My question would be; what are you going to do with the extra mana? In mostly heroic blues and a couple of epics, I was already finding it hard to go OOM in a 25-man raid (no mana spring or mana tide, but most other buffs). Dropping Divine Fury and using FH might be a reasonable tradeoff for 5 talent points, but any tank healer build without Holy Specialisation and Inspiration is pretty gimped.

Even if mana is a problem, I really find it hard to imagine a case where a 40% increase in your Shadowfiend mana return is worth 17 talent points.

There was a time not to long ago where people put 14 points into disc for mana regen, having to waste 10 points to get there, you know. Wasting talent points for mana regen shouldn't be a foreign concept to any priest who played this game over the last few years.

The case is very easy to imagine, you go out of mana and cooldowns and the raid wipes(?).

If you are able to achieve infinite mana on fights like malygos without stacking healers, then you know something that I don't, and more power to you. Just saying that it is possible a solution to one problem, where the tank is in no danger of dying from lack of throughput.

The 10 points required for Discipline (in BC at least), while marginal, were certainly not completely wasted. Every point was conceivably useful for your healing role, from fear resists fighting Nightbane or Archimonde to reduced threat when AoE tanking was actually a challenge for some tanks.

In contrast, the only points useful for healing in the Shadow tree are 3 in Spirit Tap, and even that requires you to take the time to SWD adds which, while often possible, requires diverting your attention from your healing task(s) and the sacrifice of a GCD.

I just did some simple math. I still don't know if I want 4p bonus.

Since T7.5 gloves is pretty much BiS, I just did the math for the rest(Helm+Chest+Pants+Shoulders). Total numbers(ignore enchants and gems):

STA:268
INT:270
SPI:261
HASTE:50
SPELL POWER:375
CRIT:92
MP5:20

I picked the ones on Nid's list (seeHoly Priest Gear Planning) to replace the set pieces. Total numbers(ignore enchants and gems):

STA:306
INT:284
SPI:273
HASTE:0
SPELL POWER:411
CRIT:199
MP5:0

We usually run with 3 holy priests, one DS other two are GS. Most of the time the two GS priests get to heal the MTs(since we only run with one holy paladin).

Problem with using my list from the Fusion forums is that I haven't updated it to reflect Malygos/Sarth loot that wasn't known on Beta. Belt and chest are wrong, for example.

Nidaba, I skimmed through the posts on the [Soul of the Dead] and there seems to be some VERY good feedback on this trinket in regard to mana returns. The problem is, is that I am looking for some concrete numbers on ICD for this item. Some people are saying 1 minute, while others are saying less.

What do you know about this item so far? I would be curious to know how it stacks up number-wise against the [Spirit-World Glass] and/or [Majestic Dragon Figurine] as a potential best in slot holy priest trinket for mana returns.

Thanks in advance for a response.

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To determine how much mana this item will return we would need to know:

- since it has a 'chance' to crit, we would need to know what that chance % is
- the calculation would have to be based off a player crit % like 20 or 25% (raid buffed)
- ICD of course.
- base it against a 5min boss fight to compare against returns from other best in slot items

I just took a look at one of our WWS.


We have this priest with [Soul of the Dead].

On a 4'48 patchwerk fight, he only got one proc. His crit chance is around 20% raid buffed without a boomkin.

I wish he didn't die on thaddius so i can compare some numbers but i'm sure it's a decent trinket for CoH-spam.

I aquired [Soul of the Dead] last week, and on the KT fight right after, i got a proc every ~48 seconds.

Also, I was curious what people thought about spell warding over 3 points in imp renew?

I realise you aren't exactly wanting my opinion on this Lyte, but after looking through the WWS parses from our raids where one of our shaman had it equipped, here are the results (he was running roughly 33% crit raid-buffed):

Kel'Thuzad Kill: (6'57" combat duration)
First Malygos Attempt: (4'18" combat duration)
Malygos Kill: (4'35" combat duration)
This is still a small sample size, but the shortest length of time between 2 procs is 45 seconds. This seems a reasonable ICD, fairly close to one minute, as you have heard others claim.

As far as chance to proc, Hypernetic here suggested it was roughly 25%. I have no numbers to back that up. However, you can figure the maximum potential mana gained from this over a 5 minute fight fairly easily:

(total time) / (ICD) = maximum number of procs per fight
300 / 45 = 6.66667 procs

Edit: Assuming you proc at 1 second into the fight and again every 45 seconds, you can squeeze 7 procs into a 5 minute fight.

At 7 procs, that is a gain of 6300 mana over your 5 minute fight. That number seems a bit high for what you could expect from actual raiding, given randomness inherent in double rolls. As far as comparing it to other trinkets, I'm not awake enough to do the math for that right now.

Edit: As I think about it, this trinket seems to benefit more from 0%ooFSR time to maximise proc chances, while the [Spirit-World Glass] benefits from weaving ooFSR time in. A situation where one will do well will not complement the other. [Majestic Dragon Figurine] is probably a better comparison with [Soul of the Dead], but again, because of how spirit benefits from any ooFSR time, an impartial scenario seems unlikely.

It's a great trinket on healing intensive fights, if you're disc or if you use CoH alot. The worth of that trinket if you crit often is around 2% and ~100mp5.

Maybe you could fill in the blanks as to how you expect a Disc priest with Rapture and 25K mana to go OOM. I'm as big a fan of mana regen as anyone - see the current exchange with Kortar on how to value MS vs DP, for example - but you're talking about a spec where someone has already stacked hard for endurance, and now you want to spend another 17 points on it.

Just to tack some numbers on it, suppose you stand and deliver Penance at every cooldown and then squeeze in another five Flash Heals every ten seconds as well. This is chain-healing, and barely possible without haste. After Rapture returns, your Flash Heals might cost about 320 mana and Penance 200 mana (I'm giving you sub-2K spellpower here). So you spend 1800 mana every ten seconds. Assuming you have 300mp5 due to Meditation or other sources of mp5, the actual net mana drain is 1200 per ten seconds. So with one Shadowfiend (no Replenishment, mana totem, no Innervate, no potion) and your own mana pool you can keep this up for five minutes straight.
Once you throw in more reasonable assumptions about Replenishment and/or spellpower you get even longer timeperiods. Unless our Disc priest is casting counter to role and spamming Prayer of Healing or something, I don't see where the mana problem will come from. 5/5 Holy Specialization, 5/5 Spell Warding and 3/3 Inspiration look a lot better to me than a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

(addendum/edit): If you want to justify this spec I think you'd be better off assuming a lower mana pool, despite the reduced Shadowfiend returns. Rapture plus a huge mana pool results in ridiculous endurance. If this hypothetical priest has 18K mana then it would at least be plausible that he could need more regen somehow.

None of our locks raid with a Felhound, so there is no chance of that happening.

Not to mention if you are trying to play the min/max game you want the best buffs available, and for spirit that is Divine Spirit. Cahrin did very well Wednesday night spec'd for Divine Spirit and changing from Disc to CoH. With our raid setup from last night, 3 mages, 2 warlocks, 2 CoH priests, 1 Shadow priest, 2 resto druids, and a boomkin (11 players), all received a benefit from the Divine Spirit.

So in terms of raid min/maxing you definitely would like one of your priests to get Divine Spirit.

To the guys discussing the Disc-Specc: Be realistic. Inspiration is *huge*. You´ll be a very good single target healer and you´ll literally be unable to goo oom in fights where overhealing is small (read *in fights where the strain on healing is high*) once you reach the gear level providing you ~25k-ish Mana raidbuffed. There is no reason for a Disc Priest not to specc Inspiration, it´s mandatory. Without it, you´ll be a mediocre tank healer since you lack one of the best mitigation buffs available.

For amusement's sake, you can also read over the original WotLK preview thread. I believe it's fair to say the consensus opinion of experts is "f... it, we have no idea".

But while I can't generate a decent model for the talent, I can observe that ToF is virtually worthless with two of the Priest's primary 25-man tools - CoH and SoL-proc'd Flash Heal.

Let's say your CoH heals your average raider for 1/10th their total health. While CoH does auto-seek the lowest health raiders, it should be obvious that if someone is sitting at, say, 30%, it's pretty likely someone is going to throw a direct heal on them rather than wait for their health to inch back up through successive CoH. As a result, our CoH really only heals between about 40% - 100% (in 6 applications). It should be obvious that this means Test of Faith almost never 'procs' with CoH.

For SoL/Flash Heal, you can't crit so ToF is merely a more restricted version of Spiritual Healing.

ToF probably is worth it when you're healing a 5-man with Greater Heal. But since we're talking about raiding specs, we've already made the decision to optimize for our 25-man role and gut it out in 5-mans via raw gear.

Divine Spirit is still only +16 over the non-stacking consumeable. And Spirit is a lot weaker in WotLK than it was in BC. In BC, Spirit was really good for Priest healers and adequate for Druid Healers. In WotLK, it's really just adequate for Holy/Shadow Priests and Resto Druids.

Most raiding Mages will get precisely zero benefit from Spirit. Raiding Warlocks will get a whopping 5 spellpower over what they would have gotten with the consumeable.

Is that worth losing Guardian Spirit? I'd say no.

I completley agree. Being that the spec is great for tank healing, there truly is no reason not to get Inspiration.

But your CoH will hit them first, being instant and all. In some specific fights like Sapphiron I think ToF really does provide a significant throughput boost. If you meet the condition that everyone in the raid is taking very regular damage, so that
- you can afford to let some people slip below half health
- there's a lot of people that need healing, so that as you CoH the low ones other ones slip below half

...then you might be able to get ToF on over half your heals.

On the other hand, I also think that if you derived realistic numbers for the total amount of extra healing it gives you *in general*, it would be rather underwhelming compared to other talents like Divine Providence or Spiritual Healing. You have to place a high value on the intangible factor that 'this helps me more as trouble gets worse' in order to want this talent. In that sense, I would expect people whose philosophy is to prepare for screwups to value this talent more highly (along with things like Glyph of SoR or Guardian Spirit). Others whose philosophy is more along the lines of 'if everyone is doing their job and not standing in the fire this talent is totally wasted' will not like it nearly as much.

...at which point you stop casting CoH to get some time OO5SR, or else some other people have taken enough damage that your CoH is hitting them instead and maybe they're below 50%. To be honest, I don't know. Later if I have time I'll see if I can extract enough information via script from WWS logs to get an empirical answer to this question. I *do* expect that in an extended comparison of logs we would see an inverse correlation between the utility or effect percentage of ToF and the overall skill of the guild involved. If your guild is like mine (6:30 Curator kill... *embarrassed cough*) then you may find the talent more useful than you would if your guild is a well-oiled machine.

I would like to get some opinions on a spec i've come up with. If the feedback is positive enough, maybe it could be added to the list of viable raid healing standards.
I've seen no one consider it yet really, but after a night in Naxx as a test i'm pretty much decided.
I can't find anything wrong with it from a raid healing perspective.

Wow Web Stats

The points you placed in Disc really have very little with the amount of healing done in your WWS, and I can't imagine wanting to drop Serendipity and Holy Concentration for Enlightenment. It feels like by trying to go so deep in each tree that you're missing out on the worthwhile parts of both.

What I'm really trying to get at here is that, as the CoH-caster, you're not the guy who is saving people from near death. You're the guy who is healing up the little dribbles of damage. While analyzing parses will give us a more definitive answer on this (which I believe we both suspect is "CoH doesn't proc ToF often enough"), it won't answer the question of whether the clutch value of omigod-tank-is-going-to-die-if-I-don't-have-6%-more-healing outweighs the infrequency of occurrance.

The points in Disc might have helped a lot if he was ever in need of mana. I've considered a similar spec myself. I think it's odd (given the mix of spells Bad used) that you single out Serendipity and HC as the talents sacrificed; the more obviously painful tradeoff is that he's lost Divine Providence, which would have helped CoH tremendously.

In the WWS provided, Serendipity would have returned about 30K mana (guesstimate, note that 80% of the Flash Heals are freecasts) and 3/3 HC would have yielded about 12 GHeal clearcasts (more if we assume 3/3 IHC as well). On the other hand, the increased mana regeneration from Mental Strength plus Enlightenment (due to stat boosts) is about 50K mana just for the mp5, and then another 35K or so for starting mana pool (depending on our assumptions about the number of discrete fights). That's before we consider the value of the spellpower, haste and stamina.

Serendipity and HC/IHC are only going to look good if someone is casting a lot of Greater Heals and (non-free) Flash Heals; suggesting them when someone links a WWS with CoH/PoM in the top two spots really makes no sense.

However... all the above shows is that Serendipity and HC/IHC would not themselves justify putting points in Holy. It doesn't show that Enlightenment/Mental Strength are better than Divine Providence. When you see that CoH and PoM combined account for 15 million healing and realize that 5/5 Divine Providence would have added 1.5 million to that (before accounting for overhealing) it suggests that some points could have been put there. And that, of course, would require spending four points somewhere else in the Holy tree as well.

Anyway, to summarize my problem with the proposed 30/41 spec (for raiding):

- you don't get the special tools (Penance, Guardian Spirit) deep in the trees
- if you're doing CoH/PoM healing, you lose too much efficiency and throughput by sacrificing Divine Providence
- if you're doing tank healing, you would either want to go full Disc or else at least have the efficiency boosting tools for Holy (Serendipity, HC/IHC)

In short, there is no particular task for which this build is optimal, and deep holy is (almost) strictly superior. The only justification for it that I can think of is maybe as a 10-man build, where you have good endurance and reaction time from the Disc talents and still have CoH in case you need it, but aren't casting CoH quite enough to justify Divine Providence. Still seems sketchy though.

Thanks bbartlog, for the thoughtful evaluation. I agree mostly, and losing Divine Providence was my only hesitation.
My justification was that my CoH already averages 2,000, and in a raid healing situation i'm usually not waiting for my targets to reach a deficit beyond that. The extra healing gained through Divine Providence was, in my view, compensation for a slower reaction time. The extra ~200 went straight into my over-healing. The reduced cooldown on PoM was fun, but if i'm refreshing it every 7 seconds, the last 3 charges were consistently wasted (2 piece bonus).

The Divine Spirit over Guardian Spirit was a pretty easy decision. A benefit with 100% uptime and return vs. a once-per-fight bail out for a tank healer playing poorly, "really cool" at best.

I really like that my points in disc let me get to 10% unbuffed haste, 22% crit, another 175 spirit buffed, and huge returns from replenishment, while still allowing me to be a CoH-bot.

I'll not factor in the current end-game content difficulty as a variable in my choice...