Mistweaver needs an Update

Classes Monk
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So i tried to call out the lack of Mistweavers on Beta. They invited all these streamers that had the “FISTBOIS4LYF” mentality and now Monk is one of the worst healers according to logs.

I think its about time we actually put Mistweaver spec back into review.

Id like for people to actual look at it from a 2 way street point of view and not “FISTBOIS4LYF” mentality. Actually look at it from a mistweavers perspective, Remember that we are the most under represented healer of all time and that a simple multi spec approach to mistweaving could result in not only more people trying it out but more diversity in the class and more attention in general for it from the Developer point of view. While Negative comments are not encouraged, id want to know why you disagree.

Mistweaving vs Fistweaving:
The talents for Mistweaving are there, they have amazing synergy between each other for last expansion… but in a world where evoker just shields and applies mass hots, and Druid is nothing but aoe hots and jumping hots. Mistweaving has lost its Jazz.

The unique interaction for mistweaver in general was Renewing mist and its jump, later the split chance. Now Druid gets it with their Covenant ability carry over.

Evoker has the Big boy Hot Covered which makes Enveloping mists that less potent. Reversion Also extends duration which for both druid and Monk is brutal in its self.

Monks PBAOE heal in Refreshing jade wind suddenly has a 40second CD this expansion where as the Druid Seed is what, 8? and Evoker Emerald Blossom is about 15seconds, but they can have multiple out at a time healing for 40-50k. Not a taken play style but the option is there. (Lower Refreshing jade to 20seconds and halve mana cost. Make it a toggle that drains your mana instead. when turns off, CD starts.)

Fistweaving Nightfae stomp build is fantastic and offers alot of interaction between it and the physical damage you are putting out based on the fight. It might need some tweaks up and down but if its your play style it is working.

Mistweaver however is suffering from the Randomness of Renewing mists jumping to splits, to enveloping activating renewing. While i dont want to see those talents changed outside of Higher %'s i would like to see some changes based on some Core Mistweaver talents like soothing mists, Jade serpent statue, Invoke, Sheilun’s Gift and Upwelling.

The solution is extremely clear to me but let me know what you think.

Jade Serpent Statue Changes

Move Jade Serpent Statue from Class tree to Spec Tree for Mistweaver. Make it an optional choice and replace Invoke Celestial with it. The Chosen Statue also follows the Mistweaver.

Jade Serpent Statue:
Jade Statue now heals 2 targets of its own Volition. It needs to also heals another targets when the monk starts healing with soothing mists but stops when the monk stops. Still works with Unison.

Red Crane Statue:
Eminence from MoP. ANOTHER physical damage heal that will work. Maybe not 100% in 5mans as it would stack with the already active Faeline stomp playstyle, but in raids it should be 100%.

  • Eminence
    The Red Crane statue heals a nearby target based on your physical damage.

Celestials
Next step is to fix the Celestial thing because of change. Make Celestials a talent called Invoke after statue choice. This would basically just activate your chosen statue to do what it currently does + a little more.

Invoke Yu’lon:
Invoke the jade statue to summon the Spirit of Yul’on healing 6 nearby targets with soothing mists and using celestial breath for the duration healing 6 targets up to 15yards around it. (Unison should add 1 more to this target count and same effect as statue, when you start channeling, it channels 1 more target AND unison increases that again).

Invoke Chi-ji:
Invoke the Red Crane Statue to summon the spirit of Chi-ji. While summoned Chi-ji Jumps from target to target every 0.5seconds healing for (X), Chi ji also Grants 2 stacks of Eminence and reducing the cost and cast time of your next enveloping mist by 33%, stacking.

Upwelling:
Change Upwelling from 6seconds to 2seconds, every 2seconds grants 4 Powerful bolts per pulse. Powerful Bolts will seek low health targets and burst them for medium amount.

Upwelling is something basically nobody takes and the reason is because it has such a long ramp up time. Change it to just have Hyper Bolts in the essence font channel.

Soothing Mists:
Soothing mists needs to feel useful again. While it is single target applying the statue changes turns it into a mini aoe while you channel on some one. The next step it to have some kinda interaction to save people with it, a real mistweaver feeling.

Resplendent Chi:
Resplendent Chi is an ability you can only use while Soothing mists is active on a target. Using the ability will cause the target to unleash Lesser Chi waves that bounce twice only on friendly targets. 1 Lesser Chi wave per person within 60 yards. 30second CD

This not only allows for Soothing mists to feel useful again but it actually has huge Synergy with Statue. I would say It is the Primary only target so unison does not make it over powered.

Zen Pulse and Mist step:

First of all i’m extremely glad zen pulse came back, it is GREAT for M+ and useless for Raid outside of Council atm (future fights are unknown). Zen Pulse needs some kinda interaction to help with Raiding for both Fist and Mist.

Maybe make it so when the Zen hits 1 target it heals for 3x the amount?

The other choice is to make Zen Pulse an optional talent and bring back Mist Step from MoP. This talent was under the old Monk talent tree and was not taken because Celerity and Tiger’s Lust were just better.

Looking at Dracthyr with Verdant Embrace and Rescue, there is no reason to not have Mist Step back as a talent choice. I would make a talent afterwards that makes it unique and offer to have a Line of Sight negation letting you blink through walls (think kiriko from OW or Hunter Resonating arrow). Could see some heavy use from Fistweavers aswell in PVP.

While it wouldnt be as mandatory as Verdant Embrace as far as healing goes, it could save tanks and offer some unique interactions with one of the two melee healers.

Sheilun’s Gift and Shaohao Lessons Changes:

Welcome back Sheilun, you were missed. The ability hitting 3 targets is Fantastic, it feels like old times with those 280k 10 stacks (probably be much higher based on ilvl thats just what im getting atm).

Sheilun’s Gift should baseline be 4seconds. The Artifact version later had interactions via talents to allow you to have them randomly spawn when you healed. And it became a massive part of your play style in Antorus.

Shaohao Lesson is great, needs a slight tweak imo and more ability to control it. Im pretty sure its activating based on number of stacks we have but then ive seen it do random things like throw out Anger back to back or Anger at 6, and then Doubt at 6.

I think Lessons should be a buff choice for yourself. I raised the number of buffs to 7 instead of 4 as Shaohao had us experience the Pandaria version of the 7 deadly sins. They also dont need to interact with Sheilun’s gift but should be placed after it for sure on the talent tree. This talent should also not have any choice talents with it and it and Sheilun’s Gift should be moved much higher on the Talent tree as the skill should be a staple and the buff system should be the playstyle choice. Only 1 active at a time of course and only for yourself. Can not select in combat. Defaults to doubt if nothing selected.

Lesson of Doubt - After using Essence Font Your Damage and Healing are 25% stronger for 8 seconds. (raid and M+ Sustain)

Lesson of Despair - Crit is increased by 30%. A proc from all heals. (raid sustain)

Lesson of Fear - Haste is increased by 15% and Mastery is increased by X%. A Proc from all heals. (would need mastery scaled in to be fair) (M+ sustain)

Lesson of Anger - After using Essence Font your Healing and Damage is duplicated for 20% on the target for the next 8seconds. (raid Sustain)

Lesson of Violence - Touch of Death is useable on targets at all health levels but its cooldown is increased by 40%. Damage done with Touch of Death now heals for 150% of damage done to all players within 60yards. (mini CD)

Lesson of Hatred - Casting Essence Font makes your next Sheilun’s gift heal all targets of your essence font bolts for 50% of total healing done. (3 targets also included) 2minute internal CD. Max Stacks reduced to 5. (mini CD)

Lessons of Pride - Healing a target with any Soothing mists has a chance to spawn a Sheilun’s Mist. Max stacks increased to 15, max used remains 10. Unison 2nd target heal does not effect this chance. (Better Sustain in M+ and Raid for 3target heal)

By making these changes it would change based on what gear you have or what build you are playing. It would not punish Fistweavers for taking it and would offer another CD with touch of death or offer more haste/mastery in M+, Would offer Crit to those who cant get it and when you have perfect gear would offer you things like, 25% healing increase or Duplicated Healing. More Raid Cooldowns are also on the board and you could even argue they would be good or bad based on situation.

Mana Tea Rework
Mana Tea from Mists of Pandaria days was one of the best versions they have created for the spell. While i understand that its over powered why not offer Mana Tea to actually offer mana and not a mana reduction for a short duration.

Mana Tea:
Drinking mana Tea restores 25% of your mana over 3seconds. 2minute CD, Reduced by 0.4 seconds every time the monk does Critical Healing.

Summary:

Soothing mists is one of the core abilities that identifies a Mistweaver, yet in Fistweaving it is not used as much as it should be. The proposed changed would offer a more Soothing mists/Essence Font play style which could not only work in raid but also work in 5man content.

The return of Mist Step would offer one of the largest single target heals the Monk has ever had outside of Legion Sheilun’s Gift, but that had ramp up.

Fistweavers were not left out as i do understand that alot of people want to play Fistweaver instead of Mistweaver, But for every person who wants to play Fistweaver a Mistweaver also wants to play it but has given up on it.

You will also notice that no fistweaving abilities were changed and only offered more to their toolkit while offering the same option to the mistweavers.

Let me know what you think or any ideas youd want to add or see changed to fix the spec in general.

7 Likes
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It’s actually a really common choice in raiding.

It was removed more because of pvp shenanigans, I doubt it would be returned for the same reason. If it was changed from being a straight-up teleport maybe.

Do you mean Efflo? If so, it doesn’t have a cd just a limit to 1 active at a time.

Overall, these are interesting ideas. I can’t really speak to feasibility since I fundamentally do not like Soothing Mist.
As far as changes for casting, I really would want to see both sides of the coin maintain a good Renewing Mist spread so something like;
Detach Tear of Morning from Rising Mist
Add a new choice talent with RM that causes Thunder Focus Tea to make the next ReM immediately spread to 2 additional targets.

1 Like
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If I can make changes, I’d prefer change our mastery back to Healing Spheres, except that the Spheres would automatically heal any wounded player on the field, and instead of Sheilun’s Gift we get Chi Burst that deal a powerful aoe heal around its target AND create 8 Healing Spheres like it used to.

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Upwelling is actually something we almost always take ( in raids ) because it tends to line up good with mechanics and is a ton of healing. It also provides more EF bolts/HoT’s/larger coverage ( quickly too if you TFtea it ) which means even more healing when you hit revival or any other abilities that proc gust. Also those EF bolts can be extended via RM to have a HoT on the raid for a long time. More EF bolts also = more TFtea cooldown reductions through the “font of life” talent.

Who needs Efflo anyways? Id rather have EF+RM than Efflo or any other ground casted HoT tbh.

In all I think MW is healthier and better as is - and that we dont need any major updates since 10.0.5. While I dont agree with most of your suggestions, I agree there are small QoL changes they could add like extending JSS’ soo mist to 10-15 sec, stuff like that.
Your Lesson ideas are way too overcomplicated for blizzard. They would never be able to balance 7 different choice nodes/buffs like you suggested, 1-3 would only ever be taken anyways. Ill admit I was hoping to chose the Lessons but they aren’t as bad as I thought they would be.

If they make any big changed I would hope it’s to let Yu’Lon be a full time gas blasting pet. Where if you pick JSS and Unison it adds 1-2 more SooMist blasts to Yu’Lon. Gift and Jade bond could still work the same too. Simple but fun.

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Yes plz :3
My Yu’Lon build would LOVE this in raids. Would make EnvMist/EnvBreath during Yu’Lon much more impactful via the Tears’ Env cleave healing bonus.

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They need to make CBurst interact with the toolkit better. It feels weird to press this ability now a days and it’s a mandatory pick just to go to the better talents in the monk tree ( close to heart/etc ).

Something like " Chi Burst extends your active Renewing Mists and Essence Font HoTs by 3 seconds, and Env Mist HoT by 1 second " or just let Chi Burst proc mastery. Or remove the cast time and make it instant.

For a 30 sec ability it feels meh, even if it is free, and the other choice Chi Wave is MUCH worse.

1 Like
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I also had a thought about giving monks some Utility-Value:
Song of Chi-Ji is rather a PvP talent. It can be also used as some kind of soft-CC for interrupting or disabling mobs for a while in PvE but it is rather rarely useful.
If this Talent didn’t put you in-fight and decreased the mob’s aggro-range it would be useful for skipping a mob or groups in some M+ Dungeons. Some classes can do that already pretty well. Monks could gain a nice-to-have Tool here besides the Paralysis + Ring of Peace Combo.

Monks have also a lack of possibilities to heal in single-target while moving around.
I thought about the solution to make TFT be able to improve Soothing Mist to being able to cast it while moving for like 8 seconds.
Or some other way to being able to heal while moving, other than through Fistweaving.

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This is an interesting idea but I think this could be either too strong - having it pretty much a permanent passive as Fistweaver or having it too weak because of the balancing.

I think everyone dislikes the Statues as they are rather boring to use and pretty weak aswell. Probably no spec other than the Mistweaver can really make the Jade Serpent Statue somewhat useful (with the unison talent).
The White Tiger Statue is weak in Single-Target and increasingly better with bigger groups but still boring.
The Black Ox Statue is nice for solo content or for tanks to provoke all adds in range. Or to gather spawning adds. (Personally I like this one the most)
All of them (except maybe the Black Ox Statue) require some kind of rework to make sense.

To be honest, I don’t really have thought about ways to make them more interesting / useful. Your Ideas sound like a

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Bring back Uplift Monks!!!

2 Likes
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This is an interesting idea but I think this could be either too strong - having it pretty much a permanent passive as Fistweaver or having it too weak because of the balancing.

I think everyone dislikes the Statues as they are rather boring to use and pretty weak aswell. Probably no spec other than the Mistweaver can really make the Jade Serpent Statue somewhat useful (with the unison talent).
The White Tiger Statue is weak in Single-Target and increasingly better with bigger groups but still boring.
The Black Ox Statue is nice for solo content or for tanks to provoke all adds in range. Or to gather spawning adds. (Personally I like this one the most)
All of them (except maybe the Black Ox Statue) require some kind of rework to make sense.

To be honest, I don’t really have thought about ways to make them more interesting / useful. Your Ideas sound more enjoyable to use than the current healing statue.
I guess the statue needs to have some kind of sacrifice in return to not be OP (free and strong healing without a CD? I don’t think this would be implemented in that way).

Like others already wrote, EF heals for a good amount and Upwelling increases it furthermore, allowing a spread to even more targets etc.
Currently it is either used as a small heal per person for many (Raid) or for doubling the mastery value.
I would see a possbility to have a Talent-Node for choosing either Upwelling or for example “Downwelling” to increase the healing value decently while decreasing the HoT (strength/duration). Making it stronger as a standalone cast, rather for fewer players but reducing it’s value post-cast. Creating a small CD-Spell for Group-Healing while having like 3-4 seconds left of a HoT to push some extra-healing afterwards

With Unison it does have it’s value. It’s not super strong but is rather used for maintenance-healing and offers instacasting of EM or Vivify. I think it would be fine if the talent “Clouded Fokus” would already start with 1 out of 3 Stacks and aswell increasing the Value of Soothing Mist.
Having Soothing Mist affect more targets while invoking Yu’lon (or having Yu’lon cast an actually useful Soothing Mist) might be already enough of a buff for this celestial, making channeling soothing a lot better and competitive to Chi-Ji. (The 50% cost reduction for EM is a nice buff though)

I agree with that - it doesn’t cost much and it procs mastery now aswell but with this CD I often decide to spend my talent points somewhere else. It’s also only really usable on melee’s, making it useful in less situation.
It is really strong in dungeons at pulls, though.
I would prefer having Mist Step a lot over Zen Pulse in most situations. Since they gave it to the Dracthyr, I unfortunately doubt it will have it’s return to monks.

Being able to choose a buff would be nice. Having a skill that lets you rotate through buffs and then another skill for actually triggering it would be an enjoayble feature.
Though 7 different buffs… I think they won’t do that.
I liked your Idea of the Lesson of Violence, making Touch of Death actually very useful at bosses.

The healing done should be spread among all injured allies and healing for a total of the damage done. As this would otherwise happen to become the strongest raid-heal, one-healing almost everyone. You probably meant that, calling it a mini CD.
I would love to see such a Talent, even outside of lessons as a standalone talent.
(Of course it would’nt be usable in PvP or only with like 10% of it’s strength. Otherwise it would be a oneshot for pretty much everyone)

I would prefer it actually recovering mana aswell. But I couldn’t tell at which rate and CD it would be good but not too strong/weak.

All in all, I enjoyed reading through your ideas, even if I don’t agree with all of them :slight_smile:

Of course I don’t think that my ideas are the best neither.

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this is basically what i ment, sorry i wrote this at 4am.

I would only want the Invoke ability to work how it currently works with all other talents applied. 12second Duration 1minute CD, sure, 3minute CD reduced by what ever , sure. I would only want it to invoke under those guidelines, Not a perma invoke.

I would also say while it is active the 6 targets is basically just an amped up target limit from the statue. both invokes do the same thing as their statue but when invoked they get that extra little juice.

While it was removed because of PvP, There is no difference between Verdant Embrace and Miststep. If the animation is an issue, change the animation to make you fly to the target like Verdant Embrace.

Adding it back in would not only be in pvp but also be in PVE… if it continues to be a major problem, make it either have reduced healing in PvP or raise its CD from 20seconds up to 40 for pvp.

Thats why it has a 40% increase on CD, it would basically bring it up to a 2minute CD with all touch talents? Something clearly any fistweaver would take.

I wasnt sure if it should target most hurt, hurt, or all players but the way i was thinking was more along the lines of , touch of death is currently a useless CD for basically everyone in a raid enviroment, you get 1 chance at it and thats it.

Not to mention this would also offer Raiding fistweavers the option to gain that 15% physical damage buff any time they want.

You could just make it so its initial Mana cost it medium and the longer it stays active, like every 4seconds it ramps up mana cost. Nobody will maintain it at full with out some serious mana cost reductions like innervate or mana pots. I would also say sleepy pots shouldnt cancel it but that might be a little bit mandatory.

i think all statues shouldnt be out in class tree they should either be baseline for the spec, or mandatory talent you take in the first 9 choices.

Yes by doing this i would miss Black ox statue which is by far the most superior. But this would help manage them better and control different cooldowns.

All monk specs should get invoke btw… Invoke being either late class tree choice, or mandatory after statue choice in spec tree.

Black ox and Golden Ox, one does better managing your stagger, one does superior aoe but no longer staggers.

White tiger and Blue Tiger, One does cleave, one does single target bleed over time.

Yulon and Chi-ji, one does aoe heals, one is a crazy jumping chicken.

Other specs would need to be looked at. WW is currently doing fine, and even tho they are not a common thing, Brew is also doing fine.

i Loved this in Legion, it was by far one of the best things Monk had going for it. I understand how it was considered OP but i also dont think we should be able to do it again simply because of the fact WW and Brew now get soothing mists as a choice. None of themw ould take it , but nothing is stopping the Off tank soothing into his tank friend on a hard fight. Or windwalkers using mobility and kiting in arena while healing some one up.

TFT would bring a limitation to it, but if thats the case it should also expend the charge. I would be fine with that to the point that if you want to blow your TFT charges on soothing mists, you can, but i dont think anyone would since the other choices are much much stronger at current.

All feedback is welcome. Atleast its not like the Beta forums where they got us into the situation of Fistweaving just being the mandatory play style and it ending up being the worst.

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No thanks, fistweaving is perfect the way it is.

1 Like
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At the bottom of the healing boards is perfect?

That is your choice and understandable but i think offering more tools would help you even if they are passive ones.

2 Likes
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Mistweaver is incredibly viable, there is no key that a mistweaver cannot complete. Sure it takes more effort but who cares.

Play the class because its fun not because its overpowered. Its a video game, caring about which healer is technically the best is embarassing. Dont come in here requesting changes to make it “better” there are those of us that like it. Go play druid.

5 Likes
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this isnt just about keys. This is about as a whole. Mistweaver is the most unrepresented class for a reason.

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Monk has always been an underrepresented class. Being a high tier class does not increase playrates over a long time. Class fantasy sells far more. Not many people vibe with Monk, let alone a monk healer. Those of us who do, enjoy it the way it is.

Again, if you do not like it there are plenty of classes for you to choose from. Even if mistweaver was the best healer in the game it would still be extremely unpopular across the overall playerbase (maybe in 20 keys it will see higher representation thats it)

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OP was talking about mistweaving, not fistweaving… did u even read his post?

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We should not be promoting mistweaving, mistweaver should be entirely fistweaving based. It is the intended design of the spec and mistweaving talents and abilities just clog up that potential.

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you are speaking strictly for yourself. it is very clear you are a “FISTIBOI4LYF” mentality person and those are the kind of people that put monk at the bottom of the healing board.

You as a whole represent 1/40000th of the monk population on logs, and came in blasting about M+ when nothing was taken away from your M+ build.

Very clear you dont have anything to contribute to the topic so i would suggest you go find a Fistiboi4lyf post and stick to that.

4 Likes
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So you ignore my point. Your rework would do nothing to change the monk player population. People dont vibe with the fantasy and you know that.

You just want to be an OP class for some reason, so go play druid.

Someones gotta be on the bottom of the healing board and idrc who it is because im not someone who gets anxious about how “powerful” my video game class is.