• constantius

I have no plans to update this guide for 3.0. It's going to last 4 weeks, during which no-one cares. I will, however, be writing an entirely new guide based on the 3.0 mechanics for level 80, which should go up sometime around the time I start raiding at level 80 (so figure November 20th, +/- 3 days). If you have suggestions, toss them over to me. I'll be pulling a lot of info from the WotLK discussion thread, although the constant circles we went in over the course of that thread will, of course, be omitted. :p

Holy Priests and Raiding

Last updated (some stuff added, things moved around, new headers put in) July 21, 2008.

This is an attempt to condense all of the 'wisdom' shared in the previous compendium thread (See: [Priest] Holy Raiding Compendium (2.3.x)) and its predecessor (See: Holy Priest Theorycrafting) as well as other random scattered posts and threads on these forums. If you think there is something that should be added to the primary posts, send me a PM and I'll be happy to edit it in. Note that you can send PMs by left-clicking my name on the left box of this thread, above my Avatar.

Random Terms Used
OO5SR : Outside Of 5 Second Rule
I5SR : Inside 5 Second Rule
PoM : Prayer of Mending
PoH : Prayer of Healing
CoH : Circle of Healing
RSTS: Random Secondary Targetting System
HSE: Healing Spells & Effects (Blizzard notation for 'stuff that heals you')


 

Contents

1 Spec 2 Gearing Questions 3 Priest Regeneration (Math!) 4 Downranking and Spell Coefficients 5 Raiding as a Healing Priest 6 Consumables 7 Useful Addons and User Layout

[top] Spec

Q: What spec should I be as a holy priest?
A. If you are raiding T4, T5, or T6-pre-Sunwell content, and have (assumption) at least 2 resto shamans and 2 holy priests in the raid, the first priest should be 23/38/0 with 2/2 Improved Divine Spirit. The other priests should be deep Holy to pick up Circle of Healing, with points spent as you see fit. See further questions below for some indication as to where your points should be spent. This argument completely changes when you reach Sunwell, as CoH is decidedly overpowered for Felmyst, Twin Eredars, and (partially) Kil'Jaeden. In those situations, typically all priests spec CoH to bring the AE healing power to the raid.

Q: Is CoH worth it?
A: Depends on your level of content. If you're in T4 content, short answer is no. If you're in SSC/TK, it is situationally powerful. If you're in BT/HS, yes. Absolutely. Additionally, if you are going deep Holy (for 5/5 Emp Healing), you might as well take CoH, as the only other thing you can get is regular Divine Spirit, which someone else in your raid should already have. If you are going into Sunwell, the entire instance appears to have been designed to showcase CoH, so exploit early, exploit often.

Q: Is Lightwell worth a talent point?
A: Not really. Take it if you want; you won't lose anything extremely important. Looking forward toward WotLK, it appears as if Lightwell may get enough of a buff to make it worth taking. Stay tuned.

Q: Should I take SoR?
A: Yes. Full stop. The 5% spirit is worth it if nothing else.

Q: Should I take inspiration?
A: Yes. There's nothing else worth taking that is raid-centric at the 3rd tier of our holy tree, and it's amazing for tank healing. If you choose not to take it, you should always attempt to *not* heal tanks, since you will be gimped compared to any other holy priest or resto shaman who *does* have the talent. See below (Link) in the Interesting Math Stuff section.

Q: How good is Holy Concentration?
A: It's very good. The 6% proc rate means it goes off at least once a minute, which helps immeasureably in getting those oh-so-sexy OO5SR ticks that make priests so powerful. If you happen to get back-to-back procs, you can get some amazing regen time while sustaining very solid HpS.

Q: Holy Reach - yes/no?
A: If you are going for a CoH build, taking Healing Reach actually gives you a 35 yard diameter CoH, which is useful. For Sunwell, this is a must talent; find room to take it.

Q: Healing Prayers vs Mental Agility?
A: Mental Agility affects Renew, PW:S, PoM, and CoH; Healing Prayers affects PoM and PoH which, if you use PoH at all, is a net win. Some people argue for the 4% toward CoH versus 20% toward PoH and 16% toward PoM -- it really depends which one you use more. Basically, get some WWS logs, and find out how many of each spell you cast in a typical Black Temple (insert instance here) clear. Then compute how much you would have saved from each talent, and find your highest efficiency combination. Then spec that.

If you're spamming CoH, then take 5/5 MA. If you're using PoH occasionally, take 2/2 HP, because the amount of mana per cast it saves more than makes up for the 18 mana differential saved on each CoH from the 2nd point in MA. You'd have to cast 14 CoHs for every PoH to save more mana from taking the last 1/5 point in MA over 2/2 HP. Note that this is completely ignoring the 12% gain to efficiency in PoM you gain from going 4/5, 2/2. I find I use PoM a lot over a given raid, and I typically spec 4/5 MA, 2/2 HP.

Q: Can you give me some typical builds (a la WoW:Priest Forums).
A: 20/41/0 : Build with Silent Resolve; recommended for learning attempts
20/41/0 : Build without Silent Resolve; highest HpS build possible with heavy concentration in CoH
23/38/0 : Build with Silent Resolve; IDS / learning attempts
23/38/0 : Build without Silente Resolve; IDS and heavier concentration in single-target healing

Comments on the above: Silent Resolve is a useful talent, but it isn't critical once you are experienced with the encounters you are facing. If you are working on Black Temple, once you are finished with Illidan and on farm-mode, consider dropping points out of Silent Resolve to pick up other interesting things. Improved PW:S, while not an amazing talent, still provides much more return for your talent points if you are not using the threat reduction part of Silent Resolve. Similarly any points you can fit into Absolution will always be useful. If you are going IDS there is absolutely no reason to pick up Holy Reach, so put those points into Holy Concentration to push your critical rate higher. You will be healing tanks anyway (single-target), so you might as well have the highest possible HpS while doing it.

[top] Gearing Questions

In Patch 2.3.0 Meditation was changed from 15% to 30%. In Patch 2.4.0 there was an entirely new regeneration model implemented which made Spirit much much more powerful than Mp5. In fact, the change was so extensive that there are almost no situations where a priest should choose Mp5 over Spirit.

When you are looking at a piece of gear, and asking yourself if it is an upgrade, there a number of questions you need to ask. Firstly, how would you gem the piece? Always compare pieces to each other fully gemmed (with or without socket bonuses depending on your gemming choices). If you are unsure about how to gem, try two or three or four different combinations, and see which one seems to give the best result.

Gear Benchmarks
Q: What level of gear should I be at for <insert progression level here>?
A: To run Karazhan: 1400 +heal, 180 Mp5 *or* 400 spirit. Easily obtained through crafted pieces.
At the end of Karazhan: 1600 +heal, 275 Mp5
At the end of T4 content: 1700 +heal, 325 Mp5
At the end of T5 content: 2000 +heal, 380 Mp5.
At the end of T6 content (BT/HS): 2400 +heal, 430 Mp5 (all Mp5 numbers are I5SR)

The question is often asked "How much haste do I need to do Sunwell?" There is no right answer to this question. Some people (myself included) entered Sunwell with 0 Spell Haste, picked up a little along the way, and only really began stacking it once Sunwell pieces were obtained. Other people walked into Sunwell with 250 Spell haste already, and only scaled it higher. See below for some discussion on the mathematics behind Spell haste, and how it effects HpS concerns for Greater Heal and CoH.

Also, see below (next subsection) for a discussion of Gemming, and how it impacts your decisions for gear.

Gearing as a priest in Black Temple / Hyjal Summit
I'm going to assume that our typical raiding priest is grinding out Black Temple. You might not have killed Illidan yet, but you're into T6 content. If you are not, and are happily chugging along in Karazhan or SSC/TK, similar things apply, but with different examples chosen.

If you are on your way to Illidan, things you should have equipped from previous instances include:
[Earring of Soulful Meditation] (Lurker Below, SSC)
[Sunshower Light Cloak] (Kael'Thas Sunstrider, TK)
[Gown of Spiritual Wonder] (Badge of Justice) or [Vestments of the Avatar] (Kael'Thas Sunstrider, TK)
[Brooch of Nature's Mercy] (Akil'zon, Zul'Aman)
[Coral Band of the Revived] (Vashj, SSC)
[Adorned Supernal Legwraps] (Badge of Justice) [note: Best in Slot until Sunwell ... buy these]

Basically, look for items with sockets, high spirit and intellect, large amounts of healing, and possibly spell haste. Do not wear items with Mp5 and no spirit -- these are decidedly inferior in every way to the spirit alternatives. Learn how to compute the regeneration from spirit, and compare items intelligently.

Example: [Gown of Spiritual Wonder] with a [Teardrop Crimson Spinel] equipped. You should know what your raid-buffed intellect is +/- 10. Know this number. Memorize it. I use the number 660.
Create a small table, something like:
So effectively, you can think of (if you wish) [Gown of Spiritual Wonder] as a robe with 155 Healing and 22 Mp5. That is effectively what you gain from the item, raid-buffed (Blessing of Kings, Spirit of Redemption). Make sure you include gems in any other robe you are comparing it to.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the only way to really make intelligent gear choices is to understand the mathematics behind gear scaling, and do the computations yourself. Be aware of how SoR, BoK, IDS and Spiritual Guidance all play factors in the scaling. Practice the comparison on a few items to make sure you know how it works.


Gemming
Q: What rare gems do priests use?
A: [Royal Nightseye].
[Luminous Noble Topaz]
[Teardrop Living Ruby]
(note: do not use [Dazzling Talasite] -- it's a horrible gem)
[Purified Shadow Pearl] replaces [Royal Nightseye] for those who like a little spirit in their life, since 4 spirit ~ 2 Mp5 I5SR

Q: What epic gems do priests use?
A: [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire]
[Purified Shadowsong Amethyst]
[Luminous Pyrestone]
[Teardrop Crimson Spinel]
[Quick Lionseye]

The power of the spirit gem has to be seen to be believed. Effectively, you lose some +heal to equip them, but gain a *lot* of regeneration, which allows you to mix up your gear a little and wear some healing-heavy, regeneration-light items to balance it out. I prefer running over 700 spirit raid-buffed, as I feel it provides the best bang for my buck.

Metagems
[Insightful Earthstorm Diamond]: the most useful, and easiest to equip, metagem. The proc goes off quite often, and typically restores 4000+ mana over a 10 minute fight. Very useful, and the intellect also helps.
[Bracing Earthstorm Diamond]: useful metagem, but somewhat difficult to get activated. The 26 healing S&E is largely useless compared to 2500 +heal, whereas the mana return from IED above is still useful in end-game.
[Mystical Skyfire Diamond]: easy to equip, but only really useful if you are spamming on a single target. The haste proc is powerful, and can be a significant part of your play style if you mess around with it and learn how to use it.

[top] Priest Regeneration (Math!)

2.4 made a dramatic sweeping overhaul to the regeneration model. Previously, mana was computed as a regen per 'tick' (2 second interval), and depended upon your total spirit with a static scaling constant. In 2.4, the formula has been changed to be:
(quite seriously; this is the formula. If you really don't like math, you still need to figure out a way to compute the square root of your Intellect and perform this calculation to determine how much regen you gain from spirit)

This makes Spirit incredibly more valuable as a stat for priests, and also makes intellect marginally useful, instead of merely giving us a mana pool to play with. It also approximately doubled our OO5SR regen (I personally went from 660 Mp5 OO5SR to over 1100 Mp5 OO5SR, a *slight* change).

Example: JoePriest has (fully raid-buffed) 500 spirit and 135 Mp5 from gearing, as well as 500 intellect. His regeneration will be:
Note that any Mp5 gained from gear is not effected by the Meditation talent (30%), but simply applies statically to both Inside and Outside regen.

Q: How do I take advantage of OO5SR regen?
A: This is basically an experience thing, but take the talents Inner Focus and Holy Concentration, and start using /stopcasting macros (more info on the UI forum). Stop your casts anytime the tank does not need your heal, and start another one. Timed properly, this can get you full 5 second ticks OO5SR, which is worth a lot of regen.

Using a Holy concentration proc chained into an Inner Focus together with /stopcasting can easily give 15-20 seconds Oo5SR, while still landing two max-rank GH:7 heals. The third heal will terminate the II5SR time, but actually gives one final tick at full regen because of cast time.

Cheating the 5 Second Rule
Priest regen is all about cheating the 5 second rule. Blizzard's 5 second rule is currently set so that upon completion of a spell which *costs mana* (the critical factor), you enter a 5 second period (I5SR) where you regenerate mana at a reduced rate. This rate is dependent on your talent choices (Meditation = 30% regen I5SR) and upon your gear choices (3-piece Primal Mooncloth = 5% regen I5SR).

Given that priests gain so much regeneration from spirit, the typical difference between a regen tick I5SR and OO5SR is approximately 2x. It can range from 2x on the low-end (Mp5-heavy gear) to 3x on the high-end (spirit-heavy gear). In any case, a tick OO5SR is worth a minimum of 2x I5SR. My current gearing gives me 2.56x as much regeneration from an OO5SR tick as an I5SR tick, raid-buffed (since so many raid buffs are static Mp5).

So how do we cheat the rule?

Firstly, Inner Focus is a guaranteed way to exit the 5SR, since it makes your next cast "free" of mana, and hence does not trigger the rule. Typical sequence is something like:

• top up your tank target
• wait 2 seconds
• hit Inner Focus
• start /stopcasting GH:7 until heal is actually needed
• start a new heal -- when it lands, you re-enter the 5SR

If the tank is not getting owned, and if you are not the solo healer on that tank, you should be able to get 7-10 seconds OO5SR before the 2nd heal lands.

You can do exactly the same thing with Clearcasting, although it's a little harder to lead up to it, as Clearcasting is a random chance proc.

There are two trinkets in the game which can aid in this method of play. The first is [Bangle of Endless Blessings], an annoying drop from Botanica (I say annoying because in 18 runs, it refused to drop for me, so I hate it). The second is a drop from Lurker Below in SSC, [Earring of Soulful Meditation]. Both have a 2-minute cooldown Use-Effect which increases your spirit by an amount for 15 seconds.

Thus, if your Inner Focus happens to be up at the same time as your trinkets, and you get a Clearcasting Proc, your sequence should be something like:

• wait 2 seconds (to get close to the end of your current 5 seconds)
• hit your trinket Use Effect
• start casting GH:7, use /stopcasting, land it before the Clearcasting Proc falls off
• hit Inner Focus
• repeat GH:7 /stopcasting
• start a mana-costing heal, enter the 5SR as it lands

You can easily get a full 15 seconds of trinketed regen by doing this, which results in approximately (with Earring and 500 spirit raid buffed) 3000 mana. This varies depending on how much Mp5 and spirit you have, but it's worth a minimum of the amount of mana in a Super Mana potion, and sometimes more (current numbers for high-end spirit gear exceed 3500 mana).

Additionally, if you use ItemRack as an addon, you can use a Script to switch in spirit-based weapons while you do this for a little more oomph. This can also be done manually with a bit more work.

Taking Advantage of Shadowfiend:
If you've played priest for long, you've learned to hate our stupid mana regen pets. They're slow, they randomly attack the stupidest things, and they generally return a variable amount of mana that is undependable. Despite this, they're the only game in town, so we're stuck with them.

First thing to realize is that your shadowfiend's attacks are most definitely modified by AC. Accordingly, if you have the option, tell it to attack something that has 5/5 Sunder Armor, Faerie Fire, and CoReck up. Bosses are good for this. Additionally, either macro in the "attack current target" command into your Shadowfiend use, or learn what it is keybound to. Spamming "attack you stupid beastie" can often be the difference between two extra ticks at the start, and none as your shadowfiend wanders off to attack the sheep on the other side of the instance (exaggeration, but still ... stupid thing).

Finally, if you are using your shadowfiend in an environment which has constant AE damage (example: Felmyst), you may want to macro in a /target Shadowfiend, /cast Power Word: Shield, as the shield, while costing mana, can often save the life of your Shadowfiend and restore 2-3 more ticks of mana to you.

[top] Downranking and Spell Coefficients

Q: Is downranking spells still viable?
A: Of course. The changes to downranking made in TBC only removed our capacity for using Lesser Heal as a downranked spell, and penalized GH:1 a bit so that it wasn't completely overpowered. Given how much healing tanks need now, downranking to anything below GH:1 would be silly anyway.

Q: What spells are typically downranked?
A: Greater Heal 1 or Greater Heal 2 are easily spammable for a priest in T5 content, and GH:1 is still within reach for a priest in T4 content. Raid buffed, with full consumables and a tank with Amp Magic, GH:1 should hit for 2700+, for a minimal mana cost. It also scales fairly well with 5/5 Empowered Healing and Healing S&E gear, so that in full Sunwell gear, GH:1 will hit for ~3500, a *very* nice cheap spell to spam.

Downranking Math
In TBC a new system for downranking spells was introduced. There is a second coefficient modifier on the HSE portion of your spell value computation that is based on the rank of the spell you are using relative to your level.

Depending on what level you learned the spell, the coefficient changes. For example, if you go to: WoWHead: Greater Heal, you will see that we first learned Greater Heal: Rank 4 at level 58, we learned Greater Heal: Rank 5 at level 60, and so on.

The Downranking Coefficient is computed as "level at which you learned a new rank of the spell you are using"+5/current_level. To be more clear, consider the example of Greater Heal: Rank 4. We learned GH:4 at level 58. However, we learned a new rank of the spell at level 60. Thus, our downranking coefficient is (60+5)/70, or approximately 0.93.

When you are computing the value a spell will heal for, most priests are familiar with the spell cast time scaling. Every healing spell we cast (non-HoT; direct heals only) gets a HSE coefficient based on untalented cast time relative to 3.5. The two major ones that matter are:

• Greater Heal: 3.0/3.5 = 0.86
• Flash Heal: 1.5/3.5 = 0.43

When you go to compute a downranked spell value, however, you have to add in the second coefficient. The formula is:
Thus, GH:4 gains 80% benefit from your Healing Spells & Effects, while GH:7 gains 86%. Of course, this is completely ignoring the talent Empowered Healing, which is detailed below.

Empowered Healing
Empowered Healing reads Your Greater Heal spell gains an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects. This isn't tremendously clear, but some discussion (credit: Robbins of <Goon Squad>) on the WotLK Priest thread has revealed that the benefit gained from Greater Heal is not restricted by the cast time coefficient. It is not clear whether or not it is effected by the Downranking coefficient, although my suspicion is that it is not.

The final formula for computing benefit to a Greater Heal from Empowered Healing, assuming Downranking and Cast Time coefficients:
Also, be aware that Spiritual Healing and 4-piece T6 bonus are both multiplicative at the end of the process listed above. Thus, your final computation for Greater Heal, assuming both of those things, is:

[top] Raiding as a Healing Priest

Q: What spells should I typically be using?
This is a tough question. Every fight is different. I'll try to give an idea of different roles, and how each one uses our unique spells.

Tank Healing: Renew, GH:1,2,7, PoM, occasionally PW:S. Your primary duty here is to keep Renew up to smooth out damage, and keep a GH in the pipe all the time. When you can afford the mana, bounce a PoM off your tank for an easy 1000+ threat (roughly equivalent to a shield slam for a warrior). If you are on the move, hit the tank with PW:S and PoM to smooth out damage as you run -- instant casts are what make us better than paladins for some healing duties: use them.

Raid Healing: predictable damage can be healed, assuming the group is setup properly, with PoH and CoH. Be aware that CoH, while incredibly efficient (roughly 23 HpM), is less HPS than PoH, and if you *really* need to heal up a group, CoH may not be fast enough. [CoH works out to about 3.2k HpS, assuming 5 targets; PoH is 3.8k HpS]. If the damage is periodic, and you know you'll have 10 seconds before anyone will take damage again, use Renew 12 or GH:2. They both (at T5-levels of gearing) heal for about the same (3500-ish), and cost about the same amount of mana.

If you are clearing trash, and there is a lot of random AE damage coming your way (examples: RoF from Fearbringers in BT, poison volley from Lurkers in SSC, etc.), use whatever you have to in order to keep the raid alive. Trash (except for HS) is an example of a time when HpS is far more important than HpM. It's extremely rare to run out of mana on a 3-minute trash pull, so screw efficiency -- heal the raid. Keep people alive. Trash clears are one situation where Flash Heal is an acceptable spell to use, simply because it is fast (GCD), and heals for enough to matter (2500+). It's relatively expensive, but it's better to get 3 people topped up plus a PW:S in 5 seconds than to heal 2 people with GH.

Just don't get trapped into the mentality that "trash = Flash Heal". Be willing to use Flash Heal if people need a heal Right Now (TM), but use GH and our efficient spells when you can.

AE Healing: CoH rocks. Full stop. Its efficiency is obscene and it is an instant cast (on the move AE healing = win). If you are planning on doing a lot of AE heals, get and use CoH. You will be grateful you did.

How to Cross Heal Effectively
This is roughly an extension of the above paragraph on Raid Healing. Basically, there are two situations where a priest will be cross-healing a raid during a boss fight.

Situation 1: predictable incoming damage, along with some random variability. Examples: Morogrim Tidewalker, High Warlord Naj'entus, Anetheron, Felmyst.

The keys with this fight is *not* to go nuts and spam heals like a madman, aiming desperately to get everyone in range of you topped up Right Now. You need to know the total amount of incoming damage, and be perfectly aware of what can happen that will take someone at 20% life to 0% life. You also *must* know your responsibilities, and not stray outside them too much -- part of your job is preserving enough mana to heal the entire fight.

For example, if you spam heals like mad on Naj'entus, using Flash Heal and other inefficient spells, you will go OOM in about ... 90 seconds. The fight is roughly 5-6 minutes long. Your assigned people will die about 120 seconds in, because you screwed up and went OOM.

Know what the incoming damage is, and know what else can happen. On Morogrim, the key is mostly to get everyone above 6500 HP as quickly as possible, and rely on the Watery Grave healers to catch graved people and top them up. You're just trying to keep them from being so low that they can't be caught up. On Naj'entus, you know that splashes are coming for 3500+ damage, and that initial impact from a spine + first tick is about 6000 damage. First priority: get everyone above 4k HP. Second priority: everyone above 6.5k HP. Third priority: top them all the way up.

First priorities are situations where you use anything you have. Timing a PoH for just after the Naj'entus shield is actually a great way to conserve some mana while healing for a ton (2500 x 5, talented, results in approx. 15 HpM, while also being very time effective). As a comparison, if you used a GH:1 on each of those people, it would take you 4.1x longer to heal them up, and would actually cost 2x as much mana.

Always balance a heal with the question : do I have to top this person up right now, or do I have 5 seconds, or do I have 15 seconds? On Morogrim, most of the time, you can afford to use Renew, which is extremely efficient. It's also a GCD for 4k+ healing.

If you *have* to top someone up right right now, use Flash Heal. It's faster than anything else you have, and it heals for a reasonable amount. If you think you have time, use Greater Heal. If you *know* you have time, use Renew.

And the rest is experience. Learn to feel the rhythm of the fight, and know where the incoming damage spikes are. If you see a tank spike, and you're on raid healing, feel free to use a GCD to help out the tank healers, assuming you can afford the mana and the time. Saving a tank is not a wrong thing to do. Just never screw up your own responsibilities because you were spending too much time worrying about other people's jobs. If you're on cross-healing, trust the tank healers (most of the time). Let them do their jobs, and you do yours.

One final note: watch the other healers. Most of the time, a tank healer cannot afford the time to stop and heal themselves up. It is incredibly helpful for you to Renew a healer in passing, if it saves them 2.0+ seconds where they would have had to stop healing a tank to heal themselves, and possibly lost the tank in the process.

Situation 2: large incoming damage, but focused on a small subset of the raid population. Examples include Bloodboil, Hydross, Solarian, Illhoof, etc..

You know there is incoming damage, you know roughly how much it will be, but the target is RSTS. Frost Tombs on Hydross are an example. Solarian's Arcane Missiles is another. In this situation, it's almost always (excepting Bloodboil as an obvious counter-example) focused on one single person at a time, but that person is taking a tremendous amount of damage. A 100% frost tomb will kill 30-40% of the raid straight-out. They just don't have enough stamina to survive it.

In a situation like this, healing the person is highest priority. If you time it right, and you are in the right place, use efficient (but appropriately sized) heals. Catching a Frost Tomb @ 100% and landing a GH:4 on that person when you started the cast early enough is just fine. But if you're late, burn inefficient spells in order to save the person. If you're on the run, and see someone get Tombed, a PoM might be enough to save them. Or a PW:S. If you're assisting others in healing an AM target, PW:S on a target you got to late might be enough to save them until the FoL lands.

Situations like this are a balance between making sure people survive, and doing your best to use efficiency. Often, saving lives >> efficiency. Just be aware of fights like this, and do whatever you can to save mana here and there.

On Hydross, heal up Frost Tombs fast, and then take 0-50% of Nature off. No-one will die or even come close to dying from a 25% nature DoT. This is your time to get some burst regen. Use it.

For Bloodboil, CoH is amazing. I can easily heal two groups by myself, provided people stay within 35 yards of one another, and with the help of a good restoration shaman, 3 groups is well within reach. 2 CoH priests is actual ideal for this setup, but work with whatever your raid has available.

Threat Mechanics and You
There are two things you need to know about threat as a priest, and they are spells: Fade, and Prayer of Mending.

Fade: Fade out, discouraging enemies from attacking you for 10 sec. . Note that the threat lost from Fade is regained in full once the 10 second duration finishes, and that you continue accruing threat while Fade is up. It is extremely useful in some situations, and completely useless in others. Make sure you have it keybound or located in a convenient click spot; it can save your butt in numerous situations.

Also be aware that Fade acts as a straight subtractive threat modifier, which actually (used intelligently) can put you below body aggro threat levels on a mob. This can be extremely useful in places like Hyjal Summit when you are trying to shackle something without getting 4 shadowbolts to the face. If you wait until the wave initially aggro's on something (like a shaman's totem) and begin running into your raid, hit fade, and then run forward, you can reliably shackle without getting owned. Anyone in combat with the mobs will have 1 more threat than you do (until you use an ability), which means you won't get ripped apart. Just make sure other people are in combat first ... or you rapidly become a greasy smear.

Prayer of Mending: when Prayer of Mending procs (i.e. dmg taken, PoM charge gets used up), the threat from the healing done is attributed directly to the person being healed. This is incredibly useful for tank threat, as you can put PoM and a PW:S up on a tank just before the pull, and instantly refresh the PoM when the first charge is used up for an easy 2k+ threat for your tank. This is enough to land a 4k heal without pulling aggro: very useful for heroics where you have no salv and no CC.

Some people will try to tell you that pre-shielding a tank on a pull results in less threat, or a rage-starved tank. Unless you're running something with a fully kitted out mitigation-gear T6 tank (basically passive-crush-immune gear), this is patently false. Every mob of significance in end-game raiding hits for 3k+, and a PW:S+PoM will basically eliminate the first attack from the table, without causing *any* threat to you, as a healer. It is far better to keep the tank alive through the first 2-3 attacks than to worry about how much rage he is getting from those attacks. Realistically, almost every boss is pulled with Misdirect + Earth Shield + PoM + trinketed Shield Slam (warriors) anyway, so rage isn't really an issue when the boss is locked onto the tank and will be beating the crap out of him Very Soon Now. If your tanks really suck and need that rage to build threat ... then you're probably going to pull it off them on the first heal anyway, which negates the argument.

Overhealing and You
Some people pre-TBC would claim that anything over 20% overheal was a lack of skill, and clearly showed that you were a poor healer. There remain some who seem to think that overhealing is somehow bad.

Typical best-case numbers for tank healing in T5/T6 content is 30% overheal (for a priest); more typical numbers are 50%+. The reasons for this are fairly simple. Firstly, tanks are taking more damage than ever. It is not uncommon for a crushing blow to strike a tank for 9500+ when it manages to sneak past Shield Block (especially parry-hasted crushings). Accordingly, any direct healer responsible for tank healing will always have a heal casting, and will be using /stopcasting to interrupt it and start a new one if the tank does not need the heal (dodge, parry, miss).

Unfortunately, we do not play in a zero-lag predictable environment. And if comes down to you landing a complete overheal for 3500, and letting a tank die, you overheal the tank. Many priests' primary "nuke" heal is GH:2, healing for 3500-ish raid-buffed. If the tank still needs any healing when you hit the 1.9 second mark of your heal, just let it land. Yes, maybe the druid HoTs or a paladin will finish topping up the tank in those 0.6 seconds remaining. But maybe not. And if it heals for anything, it's worth spending those 0.6 seconds landing a heal than to interrupt, and be a full 2.5 seconds from landing any healing.

Always *work* on your overhealing, and try to avoid landing 100% overheal hits on a tank during a boss fight. Focus on your /stopcasting and Quartz lag-bar can help a lot with this, as can effective coordination between healers, and, if you have the luxury, use of 2 tree druids as primary tank healers. 2 Lifeblooms, 2 Rejuvs, and 2 Regrowths smooths out tank spikes so effectively that your overheal % will drop tremendously, because you will only have to land a heal if the tank is down enough to truly justify it.

Healing with higher latencies: (written by Eleanor of <Driven> on Hyjal-US)

If you are like many of us who aren't blessed with sub 100ms ping but instead play from Australasia or on a slow connection you can still be a top notch healer. However you will find that you may have to adopt a different healing style to healers with lower latency. These notes are mainly aimed at those with latency in the 400-800 ping range. This is high enough to be really noticeable but not so high as to render the game unplayable.

Effects of higher latency include:
1. Increased overheal
2. Increased environmental damage (charred earth, void zones etc)
3. Slower reaction times
4. Less time for time critical tasks such as killing your inner demon

Overheal: this is increased because while the target looks like they are down in HP when your heal goes off on your client they have in reality been healed by someone else in the half second it takes for that information to reach your computer.

Increased environmental damage: You will inevitably take at least one tick of damage from environmental effects that are randomly targeted on you. This is because of...

Slower reaction times: Most environmental abilities give you about 1.5 seconds before you take damage for standing in them but latency will totally eat up this slack time. Typically you will be notified 1/2 a second after the server places you into the effect. Recognition and reaction to the effect takes at least 1/2 a second and then the return trip to the server will take up another 1/2 a second before your character actually starts moving. You may find that extra stamina and defensive talents such as spell warding an asset for these events. Aditionally if moving your character is often not where you think it is and if you die you experience a jumpback effect as the client repositions your corpse where the server thinks you are.

A /stopcast strategy is much harder to use effectively with higher latency as even using a mod such as quartz you often have to stop your heal over a second before it is due to complete. This is because of how casting latency can build up during intense fights. Also you can't put as much trust in the reported life totals of the target.

While such a strategy can still be employed you may have more luck with a spamming greaterheal 1 or 2 strategy where you just let it land regardless. You will find with a strategy like this that the tank has in fact taken damage in the lag gap between you and the server and you have actually landed a useful heal.

To be an effective healer with higher latency you really have to be constantly acting/planning ahead of the action as much as possible. E.g. moving earlier than others for predictable effects and making sure you have your next heal planned and the recipient selected before your current heal finishes. obviously all healers should be doing this but your margin for error is much lower with higher latency so it becomes more important to you.

Try to ask for healing assignments that play to what you can do well such as healing the tank or predictable damage and try to avoid tasks that require fast reactions such as dispelling or fast spot healing, players with lower latency will always carry out these tasks better than you can.

The T5 2-piece Set Bonus
... is sexy. Oh-so sexy. If you are using GH as your primary spell in any fight, put 2-piece T5 on. 100 mana back from every single GH that actually tops up a tank works out to the equivalent of 2 mana pots over a typical 10 minute fight. It also reduces the cost of GH:1 to 214 mana (talented) ... which is less than most priests' Mp5 I5SR. It's amazing. Get it. Use it. Love it. Even in 2.4, with our massive new regen, this is a useful thing to have. There is a point where it isn't worth wearing yet, but I'm not sure I've found the exact cutoff.

[top] Consumables

Food: [Feltail Delight] or [Golden Fish Sticks]
Oil: [Brilliant Mana Oil] or (easier) [Superior Mana Oil] or (for +heal) [Superior Wizard Oil] (dmg+heal works)
Flask: [Flask of Mighty Restoration]
Potions: [Elixir of Major Mageblood] or [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] *plus* [Elixir of Healing Power]

The best consumable of all:
[Super Mana Potion] (equivalent to 100 Mp5 if chain-used)

Other things you can use:
[Dark Rune] or [Demonic Rune]
[Charged Crystal Focus] (additional healthstones in your bags)

Note that in 2.4, you don't want to use [Flask of Mighty Restoration]. In 2.4 terms, given raid-buffed stats of 600 intellect, 715 spirit, assuming a 10-minute fight, and IDS, for a priest:

#1: [Flask of Distilled Wisdom] : 23 Mp5 I5SR, 56 Mp5 OO5SR
#2: [Flask of Mighty Restoration] : 25 Mp5 I5SR, 25 Mp5 OO5SR
#3: [Elixir of Healing Power] + [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] : +62 Healing S&E, 23Mp5 I5SR, 67 Mp5 OO5SR
#4: [Elixir of Mastery] + [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] : +18 Healing S&E, 40 Mp5 I5SR, 118 Mp5 OO5SR

[top] Useful Addons and User Layout

Typical healer layout has some small variations, but is centered around the idea of having the complete raid in front of you (currently 25 bars+tank targets), with easily observable health totals, and some method of debuff curing.

If you're starting from scratch, the first thing you should do is:

• Replace your unit frames: ag_UF or Pitbull

as the base-WoW unit frames are horrid. Set these up in a convenient spot on your screen, and make sure you configure them fully to show health details and debuffs.

Second thing you should do is:

• Replace your raid frames: GRID, Pitbull, sRaidFrames and tank targets: oRA2, Pitbull

and make sure you fully configure the setup to show debuffs and buffs easily. Aggro notification is also a neat feature which can warn you of who will soon need heals.

From here, you can pick and choose which addons you'd like to use, starting with:

• Custom Bar Mod: Bartender3, Bongos. Something to let you organize, hide, and keybind all your abilities. Setting up a hidden bar that contains your primary 10+ keybinds is a great way to free up some real estate on-screen.

and adding some raid utility:

• Omen/Threat-1.0: useful to tell when the tank is going to lose a mob which will subsequently eat me for lunch.
  Deadly Boss Mods, BigWigs: timers, boss warnings, aggro notifications, all sorts of handy things.

and then add some personal organization:

• ArkInventory, AllInOne: bag mods to help organize your crap. ArkInventory is especially good because it allows for custom rule-sets which divide up your stuff into little categories (like consumables, potions, dps gear, etc).
  Prat: organize your chat tabs in an efficient way, and add some fun features.
  FuBar: extremely useful addon, with some amazing little plugins. Give it a try. One you should definitely get is RegenFu.
  Quartz: infinitely useful for /stopcasting. Definitely recommended.
  SCT: very useful as a visual tracker for healing and overheals, without having to watch a combat log scrolling by. Alternative from Ace2 is Parrot
  CasterWeaponSwapper: amazing for switching weapons on the fly, or to get SpellSurge procs.
  Clique: an absolute must for click-dispelling and generally for interacting with GRID in many useful and interesting ways. I personally use ALT+LClick and ALT+RClick as Dispel Magic and Abolish Disease respectively. It saves a lot of time.

If you're interested in UI design, swing by the User Interface and Addons forum and read some of the threads there.

Setting up GRID to be useful as a Priest:
When you to go to download GRID, be aware that many of its most useful parts come as addons to GRID, and must be downloaded separately. My list of sub-addons includes:
(to go files.wowace.com to see all possibilities)
GRID
GridAlert
GridIndicatorSideIcons
GridLayoutForHealers
GridManaBars
GridSideIndicators
GridStatusAFK
GridStatusHealingReduced
GridStatusHots
GridStatusRaidDebuff

and does not include:
GridFrameAutoSize (I found it to be buggy and of little use)
GridDynamicLayout
GridDynamicZoneSwitch

Once you have all of these downloaded and installed, load into WoW. I highly suggest another addon: FuBar, which makes (imo) configuring GRID much less painless.

Now, first thing you want to do is go GRID -> Frame -> Advanced -> and configure the Frame Width and Height. GRID refers to an individual in the raid as a 'Frame', so this is essentially your unit bar inside the GRID space. Configure this to a reasonable size.

Now that you have it to a good size, edit the name length by going GRID->Frame->CenterTextLength. I have mine set to 20; your mileage may vary.

Now go GRID->Frame->CenterText and set it to display what you want (I have Name listed here). Then go GRID->Frame->CenterText2 and set it to what you want (I have Health Deficit, AFK, Feign Death, and Dead listed here). This gets your text bars setup.

Now for mana/energy/rage bars. GRID->Status->ManaBars->Side (Bottom), ->Hide Non-Mana Bars (disable), and ensure ->Enable is clicked. This gives a nice blue/red/yellow bar at the bottom. You can modify its height in ->ManaBars as well, if you choose to do so.

For debuff display, go GRID->Status->Auras-> and you can then ->Add New Debuff. I use this to display things like Burn (Brutallus), Encapsulate (Felmyst), Bloodboil (Bloodboil), and so on. Once you have set a debuff here, go to GRID->Frame->Center Icon and enable the Debuff you just created to have it appear in the center of the frame as a purty little icon.

GRID->Layout->Raid Layout is handy for setting it up as you'd like it; I personally use By Raid (25) and don't bother with pets, because hunters are whiny.

GRID->GridAlert is handy for setting it up so that one someone is debuffed with something you can cleanse, it will go SPRONG (audio) and alert you to the issue.

Next, we need to make sure Clique can interact with GRID, so load up Clique, and choose "Options" at the bottom. Make sure anything labelled "Grid" is clicked on. This will let you setup mouse-click macros in Clique for dispelling, which is quite amazing, if I say so myself.

Finally, there are a couple of options you can mess with in GRID->Frame->(anything Corner) // (anything Icon) which will let you setup small icons/lights that will light up on certain circumstances. I use mine to show when people have aggro, when people have Renew ticking on them (from me), when people are missing buffs, and so on. It's quite powerful, and is the *real* reason you want to use GRID over any other raid frame.

From here, the sky is the limit. Configure!

Making Pitbull play nice and display Raid Debuffs
(note: I still recommend GRID, but for you die-hard Pitbull users, here's some helpful tips from Distomos of <Vindicatum> on Icecrown):

1. Open up PitBull and go to the frame where you want the notification to appear. This is going to be "raid" for this instance, but you can also do this for PvP and what-not, as well. For this example, I'll use Flame Sear and Conflagration from Eredar Twins as a debuff example.

(Note: If it's for your raid frames, you must be currently in a raid to configure it.)

2. Click on "Texts"

3. Click on "Other"

4. Click on "New Text" -- type in something like "Sear Notice" and press enter.

5. Go to your "Sear Notice" on the text list.

6. Pick a frame location for it. On my layout, "Inside, Left" looks best because it goes right over the person's name but still allows the health percentage to show.

7. Go to "Style - Custom" and paste:

[Outline][(if HasAura("Flame Sear") then
"Flame Sear! ":Red
end) (if HasAura("Conflagration") then
"Conflag! ":Yellow
end)]

If you wanted to do a single debuff for a boss, it would look like this:

[Outline][(if HasAura("Fire Bloom") then
"Bloom! ":Red
end)]

8. Press "save" and close your configuration window. I chose red for the Flame Sear notices and yellow for the Conflagration notices. You can pick any color you want. Adjust the font size as you see fit, as well.

Should work! Replace "Flame Sear" with "Power Word: Shield" to test.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

• constantius

[top] Trinkets

The original write-up this is based on was written by Vurrin, of <Rebirth> on Khadgar-US.

Note that gems in the rough include [Bangle of Endless Blessings] and [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon], as well as [Eye of Gruul].

Profession-Based Options:

[Redeemer's Alchemist Stone]: the new Best-in-Slot trinket, only applicable if you are an alchemist. Conservative estimates place this item at 24 Mp5, with possible spikes as high as 50 Mp5. That, together with the 119 Healing S&E makes this an absolutely superb trinket, and a must-have for any serious min/max player.

[Alchemist's Stone]: as with the [Redeemer's Alchemist Stone] above, this trinket provides anywhere from 24 to 50 Mp5, along with 15 intellect and spirit. With typical T6-level gear, those stats are worth an additional 30 Mp5 OO5SR (or 10.2 Mp5 I5SR), making this one of the best regeneration trinkets in the game [best case: 60 Mp5 I5SR].

[Figurine - Seaspray Albatross]: 43 Mp5 overall, with the advantage, as below, of being able to define when you receive some of the mana.

[Figurine - Talasite Owl]: 29 Mp5 overall, with the advantage of being able to use the effect when you actually need mana, which should not be understated.

25-man Raid Drops:

[Glimmering Naaru Sliver]: the new end-game trinket 'drop' (from the token off Muuru), this is an exceptional trinket that provides amazing burst regen. We still don't know how the channel effect works, but are hoping it is not a true channel, but instead a Use effect that acts as a Mp5 'hot', similar to several other trinkets. The high healing on this trinket makes it the ideal complement to a [Memento of Tyrande], if you are so lucky as to be able to score both.

[Memento of Tyrande]: an excellent trinket, and still 2nd-best-in-slot (essentially tied with Glimmering Sliver). If you are not progressing rapidly in Sunwell, this is the trinket to aim for.

[Ashtongue Talisman of Acumen]: this trinket is not particularly strong for holy priests; don't use this unless you feel like playing around with it to try to make it effective. You would have to be using a large number of Renews to make this trinket viable, and CoH is a far superior method of healing in end-game raiding.

[Fel Reaver's Piston]: this trinket has a 45-second internal cooldown. It's basically the [Shard of the Scale] with a crappy proc.

[Earring of Soulful Meditation]: an amazing class trinket, and definitely something you should have in your bags for a variety of fights. If you think there might be a 15 second break where you can go without casting (phase change, or just a Clearcasting -> Inner Focus chain while tank healing), this is the trinket for you. The 66 Healing S&E is very solid, and the Use Effect is quite frankly obscene. In T6-level gear, and assuming 15 seconds OO5SR, this trinket is worth almost as much as a Super Mana Potion. If you cannot ensure time OO5SR, then you would be better served using one of the top 3 trinkets which come with significantly more Mp5.

[Eye of Gruul]: 44 Healing S&E and 450 mana reduction proc. Proc rate is exceedingly low, but if you can use a spell with a low enough mana cost (CoH, basically) you can drop OO5SR with the trinket. This trinket is basically designed for CoH spam; there is no other situation in which a priest will obtain enough benefit from it. A talented CoH is below 450 mana, and the chance-on-heal is per HIT, so each cast of CoH has 5 chances to proc it. Extremely valuable for a fight like Void Reaver (if you're healing melee) or Bloodboil (if you're healing a boil group). The proc rate can work out to something in excess of 50 Mp5 if you are spamming CoH non-stop.

10-man Raid Drops:

[Tome of Diabolic Remedy]: 18 mp/5 and an effective Healing S&E of ~ 65 is very well rounded, although relying heavily on the Use Effect being useful.

[Ribbon of Sacrifice]: 73 Healing S&E. The trinkets effect is of lesser single person benefit than many trinkets, but on fights where you either A) repeatedly heal the same people or B) have multiple people healing your target it can be effective. Some people consider this trinket to be of supreme use on CoH-based fights; your use may vary.

[Pendant of the Violet Eye]: this is not a priest trinket. It is exceptionally good for paladins and shamans, but the net benefit for regen for priests is pitiful, given that we have no real way to obtain the Mp5 except by using healing spells; shamans can use their totem drops, and paladins can use a low-rank of FoL. Even assuming the regen from the 40 intellect, this trinket is worth ~ 30 Mp5, with no other benefit.

Badge / World-drop / 5-man Drops:

[Essence of the Martyr]: 84 Healing S&E and an effective 49 Healing S&E if clicked every time. If healing throughput is what you're lacking this trinket is good.

[Battlemaster's Perseverance]: 88 Healing S&E and a HP Use Effect that is mostly useless in PvE. You may want to consider grabbing this if you are learning Naj'entus while wearing PMC, otherwise, [Essence of the Martyr] is functionally superior in every way.

[Vial of the Sunwell]: 15 Mp5 and a really badly designed Use Effect make this of minimal interest to anyone.

[Bangle of Endless Blessings]: the proc effect on this trinket is worth ~ 80-120 Mp5 depending on your spirit/intellect totals, and assuming 1 ppm, this is an overall 25 Mp5. The Use Effect is worth an additional 185 Mp5 OO5SR, so if you can get a 15 second break, each Use is worth 550 mana. Overall, assuming breaks, a solid 48 Mp5; an excellent option for those who do not have access to some of the above trinkets.

[Lower City Prayerbook]: 70 Healing S&E and assuming 7 casts per click 13 mp/5 or 18 mp/5 in the theoretical best case. 1 minute cool down. It should be noted that if you use all the clicks, this trinket is functionally identical to [Rejuvenating Gem]. If you have Rejuv, though, stick with it -- this one is a lot more hassle to manage, for no net benefit.

[Scarab of the Infinite Cycle]: 70 Healing S&E + haste proc. This trinket is actually fairly sexy for CoH spam in 2.4 given that haste now lowers our GCD, which would allow you to get off almost an additional CoH in the proc time.

[Warp-Scarab Brooch]: this trinket is a lesser version of Diabolic Remedy. It is underpowered compared to Prayerbook or Bangle which are of a similar level.

[Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon]: due to low proc rate this trinket's effectiveness can vary dramatically, but overall (depending on gear) this trinket can be worth ~ 90 Mp5. Last tests done on this trinket showed it to be approximately 0.5 ppm, which given the current T6-gearing levels, makes it exceptionally strong as a regeneration trinket (Best-in-Slot, actually, if what you want is regen). As a note, at my current levels of gearing, an activation of this trinket is worth somewhere in the vicinity of 2900 mana, or as much as the top-end on a Super Mana potion.

If you raided before TBC, especially in Naxx:

[Eye of the Dead] the "next five casts" is a serious detriment to this trinkets overall usefulness.it is better than Martyr in situations where you're picking and choosing where you want your enlarged heals to land as opposed to trying to get off as many empowered casts as you can. As soon as you cast a sixth spell (during the first 20 seconds) [Essence of the Martyr] becomes a better trinket. Given that you would only cast more than 5 GHs in 20 seconds in an OMG TANK DYING situation, this is functionally the same as Essence of the Martyr, and last it was checked, the +heal Use Effects stacked.

[Warmth of Forgiveness]: overall effective at 24 Mp5 assuming you activate the Use Effect every 3 minutes. Not as powerful as the J/C trinkets available in TBC.

[Scarab Brooch] is mostly a toy. Fun to play with, though.

[Rejuvenating Gem]: this remains one of the finest healing trinkets in the game. Its balance between healing and regen is only matched at the level of [Memento of Tyrande], and remains a staple of many priests' gear right through to Illidan.

[Shard of the Scale] is basically useless now; if you want a pure Mp5 trinket, see the [Vial of the Sunwell] above.

Enchants

Head: (HH - Revered) or [Prophetic Aura] (ZG Honored; requires a drop from Bloodlord Mandokir or Jin'Do the Hexxer)

Shoulders: [Greater Inscription of the Oracle] (Scryers - Exalted) or [Greater Inscription of Faith] (Aldor - Exalted) or [Zandalar Signet of Serenity] (Zandalar - Exalted)

Cloak: [Formula: Enchant Cloak - Subtlety]

Chest: [Enchant Chest - Major Spirit]; +6 Mp5; +6 all stats; +150 mana (poor choice)

Bracers: [Enchant Bracer - Superior Healing]; +6 Mp5; +4 all stats

Gloves: [Enchant Gloves - Major Healing]

Pants: [Golden Spellthread] (Aldor - Exalted : Recipe) or [Prophetic Aura] (Zandalar - Honored; requires drop)

Boots: [Enchant Boots - Boar's Speed]; Vitality (4 Mp5); 12 stamina

Rings: [Enchant Ring - Healing Power] (enchanter-only)

Weapon: [Enchant Weapon - Major Healing]; Spellsurge; +20 spirit (only for a spirit weapon)

[top] Interesting Math Stuff

Question 1: with respect to Inspiration, where is the 'sweet spot' for crit, beyond which stacking any additional crit sees reduced or nonexistant return.

Inspiration: 15 second duration, applied at the conclusion of a holy spell that crits

Assumption: all spells are independent, binary random variability on crit chance.

Using Greater Heal, what are the chances that Inspiration will be reapplied before the buff wears off? Now, of course, requiring continuous up-time is misleading. Really, what we care about is absolute uptime, as a percentage of total time-in-fight. We can find the expected number of casts until a crit fairly easily:

E[numCastsUntilCrit] is (1-p)/p where p = probability of a crit, so:

@ 8% : (1-0.08)/0.08 -> 11.5
@ 10% : (1-0.10)/0.10 -> 9.0
@ 12% : (1-0.12)/0.12 -> 7.3
@ 14% : (1-0.14)/0.14 -> 6.1

So if we have 14% spell crit, and are spamming on a single target, we expect a crit to occur within 15 seconds ~ 50% of the time.

To compute absolute up-time, the value 1-(1-p)^n, where n represents the number of casts required to cover the time span of the buff (15 seconds). Since we are using GHeal as our base spell, n=6.

What's the progression from 10 to 11 to 12 to 13 to 14?
@ 10% -> ~ 46% absolute up-time
@ 11% -> ~ 50% absolute up-time
@ 12% -> ~ 54% absolute up-time
@ 13% -> ~ 57% absolute up-time
@ 14% -> ~ 60% absolute up-time

Given that with the amount of intellect appearing on T6 gear, and the small amounts of spell crit we see (2 items in Sunwell), most priests will run ~ 10-14% raid-buffed intellect, it makes perfect sense to set yourself at a hard cap of 14%, and not bother stacking past that point.

Question 2: does stacking crit increase my CoH throughput (i.e. amount healed per cast of CoH)?

Let's assume you have a 10% Holy Crit rate. Let's also assume (as far as I know, this is correct) that each hit of CoH is computed separately with respect to crit chance. CoH scales as 22% HSE Coefficient. Assume Spiritual Healing for another 10%.

Some values to play with, assuming base of 0% crit and 2400 +heal, throughput of CoH per cast is:
@ 10% crit: (430+0.22*2400)*1.1*[0.90*5 + 0.10*5*1.5] is 5532 HpCast
@ 15% crit: (430+0.22*2400)*1.1*[0.85*5 + 0.15*5*1.5] is 5664 HpCast
@ 20% crit: (430+0.22*2400)*1.1*[0.80*5 + 0.20*5*1.5] is 5795 HpCast

Fixing crit @ 10%, and scaling +heal:
@ 2400: (430+0.22*2400)*1.1*[0.90*5 + 0.10*5*1.5] is 5532 HpCast
@ 2500: (430+0.22*2500)*1.1*[0.90*5 + 0.10*5*1.5] is 5660 HpCast
@ 2600: (430+0.22*2600)*1.1*[0.90*5 + 0.10*5*1.5] is 5787 HpCast

Increasing your +heal by 1 increases total healing done by a cast of CoH by 1.28.
Increasing your +crit by 1% increases healing done by a cast of CoH by ~ 26.

Note that this completely ignores Haste as a factor. I'll post more questions below with details on Haste.

Anyway, conclusion is ... to get the same benefit from increased healing / cast, you equate 20 HSE = 1.0% SpellCrit. So if you primarily spam CoH, gaining 1% spell crit is the same as gaining 20 HSE. Of course, 22.08 spell crit rating is worth a good sight more ilvl points than than 20 HSE, so very clearly stacking +crit on your gear is a stupid thing to do if you want to increase HpCast from your CoH. Of course, if you have the option of getting an item which has high HSE *and* high Spell crit, for the cost of regen, then you have a call to make.

I'm primarily thinking of items like [Ring of Calming Waves], which, for sheer CoH spam is worth (using above numbers) 24/22.08*20 + 27*1.1/80*20 + 64 = 93.1 HSE. This compares quite favourably to something like [Ring of Harmonic Beauty] which clocks in at 73 + 22*1.1/80*20 + 32*1.05*1.1*.35 = 92.0 HSE. Of course, I think most of us would rather have 32 spirit equivalence in regen than more crit ... maybe that's just me.

So, finally: for CoH throughput, Holy Specialization is worth (according to these numbers) 100 HSE. That's a reasonable gain from a Tier1 talent. Comparatively, Spiritual Healing is worth ~ 500 HSE at Sunwell gear levels, and is a Tier6 talent.

Question 3: How does Empowered Healing (the talent) work, and what is the net benefit?

Test: GH7 (no downranking penalty). 5/5 Emp Healing, 5/5 Spiritual Healing, 4-piece T6 bonus on. 2522 HSE.

84 casts, average heal of 6053.

(2609+ 2522*1.2*3/3.5)*1.1*1.05 = 6009
(2609 + 2522*3/3.5 + 2522*0.2)*1.1*1.05 = 6093

Test: GH6 (no downranking penalty). 5/5 Emp Healing, 5/5 Spiritual Healing, 4-piece T6 bonus on. 2522 HSE.

160 casts, average heal of 5714.

(2276 + 2522*1.2*3/3.5)*1.1*1.05 = 5625
(2276 + 2522*3/3.5 + 2522*0.2)*1.1*1.05 = 5708

[e] As a note: don't try to test this crap in Shattrah when the A'dal buff is up. It scales your healing without changing your spellbook or character screen, and really can make you doubt your sanity. Thanks to Kalman for helping me stay sane.

So formal calculation for a Greater Heal is:
which is actually something new to me. I haven't seriously looked at Empowered Healing for about a year; when I last did the numbers on it, I think I was running 1800 HSE, and in the testing I did, came to the conclusion that it was

Question 4: Why do my spellbook values not match up with Wowhead?
Wowhead and Thottbot report the spell values as they are when you learned them for the first time. There is a slight inflation in spell values as you level from when you learned them to your maximum level. As an example, Wowhead reports average GH:7 as 2590. My Spellbook reports it as 2609.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

• constantius

[top] End Game Gear

For gear choices in 2.4, many of us have been considering T6 vs the Sunwell drops (for end-game raiding). This is an attempt to compare the options, and decide which is the better path for each slot.

Neck: [Brooch of Nature's Mercy] *or* [Amulet of Flowing Life]: my preference lies with the former, for boosting OO5SR regen amounts, and because I'm a spirit whore

Ring #1: [Ring of Harmonic Beauty]
Ring #2: [Ring of Harmonic Beauty] *or* [Ring of Flowing Life]
(I'm planning on using 2x[Ring of Harmonic Beauty] once the drops cooperate)

Cloak: [Shroud of Forgiveness] *or* [Shroud of the Highborne]
(preference goes to Forgiveness, as I'll be picking up haste in other slots)]

Wand: [Wand of Cleansing Light] (there's really no competition; this beats the RoS wand hollow)

Weapons: [Hammer of Sanctification] + [Scepter of Purification] *or* [Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei]

Boots: [Boots of Absolution] (nothing comes close)

Belt: [Belt of Absolution] (same)

Bracer: [Cuffs of Absolution] (same)

So it basically comes down to Helm, Shoulders, Chest, Gloves, and Pants. Everything else is an easy call, and actually
'matches' if you will (i.e. is part of a consistent set, or doesn't show up on the character model).

Pants: [Pantaloons of Calming Strife].

Shoulder: [Shawl of Wonderment] vs [Mantle of Absolution]

This is basically the same kind of argument. +3 stamina, -4 intellect, -29 spirit, +4 healing S&E, +2 Mp5 and +33 Haste. Chunk of spirit for a chunk of haste. Not a sufficiently compelling reason to upgrade, so this piece becomes a logical 4th piece for our set bonus.

Helm: [Cowl of Light's Purity] vs [Cowl of Absolution].

Same type of argument, one that Light's Purity wins by sheer virtue of being an ilvl 164 item. Comparison is +15 stam, +10 intellect, -5 spirit, -6 Mp5, +37 healing S&E and 30 Haste. Stick with T6 until KJ dies and this drops.

Gloves: [Handguards of the Dawn] vs [Gloves of Absolution] vs [Hands of Eternal Light]

Total change: -6 stamina, +1 intellect, +9 spirit, -5 Mp5, 24 healing S&E, 24 Haste. Reasonable upgrade. If you'd rather have healing over haste, take the crafted gloves over T6. I plan on sticking with T6 for a little while, as I'm not up for bracer/belt/boot upgrades, and I need to keep a 4-piece bonus going as long as possible.

Chest: [Robe of Eternal Light] vs [Robes of Faltered Light] vs [Vestments of Absolution] (one crafted, one drop)

It's clear the T6->Faltered Light is a definite upgrade, assuming that you don't desperately need the ~ 5 Mp5 differential. It's not a *huge* upgrade unless you consider the haste, though -- 10 int and 8 healing is not enough to justify an immediate OMG.

Conclusion
Worst-case, assuming you don't take all-new gear in Sunwell, and keep some old T6-equiv items, you will gain the haste from neck, wand, boot, belt, bracer, helm. You can also add haste in your shoulder, chest, gloves, rings and weapon slots if you see fit. Minimum amount gained: 145 haste (or roughly 9%). This will drop our GH down to 2.26 seconds, and our CoH down to 1.36 seconds. Realistically, by the time you're done gearing in Sunwell, you should be approaching 300 Spell Haste, without actively seeking it out. If you choose to stack it (trinket, rings, etc) you can easily break 400.

[top] Alt Gear (5-mans / 10-mans / Mag + Gruul)

I'm basically going to assume you don't do Arenas. If you do, there's a lot of options (especially the Brutal S4 pieces) that are actually better than anything else you can get before Black Temple. Gem and enchant for PvE, and they're pretty solid. However, honor gear is fair game, and will be included in this list, since anyone can AfkV.


Helm: [Light-Collar of the Incarnate] ->[Hood of the Third Eye] -> [Cowl of the Avatar]

As your progression allows, get the helm from Prince (T4), then the helm from Malacress (ZA), and then finally T5 from Lady Vashj.

Neck: [Brooch of Nature's Mercy] or [Guardian's Pendant of Salvation]
Brooch is BiS, but has no stam; if you'd rather go the stam/Mp5 route, Guardian's is actually BiS before Sunwell.

Shoulders: [Light-Mantle of the Incarnate]

Shoulder slots suck. Unfortunately, Blizzard has chosen to not put good cloth shoulders on the badge vendor, and equally has no put any solid drops in ZA to help 5/10-man raiders get shoulders. You basically need to kill Maulgar or do Arenas to get a solid pair of shoulders. Of course, this is assuming you aren't a tailor ... [Primal Mooncloth Shoulders] are very good.

Cloak: [Kharmaa's Shroud of Hope] (BoJ) or [Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted] (Kara)

Chest: [Gown of Spiritual Wonder] (BiS before Illidan)

Bracer: [Wristguards of Tranquil Thought] (BoJ) or [Guardian's Mooncloth Cuffs]
Basically the same item; depends if you have more honor than badges. The extra stam is nice as well on Guardian's.

Gloves: [Light-Blessed Bonds]
Very solid badge gloves; get a pair until you get access to T6.

Belt: [Belt of the Long Road] (not replaced until Illidari Council+)

Legs: [Adorned Supernal Legwraps] (BiS before Kalecgos; alts rejoice!)

Boots: [Slippers of Dutiful Mending] (BoJ)

Ring#1: [Anveena's Touch] (BoJ)

Ring#2: [Violet Signet of the Grand Restorer] or [Signet of the Quiet Forest]

If your alt can get into a 3-chest ZA clear, Signet is an amazing ring, and well worth having.

Trinket#1: [Essence of the Martyr] or [Direbrew Hops] (only during the Brewfest)

Trinket#2: [Lower City Prayerbook] or [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle] or [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] or [Bangle of Endless Blessings] or ... (you get the picture)

Weapon: [Rod of the Blazing Light] or [Dark Blessing] or [Merciless Gladiator's Salvation]

Note that Rod of Blazing Light is ridiculously good for a heroic dungeon drop, and every priest should be using it at a bare minimum. If you have access to better, sure ... but don't use worse. Please.

Offhand:Voodoo Shaker[/item] or [Merciless Gladiator's Reprieve]

Wand: [Brutal Gladiator's Baton of Light] or [Blue Diamond Witchwand]

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

• constantius

Macros and You:
There are a number of things you can do with macros that will improve your power as a holy priest. Here are a few that may give you some ideas:

Circle of Healing:
This casts CoH on the circle centered at the person you just had your mouse over as you pressed the button / clicked the button. Please don't "click" CoH -- bind it to a key or to a mousebutton. It'll improve your efficiency by orders of magnitude.

This is a further extension to the macro I use, as suggested on page 15 (http://elitistjerks.com/725094-post375.html) by Healthmonkey; see his post for more details.

Flash Heal / Binding Heal:
This is a handy way to cast Binding Heal whenever you need to, while normally just hitting Flash Heal to save mana. You can change the Modifier to whatever you want (CTRL, ALT, SHIFT, etc),

Regeneration Swap:
This effectively swaps in two spirit weapons, uses the Earring, and boosts your OO5SR regen through the roof.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

Sinndir

Const,

Over the last week I have done a lot of math for spell haste to determine its rough value of increasing your HPS at your current +heal level. I'll try to finalize to a few step process that allows a person to impute their +healing to figure out how much spell haste is worth to them.

Also feel free to take my haste calculations from the other thread.

 

Jayde

I have an index in my spreadsheet now for showing the equivalency of +1 Healing vs. +1 Haste Rating in terms of HPS for all ranks of GH based on current stats, if that is of any help.

At least for my current stats, +1 Heal is an increase of .37-.46 HPS depending on rank, whereas +1 Haste is .92-1.44 HPS depending on rank. So, in terms of raw HPS increase, it's usually around 3:1. However, as +Haste only increases HPS and +Heal increases HPS and HPM by the same ratio, I tend to weight +Haste as half as good in direct comparison, giving it around a 1.5:1 ratio or so in overall usage. This is a bit dependant on how you want to look at it though.

 

Sinndir

Jayde, my calculations are strictly for CoH since that is my job in raids. I agree with you that it also increases HPM (much more so with Greater Heal though).

With the poor coefficient its actually more beneficial to stack haste and spell crit for CoH throughput increase.

 

Jayde

Yeah, considering that CoH has half the coefficient of GH, haste would be quite a bit better in comparison.

 

Sinndir

It is much less than half of GH's coefficient.

Check out this from WoWWiki:

It is about 1/5th of GH considering you would likely have Empowered Healing.

 

Jayde

Sorry, happened to be looking at Prayer of Mending on accident. My bad.

But yeah, considering CoH's coefficient is so poor it does make sense to look into Haste as the most viable way to increase. I'm not so certain about crit, though--I need to run some better numbers on that now that it is mentioned. Luckily, though, it's not really something we have to toil over for the most part--many of the extremely solid newer items with +Haste are the best items per slot anyhow...

 

Sinndir

Ya all I know is that I have higher HPS throughout a fight if we have too many of our elemental shaman come in and I get a totem of wrath! Crit increases a CoH from 1000 to 1500 and that gain of 500 health would need around 2300 +heal to get the same effect. I may try to do some of that math later, but need to focus a bit on some term papers this week.

 

Laoris

I suspect you mean Teardrop Crimson Spinel instead of Runed Crimson Spinel in the gemming section. Other than that, nice job updating everything with the new patch!

 

Finkum

I would actually include [Adorned Supernal Legwraps] as a solid competitor to the [Leggings of Eternity].

Socketing with sparkling sapphires/teardrop spinels, and assuming Kings, SoR, iDS and Spiritual Guidance, ASL will have -16 sta, +2 int, +25 spirit, +15 heal, -16mp5 when compared to the LoE.

Assuming a conservative base of 500 spirit and 500 int while pantsless, you gain ~38/75 mp5 I5SR/O5SR regen from the LoE and ~26/88 from the ASL. Assuming you spend 30% of the fight O5SR, the LoE are ~6mp5 stronger, which is only marginally better than an additional 15 +heal (or possibly worse, depending on how you weight regen vs. healing).

And of course, as your total intellect and spirit increase, the regen gains from the additional int/spi on ASL become larger, while the mp5 contribution from the LoE remains static.

 

bodicea

Wouldn't socketing spirit gems push the pantaloons over the leggings? Minus the sta hit, you'd have more regen, more healing, more int, and the spell crit is a bonus for inspiration, especially on new content/brutallus.

 

Jayde

Pantaloons are a lot better than Leggings of Eternity IMO. Not really a contest with the Spirit changes. 16 mp5 isn't as good regen as 42 Spirit post-2.4, not to mention all the additional healing trickle-down. It's something like 6 more mp5 on the Pantaloons considering 15% OO5SR average and 1 more Mp5 with 0% OO5SR--and 27 more healing pre-gems.

I'm currently ranking leg slot items as:
#1 [Pantaloons of Calming Strife] (1x Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire 1x Teardrop Crimson Spinel 1x Luminous Pyrestone)
#2 [Adorned Supernal Legwraps] (2x Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire)
#3 [Leggings of Eternity] (3x Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire)

Despite me dropping a ton of DKP on the Leggings of Eternity 3 weeks back, they aren't really that good compared to the new options due to the Spirit changes.

In regard to the gear comparisons, I'd agree that T6 Shoulders are the obvious choice for the 4th piece, considering that they are arguably a better piece than Shawl of Wonderment anyhow. (Really the only slot where pre-Sunwell drop is winning vs. a post-Sunwell drop.)

Both new glove options seem to be miles ahead of the T6 Gloves, and appear to be much bigger upgrades than other slots. (For instance, going from the Winterchill bracers to the new T6 Bracers is a pretty minor upgrade compared to going from T6 gloves to Handguards of the Dawn) Handguards of the Dawn seem like the clear best in slot unless you really have no value for Haste, otherwise Hands of Eternal Light is the runner up IMO.

Lastly, for the sake of comparison, Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei (2x Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire 1x Teardrop Crimson Spinel) seems to kick the crap out of Archon's Gavel (1x Teardrop Crimson Spinel) + Scepter of Purification. Perhaps if we get a new Priest OH in Sunwell it will be better, but right now it loses out pretty badly IMO.

 

Bakabon

Thanks for the guide. I love the theory crafting and debates on this site.

I had just a quick question about the rare gem section.

You say that Dazzling Talasite is a "horrible gem," but how is it much different from any of the other choices? Basically in the yellow slot you have a choice between Dazzling Talasite and Luminous Noble Topaz, assuming you want to match gem slot color. Since both have the less desirable +4 to int, it seems to me just a choice between +2 mana regen and +9 healing, which is a pretty standard/even itemization choice. If there is a particularly reason why the gem is so horrible, I'll need to re-gem my PMC set. Thanks for the help!

 

Jayde

It's not as bad now, even if it's not great. Luminous is probably better in most cases though. [Seer's Chrysoprase] is probably better for non-epic gemming of yellow slots, and Luminous for epic gemming.

The Mp5 gems in general are pretty lackluster now though. Sparkling gems or [Imperial Tanzanite] are probably better for blue slots than Royals now.

Post 2.4, my order of preference for slots would be roughly:

Red -
*Teardrop Crimson Spinel
Imperial Tanzanite
Purified Shadow Pearl
Teardrop Living Ruby
*Royal Tanzanite
Royal Nightseye

Yellow -
*Luminous Pyrestone
Seer's Chrysoprase
Luminous Noble Topaz
*Dazzling Seaspray Emerald
Dazzling Talasite

Blue -
*Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire
Imperial Tanzanite
Sparkling Star of Elune
Seer's Chrysoprase
Purified Shadow Pearl
*Royal Tanzanite
Royal Nightseye

Non-Matching -
*Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire
*Teardrop Crimson Spinel
Imperial Tanzanite
Sparkling Star of Elune
*Luminous Pyrestone
Seer's Chrysoprase
Purified Shadow Pearl
Teardrop Living Ruby

 

ilkori

Is there any value to stacking spell crit? [Iridescent Fire Opal] replaces 5 int with 4 spell crit.

Along those lines, I have tended to use (24 healing / 24 spell crit) as my Battle Elixer along with the [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom].




Also, for new priests dedicated to healing, is it even worth picking up Tailoring for Whitemend/Primal Mooncloth and the other mixed pieces? The badge gear is just so incredible.

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." - Walt Disney

 

Havoc12

Circle of Healing 21.4% is PER PERSON. That means when hitting5 ppl CoH benefits from 107% of +healing effects.

A very important consideration here is that CoH is instant and hence has higher burst healing than chanelled spells.
4k healing from CoH requires 3 GCDs to bestow due to the instant nature of CoH. Hence it takes 4.5 seconds. Healing 5 ppl with GH2 requires 12.5 seconds. Applying 5 renews requires 4 GCDs or 6 seconds, so the last person will only get 1 tick.

Lets compare all 3 tactics.

Goup takes damage

4x CoH in 4.5 seconds. Gives 4k healing to 5ppl. You need to wait 1.5 seconds before you begin healing again.

5x GH2 heals for 3.5k and takes 12.5 seconds. Your 4th and 5th target will take damage again before your gheal lands.

5x renew heals for 800 per 3 seconds and takes 6 seconds to apply. You need 1.5 seconds before you begin healing again. In 10 seconds your first target will get 3 ticks. Your 2nd and 3rd target will get 2 ticks your 4th and 5 target will get 1 tick. I.e. 2.4k healing for target1, 1.6k for 2nd and 3rd and 800 for 4th and 5th. Depending on the type of damage you may lose 2 or more targets if you just use renew.

A 4th tactic would be to use PoH.

2x PoH heals for 5k HP per person and takes 6 seconds.

When Assigned to heal this type of damage, you are best served with spamming 4x CoH on the target and finish up with a pom on someone.

The HPS values reported for CoH and PoH are unfortunately sustained healing not burst healing.

Burst healing for CoH is affected by its instant nature.

It takes n-1 GCDs to cast n CoH as the 1.5 second GCD from the last CoH comes after healing has been bestowed. What does that mean in real terms?

It takes 2 GCDs or 3 seconds to spam 3 CoH healing for 3k per person. It takes 3 seconds to cast one PoH for 2.5 healing per person.

It takes 4 GCDs or 6 seconds to spam 5 CoH for 5k per person. It takes 6 seconds for 2x PoH for 5k healing per person.

It takes 3 secs +1 GCD or 4.5 seconds to cast one PoH+2CoH for 4.5k healing per person.

Notice how for low intervals you heal damage faster with CoH than with PoH and the best possible burst healing is obtained by combining PoH+CoH.

Hence how you heal raid damage depends on the type of damage.

1) Periodic predictable raid wide damage.
Priests are unmatched in healing this type of damage. This is best healed in the following manner. PoM on MT before the periodic damage hits. Prechannel PoH on own group so that it lands right after the periodic damage hits. Spam 3x CoH on another group. From here on you can continue with CoH, renew or revert to single target healing as the encounter demands.

2) Simultaneous but temporary active damage on 3+ grouped targets.
Your best spell here is CoH/pom it heals more than any other spell combination from any class (including chain healing shamans) at a very high efficiency. It is not effective to heal this time of damage with PoH. Start with a PoM on the lowest health target and spam CoH. Refresh PoM after 5 jumps. You may race this kind of damage with gheal and PoM, but the efficiency is nearly the same (taking clearcasting into account), only it heals less and takes longer.

3) Periodic damage combined with unpredictable spike damage on 3+ grouped targets
E.g. lets say 4k damage every 10 seconds, with unpredictable 6k spikes. Using anything else than CoH in this kind of senario is criminal and exposes your targets to risk. Heal your assigned groups to above the danger threshold with CoH, then you can apply PoM or use other healing spells as dictated by the situation. If the spike damage is predictable too, a mixture of CoH/gheal/PoM works best. Use CoH to ensure survival of the spike damage target if gheal cannot be landed in time or use CoH right after ghealing the spike damage target to safety. When its time to refresh pom, do so at the end of this sequence.

4) Simultaneous sustained active damage on 3+ grouped targets.
This is best healed with PoM/gheal/renew with a small 2xCoH bursts right after a gheal when you are ready to refresh PoM or renew. CoH is invaluable here because it adds that little bit of extra burst HPS that allows you to recover the renew or PoM GCD. Renew should not be used if the targets are taking in excess of 1.2k DPS.

5) Simultanous sustained raid wide active damage.
PoH/PoM on your group, help with CoH on other groups if you can. CoH is inferior to PoH here.

6) Group wide DoT effects/abilities at 400 or below DPS.
This is best healed with renew and pom with a bit of CoH patching if something goes wrong. It is inefficient to single target heal this combination.

Due to the burst nature of raid damage, CoH is a very usefull spell.

 

Bakabon

Thanks for the gemming response.

I have two more questions, one gear oriented and one theoretical:

1. Like one of the above posters, I am curious to know whether or not the new badge drops effectively replace the PMC set. It seems to me that due to the spirit changes, Whitemend loses a lot of its value, but the extra 5% spirit regen on PMC could make it worth holding onto...

2. In all these discussions, I haven't run into the idea of exploiting instant spells immediately at the end of non-instant ones in order to take advantage of an extra 1.5 seconds out of the 5 second rule. The obvious idea is to cast your instants generally at the tail of of Greater Heals. But there are other examples. For instance, if you need to heal only 2 targets, casting flash heal on one followed immediately by Renew on another should give you an extra 1.5 seconds out of the rule compared to casting 2 flash heals. Does anyone else do this, and is there a calculation on the benefits of this technique?

Thanks again.

 

ObservingLife

PMC will make your 500 badge grind that much less miserable. However, as kara and good heroics are by far the best source of badges (timewise), and you can get your ass hauled through kara with zero effort now, in a week or two you can have sufficient gear to be very effective in those instances to get to your 500 badges. (I don't have the actual number 'needed', would be interesting to look at but I wouldn't be surprised if 500 was conservative)

Anyone have a T5/T6/ZA/Badge comparison done that they could share? The guide has below and above that currently. I can make one friday but no reason to reinvient wheels.

Also: further in depth analysis of crit for throughput on CoH? Adept's elixir, Spiritual guidance versus Holy Spec, etc? My feeling is because of the relative cost of crit rating versus +healing and the pretty sick coefficient for CoH there will be few situations this would be relevant, but its worth looking into.

(I'm not trying to be a mooch, just in no position currently to do analyses, so throwing it out there, will get to it this weekend if it hasn't shown up yet)

 

Penicilin

I got a same question. Whitemend is quite obvious, but I am wondering about PMC compare to new sunwell badges items as well.

 

• constantius

All the people asking about PMC vs badge gear are missing a very important point.

How are you going to GET badges without gear? I mean, ok, badges are easy to get ... but not that easy. You require Karazhan / Zul'Aman / heroics to effectively farm badges to get ~ 500-600 badges worth of gear. And you're not going to get that many badges by running around in blues.

Go tailoring, make PMC and Whitemend, and then farm badges. The badges will fill in your gloves, boots, and bracers slots, and give you an option for an offhand. You can pick up a trinket. Cloak comes from Karazhan, and you can grab a neck from ZA. At this point, you're almost kitted out. You THEN start replacing the tailoring gear (6 weeks later) with badge gear. All told, it'd take you over 3 months to get 600 badges if you start from scratch.

I mean, farming badges hard-core, with tons of 25-mans, heroics, ZA every reset, and Karazhan when I'm bored, I get about 125 badges a week. Most of that comes from the 25-mans, though -- BT+HS is 22 badges, Magtheridon is 3, and Gruul's Lair is 5.

And I have gear, which means I'm not running instances for gear/badges -- I'm running them for badges.

Just looking at the ilvls on the gear tells you whether or not PMC is better than the new badge gear (hint: it's not). It's a dumb question. ilvl 115 vs ilvl 141 ... I wonder which one will win?

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

Zedd

For the Gruul/Mag Level list. (aka what my alt Priest is healing)

Wont the [Belt of the Long Road] be the better option ?

 

Savere

First time poster, so if theres a better spot to ask this I'm more than willing to move it.

I'm currently a CoH healer that is mid way through SSC and TK and I happen to have both the [Ribbon of Sacrifice] And [Pendant of the Violet Eye]. The question I have is that according to the trinket options those two are fairly low on the totem pole when compared to some of the other trinkets I currently have potentially have available to me, yet I find that stacking the 2 buffs for raid wide burst dmg usually means I can get around anywhere from 8-15 stacks off of the pendant depending on latency and reaction time. If HP's allow it, I try to use inner focus in order to use as much as the buff as I can outside the 5SR. I can also count on those situations when it's just the melee groups taking heavy dmg, reach the 5 stack buff from the Ribbon easily on 2 or 3 groups.

Am I justified in continuing in this fashion, or am I blinding myself to better options with all the swirly lights?

Love the site guys, awesome information/tools/threads