Does the extra healing granted multiply the healing taken before or after MS? Because if its after MS, (like Fel Armor), than its actually 15% extra healing, which isn't ground shattering.

Not sure, I've seen this asked many times and I believe its 15% with MS, but I'm going to hold off on any testing until the newest incarnation is live on the PTR. The current PTR build still has the 1/2/3% 2/4/6% 5 stack version.

This may be alil off topic but...

I was wondering how to spec for arena once 2.3 comes out. I really only do 2v2 (war/priest) and 3v3(war/pally/priest). I have an idea of what I want Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft with 3 points left out for Focused Will, so that leaves me 5 points to put somewhere. I don’t find Reflective shield useful at all, and I’m just not sure Enlightenment is worth the 5 points for only giving like 400 or so more hp int and spirit (not sure on the #’s cause I’m at work and cant see my stats). I was thinking maybe put the 3 points into Imp Inner Fire but I don’t know. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

You should definitely hit up Divine Fury 5/5 and Improved Healing. GHeal should be utilized whenever you can afford to for the superior HPS and HPM.

I don't think Holy Nova is worth the point. You have also over invested in Discipline Tier 2. Apart from Martyrdom, all the talents in that tier are filler quality for arena. Imp Fortitude is the best for 5v5, but for smaller teams it's more a matter of personal preference and gear. You should only invest 5 points here unless you have no other good options. Speccing 41 Discipline, that will probably be the case however.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

That is what I would call the base 2.3 Disc Build for small scale arena. 3 points in Force of Will represents Focused Will. The 3 points in Improved Shield could be placed anywhere in tier 2 disc according to preference. The 5 points in Enlightenment are lackluster and can be moved, but 4 of them are locked to disc tree. Everything else is pretty much locked in.

Basically, a 2.3 disc build still ends up taking a lot of talents it doesn't really want. If you count Mental Strength, that's 13 points (!) of underpowered talents. A holy build by comparison only "wastes" 6 points (3 in disc tier 2, 3 in holy getting to tier 6).

This is kind of debatable. I've found rank 1 HN extremely useful for flushing out stealthers. Actual usefulness depends on what your team is and what bracket you're playing in, but the flush has saved me from a Cheapshot many times. A few spams during the crucial initial engagement can often catch a Rogue who was trying to time his opening stun to match his team's opening.

Yea i think holy nova is a must, one for the stealther but mainly for hunter traps. All those poisons can really hurt you.

And i feel that the 5 points in Silent Resolve are important also since 99% of all priest defenses and buffs are magic, anything to help keep those buffs on you is important to me.

Derailing a bit here, but what meta gem in 2.3? The MSD nerf is pretty drastic. I currently get anywhere from 3-8 procs per minute with this thing, sometimes allowing me to never use full cast time gheals. The 45 second cooldown is obviously crippling to the gem. Is everyone just switching to 18 stam 5% stun resists. I just can't see this meta being worth anything with that long of a cooldown.

18 stam 5% stun resist is very nice given you are generally tanking. I use it now for pvp.

Looking at the discipline tree I'm already getting that sick feeling I get with my warrior and mage--if I want to arena and raid I need to respec every week. I should have roled hybrids.

When it comes to holy priesthood, I've been for a long time a big fanatic of the Spirit statistic - I know it's not the end-all-be-all statistic for us, in particular it only provides a portion of some of our needs. It gives +damage, +healing, and +regen. But I'm rather seduced by the fact that its returns help by quite a large amount in almost all situations - after all, this attribute is supposed to be the priest's "signature" statistic.

The thing that has always bugged me was my incapacity to maintain a decent amount of spirit and decent survival statistics at the same time - it seems those two are mutually exclusive.

I was wondering, how high can you get your spirit statistic while maintaining an optimal survivability? I other words, is there an inflexion point in the survivability curve from which you'd get better returns in efficiency by stacking spirit instead of resilience? Instead of stamina? Assuming all other statistics remain equal (mp5, intellect, healing bonus).

Would you give a chance to the Spirit Guidance talent in a PVP build? And if so, in 2.3, would that be a blessed resilience build, a Focused Will build?

Realistically? Hypothetically?

I have to admit that the buffs in 2.3, namely meditation and healing-to-damage, (possibly Retribution paladin buff as well?) give me that itch to try out a "hybrid" damage/healing PVP strategy, and I'd like to explore to what extent spirit could play a role in there. I'm not too optimistic for a variety of reasons (*), but eh, you never know

Even if we can realistically scrap the whole concept of stacking spirit in PVP, the question remains - Do you believe in some sort of "soft cap" in stamina/resilience/survivability talents, one that isn't forced by the game mechanics but suggested by skillful and knowledgeable priests themselves?

(*) to cite a few:
_relative lack of spirit/stamina gear
_absolute lack of spirit/resilience gear
_spirit does not help mana burning
_spirit does not help dispelling
_mp5 and OOC drinking do in general a better job for your mana bar in PVP

One tip when 1v1 on a warrior that'll never let you down is to micro-manage your pw:shield cooldown. Target the warrior, and watch his rage bar as he beats on you. Remember that he cannot pummel a heal when he's less than 10 rage- and he cannot generate rage thru damaging you when he's beating on your pw:shield.

So, when that warrior has just dumped rage on you, use your shield then, instead of when he's 50-60 rage ahead, thereby giving you time for at least one full heal. This really only works when you're not being dispell spammed, and when it's just a warrior on you, but it's super effective in that case. It's why I wear the 4pc bonus instead of 2x 35 resil.

Spiritual guidance is always among the first thing to give. Given the gladiator gear has no spirit we are pretty much pigeon-holed.


In terms of a soft cap in stamina/resilience/survivability talents, for myself it doesn't exist in 5vs 5. I'm the focus target at least 75% of the time. In 3vs3 its debateable (I do trade a couple sucky stam pieces for regen).

2vs2 is really the only case where spirit becomes valuable, simply because with over 10K stam and 300 resilience unbuffed you have some leeway and enough survivability (I believe but I play in the sub 2000 bracket).

Sadly the fact you can't switch gear anymore really nerfs this, as you need to wear "worst case" survivability gear. And generally this means drinking will be your main method of mana regen. Still enough regen to keep casting some instants even when oom can be a game saver. But I certainly wouldn't build my build around it!

As someone who plays both a rogue and a priest in arenas, I'm not really seeing the rogue buffs that worry you. A shadowstep rogue will hardly be able to do the dps necessary to kill a well-geared holy priest, unless in tandem with another dps, which is as much a problem now as it will be in 2.3. AR/Prep rogues will definitely hit a bit harder, but I think the difference won't be so large as to be noticeable, and assuming you play with a teammate, all that is required is increased coordination in locking up the rogue during the first minute.

As for warriors, sure they're getting talents they already had in easier-to-reach places, but warriors already horribly destroy priests, so I'd rather that a team that I already lose to get buffed than something that I'm not used to losing to. I see no way that the warrior/druid stranglehold on the top spots will dissolve, without some serious druid mobility nerfs, which I don't believe will happen.

When the dust settles on new specs/talents and abilities, I'm betting priests will be right where they have been for awhile; versatile, rugged healers in many setups with good offensive abilities but lacking the mobility or resilience of pally/druid, which kills us at the high end.

On a different note, my priest/rogue combo, which has hung out around 2100 for about a month, is looking at making a final push during the last couple weeks of s2 to get gladiator. I've read that many priests spec 42/19 (or some variation) specifically for 2v2, I assume to pick up reflective shield and PS. Is the general consensus that it's worth it to go 41 disc for 2v2, despite the loss of healing throughput and BR/BR?

I'd say it's worth it. You don't need the sustained survivability as much in a 2v2. Reflective shield and the ability to PI yourself (or your partner if a caster) and help nuke someone down while a healer is out of range or CC'd is great. Power infusion is also one of the few things that affects mana burn, and 20% faster mana draining is significant.

hi, we play wl/priest (holy/disc) and rightnow we are stuck at 1800-1850.
it is just impossible to win against a full S2 gearead warrior + healer. our priest has only 180res and is saving his point for season3.
coex is no use, do u think it would better to try to mindcontrol the warrior and just stand still and pray that the paly(90%) gets oom before our priest dies?

It's not so much rogue buffs that bother me (ie. not calling overpowered), but the buffing of hemo and shadowstep that may move them into a spec that I think will be better able to kill us. Maybe the loss of combat and assas talents will be enough to counter the cooldown spam but I'm not sure how it will fall out.

Warriors will always go for the healer, you should try nuking the Warrior, and spamming fear/cs/DC on the healer (unless its a druid). You simply won't outlast a Warrior on a healer vs healer scenario (because of MS and the fact that Warriors tear Priests into pieces).

I found a new arena partner this week (old team fell apart ages ago). He's a reasonably geared rogue, to match my reasonably geared holy priest.

We had a crappy first week, going 8-12. Most of the losses I'm willing to shrug off to learning: 5 were warrior/paladin (4/5 had Deep Thunder or Stormherald), 2 were a leveling team of rogue/frost mage who were fully max'd on gear, and very hard to kill, and 3 were mistakes where we knew what we did, and how to fix it.

The last 2 games are what I'd like advice on. They were what I consider a "gimmick" matrix of feral druid (1/4x/1x) and mutilate rogue.

First game, we waited out the time until the stealth detects popped, and took a chance (50/50) on sides and went for left stealth detector. Pounce, Cheap Shot, Trinket, Fear (druid resists), my partner Blinds the druid, rogue trinkets and is back on me, Kidney Shot, druid trinkets, Pounce, dead. I moved all of 3' from the first touch to death, and managed to cast two spells (PW:S and Psychic Scream). I went into the engagement with PoM and PW:S on me, and it didn't make much difference.

Second game, we figured it was them again when there was 2 stealthers, so we stayed in our area and waited for them to walk past the rogue on the stairs (on the Lord. map). I was back in the room, back to a wall. They ran past the rogue, Pounce, I waited out the Pounce and with PW:S and PoM managed to survive it with about 75% health left, burned Psychic, the druid resisted again, partner missed his Blind, rogue trinketed, Clos, and they killed me. I got off 3 spells.

What did I do wrong? What *could* I have done against a combination like this? Assuming they don't split up, two physical dps classes on me, with Mutilate and Mangle ... I got wrecked.

For stats (since I logged out in pve gear): 12.8k self-buffed, 360 resilience. I won't be capped until the start of S3, since I refuse to buy Veteran's pieces only to replace them in a couple of weeks. Regular battlegrounds suck as holy, and I prefer to not force myself to do them twice. I have 4/5 S2 for the bonus, in case that matters in the slightest.

Your partner needs to keep that rogue off you with his own stuns and crippling. Coordinate stuns so that when you trinket out of the rogue's kidney shot hopefully your partner will be ready to stun the rogue too.

Playing priest in arena means you need good partners who are ready to support you. Unlike druids or paladins priests need the most "babysitting" so to speak of all healers. You can't do anything since like you said, you were CC'ed the entire time.

I also just noticed you said you trinketed cheap shot. Never trinket cheap shot, only trinket kidney shots against rogues. Although you might want to even save it for blinds depending on the situation (boo for stoneform not breaking blinds in 2.3 btw =P).

OK, given that there was maybe 2 seconds between "OMG OUT OF STEALTH OW" and my rogue partner burning Blind on one of the two targets, is there anything else he should have done? He reacted as fast as he could tab, turn, and hit the button (I assume) - it didn't seem like he wasted any time. It just didn't matter. Total time from engage to dead was under 10 seconds.

And with dual stealth, esp. the first time you see that combo any given day, you just aren't expecting the feral. Most times a druid is in the match (in 2v2, anyway) it's a resto druid masquerading as a feral, and their dps is pretty weak, and their only real danger is the stuns.

As a Night Elf priest, perhaps try starting the match Shadowmelded in a corner with your back to the wall? Unless the opposing Rogue wanders into your corner, this gives you a better edge against double-stealth teams.

Beyond that, your Rogue partner will have to be able to do more than just Blind someone. He'll have to keep Crippling on your attacker, and stun them as often as possible to let you get away.

To better coordinate the use of your trinket, have your Rogue friend call out when to use it - he'll know when he can land maximum CC on your attacker.

Your partner should cheap shot one, and immediately blind the other if you haven't feared him.

Personally I'd trinket and fear and head for the hills as soon as my partner's cheap shot landed. If you use your trinket at the moment an opp is cced it maximizes your chances to get distance on them. I understand common wisedom is to wait for the kidney shots (which is a doubly nice time as they have often popped their cooldowns) but I think that is really only best if you aren't coordinating your escape with your partner(s).

Fear resists and blind resists sound like they cost you, that and your partner didnt at minimum control one.