There was an interesting exchange about Monk Mistweavers and healing on Twitter, with discussions about whether Mistweavers are given an unfair advantage because they are considered melee. Right now, Mistweavers can stand at range, yet won’t be targeted for range abilities by bosses, or they can stand in melee, which tends to have fewer mechanics anyway.
Blizzard also brings up the idea of smart healing and how they believe all healers, not just Mistweavers, are suffering from too much in the way of smart heals.
Here is the entire exchange…
Quick Monk Question, do MW monks count as Melee right now, or will that only be in WoD?
Yes, they do. (Source)
Any chance of that being extended to other healing specs to avoid an unfair advantage? All healers benefit from being in melee
Unlikely. It’s a perk we give to specs intended to be in melee, not an unfair advantage. (Source)
It just feels like something that should be either all healers or none rather than allowing some to ignore mechanics.
There are mechanics that they would have to handle that you don’t; a tradeoff for Fistweavers. Just a perk for MW, which is fine. (Source)
But MW aren’t required to be in melee to be effective. They could stand at ranged and ignore both melee and ranged mechanics
That’s why I said “Just a perk for MW, which is fine.” Every difference between classes isn’t an “unfair advantage”. (Source)The more I think about it, the less it seems like Statue of the Jade Serpent adds any real gameplay value. Thoughts?
It does a bit for Fistweaving, but is fairly passive otherwise. Doesn’t necessarily need to be involved gameplay. (Source)
Do you think it would be more interesting with a shorter radius?
I think many Mistweavers would say that its radius is already short feeling. But, as a gameplay element to be handled, possibly. (Source)is it possible that maybe we can see fistweavers being able to dual wield in WoD? It would be really awesome imo
Cool look / feel, but that would necessitate all Mistweavers that want to even dabble in Fistweaving to get a second weapon. (Source)
Use “way of the monk”? Doable but possibly not worth the effort; WotM never properly balanced for WW, who all DW.
Another community misconception. Way of the Monk does balance DW vs 2H for Brewmaster and Windwalker, extremely closely. (Source)MW relies too much on smart heals. MW would be even better if players would have more direct control.
We agree, and think that statement applies to all healers, not just MW. (Source)
Mistweavers definitely seem to have the advantage on many fights (I can’t count the times I enviously looked at Mistweavers as they could stand wherever they wanted on heroic Lei Shen knowing they wouldn’t be targeted for Thunderstruck and could be happily healing while the rest of us ran.
But on this tier, Mistweavers definitely got the short end of the stick. For the last few heroic bosses, no one seemed to bring Mistweavers in for progression, and they were stuck riding the bench (along with the rest of the healing team that heroic Thok required).
Duel wielding would look pretty cool, and they could make fist off-hand weapons for Shamans as well, so it wouldn’t be a strict Mistweaver thing.
