The great Monk nerf of 5.1

When I saw the first set of patch notes for 5.1 that involved the mistweaver (my new main), I was really discouraged.  I had just reached 90 and was gearing to be able to raid.  I almost just quit gearing, deciding to play my pally as my main instead.  It seemed like everything that made the monk good was getting nerfed hard core.  After hyperventilating for a couple seconds, I decided to take the same approach as I did in Dragon Soul when druid heals were nerfed quite badly.  Don't complain, and just make the best of a bad situation.  (During Dragon Soul, despite being told that druids couldn't beat the other healing classes, I was consistently in the top 2 in heals for my guild)  This change in viewpoint was freeing, and allowed me to not be as discouraged.

With 5.1 finally dropping, the time has come to analyze how bad the nerf was to Mistweaver healing.  So first off, let's look at the complete list of changes as stated on the patch notes:

Monk

• All healing spells which cost mana have had their mana cost increased by 10%.
• The Tiger Power provided by Tiger Palm now reduces target armor by 30% with a single application and no longer stacks.
• The healing provided by Enveloping Mists has been reduced by 32%.
• The healing provided by the Healing Sphere base spell has been increased by 20%.
• The healing provided by Chi Burst and Chi Wave has been reduced by 25%.
• The healing provided when detonating Zen Sphere has been reduced by 25%.
• The chance to generate 1 Chi while channeling Soothing Mist and Crackling Jade Lightning has increased to 35%, up from 25%.
• The Power Strikes talent now grants the Power Strikes effect every 20 seconds, which causes the Monk's next attack to generate 1 additional Chi.
• The Healing Elixirs talent now grants the Healing Elixirs effect every 18 seconds, which causes the next Brew or Tea consumed to heal the Monk for 10% of maximum health.
• Mistweaver
  • Enveloping Mist is now available at level 16, down from level 34.
  • You now have a chance equal to your crit chance to generate double the amount of Mana Tea charges.
  • Renewing Mists now travels to 2 additional targets (was 3 targets).
  • The mana cost of Soothing Mists has been reduced by 33%.
  • Haste for Mistweavers is now 50% more effective through Stance of the Wise Serpent.

That is a lot of information, so to simplify it, I will go through each one individually.

The mana cost increase had me very worried, but after being in a raid, it is not that bad, because half your spells use chi anyways, and the crit bonus makes up for the lost mana.  (more on the crit effect later)

The tiger power change is most beneficial to windwalkers, but if you are a fistweaver (dps healing through eminence), this is also a nice quality of life change for that.  If you range heal with the monk, this change will not affect you.

The Enveloping Mists nerf really made me mad when I first saw it, but when using it in a raid, I realized it was put in to counteract the haste buff, in order to make the amount of healing "feel" the same, which it does. (more on the haste change later)

Healing sphere went from being a lonely, never pushed button on my bar to now very important.  In high aoe damage phases, it is still lackluster, but in low aoe damage phases, for tank healing, or pre-healing, it owns.  With my current gear it does 35k regular and 70k as a crit.  That means in 3 global cooldowns, you can get between 105k and 210k heals.  That is a lot of healing for very little cost.  Finding moments to drop them is well worth it now.  Pre 5.1, there were just too many other options.  Renewing Mists, Uplift, Expel Harm, Soothing Mists, just to name a few.  You still want to do renewing mists on cool down, but healing sphere is now a great filler spell.

The nerf to Chi Burst, Chi Wave and Zen Sphere is disappointing as it reduces our utilty.  These spells are not always worth using on cd anymore.  It used to be that you wanted to use them whenever you could.  Now I only use them as a chi dump in order to keep my mana tea stacks as high as possible. (again to benefit from the crit change)

The change to soothing mist and Crackling Jade Lightning is probably my favorite change, because it makes range healing come more in line with melee healing.  Pre 5.1, jabbing for chi was king and any good mistweaver was doing that.  Post 5.1 jabbing for chi is still the fastest was to generate chi, but the efficiency of that chi development is now closer.  This change makes it much less damaging to use soothing mist or crackling jade lightning as your filler spell.

Power strikes and Healing elixers are only minor changes, and since I didn't use them anyways, have little affect on my healing.  If you are a full time fistweaver though, then the benefit of power strikes is worth considering.  I still prefer the extra chi (5 chi instead of four) and the new 15% additional mana that ascendency gives, but an argument can be made for power strikes in that situation.

The enveloping mist change to level 16 is purely a quality of life change for early questing.  If you leveled a monk pre 5.1, you found that in the early levels, all you could do was soothing mist (which was more then enough healing, but very boring).  Getting enveloping mists earlier gives more buttons to push and makes leveling more fun.

The change to crit and mana tea charges is huge, because it has an affect on our stat distribution.  Pre 5.1, I went with a mastery heavy build because in a 25 man raiding team, spheres rarely get wasted.  I did this against most of the research I did, as most people said crit was slightly better.  This change finally made me switch to a crit heavy build, and I gotta say, I have no intention to chnage back to mastery.  The additional tea stacks, while not gamebreaking, are noticeble, and make your amount of needed spirit go down.  Being able to convert some of the spirit reforging to crit allows a monk to keep the same regen, but also have the same random benefits of crit.  I much prefer regen that can increase healing to regen that doesn't.  Spirit is still the king stat, but with the crit change, you no longer need to stack it as high as you used to.

The renewing mist change is what really hurts us.  On fights like Elegon, with high aoe damage, I could jab for chi, renewing mist on cd, thunder tea on cd, and then uplift in between and put up insane healing numbers.  With a 15 ilvl gap between me and our best healers, I was still beating them consistently on that fight.  This was great for my ego, but also an obvious overpowerment of the mechanic.  In low to mid damage aoe fights, this will not hurt us all that much as some of the other changes will compensate for the loss in heals.  The only place where this will hurt is in high aoe damage fights, and on those fight we will be more akin to other healers instead of being the "Gods" of aoe healing.  I don't like this change, but I understand why they made it, and if you use healing sphere more, and better use of your tank heals, you can make up the lost heals quite easily.  There will be more pressure on yout healing team for aoe heals though.  In a 10 man team, this change has negligible affect, and is not much of a nerf at all.

The soothing mist mana change is very big.  Without a statue, you could soothing mist all day and never run out, but with a statue out (as you always should have), the mana drain from soothing mist made jabbing for chi the better option.  Now, soothing mist is a much more realistic chi generating alternative to jabbing for chi.

The haste change is also pretty big, because it changed our haste tick points.  It used to be that a mistweaver should not stack any haste as they would get enough just from gear to get an extra tick of renewing mist and enveloping mist.  Now, with very little stacking, you can get two extra ticks of each spell.  (3140 is now the objective of haste)  These extra ticks help compensate for the reduction in healing that renewing mists only going to two targets make.

So now the overall judging.  It turns out that the great mistweaver monk nerf of 5.1 was actually not much of a nerf at all.  Instead blizzard has forced monks to use more of their spells in a more triage fashion, which does fit their current model for healing.  The importance of healing sphere has jumped and is worth using when you can fit it in, but don't neglect your normal rotation of spells to fit it in.  A good monk will have plenty of chances to throw it in, so look for those oppurtunities.  Renewing mist should still be cast on cd, but uplift's power has been greatly reduced.  It should still be used in high aoe damage moments the way it was before, but in mid to low aoe damage situations, monks now have other spells worth casting instead.  The new stat priority as I see it is:  Spirit -> Int -> Haste to 3140 -> Crit -> Mastery -> Haste after 3140.  This could change, especially as gear gets better, but currently I think it is your best bet.  If you make the adjustments, there is no reason why a mistweaver monk can't continure to shine in a raid setting and still outheal the other classses.  It is a lot harder then it used to be though, and at least in my opinion, that makes it more fun.

P.S.  This is not related to the patch directly, but is worth mentioning.  Mistweaver monks are incredible tank healers.  I would argue the best class at tank healing, especially if you get the tier bonuses, so with the nerf to renewing mist and the inadvertant nerf to uplift because of it, it might be worth suggesting to your raid leader that he let you tank heal, and throw out some aoe heals while you are doing it.  A mistweaver can put out aoe heal like numbers just tank healing if the tank damage is sufficient (which is the case on pretty much every progression fight).  I plan to do my next post on how to best accomplish tank healing, and why it is a change worth making if your guild leader will allow it.