BobTurkey

@glasswizard - I don't believe that quest is repeatable. This is a BIS list, which is intended to inform which is the best item in any given slot.

Thanks for Starwatcher's Binding, I hadn't seen that before.

Neither of the T8 bonus are especially valuable for Holy, thus Leggings of Profound Darkness is better than Conqueror’s Leggings of Sanctification.

@tedv - I don't expect anyone to get all the items of this list, as per my comment @glasswizard above. The stack is easier to build on Eye of the Broodmother, but it is also smaller, which is not compensated by the crit rating IMHO.

Spark of Hope is inferiour to Pandora's Plea for Disc. Spark of Hope provides around 130-140 MP5. To be superiour to Pandora's Plea for Disc it would have to provide more like 165-170 MP5. This is mostly because Spirit is quite a weak stat for Disc. For Disc spirit is about one-third as useful as Intellect.

Good point re: the legendary mace. Will have to give that some more thought.

Criteria is based on my theory crafting (Priest Theorycrafting – Summary (Part 6) � BobTurkey’s WoW Blog). Why is this a good heuristic to use? I've found to to be effective and so far i'm yet to see a convincing argument why it is radicaly wrong. There are not too many other attempts to empirically come up with a better set of numbers and those that do exist either support my theory or recommend weights without providing any indication of how they were arrived at. I'd love some constructive alternative be presented.

@constantius - Yes for pure regen Meteorite Crystal is better than Pandora's Plea, however assuming you give any weight to throughput at all then Pandora's Plea is superiour. Details of the calculations are available here: Healing priest trinkets in 3.1 � BobTurkey’s WoW Blog. Spark of Hope is superiour to Meteorite Crystal for mana regen for Holy, but it is not for Disc as I said in my original list. Once again this is because the 100 spirit on Spark of Hope is weak for Disc but fairly useful for Holy. The 111 intellect on Metorite Crystal is very strong for Disc and useful for Holy. If you like i'll post a step by step calculation of this (although much of it is repeasting what in my post linked above).

@Sinndir - I agree the T9 bonuses are returning to the relative ho-hum of T7 set bonuses.

 

Raiynne

I hear that. Pretty disappointed with the 4 piece holy/disc bonus considering that this will be the third time we've seen the same bonus albeit with different percentages since vanilla. If they want to recycle bonuses I would like to see them bring back things like the 2 piece T5 bonus.

One can hope since the PTR is in it's infancy these set bonuses are placeholder and will be changed in the future.

 

moowalk

You're being inconsistent then, since you list 4 pieces of tier 8 for discipline, which are only BiS if all 4 pieces are used.

Either it's a BiS complete list, in which case you can include one quest reward and should list 4 pieces of Tier 8.5. Or it's a BiS for each slot, in which case you can include both quest rewards but you shouldn't include the 4 piece bonus.

I disagree about the 2 piece bonus.

 

Havoc12

After a lot of experimentation I have found that the value of int in terms of spirit is grossly overestimated

Here is the numbers which fit my situation over many runs:

HC uptime: I have no real way of properly tracking this. The common method of estimating uptime from WWS reports is inaccurate. I use a simple simulation to calculate my uptime based on my casting pattern. I never take SoL so that greatly increases my overall uptime. The worst case senario is 4 eligible casts per 12 seconds. This may be anything between 2 and 5 casts depending on the exact pattern and the vast majority of hte time they come grouped up. Thus assuming an average of 4x1.3sec intervals and 4 possible procs, with a 28% crit rate this gives me an uptime of ~43%. However this is not the case for the entire fight. I estimate that 5% in any fight is non casting time i.e. a period of 15+seconds where I dont cast anything. This is 100% ooFSR time and 0% HC uptime. The rest is split between 95% iFSR with 43% HC uptime and 5% ooFSR time with 90%+ HC uptime. This gives me an overall factor for FSR and HC of ~0.667.

My raid buffed spirit and intellect are ~1400. I am not including the use of the darkmoon greatness card, which raises my overall spirit by about 100.

Regen from spirit = R



At my values this is 704.6810782 total mp5.

Adding 1 spirit raises this to 705.1844218 mp5, which is an increase of 0.503343627 mp5
Adding 1 int raises this to 704.9327051 mp5 which is an increase of 0.251626888 mp5

In an 8 minute fight it is not possible to cast HoH and fiend more than once without losing out overall and they are best used chained when your mana is lowish (Remember that the 20% max mana from HoH actually fills up your mana bar, so you gain say 4k max mana and 4k actual mana, making it easy to lose mana if you use it early). Chaining fiend with HoH increases fiend effectiveness by 16% raising its value to 58%. Getting 4 ticks of HoH gives you back 13.8% total mana for a total of 71.8% max mana once for an 8 minute fight.

Thus per point of int:

HoH+fiend = 0.718*16.5*5/8/60 = 0.12340625 mp5
Mana pool = 16.5/8/60*5 = 0.171875 mp5
Replenishment (95% uptime) = 0.1959375 soon to be nerfed to 0.15675

Overall values:
1 spi: 0.503343627
1 int: 0.742845638 soon to be nerfd to 0.703658138

This is a far cry from the 100% value that is normally being thrown around, at least for the circumstances I described, which are very accurate for my case. Even for people who take SoL, which can decrease spirit regen by as much 5-10%, its nowhere near 2x for intellect. Considering that spirit also gives spellpower, I would definately say that spirit and int are pretty close in overall value.


An important change in terms of regeneration in the new patch is that mp5 has apparently had its ilvl value decreased by 25%(at least on items, don't know if its the same on gems).

[edit] Misread patch notes its 25% increase [edit]

=================================================================

New patch.

I do not understand why ppl are tripping over the nerf to PoH. Its no big deal. The HPS of PoH is currently so far above incoming DPS that you can nerf it even further without affecting the ability of priests to heal any encounter. All that the nerf is going to do, is decrease the position that priests have in the healing meters and probably not by much. PoH is like 35-45% of our healing.

Blizzard has clearly moved away from the HPS limited aoe healing design. AoE healing is now time limited. That means the crucial factor in determining aoe healing success is how many targets you can hit with a 3k+ heal within a given window of opportunity, that generally lasts less than 10 seconds. Although this heal might not save them on its own it will almost certainly guarantee that they will live long enough for another heal to save them. If you hit anyone ONCE with PoH, nerf or not, they can be effectively considered saved for the immediate present.

I am quite surprised to hear ppl arguing about blessed resilience over serendipity. Blessed resilience is a talent that has no value other than a non-visible increase in healing meter output. It does not help you heal more ppl within the window of opportunity and its so small it does nothing to help with underhealing, which is already a very minor issue with aoe healing. Serendipity on the other hand can increase the number of heals you can land quite significantly, by allowing a different spell sequence:

No serendipity
Precast PoH (it lands after 1.5-2 seconds).
PoM/CoH 4.5-5 seconds
PoH 7.5-8 seconds.

If you do get another CoH at 8 seconds you will sacrifice more PoM ticks, if you maximise PoM then the second CoH is going to land at 9+ seconds


Alternative:

Precast PoM, and CoH when the damage hits (1.5 seconds and you have a PoM jump already).
Hasted PoH, (3.5 seconds)
PoH+CoH (6.5 seconds)

The difference between the two solutions is vast. In the first one you deliver a quick heal, but then there is a lag phase, while you stick PoM on and wait out the GCD and long cast time of the second PoH.

With the second solution you have a PoM ticking already and deliver an instant CoH and a hasted PoH, which will land relatively early after the burst begins (3.5 seconds) and you have time to land a second big fat PoH, CoH combo while it still matters.

Even better you also have the option of adding in a binding heal+PoH combo if you needed it, which only takes 3.5 instead of 3 for a single unhasted PoH.

Blessed resilience is a talent whose only function is to raise your position in the healing meters. Serendipity is a core talent that greatly boosts the your burst aoe HPS.

In my view there are only four talents in the entire holy tree that are mandatory: Serendipity, GS, divine providence and spiritual healing. A lack of any of these 4 talents results automatically in a significantly inferior holy build. The remaining talent choices are very flexible and a matter of playstyle. Blessed resilience is a talent of no consequence.

 

Ellyh

Havoc, where do you get the 50% increase in MP5 you refer to? is it on the PTR realm? The reason I ask is that the posted comment from blizzard was for a ~25% increase.

 

Havoc12

My mistake, I misread patchnotes. I amended.

 

Elimbras

I have difficulties to understand your model and assumptions.
If I try to rewrite what I understands, it reads as follows:

1. Your crit rate is about 28%
2. When casting, you cast about 2 "HC eligible" spells per 8 sec.
3. 5% of the time is standing still, which means ooFSR and without HC
4. 95% 95% of the time (ie 90.25%), you assume being iFSR, and with 2 "HC eligible" cast in 8s, you get 48% HC uptime
5. For the rest of the time (5% * 95%, ie 4.75%), you assume being ooFSR, with 90% (or plus) HC uptime ?

What questions me the most is the 4th assumption: why do you assume such a high HC uptime when ooFSR ? It would mean you actively take beaks after HC procs, and you're able to do it (ie., no healing is needed right-now). It might be the case, but I like to have it clearly stated, and if possible, explained and argumented.

 

Havoc12

1) Yes my crit rate is 28%, its too high for my liking, but I dont have a wide choice of gear. Though other healers might have less or more crit rates, the results are roughly the same as long as they have a crit rate of 25%+

2) My casting pattern gives me an average of 4 HC procing casts per 12 seconds (not 2 per 8 seconds). Notice I say casts not spells, because binding heal is one spell but it has 2 casts.

3) Yes. 5% of the time I have to take a long enforced break. For example like in between the phases at mimiron. Its rough, but it does not need to be exact. Its in this ballpark.

4) That is correct 90.25% of the time I am iFSR and have an HC uptime of 43% with this casting pattern.

5) I do not actively take breaks during HC, I simply choose not to take a break UNLESS I have HC. That means if an opportunity for a break arises I will not take it unless HC is up. If HC is not up I will continue casting until it IS up and then see if I can take a break.

 

binaryz

I don't see this being mentioned but the Glyph of Holy Nova was changed on the PTR.

It now increases damage & healing by 20%.

 

• constantius

Guess they really don't want us using it as a CoH substitute. Oh well.

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

 

Starfire

Hey, look at the bright side. It went from a 40% decrease in damage to a 20% increase in damage.

And it still has it's niche. The glyph is still worth it if you are using it for it's proper niche. (No threat, can be spammed while running, does damage and healing (mostly relevant for proccing SoL)).

I always assumed Holy Nova had a high mana cost solely for the fact it generated no threat.

 

Ignayshus

Seems pretty straightforward, but maybe I'm missing something.

CoH is 6 second cooldown so the most benefit you can get from a Hasted PoH is to put it at the beginning, because once you have around 25% haste the most HPS you can do is to chain Coh > PoH > PoH (repeat).

Pre-cast ProM, Hasted PoH, CoH, PoH, PoH, CoH versus Pre-cast ProM, CoH, PoH, PoH, CoH is a marginal increase in output even at the time.

Assuming your 10 second window, 25% Haste and 3k spell power.
BR spec can output (not counting a Pre-Casted ProM) 2 CoH and 3 PoH in 9.6 seconds, but for 3% more per heal.
Serendipity spec can output (not counting a Pre-Casted ProM) 2 CoH and 3 PoH in 9.06 seconds

Serendipity spec has a ceiling of +3% assuming a full stack for the first PoH AND you stop there after the first iteration of the rotation. It gets lower over time if you continue the chain.

The HPS difference obviously most noticable only in the first 2 seconds, where Serendipity spec can deliver the first PoH+CoH in half the time it takes for the BR spec, but after that it quickly normalizes.

The last digit of Pi is delicious.

 

Havoc12

With your numbers 9.6 seconds down to 9 seconds is 6.7% haste, which due to overheal is significantly better (~3x) than 3% healing, but this comparison is misleading and suggests BR is much closer to Serendipity than it actually is.

Later PoHs don't have the same value as groups tend to be healed unevenly. Also remember people are taking potentially lethal damage and you have to land heals on as many of them as possible in the smaller possible interval. With serendipity the priest is landing every heal in his sequence half a second earlier. That is a massive advantage both because he has less chance to lose healing due to overhealing from other spells landing on his chosen targets and because his targets have to wait less before getting healed. The earlier targets which get the most benefit are also the crucial ones which probably need the most urgent healing. The 3% healing of blessed resi is meaningless in the begining of the window when the faster heals from serendipity let the priest snatch up the best "piece of the action". Later on when the impact of serendipity becomes diluted, BR gets diluted even more, since at this point its mostly topping up and a lot of the extra healing is simply overheal. Remember the important bit is getting to everyone before they die, rather than how much your heal hits for. Having every spell in the sequence land 0.5 seconds earlier, is the difference between life and death when we are talking about a challenging encounter.

Also 25% haste is quite excessive. 15%-20% haste is what you can expect ppl to have, so CoH-PoH-PoH which even at 25% haste takes 6.3 seconds is not going to be a good idea. THat is why its best to put CoH first, so you can minise the loss of CoH CD, when casting 2x PoHs with the hasted PoH. At 10% haste, this will fit perfectly into the CoH 6 second CD, at 15% haste you will lose 0.18 seconds.

I believe the fastest HPS you can have with serendipity is alternating BH/PoH combos, but also a very effective sequence is CoH-BH-FH-PoH, which at 15% haste fits perfectly into the 6 second CD. So the serendipity priest can also use a hasted PoH-CoH-BH-FH-hasted PoH-CoH combo. BH and FH heal ~4 PoH Heals so this combo is worth 4.4 PoHs, instead of 4.6 PoHs for the 2 CoH 3 PoH combo, but they take 7.74 sec at 15% haste instead of 9.13sec without serendipity or 8.43 with serendipity. As a consequence the full serendipity sequence delivers 4% more HPS compared to the 3 PoH combo and ~13% better HPS than the non serendipity 3 PoH sequence. When you count in the loss of healing on latter PoHs due to overheal and possible heal sniping or perhaps the need to move prematurely its quite obvious that serendipity blows BR out of the water. After the nerf it will be even more. Chaining yourself to long casts is a bad idea in many situations too.

In my view serendipity is a core talent and should have higher priorty than BR, which is simply an optional and non-essential talent.

========================================================

It appears there was an error in a formula in my excel spreadsheet. The actual uptime value is 55% for that sequence and the overall values are

Total regen
spi: 0.524
int: 0.763 (0.723 after nerf)

 

Elimbras

I don't know how you can get 43% uptime with 4 casts every 12s, with 28% crit. Or more precisely, you either have here a computation error, or you're assuming a weird cycle you don't specify.

HC duration is 8s, so what matters is how many cast you had in the last 8s.
4 cast every 12s can be simplified into 2.666 cast every 8s, leading to an uptime 58.3%.

If casts are assumed to be evenly distributed, then it's a cast every 3s, so at any time, you have 33% of chance of heaving only 2 casts in the last 8s, leading to an uptime of 48%, and 66% of chance of having 3 casts in the last 8s, leading to 63% uptime. So, the final uptime is 57.8% (for those who are sceptical about this kind of "time decomposition", read the theory of Palm probability).

The only way to get 42% of uptime is to consider that your 4 casts happen at the same time (or mathematically, you have 66% chance to have 4 casts in 8s, and 33% chance of having zero cast in the last 8s).

 

Veldefice

Hi, I pop in here once in a while to check out new priest stuff, but I love comparing gear with other priests.

So... I'm having a problem with my current setup right now.

I see these other priests with similar gear with about 5% more crit than I do (I'm even gemmed for crit... but I'm in the process of switching all my monarch topazes to luminous).

Does armory show people with raid buffs? I thought they fixed it so that all characters only show unbuffed stats. I'm obviously failing really badly here so any help to... make me not fail as much would be great

Thanks.

 

RootBreaker

Well, while you do have some sp/crit gems, your gems on armory are giving more haste than crit.

Also, you don't have a soul of the dead, which is a big crit booster.

Compared to me, for example, you have 31 more haste and 128 less crit rating. 95 of the crit is just soul of the dead, so the haste vs. crit difference is just that you chose haste or crit gems and items in different slots and numbers than I did. It's not really a big deal.

 

Ignayshus

Your last PoH lands at 8 seconds and while it's conjecture, I'd imagine that any Prayer of Healing done 6 seconds after spike damage is likely to be mostly overheal. If the damage is ongoing, like in Mim ph2 then the 3% gain is a solid competitor to the ever diminishing value of the first hasted PoH of a maximum hps rotation.
Therein lies the true value of the spell. If a group of people are about to die within 2 (meaning 2.5 seconds is too long) then Serendipity is the best talent.
25% haste requires 510 haste rating from gear (according to Rawr which seems to get 1.25% from somewhere...) which is accessible in Uld25 gear. My gear's not amazing and I can hit it. Though I'd agree the further you are from 25% haste the greater the value of Serendipity becomes.

Btw, changing the rotation to add binding+flash pushes your second PoH to land at 7.5 seconds which is 1.5 seconds later than the other rotation. At that point you're likely to have a lot more overhealing, where it'd be better to front load as many of the PoH's as possible. Also I find it odd that you consider Bind+Flash preferrable to PoH considering you only get 3 heals in the same span of time that the other rotation gets 5. The total healing would be similar, but you've distributed it across 2 fewer players, which should not be your goal.

Honestly I think there are only a handful of absolutely essential talents for Holy. Meditation, Twin Disciplines, Spiritual Healing, Divine Providence and Guardian Spirit, with everything else coming down to what's optimal for your playstyle and gear.

The last digit of Pi is delicious.

 

Ignayshus

It only shows completely unbuffed stats.

The last digit of Pi is delicious.

 

• caladein

It seems to be on gems as well.

Wowhead has [Dazzling Forest Emerald] with 4 MP5 on its PTR site with the Dazzling Eye of Zul at 5 MP5.

I raid as Disc 100% of the time so I was already on the fence about switching from Int/Spi to Int/MP5 in my blue socket(s). This definitely does it.

 

Awina

Right now I"m using an Empowered Renew build which basically makes ER my #4 spell over FH - roughly a 60:40 split between them. This makes Serendipty less appealing because I am fully stacked less often, even though it still has value for the reasons you mention. Precasting PoH also reduces the number of scenarios that go the way you outline it because one can make the first PoH land exactly when it needs too, and haste wouldn't have helped much unless I was strung out with GCD's/heals beforehand and couldn't precast on time. Both scenarios occur, but it just is another factor that whittles down the number of situations where I feel "OMG Serendipity was key there!".

Interesting that you would mention Spiritual Healing as a requirement given it offers 2% per point compared to BS with 1% per point. Obviously it's twice the value, but it's interesting you throw BS under the bus as only a meter padder and yet place SH so highly given they are essentially the same mechanic. I agree 3% isnt going to save anyone, but 6% (the same points in SH) isn't going to save many people either.


Thanks for the review of INT/SPI by the way. In situations where people value 0.7 SP = 0.7 INT = 0.5 SPI, one should probably increase the 0.5 by 25% to account for SG, and thus it would be 0.625. I'm not sure what others use to value SP relative to INT, so the % will vary. I currently use a 6:4 ratio for INT:SPI, but may have to adjust to 7:6 or w/e.

 

Elimbras

Basically, I evaluate most or our holy talents as giving roughly 1% more "healing" when all things are considered.
That's what makes the difference between BR and SH. SH is a talent that is superior to most other talents in terms of throughput. BR is just in the mean, depending on the scenario you consider.

 

l337n00b

1% is the stated goal from Blizzard, but in reality pretty much every tree has a small number of good talents (2%+) and a good deal of "bad" talents (.5%-)

Talents, obviously, have to be evalutated based on their place in the tree. For example, we all know Twin Disciplines can't possibly be 1% per point (and is probably around 0.6% per point) and we all take it anyway. But because we know we are spending a lot of points on sub-par talents, without additional information, I would tend to select talents that are known to give 1% over talents with more difficult to gauge effects or that come into play rarely, since historically many of those talents have ended up being quite weak (Of course, this rule works better for dps than for healing, and I think the tide of history is turning a bit on this one).

At any rate, if you think 1% is lackluster and 2% is great, then it's important to note that the difference between 2% and 1% is 1%, so since 1% changes weak to great, we shouldn't be discounting 1%'s. If 3% actually never saves anyone, then it should be just as good to put 2 points in SH and 3 in BR as 5 in SH (actually only 2.69% behind). But we all know that it's better to do 3% more healing than not to do 3% more healing, even if it is rather banal (not that the above post says its not, but the idea that it's not seems to be floated around in a lot of posts about BR).

An idiot is someone who would rather be treated like an idiot than called an idiot

 

Elimbras

I'm not saying that 3% more healing is not better.
What I was saying is that when you evaluate roughly talents at 1% each (which is an approximation, we all know that some are better, some are worst), there is a huge difference between BR and SG. SG is a "BIS" talent, or a must-have, as it is clearly better than most talent. BR is in the average, depending on your play-style and the fight.

In other words, in all (or most) situation, an optimal holy tree will take SG, and any tree without SG won't be optimal.
On the opposite side, I guess we can construct cases where you get better results with other talents than BR. Not that BR is bad, it's a good talent. But it's not among the best we should take blindly in all cases...

 

Sinndir

If you want nothing more than pure throughput, you really should take blessed resilience.

Scrapping empowered healing frees up a lot of points to take things that are far more beneficial (in my opinion). Body and Soul as well as Blessed Resilience combine to do a lot more for me on a regular basis than some extra healing on my flash heals.

 

Liths

You're overestimating the value of SG. Exactly how much you get from it depends a lot on your gear choices, high spirit and low spell power will increase its power compared to other throughput talents. Your spell selection has a very big impact as well. For most spells, the value of BR and SG is quite even with a small edge for SG, but nowhere near as big as you seem to think. ~1.1% benefit or so would be a fairly standard value. A few spells deviate from this though, most noteable renew for which SG blows BR out of the water. For PoM SG is also signifigantly stronger. However, for PoH BR is a bit better already now, and once the spell power coefficent gets nerfed with 3.2 the gap is going to be huge.

Overall, SG is the better talent. But I really wouldn't go as far as saying that its something you just have to pick if you think the 1% healing from BR is questionable.