Indeed. You can sneak in Blessed Resilience for 3 points and get a build that is amazing for both PvE and PvP healing. Going full Discipline is strictly PvP, you lose out on a lot of PvE viability, and it's still extremely debatable if it's better or not for PvP. The extra buffs "buffer" might help, but I can see teams adapting to this by having the 1-2 offensive dispellers strip the priest of them even before starting the assist train. From 30 yards, it takes 2 offensive dispellers exactly 3 seconds to get rid of 8 buffs - not to mention this is a good ideea to do anyways, dispelling PW:F already counts as 1030 damage.

My problem is that Spirit of Redemption does pretty much the same as PS (ie, allows you to stay "alive" to heal your team when the assist train hits you), but does it undispellably, with no mana cost, without fear of interrupts/stuns, for 15 seconds, fewer talent points, in a more useful tree, and throws in 5% spirit boost.

But while your two offensive dispellers spend 3 seconds each removing 8 buffs, the team that didn't bother with offensive dispels uses two of their players to do 10k damage in the same timeframe. Offensive dispels are horribly time inefficient when you don't hit exactly what you want.

I don't quite think the 2 classes that can offensively dispell - shamans & priests - oh and the felhunter, can output 10k damage in 3s. I feel a global cooldown used as an offensive dispell, from 30 yards, is quite efficient. As I said, you've already done 1k+ damage when you removed their fort.

But the problem is that those two classes are healers. They don't want to be within 30 yards of the opposing healer, cause that means they're right in the middle of opposing dps. By chasing the other team's priest, they're putting themselves in an unwanted position. The felhunter will, and probably should, be chasing the healer, but it only dispels one buff every 8 seconds.

Well if they're not within dispelling range, then the whole issue of PS being dispellable is not an issue at all - since it won't be.

Also, Arena maps are quite small, and depending on spec there might be mail-wearing DW Shamans and Shadow priests who are more willing to enter the fray rather than hovering at the edge of the battle.

Why dispell at all? PS doesn't prevent CC, so simply put the Priest into one of the many, many forms availiable to other classes. Even if he can move out of it (trinket) he has lost valuable time of his PS.

My first post here. Hope you don't mind the questions.

1. Does Spiritual Guidance stack with Improved Divine Spirit for the priest?

2. Does Absolution stack with Mental Agility?

3. How good is Spiritual Healing now considering that it adds 10% of the base healing done by the spell and there will be +x.xxx healing gear available to priets? Would you rather take Mental Strenght for PVE? I am also wondering what's your opinion on the talent considering that downranking makes it less useful. This question also goes for Spiritual Guidance. --->

4. Spirit values at level 70?

5. Are you spamming Flash Heal Rank 1 for Clearcast when OOM? 125 mana seems pretty expensive to spam for Clearcast.

6. Does PW:S get any bonus from something in TBC?

7. Any data available anywhere on Inspiration? How good is this talent?

1. I haven't tested, but there is no reason not to, maybe someone who has can shed some light.

2. Same as 1.

3. Possibly one of the best talents for healing priests, coupled with Divine Fury. The previous version was already so much better for PvE healing that mental strenght, now the gap has widenned even further.

To be honest, i haven't played TBC past level 62, so i can't tell how the healing goes. I believe the idea is to use higher rank healing spells, due to the higher hp pools the tanks have now, and try to keep spirit regen as often as possible. I could be wrong, however. The downranking nerf killed heal rank2, but gheal rank1 is still usable at level 60. There is a formula that shows how much a downranked spell will heal, but i must admit i don't remember it, all i recall is that you start to loose efficiency for spells that you got over 10 levels past.

Anyway, spiritual guidance used to be a very good talent for heal rank 2 and spiritual healing was a so-so talent for that. With higher ranked spells, spritual healing is absolutely king. Spiritual guidance doesn't look as good now because the relative power gain from SH, the fact that it adds healing AND damage (if it was just healing the values would be higher) and the fact the you don't see that much spirit on itemization so far (what i expect to chance after we see more 25 man raid loot). Spiritual guidance is a tanlent to give a little extra oomph for healing and soloing, but i don't really care for it with so many good options on the holy tree.

4. No idea, i'm wondering that myself.

5. Spamming for a clearcast is not smart. It has a 6% chance to proc, that is almost 20 casts for 1 proc. In this scenario, you just used 2500 mana to proc 1 clearcast. Most importantly, you were not out of the 5 second rule, wasting obscene ammounts of mana that would be regenerated thru spirit. I think the clearcast talent EXTREMELY overrated. Inner focus is so much better and costs just 1 talent point.

6. The usual + healing bonus. I haven't seen any itemization like the ZG epic neck with a bonus to pw:s so far.

7. Inspiration is an awesome talent when you heal the tank. With the new armor formula, there just isn't enough armor. The more the merrier. If you are always given group healing assignments (healing non tanks) it is not as hot, going possibly unused.

Spiritual Guidance and Improved Divine Spirit definitely stack.

Yes Absolution stacks with Mental Agility.

Even with downranking changes, +healing contributes more to long term efficiency versus Mental Strength... GHeal 1 is still viable afterall, it's just not ungodly like it used to be.

Spirit at 70 so far is about the same as it was at 60... but then I haven't gotten real raid gear yet and there's definitely a ton of spirit on the Avatar healing set (T5). Most of the 5 man healing gear is predominantly mp5 and the few spirit heavy items, like the Coilfang staff that's kind of the spiritual successor to Will of Arlokk, tend to kind of suck compared to other alternatives.

As Heartwarden said, spamming isn't worth it to proc Clearcasting. Especially since PoM is such a staple heal... there are so many TBC instances that liberally share the damage across all your melee that PoM easily becomes your single best heal and it doesn't proc Clearcasting (which is a dirty dirty shame).

I haven't seen any new gimmick items for PWS either.

Inspiration is great, and frankly if you are doing a healbot spec, there isn't much else worthwhile to take instead anyway to get to Improved Healing.

I'm afraid to ask because I fear I already know the answer, but do any BC priests know if Hazzarah's Charm of Healing was nerfed at all(I saw the rogue one gets worse as you level)?

1. Does Spiritual Guidance stack with Improved Divine Spirit for the priest?
Yes.

2. Does Absolution stack with Mental Agility?
Yes.

3. How good is Spiritual Healing now considering that it adds 10% of the base healing done by the spell and there will be +x.xxx healing gear available to priets? Would you rather take Mental Strenght for PVE? I am also wondering what's your opinion on the talent considering that downranking makes it less useful. This question also goes for Spiritual Guidance. --->
Spiritual Healing now applies to the total healing done by the spell, not the base healing. Because of that, it's now pretty much superior regardless of whether you have completely no +healing or you have twenty million +healing.
(Sidenote: I'd almost suggest a sticky here that says "Yes, healing done talents apply after gear. No, partial resists on higher level mobs just happen, it's your glancing blows, spell penetration doesn't help.")

Spiritual Guidance is basically having 25% of your spirit as extra +damage and healing, and applies it's bonuses in the same way gear does.

4. Spirit values at level 70?
No idea. Guessing at least 400ish.

5. Are you spamming Flash Heal Rank 1 for Clearcast when OOM? 125 mana seems pretty expensive to spam for Clearcast.
It's better to just wait for regeneration, as you said, Flash Heal rank 1 is still too expensive to spam.

6. Does PW:S get any bonus from something in TBC?
Still the same 10% of +healing it does now.

7. Any data available anywhere on Inspiration? How good is this talent?
While I don't have data available, I'll just tell you that it's worth chain-chugging Stoneshield Potions for tanks for 2000 armor, since tank armor is around 10000 easily, just imagine how much they (and you) would like 2500 extra armor. ;)

I would presume talented PW:S would now be (1315+10% of +healing)*1.15 instead of the old way (1315*1.15)+10% of +healing. This is of course already live since 2.0.1 and it is by all means a minor thing.

When I did the research on Inspiration back when we had this discussion within our guild I noticed inspiration armor doesn't multiply with buffs. So devotion aura doesn't gain an extra 25% on inspiration, neither does the aforementioned stoneshield potion. Having said this the talent is still godly and on decently geared (full T2 with a good shield) warrior it reduces damage taken by something in the order of 10%.

To confirm this cast inner fire and then proc inspiration on yourself, if the mechanics didn't change you'll see an increase of about 12% in your armor value instead of the 25% you'd expect.

How fun and useful is Prayer of Mending in practice? None of the other new healing spells look very interesting to use, Binding Heal is just a Flash Heal the heals you too, Circle of Healing is just like PoH/Nova, while PoM is something new and unique.

And does it benefit from both Healing Prayers and Mental Agility for a 30% mana cost reduction to 273 mana?

Minor math snafu -? 30% reduction to 678 Mana.

Right it does seem Prayer of Mending to be pretty nice, while Binding Heal is only useful in the "Oh #$@$" when you are currently healing a target, and something PVP/aoe hits you.

Yeah they never updated the web page... current base cost for PoM in beta is 390 mana. So with Mental Agility and Healing Prayers it's down to 273 mana.

Oh wow, my bad. That is dirt cheap now.

Now when the buff jumps, which AI descision do you use:

1) Jump to lowest health person.

or

2) The full health Tank about to receive the next damage hit.

Not sure if you can really AI this, and maybe best to random it.
If it is still only a 15 yd range, it should only jump to at risk melee.

Someone mentioned Circle of Healing, so I thought I would post my thoughts on it in case anyone is curious.

As per the description, it is basically a holy nova that does no damage, that you can target on one person and their 5-man party. At level 60 CoH heals for about 400 (470ish with my +healing), for 500 mana. This is something like 120% of the healing of holy nova, for 2/3 of the mana cost.

Depending on group layout and what we are fighting, I can usually get 2-4 people affected by the range. In PvP it's more like 1-3, depending on what objectives the group members are working on.

The spell is more useful for PvE than PvP in my opinion, which was a surprise to me. I have found lots of places where several group members all need like 1 tick of renew, and are pretty close to each other. Like for Flamegor, or the goblin tech packs, Nef phase 1, etc. By looking for opportunities like this, I managed to get a mana efficiency on CoH close to that of Flash Heal, and I wasn't being very careful about using it. Since it is instant cast, you have pretty good control about who gets the healing, and when. It is very nice for healing melee groups especially. 500 mana means it doesn't drain the mana pool too badly, and this is without mental agility, which will reduce the cost further.

For PvP, it is not so hot. When targets are being focused fired, I think I am better off getting a flash heal for 1200 in 1.5 seconds, than 2 heals totalling 900 in the same time, even if CoH lands faster. People are also more mobile, so it is hard to get AOE synergy. There is value to having a heal you can cast on the run (on top of the shield), but there are better options for PvP by far IMHO.

I think it could be nice for 5-man content and leveling to 70, since you have more control when solo-healing a 5-man group, and could use it very efficiently.

It is also very good at proccing Surge of Light: 5 chances to crit with 20ish% crit chance is often a guaranteed crit, even if it's all overhealing. Plus you get the 5 crit chances without having to be in range of 5 people for our other AOE spells. Not that I am recommending Surge of Light...

So is it worth getting? It boils down to getting it or Improved Divine Spirit (or going shadow). I think Improved DS is very big for a raid to have, but is not so important for leveling, 5-mans, and PvP. At 70 I am sure I'll spec DS for raiding, but on Jan 16th I am considering staying 41 holy.

Just a quick question as I am not in beta. I understand that Mass Dispel is capable of removing paladin shields (great for arena's). However, I am curious if anyone knows a list (or have already compiled one) of spells/abilities which mass dispel can remove.

Thanks!

We could also possibly see a AI that chooses the closes person to original target, the closest person to the current target with PoM. It would be great to find out how this AI worked, perhaps along the same mechanics as a Shammy's chain heal?

AFAIK, there's no deliberate targetting mechanism for POM, other than its range check. But considering that a large proportion of bosses have a cleave or some other aoe type splash damage, I dont see POM charges being wasted too much in PVE. Besides, its certainly cheap enough to just chain cast on the MT if that's what would be optimal.