: Area effect damage

Rushing Jade Wind - Nice for PvE type damage and general grinding.Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger - Nice PvP or Brewmaster pick. Does damage to other enemies and, if not players, will cause them to focus on you. You also get a cool looking pet for a short time.Chi Torpedo - Good pick for Brewmasters wanting to smash into a crowd.

Glyphs, like talents, can be swapped around as you feel the need. Major glyphs provide significant changes to the appropriate abilities, such as changing cooldowns, increasing damage or range, etc. Minor glyphs are generally just cosmetic, but a few provide a bit of utility.

Major Glyphs for Windwalker Monks

Glyphs are pretty sitational. These are the order in which I’m interested in them, but if you’re mostly PvP or dungeon leveling then you might have other priorities.

Glyph of Touch of Death - removes the Chi cost of T of D, but greatly increases the cooldown. Nice for those times when you need a T of D right now, but don’t have 3 Chi ready.Glyph of Afterlife - You’ll get more healing/Chi spheres after your fights.Glyph of Crackling Jade Lightning – more knockback and more damage. Not recommended for dungeons as the tank will likely spank you. Might be very nice for PvP and for kiting mobs and players. You get CJL at level 54.Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick – move at full speed while channeling the kick.Glyph of Retreat – reduces threat when you roll or torpedo. If you’re dungeoning and you’re pulling aggro (or your tank dies too often) then this will be useful.Glyph of Stoneskin – reduces bleed damage. (Most of your bleeds will be from PvP.)

Minor glyphs

Windwalkers will want leather armor with Agility and Stam.

Hit and Expertise are the most important of the secondary stats. Skip gear with Strength, Int, or Spirit. You can often find cheap Stamina enchants on the Auction House. At low level a few points of Stam can make a big difference to your survival.

Some enchants are expensive and you will likely be leveling fast enough that you will be out of your enchanted gear soon. Up to you whether you want to burn the gold for those enchants. The same is true for gems, though gear with gem sockets is pretty uncommon. If you do have the sockets and if Agility or Hit or Stam gems are cheap enough, then go for it.

Gearing

If you are Ok with (or like) PvP then you can get the epic arena gear set at 70 for under 2k Honor. Do a few battlegrounds in your 60s and you’ll have enough. At 77 start watching the Auction House for Cataclysm gear, it’s way better than anything else at that level, including your heirlooms.At 80 you may be able to find Mists of Pandaria blues appearing on the Auction House. There are as good as the level 85 Heroic Cataclysm raid gear. By the time you hit 85 you might be very well equipped.At 81 put your heirlooms back on if you haven’t replaced them with M of P blues. If you want to save the gold and just go with the gear that you find and earn from quest rewards that’s fine, too.Once you hit the Mists of Pandaria zone and start questing there you will find vendors (example) that sell M of P level greens. Your leatherworking skill, if you have it, will also let you make some nice gear.Another option at 85, if you PvP a lot or live on a PvP server, is to buy the Crafted Vicious Leather set, though if you can afford that I’d suggest grabbing the nice M of P blues instead.Once you hit 90 go for the crafted Contender’s Leather PvP set, even if you don’t PvP. It will give you a decent start into the end-game dungeons and raids.

Monks are the new guys in Mists of Pandaria. This means that there will be some tweaking that will be happening for awhile, much like there was with Death Knights. They should do well in PvP and Raids, but if they feel off then just wait for the next patch. The Dungeons will give you a chance to get some nice gear, though if you’re decked out head to toe in heirlooms you won’t care much.

(If you’re serious about PvP you’ll want to check out Skill-Capped.)

Brewmasters especially will find the dungeons to be fast leveling. Your wait times will be near zero and, as tank, you have command of the group and can set the pace. See our Brew Tank page for tanking info and rotations and such. Even though you’re not 90 you will get some useful info there.

As tank your gear is more important than that of the rest of your team. Do what you can to get better gear, usually this will mean keeping an eye on the Auction House.

For PvP  you likely won’t do enough damage to find it interesting, though your durability will be fine. Get a pocket healer and you should be able to stay up indefinitely.

WindWalkers can join in the dungeons as Damage (or DPS,) and have the same chance for nice gear and plenty of XP. The only problem is that you will have to wait awhile for each queue to let you in, DPS doesn’t have the same short waits that tanks do. Be prepared for a group that wants to move along as quickly as possible. Stay behind the opposition, where possible, and blast away. Interrupt casters with Fist of Fury, Leg Sweep, Spear Hand, etc.

For PvP you don’t have much in the way of burst damage or control, even though your steady damage is just fine. Without the burst and control you will be at a disadvantage. Beyond that, PvP is about being aware of what’s going on and what others can do, as well as knowing your own stuff inside out. Stay with a group, stay with your healers (and protect them,) and then harass and burn down the opposition. When fighting casters you might try this (requires level 60+:)

Spear hand to leg sweep to Fists of Fury to Paralysis to Spear hand.

This will keep them effectively stunned and silenced. Mix in your regular strikes to turn them into jelly. You can see more  about this rotation, and some other tricks, on Skill-Capped.

Mistweavers are like any other healer in Mists of Pandaria, very hard to kill in PvP and essential to group survival in dungeons and raids. Keep the group alive and you won’t have to (or be able to) kill anything.

In PvP you should find yourself some “damage” to hang out with. Keep them alive and they’ll kill stuff for you. Simple as that.

Monks will always be in on or another stance, like Death Knights or Warriors. Each stance applies modifiers to appropriate abilities. Windwalkers do not have a stance specific to them.

Stance of the Fierce Tiger - Usable by any Monk. Increases movement speed and damage, gain more Chi from Jab and Expel Harm. This will be the usual stance for Windwalkers to use.Stance of the Sturdy Ox - Brewmaster stance. Reduces damage taken and increases survivability.Stance of the Wise Serpent - MistWeaver stance. Increases healing abilities, replaces energy with mana, increases Haste from items, and you get Hit and Expertise equal to 50% of the Spirit from items and effects.

Monks get various abilities which act as buffs or automatic abilities. Monk buffs that effect the group do not stack with similar buffs.

Legacy of the Emperor, level 22, adds 5% to your Agility, Int, and Str. It also adds it to everyone else in the group. Last for one hour, so don’t forget to refresh it occasionally. Legacy of the White Tiger, level 81, Windwalker, increase group (and your own) crit chance by 5%.Enlightenment – Increases XP by 50% for an hour. See the Daily Quests section, below.Bandages – Max out your First Aid skill.Expel Harm - small insta-heal that gives two Chi.Chi Wave - Tier 2 talent.Potions – Healing potions (and mana potions for Mistweavers) are generally pretty cheap on the Auction House. If you have the Alchemy profession you can make your own and get more oomph out of them.Herbalism - Life Spirit and Water Spirit are items that are randomly found when picking M of P herbs. You will need at least 500 skill. You also get the very nice Lifeblood perk.

Starting at level 20 you will be able to do a Monk only Daily quest. The first of these is here and it simply involves beating up one of the Monk Masters at the Peak of Serenity. Besides being a chance to prove your mightiness,  it gives you an opportunity to achieve Enlightenment, which provides a 50% boost to all XP for an hour.

If this is your first time to the Peak you will be able to follow the tour guide around.Use Zen Pilgrimage to get to the Peak of Serenity, once there you will be able to grab the quest to Defeat Master Cheng. As you level up you will eventually fight different masters, but the general routine is the same.Head down to the lower combat area, find him, challenge him, wait for him to move to the center of the area, /bow him, and engage. Use your roll to get out of his fire effect.When done head back up and hand it in.Use your Zen Pilgrimage to head back to the graveyard nearest your starting point, or just hearth.

Spend your XP buff.

Alchemists get better effect from their potions and stuff, Pandarens get better food buffs. These aren’t essential, but they will make you more effective and/or increase your survival chances.

Scrolls – You can buy scrolls to buff Agility (or Stam or Int or other stats) off the Auction House. Usually they’re pretty cheap. Anyone with the Inscription skill can also make them. Scrolls count as Elixirs, so you can have a scroll and an elixir at the same time. Potions – Healing and mana potions are often cheap, potions that buff stats are usually more expensive. Keep a few on your action bar.Elixirs and Flasks – These buff a stat, such as Agility, for a period of time. Usually an hour.Food – Various foods will buff stats. M of P foods buff only one stat, most of the others buff some stat plus Stam.

Skillz to pay the billz? Maybe. You have the crafting and the gathering professions. If you want to make the gold then then gathering professions are the best choice for most people. Run around for awhile, or gather as you leveling, pile up stacks of ores, skins, or herbs, and send it to your bank alt for future reference.

All the crafting professions provide some buff that provides an advantage over not having the profession, such as an enchant that provides a lot more of your favorite stat (such as Agility for Windweaver Monks.) The downside is that they are expensive and a bit time consuming to level.

The high-end (epic) crafts require Spirits of Harmony to create. You can get the Spirits by combining motes, which occasionally drop from any mob in the world, from the PvP vendor, by growing them (requires Tillers rep,) or as an occasional reward from daily quests. Spirits are also used to buy the new recipes. So if you can find yourself a steady supply of Spirits you might be able to make some serious gold by crafting epic gear.

The gathering professions are the easiest for earning decent amounts of gold. Just gather the stuff up and sell it. By the way, Mining and Herbalism also grant XP.

Herbalism – The best of the gathering professions. Why? gather herbs, make gold, sweet. You will also, with the new M of P herbs, find the occasional life and water spirits. These provide a very nice heal and mana regen, respectively. Plus you get a Haste cooldown: 2,880 Haste for 20 seconds ever 2 min.This makes herbalism hard to beat.Mining – Smash rocks, build big muscles, sell ore, make gold. 480 extra Stam when you hit 600 skill.Skinning – Skin ‘em up and sell the skins. Also builds up your crit rating by 480 at max skill.

The Crafting Professions have their sweet spots if you want to make stuff to sell. You will also be able to make stuff that people can use for transmogrification.

Alchemy: Grind up herbs to make potions, elixirs, and flasks with a variety of interesting effects. You get about 30% more effect and an extra hour of duration from your elixirs and flasks. Plays very well with Herbalism. You can also create a very nice trinket.Blacksmithing: You won’t be able to use the armor, but you can make some useful weapons and other items, suck as keys, which can be useful. You also get to add an extra gem socket to your wrist and glove items. Buy the top end recipes with the Spirits and then use more Spirits to make them.Enchanting: Enchant you own gear, disenchant gear that you don’t want and sell of use the resulting parts. Enchant your own rings.Engineering: Make all sorts of useful stuff (bombs!) including a wrist gadget that’s a very nice cooldown.Inscription: Make glyphs, shoulder enchants, off hand items, staves, Darkmoon cards, and some other items. Every player in the game needs glyphs and all the high end players will want the shoulder enchants, so there’s some opportunity to make back your costs. Inscription is also is bit cheaper and easier to level than the others. The profession perk is a shoulder enchant that’s much nicer than the others.Jewelcrafting: Makes gems for sockets and also make a variety of rings and neck pieces. Make nicer gems for your own use.Leatherworking: Make your own leather armor, if such things interest you. The high end (epic) gear will requires the Spirits mentioned above. Pretty nice wrist enchant, too (there’s also one for Int.)Tailoring: Not much here except a nice cloak enchant (4k attack power, every now and then,) and a flying carpet. As with the others you’ll buy the new recipes with Spirits and use more Spirits to make the best stuff.

The other professions

Archeology: Great for lore hunters, but a boring profession otherwise. There’s some interesting stuff at the high end to be found, but you’ll likely take a long time to find it unless you’re lucky. Can also find a recipe for, and create, a dragon mount if you also have Alchemy.Fishing: Mostly just a way to pass the time, gathering fish for cooking or other uses (some are used in Alchemy.) Various fishing daily quests will allow you to earn interesting items.Cooking: Create all kinds of Pandaren delicacies. Foods can enhance stats and regenerate health and/or mana.First Aid: Highly recommended for anyone who’s not a healer.

It used to be that a decent speed to get to level 60 was about 6 days in-game time. It’s a lot faster now and if you know what you’re doing and charge forward you can hit 90 in roughly the same time.

Start your fights with Expel Harm (level 26,) this gives you an instant 2 Chi and, if the enemy is close, will do a bit of damage. Expel Harm > Jab > Tiger Palm > Fists of Fury is a nice start to most fights.Flying Serpent Kick is a nice travel ability. Skip the glyph, it’s pretty useless. Add it to the Momentum talent and you can keep up a pretty good pace.Learn to fight several mobs at once. The better you get the faster you’ll complete quests and the faster you’ll level.

Even More XP

Several pieces of Heirloom gear have an experience bonus. You can get the head, cloak, and leg pieces from your guild vendor if your guild has unlocked the requirements. Other pieces can be bought from the PvP and Justice gear vendors.Do your Daily Quest. When done you will get a 50% experience bonus for an hour: Enlightenment. See above for more info on the daily thing.Log out at an Inn for the “Rest XP” bonus when you come back.PvP leveling, via the Battlegrounds, can get some fast XP if your side is winning. Mistweavers will always be in demand in the BGs and Windwalkers can get by. In addition, you will earn honor that  can be used to buy nice PvP gear.Dungeon leveling can be a nice break from questing and can provide some fast XP. Windwalkers will want to mix this up with questing since the dungeon Queues can take awhile.Level with a new friend for 3x XP via Blizzard’s Recruit a Friend plan.

General Stuff

Having enough gold can make the process of leveling easier, in that you can buy the big bags, better gear, and so on. Either  work those gathering skills hard or take a look at our gold guide for many more tips.

Make a bank alt. You will mail all of your sellable stuff to this character and post it on the Auction House when you like. This save the long trip to the nearest Auction House and back. Just drop the stuff in the mail and get back to whatever you were doing. Get the biggest bags you can afford as this will minimize trips back to town to dump stuff. With a bit of luck you might be able to get them through your guild.Food is good to have, just ask your Pandaren trainers. It’ll restore your health and/or mana and some foods will buff stats. Always carry a stack of the best healing food you can find.Potions of healing are nice to have for emergencies. All Monks have good self-healing abilities, but sometimes things get a bit tight. A few potions can save you a run from the nearest graveyard.If you’re feeling squishy then get better gear and consider Stamina enchants and scrolls.

Even with the hot gear and having leveled several characters before, there are still thousands of quests and endless enemies to destroy to get to level 90. You can do it all yourself or you can save a lot of time and grab yourself an in-game leveling guide.

As you can see from the pic, Zygor will show you where to go, what to do, what to collect, and seamlesslessly switch to the next task when you’re done.

Whether you’re brand new to the World of Warcraft or decked head to toe in heirlooms, Zygor will get you to level 90 fast. Even if you grab a bunch of levels in the dungeons or PvP Zygor has your back. Come back to questing and it will automatically adjust to your current level, show you the best place to go next, and help zap any old quests.

To make things even faster Zygor can auto-accept and hand in quests. This speeds things up nicely.

And if you’re just not quite sure about gear or talents, well, Zygor will help you out there, too. Its adviser functions will make the decisions easy. Go here to get yours now and get leveled faster.

View the original article here

The Mists of Pandaria Mage

With Mists of Pandaria the talent system, as known in Cataclysm and earlier, has been flushed and replaced by a completely new system. Some of the old talents are dead, others have been rolled into the new talents and abilities. This will mean that your effectiveness will more due to your skills in using your abiltites rather than having the “best” talent build. Well, Ok, it was always that way, but now it’s more so.

Other changes: 

The ranged slot is gone. You can still use wands, just not equip them and your main weapon at the same time. On the other hand, it sounds like wands will be buffed.

Feel free to share, pin, or comment and let us know what you think.

Any spec of mage can pick any one talent from any row, for six total talents at 90. Yes, this does mean that Frost Mages can have Living Bomb at 90. See the individual mage pages for actual builds. Talents can be changed, one at a time, just like glyphs. Click the talent you want to change, spend a dust/powder/tome, and pick the new talent. Or, your trainer can wipe the whole list for you (for a few gold pieces.)

This is now a build, those will be shown on the individual spec pages. This is just to give you a clear idea of what’s coming.

See below the image for talent descriptions.

View wowhead talent thingie.

As mentioned above, you can swap talents just like glyphs. Don’t like one? Play with another.

Scorch zaps the enemy for some damage and can be cast while moving. Nice for fishing for Pyroblast procs.Ice Floes – Allows you to move while casting and channeling the next 2 Mage spells that have a base cast or channel time less than 4 sec. This spell may be cast while a cast time spell is in progress and is not on the global cooldown.Temporal Shield – Envelops you briefly in a temporal shield and damage taken while shielded will be healed back over a few seconds. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep.Blazing Speed – Suppresses movement slowing effects and increases your movement speed for 1 sec. May only be activated after taking a melee or spell hit greater than 2% of your total health, or after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor. This spell may be cast while a cast time spell is in progress and is not on the global cooldown.Ice Barrier – Instantly shields you, absorbing some damage and lasting for 1 min. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be delayed by damage.Ring of Frost – Summons a Ring of Frost at the target location. Enemies entering the ring will become frozen. 10 yd radius.Ice Ward – Places an Ice Ward on a friendly target. When an enemy strikes the target, all nearby enemies within will become frozen in place for a few seconds.Frostjaw – Silences and freezes the target in place for a few seconds. Lasts half as long versus Player targets.Greater Invisibility – Instantly makes the caster invisible, reducing all threat, and removing two damage over time effects. While invisible, you are untargetable by enemies. Lasts 20 sec. Invisibility is cancelled if you perform any actions. Damage taken is grealty reduced while invisible and for 3 sec after coming out of invisibility.Cauterize – An attack which would otherwise kill you will instead bring you to 50% of your maximum health, and you will burn for 40% of your maximum health over the next 6 sec.Cold Snap – When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown of your Ice Block, Frost Nova, and Cone of Cold spells. Instantly restores 30% of your health. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep, and is not on the global cooldown.Nether Tempest – Places a DoT on the target which deals Arcane damage over several sec. Each time Nether Tempest deals damage, an additional 50% of that damage is also dealt to a random target within 10 yards.Living Bomb – The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking Fire damage over several sec. When this effect ends, or the target dies, it explodes to deal additional Fire damage to up to 3 enemies within 10 yards.Frost Bomb – Places a Frost Bomb on the target. After a few seconds the bomb explodes Frost damage to the primary target, and also some Frost damage to all other targets within 10 yds. All affected targets are greatly slowed for a brief time.Invocation – Reduces the cooldown of Evocation to 10 sec, but you passively regenerate 50% less mana. Completing an Evocation causes you to deal increased spell damage for 40 sec.Rune of Power – Replaces Evocation. Places a Rune of Power on the ground for 1 min. While standing in your own Rune of Power, your mana regeneration is increased by 100% and your spell damage is increased by 15%. Only 2 Runes of Power can be placed at one time.Incanter’s Ward- Places a magical ward on you, absorbing damage for 8 sec. Absorbed damage will restore a portion of your maximum mana. When this effect ends, you gain increased spell damage for 15 sec, based on the absorption used.Also passively increases spell damage by 6% and increases mana regeneration by 65%. This effect is deactivated while Incanter’s Ward is on cooldown.

These abilities are shared by all mages. Some of the old (Cataclysm) talents and glyphs have been rolled into these abilities, such as Improved Counterspell, at level 70. Other Mage abilities, glyphs, and talents are dead. Also note that the levels at which some abilities are obtained has been changed.

Symbiosis is a new Druidic ability. You gain a Druidic ability and the Druid gets one of yours.  (see video for more info.) All Mages will get Healing Touch from the Druid and the Druid Guardian spec gets Frost Armor, Feral gets Frost Nova, Balance gets Mirror Images, and Restoration gets Ice Block

Healing Touch should be rather nice in PvP and even in PvE, when aggro comes your way.

Each spec of Mage (and the same with all other classes) gets several unique abilities as they level. Frostfire bolt is the basic bolt, other attacks are for the individual specialties. At this time it looks like Fire will still value Crit, for the free Pyroblasts while the others will probably value Haste over Crit. But, we’ll see as time goes on.

The prime glyphs, from Cataclysm, are now dead. Majors and Primes have been rolled into one category. In addition, the prime slot is also gone, so you will have six total glyphs at level 75. Three major and three minor. (One each at levels 25, 50, and 75.)

Majors cover all damage, cooldown, and other spell effect modifications.

Minor glyphs are now pretty much purely cosmetic, or teach minor stuff.

Hover over the links for descriptions. CD = CoolDown

Enchants require iLevel 372 items, so you will be able to enchant your better gear with the new stuff. Gems require iLevel 417, so you will not be able to put those yummy new M of P gems into your heroic raid/PvP gear.

Here are the M of P gems, you’ll find these gems and the Cata gems on the individual mage pages.

Spell Penetration is being changed into PvP Power.

Red:

Yellow:

Blue:

Orange: Matches a Red or Yellow socket

Meta:

Cogwheel: Cogwheels are loaded into sockets on Engie items, such as: Reinforced Bio-Optic Killshades and require you to maintain a 525 Engineeringskill.

Again, Cata enchants are shown on the spec pages. Min iLevel for the M of P enchants is 372. Upgrade your nice gear as soon as you can afford to do so.

Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.

Main Hand/Two-Handed:

Off-Hand:

Helm enchants are going away

Shoulders:

Cloak:

Chest:

Bracers:

Gloves:

Belt:

Leggings:

Boots:

Rings:

Get to 90 ASAP, regardless of spec or current levelAlways updated for new patchesYou’ll never need to look at your quest log again.Get your cop here

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Leveling Jewelcrafting to 600 Mists of Pandaria

How are you leveling jewelcrafting to 600? Here is a short guide about leveling jewelcrafting to Zen Master in the Mists of Pandaria expansion for wow.

I would like to give credit to Tarou for his great wow profession guides (check out his video at the end of the post!).

Required materials – the list below is only a suggestion. As you may end up getting different results from your prospected ore, you can mix things up a bit.
17 x [Lapis Lazuli]
17 x [Tiger Opal]
17 x [Sunstone]
8 x [Roguestone]
8 x [Alexandrite]
8 x [Pandarian Garnet]

After skill level 510 you can mix the bottom two item up as much as you like or have materials for but keep in mind the mat list at the top of the guide will be different. I also suggest buying around 12 stacks of Ghost Iron Ore and prospect them to get the below level ups.

500-551: 17 x [Ornate Band]. These can proc rare quality which are decent for resale. Sell or Disenchant uncommon items.
Required Materials:
17 x [Lapis Lazuli]
17 x [Tiger Opal]
17 x [Sunstone]
17 x [Jeweler's Setting] – Purchase these from the Jewelcrafting Supplies Vendor.

551-575: 8 x [Shadowfire Necklace]. These can also proc rare quality which are decent for resale. Sell or DE the uncommon ones.
Required Materials:
8 x [Roguestone]
8 x [Alexandrite]
8 x [Pandarian Garnet]
8 x [Jeweler's Setting] – Purchase these from the Jewelcrafting Supplies Vendor.

575-578: Research 1 x [Primordial Ruby - Research]. You could also any other gem you like or have materials for. Resets at midnight.
Required Materials:
3 x [Primordial Ruby]

Each research award one cut discovered and [Facets of Research] which can contain 2 cut gems.

578-600: Research on a daily basis or until 600 or cut the rare gems you’ve researched 11 times.

Congratulations you have completed your leveling Jewelcrafting to 600. For more info check out the video below.

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Does Mists of Pandaria need new heroic five-man content?

While recording the WoW Insider Show this week, my two co-hosts Anne Stickney and Olivia Grace were discussing heroic five man dungeons and made the interesting point that, while Cataclysm used new heroics to help people catch up in gearing as new raid tiers were released, the advent of the Raid Finder might mean that it isn't necessary anymore. If you're running LFR as your primary way to see/experience raid content, then you'd simply run previous LFR's in order to gear up and collect valor points for the various reputation vendors. This would allow you to get geared enough for further LFR as new raid tiers are released, and keeps the previous LFR's relevant. If you're running the current 10 or 25 man raids, you can use the LFR's for those raids to bootstrap yourself appropriately if you're not already geared well enough from the previous tier of raiding.

Either way, you don't need new heroic dungeons for the task - between daily quests, scenarios and LFR, the Cataclysm model which placed new five mans in patch 4.1 and 4.3 might no longer be necessary. Challenge modes keep the heroics that launched with Mists of Pandaria evergreen, since you can't outgear them, but is that enough for fans of five mans? While both Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm introduced post-launch dungeons, Burning Crusade really only introduced Magister's Terrace in its last content patch. This makes me wonder if we really need any new five mans, and if we do, what would/should they be?

Dungeons for their own sake?

Let me be frank - I don't think we need new five mans for gearing purposes. We have enough ways to gear up a character with LFR and reputation, and I especially hope that the game slows down the gear cycle that got way out of hand in Wrath and Cata. I'm fine with people needing to run older content in order to gear up for newer content instead of introducing new heroic five mans to leapfrog over it - I'm okay with people needing to run the Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring LFR in order to run the new Throne of Thunder when 5.2 drops.

But that doesn't mean I don't want new five mans. It just means I don't want them introduced just to give us a place to go gear up. I would be fine with a new five man, or even a few, that didn't increase the item level of their drops at all compared to current five mans. Why would players run them? Well, for starters, they'd run them because they're new. They'd be a new challenge for Challenge Mode players because they'd need to adapt new strategies for them. And if a new incentive was needed, an increased chance to drop a 476 epic at the end could be introduced. The problem with giving new five mans increased ilevel gear is, as we saw in Cataclysm, people stop running the older heroics when you do that. With the de-emphasis on valor points as a main gearing strategy, introducing new five mans seems to me to be worthwhile on the merits of the dungeons themselves. The emphasis should be on giving players a cool new place to go, not on giving them a gearing shortcut when we have enough gearing options as it is.

The fun of the crawl

But I'm neither dogmatic nor arrogant enough to believe there aren't good arguments for either simply not introducing new five mans at all, or for using the Cata and Wrath models for new heroics and introducing them with new higher ilevel gear. My own belief is that with new LFR's every tier of raiding we'll have plenty of gearing options going forward, and that players who run five mans primarily will collect valor points that will eventually allow them to buy up to ilevel 496 (perhaps better as new patches bring new reputations with new rewards, such as the Sunreaver Onslaught/Kirin Tor Offensive in 5.2) but it could be that new dungeons just won't be compelling if they don't add higher ilevel items. Perhaps that means that they must have them, or perhaps that means that in the age of scenarios and LFR they're just not as necessary as they were and we can afford to only introduce them when we have a compelling story reason.

What I personally love about five mans is that old school dungeon crawl feeling of them. They remind me strongly of my days playing D&D, and even my early WoW experience where raids were rare and I spent the majority of my time in dungeons like UBRS and Scholo and Dire Maul. I certainly don't want that style of play lost.

Certainly patch 5.2 looks to be sprawling enough without one. But with faster patch cycles, a theoretical patch 5.3 could very well be built entirely around a new dungeon or two. It now falls to you to debate the issue - should we see more heroic five man dungeons this expansion, or less? Do we need them, or are we covered by newer options?

Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Tags: challenge-modes, content, dungeons, LFR, mists-of-pandaria, patch-5.2, raid-finder, scenarios

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria

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Monk Leveling in the Mists of Pandaria

The elder masters of Pandaran Martial Arts have made the decision to train outsiders. Perhaps they felt that the discipline of Martial Arts study would help to cool overheated heads and ease the Horde/Alliance war. Perhaps they weren’t so wise, after all.

Monks fuel many of their abilities with various beverages, giving their skills a certain resemblance, if only in concept, to Drunken Kung Fu.

Monks, like Paladins, are extremely capable in every role: damage, defense, and healing.

As a Brewmaster, a Monk can tank dungeons and raids. While leveling they can round up groups of opponents and smash them down with their strikes. Brewmasters use Energy and Chi as their resources.

Mistweavers use mana and chi to heal the most grievous of wounds and keep their team battle ready at all times.

Windweavers inflict punishing melee damage and, like Brewmasters, use Energy and Chi as their resources.

Quick notes for MonksRace ChoiceMonk Abilities Stats for levelingTalents Gems, Enchants, GearingPvP and Dungeon levelingBuffs, Stances, ConsumablesProfessionsLeveling Faster

Weapons and Gear

As a Windwalker or Brewmaster you will be using the same gear as a Rogue or Feral Druid. Mistweavers will use the same gear as Resto Druids.

Agility and Stamina for Wind and BrewInt and Stam and Spirit for Mist.Use a 2-handed weapon, because good ones are generally easier to find than than a pair of decent 1 handers.You can use Cloth or Leather armor, but leather will have the right stats and there’s a bonus at level 50 if all your armor is leather.Heirloom gear is nice and will take enchants that can be applied to level 1 items. Check your guild vendor for pieces if you have a character with appropriate guild rep and a higher level guild. You’ll need a bit of gold to get them.

Stats

Agility is #1 for Wind and BrewInt for Mist.Stamina is your #1 survival stat at low levels.If you find gear with gem sockets then pop in an appropriate gem, Delicate for Agility, Brilliant for Int.Enchants if you want ‘em: for your primary stat and for Stam. Haste is also a good choice.Don’t worry much about secondary stats (Haste, etc.) until you hit 90.

Specializations (Spec)

Windwalker is the best choice for damage and general ease of leveling. This is our choice for general leveling. You can enter the dungeons as “damage” (DPS) or smash face in PvP.Mistweaver is great for healing groups, but not so hot for smashing opponents. You can level quite nicely in the dungeons or with a PvP (battlegrounds) group, but questing will be slow since the damage isn’t there.Brewmaster is a decent tank, so leveling in dungeons will be fast and easy enough. As a tank your wait times for the dungeons will be close to zero. PvP will be painful due to lack of damage. Questing can be fun if you can round up groups of enemies to mash. One on one is slow.

Race

Anyone, except Goblins and Worgen, can be a Monk.Trolls and Orcs have a nice damage cooldown.Humans, Gnomes, and Undead have useful escape abilities (especially in PvP.)Night Elves get Shadowmeld, which has its uses.see below for more.

The #1 reason to pick any given race is to play something you like. The racial bonuses are all pretty small, though some are definitely useful. The details are below if you really want to be “efficient.”

Pandaren

Can choose to join either the Horde or the Alliance upon earning the right to leave their starting area.Melee range stun has definite uses, even for Mistweavers, as it allows an escape from melee.Rested XP lasts longer for faster leveling.Increased benefits from food buffs is generally a very nice ability.Being “Bouncy” means you take less falling damage; it is just the thing if you’re into cliff jumping.Good with cooking.

Human

Increased Spirit is nice if you’re Mist, useless otherwise.Bonus to rep gain can save a bunch of time. There are a lot of factions to gain rep with and some of them in Mists of Pandaria are well worth it for items and perks.Expertise with Swords and Maces is a nice ability if those are your weapons of choice. Using them will also add to your Spell Hit if you’re Mist.Break Free ability is very nice and allows you to replace a PvP trinket with a different one.

Dwarf

Stone Form washes away some annoying effects (such as bleeds) and decreases damage.Expertise with Ranged Weapons is useless to you, though expertise with maces is nice if that’s what you’re equipping. The expertise will also add in to your Spell Hit.Good with Archeology.

Night Elf

Shadowmeld is great for those “Oops” situations as it drops enemy (not player) aggro. Get in with too many opponents and ‘meld will send then back to their patrols. Also a good way to ambush unsuspecting players.Being a bit more difficult to hit is a small, but nice benefit.Faster movement while dead is, hopefully, something you won’t have to use very often.Faster movement while stealthed is of no use to you.

Gnome

An escape from “speed altering effects” has its uses, especially in PvP. It won’t often pop up outside of PvP, but is nice when it does.Mistweavers will like the increased manapool. Brew and Wind won’t care.Expertise with 1-hand swords is nice, if that’s the weapon of choice. The expertise adds to a Mistweaver’s Spell Hit.Good with engineering.

Draenei

A self heal, while not big, is still nice to have for Wind and Brew. Mist won’t find much use for it.+1% Hit is nice for raiding.Good with jewelcrafting.

Orc

Blood Fury is a nice damage cooldown. Fire it off when you start your attacks.Resistance to stun effects in nice, especially in PvP.Expertise with Axes and Fist Weapons is useful if either of those is the weapon of choice. The expertise also adds into your Spell Hit.

Undead

Removing Fear/Sleep/Charm is very nice for PvP, occasionally useful elsewhere.You can eat dead bodies to regain health, which frees up a bag slot that you might use to carry food.You can drain health from enemies, which also heals you for a small amount. This ability is automatic and will add to your overall damage done.

Tauren

War Stomp is very useful for Brew or Wind, Mist might find it useful to get away from melee.Maximum health increased by about 5%.Good with Herbalism

Troll

Berserking is a nice speed cooldown. Your casting and attack speed is increased for a short time. Use it at the beginning of your assault.You won’t notice the increased regeneration, ever.Your damage increase versus beasts will speed up your leveling by a small amount.Expertise with ranged weapons is useless to you.Reduced duration of movement impairing effects is more useful in PvP than elsewhere.

Blood Elf

Can restore a small amount of Mana or Energy.Can silence all nearby opponents for a brief time.Good with enchanting

Generally speaking, the Windwalker will be best for most leveling. Mistweavers can heal groups, so will be in demand for dungeon and PvP teams, but do little enough damage that questing will be slow.

Brewmasters can tank the dungeons, but with the low damage will find PvP tough. Being a flag carrier might be an option, though. While questing, even though your damage isn’t hot, you can do fine by rounding up groups of enemies and smashing them down. (This can be more fun than one on one battles. )

For this reason most of the discussion below will be oriented towards Windwalkers. If you like to do dungeons or just want info on the different specs, then check out our PvE pages for each spec, with builds, rotations, gems, enchants, etc. They’re aimed at  raiding, but you can pull some useful info from them for leveling:

Chi points are like combo points or Holy power. You use your abilities to build them up and then spend them on other abilities. Jab (gives two points) to Blackout Kick (costs two points,) for example. Abilities like Fists of Fury will use more Chi.

Drop by Curse and grab the NugComboBar addon if you want a nice way to track Chi.

Energy is your other resource and is consumed by abilities such as Legacy of the Emperor.

(P) = a passive ability

These are the abilities that all Monks will learn as they level. See below for the abilities learned by the different specs.

All abilities are learned automatically as you level.

Jab – Your basic attack. Use this to generate the Chi for your bigger attacks.Way of the Monk (Passive) – Get more auto-attack damage when dual wielding one-handers or more attack speed when using a 2-handed weapon.Tiger Palm – Uses Chi, does some damage, weakens opponent armor.Roll – Quickly roll a short distance. A bit like a mage’s “blink.” Two uses every 20 seconds. Your first tier talents modify this ability.Blackout Kick - Uses Chi, also enables a small amount of healing to your team.Tiger Strikes – Chance for increased attack speed and extra strikes.Provoke - “Yo momma is so fat…” This is a taunt and the mob will run towards you.Detox - Remove poison and disease.Zen Pilgrimage - Teleports you to the Peak of Serenity, leaving a marker behind. Cast it again to return to the graveyard nearest your marker.Touch of Death - Insta kill a non-player enemy with health <= yours. Requires 3 chi.Swift Reflexes (Passive) – A successful parry attacks the opponent for a small amount of damage.Expel Harm - Instant heal that also does some damage to a nearby enemy. Generates 1 or 2 Chi (depending on stance.)Disable - Reduce the target’s movement speed.Spear Hand Strike - interrupt spell casting, also silences casting if used in front of the opponent.Surging Mist - Heals the party member with the lowest health. Also generates 1 Chi.Paralysis - Put your target to sleep for a while. Costs energy.Spinning Crane Kick - Damages all nearby targets, costs energy, generates 1 Chi if it hits 3+ targets.Crackling Jade Lightning - Cast lightning at the enemy causing damage over 6 seconds. Might generate a Chi point. Enemies affected by the lightning will be knocked back if they attack within melee range.Healing Sphere - Place a healing sphere which will heal any ally that walks through it.Path of Blossoms (being removed in patch 5.2)Zen Meditation - Stand still, meditate, reduce incoming damage by 90%, and attract enemy spells to you. A melee attack will break the effect, but will still be reduced. Could be very useful if you anticipate imminent massive damage.Transcendence: Split your body and spirit, leaving your spirit behind. Such as at the top of that cliff.

Monk abilities by spec. Note that most of these are passives.

This section, and the parts below, will mostly focus on Windweaver Monks, since they’re the best choice for general leveling.

Agility is your #1 stat (Windwalker or Brewmaster.) You have no use for Int, Strength, or Spirit. They’re useless to you.Intelligence is your #1 stat if you’re a Mistweaver. Str and Ag will be useless to you.Spirit is only of use to Mistweavers. If you’re often running out of mana then you will want to get more Spirit, either through gear, gems, or enchants.Stamina  is your health. If you find yourself getting beaten up too often then either find gear with more Stam or buy some Stam enchants off the Auction House (they’re often pretty cheap.)Strength is useless to any Monk.

As a general rule while leveling you will want to stack as much of your main stat as you can. The secondary stats provide an assist. At times there is a Cap on the value of stats. Go over that cap and there is less, or zero, value to getting more of that stat. For example, if you are using a 2-handed weapon there is zero value to grabbing Hit rating past 3% for opponents of the same level. If you are Dual Wielding then there is some value to the extra Hit.

Generally, don’t worry too much about the secondary stats while leveling. Wait till you’re 90.

Hit rating is generally the most useful of the other stats for Brew and Wind. Missed strikes do no damage and build no Chi. Heals don’t need Hit so this is less useful for Mist. Melee attacks need: 3% Hit to never miss mobs of the same level, including same level PvP.4.5% for +1 level opponents6% for those at +2 levels7.5% for those at +3, such as raid bosses.Dual wielding imposes a large Hit penalty for you auto attacks, not your main strikes (such as Blackout Kick.) You will need 27% Hit to always hit with these auto-attacks. Don’t worry about getting that much, it’s impossible and not worth the effort anyway. Just go for the base numbers, above.Expertise goes against your opponent’s Dodge chance and follows the same percentages as Hit.Haste speeds you up in all things, including energy regeneration and how fast your “over time” effects work. It’s “the best of the rest” of the stats.Mastery is gained at level 80 and improves some aspect of what you do. For example, with Windwalkers you will get strikes that cost no Chi.Crit is random. It can double your damage or heal, you just can’t count on it.Dodge and Parry should be avoided by all Monks. Not that they’re useless, just that other stats are significantly better.PvP Power is PvP (Player Vs Player combat) only and you won’t see it on gear until 90, so ignore it even if PvP leveling.PvP Resilience is also PvP only (zero value outside of PvP,) but it does appear on some gear, long before 90. If you’re doing much PvP then you will want to get as much as you can.

Depending on your exact situation (healing, tanking, quessting, ganking, battlegrounds, etc) you might want different talents. This set is intended for Windwalkers and generally for questing. Talents are easy to change, though. Just click the new talent, a popup will appear and ask you to spend one unit of material. Do that, make sure the correct talent is highlighted, click “learn” and you’re good.

Glyphs can be changed in the same way. You can get the materials to change your talents or glyphs from your reagents or Inscription Supplies vendor, or from the Auction Houise

Tier 1 talents: Movement

Celerity - more rolls on a shorter cooldown makes for a pretty useful talent. This gives you speed when you want/need it. A nice way to escape when things are tight.Tiger’s Lust - Clears roots and snares and gives you a speed boost. Take this if you’re doing much PvP.Momentum - Increases your roll/torpedo speed, but does nothing for cooldowns or other effects, so not as useful as the others.

Tier 2 talents: Ranged Healing Abilities

Chi Wave - Nice ability for one on one fights, but if you use this in a crowd and you’re not the tank you’ll have more company than you want. For one on one fights, or PvP, with no worry about bringing in extra enemies, it can be very nice and several of the bounces will be healing you. If you’re a Brewmaster then this is the one to take. You can also use it to pull mobs, just beware of pulling a crowd.Zen Sphere - Takes a long time to do its healing, your fights won’t usually last that long so this talent is weaker than it looks.Chi Burst - Heals in a path, rather than a burst, making it a lot less likely to attract unwanted attention. Has a cast time, but looks cool.

Tier 3 talents: Chi and Energy/Mana

Power Strikes - Use of certain abilities adds an extra point of Chi. This is especially useful in longer fights.Ascension - Looks nice, but running into your Chi cap isn’t a big worry. Extra Energy and mana regen are pretty nice, though.Chi Brew - Build up your Chi, use it, restore it, and use it again. Pretty nice. Great for those times when you need to lay down some hurt.

Tier 4 talents: Stuns

Deadly Reach - Increases the range of your Paraysis.Charging Ox Wave - This would be fun with a large mass of enemies, if you can handle/avoid the retaliation when they become unstunned. Probably pretty nice for Brewmasters.Leg Sweep - Sweep and stun all melee range enemies. Great for all melee situations and pretty nice as an escape.

Tier 5 talents: Defense

Healing Elixirs - A passive talent that turns your brews and tea into a small, but useful, heal. Not a bad choice.Dampen Harm - Good for those times when you’re in over your head, which happens from time to time.Diffuse Magic - Great if you’re facing casters in PvP or while tanking cartain dungeons, much less useful while questing.

Tier 6 talents: Area effect damage

Rushing Jade Wind - Nice for PvE type damage and general grinding.Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger - Nice PvP or Brewmaster pick. Does damage to other enemies and, if not players, will cause them to focus on you. You also get a cool looking pet for a short time.Chi Torpedo - Good pick for Brewmasters wanting to smash into a crowd.

Glyphs, like talents, can be swapped around as you feel the need. Major glyphs provide significant changes to the appropriate abilities, such as changing cooldowns, increasing damage or range, etc. Minor glyphs are generally just cosmetic, but a few provide a bit of utility.

Major Glyphs for Windwalker Monks

Glyphs are pretty sitational. These are the order in which I’m interested in them, but if you’re mostly PvP or dungeon leveling then you might have other priorities.

Glyph of Touch of Death - removes the Chi cost of T of D, but greatly increases the cooldown. Nice for those times when you need a T of D right now, but don’t have 3 Chi ready.Glyph of Afterlife - You’ll get more healing/Chi spheres after your fights.Glyph of Crackling Jade Lightning – more knockback and more damage. Not recommended for dungeons as the tank will likely spank you. Might be very nice for PvP and for kiting mobs and players. You get CJL at level 54.Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick – move at full speed while channeling the kick.Glyph of Retreat – reduces threat when you roll or torpedo. If you’re dungeoning at you’re pulling aggro (or your tank dies too often) then this will be useful.Glyph of Stoneskin – reduces bleed damage. Most of your bleeds will be from PvP.

Minor glyphs

Windwalkers will want leather armor with Agility and Stam. Hit and Expertise are the most important of the secondary stats. Skip gear with Strength, Int, or Spirit.

You can often find cheap Stamina enchants on the Auction House. At low level a few points of Stam can make a big difference to your survival. Some enchants are expensive and you will likely be leveling fast enough that you will be out of your enchanted gear soon. Up to you whether you want to burn the gold for those enchants.

The same is true for gems, though gear with gem sockets is pretty uncommon. If you do have the sockets and if Agility or Hit or Stam gems are cheap enough, then go for it.

Some gems:

If you are Ok with (or like) PvP then you can get the epic arena gear set at 70 for under 2k Honor.

At 77 start watching the Auction House for Cataclysm gear, it’s way better than anything else at that level, including your heirlooms.

At 80 you may be able to find Mists of Pandaria blues appearing on the Auction House. There are as good as the level 85 Heroic Cataclysm raid gear. By the time you hit 85 you might be very well equipped.

At 81 put your heirlooms back on if you haven’t replaced them with M of P blues.

If you want to save the gold and just go with the gear that you find and earn from quest rewards that’s fine, too. Once you hit the Mists of Pandaria zone and start questing there you will find vendors (example) that sell M of P level greens. Your leatherworking skill, if you have it, will also let you make some nice gear.

Another option at 85, if you PvP a lot or live on a PvP server, is to buy the Crafted Vicious Leather set, though if you can afford that I’d suggest grabbing the nice M of P blues instead.

Once you hit 90 go for the crafted Contender’s Leather PvP set, even if you don’t PvP. It will give you a decent start into the end-game dungeons and raids.

Monks are the new guys in Mists of Pandaria. This means that there will be some tweaking that will be happening for awhile, much like there was with Death Knights. They should do well in PvP and Raids, but if they feel off then just wait for the next patch.

The Dungeons will give you a chance to get some nice gear, though if you’re decked out head to toe in heirlooms you won’t care much.

Brewmasters especially will find the dungeons to be fast leveling. Your wait times will be near zero and, as tank, you have command of the group and can set the pace. See our Brew Tank page for tanking info and rotations and such. Even thought you’re not 90 you will get some useful info there. As tank you gear is more important than that of the rest of your team. Do what you can to get better gear, usually this will mean keeping an eye on the Auction House.

For PvP  you likely won’t do enough damage to find it interesting, though your durability will be fine. Get a pocket healer and you should be able to stay up indefinitely.

WindWalkers can join in the dungeons as Damage (or DPS,) and have the same chance for nice gear and plenty of XP. The only problem is that you will have to wait awhile for each queue to let you in, DPS doesn’t have the same short waits that tanks do. Be prepared for a group that wants to move along as quickly as possible.

Stay behind the opposition, where possible, and blast away. Interrupt casters with Fist of Fury, Leg Sweep, Spear Hand, etc.

For PvP you don’t have much in the way of burst damage but your steady damage is just fine. PvP is about being aware of what’s going on and what others can do. Stay with a group, stay with your healers (and protect them,) and then harass and burn down the opposition.

When fighting casters you might try (requires level 60+:)

Spear hand to leg sweep to Fists of Fury to Paralysis to Spear hand.

This will keep them effectively stunned and silenced. Mix in your regular strikes to turn them into jelly. You can see more  about this rotation, and some other tricks, on Skill-Capped.

Mistweavers are like any other healer in Mists of Pandaria, very hard to kill in PvP and essential to group survival in dungeons and raids. Keep the group alive and you won’t have to (or be able to) kill anything.

In PvP you should find yourself some “damage” to hang out with. Keep them alive and they’ll kill stuff for you. Simple as that.

Monks will always be in on or another stance, like Death Knights or Warriors. Each stance applies modifiers to appropriate abilities. Windwalkers do not have a stance specific to them.

Stance of the Fierce Tiger - Usable by any Monk. Increases movement speed and damage, gain more Chi from Jab and Expel Harm. This will be the usual stance for Windwalkers to use.Stance of the Sturdy Ox - Brewmaster stance. Reduces damage taken and increases survivability.Stance of the Wise Serpent - MistWeaver stance. Increases healing abilities, replaces energy with mana, increases Haste from items, and you get Hit and Expertise equal to 50% of the Spirit from items and effects.

Monks get various abilities which act as buffs or automatic abilities. Monk buffs that effect the group do not stack with similar buffs.

Legacy of the Emperor, level 22, adds 5% to your Agility, Int, and Str. It also adds it to everyone else in the group. Last for one hour, so don’t forget to refresh it occasionally.
Legacy of the White Tiger, level 81, Windwalker, increase group (and your own) crit chance by 5%.Enlightenment – Increases XP by 50% for an hour. See the Daily Quests section, below.Bandages – Max out your First Aid skill.Expel Harm - small insta-heal that gives two Chi.Chi Wave - Tier 2 talent.Potions – Healing potions (and mana potions for Mistweavers) are generally pretty cheap on the Auction House. If you have the Alchemy profession you can make your own and get more oomph out of them.Herbalism - Life Spirit and Water Spirit are items that are randomly found when picking M of P herbs. You will need at least 500 skill. You also get the very nice Lifeblood perk.

Starting at level 20 you will be able to do a Monk only Daily quest. The first of these is here and it simply involves beating up one of the Monk Masters at the Peak of Serenity. Besides being a chance to prove your mightiness,  it gives you an opportunity to achieve Enlightenment, which provides a 50% boost to all XP for an hour.

If this is your first time to the Peak you will be able to follow the tour guide around.Use Zen Pilgrimage to get to the Peak of Serenity, once there you will be able to grab the quest to Defeat Master Cheng. As you level up you will eventually fight different masters, but the general routine is the same.Head down to the lower combat area, find him, challenge him, wait for him to move to the center of the area, /bow him, and engage. Use your roll to get out of his fire effect.When done head back up and hand it in.Use your Zen Pilgrimage to head back to the graveyard nearest your starting point, or just hearth.

Spend your XP buff.

Alchemists get better effect from their potions and stuff, Pandarens get better food buffs. These aren’t essential, but they will make you more effective and/or increase your survival chances.

Scrolls – You can buy scrolls to buff Agility (or Stam or Int or other stats) off the Auction House. Usually they’re pretty cheap. Anyone with the Inscription skill can also make them. Scrolls count as Elixirs, so you can have a scroll and an elixir at the same time. Potions – Healing and mana potions are often cheap, potions that buff stats are usually more expensive. Keep a few on your action bar.Elixirs and Flasks – These buff a stat, such as Agility, for a period of time. Usually an hour.Food – Various foods will buff stats. M of P foods buff only one stat, most of the others buff some stat plus Stam.

Skillz to pay the billz? Maybe. You have the crafting and the gathering professions. If you want to make the gold then then gathering professions are the best choice for most people. Run around for awhile, or gather as you leveling, pile up stacks of ores, skins, or herbs, and send it to your bank alt for future reference.

All the crafting professions provide some buff that provides an advantage over not having the profession, such as an enchant that provides a lot more of your favorite stat (Agility for Windweaver Monks.) The downside is that they are expensive and a bit time consuming to level.

The high-end (epic) crafts require Spirits of Harmony to create. You can get the Spirits by combining motes, which occasionally drop from any mob in the world, from the PvP vendor, by growing them (requires Tillers rep,) or as an occasional reward from daily quests. Spirits are also used to buy the new recipes.

So if you can find yourself a steady supply of Spirits you might be able to make some serious gold by crafting epic gear.

The gathering professions are the easiest for earning decent amounts of gold. Just gather the stuff up and sell it. Mining and Herbalism also grant XP.

Herbalism – The best of the gathering professions. Why? gather herbs, make gold, sweet. You will also, with the new M of P herbs, find the occasional life and water spirits. These provide a very nice heal and mana regen, respectively. Plus you get a Haste cooldown: 2,880 Haste for 20 seconds ever 2 min.This makes herbalism hard to beat.Mining – Smash rocks, build big muscles, sell ore, make gold. 480 extra Stam when you hit 600 skill.Skinning – Skin ‘em up and sell the skins. Also builds up your crit rating by 480 at max skill.

The Crafting Professions have their sweet spots if you want to make stuff to sell. You will also be able to make stuff that people can use for transmogrification.

Alchemy: Grind up herbs to make potions, elixirs, and flasks with a variety of interesting effects. You get about 30% more effect and an extra hour of duration from your elixirs and flasks. Plays very well with Herbalism. You can also create a very nice trinket.Blacksmithing: You won’t be able to use the armor, but you can make some useful weapons and other items, suck as keys, which can be useful. You also get to add an extra gem socket to your wrist and glove items. Buy the top end recipes with the Spirits and then use more Spirits to make them.Enchanting: Enchant you own gear, disenchant gear that you don’t want and sell of use the resulting parts. Enchant your own rings.Engineering: Make all sorts of useful stuff (bombs!) including a wrist gadget that’s a very nice cooldown.Inscription: Make glyphs, shoulder enchants, off hand items, staves, Darkmoon cards, and some other items. Every player in the game needs glyphs and all the high end players will want the shoulder enchants, so there’s some opportunity to make back your costs. Inscription is also is bit cheaper and easier to level than the others. The profession perk is a shoulder enchant that’s much nicer than the others.Jewelcrafting: Makes gems for sockets and also make a variety of rings and neck pieces. Make nicer gems for your own use.Leatherworking: Make your own leather armor, if such things interest you. The high end (epic) gear will requires the Spirits mentioned above. Pretty nice wrist enchant, too (there’s also one for Int.)Tailoring: Not much here except a nice cloak enchant (4k attack power, every now and then,) and a flying carpet. As with the others you’ll buy the new recipes with Spirits and use more Spirits to make the best stuff.

The other professions

Archeology: Great for lore hunters, but a boring profession otherwise. There’s some interesting stuff at the high end to be found, but you’ll likely take a long time to find it unless you’re lucky. Can also find a recipe for, and create, a dragon mount if you also have Alchemy.Fishing: Mostly just a way to pass the time, gathering fish for cooking or other uses (some are used in Alchemy.) Various fishing daily quests will allow you to earn interesting items.Cooking: Create all kinds of Pandaren delicacies. Foods can enhance stats and regenerate health and/or mana.First Aid: Highly recommended for anyone who’s not a healer.

Zygor

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