Another entry in the Mistweaver Ability Spotlight series, where we go in-depth about abilities unique to Mistweaver. Today, we will be looking at Rising Mist, and the best ways to use this talent.
What is Rising Mist?
Rising Mist is a talent on the Tier 50 row that competes with Upwelling and Focused Thunder, making it so that every time you press Rising Sun Kick, everyone with a Mistweaver-specific HoT (Renewing Mists, Enveloping Mists, and Essence Font) will get healed for 28% spell power, and all of these effects will be extended by 4 seconds, up to 100% of their original duration. If the target has multiple HoTs on them, only one Rising Mist heal will occur, but all HoTs will be extended (if possible). The original duration of a HoT is how much time it would have been out without extension; this means that TFT ReM can be extended by up to 30 seconds, compared to a normally casted ReM’s 20. After that point, RSK will cease to add any further extensions to the HoT.
In-Depth Look
So now that we know what Rising Mist is, how exactly do you use it? In this section we will deep dive into how it changes Mistweaver gameplay, how it stacks up against the other talents, any important breakpoints, and changes to the essences we use.
Gameplay
Reading the talent, you will notice that all of its power revolves around using Rising Sun Kick, meaning you will want to hit it on cooldown. This requires you to have a much higher melee uptime than the alternative talents, which might take some time to adapt to. This will also make you feel more GCD-locked than normal, as you will almost always have something to cast, since Teachings of the Monastery has the ability to reset RSK. Try to be sure you never have 2 charges of Renewing Mist available, as you are actively reducing your total ReM count, and potentially the length of your ReMs. The correct usage of TFT with RM will almost always either be with ReM or RSK. Using TFT on ReM makes its initial duration 30 seconds, increasing its total possible length to 60 seconds. This increases average ReM uptime, leading to larger Vivify cleaves. TFT RSK will proc the RM healing event twice, effectively doubling its overall healing throughput. The optimal decision between these two choices is situational but neither are a bad choice.
How It Stacks Up
This section is based off of a mix of theorycrafting done by the monk community and testing in raid. We are going to break this down into four different areas: HPS, DPS, skill, and fight requirement.
HPS
When it comes to raw HPS, Rising Mist is the talent that provides the most. It extends your healing-over-time spells, and therefore your Vivify cleave potential, while providing a nice 28% SP heal to all targets of your HoTs when you RSK. In comparison, Focused Thunder is only one free Vivify every 30 seconds which doesn’t come out to all that much. Upwelling allows you to store up to 18 bolts of Essence Font, but these extra bolts do not dramatically change your overall HPS, since a lot of the time you don’t let the bolts stack up; the extra HoT time is nice, but often goes to waste, as the raid is usually healed up by then. The winner: Rising Mist.
DPS
When it comes to DPS, Rising Mist is arguably the only talent that provides useful synergy. It results in more DPS compared to Upwelling, which often reduces the DPS time you have (due to the longer Essence Font channel). Focused Thunder can provide more DPS via an extra Rising Sun Kick, but its extra charge normally wouldn’t be used on that; even then, this usage would not result in any overall kit synergy. The winner: Rising Mist.
Skill
When it comes to the skill ceilings of these talents, Rising Mist has the highest, as it is the only one of the three that alters how you have to play. Upwelling just reinforces the strength of hitting Essence Font, and Focus Thunder simply gives you a second charge on a button you press every 30 seconds. Another point of skill is mana usage. Rising Mist is a mana-heavy playstyle, where you are basically always looking to spend mana on large Vivify cleaves. This is contrary to Focused Thunder where you spend less mana due to an extra free Vivify every 30 seconds. Upwelling also relatively reduces your total mana usage, as you will spend more time channeling Essence Font than casting other abilities during heavy damage windows. In this instance we have two winners; Upwelling and Focus Thunder, as they require the least amount of skill to perform at their best.
Fight Requirement
Lastly, we arrive at fight requirements, which are the things an encounter must allow you to do to succeed. Rising Mist is really the only problem here, since the other two are non-situational and work on any fight; Rising Mist requires you to be in melee for the majority of the fight, potentially taking the place of a melee DPS, or making progression slower and more difficult for those players . This might seem trivial, but is actually a very impactful factor, and means that the other two talents win again.
Overall
Overall, Rising Mist is the best talent when it comes to overall HPS and DPS, but requires more skill and a fight that allows it. If the fight is melee-friendly, and you have the time to adapt to this playstyle, then Rising Mist is king.
Breakpoints
While Rising Sun Kick’s cooldown is reduced by haste, there are no haste “breakpoints” for it, and many things could break these breakpoints, such as (but not limited to):
- Rising Sun Kick resets from Teachings of the Monastery
- Restrictions on melee uptime
- Having to cast other spells over Rising Sun Kick
Instead, a more interesting breakpoint to look at is one based on how many Renewing Mists you have out. If you have 5 active ReMs, two casts of Vivify becomes more mana efficient and more healing for its cast time than Essence Font. This does not mean EF is dead if you have 5 ReMs out; if you need to move and heal, then Essence Font is still your best spell.
Another breakpoint is the ability to fully extend your Renewing Mists. This means getting 5 RSKs in 36 seconds; or, if you used TFT on ReM, getting 8 RSKs in 54 seconds. Due to the “breakpoint breakers”, it’s impossible to provide an exact amount of haste required to do this, but 10-15% is a good starting point. Pick up a little more until you feel you are able to keep maximum ReM uptime, then prioritize crit/vers.
Talents
Invoke Chi-ji, the Red Crane or Refreshing Jade Wind
Mist Wrap gains some value as the healing boost is extended, allowing you to better heal heavy single-target damage; it can also prove useful if you’re feeling too GCD-capped to cast Chi Burst. However, if the raid is stacked enough and you have the GCDs available, Chi Burst is still a great option.
Mana Tea is taken over all other talents on the third row. It reduces the pressure on your mana pool when you decide to dump Vivifies. We don’t take Spirit of the Crane here, as it requires too many globals spent DPSing to compete with Mana Tea; these are GCDs you’d rather spend casting actual healing spells. Lifecycles: no.
On the fifth row, the choice of Refreshing Jade Wind or Chi-ji depends on the GCDs and mana you have available to make RJW work. If either of those conditions prove too difficult to meet, go with the more passive option of Chi-ji. JSS does an alright amount of healing but requires more gcds than RJW, and is not worth taking.
Rotation
The only modification to your rotation is to make sure you include Rising Sun Kick as much as possible, and use Thunder Focus Tea on it too. You shouldn’t stop healing to fish for resets unless there is no damage to heal, or there is so little that your HoTs can handle it. When you do fish for resets, you should Blackout Kick, right after a Rising Sun Kick as it will provide the most reward for the fewest GCDs lost. If Rising Sun Kick is 50% or more off cooldown (~3-4 seconds before it would naturally come off cooldown), you should stop fishing, and start stacking up TotM stacks to spend after you press RSK.
TL;DR
Rising Mist is the best talent on its row if you have the skill for it and the encounter allows it.
You will want to run Mist Wrap or Chi Burst, Mana Tea, Ring of Peace, Diffuse Magic or Dampen Harm, Chi-ji or Refreshing Jade Wind, and Rising Mist!
You should hit Rising Sun Kick as much as possible.
Mythic Plus
This is going to be fairly short but I’ll try to go over the power and weaknesses of Rising Mist in mythic plus. Rising Mist allows you to have full group Renewing Mist enabling you to heal up any group damage much quicker and more reliable. This helps on mana, reducing the amount of times you need to drink. Since there are only 5 targets you don’t have to use Thunder Focus Tea on Renewing Mist all the time and allows you to use it on the other spells if they are better at the time.
Rising Mist is the best talent on T50 for m+ as of the extra Vivify cleave it allows.
FAQ
Is it required to run Rising Mist?
No. You can still run the old Upwelling build just fine.
Is it worth it to fish for resets for Rising Sun Kick?
It is 100% worth fishing for resets if there is no damage to heal, or it is low enough for your co-healers to take care of. You should hit Blackout Kick right after Rising Sun Kick if possible, and your HoTs are not maxed on extension. More Rising Sun Kick = good.
You say there are no haste breakpoints, does that mean haste is still bad?
No, quite the opposite. Haste has moved up quite a bit in value. Is it stronger than critical strike and versatility? Most likely not, but we still suggest that you follow QElive for gearing suggestions.
