Cataclysm Holy Priest Compendium - Page 18

Sinndir · 01/24/11, 12:27 AM

The haste value suggestion in the OP is exactly that, just a suggestion. Stat priorities for healing are different than DPS, there are not set in stone X is better than Y (aside from crit being less useful). The stat priority posted by Rosin is a guideline for those who are new to playing a priest or not as experienced as some of those high end raiders.

It really depends on what you feel you need. Haste always has uses after the 12.5% (I'm currently over 2100 haste rating), the issue with continuing to gear to haste is the constantly increasing mana consumption that comes with haste.

So if you stack haste, keep your spirit stat increasing as well.

Hegen · 01/24/11, 1:20 AM

Originally Posted by Kelila

Are the haste values in the table in the OP in error? Have the stat priorities changed? Does it just come down to personal preference?

What Sinndir wrote is true, yet in a way the recommendation was indeed a bit outdated, only to become more current again with 4.0.6.

The recommendation in the OP assumes that Renew is a frequently used spell for holy priests. When starting with Cataclysm, many thought this, yet reality showed that PoH was better for raid healing in most encounters, which again turned out to be the bread and butter job for holy priests. So, while haste is very strong for using PoH, that 12.5% of haste as such isn't really that big a deal.

However, now that Renew will come close to or reach PoH in many scenarios once 4.0.6 arrives, reaching that 12.5% for another tick may be pretty attractive. Rating mastery vs. haste is the remaining issue for holy priests, but unfortunately that one will heavily depend on encounter and raid composition.

vertigo12 · 01/24/11, 3:03 AM

Originally Posted by Sokaris84

I think you might be being a little guilty of trying to convince yourself that this is a good idea. On any fight that is truely challenging, how often do we find ourselves with enough time to cast smites? I think this build is immensely situational, especially in 10mans. I don't find myself with much time to even cast a Potion of Concentration on most fights, let alone trying to maintain Archangel.

Someone mentioned Chimaeron as being a good example of when to use this build. Personally I don't think there's enough time between spits to top people up and cast a Smite, and if there is then I dare say that your better off using that spare time to cast a PoM on the double attack tank. Yes it would come in handy for the last 20%, but that's not really helping us do our real jobs is it.

My guess is there's some gimmick in the Sinestra fight that makes this build preferable. Lull periods, or periods where the boss or adds are taking increased damage. I don't think it's worth trying to convince ourselves that this build is the way to go for the other 12 bosses in this tier. That being said, I'm certainly interested in seeing the results/logs of testing this build

Here's the rationale of why I believe Holy priest could be a viable build even as a healer because of the following valid reasons:
- Priest are the most versatile healers. They can seamlessly switch to any role may it be healing,damage prevention, or dps instantaneously or both at the same time. As an example Shadow priests DPS and soft party healers, Disc priest Atonement invested spec acts as both smite healers. With Holy priest's chakra states, they can switch roles from being a raid, to single target, to a dps role.
- AA>Evangelism is an accessible talent for all specs may it be pure Disc, Holy or Shadow that grants benefit on the chosen spec.
- Smite is a Holy school spell.
- The question is how and when to pull this off? I believe the most efficient way of building up AA to 5 stacks is by relying with your instant cast heals renew, PoM and CoH and with Lightwell renews. With that being said, you have a huge amount of idle moments to crunch some smites during certain or applicable situations. Definitely all Holy priest will max out Divine Fury if not invest points on it thus reducing Smite's cast time down to 1.5 sec further modified by your haste rating.In 12 seconds you can do your 5 smites already and you can freely heal with Renew, PoM, CoH in between.

However, now that Renew will come close to or reach PoH in many scenarios once 4.0.6 arrives, reaching that 12.5% for another tick may be pretty attractive. Rating mastery vs. haste is the remaining issue for holy priests, but unfortunately that one will heavily depend on encounter and raid composition.

Since Holy priests have passive 90% regen on Combat it is best that we capitalize our instant cast heals but make sure to maximize each and every healing that can be done efficiently for certain situation. i.e. If doing renew spam, it would be better to not cast other single target spell that make the health of your target go beyond 85~89% of health unless your target is in dire condition. Probably use PoM on someone who's taking over time damage or predictable incoming damage (most beneficial if glyphed with PoM). In any case whichever healing chakra state you're in definitely Renew has advantage (applicable if you have divine touch) and using the acquired Holy Word. This also would capitalize Test of Faith's effect when the condition is met.

Sinndir · 01/24/11, 9:31 AM

Originally Posted by vertigo12

-snip-

Since Holy priests have passive 90% regen on Combat it is best that we capitalize our instant cast heals but make sure to maximize each and every healing that can be done efficiently for certain situation. i.e. If doing renew spam, it would be better to not cast other single target spell that make the health of your target go beyond 85~89% of health unless your target is in dire condition. Probably use PoM on someone who's taking over time damage or predictable incoming damage (most beneficial if glyphed with PoM). In any case whichever healing chakra state you're in definitely Renew has advantage (applicable if you have divine touch) and using the acquired Holy Word. This also would capitalize Test of Faith's effect when the condition is met.

Our regen is getting nerfed a bit (which is warranted), but you do not need to cast instant heals to take advantage of our excellent regen you just need to choose the right spell for the right job. And unfortunately for renew, it doesn't really have a job in 25-man raiding. The spell is simply too slow and too often healed over, and only the initial heal from divine touch procs an Echo of Light, meanwhile if you cast PoH you get Echo of Light and the glyph so your PoH turns into roughly a 130%+ heal (with good gear it can get up to 140%+), throw in AoE Chakra stance and you can tack on an additional 15%.

Hate to say it but renew just isn't that strong of a heal. There are situations to use it such as while you are moving, on tanks to help stabilize, or in 5-mans.

Elimbras · 01/24/11, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by Carnathagia

Sorry, I immediately left town after finishing up those numbers. [...]

But you didn't include any mastery effect, did you ?
For a spirit / mastery gearing strategy (I keep my haste in order to have 5 ticks of renew, and go for mastery as much as possible after that threshold), that's an additionnal 20% hot I get with mostly blues to POH, and renew does not benefit it. That's the main thing I don't like with our mastery : it left one (well, 5, if you count Divine Hymn, POM and Lightwell (which are good enough without it, and are not really targeted heals) and PW:S (which we use for utility) spell out. As I like mastery, I feel I'm more or less cutting myself out of renew

Lanthon · 01/24/11, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by Sokaris84

Because no one's mentioned it yet, here's the build Phlaryu was using for Method's world 2nd Lady Sinestra kill.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The big thing here is no Revelations, meaning no Serenity or Sanctuary. Which is fine I suppose, both don't see too much use on most encounters. I'm wondering if they leave this talent so they can still use Holy Word: Chastise while in either Chakra state. Their 2nd holy priest in the raid used a similiar build, except he had 2 points in Tome of Light instead of Blessed Resilience. Interesting builds I thought..

As a priest who hardly ever uses Holy Word: Chastise, I'm assuming priests in 25 man raids are assigned primarily AoE healing and therefore spend most of their time in Sanctuary Chakra. Since Holy Word: Sanctuary is pretty much a waste of a global, putting that point elsewhere makes a lot of sense.

As a healer in a 10 man, I do my share of tank healing and I use Renew rolling (Serenity Chakra) as a crucial component of tank healing and dps healing in situations where efficiency is valued over throughput.

This post has me wondering, though: Are there situations where Holy Word: Chastise is worth the global?

Alv!ra · 01/24/11, 12:22 PM

Rarely, I'd say. Perhaps in odd situations such as if one of the skeleton adds in p1 breaks free of CC, you could Chastise it before it hits someone.

But what are the odds you're not in a chakra when something like that happens? I think your point about Methods priest probably spending all their time in Sanc chakra is more likely, and if they never used HW:Sanc, then it would indeed be a wasted point.

I'd say a spec without Revelations is even more situational and fight-specific than the holy AA sub-spec.

Starfire · 01/24/11, 1:05 PM

I think there is a huge disconnect here between what "they" do and what "we" do. And I use both terms loosely.

The encounters Paragon see's and the type of settings they do them in are not the same encounters and/or settings that most of us will ever do them in. The gear level, the bugs, the stacking, etc. Most of "us" will never be there and never see those. We simply do not have to worry about the same things they do.

The real disconnect though, if you're in one of those top-10 guilds, you don't particularly need to be here discussing what to do and your situation is completely different from the grand majority. The grand majority of the readers will never be in those situations and won't use those tactics -- and quite possibility don't understand the gear/setting differentials.

Keep this in mind. It goes both ways. Yes, it's infamous Paragon's Holy Priests smite'd the hell out of Arthas -- but their raid had significantly less gear and there was no 30% (or 25%) buff. Were they wrong? Obviously not, but it's not a situation most posters here have/had to deal with.

So, please respect the atmosphere different posters come from; but also if Paragon jump's of a bridge, don't follow them (unless you know what you're doing).

P.S. Judging from the guilds of the posters in the 5-page, only one poster's guild is even in "the chase". (That is, close to chasing Method, For the Horde, etc).

Inu · 01/25/11, 1:29 PM

After examining and interviewing quite a few higher end raiding priests there is a trend i find very common.

Priests reforging all mastery to haste, for content on farm.
Priests reforging all haste to mastery, for content being progressed.

Haste being better for when mana is less of an issue is the reasoning i believe for farm status usage.

However, as many have stated once 4.0.6 hits i can see the 12.5% haste rule being more lucrative to take advantage of.

Elerion · 01/25/11, 1:33 PM

Why would anyone go reforge their gear to do farm content, and subsequently reforge again for the progression content?

The nature of farm content is such that it doesn't require you to min/max. Are you saying "higher end raiding priests" are going out of their way to min/max their ability to snipe heals from other healers in trivial content?

Arrelliana · 01/25/11, 2:54 PM

Quality priests will reforge/reglyph/respec for individual encounters. I currently use 2 different disc specs and up to 3 holy specs for different content our guild is working on. I also try out some builds I see top guilds use to seet he caveats as well as tweak specs to fit MY playstyle. I even go back and check my parses and change specs to min/max beyond if I need to. I recently reforged out of mastery to haste since my mana pool could handle the switch. I am not 100% sold that the extra haste is so much better than mastery and as all of my theory indicates haste/mastery are very close. There is usually a difference between theory and application since encounters vary so much.

If I am oom or hitting mana concerns and the burst damage is managable I will usually go with mastery since this is a good buffer on raid damage. On 1 shot type mechanics mastery is useless if you need to top someone up quickly. So far each heroic fight we have completed and including the ones we are working on generally have some optimization that greatly reduces the complexity of the fight. The best min/max currently is to run priests and pallies.

TrlstanC · 01/25/11, 3:55 PM

Originally Posted by Arrelliana

Quality priests will reforge/reglyph/respec for individual encounters. I currently use 2 different disc specs and up to 3 holy specs for different content our guild is working on.

What 5 encounters are you working on now where you find it worthwhile to respec/reforge? Reglyphing I understand, there's a big impact on individual spells, and the time it takes is trivial, but it would be interesting to see what impact you're seeing by respeccing for each boss you're working on.

Originally Posted by Arrelliana

If I am oom or hitting mana concerns and the burst damage is managable I will usually go with mastery since this is a good buffer on raid damage. On 1 shot type mechanics mastery is useless if you need to top someone up quickly.

On one shot mechanics I don't think it matters how you've reforged

But generally I find that the balance of needing throughput vs efficiency is more determined by my current level of spirit than anything else, especially since both crit and mastery improve HPM and HPS. What encounters (and spec combinations?) have you found where reforging in to haste makes a noticable difference?

Arrelliana · 01/26/11, 1:28 AM

When I was referring to 1 shot mechanics I was referring to a mechanic like the iceblocks on maloriak hard mode that instantly take a person low and if not topped up quickly the next damage kills them.

I have used a AA/Holy Spec for Chimaeron/Valonia Heroic, 6/32/3 (my main build) for throughput and general service, a max survival build that takes either Blessed Resilience/Spellwarding for holy (Conclave of Wind & Omonotron). I have a specific build for Halfus Heroic to maximize survivability and atonement healing (although this is on farm currently). And I carry a general service Disc build with inspiration. I do like to tweak my specs and sometimes move a talent point here or there but generally I have not been using darkness or any of the "heal" based spell talents in disc. I do not currently see disc as effective outside of some very powerful applications of PW:Barrier and find holy much more suited tot he huge health pools and damage spikes. Holy has so much burst healing potential I love it. Disc has it's place and 1 disc priest is usually not a detriment to raid as the cd's are very well used.

But Omnotron, Magmaw, and Valonia heroic all are very different in healing style. Omonotron is very much burst..lull burst..huge aoe. Magmaw is just sustained ass damage the entire damn time, and Valonia is another burst burst burst..omg mobile run..burst burst..run burst. So Valonia provides a challenge that I look forward to the renew and CoH changes as they provide more mobile healing imo.

Havoc12 · 01/26/11, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by Arrelliana

When I was referring to 1 shot mechanics I was referring to a mechanic like the iceblocks on maloriak hard mode that instantly take a person low and if not topped up quickly the next damage kills them......

Strictly speaking Maloriak has no kill mechanics. Freeze does 50-70k dmg and you get another 50k when the ice breaks so you can just delay breaking the ice. There should be no other dmg flying around during blue vial. Perhaps its diff on hc.

So far on normal content I have not found a single encounter where I need more throughput. I always need more regen, but that is just my experience. So I stack just int, spirit and mastery. (4:3 int/spi).

I dont understand why you think mastery is useless for emergency heals. You typically have a 4-6s window to land heals and the end result is someone who is seriously injured so mastery ticks during the window and ticks after the window very useful for topping them up. Fractions of a second hardly make a difference, except when you must snipe heals from other healers or for tank healing, but having mastery buys you much more time than the time you save with haste IMO. Haste reduces HPM for every heal except renew, because you could replace that haste with mastery. So it had better have a pretty big advantage in HPS for stacking haste to matter, unless ofc mana is not an issue.

Perhaps in hc encounters throughput is an issue, but I am not convinced that haste is better than mastery for throughput. I will have to run the numbers.

=================================================================================
Warning: Lots of maths incoming

I wanted to have a look at spirit versus intellect regen as the values posted here seemed to not match up with my game experience. I made a series of formulas that work for me.

Spi = spirit value on character screen
Itl = intellect value on screen
$G_s$ = Spirit value on gear/consumables
$G_i$ = intellect value on gear/consumables
$F_r =$ fraction of spirit regen that is active in combat

"Int()" --> integer operator returns the integer portion of the number in the parenthesis
C = non spirit value of 1 G_i (shadowfiend, HoH, replenishment, mana pool)
k = 0.016725
T = fight time (seconds)

Overall regen (non combat) = $R_{oc} = 1030+\sqrt{Itl}*spirit*k + C*Itl/1.1$
Overall regen (combat) $R_{cbt} = 1030+\sqrt{Itl}*spirit*k*F_r + C*Itl/1.1$

Assuming 5% stat buff (kings/motw) and 5% int from mysticism -- note human priests must add 3% to spirit

value of $G_s = \sqrt{Itl}*int(G_s*1.05)k*F_r$

Value of $G_i = (\sqrt{(Int(Itl+1.1*G_i)} - \sqrt{Itl})*Spi*F_r + C*G_i$

Value of $G_s+G_i = [\sqrt{(Int(Itl+1.1*G_i)}*int(Spi+1.05*G_s) - \sqrt{Itl}*Spi]*F_r + C*G_i$

These formulas will give the exact value for regen of any consumable/gem/gear difference based on your current values of int from your character screen (these should include mysticism and motw/kings). Unfortunately fractional itl and spi values after application of all % buffs to the base values are ignored, which means its not possible to get a 100% accurate value for 1 point if int, spi. So will approximate it

value of 1 $G_s = \sqrt{Itl}*k*F_r*1.05$

value of 1 $G_i = (\sqrt{Itl+1.1} - \sqrt{Itl})*Spi*F_r + C$

As we have discussed before that means intellect has diminishing returns, while spirit value increases linearly

Therefore maintaining a spirit/intellect ratio is going to be optimal for regen

If the optimal ratio is R then

$R = \frac {\sqrt{Itl}*k*F_r*1.05} {\sqrt{Itl+1.1} - \sqrt{Itl})*Spi*F_r + C}$

$Spi = \frac {\sqrt{Itl}*k/R*F_r*1.05 - C}{\sqrt{Itl+1.1} - \sqrt{Itl})*F_r}$

Calculating C

1 G_i with buffs and 3% max mana metagem gives 16.8 mana

replenishment = 0.005*16.8 = 0.084 mp5
HoH = (0.02*16.8 + 0.02*3*16.8*1.15)*5*n/T*P, where n is the number of uses per fight and P the proportion which is not wasted
Thus: HoH = 7.476*n/T*P

Assuming you chain fiend and HoH then you get lose 3.5 sec before HoH ticks in so 2 attacks are without HoH (Haste does not really affect this because it reduces the 3.5 the same amount as the sfiend attacks).

sfiend = [0.06*16.8+0.03*1.15*16.8*(8+int(Haste%/10%) )]*5*n'/T*P', where n' is the number of uses per fight and P is the proportion of mana return that is not wasted.
Thus : sfiend = (28.224 + 0.5796*int(Haste/10))*n'/T*P'

sfiend = 28.224*n'/T*P' for <10% haste
sfiend = 31.122*n'/T*P' for 10%<haste<20%
sfiend = 34.02*n'/T*P' for haste >20%

C = 0.084 + 7.476*n/T*P + (28.224 + 0.5796*int(Haste/10))*n'/T*P' + 16.8*5/T

At 0% haste with 1 full use of HoH and fiend each C = 0.446727273 for T = 330s (5min 30 sec) (I personally use 2x fiends in most cases)

Mana tide boosts spirit regen but I am not taking it into account here since its not always available. Its a straight % factor added to spirit value so its v easy to add to the formulas.

Here are a few tables.
Gs value at Itl between 4k and 6k

Gs value	Intellect
0.999603874	4000
1.01202179	4100
1.024289168	4200
1.036411356	4300
1.048393388	4400
1.060240017	4500
1.071955732	4600
1.083544779	4700
1.095011181	4800
1.10635875	4900
1.117591107	5000
1.12871169	5100
1.139723772	5200
1.150630468	5300
1.161434747	5400
1.172139441	5500
1.182747254	5600
1.19326077	5700
1.203682459	5800
1.214014687	5900
1.224259718	6000

1Gi value at spi between 2k and 4k and at different Itl values

4k int	5k int	5.5k int	Spirit
0.697241656	0.680876341	0.669980766	2000
0.709767376	0.692583795	0.681143441	2100
0.722293095	0.704291248	0.692306115	2200
0.734818814	0.715998702	0.70346879	2300
0.747344533	0.727706155	0.714631465	2400
0.759870252	0.739413609	0.725794139	2500
0.772395971	0.751121062	0.736956814	2600
0.784921691	0.762828515	0.748119489	2700
0.79744741	0.774535969	0.759282163	2800
0.809973129	0.786243422	0.770444838	2900
0.822498848	0.797950876	0.781607513	3000
0.835024567	0.809658329	0.792770187	3100
0.847550287	0.821365783	0.803932862	3200
0.860076006	0.833073236	0.815095537	3300
0.872601725	0.844780689	0.826258211	3400
0.885127444	0.856488143	0.837420886	3500
0.897653163	0.868195596	0.848583561	3600
0.910178882	0.87990305	0.859746235	3700
0.922704602	0.891610503	0.87090891	3800
0.935230321	0.903317957	0.882071585	3900
0.94775604	0.91502541	0.893234259	4000

Arrelliana · 01/26/11, 5:39 PM

On flash freeze, yes you can delay breaking the block till the person is topped up, in this case though speed is > efficiency. Take another example, if an arcane storm is missed and not interrupted..in that case if you don't top everyone up over 80-90k then flash freeze 1 shots the person. 1 shot mechanics was probably a misnomer to use as a term. I should say massive damage spike that if not healed..the next incoming damage will kill the person.

I dont understand why you think mastery is useless for emergency heals.

Please take my comment in context. On maloriak hard mode you have 3-4 seconds to top the person over 10k. If you are the only healer assigned to 5 people and 3 people including yourself take damage you have 2 options. POH or flash heal and binding heal. If 2 people take damage it is very efficient to merely flash heal the players. In that situation, haste > mastery as mastery doesn't have time to effectively tick to assist the "emergency" that is being healed. On Heroic Conclave of wind, east platform, if the shield ticks drop dps dangerously low and they take a slicing gail hit..it is usually a death. In those situations, a fast heal to target that person in that 1 second may be outweighed vs. mastery hot.

I personally love mastery and go back and forth on how I want to reforge. I think it is great that it is a straight increase to our throughput at no mana cost.

Haste reduces HPM for every heal except renew, because you could replace that haste with mastery.

This is a little bit of a misleading statement. Mastery increases the HPM of a spell but haste does not affect the heal per mana of a spell at all. If I reforge to spirit it could be said that I am reducing my hpm vs. taking mastery. I do not think this is a good way to phrase what you are trying to say.

It would be more accurate to characterize haste as the ability to increase your HPS by converting your resource pool (mana) into heals at a faster rate. Mastery increases your HPS and Efficiency with no direct effect on your mana pool.