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Mistweavers have some pretty significant changes come Warlords. On the positive side, they have a new stance which is designed specifically for those who want to fistweave, with the ability to swap between fistweaving and healing without too much difficulty.
First, Uplift now has a 1.5 second cast time, up from an instacast. This is part of blizzard’s plan to tone down the abundance of instacast heals in the raid.
Mistweavers get a brand new passive called Focus and Harmony.
Focus and Harmony: Haste effects lower the global cooldown of your spells and abilities.
However, with this new ability, Mistweavers will lose Stance of the Wise Serpent and its ability to increase Haste from items by 50%.
Several abilities will no longer generate Chi for Mistweavers. Crackling Jade Lightning and Soothing Mist won’t generate Chi.
Thunder Focus Tea has been redesigned.
Thunder Focus Tea now causes the next Renewing Mist to jump up to 4 times (used to cause the next Uplift to refresh the duration of Renewing Mists on all targets).
Ah Healing Spheres, Mistweavers love or hate them, and usually it is hate them unless it is a fight that sees raid members constantly on the move all over the place – but even then, it isn’t unusual for raiders to run around them, mistakenly believing they are some bad boss mechanic.
First, Healing Spheres as the spell are being removed. Instead, Gift of the Serpent will summon Healing Spheres.
They are getting a change that increases the range and healing they give on expiring.
Healing Spheres now heal an ally within 12yd (up from 6yd) for 100% (up from 50%) of their normal healing, when they expire.
Another new ability for Mistweavers is called Detonate Chi, which is another way to put those healing spehres to work.
Detonate Chi: Instantly detonate all of your Healing Spheres, causing each of them to heal a nearby ally within 12 yards of the sphere. 15 sec cooldown.
They’ve also solved the issue where a slightly damaged raid member could run through the Healing Spheres and detonate them all at once. Now, a player will only consume as many as needed, leaving the remainder on the ground.
Mana was another area where Mistweavers had no problem whatsoever. They could happily choose gear without any spirit at all, and reforging away as much of the spirit as possible that they had, and mana regen still wasn’t an issue – so rather than solve that issue, Blizzard worked the class around low spirit instead. Blizzard is trying to rectify this in the new expansion, back to a place where Mistweavers have to care about mana and spirit.
The alpha patch notes have quite a bit about the new Stance of the Spirited Crane, aka the Fistweaving stance.
Stance of the Spirited Crane is a new ability for Mistweaver Monks, which replaces Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
The Spell-Power-to-Attack-Power conversion effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
The Eminence effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
Teachings of the Monastery now makes Spinning Crane Kick heal friends instead of damaging enemies, while in Stance of the Wise Serpent (previously, it would heal allies in addition to damaging enemies).
Mastery: Gift of the Serpent’s Healing Spheres now scale with Spell Power instead of Attack Power.
Serpent’s Zeal has been removed. Eminence now always includes Auto Attacks.
Muscle Memory and Vital Mists have been merged. Muscle Memory now requires Stance of the Spirited Crane, and passively increases the damage of Crackling Jade Lightning by 100%, causes Tiger Palm to trigger the Vital Mists effect, and causes Blackout Kick to hit 4 additional nearby targets for 50% damage.
The following abilities now require Stance of the Wise Serpent for Mistweavers:
Enveloping Mist, Renewing Mist, Soothing Mist, Uplift
The following abilities now require Stance of the Spirited Crane for Mistweavers:
Blackout Kick, Jab, Tiger Palm
These are quite significant changes that Mistweavers will have to learn and cope with. It’s great that they’re getting to stance is so they can split between being that hybrid healer/DPS or a straight healer, something that’s is usually advantageous during progression when every little bit of DPS matters.
It is definitely worth it for Mistweavers to either hit the beta when it’s available to learn the new nuances of the class, or plan to hit 6.0 hard with raiding, so you can be fully competent once all these changes go live.
As always, these are Alpha patch notes and Blizzard is subject to change them at any time.
