It’s a no brainer we’ll be seeing a fistweaving branch in the upcoming talent trees, along with a healing focused branch, but I’d also like to see another branch that touches on a more caster focused theme. While I understand that it’s counter intuitive for ‘monk’, I’ve always gravitated towards the ranged caster side of the class. My hope for some MW caster talents:
Chi-Wave talent: Replaces Rising Sun Kick. Applies the essence font HoT to targets it heals. I always felt like chi bolts were one of the staples of this class back in MoP (simliar to druids/hots and priests/shields).
Expel Harm talent: Replaces Blackout Kick.
Improved Crackling Jade Lightning: Full channel of CJL grants you a stack of Teachings of the Monastery.
I think these 3 things would be a great for a branch of MW monk that wants to be more ranged. CJL would give you teaching stacks, Expel Harm with 3 (ToM) stacks might finally be a useful button to push, and Chi Wave could finally see more play.
Or I’d like to see a branch that lets use use TP, BK, and RSK while channeling CJL. Similar to our niche of casting while channeling soothing mist.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing the new Monk talent trees!
Weren’t chi bolts the SoO 4 set? Could have sworn there wasn’t really a major mechanic dealing with that otherwise.
This feels like a weird combo, fully channeling CJL for 12 seconds to use with the 15 second cd of expel harm to I assume reset the also 15 second cd on chi wave?
Would need some major adjustments to the spells for this to be particularly efficient.
Chi-Wave was a staple back in MoP, and mixed with the 4piece it felt like bolts were always flying out doing work. I understand they were smart heals (but also random) and should be balanced as such.
In addition to that we have essence font. I just think that chi bolts are very iconic for monk. Similar to druid(hots) and priest(shields).
As for the Talents, they would inherit the CDs of the abilities they replace. Or maybe Chi Bolt replaces RSK (and bounces based on number of stacks), and Chi Wave replaces RSK? Just looking for some ranged options to take the place of our default melee damage toolkit.
We even had an ability for several expansions “Chi Explosion” which could make a comeback as a talent to replace RSK.
It was a no brainer to remove abomb limb from DKs.
Yet they have it.
I really wouldn’t have your hopes up for them to be smart with what they give any spec. I do hope they make fistweaving a serious build
I dont think there is any possible way they could fill the MW talent tree without a branch that focuses on fistweaving. Going off the Rdruid and Hpriest trees, I can see a left path for fistweaving(melee heals), center path for mistweaving(soothing mist heals), and a right path for caster(still healing focused, just like the holy priest right side). I feel like the casting while channeling is a unique monk only mechanic, and they could incorporate it into Jade Lightning somehow.
I’d say there’s a lot of ways to play MW if they really thought about it that doesn’t involve fistweaving;
Hard cast spec; Hot spec; utility healer (would require things added ofc); Jade Lightning damage/healing spec.
Fistweaving is just so hard for them to balance, because when it’s good then nothing else is really comparable, but when it’s bad MW just feels so boring. And blizzard, historically, doesn’t like to change things.
Why is it so hard to balance?
In our favour is that fistweaving was the most loved from 8.3 to now, so it’s not like they can argue about it being a less played part of the spec.
Way of the Crane in Legion.
Idk how I really need to explain that anymore than I have to, singlehandedly made MW the most toxic healer to play against for PVP. Obviously it’s a situational thing due to the nature of PVE, but the fact that one single thing completely broke gameplay for a spec is very uninteresting.
Fistweave faces the same problems venthyr hpal created early in SL, it can just simply do too much for so little. Is there a bit more skill involved in fistweaving than hpal, sure. But when something isn’t particularily hard to pilot & figure out, it becomes a problem to balance. One nerf can completely shatter a spec.
Every MW has loved fistweaving since MOP. They can argue whatever they want because they have already shown that they gave up on SL. It’s easily the most unique healing playstyle, but creating a hybrid melee DPS healer is too hard for the smol brain blizzard employees
intersting.
I didn’t know being OP in MDI was hard to balance for the game.
But I guess MW’s insane play rate would show this.
Honestly, I can’t really think of a time MW was good except 8.0 / 9.1-9.2.
The recent balance we’ve had for healers has been amazing. We finally see that throughput healers have a spot in raid.
EDIT:
I would never worry about PVP. Balance that doesn’t matter because its constantly FOTM. Don’t pick your class for PVP and expect it to be good every season unless its a rogue.
I’d argue this is severely underselling what venthyr hpal could do. Unless Blizzard went full ridiculous and offered a full dps suite we wouldn’t be reaching the extreme burst damage while still healing.
Even then, Blizzard has options to constrain fistweaving without flat removing the style.
Looking at the sheer quantity of talent choices in the restoration shaman tree, I think they could absolutely have enough varied talents to have fully-developed mistweaving and fistweaving builds that still offer some nuance and choice.
Everyone could have what they want.
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I know, right? This guy just tried to compare us, the D tier healer, to the absolute S+ healer for 9.0 and 9.1.
you both heavily missed the point of what he said, “fistweave” mw has a lot of throughput right now coming from things that cost little or even no mana, which means our casts have to remain expensive to offset it, which instead has had the effect that we just don’t cast heals right now in raid, and the goal of using effects to avoid casting in keys aswell like fallen order.
Is it the most loved universally or is it currently just the best tuning-wise?
In terms of raiding, I can either have mana issues, do worse healing, and have worse mobility (because you can’t cast and move) -OR- I can have virtually no mana issues, do better healing, do better DPS, and essentially do a mindless DPS rotation involving 3 buttons. Not really a tough choice. Do I prefer the latter to the former? Absolutely not - I find it dull and boring and would MUCH rather be having my melee abilities improve the effectiveness of my casted heals (like Rising Mists increasing the duration of Renewing Mist, thus making extra juicy Vivify or Enveloping Mists [when used with Tear]), but I would be gutting myself to do so, so I play “pure” Fistweaver, only casting in extreme emergencies.
I find Ancient Teaching of the Monastery to be one of the worst iterations of the Mistweaver meta we’ve had in a long time… There’s no thought to it whatsoever, and I’m surprised that Blizzard took Disc priests away from random atonement smart heals only to give it to us a few expansion packs later.
I like the idea of Fistweaving, but I wish there was more thought to it. Ancient Teachings of the Monestary doesn’t scratch any itches for me.
Curious where your mana issues would come from considering you would cast roughly the same amount of filler abilities, considering you replace tp, bok, and rsk with soom if you’re at range, which also costs almost nothing.
yeah, because you’re not sitting there channelling soothing mists the whole time you end up doing more, crazy.
versus the thought provoking and intriguing soom full channels, ofcourse.
Same, and the direction I hope they continue to pursue on.
Honestly this is more on blizzard’s overall balance of the class, atotm is as strong as it is because we don’t actually have the mana to cast our healing spells, which hopefully they improve on going into DF. 
same for sure, but their post was more the overall gameplay of fw, less so specifically atotm’s effect.
I think the best hope for ranged MW is a combination of corrosive dosage and clouded focus. Adding an AOE component to CJL could be good for mythic+.