Mistweaver Healing Compendium - Page 3

♦ arison · 04/24/12, 8:30 PM

This build has a ton of changes. I'll get the OP updated today. In all previous builds, CJL didn't heal, but if it does, that's a very nice improvement.

The build also appears to have massive changes to our Chi generation. At first glance they look good and significantly will change how Mistweavers use Chi.

Clárissa · 04/24/12, 8:46 PM

Also Arison, these our the tier 14 set bonuses: date:2012-04-25 t14 - Wowhead Search

Item - Monk T14 Mistweaver 2P Bonus - Spell - World of Warcraft
Item - Monk T14 Mistweaver 4P Bonus - Spell - World of Warcraft

If these stay the same I would consider purely using Surging Mists, Renewing Mists, Uplift and Chi Wave for healing. Cherry Mana Tea should cover it. Also Brew: Mana Tea, Monk: For each 4 Chi you consume through use of spells and abilities, you gain a charge of Mana Tea. Use Mana Tea to consume the charges. Mana Tea can stack up to 50 times. This would mean for each 1 Chi we will gain 1% of our total mana.

dracjin · 04/25/12, 5:36 AM

Originally Posted by Clárissa

The three changes I was most interested in: (Source: Mists of Pandaria - Build 15640 - New Items, Abilities, and More - Wowhead News)

- Crackling Jade Lightning: Channels Jade lightning at the target, causing 1674 Nature damage over 6 sec. When dealing damage, you have a 15% chance to generate 1 Chi. If the enemy attacks you within melee range while victim to Crackling Jade Lightning, they are knocked back a short distance. This effect has an 8 sec cooldown.

... If so, Crackling Jade Lightning looks very favourable, doesn't require melee, and if Blizzard's words are anything to go on they want us to use intellect gear over agility gear for healing. The Chi generation has an 8 second CD which is also something to consider.

The 8 second CD is refering to the Knockback Effect.

Very interesting are the new, healing related Glyphs:

Glyph of Mana Tea: Your Mana Tea is instant instead of channeled and consumes two stacks when used, but causes a 10 sec cooldown.

Glyph of Renewing Mists: Your Renewing Mists travels to the furthest injured target within 40 yards rather than the closest injured target within 8 yards.

Due to the changing of Blackout Kick (2 Chi) there is no scenario of using it over Tiger Palm (if they heal via Eminence)

Although the new talents seem to be too strong in their current form (especially Karma):
Tigereye Brew now costs 3 Chi, up from 1 Chi. Now has a 60 sec cooldown, down from 90 sec. Now Increases your damage and healing done by 15%.

Karma *New* - Reduces all spell damage taken by 90% and clears all magical effects on you, reversing them back to their original caster if within 40 yards. Lasts for 6 sec. 1 Chi. Instant. 1.5 min cooldown

dracjin · 04/26/12, 4:19 AM

I have tested the new beta built yesterday, and it's pretty fun.

For clarification:

Eminence now works properly. ALL damage done is converted to heal ( auto attacks, all chi based attacks, chi wave damage, expel harm damage, Crackling Jade Lightning, Spining Crane Kick heals for 150% (200% with Statue))

Chi Generation is much more enjoyable now:

Expel Harm - 2,5% Base Mana, cheapest way to get 1 Chi
Jab - Manacost reduced to 3% Base Mana
Renewing although grants 1 Chi (if casted, not via Uplift; nyi in tooltip)
Crackling Jade Lightning - 15% per Damage Tick
Surging - 5,5 % Base Mana, most expensive way to generate 1 Chi
Soothing - 20% per not overhealed tick

A lot of other changes which make our life easier:

Healing Sphere, you can cast them instant with a 0.5 CD now, they will have their uses now.
Life Cocoon - very strong cd now, Soothing healing is although doubled
Fortifying - now works proper (great!)
Uplift - now resets Renewing Mist to the correct duration
Renewing Mist - now trackable via Blizzard UI (infight)
Jade Serpent Statue - on click heals are strong now
Transcendence - 45 sec CD
Transcendence: transfer - 25 sec CD, 0,5% Base Mana (with glyph you are able to travel 50 yards)

Talents:

Tigereye Brew - 15 sec + 15% heal/damage, 3 Chi
Karma - very strong now, cant believe that it will go live in that way

Mana Consumption:
I think the current mana balance is ok. you are able to burn down mana quick via Surging.

Hildegard · 04/26/12, 7:17 AM

I noticed that when switching from Tiger to Serpent Stance one Chi is lost, the effect seems to have a cooldown. The reason why I am still experimenting with the Tiger Stance is that all useable spells cost energy, which may come to effect when mana gets really tight during progression, right now I barely ever go below 90% during 5men boss fights with Premade gear.

The question is, if the Chi loss is intended in order to discourage the stance dance. But if so, why is the Spear Hand Strike only useable in Tiger Stance?

Edit: Forget about stance dancing for anything. Skills cost mana and energy and therefore this idea for mana management is not viable.

kindath · 04/26/12, 12:48 PM

Soothing mists DOES have a chance to generate chi even on full overheal ticks, for what it's worth.

Oddly enough, healing sphere is probably one of our strongest heals at the moment. It only costs 2% of base mana, heals for 20k at 85 (compare to 11k soothing mists ticks and 37k surging mists) and has a spammable 0.5s GCD that doesn't activate the GCD on any other abilities. You can aim it on top of a target and it'll heal them instantly. On top of that, if there's more than one target stacked up, it'll heal both of them for the same amount. I've tried casting it directly in between two targets ~5 yards apart and it's healed both of them instantly.

Granted, it doesn't generate chi, but I'd expect a couple changes to that before it goes live.

Clárissa · 04/26/12, 5:26 PM

The multiple healing effect of Healing Sphere is a bug that's not supposed to happen. However yes, the Sphere's are much better. I'm still concerned about the Mastery though, I don't think it's competent enough (with regards to real terms healing) compared to the other healing masteries.

Hildegard, what rotation of spells are you using in the 5 mans? I'm very curious.

Hildegard · 04/27/12, 3:18 AM

If damage is moderate I use CJL and CW. If the tank takes damage I use SooM on him and anyone taking spikes. Instead of using SuM, I usually "burst heal" with CW. During boss fights I add the Jade Serpent Statue and occasionally RM on movement fights, like phase 2 of the first boss in the temple. This is mainly based on the fact that the dungeons are undertuned, especially the Brewery. I found CJL, even without the statue to provide decent group healing. If I get unlucky on Chi procs I sometimes throw in SuM and EH. I noticed after healing three dungeons that I forgot about Revival and Healing Sphere and never used them.

dracjin · 04/27/12, 5:11 AM

CJL Mana Costs are buggy or the tootip is wrong. Tooltip says 1,5% Base Mana + 1,5% Base Mana each second.

It only costs 1,5% regardless how long the channel takes.

Soothing (same mechanism) works as intended.

If CJL Mana Cost would function like intended, it will burn your mana a lot more.

At the moment you regenerating more mana during the channel than you spent.

bluebadger · 04/27/12, 11:04 PM

I constantly run out of mana when doing 5-mans on my 85-premade. I have terrible connection problems, so leveling hasn't worked out very well. He's in 100% standard, premade gear.

Primarily I've been using Soothing Mists as my go-to heal on anyone that needs topping off, with a Surging Mist thrown in for heavy healing, primarily on tanks. I also try to keep the HoT up on 2-3 people and use Uplift to burn off my Chi to keep it up. Chi Wave is generally used on cooldown.

I'm typically NOT doing very much DPSing, so that might be a factor? I guess DPSing would result in overall getting and using more Chi, which would give me bigger stacks of Mana Tea. I've noticed it stacks slower in the latest patch than in the previous. The new icon (leaf) is a bit confusing, since the old buff icon matched the actual spell icon, but meh.

I haven't been able to stay on long enough to check since last patch, but is Cracking Jade Lightning now a healing spell as well as a DPS spell? Or are we using it to DPS and healing via Statue/Eminence? The way people have been discussing it has me lost a bit.

Overall, gotta say that Mistweaver Healing is amazingly fun and unique. The mana management is the biggest issue I'm seeing at the moment. Keeping chi flowing is no problem, but keeping mana levels up is driving me nuts.

♦ arison · 04/28/12, 2:19 AM

I've updated the OP. Most changes have already been discussed here, but there are a few new interesting ones. Surging Mists is no longer a smart heal by default; a glyph can restore the prior function, but currently it is the equivalent of Flash Heal and other fast, heavy heals.

Expel Harm seems to no longer be intended to be a heal we'd use on other players; the glyph to target other players is gone.

DPS healing got a nice boost from SP converting to AP and Chi Wave's cooldown being reduced.

Renewing Mists has lost its quadratic effect (each tick on the person with the hot would heal everyone near them before); now it is strictly a HoT that can spread.

Zen Sphere, in its current form, is mandatory. It is incredibly powerful; it's basically a HoT that we can detonate by refreshing it, and the detonation has an AOE component. It looks like it may have some interesting depth depending on how many targets you maintain it on. Chi Burst looks more like a DPS ability, but Zen Sphere, as-is, is a must-take. The Mystery Talent could change that but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being a tanking ability.

The flow of Chi feels much, much better in this patch. I've not tested mana yet but it definitely looks better when just testing on dummies.

kindath · 04/28/12, 3:16 PM

Originally Posted by arison

Zen Sphere, in its current form, is mandatory. It is incredibly powerful; it's basically a HoT that we can detonate by refreshing it, and the detonation has an AOE component. It looks like it may have some interesting depth depending on how many targets you maintain it on. Chi Burst looks more like a DPS ability, but Zen Sphere, as-is, is a must-take. The Mystery Talent could change that but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being a tanking ability.

Zen sphere is rather bugged at the moment. It says right in the tooltip that you can only have one zen sphere active, but there's no such restriction. Once that's fixed, I'd hazard a guess that exploding the sphere doesn't refresh the duration, just does the explosive heal. Chi spent on zen sphere also doesn't count towards mana tea.

Once the mana cost of jade lightning is fixed, and now that serpent stance grants some AP, jabbing for chi will be the second least expensive way to generate chi, next to expel harm. The damage of jab + autoattacks still seems abysmal compared to CJL, but at least it has the advantage of getting you guaranteed chi.

♦ arison · 04/28/12, 4:57 PM

Ah indeed, I missed that in the tooltip. Even so, the wording, I think, does imply it will always explode, whether or not you re-cast it on the same or a different target. We'll have to see how it ends up. Even so, it's definitely a nice ability as it acts both as a HoT and an AOE heal. I'm sure it will be fixed to generate stacks of Mana Tea.

I think worrying much about the specifics of damage from melee abilities vs CJL is premature at this point. Numbers are way off and obviously bugs abound -- not to mention that we're clearly still in deep design and reworking on the class. Ultimately, I think it fits best for the Monk to be in melee and that should be slightly higher throughput/dps than spamming CJL. We shall see.

zeraveth · 04/29/12, 6:47 PM

Originally Posted by arison

Ah indeed, I missed that in the tooltip. Even so, the wording, I think, does imply it will always explode, whether or not you re-cast it on the same or a different target. We'll have to see how it ends up. Even so, it's definitely a nice ability as it acts both as a HoT and an AOE heal. I'm sure it will be fixed to generate stacks of Mana Tea.

I think worrying much about the specifics of damage from melee abilities vs CJL is premature at this point. Numbers are way off and obviously bugs abound -- not to mention that we're clearly still in deep design and reworking on the class. Ultimately, I think it fits best for the Monk to be in melee and that should be slightly higher throughput/dps than spamming CJL. We shall see.

We'll have to see how the explosion of Zen Sphere shows on numbers later on, but right now it scales horribly and seem to only be an option as a a gain from "Brewing: Mana Tea" on a tankheal rotation of sorts. I like the idea of a second hot and a use from it to get a instant extra heal on single target, but we still need to sit down and wait patiently till it's "written in stone"

Jekerdud · 04/30/12, 5:54 PM

Originally Posted by zeraveth

We'll have to see how the explosion of Zen Sphere shows on numbers later on, but right now it scales horribly and seem to only be an option as a a gain from "Brewing: Mana Tea" on a tankheal rotation of sorts. I like the idea of a second hot and a use from it to get a instant extra heal on single target, but we still need to sit down and wait patiently till it's "written in stone"

I've been using Zen Sphere as a way to keep the tank up lately. Chi Burst at this point seems to be only useful as a DPS & tank talent, and even then the cast time makes it more unwanted. I would agree with you with using it as a Chi spender, personally I keep it up on the tank, between keeping that up and Renewing Mists on everyone, melee healing, at least the way I have been doing it, is viable. But Zen Sphere is not something to be relied on as a tank heal ability at this point.

One thing I have been playing around with is stat priority, and talking with a few others on the main beta forums. Lately, my go to stat priority is Int > Spirit > Haste > Mastery > Crit. I am under the assumption that Haste will effect our HoT's similar to a Druid and their breakpoints. The most haste I have gained though is 9.67%, I would think that 12% is
a breakpoint, allowing an extra tick of Renewing and possibly Zen Sphere.

While according to parses, Gift of the Serpent is a mastery that procs quite a lot, I would prefer trying to squeeze an extra tick out of our HoTs, instead of relying on a mastery that pug group members could possibly not bother walking through.