I don't really understand this wasted talent discussion.
Yes, we have to get 10 talents in Disc that we wouldn't take otherway, and it's not something we like to do.
Yes, other classes don't have to take bad talents (and even that is not so true : consider for example the first tear for paladins in any tree, they are not better than the fist 10 in disc, and the first 10 points in druid resto tree are not fantastic either).

But anyway, priest are balanced around the fact that they must take these talents, and can't take all good talents in holy. Blizzard know this. If we were suddenly allowed to take all talents, then we would be "too good", and a nerf would come (either in talents, or in spells).

So, the question is : for the same final efficiency, do we prefer to have to skip some good talents, and to be able to take all "a little bit less" good talents ? Personnaly, I clearly prefer to have a little choice in the talents I take instead of having a single coookie-butter build.

I've always found Guardian Spirit useful. Here's what you do: every time someone dies, think of ways how you could have saved him with Guardian Spirit. Ulduar is kinda unique compared to rest of the raids in that a huge part of raid damage can be avoided by doing something. This means that even with avarage situational awareness you can make use of Guardian Spirit. However I'm still inclined to say that excellent players find uses for Guardian Spirit where others don't

Here is a tip for using lightwell efficiently: you can click lightwell at any time and your cast will not be interrupted. You can click lightwell during a cast or a global cooldown! So the most efficient way to make use of lightwell heals for me is to use it as kind of a personal healing device. Any time I take dmg, I can just click lightwell. As for a place where using lightwell is in everyone's interest, there is one encounter: General Vezax. Otherwise known as "General NoManaRegenFromAnywhereAnytimeOrByAnyMeans". Basically, in that fight your shadowfiends dont work, your normal regen don't work and even your manapotions don't work. Suddenly lightwell's efficiency looks very attractive! So my final verdict for lightwell: useful enough to spend 1 talent point, but it won't be your bread & butter heal.

In my opinion GS and lightwell are not the world's easiest spells to use. You have to think a bit on how to use them (for example, lightwell positioning is 99% of it's success), but that's part of the reason why I love them!

If we can't get everything in one build people are just going to have TWO holy specs and change per encounter anyway. Pretty much getting everything they need for every fight, but forcing us to waste our dual spec on the same tree.

I really wouldn't care if there was one cookie cutter holy build if means I don't have to have 2 holy builds. If i have to be balanced around that so be it. Shamans and Paladins run 1 standard build more or less.


Talent wise while the first 2 tiers of disc aren't great I think Tier 2-4 of the holy tree has become pretty limiting for your average raiding holy priest roll these days. I'd Like to see Spiritual Guidance moved to Tier 2.

Moving Spiritual Guidance to T2 would give holy the option to drop Gheal centric talents like Divine Fury and Improved healing if desired for a more raid healing focused build. It would also make it easily accessible for Disc giving it the throughput buff i think it was promised (and never received other than via crit) as well as making spirit more valuable for disc. It would just better define the Holy and Disciple Trees imo.

Some higher end holy talents would probably need to be shuffled around a little in it's place but you get the idea.

I see what you're saying. But you're forgetting that those talents will be taken by the other classes anyway.
The first few tiers of druid resto are weak, yes. But A resto druid isn't losing anything by taking them. They're there to take the druid down to the deeper tiers of his tree.

If we compare the "secondary tree" of the other healing classes (that is, the 10-20 points the other classes put in their non-healing tree), we get this:

Druid:
5% to hots, for a hot-based class; 4% crit on their non-dot heals; 9% mana off 4 of their heals; extra ticks on 3 key HoTs; and optionally 20% haste after a crit. Now, you could argue that Nature's Splendor at least is just as mandatory as meditation, but they get some good talents on the way there.

Paladin:
5% to all heals; 10% mana off all instants (which is pretty much everything except their casted heals); 5% crit. Admittedly, there are many more useless talents in a paladin's healing build, but the difference is that with 51 talent points, they can take everything they want in the healing tree, so for the other stuff, they can afford to waste points on it.

Shaman:
10% more intellect; 5% crit; and optionally 15% to earth shield and water shield orbs, and/or 30% to earthliving weapon. 10% int and 5% crit are great, and they don't skip anything much in the resto tree to get the others.

Disc Priests:
Again, they can fill out everything good in their main tree before switching to a secondary tree. And they get: 5% crit; 0.5 secs off GH cast time; Desperate Prayer and Inspiration.

Holy Priests:
5% healing on instant spells, which is pretty much just CoH, PoM, Renew, PW:S and DP; 54 spellpower to IF; 4% sta and 30% to PW:F, which only one priest needs, and disc priests will all have; 1 free spell with 25% crit every 3 mins; and our completely mandatory, couldn't heal without it meditation. And to get it we can't get all the good talents in the holy tree.

That's what people are saying. All the other healing classes get all the good talents from their healing tree before moving to some pretty good talents in other trees. But we don't. We go the other way around. We absolutely have to get meditation before going to our healing tree at all. And that leaves us with limited choices in our main tree. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy with the way it works out. But I can certainly relate to those who feel hard done by.

As fun as I find this multi page discussion about bloated talents fun and all(sarcasm) and as much as I hate to repeat myself(seriously) I think I asked a valid question that was completely overlooked. Maybe it's been answered elsewhere but I can't seem to find it. So...the question I posted a few days ago:

I haven't browsed the forums much lately to see what everyone's saying about values of crit/haste/spp for disc priests in raids for 3.1. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to see that crit is really really good for us now so I'm running under that assumption when I ask this question. I'm also assuming that haste is at a satisfactory level since, when you really need it, it's exceptionally easy to pre-haste the cast you need with a PW:S. So the question...when comes the time to choose between crit or spellpower instead of regen(which might be right away based on my experience on ptr thus far). Would you choose to gem out of intellect and in to more spellpower, or more crit? Pre-3.0 I just stacked as much spellpower as physically possible, but with stacking aegis I find myself wondering if more crit wouldn't be better. I've been tinkering with both methods but can't make up my mind.

Thoughts?

I agree that the secondary tree of holy priest is mandatory, and kind of weaker for 10 points.
My point was that their main tree has nearly no wasted point, whereas other healers main tree starts with weak talents (except for shamans). So, instead of wasting 10 points in the main tree, holy waste 10 points in secondary tree. Recall that these 10 points are also taken for disc priest, and they are even less useful for them (no POM or COH, only one good instant, PW:S, which is 15s cd on the same target, and requires predictable damage). There is no reason to focus on wasted points only in the secondary tree.

I don't think that the first tiers of holy are weak. One of the strength of holy priest is their adaptability. At least till now, they are good (although not excellent) tank healers, and excellent raid healers. So, they fill whatever role is needed. These tiers 2, 3 and 4 basically allows holy priest to be tank healers, even if they are not useful for raid healing.

I would say that the trouble is more the end of the holy tree than the disc tree. There is too much talents there, and many has "similar effect" (especially, empowered healing and divine providence, which could be merged, or blessed resilience, test of faith and spiritual healing, or healing prayers and improved healing, or improved renew and empowered renew). Basically, any other healer takes nearly everything with around 55 points in the main tree, holy could go up to 65. So, question is still for me : would we prefer to have only 55 useful points in holy, or is 65 better, for the same total benefit ?

Disc priests don't have PoM? Really? And you seem to be forgetting Penance.

Not that Twin Disciplines is an amazing talent, but it's certainly better than you're giving it credit for.

It is interesting to see how many players still hold onto the concept that the "best" or "ideal" holy priest must have more than 44 points in the Holy tree. I disagree. My spec, which has basically been the same for the past 2 months, doesnt require more than 44 points in holy, and I am still statistically on the top of the meter overall.

With the changes coming to 3.1, I actually end up with more options and overall healing than I had prior, as well as 3% more mana to cast with, not to mention cheaper dispells, self-poison cure, a nice "Escape" speed boost, and the ability to PW:S every GCD.

All this, as a hybrid.
Amusing, considering several of the folks here at EJ claimed I had no idea how to heal or use my abilities back when I offered to contribute healing strategies pre-80, and furthermore claimed that: "You cant possibly heal Sapph/Kel-25 with renew." WWS Data speaks for itself, my "Claims" have been proven, and my original "pre-80 theories" are now incontrovertible facts. Spreadsheets are not the only source of methodology, and absolute numbers cannot be achieved within a variable relative environment.

I actually suggested deviation from Blizzards cheesing of Haste/Spirit back in BC pre-LK. The changes promoted a "Fast-Cast now, hurry up and wait for OOFSR later" mentality as Blizzards intended design. I knew this was not the way I wanted to exert control over healing, so I cheesed off with Mage/Warlock gear instead, stacking Crit and spellpower. I rarely ever use Greater Heal, so little in fact that Ive considered removing it from my hotbar alltogether. The strategy I use rarely requires me to ever cast a non-SoL proc'd Flash Heal anyway, and GCD is my only limiting factor for mana expenditure since 75% of all healing spells I cast are instant.
With the upcoming changes from 3.1, the style of healing I use and the gear I have chosen directly circumvents Blizzards "We will force you to conserve mana" policy, even though said changes are in direct opposition to Blizzards original design.
I feel for the priests who caved into the initial design; maxed haste and spirit, and will ultimately suffer the brunt of Blizzards attempt to "Railroad" their own playerbase.

Sorry Omnido. I have a hard time taking your healing playstyle claims seriously when your patchwerk report looks like this:

Circle of Healing 46%
Renew 22%
Flash Heal 16%
Prayer of Mending 16%

You can't use a WWS sample as an example if you're forcing your other healers to play suboptimal since your spell choices are so bad. You're HoTing more than the druid is, while at the same time you're doing less healing than the druid? Bring less healers, I want to see you 3-man heal Patchwerk with that playstyle and then tell me you've got Gheal off your bars.

I'm going to let everyone else reading this thread analyze the rest of the fights you've healed, because I'm frankly starting to believe you're trolling me.

Edit: Also you're trying to tell me that you've been going for crit / spellpower type of gear when renew is one of your main spells together with claiming that the GCD is your only limit when the only stat affecting the GCD is haste? Now I'm sure of it... you must be trolling me.

I dont think you thought this out very well

1) You have missed the point, by miles. Your build has zero benefit over 51+ holy. You can do exactly what you do now with a deep holy build without mental agility and the completely worthless impDS, with exactly the same efficiency. The difference is that the full holy build can also single target heal quite well if necessary on top of bring a very useful cooldown. Your build is not specialised on instants. It just gimps single target healing and skips GS for no reason.

2) LOL at your WWS, I cant see any data of value in it. Any healing report when the paladin is at the bottom of the healing meters on patchwerk is not to be trusted. Also I dont see KT or Saphiron there. Not to mention that on average the fights posted on this report are about 3 minutes long. You only used shadowfiend once in all the bosses in there FFS and razuvious of all places!! Under these conditions you can top the meters without even getting meditation.

3) You don't seem to understand how wotlk itemization works. What you are saying is nothing new. We have known that spirit is not a great regen stat since the moment wotlk was released. Neither your gear nor your healing strategy circumvent the mana regen nerf. You are not using a good chunk of the mana regen available to priests and not maximising your efficiency, because you did not need it. If blizzard has done its job well and ulduar is challenging you wont be able to get away with it.

4) If you want to contribute anything useful to this discussion, you need more than half baked WWS and unsubstantiated comments. If you want to provide data that supports your points post the results of challenging fights.

Guardian spirit currently has more uses than any half-assed hybrid specs you can come up with. specing 2x/4x (disc/holy) simply does nothing but show you don't know the power of GS. With ulduar coming up and the GS glyph (amazing btw), the possibilities become endless.

Let's please stop the discussions about 'what if' talent trees or ridiculous talent specs thats.

On a side note, anyone else drooling over the spell power and clicky haste trinket? Reminds of Skull of Guldan healing without the wasted itemization on hit.

What are you trying to prove Omni? Killing patchwerk with three healers does prove something, and 2 healers proves even more. That you have skilled healers who understand the mechanics of the fight (and tanks who can take hatefuls!).

No, you're missing the point: bringing enough healers so that it goes "smoothly" as you say makes sense towards increasing your probability of success, but it says nothing about your healing strategy. All you've proven is that if you bringing excessive healing, then your healing tactics are not very relevant.

Sorry, but using CoH and renew on patchwerks is really difficult to defend as a rational strategy given the hateful strike mechanic. At some point, a tank is going to take two hatefuls two seconds apart. If enough healing doesn't land in that two second window, the tank dies. Why would you choose CoH to address that? Spitting out relatively small doses of healing across multiple targets really doesn't make sense in that context.

Your guild managed to kill Patchwerk having a healer who healed the melées (CoH in Patchwerk??? If someone does that in my guild he is KICKED. Do you know how Hateful works?), making them vulnerable to hateful unless they went to the slime again. Overall, you made your guild lose a lot of dps by chosing that spell.

And also, healing with Renew means nothing in a fight where the tank dies in 2 hits. A +1000 tick means nothing when the tanks is receiving more than 20k of damage each hateful.

So I guess, OmniDo, your point is that: "It is possible to kill all bosses while you heal with Renew & CoH mostly". Oh yeah, I have to agree with you. But I would also add a second point, a second observation based on your intense research:
"It is possible to kill all bosses with 24 people".

No. Just no. You are the one who doesn't know how Hateful Strike works.

I've solo healed Naxx 10, and that would be impossible with the "effectiveness" of your alternative healing strategy. Renew being your mostly used spell just means that you should reroll a druid when the going gets tough. Ofcourse if you're playing the game casually and you feel you can afford bringing an extra healer to your raids every time you're in, you're gonna be perfectly fine using that strategy. You'll also be perfectly fine smiting the whole run since someone else is covering your slack.

I'm seeing a WWS with your renewing and the druid having to spam regrowth to cover you and the paladin slacking (yes WTF the paladin is lowest on healing at Patchwerk )

There's no problem at all going for an alternative healing strategy, I'm pretty much doing that myself. I'm going for a few utility talents instead of throughput and that's very unorthodox here.

Tell me where your healing strategy is better than mine and if it's for the majority of the fights I'll give you my account.

Patchwerk will hateful on the target in melee range with the highest HP who is also one of the top three on Patchwerk's aggro list, right?
Since you do not have all tanks in that candidate-list, if you heal the melée dps they might receive a hateful strike.

Where am I mistaken?

Signed up to reply to this, had to wait the day before I could post.

It very much depends on the situation in which a no-cooldown rapture is used whether it feels too strong or not. For a disc priest single target healing a tank, it does not matter because weakened soul gives it a natural cooldown. For a disc priest shielding perhaps 3 targets taking consistent damage, it does not seem so strong because even in a best scenario, it will give a mana return every 5secs on average.

However, when used as a raid damage mitigation tool it obviously has far greater potential, but only when there is very predictable or consistent damage on all or most raid members (which admittedly is quite often). The greatest problem is that because of the amount of mana it returns, PW:S becomes a free spell and for this purpose alone disc priests would stack SP+haste sets to maximise the benefit from this strategy. (Assuming it would be more effective than using convential means of raid healing, like PoH, though I assume it would be without having checked the numbers myself. The mana and time saved from healers overlapping heals on raid members would be one of the greatest benefits.)

There are two ways to prevent that from happening. Reduce the amount that it returns, or fix the cooldown. A 12sec cooldown is quite high and on a slow swinging boss RNG could see that cooldown clipped fairly often, meaning a smaller and more unreliable return on mana in fights where the priest is single-target healing (which would be quite often). This is a problem because I feel the cooldown is 12sec to try to prevent this clipping from happening often. However, having no cooldown and less mana return would simply encourage spamming the shield on raid members instead of rewarding the disc priest for performing their role as a single-target healer.

Ultimately I had a look at some numbers and assuming a 22k mana pool, if a disc priest was lucky enough to receive the mana gain every 12sec it would be worth around 415mp5. That's a fair chunk of mana regen. So considering that even if some unlucky clipping occurs (once every 20sec is still 250mp5), it sounds pretty much right to me for the cooldown to be fixed to what the tooltip states. This would mean that spamming it as a means of raid-damage mitigation will only bring the proc closer to that 12sec cooldown mark, and a disc priest shielding 3 tanks will get more consistent returns for their increased expenditure.

I haven't had the chance to raid extensively as disc, or at all on the PTR, but as for comparisons with holy paladins' illumination and their mana return abilities... well, perhaps I might suggest that it could be them who are unbalanced with disc priests, not the other way around

Why would you not have 3 tanks unless you were pushing for a very fast kill?

&
Ok I've explained this before and I swear to God this is the last time.

Patchwerk hatefuls #2 and #3 on his aggro list (#1 is obviously the main tank). Hatefuls apply threat to the tanks to keep them at #2 and #3, however if you have people doing silly amounts of DPS they can grab #3 and get killed.

Now the HP myth... Yes his hatefuls do depend on HP but only for those in the #2 and #3 spot, he will always hateful whichever has the most HP so it is important to never leave them both low life or he will likely kill one.

Example, Tank #2 & #3 both have 45k health. Tank #2 gets hit to 25k, hateful comes up it hits tank #3 down to 26k . If tank #2 is healed up past 26k before the next hateful timer is up tank #2 will get hit.

To do the 2 tank or 2 healer thing you need an offtank with a sick amount of HP, and healers who are very good. It wouldn't hurt to have a plate wearing DPSer with ~35k hp to try to keep 3rd on the aggro list. I'd suggest a feral druid tank and a pally + 1 more healer (disc priest would rock out)

That trinket with GS and the Legendary Mace (if goes in with the datamined spell) will be freaking amazing. I think it would make a Discipline priest cry.

I do think the trinket will be situational however -- in the sense while I can see it's obvious use (such as hasting up prayer of healings for usage after serendipity drops), I am a bit cautious on taking it away from caster dps. I can't say I am terribly up to date on all casters, but I know spellpower and haste tends to be the two best stats for caster scaling (assuming hit cap).

I agree; I would definitely not take that trinket unless every single DPS already had it. On-use haste could be situationally nice, but it's not that amazing for a healer in my opinion.