Cataclysm Discipline Priest Compendium



Updated for Patch 4.1



Introduction

These Compendiums are now a legacy with an extensive history. The original versions by
Constantinus (Nidaba) received more than 3 million thread views. Since then, both Sinndir and Hegen
contributed substantial changes and vital updates. Now the responsibility has passed to me, and I
am finding it impossible to thank all the people who cooperated to allow me to gather this information.
Carnathagia in particular has allowed me to use his extensive theorycrafting results and conclusions
throughout most of this guide.

The Cataclysm has altered not just our world, but our tools and and the very way we look at healing itself.
None of us know how these changes will play out in practice, and at this point, poised on the edge of
the expansion, we don’t have answers to all the questions. Here are presented our best theories and
hard-won knowledge; we will learn together how to handle the changes the Cataclysm has brought.
Healers have always had a special sense of community -- our companions may fight a boss and his
minions, but we fight death itself.

 

Contents

1 Questions and Answers 1.1Terms Defined 1.2 What should I spec? 1.3 Questions and Answers 2 Talents and Spells 2.1 Talent and Spell Review 2.2 Glyphs 3 Item Enhancements 3.1 Enchants 3.2 Gems 3.3 Reforging 3.4 Professions 4 Consumables 4.1 Food 4.2 Flasks 4.3 Potions 5 Stats and Gearing 5.1 Stat Priority 6 Tools 6.1 Spreadsheet 7 Regen 8 Addons and UI 8.1Unit frames 8.2 Handling some common issues 9 Raiding 9.1 Spell Selection 9.2 Threat Mechanics 10 MATH 10.1Spell Coefficients and Formulas 10.2 Character Stats 10.3 Haste

[top] Questions and Answers

[top]Terms Defined

A/A: Archangel/Atonement spec
BT: Borrowed Time
CoH: Circle of Healing
DA: Divine Aegis
GS: Guardian Spirit
HC: Holy Concentration (talent, Holy tree)
HoH: Hymn of Hope
HpM: Healing per Mana, a measurement of efficiency
HpS: Healing per Second, a measurement of throughput
IF: Inner Focus
IW: Inner Will
MA: Mental Agility
PI: Power Infusion
PoH: Prayer of Healing
PoM: Prayer of Mending
PS: Pain Suppression
RSTS:Random Secondary Targeting System
SoR: Spirit of Redemption
SoS: Strength of Soul

[top] What should I spec?

These are some suggested templates

as Disc:

33/8/0
Archangel/Atonement

31/8/2
without Archangel/Atonement

[top] Questions and Answers

Let's talk about Archangel/Atonement.
Smiting to a 5 stack costs less mana each cast and does 100% of the damage as healing over 5 targets.
It is a ‘smart’ heal, so it chooses the lowest health targets within a very short range (15 yds), including
hunter pets and temporary pets like shadowfiend. A 5-stack consumed will return slightly less mana than
you spent, and boost your healing (+3% per stack) for 18 seconds.

As a note, Atonement heals are now influenced by Archangel and "being effected by healing modifiers correctly,"
so when you activate Archangel the Atonement heals are no longer smaller than when you were just maintaining
the 5 stacks of Evangelism. Atonement heals are still not affected by the presence of Grace on their target.

The main purpose of Evangelism is to provide Archangel for the times when you need the healing boost.
The smite-to-heal mechanic is a conservation technique to keep putting out a base amount of healing
while spending (overall) very little mana during lower damage phases of the fight. A non-Archangel/Atonement
spec would use Heal for this purpose.

It is important to remember that in Cataclysm it will be normal to see a raid with health not topped off
while healers go into their conservation phases. HOWEVER--if someone needs healed, heal them! Don’t
just keep smiting and hope a heal hits the person you wanted.

In 4.1, Holy Fire was changed to also trigger Atonement and Evangelism, meaning that we will want to keep
Holy Fire on cooldown as much as possible during any time we will be Smiting. The glyph of Smite will now
see some use to increase damage and therefore Atonement healing.



Power Word: Shield has a 1 second cooldown when talented and a high mana cost. How am I
supposed to spam this like I used to?
The days of PW:S spam are over. I expect that we will be able to set up and maintain about
3-5 shields at a time. Recent changes in the strength and cost of our shields have not changed this
basic rule, although the increased strength has made them more attractive to maintain now than in the
weeks after Cataclysm's release. Rapture is an important source of mana regen for the disc priest, and
proper shield placement, timing and monitoring of the rapture procs can maximize returns.

The reduction in the duration of PW:S in patch 4.1 to 15 seconds will certainly affect attempts to blanket
the raid with shields, but should not cause large changes in our strategies overall.

Should I take Inspiration?
Yes--you should always take Inspiration if you might be healing a tank at any point.
This includes healing the tank group with PoH, and remember that PW:S can proc Inspiration from the
glyph heal. The value of the 10% physical damage mitigation from Inspiration should not be underestimated.

How should I use Power Infusion?
Frequently gifted to a dps in the past, disc priests will be keeping their PI for themselves much more
in Cata. Both the haste and the decreased mana costs are too valuable to consider giving up until we
have significant amounts of gear.

[top] Talents and Spells

[top] Talent and Spell Review

Divine Aegis -- Critical heals and all heals from PoH create a protective shield on
the target, absorbing 10/20/30% of the amount healed.
A foundation disc talent, and now even more so for raid healing. Critical heals from PoH
award bonus DA, in addition to the guaranteed proc.

Divine Aegis absorbs are 30% of the critical heal amount * Absorption Mastery. It continues to stack
when refreshed, and caps out at 40% of the priest’s total health. Multiple DA’s from different
priests do not stack, but instead create separate buffs which can each stack up to 40% of the casting
priest's health.

Patch 4.1 increased the duration of DA to 15 seconds. Also, Divine Aegis will not produce a shield if
the full heal that would cause the DA is absorbed by a Death Knight's Necrotic Strike.

Pain Suppression -- Reduces a friendly target’s threat by 5%, reduces all damage
taken by 40% and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 65%.
One of the best cooldowns available, but don’t forget the threat reduction can do funny
things if used on a tank.

Power Word: Barrier -- Summons a holy barrier on the target location that
reduces all damage done to friendly targets by 25%. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be
interrupted by damage.
Almost a smaller version of Pain Suppression, the glyphed version of this giant bubble
is be amazing stacked onto top of holy priest and druid ground-based AoE effects. Changed to a 3 min.
cooldown in patch 4.1.

Inner Focus -- Reduces the mana cost of your next Flash Heal, Binding Heal,
Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25%.
Notice that the spells affected have changed since Wrath.

Grace -- Grace is 4% per point per stack, reaching a maximum of 24% additional healing
on your primary target. This stacks multiplicatively with other healing bonuses for a very substantial
increase to Disc single target healing. As of 4.0.6 Grace is no longer limited to a single target, reducing
the penalty for healing someone other than your primary target and opening up opportunities for boosting
AOE healing on multiple individuals.

Veiled Shadows -- Decreases the cooldown of your fade ability by 3/6 sec. Reduces
the cooldown of your shadowfiend by 30/60 sec.
This can be a useful regen talent.

Holy Nova -- Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing X holy
damage to all enemy targets within 10 yards and healing friendly targets within 10 yards for X. Healing is
divided among the number of targets healed. These effects cause no threat.

Holy Nova is no longer confined to your group, or even your party. It will heal other
members of your raid, other players who happen to be nearby and even friendly npc's wandering past at
the right moment.

Strength of Soul -- In patch 4.1 Strength of Soul will also reduce another priest's weakened soul
effect, not just your own.

[top] Glyphs

There is a distinct gap between our obviously useful glyphs and the remainder of our
choices. Take the ones that are obvious, and fill in the rest according to your preference, or even
by the mechanics of a specific fight. With the changes to the glyph system, there is now no reason
not to view glyphs as a consumable.

Based on the idea that we have 3 prime and 3 major glyph spots, we will fill these with the
must-have glyphs first. Then options for the remaining slots are given and these can easily be
changed to suit the individual fight.

*Must-have glyphs - disc

Prime
*Penance	reduces cooldown by 10%	[absolutely necessary]
*PW:Barrier	increase healing by 10%	[this looks like it will be very valuable]
Prayer of Healing	adds a HoT (20% over 6 sec)
PW:Shield	heal for 20% of shield value
Major
*Divine Accuracy	hit cap for smite and holy fire	[must-have for archangel builds]
*Prayer of Mending	increased healing from first charge of PoM
Smite	+20% damage to targets with holy fire	[a strong choice for A/A builds]
Dispel Magic	heal for 3% of overall health (60k = 1800)	[can proc DA]
Mass Dispel	reduce cast time by 1 sec	[very nice if you will be doing any dispelling]
Holy Nova	reduces GCD by ½ sec
Fade	reduces cooldown for fade
Fear Ward	reduces cooldown and duration by 60 sec	[situational and/or pvp]
Desperation	cast GS and PS while stunned	[mostly a pvp glyph]
Psychic Scream	cower, but +3 sec cooldown	[possible utility in 5-mans]
Minor
Fading	reduce mana cost by 30%
Shadowfiend	5% max mana if it dies	[less useful now that pets have good resistance to aoe]
Levitate	no reagent	[how did we live before we had this?]
Fortitude	reduce mana cost by 50%	[less useful now after the cost reduction in 4.0.6]
Shadow Protection	increase duration by 10 min

[top] Item Enhancements

[top] Enchants

Head
[Arcanum of Hyjal]	60 int, 35 crit
	Requires Revered with Guardians of Hyjal
Shoulder
[Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone]	50 int, 25 haste
	Requires Exalted with Therazane
[Lesser Inscription of Charged Lodestone]	30 int, 20 haste
	Requires Honored with Therazane
Back
Cloak -- Greater Intellect	50 int
Darkglow Embroidery	proc spirit
Lightweave Embroidery	proc int
	Embroidery is Tailoring-only
Chest
Chest -- Peerless Stats	20 all stats
Chest -- Exceptional Spirit	40 spirit
Chest -- Mighty Stats	15 all stats
Wrist
Bracer -- Speed	50 haste
Bracer -- Exceptional Spirit	50 spirit
Bracer -- Mighty Intellect	50 int
Hands
Gloves -- Mastery	50 mastery
Gloves -- Haste	50 haste
Belt
Ebonsteel Belt Buckle	adds socket
Legs
Powerful Enchanted Spellthread	95 int, 80 stam
Powerful Ghostly Spellthread	95 int, 55 spirit
Feet
Boots -- Earthen Vitality	30 stam, run speed
Boots -- Haste	50 haste
Boots -- Mastery	50 mastery
Boots -- Lavawalker	35 mastery, run speed
Ring
Ring -- Intellect	40 int
	Enchanters only
Off-hand
Off-Hand -- Superior Intellect	40 int
new, don't forget to enchant your off-hand!
Weapon
Weapon -- Hurricane	proc haste when casting or melee
Weapon -- Heartsong	proc spirit when casting
Weapon -- Power Torrent	proc int when casting

For Holy, Heartsong will net about 40-50 more mp5 than Power Torrent. Timing shadowfiend
with a PT proc will increase the regen benefits of that enchant. For Disc it’s much closer, with
Heartsong having about 10 mp5 advantage over PT. So with good shadowfiend management PT could be nearly
equal for regen.

[top] Gems

We are still considering socket bonuses with an eye toward what will bring us the most overall
benefit: either the bonus+mixed color gem or the pure color gem by itself.

[Artful Ember Topaz]	Artful Ember Topaz	20 int, 20 mastery
[Brilliant Inferno Ruby]	Brilliant Inferno Ruby	40 int
[Potent Ember Topaz]	Potent Ember Topaz	20 int, 20 crit
[Purified Demonseye]	Purified Demonseye	20 int, 20 spirit
[Zen Dream Emerald]	Zen Dream Emerald	20 mast, 20 spirit
[Artful Hessonite]	Artful Hessonite	15 int, 15 mastery
[Brilliant Carnelian]	Brilliant Carnelian	30 int
[Fractured Alicite]	Fractured Alicite	30 mastery
[Reckless Hessonite]	Reckless Hessonite	15 int, 15 haste
[Sparkling Zephyrite]	Sparkling Zephyrite	30 spirit
[Zen Jasper]	Zen Jasper	15 mastery, 15 spirit

Meta Gems

[Ember Shadowspirit Diamond]	Ember Shadowspirit Diamond	54 int, +2% max mana
[Revitalizing Shadowspirit Diamond]	Revitalizing Shadowspirit Diamond	54 spirit, 3% crit healing

Preliminary work is pointing toward Ember Shadowspirit Diamond providing greater sustained
throughput.

[top] Reforging

We will be reforging crit to mastery or haste, depending on how much of each you feel
comfortable with. Holy may choose mastery or haste, Disc may want extra mastery (depending how close
to the soft cap you are).

[top] Professions

Most professions give a bonus of +80 int.

Alchemy	+80 bonus on flask (choice of int or spirit)
	better proc chance from mysterious potions
	alchemist’s stone trinket (stam+mastery) could be interesting for disc
Blacksmith	+80 bonus from two extra sockets (more choices of which stat)
Enchanting	+80 int from ring enchants
Inscription	+80 int from shoulder enchant
Leatherworking	+130 int wrist enchant (in place of the usual +50 int enchant)
Tailoring	cloak enchants proc SP or mana back
Engineering	-synapse springs give SP on use, 1 min cooldown
	OR mana gulper -- extra mana back from pots
	-nitro boost (on the belt now!) can be a lifesaver,
	but now has a chance to fail spectacularly (and kill you)
	-nice starter epic helm, with cogwheel sockets (choose +208 spirit, haste or mastery)
Jewelcrafting	choice of +80 stats, but devalued when epic gems are introduced
	nice starter trinkets
Herbalism	haste cooldown from Lifeblood
Mining/Skinning	Stamina and Crit aren’t that interesting for us

[top] Consumables

[top] Food

Availability and cost of materials for various buff foods remains to be seen.

[Basilisk Liverdog]	Basilisk Liverdog	90 haste
[Broiled Mountain Trout]	Broiled Mountain Trout	60 haste
[Delicious Sagefish Tail]	Delicious Sagefish Tail	90 spirit
[Whitecrest Gumbo]	Whitecrest Gumbo	60 spirit
[Severed Sagefish Head]	Severed Sagefish Head	90 int
[Pickled Guppy]	Pickled Guppy	60 int
[Lavascale Minestrone]	Lavascale Minestrone	90 mastery
[Salted Eye]	Salted Eye	60 mastery
[Seafood Magnifique Feast]	Seafood Magnifique Feast	90 useful stat
[Broiled Dragon Feast]	Broiled Dragon Feast	60 useful stat
[Fortune Cookie]	Fortune Cookie	90 useful stat
[Goblin Barbecue]	Goblin Barbecue	60 useful stat

The feasts provide int as the useful stat, so you may want to consider bringing your own
spirit food if that is your preference.

[top] Flasks

[Flask of Battle]	Flask of Battle (guild flask)	effect based on class and talents
[Flask of Flowing Water]	Flask of Flowing Water	300 spirit
[Flask of the Draconic Mind]	Flask of the Draconic Mind	300 int

Cauldrons give an int flask, so again healers may want to bring their own spirit flasks.

Elixirs

[Elixir of the Master]	Elixir of the Master	battle	+225 mastery
[Elixir of Mighty Speed]	Elixir of Mighty Speed	battle	+225 haste
[Ghost Elixir]	Ghost Elixir	battle	+225 spirit
[Prismatic Elixir]	Prismatic Elixir	guardian	+90 resistance to magic

[top] Potions

The new potions available are:

[Jungle Remedy]	Jungle Remedy	cures diseases and poisons
[Mighty Rejuvenation Potion]	Mighty Rejuvenation Potion	7200-8800 mana and health
[Molotov Cocktail]	Molotov Cocktail	increase runspeed by 50% for 15 sec
[Mysterious Potion]	Mysterious Potion	restore 1-15000 health and mana
[Mythical Healing Potion]	Mythical Healing Potion	7500-12500 health
[Mythical Mana Potion]	Mythical Mana Potion	9250-10750 mana
[Potion of Concentration]	Potion of Concentration	up to 22000 mana, defenseless
[Volcanic Potion]	Volcanic Potion	1200 spell power

[top] Stats and Gearing

Mastery

Mastery is a new stat introduced in Cataclysm that basically makes you better at what you do. Mastery’s effect
depends on your class and specialization, and the mechanic can be different for each.

For Holy, we get Mastery: Echo of Light -- Your direct healing spells heal for an
additional 10% over 6 sec. Each point of Mastery provides an additional 1.25% healing over 6 sec.



For Disc, Mastery: Shield Discipline -- Increases the potency of all your damage
absorption spells by 20%. Each point of Mastery increases the potency of absorbs by an additional
2.5%.

[top] Stat Priority

For Disc:

1. Get as much Intellect as you can through higher item level gear and gemming.
2. Make sure every item has Spirit as a secondary stat.
3. Keep a balance to your other secondary stats. None of them are outstanding, but they synergistically
increase each other's values.

[top] Tools

[top] Spreadsheet

Arison has updated the spreadsheet for 4.1:
Cataclysm Healing Priest Theorycrafting Spreadsheet v 1.4.xls


This spreadsheet calculates the effects of your spells and models customizable healing rotations.
This is still a work in progress. Bugs and errors can be reported to Arison via private message on these forums.

[top] Regen

Shadowfiend

Long-time priests either hate our regen pets for their short attention spans and
wandering ways, or have accepted their shortcomings and given the little guys names. In 3.3 they
were changed to now avoid 90% of incoming AOE damage, dramatically increasing their survivability
(and therefore reliability).

You can get the most out of your shadowfiend by combining it with HoH if the fight allows.
If you are low enough in mana to be sure of getting at least one of the HoH ticks (which raises your
maximum mana by 15%), you should use your fiend and then go directly into HoH.

Shadowfiend returns 3% of your maximum mana per attack. It will deliver 10 * (1 + Haste*0.01) attacks
during its duration. It can be useful to cast your fiend right before bloodlust/heroism (extra
swings mean extra mana), although timing this can be tricky.

Rapture
Rapture is an important part of mana regeneration for a disc priest. Fully talented, it returns 6% of total
mana when PW: Shield is fully used or removed, and there is a 12 second internal cooldown on this ability.
In order for Rapture to cause your Shields to be mana neutral, you will need:

Condition	Mana cost	3/3 Rapture	2/3 Rapture	1/3 Rapture
none	6795	113250	169875	339750
1/3 MA	6591	109850	164775	329550
2/3 MA	6319	105316	157975	315950
3/3 MA	6115	101916	152875	305750
IW	5775	96250	144375	288750
1/3 MA, IW	5572	92866	139300	278600
2/3 MA, IW	5300	88333	132500	265000
3/3 MA, IW	5096	84933	127400	254800

Hymn of Hope
Hymn of Hope will restore 2% total mana per tick for 4 ticks and increase your mana by 15%. The first
tick does not benefit from the mana increase, but subsequent ticks do.



Inner Will and Mental Agility
Inner Will reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 15%. Mental Agility reduces the mana
cost of your instant cast spells by 3%/7%/10%. Though technically not 'Regen', these effects stack
additively to give 25% mana cost reduction to instant cast spells.

Downranking is even more completely gone than in Wrath--the ranks no longer exist at
all.

Mana Tide Totem
Mana Tide has been changed to provide a flat amount of spirit, and is now raid-wide. This means that
using the on-use spirit effect of a trinket ( [Core of Ripeness] for example), will no longer improve your
regen during Mana Tide.

[top] Addons and UI

NOTE: Review macros and addon keybinds that may use spell and ability ranks. Many will
no longer function with the transition to Cataclysm.


A healer’s UI is focused around two points--the raid frames and your character model. The less time
your eyes spend moving between these two locations of vital information, the more time you have to
react to changing circumstances. Other needed information is displayed radiating out from this
central location, the importance dictating how close to the center it needs to be. Examples of this
second ring would be player and target frames and important procs and debuffs. Remaining
information, such as damage/healing meters, chat frames and ordinary buffs are lowest priority and
can safely be placed at the edges of the screen. It is important to prioritize information in this
way so that you aren’t distracted from the job at hand (healing and staying alive) by a flood of too
much information, most of which you don’t actually need at the moment.

[top]Unit frames

Unit frames are used to show information about your raid and party members in a compact format.
Health status is a primary concern, but select buffs and debuffs are also very important to show. Of
less importance but still common are indicators of incoming heals, the status of HoTs on the player,
their distance from you, as well as convenience items such as group role and afk status.
The new raid frames now available through the default UI are dramatically improved from times past
and are certainly a viable option now, especially for those who want to keep setup minimal and memory
useage low. For those who prefer the appearance and customization options of unit frames through an
addon, there are many choices readily available but for simplicity I will mention only two: Grid and
Vuhdo.

Vuhdo comes with an very usable default setup right out of the box. The configuration
interface is completely redesigned and the appearance of the raid frames can be customized if desired.
VuhDo : Raid Mods : WoWInterface Downloads

A long-time favorite, Grid is extremely customizable but not as intuitive to set up,
although recent changes have made large improvements in ease of use. The Grid addon itself is
fairly basic, and many additional modules are available to add a wide variety of functions. A
benefit of this is that you don’t need to download modules you don’t intend to use.
Grid - Addons - Curse

Now that the unit frames are set up and everyone is visible, you need to be able to cast your heals
on them. The simplest method is of course to click the player you want to heal to target them and
cast the spell. Most healers find this system too slow and unwieldy however, and choose one of the
following methods:

Mouseover Macros

This is a system of binding macros to keys and casting by hovering the mouse over the appropriate
player’s frame and pressing the key to cast. This method does not require a mouse with extra buttons
or an addon to use, and you do not need to actually select the player as your target. Make one macro
for each of your healing spells.

A typical mouseover macro would look like

/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Greater Heal

or with a stopcast (to interrupt a slower casting spell)

/stopcasting
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead] Guardian Spirit

Click-Casting

A popular alternative to mouseover macros is click-casting. For this you use an addon to
bind spells and macros to your mouse buttons directly, and then just click on the selected raid
frame. These addons are used with raid frames that do not have this functionality built in already
(Grid is the most common example given, while Vuhdo has the capability built in).
Clique : Unit Mods : WoWInterface Downloads

Tracking buffs, debuffs and cooldowns on yourself and others and displaying the pertinent information
in a convenient location is also important for effective and efficient healing.

Power Auras is an addon for displaying graphical auras on your screen to indicate
various states. A much more elaborate version of the default aura system, very customizable and
capable of linking auras together to produce more complex conditions.
Power Auras Classic : Buff/Debuff/Spell Mods : WoWInterface Downloads

Some handy pre-made Power Auras for healing priests:
Power Auras | Tales of a Priest

There is a lot of information out there about setting up a healing UI, and additional research will
serve you well as you develop as a healer.

[top] Handling some common issues

dealing with holy word

Happily, Holy Word macros work normally now.

Smite macros

or

[top] Raiding

Thanks to the hard work of the players testing raid content on the Beta realms, we have some ideas
about what healing might look like in Cataclysm raids. These suggestions are given as a starting
point, and as logs and information and experience start to flow in they will be adjusted.

[top] Spell Selection

as Disc

At this point we are looking at two basic strategies for single target healing: using Strength of
Soul and Heal to reduce the duration of Weakened Soul, allowing more PW:Shields, and using Smite to
reduce the cooldown of Penance. For both, tracking the Rapture cooldown is important for regen, and
for A/A you need to be aware of your Evangelism stacks and timer. Try not to let your Evangelism stacks
fall off unused, even if just for the mana return.

An SoS/Heal strategy might have a core rotation of

PW:S - 2x Heal to reduce the Weakened Soul to 7 seconds,
then into each rotation add a Penance or Gheal.
Use PoM on cooldown.

A typical Smite/Penance strategy might involve

PoM, 5x Smite - PI - Archangel - PW:S - BT/Penance - IF+Gheal
then PI and Penance on cooldown, Archangel on cooldown

(or hold Archangel for few seconds in anticipation of an increased damage phase)

When Weakened Soul drops off, reshield and use BT+Gheal in preference to BT+Penance
Continue, using Smite as filler and keeping PoM on cooldown, bounced off your healing target.

Raid healing can be accomplished using atonement to heal the melee, and BT-hastened PoH's to heal groups. As always, keep PoM bouncing.

[top] Threat Mechanics

Fade

For Cataclysm, the threat system has been overhauled again. Tank threat
generation has been made more challenging, and DPS will need to be much more careful than they had
become accustomed to in Wrath. Likewise healers will see changes in tank’s snap threat generation
that will affect us.

The first place we will see a difference is on the pull. Increased tank health pools
provide some buffer, but you may find yourself needing to heal before the tank has solid threat on
every mob. In this situation pre-fading is very useful.

Fade -- Fade out, temporarily reducing all your threat.

This actually sets you to zero threat for the duration of the buff.

Cast fade immediately before you start healing. Waiting to fade until you
actually have the attention of one or more mobs can cause them to move away from the tank and cause
positioning issues. Also, remember that not only your initial threat but all the threat you generate
while faded is returned to you when the fade ends. Be aware of all these factors when you make your
decisions. Low-threat heals like binding heal may be called for in particularly delicate situations.

[top] MATH

Not yet updated for 4.1

[top]Spell Coefficients and Formulas

To calculate the value of a spell, the formula (BaseValue + Spellpower * Coefficient) * Modifiers is used.

Updated for 4.0.6

	Level 85 Base Value	Coefficient	Modifiers
Shield	8136	0.870	Imp. PW:S, SD, TD
Renew*	1224	0.131	SH+IR+GoR, TD
Heal	3136:3644	0.3624	SH+EH, TD
Flash Heal	6272:7289	0.7248	SH+EH, TD
Greater Heal	8361:9717	0.9672	SH+EH, TD
Binding Heal	4752:6110	0.543	SH+EH, TD
Prayer of Mending*	2971	0.318	SH, TD
Prayer of Healing	3087:3262	0.340	SH, TD
Holy Nova*	1696:1972	0.196	SH, TD
Divine Hymn*	4009	0.429	SH, TD
Penance*	2822:3187	0.321	TD
Circle of Healing	1776:1962	0.2	SH, TD
Lightwell*	3309	0.354	25%
Serenity(Heal)	5198:6100	0.604	TD
Sanctuary(PoH)*	299:355	0.03	SH, TD
Smite	653:732	0.714	TD

*Per tick value
SH = Spiritual Healing, 15%; Imp PW:S = Improved Power Word: Shield, 20%; TD = Twin

Disciplines, 6%; IR = Improved Renew, 10%; GoR = Glyph of Renew, 10%; EH = Empowered Healing, 15%; SD = Shield Discipline, 20%+


The direct relationship between the base values and the coefficients of (most) spells means that we
can derive a formula for comparing Spellpower as a rating; that is, a measure of how much Spellpower
is needed to gain a 1% increase to healing.

(BaseValue + Spellpower * Coefficient) * Modifiers = BaseValue * (1 + Spellpower / BaseValue / Coefficient) * Modifiers.
At level 85, dividing the base values by the coefficient gives us ~9345. Therefore, your Spellpower
will give your spells additional value equal to Spellpower / 9345. Using Heal as an example, with
7482 spellpower:

2824 + 7482 * 0.302 = 5083.564
2824 + 7482 * 0.302 = 2824 * (1 + 7482 / 9345)
7482 / 9345 = .80064
2824 * 1.8006 = 5084

With 7482 Spellpower, Heal gains 80.06% additional value.

Since it takes 93.45 spellpower to gain a 1% increase to your spells (93.45 / 9345 = 1 / 100), it can
be said that it takes 93.45 Spellpower 'Rating' to equal a 1% increase. This makes it easier to
directly compare the throughput value of Spellpower with other ratings to determine basic stat
weightings.

The spells that do not follow this convention are Binding Heal (100.01) and Holy Word: Sanctuary
(105.32); these spells will not scale as well as our other healing spells, though only slightly.

Statistic	Rating	Increase	Adjusted
Disc Mastery	179.28	2.5%	71.71
Spellpower	93.45	1%	93.45
Haste	128.06	1%	128.06
Holy Mastery	179.28	1.25%	143.42
Disc Critical	179.28	.86%	208.47
Holy Critical	179.28	0.5%	358.56

[top] Character Stats

Intellect
Intellect increases your Spellpower by 1, Spell Critical Chance by .001541, and Mana by 15. The
first 18 Intellect will not give mana, and the first 10 Intellect will not give Spellpower

Spirit
Spirit increases your Spirit Regen according to the following formula:
Spirit Regen = Sqrt(Intellect) * Spirit *.016725

Mastery
Mastery rating conversions.

Level	Rating/Mastery
80	45.9059
81	60.2784
82	79.1556
83	103.9860
84	136.5379
85	179.2799

Mastery adds 1.25% additional healing to direct heals with Echo of Light for Holy, and 2.5%
additional absorption for Discipline.

Critical
Critical rating conversions

Level	Rating/Critical %
80	45.9059
81	60.2784
82	79.1556
83	103.9860
84	136.5379
85	179.2799

Critical heals are 150% of the value of a non critical heal. Divine Aegis adds 10% additional
healing as an absorption shield per point, increased by your Shield Discipline mastery.

Healing = Average Heal * (1 + Critical% * (0.5 + Divine Aegis * Shield Discipline)

[top] Haste

Haste Rating Conversions

Level	Rating/Haste %
80	32.79
81	43.0559
82	56.5397
83	74.2755
84	97.527
85	128.057

Haste increases your casting speed according to the following formula:
Base Cast Time / (1 + Haste *.01)

Haste rating decreases the period length between ticks from channeled spells and heal over time
effects according to the same formula, replacing the Base Cast Time with the channeling time or tick
period. Durations are determined from the period times the number of ticks. You get k more
ticks for a hot/dot that has m ticks at 0% haste if your haste is higher than (2k-1)/2m.

Haste rating converts to a 1% increase at a much quicker rate than other secondary stat ratings, but
does so without providing any increase in efficiency. Generally, it lets you spend your mana faster,
and is devalued any time you aren't GCD locked.




Haste rating is additive, haste buffs and percentages are multiplicative.

To calculate the number of ticks for a given haste:
Int[Base # Ticks * (1+ Haste *.01) + 0.5]

To calculate the Haste Rating needed to reduce spell cast time from base cast time to any desired
cast time you use:
((Base Cast Time / Desired Cast Time) - 1) * Rating Conversion * 100

With the removal of Enlightenment and 3% Haste buff, the reduction of Borrowed Time (14% at max
rank), and the change to Darkness (3% available in Tier 1 Shadow), we have new caps and plateaus for
Haste rating.

Condition	50% (GCD)	37.5% (Renew x 6)	12.5% (Renew x 5)
85	6402.9	4802.3	1601.1
85, 1/3	6212.7	4627.9	1458.4
85, 2/3	6026.2	4457.0	1318.6
85, 3/3	5843.4	4289.4	1181.5
85, 5%	5488.2	3963.8	915.0
85, 5%, 1/3	5307.0	3797.8	779.2
85, 5%, 2/3	5129.5	3635.0	646.0
85, 5%, 3/3	4955.3	3475.4	515.4
85, BT	4043.9	2639.9
85, BT, 1/3	3877.1	2487.0
85, BT, 2/3	3713.5	2337.0
85, BT, 3/3	3553.1	2190.0
85, 5%, BT	3241.5	1904.4
85, 5%, BT, 1/3	3082.7	1758.8
85, 5%, BT, 2/3	2926.9	1616.0
85, 5%, BT, 3/3	2774.1	1475.9
80	1639.5	1229.7	410.0
80, 1/3	1590.8	1185.0	373.4
80, 2/3	1543.1	1141.3	337.6
80, 3/3	1496.2	1098.3	302.5
80, 5%, 1/3	1358.9	972.4	199.5
80, 5%, 2/3	1313.4	930.8	165.4
80, 5%, 3/3	1268.9	889.9	132.0
80, BT, 1/3	992.8	636.8
80, BT, 2/3	950.9	598.4
80, BT, 3/3	909.8	560.8
80, 5%, BT, 1/3	789.3	450.3
80, 5%, BT, 2/3	749.5	413.8
80, 5%, BT, 3/3	710.3	377.9

=

How exactly would those stat weights translate over to ones that you would put in PAWN for quick equipment comparisons in game? I guess I'm just not getting the point of having 2 versions of burst vs sustained?

Personally I would slot the PoH Prime rather than the PWB Prime for the following reason. PWB is going to be used less than PoH, thus your 'bang for buck' will be a lot less. Renew I hardly ever touch, feels a wasted CD to me.

I agree with the above two that the glyph of PWB is not very useful. First, it's only 10% extra healing for 10 seconds, every 2 minutes, only on people in the small area of barrier, and who already have the 30% mitigation from it.

I have been using the glyph of renew (and improved renew talent) in my disc spec since 4.0 hit. My reasoning is that renew crits trigger divine aegis, and that the extra haste from borrowed time will usually add an extra tick to it. This gave me a stronger renew than a holy priest to use on the lich king ledge phases when I didn't want to have weakened soul up on the raid.

In Cata I'll probably switch to the prayer of healing glyph since it's already favored by disc due to the guaranteed divine aegis and it shouldn't cause as much overheal in the cata healing environment.

The PW:B Glyph will defiantly be very powerful and very useful on many of the encounters where the raid will be grouped up tightly to mitigate an ability from the boss. Generally during these times the other healers will have their ground effect aoe's all stacked under the raid. Tossing a glyphed barrier down on top of those already stacked ground effect heals will substantially reduce damage incoming while increasing healing being done resulting in more healing being done and less mana being spend cumulatively by the raid's healers.

I also had the question in the holy compendium as well as this one which numbers would be best used for a balanced gear set. Currently I have used the following ratios... Int slight greater than spirit. Mastery twice as valuable as crit and haste/spellpower somewhat better than mastery. I value haste above the other stats since it allows me to spam the cheap heal faster. For discipline I might more closely value mastery and crit but for gear weightings...crit is generally always the lowest even for disc since I will always be reforging out of it for another stat.

The 'Burst' stat weighting is how a stat affects your peak healing per second. This has been our metric for WotLK since max HPS was desirable. Spirit has no effect on this number.

The 'Sustained' stat weighting is most likely what our metric will be for Cataclysm raiding, at least for the early tiers. This is how much healing you can output until you are out of mana. Haste has no effect on this number, except for extra ticks of Renew.

I adjusted the divisors so that the Sustained value would not be hundreds of times larger than the Burst values (and cause confusion), but the two metrics cannot be compared directly to each other.

While I wish it was nerfed, it's not. The nerf only applies to rank 1 of Atonement. MMO-Champion had that wrong for about half a day. Rank 2 is unchanged, so 100% of Smite damage and 50% on self at 2/2 Atonement.

Also, Blizzard mentioned in the hotfix notes a few days ago that they specifically increased Atonement heal values to match Heal HPS. They really want this.

Isn't DA calculated after the whole crit healing? Then it should probably be someting like Healing = Average Heal * [1 + Critical% * (0.5 + 1.5*Divine Aegis * Shield Discipline Mastery)]. With DA being 0.3 most of the time and Shield Discipline Mastery being (1+0.025 * Mastery Points). Or am I wrong?

Wouldn't haste allow you to spam a more efficient heal? or are these numbers more tied to a set rotation? In theory a higher haste value would increase throughput at the expense of mana vs. spellpower and crit increase throughput regardless of mana. This would appear to be true even in a sustained healing environment where haste would increase our overall output or the effectiveness of our efficient heals.

Looking at the numbers I am seeing of course a big devaluation of haste as the increased importance of regen and mana efficiency takes over. I am looking over numbers and am wondering if part of the devaluation of haste comes from the reset of our haste plateaus/caps. Does the inability to reach the extra renew ticks or the expense of mana actually devalue the haste in your calculations? or does the math simply support a higher HPM from the other stats at the expense of HPS? Crit/mastery/spellpower of course directly reduce the HPM cost and increase HPS.

Although I have seen people comment on Atonement not benefiting from A/A or Grace, something I haven't seen anyone mention yet is that it also doesn't seem to be affected by healing reduction debuffs either. From what I have seen the heal is completely based on how much damage is done and so could have situational use on fights that have MS effects like the ones seen in the Bastion of Twilight.