Thursday (25 Oct) - A Look at Mistweaver

Thursday (25 Oct) - A Look at Mistweaver

Fist spent a little time cleaning up a few last quests in Borean Tundra. She had completed the Coldarra area earlier, and all she had left were the murlocs, which didn't take very long to wrap up. She had a few choices for her next target. Wild took the time to go to the other starter zone, Howling Fjord, in order to see the new zone. Fist had no interest in a zone that maxes out at level 72. Dragonblight would be the next zone in terms of level difficulty, and that is where the city of Dalaran is also located. Fist said "ehh" to that idea, too. Looking for something moderately more challenging, and a zone that was fun to do, Fist pointed to level 73-75 Grizzly Hills.

The main horde encampment in Grizzly Hills is Conquest Hold. Fist was able to fly directly from Dalaran to Conquest Hold. Fist is level 75.

Fist had every intention of banging out a bunch of quests after the baseball game (LOSERS! oops, did I say that out loud? Tigers lost 2-0). However, having mentioned that Fist was considering using the mistweaver healing spec the next time she could do a dungeon run, Fist figured she'd better at least get the basic UI, spells, glyphs, etc taken care of. Fist had this hope that the mistweaver spells could be compared to druid spells in order to help learn what they did faster. Ha. Mistweaver spec has TWELVE new spells related to healing that Fist had never seen when in windwalker spec. TWELVE. Oh my.

The Icy Veins website did a good job of breaking things down, but this is a really new way to heal. Unlike a druid, who uses mana in healing spec (like every other healing spec) and energy in feral spec (or whatever, Wild couldn't find his feral spec if it leaped from stealth and raked him). Monks have to use both mana and chi to heal. Monks also DPS to heal, which is truly novel, so not only does Fist's spell bar have to have room for all those healing spells, she still needs her main set of dps abilities in order to function correctly as a healer. No other class heals at melee range, and no other class is expected to DPS while performing the healing role.

This is pretty interesting. Complicated, weird, but enticing. Spell casting is very conditional and interlocking, involving heals, dps, and a number of buffs and cooldowns that interact. Fist spent the evening reading up on them and getting a logical user interface setup in place; ie, finding homes on her buttons and bars for all those spells in a way that made sense. And then playing with those spells.

I'm afraid to say, though, that Fist never managed to get out of Conquest Hold to do any questing. She'll be back at the grind tomorrow.