Mistweaver Monk Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Talent Choices for Mistweaver Monk

Level	Choices
15	✓ Mist Wrap	✗ Chi Wave	✓ Chi Burst
30	✗ Celerity	? Chi Torpedo	? Tiger's Lust
45	✓ Lifecycles	✓ Spirit of the Crane	? Mana Tea
60	✗ Tiger Tail Sweep	✗ Song of Chi-Ji	✓ Ring of Peace
75	✗ Healing Elixir	✓ Diffuse Magic	✓ Dampen Harm
90	✓ Summon Jade Serpent Statue	? Refreshing Jade Wind	✓ Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane
100	✓ Focused Thunder	✓ Upwelling	✓ Rising Mist

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Mistweaver Monks

✔ Mist Wrap

✘ Chi Wave

✔ Chi Burst

• Mist Wrap increase the duration of Enveloping Mist by 1 second, and its healing bonus by 10%.
• Chi Wave is an active ability with a 15-second cooldown. It is essentially a chain-heal that bounces to the 7 nearest targets (within 25 yards). The bounces target allies and enemies alternatively. Each target that the wave bounces to is healed or damaged (Nature damage), depending on their alignment. The healing portion of Chi Wave is a smart heal, in the sense that it prefers healing low health players.
• Chi Burst is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown. It heals all friendly targets, and damages all hostile targets in a 40-yard line in front of you.

This row is a choice between Chi Burst and Mist Wrap. If your Enveloping Mist targets need more healing, and you will not get good value from Chi Burst, then it wise to go with Mist Wrap. If you are able to regularly use Chi Burst to hit 6 or more players, or will not be casting Enveloping Mist, then Chi Burst will be the better pick.

Chi Wave is a poor choice and should never be taken.

3. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents for Mistweaver Monks

✘ Celerity

? Chi Torpedo

? Tiger's Lust

• Celerity passively increases the number of charges of Roll by 1, and reduces its cooldown by 5 seconds.
• Chi Torpedo replaces Roll. It causes you to roll a moderate distance in front of you (further than Roll), increasing your movement speed by 30% for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to 2 times.
• Tiger's Lust is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown, which removes all roots and snares from the target, and grants them 70% increased movement speed for 6 seconds. It can be used either on yourself or on an ally.

This row is a choice between Tiger's Lust and Chi Torpedo. In terms of mobility, Chi Torpedo provides the most for the least amount of GCDs spent. If there is a specific root that needs dispelling or a player needs an external speed buff, then Tiger's Lust is a good choice.

Celerity has essentially no use as it is outclassed by both Chi Torpedo and Tiger's Lust in any given situation.

4. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents for Mistweaver Monks

✔ Lifecycles

✔ Spirit of the Crane

? Mana Tea

• Lifecycles causes Enveloping Mist to reduce the Mana cost of your next Vivify by 25%, and also causes Vivify to reduce the Mana cost of your next Enveloping Mist by 25%. Both of these effects apply to the first spell cast within 15 seconds.
• Spirit of the Crane causes your Teachings of the Monastery-empowered Blackout Kicks to restore 0.65% of your maximum Mana.
• Mana Tea is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown. It reduces the Mana cost of your spells by 50% for 12 seconds.

All the talents in this tier are viable, in different situations.

Lifecycles is a good pick if you are playing the Tankysitting build as you will be using Enveloping Mist regularly.

Spirit of the Crane is good as a default pick, as it rewards DPSing during downtime, which is something all healers should aim to do anyway. Mana Tea is a good pick if you are able to use it as close to on cooldown as possible. Most of the time Tankysitters will take Lifecycles and Fistweavers will take Spirit of the Crane. Mana Tea should be taken if the Mana it saves is greater than that saved or generated by the other two options. This will depend on your gear and how close to on cooldown you can reasonably cast Mana Tea.

5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents for Mistweaver Monks

✘ Tiger Tail Sweep

✘ Song of Chi-Ji

✔ Ring of Peace

• Ring of Peace is an active ability with a 45-second cooldown. It forms a ring at the targeted location, which lasts for 5 seconds. During this time, most enemies who enter the ring will be knocked out of it. Has no effect on bosses and certain enemies resistant to crowd control.
• Song of Chi-Ji is an active ability with a 15-second cooldown. It creates a cloud that travels slowly forwards in the direction you were facing when cast. Enemies who come in contact with the cloud are put to sleep, being disoriented for 20 seconds. Damage done to them can break the effect.
• Tiger Tail Sweep increases the range of Leg Sweep by 2 yards and reduces its cooldown by 10 seconds.

Ring of Peace is always the correct pick, outside of wildly specific niche situations. The value of having both Leg Sweep and an area denial knock back is too high to even consider the other options.

6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents for Mistweaver Monks

✘ Healing Elixir

✔ Diffuse Magic

✔ Dampen Harm

• Diffuse Magic is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown. It transfers all magical debuffs from you onto their caster, where possible. Additionally, for 6 seconds, it reduces all magic damage taken by 60%.
• Healing Elixir is an active ability with 2 charges and a 30-second recharge time that heals you for 15% of your maximum health.
• Dampen Harm is an active ability with a 2-minute cooldown. For 10 seconds, all damage you take is reduced by 20% to 50%, with larger attacks having their damage reduced by more than smaller attacks.

The choice here will depend on the type of damage you need to avoid during an encounter. If it is magic, then take Diffuse Magic, otherwise take Dampen Harm.

7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Mistweaver Monks

✔ Summon Jade Serpent Statue

? Refreshing Jade Wind

✔ Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane

• Summon Jade Serpent Statue is an active ability with a 10-second cooldown, which places a stationary statue that does not attack at the target location. The statue persists until killed, and while active it will channel a small heal into the target of your Soothing Mist. It will continue channeling for 30 seconds or until you either select a new target, or the current target move 100 yards away from the statue
• Refreshing Jade Wind is an active ability with a 9-second cooldown (reduced by Haste). It heals up to 6 allies in an 10-yard radius around you over its 9-second duration (also reduced by Haste).
• Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane is an active ability with a 3-minute cooldown. It summons a pet that for 25 seconds heals nearby allies with its Crane Heal ability. There is a pet bar that allows you to control the pet and decide specifically who to heal.

Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane is a good all-round default pick. It does a good amount of healing while also being free.

Summon Jade Serpent Statue is good when you can maintain high uptime and minimal overhealing. In terms of raw numbers, Jade Serpent Statue will out heal Chi-Ji if it is able to channel for 2.33 minutes but that also does not account for the Mana required to sustain the statue's cast. However if you are playing a build that rewards frequent Soothing Mist usage, you might want to consider Jade Serpent Statue.

Refreshing Jade Wind is difficult to find a home for, as both the "Tankysitting" and "Fistweaving" builds are relatively GCD locked; the former aims for a high Soothing Mist uptime, and the latter aims for high DPS uptime.

8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Mistweaver Monks

✔ Focused Thunder

✔ Upwelling

✔ Rising Mist

• Focused Thunder causes Thunder Focus Tea to empower your next 2 spells, up from just 1.
• Upwelling allows Essence Font to be channeled for an additional second for every 6 seconds that it remains off cooldown. This bonus caps after 18 seconds, doubling the length of Essence Font's cast. In addition, it also extends the length of Essence Font's healing over time effect by 4 seconds.
• Rising Mist causes Rising Sun Kick to heal everyone buffed by your healing over time effects and extends their duration by 2 seconds.

Focused Thunder is the default pick for dungeons. It allows for the most amount of Renewing Mist, making Vivify a very strong group heal. It also increases your damage in downtime by being able to use it on Rising Sun Kick.

Upwelling is a good pick for raids when not "Fistweaving" as it provides an excellent efficiency gain if you are unable to cast Essence Font on cooldown. It also makes our mastery more valuable by nature of the extended HoT duration.

Rising Mist is the talent that makes the "Fistweaving" build viable. It affects all of our active HoT spells, meaning not only Renewing Mist and Enveloping Mist but the HoT from Essence Font as well. Rising Mist is a tool of efficiency; the heal is not enormous, but Rising Sun Kick only costs 1.5% of your Mana, and the increased duration on your active HoTs stacks adds up quickly.

9. Changelog