Hi everyone,
I’m considering creating a MW monk, as I find myself drawn to the class fantasy and that they don’t seem to have numerous cooldowns/spells to keep track of. However, I’m new to WoW and enjoy healing/supporting/casting from a distance. I’m not at much into offensive spells, especially at melee range.
I’m reading mixed responses regarding if MW monk needs to be in melee range or if they can still play effectively from a distance. Will someone kindly elaborate? The last thing I want is to play mw monk sub-par and/or waste time leveling something that isn’t a good fit for me.
Thanks in advance. 
Most of the discussion here really only affects the players doing the highest levels of content, Mistweaver is perfectly capable of playing at range without ever dropping into melee for a lot of content.
I will note, however, that a large portion of mistweaver leveling is going to be like a melee class, our only real ranged spell Crackling Jade Lightning is not exactly a powerful one. If you enjoy ranged playstyles then the leveling could be an issue for you.
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I love my mistweaver, been playing her almost exclusively for the past 5-6 years. I started Shadowlands with her and ultimately have not been enjoying it in it’s current state. Thus the swap to Holy Paladin.
It really depends on your end game goals. I had no problem with 8/10 normal CN to get my legendary (I’m not a raider). I was also climbing mythic+ with her. If you want to do those things you’ll be fine but the higher you go the more challenging it will get. Mostly because the spec needs to be reworked. Right now it feels weird (to me) because it seems Blizz can’t decide what they want MW to be.
You can effectively heal from a distance but you are classified as a melee healer. So mechanics that target melee will require you to be in melee range. Also if you don’t take chi burst in the first talent row you will need to go into melee to apply your % physical damage debuff to enemies. Not a big deal, you can roll in, spinning crane kick and roll out.
Like the above poster said you will be leveling with melee abilities unless your plan is to exclusively dungeon level.
The fantasy of the monk is so much fun. I’m hopeful the Mana adjustment coming to renewing mist and Vivify will help but I personally feel like more work needs to be done to the class to make it more on par with other healers.
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You can heal from a distance with the usual Vivify spec and do perfectly fine. It’s viable to spec into Rising Mist talent and melee some for extra heals, known as “fistweaving.” It kind of fits into the rotation in PvE to go melee to heal spec. In PvP I would advise against fistweaving because we’re so fragile, it’s not worth it to risk getting in melee range IMO in PvP.
Ninh above knocked it out of the park with that explanation.
Nora also went into more detail about some challenges.
I have always done the Mistweaver(ranged) build. I only skipped WoD and BFA for IRL reasons. It is doable and even through heroic(I am 8/10 Heroic CN and progressing). I only really raid and occasionally M+, but all of that is doable with a ranged build.
From a raiding standpoint one important thing to look out for in this tier is that you will be chained to melee during Sludgefist. So you will have to be prepared for that and its honestly easier to stay melee for that entire fight.