05-01-2008, 09:08 PM
Quote:I bugged an applicant to my guild with the following questions to see how he'd respond. See how you fare!
I'm going to fail!
1. WoWWiki cites the coefficient as being 21.4%. This makes sense given the base casting time coefficient is 1.5/3.5, or about 42.8%, and then is further penalized by 50% because it is an Area of Effect spell.
While CoH and Renew are both instant spells, Renew is also a heal-over-time. As a result, the coefficient is different but the bonus from +healing is divided among the individual Renew ticks.
2. It depends. Are we talking how many hit points I need as a priest or anyone in the raid needs?
8501 is the absolute minimum a priest needs to survive Tidal Burst. However, having this little health is really a bad idea. While Naj'entus will not use Needle Spine for 10 seconds after Tidal Burst, he can hit you with Impaling Spine immediately afterwards. (However, Impaling Spine is every 20s. As a result, the raid should be able to time around this.) In order to survive this eventuality, you would need 13501 or so, minus whatever benefit you could get from Power Word: Shield. This may not be a feasible amount though since this may result in a non-negligible impact on healing performance
For the raid, 9351 is the absolute minimum for DPS warriors. In Berserk Stance (or whatever its called), they take an additional 10% damage. And they're likely to forget to switch to a more survivable stance. Fire mages with the Playing with Fire talent need at least 8,756 since they take 3% more damage. They do, however, have Frost Ward which should help their survival immensely but they may forget that.
3. I am not familiar with the encounter.
At a glance, preemptive healing, e.g. Renew, would work but I'm pretty sure that Renew alone is insufficient. Prayer of Mending is useful of a single heal, which may be enough, but I'm unsure if you want the additional threat from the heal ending up on the mages. (Of course, that amount of threat may be comparatively negligible.) Power Word: Shield may also be useful periodically but it still remains an inefficient substitute for healing.
4. I am not familiar with the encounter.
Based on the writeup at WoWWiki, AoE healing spells seem to be most effective. I am unsure what can be done immediately before a group is targeted with Bloodboil but that would suggest one of the spells, either Renew or Prayer of Mending. Once the group has the DoT from Bloodboil, Circle of Healing would be the preferred spell. (I'm going to presume that any raid lucky enough to have a IDS priest would have that priest doing something else.)
5. I am not familiar with the encounter.
Assuming Air Burst is vaguely like Akil'zon's Gust of Wind attack, Levitate is a bad idea because the longer you spend in the air, the less time you can spend healing. While you're still in the state of slowly falling, you cannot cast non-instant spells.
6. Because Astraea's healing gear is comparatively poor for level 70 (and is, in fact, still primarily composed of pieces from AQ40 -- can you tell I need to play her more?) and currently spec'd deep shadow as an experiment, the current favored downranked spell for healing is GH4. This allows for an acceptable heal without exhausting the mana pool so fast. (The Holy talents are enough so that when she was spec'd Holy/IDS before my experiment, GH3 was the spell of choice. I suspect that I would eventually shift to GH2 if I acquired enough healing gear.)
7. 1500 according to WoWWiki.
8. I honestly don't know. I'm inclined to say no. Fade appears to temporarily remove existing threat but not prevent gaining further threat. Since the game doesn't have a concept of negative aggro, using Fade when your aggro is currently 0 will result in a reduction of... 0.
9. Multiple responses:
* Immediate aggro-less (to the priest) healing on the first hit.
* The healing aggro from PoM is applied to the tank, helping him gain threat on the mob.
* Casting PoM before the pull means that it will be available again sooner in the fight than if you cast it at the pull or afterwards.
10. The level 70 PvP trinket.
11. I honestly don't know.
Weapon oil is, at a glance, the simplest: Brilliant Mana Oil. This provides +25 healing over Superior Mana Oil while only proving 2 mp5 less.
If optimizing for +healing, the others would be Elixir of Healing Power, Elixir of Draenic Wisdom, and Golden Fish Sticks.
When looking for Stamina while maximizing itemization points, swapping EoDW for Elixir of Major Fortitude (30 Int and Spi vs. 250 health and a small amount of health regen) is a loss. Trading Elixir of Healing Power for Elixir of Mastery may also be a loss. Trading Golden Fish Sticks for Feltail Delight is a small gain while trading for Spicy Crawdad is a definite gain.
Since the best buff combination maximizes usefulness first and itemization second, I'd go with: Elixir of Draenic Wisdom, Elixir of Healing Power, Brilliant Mana Oil, and Spicy Crawdad (or similar foods.)
Let me know how badly I did!