How to preserve energy in World of Warcraft

Question

I have a level 13 (as we speak, though I'm playing as him quite often) Night Elf Monk with 369 health and 100 energy. My moves drain my energy fast, particularly my Tiger Palm, which costs a whopping 50 energy. Are there any certain combo moves that help my energy preserve throughout the course of a fight with a similar leveled mob/boss?

Answer 1

Energy is different from mana specifically because energy follows the "spend fast, regain fast" philosophy whereas mana follows the "pace yourself and conserve your mana" philosophy.

Consider that energy was initially the rogue's (and rogue-ish feral druid's) resource. It makes a lot of sense for rogues to work in short high damage bursts, and their resource (energy) was created to function as such.

If rogues had a bigger energy pool, they would be able to keep up long sustained bursts of high damage, which would outclass any character by spamming high damage abilities. Shorter bursts mean that rogues have to play like opportunists, waiting for (or creating) a weak spot and then pouncing on their victim.

While monks aren't particularly "assassiny" the way rogues and feral druids are, the same high energy philosophy remains at play. Monks are capable of amazing feats, but their fixed energy pool forces them to space out their feats and make it impossible for them to spam them.

It's been a while since I played rogue/monk, but you eventually learn ability rotations which alternate between building (abilities that don't cost energy, building combo points) and bursting (energy abilities, spending the combo points).

TL;DR Don't try to conserve your energy. But rather learn to spend it in bursts, and recover energy inbetween bursts.

Answer 2

Not really, you have to take "breaks" between using your Tiger Palm attacks to recharge energy. This will getting better as you get to higher level when you get more and different attacks (some of which don't cost energy but Chi which you generate with other attacks).

This is true in general for most of the classes which don't have enough attacks/casts (or ressources for them) to generate a good flow of combat at lower levels.

Answer 3

At lower levels, a monk tends to have a very boring and slow rotation because of the slow energy generation and small choice of abilities. However, as you gain levels and improve your gear, you will gain a number of benefits that vastly improve the feel of your rotation:

1. you will gain more baseline haste, increasing how much energy you regenerate per second. This will make it so you'll have to wait less long.
2. You will learn a lot of extra abilities, both active and passive, that will add additional buttons to press to the rotation. This will give you more variation during play.
3. You will gain access to a number of talents that again add active and passive components to your rotation. This will again give you more variation during play, as well as choices in how to vary your rotation.
4. around level 80, you will learn how to use a special secondary stat called Mastery, which will add additional damage to your abilities if they're not a repeat of the previous ability. This is considered by nearly all Windwalker Monks to be the element that makes the Monk rotation enormously one of the most enjoyable rotations in the game, to the point that Blizzard has given a couple of other specs an optional way to use this mechanic for themselves.

At level 13, you don't yet have your first talent. At level 15, you can learn your first talent which will you can use for an extra button to press. At level 20, you learn Fists of Fury, which will give you another VERY powerful button to press. At level 22, your Blackout Kick will only cost 1 chi, freeing up additional chi in your rotation. At level 42, you'll learn a passive which randomly allows you to use Blackout Kick without spending Chi. At level 45, you will gain a choice of 3 talents that will provide you with additional resources.

I recommend you keep playing your monk until roughly level 50 before you give up on it. Yes, it starts out slowly, but you'll quickly gain extra abilities that will make the class much more enjoyable to play.

Answer 4

Yes, there are moves you can use to help conserve energy, but you don't have most of them yet.

I main a night elf monk, and I almost never have times where I don't have enough resources. Note that I said "resources" and not "Energy". Windwalker Monks have two different resource pools: Energy and Chi. Tiger Palm turns Energy into Chi while doing damage, and since most of the DPS abilities use Chi instead of Energy, most of your Energy is going to go into Tiger Palm. This is completely normal and not a cause for concern.

At your level, you should have Blackout Kick, which is the first of four key Chi-using abilities to use for DPS. Out of those four, Blackout Kick is actually my least favorite to use, although it's good for getting rid of excess Chi, getting rid of cooldowns on Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury, and conserving Energy.

Other than Blackout Kick, you'll want these three abilities:

• Rising Sun Kick (level 18)
• Fists of Fury (level 28)
• Whirling Dragon Punch (level 100 talent)

And yes, I know that Fists of Fury and Whirling Dragon Punch are area attacks; they're just as good against single enemies as they are against packs.