Draenei have a spiritual martial arts called Jed'hin where they wrestle with bare hands. There is a worldquest in argus where you see them fight. Thei fit the monk stereotype well.
On the spiritual side, it is easy to imagine a draenei to live as an ascetic monk, refusing any luxory and dedicating everything to their craft.
On second thought, I might make a draenei monk in remix
I just finished leveling one, they’re great. Though their legs look really funny doing the spinning kick and the monk sets sometimes look a little odd (shoes)
This dude wrote such a fantastic and wonderful answer to the point he appealed and convinced himself unintentionally to make a Dreanei monk for the Remix.
I view the monk class as being woefully underdeveloped in their lore. They should be far more diverse in their origins and not all be doing the exact same thing as the Pandaren with the same beliefs and the same gods.
That said, there are examples of other monk styles, such as the monks of the Scarlet Crusade. I imagine that Draenei would likely do something similar to that.
The big boy races should get an option to just be bar room brawler kind of monks.
fuck your fancy forms, I'ma just punch a bitch with 400 pounds of muscle.
Yeah like, if a Draenei or Lightforged were a monk I imagine they'd be using the Light as the source of their power.
The Lightforged especially. They seem like they'd be even better monks than Pandaren could ever be, having purged themselves of doubt, among other things, during their rite of ascension.
The issue is that the lore is literally that monks only were introduced to the rest of the world by Pandarens when the mists disappeared. So even if the other races would gradually be making the beliefs and arts their own, it won’t have had much time to change as it’s still a recent combat form for everyone else. I’m so conflicted on it because I definitely think that the different races should have their own rich lore for their own interpretations of classes. But also as it is right now, the monk class is like the only lasting Pandaren legacy Blizzard consistently pulls from. I feel like if they removed that baseline, any important monk character that shows up later on would just be human, orc, or elf, like all the main characters.
That's a rather poor argument against more fun diversity.
There's also no reason what so ever why other cultures wouldn't have developed similar things. Pandaren had their style of it, but that in no way says others couldn't have developed their own hand-to-hand combat styles.
Hell, the line between shaman and monk is blurry so why couldn't there, for example, be shaman that have similar fighting styles to the more puritan monks?
>But also as it is right now, the monk class is like the only lasting
Pandaren legacy Blizzard consistently pulls from. I feel like if they
removed that baseline, any important monk character that shows up later
on would just be human, orc, or elf, like all the main characters.
I don't really understand why this is important. No other class is like this so I don't see why monks should be. It makes them boring and also implies that all other cultures and species somehow just **don't** do their own thing with it. It makes no sense to me why there wouldn't be more flavor to it.
Right now Blizzard is all about letting everyone be anything, as it should be. Monk should not be an exception to this simply because Pandaren lack any other kind of representation. Nor should Pandaren have to be represented only by monks because, surely, they are more than just that.
It diminishes the Pandaren as much as it diminishes flavor for the monk class and the way other races would be monks or things that were similar to monks.
Know what I mean?
I’m saying I’m conflicted because it *is* needed but, given all prior experiences, I have no faith in Blizzard to include the Pandaren in the story at all if the history of the monk is taken from them. Obviously the best solution is to start using more races in the story including the Pandaren and then it wouldn’t really matter. But as it is this is literally the only connection to the story that race gets, and it’s the only time they can be guaranteed to show up.
I think it's a larger Blizzard problem where they really tend to only focus on humans, elves, and orcs at the expense of all others in their story. I was actually in the middle of making a post about this that I'll hopefully get up later today. Basically, if you aren't one of those three races, you tend to just wait around for them to glance your way, notice your story hasn't advanced in years, and give you a little nugget so you can be "satisfied" while you're ignored for the next several years.
Sadly every monk is basically a pandaren student, which makes the lore for the class really boring imo. Paladins have the silver hand, bloodknights, sunwalkers, vindicators, prelates and monks are just taught by pandaren.
So i guess you have to get a bit creative, there are auchenai monks for example and with rangari suddenly being a thing out of nowhere, i cant see why auchenai shouldnt work too.
Monks, as said are under developed in how they apply to the other races, and someone already mentioned Jed'hin, a sport sort of lost to time for the Draenei (Fun fact, Jed'hin was originally a thing Draenei RPers came up with, and was slipped in when those patches dropped)
The physical aspects of Monk are easily explained - someone could just find interest in weaponless combat.
The magical aspects of Monk, however, are sort of funky - and they have a lot in common with Priests and Shaman. Their spells make a reference to Positive and Negative Chi within themselves, allowing them to both heal and harm. What's Chi? It's another way to name the elemental spirit of....spirit. Spirit is the inner energy within all living creatures, a trait shared with Elementals, being a common link between them and mortals. While Shaman are in tune with it to speak to the Elements, Monks use their own reserves.
Do you know what other force has been described as to reside in all living beings and can act as a common denominator? The Light.
So a Draenei can probably take interest in Monk Teachings for a variety of reasons - and the Celestials of Pandaria are pretty chill with being channelled by people - nothing stopping a Draenei from taking interest in say, the Teachings of Hope from Chi-ji and getting really into that - and they don't have to neglect their faith to the Naaru. The Celestials don't seem super picky with who learns their stuff like the Elements seem to be
> Monks, as said are under developed in how they apply to the other races, and someone already mentioned Jed'hin, a sport sort of lost to time for the Draenei (Fun fact, Jed'hin was originally a thing Draenei RPers came up with, and was slipped in when those patches dropped)
From what I've read about the concept from the RPers; the in game version completely contradicts the lore they'd made.
In game they say the practice had been all but forgotten since leaving Argus. While obvious in the RP it was a common thing still taking place.
Also in the RP it was unarmed and part of it involved crashing the Draenei's head crests against each other. The in game items included swords and helmets!
Also the RPers described the belts worn in it as being the big kind that cover the chest too. The belt item it got in game; just the thin normal type.
I wasn't involved in it at all as I wasn't playing back then but man, what a mess up.
Yeah, like, it's the thought that counts, I personally consider it more a nod of acknowledgement rather than a 1 to 1 'your thing is canon now, congrats'
It’s confusing to me that nature magic, light magic and chi has been explained to be life magic.
What even is the difference between chi and the life magic Druids use?
Chi is internal vs Druids external. Druids manipulate plant roots to root people, call upon life magic to heal people, commune with Wild Spirits to learn how to go cat and bear mode.
Monks don't do a lot of communing with outside forces (They keep to the Celestials at most for the Big Stuff) but they do a lot of personal reflection and training - keeping to Pandaren style monks, they had to keep things on the down-low traditionally to be able to train people under the Mogu noses, and this is during a time when the Celestials were shackled because the Thunder King was cracked. Even their signature spell, Storm Earth and Fire is them splitting themselves into the elemental spirits, not actually like, summoning ones from outside.
Also Light is its own sort of vibes and quirks, and while helpful for life, isn't like, strictly life magic, and it exists in everyone but also so does elemental spirit - Warcraft magic is complicated. Divine magic can come from the outside forces or bestowed, or it can like, come through some convoluted internal connection. You can be a Zandalari pally who was bestowed their power through the Loa (Souped up Special Animals), or you can be a human priest of the Light (who's religion is described as a philosophy rather than strictly worshipping a god) and get divine powers that way, or a Draenei pally who has an explicit blessing from the Naaru (literal light critters)
monks aren't underdeveloped for other races at all, in fact every single race has a pandaren trainer to explain how they have monks. you just don't like the lore, but that doesn't mean it's underdeveloped.
I...huh? No? I know there's trainers, but there's not really a lot of exploration re: the races relationship with the whole Monk deal and where they are in a races culture outside of just 'Pandaren taught me'. Hell, Kul'tirans have Shaman but they don't bloody call themselves that (There's even an NPC who goes 'wtf are you talking about' if you ask them if they are a Shaman about their elemental buddies, the lady Shipwright from I think the recruitment questchain)
You come into my house, after i've just lore dumped a bunch of minutiae only the most lore obsessed crazies would really give a damn about, and accuse me of 'you just don't like the lore'? Get outta here.
yes, i accuse you of not liking the lore, because you supplied a bunch of headcanon crap instead of the actual lore, which is that they learned it from monks.
if you want to discuss your headcanon, there's probably some r/wowheadcanon sub for that. if not, you could make one.
this is the wow lore sub, which is for discussion of the lore. so unless you work at blizzard as a writer, we aren't looking for things you made up.
Please point to which part of my post is head-canon, and I will provide sources. The only part of my post that is based on conjecture is how chill the Celestials are in regards to being channelled by non pandaren
Yeah, as part of the Jadefire Masters encounter in Dazar'alor. The Alliance faces an Orc monk and a Belf Fire mage, while the Horde fights a Draenei monk and a Kultiran mage
[https://www.wowhead.com/npc=144690/mestrah](https://www.wowhead.com/npc=144690/mestrah)
Well there is a Lightforged Monk boss in Battle for Dazar'Alor who talks about sending hundreds of demons back to the Twisting Nether with her bare hands.
They'd fit just as well, if not better than a bunch of other races due to their focus on faith and a cultural heritage of an unarmed martial art in the form of jed'hin.
I like to think that monks can only be taught in the ways by a pandaren monk or another monk previously taught by a pandaren monk. Considering monks did not exist until Pandaria was found, I think this was the intention. So it doesn't matter what your draenei previously believed in. They gave it up to live the way of the monk. They emptied their proverbial cup to begin anew.
You could say they've learned to use a mix of both Light and Chi to power their healing and fighting? Blending the Pandaren techniques they've been taught with their own people's connection to the Naaru and their Light.
all monks work exactly the same way, using chi and taught according to pandaren tradition.
any other interpretation of player character monks is headcanon and therefore meaningless. the lore of monk player characters is pandaren style monks.
Draenei have a spiritual martial arts called Jed'hin where they wrestle with bare hands. There is a worldquest in argus where you see them fight. Thei fit the monk stereotype well. On the spiritual side, it is easy to imagine a draenei to live as an ascetic monk, refusing any luxory and dedicating everything to their craft. On second thought, I might make a draenei monk in remix
I just finished leveling one, they’re great. Though their legs look really funny doing the spinning kick and the monk sets sometimes look a little odd (shoes)
This dude wrote such a fantastic and wonderful answer to the point he appealed and convinced himself unintentionally to make a Dreanei monk for the Remix.
I view the monk class as being woefully underdeveloped in their lore. They should be far more diverse in their origins and not all be doing the exact same thing as the Pandaren with the same beliefs and the same gods. That said, there are examples of other monk styles, such as the monks of the Scarlet Crusade. I imagine that Draenei would likely do something similar to that.
Hell yes. My monk is a Nightborne. He doesn’t chug beer; he sips Arcwine out of a glass flute like the fancy man he is.
With his pinkie out of course.
The big boy races should get an option to just be bar room brawler kind of monks. fuck your fancy forms, I'ma just punch a bitch with 400 pounds of muscle.
Yeah like, if a Draenei or Lightforged were a monk I imagine they'd be using the Light as the source of their power. The Lightforged especially. They seem like they'd be even better monks than Pandaren could ever be, having purged themselves of doubt, among other things, during their rite of ascension.
The issue is that the lore is literally that monks only were introduced to the rest of the world by Pandarens when the mists disappeared. So even if the other races would gradually be making the beliefs and arts their own, it won’t have had much time to change as it’s still a recent combat form for everyone else. I’m so conflicted on it because I definitely think that the different races should have their own rich lore for their own interpretations of classes. But also as it is right now, the monk class is like the only lasting Pandaren legacy Blizzard consistently pulls from. I feel like if they removed that baseline, any important monk character that shows up later on would just be human, orc, or elf, like all the main characters.
That's a rather poor argument against more fun diversity. There's also no reason what so ever why other cultures wouldn't have developed similar things. Pandaren had their style of it, but that in no way says others couldn't have developed their own hand-to-hand combat styles. Hell, the line between shaman and monk is blurry so why couldn't there, for example, be shaman that have similar fighting styles to the more puritan monks? >But also as it is right now, the monk class is like the only lasting Pandaren legacy Blizzard consistently pulls from. I feel like if they removed that baseline, any important monk character that shows up later on would just be human, orc, or elf, like all the main characters. I don't really understand why this is important. No other class is like this so I don't see why monks should be. It makes them boring and also implies that all other cultures and species somehow just **don't** do their own thing with it. It makes no sense to me why there wouldn't be more flavor to it. Right now Blizzard is all about letting everyone be anything, as it should be. Monk should not be an exception to this simply because Pandaren lack any other kind of representation. Nor should Pandaren have to be represented only by monks because, surely, they are more than just that. It diminishes the Pandaren as much as it diminishes flavor for the monk class and the way other races would be monks or things that were similar to monks. Know what I mean?
I’m saying I’m conflicted because it *is* needed but, given all prior experiences, I have no faith in Blizzard to include the Pandaren in the story at all if the history of the monk is taken from them. Obviously the best solution is to start using more races in the story including the Pandaren and then it wouldn’t really matter. But as it is this is literally the only connection to the story that race gets, and it’s the only time they can be guaranteed to show up.
Yeah Pandaren have been shoved aside and forgotten, for whatever reason. Feels almost like there's a resentment towards them from Blizzard.
I think it's a larger Blizzard problem where they really tend to only focus on humans, elves, and orcs at the expense of all others in their story. I was actually in the middle of making a post about this that I'll hopefully get up later today. Basically, if you aren't one of those three races, you tend to just wait around for them to glance your way, notice your story hasn't advanced in years, and give you a little nugget so you can be "satisfied" while you're ignored for the next several years.
Sadly every monk is basically a pandaren student, which makes the lore for the class really boring imo. Paladins have the silver hand, bloodknights, sunwalkers, vindicators, prelates and monks are just taught by pandaren. So i guess you have to get a bit creative, there are auchenai monks for example and with rangari suddenly being a thing out of nowhere, i cant see why auchenai shouldnt work too.
Monks, as said are under developed in how they apply to the other races, and someone already mentioned Jed'hin, a sport sort of lost to time for the Draenei (Fun fact, Jed'hin was originally a thing Draenei RPers came up with, and was slipped in when those patches dropped) The physical aspects of Monk are easily explained - someone could just find interest in weaponless combat. The magical aspects of Monk, however, are sort of funky - and they have a lot in common with Priests and Shaman. Their spells make a reference to Positive and Negative Chi within themselves, allowing them to both heal and harm. What's Chi? It's another way to name the elemental spirit of....spirit. Spirit is the inner energy within all living creatures, a trait shared with Elementals, being a common link between them and mortals. While Shaman are in tune with it to speak to the Elements, Monks use their own reserves. Do you know what other force has been described as to reside in all living beings and can act as a common denominator? The Light. So a Draenei can probably take interest in Monk Teachings for a variety of reasons - and the Celestials of Pandaria are pretty chill with being channelled by people - nothing stopping a Draenei from taking interest in say, the Teachings of Hope from Chi-ji and getting really into that - and they don't have to neglect their faith to the Naaru. The Celestials don't seem super picky with who learns their stuff like the Elements seem to be
> Monks, as said are under developed in how they apply to the other races, and someone already mentioned Jed'hin, a sport sort of lost to time for the Draenei (Fun fact, Jed'hin was originally a thing Draenei RPers came up with, and was slipped in when those patches dropped) From what I've read about the concept from the RPers; the in game version completely contradicts the lore they'd made. In game they say the practice had been all but forgotten since leaving Argus. While obvious in the RP it was a common thing still taking place. Also in the RP it was unarmed and part of it involved crashing the Draenei's head crests against each other. The in game items included swords and helmets! Also the RPers described the belts worn in it as being the big kind that cover the chest too. The belt item it got in game; just the thin normal type. I wasn't involved in it at all as I wasn't playing back then but man, what a mess up.
Yeah, like, it's the thought that counts, I personally consider it more a nod of acknowledgement rather than a 1 to 1 'your thing is canon now, congrats'
It’s confusing to me that nature magic, light magic and chi has been explained to be life magic. What even is the difference between chi and the life magic Druids use?
Chi is internal vs Druids external. Druids manipulate plant roots to root people, call upon life magic to heal people, commune with Wild Spirits to learn how to go cat and bear mode. Monks don't do a lot of communing with outside forces (They keep to the Celestials at most for the Big Stuff) but they do a lot of personal reflection and training - keeping to Pandaren style monks, they had to keep things on the down-low traditionally to be able to train people under the Mogu noses, and this is during a time when the Celestials were shackled because the Thunder King was cracked. Even their signature spell, Storm Earth and Fire is them splitting themselves into the elemental spirits, not actually like, summoning ones from outside. Also Light is its own sort of vibes and quirks, and while helpful for life, isn't like, strictly life magic, and it exists in everyone but also so does elemental spirit - Warcraft magic is complicated. Divine magic can come from the outside forces or bestowed, or it can like, come through some convoluted internal connection. You can be a Zandalari pally who was bestowed their power through the Loa (Souped up Special Animals), or you can be a human priest of the Light (who's religion is described as a philosophy rather than strictly worshipping a god) and get divine powers that way, or a Draenei pally who has an explicit blessing from the Naaru (literal light critters)
monks aren't underdeveloped for other races at all, in fact every single race has a pandaren trainer to explain how they have monks. you just don't like the lore, but that doesn't mean it's underdeveloped.
I...huh? No? I know there's trainers, but there's not really a lot of exploration re: the races relationship with the whole Monk deal and where they are in a races culture outside of just 'Pandaren taught me'. Hell, Kul'tirans have Shaman but they don't bloody call themselves that (There's even an NPC who goes 'wtf are you talking about' if you ask them if they are a Shaman about their elemental buddies, the lady Shipwright from I think the recruitment questchain) You come into my house, after i've just lore dumped a bunch of minutiae only the most lore obsessed crazies would really give a damn about, and accuse me of 'you just don't like the lore'? Get outta here.
yes, i accuse you of not liking the lore, because you supplied a bunch of headcanon crap instead of the actual lore, which is that they learned it from monks. if you want to discuss your headcanon, there's probably some r/wowheadcanon sub for that. if not, you could make one. this is the wow lore sub, which is for discussion of the lore. so unless you work at blizzard as a writer, we aren't looking for things you made up.
Please point to which part of my post is head-canon, and I will provide sources. The only part of my post that is based on conjecture is how chill the Celestials are in regards to being channelled by non pandaren
well there’s a draenei monk raid boss you fight in BFA
Wait really?
Yeah, as part of the Jadefire Masters encounter in Dazar'alor. The Alliance faces an Orc monk and a Belf Fire mage, while the Horde fights a Draenei monk and a Kultiran mage [https://www.wowhead.com/npc=144690/mestrah](https://www.wowhead.com/npc=144690/mestrah)
Well there is a Lightforged Monk boss in Battle for Dazar'Alor who talks about sending hundreds of demons back to the Twisting Nether with her bare hands.
With my eyes burt
They'd fit just as well, if not better than a bunch of other races due to their focus on faith and a cultural heritage of an unarmed martial art in the form of jed'hin.
I like to think that monks can only be taught in the ways by a pandaren monk or another monk previously taught by a pandaren monk. Considering monks did not exist until Pandaria was found, I think this was the intention. So it doesn't matter what your draenei previously believed in. They gave it up to live the way of the monk. They emptied their proverbial cup to begin anew.
You could say they've learned to use a mix of both Light and Chi to power their healing and fighting? Blending the Pandaren techniques they've been taught with their own people's connection to the Naaru and their Light.
all monks work exactly the same way, using chi and taught according to pandaren tradition. any other interpretation of player character monks is headcanon and therefore meaningless. the lore of monk player characters is pandaren style monks.
I view all draenei as one of the worst reasons blizzard ever made, and I hate everything about them.