Hello there, I am a casual mistweaver enjoyer. Have been here for a while but didn’t contribute much to discussions until recently.
Whether it is in game, on the forums or anywhere else, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about our wonderful spec. Fistweaver? Mistweaver? Range?.. Tons of answers heavily biased or answering just partially… I’d like to address some of these questions as they seem to be a recuring topic in here!
DISCLAIMER: You’re entitled to your own opinion. I do not claim to be holding the absolute truth.
Fistweaving
What is it? It’s a term that refers to a healing profile of mistweaver monk that focusses on healing generated from some damaging abilities. It allows for more uptime doing damage and requires the monk to be in melee range with your targets as much as possible for optimal healing.
Mistweaving
Although it is the name of the spec. This refers to a healing profile that focusses on healing from casting spells. Other common terms that generally reference the same thing: caster, castweaving, ranged… This style allows the monk to heal effectively while being in range from enemies and allies. Rising mist would make you be in melee a lot still, but you’re not forced to be in melee as much as a fistweaver. Your toolkit still demands some melee interractions for damage/interrupt/cc but you can adopt a more “hit and run” tactic if the situation demands it.
Melee vs range
If you’ve read properly above, you’d guess that mistweaver monk is a melee healer, and you’d be right. However, I want to discuss this a bit more because this is somewhat of a heated topic!
You can effectively heal from range and never jump in melee to contribute with your melee toolkit. It’s totally doable but should you do it?
In raid it’s likely ok if you’re not pushing cutting edge in early season, and if there is another monk providing mystic touch, one healer not contributing to dmg isn’t that big of a deal.
Mythic plus is where there is more heat maybe?
If you’re doing organized content and your fellow group members are fine with it. Why not 
For pugs… well I guess you can’t really expect pugs to do the best damage they could, do mechanics, cc and interrupts. So in all fairness, is it really that important? Healing in m+ is a lot more about healing checks for healers than anything else these days. So maybe just passing these healing checks in a pug group is more than enough to satisfy the group
Then you’ll get the argument that the game treats you as a melee. This means that some mechanics will trigger on melee specs only, while others are aimed at range specs only. So a monk in range could trigger a melee mechanic on ranged players. Inversely you could get caught in a range mechanic that was aimed at a ranged player you are close by.
Now, lets be honest! How many of these mechanics do we get every season? Maybe a handful? Basically, you can jump in melee for these few occasions where it really matters… And lets be real, it’s not always on the level of Sludgefist chains that would one-shot you (+ a melee player) because you’re instantly matched with someone who’s too far away from you… So, is the game treating you as a melee that important?
To finish on ranged vs melee, there are always those people who say that damage doesn’t really matter before 20+ something in keys. While It’s not a false assumption to make, lower keys in pugs are sometimes harder to time than a 20-something key because the group is terrible… So the little bit of damage, interrupts or cc you could provide might actually make or break the timer, even if you’re just doing a 9. But hey! We’re sliding a bit too much into the ‘what ifs’ territory here. So we’ll leave it at that 
TLDR, going full range: You’re gimping yourself a bit but does it really matter? Maybe, maybe not… why not let people chose for themselves
Spec for m+?
If we’re talking m+ and meta, it’s all about fistweaving. At least for the top 1%… While you have more uptime to do damage, the spec is less forgiving if you don’t time the big heals properly or if your group takes unnecessary damage. For the later, a lot of people prefer how mistweaver handle things, even if they sacrifice some uptime for damage🤷🏻♂️
It’s also fun to switch it up a bit. Makes you handle situation from another perspective, which is a fun change of pace too
Spec for raid?
While fistweaver has been the goto for a while, mistweaver is the top choice since 10.1 for raiding. Explained simply, in a raid, you’re trying to maximize the number of active RenM and pump vivify cleaves at the most appropriate times. Mistweaver excels at this. (Fist is still decent if that’s your thing, if you can accept being sub-optimal)
What about pvp?
Pvp is mostly about Mistweavers. Has been for a while. Although there have been some good iterations for fistweavers in DF to make them relevant here and there. For RBG or some arena comp, it’s a totally good option. If you’re good at positioning yourself, Mistweaver is insanely good to keep your group alive indefinitely + single target healing is top notch!
The finish line
People enjoy maximizing the damage or healing they can do. So a fistweaver who doesn’t enjoy mistweaving, a mistweaver who doesn’t like fistweaving, who “feels” forced into his less prefered playstyle for maximum contribution… would obviously not have fun. For those of us who enjoy both styles though, this. is. by. far. the. most. fun. spec. in. the. game.
Sorry for the long post
Enjoy your mistweaver monk! 
