I'm unusual in that I ran 16% crit through the back half of Sunwell. Most priests didn't bother going that high due to diminishing returns on Inspiration.
In a mixture of Sunwell, T7.10 and T7.25 gear on the Beta, I have 24% crit, raid buffed. Now, part of this is due to the fact that I now get Moonkin / Ele shaman (+5% crit), but it's still a dramatic climb. We're getting items with crit on them now. It's a big difference.
Look at all the T6 and Sunwell pieces. The only piece itemized with crit that I can think of off the top of my head is [Pantaloons of Calming Strife]. Now, look at the Naxx pieces. You could put crit on 90% of your slots if you wanted to. The only exception I can think off of the top of my head is chest, because both T7.10 and T7.25 chests are stam/int/spi/spell/Mp5 for some reason.
T6 bracers also have crit on them, for what it's worth. But with raid wide moonkin aura and totems, it's hardly unsusual to get the 5% crit bonus from the moonkin/elemental shaman. Add the spellpower changes making adept's elixir quite good (it was in fact always pretty good if you wanted the extra crit for inspiration anyway) along with brilliant wizard oil, it's not hard to run at over 16-20% crit now, where most of our gear has no crit on it. With homogenization of caster gear in WotLK and Blizzard seeming to make crit a more worthwhile stat for us for all specs, I expect priests will be observing much higher crit chance.
Has anyone else been having trouble with Rapture and Power Word Shield the last few days? It seems to have changed since tuesday, before I got mana back when my PWS was hit all the time, now it only seems to work if it's on me.
Well, now I feel stupid. I went back to PTR and tested 5/5 TD with 1085 SPP, and not so surprisingly, I got 2247. So basically, formula for PW: Shield on Current PTR is:
[good news]
Well this is wonderful to hear. I don't suppose you've done any tests with Aegis on PTR? Specifically if it is additive or still overwriting. That's pretty much the last major concern for discipline weirdness.
In the thread discussing new Constantius compendium someone claimed, that Bloodlust overwrites Power Infusion. Can anyone confirm this? I always thought they stack...
They haven't stacked for a while. PI stacks with Icy veins, but not with heroism. This was done I think in s3 or s2 when people would stack heroism/PI/Icy veins and just blow people up playing 2345
In the thread discussing new Constantius compendium someone claimed, that Bloodlust overwrites Power Infusion. Can anyone confirm this? I always thought they stack...
Editedit:
Well now I just have no idea. Going to check with a mage next time I can. Could have sworn he said it didn't do anything when icy veins was up.
Editeditedit:
Last patch notes to the effect were:
Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell haste by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%. Lasts for 15 seconds. This will not stack with other haste effects, such as Heroism, Bloodlust, or Icy Veins.
I had no time to test something in the last days due to RL-issues. And I'm not convinced that Renew can crit. But who thinks that renew cannot crit cannot tell the ones who think they saw a crit that they should not use addons and then give a WWS-parse to prove that there are no crits. If addons cannot be trusted about this issue they cannot be trusted both ways.
I have a question, when Divine Aegis procs and the bubble comes on does it work in the same fashion as PWS where a warrior/bear wont gain rage or does it still allow rage to be generated?
I have a question, when Divine Aegis procs and the bubble comes on does it work in the same fashion as PWS where a warrior/bear wont gain rage or does it still allow rage to be generated?
Rage comes when the warrior/bear deals damage or takes damage. Any damage prevention technique (PW:S, DA, Grace, avoidance stats, etc.) stops rage generation. That said, it seems that rage tanks are still able to generate plenty of rage even through our damage prevention stuff. However, you still want to be careful about when you throw up your PW:S (i.e. don't do it pre-pull unless you get the green light from the tank). You can't control DA as much, but I personally have not found those shields to be big enough to rage starve a tank, even if they proc early in a fight.
They haven't stacked for a while. PI stacks with Icy veins, but not with heroism. This was done I think in s3 or s2 when people would stack heroism/PI/Icy veins and just blow people up playing 2345
To clarify: Can't find a quote off the cuff, but I'm pretty sure the rule now is: "you can only stack haste buffs with haste self-buffs". So Icy veins, which is a self-buff, stacks with either bloodlust or power infusion, but you can't stack BL and PI.
I had no time to test something in the last days due to RL-issues. And I'm not convinced that Renew can crit. But who thinks that renew cannot crit cannot tell the ones who think they saw a crit that they should not use addons and then give a WWS-parse to prove that there are no crits. If addons cannot be trusted about this issue they cannot be trusted both ways.
WWS however is not an addon. It's a combat log parser and the combat log is generated by Blizzard's client. It can of course parse incorrectly, and it actually does for some things and has been for ages as parts of it still work with string-matching while we got GUIDs with 2.4 which are unambigous, but it should get the numbers right.
Also whenever a bug is fixed in WWS it applies to already uploaded combat logs as they are reparsed on retrieving them. An addon however can't get fixed and then show old data fixed.
under any sane estimate of level 80 regen and crit HC will pull far ahead of the Blue Dragon by level 80
Why do you think so?
Look at the equations in my post. Two of the variables that affect the mana return from HC (the HC PROC% and GH) will rise substantially at level 80 and they are multiplicative. E.g. as Constantius notes above we'll be hitting 30% crit in early raiding where now it's unusual to make 20%. Our base mana amount will increase by 47% according to Wowwiki, so the "GH" variable will increase 47%. With crit% increasing 50+% and the mana cost of GH rising 47%, HC will be far stronger relative to Blue Dragon than it is now. The only variable that Blue Dragon scales with is "DIFF" (= MPS difference between regen while casting and regen while not casting) but HC will scale with that also. Also, the "T" variable for HC may increase in WotLK since beta testers report that WotLK requires less of a constant-heal-spam playstyle.
Who knows, Blue Dragon might still be a decent situational trinket at level 80 if no trinket with a similar mechanic exists in WotLK. (I have no idea if one does.) But it won't be a plausible substitute for HC as it can be now.
Last edited by Richelieu : 10/31/08 at 3:07 PM.
Reason: typo
WWS however is not an addon. It's a combat log parser and the combat log is generated by Blizzard's client. It can of course parse incorrectly, and it actually does for some things and has been for ages as parts of it still work with string-matching while we got GUIDs with 2.4 which are unambigous, but it should get the numbers right.
Also whenever a bug is fixed in WWS it applies to already uploaded combat logs as they are reparsed on retrieving them. An addon however can't get fixed and then show old data fixed.
In fact, if you don't believe the WWS parser you can look at the log directly. The link below is to a filtered log that shows over 1,000 renew ticks without a single crit from several different priests from last nights raid. Some priests even have the Renew Glyph, just in case that was thought by anyone to be a factor.
Holy and Discipline healers
If any class is the "fill in the gap" healer, it's the Holy priest. Their strength is in versatility -- they have single-target heals, group heals, instant heals and hots. The standard (but by no means only) way to heal a raid is to have a Holy paladin on the tank along with a Resto druid, have a Resto shammy AE heal the group, and then put the Holy priest wherever you need them. We are also trying to get the Disc priest into a role similar to the paladin, but based more around damage avoidance than efficient, quick heals.
Great... so the hybrids are the best-of-breed healers for specific tasks, and Holy priests are the second-hand substitutes.
You could choose to read the quote that way especially if you think holy is underpowered. One could, however, argue that there is enough wiggly room inside holy tree to specialize for either tank or raid healing depending on what's actually needed (though you could just spec holy for aoe heals and disc if you want to heal the tank). Indeed I'd argue that the only class which can't choose specialize for either of the two roles presently is the holy paladin (even if druid and shaman tank healing abilities are perhaps not the greatest).
And in other news... not sure exactly when this happened, but Penance is acquiring haste from Borrowed Time correctly now. Was messing around grinding some stuff and noticed my BT'd penance was 1.3 seconds instead of 1.6 (my standard is 1.7).
No longer the case. Seems to be providing almost no benefit now, in spite of the tooltip still adjusting.
Furthermore, it uh, seems like PoM is now activating on any hit, including ones fully absorbed by PWS. So I'm getting a ton of bounces for zero healing.
I'm sorry that my first post here will not be amazing in quality. Also, I hope I will not point out something already discussed on this thread. Anyway, I can't find anything about this via the search system.
I was having a doubt about how Divine Aegis works. I was thinking that the amount it absorbs would be based on the effective healing occured for the proc ... but after some test, I discovered that overhealing is also taken in account.
But the spell description say: "... 30% of the amount healed". The same term used for Rapture "... each time you heal with ..." which only take effective healing for the mana regen.
So, the question.
Is it a bug with DA and it should be taking only effective heal or simply an unclear (for me at least) spell description ?
Well this is wonderful to hear. I don't suppose you've done any tests with Aegis on PTR? Specifically if it is additive or still overwriting. That's pretty much the last major concern for discipline weirdness.
Divine Aegis still overwrites.
Rawr - Coder of HolyPriest (Healer) and ShadowPriest (DPS) Modules. Get Your Rawr 2.3.x!
A few points, especially on the rapture returns from divine aegis:
First, I think there is a missing factor of 0.5 on the crit rate in one place. The total/raw HPS is (1 + 0.5*crit) times your base (non-crit) HPS. That is:
Second, the change in Mp5 from changing int is the derivative of the above Mp5 formula with respect to int. This does get a little complicated because both the crit rate and max mana vary with int. Moreover, as you change int, your raw/total HPS will change due to an change in your crit rate, but your base HPS should remain the same. So it's easier to stick with base HPS most of the time. However, one can use the product rule to get a simpler yet more precise result:
The above formula makes no assumptions about maximum mana or crit rate and should be valid for all values. It does assume all divine aegis shields are completely consumed by damage, which may be untrue to varying degrees. So the above is really a ceiling estimate, and in practice you may see lower values. Also note that "raw" HPS means HPS including overhealing, but it only includes healing on spells which can crit and proc a DA shield.
Yes, you are right, this is a more accurate way of doing it and there is indeed a missing 0.5 factor in the DA equation.
I think that DA not getting used it not a big deal, as most of your healing as disc is going to be focused on targets that take frequent damage.
I think that DA not getting used it not a big deal, as most of your healing as disc is going to be focused on targets that take frequent damage.
It may be a bigger deal than it needs to be with Divine Aegis currently overwriting itself instead of stacking. I have not yet really looked into how big of a problem this actually would be. Any takers?
Rawr - Coder of HolyPriest (Healer) and ShadowPriest (DPS) Modules. Get Your Rawr 2.3.x!
It may be a bigger deal than it needs to be with Divine Aegis currently overwriting itself instead of stacking. I have not yet really looked into how big of a problem this actually would be. Any takers?
The math is beyond me at this hour of the morning (and perhaps, entirely), but observationally (particularly while raid-buffed) there have been many situations where I'm tank healing and have 2-3 penance bolts crit between tank damage. Knowing that the resulting Aegis should be 2-3 times the size for the upcoming hit is a bit vexing, particularly in light of that being how it was supposed to be working all along. I would imagine the degree to which this lowers the efficacy of crit/int on discipline is not exactly earth shattering, but it likely still very significant.
Never mind the added complication of modeling rapture and general damage mitigation.
This and the sometimes-fixed/sometimes-not state of the Borrowed Time haste affecting Penance properly are a couple of the only remaining wrinkles in an otherwise terribly fun spec.
I understand the issue with BT not granting the haste to Penance properly. It's a bug that should be fixed prior to release. However, are you really using Penance after a PW:S that often anyway? I would think you would almost always use a GH so that you get a greater benefit from the haste. Especially if you don't have points into Divine Fury. Then cast the Penance immediately following for an overall greater burst Hps no?
No longer the case. Seems to be providing almost no benefit now, in spite of the tooltip still adjusting.
Furthermore, it uh, seems like PoM is now activating on any hit, including ones fully absorbed by PWS. So I'm getting a ton of bounces for zero healing.
Even though it's a bug/nerf in the most obvious situation (trying to get as much pre-healing on a target as possible), it's arguably a buff in other situations (throw PW:S + Mending on a wounded target, or allow Mending to bounce off a target and get around more quickly). The previous way is definitely preferable to me, but I can see how the change might have been intentional.
I can also see how they could say that 5500+ pre-healing (at level 70) was just too much.
Originally Posted by Kopalec
I understand the issue with BT not granting the haste to Penance properly. It's a bug that should be fixed prior to release. However, are you really using Penance after a PW:S that often anyway? I would think you would almost always use a GH so that you get a greater benefit from the haste. Especially if you don't have points into Divine Fury. Then cast the Penance immediately following for an overall greater burst Hps no?
Without having Divine Fury, it's almost pointless to ever cast Greater Heal. Casting GH with Borrowed Time, as opposed to two flash heals, gains you like 0.3 seconds, and, well, doesn't have the flexibility of just casting two flash heals.
Furthermore, if Penance is up, the mana difference is so great that it's almost always silly to cast Greater Heal (or Flash Heal, unless you know that FH will heal the target to full).
I didn't expect to, but I've definitely fallen into the habit of never casting Greater Heal any more. With Divine Fury it might be worthwhile, but without it, Penance is never more than a few seconds away and GH has only a very small advantage over glyphed Flash Heal, and cancel-casting doesn't seem worthwhile with at present.
On a Glyph note - Glyph of dispel magic and Power Word Shield are both incredibly powerful. It gives you access to a secondary small instant heal to counter dots/debuffs. For example, not only do you dispel that moonfire + insect swarm on you, but you heal off most of the initial damage as well. Even if your shield gets purged or doesn't use the full absorb, you gain a frontloaded direct heal. It gives alot of flexibility in pvp healing.
The PW:S glyph is very mediocre I think. For Disc it might be quite good, but for other specs it's not great. It scales very poorly without a ton of talents in PW:S. Sadly the PW:S glyph is affected by healing debuffs. I'm not entirely sure about the Dispel glyph, but I think it was affected too. For Holy PvP I'd recommend the Flash Heal and Renew glyphs.
I'm about to drop Divine Fury for Holy Spec, because I rarely cast Greater Heals anymore in PvP, the damage often comes too quickly. With a Shaman/Moonkin I'd be somewhere around 18% crit, making Holy Conc viable I guess. I hope that it would go a long way to help me with the Mana problems I have currently (no Absolution, Mental Agility or Meditation).
On a side note:
For 5-man content, battle grounds and arena CoH seems pretty useless. I've got full Divine Providence and my CoH heals for barely more than my Holy Nova (950 vs 850) while costing a mere 100 mana less. With the Holy Nova glyph Nova looks like the better group healing tool. And I get free (threat-free?) damage too.
Did I make a mistake somewhere and my CoH should really be healing for more? How do Nova and CoH compare at 80 with PvE gear? Is it worth getting CoH for 5-man stuff/PvP?
(I know that CoH can be used for cross-group healing and that it smart targets, but that's a non-issue in small group content.)
10/30/08, 6:50 PM
