Mistweaver Monk Beginner's Guide

This is intended to be a simple guide to the basic rotation and dynamics of the spec that gets you up and running without requiring more advanced optimization.

Information on hero talents will be coming soon, but in general know that overall they add a minor layer on top of how each spec plays, and most of what’s here should be applicable regardless.

Talent Build #

This is a simplified talent build designed to avoid complex interactions and skip unnecessary abilities. While not optimal in all cases, it should be a great way to get started learning the spec and should work reasonably well in world content, delves, dungeons, and raids. Abilities and talents not chosen in this build are not described here, and the rotation information assumes you’ll be using the build.

For healer specs like Mistweaver, the recommended talent build is designed to be workable for beginning delve, dungeon, and raid content. It’s going to be a bit rough for levelling, questing, and outdoor content - for that you’ll either want to tinker with the build to drop group-focused effects and emphasize damage, or use a DPS spec instead.

Copy the text below to import the recommended build:
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Wowhead Link

Resources #

Mana – Like all healers, Mistweavers use mana as a primary resource. You’ll need to keep track of your usage and adjust your play when needed if you’re using it too quickly. Generally speaking using “bigger” healing abilities like enveloping mist or soothing mist with several chain-cast vivifys will deplete your mana more quickly. mana tea is your strongest way to restore mana and limit its expenditure, and should be used whenever you’ve built up a few stacks and aren’t at full mana.

Healing Abilities #

vivify – Moderate single-target healing with a short cast. With invigorating mists will also heal any group members with renewing mist active for a reduced amount. With vivacious vivification becomes instant-cast and stronger once every 10s. This is your bread-and-butter healing spot healing spell that also picks up meaningful AoE healing if you’re good about spreading Renewing Mist.

enveloping mist – Medium length cast for a moderate heal-over-time that also increases healing received while active. With rapid diffusion will also help you spread renewing mist. Often used with soothing mist to remove the cast time, but helpful whenever someone is taking more damage than your other abilities can keep up with.

soothing mist – Channels for 10s to do moderate healing on the target, but more importantly while channelling you can instant-cast vivify and enveloping mist on the target. With peer into peace you can even cast Vivify/Enveloping Mist on a new target to have the channel swap to them. Very helpful to pump out healing urgently, but watch out for mana usage.

renewing mist – Instant-cast 22s heal over time with a 9s cooldown and 2 charges.
With rapid diffusion your rising sun kick and enveloping mist will spread a shorter-duration version of the same effect. You want to keep this active on as many people as possible to be lined up to amplify your vivify casts via invigorating mists.

expel harm – Instant-cast moderate strength self heal that does a portion of the amount healed in damage to the target. 15s cooldown. You should actively look for opportunities to use this to self-heal whenever it’s off cooldown, since it’s faster and more mana efficient than other options.

Healing Cooldowns #

thunder focus tea – Empowers your subsequent ability - or your next two abilities with focused thunder. 30s cooldown. See the tooltip for the range of effects, but to keep things simple start out by using it on renewing mist to help keep as many active as possible, or on vivify if you’re worried about mana depletion.

mana tea – As you spend mana, you’ll accumulate stacks of Mana Tea. You can then use the ability of the same name to consume those stacks to restore mana, proportional to the number of stacks used. After using grants a 30% reduction to mana costs that lasts for 1s per stack consumed. This is a powerful way to keep your mana levels up, see the mana section for more.

invoke yulon – Your major healing cooldown, summons Yu’lon for 12s with a 1min cooldown. Yu’lon will automatically heal injured members of your party, but more importantly will make enveloping mist much stronger by cutting the mana cost in half, and with celestial harmony will also apply an additional heal-over-time effect to anyone who has Enveloping Mist active. On top of that gives an absorb shield to your party. All of this along with the short cooldown means you should be proactive about using the ability, and not just saving it for bosses or emergencies.

revival – Heals the entire party or raid for moderate health, as well as cleansing anything that detox can remove. 3m cooldown. Should be used when the whole group is running low, or when multiple targets have a dangerous debuff.

Damage Abilities #

tiger palm – Minor damage to a single target. Builds up to 4 stacks of teachings of the monastery, which let blackout kick hit multiple times.

blackout kick – Moderate damage to a single target on a very short cooldown. Uses stacks of teachings of the monastery to hit up to 4 times per use. Has a chance per hit to reset the cooldown on rising sun kick.

rising sun kick – Significant damage to a single target on a 10s cooldown. Can spread renewing mist via rapid diffusion.

spinning crane kick – Channeled AoE damage.

Effects #

These are some of the more notable effects, interactions, and passive talents that you should be aware of. It’s not covering effects (even if they’re very strong) that provide flat bonuses or that don’t require much thought to use, and it only includes those used in our recommended build.

mastery: gust of mists – Your main healing and damage abilities cause an additional bit of healing, proportionate to your mastery points. Fairly passive and should naturally do useful healing as you do your normal rotation.

healing elixir – Passively heals you a moderate amount when you drop below 40% health. Generates a charge every 30s and can hold up to 2 charges. It can be helpful to be aware of how many charges you have so you can plan other emergency self-healing if you’re out.

Rotation Overview #

This is an overview of the core rotation. It’s not a strict priority order but rather an outline of how the different abilities interact and are used. It assumes you’re using the recommended talent build above.

Maintenance

Healing

  • vivify for minor healing as needed
  • soothing mist on anyone taking ongoing damage, optionally with enveloping mist and then one or more vivify casts if you can’t keep up otherwise
  • enveloping mist by itself on anyone who’s expected to take lower ongoing damage, but be careful because this will burn mana quickly
  • expel harm whenever you’re lower on health yourself

Emergency

  • invoke yulon whenever there’s decent damage going out, try to spread a few enveloping mist casts after activating
  • life cocoon to stabilize anybody already low on health or expected to take damage
  • revival the recover the whole group or get rid of multiple debuffs

Damage

Defensives #

life cocoon – Puts a decent absorb shield on the target for 12s, as well as increasing healing received substantially. Has a 2m cooldown. Should be used whenever a target is expected to take significant damage, or when you’re trying to stabilize someone you can’t heal immediately.

fortifying brew – Increases max health by 20% and reduces damage by 20% for 15s on a medium length cooldown. Should be used whenever significant incoming damage is expected or you’re otherwise at risk of dying.

Crowd Control #

Interrupt spear hand strike – Melee interrupt on a 15s cooldown. Use this frequently to stop enemy casts.

Stun leg sweep – AoE 3s stun on a 50s cooldown. Helpful to reduce the danger of packs of enemies, or as a backup interrupt when spear hand strike is on cooldown.

Incapacitate paralysis – Incapacitates the target for 1m, but will break on damage. 30s cooldown. With pressure points can also be used to remove enrage effects.

ring of peace – Form a circle at the targeted location that pushes enemies out for 5s. Helpful to either keep enemies away from you or an ally, or to nudge enemies in a particular direction.

Mobility #

roll – Rolls forward a short distance. Has three charges and relatively short cooldown. Extremely useful to get out of danger, close distance to enemies, or otherwise speed up motion.

tiger's lust – 70s speed boost for yourself or an ally for 6s on a moderate cooldown. Also removes all roots and snares. Helpful to get yourself or a party member out of danger, or to get to a destination more quickly.

transcendence and transcendence transfer – Mark a location with Transcendence, then teleport back to it with Transcendence: Transfer. The location marking can be done frequently but actually transferring incurs a moderate cooldown. If you can mark a safe or otherwise useful location it’s an extremely useful way to get out of danger or reach a needed destination instantly.

Utility #

crackling jade lightning – Channels over 3.3s to deal a small amount of damage. Not useful for DPS but helpful to pull enemies from range.

touch of death – Instantly kills any target with less health than you. 3m cooldown. While technically a damage ability, the long cooldown and use requirements mean its more situational and not really part of your rotation. Helpful to quickly dispatch normal enemies you don’t want to deal with.

Taunt provoke – Taunts the target to attack you from range. Critical for tanks but occasionally helpful for others to pull enemies.

Cleanse detox – Cleanses all harmful magic effects from an ally on a short cooldown. If talented removes poison and disease effects as well.

resuscitate – Out-of-combat resurrect.

reawaken – Out-of-combat resurrect for your whole party or raid.

Quality of Life #

Zen Flight – Instant-cast out-of-combat flight at a slow speed. Useless for travel now that dragonriding/skyriding is a thing, but very niche utility to save yourself from falling damage in outdoor content, or to get somewhere nearby quickly when you don’t want to bother mounting.

Zen Pilgrimage – Teleports you to the Peak of Serenity, which has repair vendors and portals to Orgrimmar and Stormwind. If your character has started Legion content takes you to the Temple of the Five Dawns instead - which is somewhat less useful.

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