Jayde

Not going to quote as some similar comments were made by multiple people--but in regards to timing.

If you are going to use Clearcast as a starter for a regen phase, I'd recommend doing prep-work before you use the Clearcast, as that time is still kinda "floating" and you probably aren't OO5SR yet. Once you cast your Clearcasted GH7 you are then somewhat obligated (if going for optimal usage) to use Inner Focus, which then locks down your actions pretty heavily.

The mention before of setting up a tank with Renew and PoM prior is a very good suggestion, as it buys you some time. I'd actually suggest something like this as perhaps a good order:

1) Clearcast procs
2) Cancel cast, use Essence of the Martyr
3) Cast Renew or PoM on MT (if MT assigned, otherwise you can probably skip this part if you aren't concerned about it)
4) Use Shadowfiend
5) Cast GH7 when needed or when duration on Clearcasting reaches 3s
6) Use Inner Focus
7) Use Earring of Soulful Meditation as soon as you are OO5SR from the Shadowfiend cast
8) Cast GH7 when needed
9) Cast GH7 when needed

This sequence should restore a pretty huge chunk of mana while being resonably safe in most situations.

I suppose one could also work in some other potential stuff here... perhaps swapping weapons with higher Spirit would be worth looking into? Any more ideas here?

(Also, I'll note that this is from the standpoint of rarely being in a group where there are external effects that would help my Shadowfiend. Obviously, if you often are in a group with Heroism, it would probably be best to save it for that period of time. This is mostly for a more self-sufficient approach to mana regen.)

 

Hiba

There'a also a danger than you will actually get more mana than you have "room" on your mana bar with this method. I usually separate clearcasting+ inner focus + meditation regen from my shadow fiend. At least I will sometimes get way too much mana from shadow fiend than I expected, though I tend to use it quite early in the fight to get it available at least once more in the fight. I have usually like 1000-1100 spell damage even before any trinkets, so I don't really see much point for stacking all the regen methods to the same moment. Of course there's some times when my shadow fiend dies during the global cooldown from it's cast, making even shielding impossible.

Lightwell object increased in size to make it easier to click.

 

Jayde

Yeah, that's a good point. Personally, I don't use the Shadowfiend every time myself, depending on my current mana state. Really depends on when in the fight the Clearcast procs and if the Shadowfiend is needed or viable at that time.

However, if you do need it at that time it does seem to make sense to stack them rather than trigger them at different times simply due to the increase from the trinket(s). Certainly is a case-by-case issue--as are most things in regard to Priests really.

 

• Psykal

Do both shadow damage and melee attack power increase the damage done by Shadowfiend? How does this work?

 

dakalro

Spell damage probably increases SFs melee AP, as with lock pets (30% and a bit). Second, the damage pet does is shadow so SV, CoS, Misery, ISB will bump your SF damage by quite a bit.

 

tedv

A portion of your shadow damage is converted to extra attack power for the shadow fiend. Battle shout just gives straight up attack power. I'm not sure what the conversion factor is, but I think it's somewhere between 5% and 30% of your shadow damage become extra attack power.

 

• constantius

Some actual hard testing on SF mechanics might be in order. It should be fairly straightforward to burn SF while naked and do a couple of tests with one piece of gear added (so a known set amount of healing). If it scales like hunter pets, it may even gain from our stats, as well as our spell dmg.

It is known that Battle Shout and LotP affect the dmg done, as do Sunder Armor and any other debuffs on the mob that may factor in. Having a precisely calibrated table of values might help people decide when to use it. I know that using my SF on a Sunder x5 + Faerie Fire + CoReck + CoS mob usually results in the best mana return - it'd be nice to know how much more that is than a base "naked" mob.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

Starfire

I beleive it was mentioned in another thread, the reason Wrath of Air is so good is because it gives a raw +100 damage to the shadowfiend, not some percentage. (Plus, Wrath of Air double dips, by because it gives the priest 100 spell damage, of which a portion goes to the shadowfiend).

As far as the latter, I am near 100% positive our shadowfiend does scale with our stats. My theory is, if you look at it, sometimes a shadowfiend is summoned not at 100% health, but it then within a tick gets healed to 100%, the deficit I believe is the "scaling".

Also, I must fess up, when I did my AP testing it was pre 2.3.

 

Duilliath

I have a question.

Bare in mind, my highest level priest is currently level 40, so my knowledge and understanding of the class is far from complete.

Today I noticed that a dying [Solid Stone Statue] procced Spirit Tap on my priest. Would this be worth it for a Holy Priest in Raids ? You would lose 5 Talent points, but if you can keep this up (possibly together with the Earring from Lurker), you might be able to regenerate a lot of mana through Spirit Tap this way. It'd be on the same timer as (Mana) Pots, but I'd expect it to be more mana in return than a Pot.

Might be better for shadow priests as they might have the talents already, but wasn't sure where to post the question between this one and the shadow compendium.

 

Bendyr

Well, if you're right then yes, a guaranteed spirit tap every 2 minutes would be about the best 5 talent points i'd ever spend. However, even if this statue thing is working, it's definitely a bug (the statue does not give you xp or honor), and I don't think it would be worth dropping a profession and leveling jewelcrafting for an exploit that could be hotfixed any time this hits the regular forums.

However, if there are any holy priests out there who are already jewelcrafting, this might be a fun thing to play with.

 

Starfire

I don't think it will make that big of a deal. And even if it is really good... JC'ers sure do need perks and its at the cost of Fel Mana Potion / Super Mana Pot / Mad Alchemist Pot.

On a side note, mhmm converting 3600 spirit into +heal with 35% coefficient in Hyjal would be fun.

Edit:
If we are to assume (from the trinkets thread I believe?) the Earrings of Soulful Meditation return 31 mp5 on average ~ from 300 spirit. I think we can assume that on average Spirit Tap would give 500-700 spirit. But lets for an even number assume 600 spirit for 20 seconds every 2 minutes. ~ 62 mp5. Alchemist with Super Mana Potions average 140mp5 (and Alchemist Stone).

 

Mags

I like the tip for using Shadowfiend while Heroism is up. I'll try it out next I get the chance.

And Constantius - are you ever going to update the original post? It looks like it was last edited in October, and this new holy priest thread is starting to look a lot like the old holy priest thread (ie lots of good info, but useful tips scattered across the whole thread).

 

galzohar

Why would you ever want to use heroism on a holy priest? Rotate the groups, heroism, then rotate back, so it can actually be used on DPS.

 

Havoc12

It is very true that cancelling heals is not always possible. That is why I add a 50% success factor in my calculations. You simply dont always have the luxury of cancelling to GH7.


The senario you have put forward is certainly possible, but in practice I have rarely experienced it.

In this senario the tank goes from 100% to dead in 2.9 seconds (!!). This is very high spike damage. I don't agree that constant casting rank 1 gheals in a senario with such high spike damage is advisable, unless you have enough healers for this to not matter.

In fights where your tank takes low average DPS but very high damage spikes, rank 1 spam is more dangerous in my oppinion than cancelling big heals ("bombing").

Consider the following senario.

Your tank takes 4k hits and 6 crushing blows along with an ability that the boss fires randomly doing 5k damage. Due to your tank's avoidance the hits lands about once every 4 seconds or so.

Tank at full health 16k HP.

0.00: Your tank at full health you begin channeling a rank 1 gheal.
1.00: Your tank gets hit for 4k.
2.50: Your tank gets a 2.8k heal and is 2.2k down. You begin channeling a rank 1 gheal
5.00: Your rank 1 gheal lands just as the tank gets another 4k hit, but you don't see that at your screen. You begin channeling another rank 1 gheal. Your tank is now 4.4k down.
5.10: You see the second hit but you are not very worried your tank is still at 75% health.
6.70: The tank gets hit for a 6k crush and the boss uses his ability inflicting 5k damage. Your tank is now 15.4k down and you are in deep shit.
7.50: Your gheal lands for a paltry 2.8k heal. Your tank's life is hanging by a thread at 3.4k damage. The next hit he will take will kill him.

You will have to flash+shield him for high burst HP/s and trust in his avoidance to buy you time to land a big heal.

The same senario with bombing:


0.00: You are channeling a gh7
1.00: You cancel your rank 7 and tank gets hit for 4k. You begin another gh7.
1.10: You realise the tank got hit.
3.50: Your gheal lands tank at full health you start casting another big heal.
5.00: You cancel your big heal just as the tank gets hit again and start another one:
5.10: You realise the tank just got hit, but you are channeling a big heal.
6.70: The tank gets hit for a 6k crush and the boss uses his ability inflicting 5k damage. Your tank is now 15k down and in danger of dying
7.50: Your gheal lands for a good 5.1k. Your tank is at 6.1k and can survive even a crushing blow.

You can start your next gh7 immediately with a comfortable margin knowing that you have enough time to land it even if the tank's avoidance does not fail.

Notice that twice you cancelled a heal at a very bad moment, but it did not matter, because by channeling rank 7, no matter what happens you can unleash a massive HP/sec burst very quickly. Channeling rank 1 on the other hand puts your tank in danger, because the nature of the hits, means that either your gh1 overheals or that it will underheal. This is in fact a very common senario and I have seen it result in tank loss time and again. I have never experienced GH7 "bombing" to result in tank loss, I can count many times however when landing a GH1 just as a damage spike begins, killed the tank, because the smaller healing did not allow me to race the burst. Its rare that this should happen, but it still means that this form of damage is best healed by "bombing".

The reason why "bombing" is not a very good strategy at all times, is not in fact tank death, but efficiency. "bombing" any higher rank is simply less efficient than straight up spamming rank 1. This is why its better to spam rank 1, unless you get clearcasting. If you get clearcasting in most cases its worth cancelling your rank 1 and start cast-cancelling gh7 until you can land it.

This is of course an isolated senario. In practice what happens in raids is you have multiple healers channeling small heals, which is by far the best way to deal with every form of damage. In such cases cancelling presents no risks, because the tank is getting heals already, so he should never die in under 3seconds.

Its true that in some cases you can't afford to cancel a heal and that cancelling can be risky, but not for your tank. For example stopcasting is not an option when want to heal multiple targets. When clearcasting procs off a gheal in such a situation there is nothing you can do to take better advantage of the free cast.

This does not mean my calculations are wrong, since I included a 50% success rate.

 

galzohar

You're showing well that GH1 spamming is not good on a tank that can take spike damage. That's kind of obvious, though.
I still wonder if upranking and spamming would be better than GH7 cast-canceling, though, in terms of safety (for efficiency cast-canceling is always better as you don't overheal nearly as much). Of course even if spamming a mid-rank is safer it still doesn't mean your mana could handle it, either.

But at least we agree that canceling a GH1 has risk in it, as well as canceling overall ;p

 

Havoc12

You are very right. Higher rank spam is certainly safer, but it hurts your mana. Rank 4 or 5 spam in the senario I have posted gives the best results never letting the tank drop below 4k HP at a significant efficiency cost. Still there are a number of sitautions when mid-high rank spam is the best strategy. This is the reason why my mouseover macro has rank 3 and 6 as well as 1 and 7 in it.

 

Starfire

Threat capped dpsers coupled with an abundance of shamans? Yay for 6-7 shaman raids! Heroism heals aren't to be underrated either, granted they are rarely needed. Not to mention, as this thread has pointed out, a heroism priest with a shadowfiend is a full mana bar.

 

Vihermaali

I'll start a discussion here.

In patch 2.4 we get a very nice change:

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> 01/02 2.4 Patch notes

Before patch 2.4 priests have only 2 spells that are effectively affected by spellhaste: greater heal and prayer of healing. 1,5sec spells and instant spells are not effected so this far spellhaste has been useless for healing priests.

Do you think this change will make spellhaste a viable stat for us?

It is pretty hard to say, but even small reductions to global cooldown are very beneficial for us. ~10% reduction would already be -0,15sec (=1,35sec) to global cooldown. Even though it seems like a small number, I think it is pretty damn huge. Now, the problem becomes finding that spellhaste so that it doesn't destroy your whole manaregen. 2x[Blessed Band of Karabor] + [Shroud of the Highborne] Would make around +6% haste, fairly easy to get and no need to sacrifice huge amounts of stats? 6% haste would make ~1,41-1,42sec global cooldown, a 0,1sec reduction to that seems good

From my current gear I would lose 20 spirit and 4mp5 if I took another ring of karabor and switched to shroud of highborne. At same time I would gain 4% haste, and 4% increase in total hp/sec (I know its not a direct 4% in reality, but almost!) may very well be worth it. Have to give it a try when 2.4 hits live.

 

chase

Post it referenced was changed.

 

Vihermaali

Let's assume we are spamming Circle of Healing. That's 1,5 secs + 0,1sec lag between each spell, makes 1 CoH 1,6secs. 6% haste reduces it to 1,52 then (1,42sec + 0,1sec lag). Over 1 minute (1 minute, because you can easily multiply it to fit duration of any boss encounter), old casting would be 60/1,6 = 37,5 = 37 CoH's in one minute. With 6% haste it is 39 CoH's in 1 minute. Assuming each coh heals 3 targets to full and it hits for 950 to one person, 37 CoH heals for 950*3*37= 105 450 points of healing done. 40 CoHs heals for 950*3*39= 111 500 points. 111500/105450=1,055...

You don't really need 50% haste for this change to be useful?

 

Vurrin

If Imay play the Devil's advocate, Who really chain casts CoH with no breaks? Your arguement is not particularly good either.

Almost anytime you chain cast CoH ( or any other heal really) its really for just a short period of time. To provide current examples. Bloodboil DoT generally favors CoH spam, but thats only 1 phase, Phase 2 illidan has some COh spammage but he stops casting fireballs to eyebeam/dark barrage, and phase 5 illidan could favor some low rank gheal spammage as well.

So I can think of several situations where I at the very least am chain casting.

The question I ask is how many casts do I need to get before I get a "free" one or one more cast than i would under normal circumstances. After all spamming heals only matters while dmg is being done. If I can get an extra Coh each BB phase it might be worthwhile to down rank and do the same healing overall but more efficiently.

Generally speaking with 5-15% haste you're talking about 10-20 casts. So Bloodboil phase typically last a good 40+ seconds so thats 25 or so casts, which imo is more than long enoguh to get a free cast at most haste levels, but illidan's fireballs typically only lasts 15 seconds or so which probably wouldn't garner a free one unless you hasted yourself significantly.

Anyway without going into each and every encounter I would say the haste change is obviously good, and should be approached with an open mind, but its probably not going to result in an immediate increase in healing done unless the dmg incomign that is requiring chain casting is sustained for long enough to show dividends. I mean your immediate HPS goes up but your healing done over a period of time will not increase unless you're chain casted enough to get more casts than you would unhasted.

And obviously this is just regarding haste while chaincasting. haste regarding reaction times is a whole nother story.

 

Frimlin

Even without the now expected 2.4 Spell Haste buff, do other raiding Holy Priests regard there to be a certain cap or target for Spell Haste that we should aim for? Or is it that it's regarded as something nice but not as nice as other stats like MP5? Seems to me with 2.4 making Spell Haste reduce the Global Cooldown to a minimum of 1 second, that there'll probably be a certain level of Spell Haste rating that we may want to aim for. Any thoughts on this?

 

Vihermaali

With a quick count (Cloth - Items - World of Warcraft plus Zul'jin mace) it seems for healing cloth the current gear limit is ~15-18% spellhaste. But like any stat when talking about healy priest raiding, stacking only 1 stat leads to you ignoring other important ones. Maybe we should shoot for a nice balance?

The trend seems to be "+spellHaste OR +regenStats". And mana regen stats (+mp5, +spirit) are useful only as long as you are in danger of going out of mana. When you feel like you have more than enough of manaregen, I would switch into some +spellhaste gear. This may require getting 2 different sets: "normal (regen maybe?)" and "max +spellhaste". Then you mix and switch gear according to what boss you are going to, maybe?

Example: for Gurtogg Bloodboil I don't need quick healing when CoH-spamming. I need some heavy manaregen to prevent myself from going oom. Especially if I don't have a shaman/shadowpriest in group. On Reliquary of Souls on other hand, I will never run out of mana thanks to very short phases (and full mana gain between phases). Quick & powerful healing would be nice in p2 and p3.

Personally I don't want to spend huge amounts of dkp and/or money on possible +spellhaste gear without first actually seeing how it works out.

 

Stirius

This is no longer true (patch 2.3.2), see Bracing Earthstorm Diamond: "Requires more Red gems than Blue gems". Quite useful now.

 

dbresq

To be completely honest I can't ever see spell haste as being a great stat for most healers (Paladins being a different story), simply because it's just too item point hungry. You give up a lot to get a minimal amount of haste rating, and as pointed out it's usually regen related stats that you're trading off. When you really sit down and think about it, why would a healer want haste at all? More HPS. We know however that haste is not the only way to increase HPS; +healing has been around for quite some time now and I still feel it's more effective to stack in terms of improving HPS over haste.

As stated, in stacking haste you're more likely giving up regen stats. While the same could be said for +healing, you also need to consider that you're casting more frequently with haste to reach a higher level of HPS, or effectively spending more mana to increase your HPS through casting more frequently. This will only serve to exacerbate the regen related opportunity cost in a manner which stacking +healing does not. The fact that you can socket for extra +healing while being unable to socket for spell haste is also noteworthy; being able to socket spell haste gems in gear with good +healing and regen stats would certainly be the least detrimental way to itemise for some haste.

The only real benefit that haste could offer over +healing would be the ability to down rank your heals a bit to deliver the same amount of sustained direct HPS in a more consistent manner. However, you're going to have to give up a LOT of regen to hit the cloth armor based haste cap as estimated by Vihermaali. This leads on to the other side of the haste coin - a smaller margin of error when attempting to cancel cast. Given that as your spell haste increases your ability to reliably cancel cast will realistically decrease it's reasonable to suggest that stacking haste will discourage cancel casting and encourage spam healing. As pointed out, you're going to be giving up a LOT of regen to hit the haste cap. We all know that low regen is not conducive with non stop spam casting, leading me to the assumption that haste is not a viable stat.

Considering all of the above points leads me to believe that itemising for spell haste as a healer is never going to truly be marginally beneficial given the trade off, be it at 7 pieces of haste equipment or just the one. The only way spell haste could truly return a net gain on overall healing (HPS and sustainability) would likely involve spell haste gems and/or on use spell haste trinkets (something like Scarab of the Infinite Cycle is insufficient due to inability to guarantee it's effect when it's needed most/most useful). At present, the best use I can see for spell haste is as a Resurrection stat - outfitter swap to spell haste set, res quickly, outfitter swap back to proper gear.