Monk healing (My thoughts) (11 replies to this topic)

I would like to add my own personal experience with 25 man.  I started raiding on my monk very recently.  I did most of MSV one day and went to HoF the next, so I have very little experience with the class in a raid setting.  

Before MoP I was very confident in my ability to heal with any healing class.  They all worked about the same, just had separate niche's and way of doing things.  Then the time came to actually learn how to use the monk.  So me it felt different solely because of the chi mechanic and generating chi when I want it.

I first tried what I would normally do in terms of healing.  Stand in the back, cast ReM/Expel Harm/Mana Tea on CD.  Use TFT/Uplift, soothing mists. blah blah blah. No melee interaction whatsoever.  What I consistently found was that:

• My healing was terrible (though just under the other healers.)  Which I attributed to a lack of gear because I was wearing quite a few blues and 2 greens.
  
• My mana never went past 80%~.  With me standing there casting Mana Tea on CD (which I never had 2 stacks for the most part and could not generate stacks quick enough to have more then 2 before the CD was up) I had no mana issues whatsoever unless i tried to save someone's life with instant Surging Mists.  Which I found as a problem because of the research I did telling me to stack spirit out the ass.
  
• Lastly, my chi generation felt pretty horrible and i felt as if i could not generate as much chi on demand as I would like.

These are logs I have for the first night in HoF
After considering these three things mid attempts I decided it was time for me to start melee healing and it addressed the several issues I had:

• In a 25 man Eminence did 8% of my healing PLUS the 3% from my statue.  Which bought my total throughput up considerably.
  
• I started lose mana considerably faster, but also gained more mana tea charges which put in a better rotation of my usage for the charges.
  
• I could generate chi on demand to use for uplifts specifically, or to get an odd number of chi to use a Thunder Focus Tea/(chi brew) Uplift combo which I found helped my healing

Here are the logs for the kill we had (the first attempt I started melee healing.)

Conclusion:  Though I wish I was just as effective healing from the outside like I am use to, it seems this is the way healing on a monk should be and I will play it the most effective way to the best of my abilities.  The new class is a different experience and fun to figure out.

I dont 25m. But in lfr I mix it up and do well, top heals. Its in 10m that I had a lot of issues being in melee on many bosses past an occasional rollnjabjab and gtfo roll.
I find it interesting how different 25m and 10m seem for healing styles. There just aren't a lot of ppl talking about mistweavers. Or none that I have found. Most mw that I see seem to be 25m on various forums.

Gorrie, you're right about that. Usually I would have no idea, but we did a 10 man raid in MSV with my guild (just to clear it for the week to focus more on HoF) and I found myself doing significantly less healing then I would on 25 man.  So either

• I need to get use to yet another play style for 10 man
  
• my healing paladin partner took all my heals
  
• or I was doing something wrong.

Lol I think that about sums it up.  I'm enjoying MW healing.  Its completely different from other healing classes and requires me to manage a whole new resource to be effective.

25 man Garalon = Spin to Win.

I haven't had enough experience in other fights yet to know if this could be the same or not.

But Spinning crane kick is crazy for it. Especially being the melee healer and them being grouped up all the time.

krazyito65, on 06 November 2012 - 03:44 PM, said:

spin to win, keep renewing mists on cooldown and use allyour chi on uplifts. use thunder brew on cooldown for bigger uplifts.

Exactly. Here is my latest log for it.
http://www.worldoflo...s=11898&e=12340

I've found that with Glyphed Mana Tea & non glyphed up lift in 10man content msv/hof my mana is fine with ~12k in combat mana regen and using chi burst as much as possible going through my whole raid group. I tend to outlast our druid healer on most boss fights. It's all about managing Soothing Mist and only using instant surge when absolutely needed and keeping renewing mists up as much as possible to be used with uplift.

Time to refresh this old post.  Ever since I found that melee healing was highly effective way of healing and mana regen (for the most part), It is my default healing style on the monk.  I have recently gotten more use to using Tiger Palm because of the 5.2 change that is coming with Muscle Memory and 1% mana returns.

Most of what I will be discussing will pertain to 25 man raid setting.  I feel Monks shine more in 25 man then 10 man because of their massive AoE healing abilities.  Some of this can pertain to 10 man, but if it seems wrong for a 10-man, it probably is.

As a general rule of thumb for encounters that let me melee the boss, this is what I do.  

• Renewing Mists and Expel Harm on CD.  These should always be used as long as you do not cap your Chi, Using these with 4 chi is a waste of mana.
  
  
• Jab to generate more chi and spend that chi on Blackout Kick for Sperpent's Zeal (stack to 2) and Tiger Palm for Tiger Power.  While in Melee range, try to maintain the highest uptime on both buffs as you can.  During Heavy AoE damage, it is ok to let it drop but still use Jab to generate chi while spending it on Uplift/Chi Burst.
  
  
• Learn when AoE damage happens!  Thunder Focus Tea is EXTREMELY powerful, make sure to use it at 6-8 ReM's on the raid, you should be able to get a total of 10-12 ReM's on the raid which you can set up burst healing usage of (start when you have 4 Chi) Uplift/Uplift/Chi Brew/Uplift/Uplift/Jab/Jab/Uplift, etc.That will give you the best burst healing for a chunk of the raid during heavy AoE damage.  If your raid is all stacked up, Chi Burst may be better if you can hit more then 10 targets. Although , I would still recommend getting the 10 ReM's with TFT.
  
  
• For very minimal damage maintain a rotation of generating Chi with Jab, using it on Blackout Kick to keep up Serpents Zeal, and then using excess Chi on Tiger Palm.  Having a Jab/tiger Palm/Jab/tiger Palm rotation will give you good practice for the 5.2 changes.

I have healed quite a few heroic encounters a well and there are some that require other healing strategies. For example on Heroic (and most of the time normal) Will of the Emperor the best way to heal is with very steady management of Spinning Crane Kick (Do not spam, very easy to go OOM), using Chi Torpedo (with Celerity) almost on CD to manage mana while still healing, and then spend Chi on uplift (usually only when you have 10+~ from TFT, or Chi Burst.  I also tried Chi Wave to help manage bursty tank damage, but ended up with Chi Burst for Raid healing as our paladins focused on tanks.  The entire rotation consisted of SCK for Chi, and Uplift/Burst for spending, and Chi Torpedo to have a little regen time.  Of course there were times I used Soothing mists to heal a Tank or a Melee player that took a random spike of damage.  But it usually would not last for long.

The above can also be used for Garalon. I personally was assigned to be the "Melee healer" Which means I would run around the legs and follow the melee to heal them as they DPS'd the legs.  This one especially let Chi Burst and Chi Torpedo shine since it was about the only AoE heal I had that I could direct at the melee specifically.

Biggest thing to always remember to to use ReM and Expel Harm on CD.  The rest is using one of the 2 healing strategies above for the encounter.


Anyone else that has extensive monk healing experience have anything to add or comment about?

Edited by Krazyito, 07 February 2013 - 05:25 PM.

Guess I am trying to figure out what happend to my heals in 5.2 Throne of Thunder lfr.I have been used to being top healer or top3 in lfr changing Chi burst and wave,RJW and Torpedo talents depending on which fight or the groups' performance.
I have not really changed glyphs and they are still the same.Mana Tea,RM,and Uplift.I will try taking uplift off and using one recommended in the other MW topics for 5.2.
But I believe my mana is only thing really effected by having it (I can oom faster when I spam) but able to use chi for more EMs and fistweaving (didn't notice Muscle proc returned mana so learned that today)
The heals aren't very far apart usually but I got 6th in overall and felt like I failed.From bottom to top the overall healing difference was 2k,4k,4.5k,6k,8k,and an uber geared druid beating my healing by 10k or more.My style really hasn't changed but feel I am still not comfortable with healing output in new Throne of Thunder.
Chi and cds changed a little but nothing patch has changed pops out to me as the culprit of my lost #1 healing spot.I looked over the rotations and talents/glyphs for fights but all that isn't something that I haven't tried yet.
My 10man star heal spot changed too,due to new buffs to hpriest mastery and seems like Pali got buffed too because in 5.1 there was no comparison unless it was a Disc priest that knew how to use spirit shell&divine aegis.
So here is my reason for posting...a few questions.
What am I doing wrong?Can you make suggestions without seeing how I play?I have no real rotation for healing,problem?
Assuming one of you is a better mw;Is there a way to que together or even xrealm in a raid to ease my confusion or get those super helpful/informative tips?
Here's my public link to look over my gear,enchants,gems,and reforges,http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/trollbane/Reapinheals/simple

I'm sorry. I'm going to be busy for while.

Just a quick comment. This thread is outdated since 5.2 because of the jab mana change. The healing style changed a little.

Read general information here for now: http://www.icy-veins...ver-monk-style/

I will update more when I can.

Clubberwang, on 21 March 2013 - 07:46 PM, said:

So if you have been playing the same way as in 5.1, then you will have mana problems.  As in the link I posted before, you should be using two different types of playstyles.  Fistweaving and Mistweaving.  The most mana efficient is Mistweaving where you use Soothing mists as your filler for Chi generation.  Fistweaving is a bit more mana intensive, but you get some of it back by using muscle memory procs.  IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU CONSUME EACH PROC WITH TP OR BOK.  Failing to do this will result in a wasted 4%~ mana return.  You can use excess chi you build with Renewing Mists on uplift, but you need to make sure that you do not overwrite a MM proc multiple times.

After knowing this, the rotation is the same expect you are using Soothing mists to generate Chi instead of Jab while Mistweaving.  and when Fistweaving all your jab generated chi goes to TP or BoK.

Also, we can do cross realm raids suchs as LFR and any non-current tier.  Send me a private message through the forums and we can try to work out when to do this if you choose.

Well I got back on top of the meters,top 3 anyway.I don't always have to be first but it is nice.I am glad I read this thread. Because I was worried that it was just nerfd to crap and I wouldn't play much MW heals. Uplift at 6% mana is way too much imo and would like to see it dropped in half but not likely.Also fistweaving is much better if you hit your mm procs,but is a big leach still on MWs' mana pools and switching stances just isn't relevant when there is no difference in damage output.I think a couple minor fixes for 5.3 are just the thing we MWs need to be "OP" and make Palis and Dpriests work for their heals more.I see Disc priests and Holy palis on top of meters and I hate being outhealed by palis,Druids are uber heals too but they always have been.Thanks for responding and I look forward to reading your updated thread to this guide in the future.