A Question About Fistweaving

[SkyTalon 0]

So, last night I went with my guild's alt group through MSP, cleared it out in one night (Yay). For many of the bosses, okay, most of them, they asked me to Fistweave since they didn't need the full three healers. While somewhat effective, I did feel like I was lacking some things. Checking here, I found some of Krazyito's tips quite useful.

That said, I am enjoying Fistweaving, and Mistweaver Monk in general. Both styles within the specialization feel unique, and fun. I have learned to start weaving in more ReM, as well as UL to prevent Chi-Capping, which seems to happen often enough with Fistweaving.

My biggest question though, surrounds Vital Mists, and ergo, Surging Mists. Is it better to consume the stacks when I hit 5, or is it better to sit on them until someone takes a significant blow? On the one hand, using it on 5 results in possibly overhealing someone, but sitting on them is a potential waste of stacks. Then again, consuming it on 5 results in more Chi to spend on things like Uplift, but if I do it might not be available when I need it. Of course, I could see an argument for ignoring it all together, but that seems like a waste...

So, I'm curious as to other Mistweaver's thoughts on the matter. I honestly can't make that clear of a call on it yet.

[Krazyito 521]

Lol, I kinda cringe right now when people say they read my tips about fistweaving, because I don't know if you're reading stuff pre or post 5.2

I'm just going to lay it out right here.

There are 3 different types of "weaving" a Mistweaver can do. The first type, "Mistweaving" is the standard healing style right now. Mistweaving means you are using only healing spells, you do not use Jab, Tiger Palm, or Blackout Kick. Pre-5.2 this was a HORRIBLE way of healing. The main factor being that you could not generate Chi fast enough to consume it because soothing mists was just so unreliable. You were literally sitting on your thumbs waiting for soothing mists to proc some chi. Spinning Crane Kick cold fall under this category though as well, for healing a stacked group AND was a more reliable chi generator then Soothing Mists.

The next type is "Fistweaving", which most people get confused sometimes with the last type. Fistweaving means you are generating and using your chi ONLY for DPS purposes. You use Jab as your chi generator, and then dump it with Tiger Palm and Blackout Kick. Spinning crane Kick was also very acceptable for AoE damage. Doing this you also want to keep up your Tiger Power and Serpents Zeal buff for maximum damage. Before 5.2, this was an ok way of healing, especially if the boss took extra damage than normal. It allowed you to buffer the raid with small AoE healing, while contributing to about half or more of a tanks damage.

Before 5.2 the most efficient way to heal, and the last style of healing, was dubbed "Zealweaving", which entailed that you used Jab as your main chi generator, and used all that chi on healing spells (uplift, chi burst, chi wave) while also maintaining your stacks of Serpents Zeal and Tiger Power. If big healing wasn't needed, then you would usually dump all your chi into Tiger Palm. Spinning Crane Kick applies here as well for both DPS and healing purposes.

Now that was all BEFORE 5.2. Now things are different. Blizzard more than doubled the mana cost of Jab (now 8%, was about 3%~), but also reworked Soothing Mists to generate chi more consistently. They also added a new proc called Muscle Memory, which is a non-stacking buff that you get when ever you used Jab, or damaged 3 enemies with Spinning Crane Kick, that increases the damage you do with your next Tiger Palm or Blackout Kick by 150% and returns 4% mana. Essentially making Jab only cost about 4% mana when you don't overwrite the stacks. When Fistweaving now in 5.2 you SHOULD throw in ReM's and Expel Harms for extra chi and use Blackout Kick to prevent chi capping. This allows you to have chi built up ready to go for when you need to start Mistweaving again.

IMPORTANT: It is THOROUGHLY important to not overwrite your stacks of Muscle Memory too often or else you will be starved for mana. The basic rotation will be Jab->TP->Jab->TP. adding in Expel Harms and ReM's you will start to cap, in which you should use Blackout Kick to prevent it, or refresh your Zeal Buff. If you accidentally get a proc because of Spinning Crane Kick, it is usually OK to ignore it if you feel you need to heal more, but usually using a quick tiger palm is never a bad idea.

Now, post-5.2, the most efficient way of healing is Mistweaving, but switching between Mistweaving and Fistweaving mid fight is also very viable. Zealweaving is NOT a good way of healing any more since it comes at an extremely high mana cost. and won't output the same throughput as before because you will go OOM quicker.

To answer your question about Vital Mists, I usually just use it on the tank or someone with not full health. Yea, it will go to mostly overheal but I think the extra chi is more important because of you wanting to proc more Mana Tea Stacks.

Sorry I went off on a tangent, but let me know if you have any other questions.

[SkyTalon 0]

Haha, that's fine. I do the same thing, and I was reading the post-5.2 stuff, specifically the stuff in the ToT section. Mostly what I did is headdesk and realized I should be doing more ReM and Uplifts in general. And... pretty much, yeah. I have a tendency of using BoK more when I'm close to 5 Chi. I did some tests and I think I have an idea of how often I can ReM without running into too many mana issues. As far as Surging Mists, I actually have it glyphed for convenience, since whoever is going to get the Surging Mists is probably going to be the lowest health person /anyway/.

Overall, I'm feeling that we monks are to be a flexible healer, switching 'modes' as what suits the fight and personal preference. Compared to my previous healing experience with Paladin (Wrath/Cata) and Shaman (Cata), I'm loving this flexibility. Even finding ways to make Fistweaving mana efficient during low damage periods by not using ReM nearly as much, letting me regain mana for the spike damage incoming.

In fact, as I finish typing this, I'm just done with HoF10 run where I fistweaved through Vizier, and following some of the tips I read earlier, definitely noticed an improvement in my throughput.

[Krazyito 521]

When Mistweaving, ReM and uplift are your top two heals. It's pretty much all you do, and they can both make up about 30%~ of your healing each. ReM, Expel Harm, and Soothing Mists to generate it, then dump it all into uplift. Sometimes I just spam uplift to use the chi, I have a mindset of constantly generating and spending chi. I never want to hold on to my chi for too long. It's just something I've learned from pre-5.2 and it just stuck as the playstyle.

As for the Surging Mists glyph, I've never used it. I feel Spinning Crane Kick, Zen Med, and Fort Brew are more useful most of the time. I don't fistweave all that often to make that much use of Surging.. Though, there might be a fight where I do want to fistweave that much and probably make use of it.

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Also: reading what you said "5 chi". I'm assuming you're using ascension since you said that and in my humble opinion, I think Chi Brew is just a much better talent because of the burst healing it can provide.

Lets assume this: You used thunder focus tea and in a 10 man raid (or 25) you have 10 to 11 people with ReM's. Regardless of the remaining time, you know the raid wide AoE damage (tortos stomp for instance) is going to happen before the lowest one expires. You also have ReM and Expel Harm off CD.

Ascension: When the damage happens you have 5 chi pooled.

UL->UL-> ReM->UL->EH->SM(1~ Chi, can vary but usually quick)->UL = 4 Uplifts. 5 GCD's (plus the time it took to generate the one chi with SM + the 1 GCD for the last Uplift): Total 7~ GCD's

Chi Brew: When the damage happens you have 4 Chi pooled

UL->UL->ChiBrew->UL->UL->ReM->EH->UL = 5 Uplifts. By the 4th one most of the raid is probably topped off and a final one to finish the job. Total: 8 GCD's flat, no soothing mists.

I hope with this you can see the potential for the burst healing you can do with enough ReM's on your raid.

Even if there is no such raid damage, you can just use Chi Brew when everyone is moderately low to burst up a few people.

[SkyTalon 0]

Huh. That's pretty interesting to note. I'll swap back into Chi Brew then. Truth be told, I prefer Chi Brew, just from a thematic standpoint. I also /generally/ default to Healing Brews if I know there isn't a major source of unavoidable magic or physical damage coming in. I'd rather have the potential 15% heal when I use something that I normally use every 10 seconds + Chi Brew + Thunder Brew Tea. I only grabbed Ascension because I was noticing that (at the time) my Fistweaving rotation was chi-capping. I'm going to swap it back then... and try to find a place on my actions bars for it again.

I suppose, I should, as an aside, link my character: http://derpy.me/agV1O - I'm aware Mr. Robot is wanting me to gem more spirit over Int, but I'm fairly comfortable with my mana regen right now. At least, as long as I'm remembering to use Mana Tea. A couple times, during really intense periods, I'll forget to use it, and it usually bites me in the rear, but over all, my mana issues haven't been to bad. Also, thank you for the help. Talking with you has been enlightening so far. Giving me new ideas how to best heal and such.

[Krazyito 521]

Ugh, I hate healing elixirs too... but w/e to each his own. I always think Dampen Harm is a better default, but w/e.

As for your character, Get rid of one of those spirit trinkets. Get the valor trinket instead of the Primordious trinket. And Try to get the Horridon trinket instead of the Megara trinket. Those will be your two BiS for mana regen. Lei Shen's trinket will be slightly better than the valor trinket but it does not help your mana regen.

Use these Stats in Reforgelite (WHILE IN TIGER STANCE) for proper reforging. You can move around the stats (mastery always last) to fit your playstyle.

When you hit "calculate" CHECK that your haste will indeed reach 3145. Reforge lite has been buggy for me lately, and I have to go into "Advanced mode" to fix it. If this happens, make sure you set the haste cap to "At least" and then hit calculate, and it should work.

When you get 2 piece t15 (even if its shoulders and head or w/e, get it ASAP) change that haste cap to 6141

As for gear, try to stay away from mastery gear. Your Tier15 shoulders should be the only piece ideally with mastery, but I know its hard to pass on LFR upgrades.

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Lastly if you're interested, this is how I currently reforge

And if I wasn't having so much mana issues on some heroic fights, I would reforge like this:

[SkyTalon 0]

I... Wow. Thanks for telling me about and how to use this Add-On. It's great. Managed to reforge no problem. I can't wait to give this a swing later this week.

And, yeah, I grab gear if it's a significant upgrade, Mastery or no, if it's a major boost to my other stats (was using a 463 in wrists for the longest time before upgrading to 522, for crying out loud). I'll gladly take a side-grade if it lets me drop Mastery, however. I just wish our Mastery wasn't so dependent on other people to be used properly. Even the burst for 50% isn't that great.

[Krazyito 521]

Heh, last comment, use Haste to Gloves instead of mastery for your enchant.. It can help squeeze that little bit of crit, and get rid of that worthless mastery =P