General Information
On this page, we list your Mistweaver Monk coreabilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of WarcraftMoP 5.4. We also explain whento use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtletiesthat you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a MistweaverMonk.
The other pages of our Mistweaver Monk guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.
1. 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 tothe type of damage in the encounter, based on your healing assignment.
As a Mistweaver Monk, you cannot simply stand still and cast your healingspells. You have many actions you must perform, and buffs you must monitor, inorder 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 islittle or no damage.
- Use
Expel Harm to damage the target and generate Chi. Expel Harmshould be used on cooldown.
- Use
Crackling Jade Lightning when you are not able to be in meleerange of any mob, and there is little or no incoming damage. Each tick has a30% 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. Only useBlackout Kick when your
Muscle Memory self-buff is active.
- Use
Tiger Palm (which costs 1 Chi), only when your
Muscle Memoryself-buff is active, to
- maintain 100% uptime on the
Tiger Power self-buff;
- dump Chi and deal damage, when there is little or not damage taken by theraid;
- stack
Vital Mists on yourself, which reduces the mana cost andcast time of the next
Surging Mist (up to 100% reduction at 5stacks).
Note that in the case of very intense damage, you may have to abandon beingin melee range of the boss and using damaging abilities. Instead, you may needto 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 togenerate 1 Chi).
- Low to moderate damage
- High damage
- Emergency situations
- While moving
- Cast
Healing Sphere, placing the spheres under the raid membersthat 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 areinstant cast, do not break the channel of Soothing Mist, and are always caston the target of Soothing Mist.
1.3. Multiple Target Healing
You have only two multiple target healing spells, the usage of which israther straightforward.
Whenever there is any raid damage,
Renewing Mist should be usedon 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 notpossible only through Renewing Mist. Therefore, you will have to cast
Surging Mist and
Soothing Mist on single targets, to generateadditional Chi.
1.4. Additional Actions to Perform
This section will briefly cover the other actions you must perform, inaddition to the above-mentioned:
2. Cooldown Usage↑top
As a Mistweaver Monk, you have a number of cooldowns in your arsenal, whichyou must use in tandem with your regular rotation.
Thunder Focus Tea should be used as many times as possible duringthe encounter. It is best to use this spell with
Uplift, but it maysituationally be preferable to use it with
Surging Mist.
Life Cocoon should be used on the tank or another target who isabout to sustain a large amount of damage. You should time this in such a waythat its effect coincides with dangerous encounter abilities.
Revival is a raid-wide heal, and it could be considered a raidcooldown, in which case your raid leader may ask you to use it at a specifictime. Otherwise, just use it when a vast majority of raid members are in needof healing or dispelling.
Additionally, your talents have the potential to provide you withadditional abilities and cooldowns. We discuss this, as well as the propertiming and usage of your default cooldowns in asubsequent 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 listbelow.
4. Statue↑top
As a Mistweaver Monk, you should make sure to always have your Jade SerpentStatue (
Summon Jade Serpent Statue) active. We discuss its benefitsbelow.
5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Mistweaver Monk↑top
The information we provide above will set you on the right path towardshealing efficiently as a Mistweaver Monk. Indeed, you can probably perform toa relatively high level just on what we have written above. However, to fullyreach the maximum potential of your character, you must understand severalsubtleties and complexities about your class and spec.
5.1. Important Concepts
There are many mechanics that, together, make up the complex playstyle ofMistweaver Monks.
5.1.1. Chi
Chi is a Monk-only resource. There are several things you need to knowabout Chi:
- Chi is generated by several abilities, the most notable of them being
Expel Harm,
Soothing Mist, and
Surging Mist.
- Chi is spent on many crucial abilities, that are part of yourrotation.
- You have a maximum capacity of 4 Chi (5, if you have the
Ascensiontalent).
- Chi decays quickly when outside of combat, but it does not decay whilein combat. A natural consequence of this is that, when starting a fight, youwill have no Chi.
- Generating Chi while you are at maximum capacity will cause the new Chito 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 Chiwould 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 gainfrom items and effects. This is crucial, since successfully landing attacks isthe cornerstone of your playstyle.
- It causes you to have attack power equal to 200% of your spell power. Asyou will see below, this is also very important to your playstyle.
- It causes your
Spinning Crane Kick to take into account healed alliesin order to generate Chi. Healing 3 allies generates Chi, as does healing 1or 2 allies together with damaging 2 or 1 enemies, respectively.
Finally, it grants you a passive ability called
Eminence.Eminence causes you to passively heal the nearby ally (within 20 yards) withthe lowest health, for 25% of the damage you deal with every non-autoatttackability.
5.1.3. Jade Serpent Statue
Keeping your Jade Serpent Statue up at all times is not hard, since it has a15-minute duration and 30-second cooldown. The statue provides its own versionof your
Eminence effect, mirroring 25% of the non-autoattack damageyou 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 twoEminence effects stack, making up for 50% of your non-autoatattack damagebeing 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 40yards of it, which heals for 50% of the amount that your own Soothing Mistheals for.
As you can tell, the statue performs both of its effects passively, so allyou 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 dealingdamage.
More specifically, the lowest health ally within 20 yards of you is healedfor 25% 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 streamof 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 onlydifference is that the statue heals players within 20 yards of itself.
It is important for you to understand the role of Eminence healing. Whileit is beneficial, and, depending on the encounter, it may prove to make up alarge portion of your healing, it is not something you can rely on. Eminencehealing (much like Discipline Priests' Atonement healing) is good for periodsof low damage, but it is insufficient for periods of intense damage.
In other words, Eminence healing is a passive benefit that you should behappy to have, but not something to actively rely on.
5.1.5. Muscle Memory
Muscle Memory is a passive ability that causes your successful
Jabs, and your successful
Spinning Crane Kicks (as long as theyheal or damage a combined number of at least 3 targets) to make the next
Tiger Palm or
Blackout Kick deal 150% more damage and restore 4% of your mana.
This simply rewards you further for using
Jab, and there is nospecific way to use it, other than to make sure to use the buff each timeyou have it by weaving in Tiger Palm or Blackout Kick between your Jabs.
5.1.6. Tiger Palm, Tiger Power, and Vital Mists
Tiger Palm has three uses to you as a Mistweaver Monk.
- It applies a self-buff,
Tiger Power, which causes your attacks toignore 30% of the target's armor. Thisimproves your DPS and, therefore, the healing you do through
Eminence.
- It stacks a self-buff,
Vital Mists, which reduces the cast timeand mana cost of your next
Surging Mist by 20% per stack. It stacksup 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 andonly requires the use of one Tiger Palm every 20 seconds.
Maintaining 100% uptime on Vital Mists is more difficult, and it is notefficient to do as a goal in and of itself. Especially when there is intensedamage going on, you cannot afford to waste Chi on Tiger Palm instead of usingit 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 instantSurging Mist right away. When there is low or no damage, you should try tostack Vital Mists to 5, in preparation for more serious damage.
Tiger Palm should only be used when your
Muscle Memory self-buff isactive.
5.1.7. Blackout Kick and Serpent's Zeal
Each time you cast
Blackout Kick, you apply a self-buff on you,called
Serpent's Zeal. This causes both you and your statue to passivelyheal a nearby ally for 25% of the damage you deal with autoattacks.
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 lessefficient way of dumping Chi than Tiger Palm (discussed above), so you shouldonly use it to maintain Serpent's Zeal.
Blackout Kick should only be used when your
Muscle Memory self-buffis active.
5.1.8. 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 castingMana Tea (the active ability), you convert these stacks into mana.Additionally, each time you gain a charge of Mana Tea, you have a chanceequal to your critical strike chance of generating two charges of Mana Teainstead of just one.
By default, Mana Tea is a channeled spell, with no cooldown, which restores4% of your maximum mana for each stack of Mana Tea that you have, at the rateof 1 stack per 0.5 seconds. However, if you are using
Glyph of Mana Tea, thenthe ability has a 10 second cooldown, but it is instant cast, consuming 2stacks 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 ManaTea). This cycle is mana-negative, however, meaning that the mana you gain fromMana Tea will never fully make up for the mana you have spent to generate theChi in the first place.
It takes roughly 2 minutes of continuous Chi expenditure to reach maximumstacks of Mana Tea, so you should not worry about capping the resource. Thebest 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 youneed to heal is not too brutal).
- Without
Glyph of Mana Tea, it is ideal to find moments of downtimeduring the fight, when there is little or no damage, and channel
Mana Tea then.
5.1.9. 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 injuredally. The sphere acts just like those generated by your
Healing Spherespell, but they only last 30 seconds, instead of 1 minute. The Mastery has nointeraction with the spheres generated by Healing Sphere.
If a Healing Sphere created by your Mastery expires without having healedanyone, then it will cause players around it to share 50% of the sphere'soriginal heal. This ensures that your Mastery is not entirely wasted ifyour raid members are not actively picking up spheres.
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 ofthe proper spell usage you should employ. Below, we cover this aspect in moredepth.
5.2.1. Single Target Healing
In terms of single target healing, you only have 3 spells:
Soothing Mist is your go-to single target heal. It is relativelycheap, and, on its own, will only heal low amounts of damage.
Soothing Mist, is, however, useful even when the target begins taking muchhigher damage, thanks to its interaction with your other two single targethealing spells (making them instant cast). It follows logically that, if thetarget you are healing is taking increased damage, you should simply addEnveloping Mist and Surging Mist to the rotation.
Enveloping Mist is an extremely powerful HoT. It costs 3 Chi, makingit rather expensive. Since it is instant cast while Soothing Mist is beingchanneled, it should mostly be cast in that way.
Surging Mist is a typical "emergency heal". However, sinceSurging Mist generates Chi, its high mana cost is somewhat compensated. Thiswould be the final step in intensifying your single target healing.
Therefore, we can boil down the single target healing rotation to thefollowing:
- Low damage: channel
Soothing Mist. Spend the Chi you generateon
Enveloping Mist.
- Moderate damage: channel
Soothing Mist, and use
Enveloping Mist on the target whenever you have 3 Chi. ChannelingSoothing Mist generates enough Chi to almost be able to keep 100% uptime onEnveloping Mist, but obviously this means you are not using Chi on BlackoutKick or Tiger Palm. Simply cast occasional
Jabs or
Surging Mists to generate additional Chi. Always make sure to use up your
Muscle Memory buff (by using Tiger Palm or Blackout Kick) before you use
Jab again.
- High damage: channel
Soothing Mist, keep 100% uptime of
Enveloping Mist on the target, and spam
Surging Mist on thetarget. This will quickly drain your mana, but will provide a great burstof healing. It will also provide you with much more Chi than you can spend, sounless absolutely necessary, we advise throttling down the use of SurgingMist, and weaving in Blackout Kick and Tiger Palm.
It is important to note that instant cast Surging Mists and Enveloping Mistsare automatically cast on the target on which you are channelingSoothing Mist.
Finally, you also possess the
Healing Spherespell, which allows you to place up to 3 Healing Spheres at target locationson the ground. The spell has no cooldown (and only triggers a 0.5 secondglobal cooldown). Players who walk over the spheres are healed, and thespheres are consumed in the process.
The spheres are rather cheap in terms of mana cost, and heal for a moderateamount (more than half of the healing of
Surging Mist, forcomparison). The best ways to use healing spheres are:
- Place them near your tank(s) or other players who are likely to take damagein the future. This allows the players to move into the spheres when theyhave 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 touse
Soothing Mist.
- Use them as a means of doing some healing while you are moving, since theyare instant cast.
- Pre-place them at a location where you know someone will take damage inthe future.
It is important to note that if a Healing Sphere expires without havingbeen picked up by any players, it will do 50% of its original healing, splitamong players in its close proximity.
5.2.2. AoE Healing
Your AoE or multiple target healing spells are:
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 nearbyinjured allies, losing a stack with each jump. Each time the buff jumps to anew 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 theHoT at any one time, in practice, the number is limited to 8 in normalcircumstances (since your haste reduces the duration of the HoT to about16 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 onthem. It costs 2 Chi. If you use
Thunder Focus Tea (a cooldown thatwe discuss more amply below), the next Upliftyou cast also refreshes the duration of the HoTs from Renewing Mist on alltargets. When utilising this combination, you can have Renewing Mist up on atotal of 16 targets.
Spinning Crane Kick is a channeled spell that heals all nearbyallies (within 8 yards) every 0.75 seconds for 2 seconds. It also damagesenemies in the same radius. The spell costs mana and, when it affects at least3 targets (by healing or damaging them, depending on whether they are allies orenemies), it generates 1 Chi (per cast, not pertick). It has no cooldown, and moving does not break the channel. Therefore,it is ideally suited for AoE healing while on the move.
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
Uplift. Fill theremaining time with
Jab (in the case of low damage), or with singletarget 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 or
Jab(or
Spinning Crane Kick if you can heal at least 3 allies with it, or morelikely heal 2 allies and damage 1 target, the boss or an add). Alsoremember to use
Thunder Focus Tea with Uplift to boost your healingfurther.
- 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 moreAoE healing when very low on mana.
We would like to remind you once again that you should make sure to use
Tiger Palm or
Blackout Kick to consume your
Muscle Memory buffbefore using
Jab again.
5.2.3. Other Considerations
To say that your healing will be restricted to either single target orAoE is misleading. In fact, you will spend most of the time juggling betweenthe two, and having to combine the rotations we listed above. Your actual spellusage will differ based on many factors, such as the encounter mechanics andyour healing assignment, so it is impossible to map it out here. As youbecome more familiar with your character and with the encounter, so will yourperformance improve.
If you have to heal intense damage for a sustained period of time, you willhave 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 youwill give up the benefits of
Eminence in favour of being able todedicate all your time to healing spells.
This is something you will have to judge based on the damage that is goingon in the fight.
5.3. Detailed Cooldown Usage
5.3.1. Thunder Focus Tea
Thunder Focus Tea is an active cooldown that vastly improves yournext
Surging Mist or your next
Uplift, cast within 45seconds. Thunder Focus Tea has a 45-second cooldown, and it costs 1 Chi.
When used with Surging Mist, it doubles its healing. This empowered SurgingMist 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 usethis spell as much as possible throughout the fight, and it is recommended touse it when its benefit will not go to waste (so, in times of intensedamage). 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 adamage absorption shield on the target, lasting for 12 seconds, or untilbroken 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 damageabsorbed, Life Cocoon is quite lackluster. The 50% healing increase, while veryappealing, only lasts while the shield lasts, and this is generally no morethan 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 raidcooldown, in many respects.
In most cases, you should use it for the heal it provides (which is quitepowerful, considering the number of targets it heals), but it can also be usedas a sort of "mass dispel". The spell has a 3-minute cooldown, and it does nothave 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 youcan incorporate into your AoE healing rotation, when the damage is low ormoderate.
Zen Sphere should only be used for the AoE healing it provideswhen detonated, since its HoT is very weak. It is especially useful whenplayers often drop below 35% health, as this causes the Zen Sphere to detonateautomatically.
Chi Burst has a positional requirement. This is to say, you mustbe facing your desired target(s) before casting the spell. It is a strong AoEheal, which we believe can provide excellent healing during AoE damage when theraid is stacked together.
5.3.5. Tier 3 Talents
Power Strikes provides its benefit passively, by causing your
Jab,
Expel Harm,
Spinning Crane Kick,
Crackling Jade Lightning, and
Soothing Mist to generate 2Chi instead of 1, with a 20-second internal cooldown. This is a benefit youshould simply enjoy, which will not affect your rotation in any way.
Chi Brew is a minor healing cooldown. The ideal time to use it iswhen you have 0-2 Chi, and you wish to be able to provide a greater burst ofhealing, by casting additional
Uplifts or
Enveloping Mists.We believe that it is best used as burst AoE healing, allowing you to basicallychain several Uplifts together.
Ascension, should you choose this talent, will also provide itsbenefit passively, by giving you a larger Chi pool, and higher maximum mana. Itallows you to pool 5 Chi in preparation for heavy predictable AoE damage.
5.3.6. Tier 6 Talents
Rushing Jade Wind should be cast whenever there is a need for AoEhealing. Since you do not need to channel it, you can continue to go aboutyour normal rotation as soon as you cast it.
Chi Torpedo is also an excellent way to heal your stacked raid members. You should simply roll through them, as this will heal them.
Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger does not provide healing in and of itself,but it does function properly with
Eminence, resulting in someindirect healing in this way. Its high cooldown implies that you should save itfor times when you need a burst of healing.
5.4. Roll
Roll is an ability that allows you to quickly move 15 yards infront of you. It is a useful mobility ability, which you should useextensively for quickly traversing short distances. Here are a few facts aboutRoll:
- Roll has no resource cost and no cooldown. It is based on a chargesystem.
- It has a maximum of 2 charges, and each charge has a 20-second rechargetime.
- The
Celerity talent increases the number of charges to 3, andreduces recharge time to 15 seconds.
- Roll is off the global cooldown, but while you are rolling, you are unableto use any other ability.
- Roll will always send you in the direction that your character iscurrently moving (including backwards). If your character is stationary, Rollwill send you in the direction your character is facing.
- You cannot roll through objects or obstacles. If you encounter anobstacle, your Roll is ended prematurely.
Finally,
Chi Torpedo, a tier 6 talent, replaces Roll with ChiTorpedo. Chi Torpedo is identical to Roll in every way, except that it rolls5 yards further, and it damages enemies and heals allies in your rollingpath.
6. Changelog↑top
- 31 Mar. 2014: Clarified the issue of
Spinning Crane Kick'sChi-generation, namely that healing players while
Stance of the Wise Serpentis active causes it to also generate Chi. The number of healed targets isadded to the number of damaged targets, and as long as the spell is interactingwith at least 3 targets, Chi will be generated (for example, in a combinationof healing 2 players and damaging 1 NPC).
- 08 Jan. 2013: Fixed a mention that incorrectly stated that
Spinning Crane Kick generates Chi when healing 3 or more allies (in fact,it only does so when damaging 3 or more enemies).
- 20 Oct. 2013: Removed a mention of Glyph of Expel Harm, followingits removal from the game.
- 11 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
- Made several updates to account for the fact that
Rushing Jade Windnow replaces
Spinning Crane Kick.
- Made several updates to account for minor changes that certain abilitiesand talents underwent, and refined the healing rotations slightly.
- Added a mention of the fact that
Chi Torpedo rolls 5 yards furtherthan
Roll.
- 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing to change.
- 19 Apr. 2013: Made several updates.
- 22 Mar. 2013: Removed mention that having walk toggled on causesyou to travel a shorter distance through
Roll and
Chi Torpedo.While this was the case during Patch 5.1, it appears to have been sinceremoved from the game.
- 10 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
- Updated explanation for
Healing Sphere to mention that they now healplayers when they expire.
- Added explanation for
Muscle Memory.
- Updated explanations of
Serpent's Zeal and
Eminence to accountfor the new values of these abilities on live servers.
- Updated
Zen Sphere explanation to account for the fact that thespheres now detonate on their own if their target reaches 35% health.