Ways to improve for our Mistweaver...

[Lumiair]

You wouldn't bring a Disc Priest that doesn't use Atonement so why would you want a MW who doesn't use Eminence? ESPECIALLY for farm content at the very least.

[Totaltotemic]

wrong is subjective. Its an option to add in damage not a requirement.

Wrong is objective, it just changes based on what your goal is. If your goal is to kill raid bosses in the most efficient manner possible, then ignoring parts of your spec just because you don't like them is doing it wrong. An option is when you choose to do one useful thing instead of another useful thing. Choosing to do something not useful instead of something useful is just being bad, not taking an option. If a Resto Shaman went an entire raid without using Stormlash Totem, no one would be defending them saying "oh but it's optional, what if they just don't like to do damage?"

On Garrosh Hellscream when literally nothing is happening except tank damage, if you're sitting there spamming Soothing Mist and Enveloping Mist when the tank is never going below 80%, you're being a waste of space. If you're on Galakras and a new wave of adds just came out and you're at 100% mana and not using SCK/RJW/BoK, you're not actually doing anything useful. On Sha of Pride if everyone is dispelled and you're just standing around waiting for something to happen, you're wasting time that could be spent doing damage.

If no healing needs to be done, you do damage. This is true of every healing spec, not just MW because they're slightly more effective at it. Every tank does damage and heals, every DPS strives to take less damage and heal, and every healer tries to take less damage and do some damage. Anyone that wants to kill Heroic Garrosh someday needs to learn that when the healing is covered, bad players will sit there and overheal or do nothing while good players will squeeze some damage in. This doesn't mean you have to wear a DPS cloak and DPS trinkets using DPS talents, but if you're going an entire raid without having a 10-15 second period where you just channel CJL or Jab/TP over and over then you're simply not paying attention to the raid. The only fight in the entire tier that doesn't have some kind of gap in incoming damage somewhere is Malkorok; raid-wide damage from start to finish is just not something that's designed into most fights anymore.

[Spotnick]

Some healers like to focus on healing, and only on healing.

It's kind of funny, I love dpsing on my disc priest, I hate dpsing on my monk as a healer.

I think I just hate being in melee in a 25 man raid, there is just too many spell clutter annoying me as hell and distracting me from being cleaved, I had no issue fistweaving in 10 man before.

I can't wait to see how they will fix the spell effect clutter in WOD.

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You wouldn't bring a Disc Priest that doesn't use Atonement so why would you want a MW who doesn't use Eminence? ESPECIALLY for farm content at the very least.

Apples and oranges though... eminence will not improve your healing the way atonement does, and both works better in 10 man due the the limited amount of targets. In fact, I have yet to find a raid leader who cares about dps meters for healers, they probably care more in progression, not on farm.. when enrage timers are tight. Right now they only check healing meters thinking about who they will have to cut when they trim the roster for mythic raids!

Anyways, both will be sub-par once 6.0 hits.

[Deleted]

Apples and oranges though... eminence will not improve your healing the way atonement does, and both works better in 10 man due the the limited amount of targets.

Anyways, both will be sub-par once 6.0 hits.

If it can improve your damage without hurting your healing it is still a net gain. That is what he's trying to communicate.

[Spotnick]

If it can improve your damage without hurting your healing it is still a net gain. That is what he's trying to communicate.

It's kind of impossible not to do dps as a monk anyways.. rushing jade wind does a pretty good job at that.. it got me killed from getting aggro from jailors and bats on Thok or adds on Norushen a couple of times lol.

But of course I get the idea, in my head I just think the opposite, maximizing the dps is more important for progression than farm.

[rohendar]

It's kind of funny, I love dpsing on my disc priest, I hate dpsing on my monk as a healer.

I think I just hate being in melee in a 25 man raid, there is just too many spell clutter annoying me as hell and distracting me from being cleaved, I had no issue fistweaving in 10 man before.

I can't wait to see how they will fix the spell effect clutter in WOD.

Easy: CJL from range and use Chi in uplifts.

[st33l]

You're just being pedantic because you have a personal problem with me. You know very well that a MW that goes an entire raid without pressing a single damage ability is doing it wrong, saying otherwise just to try to annoy me just wastes everyone else's time.

I agree that a MW that goes without pressing a single damaging ability is doing it wrong - that isn't my point. The fact that MW's not only need to press a 'few' damage abilities, but rather should be doing DPS almost constantly, is what is a problem - particularly for people who play a healer, well, because they want to "heal".

This isn't complicated really. A healer shouldn't be forced to DPS to remain viable in a raid. That is bad design. I am not sure why you seem to keep relating that with my feelings about you?

[Revi]

The fact that MW's not only need to press a 'few' damage abilities, but rather should be doing DPS almost constantly, is what is a problem - particularly for people who play a healer, well, because they want to "heal".

Mistweaver is a specc that needs to dps to use it's full potential, if you "play a healer because you want to heal" then pick a class that actually suits your playstyle.
If people that want to dps without a pet rolls a hunter, it's not blizzards fault for balancing hunters around using their pet, it's the players fault for choosing a class that offers a playstyle they don't enjoy

[Totaltotemic]

Mistweaver is a specc that needs to dps to use it's full potential, if you "play a healer because you want to heal" then pick a class that actually suits your playstyle.

I heard there's an old archetype for a pure healer that stands around casting heals at people all the time, a P-something... Priest?


Seriously though healing full time is a Priest and only Holy Priest thing. Discipline has always been about punishing enemies. Holy Paladins are as much about helping allies as they are about bringing down righteous fury. Resto Druids are the epitome of not just doing the one role their spec is. Resto Shamans have the water and elemental theme going on and used to have Lightning Bolt being a core part of the spec until Telluric Currents was gutted, now they fulfill a more tanky role with AV and Earth Shield.

Mistweavers from the very beginning have been the "melee healer" that uses positioning, movement, and the power of their fists to do a delicate dance that balances healing and damage. It's a core archetype of the class, from the Chi talents doing damage and healing regardless of who the target is or what your spec is to Eminence being a core mechanic of MW to even the fact that SCK/RJW still does damage even as MW. Most of the use of the icon of the spec itself (JSS) is to make damage turn into meaningful healing. If you don't want to have to do DPS almost constantly, go play a class that's designed around purely healing. Like I said, it's just as silly as a Shadow Priest that never wants to have to think about healing, they should be playing a Warlock.

[st33l]

I heard there's an old archetype for a pure healer that stands around casting heals at people all the time, a P-something... Priest?


Seriously though healing full time is a Priest and only Holy Priest thing. Discipline has always been about punishing enemies. Holy Paladins are as much about helping allies as they are about bringing down righteous fury. Resto Druids are the epitome of not just doing the one role their spec is. Resto Shamans have the water and elemental theme going on and used to have Lightning Bolt being a core part of the spec until Telluric Currents was gutted, now they fulfill a more tanky role with AV and Earth Shield.

Mistweavers from the very beginning have been the "melee healer" that uses positioning, movement, and the power of their fists to do a delicate dance that balances healing and damage. It's a core archetype of the class, from the Chi talents doing damage and healing regardless of who the target is or what your spec is to Eminence being a core mechanic of MW to even the fact that SCK/RJW still does damage even as MW. Most of the use of the icon of the spec itself (JSS) is to make damage turn into meaningful healing. If you don't want to have to do DPS almost constantly, go play a class that's designed around purely healing. Like I said, it's just as silly as a Shadow Priest that never wants to have to think about healing, they should be playing a Warlock.

There is a difference between having the ability to switch to DPS, and having to do DPS. I did mistweaving most of T15 and did just fine; never really felt the pressure to be fistweaving constantly to be viable on fights. That changed in T16. So, even Blizzard agrees with me here, hence their numerous tweets on separating out the two playstyles, leaving purely mistweaving as the higher HPS output style.

Secondly, you keep comparing hitting VE every couple of minutes and maybe shielding people if shit _really hits the fan, with an entire DPS oriented healing playstyle. You do realize that a (good) shadow priest will only heal if absolutely necessary, since it is a DPS loss? You won't bring a spriest to have them throw around PW:S on CD, would you? There isn't another spec in the game currently that needs a player with a particular role in the raid to perform a completely different role to be viable.

I 'personally' don't mind this playstyle, in fact, I quite enjoy it at times. I understand though where people who don't want to fistweave, are coming from.

[Totaltotemic]

The only reason MWs "have to" DPS all the time to be viable is because the spec's healing is awful but healing in general is so ridiculously easy in T16 that you can get away with not actually healing for half of a fight. It's not like MW's damage potential is massively higher than other healers, on my last Garrosh kill our Resto Druid and Resto Shaman both did about half of the damage of our Disc Priests, which is fairly comparable to MW's damage. The difference is that MW's don't actually lose much healing from doing DPS.

This whole DPS cloak with DPS trinkets and DPS talents thing shouldn't even be possible. The MW damage style should be the same as a Shadow Priest, which if you're actually a good player does go beyond hitting VE (if there's nothing to damage or DPS has to be stopped, GCDs should be spent helping healing). There is practically no difference between doing DPS when you don't need to heal and doing healing when you don't need to do DPS, simplifying it to "lol just use a cooldown" is just misunderstanding the way raids work. The problem is that time in which healing doesn't actually need to be done is way, way too high in SoO, giving rise to this all DPS all the time healer build.

The original comment I made was about the MW in the OP literally never pressing damage buttons, and that's wrong. Nowhere in this thread has anyone suggested that it's wrong to not be DPSing all the time on farm as a healer, that's just a made-up argument for the purpose of arguing.

[st33l]

The only reason MWs "have to" DPS all the time to be viable is because the spec's healing is awful but healing in general is so ridiculously easy in T16 that you can get away with not actually healing for half of a fight. It's not like MW's damage potential is massively higher than other healers, on my last Garrosh kill our Resto Druid and Resto Shaman both did about half of the damage of our Disc Priests, which is fairly comparable to MW's damage. The difference is that MW's don't actually lose much healing from doing DPS.

This whole DPS cloak with DPS trinkets and DPS talents thing shouldn't even be possible. The MW damage style should be the same as a Shadow Priest, which if you're actually a good player does go beyond hitting VE (if there's nothing to damage or DPS has to be stopped, GCDs should be spent helping healing). There is practically no difference between doing DPS when you don't need to heal and doing healing when you don't need to do DPS, simplifying it to "lol just use a cooldown" is just misunderstanding the way raids work. The problem is that time in which healing doesn't actually need to be done is way, way too high in SoO, giving rise to this all DPS all the time healer build.

The original comment I made was about the MW in the OP literally never pressing damage buttons, and that's wrong. Nowhere in this thread has anyone suggested that it's wrong to not be DPSing all the time on farm as a healer, that's just a made-up argument for the purpose of arguing.

So the entire argument was you being 'disturbed' by the OP never hitting DPS buttons. That is a choice that someone can choose to make, which may make their role sub-optimal, but not so far as being 'disturbing'. Hence my comment, you are easily disturbed.


Next, in the context of our current game mechanics, when is a shadow priest relegated to flashing healing random people?

Maybe all of this is coming from a 25 man perspective; since if you look at 10 man kills, mistweavers far exceed the damage that disc priests do. On our stage 4 attempts, I am usually hovering at about 120k effective DPS, while our disc priest (who needs to DPS rotationally just to increase his healing) is at about 90k. This is reflected in other MW's from this forum that do 10 mans (I think Suplift has a kill with 125k effective DPS?) that have Garrosh on farm.

So, no, other healers don't even come close to the DPS that mistweavers really have to do. Again, this is only because they "can" do this much DPS, which is broken. Since it _is broken, it also makes it imperative for them to utilize this, making a purely mistweaving style so sub-optimal that it borders on unviable.

Again, I'd discuss this further with someone who actually has some healing experience with T16. Your arguments sound really, theoretical. The reality of healing all 14 bosses is a 'bit' different.

[Totaltotemic]

Next, in the context of our current game mechanics, when is a shadow priest relegated to flashing healing random people?

Again, I'd discuss this further with someone who actually has some healing experience with T16. Your arguments sound really, theoretical. The reality of healing all 14 bosses is a 'bit' different.

I'm done with your ad hominem and strawman bullshit. That's not what I said and I've told you before that I do still heal every single week. Stop wasting everyone else's time with paragraphs built on faulty premises for the sole purpose of arguing with me.

[rohendar]

Honestly I feel like you are saying the same thing but so set on disagreeing with each other you can't see it. St33l is saying full time DPS MW healing shouldn't be possible but a MW playing only healing is subpar. And really Total you are agreeing with him, except that with the current state of raids, full time DPS MW is kinda forced on players.

Honestly, I play the full time DPS healer on 10/14 bosses (Thok, Siege (cus Im WW on belt), Paragons, Garrosh) and I don't think it's the right playstyle for hc progress at all. But in the current 10man it's the fastest way to get progress, and it's the fastest way to clear farm bosses.

Saying that, I think the way Blizz is forcing the fix on us, is the wrong way. Afaik WoD will have 2 stances: 1 is full time healer, 1 is semi DPS with a lot less healing. No longer will the style of semi DPS same healing (disc priest style) be an option for a MW, and I feel that's what MW are supposed to be. The fact you'll have to stance dance during fights to get a small of portion of DPS in really puts me off MW.

But seeing how vastly people have different views of how MW is supposed to be played I guess Blizz is doing whatever might get a compromise out of people.

[barackohmama]

He's topping healing on almost every fight. Dont tell me you're looking at total healing done cause that doesnt do him justice in this case... On sidenote people should just stop using logs if they don't know how to use them.

[Deleted]

Honestly I feel like you are saying the same thing but so set on disagreeing with each other you can't see it. St33l is saying full time DPS MW healing shouldn't be possible but a MW playing only healing is subpar. And really Total you are agreeing with him, except that with the current state of raids, full time DPS MW is kinda forced on players.

I have to disagree, st33l has it completely backwards actually. The conclusion is the same but the reasoning is different, st33l thinks Mistweavers are doing damage because our damage is overpowered, totemic has it right in thinking that we do it because our healing is ineffective. It's not really up to debate that we damage because our healing is generally ineffective either, compare Malkorok to any other fight and you see the measure of output that just doesn't land where it needs to be.

Our damage isn't exactly overpowered either, our cleave burst could be considered problematic if there were fights that required it, but there aren't. We do for the most part 50% of what a damage dealer does. I can only think of AoE as an exception, to which I would answer that AoE is absolutely trivial and only abused for healing purposes.

I understand that as a forum we're generally focused on min-maxing too much, but really that's understandable since the community is mostly lead by players who are above average (except me im awful rofl). For example, I would argue in T15 that fistweaving was an invaluable asset and if you had foregone it then you weren't playing well. Take the perspective of st33l and it's the opposite:

I did mistweaving most of T15 and did just fine; never really felt the pressure to be fistweaving constantly to be viable on fights.

The reason for this is because we're on two different curves, in early days it was compulsory for Mistweavers to be doing damage in t15 to push certain mechanics. This applied to pretty much every other boss, and especially to Lei Shen. Now you could totally argue I'm being an elitist arsehole for pointing out that two different players will have two completely different experiences of heroics depending at how early they attempt them, but you can't really say that I'm wrong either.

To round it up with a shitty analogy you'd expect from an MMOC post, if you have a broken hammer you don't keep using it, you pick up the closest rock and try your damnedest with it, not because rock is op but because hammer is broken and shitty.

[Tastyfish]

You wouldn't bring a Disc Priest that doesn't use Atonement so why would you want a MW who doesn't use Eminence? ESPECIALLY for farm content at the very least.

Are they equal?

[st33l]

I have to disagree, st33l has it completely backwards actually. The conclusion is the same but the reasoning is different, st33l thinks Mistweavers are doing damage because our damage is overpowered, totemic has it right in thinking that we do it because our healing is ineffective. It's not really up to debate that we damage because our healing is generally ineffective either, compare Malkorok to any other fight and you see the measure of output that just doesn't land where it needs to be.

Our damage isn't exactly overpowered either, our cleave burst could be considered problematic if there were fights that required it, but there aren't. We do for the most part 50% of what a damage dealer does. I can only think of AoE as an exception, to which I would answer that AoE is absolutely trivial and only abused for healing purposes.

I understand that as a forum we're generally focused on min-maxing too much, but really that's understandable since the community is mostly lead by players who are above average (except me im awful rofl). For example, I would argue in T15 that fistweaving was an invaluable asset and if you had foregone it then you weren't playing well. Take the perspective of st33l and it's the opposite:



The reason for this is because we're on two different curves, in early days it was compulsory for Mistweavers to be doing damage in t15 to push certain mechanics. This applied to pretty much every other boss, and especially to Lei Shen. Now you could totally argue I'm being an elitist arsehole for pointing out that two different players will have two completely different experiences of heroics depending at how early they attempt them, but you can't really say that I'm wrong either.

To round it up with a shitty analogy you'd expect from an MMOC post, if you have a broken hammer you don't keep using it, you pick up the closest rock and try your damnedest with it, not because rock is op but because hammer is broken and shitty.

There isn't anything you've said here that I don't already know. I think you might have gotten confused with what I was trying to say. I am not saying that MW's do DPS "only" because they have the damage potential; since of course, if there was enough healing to be done, good mistweavers would keep mistweaving to stay at the highest possible HPS. I am saying that it is a big reason why MW's do DPS. If, for example, I was playing a holy pally, I wouldn't be doing DPS, would I?

Giving a particular spec a tool makes it imperative for them to use it in heroic raiding - if that tool didn't exist, they wouldn't be forced to use it.

Something like the ability bloat - it is a bad thing not because the abilities are hurting tuning or making specs too OP; it is a bad thing because with those many extra buttons, players are now forced to keep them around and keybound if they want to play effectively and competitively.

There are two ways to have MW's really mostly do mistweaving and hit their highest HPS potential. Either make the damage high enough that they need to, or don't leave them with any other tools. The latter isn't optimal - in fact, as I said, I quite enjoy FW, but it allows people who just want to heal and NOT dps, do just that without being considered ineffective or non-competitive.

Now this may go against their very grain for top end raiders who probably want even more tools at their disposal. That doesn't make it a good thing for everyone playing the spec - specifically, players who are playing a healing spec because they want to, um, heal.

[Lumiair]

Are they equal?

I only wish.

[Deleted]

There isn't anything you've said here that I don't already know. I think you might have gotten confused with what I was trying to say. I am not saying that MW's do DPS "only" because they have the damage potential; since of course, if there was enough healing to be done, good mistweavers would keep mistweaving to stay at the highest possible HPS. I am saying that it is a big reason why MW's do DPS. If, for example, I was playing a holy pally, I wouldn't be doing DPS, would I?

Giving a particular spec a tool makes it imperative for them to use it in heroic raiding - if that tool didn't exist, they wouldn't be forced to use it.

Something like the ability bloat - it is a bad thing not because the abilities are hurting tuning or making specs too OP; it is a bad thing because with those many extra buttons, players are now forced to keep them around and keybound if they want to play effectively and competitively.

There are two ways to have MW's really mostly do mistweaving and hit their highest HPS potential. Either make the damage high enough that they need to, or don't leave them with any other tools. The latter isn't optimal - in fact, as I said, I quite enjoy FW, but it allows people who just want to heal and NOT dps, do just that without being considered ineffective or non-competitive.

Now this may go against their very grain for top end raiders who probably want even more tools at their disposal. That doesn't make it a good thing for everyone playing the spec - specifically, players who are playing a healing spec because they want to, um, heal.

I don't understand, you're trying to say that since we have fistweaving we will use it when we can? I thought that was a given. I was following this paragraph regarding your opinion:

So, no, other healers don't even come close to the DPS that mistweavers really have to do. Again, this is only because they "can" do this much DPS, which is broken. Since it _is broken, it also makes it imperative for them to utilize this, making a purely mistweaving style so sub-optimal that it borders on unviable.

Which I wholeheartedly disagree with, Mistweaver DPS is well balanced. As I said, this forum is probably too fixated on min-maxing, which means all advice will come from the perspective of optimizing everything being best. That can be harsh and results in threads like these getting harsh responses but at the end of the day it boils down to a very simple philosophy. Can you succeed as a Mistweaver without fistweaving? Yes. Does that mean you should drag the spec down because you don't want to? No.

Fistweaving was one of the big things MW was sold on, the ability to be like disc but with melee mechanics. If you roll the class then get upset because lo' and behold you have to do some damage to absolutely optimize your performance then you really don't have a right to complain. There are a number of other alternative traditional healers. As to the statement that the stance in WoD will fix that? It won't, it will simply make it ineffective for short term DPS. You can bet your balls there will still be a need to do damage as a Mistweaver if you want to be optimizing your performance.

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Oh and btw grats on garry!