The day has finally come: RM’s numbers are too big to keep any longer, and Blizzard’s only solution is to hit it with the nerf bat. In order not to render the talent completely unusable, they gave it a healthy boost to the direct healing it does to targets with heal-over-time effects.

Rising Mist now extends heal-over-time effects by 2 seconds (was 4 seconds), and its healing is increased by 50%.

What does this all mean?

Before we overreact to this nerf, let us take a look at 8.2’s Rising Mist, compare the changes between then and 8.3, look at the new changes, and see how it will affect RM’s gameplay.

First up, we have version 8.2, giving a 2 second extension and a 15% spell power heal to all allies with Renewing Mist, Enveloping Mist, or Essence Font on them whenever you RSK.

In 8.2, RM was less focused on the hot extension, and more on the direct healing it provided, meaning the gameplay was more focused on using RSK while you have Essence Font HoTs out. This provided a small boost of healing (about half a bolt hit) to each viable target. On average, you get about 13 unique HoTs out per Essence Font cast, meaning each RSK (when those 13 HoTs are up) are doing about 34.03% of an EF cast. Not too bad; but, not amazing either, as this required a bit more brain power than Upwelling for results that were, at most, marginally better.

Next, we had version 8.3, giving a 4 second extension and a 20% spell power heal to all allies with Renewing Mist, Enveloping Mist, or Essence Font on them when you RSK.

Rising Mist had effectively received a 33% buff to the heal’s spell power, and a 100% buff to the HoT extension, shifting its primary purpose from a healing spell to a HoT extending spell. The new game plan was to get as many HoTs out as possible, while extending them for as long as possible—made easier with insane amounts of haste. This works because RSK’s cooldown is reduced by haste, and Teachings of the Monastery has the ability to reset RSK’s cooldown completely. Furthermore, in 8.3, we got corruption, which made absurd amounts of haste even more attainable. The conclusion: stack as much haste as possible to push as many Renewing Mists out for massive Vivifies. Once players realized, with the amount of haste available with Expedient corruptions (and aided by Ineffable Truth), that they could get 20-man Vivify cleaves on the raid, they pushed the mechanic even further. RM players pivoted to 20-man Enveloping Mists, which would theoretically do insane and yes, overpowered, amounts of HPS. This resulted in doing 900k HPS without using mana for the rest of the fight, which reached a point of unacceptability. The only caveat was that it required specific gear and high melee uptime on the boss; nevertheless, the possibility of this playstyle could not continue to exist.

Now we have arrived at the nerfed version: the HoT extension is down by 50%, to a 2 second extension; the heal itself increased by another 50%, up to a 30% spellpower heal.

Compared to the 8.2 version, we are back to normal in terms of HoT extension, but this time, the actual healing it does is now doubled, resulting in a buff to Essence Font’s synergy with the talent. Therefore, using the same math, every RSK heals for 58.96% of an Essence Font, assuming the HoTs are still up. This is a quite sizable amount of healing, considering it only costs 1500 mana. In terms of healing per mana spent, this is almost 3x more efficient than Essence Font. Along with this healing boost, there is a new Renewing Mist goal to hit for Vivify to become more efficient to press than Essence Font: 6. The extra healing you get from trying to extend Renewing Mists is just not as strong as it was before, and it will be much harder to reach previous numbers while having enough crit/vers to make Vivify not hit like a wet noodle. This also affects our essences, as we will move back to Lucid Dream major, and not take the Ever-Rising Tide major anymore.

How does this nerf affect our stats?

Haste falls from god-like levels, and is now in the mortal realm; once again, crit and vers are actually worth more overall than haste. It is not worthless by any means, but is not a stat you actively want to stack. Mastery stays in the coffin: a stat you wish you could replace, as it only affects 2 spells commonly casted in raid, one of which you just throw out for efficiency’s sake.

How does this affect our talents and essences?

For talents, it changes a few things up: we go back to Chi Burst over Mist Wrap, and allows us to go back to using Rushing Jade Wind and Jade Serpent Statue.
For essences, it forces us to abandon ERT major and go back to Lucid Dreams if you need mana, or Life-Binder’s Invocation if you don’t. 

How does this affect Mythic Plus?

This was overlooked in the RM overview; but, from the feedback we got, it should have been a major part. The effects of this nerf are much higher in mythic+ than in raid, to the point where it is no longer the optimal talent. The healing is quite weak when you only have 5 targets to heal per RSK, and the HoT extensions are very minor: you won’t be able to keep up enough Renewing Mists for long enough to warrant its use. While RM may not be optimal in M+, this will not affect essence choices.

Recap

TL;DR: Rising Mist has been nerfed but it is still valid for raid. Your gameplay focuses around getting RM’s healing after Essence Font with RSK, for ~59% of Essence Font’s healing. Haste drops in value, and crit and vers are king again. Drop ERT major for Lucid Dream.

Math

Typical EF Cast

EF shoots 18 bolts out and on average hits 13 different targets(can be found on wowA for a given log)
EF sp on bolt hit: 33.75
EF sp on hot: 12
EF sp per second on hot: 12/8=1.5
EF normal hot length = 8
EF pandemic hot length = 8 * 1.3 = 10.5
EF normal hot sp = 8 * 1.5 = 12
EF pandemic Hot sp = 10.5 * 1.5 = 15.75
Number of pandemic Hots = 18 – 13 = 5
Number of normal Hots = 13 – 5 = 8
Total ef hot healing = (8 * 12) + (5 * 15.75) = 174.75
Total ef bolt healing = 33.75 * 18 = 607.5
Total ef healing = 174.75 + 607.5 = 782.25

RM extension after an EF cast (assume worst cast for rem hot locations)

EF produces 13 hots
Rm sp = 30
EF sp per second on hot = 1.5
Rem sp per second on hot = 161/20 = 8.05
Expected rems out = 2
RM direct healing sp = 13 * 30 = 390
(note hot extensions don’t follow pandemic rules)
RM ef hot healing = 13 * 1.5 * 2 = 39sp
RM rem hot healing = 2 * 8.05 * 2 = 32.2sp
Total sp per rsk = 390 + 39 + 32.2 = 461.2sp
8.2 Total sp per rsk = (390/2) + 39 + 32.2 = 266.2sp

Final %

% of an ef a rsk is 8.2 = 266.2/782.25 = .3403 = 34.03%
% of an ef a rsk is post nerf = 461.2/782.25 = .5896 = 58.96%

Spell power per mana

EF: 782.25 / 7200 = .1086
8.2 RSK: 266.2/1500 = .177
8.3 post nerf RSK: 461.2/1500 = .307