Some additions/changes to the FAQ went in: Disc soft caps, some Infest hints, a new Atonement Q&A item and little stuff not worth mentioning. I am currently holding some changes for Holy back, including the haste caps, to come with the holy talent changes due for 4.0.3.

If you consider any of the other findings in this thread absolute "need-to-know" stuff for raiding at 80, please send a PM and I'll see what I can do without transforming the FAQ into a full guide.

I've actually done quite a bit of Cataclysm healing as disc on beta, and at lvl85 in blue and bad gear you'll love greater heal. It's not as mana inefficient as you may think either since it lowers the already low cd on Inner Focus. With the massive hp pools of players and the lower healing of aoe-spells you actually find yourself in situations where topping up non tanks will disturb your Heal spamming and force you to Gheal the tank a few times.

One of the most interesdting things I noticed as Atonement-specced Disc was that, in 4pcT10, the FH proc bonus was also affecting the Atonement heal. It happened on Sunday in ICC25, and again in RS25 last night. It only procced once in each, so I reported it as a bug, but it was definitely interesting to note.

Keep an eye out for it, justy to make sure I wasn't going nuts.

Hmm I did not realise inner focus is now a 45 second CD. With ~2 sec cast time that means if you use IF and then cast 6 gheals IF there will be 3 seconds left on IF. That is 1 free gheal every 8. With 2.5 sec cast time its 1 free gheal every 7. 12-14% reduction in gheal mana cost.

These should be the LVL 80 values for all Priest spells, except Shadowfiend.
For Heal over Time (HoT) and Damage over Time (DoT) spells, the values listed is per Tick.
Deviance is how much a spell can vary between minimum and maximum. A spell with a deviance of 10% that hits for 1000 will have a minimum of (1000*(1-10%/2)) = 950 and a maximum of (1000*(1+10%/2)) = 1050.
Exp Coeff = Expected coefficient. This is the coefficient I expected given a Spell Rating implementation. (1% increase for every 83.66 Spell Power)
Real Coeff = Coefficient found in the game data files.
All spells seem to have a 3 decimal coefficient except for Holy Nova which seems to have a 4th decimal.
Of Priest spells only PW: Barrier seems to break the expected coefficient. PW: Barrier also has an additional coefficient for each time a person takes damage. The increase in absorb on a single hit max is 1.2.

Healing spell	Deviance	Exp Coeff	Real Coeff	80 Avg	80 Min	80 Max
Binding Heal	25,00%	0,40313	0,40300	3372,617	2951,040	3794,194
Circle of Healing	10,00%	0,20010	0,20000	1674,037	1590,335	1757,739
Desperate Prayer	16,50%	0,57117	0,57100	4778,368	4384,152	5172,583
Divine Hymn	0,00%	0,42913	0,42900	3590,123	3590,123	3590,123
Flash Heal	15,00%	0,60475	0,60400	5059,349	4679,898	5438,800
Greater Heal	15,00%	0,80627	0,80600	6745,234	6239,341	7251,127
Heal	15,00%	0,30238	0,30200	2529,674	2339,949	2719,400
Holy Nova	15,00%	0,19626	0,19630	1641,876	1518,736	1765,017
HW: Sanctuary	17,30%	0,03500	0,03100	292,829	267,500	318,159
HW: Serenity	16,00%	0,60465	0,60400	5058,503	4653,822	5463,183
Lightwell	0,00%	0,30804	0,30800	2577,069	2577,069	2577,069
Penance	12,20%	0,26808	0,26800	2242,769	2105,960	2379,578
Prayer of Healing	5,50%	0,33313	0,33300	2786,958	2710,317	2863,599
Prayer of Mending	0,00%	0,31806	0,31800	2660,855	2660,855	2660,855
PW: Barrier	0,00%	2,27171	6,00000	19005,141	19005,141	19005,141
PW: Shield	0,00%	0,41811	0,41800	3497,874	3497,874	3497,874
Renew	0,00%	0,13101	0,13100	1095,995	1095,995	1095,995

I have not yet found a simple logic for finding expected coefficients for damage spells, so only coefficients listed in the game data files are available.

Damage spell	Deviance	Coefficient	80 Avg	80 Min	80 Max
Devouring Plague	0,00%	0,185	138,798	138,798	138,798
Holy Fire	23,80%	0,571	916,573	807,501	1025,645
Holy Fire DoT	0,00%	0,024	45,702	45,702	45,702
Holy Nova	15,00%	0,143	267,440	247,382	287,498
HW: Chastise	11,50%	0,614	535,726	504,921	566,530
Mind Blast	5,50%	0,429	947,041	920,997	973,085
Mind Flay	0,00%	0,257	149,800	149,800	149,800
Mind Sear	8,00%	0,114	84,633	81,247	88,018
Mind Spike	5,50%	0,429	996,974	969,558	1024,391
Penance	12,20%	0,458	666,906	626,225	707,588
Smite	11,50%	0,714	620,358	584,688	656,029
SW: Death	0,00%	0,845	809,090	809,090	809,090
SW: Pain	0,00%	0,234	198,041	198,041	198,041
Vampiric Touch	0,00%	0,400	97,328	97,328	97,328

I am still working on figuring out how every talent affects each spell, and will be coming back with additional information on that sometime soon.

I have noticed a great number of priests shying away from Holy tree, citing Chakra as the reason. Most people are claiming it's 'too complicated' or 'just confusing' to keep track of.

I may be one of the weird ones, but I've slipped into Chakra renew and Chakra PoH quite easily, and am pleased with the results. I am working on my next blog and am writing a "don't be scared of chakra" type. I'm wondering if there are any others out there who have these reservations out there might be willing to personal message me a few of their questions so I can address them

By the way has anyone else seen the double-edged sword that was pointed out on the Cataclysm theorycrafting board regarding the new changes to Renew/Chakra renew? I at first was pleased that they gave us a passive ability to reduce the cast time of Renew by 0.5...it hadn't dawned on me the impact that it would have by not allowing Haste to doubly affect it. I guess it will be nice for Prayer of Mending to influence Prayer of Healing's Chakra though ^.^ I see these as positive things, keeping the holy priest out of the 'blanket hot' niche, while still giving us the versatility needed to flow between our Chakras and roles in raids.

That's interesting to hear because I find the Chakra system as a selling point to spice up the game play of Holy right now. I'm glad they are moving Priests away from blanket renew, it just didn't feel right. Looking forward to your blog post.

I have been finding the Chakra mechanic to be a lot of fun, I haven't used the smite one, but I like the flexibility offered by the healing Chakras. My only complaint with Holy as it stands is the fact that there are only 4 unspent points in the tree (excluding Blessed Resilience) which seems to contradict Blizzard's position on having a degree in flexibility in talent specs. There is very little wriggle room in the current Holy Tree and it feels like you're forced to take points in some mediocre talents to get to the bottom.

A few of your coefficients are incorrect. Listed are the correct values:
Shadow Word: Death: 0.282 (0.846 in execute range)
Mind Spike: 0.557
Shadow Word: Pain: 0.183

*edit* Just to confirm, these values are from the game data files.

TNSe also takes values from the game files, in this case 4.01 (at some build number). If you want to discuss individual values, the both of you should specify build numbers, otherwise you never know what a post was based on.

I've talked to a few people in the mid-ranged progress guilds on our server and all of the holy priests say much the same thing about Chakra. From what I can gather, its figuring out ahead of time what state you need to be in to address the situation, which some of them really don't feel like doing. I feel that this class and spec, more than other, is addressing the blue post about choosing the right heal for the right situation at the right time. But for that reason I think holy is going to be more vital than ever and there will be a gap that needs to be filled by skilled holy priests.

I hope more people come back to it, but we'll see a couple weeks after December 7th.