I love my monk and he loves me too.
I don't think Essence Font is underwhelming for a group heal. If you channel it before or during a big damage period, you suddenly have double Gusts of Mist on every party member or most raid members. In a 5 man group that paired with 2 charges of Renewing Mist back to back is actually a significant amount of burst healing.
Essence Font has too much healing in the direct healing component to be pre-cast. It's better to cast it so the first tick of healing arrives after the damage.
He he is right because of the way essenc font works, in a party you will always waste at least 3 ticks from the 18 and overwrite the hots. The only reason you would want to use it in dungeons is if you want/need the double mastery proc. In raids it is still very efficient. Its only weak in dungeons.
I love my monk although I have the feeling to play complete a new class after the changes and of course the missing legion legendaries.I guess I need to learn fistweaving.
I first made my monk in WoD due to lack of healers in my raid team, she was just going to be a filler, however, I grew to love her. I really enjoyed the fact I could DOT my group up and then continually heal them when I was attaching the boss. I loved fistweaving so much. I found they took a lot of that away in Legion and I'm glad to see it return in BfA. Personally, I'm not a "stand there any heal" type of person. I like getting my panda game face on, and attack the ankles of the bosses. *aggressive fluff ball* Overall, I'm happy with all the changes to our beloved Mistweavers.
I tried it yesterday and I hate the changes. Legion MW was much more fun for me. I don't heal raids, only dungeons, so that might be a factor. But I loved casting Soothing Mist on the move, and constantly blanketing the group with Renewing Mists. Both of those things are gone now.
I want to FISTWEAVE again!
I miss the channeled stance. It was exotic and a different pose that added some variation to a lot of the stiff or commonly used casting animations and poses.
I wanted to try a Monk, so i made one and boosted her...I enjoyed playing her very much. Since the patch i rarely log onto her. I feel Blizzard gutted her, as her ability to heal on the move was what made her unique and seems fitting for a Monk. Demon Hunters fly and have become a fave due to their mobility. Try using your 3 feathers from a Priest to keep up with them! I have heard the Monk changes were due to PVPer complaints, and if this is so, Blizzard should of made the change effective in BGs only, as they have done before with other things. New content is always exciting as well as changes, but you really need to think about healers having more mobility. I have played off and on for years and the Monk i made was the first character that came so close to replacing my main. Sadly now she collects dust on the character screen.