9.2 Mistweaver FAQ
Patch 9.2 is now upon us and brings with it a swathe of healer changes, new tier sets and the ability to wear two legendaries (your covenant legendary and one other). Let’s see what it means for Mistweaver, 9.1s throughput powerhouse. As always, expect new information to roll in once the patch is live and we have significantly more data to compare to our models.
9.2 Tier Set
- The 4pc bonus healing is increased by versatility and can effectively crit. While Haste is very good for fitting more events into the cast window, it won’t be that far ahead of our other non-mastery secondaries.
- The 4pc previously only applied to direct healing, but now includes nearly all healing events (technically it’s Monk only spells, so no sneaky trinkets. Ancient Teachings is also exempt for… some… reason).
- The rune diameter is ~20 yards and it lasts for 10 seconds.
Tier Circle
Analysis
The 2pc bonus is quite dull, and you won’t notice much of a change in power when you pick it up.
While the 4pc bonus is quite strong in it’s current form, it’s very heavily tied to Refreshing Jade Wind and Essence Font which make up the majority of our healing events. We’ll also swap to Chi Burst for even more healing. This pushes Mistweaver further into the current 9.1 playstyle where raid frame interaction is almost optional. I’d prefer seeing Refreshing Jade Wind removed from the 4pc spell list in exchange for a buff to the flat healing value on the set. Same flavor, but much more interesting to play around. Given the patch’s imminent release it’s unlikely we’ll see any further changes.
Complaints of a stationary rune being an odd fit for a high mobility healer are valid, though it’s likely to play ok given the very short cooldown.
Spell Changes
- Major Nerf: Fallen Order cooldown reduction nerfed by a whopping 50%. Crits while Fallen Order are active now reduce it’s cooldown by 2.5 seconds (down from 5).
- Major Nerf: Fallen Order clones are now hard locked to one Enveloping Mist cast. This reduces the variance in the ability by ensuring they always low roll.
- Minor Nerf: Mist Wrap no longer benefits Fallen Order clones. This isn’t too big a deal since Chi Burst has much better synergy with the 4pc bonus and we were unlikely to run Mist Wrap anyway.
- Very Minor Nerf: Clouded Focus no longer benefits Fallen Order clones.
- Minor Buff: Bonedust Brew now duplicates 40% (up from 35%) of procced damage and healing, but damage events can no longer crit. This is basically all upside for us.
These are net nerfs overall, however Mistweaver was in such a good state that these are reasonably fair. They do a good job of bringing covenants closer together (discussed further below).
9.2 Covenants
Which to play and when?
You have a lot more covenant flexibility in 9.2 than you did in 9.1.5 and if you enjoy one substantially more than the others then it’s likely you’ll be able to play it without giving up too much power. The current recommendations are as follows, however all four covenants are very close in power so check back for updates when we can see the fights:
- I don’t have my 4pc tier set: Venthyr >= Necrolord before we unlock more power depending on how stacked the fight is. There’s an argument to be made for practicing Necrolord to get used to it before you pick up your tier set.
- I have my 4pc: Necrolord or Venthyr. Play Venthyr when the fight is spread or when Door of Shadows provides particular value.
- Honorable Mention: Night Fae. Read more in the Night Fae section below about where Night Fae fits into the equation since it is actually quite good with some drawbacks.
- I’m ok with losing a little bit of throughput to play what I prefer: Necrolord, Venthyr, Night Fae, Kyrian. The gap between best and worst is around 7-8%.
Ultimately, while Necrolord is strong in the right scenario, Mistweaver can’t progress with Necrolord alone since it has a moderately high drop off on fights where you’re not able to hit a high percentage of the raid. You are better off playing even a critically nerfed Venthyr than hitting 4-5 people with Bonedust Brew on such a fight. Timers are also going to be relevant here since fights with big 1 minute timers like PTR Anduin are particularly kind to Necrolord.
Double legendaries have only a small impact on your choice post-nerf. Bountiful Brew is a bit better than Sinister Teachings in HPS but the difference isn’t major.
In depth Breakdown including Legendaries
Necrolord saw a lot of play in 9.0 before being replaced by Venthyr in 9.1. The covenant is based around hard buffing 10 second windows every minute and in effect it’s just a hard healing multiplier to anyone with Bonedust Brew. It also provides a little bit of DPS value. It’s going to start the patch a little weak since without 4pc we don’t really have any great spells to combine BDB with.
Necrolord Legendary Combos
Solo Legendary: Ancient Teachings of the Monastery is comfortably ahead.
Double legendaries: You’ll combine Bountiful Brew with Ancient Teachings of the Monastery. Fringe legendaries like Yu’lon’s Whisper and Invoker’s Delight might see niche use.
Covenant Strengths and weaknesses
- Strength: Necrolord has the strongest synergy with the tier set, increasing your throughput in the rune window by 35%+. This is substantial given the strength of our tier set.
- Strength: Bountiful Brew adds pretty decent healing through Lead by Example uptime and it’s proc frequency. You’ll lose a few to hitting a Hunter standing 30 yards away but on average it’ll perform well.
- Strength: Fleshcraft is an incredible defensive.
- Major Weakness: Necrolord soulbinds are the weakest in the game for healers. You’ll use Emeni since Bountiful Brew procs Lead by Example but you’d still happily trade your entire tree for a Theotar or Dreamweaver or even a Kleia.
- Major Weakness: On spread fights you’re only likely to hit the melee group with Bonedust Brew which means you’re losing a decent amount of potential throughput. The raid appears to have a lot of spread fights.
- Minor Weakness: Bountiful Brew procs hit based on a spells current target (not your selected one). On stacked fights this is pretty reliable but on spread fights it can easily proc on that Hunter that’s standing 40 yards away for some reason. You’ll get good value on average, but it’ll also be high variance.
- Minor Weakness: Emeni’s Lead by Example trait doesn’t increase the healing done by the tier set which means it scales up a smaller portion of our healing than you would usually expect.
Venthyr was a powerhouse in 9.1 owing to the extremely powerful Sinister Teachings legendary. It still holds up fairly well post-nerf – particularly before you get your 4pc bonus which other covenants have much better synergy with.
Venthyr Legendary Combos
Solo Legendary: Play Ancient Teachings of the Monastery in almost all scenarios.
Double legendaries: Combine Ancient Teachings of the Monastery and Sinister Teachings in most scenarios.
Covenant Strengths and weaknesses
- Strength: Cooldown based healing remains valuable.
- Strength: Theotar remains a top 2 Soulbind.
- Major Weakness: Fallen Order continues to be an incredibly buggy spell with very high variance.
- Minor Weakness: Some fight lengths won’t give you an extra Sinister Teachings Fallen Order cast at all, which situationally reduces the covenants power by a lot. This is particularly harmful when double legendaries are available since Sinister Teachings effectively becomes a part of the specs base power.
- Minor Weakness: There is no real synergy between Venthyr and the tier set bonuses. The 4pc does technically buff their healing but you end up with so much healing during your 30 second window that a lot of it is wasted.
Night Fae is an extremely capable covenant that’s let down in a few places by some design issues. There’s an absolute gem of a playstyle here but it’s difficult to make use of. If you enjoy Faeline Stomp then this is still very playable in 9.2 – particularly when you get your set bonus. You can pull a surprising amount of power out of combining Dreamweaver’s Field of Blossoms with both your 4pc window and Ancient Teachings of the Monastery in general.
Night Fae Legendary Combos
Solo Legendary: Play Ancient Teachings of the Monastery wherever possible.
Double legendaries: Combine Ancient Teachings of the Monastery and Faeline Harmony.
Covenant Strengths and weaknesses
- Strength: Dreamweaver is the #1 healing soulbind in the game. Multiplicative haste (Field of Blossoms), an increase in spell efficiency (Empowered Chrysalis), 3% damage & healing for free (Dream Delver) and a little bit of mistake prevention in Podtender.
- Strength: Soulshape is an excellent mobility cooldown and likely the strongest or equal strongest covenant signature ability overall.
- Strength: Faeline Stomp both increases your event count during the 4pc window (initial bolts + EF HoTs) and gives you 15% multiplicative haste on top. The cooldown also lines up perfectly with Thunder Focus Tea.
- Minor Weakness: Faeline Stomp is expensive. This won’t stop you casting it during cooldowns but somewhat tempers it’s potential strength outside of them.
- Major Weakness: Standing in Faeline Stomp can be a little problematic on some fights. Through Field of Blossoms you really want to be able to stand still during your 4pc which is not always possible. You lose more than the other covenants if the fight is high movement during damage.
- Minor Weakness: Faeline Stomp frequently heals pets instead of players. It could stand to be a little bit smarter.
- Minor Weakness: The Faeline Harmony 8% damage buff doesn’t apply to Ancient Teachings. The 8% healing portion does, but is of lower value.
- Minor Weakness: The Night Fae conduit is the only one that doesn’t increase healing. It also isn’t very good for single target damage.
Advanced: The case for Night Fae viability
For those that really enjoy Night Fae’s playstyle, there are some advantages that deserve particular note. The covenant actually has the highest potential HPS through utilizing huge 4pc windows. These are very expensive though, and it’s from a mana efficiency standpoint that Night Fae suffers. That does mean though that on very short fights, or where throughput is focused on short, frequent, burst windows there is a case that Night Fae provides the most useful healing. It has a lot of extra healing it can push out at a cost, which is sometimes very useful to have. Don’t sleep on Night Fae.
Kyrian is a little trapped in 9.2 in that they both possess no real synergy with the 4pc bonus, and their chosen talent in Chi-ji is a rough pick over the 4pc dominant Refreshing Jade Wind. It’s likely to start the patch as a pretty good choice and then be forced to rely on it’s position as a spread burst cooldown to see any play after that. I’ve spent much less time on Kyrian than the other three covenants and this section will be a bit shorter and less precise. It can expanded on once we see the fights. Kyrian is an extremely playable covenant and might find itself picked on a fight or two.
Kyrian Legendary Combos
Solo Legendary: Call to Arms or Ancient Teachings of the Monastery are both fine.
Double legendaries: You’ll play Call to Arms and Ancient Teachings. Call to Arms procs don’t give any haste from Invoker’s Delight.
Covenant Strengths and weaknesses
- Strength: Kleia is a fairly strong soulbind, offering a huge amount of free crit.
- Strength: Kyrian doesn’t have too many positional requirements, nor does it require the group be stacked.
- Major Weakness: Kyrian plays into a strong mastery-focused, Chi-ji focused playstyle that has little synergy with the rest of the patch’s content.
- Minor Weakness: Weapons of order does have some 4pc synergy, but on a long cooldown. It’s also awkward to make use of both the Essence Font cooldown reset and free Yu’lon. Essence Font uptime is also already very high so a decent portion of the bolts are wasted.
Genesis Lathe: Healer Effect Weapon
Full in depth article on Genesis Lathe
“Granting the target exactly what they require” is a little cryptic so here are the three possible effects:
- If the target is >90% health: An absorb + a Speed buff.
- If the target is between 40 and 90% health: A HoT + a Leech buff.
- If the target is below 40% health: A flat heal + an Avoidance buff.
- Health ranges are all rough and need further testing.
- The weapon has no secondary stats so the proc needs to do a lot to justify using it. It’s biggest issue for us is that it’s attached to Enveloping Mist casts which we definitely aren’t using every 30 seconds. It’s awkward at best and useless at worst.
With current tuning you’re unlikely to seek this weapon out, and will prefer a non-effect weapon of equal item level where available.
Quickfire Questions
- Will we still be wearing Domination Socket gear in 9.2? Shards of Domination are disabled in 9.2 content. Thank goodness.
- I prefer to stay out of melee and play from ranged, how does this change the above? Mechanics frequently force Mistweaver into melee regardless and most theorycrafting focuses on how best to play overall which means less time is spent on ranged gameplay. That said, swapping out Ancient Teachings of the Monastery with Yu’lon’s Whisper is likely your best bet.
- How does Yu’lon’s Whisper interact with our 4pc set bonus? Yu’lon’s Whisper ticks three times and ticks two and three are buffed by the 4pc bonus.
- How will 9.2 change our stat priorities? Crit was a clear #1 stat during 9.1 but will fall back into the pack a little bit. QE Live will be updated to handle all of your gearing needs.
Patch 9.2: Other Specs
Mistweaver Monk | Resto Druid | Holy Paladin (Coming soon)
so on what slot sould i craft “Ancient Teachings of the Monastery” and “Yu’lon’s Whisper” so it won’t colide with tier sets?
You will be unable to equip both of those legendaries since one has to be your covenant legendary, but that said you should craft ATotM on wrists
it will most likely go on wrists.
Hello.
How much do I lose in % in this cenario by sticking to Venthyr?
“I have my 4pc and double legendaries: Necrolord or Venthyr. Necrolord is particularly good on stacked fights.”
I know that Necro will be ahead but with how much?