priest talents, the new

[Jumai]

oh dear god, IE just cheated me out of 600 words typed :( I'll try to paraphrase.

I'm seeing 3 viable builds. There are a few differences I will try to outline. There are 3 unquantifiable benefits, these are improved flash heal, master healer (translates to an additional 90.54 heal per second on greater heal, from about 633 to about 724), and the spirit buff on your group members.

The context: one minute of play during which you cast enough to gain 0 ticks of mana regeneration. Assuming 10 spells are cast, one is prayer of healing, 4 are renew, and 5 are greater heal (attempting to generalize). We compare mana efficiency and which of the three benefits the build offers. Due to the 2.5 seconds less casting time with the Holy build, I award 1 tick of mana regen to the Holy priest. I assume 300 spirit unbuffed, and add the spirit buff where the build allows.

The builds:

30 holy, 21 discipline, a la prepatch Tivoli. This build is our least mana efficient, so it's our baseline, so we assume you save 0 mana. Your Prayer is 20% cheaper, you gain 1 tick of mana regen for 100, but this is all the mana you get to save. Benefits offered: improved flash heal for less inturruptable healing, master healer for faster healing. This build tosses some arguably minor mana efficiency for some arguably mandatory burst heal power, if someone's doing 50 more dps than you can heal, this build pulls someone out of the red where another lets him die.

31 discipline, 20 holy, a la prepatch disc-based healing. Here we take advantage of the boosted Meditation and the spirit buff. This build saves 198 mana compared to the Holy build. Your prayer costs more mana than Holy, and you get no full regen ticks, but you regen at 15% with 35 extra spirit. Benefits offered: spirit buff to group members. This build sacrafices some arguably minor flexibility and desperation ability for group and personal staying power, if your opponents just won't die, this build cranks out more total healing than Holy and allows similar extra performance from your group.

26 discipline, 25 holy, which I don't believe has been done, or was worth doing, so far, so I'll explain further. You run Meditation and Inner Focus in Discipline, but instead of going to Divine Spirit, buy Improved Flash Heal, Improved Prayer of Healing, and spend a point somewhere fun like the death heal. It works out 352 mana cheaper to heal this way than with Holy and 152 mana easier on the bar than Discipline. Benefits offered: improved flash heal. This build sacrafices everything for cold hard mana efficiency. You gain no extra spirit, faster healing, or other shiney apples like builds 1 and 2, but between your Meditation regen and your savings on Prayer of Healing, you eat less blue and can produce the most raw health points for your tank.


I hope I outlined what I see as the differences in real terms clearly. For clarity's sake, I will say our "base" build is 21 Discipline including inner focus and 20 Holy including improved healing, improved renew, and spiritual healing (the new 10% talent). From there, you would go either into Meditation to the spirit buff, or the improved flash/prayer and master healer, depending on which of the 3 builds you prefered. IMHO these 3 builds are the most viable choices for a pure healer, none tries to multitask too much, each values a different aspect of your role the most (be it group staying power, personal staying power, or heal per second) and focuses there.

I am not too certain right now as to which I prefer. I know I said in #nurfed (I'm Liam-K) I was leaning towards 31 disc, but I'm not positive and I change my mind all the time. At the moment, I think 30 holy might offer the most all said and done.

I'd love to get some discussion going on what you priests value highest and how you would build to compliment that. It would be interesting to hear from warriors as well, whether you worry more when your health is a little lower after every heal or when we shout LOM. Let's talk concepts, not points.

[Kailea]

Well I had a build worked out which had something like 24 holy 22 disc 5 shadow, which allowed me to get all the worthwhile talents in both trees (except meditation which even with the boost isn't all that great imo) such as improved poh and inner focus and still had 5 points left over for spirit tap to help soloing. Unfortunately I can't log on so I can't post it now.

I don't think the new master healer is worth it, if I remember correctly it reduces .5 secs casting time off of heal and greater heal but not flash heal so it doesn't make that big of a difference while spirit tap is very helpful for soloing. Of course if it's reasonably easy to respec in retail, or if you'll be grouping most of the time you could always get master healer or meditation at 60.

[Tivoli]

I was tossing back and forth between master healer and meditation, i chose master healer, reason being is that meditation only works while casting. Master healer means that i will start my mana regen .5 seconds earlier, and my heal will get off .5 earlier, but i haven't had the chance to really test it since it' costs cash to respec now too.

[Kakarot]

What about solo play/PvP with a master healer?

Tivoli, in your "new priest build" thread, you worked out a mix of holy and shadow talents, doesn't this make sense anymore?

Does a pure shadow priest make sense in some situations, or is a shamane the better choice for a secondary healer?
shadow priest is imo a mix of a mage and a holy priest, with a lot power in PvP/1on1 and solo situations and quite good secondary healer in group situations.

sry, a lot of questions

greets Mike

[Hemlock]

I was under the impression that mana does not start to regen for 5 seconds after spell is executed, making the .5 seconds you save with master healer not worth the 5 points imo.

[Envie]

oh dear god, IE just cheated me out of 600 words typed I'll try to paraphrase.

Use Firefox by Mozilla instead of IE, I LOVE IT! Faster, safer and better features to prevent glitches.

As for the new priest talent build options, I'm with Tiv on the master healer option being a possible better investment than meditation, but like him, I have not respec'd to test and ingame costs are currently pretty horrendous with reagents, repairs, etc... no money to just throw away into respeccing several times to test. :( Bad idea on Blizz' part so close to the end of beta.

-

[Jumai]

It looks like most of us are in agreement supporting Master Healer.

@ Hemlock: IMO master healer is not about the mana. Remember that the cycle of spells I use for this test will total about 7k mana, you are going to bottom out casting like this. All said and done, the most you can do mana wise is have an extra flash heal or renew up your sleeve, but with Master Healer you can crank out heals faster. Faster heals means it takes more DPS beating on your tank to break through your healing and kill him. I predict this being extremely valuable in raids, and I KNOW it's a gem in pvp.

edit: I should clarify something that may not be apparent. The true advantage of master healer comes about when chaincasting. In this example, chaincasting the spells would take about 34 seconds. Since you are NOT chaincasting, the real (unquantifiable) benefit of Master Healer is going to waste. This example shows that Master Healer builds can nearly keep up with Meditation builds while playing the Meditation game, healing to the end of your mana when you don't need to chaincast.

[Hemlock]

Yes i agree with you that it is superior in cases where you are forced to chaincast, but in my experiences i only recall one time i was forced off of a 4 sec heal to spam Flash heal or that a single mob laid down so much DPS that he did not have 4 seconds to live. In BRD for instance, i have had tanks that forgot to respec defensive and gone against emp and 4 sec was no problem whatsoever, generally starting heals at 75% and they would land around 20% give or take. (although I would have to start heals earlier if his hammer proced) As far as PvP is concerned, group pvp, anything that lowers casting time is huge, but taking a 5v5 for example, if you have the luxury of a 3.5 sec heal to someone it is probrably over already. In the begining i imagine your shields, flash heals and renew are your primary options. Possibly in raid encounters this talent will shine, thats where i think it will come into its own so to speak, but as of yet i would think twice.
I am not a fan of the meditation talent either, but in a prolonged fight it may become usefull, if your primarily spirit and spend the extra point for 34 spirit buff. I dont know. I am currently toying with a disc/holy setup that may address the primary concern of most priests, that is being viable in PvP and valuable in group/instance settings. Ill post it here, forgive me for not being descriptive on the talents, but by now i think we all know what they are anyway.


Unbreakable Will 5/5
Improved Power word shield 3/3
Improved Fortitude 2/2
Martyrdom 2/2
Focused Casting 1/1
Mental agility 5/5
Improved manaburn 2/2
Mental Strength 5/5
Inner Focus 1/1
Force of Will 5/5
31 total


Holy Specialization 5/5
Improved Smite 5/5
Spiritual Healing 5/5
Improved Healing 5/5
20 points total

This build will really come into its own with the priest going primarily Intelligence, which will further boost % to crit, and the obvious larger manapool. I heard that it is 1% per 100 int, i do not know if this is correct though, seems slight but a 400 intelligence is possible. With this setup Smite is now more efficient than MindBlast, has no cooldown and is resisted far far less. As far as Instances go, you have the 10% to manapool, the focused casting, and possibly most important , the Improved Healing combined with Spiritual Healing.

For me it is this or building a priest specifically for instancing and groups and do the best i can if caught alone in pvp. I am as of yet undecided.

Hemlock


PS Just installed your custom UI, very very nice, thanks for the effort.

[Jumai]

Well, your build is a bit off topic since this is a pure healer discussion, but I'll bite, and nby bite I'll shout WTF. Focused casting? Force of will? I know you're quire serious but you gave over improved renew and improved prayer of healing for this?

I can see justifying the smite talent, but I'm sorry I can't even look at force of will or martyrdom/focused casting when the talents they push out of your build are useful so much more often and to such a greater extent. Go to 23 in discipline without touching meditation if you must, but really.

As an ex rogue, I am going to tell you straight up that relying on about 15% crit is going to let you down. It will randomly help, but you can't put your faith behind it in the kind of short fight you'll be Smiting in. And spell crits aren't 200%, so I advise against Holy Specialization as well, it's an unreliable and random boost that neither significantly raises your dps nor helps you heal. The way we time our heals a crit heal is not worth the full crit most of the time, it should score a few hundred extra hp but 150%? Rarely.

I think those 4 talents need to be scrapped, I really do. The only one I would even consider leaving in would be force of will. You're attempting to cram the 11 points in shadow priest into the disc and holy trees, and you're gaining less than you're losing in the shuffle.

[Hemlock]

I didnt post this for any other reason than to show a different perspective, certainly not to get you "to bite" as you said, you seem to be somewhat uncomfortable with my difference of opinion on your previous post, sorry if you that is so.

At anyrate,
Focused casting? Force of will? I know you're quire serious but you gave over improved renew and improved prayer of healing for this?

Yes. Of the 2 renew is one i would like to have w/o a doubt, but i can easily live w/o prayer of healing, i do not use it very often and most of the times i do use it i could easily take another approach. The only times i find it a must are when, for instance, your facing an ae mob or 2, and the tank loses agro and he faces towards the rest of the group and now your all taking x damage every 3 seconds, with other mobs in camp, ala BRD. In these specific scenarios PoH is the spell of choice, but they are few and far between. Sure i could use it more often everytime a couple party members needed healing but thats not very efficient. So i can easily live w/o the approximatley 206 mana savings when my mana pool is over 8k, less than 3% savings for 2 aa on a spell i rarely use. As for Focused Casting, this talent flat owns. Perhaps its a matter of play styles, very well could be, and this talent dont fit in yours. I find it invaluable, in the previous example of ae mobs for instance try getting PoH off taking ae off of the rifle mobs on the way to emp in the Lyceium (sp), it will turn that spell into an 8 sec cast and if you happen to be taking damage from another mob , well, forget it, people will die before it ever executes. With Focused Casting however you will lose no casting time at all and with a 1 minute refresh it rocks. PvP? Ever get off a 4 sec heal with a warrior on you? You can easily with this. The flash heal talent gives you a 70% chance to channel thru melee just on that specific spell. No contest to me. Not to mention the Martyrdom talent which gives you a 100% focused casting upon receiving a critical strike, awesome when fighting rogues, seems its always up.


As an ex rogue, I am going to tell you straight up that relying on about 15% crit is going to let you down.

You may be entirely correct on this, i do not know atm, it will take me a while before i know for certain. But i am critting on average it seems 1 time in 5 at my own level, which i guess is around what i should expect. And i agree with you that criticals should not be relied on. But maximizing them without sacraficing essential talents , primarily mana and mana reducing talents is what i am looking into.


I think those 4 talents need to be scrapped, I really do. The only one I would even consider leaving in would be force of will. You're attempting to cram the 11 points in shadow priest into the disc and holy trees, and you're gaining less than you're losing in the shuffle.

If i could get 11 points into shadow (mindflay) and 21 points into discipline (Inner Focus) and 20 points into Holy (Improved Healing) thereby maximizing mana and mana preservation on important heals it would be a no brainer, but it seems that is not possible so i am exploring other avenues.

Hemlock

[Jumai]

I didnt post this for any other reason than to show a different perspective, certainly not to get you "to bite" as you said, you seem to be somewhat uncomfortable with my difference of opinion on your previous post, sorry if you that is so.
Who's uncomfortable? I'm happy to have an intelligent debate.



Focused casting? Force of will? I know you're quire serious but you gave over improved renew and improved prayer of healing for this?

Yes. Of the 2 renew is one i would like to have w/o a doubt, but i can easily live w/o prayer of healing, i do not use it very often and most of the times i do use it i could easily take another approach. The only times i find it a must are when, for instance, your facing an ae mob or 2, and the tank loses agro and he faces towards the rest of the group and now your all taking x damage every 3 seconds, with other mobs in camp, ala BRD. In these specific scenarios PoH is the spell of choice, but they are few and far between. Sure i could use it more often everytime a couple party members needed healing but thats not very efficient. So i can easily live w/o the approximatley 154 mana savings when my mana pool is over 8k, approximately 2% savings for 2 aa on a spell i rarely use. clarify please
The talent saves 206 mana per cast. You use it when 3 people need the heal, you get an average of 2895 healing without getting into hte 3x crit chance to a single target. After talents, PoH = 824 mana, used to heal 3 folks that's 3.51 heal per mana. Greater Heal averages 2535, and costs 816 after talents, or 3.11 heal per mana. With the warrior changes, PoH is going to be uesful much more often, and when you need to heal 3 people (aoe mobs ie bridge of death, some bosses) PoH is not only the most efficient, it's invaluable because you can do in 3 seconds what renew 2 targets, then GH the tank does in 7. Especially with the changes to group dynamics I highly reccomend you give this spell a long second look.


As for Focused Casting, this talent flat owns. Perhaps its a matter of play styles, very well could be, and this talent dont fit in yours. I find it invaluable, in the previous example of ae mobs for instance try getting PoH off taking ae off of the flame mobs, it will turn that spell into an 6-8 sec cast and if you happen to be taking ranged from another mob , well, forget it, people will die before it ever executes. With Focused Casting however you will lose no casting time at all and with a 1 minute refresh it rocks. PvP? Ever get off a 4 sec heal with a warrior on you? You can easily with this. The flash heal talent gives you a 70% chance to channel thru melee just on that specific spell. No contest to me. Not to mention the Martyrdom talent which gives you a 100% focused casting upon receiving a critical strike, awesome when fighting rogues, seems its always up.
Maybe this is definitely a playstyle thing, I find these talent less than useful. I never find myself casting anything that isn't instant, flash heal, or mind blast when I'm getting hit in pvp, and I haven't had use for it in pve.



As an ex rogue, I am going to tell you straight up that relying on about 15% crit is going to let you down.

You may be entirely correct on this, i do not know atm, it will take me a while before i know for certain. But i am critting on average it seems 1 time in 5 at my own level, which i guess is around what i should expect. And i agree with you that criticals should not be relied on. But maximizing them without sacraficing essential talents , primarily mana and mana reducing talents is what i am looking into.
I stand by what I said, the times it will randomly own stuff are great and the times it will randomly fail you again and again really suck, but most of the time, the loss of control of your timing reduces the usefulness of crits. Again, especially since, unlike melee, spells happen fairly infrenquently (2.5 seconds not 1.0 seconds) and are worth less (150% not 200%).



I think those 4 talents need to be scrapped, I really do. The only one I would even consider leaving in would be force of will. You're attempting to cram the 11 points in shadow priest into the disc and holy trees, and you're gaining less than you're losing in the shuffle.

If i could get 11 points into shadow (mindflay) and 21 points into discipline (Inner Focus) and 20 points into Holy (Improved Healing) thereby maximizing mana and mana preservation on important heals it would be a no brainer, but it seems that is not possible so i am exploring other avenues.
Err drop a point out of improved healing and enjoy your mind flay. Gaining improved renew more than makes up for losing 3% mana savings on GH.

[Tivoli]

Martyrdom and Focused casing IMO aren't worth it since imp flash heal gives you a 70% chance to focus through damage, and in PvP you pretty much always use flash heal, renew, shield and sw:p, smite if someone isn't hitting you, and heal/gheal are hardly used, so really it comes down to being able to get those heals off in combat, usually flash heal, so only effectively raising another 30% for 3 points. 3 points in imp inner fire is better spent since you will be mitigating a lot of damage from yourself, keeping you in the fight longer. But inner fire is annoying at a 3 minute duration :(.

I haven't quite got my new build finished up yet, but like you hemlock i'm leaning more towards a heavy discipline build with the rest in holy, just trying to figure out the most efficient way of doing it all, want my cake and eat it too, i really want wowvault to update their talent calculator so i can play with it at work :D.

[Jumai]

Do you really find Flash Heal that much more workable in pvp than GH? Would the redux in cast time make no difference in that? That would really put a dent in my grand theorycrafting, my high level group pvp experience is fairly limited, in 1-3 person group I manage the 4 second heal fine though.

GH is more heal per second than flash heal, 590 flash to 634 GH pre talents. Is it a being inturrupted thing , or do you just find in bigger groups the timing changes too fast for the big heal to be anything but clumsy?

[fer]

In 4 seconds the fight can be over, If you watch on of the movies from nurfed you can see how fast people can get killed. After flash heal u can flash heal again or use a dispell. You can also walk out off danger, walk forwards with the warrior charging all sorts of things.
Priest are most of the time the primary target of a pvp-group, therefore in many occasions U can get CC'd or attacked before finishing the GH.
In 5 player parties one of your members could be dead while u are finishing your GH.
Second count really.
But then again, Im not an expert.

[Hybby]

I'm still having difficulties getting my mental strength and imp mana burn, and still getting master heal. It's proving to be... very... very difficult.

So far my build is laid out like this:

Disc 21
5/5 unbreakable will
Needed to even break into disc line

3/3 imp pw:s
15 seconds shaved off my weakened soul

2/2 imp pw:f
Getting a better buff

5/5 mental agility
Less blue taken on my insta casts

5/5 mental strength
10% extra mana = teh gud

1/1 inner focus
A free spell with a 25% chance to crit

Holy 30
5/5 imp renew
It's improved renew. what more do I need to say? :P 20% extra heal on my renew > *

5/5 spiritual healing
10% extra healing power on my heals

5/5 sublety
Less threat generation from my heal spells. good for instances

5/5 imp healing
15% cost reduction on lesser heal, gheal and heal

(these next 3 skills / 5 points are needed specifically for getting master healer)
2/2 imp flash
70% chance to not be stunned during flash heal

2/2 imp PoH
20% mana reduction

1/1 spirit of redemption (possibly)
Summons a spirit of redemption that heals 700-800 or some (at level 50) points of damage on all group members + 700 points of hp regenned over 15 seconds or something

Works sometimes... a bit flakey


5/5 master healer

Reduces the cast time of heal, gheal and lesser heal by .5 seconds.

HUGE in instances.


And if you take a look over my build... i'd be giving up a fair bit to get improved mana burn. :S

[redstar]

After looking over everything again, I ended up with a tree alot like Tiv's..

Although I would probably end up putting the 1 point in SoR into Holy Fire simply because the whole idea of having to die for a skill to work just seems stupid.

Imp mana burn and meditation 4tw.

[Shotai]

Posted this in the Priest PVP builds, but here it is again. :p

Discipline: 26
5/5
Unbreakable Will - Requirements: none
Rank 1: Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by 3%.
Rank 2: 6%
Rank 3: 9%
Rank 4: 12%
Rank 5: 15%

2/2
Martyrdom - Requirements: 5 points in Discipline Talents
Rank 1: Gives you a 50% chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents you from losing casting time when taking damage.
Rank 2: 100%

3/3
Improved Power Word: Shield - Requirements: 5 points in Discipline Talents
Rank 1: Reduces the duration of your Power Word: Shield's Weakened Soul effect by 5 seconds.
Rank 2: 10 seconds
Rank 3: 15 seconds

2/2
Improved Power Word: Foritude - Requirements: 5 points in Discipline Talents
Rank 1: Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude spell by 15%.
Rank 2: 30%

1/1
Focused Casting - Requirements: 2 points in Martyrdom, 10 points in Discipline Talents
30 Mana
Instant cast
1 minute cooldown
While active, you no longer lose casting time from taking damage. Lasts 8 seconds.

2/5
Mental Agility - Requirements: 10 points in Discipline Talents
Rank 1: Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 2%.
Rank 2: 4%
Rank 3: 6%
Rank 4: 8%
Rank 5: 10%

5/5
Mental Strength - Requirements: 15 points in Discipline Talents
Rank 1: Increases your maximum Mana by 2%.
Rank 2: 4%
Rank 3: 6%
Rank 4: 8%
Rank 5: 10%

5/5
Meditation - Requirements: 20 points in Discipline Talents
Rank 1: Allows 3% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.
Rank 2: 6%
Rank 3: 9%
Rank 4: 12%
Rank 5: 15%

1/5
Force of Will - Requirements: 25 points in Discipline Talents
Rank 1: Increases your spell damage by 1% and the critical strike chance of your offensive spells by 1%.
Rank 2: 2%, 2%
Rank 3: 3%, 3%
Rank 4: 4%, 4%
Rank 5: 5%, 5%

Holy: 25

5/5
Holy Specialization - Requirements: none
Rank 1: Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 1%.
Rank 2: 2%
Rank 3: 3%
Rank 4: 4%
Rank 5: 5%

5/5
Spiritual Healing - Requirements: 5 points in Holy Talents
Rank 1: Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 2%.
Rank 2: 4%
Rank 3: 6%
Rank 4: 8%
Rank 5: 10%

5/5
Improved Smite - Requirements: 5 points in Holy Talents
Rank 1: Increases the damage of your Smite spell by 2%.
Rank 2: 4%
Rank 3: 6%
Rank 4: 8%
Rank 5: 10%

1/1
Holy Fire - Requirements: 10 points in Holy Talents
110 Mana
5 second cast
1 minute cooldown
30 yard range
Consumes the enemy in flames that cause 90 to 116 Fire damage and an additional 28 Fire damage over 8 seconds.

2/5
Improved Healing - Requirements: 15 points in Holy Talents
Rank 1: Reduces the Mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal spells by 3%.
Rank 2: 6%
Rank 3: 9%
Rank 4: 12%
Rank 5: 15%

2/2
Improved Flash Heal - Requirements: 15 points in Holy Talents
Rank 1: Gives you a 35% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Flash Heal.
Rank 2: 70%

5/5
Divine Fury - Requirements: 1 points in Holy Fire, 20 points in Holy Talents
Rank 1: Reduces the casting time of your Smite and Holy Fire spells by 0.1 second.
Rank 2: 0.2 seconds
Rank 3: 0.3 seconds
Rank 4: 0.4 seconds
Rank 5: 0.5 seconds