Sun_Tzu

The problem with this argument is that the preferred spec hasn't been updated since the release of 3.1. It was completely wrong for that tier of content, through-out the whole time we were on that tier of content. It's also wrong for this tier of content. You're making a assumption as to the purpose of the build based on your own preferences, but I see no consensus here as to what the spec is supposed to be. Perhaps that's infact the first discussion we should be having.

 

tedv

Here are some of the basic conclusions we've come to:

• Throughput is king, especially on AoE heals
• Take just enough mana regeneration that you don't run out
• Don't spec for Greater Heal
• Don't plan on chain casting Flash Heals
• Renew is good if you spec for it

With that in mind, here's what I consider the bare bones of any holy spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I can understand the argument for this spec, if you can live without Serendipity: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

And this is the spec I personally would raid with: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

 

Sun_Tzu

I can live with the first spec you posted, although I'd go to 3/3 Serendipity and add desperate prayer as neither in my opinion are really situational talents. Even if you argue that you cast few PoH, the reason you are in the raid is because when the shit hits the fan you're the best person to deal with it, and the reason for that is all around CoH and serendipity stacked PoH.

As for desperate prayer, anything that helps you stay alive is essential for progression raiding at any level.

 

tedv

My biggest problem with Desperate Prayer is that it requires a GCD and doesn't have very impressive healing per second. The 2 minute cooldown isn't so hot either. If I'm in a real "Oh Shit!" moment, my first reflex is to guardian spirit myself and do one of Renew, Circle of Healing, SoL Flash Heal, or occasionally Binding Heal or Holy Nova. Of course that's a typical reflex when someone who isn't me needs healing as well. I certainly understand why people would take Desperate Prayer. I just never found that spending a talent for the sixth panic button was worth it. I don't think I'd even take it if the spell had a 5 second cooldown. (Though I would if it could target anyone.)

Summary: Not mandatory but occasionally helpful. Compare with Body and Soul and Lightwell.

 

Sun_Tzu

Yeah I can see the reasoning, and whilst I wouldn't waste GS on myself in such a situation I could see the argument for SoL Flash or a shield, but then I can't be sure I'll have either available to me when I need it, and I don't want to die because I didn't put 1 talent point into this thing. It's something you need to mentally train yourself to use, but if you do you'll see that it does have its uses, far less dependent on encounter design than B&S.

 

pindle

Agree with this post. I have never seen the use of it until I decided to take it once while swapping specs, needed some time to train myself to actually use it but once you do you'll hardly ever drop it again. It has saved my ass countless of times and as said in progression raids staying alive is all that matters.

The way I see it, its biggest value is in the fact that it's an instant heal that will heal you for more than any of the instants tedv mentioned, "wasting" GS aside. Not only does this mean that you can do it running from something you missed and took heavy damage from while still being fairly certain you will live, after it you can continue healing those in need much faster as well whilst having saved your GS for e.g. the tank (or whatever predictable dmg soaker your strategies may rely on). I'm sure that's worth one mere talent point.

 

Elimbras

This depends on what you consider as mandatory, and whom you address to.

I would consider this spec as the first "I dinged 80" holy spec. It's kind of gh+renew oriented, and it can do "correctly" (but not optimally) everything that is needed to heal. I included most of gh talents, as one can be required to tank-heal as holy, especially in heroics or Naax PUG. And I think if you sometimes have to, it's more important to be able to tank-heal than to gain 3% in aoe situation. Glyphs shall be guardian spirit, COH, and one out of flash heal, renew or POH.

Then there is the no gh, no utility" spec : you want to use renew instead of flash-heal, and you consider that you won't use gh often. You're typically an exclusive raid-healer. A few shift are possible : one point in desperate prayer, most likely from healing prayer or from healing focus. If you never have mana problems, you can remove a few regen talents (from healing prayer) to have either a little bit more throughput (empowered healing for the few flash heals you'll use) or one "utility talent" (body and soul). Glyphs shall be most likely COH, guardian spirit and renew (or POH if you want a "long" renew).

 

Sun_Tzu

Regardless of at what point you entered the game, if you want to tankheal, you shouldn't be playing as Holy. Do not encourage people to do this at any level of content. I believe the point of these forums is min/maxing, and from a min/maxing point of view, we can never recommend holy as a tankhealer.

 

Elimbras

This means that you absolutely don't recommend any new 80 priest to be holy. I'm not sure that's a good idea.
You need to be able to tank heal to run heroics dungeon. I'm not saying that it's the best assignment for a holy priest, but there are circonstances where you want to be able to do it.
You might also need to sometimes tank heal in 10's raid, depending on your composition. You might be dual-specced with disc (I've been for a long time), but I can imagine that some people doing 10s are not (because they've a shadow offspec, or a PvP spec).

I absolutely agree that tank healing is not a good assignment for a holy priest. In 25's, that should be avoided. I'm just saying that it can happens in some circumstances, even whilst min-maxing (given some constraints).

 

Starfire

Tell them to go Discipline.

Besides, Discipline really shines in Heroics when you only have to heal 5 people; and of that 5 you should be healing one of them 90% of the time. Between Penance, PWS/BT and PoH any new priest should be fine as Discipline, not to mention the superior efficiency of Penance will help.

 

Sun_Tzu

Exactly. This should probably be mentioned as well in the first page guide, that Holy is a pure raidhealing spec, and that if you want to run 5mans or heal tanks in 10mans you're better off going disc.

 

tedv

I disagree. A new 80 priest is probably better as holy than discipline because in raids, I'd rather they didn't have the critical job of healing the tank while they are undergeared. Healing 5 mans, even heroics, is a joke in any healing spec at any gear level. You don't need Greater Heal to do it. You can literally just keep Renew and Mending on the tank and burn some flash heals as needed, with either Circle of Healing or Holy Nova to keep up the group.

 

Isinrul

First off, been reading this thread all the way through. Just lookin for a little updated info on MP5 vs spirit.
I currently gem royal dreadstone in blue slots.
5mp5 seems better to me than 10 spirit.
i read somewhere that the spirit to mp5 coefficient is 4/11. that would mean that 10 spirit would end up being a little less than 4 mp5.

I am looking for input, not stating opinions here. feedback please. thank you.

 

Xtian

1/2 Healing Focus? Either you're going to be wanting 2/2 if you think you'll be getting pounded on or, more likely, you're just going to die anyways, meaning these talents can be tossed elsewhere.

3/3 Emp. Renew yet 0/3 Imp. Renew? Renew is good if you spec for it all the way. Each talent point not invested, however, devalues all of the other investments. Granted, 6 talent points is a hefty price, but I think either it needs to be completely filled out or not at all.

I think this underscores the point that people are involved in such a variety of activities with many different situations, even having just dinged 80, that cookie-cutter Holy specs are going to be difficult to fashion. It will likely be more precise and accurate to just include the analysis about a number of different decisions that have to be made. And that analysis is scattered throughout the thread already.

 

Starfire

The amount of mana Spirit is worth depends on your current levels of Spirit and your current levels of Intellect. Eitherway, Intellect is almost always better for mana than either Spirit or Mp5; however, Spirit also provides spellpower for Holy priests, so it is generally favored. Even if you play Discipline most of the time, Spirit on your gear allows flexibility for when you need to be Holy.

 

Imua

A newly dinged 80 probably is better off healing heroics as Disc rather than Holy. But, the fact of the matter is that healing heroics is not exactly cutting edge, and min/max'ing probably isn't as necessary. Either holy or disc should be able to heal a heroic just fine. (This assumes things like you have a crit immune tank, dps over 1k, etc.)

So I can see where, from a Compendium perspective, these types of things are listed. Disc is better as the mitigation/tank healing spec; Holy is better as the raid healing spec. Both specs can heal heroics. Entering raid content, I do agree that it's better to have a more seasoned person on the tank, as a tank death = wipe, but a dps death may not necessarily equate that. (Again, not discussing cutting edge content)

Of course, real healing priests will have both specs and should be able to play both specs well, and handle all situations thrown at them - raid healing and tank healing. (Even raid "healing" as disc with bubble spam) I think the consensus is that tank healing as holy is far from ideal.

 

Sun_Tzu

You think wrongly. There's no real question about what a Holy Priests job is, therefore further circumstances such as tankhealing or heroics don't matter. The cookie cutter Holy Priest build is a raidhealing spec including all the essential talents needed to perform at any level of content, a basic template from which a person can start to experiment based on personal preferences later on.

 

Xtian

Tank-healing and heroics-healing may not be worthwhile situations to worry about, but those weren't what I was talking about. For example, can you use Renew in your raidgroup or not? If your fellow healers constantly overwrite HoTs with their own heals, then you should probably be aware of that and realize that 6/6 Renew is pretty terrible for you. As sucky as it is to have to make up for your fellow healers' play mistakes, in the current world of "Pug everything," it's something that a healer has to deal with.

Also, isn't the question being posed specifically about building a cookie-cutter for entry-level content? If that doesn't include heroics, especially with the 3 new 5-player instances coming in 3.3 which will likely be harder to heal than Naxx, then what's the point?

 

Carnathagia

It seems that you are thinking wrongly. Healing Focus and Empowered renew are not 'tankhealing or heroics' talents, they are valid talents to min/max based on your raid's healing composition and the content you are healing. What exactly are you trying to argue? You seem to want Body and Soul removed from the listed specs, and have mana regeneration talents put in. This discussion is pretty much covered by the three specs listed, not to mention throughout the compendium.

 

Sun_Tzu

Sorry, failed to properly read what you were quoting, or rather quoted too much of your post.

My point was simply to say that it's not too hard to provide a general spec for Holy Priest raidhealing, and that it's useful to do so. I ofcourse agree with you that you should either spec fully into renew or not at all(and my position is that renew should be the default position as opposed to a flash heal spec, examples of raids overhealing hots are special examples and something individuals should react to after the fact, not an assumption we should make).

I don't really see this as having to be a matter of an entry level spec, but a general template which people revert back to at any level of content for a new raid situation. Basicly assuming you know nothing about the fights before you walk into a raid, what would be the spec you'd have as your baseline? What is the most generally correct/useful spec? That's what should be on the frontpage.

But yeah, for me atleast tedv's earlier suggestions seem reasonable(with the addition of 3/3 serendipity to his bare bone build).

 

Starfire

Healing Focus depends entirely on the fight at hand. It's mostly useless; however there are some fights where it's pretty money. The first which comes to my mind is Firefighter. But I can't think of any fight in ToC where I'd say it's required or an asset.

 

Snegel

Well, considering this, why spec Inspiration? Of course, you have to consider 2 points in divine fury or 2 points in inspiration, when having 1 point in desperate prayer, but there is no need to max out inspiration.
Therefore, this seems to me the base for a raid healing holy spec:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The single point in Body and Soul can be nearly free set anywhere.

5 points left, my personal favor might be HC, Body and Soul and Inner Focus, although it seems that right now regen isn't a big matter so HC and Inner Foucs may be wasted.
Of course, single target healing, especially tank healing, is more than just crappy when allocating talent points this way.

 

l337n00b

Since inspiration provides a flat damage reduction from physical damage and there are lots of bosses with physical AoE attacks or adds that might take a swipe at a non-tank having your circle of healing hand out inspiration is not worthless. There aren't many bosses where this would help, but 2 points in divine fury is not great either.

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

 

Senres

Not to mention that your CoH and PoM spells are going to be hitting your tanks and the extra chance to proc a damage reduction buff on them is huge.

 

Sun_Tzu

Are you seriously suggesting leaving points out of Holy Concentration? And since each point of B&S gives the same amount of utility(30->60% runspeed), why would you ever go 1/2? Take it or don't.

Also, Inspiration is way better than Divine Fury for the previously mentioned reasons.