Basic Mistweaving Strategy

Patch 8.0

Welcome to my Mistweaving guide! Here you will learn the basics of the Monk healing spec to get you started on your journey to deeper knowledge. Mistweavers have seen many changes throughout the years, and it’s true for Battle for Azeroth as well! Legion-style mistweaver has merged with Warlords-style mistweaver, for a new epic combo. Check out my basic mistweaver guide to help you get started!

Content

Legion to Battle for Azeroth Changes

As per tradition, mistweavers get quite a few changes every expansion. This time, the new mistweaver-style is a fusion between WoD and Legion. We retain Essence Font and Vivify as our primary healing abilites, but as for single-target, Soothing Mist makes a comeback as an active ability. Here’s a quick summary of the changes:

  • Effuse  Removed
  • Mystic Touch NEW
  • Soothing Mist has been changed to an active ability. The following spells can be used instantly, without breaking the channel:
  • Vivify now heals your direct target and any players with Renewing Mist active.
  • Renewing Mist now has two charges.
  • Thunder Focus Tea has had several changes to its empowerments:
    • Removed Effuse: Healing increased by 200%.
    • Removed Essence Font: Castable while moving.
    • Vivify: No mana cost.
    • Enveloping Mist: Instant cast. Immediately heals for 200% of spell power.
    • Renewing Mist: Does not trigger cooldown. Duration increased by 10 sec.
    • NEW Rising Sun Kick: Cooldown reduced by 9 sec.

Full report on Battle for Azeroth changes here.

Mistweaver Rotations

Healers don’t have a strict rotation in the way that damage dealers have. Instead, one could say we have different sets of spell priorities depending on the situation. Here you can read about the spell priorities, or mini rotations, and when you should switch between them.

Single-Target Healing

Soothing Mist is our primary healing spell for single-target. It’s important to know that it’s a channel, and you can use some spells without breaking the it. I will call this weaving in the guide, and the spells you can weave into the Soothing Mist channel without breaking it are Vivify, Enveloping Mist and Thunder Focus Tea.

  • Apply Renewing Mist on your target. You should always have at least two Renewing Mists out at all times.
  • Cast Soothing Mist on your target.
  • Cooldown: Life Cocoon is our single-target cooldown that grants a large absorb on the target. I do not consider this a tank cooldown, since the absorb is too small to make any significant impact on the heavy tank damage. However, it is great for saving damage dealers and other healers! Use it to your heart’s content.

AoE Healing

Our primary AoE healing spells are the cleave heal Vivify (target count depends on how many active Renewing Mists you have out) and the large AoE heal Essence Font (6 to 18 targets). With different talent builds, the rotation can vary greatly, but here are the simple versions of them.

Party/Raid Healing: 2-5 Injured Targets

  • Cast Renewing Mist together with Thunder Focus Tea. You should always have at least two targets with Renewing Mist active.
  • Cast Soothing Mist on a low-health target.
    • Weave in Vivify to cleave heal. If you have 2 targets with ReM active, the heal will hit three players (direct heal + two cleave heals).
  • Heavy 5-man healing:
    • Cast Essence Font and make sure to utilize its boost to our mastery heal.
    • Follow up with Soothing Mist on a low-health target.
      • Weave in several Vivifys to cleave heal.

Raid Healing: 6-30 Injured Targets
Talent: Upwelling

  • Cast Renewing Mist together with Thunder Focus Tea. You should always have at least two targets with Renewing Mist active.
  • Cast Essence Font. Move around to spread the healing bolts to as many players as you can.
  • Cast Chi Burst (if talented).
  • During Essence Font cooldown/downtime:
    • If few players are damaged/the raid is spread:
    • If many players are damaged and stacked:
      • Cast Refreshing Jade Wind (if talented).

Raid Healing: 6-30 Injured Targets
Talent: Rising Mist

Damage Rotation

Base Damage Rotation (Single Target)

Base Damage Rotation (AoE)

Weaving it All Together

As stated before, healers don’t have a strict rotation. Instead you have these mini rotations with different spell priorities, and you have to switch between them when the situation calls for it. The deciding factor for changing rotations is of course the damage pattern. Here is a summary, a sort of rule of thumb, on how you should think about your spell priorities when the damage pattern changes.

  • No Matter What: Always have 2 targets with Renewing Mist active.
  • Low to No Damage: Do the damage rotation. This is especially important if you use the Spirit of the Crane or Rising Mist talents.
  • 2-5 Targets Damaged: Do the single-target and cleave heal rotation in tandem. If one or two players are critically damaged, use the heavier single-target rotation with Thunder Focus Tea and Enveloping Mist. Otherwise, keep to cleave healing with Vivify.
  • 6-30 Targets Damaged: Switch to the AoE spell priority whenever 6 or more players are damaged. To save mana, only switch to heavy AoE when you know there won’t be any overhealing.

Talents that Add to Spell Rotation

  • Chi Wave: Use on cooldown.
  • Chi Burst: Use whenever you have a clear shot of 6+ injured allies.
  • Lifecycles: Alternate between Vivify and Enveloping Mist to take advantage of the mana reduction.
  • Spirit of the Crane: Whenever you have a few GCDs to yourself, make sure to do the damage rotation on enemy targets.
  • Mana Tea: Pop this whenever you need to cast several Vivifys and Enveloping Mists in a row. Cast Essence Font at the last second of its duration (the mana cost of EF is instant).
  • Upwelling: If you let Essence Font remain off-cooldown for 18 sec, your Essence Font has basically double the channel time and therefore double the amount of healing. You can use it before the 18 seconds has passed without much penalty (the duration of the next EF ticks up every second off cooldown). I wouldn’t worry too much about the charge time, use the spell whenever it’s needed basically. You can see how much Essence Font has charged by looking at its tooltip.
    Also, remember to take advantage of the extended channel time by moving around and force-spread the healing bolts!
  • Focused Thunder: You have two empowerments for each use of Thunder Focus Tea. When you have this talent, it can be wise to let Renewing Mist completely recharge and spend both of TFT’s empowerments on Renewing Mist.
  • Rising Mist: Rising Sun Kick should be used on cooldown, and Thunder Focus Tea should always be used on RSK. Make sure to use Thunder Focus Tea on Rising Sun Kick right after having cast Essence Font! That way you can maximise the Rising Mist healing in addition to adding several seconds of duration to EF, ReM and EvM.

Mistweaver Crisis Management

Cooldowns

ability_monk_thunderfocusteaThunder Focus Tea
Thunder Focus Tea should be used on cooldown. As a default, use it to empower Renewing Mist and switch to Vivify when mana is getting low. The empowerment on Enveloping Mist is used when you desperately need to save a dying target, and the empowerment on Rising Sun Kick is used during downtimes (unless you have the Rising Mist talent).

ability_monk_chicocoonLife Cocoon
Our single-target cooldown Life Cocoon is a large absorb that is great to use when you need to save dying allies. It’s rather ineffective on tanks, who have a much larger health pool and take such heavy damage that the absorb is gone in a few seconds. But DPS and healers in danger of dying have great use of it!

spell_monk_revivalRevival
The mistweaver raid cooldown is a large raid-wide heal. It is an instant heal on all allies within 40yds, that also removes all harmful magic, poison and disease effects. Use whenever the raid takes large hits, or when the raid leader calls for it.

Mana Management

To better understand mana management, you need to know which spells have high cost, which spells have low cost and when it is appropriate to switch between them. First, here is a list of the mana cost in order:

Essence Font and Enveloping Mist are the powerhouses of healing, but they cost quite a bit. Don’t use these if you’re running dangerously low on mana, unless it’s an absolute necessity. Use instead Soothing Mist and your free talents for better mana-efficiency. You can also save quite a bit of mana by using the Thunder Focus Tea empowerments on Vivify for free healing.

For longer fights, you might need to alternate between the heavy healing and the mana-efficient healing. For raiding, alert the other healers on the team when you need to use the mana-efficient rotation and trust that they can handle it. Make good use of Renewing Mist and Soothing Mist to conserve mana.

Mana Management and Talents
There are several talents that can help you if you have mana problems, and they are all very strong and useful for any Mistweaver.

  • Lifecycles – Alternating between Enveloping Mist and Vivify saves you 25% of the mana cost. This is a great talent for raids and can be quite good in dungeons as well. Just make sure you keep track of which spell to cast next!
  • Spirit of the Crane – This talent can be a very powerful if you have free GCDs to use it. Make sure to always stand in melee range when allowed and keep doing the damage rotation whenever you’re given the chance.
  • Mana Tea – This talent is a strong cooldown of 1.5 min that allows you to cast spell at 50% mana cost for 12 seconds. Blast it off whenever you plan to cast several Vivifys, Essence Fonts or Refreshing Jade Winds! This talent is good for encounters that require burst healing.

Mobility & Defensives

Mistweavers have both great mobility and great defensive cooldowns, so make sure to use them appropriately to survive the encounter.

Use Roll, Chi Torpedo or Tiger’s Lust to get out of tricky situations. If you know in advance that you’ll need a quick getaway, drop a Transcendence spirit in a safe spot and use Transcendence: Transfer to switch places with your spirit.

As for defensives; mistweavers have Fortifying Brew as a baseline cooldown. On top of it, we can talent into Diffuse Magic or Dampen Harm. Diffuse Magic is superior in fights with a lot of magic damage, while Dampen Harm is a good all-around damage reduction cooldown, which includes reduction against both magical and physical damage. Remember to use them!

Mistweaver Guide

Introduction
Spellbook
Talents
Addons
Basic Mistweaving Guide
Advanced Mistweaving Guide

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