Cataclysm Holy Priest Compendium - Page 5

Feralminded · 12/17/10, 2:56 PM

Originally Posted by tedv

Cut Desperate Prayer and Spirit of Redemption to max out Surge of Light and Body and Soul.

Why? Desperate prayer has served me well, primarily the free to cast, instant portion of it. I do consider it optional, but it's an option I like.

SoR, on the other hand, has won me plenty of heroics so far (moreso before the recent buff). I believe I get 21 seconds of free healing with it, and I have intentionally suicided and then be Battlerezzed and again suicided to keep a group up through rough patches for extended periods of time. Again that was more before the recent buff but it was a fairly OP tactic when major throughput was necessary. I also used it effectively last night when we barely snuck by Halfus. Not all fights go according to plan and this is a good talent to deal with that.

Body and soul is a neat talent, but I've found 1 point enough for it to be workable in the situations I need it (think: 2nd boss in Heroic Vortex Pinnacle). That said it by no means is an overwhelming talent that I consider "must-have". And Surge of Light is obviously not the end-all be-all for all of the reasons stated so far. When single target healing (meaning I'm using Serenity) I find little time to mess around with "Heal", and instead am working mostly with Greater Heals and Holy words. I will usually try and find time to keep a renew rolling with a heal on the tanks but I don't always have that kind of time. Even in five mans "Heal" is something I don't always have the luxury of casting depending on the boss. On trash sure, but I don't talent for trash.

In the end I think any combination of four talents put into Surge of Light, Body and Soul, Desperate Prayer, and Spirit of Redemption to be workable based on individual needs. Of the 4 the only one I would lean towards more strongly would be 2 Body and Soul if there turns out to be several fights where it a major advantage to have the speed boost on tap but I just haven't seen them yet. The one I lean toward the least is Surge of Light since as I said before, Heal just isn't a spell I find myself with the luxury of casting often. If it could proc off of greater heal I would be more strongly inclined to go after this talent ... honestly thus far greater heal is my go-to spell for healing people.

emeey · 12/17/10, 3:10 PM

Originally Posted by Feralminded

I'm also very curious if anyone has found much use for Sanctuary yet ... so far the spell is a bust to me.

If you mean Holy Word: Sanctuary, there are plenty of uses for it. Basically, any time people are grouped up and there has been or you are expecting raid damage (Magmaw after moving from a pillar, Maloriak while you're grouped and after arcane storm, etc). If you mean the Chakra state of Sanctuary, it's pretty much the best thing ever for AOE healing and I hope you are keeping it up (it increases your AOE heals and renew by 15% and lowers the CD of CoH by 2 seconds just incase you missed it).

Feralminded · 12/17/10, 3:28 PM

Originally Posted by emeey

If you mean Holy Word: Sanctuary, there are plenty of uses for it. Basically, any time people are grouped up and there has been or you are expecting raid damage (Magmaw after moving from a pillar, Maloriak while you're grouped and after arcane storm, etc). If you mean the Chakra state of Sanctuary, it's pretty much the best thing ever for AOE healing and I hope you are keeping it up (it increases your AOE heals and renew by 15% and lowers the CD of CoH by 2 seconds just incase you missed it).

I was speaking of the holyword. I spent about 75% of my time last night in that state (only time I went to serenity was during Omnitron when Magma was inactive). The holyword itself seemed like it *might* be useful on Magmaw but when I went back and checked the parses it's HPM was pretty terrible in the end. Perhaps it's just me *wanting* it to be better than it is but I just couldn't afford the mana. I had significantly better success sticking to Prayer of Healing/Mending, Circle while running, and splashing renews when anyone got out of line such that the AoE heals weren't going to do them much good (Sanctuary-state renews are pretty damned efficient). Perhaps if I get better with the encounters I'll find the use for it.

emeey · 12/17/10, 3:38 PM

Originally Posted by Feralminded

I was speaking of the holyword. I spent about 75% of my time last night in that state (only time I went to serenity was during Omnitron when Magma was inactive). The holyword itself seemed like it *might* be useful on Magmaw but when I went back and checked the parses it's HPM was pretty terrible in the end. Perhaps it's just me *wanting* it to be better than it is but I just couldn't afford the mana. I had significantly better success sticking to Prayer of Healing/Mending, Circle while running, and splashing renews when anyone got out of line such that the AoE heals weren't going to do them much good (Sanctuary-state renews are pretty damned efficient). Perhaps if I get better with the encounters I'll find the use for it.

No, I agree that it seems fairly lackluster. I too felt I was better off using other spells, I was just giving examples of how it would be useful. As far as HPM for it, I hadn't checked it out in depth, but I'm thinking now I should. When I did check the logs, I felt it did very little healing in comparison to other spells, considering I felt I used it very effectively. It just seems to be too mana-costly and not enough healing to cast very often. Am I doing it wrong, or do others agree with that?

Carnathagia · 12/17/10, 3:52 PM

I updated my copy of the spreadsheet for Holy Concentration and ran the numbers for the PoH rotation. I made sure to normalize the divisors, so the 2 columns should be comparable now.

Stat Weightings	Burst	Sustained
Intellect	1.36	5.76
Spirit		7.27
Spell Power	1.18	1.18
Critical	0.45	0.45
Haste	0.97
Mastery	1.05	1.06

On that note, I've had similar experience to some posters here: With proper spell selection, cooldown usage, and low overhealing, I haven't been able to run out of mana in 10 man normal modes. Atramedes(?) especially, with his rather long air phase of low damage, would put me back to a full mana bar even with very liberal Prayer of Healing during his ground phase. The only time I came close to OOM was at the end of Ascendant Council, chain spamming PoH during Heroism. I'm inclined to think they over did it a little, but this may be a way for us to drop some Spirit and pick up Haste for Heroic modes. I haven't seen any yet, but I'm going to assume the healing is a little faster because of this change.

Also, Body and Soul has been a great talent so far. With Shield spamming gone, and Holy healing talents benefiting Power Word: Shield, I have found a use for it on many fights. For example: players targeted by slimes and tanks moving into green clouds on Omnitron, the player chased by flame on Atramedes, pretty much the entire Ascendant Council fight, Engulfing Magic on Twin Dragons, Wind Blast on Council of Winds, etc., etc. Movement speed is a huge part of this tier of raiding, and I would encourage everyone to pick it up and learn to use it.

If you want to update your copy of the spreadsheet, change cell C35 on the formula page from

=OOC_Spirit_Regen*(Meditation*0.01+Holy_Concentration*0.1)

to

=OOC_Spirit_Regen*(Meditation*0.01+Holy_Concentration*0.2)

and change C79 on the formula page from

=IF(Rapture>0,Casting_Mana*(Rapture*0.5+1)*0.01,0)

to

=IF(Rapture>0,Casting_Mana*(Rapture*2)*0.01,0)

JosiahDMF · 12/18/10, 6:15 AM

Firsty, thank you for continuing to produce these guides, they truley are invaluable. I've been looking at the 2 weapon enchants you mention, Heartsong an Power Torrent. I'm finding that Power Torrent actually returns more mana. For the formulae I assumed that Int = 4,000, and Spirit = 2000 (granted most will have more than that now). I also made each spell proc every 45 seconds over a 6 minute fight. I intentionally use the formulae for standard regen given that combat regen will vary from class to class.

I found that Heartsong, giving 200 Spirit for 15 seconds, returns 635 mana over the 15 seconds, totalling 5,080 over the whole fight, approx 71 MP5. Power Torrent gives 500 Int for 12 secs. The 500 Int will give 480 Spellpower, 7,275 extra mana, and 0.77% Crit, for the 12 secs. In terms of regen, the 12 secs will return 1,795 mana, totalling 14,360 for the whole fight, approx 199 MP5.

These don't appear to have an internal cooldown. If we take each as an individual regen over 5 secs Power Torrent still wins with a 748mp5 to Heartsong's 212mp5 return for the buff duration.

I'm finding the same with Int food vs Spirit Food and flasks. Int is returning more mana. This isn't to say that you can ignore spirit, but the amount from your gear and gemming should be enough. As the guide pointed out it helps with your Shadowfeind too.

(first ever post so I am poised to be ripped apart

)

wwraver · 12/18/10, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by JosiahDMF

Firsty, thank you for continuing to produce these guides, they truley are invaluable. I've been looking at the 2 weapon enchants you mention, Heartsong an Power Torrent. I'm finding that Power Torrent actually returns more mana. For the formulae I assumed that Int = 4,000, and Spirit = 2000 (granted most will have more than that now). I also made each spell proc every 45 seconds over a 6 minute fight. I intentionally use the formulae for standard regen given that combat regen will vary from class to class.

I found that Heartsong, giving 200 Spirit for 15 seconds, returns 635 mana over the 15 seconds, totalling 5,080 over the whole fight, approx 71 MP5. Power Torrent gives 500 Int for 12 secs. The 500 Int will give 480 Spellpower, 7,275 extra mana, and 0.77% Crit, for the 12 secs. In terms of regen, the 12 secs will return 1,795 mana, totalling 14,360 for the whole fight, approx 199 MP5.

These don't appear to have an internal cooldown. If we take each as an individual regen over 5 secs Power Torrent still wins with a 748mp5 to Heartsong's 212mp5 return for the buff duration.

I'm finding the same with Int food vs Spirit Food and flasks. Int is returning more mana. This isn't to say that you can ignore spirit, but the amount from your gear and gemming should be enough. As the guide pointed out it helps with your Shadowfeind too.

(first ever post so I am poised to be ripped apart

)

Doesn't Power Torrent give flat Spell Power now? It did when I looked at the recipe at the shard trader yesterday.

JosiahDMF · 12/18/10, 3:06 PM

Originally Posted by wwraver

Doesn't Power Torrent give flat Spell Power now? It did when I looked at the recipe at the shard trader yesterday.

It does indeed say that:

Formula: Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent - Item - World of Warcraft

However, when you learn the formula the spell then reads:

Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent - Spell - World of Warcraft

Also, the buff:

Power Torrent - Spell - World of Warcraft

Mazlowe · 12/18/10, 3:36 PM

It seems a wise decision to drop Mental Agility for Twin Disciples in this build.

In a standard rotation we do not have as many instant casts that will benefit from a 10% mana reduction. However, all of our spells will benefit from a 6% increased healing power.

steveneaster · 12/19/10, 12:18 AM

I've been crunching numbers and working on the linked spreadsheet. My priest is semi-heroic geared and I've been using actual values along with my observations from healing heroics.

-I see people here saying they use shield (as holy) regularly, but I can't understand why. on the spreadsheet, its regarded as less efficient than a flash heal. Which seems logical. I could see its value in pre-fight or in a movement situation but other wise it seems fairly pointless otherwise
-I've been experimenting with chakra's and i agree that HW:Serenity is great, but I'm confused about HW: Sanctuary. Like the above posters, I look at the numbers and see that it is easily our worse AOE ability, HPM wise. Its only strength is that its short cast time gives it a higher HPCT but for a 30 sec cooldown ability that can only be used in a specific chakra ... I would expect a little more. I don't see a use for this except when the AoE damage is heavy enough that you cannot keep up with it with PoH spam.
-On that note, I was surprised to also see how lackluster CoH has become. For my gear level it is beneath PoH in both HPCT and HPM, which means I should only use it if I need to aoe heal but don't have time to cast, but honestly the meager amount it heals for is not going to mean much of anything. I doubt that extra 6K of healing is going to make the difference 99% of the time.

. PoM seems good, and worth using, but our other two main aoe abilities are too inefficient to use except for highly specific scenarios. It looks the best thing to do is just case Prayer of Healing over and over again while using PoM on cooldown for optimal HPS and HPM. Are others noting the same thing?

Kaos · 12/19/10, 6:24 AM

Originally Posted by JosiahDMF

Firsty, thank you for continuing to produce these guides, they truley are invaluable. I've been looking at the 2 weapon enchants you mention, Heartsong an Power Torrent. I'm finding that Power Torrent actually returns more mana. For the formulae I assumed that Int = 4,000, and Spirit = 2000 (granted most will have more than that now). I also made each spell proc every 45 seconds over a 6 minute fight. I intentionally use the formulae for standard regen given that combat regen will vary from class to class.

I found that Heartsong, giving 200 Spirit for 15 seconds, returns 635 mana over the 15 seconds, totalling 5,080 over the whole fight, approx 71 MP5. Power Torrent gives 500 Int for 12 secs. The 500 Int will give 480 Spellpower, 7,275 extra mana, and 0.77% Crit, for the 12 secs. In terms of regen, the 12 secs will return 1,795 mana, totalling 14,360 for the whole fight, approx 199 MP5.

These don't appear to have an internal cooldown. If we take each as an individual regen over 5 secs Power Torrent still wins with a 748mp5 to Heartsong's 212mp5 return for the buff duration.

I'm finding the same with Int food vs Spirit Food and flasks. Int is returning more mana. This isn't to say that you can ignore spirit, but the amount from your gear and gemming should be enough. As the guide pointed out it helps with your Shadowfeind too.

(first ever post so I am poised to be ripped apart

)

Heartsong only has a 20 second ICD, and the intellect from Power Torrent does not give you extra mana (aside from the increased regen during the period).

Sinndir · 12/19/10, 2:56 PM

Originally Posted by kcomfort001

As a holy priest I feel these two talent points could be spent better.

Surge of light technically happens once every 17 heals, or smite, I rarely smite in holy like I would in discipline.. last night I sat at the priest trainer and casted 60 consecutive heals on myself to see how much this actually procs at 60 heals and two procs I felt it wasn't worth the two points, its just such a low probability of going off I can't justify taking the two points.

Again i'm sure people could stand around and cast 60 heals and have it proc more, but by the time we're geared up for raids I think mana will be less of an issue and the insta mana free flash heal won't even be something you're thinking about.

60 heals is a very small sample to get data from, as your next 60 heals could have phenomenal results. Before considering to keep or drop it I'd suggest parsing a night of raids and seeing how many proc in total and during boss fights.

For me, surge of light isn't about the free flash heal. I have surge of light soley for the free serendipity stack. I find myself using binding heal as much as I can and any excess SoL procs just go to increasing the throughput of my GHs and PoHs.

Instant cast Holy Word serenity followed by a 1 or 2 stacked serendipity GH can pump out some excellent HPS with great efficiency.

Gems are something I've been pondering for a few days. Int, Spirit, haste, crit amd mastery (in no particular order) are our possibilities. One thing with gemming (and enchanting) is it gives us a chance to get extra intellect that we can gain in no other way but higher ilvl gear. You can always reforge for more or less of the others, and for that fact alone I think we should always be gemming int.

Reds - Int
Blue - Spirit & Int
Yellow - Haste & Int (up to the renew bonus tick), then Mastery & Int

I cannot see a reason to want to gem crit at all. What do you think of how gemming should be now that we're 2 weeks into cata and have hit the min maxxing stage in character development?

Sokaris84 · 12/19/10, 7:38 PM

Originally Posted by Sinndir

Gems are something I've been pondering for a few days. Int, Spirit, haste, crit amd mastery (in no particular order) are our possibilities. One thing with gemming (and enchanting) is it gives us a chance to get extra intellect that we can gain in no other way but higher ilvl gear. You can always reforge for more or less of the others, and for that fact alone I think we should always be gemming int.

Reds - Int
Blue - Spirit & Int
Yellow - Haste & Int (up to the renew bonus tick), then Mastery & Int

I cannot see a reason to want to gem crit at all. What do you think of how gemming should be now that we're 2 weeks into cata and have hit the min maxxing stage in character development?

Likewise and I've come to pretty much the same conclusion, although I've gemmed my blue slots for 40 spirit mainly because I had some lying around. Did you mean to say crit in your last sentence? I don't see anyone mentioning gemming for crit, and can't see any logical reason to do so!

One thing that's got me in a real toss up is the boot enchant, haste or mastery? I'm guessing haste would be the way to go if I'm not at the cap.

Something doesn't seem right in the values that JosiahDMF has come up with for the two weapon enchants. I came up with very differing amounts of regen, anyone else? I'll do the numbers again later when I'm not so tired..

Edit: Can anyone actually confirm for me whether or not Power Torrent increases your max mana for it's duration or not? A lot of conflicting information out there

Mazlowe · 12/19/10, 10:00 PM

Originally Posted by steveneaster

PoM seems good, and worth using, but our other two main aoe abilities are too inefficient to use except for highly specific scenarios. It looks the best thing to do is just case Prayer of Healing over and over again while using PoM on cooldown for optimal HPS and HPM. Are others noting the same thing?

I feel the same way. CoH feels so useless in every situation. I have yet to feel like I should use it over PoH.

Richelieu · 12/20/10, 1:48 AM

Originally Posted by Carnathagia

I updated my copy of the spreadsheet for Holy Concentration and ran the numbers for the PoH rotation. I made sure to normalize the divisors, so the 2 columns should be comparable now.

Stat Weightings	Burst	Sustained
Intellect	1.36	5.76
Spirit		7.27
Spell Power	1.18	1.18
Critical	0.45	0.45
Haste	0.97
Mastery	1.05	1.06

This might seem to change the advice in post #1, which currently says:

"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. Get enough Haste to have 12.5% raid buffed, more if you need the increased reaction time.
4. Stack Mastery.
5. Avoid Crit, which has the worst conversion factors, and is devalued further by our talents to
increase it."

Now it should perhaps instead say:

"1. Get as much Spirit as you can through higher item level gear, reforging and gemming until you are comfortable with your in-combat regen.
2. Gem/enchant Intellect
3. Get enough Haste to have 12.5% raid buffed, more if you need the increased reaction time.
4. Reforge Haste and Crit to to Mastery.
5. Avoid Crit, which has the worst conversion factors, and is devalued further by our talents to
increase it."