Well now, patch day has been and the dust is slowly settling. Dual spec, nerfed mana regeneration and various talent changes, a lot has happened for us priests. I realize it may be a bit too early to ask, but I need the opinions and experiences of other priests - I want to update my healing priest guide as soon as possible and I need to work out how the cookie crumbles right now.
Some things seem obvious, such as the cookie cutters which have now changed as well as a couple of racials. Nevertheless, anything that you can point out being wrong with the guide is something. As you have noticed it's a big wall of text and I can't even begin updating it without a proper list of what needs to be done - and multiple priests definitely see more than one. The purpose of this thread is ultimately to get the guide back up to date and into a solid read for new priests, and to discuss the class changes overal.
So, lets hear it:
What's your experience so far?
What changes are you noticing most?
And; Which points in the sticky are now completely off and should be rewritten?
I'll add in my experiences tomorrow when I've had a shot at Ulduar. As of now I've only done a Naxx-10 run and I completely outgear the place.
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Ok, was in Ulduar last night (server was down so had a late start). Did a bit of healing and a bit of dps, so here goes.
Was shadow on Razorscale, dps appears to have gone up overall. Finished the fight 2nd on the meters. Not a lot more to report really, apart from the fact that its nearly impossible to go out of mana. I only used the shadowfiend as a little dps burst improver when she landed. The shadowweaving/sw:p bug is still there, no big surprise in that department. Overall this spec hasn't changed much.
Then we did some progress on ignis. I specced disc for this as our tank was getting the crap hammered out of him (this guy seems a little overtuned). Disc still has a slight healing throughput issue (no penance glyph available as yet), however the shielding system has been greatly improved and definitely saved the tank a number of times. Again, discipline doesn't have issues with mana regeneration whatsoever. The mana back from PW:S is borderline overpowered and I'm pretty sure I could spam heal a tank pretty much indefinitely. The biggest change I've noticed on this one is the emphasis on proccing the shield now. Some of the hits our MT was taking were almost 1-shots which meant the DA proc rate had to be good. Crit is definitely a huge plus on this build now (was running at about 36% raidbuffed last night)
I didn't do any holy spec stuff myself, but from what the others told me they were very impressed with the changes, the short cast time prayer of healing is an absolute lifesaver on the heavy damage fights, as is the buffed up circle of healing. Again, none of them had any mana issues so far.
I think the biggest surprise for me so far is the lack of impact the spirit changes have made. So long as you take meditation its very very hard to make a dent in the mana pools now.
Was shadow on Razorscale, dps appears to have gone up overall. Finished the fight 2nd on the meters. Not a lot more to report really, apart from the fact that its nearly impossible to go out of mana. I only used the shadowfiend as a little dps burst improver when she landed. The shadowweaving/sw:p bug is still there, no big surprise in that department. Overall this spec hasn't changed much.
Then we did some progress on ignis. I specced disc for this as our tank was getting the crap hammered out of him (this guy seems a little overtuned). Disc still has a slight healing throughput issue (no penance glyph available as yet), however the shielding system has been greatly improved and definitely saved the tank a number of times. Again, discipline doesn't have issues with mana regeneration whatsoever. The mana back from PW:S is borderline overpowered and I'm pretty sure I could spam heal a tank pretty much indefinitely. The biggest change I've noticed on this one is the emphasis on proccing the shield now. Some of the hits our MT was taking were almost 1-shots which meant the DA proc rate had to be good. Crit is definitely a huge plus on this build now (was running at about 36% raidbuffed last night)
I didn't do any holy spec stuff myself, but from what the others told me they were very impressed with the changes, the short cast time prayer of healing is an absolute lifesaver on the heavy damage fights, as is the buffed up circle of healing. Again, none of them had any mana issues so far.
I think the biggest surprise for me so far is the lack of impact the spirit changes have made. So long as you take meditation its very very hard to make a dent in the mana pools now.
I'll also chime in from the Disc side of things.
I'm talking with experience of 2 PuG Heroics and Partly PuG Naxx (which I do not outgear).
Relevant Statistics for the Heroics:
26% Crit. 200mp/5. 1662 SP (IF buffed). 900 INT.*
Relevant Statistics for Naxx:
31% Crit. 200Mp/5. 1750+ SP (buffed+). 1000+ INT.
I was surprised how well the Mana Regen changes came through as well.
It's not as though there was no change at all, I merely had to utilize the mana restoration abilities I had previously ignored. But even then, there was never a time I went to activate Shadowfiend/Holy Hymn and not find one of them available, and I'm still comfortable using Inner Focus for primarily the Critical Hit chance instead of the Mana.
Divine Hymn is now a very well crafted "oh sh*t" button.
PW:S on global cooldown is very nice.
I also found it to be a bonafide ***-saver.
Shadowfiend continues to impress me, although admittedly, I was never too impressed with the little bugger to begin with. The mana regen is downright respectable and reliable. With the 30% SP = Fiend Health change I find him surviving better in PvP, not just keeling over at the first sight of an AOE, but actually requiring someone to focus fire. I need to sit down and figure out how to macro his new teleportation ability, as he still has the bad habit of crawling back to my side when there are other perfectly assailable targets still wailing on my tank. Maybe something along the lines of targeting my target's target...?
*I know, I know, that's moderate-at-best SP for Heroics. I had recently gotten a few new toys and in the heady rush of the update forgotten to enchant them.
Edited, Apr 16th 2009 12:43pm by Zemzelette
I'm talking with experience of 2 PuG Heroics and Partly PuG Naxx (which I do not outgear).
Relevant Statistics for the Heroics:
26% Crit. 200mp/5. 1662 SP (IF buffed). 900 INT.*
Relevant Statistics for Naxx:
31% Crit. 200Mp/5. 1750+ SP (buffed+). 1000+ INT.
I was surprised how well the Mana Regen changes came through as well.
It's not as though there was no change at all, I merely had to utilize the mana restoration abilities I had previously ignored. But even then, there was never a time I went to activate Shadowfiend/Holy Hymn and not find one of them available, and I'm still comfortable using Inner Focus for primarily the Critical Hit chance instead of the Mana.
Divine Hymn is now a very well crafted "oh sh*t" button.
PW:S on global cooldown is very nice.
I also found it to be a bonafide ***-saver.
Shadowfiend continues to impress me, although admittedly, I was never too impressed with the little bugger to begin with. The mana regen is downright respectable and reliable. With the 30% SP = Fiend Health change I find him surviving better in PvP, not just keeling over at the first sight of an AOE, but actually requiring someone to focus fire. I need to sit down and figure out how to macro his new teleportation ability, as he still has the bad habit of crawling back to my side when there are other perfectly assailable targets still wailing on my tank. Maybe something along the lines of targeting my target's target...?
*I know, I know, that's moderate-at-best SP for Heroics. I had recently gotten a few new toys and in the heady rush of the update forgotten to enchant them.
Edited, Apr 16th 2009 12:43pm by Zemzelette
I haven't been to Ulduar yet to really assess the changes, but did a few instance runs to see how the changes to disc affected playstyle.
The removal of the cd to PW:S is welcome. Tossing shields prior to healing on non-tanks seems preferable to outright healing. My Grid does not show my Grace stack as of yet, so I really haven't been able to track the change to Grace visually.
I didn't noticed any mana issues, other than actually having to drink between pulls occasionally. I probably carry too much spirit in my gear and actually did benefit from the fsr, especially in between pulls (I'm used to seeing a full mana bar by the time we get to the next pull, now I see it still creeping up, although still around 80-90%). I can see how this may affect a timed run like CoS, but probably nothing to worry about.
The change to Divine Hymn makes me think that its situational use will come into play in Ulduar. I tried it out to see its effect, it seems quite nice. Hymn of Hope looks promising as well. The haste bonus from BT affects these as well, compressing the channelled time if desired. The cd's on both keep them as one-hit wonders, but the effects are now worth using. With ~20k mana pool and ~1900 SP, I recieved ~2.8k mana from HoH and DH was healing around 7k per tick (critted for 11k and procced a DA). IF + DH appears to have some impressive possibilities. (It's interesting to note that the 20% increase to mana is not included on the first tick of HoH, but the effect does last the full 8 seconds even if the channel is hasted.)
*edit I don't like the new PI effect. It is less eye-catching and the recipient might not notice it.
Plus, it was fun to cast it and scare the bejeezus out of peeps that didn't know what it was!
Edited, Apr 16th 2009 1:37pm by Trylofer
The removal of the cd to PW:S is welcome. Tossing shields prior to healing on non-tanks seems preferable to outright healing. My Grid does not show my Grace stack as of yet, so I really haven't been able to track the change to Grace visually.
I didn't noticed any mana issues, other than actually having to drink between pulls occasionally. I probably carry too much spirit in my gear and actually did benefit from the fsr, especially in between pulls (I'm used to seeing a full mana bar by the time we get to the next pull, now I see it still creeping up, although still around 80-90%). I can see how this may affect a timed run like CoS, but probably nothing to worry about.
The change to Divine Hymn makes me think that its situational use will come into play in Ulduar. I tried it out to see its effect, it seems quite nice. Hymn of Hope looks promising as well. The haste bonus from BT affects these as well, compressing the channelled time if desired. The cd's on both keep them as one-hit wonders, but the effects are now worth using. With ~20k mana pool and ~1900 SP, I recieved ~2.8k mana from HoH and DH was healing around 7k per tick (critted for 11k and procced a DA). IF + DH appears to have some impressive possibilities. (It's interesting to note that the 20% increase to mana is not included on the first tick of HoH, but the effect does last the full 8 seconds even if the channel is hasted.)
*edit I don't like the new PI effect. It is less eye-catching and the recipient might not notice it.
Plus, it was fun to cast it and scare the bejeezus out of peeps that didn't know what it was!
Edited, Apr 16th 2009 1:37pm by Trylofer
I have gone Holy raid and PvP Disco. In PvP I have a huge issue w/ mana, although admittedly I didn't take anything to boost mana regen. So perhaps Rapture and its use is necessary to a Disc build. Divine Aegis is very nice, Penance is improved but still needs a glyph (I actually do use it for dmg now and heal mostly w/ flash heal/PoM).
On the PvE side, we did Ulduar last night. On Razorscale I had some mana issues, but the ability to compensate. I did have to pop the shadowfiend once. CoH is much better. I haven't gotten into the habit of noticing the short PoH cast procs yet, any tips? I have a larger mana pool than I used to, though..so in general I'm satisfied.
This patch (as usual) was not as much of a catastrophy as advertised.
On the PvE side, we did Ulduar last night. On Razorscale I had some mana issues, but the ability to compensate. I did have to pop the shadowfiend once. CoH is much better. I haven't gotten into the habit of noticing the short PoH cast procs yet, any tips? I have a larger mana pool than I used to, though..so in general I'm satisfied.
This patch (as usual) was not as much of a catastrophy as advertised.
By the time I got home from work (sigh) and got the patch installed, then reassigned all my buttons and skills, I had very little time to do anything...
I did do some grinding and found myself OOM so quickly it was unreal...I am used to being topped up constantly (I run shadow) and NEVER need to drink. In an hours grinding I found myself drinking three times...maybe I have set my talents up wrong, but I don't think so.
If I get the chance, I'll log in after dinner and check, but I think I'm good....
:S
DrFolly.
I did do some grinding and found myself OOM so quickly it was unreal...I am used to being topped up constantly (I run shadow) and NEVER need to drink. In an hours grinding I found myself drinking three times...maybe I have set my talents up wrong, but I don't think so.
If I get the chance, I'll log in after dinner and check, but I think I'm good....
:S
DrFolly.
Right, so I just fininished Ulduar.
As holy.
Yes, you read that right; no way in hell I'm speccing disc with 3 damn paladin healers around >.>
My experiences so far:
-Mana regeneration nerf is present but not too bad. As disc in Naxx 25, I still don't really run OOM. What has changed is that the times where I used to go "Oh, I'm on 60% now, have to look out a bit" are now "Oh, I'm on 20% now, better actually use my cooldowns". As holy in Ulduar 25, I don't really run OOM but I do get 'dangerously low' (~20%) and I actually have to actively work my cooldowns into my healing if I want to keep my mana up. Overal I think Blizz has done a very good job here: they wanted mana to have an impact on the way you played again, and that's exactly what it does. I don't run OOM very fast, but if I heal ineffectively, I notice.
-Talent tree changes are pretty sweet. Disc was mainly the same except that I got some extra crit, and holy was... different but nice. Blizz seems to have done a very nice job here as well, I actually like holy equally to disc now and I think I'm going to have it as off-spec. There are certain things I like and dislike about both specs and it seems that's exactly what Blizz was after.
-I'm now officialy glad I've got Divine Hymn. It's yet another CD that gives me some mana back and it's a bit more castable right now.
-Body & Soul isn't even half as bad for PvE. I've picked it up in my current holy spec and it gives people who I shield an easier time getting away from whatever's hurting them. And those are generally the people who need that boost since I don't shield people unless they get low.
I'll come with more later. I hope to do some updating to the sticky as well in the weekend.
Edited, Apr 17th 2009 1:03am by Mozared
As holy.
Yes, you read that right; no way in hell I'm speccing disc with 3 damn paladin healers around >.>
My experiences so far:
-Mana regeneration nerf is present but not too bad. As disc in Naxx 25, I still don't really run OOM. What has changed is that the times where I used to go "Oh, I'm on 60% now, have to look out a bit" are now "Oh, I'm on 20% now, better actually use my cooldowns". As holy in Ulduar 25, I don't really run OOM but I do get 'dangerously low' (~20%) and I actually have to actively work my cooldowns into my healing if I want to keep my mana up. Overal I think Blizz has done a very good job here: they wanted mana to have an impact on the way you played again, and that's exactly what it does. I don't run OOM very fast, but if I heal ineffectively, I notice.
-Talent tree changes are pretty sweet. Disc was mainly the same except that I got some extra crit, and holy was... different but nice. Blizz seems to have done a very nice job here as well, I actually like holy equally to disc now and I think I'm going to have it as off-spec. There are certain things I like and dislike about both specs and it seems that's exactly what Blizz was after.
-I'm now officialy glad I've got Divine Hymn. It's yet another CD that gives me some mana back and it's a bit more castable right now.
-Body & Soul isn't even half as bad for PvE. I've picked it up in my current holy spec and it gives people who I shield an easier time getting away from whatever's hurting them. And those are generally the people who need that boost since I don't shield people unless they get low.
I'll come with more later. I hope to do some updating to the sticky as well in the weekend.
Edited, Apr 17th 2009 1:03am by Mozared
My mana regen sucks. I was ranting about it to my guild last night after running a pug that failed to down a single boss in Nexus normal with 3 of us level 75 or above. I was OOM half way through a fight. Granted, it was a bad group but not the worst I've had and I can usually keep the tank and a dps alive providing they take aggro off me. Not last night. Shadowfiend used, hymn of hope used, potion used. OOM again.
Then today I did Drak Tharon with a tank I knew was good and pugged dps, all of us around level, and never came close to going OOM. Topped up mana before bosses and that was it. No potions or mana regen abilities used and not one person died, nobody even came close. If that run is anything to go by I can't see mana being any more of an issue unless you've got a bad group.
Other than that I've not seen any difference. I've not changed the way I heal, I just drink more between pulls.
Then today I did Drak Tharon with a tank I knew was good and pugged dps, all of us around level, and never came close to going OOM. Topped up mana before bosses and that was it. No potions or mana regen abilities used and not one person died, nobody even came close. If that run is anything to go by I can't see mana being any more of an issue unless you've got a bad group.
Other than that I've not seen any difference. I've not changed the way I heal, I just drink more between pulls.
I believe that mana regen is fine being a Holy Priest.
The problem is not the regen, it is people that want to do the harder content without putting in any effort to gear up for it first.
We all want to see the end content, but when someone is in all green, and has no rep in order to have at least some nice upgrades than they should not be able to do the harder content.
With a little effort the gear comes, once everyone has decent(not the best)gear for the level of content they are in, healers should have enough mana to keep them alive.
I only go oom when the tank takes way to much damage and the dps can not put out enough.
This is not a mana problem, it is a gearing problem.
The problem is not the regen, it is people that want to do the harder content without putting in any effort to gear up for it first.
We all want to see the end content, but when someone is in all green, and has no rep in order to have at least some nice upgrades than they should not be able to do the harder content.
With a little effort the gear comes, once everyone has decent(not the best)gear for the level of content they are in, healers should have enough mana to keep them alive.
I only go oom when the tank takes way to much damage and the dps can not put out enough.
This is not a mana problem, it is a gearing problem.
If healing an instance or raid some people may be affected by dual spec gearing. I imagine there are a huge group of people out there who have gone dual spec but who don't have the gear to support there second spec, I'd assume the output dps wise for Ret Paladins dpsing in Holy gear for example is not exactly great.
Personally I started to collect shadow gear and glyphs a good while ago now so I could swap out a few key pieces and get hit capped as shadow. I know my gear isn't great but I still score pretty highly gear wise in either spec. I have used epic crafted gear, rep rewards, emblem rewards and a nice epic caster drop plus hit gems and enchants. I have been doing some dailies as Shadow and have found little downtime so far but saying that I play shadow to proc as much mana regen as possible and have replenishment almost permanently up. I also specced into Meditation which I believe is now even more of a MUST for any spec.
As for other mana regen skills I have always used my Arcane Torrent and Shadowfiend as a matter of course. Especially if healing under geared or inexperienced players I find I need and want all the mana I can get. I would rather manage my cooldowns throughout the fight than go OOM at a crucial moment. When learning EOE I was the only healer not OOM by the end of the 10 minutes and I was still hitting high on the healing meters. I have gone OOM on occasion in the past but it has been very rare. So far the changes have been for me noticeable but not game nuking.
The rapture change hurts a little but the change to meditation is excellent as are the changes to divine hymn and hymn of hope. I have not had a proper chance to play with my Disc spec yet as I'm not raiding atm but I am hopeful.
I also noticed that regen outside 5SR is virtually none existent now so if you do burn up your mana you HAVE to drink even if you are above half mana because it's just too long to wait.
Personally I started to collect shadow gear and glyphs a good while ago now so I could swap out a few key pieces and get hit capped as shadow. I know my gear isn't great but I still score pretty highly gear wise in either spec. I have used epic crafted gear, rep rewards, emblem rewards and a nice epic caster drop plus hit gems and enchants. I have been doing some dailies as Shadow and have found little downtime so far but saying that I play shadow to proc as much mana regen as possible and have replenishment almost permanently up. I also specced into Meditation which I believe is now even more of a MUST for any spec.
As for other mana regen skills I have always used my Arcane Torrent and Shadowfiend as a matter of course. Especially if healing under geared or inexperienced players I find I need and want all the mana I can get. I would rather manage my cooldowns throughout the fight than go OOM at a crucial moment. When learning EOE I was the only healer not OOM by the end of the 10 minutes and I was still hitting high on the healing meters. I have gone OOM on occasion in the past but it has been very rare. So far the changes have been for me noticeable but not game nuking.
The rapture change hurts a little but the change to meditation is excellent as are the changes to divine hymn and hymn of hope. I have not had a proper chance to play with my Disc spec yet as I'm not raiding atm but I am hopeful.
I also noticed that regen outside 5SR is virtually none existent now so if you do burn up your mana you HAVE to drink even if you are above half mana because it's just too long to wait.
Mozared wrote:
-Mana regeneration nerf is present but not too bad. As disc in Naxx 25, I still don't really run OOM. What has changed is that the times where I used to go "Oh, I'm on 60% now, have to look out a bit" are now "Oh, I'm on 20% now, better actually use my cooldowns". As holy in Ulduar 25, I don't really run OOM but I do get 'dangerously low' (~20%) and I actually have to actively work my cooldowns into my healing if I want to keep my mana up. Overal I think Blizz has done a very good job here: they wanted mana to have an impact on the way you played again, and that's exactly what it does. I don't run OOM very fast, but if I heal ineffectively, I notice.
I agree with this, mana's become something you need actually keep an eye out for and that's what it should be imo. It just forces you to be effective with your heals now and if you are, mana isn't gonna be your enemy. However if you, like a lot of people grown accostumed to in naxx, just heal without really watching your efficiency then yes, you might run into some issues.
Quote:
I need to sit down and figure out how to macro his new teleportation ability, as he still has the bad habit of crawling back to my side when there are other perfectly assailable targets still wailing on my tank. Maybe something along the lines of targeting my target's target...?
How about:
#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/cast [nopet,harm][nopet,target=targettarget,harm] Shadowfiend
/cast [harm][target=targettarget,harm] Shadowcrawl
/petattack [harm][target=targettarget,harm]
NCJim wrote:
Quote:
I need to sit down and figure out how to macro his new teleportation ability, as he still has the bad habit of crawling back to my side when there are other perfectly assailable targets still wailing on my tank. Maybe something along the lines of targeting my target's target...?
How about:
#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/cast [nopet,harm][nopet,target=targettarget,harm] Shadowfiend
/cast [harm][target=targettarget,harm] Shadowcrawl
/petattack [harm][target=targettarget,harm]
Don't really need the line for casting of shadowcrawl. The ability is defaulted at autocast, so the shadowfiend will use it when it goes to attack an enemy.
Zem's problem is that once the mob it was summoned to attack has died, it comes back to stand next to Jim, which is because the pet is defaulted in defensive stance and unless Zem gets attacked the fiend won't do anything.
Another easy solution, is once you summon the fiend, simply put him on aggressive. Because of it's short duration I've never seen a problem occur where the fiend may pull another pack, like a permanent pet would. The thing I have noticed with many priests (and mages for that matter) is they don't realize they can control their pets once they summon them. It has the same action bar as a hunters pet. You can ctrl+1 (default setting) to send it to attack any target you want.
Edited, Apr 17th 2009 10:28am by SynnTastic
3 bosses down in Ulduar. Mana isn't a terrible issue for me yet, but I tend to heal conservatively (5% overheal even in Nax). However, the new shadowfiend? WOW!!!
We were doing the 3rd Ulduar boss, and I got down to a sliver of mana. Popped shadowfiend and Hymn of Hope (I thought they were removing this?), and was back up to 90% at the end. Verrrrrry tasty.
As a side note, I decided to drop Spirit of Redemption and DP from my spec. Can't say I miss either one.
We were doing the 3rd Ulduar boss, and I got down to a sliver of mana. Popped shadowfiend and Hymn of Hope (I thought they were removing this?), and was back up to 90% at the end. Verrrrrry tasty.
As a side note, I decided to drop Spirit of Redemption and DP from my spec. Can't say I miss either one.
LVL 80 Holy Priest in T7.1 gear.
I like it, and I don't really like change...
After respec'ing I had to get confortable. I dropped in on my buddies guild and grabs some friends to run UP (yeah, 73 runs with no mt drop and counting). Was a little worried at first (our tank likes to move at a very rapid pace... though I'm used to his style by now), as I saw my mana bar drop a bit lower than I like. I actually had to take a moment and drink once. I got a chance to use both the Hymns. Now I don't remember which is which off the top of my head, but they were both really cool.
-We run by the chick boss and clear the next hallway while we wait for her to do her thing and come back to her. He likes to go cat fourm and run down the stairs and pull, then go bear. I usually catch up with him about 40% health and top him off with a flash then a couple Gheals. So this time I flash x3 (got a crit and an instant cast in there :) then GHeal, love that speed cast.
-Pulled the life hymn after a messed up pull (our mage was trying to tank.... too much rum :), I found it really nifty. Thinking that with the lesser mana cost it would be helpful in a raid as you don't have to pay mind to who is low on health, it picks it auto for you.
-I did find myself dipping into the low 30's% mana more than once (again, our tank likes to push things. but then he has only played that one druid since Vanilla, and he's point in a progression guild), but it really wasn't anything a pot, SFiend, or even a short 10sec sip couldn't handle.
-I really like the work-over on Serendipity. The speed is really nice on PoH. Pop some Flashes on your dps and when you come back to your tank the Gheal is right there.
-Hymn of Hope seems to be more effective... as in I think my mana is going up more than normal. Both the mages I had in the group didn't really see a point to the extra mana and voiced such. But we were only running UP with 5 guys in T7 or T7.5 gear so.... maybe in our 8 man Naxx runs...
-I don't see the point in the ImpRenew... maybe someone could do the math on that with the glyph and see if it's really that cool.
-I like the changes to Holy Nova, and I find myself using it a bit more now. Haven't actually use CoH yet.
-The speed on the Shield was fun for our tank :) And I have the Shield Glyph too, so it was actually fun to pop shields on all around.
As for the mana thing... I'm doing ok. You do have to watch your bar a bit closer and forget the days of 28% overheals. But meh, I'm not finding it to be a crutch.
And a racial pt.... I love the instant cast on Gift of the Nar! With that and renew on my tank I can forget him for a good 6 sec.
Hope you all enjoy the changes as much as I do!
I like it, and I don't really like change...
After respec'ing I had to get confortable. I dropped in on my buddies guild and grabs some friends to run UP (yeah, 73 runs with no mt drop and counting). Was a little worried at first (our tank likes to move at a very rapid pace... though I'm used to his style by now), as I saw my mana bar drop a bit lower than I like. I actually had to take a moment and drink once. I got a chance to use both the Hymns. Now I don't remember which is which off the top of my head, but they were both really cool.
-We run by the chick boss and clear the next hallway while we wait for her to do her thing and come back to her. He likes to go cat fourm and run down the stairs and pull, then go bear. I usually catch up with him about 40% health and top him off with a flash then a couple Gheals. So this time I flash x3 (got a crit and an instant cast in there :) then GHeal, love that speed cast.
-Pulled the life hymn after a messed up pull (our mage was trying to tank.... too much rum :), I found it really nifty. Thinking that with the lesser mana cost it would be helpful in a raid as you don't have to pay mind to who is low on health, it picks it auto for you.
-I did find myself dipping into the low 30's% mana more than once (again, our tank likes to push things. but then he has only played that one druid since Vanilla, and he's point in a progression guild), but it really wasn't anything a pot, SFiend, or even a short 10sec sip couldn't handle.
-I really like the work-over on Serendipity. The speed is really nice on PoH. Pop some Flashes on your dps and when you come back to your tank the Gheal is right there.
-Hymn of Hope seems to be more effective... as in I think my mana is going up more than normal. Both the mages I had in the group didn't really see a point to the extra mana and voiced such. But we were only running UP with 5 guys in T7 or T7.5 gear so.... maybe in our 8 man Naxx runs...
-I don't see the point in the ImpRenew... maybe someone could do the math on that with the glyph and see if it's really that cool.
-I like the changes to Holy Nova, and I find myself using it a bit more now. Haven't actually use CoH yet.
-The speed on the Shield was fun for our tank :) And I have the Shield Glyph too, so it was actually fun to pop shields on all around.
As for the mana thing... I'm doing ok. You do have to watch your bar a bit closer and forget the days of 28% overheals. But meh, I'm not finding it to be a crutch.
And a racial pt.... I love the instant cast on Gift of the Nar! With that and renew on my tank I can forget him for a good 6 sec.
Hope you all enjoy the changes as much as I do!
20 posts
I healed UK last night at lvl 67!, 54/1/3 (no grace), with 8.8k mana 387sp and 19.7 crit. I ran out of mana every 3-4 pulls (sans the nonelites) depending on my non tank spec'd 71 unholy dk's performance. Boss fights were intense to say the least. I just felt like a badass and technically is a patch experience.
To the guy worried about shadowfiend coming back to you on trash pulls. Just assist target (most likely your tank) and keep shadowfiend on a click friendly location. Hit f, clicky, click tank....mobs dies, hit f, ctrl 1, click tank. Its new ability is great for just the scenario you are talking about. Prior to shadowcrawl he would die shortly after getting back to the mobs if you heal max range.
Loving no cd shield, and the da stacking is fantastic even at my low lvl. Cant wait to get to 80 and have a more pertinent opinion.
edit:
spirit tap now gives me my pre 3.1 mp5 making it somewhat useless, it helps a little but no longer can i just go from mob to mob never dropping below ~80%. I will keep it just b/c I don't want to waste my free respec on another since im already at 50g. I know it was up in the air before about its usefulness as a lvling talent(outside of shadow). Now it is reallllllly meh!
edit:
The rapture change bugs me (from a lvling perspective), but still manages to help as long as I can get my shield do be completely absorbed. Ive started doing nothing but dot target, shield, 1 cast may it be MB, HF, or penance, wand, hope they break my shield before they die (if they do the shield was essentially free thanks to 4.5% return on self), sw:d....move on. fights take a lil longer but its about as simple as it gets.
Edited, Apr 17th 2009 6:44pm by Slywether
Edited, Apr 17th 2009 6:45pm by Slywether
Edited, Apr 17th 2009 7:48pm by Slywether
To the guy worried about shadowfiend coming back to you on trash pulls. Just assist target (most likely your tank) and keep shadowfiend on a click friendly location. Hit f, clicky, click tank....mobs dies, hit f, ctrl 1, click tank. Its new ability is great for just the scenario you are talking about. Prior to shadowcrawl he would die shortly after getting back to the mobs if you heal max range.
Loving no cd shield, and the da stacking is fantastic even at my low lvl. Cant wait to get to 80 and have a more pertinent opinion.
edit:
spirit tap now gives me my pre 3.1 mp5 making it somewhat useless, it helps a little but no longer can i just go from mob to mob never dropping below ~80%. I will keep it just b/c I don't want to waste my free respec on another since im already at 50g. I know it was up in the air before about its usefulness as a lvling talent(outside of shadow). Now it is reallllllly meh!
edit:
The rapture change bugs me (from a lvling perspective), but still manages to help as long as I can get my shield do be completely absorbed. Ive started doing nothing but dot target, shield, 1 cast may it be MB, HF, or penance, wand, hope they break my shield before they die (if they do the shield was essentially free thanks to 4.5% return on self), sw:d....move on. fights take a lil longer but its about as simple as it gets.
Edited, Apr 17th 2009 6:44pm by Slywether
Edited, Apr 17th 2009 6:45pm by Slywether
Edited, Apr 17th 2009 7:48pm by Slywether
my build right now is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuZcxxcsMqiu0euVo holy has seemed to changed from using g. heal to using flash to build up Serendipity i have done OS HC, Naxx normal and have not ran out of mana so am likeing the new spec lol
Mozared wrote:
Right, so I just fininished Ulduar.
As holy.
[...]
I actually like holy equally to disc now
As holy.
[...]
I actually like holy equally to disc now
Muhahahahahahahaha
And that's all I have to say about that.
Nobody on my server seems to have the glyph of penance yet and it's ticking everyone off.
I love how simple they made the whole dual spec thing. Even Dominos handled the bar change without a glitch, which I was weirdly stressed about (I hate redoing my bars every time I respec, that alone is worth a thousand gold). I do, however, keep forgetting that it drains all my mana and just run out along my way all merrily until... hey, why are all my buttons all dark like that?
Ugghhhh.
We have it on my server, and as expected it started out at simply outrageous prices.
Not having it is irritating, having it available at 1,000+ gold per pop? torture.
Whatever happened to being nice to your doctor?
The change to PoH is welcome. The only drawback is that you need to have a situational awareness of the target. When I have the tank targetted for MT healing, the radius of the heal centers on the tank, sometimes missing ranged group members. When targetting a different group, knowledge of their positioning is crucial to centering the heal for all to benefit.
Quote:
The change to PoH is welcome. The only drawback is that you need to have a situational awareness of the target.
This is very much true, and brings back incentive to make melee/ranged groups again. It's really quite annoying to cast PoH on a hunter only to discover that the rogue, feral druid, fury warrior and retardin in his group didn't get the heal.
Quote:
Ugghhhh.
We have it on my server, and as expected it started out at simply outrageous prices.
Not having it is irritating, having it available at 1,000+ gold per pop? torture.
We have it on my server, and as expected it started out at simply outrageous prices.
Not having it is irritating, having it available at 1,000+ gold per pop? torture.
We got lucky on my server, a fellow officer got the Guardian Spirit glyph. Now all that's left is Penance, I'll get that sooner or later but atm I'm doing more holy play than disc anyway.
Quote:
Muhahahahahahahaha
And that's all I have to say about that.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Penance still > Circle of Healing, though. *nods*
teacake wrote:
Muhahahahahahahaha
And that's all I have to say about that.
Nobody on my server seems to have the glyph of penance yet and it's ticking everyone off.
I love how simple they made the whole dual spec thing. Even Dominos handled the bar change without a glitch, which I was weirdly stressed about (I hate redoing my bars every time I respec, that alone is worth a thousand gold). I do, however, keep forgetting that it drains all my mana and just run out along my way all merrily until... hey, why are all my buttons all dark like that?
Did you smell that teacake? All the way from those Paladin forums? A Disc convert being persuaded over the the light with those damn cookies?
Anyway on topic:
Glyph of Penance has popped up now on my server at 100g but since I am just doing dailies as Shadow right now I'm hoping it comes down soon before I need it. Much more reasonable price than I expected though, I was thinking it might go on for 500g at least since it is an essential for Disc priests.
Overall I think I like it, I like it a lot. I have to ask though now I have my two duel specs "setup" do I have to pay to change them? Also how on earth do I do that? Just at the trainer like normal? I want to fiddle with my Shadow spec a little and wondering if I can fiddle without it costing me a fortune.
ysabellstohelit wrote:
Did you smell that teacake? All the way from those Paladin forums? A Disc convert being persuaded over the the light with those damn cookies?
I don't do much on the pally forums. I'm too new to really know what they're all talking about. Plus they're, like, tanks and stuff?
And I still read this forum every time I'm on Alla cause I lurrrves you guys. 
ysabellstohelit wrote:
I have to ask though now I have my two duel specs "setup" do I have to pay to change them? Also how on earth do I do that? Just at the trainer like normal? I want to fiddle with my Shadow spec a little and wondering if I can fiddle without it costing me a fortune.
I haven't done it yet, but my understanding from rumor and innuendo is that you go to the trainer and respec like normal (including the fee), and the respec will apply to whatever your currently active talent set is. Although I think it would be cooler if that was wrong and it refunded all your talents on both sets, so you got both for one fee.
Edit: Confirmed. When you pay to respec it refunds the active talent set's talents only. Your inactive spec remains unchanged. The cost of respec is the usual. So I guess if you want to respec both you'll pay twice, and the fee will go up per usual.
Edited, Apr 19th 2009 7:53pm by teacake
Aye - you go to the trainer, pay 1000 gold and then you get 2 'unspecced specs'. First you spec one, then you click the "switch to secondary spec" button and spec the second one. Voila.
Damn I'm a bit gutted I spent my 1k and I don't even get one free respec of those two new talents. Ah well never mind gold falls out of the sky with those new dailies so it won't be too much of a hardship!
Holy priest, just healed Ulduar for the first time last night. A lot of new stuff top get used to!
I very much welcome the change to PoH. This sort-of brings us back to healing the old CoH-way in burning crusade, but whats amazing about PoH is the 30-yd range on it. This is a wide range for any group heal, and it should be more effective in healing up spread-out ranged groups than any other group heal, though it may require a little thought to be put into party groupings. I guess to try and use it well you could position yourself in the middle of your party and cast it on yourself, I always had a theory that people would want to stay within the buff range of totems so shamans make should make good targets to cast group heals on - though I'm not sure most dps really think about this...
The 5 second rule - do we even bother trying to cheat it for extra regen any more? I guess not? No mana issues here so far. We'll still stack spirit for holy concentration and spiritual guidance
Serendipity - I love the fast gheals! To maximise heal/second when single-target healing - is 3 x fheal + 1 x gheal going to be the way to go now?
I guess what I'm unsure of is whether all this changes the basics of how to heal a tank? While the old rule for a holy priest was to cancel-cast gheals, would we now be better to use faster heals? (pure tank healing I rarely do anyway, certainly the new serendipity works very well for heals on dps then getting a quick gheal in on the tank when needed)
Edited, Apr 20th 2009 8:39am by Helluna
Edited, Apr 20th 2009 9:03am by Helluna
Quote:
Quote:
The change to PoH is welcome. The only drawback is that you need to have a situational awareness of the target.
This is very much true, and brings back incentive to make melee/ranged groups again. It's really quite annoying to cast PoH on a hunter only to discover that the rogue, feral druid, fury warrior and retardin in his group didn't get the heal.
The change to PoH is welcome. The only drawback is that you need to have a situational awareness of the target.
This is very much true, and brings back incentive to make melee/ranged groups again. It's really quite annoying to cast PoH on a hunter only to discover that the rogue, feral druid, fury warrior and retardin in his group didn't get the heal.
I very much welcome the change to PoH. This sort-of brings us back to healing the old CoH-way in burning crusade, but whats amazing about PoH is the 30-yd range on it. This is a wide range for any group heal, and it should be more effective in healing up spread-out ranged groups than any other group heal, though it may require a little thought to be put into party groupings. I guess to try and use it well you could position yourself in the middle of your party and cast it on yourself, I always had a theory that people would want to stay within the buff range of totems so shamans make should make good targets to cast group heals on - though I'm not sure most dps really think about this...
The 5 second rule - do we even bother trying to cheat it for extra regen any more? I guess not? No mana issues here so far. We'll still stack spirit for holy concentration and spiritual guidance
Serendipity - I love the fast gheals! To maximise heal/second when single-target healing - is 3 x fheal + 1 x gheal going to be the way to go now?
I guess what I'm unsure of is whether all this changes the basics of how to heal a tank? While the old rule for a holy priest was to cancel-cast gheals, would we now be better to use faster heals? (pure tank healing I rarely do anyway, certainly the new serendipity works very well for heals on dps then getting a quick gheal in on the tank when needed)
Edited, Apr 20th 2009 8:39am by Helluna
Edited, Apr 20th 2009 9:03am by Helluna
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