I’m curious what you all like about Monks as healers.
I’m deciding either to start maiming my Monk as a healer or my Shaman. I’m really looking for an hoping for reasons to main Monk because I like the class aesthetically.
Z axis teleporting, instant cc, very high mobility, ring of peace, and fistweaving are my favorite things about monk mistweavers
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Mobility is huge for me! Then the fact that we can do all roles 
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I’m just a general healer main and can’t say I have put enough time into MW to call it my “main”, but I enjoy a lot about it.
On a superficial level, I love the minty/aqua color of the skills and their general animations as well as most of the sound effects. It’s one of my favorite colors and admittedly aesthetics is really important for me and greatly increases my enjoyment level of a class/spec.
In terms of theme, I enjoy the idea of healing through energy. Like healing from within rather than an external or more literal source. At least that’s how I interpret most of the healing skills.
From a gameplay perspective…
-I like playing in melee. All of my fav dps specs are melee. I generally find the playstyle more enjoyable.
-I like the Renewing Mists spreading/maintenance mechanic, being able to extend them via Rising Mists, and the rewarding feeling of Vivify cleave healing when you have lots of Renewings Mists rolling.
-I like the MW mastery and how it interacts with things like Essence Font bolts and Bonedust Brew. Being able to stack modifiers for some really insane numbers is very fun for me and adds a bit of depth to the class.
-I like being able to pump really heavy single target healing through Soothing Mists.
-Revival is one of the most fun healer CDs to use. It being stationary, benefitting from Gust of Mists, and being a mass dispel is really great and gives it a unique niche. Druid and Monk are probably my two favorite healers to play but I hate Tranq.
-Mobility. Goes kinda hand in hand with enjoying melee. I really hate being slow lol.
-Ring of Peace. Lots of versatility behind it and generally really fun to use.
Also the fact that the Dragonflight talent tree looks really fantastic makes me want to play it for the future.
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Extreme Mobility and ring of peace.
I like the concept of the class as a whole and I don’t love playing multiple characters
as with everyone else, the mobility makes it fun. I’m also a fan of having the option to chose between fistweaving or mistweaving. I personally prefer to mistweave if and whenever possible and its not to big of a detriment, but fistweaving in raids is alright. I also like the whole peace / calming monk theme its got going on.
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In a word, utility.
I also like that the play style isn’t designed around “turret healing”. Standing still and doing regular things is an antiquated form of character design.
While the class is really fun to play, if you decide to main MW, don’t expect instant invites if you run keys. Most of the community does not know how awesome we are.
I like Kung-fu
From its inception Monk has been different from your typical stand back and cast MMO healer. That’s something that made me pick up the class/spec back at the start of Mists and I’ve kept my Monk ever since because that concept never changed.
Even though nowadays I only get to play like 5-6 hours a week due to IRL, I still gravitate towards my Monk when I do get to play because that fun factor hasn’t diminished.
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Monk is just so fun to play, plus it is a class with all 3 roles and a unique theme.
I’ve played all of the healers at a competitive level (M15+) and monk playstyle is the most unique by far, primarily because it flows elegantly between periods of DPSing to heal and then weaving in moments of caster healing and back to DPS healing. On top of that the DPS is melee and feels totally different than paladin which is a bit boring IMO, and generally monk has good mobility which is nice to have too.
My favorite spell as monk healer is Essence Font; it is just such a great feel good ability to cast (it could use a little buff to make it more meaningful to press as its tuned a little low, same with Fists of Fury) but the ability to channel while moving and shoot out all of these healing bolts is super fun. I would love to see iteration on Essence Font such as it dealing damage instead of healing when used with Thunder Focus Tea.
MW mastery is also super unique and in a great great place tuning wise, but it could be modified to support damage in some way to improve the class (ex, by introducing harmful chi in some way, proccing damaging Gusts of Mists). In raiding, mastery is slightly less valuable but in M+ it is so perfect, it creates unique gearing split which makes the class fun. Casting Essence Font and then playing whack a mole with your renewing mist / vivify proccing mastery is crazy strong in terms of throughput and mana efficiency and adds a skill ceiling that is not super punishing but rewards the player for min/maxing.
Monk is quite fluid to jump between casting and kicking, and the kicking is a huge part of the fun. Leg Sweep, Ring of Peace, Paralysis, and the melee kicking abilities differentiate monk from paladin by quite a bit and they feel totally different.
The Rising Mist talent is actually 90% of the fun in my opinion and it should be baseline. There is a huge skill ceiling with optimizing the timing of your mana-consuming chunker HoT, Enveloping Mist, with the timing of your Rising Mist extensions. It is possible to “ramp” with mistweaver by casting 3 Enveloping Mists, which boost healing done to the target by 40%, and then proc Rising Mist to extend them 4s instantly, which is guaranteed long enough to channel a full duration Essence Font into those targets. On top of that, the player is rewarded for doing DPS between healing globals because Blackout Kicks can reset the Rising Mist proc
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Mostly play on WW as they changed to fistweave being the only viable heal setup. I enjoyed fistweave when it wasn’t a forced thing. Since I feel that it was necessary I gave up on it. I enjoyed turret healing for raid but fistweave for dungeons. make them both viable and I will play it again. Feral seems to be coming back though so idk anymore. Maybe these systems wont be so horrible for alts and I will be able to jump around to my other characters without having to redo so much.
I really really like seafoam green
#youhadmeatmonk
i love all three specs. (four if you say Fist vs Mist is a different spec… lol)
i’ve levelled multiple monks to max level.
been maining a monk since MoP
Mistweave is ranged healing?
I have a bunch of monks i capped as well. I just enjoy the class.
I always play melee and never really play MW other than LFR to help someone with a quicker Q but i recently did some normal raids as MW and I love it. Other healers i always feel bored… click the bars and stand around. MW is always busy, moving all over, supposed to be in melee range and my only real issue is how low the damage is when you focus on doing damage.
They are very fun to play in pvp. Especially against melee you can kite for days. The way they stumble around looking for you after port is the funniest thing ever as well. Especially zug zug warriors.
I mained as a druid healer prior to MoP… then absolutely fell in love with monk! Love healing in general and having two styles of healing available is nice! and with DF this becomes even more so!! (almost 3 styles of healing for us!) BrM and WW are so much fun too!!!
I used to like the burst/recover loop of old Chi and Uplift Mistweaver, especially with the HFC set bonus. Ramping into your burst with 3 charges of ReM and building Chi to burst HPS with Uplift and then recovering with Mana Tea and Crane Stance was great. It was a short cycle gameplay loop that was fun and interesting and it meant that playing a boss fight or dungeon well wasn’t just about hitting X cooldown for Y ability and keeping a few buttons on CD, but rather about managing sets of the burst and recover cycle well.
While most other healers could play the game by only ever worrying about keeping a few buttons on CD and using their 2 or 3 minute CD at the right time, Mistweaver could be playing for 20-30-40 seconds in the future. The build up and payoff cycle was very enjoyable to me.
Modern MW is instead an engine that is always running and always playing the same way. RSK is always on CD. ReM is always on CD. EF is always used on CD so long as healing is needed. Then you just press Vivify and Revival when needed. It’s a much simpler healer to play but that’s not necessarily a bad thing I guess.
I think Monk is one of the best designed classes in the game, honestly. (And I second-main Shaman, so you might feel the same once you give it a try.) I’ve leveled multiple of them. I like that you can fill any role (although tanking isn’t my favorite – but it’s there as an option lol).
For WW, I think the Mastery and many CDs make it FEEL like you’re doing martial arts. And it has excellent mobility. And anyone can hit someone with an axe and it hurt. I love the idea of channeling my Chi and inner energy into this punch right into a demons face. I know you didn’t ask about WW, but my point is if I do have to dps sometimes, I love that, too.
For MW, I love the playstyle. The mists are so warm and, thematically, I like the idea of healing with that than light. I love how it spreads, i love the cleave healing. I’m in the minority, but I love Soothing Mist. Channeling Soothing Mist and instant casting Enveloping Mist and Vivify not only for huge single-target healing but seeing the healing numbers from all those with Renewing mist is just so satisfying. And the mobility, and being able to dps. Punching and kicking, using Spinning Crane Kick, and then stopping to cast Revival… Idk. It feels so much more engaging. Like i’m carrying the team, lol.
Thematically, I love the lore and the aesthetics. The gear always looks cool, lots of mounts and pets that fit with Monks thanks to Pandaria. The seafoam green is such a beautiful color. All my LED keyboard, mouse, etc. is all that green.
It’s definitely not a perfect class, but I think those who love monk REALLY love monk, and we don’t mind that it’s not perfect.
If i could have one wish for MW, it would be so simple: I want a new animation for Revival. It’s such an impactful, huge button with such a wimpy, limp animation lol.
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