Mistweaver Q&A

I’m taking a break from guide writing today, but I wanted to pause for a moment to point out some good questions that have been asked so far.

First up, from @liopleurodonic:
Q:  “If you’re focused on fistweaving, is it better to use a traditional healer stat stick or should you consider weapon damage first?”

A:  You want a traditional healer stat stick and weapon damage doesn’t matter a bit to you. The reason for this is our Stance of the Wise Serpent, which makes our attack power equal to 200% of our spell power and makes it so that we no longer benefit from other sources of attack power. This conversion gives us enough attack power via our spellpower that it would greatly outweigh any difference in weapon damage from one weapon to another. Additionally, only our damage (and thus the healing done via our damage) would benefit from an increase in attack power, whereas our entire healing arsenal benefits from increases to spellpower and Intellect.

Next, from @Zelgadys14:
Q:  “Wondering if you can talk about what is the desired rotation for fistweaving?”

A: Unfortunately there really isn’t a rotation, per se. Similarly, one of the comments on the Fistweaving post pondered whether it is “even POSSIBLE to do a full fistweaving rotation … and be viable from a mana perspective.” As the commenter rightly pointed out, if you shouldn’t Jab twice in a row, then it becomes difficult to build up multiple Chi at a time to use Blackout Kick, Uplift, etc. This is really where the “weaving” aspect of Fistweaving comes into play.

Obviously you aren’t going to do a ton of healing and you are likely to get bored really quickly if all you ever do is Jab and then Tiger Palm to consume the 1 Chi you generated. So that means that if you choose to Fistweave, you will still be constantly working your healing spells into your rotation as well. Expel Harm should still be used every time you are below 100% health. You should still frequently use Renewing Mist so that it is already on the raid if you need to uplift. The free and instant Surging Mists you get from Vital Mists will still grant you 1 Chi, so you will get an extra 1 Chi for every 5 Tiger Palms.

From Gruffertus on the Chi & Mana post:
Q:  “Mana Tea is a buff that stacks to 20, and Mana Tea is also a channeled spell that returns 8% mana per second. What’s the connection between them? What’s the difference between channeling at 1 stack and 20?“

A:  You have an ability that you can use called Mana Tea. Mana Tea the activated ability can only be used if you have a least 1 stack of the buff, also called Mana Tea. So the button for the active ability will be greyed out until you have at least 1 stack of the buff.

Having multiple stacks of the buff increases the amount of time that you can channel the activated ability, and thus the amount of Mana you can return. So if you have 10 stacks of the buff, you will be able to return 40% of your Mana over a 5 second channeled cast – if you allow the full channel. If you have 10 stacks but only need to get 20% of your Mana back, then you simply press the active ability and then move/cancel the cast once you’ve gotten back as much Mana as you need. You lose stacks of Mana Tea as you channel the spell. So if I start with 20 stacks and I channel long enough to use up 10 of them, I will still have 10 stacks left to use later.

Finally, from Andrew on a comment on the Fistweaving post:
Q:  “Roughly speaking, how much of a DSP gain/healing loss is Fistweaving?”

A:  Believe it or not, I happen to have some specific data on this, thanks to working on Heroic Fallen Protectors last night. I began the fight standing back and doing traditional healing, until it became apparent that our DPS would not be able to beat the enrage timer if I didn’t help out and Fistweave. (I recognize the intense irony of that statement, given my assertion yesterday that Fistweaving is not mandatory for success. But as I also pointed out yesterday, for different raid groups at different points in their progression, various things may be considered “mandatory” that are completely optional for folks who are doing LFR, Flex, or Normal raiding. In a 10-man heroic fight with slightly low DPS, I found it was necessary to Fistweave to defeat the encounter.)

But I digress.  Comparing 2 pulls of Heroic Fallen Protectors, one where I did not Fistweave and one where I did, I see my HPS output drop by about 40,000 when I was Fistweaving. I see myself drop from top healing to second on the meters. My damaging abilities did around 90,000 DPS, for about 5% of the total damage done. This is in 565 iLevel gear in a 10-man raid setting, and during a fight that has a pretty significant amount of both tank and group damage going out. Obviously your mileage (and mine) is going to vary somewhat depending upon your gear, your raid, and the fight.

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Thanks very much to everyone reading for all the positive feedback, questions, comments, and for passing these guides along to your friends. I really do appreciate it and we will get back into the next portion of the guide over the weekend.  I am also looking to stream some Mistweaver 101 content in the near future, so please subscribe to my Twitch channel if you would be interested in viewing that.