let me preface by saying that i’m far from any kind of authority, and anything stated hereafter is simply how i feel about the spec and its mechanics at the moment.
i’ve mained mistweaver since mid to late MoP, but given the state of several of the past expansions i’ve been very inconsistent in playtime. i’ve stuck with the spec regardless every time i come back, and it’s always been my go-to choice for everything when i decide to put any amount of time into the game. usually, this is a safe choice, because it’s rare that i’m unsatisfied with the state of the spec. yes, even when essence font and rjw were 80% of my healing, i was satisfied with the state of the spec, because it felt fun to play.
currently, it does not feel fun to play.
i can think of a lot of reasons for this, so let me organize it as best i can for a first and final draft.
the first issue i have is that the class tree and the spec tree feel unbalanced in terms of freedom of choice. the class tree options have the most important things in the upper areas (cleanse, interrupt, soothing mist to name a few), the sort of important things in the middle areas (utility like ring of peace/transcendence, defensives, generally useful passives), and the least important but still interesting things closer to the bottom (every single item in the last row is purely optional from what i can tell? none of them seem potent enough that they’re required). i like this design, because it gives me the feeling that i’m choosing how my character is built early on, and choosing additional things to augment or enhance that playstyle as i go down, ending on a row of flavorful choices that i can easily ignore or take depending on my preference.
in stark contrast to this, the mistweaver tree has the important things at the top (as it should), but then the middle is a bunch of random passives that enhance things that you aren’t even sure of the relevance to your build yet. then, at the bottom, you choose what playstyle you want. this feels bad because i feel obligated to choose specific options at the bottom of the tree, because my build is reliant on them. these kinds of things should be nearer to the top or middle, and the passives that modify them nearer to the bottom. it feels non-linear when creating custom builds and doesn’t make sense.
additionally, i feel that there’s a severe lack of options for builds. i see the jadefire stomp build, i see the rising mist build, i see the soothing mist build. sheilun’s isn’t really a build because it’s hard time-based… yet it’s on the same rows as those build’s key ingredients. this doesn’t feel good. if i’m healing a dungeon, i feel obligated to talent into sheilun’s and its additional items because the spec simply feels like it’s missing a button without them. then i have to talent into my actual build where my throughput is coming from. that leaves me with maybe 2-3 talent points that i can actually use for the interesting stuff near the bottom of the tree (secret infusion, resplendent mist, invoker’s delight, etc). but the first 2 there are 2-point nodes…
moving on slightly, the playstyle of the builds in question i feel are not… well, fun. jadefire stomp build is probably the most fun of the ones i’ve tried, but what i enjoy about it is the damage → healing schtick. i very much dislike having to stand inside the stomp to get the full benefits, and that a weakaura might as well be required to track ancient teachings since stomp resets so frequently that you can’t actually tell when ancient teachings is active sometimes. i dislike that there’s a weird amount of upkeep and management in the build that doesn’t feel like it fits the very simple concept of “hit things to heal your allies.” i do understand that it can only really exist in this way because if there wasn’t a margin for user error and it had competitive throughput, it would simply be brought everywhere purely to remove the human element, but it doesn’t feel good to play for those reasons regardless.
soothing mist build has the opposite problem – i don’t think it’s meant to be as easy to use as it is, and there’s almost no element of decisionmaking when using it. prior, when precasting essence font and hardcasting vivify were relevant, it felt like there was an element of preparation and often times triage that made it interesting. that is, if there was unexpected damage, i had the tools to react to it no matter what, as long as i was creative enough with my options. currently, i’m just kind of sitting there channeling soothing mist, and if someone gets low i just hit them with one of two spells and continue channeling soothing mist. mana tea is a major contributor to this issue, in that i don’t feel like my mana pool is being strained, so i’m free to just sit around casting whatever and it’ll just work. i know this is an odd thing to say on the heels of “this is too much to keep up with” in the last build, but i feel that this is too little to keep up with.
with those issues combined, it feels that my options are either [high octane] or relatively meaningless and i haven’t really noticed any flexibility between those two extremes.
unlike before, i don’t feel that i can modify my talents and gameplay in a way that allows me to play effectively with a build that i want. it feels like i’m shoehorned into fully committing to one or two builds, and there is very little flexibility in changing them.
i don’t know if anyone else shares my exact perspective, but i hope i’m not the only person who’s unsatisfied with how mistweaver currently feels to build and play, because i would really like it to change.
thank you for reading. apologies for the wall of vaguely organized text, i just wanted to get this off my chest.