Mistweaver Monk PvP Guide for Mists of Pandaria Classic

Mistweaver Monk is an extremely versatile healer that pairs high mobility with extremely high single-target healing. On top of that, Mistweavers can convert their damage into healing, allowing you to safely help your team secure kills while healing them at the same time.

Strengths

• Extremely high damage output for a healer
• Has many instant cast healing spells such as Healing Sphere, making it hard to be interrupted
• Highly mobile
• Has access to multiple defensive cooldowns
• Offers many different crowd control options

Weaknesses

• Chi management can be tricky
• Easily able to run yourself out of mana if you don't play properly
• Fights migrating away from Summon Jade Serpent Statue can be fairly punishing
• Lacks external damage reduction cooldowns

The level 60 and 75 talent rows are flexible based on what you are up against. Leg Sweep is very good if your group is lacking a stun, and Diffuse Magic is invaluable against heavy magic comps.

• Glyph of Enduring Healing Sphere — Gives your team more of an opportunity to step on your Gift of the Serpent spheres before they vanish
• Glyph of Paralysis — Removes any DoTs from your Paralysis target, preventing them from being instantly broken out of your CC.
• Glyph of Life Cocoon — Allows you to cast Life Cocoon while stunned. Extremely valuable if Nimble Brew is on cooldown.

None of the minor Glyphs offer any benefit in PvP, so they're chosen to add utility to your other spells.

If you have not already, we also recommend taking a look at the Spells Summary page. PvP is an incredibly fluid and diverse game mode, and often times you will need to make snap judgments that aren't congruent with rigid rotational lists. For a better understanding of your spells and how they interact, we highly recommend reading the Rotations page from the PvE section, where you also find a list and explanation of all your cooldowns.

Your goal during any moment is try and maintain high Chi generation by keeping your efficient generators like Renewing Mist and Expel Harm on cooldown. The following is a loose priority list for healing:

1. Renewing Mist on cooldown;
2. Expel Harm on cooldown (if you are injured);
3. Chi Wave on cooldown;
4. Chi Brew if you need extra Chi;
5. Soothing Mist on targets being focused;
6. Enveloping Mist to spend Chi;
7. Surging Mist if you need extra Chi and the target is taking heavy damage.

Absent from the above list are Healing Spheres. These are far and away your best single target heal. Not only are they very powerful in terms of throughput, but they're also fairly mana efficient while being nearly impossible for the enemy team to deal with. They're instant cast so they cannot be interrupted, and because the spheres are dropped on the ground, they can't even be stopped by a rogue's Smoke Bomb. Finally, they have a 0.5 second GCD, meaning you can drop 3 of them by the time it would take another healer to cast 1 spell.

All that being said, Healing Spheres are not perfect. Because they do not generate Chi, they don't interact with Mana Tea at all, so over reliance on them can leave you OOM with no way to get your Mana back. The other obvious drawback is that rather than being able to just look at your party frames, Healing Spheres require acute attention to the 3D game space. You have to know where your injured party member is in order to be able to drop a sphere on them.

Alternatively, thanks to our cooldowns Mistweaver also has the ability to participate in a burst opener with your teammates. If your team is looking to quickly kill one target, here's what your cast sequence should look like:

1. Drop Summon Jade Serpent Statue near your target;
2. Use Chi Brew and Jab;
3. Use Blackout Kick for Serpent's Zeal;
4. Use Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger;
5. Follow your normal Jab -> Tiger Palm until the target dies or you have to start directly healing.

Xuen lasts for 45 seconds, so you will usually be able to keep up the pressure for quite a while.

Mistweaver is a little light on cooldowns compared to other healers, but we make up for it in utility.

• Revival — 3-minute cooldown, and one of the best emergency buttons in the game. Revival instantly heals friendly targets within 100 yards for a large amount and removes any Magic, Poison, and Disease effects. The niche drawback to this ability is that against an Affliction Warlock, instantly clearing several Unstable Affliction debuffs can kill you.
• Life Cocoon — Our external defensive cooldown, it provides a massive shield on an ally, making it a valuable cooldown to use both proactively and reactively. Usable while stunned thanks to our glyphs.
• Nimble Brew — Clears all stuns, fears, roots, and horrify effects and reduces the duration of future casts of those spells by 60% for 6 seconds.
• Transcendence — Allows you to place a ghost at a location, then swap places with it. An invaluable tool for escaping from a hairy situation.
• Zen Meditation — Reduces your damage taken by 90% and redirects 5 spells to you. The effect is removed if you get melee attacked. Can be valuable against spellcaster comps to ease pressure if your allies are getting focused.

Mistweaver can be a very frustrating healer to play against, often times because of the depth of the CC we bring. We can interrupt with Spear Hand Strike, AoE stun using Leg Sweep, Silence and disarm with Ring of Peace, and incapacitate with Paralysis. Furthermore if a melee pops all their cooldowns, we can hit them with a Grapple Weapon to disarm them for 8 seconds.

If you are looking to maximize the potential of your Mistweaver Monk in Mists of Pandaria PvP, we recommended Blacksmithing and Engineering. Even though much of the utility of Engineering is lost in arenas, having an on-demand throughput steroid in the form of Synapse Springs is still very powerful. Outside of that, most of the other professions offer identical bonuses. Blacksmithing has a slight edge due to the fact that Socket Gloves and Socket Bracer allows you choose secondary stats instead of flat Intellect.

The list linked below provides you with the Best-in-Slot gear setup for a Mistweaver Monk in PvP.

To learn in which setups Mistweaver Monks are typically strongest, please read the guides we have prepared below: