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1 edit | Spell Usage and Healing Rotations↑top
As a healer, you do not have a strict rotation that you should follow. Instead, you must use your available spells to react most appropriately to the type of damage in the encounter, based on your healing assignment.
As a Mistweaver Monk, you cannot simply stand still and cast your healing spells. You have many actions you must perform, and buffs you must monitor, in order for you to properly perform your rotation.
1.1. Preliminary, Non-Healing Actions You Must Perform
Chi builders. Only use when you are not at maximum Chi
Use Jab to damage the target and generate Chi whenever there is little or no damage.
Use Expel Harm to damage the target and generate Chi, when you yourself are not at maximum health. In this case, Expel Harm replaces Jab.
Use Crackling Jade Lightning when you are not able to be in melee range of any mob, and there is little or no incoming damage. Each tick has a 25% chance to generate 1 Chi.
Chi finishers. Use alongside your heals.
Use Blackout Kick to maintain 100% uptime on the Serpent's Zeal self-buff that it applies. It costs 2 Chi.
Use Tiger Palm (which costs 1 Chi) to
maintain 100% uptime on the Tiger Power self-buff.
dump Chi and deal damage, when there is little or not damage taken by the raid.
stack Vital Mists on yourself, which reduces the mana cost and cast time of the next Surging Mist (up to 100% reduction at 5 stacks).
Note that in the case of very intense damage, you may have to abandon being in melee range of the boss and using damaging abilities. Instead, you may need to focus entirely on the healing spells we describe below.
1.2. Single Target Healing
Low damage
Channel Soothing Mist on the target (each tick has a chance to generate 1 Chi).
Low to moderate damage
Channel Soothing Mist on the target (each tick has a chance to generate 1 Chi).
Cast Enveloping Mist on the target (costs 3 Chi).
High damage
Channel Soothing Mist on the target (each tick has a chance to generate 1 Chi).
Keep up Enveloping Mist on the target (costs 3 Chi).
Spam Surging Mist on the target (generates 1 Chi).
Emergency situations
Cast Surging Mist on the target, if it is instant cast due to Vital Mists.
Cast Soothing Mist on the target and immediately cast Surging Mist on the target.
While moving
Cast Healing Sphere, placing the spheres under the raid members that need healing (it neither generates nor costs Chi).
It is important to note that, while you are channeling Soothing Mist, Surging Mist and Enveloping Mist are instant cast, do not break the channel of Soothing Mist, and are always cast on the target of Soothing Mist.
1.3. Multiple Target Healing
You have only two multiple target healing spells, the usage of which is rather straightforward.
Whenever there is any raid damage, Renewing Mist should be used on cooldown. It generates 1 Chi.
When the raid damage intensifies, you should begin cast Uplift (costs 2 Chi).
Generating sufficient Chi to sustain frequent usage of Uplift is not possible only through Renewing Mist. Therefore, you will have to cast Surging Mist and Soothing Mist on single targets, to generate additional Chi.
1.4. Additional Actions to Perform
This section will briefly cover the other actions you must perform, in addition to the above-mentioned:
Take maximum advantage of Eminence (read more) and Serpent's Zeal (read more) by staying in melee range of the boss for as long as possible, dealing damage.
Use Mana Tea (see this section for more details) for proper mana management.
Make sure that your statue (see this section for more details) is always up and in the right place.
2. Cooldown Usage↑top
As a Mistweaver Monk, you have a number of cooldowns in your arsenal, which you must use in tandem with your regular rotation.
Thunder Focus Tea should be used as many times as possible during the encounter. It can be used equally well with either Surging Mist or Uplift, depending on the situation.
Life Cocoon should be used on the tank or another target who is about to sustain a large amount of damage. You should time this in such a way that its effect coincides with dangerous encounter abilities.
Revival is a raid-wide heal, and it could be considered a raid cooldown, in which case your raid leader may ask you to use it at a specific time. Otherwise, just use it when a vast majority of raid members are in need of healing or dispelling.
Additionally, your talents have the potential to provide you with additional abilities and cooldowns. We discuss this, as well as the proper timing and usage of your default cooldowns in a subsequent section.
3. Stance↑top
As a Mistweaver Monk, you must always be in Stance of the Wise Serpent. This grants you many benefits, which we list below.
4. Statue↑top
As a Mistweaver Monk, you should make sure to always have your Jade Serpent Statue ( Summon Jade Serpent Statue) active. We discuss its benefits below.
5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Mistweaver Monk↑top
The information we provide above will set you on the right path towards healing efficiently as a Mistweaver Monk. Indeed, you can probably perform to a relatively high level just on what we have written above. However, to fully reach the maximum potential of your character, you must understand several subtleties and complexities about your class and spec.
5.1. Important Concepts
There are many mechanics that, together, make up the complex playstyle of Mistweaver Monks.
5.1.1. Chi
Chi is a Monk-only resource. There are several things you need to know about Chi:
Chi is generated by several abilities, the most notable of them being Jab.
Chi is spent on many crucial abilities, that are part of your rotation.
You have a maximum capacity of 4 Chi (5, if you have the Ascension talent).
Chi decays quickly when outside of combat, but it does not decay while in combat. A natural consequence of this is that, when starting a fight, you will have no Chi.
Generating Chi while you are at maximum capacity will cause the new Chi to be wasted. The only exception to this is the Chi generated thanks to the Power Strikes talent, which spawns a Chi sphere each time your Chi would be wasted. The sphere grants you 1 Chi when you walk over it.
5.1.2. Stance of the Wise Serpent
Stance of the Wise Serpent offers you the following benefits:
It increases all healing done by 20%.
It replaces your Energy resource with Mana.
It grants you hit and expertise equal to 50% of the Spirit that you gain from items and effects. This is crucial, since successfully landing attacks is the cornerstone of your playstyle.
It causes you to have attack power equal to 200% of your spell power. As you will see below, this is also very important to your playstyle.
Finally, it grants you a passive ability called Eminence. Eminence causes you to passively heal the nearby ally (within 20 yards) with the lowest health, for 50% of the damage you deal with every non-autoatttack ability.
5.1.3. Jade Serpent Statue
Keeping your Jade Serpent Statue up at all times is not hard, since it has a 15-minute duration and 30-second cooldown. The statue provides its own version of your Eminence effect, mirroring 50% of the non-autoattack damage you deal, as healing to the lowest health ally within 20 yards of itself. Therefore, you should place the statue in the vicinity of raid members. The two Eminence effects stack, making up for 100% of your non-autoatattack damage being done as healing.
The statue has a secondary effect. When you cast Soothing Mist, the statue also casts Soothing Mist on an injured raid member, within 40 yards of it.
As you can tell, the statue performs both of its effects passively, so all you need to worry about is that it is placed near raid members.
5.1.4. Eminence
Eminence is a passive ability granted to you by Stance of the Wise Serpent. Essentially, it rewards you for dealing damage.
More specifically, the lowest health ally within 20 yards of you is healed for 50% of the damage you deal with non-autoattacks (this mostly applies to Jab, Blackout Kick, Tiger Palm, and Expel Harm). This results in a steady stream of healing to nearby low-health players.
Additionally, your Jade Serpent Statue also does the exact same thing, healing players for 50% of the non-autoattack damage you deal. The only difference is that the statue heals players within 20 yards of itself.
It is important for you to understand the role of Eminence healing. While it is beneficial, and, depending on the encounter, it may prove to make up a large portion of your healing, it is not something you can rely on. Eminence healing (much like Discipline Priests' Atonement healing) is good for periods of low damage, but it is insufficient for periods of intense damage.
In other words, Eminence healing is a passive benefit that you should be happy to have, but not something to actively rely on.
5.1.5. Tiger Palm, Tiger Power, and Vital Mists
Tiger Palm has three uses to you as a Mistweaver Monk.
It stacks a self-buff, Tiger Power, which causes your attacks to ignore 10% of the target's armor per stack. It stacks up to 3 times. This improves your DPS and, therefore, the healing you do through Eminence.
It stacks a self-buff, Vital Mists, which reduces the cast time and mana cost of your next Surging Mist by 20% per stack. It stacks up to 5 times (making Surging Mist instant cast and free of cost).
It deals damage, which contributes to your Eminence healing.
You must always maintain 100% uptime on Tiger Power, but this is easy and only requires the use of one Tiger Palm every 20 seconds.
Maintaining 100% uptime on Vital Mists is more difficult, and it is not efficient to do as a goal in and of itself. Especially when there is intense damage going on, you cannot afford to waste Chi on Tiger Palm instead of using it on healing spells.
You must, however, always track the number of Vital Mists stacks you have, and if you are at 5 stacks, you should make use of the free and instant Surging Mist right away. When there is low or no damage, you should try to stack Vital Mists to 5, in preparation for more serious damage.
5.1.6. Blackout Kick and Serpent's Zeal
Each time you cast Blackout Kick, you stack a self-buff on you, called Serpent's Zeal. This causes both you and your statue to passively heal a nearby ally for 25% of the damage you deal with autoattacks, per stack. The buff stacks twice, and lasts 30 seconds. This means that, at 2 stacks, all the damage you deal as autoattacks will be mirrored as healing (50% from you and 50% from your statue).
You must always keep this buff active, which means that you must cast Blackout Kick at least once every 30 seconds. Blackout Kick is a less efficient way of dumping Chi than Tiger Palm (discussed above), so you should only use it to stack Serpent's Zeal.
5.1.7. Mana Regeneration: Mana Tea
As a Mistweaver Monk, you have a single means of regenerating your mana, outside of the regeneration you gain from Spirit: Mana Tea.
For every 4 Chi that you spend, you gain a stack of Mana Tea, thanks to the Brewing: Mana Tea passive ability, stacking up to 20 times. By casting Mana Tea (the active ability), you convert these stacks into mana.
By default, Mana Tea is a channeled spell, with no cooldown, which restores 4% of your maximum mana for each stack of Mana Tea that you have, at the rate of 1 stack per second. However, if you are using Glyph of Mana Tea, then the ability has a 10 second cooldown, but it is instant cast, consuming 2 stacks of Mana Tea with each cast.
As you have probably noticed already, you generate Chi by spending mana, and you then are able to regenerate mana by spending Chi (thanks to Mana Tea). This cycle is mana-negative, however, meaning that the mana you gain from Mana Tea will never fully make up for the mana you have spent to generate the Chi in the first place.
It takes roughly 2 minutes of continuous Chi expenditure to reach maximum stacks of Mana Tea, so you should not worry about capping the resource. The best way to use Mana Tea depends on whether or not you are using the glyph:
With Glyph of Mana Tea, it is ideal to weave in casts of Mana Tea whenever you have spare global cooldowns (when the damage you need to heal is not too brutal).
Without Glyph of Mana Tea, it is ideal to find moments of downtime during the fight, when there is little or no damage, and channel Mana Tea then.
5.1.8. Mastery: Gift of the Serpent
Your Mastery is Mastery: Gift of the Serpent. It grants you a chance, each time you heal a player, to spawn a Healing Sphere next to an injured ally. The sphere acts just like those generated by your Healing Sphere spell, but it has no interaction with the spheres generated in this way.
Additional Mastery Rating increases both the chance to spawn there spheres, as well as the healing that they do.
5.2. Detailed Spell Usage
The list offered at the start of this page offers only a brief glimpse of the proper spell usage you should employ. Below, we cover this aspect in more depth.
5.2.1. Single Target Healing
In terms of single target healing, you only have 3 spells:
Soothing Mist;
Enveloping Mist;
Surging Mist.
Soothing Mist is your go-to single target heal. It is relatively cheap, and, on its own, will only heal low amounts of damage.
Soothing Mist, is, however, useful even when the target begins taking much higher damage, thanks to its interaction with your other two single target healing spells (making them instant cast). It follows logically that, if the target you are healing is taking increased damage, you should simply add Enveloping Mist and Surging Mist to the rotation.
Enveloping Mist is an extremely powerful HoT. It costs 3 Chi, making it rather expensive. Since it is instant cast while Soothing Mist is being channeled, it should mostly be cast in that way.
Surging Mist is a typical "emergency heal". However, since Surging Mist generates Chi, its high mana cost is somewhat compensated. This would be the final step in intensifying your single target healing.
Therefore, we can boil down the single target healing rotation to the following:
Low damage: channel Soothing Mist. Spend the Chi you generate on Blackout Kick and Tiger Palm, to maintain the respective self-buffs.
Moderate damage: channel Soothing Mist, and use Enveloping Mist on the target whenever you have 3 Chi. Channeling Soothing Mist generates enough Chi to almost be able to keep 100% uptime on Enveloping Mist, but obviously this means you are not using Chi on Blackout Kick or Tiger Palm. Simply cast occasional Jabs or Surging Mists to generate additional Chi.
High damage: channel Soothing Mist, keep 100% uptime of Enveloping Mist on the target, and spam Surging Mist on the target. This will quickly drain your mana, but will provide a great burst of healing. It will also provide you with much more Chi than you can spend, so unless absolutely necessary, we advise throttling down the use of Surging Mist, and weaving in Blackout Kick and Tiger Palm.
It is important to note that instant cast Surging Mists and Enveloping Mists are automatically cast on the target on which you are channeling Soothing Mist.
Finally, you also possess the Healing Sphere spell, which allows you to place up to 3 Healing Spheres at target locations on the ground. The spell has no cooldown (and only triggers a 0.5 second global cooldown). Players who walk over the spheres are healed, and the spheres are consumed in the process.
The spheres are rather cheap in terms of mana cost, and heal for a moderate amount (more than half of the healing of Surging Mist, for comparison). The best ways to use healing spheres are:
Place them near your tank(s) or other players who are likely to take damage in the future. This allows the players to move into the spheres when they have taken damage, healing themselves.
Place them under players who are currently damaged that you wish to heal. For single target healing in regular conditions, however, it is preferable to use Soothing Mist.
Use them as a means of doing some healing while you are moving, since they are instant cast.
Pre-place them at a location where you know someone will take damage in the future.
5.2.2. AoE Healing
Your AoE or multiple target healing spells are:
Renewing Mist;
Uplift;
Spinning Crane Kick.
Renewing Mist is a HoT, the mechanics of which are a bit peculiar. When you cast Renewing Mist on a player, two buffs are placed on them:
a mere HoT that heals the target over 18 seconds;
a buff with 3 stacks, which lasts 20 seconds and jumps to nearby injured allies, losing a stack with each jump. Each time the buff jumps to a new target, it applies the above-mentioned HoT to them.
Renewing Mist has an 8 second cooldown, and it generates 1 Chi when cast. While there is no theoretical cap to how many targets can be affected by the HoT at any one time, in practice, the number is limited to 8 in normal circumstances (since your haste reduces the duration of the HoT to about 16 seconds). Renewing Mist has an important interaction with Uplift (and Thunder Focus Tea), as we will see below.
Uplift instantly heals all targets who have a Renewing Mist HoT on them. It costs 2 Chi. If you use Thunder Focus Tea (a cooldown that we discuss more amply below), the next Uplift you cast also refreshes the duration of the HoTs from Renewing Mist on all targets. When utilising this combination, you can have Renewing Mist up on a total of 16 targets.
Spinning Crane Kick is a channeled spell that heals all nearby allies (within 8 yards) every 0.75 seconds for 2 seconds. The spell costs mana and, when it heals at least 3 players, it generates 1 Chi (per cast, not per tick). It has no cooldown, and moving does not break the channel. Therefore, it is ideally suited for AoE healing while on the move.
Therefore, AoE or raid healing can be summarised as follows:
Low and moderate damage: use Renewing Mist on cooldown. The Chi generated in this way should be used on Blackout Kick and Tiger Palm. Fill the remaining time with Jab (in the case of low damage), or with single target heals (in the case of moderate damage).
High damage: use Renewing Mist on cooldown, and spam Uplift. To generate the required Chi, use Surging Mist on the lowest-health targets. Also remember to use Thunder Focus Tea with Uplift to boost your healing further.
If you are low on mana, you can simply use Jab (and Expel Harm) to generate 2 Chi, and use Uplift. Chi Brew can also be used, if available, to allow you do some more AoE healing when very low on mana.
5.2.3. Other Considerations
To say that your healing will be restricted to either single target or AoE is misleading. In fact, you will spend most of the time juggling between the two, and having to combine the rotations we listed above. Your actual spell usage will differ based on many factors, such as the encounter mechanics and your healing assignment, so it is impossible to map it out here. As you become more familiar with your character and with the encounter, so will your performance improve.
If you have to heal intense damage for a sustained period of time, you will have to abandon meleeing the target, using Jab, keeping up your Serpent's Zeal buff, etc. You will instead have to rely on Surging Mist and Renewing Mist for Chi generation, and you will give up the benefits of Eminence in favour of being able to dedicate all your time to healing spells.
This is something you will have to judge based on the damage that is going on in the fight.
5.3. Detailed Cooldown Usage
5.3.1. Thunder Focus Tea
Thunder Focus Tea is an active cooldown that vastly improves your next Surging Mist or your next Uplift, cast within 45 seconds. Thunder Focus Tea has a 45-second cooldown, and it costs 1 Chi.
When used with Surging Mist, it doubles its healing. This empowered Surging Mist is a powerful asset in emergency situations.
When used with Uplift, it causes Uplift to refresh the Renewing Mist HoT on all targets.
Thunder Focus Tea is off the global cooldown. You should make sure to use this spell as much as possible throughout the fight, and it is recommended to use it when its benefit will not go to waste (so, in times of intense damage). It is reasonable to delay using it for this purpose.
5.3.2. Life Cocoon
Life Cocoon is a single target healing cooldown, which places a damage absorption shield on the target, lasting for 12 seconds, or until broken by damage. While the shield is active, the target also receives 50% increased healing from all your heals.
With a 2-minute cooldown, and a rather disappointing amount of damage absorbed, Life Cocoon is quite lackluster. The 50% healing increase, while very appealing, only lasts while the shield lasts, and this is generally no more than a few seconds.
5.3.3. Revival
Revival is a raid-wide heal, which also removes any Magical, Disease or Poison effects from all targets. It can be considered a raid cooldown, in many respects.
In most cases, you should use it for the heal it provides (which is quite powerful, considering the number of targets it heals), but it can also be used as a sort of "mass dispel". The spell has a 3-minute cooldown, and it does not have a range requirement. Instead, it heals all party and raid members "within vision", which shouldn't be a concern on most fights.
5.3.4. Tier 2 Talents
Chi Wave, which essentially acts as a chain heal, is something you can incorporate into your AoE healing rotation, when the damage is low or moderate. If you have Renewing Mist up on 8 targets (possibly even on 4), it is much better to use the Chi on Uplift instead.
Zen Sphere should only be used for the AoE healing it provides when detonated, since its HoT is very weak. However, since the cost of a detonation is so high (a total of 4 Chi), we do not advise taking this talent.
Chi Burst has a positional requirement. This is to say, you must cast it on an enemy who is part of the group of players you want to heal, or behind the players you want to heal, so that the spell passes through them. It is a strong AoE heal, which we believe can provide excellent healing during AoE damage when the raid is stacked together.
5.3.5. Tier 3 Talents
Power Strikes provides its benefit passively, by causing your Jab to generate 2 Chi instead of 1, with a 20-second internal cooldown. This is a benefit you should simply enjoy, which will not affect your rotation in any way.
Chi Brew is a minor healing cooldown. The ideal time to use it is when you have 0 Chi, and you wish to be able to provide a greater burst of healing, by casting additional Uplifts or Enveloping Mists. We believe that it is best used as burst AoE healing, allowing you to basically chain 4 Uplifts in as many global cooldowns.
Ascension, should you choose this talent, will also provide its benefit passively, by giving you a larger Chi pool.
5.3.6. Tier 6 Talents
Rushing Jade Wind is a very useful AoE healing spell. Not only does it it heal targets in front of you, but it also greatly boosts the healing efficiency of Spinning Crane Kick.
Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger does not provide healing in and of itself, but it does function properly with Eminence, resulting in some indirect healing in this way. Its high cooldown implies that you should save it for times when you need a burst of healing.
Chi Torpedo replaces Roll, allowing you to heal allies while rolling around. While this talent might have some situational use, we do not believe that it is preferable to Rushing Jade Wind.
5.4. Roll
Roll is an ability that allows you to quickly move 15 yards in front of you. It is a useful mobility ability, which you should use extensively for quickly traversing short distances. Here are a few facts about Roll:
Roll has no resource cost and no cooldown. It is based on a charge system.
It has a maximum of 2 charges, and each charge has a 20-second recharge time.
The Celerity talent increases the number of charges to 3, and reduces recharge time to 15 seconds.
Roll is off the global cooldown, but while you are rolling, you are unable to use any other ability.
Roll will always send you in the direction that your character is currently moving (including backwards). If your character is stationary, Roll will send you in the direction your character is facing.
You cannot roll through objects or obstacles. If you encounter an obstacle, your Roll is ended prematurely.
Finally, Chi Torpedo, a tier 6 talent, replaces Roll with Chi Torpedo. Chi Torpedo is identical to Roll in every way, but it additionally damages enemies and heals allies in your rolling path. |
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