Sunday, March 20, 2011

Trinkets for Healers: Priest and Paladin Edition

While I have mainly focused on priests, I have recently switched to my Holy paladin for my 10-man raiding team and therefore would like to include some Holy paladin info in this and future posts.  And while this post mainly reflects paladins and priests, many shamans and druids might find this information valuable as well.

This particular topic sparked my interest after the Jar of Ancient Remedies dropped in our 10-man BWD raid this week.  It got me thinking, what trinkets are best for my particular class?  When I first saw the trinket I thought "OMG SPIRIT NOMNOMNOM."  But then I realized, this isn't exactly a great trinket for a Holy paladin and will easily be replaced with something better.

I believe there are 2 types of trinkets available for healers:  throughput and regen trinkets.  The best trinkets available have a combination of both throughput and regen.  And while all healers should be focusing on intellect, some healers benefit from intellect or spirit more than others depending on class/spec.  Here's the breakdown:

Paladins- Intellect is king.  Extending your mana pool is your top priority.  Divine Plea scales off of your mana pool and restores more mana with more intellect.

Holy Priests- Intellect and Spirit are the best stats.  Because Holy priests gain more regen through spirit due to Holy Concentration, spirit-based trinkets are a welcome addition.

Discipline Priests- Intellect is your best friend.  Spirit is important, but intellect scales extremely well with Rapture which is your best mana return ability.

Druids- I'm no Druid expert, but I believe that Intellect is the best regen stat.  While spirit has it's place, talents like Heart of the Wild and Revitalize make Intellect more valuable.

Shamans- I honestly haven't played my Shaman in months but I believe they are more like Holy Priests, mainly because of Mana Tide TotemIntellect and Spirit are the best regen stats.

Here's a list of healing trinkets available to raiders:

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Stat Discussion: Haste vs. Mastery for Holy priests

This discussion has been going on for quite a while now.  Every time I hop on the forums there is always a priest thread arguing about "haste vs mastery" and how one is more valuable than the other.  To figure out which one is better, we need to dig a little deeper into the facts.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

4.1 PTR for Priests


A little video I threw together to go over some of the changes that we are expecting in 4.1.  I'm really liking the changes to Holy Fire and how it now works with Attonement.  I also like the direction Blizzard is going with the Sanctuary Graphic.

Friday, March 4, 2011

What To Expect From Patch 4.1

Some new content and class changes are coming in patch 4.1.  Here are a some things that priests will need to know:

New 5-man Dungeons:
  • Zul'Aman has returned as a level 85 5-player heroic dungeon featuring a revamp of the original dungeon and improved loot!
  • Zul'Gurub has returned as a level 85 5-player heroic dungeon featuring all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot!
  • Both dungeons will be in a new dungeon finder difficulty tier above the current level 85 heroic dungeons and offer epic-quality item level 353 loot.
 Priests
  • Divine Aegis duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.
A small buff for Discipline priests, still 3 seconds won't be a game changer, especially when we tank heal (Divine Aegis gets eaten very quickly and is absorbed before Power Word: Shield.)
  • Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect.
The GREAT DISPEL MAGIC NERF OF 4.1.  According to this post, we will only be able to dispel magic defensively on ourselves. This is a major nerf to PvP Shadow priests.  Discipline and Holy priests will still be able to dispel defensively from allies. All priests will still be able to dispel offensively, but only 1 magic effect will be dispelled now.
  • Holy Word: Sanctuary has a new spell effect.
 It's unfinished on the PTR.  Oestrus over at The Stories of O has a cool video of the effect.  I like the concept, but I'll wait till it's finished to get more of a feel for it.
  • Power Word: Shield duration has been reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.
 This was intended to discourage Discipline priests from spamming Power Word: Shield.  It's a little bit of a nerf to PvP and a big one for PvE.  We won't see a difference with tank healing, but for raid healing Disc priests, it's gonna hurt a bit.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Discipline
      • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
    • Holy
      • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets. 
This addition is to keep the priest healing trees in line with the rest of the healing classes after the Dispel Magic nerf.  The only thing Disc and Priests will be losing is an extra offensive dispel effect.  We will only be able to offensively dispel 1 effect instead of 2.  Shadow priests will be hit the most.  They will only be able to offensively dispel 1 effect and defensively dispel 1 effect from THEMSELVES ONLY.  This reduces Shadow priest utility, but also brings them in line with other dps classes.

I'll bring up more changes as they keep rolling out on the PTR.

A New Name and a Fresh Start

Yes, I changed my name.  I got tired of being called "Lunar" all the time, especially since my toon is no longer a Night Elf.

I am now known as "Healthplan."  I wanted to originally use "Obamacare" but apparently my name would be flagged for a name swap.  I then tried "Healthcare" but it was already taken.  I figured Healthplan was pretty fitting as well.  I am also now a male human.  I got sick of the way female humans cast.