A Pandas Guide to being a Successful Mistweaver Monk

[Vouchery]

Welcome to my guide of being a successful Panda!, Errr I mean Mistweaver. Here I'm gonna be teaching you guys on how to play the class properly and enjoy it aswell! I'll be going into talents, traits, relics, stat priority and how to deal with haters, Jokin on the haters part everyone loves a good Mistweaver monk.
Mistweavers have the most mobility in all the healing classes next to Druids and excel in AoE fights just like Shamans but with more target healing than putting totems down and most of our heal revolves around Hots (like a lesser druid but much more cool looking) and certain burst healing from Vivify, Revival and our Artifact weapon, We can be a single target tank healer or an AoE raid healer when it comes to Raids.



7.1 Changes
Running list of changes as of October 24th

⦁ Effuse now heals for 250% of attack power (was 200%)
⦁ Sheilun’s Gift now activates Soothing Mist.
⦁ Chi-Ji Crane Heal now heals for 135% of spell power (was 150%).
⦁ Soothing Mist now heals for 64% of spell power per tick (was 55%)

7.1.5 Changes
Running list of changes as of January 9th

⦁ Mastery: Gust of Mists healing increased by 30%.
⦁ Rising Sun Kick mana cost is now 2% of base mana (was 2.25%).
⦁ Song of Chi-Ji cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (was 30 seconds).
⦁ Diffuse Magic cooldown is now 90 seconds (was 120 seconds).
⦁ Zen Pulse damage and healing increased to 220% of spell power (was 200%).
⦁ Mistwalk healing increased to 420% of spell power (was 350%).

7.2.5 Changes
Running list of changes as of June 9th

⦁ All healing spells now do 4% increased healing.
⦁ Damage of Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick, Rising Sun Kick, and Spinning Crane Kick increased by 14%.
⦁ Enveloping Mist mana cost reduced by 14%.
⦁ Essence Font now has a 12 second cooldown and a duration of 8 seconds (was 6 seconds).
⦁ Essence Font cost reduced by 10%, and direct healing increased by 23%.
⦁ Essence Font can now be cast while moving.
⦁ Life Cocoon absorb increased by 35%.
⦁ Refreshing Jade Wind cost reduced by 30% and duration increased to 9 seconds (was 6 seconds).
⦁ Refreshing Jade Wind’s cooldown is now reduced by Haste.
⦁ Refreshing Jade Wind no longer buffs Essence Font.
⦁ Rising Sun Kick mana cost reduced by 25%.
⦁ Thunder Focus Tea now causes Essence Font to channel 100% faster.
⦁ Vivify healing increased by 9% and mana cost reduced by 11%.

7.3.5 Changes
Running list of changes as of January 15

⦁ Rising Sun Kick (Rank 1) damage reduced by 41%.
⦁ Rising Sun Kick (Rank 2), learned at level 36, now increases damage by 70.

Tier 15:

⦁ Chi Burst: This is the talent that you should always take in stacked fights because of how good it is, It doesn't cost any mana, has a 30 Second cooldown and can crit. Paired with Velen's amplifies the effectiveness of this spell by a landslide
⦁ Zen Pulse: Zen Pulse is extremely powerful in M+ when mass pulling and scenarios where there are a lot of Adds to deal with like Skorpyron, otherwise in single target its not worth to waste a GCD using this spell
⦁ Chi Wave: Chi Wave is a decent AoE Smart heal but useless in PvE scenarios, I've only seen this shine in Battlegrounds/Arenas my advise is to avoid this talent if youre not going to PvP

TL;DR: Chi Burst for raids because it has no target cap, Zen Pulse for Mythic+/Dungeons/Open world , Chi Wave for PVP. (Due to the current bug Affecting Chi Burst as of 6/30/20, Chi wave outperforms Chi burst in all Scenarios and should be taken).



Tier 30:
Pure preference here

⦁ Chi Torpedo: This spell is what I usually take since most classes in Legion have their own mobility spells that they can use, not to mention this gives us a lot more mobility than the other 2 options for this tier
⦁ Tiger's Lust: Tiger's lust is a utility spell that is helpful in fights where your Tank get slowed down by mobs/bosses or if a DPS is snared like in Dragons of Nightmare where dispels are needed or they take massive damage
⦁ Celerity: I only take this spell If i need to move in short distances, gives you more control on where your character goes, this is really great in fights like Chronomatic Anomaly, but is still beaten by Chi Torpedo because of its Distance+Speed buff

TL;DR: Chi Torpedo wins this tier when it comes to mobility because you can cast it once and wait till before the speed buff expire and use it again, giving you more uptime on the speedbuff + you gain distance by Chi Torpedo itself, and I recommend Tiger's lust in scenarios where a Boss can slow you with a debuff like Imonar, and Celerity for Small platform bosses or if you want more control over your mobility.



Tier 45:

⦁ Lifecycles: This talent is usually taken in raids where you think you go oom extremely fast and does not require a lot of moving
⦁ Spirit of The Crane: Very Good mana provider and enables you to cast more spells in a long run, it also synergizes very well with Ei'thas Lunar Glides of Eramas
⦁ Mist Wrap: I see this as an M+ talent and a Beginner talent for people who are new to monks

TL;DR: Spirit of the Crane wins this tier because of how frequently you can use your abilities without the reprecussion of going oom, Mist Wrap in bosses that you cannot fistweave like Eonar or Imonar, and Life Cycles if youre assigned as a tank healer and you will be using Enveloping Mist a lot.
Mist Wrap is also very powerful in m+



Tier 60:
Aka: Which kind of CC is the best?

⦁ Ring of Peace: The ring of please dont touch me, this talent is usually useless in PvE Scenarios besides High botanist where you can make the fixated targets stand inside it and some uses in Mythic+ dungeons where necrotic is the affix
⦁ Song of Chi-ji: This is usually taken in Arenas where CC is very valuable otherwise its completely useless in PvE
⦁ Leg Sweep: This should be the default choice for PvE/Openworld/Leveling because its an aoe stun that has no target cap making it really valuable in Mythic+

TL;DR: Leg Sweep, because of how powerful a cap less AoE stun is like Chaos Nova in PvE, and since its a stun it does break on Damage unlike Song of Chi-ji



Tier 75:

⦁ Healing Elixir: This is usually our go to talent in fights where we cant predict damage aka most of legion fights, plus this is completely free and using 2 stacks gives back 30% of total health with a 30s CD per stack
⦁ Diffuse Magic: This talent is mostly useless in PvE because of its CD and it only reduces Magic damage, good in PvP against casters
⦁ Dampen Harm: Dampen Harm only shines if you can predict incoming damage every single time to get the most out of it, but if you mis use it youre basically throwing away a defensive CD out the window

TL;DR: Diffuse Magic in most scenarios, Dampen Harm in Physical damage fights like Garothi or Imonar Traps, and Healing Elixir for beginner monks



Tier 90:

⦁ Refreshing Jade Wind: This is our constant AoE heal with a cap of 6 target, this functions like Aura of Mercy for paladins but it's a casted spell, usually taken in stacked fights like Skorpyron
⦁ Invoke Chi-Ji the Red Crane: This is our go to talent when raiding because Chi Ji basically does our job for us and Chi Ji costs nothing inexchange for 3 min CD great for mana management
⦁ Summon: Jade Serpent Statue: Statue is usually our default talent when doing Mythic+/Dungeons/Openworld because of its Powerful addition to your Single target heals, great for topping off tanks!

TL;DR: Chi-Ji for almost every scenario, Refreshing Jade Wind in stacked fights, and stay away from Statue it is the worst talent for this tier, The statues channel is always interrupted because you will be spamming your spells, the only other use for Statue is for PVP



Tier 100:
Where did my Mana go?

⦁ Mana Tea: I can't stress enough how powerful this spell is, this spell will help you through a lot of mana problems, you can basically get atleast 7 almost FREE vivifies with this, costs NOTHING and is a 1 min 30s CD
⦁ Focused Thunder: This is a passive talent that gives Thunder Focus Tea another stack.
⦁ Rising Thunder: This is the bread and butter of Fistweaving monks and should be taken if you're planning on Fistweaving

TL;DR: Mana Tea is the clear winner for this tier because of how flexible it is when it comes to mana management, Focused thunder comes in second if you're a beginner monk

Recommended Talent Builds

Raiding



Mythic+/Dungeons/Openworld






In addition to Legion we also get "Artifact" Weapons and these weapons will never be replaced until the end of expansion, For Mistweavers we get Sheilun Staff of the Mists. This artifact looks cool right? Well let me explain you how the weapon works, While in combat you periodically spawn "Mists" around you that can stack up to 12 times, You can activate Sheilun's Gift and gather all the clouds to heal a target, more mists means higher heal (Beware of using this in Overflowing affixes), this heal can be amplified by Enveloping mist and gives a decent heal at around 6 stacks (I prefer using it always at 12). The activate costs nothing and should always be used at 6 stacks and above

Preview:


Hey, what traits should I aim for first? Well heres a list of traits you should get first because of how beneficial they are:

⦁ Mists of Sheilun: This should be the very first golden trait you should aim for because when it procs it increases the healing of all our HoT's and it has no Internal CD meaning theres a chance for it to refresh itself when it expires.
⦁ Extended Healing: By the time you get Mists of Sheilun you can aim for this as the next trait considering how many Renewing mists we can have up this increases the duration of it (means we get more heals from it) and the longer the Duration the more chances we have that we proc Uplifting Trance which increases our next vivify healing by 40% thats huge!
⦁ Infusion of Life: The reason were getting this trait next is most fights in Legion are cleave fights (derp) and with Uplifting trance our vivifies will heal for a LOT more
⦁ Mists of Life: And lastly Mists of life because Life cocoon is our "Oh shit my tank is dying" emergency skill, this makes life cocoon much more valuable when saving people,

The rest is preferrence but I'm still posting a build/path that is commonly taken in retail

Traits before Concordance


Traits to get after unlocking Concordance


Relics:
Relics are items that we put into our weapon (maximum of 3 per weapon) that adds an additional level of a certain trait depending on what relic it is, almost all relics are equal IMO the only time youd need to decide if the trait is valuable is if 2 relics are the same Ilvl otherwise Ilvl will beat the trait because Primary stat beats traits, But if you ever need to decide what relic traits you should aim for here are my suggestions in order:

⦁ Essence of the Mists (worth +3 ilvls more) ⦁
⦁ Infusion of Life (worth +2 ilvls more) ⦁
⦁ Extended Healing (worth +2 ilvls more) ⦁

otherwise use a higher ilvl relic

Netherlight Crucible
With the addition of 7.3.5 we also get Crucible traits, these act as a secondary trait on top of what your Artifact Relics already give you, here is a list of Traits you should go for and how much each trait Corresponds to ILVL



Which should I prioritize? Light/Shadow trait or Artifact trait? The answer is go for Artifact trait if you didnt get Murderous intent (Shadow trait) or Infusion of Life/Essence of the mist. Refractive Shell only applies to yourself so its very Niche IMO




Common question healer mains get is "Hey whats my rotation", healers have no rotation, what they do is based on the situation thats why im gonna give you guys pointers on what to do when healing

Healing in Mythic+/Dungeons

⦁ Always put down Jade Serpent (If specced into it)
⦁ Effuse to heal up a damaged player. Replace Effuse with Vivify if several in your group are damaged.
⦁ Enveloping Mist on players that take heavy and consistent damage.
⦁ Renewing Mist should be used on cooldown.
⦁ Dish out damage with whenever you don’t need to heal.


Thunder Focus Tea should be used on:


⦁ Renewing Mist most of the time for more Uplifting Trance procs (disregard if the whole group is blanketed, though)
⦁ Enveloping Mist when emergency single-target healing is needed.

Heavy cooldowns:

⦁ AoE: Revival and Invoke Chi-ji the Red Crane (If Specced into it).
⦁ Single: Life Cocoon

Tips for Mythic+!

Drink up your Mana!

First of all, mana doesn’t have quite the impact as it has in raiding. You will go in and out of combat frequently, giving you ample chance to drink. For the sake of speed and efficiency, you should hotkey your drink-button so that you can very quickly start drinking between pulls.

Crowd Control & Utility
One of the most important aspects of Mythic+ is crowd control. The difficulty in high level dungeons are the trash packs, since often you want to pull as many as you can handle for the sake of speed. This means that the whole group has to coordinate their CCs to mitigate the most dangerous adds and abilities. Mistweavers can help in both the CC department and the utility department in several ways:

⦁ Leg Sweep (Talent): a powerful AoE stun. It is very useful against dangerous trash packs!
⦁ Paralysis: incapacitates a target (broken if the target takes damage). This is useful in controlled situations. Either use if before a pull to break down the pack into more manageable parts, or use it if you encounter a mob you don't want to handle right then and there.
⦁ Spirit Tether: an artifact trait that allows your Transcendence spirit slow nearby enemies for 40%. This is very useful for situations when a player needs to kite mobs.


Raid Healing


⦁ Do not use Effuse in raids because you will get more heals and consume less mana when vivifying than manually using Effuse on every person
⦁ Vivify when a few players in your group are injured.
⦁ Essence Font when six or more players in your group are damaged and are in 25yds range.
⦁ Enveloping Mist on players that take heavy and consistent damage.
⦁ Renewing Mist should be used on cooldown.
⦁ When you don’t need to heal, either dish out damage or recuperate mana through pots or trinkets.

Thunder Focus Tea should be used on:

⦁ Renewing Mist on shorter fights for more healing and Uplifting Trance procs.
⦁ Vivify on long fights to save mana.

Heavy cooldowns:

⦁ AoE: Revival and Invoke Chi-ji the Red Crane.
⦁ Single: Life Cocoon


Plan your Healing!!!

One of the most important aspects in any encounter is to know when and where to use your cooldowns and your expensive healing. You don’t want it to go to waste by over-healing, but neither do you want to waste it by not using it at all. Here are a few pointers:

⦁ Revival: typically pre-planned in a set rotation of big healing cooldowns to avoid overlap. If you don’t have anything planned, use it whenever the raid takes heavy damage and/or are in a sticky situation when you need to run a lot.
⦁ Invoke Chi-ji the Red Crane: this pretty bird runs around for 45 sec and heals three players each second. This is great healing that doesn’t even require you to cast, which is very useful in encounters that require a lot of movement. It’s just a great cooldown overall. Use it as often as you can, unless the raid isn’t taking damage of course.
⦁ Refreshing Jade Wind: This talent is an alternative to Chi-Ji when you need better stack healing. Use it in tandem with Essence Font for powerful AoE healing or on it’s own for some lighter and cheaper AoE healing than Essence Font.
⦁ Life Cocoon: This ability is not often used as a proper tank cooldown but more like a holy-shit-the-tank-is-dying kind of cooldown. If there are no obvious situation when the tanks need extra healing/absorbs, use this on cooldown anyway to save mana. It’s a great instant heal too since it applies Renewing Mist and Enveloping Mist, which is good for times when your hands are full.
⦁ Essence Font: your expensive AoE heal. The long and short of it is that you want to use this as soon as you have 6+ injured players within 25 yards. In a long fight, this means that you will struggle with mana, so you will need to compensate by using Thunder Focus Tea on free Vivify to save as much as possible.



⦁ Intellect: Increases the magnitude of all our spells
⦁ Haste: Reduces our GCD, Shortens our cast time, puts more Ticks on our HoT's
⦁ Mastery: Increases the additional healing of Gust of Mists
⦁ Critical Strike: Increases the chance for our spells to heal for 200% more
⦁ Versatility: Increases our damage and healing by a flat %, and decreases our damage taken by a flat %.

Gearing in General:
Generally you would want 4p T20 (ToS) comboed with 2p T21 (Antorus).
Mistweavers use 2 Gear sets for Raids and for Dungeons and as healers we cant use SimC so I use spreadsheets or tune it to my taste, so the question is How do I know if an item is an upgrade?
Follow these steps if youre trying to decide if its an upgrade

Stat Priority as Follows for Raids: Intellect>Crit(till 30%)> Versa> Haste> Mastery
If you are Donated and have gear to spare, I suggest going for Crit 50%

Stat Priority as Follows for M+/Dungeons: Intellect>Haste (till 20)>Mastery > Crit (atleasst 20%)> Versa
If you are Donated and have gear to spare, I suggest after hitting 20% Haste, go for 30% Crit and put as much mastery as you can

Trinkets?
Here is the current trinket ranking as of Patch 7.3.5 (Click to enlarge image)



This would mean you will have to come back to Tomb and Farm Mistress just for a titanforged Sea Star (Yes its that good)





Rankings:Top to bottom

Raids

⦁ Velen's Future Sight ⦁
⦁ Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus ⦁
⦁ Ei'thas, Lunar Glides of Eramas ⦁
⦁ Leggings of The Black Flame ⦁
⦁ Doorway to Nowhere ⦁

Mythic+/Dungeons

⦁ Velen's Future Sight ⦁
⦁ Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus ⦁
⦁ Ovyd's Winter Wrap ⦁
⦁ Ei'thas, Lunar Glides of Eramas ⦁

otherwise use the Legendaries that you currently own.



Elvui: Makes your overall UI clean as a whistle and makes it less distracting and eliminates most addons because it can do most of the addons that you would need
Weak Auras 2: Perfect for tracking raid Cooldowns/debuffs or notifying you when a certain skill is ready
Vuhdo: The go to addon for raid frames, this makes it easier to track debuffs that you only want to see and removes everything else that you dont wanna see, You can also add in custom debuffs that you want to track for your Party/Raid Frames
Bigwigs: This is basically DBM but less annoying, really helpful in notifying you Boss mechanics
Littlewigs Same as bigwigs but this revolves around Dungeons (Note: Bigwigs only works for Raid bosses if you want to be notified about Dungeon bosses get this aswell)


And that's all folks! thank you for reading my Guide!

Note: If you wanna point out any mistakes feel free to drop a comment and shout out to @Seyrox i used his format to make this guide
Edit: Updated for 7.3.5

[nightiwolf611]

He's best Mistweaver in Freakz, i have seen his incredible performance in Raid/Mythic+/PVP.

#SenpaiCho

10/10 would suggest.

[Power]

Sticky, GJ.

[kij130522]

one of the best guides on the internet if not the best , GJ *** panda <3

[Vascolorde]

Goodjob.

[Liena]

Gratz , Cho! A lot of effort put into this! The Freakz comunity should thank you ;P

[Mawser]

Notice me sensei