My updated guide is here. (This one’s old.)

Overview

The mistweaver monk is the healing option for the new monk class introduced in Mists of Pandaria. Mistweaver monks, much like holy paladins, have to manage two separate resources; Mana and Chi. Unlike the DPS windwalker which uses Chi as a primary resource, Mistweavers use chi to power their secondary/AOE healing. Mistweavers can also generate heals through DPS’ing, similar to an Atonement discipline priest, though this is not required.

Changelog:

01 Jul: Updated for 15799.
17 Jun: Man, haven’t touched this in a while. Updated for 15762.
28 Apr: Reworked considerably. Added rotational information, updated for Patch 15650.
21 Apr: Initial post.

Resources

Gaining Mana

Unlike the other two specializations, Mistweavers use mana instead of energy. Mistweavers can regain mana through the traditional ways (50% of Spirit’s regeneration continues in in-combat via Mana Meditation, mana potion, etc.). However, Mistweavers  also generate Mana Tea stacks; one stack is generated for every 4 chi consumed (Brewing: Mana Tea). To regain mana, you channel the Mana Tea ability, which regenerates 4% mana/sec/stack (of course, if you’re channeling MT, you’re not healing. Decisions, decisions.) Mana Tea can be glyphed, which removes the channeling behavior and causes it to simply use two stacks (8% mana) instantly, with a 10s cooldown.

Gaining Chi
Chi currently is capped at 4 (5 if talented) and can be gained in the following ways:

• Jab (3% mana, no CD, all monks): Increases Chi by 1. Basic attack.
• Expel Harm (2.5% mana, 15s CD, all monks): Heals you for a bit, then does that as damage to a nearby target.
• Spinning Crane Kick – AoE heal via Teachings of the Monastery, generates 1 Chi.
• Renewing Mist - AOE HoT, generates 1 Chi.
• Surging Mist – Expensive smart heal, generates 1 Chi. Glyphing this removes the Chi generation.
• Soothing Mist - Each tick has a 20% chance to generate 1 Chi.
• Crackling Jade Lightning - each damage tick has a chance to generate 1 Chi.

Abilities (costs may be slightly out of date).

Single-Target Heals:

• Surging Mist (5.5% mana, 1.5s cast, Mistweaver only) - Expensive, fast single-target heal. Flash Heal equivalent. If used during Soothing Mists, becomes instant and automatically heals Soothing Mists’ target. Generates 1 Chi. Can also be made instant via Teachings of the Monastery. Thunder Focus Tea doubles next SuM’s effect. Can be glyphed to become a smart heal (auto-heals lowest friendly target).
• Soothing Mists (1% mana, 8s channel, Mistweaver only) - Channeled weak heal, during which you can cast Surging Mist as an instant to heal the SoM target. Heal equivalent. Has a chance to generate 1 Chi with each tick.
• Enveloping Mists (3 chi, 2s cast, Mistweaver only). Big/expensive single-target HOT. Greater Heal equivalent (sorta), but you’d cast this then channel SoM.
• Healing Spheres (2% mana, instant, 0.5s CD, all monks) - Can be manually placed for a planned move or proc’ed via our mastery. Not really recommended for manual use currently, since most players don’t have the situational awareness to move to them when they need to.

• Renewing Mists (4.2% mana, 8s CD, 15s duration): A HoT with an AoE mechanic. Cast on one target, it will “spread” to three other targets. The spread HoTs do not spread again, so one ReM cast -> 4 HoTs (eventually). HoTs can be maintained via Uplift. You will almost certainly want the glyph, since it doubles the spread range from 20 to 40 yards.
• Uplift (2 Chi, instant, no CD) Increases the duration on Renewing Mists and heals for a bit.  Thunder Focus Tea will double Uplift’s healing.

DPS Healing:

• Jab (3% mana, no CD, all monks): Increases Chi by 1. Basic attack.
• Expel Harm (2.5% mana, 15s CD, all monks): Heals you for a bit, then does that as damage to a nearby target.
• Summon Jade Serpent Statue (6% mana, 180s CD, 15m duration) Helps with DPS healing, also clones your Soothing Mists when you cast it.
• Crackling Jade Lightning (1.5% mana, 6s channel, 40 yd range) Your primary damage ability, has a slight chance to generate Chi as well.
• Tiger Palm/Blackout Kick (1 chi/2chi, all monks) Basic chi-consuming damaging abilities. BOK is especially good to use due to the buffed healing from autoattack.

Buffs/Passives:

• Stance of the Wise Serpent (Mistweaver only): Replaces Energy with mana, adds hit equal to spirit, 50% of the damage you do becomes healing.
• Stance of the Fierce Tiger (all monks): Increases damage by 20%. Will not use this often.
• Legacy of the Emperor (all monks): +5% stats.
• Tiger Strikes (all monks): Autoattacks have a 10% chance to proc a buff that increases attack-speed and generates 4 extra attacks. Not certain on proc chance.
• Way of the Monk (all monks): DW one-handers get +40% damage; two-hander gets +40% attack speed. A lever for developers to tweak to keep DW/2H damage roughly equal.

Movement:

• Roll (20s CD, two charges, all monks): Similar to blink, you go forward (or sideways, or backwards) fast. Has 2 charges; the 1st starts regenerating immediately when you use it.
• Transcendence (45s CD, all monks): Similar to Demonic Circle. This places your “spirit” (aka teleport point).
• Transcendence: Transfer (25s CD, all monks): This relocates you to your spirit and relocates your spirit to the spot your body was in before.

Crowd Control:

• Paralysis (15s CD, all monks): 30s/60s incapacitate. Melee only so will be semi-tricky to use in dungeons. CAN be broken by Expel Harm currently.
• Disable (15 energy, all monks): Reduces movement speed by 25%, stacks twice. On third use, roots.
• Grapple Weapon (60s CD, all monks): Ranged disarm. Possibly may buff the Monk, but this part’s TBD.
• Spear Hand Strike (30 energy, 30s CD, all monks): Interrupt/Silence.
• Provoke (8s CD, all monks): The monk’s taunt. Increases enemy movement speed by 50% for some reason. Brewmasters can Provoke their Black Ox statue for an AoE taunt (around the statue).

Healing/Other:

• Detox (20 energy, 8s CD, all monks): Dispels diseases and poisons.
• Resuscitate (4% mana, all monks): Out of combat rez.
• Touch of Death (3 chi, 90s CD, all monks): Instakills an NPC with less health than the monk. Affected by Fortifying Brew, mostly a leveling ability.

Talents

For the full list, see the monk talent page. For Mistweavers, my recommendations:

• L15: Celerity. More frequent rolls beats faster rolls.
• L30: Varies, all have their uses. Chi Wave is a good default choice.
• L45: Chi Brew for those burst healing moments.
• L60: Leg Sweep. Charging Ox Wave if you’re at ranged, Leg Sweep if you’re at melee.
• L75: Dampen Harm or Diffuse Magic, depending on fight.
• L90: Rushing Jade Wind, depending on how good Chi Torpedo ends up being.

Glyphs (out of date).

• Glyph of Breath of Fire: When you use Breath of Fire on targets that have 3 stacks of Dizzying Haze, they become Disoriented for 3 sec. Adds some survivability to the damage.
• Glyph of Chi Wave: When you deal damage with Chi Wave, you stun the target for 1 sec. Mistweaver PvP.
• Glyph of Dizzying Haze: You apply two stacks of Dizzying Haze when cast, instead of one. Helpful to stack miss chance faster.
• Glyph of Enduring Healing Sphere: When attacked, the cast time of your Healing Sphere is reduced by 50%. Stacks up to 2 times. Hard to say right now, it’s practically instant.
• Glyph of Expel Harm: Increases the range of your Expel Harm by 10 yards. Possibly helpful.
• Glyph of Gliding Serpent Kick: Reduces the speed while using Flying Serpent Kick by 30%. WHY WOULD YOU?
• Glyph of Guard: Increases the amount your Guard absorbs by 10%, but your Guard can only absorb magical damage. Very encounter dependent, obviously.
• Glyph of Mana Tea: Your Mana Tea is instant instead of channeled and consumes two stacks when used, but causes a 10 sec cooldown. Interesting; will have to see how this plays out.
• Glyph of Meditation: You can now channel Meditation while moving. Meh, Meditation’s still due for a nerf.
• Glyph of Renewing Mists: Your Renewing Mists travels to the furthest injured target within 40 yards rather than the closest injured target within 8 yards. So…you get two mistweavers and have one glyph and one not? Personally, I want that guy who refuses to stack up to die horribly, but eh.
• Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick: You move at full speed while channeling Spinning Crane Kick. Cool, I guess.
• Glyph of Spinning Fire Blossom: Your Spinning Fire Blossom requires an enemy target rather than traveling in front of you, but is no longer capable of rooting targets. Eh.
• Glyph of Surging Mist: Your Surging Mist no longer requires a target, and instead heals the lowest health target within 40 yards. Well, that’s your tank healer/raid healer split right there.
• Glyph of Touch of Death: Your Touch of Death no longer has a Chi cost, but the cooldown is increased by 2 minutes. Eh.
• Glyph of Transcendence: Increases the range of your Transcendence: Transfer spell by 10 yards. Definitely helpful.