[Priest] Holy WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 3

aadric · 07/16/08, 10:32 AM

Grace is 3% fully talented, not 9%. On its own it won't be a compelling reason to bring Disc Priests to raids.

Kakitajamie · 07/16/08, 10:39 AM

Grace stacks 3 times thus 9%.

aadric · 07/16/08, 11:12 AM

I realize that is what it says but in testing it doesn't stack (which is why no one has been able to confirm/deny whether or not Penance would apply a full stack, even though Penance was testable on alpha). Maybe this was a bug and the text is correct, but as currently implemented its 3%. Unfortunately no one can double check this as alpha is currently down.

In any event, most raids have forgone asking their Warlocks to nerf their DPS for a 5% damage reduction. I'm not sure significantly nerfing Priest healing for a 9% reduction will be worth it, especially if Penance doesn't apply 3 stacks.

Bjork · 07/16/08, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by aadric

I realize that is what it says but in testing it doesn't stack (which is why no one has been able to confirm/deny whether or not Penance would apply a full stack, even though Penance was testable on alpha). Maybe this was a bug and the text is correct, but as currently implemented its 3%. Unfortunately no one can double check this as alpha is currently down.

In any event, most raids have forgone asking their Warlocks to nerf their DPS for a 5% damage reduction. I'm not sure significantly nerfing Priest healing for a 9% reduction will be worth it, especially if Penance doesn't apply 3 stacks.

The tooltip says that it stacks three times, if it doesn't then disc is something completly different when it comes to raiding (no Havoc12, I appreciate your posts here, but PvP-viability in a PvE-spec is not interesting IMHO).

Most raids do not ask their warlocks to spec Malediction because it will lead to a 500+ DPS-loss and you can still get the healing done without it. If the DPS-loss was 1-200 DPS you would see Affliction locks in raid, for sure. (We had affliction lock for both Brutallus and Felmyst in Sunwell, so on occasions they are still viable.)

Grace will directly affect the healing priest's main functionality in a raid, preventing people from dying (a warlock is in a raid to deliver DPS mainly). If the tooltip is correct it's 9% less damage taken fully stacked and 9% more healing taken. If numbers posted in this thread and the Disc-thred are correct a Disc-priest will heal for around 20% less than a deep holy priest. Just common sense tells us that if you're gonna have two healers on a target a disc-priest+random healer is better than a holy-priest+random healer. That is to me broken, because "the first" healing-priest in a raid will be disc, that's what I mean by forcing us into a gimped spec. Just by looking at the points we have to waste in order to get Grace is horrifying. I don't like disc, I like it even less after WotLK as it seems now, but I will still spec deep disc if it will give my guild the best chance of killing a boss.

If Grace doesn't stack up to 9%, but will stay at 3% it will have it's occasional uses and that's fine. 9% is just too much.

E: Sorry for QQ, but I can see this coming from miles away that we're turned into Grace-bots.

Sinndir · 07/16/08, 12:46 PM

I'd love to see 1 of each spec, of each class in a raid (minus three!).

I think a nice synergy to help with tank healing would be an affliction lock combined with a disc priest for -14% incoming damage and +9% healing, that is a lot!

I know the changes are sometimes hard to stomach but I honestly think that in the end blizzard is trying to make each tree, of each class, viable in a raiding situation.

Currently there are some that just can't. Sub rogues, Marks hunters, Disc Priests, Deep Frost mages, Aff/Demo Locks.

I, for one, would welcome changes to the trees to make each spec viable and bring something unique (not overpowered) to the raid.

Ellyh · 07/16/08, 3:49 PM

Final word on why I hate lightwell for 5 mans in any incarnation: Pugs. Why does the effectiveness of our 31 talent rely on the skill of 3 random people you found Via LFG?.

Havoc12 the reason people are disliking the current incarnation of the 51 holy talent is not the effect but the difficulty of timing the damned thing. Currently Tanks die for two reasons. General attrition and healer loss/overload, or massive burst damage of a almost unhealable nature.

In case 1 saving the target now won't help as your raid is already sinking fast because of excessive damage or loss of people. Case 2 is where the obvious use of this talent lies and by definition you don't know when this will occur. Given the current mechanics (and indications are strong that changes are coming) you don't want to use it until you know that the tank is in deep trouble, ie has been under 25% for more than a second. The problem is that anyone in a position to cast it on the tank is (should) be casting a heal on him already so is in the classic dilemma of "let this spell land or interrupt for a cool effect". For me with a 450ms ping I don't trust my screen info all that much on such a small timescale so that makes it even harder to time.

On the Grace front I have to assume that the non stacking is a bug as the wording is totally unambiguous and 3% is really really weak. Currently theorycrafted healer viability says that disc is only raid viable because of grace and personally I don't expect it to stack with either BoL and/or Amp magic so I doubt that the gain in healing from it will be quite as wonderful as some might expect.

For those thinking that Grace makes the first healer disc by default in a raid, it is probably that like the afflock situation that gear will obsolete the requirement for it quite quickly as it scales poorly with raid gear compared to the powerhouse of holy. Also Grace becomes exponentially more powerful the more healers you have on a target so in multi target fights suck as FLK, or P2, P3 of Kael the disc priest will be at a significant disadvantage compared to holy. If most new raids only have 2 healers on a tank and everything else being raid healing or offtank healing then a lot of the assumed advantage of Grace is lost. IF however most fights have say 4 healers on the main tank then grace is far far more powerful. Personally I expect to see the situation end up somewhere in the middle between these 2 extremes.

Iluminati · 07/16/08, 8:53 PM

Originally Posted by Bjork

That is to me broken, because "the first" healing-priest in a raid will be disc, that's what I mean by forcing us into a gimped spec. Just by looking at the points we have to waste in order to get Grace is horrifying. I don't like disc, I like it even less after WotLK as it seems now, but I will still spec deep disc if it will give my guild the best chance of killing a boss.

If Grace doesn't stack up to 9%, but will stay at 3% it will have it's occasional uses and that's fine. 9% is just too much.

E: Sorry for QQ, but I can see this coming from miles away that we're turned into Grace-bots.

I must disagree in this case, if the benefit to grace is so powerful, how can you say that it is a "gimp" spec? Just because you're not topping healing meters or bombing massive heals, doesn't make your spec gimp. Right after Grace is Rapture, which looks fairly amazing. The other abilities in the tree are very powerful as well.

Power Infusion and Pain Suppression are great for taking advantage of weakness phases or countering RST abilities.
Improved DS - spirit is getting "buffed" for pretty much all classes, greatly increasing the power of DS in general as well.
Mental Strength = 15% int = larger mana pool / increased spirit gen
Divine Aegis = hard to tell. It'll take some mathing to determine it's real worth as priests have generally low crit rates, but still looks good/interesting.

Penance is kind of a question mark at this point (unless someone has some details about it's scaling, level 70 base effect, etc.) but...I have high hopes for it.

I'm hard pressed to say that Discipline will be a "gimp" raid spec in wotlk (and that is without knowing how penance will work/scale). Will it be a radically different raid role / play style from Holy? Definitely, the deep holy talents make holy a powerful multitasking raid or tank healer, whereas Disc is an all purpose buffer / dispeller / healer. What makes it gimp?

For those thinking that Grace makes the first healer disc by default in a raid, it is probably that like the afflock situation that gear will obsolete the requirement for it quite quickly as it scales poorly with raid gear compared to the powerhouse of holy. Also Grace becomes exponentially more powerful the more healers you have on a target so in multi target fights suck as FLK, or P2, P3 of Kael the disc priest will be at a significant disadvantage compared to holy. If most new raids only have 2 healers on a tank and everything else being raid healing or offtank healing then a lot of the assumed advantage of Grace is lost. IF however most fights have say 4 healers on the main tank then grace is far far more powerful. Personally I expect to see the situation end up somewhere in the middle between these 2 extremes.

You bring up an interesting point. However, this hinges on one thing I cannot seem to find on the talent calculator - how long does the Grace buff last? It's completely possible that it lasts around 10-15 seconds making it entirely possible for a discipline priest to maintain the buff on 2-3 tanks by getting up a full stack before the pull, and rotating low/mid rank flash / hasted Gheal (not unlike lifebloom stacking the druids do now). Again that depends greatly on the specific encounter and the grace buff time (but I honestly cant see grace having a duration shorter than 10 seconds), but it's entirely feasible and INCREDIBLY powerful.

edit - err: how did we start talking about Disc in the Holy thread >_>?

Bjork · 07/16/08, 9:53 PM

Originally Posted by Iluminati

I must disagree in this case, if the benefit to grace is so powerful, how can you say that it is a "gimp" spec?
(...)
You bring up an interesting point. However, this hinges on one thing I cannot seem to find on the talent calculator - how long does the Grace buff last? It's completely possible that it lasts around 10-15 seconds making it entirely possible for a discipline priest to maintain the buff on 2-3 tanks by getting up a full stack before the pull, and rotating low/mid rank flash / hasted Gheal (not unlike lifebloom stacking the druids do now). Again that depends greatly on the specific encounter and the grace buff time (but I honestly cant see grace having a duration shorter than 10 seconds), but it's entirely feasible and INCREDIBLY powerful.
(...)

edit - err: how did we start talking about Disc in the Holy thread >_>?

Well, you say it yourself. Playstyles that are centered around keeping a buff up on different targets will be viable. To me it's bad gameplay. We agree on that it's INCREDIBLY powerful, that's the whole problem. It's gimp because you need to take a bunch of mediocre/crap talents to get to deep disc - and when you are there you can't take everything because then you miss Improved Healing from holy.

Regarding your last comment about disc being discussed in a holy thread - I think it's interesting to discuss the balance between the specs. As I said in my first post in this thread, deep holy seems to have a lot of uility and "fun" and should make priests incredible 5 man healers, but it's still impossible to say how things will turn out in a raid enviorment when you play in a team of 6-9 healers. Deep holy still doesn't bring anything to the raiding table in terms of buffs, it's just pure healingpower. And we know from experience that healers providing better buffs will have it easier coming into raids. Deep disc however is already "secured" a raidspot because of a Grace.

Iluminati · 07/17/08, 12:25 AM

It's gimp because you need to take a bunch of mediocre/crap talents to get to deep disc - and when you are there you can't take everything because then you miss Improved Healing from holy.

Theoretical "grace" build
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The only talents I would consider mediocre/crap are absolution and focused power. Again, their usefulness is greatly encounter dependent, but I will be honest and say that even on a felmyst type encounter (regular / fast Mass dispel required) the benefit is not much. I didnt take aspiration because unless there is some radical change in encounter design, most encounters are simply not long enough for the reduced cooldown to matter. The trade off to these "bad" talents is an incredibly powerful tank / healing buff (that more than makes up for 4-5 wasted points imo). And I think Rapture on top of Grace is incredibly powerful. I just spammed some Gheal randomly on myself and mathed out Rapture being worth at least 36mp5 (using level 70 values). That could be entirely wrong however, if overheal does not proc the rapture affect. This basically makes the disc priest a shadow priest "lite."

Still, you bring up a valid point that I (think) mentioned earlier - there are a bunch of very good / important talents at the bottom of the trees, and not enough near the top. It's one of the problems of having 2 "healing trees."

I think the stark difference between disc/holy is actually very nice. The power of Grace and the power of Holy as a healer that can basically take ANY role (Above average tank healing and insanely powerful raid healing), means it will be much easier to accommodate multiple healing priests in a raid, rather than 1 priest for IDS/grace and the rest shadow. Deep holy is just so incredibly powerful at raid healing, possible even more so than shamans, depending on the encounter.

Incoherence · 07/17/08, 5:07 AM

Originally Posted by Iluminati

I think the stark difference between disc/holy is actually very nice. The power of Grace and the power of Holy as a healer that can basically take ANY role (Above average tank healing and insanely powerful raid healing), means it will be much easier to accommodate multiple healing priests in a raid, rather than 1 priest for IDS/grace and the rest shadow. Deep holy is just so incredibly powerful at raid healing, possible even more so than shamans, depending on the encounter.

What this probably means is that even if they implement switchable specs in the expansion, a dedicated PvE priest will just have a deep holy spec and a deep discipline spec (and use the former for 5 and arguably 10 mans, and the latter if their 25 man doesn't have one already).

Thorongil · 07/17/08, 6:15 AM

Illuminati, how do you come to the conclusion of 36 mp5? To me, this sounds like a very conservative estimation.

I´ll try to math out the most extreme example:

GH9:
Heals for 3950 to 4590 (average of 4270)
Assuming 2.200 +heal (easily obtainable raid-buffed, even now) would equate to: 4.270 + (2.200/3,5*3) = 6.155

6.155 * 2,5 % = 153 mana per cast (every 2,5 seconds) equating to roughly 300 mp5 when spamming GH9.

Note that this assumption is based on untalented spells and does not take spell crit into consideration. Also, the value of 2.200 +heal will be easily obtained at lvl80 thus values of 350 - 400 mp5 return from Rapture in a raid-buffed environment should be possible when spamming GH9. Of course, you won´t want to spam max-heal GHs most of the time, I simply tried to show the theoretical potential of Rapture, which is quite high in my opinion.

Havoc12 · 07/17/08, 7:28 AM

Originally Posted by Ellyh

1)Final word on why I hate lightwell for 5 mans in any incarnation: Pugs. Why does the effectiveness of our 31 talent rely on the skill of 3 random people you found Via LFG?.

2) 51 talent timing

1) A common error. In pugs I mostly use lightwell to heal myself and its really valuable. E.g. kargath in heroic shattered halls.

2) I dont think timing is a particular problem. I have often found myself seeing a tank in danger, (i.e. Hit points dropping alarmingly fast and no heals landing) while doing something else and had react with a PWS/PoM and a prayer. Sometimes its enough other times it has been a tank death. GS would really help a lot here. Also there are cases where a boss strongly ups his damage for a short period of time. If say you go through a 20 second phase like this every 2 minutes. GS is really valuable. The raid can plan its cooldown usage to minimise the chance of tank death. GS lasts 10 seconds and will probably add 1k HPS to the tank while that happens. Another example leotheras the blind. Your warlock just took an 11k hit and another fireball is on the way. GS will guarantee that no matter hwat happens you have time to bring his health up. Also at the very end of the fight, when you have to kill both, if it takes you too long to kill leotheras you can buy precious seconds for the warlock by using GS when the fire debuff has a high enough stack to one shot him. I think its a very powerful ability that will be very much desired and expected of holy priests in raids. I suspect there will be fights that will be made much much easier by this talent.

Originally Posted by Bjork

Grace will directly affect the healing priest's main functionality in a raid, preventing people from dying (a warlock is in a raid to deliver DPS mainly). If the tooltip is correct it's 9% less damage taken fully stacked and 9% more healing taken. If numbers posted in this thread and the Disc-thred are correct a Disc-priest will heal for around 20% less than a deep holy priest. Just common sense tells us that if you're gonna have two healers on a target a disc-priest+random healer is better than a holy-priest+random healer. That is to me broken, because "the first" healing-priest in a raid will be disc, that's what I mean by forcing us into a gimped spec. Just by looking at the points we have to waste in order to get Grace is horrifying. I don't like disc, I like it even less after WotLK as it seems now, but I will still spec deep disc if it will give my guild the best chance of killing a boss.

I think that 20% less is a gross overestimate imho. 20% is just the difference from the clearcasting haste buff, which leaves out empowered healing, the boost from spirit and spiritual healing.

In real terms I would expect that a holy priest will be able to replace a disc priest on tank healing despite grace. I suspect disc priests will be very strong in a few encounters, but would be an optional not a required spec. I think grace is there to give disc priests a PvE viability should they so choose.

Ellyh · 07/17/08, 7:41 AM

Havoc, I doubt they will ever design a fight mechanic around an end tier talent. They have never done so and while it seems reasonable for a 25 man raid they totally can't justify it for 10 mans. If you think about it all the gimmick abilities they have designed fights about have been base skills so they can reasonably expect the skill to be there. The best example of this is spellsteal tanking for mages or spell reflect for warriors. I can't think of any situation where a MUST HAVE ability is a talent rather than a base ability. There are several very nice to have abilities at the end of the tiers but none of them are a case of auto wipe if they are not present, they just make everything much much easier.

As for lightwell being only used to heal myself on 5 mans because the rest of the crew are retards, this is kind of redundant given we already have CoH, PoH, binding heal and for me desperate prayer. The only place it actually justified itself as a valuable addition to my abilities was Murmer with his silence bomb. If that's the best justification for it being a good talent we will have to agree to disagree over how good we think it is. By this stage anyone reading the thread probably knows our positions by heart and has probably formed their own opinion of the spell.

Havoc12 · 07/17/08, 8:32 AM

Originally Posted by Ellyh

Havoc, I doubt they will ever design a fight mechanic around an end tier talent. They have never done so and while it seems reasonable for a 25 man raid they totally can't justify it for 10 mans. If you think about it all the gimmick abilities they have designed fights about have been base skills so they can reasonably expect the skill to be there. The best example of this is spellsteal tanking for mages or spell reflect for warriors. I can't think of any situation where a MUST HAVE ability is a talent rather than a base ability. There are several very nice to have abilities at the end of the tiers but none of them are a case of auto wipe if they are not present, they just make everything much much easier.

As for lightwell being only used to heal myself on 5 mans because the rest of the crew are retards, this is kind of redundant given we already have CoH, PoH, binding heal and for me desperate prayer. The only place it actually justified itself as a valuable addition to my abilities was Murmer with his silence bomb. If that's the best justification for it being a good talent we will have to agree to disagree over how good we think it is. By this stage anyone reading the thread probably knows our positions by heart and has probably formed their own opinion of the spell.

Other classes also have abilities which can be used in place of GS. Pain suppression, grace, PWS and spirit link for example. Or last stand and shield wall, even BoP/bubble/ice block/CloS could be useable workarounds. I disagree that there is no precedence around balancing encounters around high tier abilities. Do you really think that blizzard did not design the t6 encounters with CoH and the improved chain heal talent in mind? How about BoF on vasjh for roots and BoP on zul'jin. Don't you think that hexlord malacrass was designed without having CoH in mind? Or how about kael with shield wall and last stand. You can do without, but it makes a huge difference to your raid if these abilities are there.

As for lightwell I would say its quite the contrary. Although BH is great, lightwell+GH is both higher HPS on the target and much greater efficiency. In an encounter like kargath lightwell makes the encounter a lot easier and results in a steep drop in the gear requirement. I did not find the spell usefull on murmur. Its much safer to not rely on lightwell here. Its a fight where lightwell can be a liability. Its great for boss 2 and 3 in shadowlabs.

Crow · 07/17/08, 8:36 AM

As far as I understand Blizzard intends to have a lot more 10-man raiding in WotLK. If they indeed implement a 10-man parallel of each raid, that is probably where Lightwell will find its most uses. Especially when running in 2 healer setup, where you don't have a dedicated raid healer. My guild is still struggling in T5 content, but think of 10-man versions of current end-game bosses. As far I understand those encounters, properly balanced Lightwell would be extremely useful.