Mistweaver Monk: Midnight Expansion Preview

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Mistweaver Monk. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Mistweaver Monk spec in the forthcoming Midnight expansion, including changes, Apex talents, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress with regular changes expected as updates hit the Midnight Alpha. This is not meant to be a launch guide for Mistweaver Monk, but instead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Alpha, and what you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

The theme of the changes Mistweaver Monk received so far this Alpha is an exodus of percent-based healing increases. Instead of needing to ramp several different buffs in order to heal effectively, all that power is being put back into our base kit. More broadly though, and as is the case with every spec in the game, the wider goal is pruning, consolidation, and bringing class design to a more intuitive place. The following are some of the most impactful changes:

• Chi Harmony and Mending Proliferation have been removed;
• Lotus Infusion's healing increase was nerfed from 10% to 6%.
• Jadefire Teachings is now a passive, always-active buff, instead of needing to be triggered;
• Diffuse Magic has been redesigned and will now cause Fortifying Brew to transfer harmful magic effects to their caster;
• Vivify's healing is now longer reduced past 5 targets and was buffed by 60%;
• Jadefire Stomp is no longer an active button, and has been baked into a new talent;
• Soothing Mist now follows your casts;
• Sheilun's Gift now replaces Vivify.

• New/Redesigned Talents:
  • Jade Infusion — Thunder Focus Tea summons a Jade Serpent Statue at your location. Choice node with Jade Serpent Statue.
  • Silent Sanctuary — While no enemies are within 15 yards, you heal every 3 seconds.
  • Stillstep Coil — Leg Sweep applies Disable for 5 seconds when it ends.
  • Serene Surge — After casting Enveloping Mist, your next Sheilun’s Gift or Vivify becomes instant cast. Choice node with Vivacious Vivification for Mistweaver Monk.
  • Reinvigoration — After Detox successfully removes an effect from an ally, their movement speed is increased by 30% for 5 seconds.
  • Vital Clarity — Vivify and Sheilun's Gift critical strike chances are increased by 15% on yourself. Replaces Vigorous Expulsion for Mistweaver Monk.
  • Mist Caller — Vivify and Sheilun's Gift trigger an additional Gust on Mist when cast on yourself. Replaces Strength of Spirit and Profound Rebuttal choice node for Mistweaver Monk.
  • Ferocity of Xuen is now a 2-point talent.
  • Save Them All (redesign) — Now increases your healing by up to 10% based on your target’s health.Lower health allies are healed for more.
  • Diffuse Magic (redesign) — Now causes activating Fortifying Brew to transfer all currently active harmful magical effects on you back to their original caster if possible.
  • Vivacious Vivification — No longer increases the healing of Vivify and now functions with Sheilun's Gift.
• Removed Talents:
  • Chi Burst
  • Clash

Chi Burst was a surprise to see go given how iconic of a spell is has been for Mistweaver, but it does align with the goals of reducing the amount of buttons a player needs to bind. Nostalgia aside, given how its relative power has waned over the years, its departure is no big loss.

Diffuse Magic's change on the other hand represents a significant reduction in our survivability. However, this is not simply a straight up nerf, but rather it is indicative of Blizzard's design philosophy going forward. Many classes are seeing their defensives weakened or outright pruned, because Blizzard is trying to move back to a space where we don't need several different personal damage reduction cooldowns.

• New/Redesigned Talents:
  • Apex Talents: Spiritfont
    • Rank 1: Rising Sun Kick and Vivify have a chance to activate Spiritfont causing your next Enveloping Mist to channel Soothing Mist from you onto up to 5 allies at 50% effectiveness for 8 seconds. If Spiritfont’s Soothing Mists heal a full health target, they will jump to another injured ally or split its healing into your remaining Soothing Mists.
    • Rank 2/3: Rising Sun Kick damage increased by 10%/20% and Enveloping Mist healing increased by 10/20%. These bonuses are increased by 50% while Spiritfont is active.
    • Rank 4: Thunder Focus Tea activates Spiritfont and Spiritfont applies Chi Cocoons at 50% effectiveness to allies targeted.
  • Emperor's Elixir — Thunder Focus Tea now empowers Enveloping Mist and Rising Sun Kick further. Enveloping Mist: Begins a channel of Soothing Mist that may be cast while moving onto your target. Rising Sun Kick: Releases a Jadefire Stomp in front of you.
  • Misty Coalescence — Renewing Mist's healing is increased by up to 300% in proportion to its coverage on yourself and your allies.
  • Jade Empowerment (redesign) — Now increases the damage of Crackling Jade Lightning by 300% and is always active.
  • Serene Vitality — The healing of Vivify and Sheilun's Gift is increased by 60% on yourself. Overrides Expel Harm.
  • Way of the Serpent — Soothing Mist may be channeled while moving, but movement speed is reduced by 40% while channeling. Vivify healing increased by 15% and Renewing Mist’s healing is increased by 30%. Choice node with Way of the Crane.
  • Way of the Crane ( Awakened Jadefire rename) — Tiger Palms strike twice, Blackout Kick strike an additional 2 targets at 20% effectiveness, and Spinning Crane Kick heals 3 nearby allies for 120% of the damage done.
  • Tear of Morning (redesign) — Your Invigorating Mists/ Sheilun's Gift healing is increased by 20% and your Enveloping Mist also heals allies with Renewing Mist for 8% of its healing. The duration of Enveloping Mist is increased by 4 seconds while you have a celestial summoned.
  • Uplifted Spirits (redesign) — Now reduces the cooldown of Revival by 30 seconds and increases its healing by 15%.
  • Sheilun's Gift (redesign) — Now overrides Vivify when learned, healing increased by 25% and mana cost now matches Vivify. Can be cast without any clouds present and can be cast during Soothing Mist. Functions with all talents that interact with Vivify.
  • Mana Tea — No longer reduces mana cost, but returns 25% more mana instead.
  • Jadefire Teachings — Is now purely a passive effect.
  • Lotus Infusion — Now increases healing by 6% (was 10%).
  • Enveloping Mist — Healing increased by 60%, but its healing increase has been decreased to 10% (was 30%).
  • Thunder Focus Tea — Can no longer be used on Expel Harm or Vivify.
  • Celestial Harmony — No longer causes you to cast Enveloping Breath but causes your next 2 Enveloping Mists to be instant cast after invoking Yu’lon and you to instant gain 4 stacks of Teaching of the Monastery after invoking Chi-Ji.
  • Tea of Serenity — Now grants a stack of Enveloping Mist or Renewing Mist.
  • Tea of Plenty — Now grants a stack of Enveloping Mist or Rising Sun Kick.
  • Rushing Wind Kick — No longer increases the healing of Renewing Mist and instead heals up to 5 allies affected by your heal over time effects.
• Removed Talents:
  • Invoker's Delight
  • Jadefire Stomp
  • Peer Into Peace
  • Shaohao's Lessons
  • Mending Proliferation

The brunt of these changes seem to be aimed at reducing the amount of add-ons you need in order to track buffs, which makes sense given that Blizzard is severely hindering the ability for add-ons to track things in combat. Take our Apex talents for example: its tooltip is a lot of words to essentially say "sometimes you will proc a 5 person cleave heal". It's simple, it's to the point, it doesn't require extra cognitive load. The same thing can be said about the changes Jadefire Stomp and Jadefire Teachings; instead of needing to track not only your Jadefire Teachings and your Awakened Jadefire buffs but also where your stomp is, now both of those are passives.

The standout new addition to me though looks to be Misty Coalescence which increases the healing your Renewing Mist does the more targets it is applied to, up to 300%. This scales on your group size, so 5 people in a 5 person group will get you the full bonus. Now numbers are likely to change as this is Alpha, but peak Mistweaver design has always gone hand-in-hand with trying to achieve as high a ReM count as possible. Talents that incentivize this gameplay make me very hopeful. Letting ReM be a powerful HoT once more instead of just a Vivify activator would be a welcome change.

As of writing, there have been no changes to the Master of Harmony talent tree

• New/Redesigned Conduit of the Celestials Talents:
  • Celestial Conduit — Is now only castable for 1 minute after invoking either Yu'lon or Chi-Ji.
  • Heart of the Jade Serpent — Now triggers from casting Thunder Focus Tea.
  • Yu'lon's Avatar — Causes Vivify and Sheilun's Gift to have a chance to trigger Heart of the Jade Serpent.
  • Flowing Wisdom — Haste is increased by 10% during Heart of the Jade Serpent.
  • Stampede of the Ancients — Strength of the Black Ox's effect is 400% more effective on your primary target.
• Removed Talents:
  • August Dynasty

Adding the restriction to Celestial Conduit is so baffling that it almost seems like a bug leftover from the Windwalker version of the spell. Presumably the damage event that you would use Invoke Yu'lon, the Jade Serpent or Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane for would be long over by the time you would have the opportunity to then cast Celestial Conduit. Outside of that these are pretty positive changes, which are just adding our Manaforge Omega tier set, and a bit of skill expression to Strength of the Black Ox in the form of Stampede of the Ancients.