World of Warcraft Guides from GotWarcraft.com

 

Leveling The Monk

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.

• Human monk demonstration

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.

Contents

1. Quick notes for Monks
2. Race Choice
3. Monk Abilities
   • general abilities
   • specializations
4. Stats for leveling
5. Talents
   • Glyphs
6. Gems, Enchants, Gearing
7. PvP and Dungeon leveling
8. Buffs, Stances, Consumables
9. Professions
10. Leveling tips
11. Leveling Faster

 

Quick notes for Monks

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 Brew
• Int 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 Brew
• Int 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 below
• Snag a copy of Zygor’s Guide to go really fast.

 

Race choice for Monks

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.

Alliance

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.

Horde

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

 

Monk Abilities

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:

• WindWalker DPS, Brewmaster Tanking, Mistweaver Healing. 

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

 

General Monk Abilities

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.

General Abilities
1	Jab – Your basic attack. Use this to generate the Chi for your bigger attacks. Costs Energy to use.
1	Stance of the Fierce Tiger – Your basic stance. Increases Chi generation and movement speed.
1	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.
3	Tiger Palm – Uses Chi, does some damage, weakens opponent armor.
5	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.
7	Blackout Kick - Uses Chi, also enables a small amount of healing to your team.
10	Tiger Strikes – Chance for increased attack speed and extra strikes.
14	Provoke - “Yo momma is so fat…” This is a taunt and the mob will run towards you.
18	Resuscitate - restore a friendly target to life.
20	Detox - Remove poison and disease.
20	Zen Pilgrimage - Teleports you to the Peak of Serenity, leaving a marker behind. Cast it again to return to the graveyard nearest your marker.
22	Legacy of the Emperor - Increases Str, Int, and Ag for the entire group.
22	Touch of Death - Insta kill a non-player enemy with health <= yours. Requires 3 chi.
23	Swift Reflexes (Passive) – A successful parry attacks the opponent for a small amount of damage.
24	Fortifying Brew - Increases health and reduces damage for 20 seconds.
26	Expel Harm - Instant heal that also does some damage to a nearby enemy. Generates 1 or 2 Chi (depending on stance.)
28	Disable - Reduce the target’s movement speed.
32	Spear Hand Strike - interrupt spell casting, also silences casting if used in front of the opponent.
34	Surging Mist - Heals the party member with the lowest health. Also generates 1 Chi.
44	Paralysis - Put your target to sleep for a while. Costs energy.
46	Spinning Crane Kick - Damages all nearby targets, costs energy, generates 1 Chi if it hits 3+ targets.
54	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.
64	Healing Sphere - Place a healing sphere which will heal any ally that walks through it.
64	Path of Blossoms (being removed in patch 5.2)
68	Grapple Weapon - Disarm your opponent
82	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.
87	Transcendence: Split your body and spirit, leaving your spirit behind. Such as at the top of that cliff.
87	Transcendence: Transfer: Swap positions with your spirit, to get back to the top of that cliff, for example.

 

Abilities by Specialization (Spec)

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

Brewmaster		Mistweaver		Windwalker
10	Dizzying Haze	10	Mana Meditation (P)	10	Dual Wield (P)
10	Dual Wield (P)	10	Soothing Mist	10	Fists of Fury
10	Stance of the Sturdy Ox	10	Stance of the Wise Serpent	10	Tiger Strikes (P)
10	Vengeance (P)	10	Tiger Strikes (P)	18	Flying Serpent Kick
11	Keg Smash	16	Enveloping Mist	20	Combat Conditioning (P)
18	Breath of Fire	20	Internal Medicine (P)	22	Touch of Karma
18	Clash	32	Surging Mist	26	Afterlife (P)
26	Guard	34	Teachings of the Monastery(P)	36	Energizing Brew
34	Brewmaster Training (P)	42	Renewing Mist	42	Sparring (P)
36	Brewing: Elusive Brew (P)	45	Dematerialize (P)	45	Adaptation (P)
36	Elusive Brew	50	Leather Specialization (P)	48	Spinning Fire Blossom
45	Desperate Measures (P)	50	Life Cocoon	50	Leather Specialization (P)
48	Avert Harm	56	Brewing: Mana Tea (P)	56	Brewing: Tigereye Brew (P)
50	Leather Specialization (P)	56	Mana Tea	56	Rising Sun Kick
56	Gift of the Ox (P)	62	Uplift	56	Tigereye Brew
70	Summon Black Ox Statue	66	Thunder Focus Tea	80	Mastery: Combo Breaker (P)
75	Purifying Brew	70	Summon Jade Serpent Statue	81	Legacy of the White Tiger
80	Mastery: Elusive Brawler(P)	78	Revival
		80	Mastery: Gift of the Serpent (P)

 

Monk Stats for Leveling

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:
  1. 3% Hit to never miss mobs of the same level, including same level PvP.
  2. 4.5% for +1 level opponents
  3. 6% for those at +2 levels
  4. 7.5% for those at +3, such as raid bosses.
  5. 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.

 

Monk Leveling Build

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

1. 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.
2. Tiger’s Lust - Clears roots and snares and gives you a speed boost. Take this if you’re doing much PvP.
3. 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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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

1. Power Strikes - Use of certain abilities adds an extra point of Chi. This is especially useful in longer fights.
2. Ascension - Looks nice, but running into your Chi cap isn’t a big worry. Extra Energy and mana regen are pretty nice, though.
3. 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

1. Deadly Reach - Increases the range of your Paraysis.
2. 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.
3. Leg Sweep - Sweep and stun all melee range enemies. Great for all melee situations and pretty nice as an escape.

Tier 5 talents: Defense

1. Healing Elixirs - A passive talent that turns your brews and tea into a small, but useful, heal. Not a bad choice.
2. Dampen Harm - Good for those times when you’re in over your head, which happens from time to time.
3. 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

1. Rushing Jade Wind - Nice for PvE type damage and general grinding.
2. 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.
3. Chi Torpedo - Good pick for Brewmasters wanting to smash into a crowd.

 

Glyphs for Monks

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.

1. 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.
2. Glyph of Afterlife - You’ll get more healing/Chi spheres after your fights.
3. 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.
4. Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick – move at full speed while channeling the kick.
5. 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.
6. Glyph of Stoneskin – reduces bleed damage. (Most of your bleeds will be from PvP.)

Minor glyphs

• Glyph of Blackout Kick - Adds damage
• Glyph of Flying Serpent Kick - allows you to land at the opponent’s position, rather than flying right on by. In theory, anyway. Often you’ll just fly right through the enemy and keep going. Pretty useless glyph.
• Glyph of Honor - As a point of your martial training you must always bow to your opponent after using Touch of Death.
• Glyph of Water Roll - Roll over water.
• Glyph of Zen Flight - Travel on a meditative cloud. Just the thing for the truly serene, but it does not have the full flight speed. You can fish from your cloud, however.

 

Gems and Enchants and Gearing up

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.

 

PvP and Dungeons

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.

 

Monk Stances, Buffs, Consumables, Dailies

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.

WindWalker Self-Healing

• 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.

Monk Daily Quests

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.

1. If this is your first time to the Peak you will be able to follow the tour guide around.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. When done head back up and hand it in.
5. Use your Zen Pilgrimage to head back to the graveyard nearest your starting point, or just hearth.

Spend your XP buff.

Consumables

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.

 

Professions

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.

 

Tips for Leveling Your Monk

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.

 

The Fastest Monk Leveling

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.