PvE Mistweaver Monk Rotations & Cooldowns

As a healer, the Mistweaver Monk has less of a set rotation and more of a priority system. You’ll be performing triage with your healing abilities while using your cooldowns to maximize your output and minimize your mana usage, and perhaps even weaving in a little damage where you can.

Important Mechanics

Before we get into your spell priority, there are a couple of key features of Mistweaver Monks that should be understood for optimizing your spell choices.

Chi

Mistweaver Monks have a special resource in addition to their mana called Chi. This resource is similar to a Paladin’s Holy Power: you have some abilities that generate it and others that spend it. You can store up to 4 Chi at a time. Generally, you’ll be spending mana to generate Chi, and then spending Chi on more powerful abilities.

The talent you choose in the third/level 45 row, Power Strikes, Ascension, or Chi Brew, will affect your Chi budget.

Despite having the word Chi in their names, Chi Wave, Chi Burst, and Chi Torpedo do not generate or spend Chi.

Healing Spheres

Mistweaver Monks can summon a Healing Sphere directly with a spell, or through their Mastery, Gift of the Serpent, when they cast another heal. These spheres stay put for up to one minute, or four minutes with Glyph of Enduring Healing Sphere. They can be picked up by walking through them, which will trigger their healing on the player who does so. If they are not activated in this way before they expire, they will heal an ally within 6 yards for half of their potential healing power.

Mana Tea

Mistweaver Monks have a passive ability, Brewing: Mana Tea, which causes them to generate a charge of Mana Tea for every 4 Chi they spend. This ability can “crit” and give you double charges. You can stack it up to 20 times.

The sole purpose of these charges is to power your primary mana regeneration ability, Mana Tea. Using this ability will restore 4% of your maximum mana for every charge. You must stand still to channel this ability, which channels at a rate of .5 seconds per stack. It can be canceled without wasting unchanneled charges.

Glyph of Mana Tea removes the channeling requirement and makes it instant, but it will only consume two charges at a time and will have a 10 second cooldown. The talent Chi Brew will allow you to generate 2 stacks of Mana Tea on demand.

Fistweaving

Fistweaving is the Mistweaver Monk’s damage-to-healing mechanic. Their Stance of the Wise Serpent provides a smart heal called Eminence, healing nearby allies for 25% of the damage you deal (not including auto attacks). Teachings of the Monastery adds even more healing synergy to Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick, and Spinning Crane Kick. Muscle Memory adds a little bit of mana regeneration to your damaging abilities as well.

Like the Discipline Priest’s Atonement mechanic, you won’t be able to heal progression content exclusively through fistweaving. Instead, it’s a way to squeeze in some extra damage without completely neglecting your healing.

Spell Priority

Be sure to maintain Stance of the Wise Serpent at all times. You shouldn’t need to re-apply it most of the time, but you will still want to notice if it somehow gets deactivated or changed.

1. Use Summon Jade Serpent Statue to keep your statue active and within 20 yards of allies.
2. Use Healing Sphere if you don’t have 3 Healing Spheres active within 6 yards of allies.
   • Only the spheres summoned by this ability count toward the limit – you can have more spheres up through your Mastery.
3. Use Thunder Focus Tea and Uplift after every third Renewing Mist when you have at least 2 Chi.
4. Use Renewing Mist on cooldown on a target who is taking damage.
5. Use Chi Wave, Zen Sphere, or Chi Burst on cooldown, unless you expect a damage spike soon and want to save it for that.
6. Use Chi Torpedo if you have the talent and a charge available, and if you can safely hit a stacked group of players with it.
7. Use Expel Harm on cooldown.
   • You can use it on targets other than yourself if you have Glyph of Targeted Expulsion.
8. Use Soothing Mist on a target who needs healing.
9. Use Surging Mist on a target who needs immediate emergency healing.
   • It’s almost always best to channel Soothing Mist first. This will delay your Surging Mist cast by a global cooldown, but it will also make it instant, so you won’t actually lose time versus hard-casting it. This will allow you to do more healing in the same window as long as you’re quick, while also generating Chi.
10. Use Enveloping Mist on a target who is taking (or about to take) heavy damage if you have at least 3 Chi.
    • Like with Surging Mist, it’s best to channel Soothing Mist first. This will make Enveloping Mist instant cast and actually save you time versus hard-casting Enveloping Mist alone, since its cast time is longer than a global cooldown. Your Soothing Mist will also benefit from the increased healing that Enveloping Mist provides for the remainder of its channel.
11. Use Spinning Crane Kick (or Rushing Jade Wind if you have the talent) if it will hit at least 3 targets.
12. Use Mana Tea when you have charges of Mana Tea available to get mana back, wherever you can fit it in.
    • Canceling the channel does not waste stacks, so you can channel this for as little or as much time as you are comfortable.

Fistweaving Rotation

Fistweaving is similar to Atonement healing for Discipline Priests, allowing you to contribute some damage while also maintaining a steady stream of healing on your allies. You will not be able to heal exclusively through fistweaving for most fights. Much of the Mistweaver Monk learning curve is around figuring out when you can afford to do this and when you need to use direct heals. But fistweaving can be a powerful tool for fights with tight DPS checks, or farm content where you just want to clear it as quickly as possible.

In these scenarios you can lean heavily into fistweaving with the following simplified rotation. Remember to take advantage of the Chi you build to throw out some extra healing when needed. You don’t have to commit fully to fistweaving or direct heals either. Once you get the feel for it you will be able to bounce back and forth as needed. It’s essential to be mindful of your mana while fistweaving, especially before you get your legendary meta gem.

Be sure that your Stance of the Wise Serpent remains active so that you gain the full healing benefits from your fistweaving abilities as well as the Hit you need for them to be effective. There is no good reason to ever use Stance of the Fierce Tiger, even for dealing damage. You should also maintain your Summon Jade Serpent Statue as it will contribute a large portion of your healing while fistweaving.

1. Swap to your direct healing priority list above if damage becomes too heavy.
2. Use Blackout Kick to maintain the Serpent’s Zeal buff when you have at least 2 Chi.
3. Use Tiger Palm to maintain the Tiger Power buff when you have at least 1 Ch.
4. Use Blackout Kick when you have Muscle Memory and at least 2 Chi if you are fighting more than one enemy.
5. Use Tiger Palm when you have Muscle Memory and at least 1 Chi.
6. Use Touch of Death when you have 3 Chi and it’s available.
7. Use Spinning Crane Kick to generate Chi if you are fighting more than two enemies.
8. Use Expel Harm on cooldown to generate Chi if you are within 10 yards of an enemy.
9. Use Crackling Jade Lightning if you’re out of melee range.
10. Use Jab to generate Chi otherwise.

Important Cooldowns

In addition to your core healing spells, you have a number of abilities with longer cooldowns that you’ll want to utilize in opportune moments.

Healing & Defensive Cooldowns

• Dampen Harm (Talent)
  Halves the damage of the next 3 attacks within 45 seconds that deal 20% or more of your health. A solid personal defensive on a 90 second cooldown, and castable while stunned.
• Diffuse Magic (Talent)
  Reduces all spell damage done to you for 6 seconds by a whopping 90%, and also clears your debuffs and sends them back to their casters. A very powerful personal defensive on a 90 second cooldown. You’ll want to use this talent for most fights unless you expect to primarily be taking physical damage, in which case Dampen Harm is better.
• Fortifying Brew
  Increases your health by 20% and reduces the damage you take by 20% for 20 seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown. With Glyph of Fortifying Brew, the health increase is only 10% but the damage reduction is raised to 25%. Another strong personal defensive ability.
• Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger (Talent)
  If you have this talent, you’ll be able to summon Xuen once every 3 minutes to deal damage to your current target. This is a powerful burst damage ability that will also do some healing through your fistweaving passives. Xuen benefits from buffs, making him even stronger if you stack him with other cooldowns or procs.
• Life Cocoon
  Your external single-target cooldown for a tank or another target who is taking too much damage. It absorbs a very high amount of damage and increases periodic healing (HoTs and channeled heals) on the target by 50%, with a 12 second duration. You can use this once every two minutes. Often it will be called for as part of a tank defensive rotation. With Glyph of Life Cocoon, you can cast it while stunned, but that will mainly be useful in PvP.
• Revival
  A very powerful cooldown that heals all of your teammates within 100 yards and clears the majority of debuffs all in one go. It’s on a 3-minute cooldown, so you’ll want to use it wisely, but don’t fall into the trap of holding onto it forever and never using it. If there are no major debuffs on a fight, you can use it exclusively for its AoE heal. It will heal each target for less in a 25-player group than in a 10-player or 5-player group, but the total healing is still quite high. Remember also that it has a massive range and can heal targets who can’t otherwise be reached.
• Thunder Focus Tea
  You will need to have 1 Chi to spend if you want to use this. It buffs your next Surging Mist or Uplift. Generally you should use it on cooldown with Uplift to extend the duration of your Renewing Mists.
• Zen Meditation
  This spell reduces all damage you take by 90% for 8 seconds, very similar to other powerful personal defensives such as Dispersion. But wait, there’s more: it will also allow you to soak up to 5 harmful spells on your teammates. You can therefore use this as a personal defensive, a raid cooldown, or both. Note that any melee attacks you receive will break its effect, so be careful not to waste its 3-minute cooldown at an inopportune moment, such as when adds are spawning.

Mana Cooldowns

• Chi Brew (Talent)
  Your lone mana ability is Mana Tea, and you’ll be using it as part of your rotation. This talent gives you a cooldown that affects it, and also granting you 2 Chi on demand. It has two charges that recharge every 45 seconds. If you have this talent, you should use it whenever you have a charge available to maximize its value.

Utility Spells

Mistweaver Monks have a variety of useful spells that also bear mentioning.

Crowd Control

• Charging Ox Wave (Talent)
• Disable
• Grapple Weapon
• Leg Sweep (Talent)
• Paralysis
• Provoke
• Ring of Peace (Talent)
• Spear Hand Strike

Movement

• Nimble Brew
• Roll/Chi Torpedo (Talent)
• Tiger’s Lust (Talent)
• Transcendence
• Transcendence: Transfer
• Zen Pilgrimage

Buffs

• Legacy of the Emperor
• Stance of the Fierce Tiger
• Stance of the Wise Serpent

Dispels

• Detox

Revive

• Resuscitate