Prayer of Mending and You

[Bolty]

A short guide here for other classes on how Prayer of Mending works and how you can take the most advantage of it. It's a complicated healing spell that places its effectiveness somewhat in your hands and somewhat in the Priest's hands.

The spell description reads:

Places a spell on the target that heals them for 800 the next time they take damage. When the heal occurs, Prayer of Mending jumps to a raid member within 20 yards. Jumps up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec after each jump. This spell can only be placed on one target at a time.

Other things about the spell:

1) Fully talented, it costs 273 mana per cast (that's cheap, if you're wondering).
2) It is instant cast with no cooldown.
3) The effect counts as a heal cast by the person being healed, not the Priest.
4) Used correctly, it's by far the most efficient and powerful healing spell in the game.

Point #4 is what this post is about. In order to use it correctly, the party needs to be aware of how it works. The Priest cannot definitively control where Prayer of Mending will bounce, but in some aspects can drive it around a group/raid depending on two main factors:

A) It will bounce to someone within 20 yards of the person who was just healed by it.
B) It will bounce to the player with the lowest percentage of health left in range. This includes pets, which I just discovered last night. Currently, the mod Mendwatch will not track that Prayer of Mending has hit a pet and will instead seem to "die out."

Prayer of Mending does not stack. When two healing Priests are around (which will happen on raids), if there is just one "melee area" they might be best off having a designated PoM'er and a designated "other" healer.

In a 5-man environment, the healing Priest will typically lead off the healing with at least one Prayer of Mending cast on the tank. This does two things: it keeps the main tank healed (duh) but it also builds more aggro on the main tank. Remember, Prayer of Mending counts as a heal made BY the tank in the combat log and to all the mobs in the pull. It increases the survivability rate of the Priest by dumping aggro on the tank, and helps make the tank look good by building their aggro on all the mobs.

Then the DPS'ing starts and things get more interesting...

Ok, so what does this all mean to you? I'll break it down by class, since some classes have special rules regarding PoM.

Rogues: if you haven't run an instance with a Prayer of Mending Priest (level 68 or higher), you haven't approached Nirvana. This is a spell almost tailor-made for you. As you get hurt, Prayer of Mending will inevitably bounce to you and heal you up the next time you get smacked. On mobs with AoE effects or cleaves, you won't have to dive out of the action to heal up, because Prayer of Mending will be bouncing around between you and the other melee. Your survivability shoots way up. Note that Prayer of Mending will generate some aggro on you. If you can't ditch aggro and you've got mobs on you, it's time to vanish...if Prayer of Mending has been used a lot, the mobs should go right back to the tank, not the Priest.

Warriors: if you're tanking, the free aggro a smart Priest will dump on you at the outset of a fight is most welcome. Other than that, enjoy the free bounce effects, knowing that each time it heals you, you're getting that much more aggro on top of all your other aggro abilities.

Paladins: keep in mind that if you have the Spiritual Attunement talent that gives you mana when you're healed, this effect will not trigger due to Prayer of Mending. PoM counts as you healing yourself, not the Priest healing you. In that sense, you might feel this doesn't help you tank - but remember that healing is aggro dumped on you and not your healer. Secondly, if you're a Paladin and you're healing, you want to stay more than 20 yards away from the melee or else the PoM will bounce to you and "sit" there because you're not taking damage. This wastes the charge.

Hunters: Stay out of range of the melee. You want to stand far back (over 20 yards), or else the PoM will bounce to you and "sit" there because you're not taking damage. This wastes the charge. Prayer of Mending will heal your pet if you send it in.

Warlocks: Stay out of range of the melee, especially if you like to life tap a lot, because your health will usually be low percentage-wise to other players. As a result, PoM will bounce to you a ton and get lost there, because Life Tap does NOT trigger Prayer of Mending to heal you and bounce away. Your Priest will start yapping at you if they see PoM after PoM jump to you and get lost after the first bounce. Not to mention all the melee characters who are taking cleaves or other such damage while you're sitting there 15 yards away eating up all the PoM charges. More than any other ranged class, you need to watch your distance to the melee because your health is typically lower percentage-wise than any other ranged player.

Priests: if Prayer of Mending lands on you because you're too close to the melee, you can trigger it to fire by casting Shadow Word: Death. You take damage, it heals the damage back, then it bounces to someone else. Groovy.

Shamans: while my experiences with Shamans is naturally limited, I'm sure they work like the other classes. If you're playing as a caster or healer, stay more than 20 yards out and let Prayer of Mending bounce around the melee. If you're melee'ing, then by all means get in there and mix it up.

Druids: see Shamans. Same rules apply depending on what role you're playing. Catform Druids will learn to love Prayer of Mending as much as Rogues do.

Mages: If you're going to run in and AoE a pack of mobs, let your Priest know! Besides the usual Power Word: Shield they can cast on you, dumping a Prayer of Mending on you will make it so you run in, start casting, the Shield eventually falls, you get hit, Prayer of Mending heals you, and then it starts bouncing around between you and (usually) the main tank. Your survival rate will jump. Your Priest will be happy.


Now, these are general rules. There are situations where these rules don't apply. For example, on mobs/bosses with wide-range AoE effects that you can't escape from, it's actually best for all players to stay within 20 yards of each other. As the AoE effect fires, Prayer of Mending will bounce around to everyone in the party/raid and heal them up. Comparing Prayer of Mending to Prayer of Healing, the Priest's standard party-healing spell, PoM is easily 5 times more efficient and will save them a boatload of mana. Keep that in mind. If there's a big AoE effect hitting everyone, and you notice coming out of it that everyone else is at/near full health but you - you were too far away.

I hope this lays out how this spell works for those who haven't seen it in action yet or may be unaware that what they do in a party affects how useful it is to everyone involved. Although we all know that every wipe is entirely the healer's fault, being a ranged character who sucked up a Prayer of Mending charge by standing too close while the Rogue is dying probably won't earn you friends. See you in game!

-Bolty

[Xanthix]

Just a quick note: MendWatch was recently updated. It now tracks pets too.

[Ruvanal]

A few questions here Bolty.

If you do a weapon swap to a new weapon that has more stamina, will that trigger the PoM to do a heal and then jump?

Similar case if one imbibes a fortitude potion?

I would assume that the amount actuallly healed will be the basis for the amount of aggro the spell generates on each jump also. But has anyone confirmed that is actually the case?

[Bolty]

A few questions here Bolty.

If you do a weapon swap to a new weapon that has more stamina, will that trigger the PoM to do a heal and then jump?

Similar case if one imbibes a fortitude potion?

While of course I haven't tried this, I really doubt it. One needs to take damage for it to trigger, and even then there are special cases where taking damage won't trigger it (Life Tap, for example).

I would assume that the amount actuallly healed will be the basis for the amount of aggro the spell generates on each jump also. But has anyone confirmed that is actually the case?

Like all heals, overhealing doesn't generate aggro. You will generate:

amount actually healed x 0.5 = total hate to all mobs

However, it's unknown if the person being healed by Prayer of Mending will have less hate from it if they have threat-reducing talents.

-Bolty

[WimpySmurf]

While of course I haven't tried this, I really doubt it. One needs to take damage for it to trigger, and even then there are special cases where taking damage won't trigger it (Life Tap, for example).
-Bolty

What about Bloodrage? I know you've said Life Tap doesn't work, it'd be interesting to know if Bloodrage also falls into the category. Otherwise, it could be a useful mechanism for DPS warriors to "force" a hop to occur.

-WimpySmurf

[Concillian]

What about Bloodrage? I know you've said Life Tap doesn't work, it'd be interesting to know if Bloodrage also falls into the category. Otherwise, it could be a useful mechanism for DPS warriors to "force" a hop to occur.

Or for tanking warriors to get a free initial aggro generation mechanism. Bloodrage generates aggro on it's own, if you then get an immediate heal via mending, it would effectively become a 100% free AoE aggro generation tool.

I kind of doubt blizzard would let this kind of thing exist, but you never know.

[Mavfin]

Or for tanking warriors to get a free initial aggro generation mechanism. Bloodrage generates aggro on it's own, if you then get an immediate heal via mending, it would effectively become a 100% free AoE aggro generation tool.

I kind of doubt blizzard would let this kind of thing exist, but you never know.

Would defiance affect aggro from PoM on a tank?

[Thawwing Light]

What about Bloodrage? I know you've said Life Tap doesn't work, it'd be interesting to know if Bloodrage also falls into the category. Otherwise, it could be a useful mechanism for DPS warriors to "force" a hop to occur.

-WimpySmurf

I've tested bloodrage while DPSing when our druid was tanking. No such luck, but I'm usually tanking, so prayer of mending isn't usually hard to get off.

[Brista]

Would defiance affect aggro from PoM on a tank?

From what I've read generally stance affects threat.

So for instance if a Warrior is pre-buffed with an 800 point PoM and charges PoM will activate before he has time to stance dance so will do 800 * 0.8 (Battle stance) * 0.5 threat. A Warrior with Defiance body pulling would get 800 * 1.3 (defensive stance) * 0.5 threat, *1.15 with Defiance talent

Paladins innate 50% threat reduction from healing would reduce PoM threat which is nice for dpsing paladins and tanking paladins would get that reduction but also a *1.9 modifier from Improved Righteous Fury so a decent amount of threat from a pom proc but not as much as bears or defensive stance warriors

Here is my reference:
How do Aggro and Threat work in WoW
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html;j...116562109&sid=1

Thanks very much for the guide Bolty, I had no idea how PoM worked and how much group positioning helps it

[Falomin]

Thanks to this guide I picked up the Mendwatch mod, very nice, thanks.


One quick note about this skill's usefulness in 5-mans. In Shadow Labs, at least the way we run it, we have a tank and then an off-tank.

Prayer of Mending ricochets back and forth between the two tanks so fast that I am using all 5 charges up in a very short amount of time. This has allowed me to cast it along with a renew and sit back and enjoy. Refreshing PoM and Renew as needed.

The tanks are healed to max all the time and I leave fights with 85% or higher mana bar. I also don't have to worry as much about aggro since if a tank gets stunned or something occurs to cause them to have an aggro wipe, the mobs will usually head for the DPS rather than me now since I am generating so little threat.

And, as every good priest knows, there is nothing sweeter than watching a rogue die crying for heals:)

(Just kidding, I love rogues who pull aggro from the MT then cry about heals, really, I do!)

Anyway, if you still are on the fence about this spell, just get it along with Mendwatch, once you learn how to use it to full effect you will wonder why Blizzard never gave us this spell earlier.

Side note:

Didn't want to start a new thread for this, but is Circle of Healing worth not having Divine Spirit? Anyone tried this talent? It seems like it could be useful in raids....if a whole group doesn't have their own healer which seems rather unlikely.

[Frag]

And, as every good priest knows, there is nothing sweeter than watching a rogue die crying for heals:)

* Frag targets Falomin
* Frag pickpockets 8g 17s 32c

*Thinks... that should cover the repair bills, yep yep!

/stealth :shuriken:

[Treesh]

And, as every good priest knows, there is nothing sweeter than watching a rogue die crying for heals:)

Hehe

And this is why rogues love the shaman. It's not the totems. It's the random heal we throw their way.:D :wub:my rogues.:)

[MongoJerry]

3) The effect counts as a heal cast by the person being healed, not the Priest.

I've been busy leveling blood elf Neriad, so I haven't yet had an opportunity to play around with Prayer of Mending. It sounds great, but I have one question. If the effect is considered as being healed by the target rather than by the priest, does this mean that the priest's +healing gear does not affect Prayer of Mending?

[Falomin]

I've been busy leveling blood elf Neriad, so I haven't yet had an opportunity to play around with Prayer of Mending. It sounds great, but I have one question. If the effect is considered as being healed by the target rather than by the priest, does this mean that the priest's +healing gear does not affect Prayer of Mending?

+Healing gear does indeed help Prayer of Mending, at least that is what Mend Watch tells me, but there seems to be a lesser amount added so maybe it is added to the whole spell than divided somehow.

EDIT: It is +43% of your healing which apparently is the standard for instant cast spells.


Let me just add for the record, that my first character to 60 was a rogue, I love rogues and heal them, but nothing frustrates a healer more than a raid member pulling aggro from a main tank, dying in two shots, then telling everyone what a lousy healer you are.

When this happens it is almost always a rogue, when someone complains in raid chat about heals, it is almost always a rogue, when a raid member refuses to walk to the lightwell to heal themselves, it is almost always a rogue.

The only reason someone dies when I am healing is either their error or I am too busy healing the main tank and the fight is going in the toilet. Also, due to rogues vanish ability and the fact that I hate seeing others die, I die much more often than any rogue I have ever 5-manned a dungeon with.

Not trying to start a problem, I guess I need to give some background when I mock rogues:) And I feel I have every right to mock them since apparently their chief joy comes from ganking holy priests :lol: