Rising Mist – Mistweaver Monk in 8.3 (Updated 29 April)

Rising Mist is a new dynamic, rewarding Mistweaver playstyle buffed significantly in 8.3. The following guide has been written by Sweggles on Thrall and edited for the nerf by Voulk. You can catch high level Rising Mist gameplay on his Twitch channel here. This is an evolving document and will be updated as the new build continues to be iterated on. 

8.3: The Rise of RM

When 8.3 hit, Rising Mist got a 33% increase to its base healing along with a 2 second increase to the HoT extension mechanic (from 2 to 4 seconds). We also got a 6-12% buff to most of our core spells. The combination of the two turned a near bottom-tier spec into one brimming with potential. The previous talents on the tier (Upwelling and Focused Thunder) had minimal impact on our playstyle and could lead to the feeling that the spec had a low skill ceiling. With Rising Mist we have a high-skill, high-impact, incredibly rewarding choice that focuses on Fistweaving and significant sustained healing output. It remains a dynamic, interesting build post-nerf. 

Late April Nerf

• Rising Mist received a HoT extension cap last reset. All HoTs can now be extended only to twice their original duration. This is a 70-75% nerf to the specs top-end but a much smaller change for the average player. It does change our stat priority slightly. Consider the below a “quick guide” to adapting to the patch with much more detail to come as we explore the changes.
• Stats: Crit and Versatility take back over as our prime stats. The cap means that Haste loses value quickly once you are able to extend each Renewing Mist to its full length. I don’t have a specific percentage to aim for here because it depends on how often you’re able to hit the boss (to fish for resets), how many Secret Infusion traits you have (for free extensions during the large Haste window) and how adept you are at keeping Rising Sun Kick on cooldown.
  • It’s ok to ride higher on Haste as you practice the build as it does become more forgiving if you do so. Avoid going much higher than ~25-30% base. You will likely get away with a number much much lower than that. More information to come in the next few days.
• Azerite Traits Quick Tier-List
  • A Tier: Uplifted Spirits = Secret Infusion = Heart of Darkness = Crit stat procs (Swirling Sands / Blightborne Infusion)
  • B Tier: Haste stat procs (Blood Rite / Misty Peaks)
  • Z tier: Overflowing Mists
• Playstyle Changes
  • Using your Thunder Focus Tea charges on Renewing Mist is likely a better play than on Rising Sun Kick. We still need to encapsulate this in a proper model so check back in a few days for updates.
  • Enveloping Mists will become a more sparingly used cast. It’s still usable and great on a tank getting thrashed (like the Vexiona or Ra-den tank debuffs), or a rough single target debuff (frequent in Mythic+).
  • Take Mana Tea on the level 45 talent row.
• Essences
  • Essences are reasonably straightforward for the build. Lucid Dreams major; Conflict & Strife, Ever Rising Tide and either Formless Void or Unwavering Ward minors. Take Formless Void for spread or high HPS fights and Ward when you are stacked.
• Corruption
  • You can use QE Live for Corruption and it is updated for the change. Ineffable Truth is still very good, as are most of the non-mastery stat procs. Glimpse of Clarity is being reviewed and I’d advise holding off on cleansing any for the next few days.

Everything below this line is from the original version of the guide and will be updated shortly. The playstyle advice is still incredibly useful.

Talents

Mist Wrap is your best option in all forms of content as it provides you with a longer duration on Enveloping Mist along with a 10% buff to the increased healing it already provides. Chi Burst is situational and is good for AoE damage and healing, however it is too slow and adds nothing to Rising Mists playstyle, for this reason it should rarely be taken.

Mana Tea in my opinion is the best overall talent choice here. It gives you a mana cooldown which is very helpful with how mana intensive Rising Mists can be at times. 

Invoke Chi-Ji is a decent cooldown but it is only really taken for the fact that it doesn’t require as many globals as the other two options. You are very GCD locked with Rising Mists and Chi-Ji impacts your GCDs the least out of the options. Jade Serpent Statue is good for tank healing fights. In Mythic+ you only play Jade Serpent Statue. 

Some other talent notes:

Tiger’s Lust clears you of roots and snares which is very helpful for Wrathion and Shad’har the Insatiable on Mythic difficulty. 

Ring of Peace is HUGE for Mythic+. It’s a great way to control mobs along with a good defensive for your tank or yourself in some cases. 90% of mobs cannot enter your Ring of Peace, giving you and your group a 5 second breather. This talent is especially good for Sanguine weeks in Mythic+ because you can knock mobs out of the pools so they do not heal. 

Diffuse Magic can be really good in some scenarios in raid and in Mythic+. It can clear you of almost every magical debuff instantly which is very useful along with providing you a substantial 60% magic damage reduction. Particularly on Bursting weeks in M+ this talent is very worthwhile. 

Essences

Corruption Effects

Corruption is reasonably straightforward for Rising Mist. You’re seeking out anything with Haste on it and as many Ineffable Truth as you can get your hands on. Crit and Versatility from all sources are decent fallbacks depending on your gear. You can compare all Corruption effects in QE Live.

DPS Corruption Effects

None of these add any healing, but dealing extra damage as a healer can be very valuable. This is particularly true in Mythic+.

Single Target, 45% haste, 450k base health. 

In Mythic+ situations Twilight Devastation gains a lot of value and should be prioritized.  

Playstyle & Rotation

So now that you have all the gear, all the talents, the correct stats, all the essences. Now it’s time to learn about your rotation!

Setting up the perfect pull

Nine seconds before the pull you want to use one charge of Renewing Mists, this allows you to get a free charge out before the pull. It’ll still be around when you start hard ramping.

One second before the pull you want to use a second charge of Renewing Mists then at 0 seconds you want to use your last charge of Renewing Mists. Depending on the fight you may want to apply Enveloping Mists to one of the tanks before using Thunder Focus Tea on Rising Sun Kick and beginning your ramp. Use your own judgement based on expected tank damage.

The Ramp Phase 

This is the key section of the Rising Mist playstyle. You will have to decide on the spot when you want to stop DPSing (ramping) to start healing. Inevitably, when you start spamming Vivify your Renewing Mist stacks are going to start dropping off. It is up to you in the moment to think when is the best time to start spamming Vivify but here are some pointers.

5-7 Renewing Mists – Continue ramping unless someone will surely die if you don’t heal them. Most of the time you can trust your other healers to do the job. The key ramp rotation is Rising Sun Kick > Renewing Mist > Tigers Palm to 2-3 stacks -> Blackout Kick.

When Thunder Focus Tea is off cooldown you will TFT -> Rising Sun Kick -> Tiger Palm -> Rising Sun Kick. Take care that you don’t Blackout kick in between because the potential reset will be wasted. 

8-10 Renewing Mists – Start looking to spam Vivify. Unless you have crazy high haste or really good procs you are not going to be holding this amount of stacks for long. Use your judgement and hold out if you know a big damage phase is coming. 

The key here is to keep your Rising Sun Kick, Renewing Mist and Thunder Focus Tea on cooldown as often as you can and that’s a key metric you can use to rate your play. The longer you keep your extended HoTs active the more healing you’ll do. It’s not easy to master, but it’s incredibly rewarding as you inch toward it.

Every fight should relatively have the same healing breakdown. The first minute or so of the fight will almost always be spent building. That won’t penalize you much on most fights since with the exception of N’zoth and Hivemind we usually kick off with a low healing requirement. Focus on getting out as many Renewing Mists as possible and save your Vivify pump for a little later.

Make sure you’re not ramping at a time where all your stacks are going to waste. If you see yourself losing your peak of your ramp when nothing is going out. Try to shift your Renewing Mist charges into different positions. 

Finding a place for Enveloping Mist & Essence Font

On fights with a lot of priority single target damage like Mythic Vexiona you can extend Enveloping Mist almost indefinitely on your tanks. This is highly recommended since with enough extensions it quickly becomes one of the most efficient casts in your kit. 

Essence Font isn’t quite as prominent as it was in the Upwelling build. You’ll cast it when you have to move while healing and Renewing Mist is still on cooldown. You can also use it early in the pull to get some HoTs to extend but they won’t make up a large percentage of your healing.

Mythic+ and Way of the Crane

Way of the Crane is a DPS/HPS ability on a 1 minute cooldown that’s used almost exclusively in Mythic+. It costs 1/4th of your base mana but this isn’t quite as big an issue in Mythic+ and we’ll have supportive mana essences to help fend it off. With Way of the Crane you can do 100k DPS and 150k HPS at the same time. It’s unrivaled in its burst niche. 

Ability Breakdown

Tiger Palm: Does very little healing on its own but it should be used 3 times before pressing WotC 

Blackout Kick: One of the main sources for snap healing with WotC. Stacking 3 Teaching of the Monastery stacks then using Blackout Kick when the group needs to be healed is extremely effective. 

Rising Sun Kick: Your biggest snap heal. Aim to have have Thunder Focus Tea up when you use Way of the Crane so you can get two huge Rising Sun Kicks out on the group. 

Spinning Crane Kick: The damage to healing transfer rate is nerfed by 50% for Spinning Crane Kick but it still does substantial healing on big AoE packs. It beats your single target rotation in damage when there are four enemies out, but requires closer to 8 before it beats them in healing. 

Note: Way of the Crane healing is proximity based. If you are closest to 2 of your DPS who are at 90% health you will not heal your 3rd DPS who is sitting there at 20% health. You can retarget it by shuffling around slightly. 

Resources

The next step when you have your basic gameplay down is to fine tune it using Wowanalyzer and Warcraftlogs, both fantastic resources.

Mastering the Essentials

Here we can see a log of mine. I am going to show you how to break down your casts so you can analyze yourself correctly. By clicking on casts you can see all abilities cast along with their frequency.

Hopefully your breakdown is similar. We are most interested in our Rising Sun Kick and Renewing Mist casts. You can click on specific spells to see more in-depth information on them. Let’s look closer:

In particular we’re interested in the gaps between casts. A layout like this shows strong play since there are only rare gaps. Compare yours. You never want Rising Sun Kick to be on cooldown for longer than ~2 seconds. You can do the same for Renewing Mist. 

Keep coming back to your cast priority. Rising Sun Kick > Renewing Mist > any other cast at all times. Even during a big Vivify burst you want to maintain the above.

Vivify, Logs & You

Vivify turns your sustained net of healing into a cannon ready to instantly top the raid. It often makes up ~40% or more of your healing. The reason it’s so strong is that it cleaves to every ally affected by Renewing Mists which is a significant number with the Rising Mist build. 40% or more of your healing is coming directly from your casts of this ability. 

Take a look at this picture of some Vivify casts. You’ll notice they’re all in small, short but powerful ramps. This is due to how we spread as many HoTs as possible before we start blasting. These bursts are also huge mana hogs so if you have any innervates available to you you’ll make use of them here. You’ll also want to weave in your Mana Tea whenever it’s off cooldown. 

To highlight how strong your Vivify bursts are, take a look at this graph showing upwards of 200,000+ HPS purely from Vivify casts. 

WowAnalyzer: Your new best friend

Wowanalyzer is a website that analyzers your play on a fight by fight basis. The Mistweaver module was written by prominent members of the Peak of Serenity community – Abelito and Anomoly. The site is incredibly easy to use and by inputting a log you’ll quickly learn what you can improve on as well as in-depth information about your play. Key features include your spell usage breakdown and average renewing mist count (try and improve this every attempt).

Weak Auras & Macros

You’ll likely get a lot of use out of this weak aura for tracking the number of Renewing Mists you have out at once. It’ll also show you how close your shortest ReM is to running out. 

https://pastebin.com/ipd0C41G

Mouseovers

I’d strongly recommend mouseovers for your healing spells. They can lead to a significant improvement in your play since they allow you to target the boss at all times. 

You might also consider looking into the Clique addon which can handle mouseover macros for you.

I also use an especially clean UI which has as little clutter as possible to reduce the amount of strain on my eyes and on my brain. This is my ElvUI profile, feel free to use it https://pastebin.com/MNXx3mjQ

Mistweaver Abbreviation Compendium

EF: Essence Font
MT: Mana Tea
Viv: Vivify
ENV: Enveloping Mists
ReM: Renewing Mists
TP: Tiger Palm
BoK: Blackout Kick
RSK: Rising Sun Kick
SCK: Spinning Crane Kick
TFT: Thunder Focus Tea
FT: Focused Thunder
RM: Rising Mists
UW: Upwelling
JSS: Jade Serpent Statue
WotC: Way of the Crane
LC: Life Cocoon
RJW: Rushing Jade Wind
HoD: Heart of Darkness
SI: Secret Infusion
US: Uplifted Spirits
FoL: Font of Life
CB: Chi Burst
SotC: Spirit of the Crane
TotM: Teachings of the Monastery
Ring/RoP: Ring of Peace
Incap: Paralysis

Consider yourself primed for Rising Mist. Aim to improve on a key metric every time you pull a boss and you’ll be topping the meters and our hearts before you know it. If you have further questions feel free to join the Peak of Serenity discord. You’re also welcome to message me directly at discord tag Sweggles#0001. You can compare all gear, including your Corrupted pieces, in QE Live (the online spreadsheet) which has a Rising Mist option. Consider raising the default Haste weight to ~2.5-3.