Priest Healing in TBC Raids - Techniques and specs - Page 2

◊ Bekah · 02/02/07, 5:16 AM

Basically, know your warlocks.

Some like to hover right at 95% hp at all times to get the most out of their hp regenning stuff.... some like to hover at 80%, some are content to sit at 100% unless they're nearly oom. If they're one of the first, just let your PoM folks get a little more beat up and hover them around 85% (more reasonable when everyones at 10k hp lol). If you've got one of the second though- you may just not be able to get proper efficiency without giving them a perma-renew or telling them to stop because they're making it impossible to heal. The third... eh- gotta accept some causalities.

Raided Karazhan yesterday with another priest, one odd but relevant note- can't stack PoMs on a target. Yeah Yeah this is a "duh" thing but if you have 2 people casting PoMs on 2 different tanks- they won't simply swap if they get hit by damage at the same time- they'll check next target for PoM- then both will fly off into the nether because the other target was ineligible. If your goal is to bounce between two specific people- it's probably best to have one priest handle the PoM rather than have both trying and bouncing each others off into the cheap seats. If you have more chaotic damage going though with 3 or more people to bounce it around on as reasonable targets- 2 PoMs are better than 1.

crimsonsentinel · 02/02/07, 5:47 AM

Originally Posted by Bekah

I've had a couple of times where MendWatch "lost" a proc in the number sequence, which is either a fault with the mod, or mending moving faster than it can track.

I'm really unsure about this atm. I've had situations where mendwatch has lost a target, and nobody has the buff (I filter out non-priesty buffs via AgUF so its pretty trivial to check quickly). I don't believe that damage is being done at the speed for both mendwatch and myself to not be able to catch it (if the damage was quick and mendwatch was still able to catch it, it would still show fading names of the people who got healed even if you didn't notice the buff yourself).

This makes me believe that sometimes, PoM just fails to jump for some reason. I personally think its a bug, but it's hardly reproduceable and not very testable so I can't be certain of anything. Plus, I'm shadow for our karazhan raids so the only time I can really test this is 5 mans and small group questing.

ziggy · 02/02/07, 6:36 AM

Originally Posted by Trouble

* Threat applies to the player healed, caster receives zero threat.

I've not had very many suitable groups to really push PoM healing, so I definitely need to test a number of its aspects. I'm interested to know if anyone has explored its threat behaviour?

I tried healing a Shadow Lab run with as much PoM use as possible, and several times got mob agro without any other casting, and always while spamming PoM on the tank at the start of pulls. I've no doubt that the healing threat component of the spell is applied to the target, but is it possible that PoM carries a "buff" agro for the caster?

Ayr · 02/02/07, 7:56 AM

Originally Posted by ziggy

Originally Posted by Trouble

* Threat applies to the player healed, caster receives zero threat.

I've not had very many suitable groups to really push PoM healing, so I definitely need to test a number of its aspects. I'm interested to know if anyone has explored its threat behaviour?

I tried healing a Shadow Lab run with as much PoM use as possible, and several times got mob agro without any other casting, and always while spamming PoM on the tank at the start of pulls. I've no doubt that the healing threat component of the spell is applied to the target, but is it possible that PoM carries a "buff" agro for the caster?

I've never ever seen it have any aggro component attached to the priest. And I'm talking here about pulls like crypts where the tank aggroes a gazzilion skeletons by proximity aggro, no bloodrage or anything, I cast PoM *after* the pull, and the mobs keep running to the tank. Ofcourse, after they hit hit and PoM procs, they are even more glued to the tank.

ziggy · 02/02/07, 8:24 AM

Originally Posted by Ayr

I've never ever seen it have any aggro component attached to the priest. And I'm talking here about pulls like crypts where the tank aggroes a gazzilion skeletons by proximity aggro, no bloodrage or anything, I cast PoM *after* the pull, and the mobs keep running to the tank. Ofcourse, after they hit hit and PoM procs, they are even more glued to the tank.

It certainly felt like odd behaviour from what I'd read here and elsewhere, but that's the situation I had, several casts after proximity agro saw a mob move for me. If you've had a different experience I have to assume there was some other factor I'm not accounting for (secondary random targeting etc etc). Thinking about it, each hop would be considered a seperate buff, and I find it hard to imagine they carry threat, so I makes sense the first wouldn't either.

I'm really so fond of the skill already, such a subtle use that synergises so well with the rest of the class mechanics. I feel the same way about the fiend and SW:D, I'm really struck with how skillfully blizz have taken priest healing to 70.

Elerion · 02/02/07, 11:37 AM

What Ayr said. I've seen no evidence of buff aggro on PoM. If there is, it's less than the proximity aggro amount, which would make it almost infinitely small.

• Trepidati0n · 02/02/07, 12:13 PM

Snip....

Originally Posted by Elerion

Some points to consider:

- The downranking nerf (old news, but few have raided fresh content since it's introduction)

I think the nerf is not as bad as it seems. You can overcome the downranking change with enough +healing...and there is enough +healing out there to start dominating the base value vs the level factor. It is just that we won't be seeing 15+:1 spells...but 8:1 and 9:1 aren't too far off. This means we will be approaching pre-patch type efficiency on a low rank Gheal while still healing for 2500+ w/o crit. However, alot of this has to do with empowered healing becoming useful with gear.

Plug the numbers...interesting stuff.

http://www.ra-specht.com/wow/heal_bc/index.php

Also, since it seems our other "priest thread" is toast, i'm going to plug this here since it applies to raiding optimal specs. One of the biggest issues I see is 3/5 EH + 2/2 Imp:DS vs 5/5 EH + 0.2 Imp:DS. Its seems intuitive that with enough +heal you could override the Imp:DS factor. So I made table including fairly reasonable values for GH7, GH1 and Flash 7. It appears that the extra 2 in EH has a larger benefit than the two in Imp:DS to the value of 2%-4% net increase. So the question becomes...does the rest of the group lose more than 2%-4% compared to you.

The left colum is +heal, the top row is spirit. The numbers in the middle is % improvment from moving 2 points from Imp:DS to 5/5 of EH compared to 3/5. The table also assumes 5/5 spiritual guidance. Spiritual healing does not affect this since it cancels out.

My initial guess is that in 10 man Imp:DS will give more and 25 man EH will give more. *shrug*.

Flash 7

	350	400	450	500	550	600	650
700	0.90%	0.78%	0.65%	0.53%	0.41%	0.29%	0.17%
800	1.12%	1.00%	0.87%	0.75%	0.63%	0.52%	0.40%
900	1.33%	1.20%	1.08%	0.97%	0.85%	0.73%	0.62%
1000	1.52%	1.40%	1.28%	1.17%	1.05%	0.94%	0.82%
1100	1.70%	1.58%	1.47%	1.35%	1.24%	1.13%	1.02%
1200	1.87%	1.76%	1.65%	1.53%	1.42%	1.31%	1.20%
1300	2.04%	1.92%	1.81%	1.70%	1.60%	1.49%	1.38%
1400	2.19%	2.08%	1.97%	1.87%	1.76%	1.65%	1.55%
1500	2.34%	2.23%	2.12%	2.02%	1.91%	1.81%	1.71%
1600	2.48%	2.37%	2.27%	2.17%	2.06%	1.96%	1.86%
1700	2.61%	2.51%	2.41%	2.31%	2.20%	2.10%	2.00%
1800	2.74%	2.64%	2.54%	2.44%	2.34%	2.24%	2.14%
1900	2.86%	2.76%	2.66%	2.57%	2.47%	2.37%	2.28%
2000	2.98%	2.88%	2.78%	2.69%	2.59%	2.50%	2.40%
2100	3.09%	3.00%	2.90%	2.80%	2.71%	2.62%	2.52%
2200	3.20%	3.10%	3.01%	2.92%	2.82%	2.73%	2.64%

Greater Heal 7

	350	400	450	500	550	600	650
700	0.85%	0.73%	0.61%	0.50%	0.38%	0.27%	0.16%
800	1.05%	0.94%	0.82%	0.71%	0.60%	0.49%	0.38%
900	1.25%	1.13%	1.02%	0.91%	0.80%	0.69%	0.58%
1000	1.43%	1.32%	1.21%	1.10%	0.99%	0.88%	0.78%
1100	1.61%	1.50%	1.39%	1.28%	1.17%	1.07%	0.96%
1200	1.77%	1.66%	1.56%	1.45%	1.35%	1.24%	1.14%
1300	1.93%	1.82%	1.72%	1.62%	1.51%	1.41%	1.31%
1400	2.08%	1.98%	1.87%	1.77%	1.67%	1.57%	1.47%
1500	2.22%	2.12%	2.02%	1.92%	1.82%	1.72%	1.62%
1600	2.36%	2.26%	2.16%	2.06%	1.96%	1.87%	1.77%
1700	2.49%	2.39%	2.29%	2.20%	2.10%	2.01%	1.91%
1800	2.61%	2.52%	2.42%	2.33%	2.23%	2.14%	2.04%
1900	2.73%	2.64%	2.54%	2.45%	2.36%	2.26%	2.17%
2000	2.85%	2.75%	2.66%	2.57%	2.48%	2.39%	2.30%
2100	2.96%	2.86%	2.77%	2.68%	2.59%	2.50%	2.41%
2200	3.06%	2.97%	2.88%	2.79%	2.70%	2.62%	2.53%

Greater Heal 1

	350	400	450	500	550	600	650
700	1.34%	1.15%	0.96%	0.78%	0.60%	0.42%	0.24%
800	1.64%	1.45%	1.27%	1.09%	0.92%	0.74%	0.57%
900	1.91%	1.73%	1.56%	1.38%	1.21%	1.04%	0.88%
1000	2.16%	1.99%	1.82%	1.65%	1.48%	1.32%	1.16%
1100	2.39%	2.22%	2.06%	1.89%	1.73%	1.57%	1.42%
1200	2.61%	2.44%	2.28%	2.12%	1.97%	1.81%	1.66%
1300	2.81%	2.65%	2.49%	2.34%	2.18%	2.03%	1.88%
1400	2.99%	2.84%	2.68%	2.53%	2.38%	2.24%	2.09%
1500	3.16%	3.01%	2.87%	2.72%	2.57%	2.43%	2.29%
1600	3.33%	3.18%	3.04%	2.89%	2.75%	2.61%	2.47%
1700	3.48%	3.34%	3.19%	3.05%	2.92%	2.78%	2.65%
1800	3.62%	3.48%	3.34%	3.21%	3.07%	2.94%	2.81%
1900	3.75%	3.62%	3.48%	3.35%	3.22%	3.09%	2.96%
2000	3.88%	3.75%	3.62%	3.49%	3.36%	3.23%	3.11%
2100	4.00%	3.87%	3.74%	3.62%	3.49%	3.37%	3.24%
2200	4.11%	3.99%	3.86%	3.74%	3.62%	3.49%	3.37%

• Trepidati0n · 02/02/07, 3:33 PM

DP, delete

crimsonsentinel · 02/02/07, 4:12 PM

Originally Posted by Elerion

What Ayr said. I've seen no evidence of buff aggro on PoM. If there is, it's less than the proximity aggro amount, which would make it almost infinitely small.

I've pulled aggro with a pom cast while body pulling, so its definitely more than 0. But its not much.

Elerion · 02/03/07, 2:58 PM

I think the PoM aggro pulls you see are related to something else. I tested it multiple times last night, landing 3-5 PoMs on the tank after a pull and before he got hit. I did not pull aggro once doing this, even though the pull was a straight single target faerie fire pull with adds.

GIJebus · 02/03/07, 3:14 PM

2 Pages and no one has mentioned the huge impact that stacking renews is?

I've noticed that a lot of priest generally ignore renew or use it only when instructed to. I like to spam the hell out of it. It's inexpensive, powerful, and and now STACKS! Where once you could restore 300 health per second with one priest, now it's double and triple depending on the priest count. The last time I raided I used some new raid ui that showed renews on people. There were more Rn's next to names of people in my party than the rest of the raid. It kind of shocked me.

As I'm leveling back to 60 and 70 how powerful it is only becomes more apparent. Mob hits for a total of 150 health for every 75 health tick of renew, I've effectively reduced the mobs damage by 50% without having to actively heal.

The only problem with it now stacking is that multiple priest can dump mana on a target that only needs a band aid instead of more than one or two renews.

crimsonsentinel · 02/03/07, 6:19 PM

Originally Posted by GIJebus

2 Pages and no one has mentioned the huge impact that stacking renews is?

That's probably due to the fact that not may people are in large group situations with many priests: only 5 mans, and 10 man karazhans. Plus I'm raiding as shadow atm, so I don't do this "holy" business. =P

◊ Kyth · 02/03/07, 8:08 PM

Originally Posted by Bekah

Basically, know your warlocks.

Let's say you're a warlock who wants to play well with others, but never thought about this before.

What can we do to help a priest using PoMending -- am I trying to avoid having it hit me? If it does, what's my best way to respond?

crimsonsentinel · 02/03/07, 9:10 PM

Stay away from melee is the only thing you can do proactively to help prevent unwanted jumps. Once it's on you, the only class that can actively remove it from themselves is a priest w/ SW:D. (life tap does not proc the heal).

• zepi · 02/04/07, 1:07 AM

Originally Posted by crimsonsentinel

Stay away from melee is the only thing you can do proactively to help prevent unwanted jumps. Once it's on you, the only class that can actively remove it from themselves is a priest w/ SW:D. (life tap does not proc the heal).

How's hellfire? Ask your warlock friend t pop a rank1 Hellfire and see what it does?

Elerion · 02/04/07, 1:40 AM

Rank 1 Hellfire is over double the cost of a new PoM.

If you want to play nice with PoM, stay at maxrange. That said, I feel people's need to maximize the efficiency on PoM is just some compulsive gimmick. Sure, it's sweet when it does 5 hops and heals 6000hp for less than 300mana, but if you try too hard to make that happen, you're probably costing your group either safety or speed.

The only times I really bother to micromanage the PoM is in gauntlet situations - where damage is low and predictable, but you won't be drinking much anytime soon. In most cases, it's either spammed on the tank to help him build initial aggro, or it's just a fire-and-forget proactive heal, that I'll refresh when I get a free second.

Ease · 02/04/07, 2:25 AM

With the changes to HP pools and many people still primarily focusing on 5-mans, I'm curious what 'values' people are assigning different stats now. I hate to start the +heal vs. mana/5 debate, but I think maybe there could be a little discussion here.

Anyways, in the past I've generally used 1mana/5 = 7heal, and shied away from sta/spir when possible, but now I'm not so sure. +heal seems to be more and more useful despite the downranking nerf to keep up with the higher damage output and large health pools (atleast for me at around only 1000 healing). Stamina is also obviously more useful (mainly because it's not as costly to obtain). I've even found a renewed respect for spirit not only because of imp. DS, but in 5 mans it really shines compared to raids (less waiting to drink between pulls, can more easily take advantage of FSR, etc).

• zepi · 02/04/07, 2:28 AM

Originally Posted by Elerion

Rank 1 Hellfire is over double the cost of a new PoM.

Yeah, but warlock gets more hp from PoM than what the hellfire costs in healing anyway and can LT later on and the PoM moves forward to heal others, so it's not that bad deal for either warlock (he can trade ~700mana and 80hp to 1 PoM healing, which ought to be more with adquate healing gear), priest or other party members.

Trouble · 02/04/07, 4:11 AM

A few things.

First, have to second the statement that PoM is *no* threat. I almost always cast it after the pull and I have *never* pulled agro with it. It simply generates no threat for the caster.

Second, PoM has made me start to reconsider my relative valuation of +healing. Before I valued it very little as you can't stack it fast enough to really made a difference in your efficiency. I have +900 healing right now and it just doesn't make sense to me. Stacking mp5 I have for a long time considered to be the best bang for the buck. Spirit was good too until 3 piece trans died. Since then I have valued spirit a lot less and mp5 more.

Considering PoM vastly inreases the value of +healing. One of the main drawbacks of PoM is its lack of throughput. Stacking vast amounts of +healing helps with that. On top of that, the fact that it scales at 86% for two procs and 215% at five procs makes the +healing even more valuable.

Third, I have to reiterate that PoM is complicated in usage, by far the most complicated healing spell in the game. Learning how it acts in specific situations, learning how to wrangle it to get what you want. Learning how to know when its died and when to refresh, learning when you can wait a few more seconds to let it proc some more and increase efficiency. Learning when it's useful as a hyper efficient healing spell and learning when it just doesn't have the throughput to do a certain job. Learning when to use it as an agro redirection ability rather than a super efficient healing spell.

PoM does a lot of things and it's not always straightforward how to make it do those things. It's definitely fun to learn how to use it and I look forward to continuing to learn how to make the most of it.

◊ Bekah · 02/04/07, 4:25 AM

Originally Posted by Ease

With the changes to HP pools and many people still primarily focusing on 5-mans, I'm curious what 'values' people are assigning different stats now. I hate to start the +heal vs. mana/5 debate, but I think maybe there could be a little discussion here.

Anyways, in the past I've generally used 1mana/5 = 7heal, and shied away from sta/spir when possible, but now I'm not so sure. +heal seems to be more and more useful despite the downranking nerf to keep up with the higher damage output and large health pools (atleast for me at around only 1000 healing). Stamina is also obviously more useful (mainly because it's not as costly to obtain). I've even found a renewed respect for spirit not only because of imp. DS, but in 5 mans it really shines compared to raids (less waiting to drink between pulls, can more easily take advantage of FSR, etc).

This has been a tough one for me too. Pre-TBC I considered +heal and M/5 primary with only a small preference towards +heal. Everything else was secondary and I'd never consider upgrading for stats if it meant sacrificing +heal or M/5.

Now...

I don't know. I want 7k hp before buffs (9-10k buffed). It's about what feels right in terms of the 5k buffed hp I had pre-tbc, but it means sacrificing +heal or +m/5 to get it. (and I'm still not there- I'm at 6300) I'm also finding a lot of uses for spirit in my new healing cycles. Since I'm using Gheal so much with PoM and renew ticking along merrily in the background- I often find myself outside of the 5SR and my time in the 5SR has dropped dramatically. Suddenly spirit is looking mighty tasty. [Bangle of Endless Blessings] has also made spirit really attractive.

The only thing I'm finding I don't really care about is intellect... and it seems to be the only thing I can't get rid of fast enough. I'm over 10k mana raid buffed O.O things like [Epoch-Mender] and [Prismatic Mittens of Mending] are nice upgrades in stamina M/5 and +heal... but they're also loaded down with int that I'd much rather have as spirit =/

kaex · 02/04/07, 6:09 AM

I've also found PoM to be an amazing healing tool, but there are a few things I have relized:

-AGUF will not monitor anything after the original buff, unless you have it enabled to show all buffs. Since I have mine shown for only spells I can cast I thought I would see PoM hop around, this wasn't the case.

-PoM will bounce to pets. When this happens Mendwatch also loses track of it. I've tested this a few times.

-When placed on a lock, it will not proc off of a lifetap.

These are just a few of the things I've noticed.

In reference to Gear:

I've been basically focusing on balanced sets that have a mix of int/spirit/mp5/healing, but I am looking at spirit a lot due to the trinket Bekah brought up, [Bangle of Endless Blessings]. I've found this to proc off of almost anything and is amazing for long fights. I'm also valuing spirit based upon Imp Divine spirit and Spiritual Guidance. Not only does spirit help with mana regen (Meditation) it also now adds +healing and +spell damage. I'm valuing it a lot lately.

Beldur · 02/04/07, 7:23 AM

Just for the record:

Places a spell on the target that heals them for 800 the next time they take damage. When the heal occurs, Prayer of Mending jumps to a raid member within 20 yards. Jumps up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec after each jump. This spell can only be placed on one target at a time.