This weekend’s WoW: Dragonflight Mythic Dungeon International Global Finals featured a relatively stalwart meta, with practically identical team compositions being played across the board. While teams did bring certain off-meta classes into their runs at some points, such as Demon Hunters, Rogues, and others, there was one class that was completely snubbed during the global finals: Monk.
Twelve of the 13 classes available in WoW were played during the global finals in some capacity, but Monks were left out of the conversation completely. Despite having three specializations that could fill three different roles, Monks were snubbed in favor of stronger options at all of them.
Brewmaster Monks were left behind in favor of a tank meta that only saw Protection Warriors and Protection Paladins in every run, while Mistweavers joined the ranks of Healers that were tossed aside in favor of stronger specs such Preservation Evoker, Discipline Priest, and Restoration Shaman.
In the DPS landscape, Windwalker Monks—who usually have value in Mythic+ dungeons thanks to their consistent AoE throughput—were shelved in favor of much stronger classes. Feral Druids and Unholy Death Knights were present in almost every run during the MDI global finals, holding down the Melee DPS role intensely and leaving almost no room for Windwalker Monks (or many other Melee DPS specs, for that matter).
In total, the DPS meta didn’t shift at all throughout the global finals, with Feral, Unholy, and Fire Mage being the most dominant specs across the board. At least one of those three specs was featured in every run during the event, while plenty of others featured one, if not both, teams running all three.
While teams did experiment with a bit of meta-bending when they began to test four-DPS team comps, the DPS meta remained mostly stagnant throughout the weekend. If Windwalker was ever going to make an appearance, it would have been during those four-DPS Court of Stars runs, but teams opted for specs like Havoc Demon Hunter and Enhancement Shaman to fill the extra DPS gap instead.
Currently, Windwalkers are the fourth-most popular Melee DPS option in Mythic+ dungeons, according to WoW stats site Raider.io. But that popularity among the game’s general player base has not translated into playing time on the professional stage.
