I’ve been pushing back writing this article for a while in hopes of Blizzard fixing some bugs, so we can have better insight into how things are supposed to work; and, seeing as Blizzard has yet to do so, this information just needs to be put out there. Since many things are still buggy, we are going to go off the tooltips on Beta, which are slightly different from the tooltips on Wowhead (I will note the differences). Let’s get into how Mistweaver plays with all the systems and changes that have been introduced. Before we get into it I’d like to shout out everyone for coming together to help with the theorycrafting, fact checking, and bug hunting. They have been a huge help and I couldn’t do it without them.

Update – 11/13: Blizzard has done some stuff to Legendaries again.

Update – 11/5: Blizzard put Strike with Clarity to bed.

Update – 10/24: Blizzard tuned Legendaries, Conduits and Covenants over the past month.

Update – 9/19: Blizzard changed some core spells and talents.

Update – 9/03: Blizzard gave another small update mainly focused on Quality of Life changes.

Update – 8/30: Blizzard finally gave us a blue post! After a long anxiety-inducing silence, we have news of our spec’s progression moving into Shadowlands, so the article has been edited accordingly. Namely, Invoke Yu’lon and Invoke Chi-Ji have been massively reworked, and some covenant information has been brought up to speed.

Spec Changes

Expel Harm

This is a new button we gain, but currently, it is the worst possible healing button; it does less healing than Vivify, has a 15 second cooldown, is on the GCD and can only be cast on yourself and your Soothing Mist target. 

Fortifying Brew

This has been slightly nerfed from BFA’s version, reducing the HP increase by 5% and DR by 5%. Not the end of the world, as we are still very tanky.

Leg Sweep

We gained 1 extra yard; otherwise, no change.

Touch Of Death

A very nice ability to see return. Its rank 2 allows us to use it on an enemy below 15% HP, meaning you should get at least 1 usage out of it on every boss. Its rank 3 gives us a 15% boost to physical damage for 10 seconds after its cast.

Vivify

Vivify got a small mana nerf, as it now costs about 17% more mana, but overall it won’t be a deciding factor in choosing what button to press next. This is not a change we’d like to see as it was already an inefficient spell and now they just bumped that up another level.

Invoke Yul’on, the Jade Serpent

Hooray! They have added a cooldown to our base kit, which is a totally new spell which takes Soothing Mist to another level. It now channels 3 Soothing Breaths, which each one heals for about half of Soothing Mist’s healing, and gains “the same bonuses that JSS does” which… well, we don’t know what those are — maybe Blizzard has plans for Soothing Mist bonuses in the near future, or perhaps they have no idea either. Additionally, when casting Enveloping Mist while Yu’lon is active, it will proc an Enveloping Breath (see below).

Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane

This talent has been completely reworked. Instead of the zipping around “crackbird” we’re used to from Legion and BfA, it performs similarly to Conflict and Strife’s Way of the Crane ability. Whenever you damage an enemy with Blackout Kick (including Teachings of the Monastery hits), Rising Sun Kick and your initial use of Spinning Crane Kick, it will produce a Gust of Mists healing event on 2 targets, which is currently exactly what your mastery heals for. And, for each aforementioned trigger of Chi-Ji’s Gust, you also get a stack (up to 3) of Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane, which reduces the cost and cast time of Enveloping Mist by 33%. Additionally, when casting Enveloping Mist while Chi-Ji is active, it will proc an Enveloping Breath (see below). This ability replaces Invoke Yu’lon, the Jade Serpent.

Enveloping Breath

Enveloping Breath is a new passive in Shadowlands. While Yu’lon or Chi-ji is out and about, whenever you cast Enveloping Mist, they will cast Enveloping Breath as well. Enveloping Breath heals for 30% SP per second, which is half of Enveloping Mist, and is cast within 10 yards of your Enveloping Mist target. This buff is a HoT on 6 people that has a “10% increased healing received” function, much like Enveloping Mist. The throughput of Yu’lon and Chi-ji can vary depending on how much mana you want to spend on Enveloping Mist as Enveloping Breath does a lot of throughput. This means it can range from a decent to an extremely strong throughput cooldown.

Enveloping Mist

EnM’s spell power has increased by 8.5%, while its mana cost has been increased by 15%. These changes aren’t too worrisome, as they won’t change when you should use this ability.

Renewing Mist

ReM’s mana cost has been reduced by 12%; this is a nice offset to the Vivify change, making our AoE healing not as expensive as it would appear.

Soothing Mist

SooM’s healing was nerfed by about 2%. This change does almost nothing for us, as it doesn’t change when we should Soothing Mist (we still don’t want to use it).

Jade Serpent Statue

JSS’s Soothing Mist channel’s healing has been buffed by roughly 23% per tick. However, the channel time has been reduced from 30 seconds (affected by haste) to 8 seconds (affected by haste), making it undesirable to use as we now need to use roughly 4 times the amount of GCDs to maintain it.

Covenants

Kyrian

This covenant provides  Weapons of Order, which is an ability that grants a 30 second buff and resets Essence Font’s cooldown upon use. This buff increases our mastery by 10% for its duration. Additionally, at the start and end of Essence Font’s channel, you emit a pulse of healing in a 15 yard radius. The mastery buff is a flat amount and follows scaling rules; so, for us, it actually provides a flat 42%. The pulse of healing is capped at 6 targets and does about 40% of a Vivify cleave…. Effectively, we get roughly 10 main target Vivifies if we hit Essence Font nearly on cooldown within the buff window. Weapons of Order has a 2 minute cooldown and costs 5% of your mana.

Kyrian also grants the ability  Summon Steward, which (as you guessed) allows you to summon a steward which can do a few things; the only one we really care about from a numerical standpoint is Phial of Serenity. This phial has 3 charges (similar to a Healthstone), and upon use, heals 15% HP and removes all diseases, poisons, curses, and bleeds; it has recently been patched to no longer put your other potions on cooldown, which is a nice QoL buff to this effect. It can be used once per encounter, on a three minute cooldown.

Overall, Kyrian is now considered a decent covenant after going from totally overpowered to virtually useless.

Necrolords

Necrolords provide  Bonedust Brew, allowing you to throw a brew on the ground, applying a buff/debuff to any allies and/or enemies within the brew’s radius for 10 seconds. Any target with this effect has a 35% chance to receive any healing or damage event again, but at 35% effectiveness. There is also the Mistweaver-specific effect, which is a flat increase to Gusts of Mists to anyone with the buff. The rough breakdown: we get about a 12.25% increase in throughput from the duplication chance, and about 2 main target Vivifies (without mastery) worth of healing (~200SP) from the secondary effect over a single use’s duration. This ability has a 1 minute cooldown.

They also provide everyone within the covenant the ability  Fleshcraft, which lets you channel for 4 seconds to gain an absorb shield between 20-50% of your HP (depending on how many corpses are near your body) which lasts 2 minutes. In a raid fight, you can expect a 20% shield, while in M+, you can use it right after a pack for a larger shield. The rough breakdown is 10-25% of your HP a minute, but as a Mistweaver it’s just another 2-minute-cooldown defensive; we already have two of those, which is plenty.

Overall, the Necrolords provide a decent Mistweaver-specific ability if your raid can stack and a decent signature ability. Depending on the fight this can either be a nice choice or a very lackluster choice.

Night Fae

The Night Fae grant the ability  Faeline Stomp, which costs 4% of your mana and allows you to stomp, shooting out a wave of energy that does damage to enemies, heals allies and shoots out Essence Font bolts as well. All effects affect 5 targets and the healing effects are able to target the same allies. Faeline Stomp also produces a ground effect which, if stood in, has a 6% chance to reset the ability’s cooldown. You can think of this as Chi Burst Diamond edition, as it works very similarly to Chi Burst mechanically, does double its damage per target, and more healing. You’ll find maximum value out of this on semi-stacked raid fights.

Members of the Night Fae also receive the ability  Soulshape, which, when activated, teleports you 15 yards forward and gives you 50% move speed for 12 seconds. During these 12 seconds, you can press Soulshape again to teleport forward an additional time, on a 4 second cooldown. Overall, this isn’t too desirable as a Mistweaver as we already have Roll/Chi Torpedo and Transcendence. The one niche this could fill is to teleport over a mechanic that you can’t proactively set up Transcendence for. Soulshape is on a 1.5 minute cooldown.

This is a combination of a rather strong Mistweaver-specific ability, and a lackluster signature ability. Overall, Night Fae is now a pretty decent covenant choice for us.

Venthyr

The denizens of Revendreth offer the ability  Fallen Order, opening a mirror for 24 seconds. This mirror summons Fallen Monks of the Ox, Crane, or Tiger school every 3 seconds, which last for 6 seconds each but if they are from your school then they last 8 seconds. These Fallen Monks will cast an ability based on their school: Ox will cast Keg Smash, Crane will cast Enveloping Mist and Soothing Mist, and Tiger will cast Spinning Crane Kick. As it stands, this will always summon 4 monks of your spec’s school, (Crane for Mistweaver, Ox for Brewmaster, and Tiger for Windwalker) the other 3 being a random combination of the other two. For us, this means we get 4 Crane monks. Fallen Order does a sizable amount of healing on its own for only 2% of your base mana. However, for a 3 minute cooldown, it is pretty lackluster. 

Venthyr also learns the ability  Door of Shadows, which allows you to teleport to a target destination within 35 yards. This destination can be through walls, creating opportunities for more unique skips.

Fallen Order is an alright Mistweaver-specific covenant ability. Regarding Door of Shadows: we’re already a hypermobile class. Having Door of Shadows or not doesn’t change much.

Conduits

To prevent this article from being too long, we will not be covering Finesse conduits, as they have very little impact on your gameplay. Any values in red change with conduit rank, this includes indirect effects and values.

Endurance

Fortifying Ingredients – Fortifying Brew grants you a shield equal to 12% of your health for 15 sec.

This is nice if you need to be a little bit more tanky to survive a hit, but outside of that, it’s very meh.

Harm Denial – Expel Harm’s healing is increased by 25%.

Expel Harm already does no healing, and 0 * 25% = 0. Very bad.

Grounding Breath – When Vivify is cast on yourself, its healing is increased by 15%, and it has a 30% chance to refund its cost.

This one is actually very interesting, as ANY Vivify can be refunded, not just ones casted on yourself. Additionally, any effective Vivify healing on yourself is boosted by 15%, even if you are not the actual cast target (namely the ReM cleave healing from Vivify). This one is gonna be real good, and as an Endurance conduit, it’ll be impossible to beat as an endurance conduit.

Potency

Jade Bond – Abilities that activate Gust of Mists reduce the cooldown on Invoke Yu’lon, the Jade Serpent (or Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane) by 0.3 sec, and Yu’lon’s Celestial Breath (or Chi-Ji’s Gust of Mist) healing is increased by 6.3%.

I am no longer impressed with this one. Yu’lon’s/Chi-Ji’s healing is decent and a boost to that is very nice. Half a second off of their cooldown is pretty interesting now with how powerful Enveloping Breath and Chi-Ji’s Gust of Mist healing is. You can expect ~20 seconds off Yu’lon or ~15 seconds off Chi-Ji under normal circumstances. (Note: double-dipping Gusts of Mists procs from Essence Font’s HoT doesn’t give an additional half-second reduction.)

Nourishing Chi – Life Cocoon increases healing over time received by an additional 18.8%, and this bonus lingers for an additional 6 seconds after the shield is broken.

If we had to compare this to food, it’s like getting an undercooked doughy pizza. We are already not a heavy HoT-based healing class, so a 18.8% boost to our HoT healing isn’t much. Additionally, only the 18.8% bonus healing lingers after the Cocoon breaks, not 50% + 18.8% as you might expect.

Resplendent Mist – Gust of Mists has a 30% chance to do 50% more healing.

It’s your grandpa’s Volkswagen Passat: it isn’t exciting, it’s not fun, it’s very bland. But, it is a 15% boost to Gust of Mists healing on average. Overall, it’s not terrible. Just bad.

Rising Sun Revival – Rising Sun Kick reduces the remaining cooldown on Revival by 1 sec, and Revival heals targets for 12.5% of Revival’s heal over 10 sec.

This bad boy will reduce your Revival by about 10-15 seconds if you can use Rising Sun Kick on cooldown, and provides a nice bit of healing afterwards. It’s a little underwhelming, and could use a little help numerically, but it’s still nice.

Covenant Specific 

These all contend for a Potency conduit slot, meaning they really need to put in some leg work to earn their keep. 

Strike with Clarity – Weapons of Order’s duration is increased by 5 sec, and the Mastery bonus is increased by 1.25%. This also factors in our mastery scaling so it’s really 5.25%.

The 5.25% extra Mastery for 35 (30 seconds base duration +5 seconds from the conduit) seconds is basically nothing. You can think about this like buying a boat but living in the desert… completely useless.

Bone Marrow Hops – Bonedust Brew’s Shadow damage/healing is increased by 40%, and when Bonedust Brew deals Shadow damage/healing, its cooldown is reduced by 0.5 sec, up to 2.5 seconds per cast of Bonedust Brew.

This healing increase is a relative increase, meaning its doesn’t increase the healing to 75%, but rather to 49%, making that part of it kind of weak. Furthermore, the cooldown reduction has now been capped at 2.5 seconds per cast of Bonedust Brew.

Way of the Fae – Faeline Stomp deals 5.5% additional damage per target, up to a maximum of 27.5% additional damage.

This does nothing for healing, so if that’s your goal, delete this conduit. Otherwise, it does start making Faeline Stomp actually pump damage in large packs. Overall: nonexistent for healing, but possibly good for M+  if you wanna blast damage.

Imbued Reflection – Fallen Order Monks deal 36.3% more damage and healing.

This one can be really good or really bad. Fallen Order does a sizable amount of healing but most of this healing is focused on a handful of targets meaning a large boost to its healing will most likely overheal and thus devalue the conduit.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m not too impressed with these options, but they will get the job done. For all content, you will want to take Jade Bond; the other two will depend on what covenant you pick and what slots you have available. (Note: if you go Necrolords, Bone Marrow Hops might still be useful, mostly due to other options being lackluster, and if you go Kyrian, you will always take Strike with Clarity). 

Legendaries

Monk

Fatal Touch – Touch of Death cooldown reduced by 120 seconds.

This one might be useful in M+ if healing isn’t an absolute priority, as it can provide a good bit of extra damage on mobs.

Invoker’s Delight – You gain 33% haste for 20 seconds after summoning your Celestial.

A haste increase on Celestial summon is pretty good with Chi-Ji, but not as much on Yu’lon. While Yu’lon will heal faster, the reduced GCD and Rising Sun Kick cooldown with Chi-Ji will most quickly outvalue it. Sadly it only lasts for 20 seconds instead of the whole duration meaning the ending of your cd you’re just weaker for no reason.

Roll Out – During Roll, you are immune to roots and snares.

This legendary is basically pointless.

Escape From Reality – After you use Transcendence: Transfer, you can use Transcendence: Transfer again within 10 sec, ignoring its cooldown. During this time, the healing done to you by your Vivify is increased by 70%, and you will be refunded for 50% of its cost when it’s cast on yourself.

This Legendary has finally started working on the Shadowlands Beta, so we can finally evaluate it. Sadly, it is pretty lackluster. The healing increase only affects Vivify healing on yourself, not the cleave healing on other players. Vice versa, if you cast it on someone else while you have Renewing Mist on yourself, the cleave healing will be increased. The increase in non-linear movement is nice but isn’t anything a Monk needs in raid or Mythic+.

Mistweaver

Ancient Teachings of the Monastery – When you finish channelling Essence Font (or cancel it), your Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick (including your Teachings of the Monastery BoKs) and Rising Sun Kick heal a nearby injured ally for 250% of the damage done.

Now we got a real champion of the people here, the closest we are getting back to the old Mistweaver playstyle. My only remark would be that it’s counterintuitive to start doing damage after Essence Font, as the Essence Font HoT effect makes you want to use Mastery-proccing spells. Still, we can’t complain, as it does a sizeable amount of healing making it a solid contender for both raid content and, due to cancelling the Essence Font channel giving the buff as well, dungeon content as well. Sadly, a 20 yard range is a notable weakness of this effect in raids, as most ranged specs have a 30+ yard range, putting them out of range of this heal. All in all, pretty happy to see this return.

Yu’lon’s Whisper – Activating Thunder Focus Tea causes you to exhale the breath of Yu’lon, healing up to 6 allies within 15 yards for a moderate amount over 2 sec.

It’s not an exciting effect, but it does some okayish proximity healing. Not the trait from Legion I’d want back — but hey, it’s free healing. As of right now one cast of Thunder Focus Tea is doing roughly 1/6th of a Revival, meaning that if you gain full value of both, they are equal in strength in terms of HPS. This effect triggers when pressing Thunder Focus Tea itself. Meaning, Focused Thunder doesn’t give you two heals.

Clouded Focus – Healing with Enveloping Mists or Vivify while channeling Soothing Mists increases their healing done by 15%, and reduces their mana cost by 15%. Stacks up to 3 times. When your Soothing Mists channel ends, this effect is cancelled.

There isn’t really a time where you think: “This fight has some really hard single target healing sections that also allow me to stand still the whole time”. Soothing Focus is killed due to the numerous restrictions placed upon it. You need to be casting Soothing Mist (a spell we want to avoid), while also spamming spells we don’t want to spam on one target. If you finally charge this legendary up to full, you have at most 3 globals to try and get full use out of the effect, assuming your target manages to remain damaged after pumping 4 globals of healing into them. This gives off vibes of Upwelling mixed with old Essence Font: long channels without the ability to move.

Tear Of Morning – Casting Vivify (main heal) or Enveloping Mist on a target with your Renewing Mist on them has a 10% chance to spreading your ReM to another target with the exact same remaining duration. Additionally, your Vivify healing to targets with Renewing Mists active is increased by 20% and Enveloping Mist instantly heals all targets with your ReM for 20% of its healing.

There is a lot to take in here, but it’s very worth it to become familiar with this legendary. First things first, the Renewing Mist spread mechanic is quite minor. You won’t cast Vivify or Enveloping Mist on a target with Renewing Mist that often. With the low 10% chance to spread, you won’t see this happening that much. However, the 20% healing increase to Vivify on targets with Renewing Mist active is a nice addition to our cleave healing potential. The Enveloping Mist cleave is a nifty addition to our cleave healing potential as well, especially when our Celestial is active and we’re inclined to cast Enveloping Mist already. Currently, this Enveloping Mist cleave also procs Mastery on your Renewing Mist targets. We are not sure if this is intended. Even without the Mastery addition, though, it is a fairly strong legendary.

Conclusion 

Currently, Tear of Morning and Ancient Teachings of the Monastery seem like the Legendaries to roll with. One strongly increases our cleave healing potential, the other brings back the good old dealing damage to heal playstyle with a decent amount of healing as well. As we are still in the Beta stage, things are still subject to change, but these will likely be our Legendaries to go for come Shadowlands.

New Acronyms

Everyone’s favorite time of year, the new Acronyms list, which we will be using to confuse you!

• ATotM – Ancient Teachings of the Monastery
• BDB – Bonedust Brew
• CF – Clouded Focus
• EnvB – Enveloping Breath 
• EH – Expel Harm
• FI – Fortifying Ingredients
• FLS – Faeline Stomp 
• FO – Fallen Order
• GB – Grounding Breath
• HD – Harm Denial
• ID – Invoker’s Delight
• JB – Jade Bond
• NC – Nourishing Chi
• RsM – Resplendent Mist
• RSR – Rising Sun Revival
• SooB – Soothing Breath
• ToM – Tear of Morning
• WoO – Weapons of Order
• Yul’on – Invoke Yul’on, the Jade Serpent
• YW – Yu’lon’s Whisper

Bugs

As we all know, beta is a testing ground for Blizzard to make changes and try new things, which means bugs will exist. We have been keeping an active list of bugs on the Blizzard forums, so if you want to follow along, test, or double check, feel free to check here!

Overall conclusion

As the Beta testing is slowly coming to an end and we’re only a day or 10 away from the release of Shadowlands, we are getting more and more confident when we say that Mistweaver in its current state is looking really solid. We have a couple of strong choices for Legendaries and seem to get some fairly useful Covenant abilities as well. Of course, things are still subject to change, but unless they make really major last minute changes, we will be doing more than fine in both Castle Nathria and the first season of Mythic+.