TBH we needed it, I'm just glad they left uplift alone.
We can still do pretty heavy AoE healing. This is what I basically do when some heavy AoE is required in 10man raid (might work for 25man aswell).
Before the AoE dmg, make sure that RM is on everyone, I usually pop thunder focus tea and uplift to renew the duration to last the aoe dmg.
When the aoe is about to come, I pop Rushing Jade Wind and after that I will do basic rotation of SCK, SCK, SCK, SCK, Uplift, Uplift, SCK, SCK and so on.
During the aoe rotation I also keep RM on cooldown just to maximize the healing for uplift.
But in general I think that either Monk healing is (was, before 30% reduced SCK healing) a bit too overpowered or the other classes are in need of a slight buff.
Do you have to dps (Serpent's Zeal) in order to "properly" heal with this class? Or can you just ignore it and still pull good HPS?
Depends entirely on the circumstances. Serpent's Zeal and Soothing Mists are mutually exclusive: you cannot do both at the same time. You have both tools, and it's up to you to decide how to use them.
Soothing mists is ranged, and this simple fact can be a big deal. It's also targeted - while Eminence healing is pretty smart, there are times when you may want to override its priorities. It also allows for your greatest HPS throughput - Enveloping/Surging Mists. For those moments when you really need a heal right now now now, you really can't be autoattacking.
Serpent's Zeal, on the other hand, is mana-free healing. This cannot be overstated. If you rely exclusively on Soothing Mists for general topping off and minor damage fixing, then you're putting an unnecessary drain on your mana reserves. Being in melee also carries with it some risks, as damage is generally higher there. But the healing from meleeweaving is actually rather strong. Blackout Kick actually does a remarkably large amount of healing, and if you have a lot of chi to burn and do two back to back it's a pretty effective healing spike. If you compare it to other Chi uses, it actually compares rather favorably. Enveloping Mists is still incredibly strong, but unless you really need AOE healing from Uplift, using Chi for melee strikes is the best bang for the buck. It's also worth emphasizing that Eminence heals proc your Mastery, which is even more mana-free healing. Getting the dps to use them however...bleh. But the ones that land close enough to hit people anyway, those are just more free healing.
I've tried dungeon runs where I did meleeweaving exclusively, traditional ranged healing exclusively, and a mix of both. The meleeweaving exclusively led to a lot of overhealing if I just did the standard DPS rotation of spamming melee abilities, but it also had problems dealing with spike damage. The ranged healing exclusively led to much more controlled healing, but I noticed a significant inefficiency in using Soothing Mists for general minor damage, leading to dropping low on mana for not particularly any good reason. The total healing throughput was enormous, however - I never had problems keeping people up, as long as I had mana with which to do it.
The mix, though, ended up being the most effective and compelling for me, and has become my primary playstyle. The basics are use Renewing Mists on cooldown (the specific target doesn't matter all that much, it spreads itself out enough. I do have it Glyphed though, you really do need the 40yd range, though that does mean that some care in targeting is appropriate since it usually won't go from melee to melee), start off with some Jabs to build up four Chi, and then two Blackout Kicks to get Serpent's Zeal up. The tank usually has taken some fair bit of damage, but the Blackout Kicks heal that up rather nicely, and then I settle into an autoattack routine continuing to spam Renewing Mists. For minor damage, I do nothing but autoattack, and let Serpent's Zeal and Renewing Mists do the work. For moderate damage, I'll try to jab a few times and get Tiger's Palm stacks up. The armor pen buff is nice, but I'm not certain it's worth overhealing to get ASAP. For heavy damage, that's when I'll hit the tank with Soothing Mists and an instant Enveloping Mists. There really is very little that's as good at raw throughput than that, and it has only a moderate mana cost since the bulk of the power is spent by Chi. Reapply a Blackout Kick every now and then to keep Serpent's Zeal up, and continue.
The result is a long, efficient mana pool that can provide the burst when needed. You have two worlds, and you should use the best of both.
Last edited by Dreyo; 2012-10-10 at 02:43 PM.
Great post Dreyo, while I've been able to figure most of what you said on my own the last couple days -- your explanation points out nuances that are rather critical to good performance. Far more useful than the wowhead links in the OP. Cheers
Edit -- What's your take on Mana Tea glyph?
Vital. Sure, leaving it unglyphed will allow you to dump all your stacks to get a hefty chunk of mana, but for all that time you're no longer healing, you're no longer generating chi, you're no longer avoiding the fire, etc. You really don't have all that much time to just sit around chugging on a tea.
Furthermore, the glyph is a throughput increase. For the cost of a 1-second GCD, you get two stacks of tea. Unglyphed, it takes two seconds to drink those two stacks.
This boils down to a simple piece of advice: glyph it, and get used to drinking your tea on cooldown. You won't be generating stacks fast enough to worry about not being able to drink them all, and it's still the same mana gain per stack. The only situation where drinking them early might be harmful would be if you then later cap out on mana but would then later need to chug those stacks you had consumed earlier. I honestly can't think of a situation where that ever would come up.
Hopefully they really fixed the SM channeling interrupt on Elegon. Was a pain in the Ass to heal conventionally. I am eager to see how much the nerf to SCK affects me topping the group after the add detonates.
This alone is compelling enough to give it a try. I'm ok with big chugs in lulls, I'm more concerned with when the proverbial poop hits the fan and you are very low in mana, a healer is either oom or dead and your Mana Tea only gives 2 charges of mana. And I don't think that's even enough for an Uplift (havent mathed it , Im at work)
The idea behind the glyph is that when the poop hits the fan, you're not very low in mana because you've been on top of your tea the whole time. As I said, you don't get more tea either way, so unless you cap your mana there's no difference in amount of mana gained glyphed vs unglyphed.
If you're having to use your tea like a mage's Evocation, then you've been managing your mana badly the entire time.
I dont think it's that binary of a conclusion, like I said if the fight has lulls -- taking big drinks of mana tea at those opportune times is even better throughput than having to waste a GCD every 10 seconds.
If you're having to use your tea like a mage's Evocation, then you've been managing your mana badly the entire time.
A good mage times his Evo during lulls as well for the same reason.
I can very easily turn the argument around and make analogies to life tapping like a lock but that doesn't bring anything new to the table
Which means that unglyphed is at best situational, which is the entire point behind glyphs. For fights that have lulls, sure, take out the glyph and enjoy. But as a piece of general advice, I have to say go with the glyph. The gain for most fights is substantial, whereas the gain for fights with lulls isn't.
I did give it a try last night, have to admit Id forget to proactively use it at times. But the times I did use it properly, it did work well enough.
The biggest difference between glyph and no glyph is definitely movement, keeping the glyph b/c of that alone >..>
The only other comment I could make is that I was doing both Serpent's Zeal and Renewing Mists/uplift, and the skill cap on doing that properly on top of tossing out needed heals is quite substantial. I was playing rather sloppily, and still managed to destroy the healing meter. It leaves me wondering how much of this will get nerfed.
Also -- for 10 man, Chi Wave is AMAZING. :O
If there's one thing I won't complain about, it's that the skill cap is too high for a class.
Glyph of Uplift is amazing for stoneguard heroic. That is all.
My philosophy is that a class should be easy to play and difficult to master, and I can definitely sympathize with your statement.
My only real concern is that Mistweaver basic healing isn't easy enough.
I know this is a new class, and a new style of healing - but concepts like what's efficient and what is not should be much more obvious and well defined.
How was your mana for that fight though, since your using the glyph.
Is there a way to alter the color of the damage- and healingnumbers? It'd be nice to see more clearly what is damage and healing, especially when there are a gazillion numbers popping up.