Hello, Monk healers

[FrostyButt]

I am currently casually leveling a healer Monk through dungeons and so far I am really enjoying the play style of Monks. I have been interested in playing a healer as an ALT and possibly main one next expansion, so I've been trying out many different healers. I initially leveled a Shaman to 120 because I always wanted to Shaman heal, but now that I am Shaman healing it's kind of MEH for me.

Are Monks normally super mana hungry as healers? Even at level 23 (lol) I'm running out of mana really fast when I'm having to heal more than the tank when the entire group is taking massive amounts of damage at the same time.

Also, I know I'm only super low level and I don't have everything unlocked. What is the best way to group heal? Just go through the group frames with Soothing Mist throwing instant Enveloping Mists on everyone while hoping Renewing Mist jumps to people?

[Narzok]

having to massively heal the whole group is meant to be taxing on your mana, you don't need to worry about that part.
some healer can push a bit more group healing before they have to go crazy with mana, but in the end, where is the challenge if you don't go OOM in situations like that?


about how to play at max lv:
both Peak of Serenity and the Mistweaver Guide on Icy-veins are good places to start.

[mjolnrik]

Yea monks are probably the most mana hungry healer in the game for sure, but their throughput is probably unmatched in dungeons at max level, despite everyone wanting druids in their group.
At your level, you wont have many other options rather than just enveloping mist whoever is in danger of dieing. Soothing mist and renewing mist probably doesnt heal enough to actually save anyone. When you get a bit more of your toolkit, vivify. That will be your go to heal to heal the rest of the group. Its still not the most mana efficient heal in the game but does better than enveloping mist and also cleaves to the targets of your renewing mist.
Your main aoe heal, essence font isnt really great for dungeons due to its high mana cost and fairly low healing. And it doesnt even get its secondary effect till level 80 which allows your mastery to double proc on the targets.
Even max level, you are still going to be using alot more mana than other healers but their single target healing will be unmatched. Especially if you get a ton of mastery, then even just casting your renewing mist on people will top them off.

The best advice I can give you atm is know what mechanics are actually likely to kill people in dungeons. Unless someone is pulling agro consistantly off the tank you dont necessarily need to top them instantly. You could just leave a renewing mist rolling, leave an enveloping mist on the tank and channel soothing mist on other injured player

[Raiz]

It's perfectly possible at your level that your DPS' spec heal is better than the heal spec itself. I don't remember exactly, but I've tried all 3 specs while leveling, and some of the spec makes non sense by being better than the other even though it wasn't their intention.
The low level just makes everything funky, so be sure to try all spec just in case. Some of the spec might be better than the others two for a specific task.

[Dawon]

Yeah we eat mana like mad, especially if you channel SM and spam Vivify or something. One of the new essences fro the neck will help a bit on that but as a monk, you really need to work your mana.. we are not spambot-paladins that cannot run oom even if they try.

Also, it will be hard with aoe healing until you get Essence Font. When you do, cast it, make sure all have gotten the buff from it and then heal all with Vivify (while you hopefully have RM running on most of them).

[shise]

I raid with a MW monk and yes, we can really burn mana quickly. But there are always ways to plan your future heals a bit so that you can use your CDs to save up as much as possible, as many times as possible.

Don´t try to save your CDs, blow them from the begining (unless there is no use), because they are quite short and they will be back up fast enough for the need

If you can save 50% of your mana twice within a small fight, it will make a big difference compared to saving your CD for when you are already low.


You will also learn that different tanks need different attention. Like, Blood DKs take spikes of damage when their CDs and buffs fade off, but then you can always save up mana from them when they are capable of keeping themselves up, not even a hot is needed... just track them and be ready to hot them when they will soon need some extra healing.

Small tricks here and there that you will learn.

BW Monk is about the most fun I´ve got healing ever since my Holy priest years ago..

[Caprix]

Always heard "MW are very mana hungry", never really felt like it. I'm a bit away from the game since a few weeks, but in fact i was known in my raid to be the "dude wtf how do you still have mana left" MW.
We have some baseline mana free healing, and then some very efficient mana heals too. Of course this is hps capped by their cooldowns but you should aim to use them as much as possible.
Then when shit hits the fan, we can do some big burst (especially single target), yeah of course that costs a lot of mana, but it is NOT cooldown based so we can sustain it as long as we have mana, pretty awesome if you ask me. You're not supposed to do that all the time, and especially not to snipe your fellow rdruid hots when there is no urge..

We also have a talent row to either mitigate part of that burst mana cost, regain mana during low damage phase or be more mana efficient if we do consistent single target healing.