A Guide to Fistweaving: Hitting it where it counts.

[Krazyito 521]

Introduction

Fistweaving is a style of Mistweaver Monk that allows you to do a decent amount of damage during non stressful times in a raid when healing is not as important. It is similar to a Discipline Priests Atonement healing where you use it during low damage periods that do not require intensive healing. This healing will equate to about less than 50% of your total damage.

Eminence is the spell associated with fistweaving. It procs from any monk ability that deals damage, but does not include a healing component, which include:

Jab

Tiger Palm

Blackout Kick

Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger

Crackling Jade Lightning

Touch of Death

Autoattacks (from Serpents Zeal)

Any other ability, such as Chi Burst or Spinning Crane Kick, does not proc Eminence healing because they also have a healing component with their damage.

The three types of "weaving"

There are 3 different types of "weaving" a Mistweaver can do.

Mistweaving

Mistweaving means you are using only healing spells, you do not use Jab, Tiger Palm, or Blackout Kick. Your main spells are Soothing Mist, Enveloping Mist, Renewing Mist, Uplift, and Spinning Crane Kick. You are mistweaving when you are not doing damage for DPS purposes.

Fistweaving

Fistweaving means you are generating and using your chi for DPS purposes. You use Jab as your chi generator, and then dump it with Tiger Palm and Blackout Kick. Spinning Crane Kick is also very acceptable for AoE damage and dumping chi into mainly BoK for cleaves. Doing this you also want to keep up your Tiger Power and Serpent's Zeal buff for maximum damage. This playstyle, as will be explained in more detail later, works best for low damage periods or if you are helping DPS to try to beat an enrage timer. This style is also very effective when the boss takes increased damage from any mechanic in a fight, as it also increases your healing done.

Zealweaving

Before 5.2 this was the most efficient way to heal. This style 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. This style is NOT used anymore and if you try to use it right now, you will go OOM just as fast as if you were spamming surging mists on a full health target.

For the purposes of this guide, I will never refer to Zealweaving since it is the most mana inefficient style and is only even mentioned because it was viable pre 5.2.

Now, I mention these playstyles separately, but do not get the impression that you have to stick to one or the other. You can easily switch between the two styles at any time during the encounter. In fact, there is only one limiting factor that determines wether you are fistweaving or not, which is Muscle Memory

Whenever you jab you gain this buff which, as it says, increases the damage of your next Blackout kick or Tiger Palm and returns 4% max mana. At the very basic, when you gain this buff you should consume it before proccing another. There are two exceptions to this basic rule though. The first is procs you gain from Spinning Crane Kick. If you are healing the raid and end up procing this from damaging three adds, most of the time you don't have time to use it because there is raid damage going out. The second exception is when you have one chi left over and you want to get a jab in for a quick uplift. If the uplift did a decent amount of healing, it was worth it.

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Rotation

I will first start off by presenting you with two rotations for fistweaving, an Opening Rotation and a General Rotation. These rotations are flexible to your playstyle and you can slightly change it as you see fit. While doing these rotations there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind. First of all, you should be using Renewing Mist and Expel Harm on CD. Second, you should try your best to keep up the two main fistweaving buffs as much as possible. These two buffs are:Tiger Power

Serpent's Zeal

These two buffs will help increase your damage and healing. Even if you are not fistweaving you should try to stay in melee range and keep these buffs up on yourself as often as possible so at least your auto attacks do some small amount of damage and healing. You can also sit on some chi if you think you're going to need it for upcoming uplifts.

Opening Rotation

While fistweaving, you will gain Vital Mists when you use Tiger Palm, which stacks to 5 and will give you a free and instant Surging Mists. Use this when you are not at full chi on a low health player. Note: Vital Mists is not worth to acquire directly, and should only be seen as an additional chi while you are fistweaving.Starting with Max Chi

Jab -> Tiger Palm -> (To gain Tiger Power)

Jab -> Blackout Kick -> (To gain Serpent's Zeal)

Jab -> Blackout Kick ->

Repeat Blackout Kick until

All chi is consumed

OR save chi for upcoming damage with uplifts by repeating Tiger Palm

Jab -> Tiger Palm ->

Jab -> Tiger Palm, etc. (Repeat until you break cycle to mistweave)

Starting with 0 Chi

Renewing Mists -> Expel Harm ->

Jab -> Tiger Palm-> (To gain Tiger Power)

Jab -> Blackout Kick -> (To gain Serpent's Zeal)

Jab -> Tiger Palm etc. (Repeat until you break cycle to mistweave)

General Rotation

Jab to gain Muscle Memory

Keep up Tiger Power and Serpents Zeal

Use above rotation until you decide to break for mistweaving

If you have max Chi you should prioritize Blackout Kick

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Conclusion

While I have laid out some very specific information, these rotations are guidelines to help you get started fistweaving and it is encouraged to mix both playstyles (mistweaving and fistweaving) to suit the amount of healing needed.

Fistweaving is a very easy and fun style to play alongside mistweaving, but excessive use will hinder your mana and not produce beneficial results.

If you want more information on Fistweaving, Reglitch over at MMO champion has compiled a fistweaving guide as well, and is well worth the read.

[Shine 144]

Thank you so much for this. I am definately going to be using the info provided here.

[Fenier 0]

I have been working on the Brawler's Guild recently, and have reached Rank 7 Fist weaving the entire way. Really love the play style. Can easily run 40-50k for a prolonged period if large amounts of healing are not required.

[Krazyito 521]

I have been working on the Brawler's Guild recently, and have reached Rank 7 Fist weaving the entire way. Really love the play style. Can easily run 40-50k for a prolonged period if large amounts of healing are not required.

If you gear is good enough, try to use Crackling Jade lightning on some fights. It does pretty well too =P

[Fenier 0]

Ilevel 484, So it ticks for about 30k. So roughly 20k lower than I do melee, sadly.

My girlfriend was watching when I fought Unguloxx and I straight up meleed it with Xuen. It wasn't till after she was like, "You do know.. that most classes have to kite that right?"

I had no idea, didn't even really keep track of how hard it hit.

[Krazyito 521]

Included a link in the conclusion to Reglitch's Fistweaving guide on MMO

[Zagam 1,982]

I don't have a healer in MoP yet, and the Monk just hit 83. Powering to 90 tomorrow. Fistweaving decent as you grow with item level, or does it become more acceptable after a certain breakpoint?

[Krazyito 521]

I don't have a healer in MoP yet, and the Monk just hit 83. Powering to 90 tomorrow. Fistweaving decent as you grow with item level, or does it become more acceptable after a certain breakpoint?

Its only better at higher item levels. Even more so with LMG. Without LMG, but high ilvl, its 'ok' but you're going to hurt for mana.

[TankaBelle 1]

I don't have a healer in MoP yet, and the Monk just hit 83. Powering to 90 tomorrow. Fistweaving decent as you grow with item level, or does it become more acceptable after a certain breakpoint?

Fistweaving is awesome, but as you will hear time and time again you MUST learn to heal the "other" way first to be really effective. Mana management requires a level of self restraint that requires you to know how NOT to hit something without a proc and WHEN to top off your dps heals with RMs, SM etc. My MW is now 90 with iLevel 480 gear and I am just now able to viably fistweave heroics, but only because I am learning when I cant. Heavy aoe damage in bursts can be healed by fistweaving ScK etc, but then you will have quite literally nothing left in the ole mana tank.

As for gear, I have read from those much better than I that post 500s it becomes more of a possibility but never a replacement. Now with all that said.. pre 90 you can quite easily dps heal certain content as the pre MoP stuff wasnt as hard on bursty aoe stuff.

[Krazyito 521]

Let me re-state my last statement: Its better in higher ilvls in raids. For 5 mans, you can probably fistweave easily without noticing (unless the group is super terrible at not taking damage)

[Nemo 27]

Great guide, man! Short and to the point, while still being thorough. Good job :)

[Zagam 1,982]

You know my raiding style, and I'm not a complete noob at healing. I used to main a Resto Shaman in ToC and Ulduar before coming to the dark side with the Warlock. I know I'm hijacking your guide with questions (forgive me), but let's say my Monk hits 90 tomorrow afternoon and I hit 480 ilvl by tomorrow evening. Am I going to get carried trying to fist-weave in LFR? How about if I get into a ToT run? Is there a significant advantage to learning all the heals and healing Druid style and then going into Fisting (sorry, ignore my childish remarks) right off the bat? I just don't see why I would need to 'learn' the other way when I could learn as I go with the Fisting method.

[Krazyito 521]

I wouldn't recommend fistweaving at that low of an ilvl, your mana will suffer and you just won't see any effective numbers. You are more than welcome to do it. But you should back off and mistweave when your mana starts to get sketchy.

Our 2nd MW monk in my raid barely fistweaves at all casue he doesnt have the LMG with a 514~ ilvl.

[Zagam 1,982]

Well, asking you is like asking a fish if it likes water...but on a factor of 1-100, how fun is Fisting and how fun is Misting?

[Krazyito 521]

Lol.. I don't know. I give them both 50% because they are one in the same with me =P. I generally mistweave more, but when theres just nothing to do I start fistweaving.

[Krazyito 521]

I mean, Mistweaving and fistweaving should never be considered separate or 'more fun to do'. Fistweaving is a perk to the spec taht allows you to do more damage. If you can't do it cause of gear, then you pure mistweave.

But when you can, then its very gratifying to do so cause you know you're playing efficiently and you are contributing to the raid. You should never do one or the other just because its more fun.

[Fenier 0]

You know my raiding style, and I'm not a complete noob at healing. I used to main a Resto Shaman in ToC and Ulduar before coming to the dark side with the Warlock. I know I'm hijacking your guide with questions (forgive me), but let's say my Monk hits 90 tomorrow afternoon and I hit 480 ilvl by tomorrow evening. Am I going to get carried trying to fist-weave in LFR? How about if I get into a ToT run? Is there a significant advantage to learning all the heals and healing Druid style and then going into Fisting (sorry, ignore my childish remarks) right off the bat? I just don't see why I would need to 'learn' the other way when I could learn as I go with the Fisting method.

I've only done MSV on Raid Finder for my monk (480i level) but you can pull some decent numbers DPS wise while being near the top of the meters assuming you know when to switch and the best time to hit Revival.

I was able to Fistweave all the fights except Feng (fail tanks) and the last one (mostly cause I didn't want to dance). Healing numbers on Elegon are really impressive thanks to the damage debuff the boss gets combined with the +damage buff you get.

In the above setup I was 60k~ DPS while 25-30k HPS. I just mixed in Renewing Mists as needed and timed Revival well.n

[Bedle 11]

Sorry from bringing this topic back up from its long downtime. I was WW for quite whole time since mop went live, few days ago i switched to MW and during my time reading guides i saw that they mention from time to time "fistweaving." I started to dig a bit and there are only few topic related to it, as its sub-spec healing style. None of them covered basic stat weight and gearing with legends, so i gotta ask this:

1. Are we going for Capacitative or Courageous legend Meta? Since Capacitative is superior for damage, but complicates the rotation somewhat and has reduced effect in AoE situations. The Courageous version is a similar increase, allowing you to forego mana tea usage for the most part and it's also effective for when you need to actually heal. All sims show that 2H build with Capacitative is ~20% ahead of a 1H build with the Courageous however, which is quite a lot of damage, which is actually healing for FWing.

2. I know that this is stupid and obvious question, but as for legend cloak, are we going for spell DPS based, or healing based? If stat weights are accurate, spirit cap is not so hard to hit these days with gear, so, since Im not sure, and guides havent covered this, is Essence of Yu'lon proc counted in as our damage, thus converted to healing?

3. Is this correct stats weight? Spirit [to 5100] > Intellect > Crit > Haste

4. Gem's are pretty much all MW orientated too, right?

5. as for buffs from food, pots and prepots are FWs going for Int stats?

Ty in advance

Edited December 6, 2013 by Bedle

[Yaendshay 2]

Let me share the knowledge i got here from our theorycraft masters.

1st - it's capacitive, for sure. You may hit about 2 Jabs and spend Muscle Memory for mana regen. In fact, in many guides i've seen some info that without capacitive you should not even consider fistweaving. You must know that even if you concentrate on fistweaving, there are times you deffineyely need to break it and go mistweaving, since it's much more controllable, as well as it gives higher output.

2nd - it depends on situation. If you can afford, it's worth to buy both cloaks and change them respectively to the encounter - for ex. when you do Galarakas, you fistweave a lot, while on Shamans i am afraid you have to concentrate on mistweaving. Primarly, you should get healing cloak, the bonus repays you lack of proper stats.

Also, i'm not sure how does the spell dps bonus works, but healing cloak bonus is not triggered by eminence healing.

3rd - yah, but you should remember about haste cap, depending on your gear, it'd be 6141 or 9158, then go crit until about 40% crit raidbuffed, then concentrate mostly on int. 5100 spirit cap is designed to fulfill your expertise and hit cap, so that you dob't need to remember about those. On the other side, you don't have to lower your spirit no matter what, it may be higher, will make your mana regen better. Also, avoid mastery as hell!

4th - yah it'd be the same as Krazyito suggests in his gearing topic.

5th - true, as well. Int, int, int, we need to be Intelligent!! :)

Edited December 6, 2013 by Yaendshay

[Brewmonksta 157]

Pretty much what has already been posted,

 

Int and attack power have a nice relationship  as a mistweaver.

 

For the meta you want the healing meta. Free spells is free mana is free healing and free mana tea and therefore more free healing.

 

You want the healing cloak as a healer hands down regardless of fist/mistweaving because most fights have a point where actual mistweaving is required and a 5% buff and the overheal mechanic is amazing.

 

 

3rd - yah, but you should remember about haste cap, depending on your gear, it'd be 6141 or 9158, then go crit until about 40% crit raidbuffed, then concentrate mostly on int.

Yes and no...

 

3. Is this correct stats weight? Spirit [to 5100] > Intellect > Crit > Haste

Spirit(to cap 5100) > haste(to comfortable cap) > crit (40%ish) > int >more haste

(Crit needs to stay at 40% or higher for haste to be comfortable)

 

Go for the highest haste cap and then crit>int without major socket bonus loss. Especially with the amp trinkets as having these increases your crit healing and damage which greatly increases the value of crit over int.

 

 

4. Gem's are pretty much all MW orientated too, right?

Always because of the int interaction with the AP for MW.

 

 

5. as for buffs from food, pots and prepots are FWs going for Int stats?

Yes

[Krazyito 521]

I'm gonna finish reading but just to correct something

USE courageous. Not capacitance.

If you plan to maximize DPS then capacitance will do more damage but not proc healing

[Krazyito 521]

This is not relevant any more once patch 6.0.2 hits. I will re-write a new guide once I play it more myself. Which will happen sometimes between the middle of WoD tier 1 and tier 2.