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!

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 [Item not found!] (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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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

Yes.

The Ribbon of Sacrifice is unimpressive for CoH spam, because it really only helps if a lot of people are healing the same target. Ribbon is better for Tank healing, and it's not really even that good for that.

Pendant of the Violet Eye works out to 16 mp5 in ideal conditions, which is easily achievable with other trinkets with much better other stats and effects.

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?[/quote]

This statement is way too encompassing and perhaps even a bit out of line. As numerous different things in this game have shown (bangle of endless blessings and rejuv gem, which are in brought up in this guide, green off hands for enh shaman, 3 Piece Tier 2 for Resto Shamans, and so many others), ilvl is NOT an all inclusive indicator of an item being better than another. While it would be very reasonable to *assume* these items were better by the significant ilvl difference, these boards are all about hard facts and not assumptions. PMC is (was, pre 2.4 at least) rediculously well itemized for any fight that stamina was irrelevant. People don't know how items stand in the new itemization standpoint, and MP5 was a very solid stat before that, and the lack of MP5 on the new badge gear could easily lead people to draw conflicting conclusions of PMC vs new badge gear, thus comming here.

(I'm not saying your conclusion is wrong: the new badge gear is pretty amazing. Just that people asking about it could easily have some justification for asking).

As for tailoring: its definitley the fastest way to get gear if you have it leveled or are gonna drop the cash to level it. However, with no keying on kara as I mentioned earlier and so many overgeared people running it, its not hard to get carried in a couple karas and soak loot to get to an acceptable gear level to run heroics. So I wouldn't consider it essential, but it will make the first couple weeks of crazy badge farming easier, unless you're very lucky on your first kara.

I dont think I was saying I start from scratch, did I? I was asking whether is PMC inluding his pasive effect better/same/worse compared to badges loot. As I am not able to make calculation myself, I asked here. Not counting effect its clear ofc.

The generous amount of spirit on the new badge loot will make up for losing the set bonus. With all of the new armor in chest, legs, and feet, you get 126 spirit plus 3 red sockets and a blue socket. If you put shadow pearls in all of them, you get 146 spirit including socket bonuses. Looking at your armory, you get a whopping 111 net gain on spirit with the new gear which is huge. OOFSR is more amazing than ever for mana efficiency.