tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23419632793654547422024-03-13T07:31:46.745-07:00WTS HealsCheaper than your local flea marketLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-81903110899257424082011-05-07T20:05:00.000-07:002011-05-07T20:05:04.943-07:00Moving on!I've moved on over to Wordpress as Blogger is giving me a buggy comments section.<br />
<br />
My new site is:<br />
<br />
wtsheals.wordpress.com<br />
<br />
I will leave this site up for a while so people may find me elsewhere.<br />
<br />
Cherrio!Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-22346707267247163172011-05-07T09:39:00.000-07:002011-05-07T09:48:29.867-07:00Preventative vs Reactive Healing: A Discipline vs Holy DiscussionAs some of you already may already know, I have recently moved to a new guild. I was looking for "greener pastures" and I believe I have found one. Undying Resolution of Elune has welcomed me with open arms (thanks to a certain <b><a href="http://www.restokin.com/">Druid</a></b>) and I'm already signed up for raids for next week.<br />
<br />
In my last guild I was Holy for 99% of the time in our little 10 man team. We ran with a Disc Priest and a Resto Druid as well. After having a Vent interview with a few of the officers, they let me know they have room for a Holy or Disc Priest for their team and that they do already have 1 Holy Priest (who use to be Discipline).<br />
<br />
I decided to pry a little deeper into the makeup of their healing team. It seems they usually run with 6-7 healers give or take. This includes:<br />
<br />
1x Holy Paladin<br />
1x Holy Priest<br />
1-2x Restoration Shaman<br />
2-3x Restoration Druid<br />
<br />
So now the question is, what would a Discipline or an additional Holy Priest bring to the table for this raid team? Do they need more <b>Preventative</b> or <b>Reactive</b> healing?<br />
<br />
<u><b>Holy</b></u><br />
Holy is a <b>Reactive</b> healing specialization with a few powerful cooldowns to help bolster and stabilize the raid. Holy's Mastery, <b>Echo of Light</b>, is about throughput and it causes all of the priest's healing spells to be even more potent.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Holy Cooldowns:</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Guardian Spirit-</b> The crown jewel of the Holy tree. This spell prevents a person from dying by sacrificing itself and instead healing the party/raid member for 50% of their health. It's the ultimate <b>Reactive</b> cooldown. When glyphed, it has a 2 1/2 minute cooldown<br />
<br />
<b>Lightwell-</b> Once called "LoLwell" back in Wrath, this spell is no longer a laughing matter. The amount of healing this spell provides for it's miniscule mana cost is extraordinary. It just requires raid members to be a little more proactive and click it for the healing effect. It has a 3 minute cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>Holy Word: Serenity/Sanctuary-</b> This spell varies depending on our Chakra state. <b>Serenity</b> is a very mana efficient single target heal, similar to a Holy Paladin's "Holy Shock." This spell is usually available when a Holy Priest is tank healing and is used to bolster the healing on the tank through an extra 25% critical strike chance for 6 seconds. It has a 10 1/2 second cooldown when properly talented. <b>Sanctuary</b> is a ground AoE healing effect similar to a Shaman's "Healing Rain." It's affected by our Mastery and is used to help stabilize the raid during heavy damage. <b>Sanctuary</b> is also the longest lasting healing ground effect in the game. It's mana cost is quite steep and if not used correctly, it can be a waste of mana. It has a 40-second cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>Circle of Healing-</b> One of the most powerful raid heals in the game and what Holy Priests are most known for, Circle of Healing is a healing cooldown that is used to heal multiple party/raid members for a large amount. What makes it so powerful is that it's instant cast and can be used on the move. It's on a 10 second cooldown.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Discipline</b></u><br />
Discipline is a <b>Preventative</b> healing specialization that specializes in preventing damage to tanks and the raid. Discipline's Mastery, <b>Shield Discipline</b>, enhances the Preventative healing aspect of the specialization and protects the raid from incoming damage.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Discipline Cooldowns:</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Pain Suppression-</b> The most powerful <b>Preventative</b> cooldown in the game. Pain Suppression reduces 40% of incoming damage. It's best used when the tank is about to take serious damage. 3 minute cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>Power Word: Barrier-</b> It has recently been nerfed, but is still an extremely valuable cooldown for raids. It reduces 25% of incoming damage to everything that is inside it for 10 seconds. 3 minute cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>Power Infusion-</b> Surprisingly, this is more of a <b>Reactive</b> cooldown than a <b>Preventative</b> one. It increases your casting speed and reduces the mana cost of spells by 20%, greatly increasing your throughput for a short time. On a short 1 1/2 minute cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>Inner Focus-</b> Another <b>Reactive</b> cooldown. This spell causes your next Flash Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing to be free of cost and have an increased 25% chance to critically strike. It's on a 45 second cooldown but can be reduced through talents and by casting Greater Heal.<br />
<br />
<b>Archangel/Evangelism-</b> This cooldown is available with an Atonement specialization. It temporarily increases the potency of your healing spells by 15% and restores 5% of your mana. It's on a relatively low 30 second cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>Penance-</b> The bread and butter Discipline spell. This is an extremely mana efficient single target heal that is channeled. When glyphed, it's on a short 10 second cooldown. It's used to effectively heal and stack Grace on a target.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Shared Spells for Holy and Discipline:</b></u><br />
<br />
<b>Divine Hymn-</b> A channeled heal that is used for emergencies. It increases the healing received by affected party/raid members by 10% for the duration. It's most potent form is in Chakra: Sanctuary where the 15% bonus to AoE healing is applied to the spell. While it's not as potent as a Druid's Tranquility, the extra healing effect somewhat makes up for it's lackluster throughput. For Discipline Priests, it proc's Divine Aegis when the heals critically strike the raid member. It's on a lengthy 8-minute cooldown and is used once per fight.<br />
<br />
<b>Hymn of Hope-</b> A channeled spell that restores and increases a few party/raid member's mana pools for a short period of time. This spell is best used in combination with Shadowfiend for our personal maximum return. 5-minute cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>Prayer of Mending-</b> This spell is the most unique spell for Priests. It's primarily cast on the tank and proc's up to 5 times, bouncing to different raid members when they take damage. It has a short 10 second cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>Desperate Prayer-</b> You have to put a point in for the ability, but it's available to both Discipline and Holy Priests. Discipline Priests will find it a little harder to find the point to put it in, however it should be in every Holy Priest's arsenal. It is instant cast, free of mana cost, and heals the Priest for a considerable amount. 2 minute cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>Power Word: Shield-</b> A <b>Preventative</b> spell that absorbs a certain amount of damage. While the spell itself not technically a cooldown, the debuff it leaves on the target causes it to be cast only once every 15 seconds on the same target unless you are properly spec'd into Strength of Soul in the Discipline tree. This spell is invaluable to Discipline Priests and helps proc their mana return through Rapture. It also benefits from <b>Shield Discipline</b>, increasing the absorption amount. Holy Priests will find considerably less use for this spell, as there are more mana efficient alternatives. However, Body & Soul gives a unique utility to the spell for Holy Priests.<br />
<br />
Now, looking at the raid teams makeup we can see that the only Preventative healer currently on the raid team is the Holy Paladin. Discipline Priests and Holy Paladins have long been the staples in preventative healing through the use of powerful cooldowns. This Holy Paladin is likely a tank healer, mainly because that's where they shine the most.<br />
<br />
Druids and Shamans are considered Reactive healers, like Holy Priests. They are about throughput and their Mastery revolves around it. Those healing classes/specializations lack tank cooldowns, but really shine with raid healing. That's not to say they can never tank heal, because they most certainly can. But there are other healing classes that are better equipped for the job, especially for Heroic modes.<br />
<br />
So that's why I chose Discipline. Currently, the raid lacks a Disc Priest and they bring A LOT of utility to raids. While I love Holy, a second Holy Priest wouldn't really be needed for this raid setup. A second Holy Paladin or a Disc Priest would be preferred for their preventative healing.<br />
<br />
And who know? Maybe I will get a wild hair and try an Atonement specialization!Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-82024294942655501482011-05-06T09:47:00.000-07:002011-05-06T09:51:26.789-07:00T12 Set Bonus: A DisappointmentT12 set bonuses were revealed yesterday and I have to say the priest bonuses are currently underwhelming.<br />
<br />
First of all:<br />
<br />
<b>2-piece Bonus- Your Flash Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal spells cause you to regenerate 2% of your base mana every 5 sec for 15 sec.</b><br />
<br />
Anything that increases our mana regeneration is a worthwhile bonus. According to <a href="http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=1838">Kurn</a>, this ends up being a gain of 412 Mp5 or 1236 every 15 seconds. Sounds great right? For tank healing, yes it's fantastic. For raid healing, it's a letdown.<br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
Priests who tank heal as Holy or Discipline won't see an issue with this bonus. The raid healing Holy Priest will find the bonus underwhelming, mainly because they rarely cast single target heals. Holy Priests who raid heal mainly utilize Prayer of Healing/Circle of Healing and usually spot-heal with Renew. I can see this being less of a problem in 10-mans where Holy Priests will help out the tanks when needed, but in 25's where their AoE healing specialty is cherished, we don't use single target heals with cast times very much. Even just casting a "Heal" every 15 seconds would be a waste because the "Heal" spell costs more mana then what you regen back.<br />
<br />
<b>Fix:</b> Have the bonus proc off of Penance and Circle of Healing instead. Good Discipline and Holy Priests will always have Penance and Circle of Healing on cooldown and it makes the bonus more attractive to raid healing Priests.<br />
<br />
<b>4-piece Bonus-</b> You have a chance when you cast a helpful spell to summon a Cauterizing Flame. Friendly raid and party members can use the Cauterizing Flame to be instantly healed for 4625 to 5375. Lasts for 45 sec sec or 10 charges. After using the Cauterizing Flame, players cannot benefit from it again for 10 sec.<br />
<br />
Anything that requires raid members to "click" something to be healed isn't a good bonus. It's essentially a second Lightwell or Healthstone. While I like Lightwell and value its addition to raids, it's hard enough to get raid members to click the Lightwell as it is and the mechanic is unreliable depending on how aware your raid is about their own health bars and even what they are carrying in their bags. They don't need to be looking for ANOTHER type of "Healthstone" to be looking for while they are moving out of the fire. On top of all this, the healing component is pretty low.<br />
<br />
<b>Fix:</b> I'd rather have the bonus proc automatically, like Althor's Abacus or something similar. Have it heal 5 party/raid members and make it benefit from our Mastery (similar to a second, weaker Circle of Healing).<br />
<br />
As it stands, if the 4-piece is not changed I won't be taking it. It's too unreliable. On top of this, the Shadow 2-piece set is looking like a tasty option for healing priests. With the 75 second cooldown reduction on Shadowfiend and with 2 points in the Shadowfiend cooldown reduction talent, we will see a Shadowfiend cooldown of <b>2 minutes and 45 seconds</b>. This is a more valuable option over a mediocre "Healthstone" bonus.Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-80623932834619959652011-05-01T20:07:00.000-07:002011-05-01T20:07:37.103-07:00Greener PasturesI love my guild. I've been with them for quite a while, almost 2 years. I've made quite a few lifelong friends and we've had some great times together.<br />
<br />
Band of Brothers of Caelestraez is a guild that that was originally part of Gamblers, a much larger and progression-oriented guild. I was only in the guild for maybe 2 weeks before the split happened. To be honest, I can't even remember what the issue was, but a very serious argument broke out between a few of the officers and it resulted in Gamblers losing a very valuable raid leader. This particular raid leader was the one who actually recruited me.<br />
<br />
It was like a domino effect. One after the other people left the guild. I also left the guild because I held no loyalty to the person that was in charge. My loyalty was to my recruitment officer. I quickly whispered him and he said he was making his own guild with progression in mind. I immediately asked for an invite and thus I was the first unrelated member of Band of Brothers.<br />
<br />
And thus the recruitment crusade began. We started out small, with a generic 10-man setup. We did some Ulduar, but didn't get very far. When ToC came out we did much better. We managed to clear the content before ICC came out. By the end of Wrath, we were 11/12 HM and had our lovely undead drakes. We also had a second 10 man running in addition to a 25 man team on the weekends.<br />
<br />
This is what I loved about our guild. There was always someone online, always something happening. Logging on was a joy.<br />
<br />
With the introduction of Cataclysm all of this ended. With the new "same lockout" scheme that Blizzard implemented, it caused our 25 man team to crumble making us a 10-man only guild. This seemed ok at first because we still had our 2 10 man teams going. But slowly and surely one of them crumbled. Lack of leadership from the raid leader and laziness was the main cause of this group to split. Some people had RL to go back to. Others left the guild in search of a better experience.<br />
<br />
But my team held on strong. We stayed together with only a few minor hiccups in our lineup, but we never crumbled. Unfortunately, boredom and RL has taken a toll on the team. Hardly anyone logs in anymore and if they do it's just to raid. Our raid times have been cut by 1/3 to a mere 2 hours a night mainly due to some new schedule conflicts with team members.<br />
<br />
Personally I feel my team should be 12/12 normal right now, but because we raid only 6 hours a week, there's little chance for progression, so we are currently 8/12 Normal. If we have a sour night (which we all do) it seriously hampers our progression and causes bad feelings. We talked about changing the days of the week, but unfortunately RL strikes again with scheduling. People either work or have school or need to sleep. We just can't win.<br />
<br />
It's not that we haven't made progress, because we have. It's just I don't enjoy raiding with my team anymore. I don't have that thrill of logging on and getting<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCApGE7JeSI"> excited</a> for raid night. It's almost like an old married couple when they lose that "spark". I honestly think its time I go my own way.<br />
<br />
I have already spoken to my Co-GM and she understands where I'm coming from. I'm sure she spoke to the GM (her husband) to let him know I'm thinking about moving to a different guild.<br />
<br />
So if you are in a guild that is in need of an uber Priest or Holy Paladin please let me know! I'm open to faction changing as well. 10-man is ok, but I would like to start trying 25-man as well.<br />
<br />
Feel free to leave a comment. You can also reach me on Twitter at @LunarthePriest.<br />
<br />
Thanks!<br />
<br />
LunarsoulLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-2007765345082915102011-04-24T10:54:00.000-07:002011-04-24T11:03:45.054-07:00Loot Wars and Raider AltsIt's really hard to explain things in a blog post. So many things can be misread or misinterpreted. I'm going to try to be as coherent as possible while trying to sound objective and fair. I have been mulling over this particular post for a while and I feel enough time has passed to explain my feelings about the situation. No names will be mentioned except for myself.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
As some of you may already know, a few weeks back I was raiding on my Holy Paladin. This was mainly due to the disappearance of one of our main tanks. He had some pretty bad weather and power/internet was knocked out for a long period of time. We weren't quite sure if/when he would be back. Not only was he one of our tanks, but our only paladin in the raid.<br />
<br />
Paladins provide quite a large variety of buffs for raids through Auras and Blessings. Next to shamans, paladins are probably one of the more mandatory classes to bring for 10-man progression because they have so many buffs integrated into the class and merge well with any raid composition. The 2 buffs my raid team was now deprived of was Resistance Aura and Blessing of Might, the 2 buffs that make healing much easier.<br />
<br />
Resistance Aura provides a large amount of magical damage reduction (up to 25%) and overrides the resistance provided by Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings (up to 14% give or take). That additional 11% can mean the difference between a clear or a wipe, depending on how well-geared/skilled your healers are. Less damage means your healer's jobs are easier which means a greater chance to clear content. This also allows for a little more margin for error.<br />
<br />
Blessing of Might provides an additional 10% attack power bonus and 346 Mp5 for mana users. We had a survival hunter in the group, so the attack power bonus would be overridden anyway. 346 Mp5 is ALOT of mana regen. In a time where mana bars are already tight, every buff that increases your regen or extends your mana bar is extremely important for any healer.<br />
<br />
So with our protection paladin out of commission we were lacking 2 important buffs. We had no shaman in the group, so mana totem was out of the question. Shamans can also provide a Resistance Totem which is the same as Resistance Aura. But we needed a tank.<br />
<br />
With no protection paladin in sight on our server, we then turned to ANY tank, which is better than nothing. We found a protection warrior that was a GM from a fairly reputable guild that ended up falling apart due to people not showing up/no progression/etc. We already had a protection warrior, but we couldn't really be picky at this point. We took him in and he ended up doing very well (can't say the same for the rest of us).<br />
<br />
Our new raid composition:<br />
<br />
<b>Tanks:</b><br />
Protection Warrior<br />
Protection Warrior<br />
<br />
<b>DPS:</b><br />
Fire Mage<br />
Survival Hunter<br />
Survival Hunter<br />
Destruction Warlock<br />
Feral Druid<br />
<br />
<b>Healers:</b><br />
Discipline Priest<br />
Holy Priest<br />
Restoration Druid<br />
<br />
So our first night of raiding with this new setup wasn't very good. Lacking both Resistance Aura and Might was extremely noticeable by all the healers. On fights where I should have a decent amount of mana left after boss fights, I was running on fumes. Even switching from Intellect-based flasks and food to Spirit-based ones didn't have any noticeable difference. On top of that damage was noticeably higher. All in all it wasn't a very good first impression for our new tank. Something needed to change.<br />
<br />
I spoke to my GM and co-GM and we all unanimously agreed something needed to change. We had a couple of options:<br />
<ul><li><b>My GM (Prot Warrior) offered to get his Prot Pally geared.</b> It was level 85, but just in craptastic gear. A nice solution but a time consuming one. For progression reasons this wasn't the best use of time, especially since my GM had recently been going back to school and doesn't spend much time online other than to raid.</li>
<li><b>Our Destruction Warlock could keep the Felhunter out.</b> The felpuppy provides Fel Intelligence which gives the Mp5 buff and a small buff to our mana pool, but it would be at the sacrifice of her personal DPS. We tried this and saw about a 2-3k drop in her dps. It didn't seem bad at first, but the fights were a bit longer then they should have been which still strained the healers.</li>
<li><b>I could bring in my already-geared-for-raiding Holy Pally.</b> This was the fastest and easiest solution. By bringing in the paladin we would get our Might and Resistance back. We would lose the Holy Priest and our burst AoE healing would suffer, but we would have strong single target heals. Plus our Discipline Priest still provides everything a Holy Priest provides except for Lightwell.</li>
</ul>We went with the third option. We blew through all of our farm bosses with ease and even downed 2 progression bosses in the same night. It was an amazing evening. It really was needed because the previous week was wrecked with "lolpulls" and screaming into pillows.<br />
<br />
During the 3-weeks on my pally I received exactly 1 piece of loot, the leggings off of Halfus Wyrmbreaker. This piece of loot would have been d/e'd if my priest was in raid. On the last week, the BoE staff from BoT trash dropped. As many of you know, this staff is BiS for Holy priests. I whispered my GM if I could roll on it since I felt I was sacrificing my priest gear for the better of the raid team. I wasn't sure he received my whisper, so I didn't roll. Our Restoration Druid rolled and got the staff since our Priest wasn't interested. Apparently my GM didn't see my whisper and said that I could roll for it next raid.<br />
<br />
Well some lines of communication got crossed. Not only did the Druid not need the staff (I guess he lost too much haste) but he sold it for the raid team to make flasks and pots, not knowing there was someone else interested. /sigh<br />
<br />
No biggie. I'm a big boy. Loot is loot and it drops all the time. People make mistakes. I will patiently wait for the next staff to drop.<br />
<br />
<b>Next Week:</b> <b> </b><br />
<b>Good news</b>- Our pally tank is back. <b> </b><br />
<b>Bad news</b>- Our mage is leaving WoW for a while for RL.<br />
<br />
<b>More Good news</b>- Our pally tank has an enhance shammy that is geared! So we bring in his shammy. Even better, I can bring the priest back in again since we have Mana Totem. All is well!<br />
<br />
Or so I thought.<br />
<br />
The second week my priest has been back, one of our DPS wanted to bring in an alt to roll on the BoE staff. I explained that mainspecs will always have priority over alts, no matter how much loot they get and to just be aware of that. This has always been an understanding for our raid team. I then continued to let this person know that I was interested in this staff and that because my priest is mainspec, <b>I have priority</b>. This clearly didn't bode well for the person.<br />
<br />
They claimed this new alt would be their new main, and then proceeded to attack me and accuse me of doing the same thing with my holy paladin, all before our raid started.<br />
<br />
I didn't say anything. I didn't want to ruin the night for everyone. But I was really close to ripping this person a new ass.<br />
<br />
<br />
I want to be clear on the difference in needs between our alts.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><u>Raid-Requested Alts</u> </b></span><br />
My Holy Paladin was brought in for raid composition reasons. It would have hurt our progression had we kept my priest in and just ignored the problem. People would have just gotten more frustrated. Instead we made what would have been a miserable week into a fantastic progression week that lifted everyone's spirits.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Voluntary Alts</b></u><br />
The DPS alt fell under this category. This alt was not needed in any way. It was purely voluntary and thus rules were applied like any other alt. Claiming this as your new main wouldn't make any difference. People have been waiting weeks for certain items to drop off of bosses/trash. I'm not going to stand for someone to just bring in a new toon and feel they can roll on items that other people still need for farm bosses. This person's main had every piece of gear available on the farm bosses already and they had nothing more to gain, so they decided to bring in an alt.<br />
<br />
I hope you all understand what I'm getting at. This next week is the first week since the "incident" occurred and I'm a little skeptical how it will turn out. I still stand by my feelings on the situation and when the time comes I will hold my ground if necessary.Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-70969461255999118302011-04-04T17:42:00.000-07:002011-04-04T17:43:51.567-07:00Holy Word: Sanctuary in 4.1Holy Word: Sanctuary recently got a buff on the PTR.<br />
<ul><li>Holy Word: Sanctuary healing done has been increased by 35%. In addition, it has a new spell effect.</li>
</ul>This is a welcome buff for a spell that before was fairly unattractive to use. In addition, it got a much needed graphic upgrade.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/yunxfDM9mA8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
<br />
While this might sound wonderful, recent testing on the PTR has shown that Holy Word: Sanctuary no longer benefits from the Holy Priest mastery, Echo of Light. Currently on live, Holy Word: Sanctuary benefits from our mastery and while it might seem small, it's additional throughput. It's also nice to see our mastery benefit this spell. But that might be changing.<br />
<br />
Here are some numbers that I've pulled from my priest on the <b>PTR</b>:<br />
<br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>771</b><br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>732</b><br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>765</b><br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>765</b><br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>775</b><br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>784</b><br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>785</b><br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>753</b><br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>775</b><br />
<br />
<b>Total: 6905</b><br />
<br />
Now for the <b>LIVE</b> numbers:<br />
<b> </b><br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>663</b><br />
Lunarsoul gains Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>15</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>673</b><br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>15</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul's Echo of Light is refreshed on Lunarsoul<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>23</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>643</b><br />
Lunarsoul's Echo of Light is refreshed on Lunarsoul<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>24</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>30</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light <br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>653</b><br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>30</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul's Echo of Light is refreshed on Lunarsoul<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>35</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of LightHoly Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>646</b><br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>35</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul's Echo of Light is refreshed on Lunarsoul<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>39</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>637</b><br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>39</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul's Echo of Light is refreshed on Lunarsoul<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>40</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>630</b><br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>41</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul's Echo of Light is refreshed on Lunarsoul<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>42</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>654</b><br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>41</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul's Echo of Light is refreshed on Lunarsoul<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>43</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Lunarsoul for <b>991 (Critical)</b><br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>43</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul's Echo of Light is refreshed on Lunarsoul<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>52</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>51</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>52</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>52</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>52</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>52</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Lunarsoul gains <b>52</b> health from Lunarsoul's Echo of Light<br />
Echo of Light fades from Lunarsoul<br />
<br />
<b>Total: 7088</b> <br />
<br />
Even with the 35% buff, Holy Word: Sanctuary is still underwhelming. 1 critical strike from the LIVE version was enough to push it past the PTR version.<br />
<br />
My conclusion? Mastery needs to benefit HW: Sanct. Just looking at the numbers indicates the incredible scaling that Echo Light has and my priest is geared for Haste, not Mastery. The LIVE version would eventually outpace the PTR version with enough Mastery.<br />
<br />
Right now on the PTR, the only things that HW: Sanct scales with is Intellect and Crit. That's it.<br />
<br />
Efflorescence scales with Intellect, Mastery, and Haste for Druids.<br />
<br />
Holy Radiance scales with Intellect, Haste, and Crit. (Don't get me started on the awful Pally Mastery)<br />
<br />
Healing Rain scales with Intellect, Mastery, and Crit for Shamans.<br />
<br />
All these AoE spells benefit from something other than Intellect and Crit.<br />
<br />
BLIZZARD, PLEASE DON'T TAKE AWAY THE MASTERY BENEFIT. I WILL DIE A LITTLE EACH DAY OF THE 4.1 RELEASE IF IT DOES.<br />
<b> </b>Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-30914522836149762892011-04-02T11:22:00.000-07:002011-04-02T11:22:53.537-07:00Mana Regen and You: Maximizing Your Mana for RaidsMy last post made me want to expand on the ideals of maximizing our mana efficiency. I admit that my last post was a bit garbled with druid and shaman information, so today I will be focusing on priests with ways to maximize the efficiency of your precious blue bar.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>Holy Priests</b></u></span><br />
<br />
<b>Holy Concentration</b>- Increases the amount of mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by an additional 15/30%<br />
<br />
Holy Concentration is the staple mana regeneration talent for Holy priests and is absolutely mandatory to take in any Holy build. It causes Holy priests to benefit from 80% of mana regeneration that is provided by Spirit which is 30% more than other healers. This causes Spirit to be the most favorable regen stat available. Spirit-based gear/trinkets <b>(Mandala of Stirring Patterns or Jar of Ancient Remedies)</b> will be more favorable for Holy priests compared to other healers.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Discipline Priests</b></u><br />
<br />
<b>Rapture</b>- When your Power Word: Shield is completely absorbed or dispelled you are instantly energized with 5/7% of your total mana. This effect can only occur once every 12 sec.<br />
<br />
Rapture is an important part of a Disc priests rotation. It causes you to regain 7% of your total mana every 12 seconds, which is a significant amount and can be further increased through Intellect. And because of Rapture and the passive ability <b>Enlightenment</b> work so well together, Intellect scaling for Disc priests is unparalleled by any other healer and makes Intellect the primary regen stat. Utilizing <b>Power Auras</b> or another mod to track your Rapture proc is highly recommended. Gear/Trinkets that focus on Intellect are highly preferred over Spirit-based ones. While Spirit is still a good regen stat, Disc priests will always benefit more from Intellect.<br />
<br />
<b>Derevka</b> over at <a href="http://talesofapriest.com/">Tales of a Priest</a> has a nice Rapture tracking mod for Power Auras that I use. I modified it a bit to my preference and you can do the same.<br />
<br />
<u><b>The Synergy Between Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend</b></u><br />
<br />
<b>Hymn of Hope</b>- Restores 2% mana to 3 nearby low mana friendly party or raid targets every 2 sec for 8 sec, and increases their total maximum mana by 15% for 8 sec.<br />
<br />
<b>Shadowfiend</b>- Creates a shadowy fiend to attack the target. Caster receives 3% mana when the Shadowfiend attacks. Damage taken by area of effect attacks is reduced. Lasts 15 sec.<br />
<br />
<b>Dawn Moore</b> over at <a href="http://wow.joystiq.com/spiritualguidance">Spiritual Guidance</a> did a fantastic writeup about the synergy between these 2 abilities and the way to maximize both of them. It is mainly because Shadowfiend's mana restore is based off of the priest's <b>maximum mana</b> that makes it so valuable with Hymn of Hope. Hymn of Hope temporarily boosts your maximum mana pool by 15% for the duration and your Shadowfiend scales extremely well with that boost. So for <b>maximum</b> mana regen benefit, <b>cast your Shadowfiend FIRST, then cast Hymn of Hope SECOND</b>. You will recieve the mana ticks from HoH while your Shadowfiend restores your maximum mana at the same time. Even if your HoH is interrupted, as long as you get off one tick you will still benefit from the temporary mana pool boost.<br />
<br />
<b>Warning!</b> Make sure you are <b>LOWER</b> on mana than your fellow healers and DPS! Hymn of Hope only benefits the 3 raid members with the lowest mana at the time it was cast. If you aren't the lowest, you may be giving your HoH benefit to a Mage or Warlock by mistake!Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-35541497114453928782011-03-20T15:20:00.000-07:002011-03-21T07:18:46.334-07:00Trinkets for Healers: Priest and Paladin EditionWhile 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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:<br />
<br />
<b>Paladins- Intellect</b> is king. Extending your mana pool is your top priority. <b>Divine Plea</b> scales off of your mana pool and restores more mana with more intellect.<br />
<br />
<b>Holy Priests- Intellect and Spirit</b> are the best stats. Because Holy priests gain more regen through spirit due to <b>Holy Concentration</b>, spirit-based trinkets are a welcome addition.<br />
<br />
<b>Discipline Priests-</b> <b>Intellect</b> is your best friend. Spirit is important, but intellect scales extremely well with <b>Rapture</b> which is your best mana return ability.<br />
<br />
<b>Druids-</b> I'm no Druid expert, but I believe that<b> Intellect</b> is the best regen stat. While spirit has it's place, talents like <b>Heart of the Wild</b> and <b>Revitalize</b> make Intellect more valuable.<br />
<br />
<b>Shamans-</b> I honestly haven't played my Shaman in months but I believe they are more like Holy Priests, mainly because of <b>Mana Tide Totem</b>. <b>Intellect and Spirit</b> are the best regen stats.<br />
<br />
Here's a list of healing trinkets available to raiders:<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<b>*Warning: Math may not be 100% correct. I wasn't a whiz at it in school.</b><br />
<b>*Note: Holy priests benefit more from Spirit than other healers. This data does not reflect Holy Concentration. </b><br />
<br />
<u><b><span style="font-size: large;">Best</span></b></u><b><span style="font-size: large;">: i359 or Higher and Provides the Best Stats Available</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Darkmoon Card: Tsunami</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">-</span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b>One of the best trinkets available right now. Period. I'm always an advocate for intellect trinkets with a spirit proc and this one has both. Assuming you are always casting, this trinket provides <b>321 Intellect</b> with a chance to gain <b>80 spirit</b> that can <b>stack up to 5 times</b> providing <b>a 400 Spirit or roughly 200 Mp5</b> passive bonus.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers</li>
</ul><br />
<ul></ul><b>Core of Ripeness-</b> Another fantastic trinket that provides <b>321 Intellect</b> with a spirit bonus. The spirit bonus has an on-use effect that provides <b>1926 Spirit for 20 seconds</b> and has a <b>2 minute cooldown</b>. If my math is correct, this equates to roughly <b>160 Mp5</b> or <b>321 Spirit</b> if used promptly every cooldown.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers</li>
</ul><br />
<ul></ul><b>Tyrande's Favorite Doll-</b> Gives you <b>321 Intellect</b> with an on-use cooldown with an interesting twist. Rather than a spirit bonus, this trinket captures 20% of the mana cost for each spell you cast and stores up to <b>4,200 mana</b>. If you are always casting, the 4,200 limit is fairly easy to reach and has a 1 minute cooldown. This equates to <b>350 Mp5</b> if the trinket is <b>fully charged</b> and used every cooldown.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Fall of Mortality-</b> Gives <b>321 Intellect</b> with a passive spirit bonus. It gives <b>1926 Spirit for 15 seconds</b> and has a 45 second internal cooldown with a 10% chance to proc, so it will roughly proc once a minute. This trinket provides roughly <b>240 Mp5</b> if the procs are correct.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For: </b>All Healers </li>
</ul><br />
<b>Vibrant Alchemist Stone-</b> One of the 4 trinkets available to alchemists. This trinket provides <b>321 Intellect </b>with a very tasty <b>Red Socket</b> for a bonus <b>10 intellect</b>. It also provides <b>194 Haste Rating</b> and buffs your consumables.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers </li>
</ul><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> <u>Decent</u>: i346 or Higher and Provides Preferred Primary or Secondary Stats</b></span><br />
<br />
<b>Jar of Ancient Remedies-</b> This trinket has a stacking Spirit buff that equates to a passive <b>515 Spirit</b> when fully utilized. It also has an on-use ability to<b> restore 6,420 mana</b>, but causes the user to lose the stacking spirit buff for <b>30 seconds</b>. This is purely a regen trinket and doesn't add anything to your throughput. This is a great trinket if you are having mana issues.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> Holy Priests and Restoration Shamans</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Mandala of Stirring Patterns-</b> Provides a flat <b>321 Spirit</b> bonus and has a chance to proc <b>1926 Intellect</b> for <b>10 seconds</b>. Depending on the proc time, using abilities like Divine Plea, Shadowfiend, or Hymn of Hope during the intellect proc can greatly increase your mana gained.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers, but Holy Priests and Restoration Shamans benefit more</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Blood of Isesit-</b> This trinket gives you <b>285 Mastery</b> and has a chance to proc <b>1710 Spirit for 20 seconds</b>. This trinket is good for a healer looking to increase there throughput via their mastery rating and comes with a decent regen bonus.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> Holy Priests, Restoration Druids, Restoration Shamans</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Figurine: Dream Owl-</b> Provides <b>285 Intellect</b> with an on-use proc that provides <b>1425 Spirit for 20 seconds</b>. It's basically the i346 version of Core of Ripeness. It is only available if you are a Jewelcrafter<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Figurine: Jeweled Serpent</b>- Provides <b>285 Intellect</b> with an on-use proc that provides <b>1425 Spellpower for 20 seconds</b>. It's meant to be a caster DPS trinket, but it's very valuable for healers looking for a throughput boost. Available only through Jewelcrafting. <br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Rainsong-</b> Gives <b>285 Spirit</b> and has a chance to grant <b>1710 Haste for 15 seconds</b>. It's very similar to the Mandala of Stirring Patterns in the sense that it's a regen trinket with a throughput-based proc. Check your AH as it is a BoE drop.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers</li>
</ul> <b> </b><br />
<b>Sea Star-</b> A trinket that is very similar to Rainsong. It provides <b>285 Spirit</b>, but the proc is on-use and provides <b>1425 Spellpower for 20 seconds</b> and has a 2 minute cooldown.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Tear of Blood-</b> Probably one of the best trinkets from Cataclysm Heroics. Provides <b>285 Intellect</b> and gives your healing spell critical strikes a chance to provide <b>1710 Spirit for 15 seconds</b>. Excellent trinket and one of my favorites.<br />
<ul><li><b>Great For:</b> All Healers</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Witching Hourglass-</b> Provides <b>285 Intellect</b> and has a chance to grant <b>1710 Haste for 15 seconds</b>. One of the best trinkets for a Holy Paladin that is looking to be raid ready. It is a pure throughput trinket, but because the main stat is intellect, it makes the cut for Decent trinkets.<br />
<br />
<b>*Edit-</b> Apparantly <b>Witching Hourglass</b> is one of the weaker trinkets available for a pre-raiding healer. It's better than most green trinkets available, so it's not bad to replace that 318 trinket you've been wanting to replace, but you're better off with something else. Thanks Papapaint for the tip!<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><u>Mediocre</u>: i346 or Higher and Provides Decent Primary and Poor Secondary Stat</span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Corrupted Egg Shell-</b> This trinket places a <b>shield</b> on the target that <b>absorbs 4,560 damage</b></span></span>. While the shield is on the target, the user gains <b>475 Mp5</b>. When the shield is absorbed, the user gains <b>5,700 mana</b> and it's on a 2 minute cooldown. This trinket is poor mainly because there is no throughput bonus and the regen aspect is mediocre at best. It doesn't buff your stats at all and is better left off your character.<br />
<ul><li>Poor choice when there are much better trinkets available.</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Mirror of Broken Images-</b> This trinket proves that just because it's a i359 that doesn't mean it's great. In fact many i333 trinkets are better. This provides a flat <b>321 Mastery</b> increase and an on-use proc that increase resistance to spell damage.<br />
<ul><li>Poor choice when there are much better trinkets available.</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Soul Casket-</b> Another 359 trinket on the bottom list! While many of you would justify that Soul Casket is an OK trinket, look at it objectively. It provides <b>321 Mastery</b> and has an on-use proc that provides <b>1926 Spellpower for 20 seconds</b>. Sounds like a nice throughput bonus right? Wrong. When compared to other intellect trinkets, this trinket isn't worth the Valor points.<br />
<ul><li>Might be a decent trinket if you are looking to boost your Mastery rating, but Intellect will always be king. It also doesn't provide any type of regen bonus. Discipline Priests and Holy Paladins need to avoid this trinket like the plague.</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Gale of Shadows-</b> Provides <b>285 Haste</b> and a stackable buff that creates <b>340 Spellpower</b> as a passive proc bonus. The reason this trinket is mediocre is because most people will just reforge the haste rating into spirit which makes this trinket redundant for it's purpose. It's a pure throughput trinket. The 340 spellpower isn't that great either.<br />
<ul><li>Might be ok if you want to stack up on haste, but you'll get better results with intellect.</li>
</ul><br />
<b>Tendrils of Burrowing Dark-</b> This trinket gives you <b>285 Mastery</b> and has a chance to increase your <b>Spellpower by 1710 for 15 seconds</b>. Like Gale of Shadows, this is a pure throughput trinket. I'm not a fan of Mastery-based trinkets unless they provide some type of regen proc, which this one doesn't. <br />
<ul><li>Again, Holy Paladins and Discipline Priests should seriously avoid this trinket. It's not bad for other healers, but there are just so many other options that are better.</li>
</ul><br />
I think I grabbed all the trinkets I know about. I can't really attest to the <b>Shard of Woe</b> that drops off of Heroic Lady Sinestra. Not many people have it and there is limited data available. It would probably make the<b> Best</b> list do to the reduction in base mana cost and the on-use Haste proc that is on a low 1 minute cooldown. <br />
<ul></ul>Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-5874695552999837942011-03-13T09:38:00.000-07:002011-03-13T09:38:55.866-07:00Stat Discussion: Haste vs. Mastery for Holy priestsThis 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.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Mastery</u></b></span><br />
<br />
<b>Echo of Light-</b> Your direct healing spells heal for an additional 10% over 6 seconds. Each point of Mastery provides an additional 1.25% healing over 6 seconds.<br />
<br />
Every spell we use, from <b>Heal</b>/<b>Flash Heal</b> to <b>Prayer of Mending</b> and even <b>Renew</b> (as long as you're properly talented) all benefit from our Mastery. And because Mastery increases our healing done, it makes it an attractive throughput stat. It doesn't top Intellect which increases our spellpower, but it certainly tops Critical Strike Rating which relies on the Random Number Generator.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Haste</u></b></span><br />
<br />
<b>Haste-</b> Decreases the cast time of your spells, reduces the Global Cooldown of spells, and also adds HoT ticks to some spells based on various points of Haste.<br />
<br />
Most spells we utilize are affected by our Haste Rating. Haste is very valuable for Holy priests because many of our biggest healing spells have a long cast time. Lowering this cast time increases our throughput in the sense that we can cast more spells in the same time allotted for a boss fight. Also be aware that casting more spells equals more mana used, so having the mana regen to handle the increased Haste is essential.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><b>Renew and the Legend of the Soft Haste Cap</b></u></span><br />
<br />
<b>Renew</b> is a HoT available to priests and it is very similar to a druid's <b>Rejuvenation</b>. The Holy tree has talents that buff <b>Renew</b> and make it the preferred single target heal when raid healing. Haste rating increases <b>Renew's </b>efficiency because in Cataclysm all HoT effects are affected by Haste Rating (with the exception of our Mastery, go figure). A fresh-85 Holy priest will most likely only get 4 ticks out of <b>Renew</b> over 12 seconds. When you get geared for raiding, hitting 12.5% will squeeze a <b>5th tick</b> out of <b>Renew</b> in that same 12 second time frame, increasing it's efficiency. Because <b>Renew</b> becomes more efficient than <b>Heal</b> at 12.5%, it becomes essential for a raid healing Holy priest to hit this "soft haste cap."<br />
<br />
<b>Why is it called the "soft haste cap?"</b><br />
<br />
Because the next tick for <b>Renew</b> won't be achieved until <b>37.5% Haste</b> which is impossible to get at our current gear levels. This is called the "hard haste cap." Haste is still valuable after 12.5%, but it is diminished since our primary HoT doesn't benefit from it until 37.5%.<br />
<br />
<u><b><span style="font-size: large;">Haste vs. Mastery after 12.5% Haste Rating</span></b></u><br />
<br />
<b>Here's my theory:</b><br />
<br />
At lower gear levels when you are clearing out normal mode content, mana regen will still be a problem for most healers. And because high Haste depends on high mana regen, it's not a preferred stat past 12.5% for a priest starting to raid. <br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Mastery makes your heals hit harder at no cost to your mana. Echo of Light can account for almost <b>15%</b> of your effective healing depending on your Mastery rating all while keeping your mana efficiency in check.<br />
<br />
<b>But what if I'm geared and I'm comfortable with my mana regen?</b><br />
<br />
Then Haste will take the lead over Mastery, especially with Cataclysm Heroic-modes. Mastery is still a good stat, but getting off your Prayer of Healing quicker without having to worry about mana is better for Heroic-mode encounters where damage can be extremely spiky and getting everyone to full health ASAP is our top priority.<br />
<br />
<u><b><span style="font-size: large;">In Conclusion</span></b></u><br />
<ul><li>If you are a priest still working on normal modes and are still struggling with mana, gear for <b>Mastery</b> rating.</li>
<li>If you are a priest working on Heroic-modes and are comfortable with your mana regen, gear for <b>Haste</b> rating.</li>
</ul>Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-85419219966866431502011-03-12T07:32:00.000-08:002011-03-12T07:32:11.378-08:004.1 PTR for Priests<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/QXDuIfVyjDQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
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.Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-57133334180567202402011-03-04T10:48:00.000-08:002011-03-04T10:48:58.434-08:00What To Expect From Patch 4.1Some new content and class changes are coming in patch 4.1. Here are a some things that priests will need to know:<br />
<br />
<b>New 5-man Dungeons:</b><br />
<ul><li>Zul'Aman has returned as a level 85 5-player heroic dungeon featuring a revamp of the original dungeon and improved loot!</li>
<li>Zul'Gurub has returned as a level 85 5-player heroic dungeon featuring all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot!</li>
<li>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.</li>
</ul> <u><b>Priests</b></u><br />
<ul><li><b>Divine Aegis duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.</b></li>
</ul>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.)<br />
<ul><li><b>Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect.</b></li>
</ul>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.<br />
<ul><li><b>Holy Word: Sanctuary has a new spell effect.</b></li>
</ul> It's unfinished on the PTR. Oestrus over at <a href="http://thestoriesofo.wordpress.com/">The Stories of O</a> 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.<br />
<ul><li><b>Power Word: Shield duration has been reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.</b></li>
</ul> 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.<br />
<ul><li><b>Talent Specializations</b> <ul><li>Discipline <ul><li>Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Holy <ul><li>Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets. </li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><div style="text-align: left;">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.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I'll bring up more changes as they keep rolling out on the PTR.<br />
</div>Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-2745261824745415892011-03-04T09:55:00.000-08:002011-03-04T09:55:09.173-08:00A New Name and a Fresh StartYes, I changed my name. I got tired of being called "Lunar" all the time, especially since my toon is no longer a Night Elf.<br />
<br />
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.Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-59718750371744684172011-02-26T08:31:00.000-08:002011-02-26T08:32:29.659-08:00Cataclysm Progression and Chakra StatesThe past 2 weeks have been absolutely phenomenal for my raid team. Not 3 weeks ago did I feel like I was on the Titanic and was going down with the ship. But my raid and I managed to find a lifeboat and stayed afloat. Not only that, we've basically made more progress in the past 2 weeks than we have since Cataclysm came out.<br />
<br />
Throughout our raiding time, I try to see what Chakra state is most beneficial for each encounter. I'm usually the second tank healer for our team and help out with raid healing when necessary. Our main tank healer is a Discipline priest and our main raid healer is a Restoration druid. <br />
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We are now 5/12 normal modes and we will be working on Ascendant Council next week.<br />
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Halfus Wyrmbreaker has pretty much been on farm for over a month now. There's always a small chance for a wipe depending on what drakes we have, but we haven't wiped on him for a few weeks now even with the Stormrider drake active (he's the one with the nasty shadow AoE). I found that the Serenity Chakra state is most beneficial for the first part of the fight when the drakes are up. Both tanks get hit very hard and having and instant cast heal is extremely vital. The second half, I usually switch to Sanctuary state when Halfus starts doing his Roar. Tank healing isn't as extreme and at this point, only 1 tank is being hit and can easily be healed by 1 healer. The extra boost from Sanctuary is extremely beneficial. I also switch to Inner Will for the extra efficient Renew that can be spammed for a bit.<br />
<br />
Valiona and Theralion was a real problem for us. I think our strategy (which was taken from <a href="http://tankspot.com/">Tankspot</a>) was too intense for the healers. 1 wrong move by anyone and it was pretty much a raid wipe. Penitent (our pally tank) came up with a great strategy and we ended up 1-shotting it. Goes to show you that not all strategies work well if you have a different raid composition. I spent most of my time in Sanctuary state. Depending on your raid strategy, burst AoE healing is needed to get through this encounter. Inner Will is up for efficient Renews. Be aware that casting Renew is actually faster and more efficient than Heal in Sanctuary state.<br />
<br />
Magmaw was an interesting fight. We tried a few different strategies and found that the 2-camp strategy works the best for ranged dps and healers. Precise use of cooldowns (Guardian Spirit, Pain Suppression) helps save the tank while he's in Magmaw's mouth and AoE abilities like Holy Word: Sanctuary, Efflorescence, and Power Word: Barrier really shine in this fight. We got him down on the second night of raiding when we found a comfortable raiding strategy. Chakra: Sanctuary is the most beneficial state for the burst AoE healing that is needed. Inner Will is up for cheap Renews when needed. Prayer of Healing will be your most used spell and Holy Word: Sanctuary can be used in emergencies.<br />
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Omnotron Defense System took us 2 nights to down. Add control and careful interrupts need to be precisely dealt with or it spells WIPE for the raid. Our Chakra state will vary depending on what mob is active. For Toxitron, Arcanotron, and Electron Chakra Serenity seems to be the best. Most of the damage thats dealt is single target as long as everyone is spread out. When Magmatron is active, switch to Sanctuary. Magmatron does a heavy AoE damage ability that can't be avoided. Renew and Prayer of Healing really shine here. Avoid using Holy Word: Sanctuary because everyone is too spread out for it to be really effective.<br />
<br />
The Conclave of Wind is a pretty fun encounter. It took us about 4 tries to down it. Communication is extremely important and the timing of the deaths of each of the bosses is vital to the raids survival. Each boss has to be downed within 1 minute of each other otherwise it's a wipe. Think of it like the Earth, Wind, and Fire achievement from VoA back in Wrath. 1 person needs to be on each platform at all times, otherwise the boss will cause a raid wipe ability that will either silence, reduce haste, etc. We had 1 healer on each platform. I was on the Rohash platform. This boss deals wind damage that doesn't need to be tanked, but you have to be aware of where the boss is facing when he does his "leaf blower" ability. This ability will knock everyone off the platform if you're not careful and will auto-wipe the raid. You're Chakra state will depend on what platform you are on. I found that the Serenity state is best for the Rohash platform since for 10-man, only you and one other dps will be on the platform. While I haven't done the ice platform yet, I imagine that with the constant AoE damage that Sanctuary will be the best state. The lightning platform will depend on how well your dps can control the adds.<br />
<br />
Next week we will be looking at Ascendant Council. Fun stuff!<br />
<br />
-LunarLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-47637515258003597962011-02-19T10:20:00.000-08:002011-02-19T10:21:17.327-08:00Recent Hotfixes And a Quick Dip into Holy PvPSo as of my last post, Holy priests everywhere were visiting their trainers to respec into the Holy "bubble spam" spec. I was not one of those priests. I knew Blizzard wouldn't let this new spec be viable and I was right. I woke up this morning to see these changes posted:<br />
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<b>-Body and Soul no longer reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Shield (the hotfix made on February 16 to provide this additional benefit has been reverted)</b><br />
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I saw the Body and Soul change coming back when it was first introduced. This made PW:S extremely powerful for Holy priests and it came with little mana penalty. With this hotfix, bubble spam is no longer viable as a Holy priest. Prayer of Healing/Circle of Healing once again take the lead for HpM.<br />
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<b>-Rapture now returns 2/5/7% of maximum mana when Power Word: Shield is consumed, up from 2/4/6%</b><br />
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This was necessary, although I'm not sure if its enough to rectify Disc priest mana issues. I'll have to see if the mana return is higher than the cost of PW:S. If it is, then great, PW:S is viable to use again. If not, then Blizz still has some mechanics they need to fix. I have said it before and I will say it again, PW:S wasn't good enough to use after the increased mana cost. Greater Heal was more efficient. I'm hoping this fix will rectify this problem.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Holy PvP</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
I was bored yesterday and decided to dabble in PvP as Holy for the first time. It was really fun and was a little different from Disc in terms of play-style.<b></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Control- </b>Holy has a bit more control than Disc. Holy Word: Chastise is a POWERFUL CC and can help you kite those nasty Death Knights and is on a decent 21 second CD when talented. As Holy, you also have spare points to use in the Shadow tree. You can actually go far enough to get Improved Psychic Scream which reduced the CD by 4 seconds.<br />
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<b>Mobility-</b> From what I've seen, Holy has more mobility than Disc. This is because of the Body and Soul talent which increases your movement speed by 60% for 4 seconds every time you cast PW:S. I've noticed that Holy priests rely on this mobility to survive. They don't have the damage reduction talents to take the damage that Disc priests can survive through.<br />
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<b>Cure Poison</b>- Yes Holy priests can cleanse poison off themselves ONLY. This is fantastic for trying to dispel Crippling Poison that rogues like to put on you. Cure the poison then PW:S yourself and the rogue will eat your dust.<br />
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<b>Lightwell is Awesome</b>- Lightwell has to be the most powerful tool in the Holy priests toolbox next to Guardian Spirit. Place a Lightwell out and you can just click it while you are stunned/feared/etc. With Blessed Resilience, it places a POWERFUL HoT on you healing for almost 9k every 2 seconds. Unless you have 3 or more DPS on you, this makes it difficult for a DPS to kill you.<br />
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<b>Glyph of Desperation</b>- Originally this glyph only applied to Pain Suppression, but Guardian Spirit was also added to the glyph. GS gives you a second chance and can save your butt in a bad situation. It's fun seeing a rogue thinking he has you locked down for the killing blow, you pop GS, and your back at 60k health again and he's blown all his CD's on you. Pop a Lightwell, dispel poison, then pop PW:S and take off in a run. It's pretty fun.<br />
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<b>Mana is a Problem</b>- The only downside to Holy is that mana is still a big issue. Because spirit isn't seen much on PvP gear and Holy gets all its regen from Holy Concentration you go oom much quicker than other healers. This is where Disc can shine when played appropriately.<br />
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Since the hotfix, I will probably go back to Disc for PvP. It was fun being Holy while it lasted!<br />
<br />
-LunarLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-88386221404860790582011-02-18T09:42:00.000-08:002011-02-18T11:06:11.083-08:00To Bubble Or Not To Bubble? That is the Question.The forums have been blown up recently and Disc priests everywhere are in a state of panic. In a recent hotfix, Blizzard decided that the recent increased mana cost and spell power coefficient to Power Word: Shield wasn't enough to prevent Discipline priests from utilizing the "bubble spam" method of raid healing and immediately raised the cost by another 33%.<br />
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But wait! What about Holy priests who use the spell for our precious Body and Soul talent and maybe to save a raid member or two? Have no fear, Blizzard thought this through and didn't want Holy priests to shy away from using PW: S and added a mana cost reduction to the Body and Soul talent.<br />
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As a Holy priest, I utilize Inner Will for raid healing duties. This further reduces all of my instant cast spells mana costs by an additional 15%. With the additional reductions from Body and Soul, and with the addition of Inner Will, my PW: S mana cost has plummeted to a mere 2600, down from 3800. And if I forgo 2 points in the Darkness talent (but still maintain my 12.5% haste) and put them into "Improved Power Word: Shield" I get about a 20k shield from a 2600 mana cost. That's about an HPM of about 7.6 making Power Word: Shield more mana efficient than Prayer of Healing.<br />
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I think you realize where I'm going with this. As Oestrus pointed out on her <a href="http://thestoriesofo.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/the-rise-of-the-bubble-spamming-holy-priest/">blog</a>, Holy bubble spam might possibly be the new sexy way of healing until Blizz figures out something. Discipline is just a mess now. Spamming bubbles isn't even viable anymore. And with Prayer of Healing being extremely weak for Discipline compared to Holy, Discipline isn't even a competitive raid healer anymore. As of this moment, Discipline is only competitive with tank healing.<br />
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On top of all this, Rapture is pretty much broken. It costs more mana to cast PW: S than the return gives. Discipline priest's PW: S now has an HPM of 4.1, making it one of the least efficient spells available. It's actually more efficient to cast a Greater Heal with 3 stacks of Grace.<br />
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There are a few ways to fix this problem:<br />
<br />
<b>1. Make Soul Warding a Disc-only talent and raise the cool-down to 8 seconds.</b>- This would make spamming less viable for Holy priests due to the high cool-down. It would also still cause PW: S to have a 4 second CD so spamming it isn't viable for raid healing compared to Prayer of Healing during extremely heavy raid damage fights. A combination of PW: S and Prayer of Healing would give Disc a viable slot in raids.<br />
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2. <b>Revert the initial mana cost back to what it originally was before the hotfix for PW: S and get rid of the B&S mana reduction fix.</b>- This would make PW:S attractive again for Disc priests to use and still decent for Holy priests for PvE and PvP.<br />
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3. <b>Priests need dispel resistance.</b>- I know Blizz doesn't want to go this route, but its inevitable to keep the game balanced. With the increased CD on PW: S, we would use it less often. Therefore, we need some type of dispel resistance, or there needs to be a CD on all offensive dispels.<br />
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4. <b>Or maybe just get rid of Soul Warding all together.</b>- This would cause PW: S to have a base CD of 4 seconds. Revert the mana changes and change the Soul Warding talent to a PvP Dispel resistance talent.<br />
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Just my 2 cents.<br />
<br />
<3<br />
<br />
LunarLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-32566893457331946942011-02-12T09:44:00.000-08:002011-02-12T09:52:21.721-08:00Patch 4.0.6: A PvE/PvP PerspectiveSo the patch has been out for a little less than a week and I've been able to test out some of the changes for both PvE and PvP. Here's some feedback:<br />
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<strong><u>Holy Word: Serenity Actually Works with Healbot</u></strong><br />
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I nearly cried when I found this out. HW: S has NEVER worked with Healbot correctly. It's been a bug that had been plagueing the priest communtiy for quite some time. There was a macro fix for it, but it was a little complicated to pull off and it didn't work half the time. Patch 4.0.6 has corrected whatever error there was with the spell and it now works correctly with Healbot. Directions: Under the "Spells" tab in Healbot, figure out what button configuration you want to tie the spell to. For example, mine is tied to the Left Mouse Button while holding down the Shift + CTRL keys. Just type in "Holy Word: Chastise" into the bar and you're done! It will cast Holy Word: Serenity as long as you are in the Serenity Chakra state.<br />
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<strong><u>Priest AoE Healing Took a Hit</u></strong><br />
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Even with the buff to Circle of Healing, I noticed our AoE output isn't what it was before the patch went live. That 15% nerf to Prayer of Healing really hurt. Circle of Healing is now much more attractive to use, but Prayer of Healing is still the most mana efficient way to heal through heavy raid damage.<br />
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<strong><u>Renew Still Kinda Blows For Raid Healing</u></strong><br />
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Even with the mana cost reduction, Renew still costs over 3k mana (my earlier calculations were a bit off!). Even with the extra tick, Renew only heals for roughly 14k. This results in a net "Heal per Mana" of 4.5. Comparatively, Prayer of Healing heals for roughly 36k when it hits 5 targets and costs roughly 5.6k mana. This results in a net HpM of 6.4. Prayer of Healing still trumps Renew as far as HpM is concerned. Here's a list of a Holy Priest spells according to HpM.<br />
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Heal- 4.4<br />
Flash Heal- 2.5<br />
Greater Heal- 3.5<br />
Binding Heal- 5.0<br />
Renew- 3.6 without extra tick 4.5 with extra tick (when in Sanctuary state)<br />
Prayer of Healing- 6.4 (when in Sanctuary state)<br />
Prayer of Mending- 8.7 (Assuming you get all 5 charges off)<br />
Holy Word: Serenity- 10<br />
Holy Word: Sanctuary- 2.7<br />
Divine Hymn- 9.8<br />
Circle of Healing- 5.6<br />
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Alot of these number vary greatly. They don't take crit or haste value into consideration, but seeing as those stats are baseline for all the spells, it's pretty evident which are the most mana efficient. Holy Word: Serenity is the most mana efficient spell available to a Holy priest. Divine Hymn is almost as good, although it needs to be the MOST mana efficient spell we have. It's on an agonizing 8 min CD so it should be the best spell in a healing priest's arsenal. Blizzard needs to buff the healing effect to match Tranquility. Prayer of Mending is also very efficient, but thats assuming you get all 5 charges to proc. If not, its pretty inefficient. Flash Heal is our worst HpM spell as it should be. It's fast and heals for quite a bit, but is staggering in mana cost. Binding Heal is only efficient as long as both you and your target are taking damage. If not, it's pretty bad. Holy Word: Sanctuary is another that is pretty inefficient. I based the calculations on 5 people standing in the circle since anything more gives diminishing effects.<br />
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<strong><u>PvP is OK, But It Could Be Alot Better</u></strong><br />
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Dispels are still a big problem. Nerfing Purge hasn't stopped Shamans from taking advantage of the dispel. Mages are also still running rampant with Spellsteal. Our "clothie tank" abilities have improved with our powerful shields, but they can still be easily dispelled. Feral druids are no longer much of a threat to us. Warriors, DK's, and Enhance Shamans still seem to be a problem. We have no real way of escaping their snares and our poor CC ability is easily countered by a Tremor Totem and some other class abilities that can easily break fear. We can survive a little longer now, thanks to interrupt/silence immunity, but it doesn't seem to be constant enough. Once Inner Focus is on cooldown we get squished. The buff to Penance was much needed and makes it heal for a good amount, but did it really need an increased mana cost? I'm already struggling with mana due to the outrageous cost of Power Word: Shield. BTW, Desperate Prayer is so uber now. It actually heals for more than a fraction of my health. I would also still like to see some pushback resistance for the priest class. Having a melee class wail on you and it taking 3 seconds to get off a Flash Heal isn't exactly my idea of fun.<br />
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Well thats it for now. I'll be online later trying to farm up the Raven Lord from H Sethekk Halls. It's been a pretty vain attempt so far, but I'm feeling pretty lucky today.<br />
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<3<br />
<br />
LunarLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-53147364762144707862011-02-11T09:21:00.000-08:002011-02-11T09:21:46.879-08:00I'm at a Crossroad...2 days ago, during our 10-man raid, I broke.<br />
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I've NEVER quit in the middle of a raid before. I might have complained, whined, and even cried, but I've never flat out quit. I was feeling many emotions. I was angry. I was disappointed. But most of all I felt like a loser. A loser that was wasting 2 1/2 hours of my time to some hopeless cause.<br />
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<strong><u>Cataslym Raiding is Hard</u></strong><br />
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It's much harder than ICC has ever been. With healers no longer having infinite amounts of mana, every mistake really hurts the raid. EVERY MISTAKE. We don't have the luxury of messing up and expecting the healers to make up for it. Those days are over. Everyone should be accountable for their mistakes. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. We need to buckle down and figure out where we went wrong and fix it.<br />
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<strong><u>Mistakes are OK, But Only to a Certain Extent</u></strong><br />
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I've made my fair share of mistakes. I'm not perfect. But I learn and I fix what I'm doing wrong. Simply ignoring fight mechanics or being oblivious to the surrounding evironment isn't helping progression. If the boss is new, this is typical and is acceptable for the first week or so. But after 3 weeks? The boss should be dead and the raid should be reaping the rewards. Especially when the encounter mechanics are fairly simple.<br />
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<u><strong>I Can't Help But Notice...</strong></u><br />
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The same people are making the same mistakes over and over again. They know who they are, so there is no need to point any fingers. All I have to say is that what you are doing isn't fair to the rest of us. We ALL have had to learn this fight. We have all watched the videos, made our mistakes, and tweaked our strategies for the better of the raid. But you have not. Why? Why do you continue to do the same thing over and over as stubbornly as a mule? We don't have the luxury of "carrying" people. Your mistakes hurt everyone and you refusing to change your personal strategy is costing everyone progression and achievements. Is that fair? Is it fair that you are holding the rest of the team back? We could be a high end content raiding team, but because you lack the focus or are too ignorant towards an encounter, we are now in the 40's for server progression when we could be in the top 20. Over half our team is capable of that feat. Only 2 maybe 3 people are keeping us from achieving it.<br />
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<strong><u>Lag and D/Cing is No Excuse</u></strong><br />
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Once in a while is fine. Or maybe you were just having a really bad storm and your antenna went out. Those types of things are understandable. But if you are contantly d/cing or lagging every raid night or are running at 4 FPS, its no excuse. You have a seriously bad computer or internet connection which is holding back progression. Don't blame Blizzard. One of my biggest gripes is when players blame Blizzard for their lag/DC issues. The ones that usually did this are actually no longer in my guild which I'm thankful for.<br />
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<strong><u>So Now I'm at a Crossroad</u></strong><br />
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It's been weighing a bit on my mind. I'm thinking about switching servers. I really don't want to. I feel I've made lifelong friends in my guild and I don't want to throw it all away. I love the atmosphere and the people are great.<br />
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But I want to see progression. I want to see endgame content without the hardcore aspects of a guild. I want to have fun and laugh and just enjoy myself. I'm not feeling that anymore with my current guild. Raiding is starting to feel like a chore. I'm starting to dread it every night. It's not fun. I understand wiping is part of progression and the challenge makes it fun. But wiping because of ignorance after 3 weeks on the same boss is not my idea of fun. I think most people would agree.<br />
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I don't know what I'm going to do. But I will say this. If something doesn't change drastically within the next week of raiding, I may no longer be on Team 1, or Caelestraez for that matter. I also have a feeling I'm not the only one who feels that way, which would be sad. It would be sad to see a great team break up due to the failures of 2 or 3 people.<br />
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<3<br />
<br />
LunarLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-14356243455079198912011-02-07T09:47:00.000-08:002011-02-07T12:06:55.379-08:00Priest PvP makes me cry T_TI mentioned on my earlier post that priests in PvP are just awful and I wanted to touch on it a little further. No wait, scratch that. It's just plain bad.<br />
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I'm no arena junkie, nor have I ever claimed to be. I'm a casual PvPer that enjoys occasional random Battlegrounds. I have extremely limited arena experience. I've won a few rounds in Wrath, and lost quite a few more. I have learned that I excel much better at BG's where I'm not always the focus of the enemy's attack. I like to have fun in PvP. PvP is no longer very fun to me as a healer.<br />
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Blizzard broke healing in PvP by breaking mana costs, cast times, and homogonizing all melee classes. And before you ask, yes this is going to be a QQ/rant post.<br />
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Speaking from a healing priest point of view, we are currently the worst healers in the game for PvP and even some DPS classes heal for more than we do.<br />
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1. <b>Mana Cost and Cast Times-</b> With the increase to mana costs and the 3-heal strategy that Blizz has implemented for PvE, PvP healing has been greatly affected. The only viable heal we currently have is Flash Heal which is extremely expensive. Heal and Greater Heal cast times are extremely brutal in a PvP environment. The 2.3 second cast times are like an eternity and are easily locked out by opposing players.<br />
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2. <b>Dispels-</b> Discipline priests in paticular are greatly affected by this. Dispels are out of control. Every time I go into a BG, there is a mage or shaman running around Spellstealing or Purging everything off of everyone. Our shields are extremely vulnurable to dispels and make up for our lack of throughput. Back in Wrath, priests had dispel resistance, which made us very viable for arenas and BG's. It's time to reintroduce the concept. Nerfing Purge by 1 dispel effect isn't enough. A cooldown needs to be implemented or priests need dispel resistance. What's surprising is that they didn't even touch mage's Spellsteal. A mage wearing Mage Armor and spamming Spellsteal never goes OOM.<br />
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3. <b>The Days of the Clothie Tanks Are Gone-</b> Priests use to be what we called "clothie tanks". In Wrath, this was true. Priests could tank multiple DPS classes at once. Our shields were strong, heals were quick and efficient, and we had dispel resistance. This is no longer the case. We get eaten alive by most melee class. Death knights, warriors, feral druids, you name it and they can kill us within 15 seconds with CD's popped all by themselves. Paladins and rogues for some reason don't seem to be that bad. I'm not sure why this is. A skilled rogue can be a problem, but paladins are really only a threat if they pop Avenging Wrath which is easily dispelled.<br />
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4. <b>Did all melee classes REALLY need an interrupt?-</b> Rebuke and Skullbash are a few of the new interrupts some melee classes have. Now every melee class has an interrupt. Feral druids are currently unstoppable. If you have one on you, you're pretty much dead unless a dps can CC him off you, and even that is pretty sketchy since ferals can break fear, immune to polymorph, break roots, etc. The only legit CC is Cyclone, which another druid needs to be nearby. With cast times being so long and priests not having any way to remove snare effects we are extremely vulnerable to interrupts. And because Blizzard thought it was a brilliant idea to give all melee classes an interrupt of some kind, it pretty much makes it impossible to heal through.<br />
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5. <b>Psychic Scream only works 10% of the time-</b> Seriously, half the time its either resisted or it misses. The "missing" part doesn't bother me since I'm not hit-capped, but I do have spell penetration, yet most of the time its resisted and has an agonizing 30 second cooldown. This is our only efficient way to CC, other than Mind Control which has an unbearable cast time and is easily interrupted.<br />
<br />
6. <b>Penance Doesn't Heal For Squat-</b> It heals for a little more than it did in Wrath. It heals for about 15k with no crits total and has a long 10 second cooldown. It's also vulnerable to interrupts, being a channeled spell. Other than Prayer of Mending (which requires you to take damage to even work), Disc priests don't have a reliable instant cast spell like Holy Shock, Riptide, or Swiftmend. ALL spells are vulnerable to interrupts or counterspells. Desperate Prayer is nice, but its on a lengthy 2 min cooldown and doesn't heal for much.<br />
<br />
<b>Patch 4.0.6 will fix a few but not ALL the problems we are experiencing</b><br />
<br />
There are a few things to look forward to with the new patch for PvP.<br />
<br />
-Desperate Prayer is getting a huge and much needed buff<br />
-Penance is getting buffed by 20%, but the mana cost is increased by 7%<br />
-Ferals are getting nerfed to the ground. They won't be able to break fear anymore and they can't escape root effects (snares will still be able to be broken)<br />
-Strength of Soul is being homogonized with Inner Focus to give us interrupt and silence immunity for 4 seconds every 45 seconds<br />
-Purge has been nerfed to only dispel 1 effect instead of 2<br />
-Mana Drain is being removed from the game (sorry locks!)<br />
-Strength of Soul is now being affected by Flash Heal and Greater Heal, so we can shield more often<br />
-Power Word: Shield is seeing a huge buff (22k-24k shields), but the mana cost has skyrocketed as well<br />
-Renew's mana cost has been reduced by a decent amount<br />
-A new glyph called Glyph of Prayer of Mending is a new attractive PvP/PvE glyph that buffs your initial charge by 60%<br />
<br />
<b>What I'd like to see in a future patch:</b><br />
-A new or improved Penance. It's just too vulnerable to interrupts right now to be very viable. Holy Word: Serenity is much better. Maybe make Penance be able to be cast while moving.<br />
-Mana cost reduction to our shadow spells. Mind Spike can get costly to spam and our DoT spells are extremely expensive making it impossible to cast them without a serious mana penalty, especially since they are extremely weak. Druid DoT's have come down in mana cost greatly, why can't our shadow spells do the same?<br />
-Priests don't really have any "free cast" dps ability. Druids have a free cast Wrath which is extremely efficient with their DoTs. Shamans get mana back by casting Lightning Bolt and Pallies can infinitely cast Excorcism if specc'd apporopriately. We lack in mana-free offensive abilities.<br />
-Another nerf to offensive dispels for all classes. I'd like to see most offensive dispels to be made with a 15 second cooldown. Mages will keep running around spamming spellsteal with no penalties. Shamans will continue to spam Purge. Even priests need a nerf for our own dispel ability.<br />
-Some type of talent in the Disc tree to make Fade remove snares, as it does for Shadow. Hamstring, Chains, etc are absolutely brutal for us. We have no way of removing snares. Pallies have HoF, druids can shapeshift, and shamans go Ghost Wolf. Meanwhile, we get eaten alive.<br />
<br />
Well thats about all the issues I can think of for now. I can't wait for the patch to hit tomorrow so I can test out some of the changes.<br />
<br />
<3<br />
<br />
LunarLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-16726892356187240532011-02-06T10:44:00.000-08:002011-02-07T12:07:10.476-08:004.0.6 is almost here!Well, according to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/mmo-champion.com">MMO-Champion</a> Patch 4.0.6 is set to be released this Tuesday and there are a few changes priests should know about for both Discipline and Holy. Don't worry we aren't getting nerfed! They are good changes for both PvE and PvP!<br />
<br />
I'm just going to highlight the "priest-only" changes that we will be seeing.<br />
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<b>-The mana cost for Renew has been reduced by 24%</b><br />
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I'm happy to see Renew get a reduction. Expect to see the cost jump down to about 2500 from 3200 with talents. This will make it a little bit more appealing to occasionally toss out a Renew on raid members. Currently I only use Renew mainly for tank healing because its expensive and doesn't heal for alot as Holy and I don't use it at all for Discipline. I might decide to glyph for it again depending on how well it works for us in raids.<br />
<br />
<b>-Desperate Prayer now heals the priest for 30% of their total health, up from a very subpar value</b><br />
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PvP priests rejoice everywhere! Blizzard has answered our cries and blessed us with this MUST-HAVE talent for PvP healing priests everywhere! On Live, it heals for a paultry 10k health which is practically nothing compared to our vast health pools. I'm hearing it is healing for about 40k and crits for 60k on the PTR which is a MAJOR improvement.<br />
<br />
<b>-Chakra now lasts 1 minute, up from 30 seconds</b><br />
<br />
I'll have to test this out when the patch hits. With Chakra now lasting a minute and with the cooldown being 30 seconds, I'm finding a hard time trying to justify points in State of Mind. I see the points being more valuable elsewhere, maybe in Veiled Shadows or Inner Sanctum?<br />
<br />
<b>-Holy Word: Chastise now has a 30 second cooldown, up from 25. In addition, it properly breaks from damage</b><br />
<br />
I don't really see what the need was for an increased cooldown of this ability. Talented it was at about 18.5 seconds. The "not breaking from damage" was probably needed to keep it in line with other disorient abilities, but a longer cooldown? Are we really that OP Blizzard? Expect the cooldown to be increased by 2.5 seconds when properly talented to a 21 second cooldown.<br />
<br />
<b>-The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%</b><br />
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This is mainly for Discipline priests, but Holy priests should take note that the changes might make Power Word: Shield a more attractive ability to cast other than for the B&S talent. On the PTR, shields are holding for about 22k-24k depending on your spellpower for Discipline priests, which is about twice as much as what they are currently holding for. Be wary though, that currently on Live with proper talents, PW: S costs a little over 3500 mana. With this change, we are looking at a mana cost of at least 4600, so the spell is still not spammable by any stretch. This change should help priests in PvP perform a bit better.<br />
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<b>-Glyph of Spirit of Redemption has been converted into Glyph of Prayer of Mending, which increases the healing done by the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 60%</b><br />
<br />
Love this change. Prayer of Mending is my favorite spell in the priest's healing arsenal. It's unique and watching it bounce around makes me a happy priest. Buffing the initial charge will help in PvP as well as PvE.<br />
<br />
<b>-Surge of Light can now also proc from Flash Heal and Greater Heal and can now also critically heal</b><br />
<br />
I have always been an advocate for the Surge of Light talent and this just makes it all the more sexy. Being able to proc from our large heals as well as our cheap-slow heal makes it even more viable than it currently is.<br />
<br />
<b>-Serendipity now has Spell Alert and Floating Combat Text feedback support</b><br />
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I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for something like this. Do you know how many times I've missed out on Serendipity stacks because I have to try to find the little icon in the upper right corner? Too many.<br />
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<b>-Holy Concentration now increases the amount of mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by an additional 15/30%, down from 20/40%</b><br />
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I was waiting for this change to take effect. Currently, Holy priest mana regen is a little OP. Alot of priests were forgoing intellect altogether and were stacking spirit. Hopefully this puts a stop to that.<br />
<br />
Well thats it for now. As for PvE, I think priests are in a very good place right now. PvP is currently very bad for us though, especially for Discipline. I've been doing BG's for a few weeks now and I can't tell you how painful it is to have a shaman spamming Purge or a Mage spamming Spellsteal basically nullifying our already pitiful shields. Then we basically get eaten alive. I'm hoping for some dispel immunities or resistances in the upcoming patch. I do know they are making a change to Inner Focus, but I'm not sure that will be enough. We will wait and see I guess.<br />
<br />
<3<br />
<br />
LunarLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-71223417465792610352011-01-30T09:10:00.000-08:002011-01-30T09:10:09.917-08:00I Love Flow Charts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zvsITvKj8LI/TUWbDQzyo3I/AAAAAAAAABE/I1eIhfLQ6vA/s1600/CataH%2Bflowchart.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="256" width="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zvsITvKj8LI/TUWbDQzyo3I/AAAAAAAAABE/I1eIhfLQ6vA/s400/CataH%2Bflowchart.JPG" /></a></div><br />
This is my "How to find a scrub" flow chart! Pick a role and see where it leads you. If your group is constantly wiping, this chart can help weed out the scrubs!Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-89004945952210005082011-01-28T10:05:00.000-08:002011-02-07T12:07:39.921-08:00I Hate Chakra Right NowThere has been a TON of QQ on the forums about our Chakra mechanic. Questions like, "Why is there a cooldown?" "Why should I be penalized if I hit the wrong spell and get stuck in the wrong state for 30 seconds?" have plagued the forums to the point where Blizzard is looking at the mechanic very closely. Some suggestions have been made by players.<br />
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1. Make Chakra a Stance (like a warrior).<br />
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Most players would probably like to see this take effect. Unfortunately, GC replied saying why even bother with a Chakra state if its that simple to switch in and out of the mechanic. He says Chakra is supposed to make priests think and know what the mechanics of a fight call for and to make a decision on what state is best for your needs. I have a problem with this statement.<br />
<br />
No other healer class has to "think and know" what mechanics are needed for a boss fight immediately. Shamans, Druids, Paladins, and yes even Disc priests always have their complete arsenal of healing spells, abilities, and bonuses available to them 100% of the time. Seriously? Why are Holy priests the only healing class that has to research a fight ahead of time and think "Hmmm I think my single target state might be more beneficial for this part of the fight, but when he does this attack I need to switch to my AoE state, I just hope its off cooldown." And there'in lies the problem.<br />
<br />
The cooldown of Chakra is too high. If we hit the wrong spell and activate the wrong Chakra, there is no way to "undo" it until it comes off cooldown. A Holy priest might slip into the wrong state (I am guilty of this) by casting Prayer of Mending on the tank when I'm supposed to be the tank healer, and now I'm stuck in my AoE chakra state. By doing this, I lose out on the extra 10% crit that my Serenity state provides as well as the auto refresh to Renew. Other healers don't have to worry about this problem.<br />
<br />
/end rantLunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-77812048176180304662011-01-23T09:47:00.000-08:002011-02-07T12:10:17.012-08:00Gems, Gear, and Stats for the Raiding PriestAnother day, another Heroic Magister's Terrace done with NO Orb of the Sindorei or White Hawkstrider chicken thing. Sigh. I love the way female Blood Elves cast and I WISH my guild was a Horde guild, but alas, the Orb is the second best thing.<br />
<br />
Today I'm going to talk about the type of gear, gems, and stats both types of priests will want to look for on their gear. I'm not going to go into detail with all the math and theorycrafting. If you want that stuff, check out Elitist Jerks or Derevka over at Tales of a Priest for more details.<br />
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<b>Holy Priest</b><br />
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<b><i>Stats</i>:</b><br />
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Intellect > Spirit > Haste (until 12.5% with raid buffs/racials) > Mastery > Extra Haste > Crit<br />
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These are the stats that raiding priests should look for on gear. Intellect and spirit are invaluable right now, and every piece of gear you have should have both on it. With mana being costly, we need to make sure our longevity is guaranteed for fights, especially since priests have some of the more expensive spells out of all healer classes. Intellect provides us with spellpower, a larger mana pool that increases our regen by a small amount, and a marginal amount of crit rating. This is the main reason why crit isn't sought after by Holy priests.<br />
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Haste is a different monster. Haste reduces the cast time of your spells and reduces the ticks for your HoTs like Renew, allowing you to cast more spells in the same amount of time. With the way haste is designed, you can squeeze out an extra Renew tick at the magical 12.5% haste "soft cap" right now and being that this cap isn't hard to hit for priests with the proper raid buffs and talents and is more valuable than other stats initially.<br />
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"Soft" Haste Cap: 12.5%<br />
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So depending on what buffs are available, your haste could be more than what is reflected on your character sheet. Blizz has stated they are fixing this with patch 4.0.6.<br />
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Goblin Racial: 1%<br />
1-3 points in Darkness talent: 1-3%<br />
Moonkin/Shadow Priest/Shaman Totem buff: 5%<br />
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So, if you are a Goblin Holy priest with 3 points in Darkness and you run with a Moonkin, your haste cap would be 3.5% for the extra Renew tick. After that cap, haste has a reduced value and takes a backseat to Mastery.<br />
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Holy priest's Mastery "Echo of Light" puts a HoT on the target for each direct heal and heals the target for X amount over 6 seconds. This stat is a pure throughput stat and is the best stat after you hit your personal haste cap.<br />
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Crit rating is the red headed step child for Holy priests. Due to Holy Word: Serenity, tank healing priests don't value crit as a necessary stat due to the 10% crit chance from our Chakra stance and our 25% additional crit chance from our instant cast heal. Also, heavy amounts of intellect provide the crit we need.<br />
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So right now on my Draenei priest I have 6.81% haste rating and about 12 points of mastery which equals about a 16% HoT. I have 3 points in Darkness and we run with an Elemental shaman, so my personal haste cap is 4.5%. Clearly I am way over, but I have reforged all my haste available to Mastery and gemmed for Mastery as well. I could take 2 points out of Darkness and put them somewhere else, but right now I think the added throughput that the extra haste provides is the best stat right now.<br />
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<b><i>Gemming your Holy priest</i>:</b><br />
<br />
<b>Red-</b> Brilliant Inferno Ruby- Pure Intellect<br />
<b>Blue-</b> Purified Demonseye- Intellect/Spirit<br />
<b>Yellow-</b> Artful Ember Topaz- Intellect/Mastery (if your haste capped, if not Reckless Ember Topaz- Intellect/Haste)<br />
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<b>Meta-</b> Ember Shadowspirit Diamond<br />
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<b><i>Gearing Priority and Reforging</i>:</b><br />
<br />
<b>Intellect-</b> All cloth gear has this stat.<br />
<b>Spirit-</b> Every piece of cloth gear you have should have some spirit on it. If not, reforge Crit to Spirit first. If the item doesn't have Crit, reforge Mastery to Spirit if you're not Haste capped. If you are Haste capped, reforge the Haste to Spirit.<br />
<b>Haste-</b> If you are Haste capped, reforge all extra Haste to Mastery. If you are not Haste capped, reforge all Crit FIRST to Haste. If still not at Haste cap, then continue with reforging Mastery.<br />
<b>Mastery-</b> Reforge all extra Haste rating and Crit rating (when you can't reforge a stat to Spirit) to Mastery.<br />
<b>Crit Rating-</b> Reforge to Spirit first. If Spirit is already on gear, reforge to Haste until Haste capped. If Haste capped, reforge to Mastery.<br />
<b>Hit-</b> Sometimes there are a few pieces that are a huge upgrade over that POS 318 wand that you just replaced with Corla's Baton in Blackrock Caverns and it has hit on it. Stat-wise, its much better because of the intellect boost. Hit gear will never have Spirit on it, so feel free to reforge ALL hit gear to Spirit. I personally have 2 pieces of hit gear right now, mainly because I haven't been able to get anything better. As long as you don't have OODLES of hit, you should be fine.<br />
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<b>Discipline Priest</b><br />
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Disc priests are a bit different with gearing priority and stat priority.<br />
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<b><i>Stats</i>:</b><br />
<br />
Intellect > Spirit > Crit > Haste > Mastery<br />
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Intellect and Spirit are need for longevity and throughput. Crit is important because it proc's Divine Aegis which increases the Disc priests tank healing abilities. Because of this talent, it gets pushed ahead of Haste and Mastery.<br />
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Haste isn't as important if you are tank healing, which is what Disc priests excel at. If you are made a raid healer, Haste becomes more important than Crit and Crit actually drops below Mastery.<br />
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Mastery is a subpar stat for Disc priests right now. Without the ability to spam PW: S Mastery is really only beneficial to our Divine Aegis proc, and even that is fairly unreliable right now unless you are raid healing with Prayer of Healing. It's best to just increase your throughput with Crit and Haste.<br />
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<b><i>Gemming</i>:</b><br />
<br />
<b>Red-</b> Brilliant Inferno Ruby- Pure Intellect<br />
<b>Blue-</b> Purified Demonseye- Intellect/Spirit<br />
<b>Yellow-</b> Potent Ember Topaz- Intellect/Crit<br />
<br />
<b>Meta-</b> Ember Shadowspirit Diamond<br />
<br />
<b><i>Gearing Priority and Reforging</i>:</b><br />
<br />
<b>Intellect-</b> All cloth gear have this stat.<br />
<b>Spirit-</b> Make sure all gear has Spirit on it. If not, reforge Mastery to Spirit first. If the item lacks Mastery, reforge Haste to Spirit.<br />
<b>Crit Rating-</b> This is your primary stat after spirit. Reforge all Mastery rating to Crit if Spirit is already on the item.<br />
<b>Haste-</b> Reforge to Spirit if none is present on item. If so, reforge to Crit.<br />
<b>Mastery-</b> Reforge Mastery to Spirit FIRST if none is present, then reforge to Crit.<br />
<b>Hit-</b> Reforge any Hit gear to Spirit. All Hit gear lack Spirit.<br />
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I tried to make it as easy as possible. Feel free to ask me any questions.Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-52636310960854586852011-01-21T12:09:00.000-08:002011-01-21T12:09:10.954-08:00Cataclysm Raiding UpdateWe did it! Yes, we defeated the Wyrmbreaker! After hours of tears and tantrums we finally downed Halfus the Wyrmbreaker. I also reaped the reward of the 359 spirit neck piece known as the Wyrmbreaker's Amulet as my first 359 raiding piece. Woot!Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-48331453874476356322011-01-02T09:42:00.000-08:002011-02-07T12:10:41.968-08:00Healing Heroics- Cataclysm StyleCataclysm is out and everyone is either grinding their way to 85 or are now grinding normal and/or heroic dungeons. I have to say, I wasn't expecting it to be as challenging as it is currently.<br />
<br />
I will start off by saying that I have not tried healing heroics as Discipline yet. I'm having a hard enough time healing as Holy, let alone the additional challenge that Disc presents. Yes, Disc is currently challenging to heal for heroic dungeons, but its not impossible. I have learned that with a decent group and some communication over vent, that heroics aren't as hard as people say they are. Pug heroics seem to have low success rates right now, mainly because there is limited communication between players. This is where guild groups really shine. Communication is absolutely essential as is crowd control and positioning. We can't just AoE pull anything anymore.<br />
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Which brings me to healing. Healing now is very different from Wrath. With our new spells, we no longer have the longevity of spamming heals with no consequences. ALL spells are extremely costly with mana (with the exception of Heal), so choosing the right spell at the right time is crucial to your mana pool's survival.<br />
<br />
For Holy priests, the first few heroic runs are going to be brutal until you get geared. Even with the recent buff to our spirit regen, it's still essential that you learn which spell is used for certain types of damage:<br />
<br />
Heal- Our new bread and butter spell. It has a low mana cost and at high regen levels, we can cast it infinitely. It has a long cast time and doesn't heal for much, but its extremely efficient and refreshes our Renew on the target with our tank healing Chakra state. It is best used for light damage situations, or when the tank has 50% or more health.<br />
<br />
Renew- Our HoT was the cornerstone of Wrath healing that made us much like druids. We use to sprinkle this across raids and its healing was more efficient than Flash Heal. This is no longer the case. With mana reduction talents, Renew costs a little over 3200 mana and currently ticks 4 times until you hit the appropriate 12.5% haste cap. This spell should always be kept up on the tank(s) and is easily refreshed with our Chakra state. I would avoid sprinkling this over DPS unless you know that the DPS is going to get constant damage and can be refreshed through our Chakra state. Otherwise, you will find yourself OOM quickly.<br />
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Holy Word: Serenity- Finally, we get our very own instant cast healing spell! One of the reasons why Holy priests were never excellent at tank healing was because we lacked an instant cast healing spell. We always sat at the sidelines as we watched other healing classes tank heal. This was because Paladins have Holy Shock, Shamans have Riptide, Druids have Swiftmend, and Disc Priests have Penance. This is our version of Holy Shock only it heals for quite a bit more and is on a 10-second CD. It also puts a buff on the target for 6-sec that increases the critical chance of your healing spells by 25%. This spell is also very mana efficient and should be used every CD. It can quickly bring a tank or dps back up and is part of our tank healing toolbox.<br />
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Flash Heal- This spell use to be our go-to spell in Wrath. Blizzard greatly increased the mana cost and healing of this ability, so it is now used in emergency situations. It is the highest HPS spell we have, but its also the most costly. When the tank dips below 25% I would say its safe to use this spell, especially since we have a glyph that increases its crit chance by 10% when used on a target below 25% health. I would avoid spamming this on DPS.<br />
<br />
Greater Heal- I admit I should use Greater Heal more. I hardly use it at all. When it comes to heroics, I either use Heal or Flash Heal combined with smart use of Prayer of Mending and Holy Word: Serenity. Greater Heal is the biggest single target heal we have, but it has a long cast time. It's also fairly costly although not nearly as costly as Flash Heal for heal-per-mana. It costs a little more than Flash Heal, but heals for quite a bit more. I'd mainly use it for tank healing to bring the target back up to full health. Around 25%-50% might be a smart area to use it.<br />
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Holy Word: Sanctuary- I've NEVER used this spell in current heroics. EVER. It costs over 9k mana with mana reductions and doesn't heal for very much for what it costs. Plus it requires you to be in your raid healing Chakra state, which isn't very good for healing 5-mans right now. Liberal use of Prayer of Mending and Prayer of Healing is better right now.<br />
<br />
Prayer of Mending- A very good spell to use when the entire party is taking damage. I wouldn't use it on every cooldown as it is still a little expensive to cast, but I would encourage people to get an addon to track what target your Prayer of Mending spell is on and to get the full benefit from it. It has a 30 second duration for each bounce. Healbot automatically tracks it, but I'm not sure about Grid. I believe Curse.com has a few different addons that can track it.<br />
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Prayer of Healing- This spell has been buffed and the mana cost reduced which makes it a powerful party heal for heroics right now. The glyph makes it even more powerful. I would use this when the entire party is taking damage, such as Valiona's flame breath (although no one should be standing in front of it!) It has a long cast time, but it can be shortened through smart use of Flash Heal with the proper talents.<br />
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Power Word: Shield- This spell is mainly used for damage mitigation. Disc priests get a mana return from its use, but Holy priests don't get anything beneficial other than a subpar shield. I think combined with the Body and Soul talent it can be great for getting out of fires quicker or helping a DPS/Tank kite adds. I certainly wouldn't put it into a healing rotation, but it is still good for certain encounters with heavy tank damage. Make sure to coordinate with your Disc priests when you use this spell.<br />
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Leap of Faith- Oh how I absolutely love this spell. In guild runs, I usually piss off a DPS or Tank thats in front of me when we are running back from a wipe by pulling them away from their intended direction. In all seriousness, this spell is fantastic. When we do a CC pull, its great for pulling a clothie or hunter out of harms way. I will say this though, I DO NOT PULL PEOPLE OUT OF STUFF THEY SHOULDN'T BE STANDING IN.<br />
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Divine Hymn- This is my "oh $hit" button. I only use this when I forsee a wipe and its my last ditch effort to save the party.<br />
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Well thats it for now, I'll be back later to go over gear, gems, stats, etc. Remember, be forceful! I know it might seem a little hopeless, but if you are doing your job and people are not obeying the mechanics of the encounter or are not CC'ing correctly its not your fault. If they kick you, chances are another healer won't help their cause and they will have to wait 45 min for another dungeon while you get near instant ques. Thats the consequence for pissing on their healer! Have fun!Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341963279365454742.post-88635374845706830342010-10-04T11:02:00.000-07:002011-02-07T12:10:59.047-08:00Discipline in 4.0.1<script src="http://static.wowhead.com/widgets/power.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>While I decided to ditch the Holy paladin part of the blog, I decided to pick up the Discipline part of being a priest. Discipline and Holy priests are similar, but yet are so different in play style. Today we'll talk about the Discipline changes coming in Cataclysm and with patch 4.0.1.<br />
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Blizzard's definition of a Discipline priest:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Uses magic to shield allies from taking damage as well as heal their wounds.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That's a pretty good definition of what a Disc priest currently does, and will continue to do in the upcoming expansion.</span><br />
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In current content, Discipline priests are considered more to be tank healers than raid healers. They have the most powerful damage mitigation abilities in the game through spells like <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=17">Power Word: Shield</a> and talents like <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=47515">Divine Aegis</a>. This is also what makes them more preferable than Holy priests in a PvP environment. And while their damage mitigation abilities are unrivaled by any other classes, their healing throughput is currently the lowest of any other healer in the game. Patch 4.0.1 will rectify the throughput issue, placing Disc priests closer in line with other healing classes. Blizzard doesn't want Disc priests to have to rely solely on shields to heal party and raid members.<br />
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<strong><u>Talent Tree</u></strong><br />
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All talent trees have been revamped, and the Discipline tree is no exception. Players must now put 31 points into 1 tree before accessing another. There are also passive abilities that are tied into each tree as well as a mastery to help bolster each trees unique playing style. Here's an overview of the new talents and abilities we expect to see in the upcoming patch.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=14768">Improved Power Word: Shield</a>- A straight increase to our most powerful shield.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=47588">Twin Disciplines</a>- A talent that has been buffed slightly from its current iteration.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=14781">Mental Agility</a>- Unchanged and moved to tier one.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=81662">Evangelism</a>- A completely new and unique talent to priests. This goes with the "<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=585">Smite</a> to heal" approach that I will talk about a little later.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=87151">Archangel</a>- Works in tandem with Evangelism. Part of the "<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=585">Smite</a> to heal" spec that also helps restore mana.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=14771">Inner Sanctum</a>- A talent that seems more useful in PvP, but might be useful with <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=73413">Inner Will</a> for getting out of those fires faster.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=78500">Soul Warding</a>- Reduces the cool down of <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=17">Power Word: Shield</a> from 3 seconds to 1 second. A powerful talent for shield spammers.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=57472">Renewed Hope</a>- This talent has been buffed by quite a bit from its current iteration on live servers. The fact that it is available through <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=47517">Grace</a> and <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=6788">Weakened Soul</a> is a huge benefit.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=10060">Power Infusion</a>- Unchanged from live servers.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=81749">Atonement</a>- The corner stone of the "<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=585">Smite</a> to heal" spec. When you Smite an enemy, you heal a friendly party/raid member with the lowest health for 50/100% of the damage done. Most heals should be going to the tank as long as dps doesn't pull aggro, but this should not be used reliably. Smite should only be used when an ally isn't in serious need of healing.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=89485">Inner Focus</a>- It's been changed a bit. It now has a 45 sec cool down, but it only works with <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=2061">Flash Heal</a>, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=2050">Heal</a>, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=2060">Greater Heal</a>, and <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=596">Prayer of Healing</a>. Sorry guys, no more "free" <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=64843">Divine Hymn</a>'s for you!<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=47537">Rapture</a>- The Disc priests greatest mana regen tool has been reworked to proc every 6 seconds instead of every 12 seconds.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=52797">Borrowed Time</a>- This talent use to increase the spell power scale of <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=17">Power Word: Shield</a>. Since the scaling has been built into our <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=77484">Mastery</a>, it now only provides the haste buff.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=33202">Reflective Shield</a>- Unchanged from live servers.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=89489">Strength of Soul</a>- A new and powerful talent that allows us to bubble more often.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=47515">Divine Aegis</a>- Unchanged. Still the most powerful mitigation talent in the game although Blizzard thought it was so great that they gave Holy paladins a <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=76669">Mastery</a> similar to it.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=33206">Pain Suppression</a>- Our "oh ****" button cool down. It is unchanged, but on a longer cool down.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=92297">Train of Thought</a>- A nice addition to our "Smite to Heal" spec. Reducing the cool down on <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=47540">Penance</a> makes it that much more powerful.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=45243">Focused Will</a>- A revamped PvP talent. It lost it's crit chance, so it won't see any love in any PvE builds.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=47517">Grace</a>- This talent has been buffed to increase our throughput. It now stacks 3 times for a total of 12%.<br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=62618">Power Word: Barrier</a>- Our new 31-point spell and the crown jewel of the Discipline tree. It's on a somewhat lengthy 3 minute cool down but it can be a raid saver if used properly.<br />
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<strong><u>Build</u></strong><br />
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<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#bfMorMsbfRMochr:qm0dazzc0">31/10/0</a> would be the build I would use at level 85. This build is centered around Evangelism and Atonement. <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=88690">Surge of Light</a> also will proc a fair amount of time due to keeping up Evangelism stacks. <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=45758">Glyph of Divine Accuracy</a>, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=42416">Glyph of Smite</a>, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=45756">Glyph of Penance</a>, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=42408">Glyph of Power Word: Shield</a>, and <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=42400">Glyph of Flash Heal</a> are mandatory, while <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=42397">Glyph of Dispel Magic</a> is more of a filler glyph.Lunarsoulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16528709496642670817noreply@blogger.com0