MW Monk questions towards fistweaving

[Rayaleith]

Intro

Ok... My main is a lock and it will stay my main in WoD no matter nerfs or anything since I play lock since vanilla. I always have alts (many alts) in order to keep an eye of every class gameplay, except rogue which cannot really play. They suck balls.

I decided to have an alt that will be really good geared, as close as I can to my main, and be a healer. For this reason the last 4-5 weeks after raids and on free days I play shaman, priest and now a monk. I tend to ditch priest. I really do not like what they did to disc priest. Shaman is very very good and it is the first candidate. Now I am evaluating my fresh 90 MW monk.

Content starts here :P

I am just ilvl 500 (this will jump considerably and fast with some crafts) and my first target is to see firstweaving. But I want to see it in conjunction with the other healing tools we have. I know the theory so I won't ask for primitive rotation help here. My problem is that I am so overflowed with info the last 24 hours that I need some help to consolidate it. The other problem is that info starts from 5.3 days (After the nerf) towards today and I see different things around. So, I will make some pointers so that you can easily answer without boring you too much. (please assume no meta gem nor cape atm and alchemy/LW as professions)

1. Low item level means that I can sustain (if any) a more conservative rotation. That means that for the time being I cannot sustain Renewing Mist in between as a Chi generator and raid healing boost, right?

2. As my ilvl grows SHOULD I use Renewing Mist? I really want to play the monk properly. That means giving some punches and not just staying there healing. But is this at any ilvl sustainable? I read the fistweaving guide here at mmo but it does not ever mentions this. I wonder if something changed.

3. Is firstweaving viable to scenarios like solo healing Spoils (at the appropriate difficulty to my ilvl, of course) at one side? Or any two healing scenarios? Once again I am talking about mixed fists and ReM.

4. What do I do to intellect procs? As a lock I value these procs a lot. I wonder if these procs affect my gameplay?

5. I read more and more about CJL usage. Is this a thing of >560 geared people with high haste? How good is it?

6. I am too far from this atm but is it possible to firstweave at Garrosh HC in 25man, 4 healers and stack under desecrate at p1?

Thanks in advance guys.

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[Nuttanoos]

1. Low item level and no legendary meta gem will mean you run out of mana fistweaving, wether you use renewing mist or not.

2. Yes, as your item level rises and you get more comfortable with your mana, renewing mist is great for extra healing and chi. This will be sustainable once you get the legendary meta and can jab tigerpaw, jab tigerpaw to gain mana during the procc

3. Yes, fistweaving is viable for solo healing. When you get a higher item level, you can do considerable damage on spoils and still keep everyone healed. However, the art of fistweaving is knowing when to do it, and when not to, eg. you might want to use your other healing spells during the big boxes, when aoe damage is high.

4. You don't have any dots, so snapshotting isn't important. CJL can be used during procs for increased damage.

5. Using CJL, or lightningweaving as some call it is great for single target damage. When there are mobs to cleave, stick to blackout kick.

6. I've only ever raided 10 man, so I can't answer this.

Fistweaving will become increasingly viable as your item level rises, and will be a lot more useful once you get the legendary meta gem. The art of fistweaving is largely deciding when you can afford doing it, and when you shouldn't. I know it really sucks hearing, but the legendary meta gem really makes or breaks fistweaving.

[Rayaleith]

Thanks for your answer. In desparation I posted the same thread in EU forums and they totally discourged me from fistweaving as a valid way to play except from specific fights or part of the fights that does not require serious healing.

[Jocias]

Thanks for your answer. In desparation I posted the same thread in EU forums and they totally discourged me from fistweaving as a valid way to play except from specific fights or part of the fights that does not require serious healing.

They're right. Fistweaving does not have the raw throughput to be competitive with other healers for most fights. There are some gimmicky fights like Norushen and Horridon that allow you to fistweave and do great healing, but in general, your healing will lag significantly behind any other comparably geared and skilled healer playing a traditional healing class. It's useful to use during lulls in heavy damage or on farm when you don't really need 3 full-time healers, you can bring a MW that fistweaves for most of the fight but goes to mistweaving during the heavy damage portions.

Fistweaving is a tool in the MW arsenal. There are are only a few fights in this expansion where fistweaving and only fistweaving is a viable means of healing. You should be mixing mistweaving for heavy damage portions of fights and fistweaving for lighter damage portions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzitoTT14xg
WARNING: Lots of F-Bombs. This is a video of Riggnaros going off on a Disc Priest that only Atonement heals. I'd do the same thing to a Monk that only fistweaves on most fights.

[Rayaleith]

I agree. I said I want to play the monk right. That means being in melee range and do both traditional healing and FW. I see most people now doing only the latter. Hence the questions. I really understand that in heroic content you cannot heal while dps-ing all the time. But I feel that a monk at melee range (not for the range per se but for the concept of doing damage as well) is doing it better.

[Jocias]

I agree. I said I want to play the monk right. That means being in melee range and do both traditional healing and FW. I see most people now doing only the latter. Hence the questions. I really understand that in heroic content you cannot heal while dps-ing all the time. But I feel that a monk at melee range (not for the range per se but for the concept of doing damage as well) is doing it better.

You can function fine without being in melee range while you're mistweaving. On some fights, you won't be in melee range if you're needed at range for a boss mechanic or something. If you're spamming heals, you aren't meleeing, so positioning yourself in melee range isn't super-important there, either. If you're just starting out with MW, I'd say just get used to mistweaving without using fistweaving. Once you have a handle on mistweaving, then you can start on mixing in some fistweaving.

[Rayaleith]

Mistweavers are flaged as melee by the game in boss fights though.

[Jocias]

Mistweavers are flaged as melee by the game in boss fights though.

Many mechanics don't look at what you're flagged as. Desecrated weapon on Garrosh and the tombs on shamans are just two examples that prefer players who aren't in melee range, regardless of whether they are actually considered a melee spec. Being flagged as melee does exempt you from some mechanics but certainly not all.

The way I learned to play mistweaver was to start off with just mistweaving. Learning how to use ReM, uplift, our single target heals, and our CDs without punching things worked well for me, and it's what i recommend to players just starting out. Fistweaving seems cool, but it's more like the icing on the cake. It doesn't heal for a whole lot, and you have to know when it's safe to use. It's safer for you and your raid group if you start with only mistweaving.

[rohendar]

Being a good monk is knowing when to do what. Fistweaving or Lightningweaving is absolutely a viable way to heal 80% of the time, even when 2 healing a lot of fights. The trick is to know when to stop and full time AOE heal. Also, using Renewing mist on CD, even when fist weaving is pretty much mandatory. If you don't keep RnM spread, you can't switch to Uplifting on the fly when it's actually needed.

Honestly, the playstyle is hugely different between 500 ilvl and 550 ilvl. People read all kinds of things about ignoring spirit, not realising that this is being said by 570 monks that already have 8k spirit. Low level, you will need spirit, you will need to soothing to get chi, and just occasionally fistweave.

Once you get to 540, 6k spirit, 8k+ crit you can start more and more full dpsing, especially if you have leg meta gem.

[Totaltotemic]

Being a good monk is knowing when to do what. Fistweaving or Lightningweaving is absolutely a viable way to heal 80% of the time, even when 2 healing a lot of fights. The trick is to know when to stop and full time AOE heal. Also, using Renewing mist on CD, even when fist weaving is pretty much mandatory. If you don't keep RnM spread, you can't switch to Uplifting on the fly when it's actually needed.

A pretty important distinction is that the bolded part is almost all the time in SoO in anything other than a 10 player raid. If you're in LFR with 25 people, SCK is generally a better option than fistweaving. If you're in a Flex raid with more than like 15 people, SCK is still probably a better option. In a 25 man normal or heroic raid, SCK is almost always a better option. The time when fistweaving for DPS and getting away with the mediocre healing it provides (barring some kind of damage buff like Norushen) is actually important is limited strictly to groups of 10 players or less when having 6 people together to AoE heal is a rare occurrence. Just because fistweaving works well in 10 man does not mean that you should go into a 25 man LFR and try to heal via fistweaving, it's not going to end well for anyone.

Beyond that, you have differences within the fights themselves. Fistweaving on Thok is generally horrible in the stack phase, but when he's running around it's completely fine to channel CJL for more damage and a bit of healing. You also have to take healer comp into account, you're much more likely to get away with fistweaving more with a Disc Priest around than you are with a Holy Paladin. Fistweaving is a tool, to be used when appropriate, there's no such thing as a "Fistweaver" or a "Healing only MW" because those are just different labels for "bad." A good MW knows when to hit stuff and when to heal and never blindly commits to one or the other without considering the circumstances.


Also @Jocias, that Rigg video makes me incredibly mad. The heal was for 422 which was obviously the Holy Fire dot that had been applied at least 3.5 seconds prior to the death (since it ticked at 2.5 seconds prior) but Rigg went full rage mode on something he didn't understand. It'd be similar to raging at someone for Serpent's Zeal healing someone through Eminence because you happened to be AAing while casting other spells. It's actually a great example of player skill not really having a strong correlation with being smart.

[rohendar]

That Rigg video is a disgrace to any kind of raid leader. He clearly had no clue whatsoever how to play Disc priest, and even if he did, the way he adressed said person was completely unacceptable. If that is the environment anyone raids in, I feel very sorry for them.