You'll note I called it a "battleground build" and not a "PVP build" or anything else. There may be other niche uses for a hybrid build like this but I've only tested it for this purpose.
Worth speccing into if you're grinding honor, Wintergrasp marks, etc. and are consistently doing this sort of PVP for a while. Some of the more controversial decisions:
- 5 points in Mental Strength versus filling in Healing Prayers, Divine Providence, Healing Focus, or any of several useful talents in the Holy tree. Putting that many points in Disc severely limits your choices in Holy, but I've found Mental Strength to be a good counter for what would otherwise be pretty big mana issues. With it, I don't drink any more than I did as Disc.
- It's weird to see a Holy build without Serendipity! It's not that the fast gheal wouldn't be useful, it's more a matter of how rare it is to cast Flash Heal that many times in a row. Even for one-off casts, I use Flash Heal a fair amount, but not so constantly as to justify three points there at the expense of something else.
- No Inner Focus! And I do like it paired with PoH. I just don't like it better than anything else I've got that point in.
- With the kind of tough decisions you have to make with only 45 points for Holy, you've got to play to this build's strengths: Crit for SoL, Spellpower, CoH, Renew, Smite. It does hurt not to have the PoM talents.
- To be honest, I resent the point in Spirit of Redemption and wish I could finish Holy Spec instead. I'm often the last person in my range to die, so I don't get as much use out of that fifteen seconds as you might think. But the 5% Spirit makes it a must.
How it compares to Disc PVP: this is the "heal a lot of people at once for a pretty good amount" build instead of the "heal one person (including yourself) through almost anything" build. I also like it better offensively. Add SoL Smites and Flash Heals, Improved PW:S with Body and Soul, CoH and Improved Renew to the instants you already have and you've got a lot of buttons to push for decent instant joy and pain (especially since you've got more spellpower in the same gear than you'd have with a Disc build). The praises of B&S cannot be sufficiently sung. Things I miss most: Penance, obviously, and glyphed Pain Suppression is a ***** to lose.
Incidentally, you'd think I'd be dying a great deal more than I was as Disc, but I'm really not. You have to be on your toes a bit more, but with shield-sprints and all those instants, you can generally do okay.
Glyphs: Flash Heal, Inner Focus, and I've got Circle of Healing in there right now, but PW:S or Dispel would be good too. Or Smite if you want to bring your damage up.
This build shines the most in Wintergrasp, AV, and other clusteryouknowwhat type places where you can get lots of crits going at once for SoL procs, and also when protecting flag carriers (
Body and Soul). Edited, Nov 8th 2009 10:13am by teacake