Mists of Pandaria Classic Mistweaver Monk Talent Builds

Mistweaver Monk has a surprisingly versatile talent set, with many opportunities to swap abilities for whatever a particular encounter demands. Below is the standard "general purpose" build that will be optimal in most situations.

Below is an explanation of the each of the talents in their respective tiers.

This is the movement row. Each of these talents augment your ability to get from point A to point B.

• Celerity grants you an extra stack of Roll or Chi Torpedo, while also decreasing their cooldowns by 5 seconds. This is a strong pick if you find yourself needing to dodge mechanics frequently or if you have talented into Chi Torpedo.
• Tiger's Lust allows to place a buff on yourself or a friendly player that increases their speed by 70% for 6 seconds, as well as removes any snares or slows. This is the default pick for this row, as the ability to speed up another player is usually better than having an extra Roll charge.
• Momentum causes your Roll or Chi Torpedo to increase your speed by 25% for 10 seconds, stacking up to two times. While interesting, there are very few fights that require this level of sustained movement speed increases, so this talent is generally weaker than the other two.

This is our first throughput row. Each of the talents on offer here both heal and deal damage at the cost of 0 mana.

• Chi Wave causes you to shoot a bolt out at a target, damaging them if they are an enemy or healing them if they are a friend. The bolt will then bounce back and forth between random friendly and enemy targets until a total of 7 bounces has been reached. Because this ability does not scale with target count, it is more suited to smaller groups like dungeons or 10-man raids.
• Zen Sphere allows you to place up to two spheres on friendly players that will heal them, while damaging a nearby enemy. After the sphere expires, or the target reaches 35% HP, it will detonate, dealing damage and healing to all targets within 10 yards. The problem with this ability is that on top of its awkward timing on the detonation, its healing does not scale with our Haste, making it less powerful than the other two options.
• Chi Burst causes you to shoot an orb 40 yard in front of you, healing friendly targets and damaging enemies. This ability scales very well with larger group sizes, so it is the default choice for 25-man raiding.

This row focuses on resource generation.

• Power Strikes causes your Chi generators to generate 1 extra Chi every 20 seconds. Technically, if played properly, this talent will result in the most Chi generation of any talent in this row. However, realistically speaking, the hypothetical extra Chi you could generate will likely result in less throughput than what Chi Brew would.
• Ascension passively increases your maximum Chi by 1 and your maximum Mana by 15%. This makes your Mana Tea slightly stronger as a result of the increased Mana pool, but this minor increase in efficiency doesn't stack up to the other options for most situations.
• Chi Brew will instantly restore 2 Chi and 2 Mana Tea stacks. This ability has two charges with a 45 seconds recharge time, and is off the Global Cooldown. This is far and away the best option in this row. The ability to instantly refill your Chi during moments of high raid damage is incredibly powerful. On top of that, each press grants you 10% of your Mana pool for free in the form of Mana Tea stacks (more than that if you consider the stacks generated from the free Chi).

This is our crowd control row.

• Ring of Peace creates a ring around you lasting 8 seconds that will Silence and Disarm any enemy within the ring. If they attempt to attack or cast after their respective CC has worn off, the ring will Silence/Disarm them a second time. This is a very powerful option in groups in that already have a lot of Stuns, or if your Tank needs to easily group up a bunch of caster mobs.
• Charging Ox Wave fires a wave 30 yards in front of you that stuns anything in its path for 3 seconds. This is generally just weaker than Leg Sweep.
• Leg Sweep stuns every enemy around you for 5 seconds. Most of the time this will be your default pick.

This is our defensive row. They range from self healing to damage reductions.

• Healing Elixirs passively grants you a buff that will heal you for 15% of your Health any time your HP drops below 35%, or any time you drink a Mana Tea while injured. This buff refreshes every 18 seconds. In a vacuum this is a perfectly serviceable talent, however it is competing with damage reduction talents and most of the time it is better to prevent damage than heal it off.
• Dampen Harm grants you a buff lasting 45 seconds that will cause the next 3 attacks you receive to deal 50% less damage, if the damage would have been more than 20% of your total Health. This is a strong talent for any time you are taking frequent large hits.
• Diffuse Magic grants you a buff lasting for 6 seconds that reduces the magic damage you take by 90%. Most of the time this is the default pick for this talent row, as the majority of unavoidable damage you will be taking is magical. It also allows you to solo soak certain mechanics.

Finally, our last throughput row. These talents run the gamut from granting us an extra cooldown, giving us a mana-free heal, or even buffing our current AoE Healing spells. All three of these options will be the best choice depending on the encounter.

• Rushing Jade Wind replaces your Spinning Crane Kick with a more powerful version of it. It does not slow you, and is no longer a channelled ability, meaning we are able to continue to DPS, heal, or even drink a Mana Tea while it is active. It is, however, the only option on this row that requires an extra investment of Mana to utilize the talent. Still, for fights that involve constant ticking damage, this talent is an excellent choice.
• Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger summons an effigy of Xuen to fight along side you for 45 seconds. Not only will he attack your primary target, but he will passively cleave lightning onto 3 other targets as well. This damage is also transferred into healing through Eminence. While it is hard to slot Xuen into a healing cooldown rotation, as his power is spread out over a 45 second time span, during that time he will be doing exceptional damage and healing.
• Chi Torpedo transforms your Roll into a heal. It causes you to travel farther and faster than before, as well as healing any friends in your path, and damaging any enemies. If your group is all stacked up, Chi Torpedo can offer powerful burst healing, as it does not have a target cap. Also, if you need to use this ability but the movement would otherwise kill you, if you press W+S at the same time, your roll will not move, but it will still heal.

Glyphs play a much weaker role in Mists of Pandaria than they have in the past. For Mistweaver Monk, there is only really one glyph that makes a considerable difference, while the rest offer minor benefits or quality of life functionality.

You should generally always be using Glyph of Renewing Mist. The added range it grants to Renewing Mist ensures that you can effectively blanket the raid prior to Uplift windows. Below are the other Glyphs also worth considering:

• Glyph of Renewing Mist causes your Renewing Mist to travel to the furthest injured player within 40 yards, rather than the closest within 20.
• Glyph of Targeted Expulsion In PvE, this removes the Chi cost of Uplift and instead makes it cost 10% of your Mana. As Mana regen levels rise throughout the expansion, this glyph will likely start to see play.
• Glyph of Surging Mist causes your Surging Mist to automatically cast onto the lowest ally within 40 yards.
• Glyph of Mana Tea gives Mana Tea a 10 second cooldown, and instead of channeling, it instantly consumes two stacks of Tea. This does not reset your swing timer.
• Glyph of Detox heals the target of your dispels for 5% of their Health if you remove a harmful effect. On fights with a lot of dispelling this could see play, but is otherwise lackluster.

Minor Glyphs all offer either cosmetic or minor "out-of-combat" benefits. These are up to your discretion, but here are my favorites:

• Glyph of Zen Flight grants you the ability to fly around on a cloud at 60% movement speed. This ability is instant cast, so you can use it to save yourself from falling from a high place, or to quickly fly away a dangerous ground-based situation. Lastly, while you cannot cast spells while riding your cloud, you can take some non-combat actions like mounting up, or even fishing.
• Glyph of Spirit Roll lets you roll while dead. Nice for recovering from wipes quickly.
• Glyph of Water Roll lets you roll over water.