Holy Priest Theorycrafting - Page 4

Hiba · 05/11/07, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by Psykal

I might be missing something but rank 5 CoH costs 600 mana, or 540 with 5/5 Mental Agility. Using these numbers your table is quite different.

CoH rank 5 mana cost is 450 mana.

• Psykal · 05/11/07, 10:54 AM

That was changed in a recent patch, wasn't it? I had this open, guess they've not updated it. Sorry about that.

Cloudgatherer · 05/11/07, 7:43 PM

Originally Posted by Dirich

Heal/mana (1000, 1500, 2000 +heal, 0 talent points spent)
PoH - vs - CoH
1.70 ----- 2.12
2.04 ----- 2.59
2.39 ----- 3.07

Total average heal over 3 sec "spam" casting (I'm assuming 10% chance to crit):
PoH 1 cast @ 10% chance to crit is (1000, 1500, 2000 +heal)
2245, 2694, 3144
CoH 2 cast @ 10% chance to crit is (1000, 1500, 2000 +heal)
2001, 2450, 2902

If CoH gets the benefit of Mental Agility for these calcuations, then PoH should get the benefit of Healing Prayers (20% mana cost reduction). Not sure if that was included, but you have PoH listed at 1255 (1004 mana cost with Healing Prayer). Arguments can be made about such builds (20/41, where the points get spent), but this is just for best possible HPM calculations right?

Dirich · 05/11/07, 10:43 PM

I didn't include talents in my calculations. I simply compared the spells with a testing gear but no build. Reason is that, a part from the mana reduction talents, all the other talents affecting those spell will do one of the following:
1) Augments +heal (which can be included in the model as part of the "gear" +heal bonus considered). Same thing applies to Holy Specialization and the crit chance.
2) Augments +X% base healing power of the spell (it's +128 vs +52 with X = 10, which isn't that much of a difference for our counts).

For what concern Healing Prayer, my bad, I simply forgotten it while writing the previous post. I've developed my specs and did my counts lot of time ago, and I completely forgot about it (and I am really ashamed of it :P ).

I'm reposting my counts adding 5/5 Spiritual Healing, 5/5 Mental Agility, 5/5 Holy Specialization (10% is the value witouth talent points) and 2/2 Healing Prayer (which, by the way, is viable in my opinion only because it reduce PoM's cost, in contrast with Mental Agility which reduces PoM and Renew costs (buffs, shield, CoH and the other instant are a nice addon tough)). Again, the healing bonus will be +1000, +1500 and +2000, in this order.

CoH
hpm: 1.78, 1.95, 2.13
average heal: 720, 791, 863
3 sec spam (crit included): 1548, 1700, 1855

PoH
hpm: 1.69, 1.83, 1.97
average heal: 1695, 1837, 1980
3 sec spam (crit included): 1822, 1975, 2128

The differences between the 3 sec spam values are 274, 275, 273, which is only 25 points (average) over the 250 value obtained in the spec free counts (in the end I was right in thinking that for this count spec isn't relevant

).
The differences between the hps are 0.09, 0.12, 0.16. In my previous counts they were 0.42, 0.55, 0.68. These results are really different, but I remembered only about MA to reduce the mana cost, so it wasn't needed to include the mana cost reduction in the model when the basic result were already so positive to CoH.

Result is unchanged: CoH is better, but only because it's instant and can target any group. Mana efficiency is pratically the same, but CoH has the advantage of smaller healing witouth losing that much in hps during the 3 sec spam.

Note: Thanks Nuke, I didn't know about the "divided by 3" rule about the area of effect spell, I previously used the single target formulas (tough, again, this influences only the mana efficiency of the spells). It seems I'm really bad at theorycrafting at 3:47 a.m., sorry :P

Nuke · 05/14/07, 5:25 AM

Originally Posted by Dirich

CoH heals for 525 (average) rank 5 and cost 450 mana, it's instant so speccing Mental Agility 5/5 menas it costs only 405. Prayer of Healing costs 1255 and heals for 1281 (average) rank 6.
PoH takse 3/3.5 bonus from +heal, while CoH only 1.5/3.5 (half of PoH's bonus).

Just analyze 3 cases: 1000 +heal, 1500 +heal and 2000 +heal.

PoH will heal for 2138, 2566, 2995 respectively, while CoH only for 953, 1167, 1382.

Heal/mana (1000, 1500, 2000 +heal, 0 talent points spent)
PoH - vs - CoH
1.70 ----- 2.12
2.04 ----- 2.59
2.39 ----- 3.07

Total average heal over 3 sec "spam" casting (I'm assuming 10% chance to crit):
PoH 1 cast @ 10% chance to crit is (1000, 1500, 2000 +heal)
2245, 2694, 3144
CoH 2 cast @ 10% chance to crit is (1000, 1500, 2000 +heal)
2001, 2450, 2902

Of course when using Inner Focus there is no comparison, but in standard situation we have
1) The ability to use a group heal on ANY group, not just our own
2) The ability to MOVE while casting
3) We spend 2/3 of the mana we would otherwise need (and it can be reduced by 10% speccing Mental Agility) at the loss of 250 heal (WAY better mana efficiency).

I rarely used PoH without Inner Focus tough (because I rarely need to cast a group heal), anyway I appreciate CoH because it's way better than PoH 80% of the time. Altough the heal seem to be quite low for the 25 man raid and probably 2 priest are needed to recover from a dangerous situation using this spell. But I can't really tell because I'm not raiding 25 man instances.

My problem was, being me the only healing priest in my kara run (the other main healer being a resto shaman), should I spec Divine Spirit (no points in Improved DS tough) or should i spec CoH?
I think that it's better choice to spec CoH because without Imp DS the spirit buff it's useless for most of the raid. And being only 2 main healers + our OT pala 20/41/0 (for boss fights) i think a better spell for group healing will make the difference (even if I will not use it very often).
Anyway, i will be happy to have some feedback on this spec ussue (I mean CoH vs DS vs DS + Imp DS) from someone who has kara on farm status. I hate to lose healing power (most of all when those 2 points for Imp DS need to be taken from Empowered Healing), but the whole "buff to spirit -> buff damage/healing" thing is very tempting (our "caster" group is made by 1 lock, 1 mage, 1 shadowpriest, me and the resto shammy).

P.S.
Meh, my mage keeps bothering me if I have "the spirit buff" even when I'm shadow specced because he looted the trinket "+130 spi on Use" (I can't remember the name right now xD).. :S Damned the hunter that didn't ninja looted that trinket to him! xD

Where did those values came from?
CoH takes ~10-15% from +healing. And with ~1500 healing you will be healing your group for ~800,critting for 1200.
With 2000 healing you will have it hit for ~900/crit for ~1300.

tedv · 05/14/07, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by Nuke

Where did those values came from?
CoH takes ~10-15% from +healing. And with ~1500 healing you will be healing your group for ~800,critting for 1200.
With 2000 healing you will have it hit for ~900/crit for ~1300.

I believe it's even less than that. If it works like Prayer of Healing, it should be 8.04% per person. The percent of +healing added is (Cast time / 3.5). Since it's instant cast and triggers the global cooldown, the base percent is 1.5/3.5, or around 42%. But Prayer of Healing splits bonus +healing 5 ways, so assuming circle is the same way, each person gets 42%/5 = 8.04%.

Note that chain heal is different (or at least was last time I checked). It doesn't split the +healing between all three targets; the first target gets the full 2.5/3.5 = 71% of the +healing, and the jumps after this effectively get 50% bonus from that. So the total effect of +healing for chain heal is actually 5/7 + 5/14 + 5/28 = (20 + 10 + 5) / 28 = 35/28 = 5/4 = 125% for a 2.5 second cast. If you were wondering why Chain Heal is the best group healing spell, now you know.

Dirich · 05/14/07, 12:54 PM

Area of effect spells follow the same rules for +heal/damage than single target spells, but there is a "divided by 3" factor that I discovered only thanks to Nuke. tedv, try look on wowwiki, that's the source I used.

SindirHH · 05/18/07, 10:47 PM

Originally Posted by Kass

For now, I wouldn't disagree that the Royal Nightseye gem is probably one of the better mixed gems to go with...provided you're not a +Healing nut like me and put the Teardrop Living Ruby in everything. Honestly though, if mana isn't ever an issue (either through consumables or playstyle)...why would you ever gem for anything but +healing? Especially when you look at the actual mana returned from the 6mp5 over say a 10 minute fight?

Nevertheless, in 2.1 the following gem is looking to be my gem of choice based on T5 and T6 socketing bonuses.

Unstable Sapphire: 9 Healing and 4 Spirit
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32636

Is there any confirmation on if this gem is craftable by JCs or if it's a drop yet?

Kass, I am in no way saying that the +18 healing gems are a bad idea, just showing that royal nightseye is a current anomalie that (in my opinion) we need to take advantage of.

I gem for 9 healing 2 mana in every slot, actually I will be now that I'm going to be scrapping the mana restore meta gem. I know that 6mp5 over a 10 minute fight isn't that much. 720 mana of which I think I could turn into more healing than the extra 27 healing would do.

Lastly, just wondering if anyone runs SWStats and monitors their self efficiency of the spells we cast. After a couple nights of Gruul's Lair, SSC, Magtheridon I noticed the following:

Spell - - Health per Mana (HPM)
CoH - - 8+ HPM
GHeal - - 8+ HPM
Renew - - 3-4 HPM

More and more I find that I am using less and less renew. It seems to be useless for me to cast a hot on someone who just took 2k damage because that person will be healed by someone with a direct heal, chain heal, PoM bounce, etc.

Anyone else for thoughts on the efficiency of renew/HoT's?

• mutagen · 05/19/07, 2:42 AM

Originally Posted by SindirHH

More and more I find that I am using less and less renew. It seems to be useless for me to cast a hot on someone who just took 2k damage because that person will be healed by someone with a direct heal, chain heal, PoM bounce, etc.

Anyone else for thoughts on the efficiency of renew/HoT's?

Heal assignments! When healers can get away from the 'heal everything in sight to top healing meters' mentality you can get better efficiency out of HoTs. Or maybe I'm not being fair (I'm surely guilty of it at times), but just making people aware that their Flash of Light is overwriting a perfectly good Renew / Rejuv can help. Paladins and shaman seem to be the worst offenders simply because they don't really have HoTs and are consequently less aware of them.

The Grid HoT stack feature is great for this, instead of having to recognize several HoT icons it color codes a dot showing how many HoTs are active on the target.

SindirHH · 05/19/07, 3:19 AM

Originally Posted by mutagen

The Grid HoT stack feature is great for this, instead of having to recognize several HoT icons it color codes a dot showing how many HoTs are active on the target.

I'd kill to not be colorblind if thats the case with Grid

Starfire · 05/19/07, 1:15 PM

Originally Posted by healmuth

I honestly think that its totally unrealistic to chaincast a greater heal over rank 3. Looking at Hydross when you tank him through with the 250% mark you can chaincast rank 3 quite efficiently.

But as Fitch said, chaincasting rank 7 is just way out of the window. Perhaps when facing Illidan you will do so - which i highly doubt as well

I have chain cast Greater Heal 7 on Hydross. With full consumeables buff I return about 600 mana every 5 seconds out of the FSR. I have Inner Focus and Clearcasting and there's usually a restoration shaman for mana spring and mana tide. Then throw in a shadow priest. Oh, and on top of that we usually have 3-5 spellsurge healers in the group. Keep in mind, spellsurge stacks with other people's spellsurge. (Which, best case scenario is 500 mana returned every 30 seconds, and well, worst case scenario is 0 mana returned.)

Heh. All we need now is a Draenei priest with Symbol of Hope >.>

Starfire · 05/19/07, 1:18 PM

Originally Posted by SindirHH

Kass, I am in no way saying that the +18 healing gems are a bad idea, just showing that royal nightseye is a current anomalie that (in my opinion) we need to take advantage of.

I gem for 9 healing 2 mana in every slot, actually I will be now that I'm going to be scrapping the mana restore meta gem. I know that 6mp5 over a 10 minute fight isn't that much. 720 mana of which I think I could turn into more healing than the extra 27 healing would do.

Lastly, just wondering if anyone runs SWStats and monitors their self efficiency of the spells we cast. After a couple nights of Gruul's Lair, SSC, Magtheridon I noticed the following:

Spell - - Health per Mana (HPM)
CoH - - 8+ HPM
GHeal - - 8+ HPM
Renew - - 3-4 HPM

More and more I find that I am using less and less renew. It seems to be useless for me to cast a hot on someone who just took 2k damage because that person will be healed by someone with a direct heal, chain heal, PoM bounce, etc.

Anyone else for thoughts on the efficiency of renew/HoT's?

In my opinion, the issue with gemming is Blizzard rounding up. I call myself a spirit whore, but honestly, I feel I get more bang for my buck going 9 heal/2 mp5. Why? The gem is supposed to give 1.5 mp5, but Blizzard rounded up, so we get a free .5 mp5 on it. This will become more noticable as the higher ilevel gems come out and don't seem to be as much of an upgrade.

To bad there aren't spirit/mp5 gems. I would be all over those in a heart beat. Mhmmm 5 spirit / 2mp5.

Starfire · 05/19/07, 1:28 PM

I might be willing to consider a spirit tap raid build for some gimmick fight that included priests killing adds... or having a high chance to kill adds.

Haha. I wish there was a way to "activate" spirit tap without actually getting the killing blow. Sigh. Hell, make it a debuff! Spirit Leech!

Anacletus · 05/24/07, 8:25 PM

Is anyone using the Masquerade Gown? I just saved it from being a shard and I'm interested in what the proc rate is.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28578

Honen · 05/26/07, 4:02 PM

I was having a discussion today about spec's for a priest and where points would best be spent (considering the raid environment). This priest had taken the decision to not spend any points in improved renew. This surprised me and we talked about it at length... I honestly couldn't imagine not putting three points in that talent.

I have spent some time doing searches on the web and through this forum but I haven't seen anything yet that specifically addresses some questions that came up. I am wondering if anyone has done any testing comparing not having these talent points vs. full investment. Intuitively it seems to be an excellent investment.

I am interested in any debate or numbers you may be able to provide.

One specific question: Does +healing affect this talent?

Thanks in advance for feedback.

Slox · 05/29/07, 4:31 AM

Was originally going to make a new thread with some of my questions, but a quick search led me to this thread where many of my answers were found. There are a few things I'm still interested in finding out though.

I'm not aware of a soft cap on +healing, spirit, or mp5. Can anyone confirm they do not exist?

Assuming there is no soft cap, is there any clear benefit to stacking any one of these three stats for encounters beyond SSC? Is a mix going to be better? Should I keep different gear sets to switch out depending on the encounter?

My question is mostly concerning socketing, but I'm also interested in possibly taking different pieces of gear entirely depending on the responses I get.

To assist in getting an answer relating specifically to my play style, I'll give a bit of info on how I typically heal. (Feel free to skip this part if you don't care, or critique me if I'm doing things horribly wrong.)

Raid Healing: Assuming I'm healing the MT (which I usually am), I PoM tank pre-pull, and depending on fight queue either GH3 or GH7. Usually I will PoM one more time (for aggro) on the MT after my first GH goes through (or earlier if I end up canceling a few times). Depending on the boss mechanics, I may or may not use renew on MT. After the initial 2 PoMs, it's GH3 or GH7 Spam/Cancel at 35% through cast. If I MUST heal across the raid, I try to use either GH1 or PoM (depending on situation).

In a raid I typically wear a mix of +healing, mp5, and spirit gear with a little more emphasis on spirit assuming I have either a paladin or druid on the MT with me (allowing more cancels).

Basically I want to switch to a much more spirit oriented set of gear as we progress (without sacrificing TOO much +healing). Am I incorrect in thinking I should be doing so? Any help with these questions would be greatly appreciated.

Jayde · 05/29/07, 5:10 AM

Originally Posted by healmuth

I honestly think that its totally unrealistic to chaincast a greater heal over rank 3. Looking at Hydross when you tank him through with the 250% mark you can chaincast rank 3 quite efficiently.

But as Fitch said, chaincasting rank 7 is just way out of the window. Perhaps when facing Illidan you will do so - which i highly doubt as well

Why would you chain-cast Rank 3 when GH1 is the generally highest HPM of the current heal spells? I have tried Heal Rank 2/3/4 in the past and was quite disappointed with the returns for them.

From my experiences in TBC raids so far, if I need to chain it seems as if GH1 is the best option atm. That said, I've had far better luck with cancel/pre-casting GH7 and getting 5SR ticks in terms of overall mana efficiency.

Beyond that, with a Shadow Priest and consumables it is not that impractical to "chain cast" GH7--so long as you cancel casts when it is obvious that you will not land the heal for a significant portion of its total value. I pretty much exclusively use GH7 on Gruul and Magtheridon, for instance, and have no mana issues at all. I was even being a bit sloppy on the GH canceling last night on Mag, and ended up with ~60% overhealing on MT duty (was like 40% of total MT healing, typically I'm able to get away with 25-30% overheal with GH7 canceling, but we were low on healing so I was being a bit more spammy than usual) using exclusively GH7 and did not drop below 70% mana at any point in the fight. No potions used.

Babe Bridou · 05/29/07, 5:51 AM

Originally Posted by Anacletus

Is anyone using the Masquerade Gown? I just saved it from being a shard and I'm interested in what the proc rate is.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28578

I haven't done extensive calculations, but the behaviour and cooldown feel very similar to that of the bangle of endless blessings.

I personally love this gown, and use it for both healing and solo questing.

Dragooner · 05/29/07, 8:21 AM

Originally Posted by Jayde

Why would you chain-cast Rank 3 when GH1 is the generally highest HPM of the current heal spells? I have tried Heal Rank 2/3/4 in the past and was quite disappointed with the returns for them.

I find with the limited number of healers in a raid, and the burst damage by bosses, plus the good itemization of a decent priest, that I can sustain rank 3 gh, just as well as rank 1. Gives about 1k more healing and still will run oom about the same time.. which almost never happens, they did a good job with priests imho.

Lightshadow · 05/29/07, 9:51 AM

I don't know where this idea about the soft cap keeps coming from, but it doesn't exist--other than the value of spirit at very low levels, I'm unaware of any point at which the game suddenly changes the way any of the stats (including +healing or mp/5) work.

@ Jayde: I definitely agree with dragooner, Rank 1 may be a bit higher HPM but I find Rank 3 much preferrable for actually having enough kick to make a dent in a tank's HP.

Nomad_Wanderer · 05/29/07, 10:38 AM

Originally Posted by Anacletus

Is anyone using the Masquerade Gown? I just saved it from being a shard and I'm interested in what the proc rate is.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28578

It's high.. It's a decent item for Rotation style healing. (It's awesome for the Mag MT part). The problem is that the proc happens at spell cast, so you only get 10 seconds of 'real' regen, If you immediately freeze. The first 5 sec's of the buff are always in5SR.

As soon as WWS is back up, I can get you some stats.

In 7 minutes, I cast 38 direct heals, and ? renews, ? PoM's, and it proc'd 5 times. It procs off just about any spell cast, Buffs, etc. I haven't tried to see if it proc's off wanding, I doubt it.

I can do some more real testing when I get home...

Jayde · 05/29/07, 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by Lightshadow

I don't know where this idea about the soft cap keeps coming from, but it doesn't exist--other than the value of spirit at very low levels, I'm unaware of any point at which the game suddenly changes the way any of the stats (including +healing or mp/5) work.

@ Jayde: I definitely agree with dragooner, Rank 1 may be a bit higher HPM but I find Rank 3 much preferrable for actually having enough kick to make a dent in a tank's HP.

Could well be that this is the case, however spam-healing is usually about HPM more than anything else. If you're going to take a dip in efficiency, why not just go with pre-emptive GH5 or 7?

I actually have not found spam-healing to be very effective in TBC like it used to be during the Heal 2 days of BWL, AQ40, and early Naxx. Pre-emptive cancel healing seems to be a bit more benificial to handle the large burst bosses put out nowadays, while also playing to the strength of Priest's high OOC regen rates.

Seems more efficient at this point to put Paladins on spam healing and Priests on cancel-GH5/7 healing. I am typically #1 or #2 on effective MT healing and have not had to use a mana potion mid-fight in over 2 weeks, even without a Shadow Priest.

However, I suppose if you were very Priest-heavy, it might be benificial to assign one Priest to spam smaller heals. I do honestly think Paladins are a lot more well-suited to this role, though.

Dragooner · 05/29/07, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by Jayde

Could well be that this is the case, however spam-healing is usually about HPM more than anything else. If you're going to take a dip in efficiency, why not just go with pre-emptive GH5 or 7?

However, I suppose if you were very Priest-heavy, it might be benificial to assign one Priest to spam smaller heals. I do honestly think Paladins are a lot more well-suited to this role, though.

Ah well, cancelling spells is pretty much a given for all classes now a days, I should have choose a different word than spamming. Using tricks to keep you in the oofsr, like inner focus when your "spam" procs a free gheal, gives you 2 max rank gheals which can be used within the 15 sec or so you're given to use them. Potion spamming.. meh.. well timed shadow fiend + combat mana potions (yeah I'm cheap sometimes), work really well.

Its all play style really, been fairing quite well since 2.1 have reduced paladins back to their secondary healer place. But its all fight specific, timing, and the main thing is that you do your job and noone dies.

If I get a shadow priest, I tend to spam gheal 7 with cancelling when needed, works pretty good, otherwise, rank g3/4 + g7 when proc + inner focus, or g7 when you know the tank is going to take a beaten.

Anyway, long story short, cancelling is awesome. Pre-emptive healing is pretty much all anyone does anyway.

Edit: Disclaimer : It all depends on the fight and playstyle!

Fondren · 05/29/07, 2:11 PM

Originally Posted by Lightshadow

I don't know where this idea about the soft cap keeps coming from, but it doesn't exist--other than the value of spirit at very low levels, I'm unaware of any point at which the game suddenly changes the way any of the stats (including +healing or mp/5) work.

Like many rumors, there may be a kernel of truth here. Although game mechanics do not change, there is a point where too much focus on +healing means sacrificing mana pool or regen or stamina. Who cares if you have 2000 plus healing if you end up with 50% overhealing and go OOM during phase one?

The right amount of any stat depends on the situation. This is how I like to think about it:

My sustained HPS should be comfortably above the boss's DPS with good efficiency.
When possible, my burst HPS should be greater than the boss's burst DPS.
My mana pool and regen should give me enough juice to last the fight.
Enough stamina to stay in the fight.

IMHO, the stat that priests neglect most often is stamina.

Slox · 05/29/07, 4:52 PM

IMHO, the stat that priests neglect most often is stamina.

In regard to stamina, I for one definitely neglect it. My reason for doing this is because generally if I'm getting hit by anything other than boss aoe, I'm dead no matter how much stamina I gear I put on. Fade saves me a lot more frequently than any amount of stamina gear would.

Even having said all that, I still have a gladiator set, along with plenty of other stam gear (my pvp stuff), that I keep in my bags at all times and can throw on if a specific encounter calls for it.

I'm one of those who is more concerned with having specific sets of gear I can swap in for a specific reason rather than taking pieces with stats that cover a broad spectrum. Primal Mooncloth for example is some of the best itemization I have seen for TBC. Not only does it have pure pve stats, but the bonus is good. If I could pick of tons of items like this I would be thrilled.