Proper use of Renewing Mist (outside Uplift-spam phases)

[Lovestar]

I am trying to learn to play my baby alt Mistweaver better. I love the feel of the spec, but have a lot of trouble wrapping my head around its ambiguous playstyle — I like my simple, happy, sledegehammer-style Holy Pally where I always know the right button to push. :p

Right now, I am getting a lot of mixed messages about how to use Renewing Mist. Different guides say totally different things.

Everyone is in agreement about the Renew > TFT > Renew > Uplift Spam cycle
(there's really no way to argue about it, after all — this is Mistweaver AoE)

But outside the textbook Uplift Spam situation — 5-mans, PGs, CMs, low-damage Fistweaving phases, etc etc — every guide I approach has a different instruction:

• Some say to use Renewing Mist on cooldown, every cooldown, without exception, no matter what. Doing this is the only time I start to outpace my mana regen as Mistweaver (except for Surging spam, but... Surging spam)
• Some say to keep Renewing Mist on the tank at all times, but only apply it more often / to others if there's Uplift-motivating damage going out
• Some say to never touch Renewing Mist, ever, unless and only if you're setting up for a TFT > Uplift Spam phase
• Some say to start spreading Renewing Mist at the first hint of multi-target damage, others say to ignore that (spot with Soothing, Fistweave, Chi talents, etc) and only break out Renewing when damage becomes moderate/heavy

I have to admit that, as an entirely personal thing, I sort-of hate Renewing Mist — an expensive, uncontrollably-applied HoT with an awkward cooldown just drives me mad for some reason. So up until now, I've tended to misbehave and deliberately ignore it as much as possible.

But, I want to play my Mistweaver better. So I would like some advice to help sort out when I'm actually supposed to hit this fuzzy green button, and when I'm supposed to leave it alone. Everyone seems to have a different answer. >.<

[Nakanai]

A guide for 5mans is going to look different from a guide for PGs, which will look different from a guide for CMs, which will look different from a guide for raiding. So it makes sense that you're getting different answers. The "use ReM on CD no matter what" advice is almost always applied to people who come in and say, "my healing (in raids) as a MWer is low; what am I doing wrong?" If you want to maximize healing throughput in a raid situation, you have to get in the habit of hitting ReM on CD.

Whether you use ReM on CD while Fistweaving is a matter of personal preference: you'll lose DPS doing so, but gain HPS. So it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. However, if you're having mana issues just keeping ReM on CD, then there's no way you're going to be able to keep up a pure Fistweaving rotation.

If you wait to cast ReM until AoE damage starts, you're screwed. It requires 18 seconds to get full ReM coverage on a raid (only ~10 seconds on a 5man group). So I don't see who would say to "start spreading ReM at the first hint of multi-target damage," because that's just wrong. You have to plan far, far ahead as a MWer.

Basically, it's hard to answer your question without knowing what kind of content you're doing. It seems like you're focusing on 5man content with scaled down ilvl? It'd be much easier to give you a clear answer if we knew what your focus was (and hence, what type of damage you're expected to heal).

[Lovestar]

Thanks! You're already helping me understand better. =)

See, this is what makes MW so confusing to me. My HPally is so simple — I know exactly what situations to break out DL, HR, EF, etc. etc. Everything has a very clear purpose and place. With MW, if I ask 'How do I play this?' the answer is 'It depends'; if I ask 'What is this button for?' the answer is 'Depends on context'. >.<

What I want is a simple rule: "Use Renewing Mist when...", like "Use Holy Shock on CD every CD", "Use Holy Light when damage is low and you're bored", "Use EF on anyone who needs a heal". Those rules apply in everything I do as HPally from iLevel 440 5-mans to T16 Flex+.

But I'm starting to twig that MW doesn't work in a world of simple rules like that. (well, "Press Expel Harm when it lights up", maybe)

It seems like MW is capable of a lot of tweaky fine-tuning — like in your example, if you're FW in melee, do you want slightly more HPS (ReM) or slightly more DPS (not ReM)? Whereas Pally is just "Do this | Don't do this, the end". And that makes it hard to make "rules" for MW, I guess? Which I guess is why guides conflict so much, and why instructions change significantly across different content types.

That leads to answering your content question hopefully — I was looking for a simple "USE RENEWING MIST WHEN..." answer, because I'm used to my Pally where the answers are basically the same across all content. Again, I'm twigging that there is no simple answer like that. :p

The "use ReM on CD no matter what" advice is almost always applied to people who come in and say, "my healing (in raids) as a MWer is low; what am I doing wrong?" If you want to maximize healing throughput in a raid situation, you have to get in the habit of hitting ReM on CD.

Thanks. I think I 'get' this instruction, then.

Am I correct in assuming that in this situation, you do not care how much overhealing Renewing Mist does, because your only goal is to make sure it's on as many targets as it can possibly be, for as long as possible? Either because of the multi-tasking power of hots, or because you need it ready for Uplift — but either way you are not concerned about HPM efficiency, only maximum uptime and spread?

And that's probably because unlike other hots, you can't make up for lost time with ReM, right? As Druid if I go "UH OH" and see a clump of damaged people I can just Rejuv > Rejuv > Rejuv > Rejuv > Rejuv > Rejuv > Rejuv > Rejuv > Rejuv. But MW doesn't have that luxury, so assuming Mana is not a factor, it's incentivized to just keep the damn hot on everything in sight "just to be safe"?

However, if you're having mana issues just keeping ReM on CD, then there's no way you're going to be able to keep up a pure Fistweaving rotation.

If I just hang back and use Soothing/Enveloping to keep people up, I'm basically always right back at full mana after I consume Mana Tea stacks. During pure FW, though, my mana steadily declines. For example if I'm FW through disposable content I'll need to drink (as in Mage food) periodically during a chain of pulls. And yeah, using ReM on CD every CD slowly but steadily bleeds my mana off (even with full use of Mana Tea refills).

Should that not be happening?

If you wait to cast ReM until AoE damage starts, you're screwed. It requires 18 seconds to get full ReM coverage on a raid (only ~10 seconds on a 5man group). So I don't see who would say to "start spreading ReM at the first hint of multi-target damage," because that's just wrong. You have to plan far, far ahead as a MWer.

Sorry, I think I miscommunicated that slightly.

That particular guide was saying that even in situations where you're not anticipating imminent Uplift spam, you should still spread Renewing Mist as long as there's actual damage for it to heal for its whole duration (ie, mostly not overhealing). But a different guide said not to bother with ReM unless you're setting up an Uplift chain.

This is what I mean, I have no idea what certain MW buttons should actually be used for. Sometimes guides make it sound like Renewing Mist isn't really a hot, it's just Part 1 of a two-part spell called Uplift.

On a Druid or Shaman it's obvious — "Are you targeting a tank? Or will your hot do full healing on a non-tank? OK, toss it on." With MW I don't know if assumptions like that are safe; few of the standard rules of healing seem to apply to this spec. :p

[Deleted]

You can be lax with ReM at 5 targets or less, mostly because it takes no time to spread again. At anything above that I'd recommend keeping it on cooldown strictly.

[Jereka]

That particular guide was saying that even in situations where you're not anticipating imminent Uplift spam, you should still spread Renewing Mist as long as there's actual damage for it to heal for its whole duration (ie, mostly not overhealing). But a different guide said not to bother with ReM unless you're setting up an Uplift chain.

The mistweaver has several different healing styles and priority lists, which change depend on the content you're doing. One thing that remains relatively constant in different situations is that, as a mistweaver, you need to be set up and ready when damage hits. You can't heal reactively without first healing proactively. If a damage spike hits and you don't have ReM already out and running, you can't uplift, which means your healing options are limited. By hitting ReM on cooldown, you maintain your maximum spread for uplift (even when TFT is on cooldown). Personally, the only time that I don't hit ReM on cooldown is when I know with certainty that there will be very little damage for the next 20-30 seconds and I'm just fistweaving.

As for the overhealing, welcome to Mistweaver. It's just what we do. You cannot let yourself care about it or try to control it or you're just going to gimp your actual healing.

[Servasus]

It's on a fight to fight basis. There is NO ONE ROTATION for Mistweaver.

On fights where constant aoe is pulsing to multiple raid members, you need to be using it pretty much on CD.

On fights where you primarly fistweave but there IS aoe to be healed through, you need to be using it pretty much on CD or whenever you know you have enough time to ramp up maximum coverage of it on your raid BEFORE the major aoe happens.

On fights where you will pretty much only fistweave, you can neglect it entirely unless you know an aoe phase will come and want to snipe some heals.

It depends on if you are running 10 or 25. It depends on your raid comp. It depends on if you are 2 or 3 healing.

There aren't any concrete answers for Mistweaver. It is truly one of the only, if not THE only, healing classes to actually require skill and good perception to play optimally. If you can't make the calls on your own, you'd basically have to post all of your logs and have someone read them over in excruciating detail in order for them to give you a straight up, solid answer on what you should be doing on a fight to fight and phase to phase basis.

Start experimenting. Try different styles on different bosses and pulls and then weigh the results. Keep in to account outside sources affecting your numbers like your other healers in the group and how much avoidable damage was taken. Keep into account how lucky you got with proc uptimes on trinkets and evaluate your own skill on each fight. Did you react quickly or were you slow? Did you follow your rotation strictly or did you mess up a few times? Did fistweave a little on phases of fights where absolutely no healing was needed for a lengthy duration?

[Totaltotemic]

That particular guide was saying that even in situations where you're not anticipating imminent Uplift spam, you should still spread Renewing Mist as long as there's actual damage for it to heal for its whole duration (ie, mostly not overhealing). But a different guide said not to bother with ReM unless you're setting up an Uplift chain.

This is what I mean, I have no idea what certain MW buttons should actually be used for. Sometimes guides make it sound like Renewing Mist isn't really a hot, it's just Part 1 of a two-part spell called Uplift.

On a Druid or Shaman it's obvious — "Are you targeting a tank? Or will your hot do full healing on a non-tank? OK, toss it on." With MW I don't know if assumptions like that are safe; few of the standard rules of healing seem to apply to this spec. :p

The problem here is what "imminent" means. ReM lasts for 18 seconds, potentially 36 with TFT. There are very few situations where you won't find yourself needing to raid heal or use TFT to prepare for a future event for at least 18 seconds. The actual healing of the HoT itself is not very important and the Uplift part is, but something you haven't seemed to touch on the thing that makes casting ReM on cooldown worth it: the chi. It's fairly analogous to Holy Shock in that it provides so many ridiculous benefits for casting other than the direct healing and it's so cheap that it's always the right button to press at any given time.

Even without considering Uplift, ReM does more healing via the hot and through the chi you generate than any other singular button press you could make at any given time. That's only compounded by the fact that if ReM isn't at maximum coverage your potential group healing goes down the drain because it will take another 18 seconds to get back to maximum potential if something goes wrong.

The general rule is ReM on CD except in the very rare case where there is absolutely no foreseeable damage in the next ~30 seconds, and of course 5 mans where you can't spread it beyond 5 people anyways.

[st33l]

I am trying to learn to play my baby alt Mistweaver better. I love the feel of the spec, but have a lot of trouble wrapping my head around its ambiguous playstyle — I like my simple, happy, sledegehammer-style Holy Pally where I always know the right button to push. :p

Right now, I am getting a lot of mixed messages about how to use Renewing Mist. Different guides say totally different things.

Everyone is in agreement about the Renew > TFT > Renew > Uplift Spam cycle
(there's really no way to argue about it, after all — this is Mistweaver AoE)

But outside the textbook Uplift Spam situation — 5-mans, PGs, CMs, low-damage Fistweaving phases, etc etc — every guide I approach has a different instruction:

• Some say to use Renewing Mist on cooldown, every cooldown, without exception, no matter what. Doing this is the only time I start to outpace my mana regen as Mistweaver (except for Surging spam, but... Surging spam)
• Some say to keep Renewing Mist on the tank at all times, but only apply it more often / to others if there's Uplift-motivating damage going out
• Some say to never touch Renewing Mist, ever, unless and only if you're setting up for a TFT > Uplift Spam phase
• Some say to start spreading Renewing Mist at the first hint of multi-target damage, others say to ignore that (spot with Soothing, Fistweave, Chi talents, etc) and only break out Renewing when damage becomes moderate/heavy

I have to admit that, as an entirely personal thing, I sort-of hate Renewing Mist — an expensive, uncontrollably-applied HoT with an awkward cooldown just drives me mad for some reason. So up until now, I've tended to misbehave and deliberately ignore it as much as possible.

But, I want to play my Mistweaver better. So I would like some advice to help sort out when I'm actually supposed to hit this fuzzy green button, and when I'm supposed to leave it alone. Everyone seems to have a different answer. >.<

On 10 mans it is okay to let ReM drop off during lengthy FW phases when you won't have heavy raid-wide damage. Damage on up to half the raid is healed quite quickly via FW'ing (just make sure you do move your statue to stay in range of the ranged folks) so the phases you _really need to ensure 100% ReM coverage are usually heavy raid wide damage phases.

That being said, this works fine in theory - on most fights, you still want to be hitting ReM on CD for two reasons.
First, if shit does hit the fan, you can at least get 6-7 people on your raid at a minimum up to full hp (example, unexpected warsongs on Nazgrim). Second, ReM is a cheap chi generator; allowing you BoK more often, doing more damage and collecting up stacks of tea. Of course, if you have more than 1 target to hit, more BoK's become even more important.

I am surprised that you find ReM 'expensive'; at 5.8% base mana, it is one of your cheapest healing spells. I suspect you may not be utilizing the various mana regen capabilities that MW's have if you are finding it hard to maintain mana just to keep ReM up. I read that you are using your mana tea, but are you maximizing the generation of your mana tea stacks? Also, are you abusing your meta gem with Jab->TP?

One thing you didn't seem to mention was the need for MW's to _constantly spend chi; this is what allows us to keep our mana tea up high enough that we never really fall short of mana. You should constantly be generating chi and spending it the second you reach 4 chi. Chi Brew should be used often and early. In fact, the only time Chi Brew should be at 2 charges is if you are expecting a major damage spike within the next 45s.

How you spend your chi is dependent on the situation - you can either just uplift spam even if a few people are low on HP, or you can dump chi on FW'ing (for example, BoK's).

[Lovestar]

Thank you guys, this has been really helpful. I definitely understand this button a lot better now, and yes, the problem is that Renewing Mist doesn't function like any other healing spell apparently and that was giving my simple brain contusions. =)

I have to think like a Resto Druid in WOTLK, I guess — someone has no hot? GIVE THEM A HOT. If you're saying this should always be 'workable' mana-wise and is the 'safest' way to heal, I will try to change habits and do so.

As for Mana, I do frenetically dump Chi; I never sit at 4 (unless I'm doing it on purpose for a few seconds to double-dump Uplift or get an immediate Envelop out) and I generate it non-stop either with Jab (if melee), CJL (melee unsafe/scummy), or Soothing ('real' damage occurring). I always keep 1 charge of Chi Brew recharging.

I think I bought into the "MONKS DON'T NEED SPIRIT" hearsay a little too heavily. I'm sitting at 3200 Spirit right now (lol), which ironically is still enough for infinite Mana if I don't DPS and ignore Renewing.

I'm going to try rearranging my stats for more Spirit, probably deliberately too much just as a starting point, until I can comfortably keep Renewing Mist on CD every CD without mana issues. I'll return once I've experimented with that for a while. =)

[Spotnick]

Monks don't need spirit.. when they have the legendary meta gem.

Before that, you need it to get, as always, to the level you're comfortable with.

[st33l]

[B][COLOR="#008000"]
As for Mana, I do frenetically dump Chi; I never sit at 4 (unless I'm doing it on purpose for a few seconds to double-dump Uplift or get an immediate Envelop out) and I generate it non-stop either with Jab (if melee), CJL (melee unsafe/scummy), or Soothing ('real' damage occurring). I always keep 1 charge of Chi Brew recharging.

That right there might be your problem. NEVER jab unless you are planning on following it up with a TP or BoK. Secondly, if you are low ilevel, don't jab->TP unless you have your legendary meta gem proc up, in which case abuse it to hit at least 2 jabs within the proc (giving you back 8%) mana. CJL is also a mana sink at lower ilevels; these are all things MW's do outside meta gem procs at much higher ilevels since we have so much mana tea stacking up that we literally cannot run out of mana _and mana tea stacks (assuming if played correctly).

[Lovestar]

Well, thanks guys, you successfully ruined Holy Pally for me, and every other healing spec. This is some of the most fun I've ever had healing.

Seriously — WOW. What a huge difference your advice makes. I honestly feel like I'm playing a completely different spec now.

I don't have the Meta (when I said 'baby alt' I meant 'baby alt'). Instead, I kicked my Spirit up from 3200 unbuffed to 10,000. That tipped me over some kind of magic line (in fact, I can probably take some back off now, tbh).

I can now use Renewing Mist on CD, as well as Fistweave, basically until the end of time — I have infinite Mana as long as I'm paying attention and not wasting Chi or Chi-generating opportunities. The only trick is needing to find much more frequent opportunities to sip Tea without capping stacks, but it's a tradeoff I'm perfectly happy with.

More importantly, Mistweaver suddenly makes sense. Before the rotation felt slightly 'off', like it just couldn't live up to the clean and smooth play of my Pally. Totally different now. Having ReM on everything in sight, and being able to rapidly dump Chi with Uplift any time I feel like it, as well as spot up the group at-will whenever I see too many bars drop — it's like the missing puzzle piece of this healing style.

It also makes Fistweaving feel much smoother, since the stabilizing effect of ReM and Uplift dumps means much less frequently having to jarringly change pace and channel Soothing to spot someone back up. And the newfound Mana stability and (as @Steelzen pointed out) inflated Chi income means lots more SCKs and BOKs for clearing through garbage.

I tried playing my Pally tonight and I still love the class & style, but I was honestly going crazy. Nothing to do on AoE packs. Nothing to cleave with. Only Denounce spam during lulls. It's just so much more... slow and mellow compared to Mistweaver's perky, twitchy APM and anything-goes playstyle.

:D !

[Tinkertee]

Recently sometimes I avoid fistweaving because I lose some focus doing that. Also, fistweaving requires a LOT of mana tea drinking, which is boring and can be tricky in intense fights.

Depends on my mood though.