The Ironsong Tribe

Mistweaver Guide
This guide is current for version 6.0.3

Greetings fellow monks and all other curious people. Monk healing is a lot of fun and I think best when you know how to flow between your stances as the situation calls for. As such this guide will be focused on understanding the stances, abilities, tea and some suggestions.


Stances

Stance of the Spirited Crane is based on healing through attacks with Eminence. Eminence causes 50% of the damage you deal to be converted into healing and will automatically go to an injured ally within 20 yards. The Jade Serpent statue also has eminence based on 50% of your attacks.

This stance is usually best for random mobs, encounters with low damage, situations where you are a backup healer or instances you out gear.

Stance of the Wise Serpent is based on healing through spells, predominately Soothing Mist and Renewing Mist. Smoothing Mist also makes Surging Mist and Enveloping Mist instant cast while channeling. The Jade Serpent statue will also cast Soothing Mist when you do.

This stance is usually best for boss fights, encounters with high damage, situations where you are a main healer or instances you don't out gear.


Abilities

Stance of the Spirited Crane Place Jade Serpent Statue within 20 yards. Generate Chi with Jab, Expel Harm, Crackling Jade Lightning or Spinning Crane Kick. Then use Chi with Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick and Rising Sun Kick to keep their respective debuffs up. Tiger palm when all other debuffs are up to generate Vital Mists, which reduces the mana cost and cast time of Surging Mist by 20%. Touch of Death when available.

Single: Surging Mist, Expel Harm and Life Cocoon.
Raid: Eminence, Blackout Kick, Spinning Crane Kick, Detonate Chi and Revival.

Stance of the Wise Serpent Place Jade Serpent Statue within 40 yards. Cast Soothing Mists on tank or any injured target. Generate Chi with Renewing Mist, Surging Mist, Expel Harm or Spinning Crane Kick. Then use Chi with Enveloping Mist (single target) or Uplift (raid) as the situation calls for. Try to keep Renewing Mist, Enveloping Mist and Soothing Mist on the tank when they are taking high damage.

Single: Soothing, Surging and Enveloping Mists, Expel Harm and Life Cocoon.
Raid: Renewing Mist, Uplift, Spinning Crane Kick, Detonate Chi and Revival.


Tea

Mistweavers drink a lot of tea, and it's useful to understand what each tea does. I will include tea, brew and a two talents in this section.

Mana Tea
Consumes 1 stack of Mana Tea per 0.5 sec to restore 4% of your maximum mana. For each 4 Chi you spend, you gain 1 stack of Mana Tea, with a chance equal to your critical strike chance to generate 1 extra stack.

This is your primary mana regenerating ability, so make sure to not spend mana on chi generating abilities when at full chi, as this will waste mana. Instead, prioritize chi using abilities whenever you have chi, as those will generate stacks of Mana Tea. Also, make sure you are drinking your Mana Tea as needed and not letting it cap out at 20 stacks.

Thunder Focus Tea
Receive a jolt of energy, doubling healing done by your next Surging Mist, or causing your next Renewing Mist to jump 2 additional times.

I suggest putting this ability in a macro with Renewing Mist and/or Surging Mist. (See below)

Fortifying Brew
Turns your skin to stone, increasing your current and maximum health by 20% and reducing damage taken by 20%. Lasts 15 sec.

I suggest putting this ability in a macro with Expel Harm. (See below)

Nimble Brew
Removes all root, stun, fear and horror effects and reduces the duration of future such effects by 60% for 6 sec.

In order to walk lightly upon the earth, it's helpful to be nimble in all things.

Chi Brew
Instantly restores 2 Chi, and generates 1 stack of Mana Tea. Maximum 2 charges.

I have found this talent to help greatly with having more mana. I currently have it in a macro with chi wave. (see below)

Healing Elixirs
Heals you for 15% of your maximum health when a damaging attack brings you below 35% health, or when you drink a Brew or Tea while injured. This effect can only happen once every 18 sec.

I like this talent as well, because it adds a passive heal to your tea and brew use. Both the other level 75 talents are useful in their own way, but I currently prefer this one for it's synergy with other abilities and the merit of having one less button to mash.


Suggestions

Mana Conservation
In terms of group healing, it seems to me that one ought to prioritize keeping Renewing Mist up on as many people as possible at all times, and as such I recommend using the glyph and taking the Pool of Mists talent. This makes Uplift a more viable raid heal and maximizes Renewing Mists.

In terms of tank healing, prioritize Enveloping Mist and Soothing Mist. Surging Mist seems to be the least mana efficient way to heal, and should only be used for spike damage. That said, I suggest using Life Cocoon proactively for spike damage before restoring to Surging Mists. Life Cocoon, while the absorb portion is not great, it does have a 50% increase to periodic healing and a cool graphic.

Abilities and Action Bars
As some monk abilities can only be used in a certain stance, I have those abilities in the same places in my action bars so when I switch stances they toggle.


Teamwork
If your tank is having trouble gathering up mobs you have ways you can help. Monks have an awesome CC ability in Paralysis, which is useful preemptively on large pulls or reactively when there is a lone mob caster mob. Depending on your positioning you also have Spear Hand Strike to interrupt and encourage the caster mob to run toward the tank.


Notes
As one can use the glyph for Targeted Expulsion, which changes Expel Harm into a targeted heal, I've listed it in the sections above for single target heals.

I've tried to keep this guide concise, and I'd welcome any feedback to make it more clear and useful. For those interested there is a more comprehensive and in depth guide over here: http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/mistweaver-...ling-guide

Macros

Macros are very useful, particularly by using the targeting functions and combining synergistic abilities.


Basic Targeting Macros

Example macro for healing/help abilities:
code | function
#showtooltip (ability) | display icon
/use | uses specified ability or item
[@mouseover,nodead,help][help,nodead] [@focus,nodead,help][@player] | targeting string for friendlies

Example macro for attack/harm abilities:
code | function
#showtooltip (ability) | display icon
/use | uses specified ability or item
[@mouseover,nodead,harm][harm,nodead] [@focus,nodead,harm] | targeting string for opponents and/or entities with attitude problems.

Macro target priority:

1. Mouseover
   
2. Target
   
3. Focus
   
4. Self (if heal)
   

In this way all your abilities will default to your focus target and most often as a healer you will want to keep the tank as your focus. Sometimes if there is a opponent that I want to keep cc'ed or interrupted I will set it as my focus instead.

Set focus macro:


Macros to combine abilities

Although some combinations may not be optimal in terms of saving your cool downs for specific situations, in general I think having less buttons to mash is a quality of life improvement. I also think it's better that some abilities get used as often as possible, rather than ending up rarely being used.

For example, as a troll I have a Berserking ability which I combine with my most often used spell (Chi Wave) such that it is used as often as possible. I also use Chi Brew in this macro for now, pending further tests.

code | function
/use | uses specified ability or item


Basically you are just looking for any ability which is instant cast and combines well with another ability, or a general ability that you want to make sure to use as often as possible. In terms of syntax you can add instant cast abilities or items to the top of your macro, but nothing which has a cast time or is channeled. The macro reads top to bottom, left to right.

Some other macro combinations I use:



Peace.

I don't play a Monk, but this is an outstanding guide! Well done.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Can you go over the various teas? I play a monk once in awhile and the problem i have is running out of mana

Understanding Mana Tea

Scientific name: Trichechus
Rank: Genus
Speed: 5 – 8 km/h (Adult)
Length: 280 – 300 cm (Adult)
Higher classification: Trichechidae
Mass: 400 – 550 kg (Adult), 30 kg on average (Newborn)

Manatees are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing three of the four living species...

... wait that doesn't answer your question at all. I'll update the original post as that is a good question and something I am trying to better understand as well.

I also recommend considering some modifier macros (e.g. [mod:alt]). I use them regularly. They're good for either combining abilities that are similar in use (e.g. I combined Expel Harm and Jab for my Brewmaster Monk, since they're both basic Chi-building attacks). For healing, I've used them to redirect effects on occasion (e.g. if you add [mod:alt, @focus] it will cast at your focus if you hold Alt, rather than making it self-cast), so you can use it normally, but still hit your focus target whenever you need to without clearing your target or moving your mouse off the raid frames first.