Mistweaver 101: Back to Basics

Hello there Mistweavers and future Mistweaver converts! As I scoured the internet for resources, I noticed that the vast majority of Mistweaver material out there is either woefully outdated or geared toward players who already know the class fairly well. There are guides about how to maximize your output in cutting edge progression, but relatively few that discuss how to get started with the class.

In light of that, today’s post will be an exploration of the basics of Mistweaver healing. This is intended to be an overview that should hopefully get you started with a new Mistweaver alt or a level 90 Monk who hasn’t had a chance to try our awesome healing spec yet.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading the first post in this series on Chi & Mana management. Because our interaction with our resources is so essential for Mistweaver gameplay, it’s important to have an understanding of how Chi & Mana work before moving on to spells.

The Basics

Mistweavers are relatively mobile healers who use two resources, Mana and Chi, to heal their targets. Our heals excel in fights that require a group to be spread out, because our primary healing spells are not area-of-effect abilities (as opposed to a Resto Druid’s Efflorescence, for example). We use leather Intellect gear and can equip either a staff or a one-hand weapon and an off-hand. Spirit is generally less of a concern for Mistweaver Monks than for other healers because Mistweavers rely heavily on our Mana Tea ability to regenerate Mana in combat.

Stance, Statue, & Buff

While it is obviously difficult to discuss a “healing rotation” for any healing spec, let alone for Mistweavers, there are a few things we should remember to do in all situations:

Stance of the Wise Serpent is our healing stance.

Wise Serpent converts our Energy to Mana and allows the use of the majority of our healing spells.  It also increases our healing done, our haste, and makes it possible for us to effectively deal melee damage.  You should always be in this stance as a Mistweaver.

Jade Serpent Statue should be placed in an area where it will be able to heal the majority of your group.

Unless you are anticipating a very short fight before you move on (i.e. trash packs), you will want to summon your Jade Serpent Statue to help you heal.  The statue has a 30 second cooldown before you can summon it again, it lasts for 15 minutes, and it can target any friendly players within 40 yards.  Summoning the statute is free, so you don’t have to worry about wasting Mana on it if you need to move it during the course of a fight.

Your statue interacts with your melee damage (as we will discuss in the Fistweaving post) and it also will channel Soothing Mist on an injured target anytime that you are channeling Soothing Mist. The statue’s version of Soothing Mist is a “smart heal,” meaning that it will automatically choose an injured party member to heal.  It can heal the same target that you are actively healing, but it does not necessarily do so. You cannot control which person in your party the statue heals.

The statue will continue to heal the same party member for as long as you channel Soothing Mist and will not choose a new target unless you begin your channel again.  For example, if I channel Soothing Mists on my tank and the statue decides to heal me, it will continue to heal me for the duration of my channel or until I cancel it.  If instead I channel Soothing Mist on my tank for a few seconds and then switch to channel it on a DPS, the statue will also select a new target at that time.

Legacy of the Emperor is the Mistweaver’s group-wide buff.

Legacy of the Emperor increases Strength, Agility, and Intellect by 5%.  This is the same buff as Blessing of Kings and Gift of the Wild, so it will not stack with either of those.  If someone in your group asks to be buffed with stats, Kings, Mark, or paw, they are asking you to cast this buff.

Generating and Spending Chi

By far, the biggest difference between Mistweavers and all other healers is our interaction with and use of our dual healing resources – Mana and Chi.

As a Mistweaver, you essentially have 2 types of abilities:

• Spells that cost Mana and generate Chi
• Spells that cost Chi

At max level, you will usually use these abilities, which cost Mana, to generate Chi:

	Soothing Mist is a long, channeled spell that heals for a moderate amount. Each tick has a 30% chance to generate 1 Chi.
	Renewing Mists is a heal-over-time that spreads to a total of 3 targets and always generates 1 Chi when cast.
	Surging Mist is a large, expensive heal that generates 1 Chi and becomes an instant-cast if we cast it while we are channeling Soothing Mist.
	Expel Harm is a self-heal that you should use anytime you are below 100% health, and which generates 1 Chi.
	Jab is a melee ability that strikes your target for a small amount of damage and generates 1 Chi.

At max level, you will usually use these abilities to spend Chi:

	Uplift is large instant heal that will affect anyone who currently has Renewing Mists on them and costs 2 Chi.
	Thunder Focus Tea can be used once every 45 seconds, costs 1 Chi, and buffs either Surging Mist or Uplift, depending upon how it is used.
	Enveloping Mist is a powerful heal-over-time that costs 3 Chi and increases the healing done by Soothing Mist by 30%.
	Tiger Palm is a melee ability that costs 1 Chi and strikes the target for a moderate amount of damage.
	Blackout Kick is a melee ability that costs 2 Chi and strikes the target for a moderate amount of damage.

You will notice that the spells listed above are a mix of both targeted healing spells and melee abilities.  This is because Mistweavers are capable of healing through their damaging attacks, based upon a passive ability called Eminence.  This style of healing, which is referred to as “Fistweaving,” is an important part of our toolkit.  Fistweaving will be covered in depth in an upcoming Mistweaver 101 guide, so we will only touch upon it briefly here.  For now, it is simply important to remember that your melee abilities can generate and consume Chi just like your healing spells do.

Basic Healing Rotation

The following is a very basic set of priorities for healing in a dungeon or raid setting. We will cover both dungeon and raid healing, including introducing Fistweaving into your rotation, in upcoming posts.

1. Keep  Renewing Mists on your tank.
2. Use  Uplift if multiple players need to be healed.
3. Cast  Surging Mist on anyone who needs to be quickly healed to full.
4. Use  Thunder Focus Tea on cooldown to either refresh the duration of  Renewing Mists on everyone who currently has the buff, or to double the healing of your next  Surging Mist.
5. Use  Expel Harm anytime you are below 100% health.
6. Use  Enveloping Mist on your tank if they are taking a large amount of sustained damage or if you need to spend excess Chi.
7. Channel  Soothing Mist on your tank or on any player who is currently taking damage.
8. Channel  Mana Tea to replenish your mana as needed.

Above all else, remember that you should always be generating and spending Chi. There is rarely a reason to allow your character to keep Chi for extended time periods, and there is almost never a reason to sit with 4 Chi.  Chi should be spent as quickly as it is generated.

Up Next:  Spell Breakdown

The next post in this series will breakdown the spells discussed above in greater detail.  It will be a slightly more advanced post, targeted to players who really want to get the most out of each of their healing spells and understand how they interact with one another.