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Windwalker Monk Artifact Weapon: Fists of the Heavens – Legion 7.3.5
By Babylonius
Last Updated:
2018/06/28
Changelog
Patch: 11.0.5
Table of Contents
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This section of the Windwalker Monk guide explains the best possible choices for the Netherlight Crucible, important traits and relic bonuses, and how to progress through your artifact weapon Fists of the Heavens. This guide is written by
Babylonius
, author/creator of the Monk focused site
PeakOfSerenity
, former moderator of MMOChampion
Monk forums
. Windwalker in
Occasional Excellence
on
US-Turalyon
.
Artifacts in Battle for Azeroth
As of June 26th, completing the quest
The Power in Our Hands
will further empower your Artifact Weapon, enabling all traits and at least
Concordance of the Legionfall
level 75, further increasing in power over time until the Battle for Azeroth pre-expansion patch.
Therefore, only the Netherlight Crucible recommendations are relevant on this guide page leading up to BFA, as you already receive all Artifact Traits by default. This makes content easier to complete, especially some
content going away
such as
Ahead of the Curve
and
Mage Tower Challenges
.
In the
BFA pre-patch
, your Artifact Traits will be removed, and relics will simply increase the item level of your artifact weapon. However, many artifact traits are returning as talents or azerite powers in Battle for Azeroth and we have a compiled a
full list you can read here
.
Moving forward in Battle for Azeroth, you will still be able to acquire the Artifact Weapon which will mainly interest transmog collectors for the appearances. Learn how to unlock all appearances in BFA with our
Artifact Appearance Guide
.
Artifact Weapon:
Fists of the Heavens
Active Ability
Equipping Fists of the Heavens grants you the ability
Strike of the Windlord
, which quickly strikes all enemies in front of you with both fist-weapons, dealing massive amount of damage and slowing enemies for a brief period of time.
Netherlight Crucible
The
Netherlight Crucible
is a new system added in Patch 7.3. The Crucible allows you further empower your Windwalker Monk Artifact Weapon, by specializing and increasing the power from your relics. With it, each relic receives a small talent tree that you can select new traits from, depending how many traits your weapon have. Do not worry, however, because with the changes to
Artifact Knowledge
, unlocking the full power of the Crucible won't take long. Learn everything about this new system in our
Netherlight Crucible Guide
.
Netherlight Cruicible
Below are the most powerful Crucible traits for the Windwalker Monk Artifact:
Murderous Intent
(+12 ilvl)
Master of Shadows
and
Shocklight
(+11 ilvl)
Torment the Weak
,
Secure in the Light
,
Infusion of Light
and
Shadowbind
(+10 ilvl)
Chaotic Darkness
and
Light Speed
(+9 ilvl)
Dark Sorrows
(+5 ilvl)
Everything else (+0 ilvl)
Light Speed
can vary based on your current haste, as haste can be fickle on SimCraft.
Dark Sorrows
and stat increasing traits gets stronger, relative to others, with each target.
Torment the Weak
gets noticeably weaker relative to others with additional targets due to not being able to maintain the full stacks.
All T2 traits are about even with only a 1.5% difference between the top end and low end of the DPS traits. But if you are aiming for single target BiS, try to get
Torment the Weak
.
Golden Traits
Gale Burst
: Pretty straightforward. It does push a little more emphasis into squeezing as much damage during that time as possible. It means that
Touch of Death
is not to just be used on cooldown, but saved a few seconds until your next
Fists of Fury
and other big damage abilities are available, provided you don't lose a cast later on in the fight.
Crosswinds
: It does exactly what it says it does, a spirit image of you appears when you're channeling
Fists of Fury
and attacks the targets for additional damage. It happens automatically, so doesn't need to be thought about otherwise. Multitarget situations, each spirit image will pick one random target, it does not increase from AOE.
Tornado Kicks
: Another trait that doesn't add much thought. When you attack with
Rising Sun Kick
, you hit a second time for 15% damage. This occurs automatically.
Transfer the Power
: While not a golden talent, it is the most interesting one that's not golden. As it reads,
Blackout Kick
and
Rising Sun Kick
add a stacking buff that increases the damage of the next
Fists of Fury
. In general this doesn't require much change in play or forethought. Delaying
Fists of Fury
for a certain number of stacks will risk missing out on a cast later in the fight. Any stacks that are generated after
Fists of Fury
will just go toward the next
Fists of Fury
. Hence, even if a large damage phase is approaching, or cooldowns are coming back up, delaying
Fists of Fury
for more than a few seconds runs the risk of being an overall loss of damage if you lose a cast from later in the fight.
Thunderfist
: Designed to increase single target or priority damage during AOE and cleave. Each target hit with
Strike of the Windlord
will generate one stack. One stack will be discharged per auto-attack.
Recommended Build Path
Counter Clockwise: This provides the highest single target improvement at the cost of a small amount of AOE. If you take this path, get
Transfer the Power
before
Tornado Kicks
and skip
Gale Burst
until after you get
Crosswinds
.
Relics
There can be some trade-off between trait power and weapon ilvl gain for the Windwalker Monk Artifact. Here’s what weapon ilvl gain the each trait is worth. To compare relics, just add these numbers to the +ilvl that the relics provide to the weapons. To determine the best path for your Netherlight Crucible, just pick that path that gets you the highest number.
You can also use
Babylonius’s Spreadsheet
or
Raidbots’ Relic Compare tool
to get answers more catered to your character, situation, and fight parameters. These assume the same legendaries and tier bonuses in SimCraft’s current Mythic profile. With the opening of
Antorus, the Burning Throne
, it is now possible to obtain
Insignia of the Grand Army
, which increases the potency of your Tier 2 Crucible traits by 50%. It might be a really strong legendary if you are lucky with Netherlight Crucible rolls!
Traits
Rising Winds
(+8 ilvl)
Fists of the Wind
(+7 ilvl)
Strength of Xuen
(with t21 4p) (+7 ilvl)
Split Personality
(+7 ilvl)
Tiger Claws
(+4 ilvl)
Inner Peace
(+3 ilvl)
Strength of Xuen
(without t21 4p) (+2 ilvl)
Everything else (+0 ilvl)
Power of a Thousand Cranes
does gain more and more power as the number of targets increase, as does
Fists of the Wind
.
Despite where
Split Personality
on the list, it depends entirely on whether it gives you an extra cast of
Storm, Earth, and Fire
or
based on the fight, mechanics, length, and your raid composition.. If it does, then its the best relic out there. If not, its effectively worthless. Because relics cannot be switched in and out like trinkets, for all intents and purposes, its under the “Everything Else” category unless you know for sure that you will get an additional or better timed cast.
Share your comments about this guide in our Monk forum!
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