Mistweaver Monk Best In Slot Gear

Not too sure on the policies of promoting guides etc (please let me know if I'm breaking any rules with this), but I've just finished doing an extensive Mistweaver guide that I hope you'll have a browse through! I've been playing Mistweaver from the start of Beta and loved the class and what it has to offer. I will be playing it as my main in Mists of Pandaria and benching my beloved Holy. Shadowlands launches on November 23rd / 24th and all classes will be getting new toys to play with - from Covenant abilities, to Conduits and returning Legendary effects! This article, written by Anomoly, will provide details on the current state of Mistweaver Monk in Shadowlands, to help you to prepare for the upcoming expansion!

Welcome to the Mistweaver Monk guide written by Dragnio, a healing officer in Method.

I have been a healer main since late Wrath of the Lich King and a healing officer in Reason since early Legion up until Battle of Dazar'Alor when I had to step down from playing the game for a while. Mistweaver is one of the three healing specs I have played consistently in the last years and the spec I mained for the last couple of tiers during Battle for Azeroth.

Strengths:

• Exceptional single target sustain healing
• Great mobility and survivability
• 5% Physical damage debuff
• Flexibility in talents when it comes to preparing for different scenarios

Weaknesses:

• Weak scaling throughout the course on the expansion
• Little to none passive damage outside of certain talent choices compared to some other healing specs
• Lack of raid-wide damage reduction cooldown

What has changed

New, Reworked and Returning Abilities

Invoke Yu'lon, the Jade Serpent - A new 3-minute cooldown added to the Mistweaver baseline toolkit. A very powerful ability, which has the potential to do a big amount of healing especially because of the Enveloping Breath passive, which is activated every time the Monk casts Enveloping Mist during Yu'lon window.

Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane - A completely reworked level 45 talent, which replaces Yu'lon if talented. It summons an effigy of Chi-ji which grants immunity for movement impairing effects for its duration, acts as a pet, assists you, and causes your damage spells (Blackout Kick, each Teachings of the Monastery stack, Rising Sun Kick and Spinning Crane Kick; NOTE: does NOT apply to Tiger Palm) to heal 2 allies and give you a buff, which decreases the cast time and mana cost of your Enveloping Mist by 33% per stack, stacking up to 3 where Enveloping Mist becomes instant and costs no mana. Casting Enveloping Mist while Chi-Ji is active will also trigger Enveloping Breath, similar to Yu'lon. This ability is quite powerful and extremely fun to use.

Expel Harm - has been added to the baseline toolkit. Currently, this spell is generally undesirable to use due to quite high mana cost, low healing done and being on GCD.

Touch of Death - has been added to the baseline toolkit. A very nice ability, which provides some extra DPS in the raid or dungeon setting when the boss or a priority target is below 15% HP, and also increases our physical damage done by 15% for 10 seconds after the ability has been cast.

Ability changes:

Summon Jade Serpent Statue - Channel's healing was buffed, but the duration was reduced from 30 seconds by default to 8 seconds by default. A bit of a weird change, which makes JSS less compelling than before due to the drastically increased amount of GCDs required to maintain the channel.

Fortifying Brew - Received a slight nerf (Extra 20% HP and 20% DR to extra 15% HP and 15% DR), as well as the cooldown was increased to 3 minutes, up from 2 minutes. Doesn't affect Monk's survivability much and still remains a decent defensive cooldown.

Mana Tea - Duration reduced from 12 seconds to 10, however it is off GCD now. A very welcome and good Quality-of-Life change.

Leg Sweep - Range increased from 5 yards to 6.

On top of that, some spells had their mana costs and/or healing adjusted, including Vivify, Enveloping Mist, Renewing Mist and Soothing Mist, which doesn't change much.

Comparing trinkets can be difficult, with each available at a range of different item levels. To make it a little easier, we'll compare all trinkets at an accessible 400 ilvl. Some trinkets have niche uses like excelling in single target healing, or offering a shield. We'll address those below.

Mistweaver Monk Best In Slot Gear Guide

• Raid Rankings

  • Best in Slot:Azsharas Font of Power, Deferred Sentence, Luminous Jellyweed, Alchemist Stone
  • Diamond Tier: Mirror of Entwined Fate, Ward of Envelopment, Incandescent Sliver (Situational), Void Stone (Situational)
  • Gold Tier: Fang of Intertwined Essence, Enthrallers Bindstone, Conch of Dark Whispers, Sinister Gladiators Insignia, Sinister Gladiator's Medallion, Za'qul's Portal Key, Moonstone of Zin Azshari
  • Silver Tier: Zoatroid Egg Sac, Ingenious Mana Battery, Ignition Mage's Fuse, Crest of Pa'ku, Sea Giant's Tidestone, Lady Waycrest's Music Box
  • Bronze Tier: Revitalizing Voodoo Totem, Balefire Branch

• Mythic+ Rankings

  • Best in Slot: Azshara's Font of Power, Deferred Sentence, Luminous Jellyweed, Alchemist Stone
  • Diamond Tier: Mirror of Entwined Fate, Ward of Envelopment, Void Stone (Dungeon Dependent)
  • Gold Tier: Sinister Gladiators Badge, Sinister Gladiator's Insignia, Moonstone of Zin Azshari, Conch of Dark Whispers, Sinister Gladiator's Medallion, Sea Giant's Tidestone, Crest of Pa'ku, Ignition Mage's Fuse
  • Silver Tier: Incandescent Sliver, Zoatroid Egg Sac, Za'qul's Portal Key, Revitalizing Voodoo Totem, Lady Waycrest's Music Box, Balefire Branch
  • Bronze Tier: Fang of Intertwined Essence, Ingenious Mana Battery

These are my trinkets: X (400 ilvl), Y (385 ilvl), Z (430 ilvl). Which should I use?

Mistweaver Monk Best In Slot Gear Build

QE Live is an online app that'll tell you which of your trinkets or Azerite Pieces are best. It has full support for sockets, tertiary stats and more and it's free.

Master the Spec: Trinkets in Detail

Stat Sticks

BFA has more stat sticks than you can shake a… stick at. We generally prefer sticks with intellect main stat (like the Conch of Dark Whispers) over secondary stats. They're mostly worth the same amount of average stats over a fight but intellect trinkets have more of their strength allocated to static, consistent power which is desirable as a healer. When comparing two stat sticks you usually just pick whichever is higher item level.

Stat sticks can be categorized as either on-use trinkets or random procs. On-use trinkets provide fewer stats but make up for it in power since they can be used at the same time as Way of the Crane, a big maximum-Upwelling-stack Essence Font, or just a high damage moment in the fight.

Random Proc Stat Sticks

• Conch of Dark Whispers has a 25% uptime and provides an average of 194 crit.
• Za'qul's Portal Key has a 25% uptime and provides an average of 387 intellect.
• Sinister Gladiator's Insignia has a 50% uptime and provides an average of 424 intellect.

On-use Stat Sticks

• Azshara's Font of Power has a 25% uptime and provides an average of 551 intellect at the cost of a 4 second channel time every 2 minutes. Expect a moderate nerf before the raid goes live.
• Ignition Mage's Fuse has about a 17% uptime and provides an average of 130 haste. You'll average much higher during the trinket duration. It's tougher to take strong advantage of the haste window as a mistweaver.
• Balefire Branch has about a 22% uptime and provides an average of 244 intellect if you aren't hit by anything. This is underbudget and useless in any situation where you're taking damage while it's active. There are much stronger alternatives in its niche.
• Dread Gladiator's Medallion has about a 17% uptime and provides an average of 156 vers.

Raw Healing Procs

Mistweaver Monk Best In Slot Gear

Trinkets with a flat healing portion were given a massive buff in 8.2 and now compete well with stat sticks. Interestingly this makes Ward and Mirror fantastic trinkets while the Eternal Palace variations are undertuned.

Mistweaver Monk Best In Slot Gear 3

• Deferred Sentence adds about 1350 HPS (after secondary stats). This is much stronger than the PTR iteration suggested it would be.
• Lady Waycrest's Music Box (proc) adds about 433 HPS (after secondary stats). Adding the set ring doesn't really impact its healing contribution.
• Luminous Jellyweed (proc) adds up to 1083 HPS. The buff on the target lasts for two minutes and you're likely to get full healing value on any difficult fight. It's excellent.
• Mirror of Entwined Fate (on-use) adds an incredible 917 HPS and provides great life saving potential. With the 8.2 buffs this is a very good trinket to have in your toolbox when Eternal Palace opens.
• Ward of Envelopment (on-use) adds about 833 HPS which is incredible for an on-use absorb trinket. You'll pop this whenever you're expecting raid damage and you can use it for its strong throughput alone. Don't save it for when the raid is low – aim to maximize your casts per fight.
• Void Stone (on-use) adds up to 1050 HPS however it's reduced by any healing they receive while it's active. That turns it into a bit of a niche trinket since you'll frequently get far less out of it than advertised. It's a little better in Mythic+ where you can better control the flow of healing but it's still tough to take it over a Mirror or good stat trinket.
• Zoatroid Egg Sac adds about 667 HPS which isn't great but it does add a Versatility buff to the target. The issue is that the Versatility scales with how much shield is left and a 10k shield doesn't tend to last very long.

The Rest

They always throw in a trinkets that don't quite hit the same formulas as those above. This section covers mana trinkets and the rest.

• Fangs of Intertwined Essence returns about 3711 mana per minute (about half a Blessing of Wisdom). This is a 7% increase to your natural mana regeneration. Consider macroing it into one of your abilities so that you don't miss any uses. Essence Font is a decent candidate.
• The Alchemist Stones are hybrid trinkets crafted through Alchemy. They offer a stat proc (that averages 358 intellect) and a bonus to mana potions which is worth 10,000 mana per fight if you use a Potion of Replenishment. 8.2 Alchemist Stones also have a socket. You also get a very nifty bonus to your healing potions if you remember to use them. You definitely remember to use them, right?
• Revitalising Voodoo Totem is an on-use trinket with that provides a slow, stacking single target HoT. The on-use heals for around 34,000 HP total for a per-minute average of nearly 23,000. This is a reasonable amount but it's delivered in a clunky way since the HoT ramps up slowly (so, a poor emergency tool) and you give up stronger raid healing to equip it. Item level is still the big key when it comes to trinkets so if you accidentally pull a 425 Leech version from your weekly chest then try and use it on a tank or debuffed player.

Circle back around to Azerite Traits