On today’s installment of How to Train your Celestial, we will be talking all about Invoke Yu’lon, the Jade Serpent and Invoke Chi Ji, the Red Crane. We will hit on what each Celestial does, any fun interactions they have with our kit, how to pick the right one, what to do during each one, and how to decide which one is stronger.

What can my Celestial do?

Invoke Yu’lon, the Jade Serpent and Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane both share a passive called EnvB. This ability places a HoT on 6 different people within 10 yards of your Env target while your Celestial is alive (one of these 6 HoTs will always go on the person you casted Env on). This HoT is decently hard hitting, and also has a buff that increases all healing done to the target by 10%. This usually contributes a large part of your Celestial’s healing in raid, but due to the HoT having a short range, it doesn’t find much use in Mythic+ unless your group is stacked.

Invoke Yu’lon, the Jade Serpent has its own special ability called SooB, which is just 3 half-power SooMs that channel from Yu’lon herself; you don’t need to cast SooM for her to cast it. You have the ability to direct who she is casting SooB on the same way you would with JSS. This has very niche use cases and can generally be ignored.

Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane also has its own special ability which converts certain damaging spells into healing through Gust of Mist. Additionally, it grants you a buff which reduces the cast time and mana cost of Env by 33% each — this can stack up to 3 times, making it instant cast and cost no mana. The damaging abilities that Chi-Ji can convert to healing are BoK, RSK, and SCK. It also indirectly converts Tiger Palm into healing through TotM when you use BoK. Each time you use one of these abilities, it will proc 2 Gusts of Mist heals that will randomly target injured players within 40 yards; this will no longer prioritize the closest ally. These Gusts of Mist scale off of Intellect, Mastery and Versatility, and can also Crit, while also working with any Gusts duplication powers such as Essence Font and Bonedust Brew. Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane also will passively attack the boss for a decent amount of damage, as well as rendering you immune to movement impairing effects.

How does my Celestial interact with my kit?

There are only a few interactions with other spells/talents to mention here.

• Mist Wrap extends EnvB by 1 second, but doesn’t increase the healing buff.
• RM does NOT interact with EnvB
• FO‘s Envs do not proc EnvB
• Casting SooM focuses one of Yu’lon’s SooB on that target.
• TotM BoKs do produce Gust of Mist healing events
• Essence Font and Bonedust Brew duplicate Chi-Ji’s Gust of Mist
• WoO increases Mastery, thus increasing Gust of Mist healing
• Jade Bond doesn’t increase EnvB
• Chi-Ji’s Gust of Mist does work with Jade Bond’s reduction
• replmist does work with Chi-Ji’s Gust of Mist

How do I know when to pick each Celestial?

Picking the right Celestial depends on a few factors, such as  “Can I be in melee?” and “Do I care about mana?”.

The first is fairly obvious, as in, if you can’t (or don’t like to) be in melee, then Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane will be pointless, as you have to proactively hit melee dps buttons to use him correctly. So if you can’t be in melee, then don’t take Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane.

The latter isn’t as obvious, but is extremely important, as your aim during a Celestial cooldown is to cast a good amount of Envs which costs a sizable portion of your mana. This mana cost can be virtually dropped to 0 if you use Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane as his buff through using damaging spells will reduce the cost of Env massively, while also replacing other expensive casts with low mana/free dps casts. There are things you can do to lower the mana usage during Invoke Yu’lon, the Jade Serpent such as using Mana Tea, calling for Innervate, or using Potion of Sacrificial Anima.

How to play with each Celestial?

One core concept about Celestials is to cast it right before damage hits, as the button press to summon them does absolutely nothing. You also need to decide how far ahead/what you should do beforehand, which changes based on which Celestial you have selected.

Enveloping Breath

The fundamentals of what to do during a Celestial remains the same either way: cast Env to proc EnvB. However, the way you accomplish this is different for both of them. Another core concept is to hard-cast Env during this window, as hard-casting is always faster than SooM -> Env. Now, for the most important Env casting rules, these require on-the-fly brainpower, as you can’t just reference frames for an answer.

• There should be at least 2 people within 10 yards of your Env target
• These people don’t have EnvB on them
• There is (or is about to be) damage to heal

If one of these conditions is not met, do not cast Env, and play as you normally would.

Invoke yu’lon, the Jade Sperent

With Yu’lon, you will want to cast it about 2 GCDs before damage hits, and then precast an Env so it finishes as damage hits. From here on out, you will just run through the normal healing rotation while replacing Essence Font casts with Env if they meet the cast requirements.

Invoke Chiji, the Red Crane

With Chi-Ji you have some pre-planning happening here, since he does convert TotM BoKs and his Gust of Mist are duplicated by Essence Font‘s HoT. This means you’ll want to enter Chi-Ji with a fully stacked TotM and a fresh set of Essence Font HoTs out — this does mean cast Essence Font BEFORE damage. Your rotation will look something like this:
Tiger Palm x3 -> Essence Font -> Chi-Ji -> BoK -> Env
After this, you should try to get 3 stacks of Chi-Ji’s buff before casting Env, but if you need more healing, you should consider casting with lower stacks. The way you should get stacks follows a priority list of dps buttons that changes based on the situation:

Max mana savings/burst

1. RSK
2. Tiger Palm (if RSK isn’t up and you have 0 stacks, you should Tiger Palm twice here)
3. BoK

Constant healing

1. RSK
2. BoK
3. SCK

Note: These do the same hps, the only difference is how the hps comes out.

Which one is Stronger?

There is no black-and-white “strongest one”, as each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

So, depending on your situation and values, the better pick varies.