The Queue is as the Queue does

Though what the Queue does is questionable, which means what the Queue is is equally questionable.

Hm. Well, I never said I had all the answers, which is clearly why I’m here writing this Q&A column.

Okay. Kal knows I have thoughts on Mistweavers that I have never written up properly because … frankly, it would just be a lot of work for the internet to call me an idiot. I can get called an idiot without doing anything notable, so why put all that effort in?

But okay. Here are my big issues with Mistweaver Monk s… which aren’t addressed in the alpha. In fact, Mistweaver Monks are practically unchanged in the alpha. Despite all the applause over Fistweaving being back as a playstyle… Fistweaving is a playstyle now: it’s just not a good playstyle, and I don’t know that it will be in Shadowlands, either.

1. We are super good single-target healers. A Soothing Mist, Enveloping Mist, Vivify combo lets us pump a lot of healing into a single target quickly. There are talents that strengthen this style and improve its mana efficiency, too. But there’s nothing in the game that requires this much single-target healing (to the point where I don’t even keep Enveloping Mist on my bars), making our biggest strength an immediate writeoff.
2. There’s a lack of synergy between abilities and talents that makes builds… just odd. Rising Mist, our retail damage-to-healing talent, doesn’t synergize with a single ability in our kit — including Invoke Chi-Ji, our new damage-to-healing talent coming in Shadowlands. With RM, you want to keep all of your HOTs going and then use Rising Sun Kick as often as possible, which procs a heal on everyone with your HOTs. Chi-Ji turns your physical damage into healing for 25 seconds — but if you spend 25 seconds ignoring your HOTs, they’re going to fall off and you’ll have to start building them up from scratch. It’s like the current issue with Conflict and Strife Essence, which gives us PVE access to a similar damage-to-heal PVP talent — and also doesn’t synergize with Rising Mist. But that’s just an example, because the entire talent tree is a spread of abilities that don’t fit together in any meaningful way.
3. Our Mastery actively discourages diverse playstyles. It’s a straight healing proc that only procs for three of our heals. Any talents that give us new healing abilities don’t benefit from Mastery, including our two DPS/healing abilities. (Clarification: Rising Mist doesn’t itself benefit from Mastery, you use it by keeping Renewing Mists up on your party, and Renewing Mist does benefit from Mastery.) Usually even your worst secondary stat gives you something, but not so for Mistweavers who want to do more than click three buttons.
4. The unpruning gives us some new stuff. Neat! None of it helps us heal. (Okay, I will grant that Touch of Death — a damage-dealing ability returning to Mistweavers — combined with the new Chi-Ji talent could make for a sizeable heal when the cooldowns line up.)

The class design feels very muddled. Are we a ranged healer? Some of our kit suggests we should stay back. Are we a melee healer? Some of our kit suggests we should be in the thick of things. Are we a DPS/healer hybrid? In both retail and alpha, we have two DPS/heal abilities, but they aren’t strong enough to carry a group, plus they don’t synergize with each other. I don’t know what we’re supposed to be, and it feels like Blizzard doesn’t either.

There is some power in our versatility — we can do a bit of everything and fill a number of niches. But also we aren’t good at anything, and no talent or gear build supports us being really good at anything. The class is a mish-mash of ideas that never quite seems to come together.

I’m frustrated and I’m not sure what I’m going to play in Shadowlands. I currently have a Mistweaver and a Holydin I’ve been playing, and I’m not sure if I’ll stick with one of those or pick something else entirely.

Was it worth it, Kal?

I hadn’t really thought about this before, but I like this idea a lot. And everyone else deserves to see and like this idea, too.

Digging through poop for experience points. Why do we keep having to dig through poop for experience points?

I think there may be too much bad blood at this point for all of the elves to come together as a united front against Sylvanas. Lor’themar ran Alleria out of Silvermoon due to her connection to the void (and its effect on the Sunwell). Tyrande never approved of the Nightborne, and she really has no reason to have warmed on them — or anyone else in the Horde — after Teldrassil.

Even if they did all get along, I feel like they all think they can handle themselves and don’t have a particular interest in asking for help. And for Alleria — and probably Lor’themar, to a lesser extent — this is  personal. They may not want help.

The Voidwalker is always there when you call, stands between you and anything that means you harm on request, and whenever you send him away he’s lifting so he can maintain the perfect abs he uses to keep you safe.

So, yes, definitely the hardest working minion in WoW. Perhaps the hardest working of any individual in WoW, despite the utterly thankless job of being at someone’s beck and call.

Have you ever been to Whimsyshire in Diablo? It’s like that.

Happy Friday, everyone. Stay safe and be well and give your dogs and/or cats a scritch on the head for me.