Home World of Warcraft Classes Mistweaver Monk 9.0.5 Guide

Mistweaver monk in Shadowlands

Mistweaver Monk is a healer in World of Warcraft. You have relatively easy healing mechanics, the highest mobility among all healers, and the ability to deal some damage in melee combat.

In this guide, you’ll find information on what talents to get, which covenant is the best, your best legendaries, and how to use your spells with maximum effectiveness.

Mistweaver Monk uses a regular healer resource – mana. Mana is required for the vast majority of your heals and some other spells.

Pros:

  • You will often be counted as a melee fighter, this will help you to ignore some mechanics, aimed towards ranged characters
  • Quite easy to play
  • Insanely mobile
  • Very versatile

Cons:

  • You don’t have strong instant spells
  • Revival is not a very strong cooldown
  • You don’t have much unique stuff for raiding

About the Author

This guide is written by a player from guild “Статика” (Static), Монкникитка-гордунни. The guild is 400th place on wowprogress worldwide. Had 3600 Rio in season 4 of BfA.

Glossary

Main Abilities

Talents

On reaching certain levels, you will open new Talent tiers. In each tier, you can choose one Talent at a time. Talents can affect your abilities in different ways: add new ones, replace old ones, passively modify various effects and spells. You can change Talents while you’re in Sanctums or in rest areas, but if there are no such places nearby, you can use Tome of the Tranquil Mind, which allows you to change Talents within a minute. Note that Talents can’t be changed in combat. Also, if a Talent selected in a certain tier is on CD, you’ll have to wait for it to recharge in order to change it. 

Tier 1 Lvl 15 – HPS increase

Mistweaver Monk 9.0.5 Guide

  • Mist WrapEnveloping Mist lasts 1 sec longer and its bonus to healing is increased by 10%.
  • Chi Wave – a small ball of energy, that jumps from ally to the enemy in a 25m range, up to 7 times. Damages enemies, heal allies.
  • Chi Burst – fast spell with 1 second cast time. Launches a small ball of energy in front of you, that will travel for 40m. Damages enemies, heal allies. 30 sec CD.

Both Chi Burst and Mist Wrap are great choices for raiding. The first one is a great choice for AoE healing, while the second one is good for single target healing. For Mythic+, pick Mist Wrap for the same reason.

Tier 2 Lvl 25 – Mobility

Mistweaver Monk 9.0.5 Guide

  • Celerity – the cooldown of Roll is reduced by 5 sec and now has 3 charges. 
  • Chi Torpedo – replaces Roll. You travel 20m forward and after that, your movement speed is increased by 30% for 10 seconds. Stacks 2 times. Has 2 charges.
  • Tiger’s Lust – sprint, that can be cast on you or on an ally. Increases movement speed by 70% for 6 seconds, while removing any slows or roots.

Tiger’s Lust is a default option here. It doesn’t replace your Roll but gives you an additional speed-up for you or your ally. And this is the only talent in this tier, that allows you to remove any negative movement effects.

Tier 3 Lvl 30 – HPS increase

Mistweaver Monk 9.0.5 Guide

Mana Tea is the best option for Mythic+ and Raiding due to the mana economy it can provide you.

Tier 4 Lvl 35 – Control

Mistweaver Monk 9.0.5 Guide

  • Tiger Tail Sweep – increases the range of Leg Sweep by 2 yds and reduces its cooldown by 10 sec.
  • Song of Chi-Ji – creates a slowly moving mist cloud that disorients enemies it touches for 20 seconds. 30 sec CD. 
  • Ring of Peace – form a Ring of Peace at the target location for 6 sec. Enemies that enter will be ejected from the Ring. 45 sec CD.

Ring of Peace is a great choice since it combines 2 control effects. You can kite or interrupt casts with this by pushing enemies.

Tier 5 Lvl 40 – Survivability

Mistweaver Monk 9.0.5 Guide

  • Healing Elixir – heals you for 15% of your maximum health. 30 sec CD. Has 2 charges.
  • Diffuse Magic – reduces incoming magic damage by 60% for 6 seconds. Also, this ability will transfer all your debuffs to those, who have placed them on you if it’s possible. 1,5 min CD.
  • Dampen Harm – for the next 10 seconds, reduce the incoming damage by 20-50%. The percentage depends on the damage. More damage = more reduction. 2 min CD.

Diffuse Magic is your default choice. If you won’t face magic damage on your next encounter, you can switch to Dampen Harm.

Tier 6 lvl 45 – HPS increase

Mistweaver Monk 9.0.5 Guide

Refreshing Jade Wind is a perfect choice for the raid if your group is standing together, if not – pick Summon Jade Serpent Statue. For Mythic+ pick Summon Jade Serpent Statue.

Tier 7 Lvl 50 – HPS increase

Mistweaver Monk 9.0.5 Guide

The best choice for raiding is Upwelling, it gives a large boost to your Essence Font healing and allows you to use it not by cooldown, but to delay it a bit for a tougher part of the fight. For Mythic+ pick Rising Mist. It allows us to deal damage, while still healing allies. If you want even more damage output, pick Focused Thunder, it will allow you to use Rising Sun Kick 3 times in a row.

To sum up, here are your common builds:

Raiding:

  1. Chi Burst
  2. Tiger’s Lust
  3. Mana Tea
  4. Ring of Peace
  5. Diffuse Magic / Dampen Harm
  6. Refreshing Jade Wind / Summon Jade Serpent Statue
  7. Upwelling

Mythic+:

  1. Mist Wrap
  2. Tiger’s Lust
  3. Mana Tea
  4. Ring of Peace
  5. Diffuse Magic / Dampen Harm
  6. Summon Jade Serpent Statue
  7. Rising Mist / Focused Thunder

Covenants

The best covenant for you at the moment is Necrolords. The ability provided by them is a good heal with no mana cost. While Emeni’s ability (Necrolords soulbind), Lead by Example, will allow us to buff our healing effectiveness once per minute.

The Kyrian

Weapons of Order – for 5% of your mana your Mastery increases by 42% for the next 30 seconds. Using this ability refreshes Essence Font. While Weapons of Order is active, Essence Font heals up to 6 nearest allies at the beginning and at the end of this spell channeling.
2 min CD.

Summon Steward – you’re calling your Steward to bring you a Phial of Serenity that will heal 15% of your max health while removing curses, diseases, poisons, and bleeds. Steward has a lot of useful services, but each of them is available only once per day. 5 min CD. Steward summons for 3 minutes.

Not a bad pick for Mythic+, especially when combined with Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane. Allows you to deal damage and heal simultaneously.

The Necrolords

Bonedust Brew – hurl a brew created from the bones of your enemies at the ground, coating all targets struck for 10 sec. Your abilities have a 50% chance to affect the target a second time at 35% effectiveness as Shadow damage or healing. Your Mastery: Gust of Mists’ healing is increased towards the allies affected by your Bonedust Brew.
1 min CD.

Fleshcraft – Form a shield of flesh and bone over 4 seconds that absorbs damage equal to 20% of your maximum health for 2 minutes. Channeling near a corpse claims their essence to grow the shield, up to 50% of your maximum health. This is most effective against powerful enemies. 1 min CD.

Needs no mana to cast, gives a good boost to your healing if the raid is standing together, and has quite a strong soulbind. Best choice for Mythic+ and Raiding.

The Venthyr

Fallen Order – for 2% of your mana, opens a mystic portal for 24 sec. Every 3 sec, it summons a spirit of your order’s fallen Ox, Crane, or Tiger adepts for 6 sec. Fallen Crane adepts assist for an additional 2 sec, and will also heal allies with Enveloping Mist and will deal some damage.
3 min CD.

Door of Shadows – wend through the shadows, appearing at the targeted location.

Door of Shadows is almost useless for us, our mobility is already an S-tier. Fallen Order doesn’t interact with our abilities, has a very long cooldown, and Venthyr doesn’t have any good soulbinds. Basically, this is the worst choice.

The Night Fae

Faeline Stomp – for 4% of your mana, you strike the ground fiercely to expose a faeline for 30 sec, dealing Nature damage to up to 5 enemies, or heals to up to 5 allies within 30 yds caught in the faeline applying HoT effect of Essence Font to them. Your abilities have a 6% chance of resetting the cooldown of Faeline Stomp while fighting on a faeline.
30 sec CD.

Soulshape – turn into a Vulpin, teleporting 15 yds forward and increasing your movement speed by 50%. You may reactivate Soulshape every few sec to teleport again. Lasts 12 sec, or indefinitely while in a rest area.
1.5 min CD.

Not a bad covenant by itself, but Necrolords are better. Night Fae doesn’t have any powerful soulbinds and Soulshape is quite useless for a mobile Monk.

Conduits

Each of the 4 Covenants has 3 characters called Soulbinds. Each Soulbind has its own talent tree and story quests related to them.

Each Soulbind talent tree is unique and has some talents and empty slots for Conduits – each of them has to be activated to get to the next tier. Conduits are basic items (common and class-specific), that are obtained in various ways on your Shadowlands adventure, granting some bonuses apart from Soulbind talents. There are 3 types of Conduits: Endurance, Finesse, and Potency.

Conduits are placed in the special slots and you can swap them if you want to.
Players are able to switch between Soulbinds (only 1 can be active at the time) just like between your usual talents when you are trying to adjust your build for the upcoming situation.

Potency Conduits:

From the best to the worst for Raiding and Mythic+:

  1. Jade Bond
  2. Bone Marrow Hops (Necrolords)
  3. Rising Sun Revival
  4. Resplendent Mist
  5. Nourishing Chi

 

  1. Resplendent MistMastery: Gust of Mists has a 30% chance to do 50-120% more healing.
  2. Rising Sun RevivalRising Sun Kick reduces the remaining cooldown on Revival by 1 sec, and Revival heals targets for 12.5-30% of Revival’s heal over 10 sec.
  3. Nourishing ChiLife Cocoon increases healing over time received by an additional 18.8-45.12%, and this effect lingers for an additional 6 sec after the cocoon is removed.
  4. Jade Bond – abilities that activate Mastery: Gust of Mists reduce the cooldown on Invoke Yu’Lon, the Jade Serpent or Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane by 0.3 sec, and their healing is increased by 6.3-15.2%.

Depending on your Covenant pick, you’ll also have 1 Conduit that empowers that Covenant ability.

  1. The Kyrian: Strike with ClarityWeapons of Order‘s duration is increased by 5.0 sec, and it increases your Mastery by an additional 1.25-2.5%.
  2. The Necrolords: Bone Marrow Hops – Bonedust Brew’s Shadow damage or healing is increased by 40-96%, and when Bonedust Brew deals Shadow damage or healing, its cooldown is reduced by 0.5 sec.
  3. The Venthyr: Imbued ReflectionsFallen Order monks deal 36.3-87.12% more damage and healing.
  4. The Night Fae: Way of the Fae – Increases the initial damage of Faeline Stomp by 10.5-25.2% per target hit by that damage, up to a maximum of 52.5-126% additional damage.

Endurance Conduits:

From the best to the worst:

  1. Fortifying IngredientsFortifying Brew grants you a shield equal to 12-28.8% of your maximum health for 15 sec.
  2. Grounding Breath – When casting Vivify on yourself, its healing is increased by 15-36%, and it has a 30% chance to refund its cost.
  3. Harm DenialExpel Harm‘s healing is increased by 25-60%.

Finesse Conduits:

  1. Dizzying Tumble – Targets affected by your Leg Sweep deal 6.3-15.2% less damage for 5 sec.
  2. Tumbling TechniqueBlackout Kick has a 6-14.4% chance to grant a charge of Roll.
  3. Swift TransferenceTranscendence: Transfer increases your movement speed by 12.5-30% for 5 sec.
  4. Lingering Numbness – When Paralysis ends, your target’s movement speed is reduced by 40-98% for 5 sec.

Finesse Conduits from the best to the worst:

  1. Dizzying Tumble(M+) / Swift Transference(Raid)
  2. Lingering Numbness
  3. Tumbling Technique

Keep in mind that Finesse Conduits are utility-oriented and their effectiveness can vary depending on the situation.

Soulbinds

We’ll take a look only at Necrolords Soulbinds, since they’re simply the best.


Necrolords: a great choice here for Raiding and Mythic+ will be Emeni. His ability, Lead by Example, allows you to increase your Intellect by a good amount after the Bonedust Brew usage, empowering all of our heals when we need it.

Legendaries

Mistweaver can craft 16 legendary items in total. 

Let’s take a look at the best of them:

  1. Tear of Morning – casting Vivify or Enveloping Mist on a target with Renewing Mist has a 10% chance to spread the Renewing Mist to another target. Your Vivify healing through Renewing Mist is increased by 20% and your Enveloping Mist also heals allies with Renewing Mist for 20% of its healing.
  2. Fatal TouchTouch of Death cooldown reduced by 120 sec.
  3. Ancient Teachings of the Monastery – After casting Essence Font, your Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick, and Rising Sun Kick heal an injured ally within 20 yards for 250% of the damage done. Lasts 15 sec.

Tear of Morning is the best legendary. It enhances our AoE heal potential and allows us to have more Renewing Mists in the raid.

Ancient Teachings of the Monastery can be a solid choice for Mythic+. Its healing potential is lower than Tear of Morning, but you can deal some damage with it while keeping the heals coming.

Fatal Touch is also usable in Mythic+, but only if we need maximum damage output. It has no healing bonuses.

Gameplay

Single Target Healing

Well, first of all, you should always have your Soothing Mist on the target if the damage is not huge.

Besides that, you should maximize the uptime on Renewing Mist.

If this healing is not enough, use Enveloping Mist and Vivify. Keep in mind that Vivify will also heal targets with Renewing Mist active.

Raid Healing

Use Renewing Mist as much as you can, but don’t cast it on those who already have it.

If less than 6 allies are taking damage, then use Vivify.

If more than 6 allies are taking damage, then use abilities in this priority:

Refreshing Jade Wind, if not on CD.

Essence Font, if not on CD.

Chi Burst, if not on CD and will hit 6 or more allies.

Vivify on the targets with HoT from Essence Font, if everything is on CD.

Dealing Damage

Damage may be useful in Mythic+ and when your raid needs it.

Your main DPS rotation is: Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick, and Rising Sun Kick.

Use Rising Sun Kick on CD. 

Use Tiger Palm 3 times for maximum stacks of Blackout Kick from Teachings of the Monastery.

You should always do this rotation when there is a pause in receiving damage by the group or the raid when your healing is not needed that much.

Cooldowns Usage

Thunder Focus Tea is used for the Renewing Mist, Vivify, Enveloping Mist, or Rising Sun Kick. In the raid, you should use it for Vivify to save some mana. In Mythic+ use it on Rising Sun Kick for more damage, or on Enveloping Mist if you’ve got to rapidly heal a single target. If you have the Rising Mist talent, don’t use your Thunder Focus Tea on Enveloping Mist.

Life Cocoon empowers all HoT effects on the target by 50% while the shield is up. You will often use this on the target which is about to take some huge damage, so the shield uptime will be very low. Or you can use it as a failsafe on a low-health ally just to make sure he won’t die. 

Revival can be used as a strong healing cooldown, or as a massive dispel of magic debuffs, poisons, or diseases. Use it as much as you can when your raid is low.

Invoke Yu’Lon, the Jade Serpent is a great burst to our heals. Should be used when the raid is low. While this spell is active, try to use Enveloping Mist as much as you can. Don’t forget the Mana Tea talent, you’ll need A LOT of mana.

Race choice

Horde

Blood Elves are a good choice due to their passive crit chance bonus and a chance of mana restoration.

Zandalari are also good due to the crit chance bonus.

Alliance

Void Elf is a great choice. Their Spatial Rift spell will allow you to blink through the puddles, beams, quickly return after the knockback, and so on. And their passive gives us a good bonus to our healing.

Night Elf is also a good pick. Their Shadowmeld ability can help us to ignore some targeted abilities. Like, if you’re seeing that someone is casting a dangerous spell on you, going invisible will interrupt the cast due to the target loss. Good for Mythic+.

Mechagnomes and their Combat Analysis gives us a good Intellect bonus, which is great. 

Stats

Base raid stats priority goes like this:

Intellect > Crit > Versatility > Mastery > Haste

For Mythic+ try to get yourself 25-30% of Haste, especially if you have the Rising Mist talent, then go for Versatility.

Mythic+ stats priority goes like this:

Intellect > Haste (30%) > Versatility > Crit = Mastery = Haste

Gems

Enchants

Enchant Ring – Tenet of Haste – Mythic+

Enchant Weapon – Lightless Force – Mythic+

Food

Flasks

Temporary buffs

BiS Gear + Trinkets

Best items from Raid:

Head – Sadist’s Sinister Mask

Neck – Noble’s Birthstone Pendant

Shoulder – Wicked Flanker’s Gorget

Back – Crest of the Legionnaire General

Chest – Corset of the Deft Duelist

Wrist – Precisely Calibrated Chronometer

Hands – Gloves of Phantom Shadows

Waist – Spell-Woven Tourniquet

Legs – Chiropteran Leggings

Boots – Enchanted Toe-Tappers

Trinket – Cabalist’s Hymnal

Dungeon analogs. You should equip them only if you’ve received them from the Great Vault (Mythic+15), apart from the rings. Otherwise, raid items are better due to the higher ilvl.

Neck – Azure-Venom Choker

Chest – Anima-Splattered Hide

Wrist – Bands of the Undergrowth

Finger – Entwined Gorger Tendril

Finger – Ritual Commander’s Ring

Macros

If you don’t want to use Clique addon for some reason, you should write a mouseover macros for every healing ability. This will allow you to heal without clicking on the characters. Here’s an example:

#showtooltip

/use [@mouseover] Vivify

Here’s an analog of this macro. It uses an ability on a mouseover if the target is alive and is an ally. If this target is is not an ally, you will use this spell on yourself. If the target is dead, nothing happens.

#showtooltip Vivify

/stopmacro [@mouseover, help, dead]

/cast [@mouseover, help, nodead][@player] Vivify

Addons

Bossmodes are a must-have for any WoW player. The best Bossmodes are BigWigs(Raiding)/LittleWigs(Dungeons), or DBM(Deadly Boss Mods). These modes allow you to track the timing of bosses’ abilities.

Details is also a very useful addon. It tracks damage, healing, and other stuff in real-time.

Also, as a healer, you’ve got to have a raid frame addon. The best choices here are Vuhdo or Grid2. Vuhdo is easy to set up, but Grid2 has more functionality. You can also get a global interface addon ElvUI as an option.

I’ll explain, why do you have to get a good raid frame. Your gameplay as a healer consists of constantly looking at the frames. Your reaction time on low health drops, debuffs, boss casts, void zones, and other situations really depends on your frames.

Clique. This addon allows you to cast your spells by a mouseover, you don’t have to target a player for this anymore. This is another must-have addon for a healer. Also allows you to bind spells to your left and right mouse buttons.

WeakAuras

Probably the most important addon to make your life easier. It allows you to create warnings for almost anything in this game. At the wago.io site, you can find tons of already set up WA. Here are some useful WA for you:

 

WeakAura HUD

A collective WA that has all important spells of your class set up.

Here’s the HUD example from Afenar. You can use this one or look for something better for you.

Dungeon – Targeted Spells – this WA shows icons on the frame of the targeted ally when someone is casting a spell on them. This allows you to know who you should be ready to heal or what to dispel.

Shadowlands-Dungeons – very useful for Mythic+. It’s like an extended Bossmode for Shadowlands dungeons. 

ZenTracker и Party CD Tracker – ZenTracker does nothing by itself, but is required for CD Tracker to work. Party CD Tracker allows you to track important CDs of your allies, which is good to know in Mythic+. You’ll also need to install LibGroupInspecT for this addon to work.

Note: Read the description of the selected WA before installing!

Pro Tips & Tricks

Raiding

  1. We can use Renewing Mist 9 seconds before the pull. When the fight will begin, we’ll already have 1 mist on the raid and 2 charges that we will be able to use.
  2. When you don’t have to heal – deal damage! The rule for every healer.
  3. Mana Tea. For maximum effectiveness, follow this rotation: Renewing Mist, if not on CD -> Essence Font -> Mana Tea -> Refreshing Jade Wind (if talented) -> Spam Vivify -> Essence Font 1 second before Mana Tea expires. Essence Font – is a channeled spell and spends mana at the beginning of the cast, so this is the way to save the maximum amount of mana.
  4. Soothing Mist should be used only when we have to heal our target with Enveloping Mist. Don’t use Soothing Mist to cast Vivify, it will take more time.
  5. Use Renewing Mist and Thunder Focus Tea as much as you can. Don’t let them be not on CD.
  6. Try to plan your positioning 1 step further. Most of our spells require us to stand still, so you’ve got to keep that in mind. If your raid is about to get damaged, find a safe place to heal them ASAP, so you won’t waste any time on movement when you have to heal them. You can leave your Transcendence at this location, so you can just teleport there when it’s needed.
  7. Essence Font and Refreshing Jade Wind – these 2 are the most effective spells of ours. Use it as much as you can.
  8. Mana management. If you’re just starting to raid, try to keep your mana level at the same level as the boss’s health. It will be perfect if you’ll have 10% of your mana at the end of the encounter. Also, don’t forget to use your mana potions! If the encounter is longer than 5-6 minutes, then you can use the mana potion twice, which will greatly increase your effectiveness.
  9. Mana management and raid saves. Don’t try to heal raid when another healer is using a raid save cooldown. Usually, 1 or 2 raid saves are enough to keep everybody alive, so don’t waste your mana in these moments, save it for later. For example, you can use just Essence Font and Refreshing Jade Wind, if you know that someone is about to use raid save. Try to get info on raid saves timings before the fight.
  10. WarcraftLogs. Every healer should be looking into them. This site allows us to view the logs that will show us our effectiveness. For example, it will show your overheal if you have any. Do not overheal with your Vivify, Essence Font, or Revival. We use them only when someone is relatively low, so try not to overheal more than 25-30%. This will save your mana and will increase your effectiveness.
  11. WowAnalyzer. Another useful site! Allows us to analyze our logs and can give you a few pieces of advice on how to become better.

Mythic+

  1. If we have the Rising Mist talent, try to use Rising Sun Kick as much as you can. This will allow you to have 4-5  это позволит нам иметь 4-5 Renewing Mists on your party simultaneously, which will make your life a lot easier.
  2. If you know that big group damage is coming, use Essence Font in advance to apply HoTs to your group. In this case, don’t channel your Essence Font till the end. There’s no other use for Essence Font in Mythic+.
  3. Try to deal as much damage as possible. We have a timer in Mythic+, you know. So, the more damage we deal, the faster we will be. But don’t forget to heal your allies, that’s a #1 priority!
  4. Use your mana. You can regen it after every encounter, so keeping your mana is not a wise decision for Mythic+.
  5. Leg Sweep, Ring of Peace, or Paralysis can be used to interrupt abilities that can’t be interrupted by a regular kick. Ring of Peace can be used to get rid of Necrotic stacks on your tank.
  6. Provoke can be useful to get rid of Necrotic stacks on a tank. You can get a bit further away from the boss, taunt him, and will win some time by that.

The End

This guide ends here. I hope that you don’t have any questions left and the only thing that you need now is practice. Thank you for the attention, I wish you to stay well and the best of luck in your Azeroth adventures!

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