Dragonflight Mistweaver – 10.1

About The Author

Hello everyone! My name is Sweggles, I raid in Might on Zul’jin and I have been a Mistweaver main/fanatic for 5 years now. This Dragonflight guide is intended for those who wish to maximize their performance on Mistweaver Monk in raid. It has been updated for patch 10.1!

Table of Contents

1. 10.1 Changes
2. Aberrus Tier Set
3. An introduction to Clouded Focus
4. The Essence Font Issue
5. Playstyle
6. Improving Shaohao Play
7. Builds
8. Frequently Asked Questions
9. Final Notes

What changed going into 10.1? 

• Ancient Teachings has been redesigned. It’s still applied the same way (via Essence Font and Faeline stomp) but now heals up to 5 targets evenly depending on who has taken damage. This is a net gain in raid but can be slightly annoying in Mythic+. Note that if only one target is hurt, Ancient Teachings will heal that person for the full amount. It’s only split if there are viable injured allies. Great change.
• Vivify primary healing increased by 25% but cleave healing reduced by 12%. This was somewhat in anticipation for our new four set bonus.
• There were also some minor other changes, and you can read about them: here, but they’re much less impactful.

10.1 Aberrus Tier Set

We had a very good tier set in season 1 that buffed our healing by quite a bit. Our season 2 bonus is still a monster in comparison. It remedies a lot of the issues Mistweaver had in raid, especially with Mana constraints.

• Two set bonus: Renewing Mist has a chance to grant Soulfang Infusion, granting 3% of your maximum mana over 3 seconds.
• Four set bonus: Drinking a tea or gaining Soulfang Infusion increases the healing of your vivify and renewing mists by 40% for 6 seconds.

Here’s some stuff you should know about the set:

• The 2pc has a 4% chance to proc per Renewing Mist tick but has an internal cooldown of 6 seconds that begins at the start of the buff rather than the end.
• Note that the 4pc buff has no impact on this internal cooldown and you can force proc the 4pc at any time via Thunder Focus Tea or Mana Tea.
• Healing Elixir has no interaction with the set, since it’s not technically a tea.

This tier set is going to have a heavy impact in raid. We’re going to go into a ton of detail on that, but it’s worth mentioning that our previous playstyle with Chi-ji and Ancient Teachings is still very strong and can be played at all levels of raiding. While the new build is stronger, it’s also more difficult and some people might also find they enjoy it less.

Why Swap to Clouded Focus Now?

There are two simple reasons, and both of them come from our new tier set:

• Significantly more mana to spend due to our 2pc.
• 40% buff to Vivify with our 4pc.

We also experienced a 25% increase to all enemy damage and player health which reduces the amount of overhealing our spells do. Yu’lon was previously constrained by mana and often overhealed a lot but with the set of changes is now stronger than Chi-ji / Ancient Teachings. It’s about 20% ahead with good play.

The Essence Font Issue

Essence Font has been core to our rotation since our Legion rework however in Dragonflight it’s fallen off a ton in throughput (despite a recent 15% buff) to the point where we’ll no longer cast it at all. There are a few reasons for its fall:

• The Font of Life talent is a flat healing increase that doesn’t scale with anything except player level which means it gets progressively more useless through the expansion.
• Essence Font also costs a lot of mana and as a slow channel takes up significant time in our rotation. These are two areas we already struggle to maximize.
• The season 1 tier set made essence font quite a bit stronger but in season 2 we won’t have that anymore. With Clouded Focus getting more lucrative we also lose Ancient Teachings which gives us even less reason to cast Essence Font.

By eliminating it entirely we save a lot of mana and GCDs which we can use to cast more Vivify, Rising Sun Kick and Blackout Kick. We’re very focused on Renewing Mist and Vivify so increasing CPM on them is crucial to good performance. If you do opt to stick with the 10.0.7 Chi-ji playstyle then you’ll still cast Essence Font as your Ancient Teachings trigger – avoid Faeline Stomp.

How do I play?

How do we use Clouded Focus

Clouded Focus is at its most effective in any situation where you’d want to press Vivify since our 4pc bonus is a massive amplifier on Vivify and Renewing Mist. Clouded Focus is strong because our tier set is strong. A standard cast pattern might look something like this:

Next, we’ll look at a cast sequence combining Clouded Focus and Yu’lon. The basic idea is to apply Enveloping Mists with our Celestial out for Enveloping Breath buffs and to get new Renewing Mists out through Rapid Diffusion. Rapid Diffusion procs off Rising Sun Kick and Enveloping Mists casts which means that in a sequence like the below:

We’ll gain ~7 new Renewing Mists (numbered in green) via Rapid Diffusion and the first one we apply (numbered in red) gets extended with Rising Mist to ensure we’re getting at least two Clouded Focus buffed Vivify casts before it dissipates. With 7+ Renewing Mists out at any given time you’ll have a huge number active following your Yu’lon and can capitalize with Clouded Focus Vivify casts.

You’ll need a weak aura to track this however if you notice you don’t have a 4pc proc as you’re going for your vivify ramp toward the end of your Celestial you can use Mana Tea or Thunder Focus Tea to guarantee the proc if either are up. This is when you need your 4pc bonus most.

With even 428 item level it does a near unrivalled amount of healing:

Outside of your Celestial

Outside of your Celestial you want to use Clouded Focus wherever it makes sense. If the raid is about to take big damage and you have 6+ Renewing Mists out then channel Soothing Mist on a tank or someone in danger and cast as many Vivifys as you feel is necessary to keep the raid healthy. You can also weave Thunder Focus Tea into this as well to give yourself a guaranteed 4pc proc after Thunder Focus Tea -> Renewing Mist. You can continue to use any instant Vivify casts as you would now but if you’re going to cast more than a single Vivify at once then channel Soothing Mist first.

Consider than Yu’lon is effectively a fixed cost (since you’ll want to cast the same sequence every time). Outside of it you’ll want to retain mana as much as you can to make sure you can afford the next. We have a few different ways of keeping our mana active so pay close attention to them.

Outside of Yu’lon consider the following priority list:

1. If needed to keep someone alive, cast Vivify. If you’re planning on casting more than one at a time, and the target will live for a second then start with Soothing Mist first.
2. Apply Renewing Mist when at two charges to keep it on cooldown.
3. Cast Rising Sun Kick to extend heal over time effects and heal affected players.
4. Soothing Mist -> Vivify as covered above if the raid needs more than a little healing.
5. Cycle Blackout Kick and Tiger Palm for mana (Spirit of the Crane) and damage.

Clouded Focus & Yu’lon

Clouded Focus can be a bit of a controversial choice and might turn some people away but I’d strongly recommend at least giving it a try since a lot of what you’ll learn can be translated over into other playstyles and that’ll benefit your performance in raid.

Clouded Focus is a continuous buff applied whenever you use Vivify or Enveloping Mist on a target while channeling Soothing Mist. It reduces the cost of both abilities and increases their healing by 20/40/60% depending on stack count. Now, it’s a little bit buggy and your first cast won’t actually receive the 20% mana cost reduction and thus your healing and mana regen stacks are desynced – hopefully this gets fixed but it won’t impact your play too much. Note that the buff does amplify the healing of Enveloping Breath during your celestial but it doesn’t snapshot which means you have to continue to channel Soothing Mist to gain the benefit. We’ll talk more about Soothing Mist and our celestials a bit further into the guide but because it’s dynamic that also means it’ll apply to all Enveloping Mists / Breaths that we already have out.

Important Concepts

Our new 2pc gives us a ton more mana but not an infinite amount. You’ll still run out of mana even playing conservatively if not for one key ace up our sleeves.

Escape From Reality

Escape from Reality is a class talent that allows us to re-use Transcendance: Transfer within 10 seconds of first using it to swap positions. During this time, self casted Vivify have their healing increased by 25% per point and they refund 50% of the cost. It might look like a nice mobility talent in in truth it’s much more than that. The talent has a keyword in it that’s easy to overlook: “refund”. This is not a reduction but a refund and if you have a Renewing Mist on yourself and Escape from Reality up then you’ll actually refund 100% of the mana instead of 50%.

Now bad so far, but it gets better. If we have Innervate or Mana Tea active (discounting the base cost of the spell) then we actually gain mana from Escape from Reality and in some cases we can get 10-25% of our mana back while still doing full HPS. The trade off is that you channel an immense amount of overhealing into yourself but it’s not really a big issue since anyone we channel soothing mist on will be taking a ton of overhealing anyway. You’ll use this trick whenever you need to cast multiple vivify in a row – so long as you don’t need Transcendence: Transfer for mobility. You can use it during Yu’lon but it’s usually easier to use it outside since in Yu’lon every global matters and losing one to this setup can cost you a lot.

Thunder Focus Tea

You’ll only ever use Thunder Focus Tea with Renewing Mist. We want to do this because our Secret Infusion haste buff is multiplicative which means you get even more than advertised. Haste is already our best stat and getting a big bonus that doesn’t get reduced by diminishing returns is significant.

Upgrading your Play: Shaohao

Outside of Cooldowns

Recognition of damage patterns and of your capabilities to heal with Renewing Mist windows become crucial. It’s fairly easy to cast Sheilun’s Gift with major cooldowns, however you’ll also need to utilize it outside of them to ensure you do the most HPS possible with it.

Here we can see the damage patterns of Terros:

These are hard hitting but very predictable bursts which makes them a good example.

Each time a major damage event went out there was a cast of Sheilun’s Gift to go along with it, ensuring there was always a buff up for any relevant damage taken. Each window of damage on Terros is only 6-10 seconds so there’s no need for us to sit on 7-10 clouds. We’re better off casting it more regularly here for better coverage than saving up for 2-3 big damage windows. This recognition of boss damage patterns is important and you should be utilizing Warcraftlogs’ “Damage Taken” tab to see where you should be using your casts of Sheilun’s Gift.

You can also precast Sheilun’s Gift before a major raid-wide nuke to ensure little overhealing. This can be beneficial for fights like Raszageth where you can track the timers of the Static Charge exxplosions or the Shattering Shroud absorb on Mythic.

Shaohao’s Lessons also have an alternative in Veil of Pride but this is quite a bit weaker comparatively. It only really shines in heavy single target healing builds which shouldn’t often be necessary.

Shaohao during Celestials

Scenario 1: Plenty of Clouds active

This is a scenario where I have 8 or more clouds prior to using my celestial. In this case I have Jade Bond so I want to make sure that my Shaohao’s Lessons window covers the entirety of my Chi-Ji. To do this I would anticipate when I want to use Chi-Ji and cast Sheilun’s Gift prior to using Chi-Ji. Keep in mind you still want to set up your Chi-Ji accordingly with 3 Tiger Palms, applying all charges of Renewing Mist, and casting Essence Font to spread hots and proc Ancient Teachings. This is the simplest scenario.

Scenario 2: Few Clouds

This second scenario is a bit more complicated and requires some understanding of how Shaohao’s Lessons work. Since the duration of the buff scales with the number of clouds, sometimes on fights where you would want to Chi-Ji early on you will not be able to do scenario one because you don’t have enough time to collect 7+ clouds. Instead, we’ll cast Sheilun’s Gift during our Celestial instead. If you are running Gift of the Celestial then you DO NOT want to cast Sheilun’s Gift during your Celestial. You want to be casting it beforehand as the reduced duration of the Celestial will compensate for the smaller Shaohao window. In this screenshot I go into my Chi-Ji with 3 clouds; knowing that, I do not want to precast my Sheilun’s because I know that a majority of my healing with Chi-Ji is going to be coming from my Enveloping Mist and Enveloping Breath. If I were to use Sheilun’s Gift at 3 clouds before using my Celestial I would lose half of the effectiveness of my buff from Shaohao’s as I have very little relevant healing being done in the first 3 seconds of my Celestial.

To counteract this dilemma we want to be casting Sheilun’s Gift midway through our Celestial similar to how we would cast Essence Font. Note that the cast of Sheilun’s Gift does not replace Essence Font, you still want to be casting Essence Font during your Celestial to refresh your hots and your Ancient Teachings. Casting my Sheilun’s midway through my celestial allowed me to do significantly more HPS than I otherwise would have done casting it beforehand, or not casting it at all. This is the key distinction and recognition that needs to be made in order to maximize the effectiveness of Sheilun’s Gift and Shaohao’s Lessons. 

Shaohao & Revival

To utilize Shaohao’s Lessons with Revival you simply want to cast Sheilun’s Gift prior to the global that you would cast Revival. This can be done at any amount of clouds so long as the next global is Revival.

Stats for Default Raiding Build

Intellect >> Haste >> Crit >= Mastery (Chi-ji) > Versatility >> Mastery (Yu’lon)

You’ll generally start out by pursuing high item level gear with Haste. You can use QE Live to compare specific items and sets of gear.

Default Raiding Build Talents

Other Notable Talents

Some other notable talents in the tree that we will highlight here are: 

• Upwelling: No longer in competition with Rising Mist but won’t fit into any of our current builds either.
• Faeline Stomp: Our beloved Night Fae covenant ability makes a return with some new functionality, it now activates Ancient Teachings which solves the issue of running Ancient Teachings and Upwelling at the same time. We’ll use this on cleave fights like Primal Council in the alternative builds below.
• Ancient Teachings: Previously Ancient Teachings of the Monastery, this talent has been nerfed from 250% to 150% but is still in contention because of how much HPS it provides. 
• Jade Bond: A conduit that has been reintroduced on a choice node with another notable talent which we will talk about later called Gift of the Celestial. Jade Bond functions identically its parent conduit but is buffed up to increase the direct healing of either of our celestials by 40%. 
• Secret Infusion: A BFA Azerite trait which now increases a stat by  15% for 10 seconds. The determination of the stat is dependent on your ability usage with Thunder Focus Tea.
• Font of Life: An Azerite trait which has made its way back as a talent that has very good synergy with Secret Infusion. This talent increases the direct healing of your Essence Font bolts by a flat amount and gives them a chance to reduce the cooldown of Thunder Focus Tea by 1 second. 
• Yu’lon’s Whisper: A legendary power from Shadowlands which upon activating Thunder Focus Tea, will spew out healing to 5 allies over 2 seconds. 
• Invoker’s Delight: A legendary power from Shadowlands which increases your haste by 33% for 20 seconds after summoning your celestial. 

The Monk Class Tree

The class tree is largely utility and defensive buffs with some major nodes that should always be taken in a raid environment. 

Here is the ideal talent tree that you would play in raid. This covers all your bases defensively, offensively, and gives you all the required utility you may need apart from some specific scenario nodes like Paralysis and Provoke. Let’s go over some of the key nodes that need to be played. 

The other notable talents in the tree that should always be taken: 

• Fast Feet: Buffs the damage of your Rising Sun Kick by 70% and Spinning Crane Kick by 10%. 
• Improved Vivify: Buffs the healing of your Vivify by 40%. 
• Vivacious Vilification: Every 10 seconds your next Vivify cast is instant. 
• Chi Burst: Good old Chi Burst, not much to say, solid node.
• Ferocity of Xuen: Increases all damage dealt by 4%. 
• Resonant Fists: Your attacks have a chance to deal a small proc of nature damage to enemies within 8 yards adding a small amount of DPS.  

Frequently Asked Questions

Spirit of the Crane or Mana Tea? 

Spirit of the Crane is generally going to be better for the casual player. Mana Tea can be min-maxed and be a lot better for you if you are able to consistently spam Vivify during it. I recommend for experienced players to use Mana Tea if the fight has burstier windows. For any other fight where you do not need to spam Vivify as much, it is best to go with Spirit of the Crane. 

What happened to Refreshing Jade Wind?

Refreshing Jade Wind got reworked and now it falls behind comparatively to the other talents available. Generally this talent is never going to be played because of it being on the same choice node as Mist Wrap (which is a major HPS increase with Misty Peaks).

Can I play Jade Bond with Yu’lon? 

Nope, I recommend only ever playing Gift of the Celestial with Yu’lon and Clouded Focus.

Why no Overflowing Mists? 

A cool talent in concept, the idea of your targets with Enveloping Mist being healed for a flat % of their HP whenever they take damage can sound very appealing however, this talent does not proc off anything but direct physical damage making it next to useless for raid. 

Revival or Restoral? 

Depends on the fight and if you need a magic dispel or if a magic dispel will grief your raid. They do the same healing just one dispels magic and one does not. Restoral can also be used while stunned though this is rarely relevant in raid.

Can I play as a ranged Mistweaver?

I know this is going to be a sore spot for a lot of Mistweaver mains out there but I wanted to briefly talk about this to clarify some issues with Mistweaver Monk and how it should be played in PvE content. Mistweaver Monk is considered a melee specialization by the game’s targeted mechanics in PvE content. Furthermore, our kit largely focuses on melee  abilities for DPS and talents that synergistically amplify our healing and damage. For this reason we are going to consider the standard “Fistweaving” build as just being considered “Mistweaver”. Any ranged build option will be considered “Ranged Mistweaver” or as I like to call it “Rangedweaver”. 

Clouded Focus is not a ranged build. You must be in melee or you cannot play this build – you’ll spend 90% of every fight DPSing the boss.

Can I play Gift of the Celestial with Chi-ji?

For sure, if you can get the class trinket you can swap between the two depending on timers although I’d recommend Jade Bond 99% of the time.

What Mana Potion do I use?

With the nerf to Chilled Clarity, our only options are instant mana potions or Potions of Power. You’d only use a sleeping mana potion if a fight has set downtime like Razsagath did since our filler spells are very important and losing 10s of them is expensive.

Final Notes

Overall I am extremely happy with this iteration of Mistweaver and I hope that you will enjoy it as well. I think we are very strong in a lot of aspects of the meta and we are competitive in all forms of content. It is always a pleasure for me to write these guides for the community. I genuinely appreciate all the help and support of everyone around me and I wish to continue to produce even better content and information for everyone out there to become the best Mistweaver they can be.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask me directly in the Peak of Serenity Discord or on any of my social medias:

Discord: sweggles#0001
Twitch: SwegglesQT
Twitter: sweggles1
I do coaching now as well! If you are looking to improve your Mistweaver play and want to learn from the best, I am happy to help you achieve the best possible results you can! If you are interested take a look here https://metafy.gg/@Sweggles/sessions