1.10 Priest Builds

[Concillian]

Here's a well produced video along the same lines. The intro is funny, then it proceeds to show some of the power of the holy damage build.

http://files.filefront.com/PVPriest3avi/;4...;/fileinfo.html

[Treesh]

It's 680 mana with talents and don't forget that Inner Fire is easy to get now, too, which gives you an extra cast right there, along with a +25% chance to crit!
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You mean inner focus. But I personally still feel it's just not worth it for my character to have, regardless of if it's easier to get now. She played around with power infused+inner focused+force of will holy novas. Yeah, it was neat for once every three minutes, but I still do not like the changes they've made to it. For you high mana pool, completely geared up priests, fine. Have a ball. Aleri doesn't have that gear and won't be getting that gear anytime soon. You want to run in for PvP, cast one of the PI+IF novas, cast a couple of regular novas and then fear bomb, go right ahead. See how much holy damage you can dish out there in a matter of seconds. I'm sure it will be lots of fun. I don't PvP so there's more usefulness of the spell cut out for me. Again, it's a matter of personal playstyle. You have always have had more of an offensive playstyle than I have. The new holy nova just simply does not fit in with my playstyle.

[Treesh]

Here's a well produced video along the same lines.  The intro is funny, then it proceeds to show some of the power of the holy damage build.

http://files.filefront.com/PVPriest3avi/;4...;/fileinfo.html
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That priest is also being almost completely left alone to cast those nice long holy fires. He's also got infusion and innervate up on him for most of those edits, along with some flask/potion it looks like. When he finally holy novas, not one single person dies (that I saw) except for him. So yeah, it's a fun little toy, but it was a fun little toy before 1.10 as well when everyone was so convinced it was a completely sucky talent. Yeah, the big crits are nice to see, but even with holy discipline and force of will, you need +damage gear on to get them.

[Xanthix]

I don't PvP so there's more usefulness of the spell cut out for me.  Again, it's a matter of personal playstyle.

I rarely PvP and am still going for Holy Nova. The way I see it, it's:
1) Another healing spell/panic button
2) Useful and fun for AOE pulls in 5-man instances
3) Great for grinding low level guys for cloth drops or whatever
4) A great toy
5) Only one talent point!

[Treesh]

I rarely PvP and am still going for Holy Nova. The way I see it, it's:
1) Another healing spell/panic button
2) Useful and fun for AOE pulls in 5-man instances
3) Great for grinding low level guys for cloth drops or whatever
4) A great toy
5) Only one talent point!
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And yet, when I mentioned points 1 and 2 whenever I was defending holy nova, they got glossed over because of point 5 - it was still only one talent point, but much farther into the tree.

Edit: And point 4 I mentioned in defense of holy nova too.

[lfd]

So yeah, it's a fun little toy, but it was a fun little toy before 1.10 as well when everyone was so convinced it was a completely sucky talent.[right][snapback]104504[/snapback][/right]

It was a sucky talent primarily because of the suckiness of the rest of the holy tree. What you gave up in the other trees to get it just made it almost variant material :-)

[Treesh]

It was a sucky talent primarily because of the suckiness of the rest of the holy tree.  What you gave up in the other trees to get it just made it almost variant material :-)
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Yep. :D And here, of all places, I should never have been poo-pooed for wanting it, having it and using it to good effect. Just like I shouldn't be made to feel inferior because I don't want it in 1.10.

[Concillian]

That priest is also being almost completely left alone to cast those nice long holy fires.  He's also got infusion and innervate up on him for most of those edits, along with some flask/potion it looks like.
[right][snapback]104504[/snapback][/right]

Well, yes, as is the nature of all PvP videos I've seen, he does pick and choose battles where he looks good. However, I imagine having fiery hands makes you a little less of a target than glowing yellow hands healing that warrior in front of you. :shuriken:

[Treesh]

Well, yes, as is the nature of all PvP videos I've seen, he does pick and choose battles where he looks good.  However, I imagine having fiery hands makes you a little less of a target than glowing yellow hands healing that warrior in front of you.  :shuriken:
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It won't once people start to realize what holy damage can do and that there isn't much anyone can do to mitigate it besides the tiny holy protection potions. :)

[Xanthix]

Yep. :D  And here, of all places, I should never have been poo-pooed for wanting it, having it and using it to good effect.  Just like I shouldn't be made to feel inferior because I don't want it in 1.10.
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Of course, no one should be belittled for any talent choice, and I certainly didn't mean anything like that by my post. My point of view is "Hey cool- new toy!" but I'm completely fine with other people not getting Holy Nova.

From a practical perspective I can see 1.10 Holy Nova as being like pre-1.10 Focused Casting or pre-1.10 Spirit of Redemption. If you have a free point and the reqs, go for it, why not, might be useful. But if you want to use the point elsewhere, more power to you! After all, we have lots of great talents to spend points on now.

[Concillian]

After further consideration, I think I'm going to go for a relatively heavy holy damage build:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classe...000000000000000

Here is my reasoning:
Compared to my current build this nets me:
much lower casting time on GHeal and Heal
~10% better mana efficiency on GHeal and Heal
~10% worse mana efficiency on FHeal
~10% worse mana efficiency on PoHeal
partial uninterruption on all heals instead of just FHeal.
5% more healing crits, but using flash less often, this is probably not a great bonus.
1 more castable mana efficiency boost (PI, already had prayer beads and Inner Focus)
A fun toy in Holy Nova
CRAPTONS more damage.

I think I can get used to healing in 2.5 seconds, saving mana on GHeal to make up for the reduced efficiency on PoH and FHeal, with the occasional use of PI for a PoH or GHeal as I use Inner Focus now.

Given my priest is basically an alt now, he's not going to see major healing action most of the time. This gives him plenty to get by on and should make soloing quite a bit easier. My respec cost is still CHEAP on that char, so I'll try something different and go back to a more heal-centric build if I find it necessary.

[vor_lord]

Since we're posting builds, here's one I have yet to see anything like. It's my current frontrunner.

Most of my thinking has been around 21 Disc/30 Holy, but I had an awful time deciding where to put my 30 points in holy since I like the tree that much. I will be doing mostly 5 man runs, 10 man UBRS, with a few times a month raiding in ZG.

I decided that since the other priests I'm currently raiding ZG with will be getting Divine Spirit, I could bag it and 5 points out of Mental Agility and get what I want out of holy and stop hemming and hawing.

Plus this build gets Lightwell. I might be the only priest with it ;) Maybe they'll buff it. Anyway I'm that deep already, I may as well have it as a toy (like Holy Nova).

I'm skipping inspiration because it doesn't proc often enough for me, and I'm never healing epic geared tanks so the returns on it aren't stellar. I'm also going away from flash heal on tanks to GHeal, so there will be fewer opportunities to apply it.

The theme of the build is throughput -- I can't take any other talents which will increase the sizes of my heals. As far as longevity/efficiency, I am only missing out on mental agility and divine spirit. For when it matters (ZG for me), I'll be getting Divine Spirit most likely from another priest. For when I don't, I just use crystal forces which are nearly as good (main drawback is that I can't help other casters in the raid with it).

My solo power should increase significantly, as will my capabilities in a DPS role. Hopefully this will help increase the 'fun factor' in the smaller instances without really hurting my healing power in raids. I tested a Power infusion/Force of Will build on the test server, and it seems to be great in PvP, but for overall "damage done" increase, Spiritual Guidance is better.

Big Heals and Holy Damage, Batman!

edit: Doh! posted wrong link!

[Shriek]

Cleoboltra's initial build.

I really like most of this build, but as an up-and-coming rather than an already-there, I don't know how well it fits. I'm approaching my target build as primarily for the smaller instances (frequently PuGs), with occasional raiding when I can get in on the alt rotation. Tier 1 isn't out of reach, but will likely be a long time coming. PvP is a non-issue.

I don't like having to miss out on Spiritual Healing, now, but I don't think I can justify going that far down when I don't much care about the Band-Aid dispenser.

I like the look of Spiritual Guidance, as I don't yet have hundreds of +heal, but the only place I think I can get the points for it would be to drop Mental Strength. This is the same delimma I'm having with gear right now--int vs. +heal. Logic tells me that the extra mana only helps when my mana bar is full, while the other helps the entire bar last longer--but I don't have the experience to back that up.

It took a serious amount of effort to really consider not having Improved Renew. So far, I'm using renew over everything else--without IR and SH, will it still be as useful? So I'm trying to find three points to steal to ease my mind:

* 1 - Imp Fort - The value here seems a little lower, but this could make rebuffing a serious pain in raids.
* 1 - Divine Spirit - It's nice, but I don't think it's mandatory. However, if I do end up with Spirtual Guidance, it's worth even more.
* 2 - Healing Focus - I'm doing okay without this now--but it sure would be nice to have a little extra cool-under-fire.
* 3 - Inspiration - I've never had this--how much does it really help? Given that I try to run renews so much, and that Greater Heal is becoming more useful, how often will this really proc (given moderate to low spell crit gear)?
* 1 - Spirit of Redemption - Do you _really_ get 10 seconds, or is it like most of the other timers in game (e.g. I've never seen more than 12 on a renew).

So what do y'all think for a soon-to-be (hopefully) "newly minted 60 Priest"?

[Wogan]

Honestly, all these Holy Damage builds have me on edge.

31 Discipline, 20 Shadow.

This build is based around raiding as a non-primary priest. My priest is an alt so there are always other healbots in the raid. Thus I'm using standing around waiting for someone to get hurt enough for me to justify throwing up a shield/renew/fheal etc. I'd much rather spend that time DPSing (can you tell my main is a mage?).

On bosses I wouldn't expect to dps beyond the occasional SWP and perhaps stacking Shadow Vulnerability up there.

[MongoJerry]

I rarely PvP and am still going for Holy Nova. The way I see it, it's:
1) Another healing spell/panic button
2) Useful and fun for AOE pulls in 5-man instances
3) Great for grinding low level guys for cloth drops or whatever
4) A great toy
5) Only one talent point!

And yet, when I mentioned points 1 and 2 whenever I was defending holy nova, they got glossed over because of point 5 - it was still only one talent point, but much farther into the tree.

Edit: And point 4 I mentioned in defense of holy nova too.

If that had been true of Holy Nova pre-1.10, I would've spec'd to get it instantly. However, its long cooldown pretty much prevented reasons (2) and (3) from becoming reality which made it less of a (4) and not worth (5) to me. Now that it's spammable, suddenly all five points become reality for me.

[Treesh]

If that had been true of Holy Nova pre-1.10, I would've spec'd to get it instantly.  However, its long cooldown pretty much prevented reasons (2) and (3) from becoming reality which made it less of a (4) and not worth (5) to me.  Now that it's spammable, suddenly all five points become reality for me.
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Pre-1.10, point 3 was definitely NOT a reality with holy nova. :P And 30 seconds really wasn't a long time. I would have liked it to be cut down to maybe 15 seconds, but I don't like it being spammable.

[MongoJerry]

After many iterations, I've decided to try out this build to start off with:

Neriad's Holy/Disc 1.10 Patch Spec

It's designed for maximum healing power, and assuming that Greater Heal becomes the standard healing spell in raids, it should have good mana staying power with Meditation and Improved Healing. Also, for PvP and farming, it has Searing Light and Holy Reach to increase Holy Smite and Holy Fire damage and range.

What I don't like about this build is that it doesn't use any of the surviveability talents like Improved Inner Fire, Spell Warding, or Blessed Recovery. In effect, I'm counting on my extra healing power to make up for it. I figure this build is a good hybrid build that gives me excellent strength in PvE with enough PvP talents to get by. We'll see how it works out.

I'd like to contrast it (or perhaps my ideal PvE build) with Bolty's build, because I think the two builds give an excellent contrast with one another in talent philosophies. Bolty's build has a philosophy of maximizing mana, mana regeneration, and mana efficiency. In fact, he has every mana generation and mana efficiency talent available selected and casts aside all healing boosts except Holy Specialization. With this build, Cleoboltra will never run out of mana and will be able to keep healing his parties long after other priests are running on fumes.

On the other hand, my philosophy is this: If you're not running out of mana, further mana efficiency is unnecessary. I am assuming at this point that Greater Heal will become the dominant means by which priests heal in raids from now on. Currently, most raids use the Flash Heal spam method to heal their tanks even though Greater Heal is currently (theoretically) 10% more mana efficient than Flash Heal. But GH's efficiency is getting another natural 10% mana efficiency boost in the next patch. Plus, Improved Healing will make it another 15% more mana efficient on top of that. Putting it all together, that will make the new Greater Heal healing method 31% more mana efficient than the Flash Heal spam method most raids currently employ.

But that's not all. Mediation is now available early in the Discipline tree. Back when I was holy/disc spec'd and had Meditation plus 3-piece transcendence (a combined 30% mana regeneration while casting), I basically never ran out of mana. Toss in an Inner Focus when you need to cast an expensive spell like Prayer of Healing, and spending the talent points to get Mental Agility and Mental Strength seem overkill.

It seems to me that after spending the minimum amount of points in Discipline to get Meditation and Inner Focus, one should blow the rest of the points in Holy to power up one's heals to their maximum potential. Bolty explained already that priest healing talents only boost one's base healing and don't multiply one's +healing stats. This is a stupid design flaw on Blizzard's part. However, while having +600ish healing sounds like a big number, in the end that's still only a boost of around +30% to one's base healing. Tacking on another 10% with Spiritual Healing does make a difference. In the case of one's Renew, tacking on another +25% healing plus some nominal amount from the benefit of Spirital Guidance will show a big difference between what Neriad will be able to do with her Renews and what Cleoboltra will be able to do with her Renews. It helps a raid tremendously to have those big hot's running on the main tank all the time. Plus, yeah, I hate casting a Renew on somebody only to have the game tell me that a "more powerful" renew is already active.

But also keep in mind that powering up one's healing simultaneously increases one's mana efficiency. Neriad's Greater Heals will be about 11% stronger than Cleoboltra's heals for the same mana spent, so they will cost about 90% of the mana/heal that Cleoboltra's GH's will. Since Cleoboltra will have 10% more mana due to Mental Strength, these two things are a wash. Cleoboltra will have more mana efficiency with instant cast spells due to Mental Agility, but the most important instant cast spell is Renew and Neriad's points in Improved Renew, Spiritual Guidance, and Spiritual Healing will actually make her Renews more mana efficient than Cleoboltra's. Cleoboltra's PW:Shields will cost less, but again Neriad's points in improved PW:Shield will make her shields more mana efficient.

But what if Neriad really needs that extra staying power in a really long fight? The solution is simple: Drop down a rank in one's healing spells. By dropping down a rank, Neriad will have heals that are just as strong as Cleoboltra's and her mana efficiency will be such that she could actually cast more Greater Heals before she runs out of mana than Cleoboltra will be able to, despite Cleoboltra's advantage in having an extra 10% mana. Meanwhile, Cleoboltra will never have the option to go the other way. That is, if Cleoboltra ever finds herself in a situation where she needs to heal very quickly, she can never "rank up" her healing spells and match Neriad's healing strength.

Crits are huge.  It's not just the coolness that is Inspiration.  People think about crits the wrong way, really.  Sometimes it's overhealing, but if you're especially raining down heals on tanks (think BWL), it's often not.  Crits are really "free" 50% extra healing.  If there were a talent that said "chance of healing your target for 50% more for free," I think more healers would consider it seriously.  That's what a crit is - it's free healing.  Tack Inspiration on top of it and you've got a big bonus.

Maybe. Then again, if the talent said, "Spend 5 talent points and get a 2.5% improvement to your healing spells -- and maybe less since those crits might overheal" then people might be less enthusiastic about it. I like it for Inspiration and also the *wow* factor when a crit goes off in PvP, but for PvE healing power, I'm not that excited about it.

I'm also just not impressed by Lightwell at all (on paper); nor does Power Infusion excite me (sorry Mages).

I really badly want Lightwells to work. If only they increased how long they last and decreased the cooldown on them, I could see them being a very mana efficient source of healing. But so far, I don't see the advantage of them over, say, bandaging oneself, either.

Power Infusion is fun, but that's another build discussion entirely.

Two more comments:

1. I no longer see the need for threat reducers like Silent Resolve to reduce threat from healing. Neriad already has Fade for those "Uh, oh" moments. If she needs any more than that, it's not time to respec. It's time to get a new tank.

2. It's interesting that you as a PvE person choose to go with Unbreakable Will instead of Wand Specialization. I've always thought of Unbreakable Will as a PvP talent. If I didn't PvP, I would choose Wand Specialization, since I use my wand so much in parties, raids, and when farming alone.

[Bolty]

Cleoboltra's 1.10-release day raid-healing final build.

Maybe someday I'll go nuts and spec for healing PvP power, picking up some of those juicy talents that would make her unbelievably hard to kill, but that's for a future time. I did allow myself the luxury of Holy Nova, since I can argue it has a few PvE raid applications while also being a godsend in PvP (rank 1 stealth-breaker and flag-cap preventer FTW! Suck it, rogues!).

You'll notice no more Mental Strength; after weeks of staring at different specs, I'm just not sold on it anymore. I will miss my 9000 mana pool in raid buffs, but Mongo's right in that it's overkill. Spiritual Guidance is just so uber; it scales with your gear, and actually (gasp) gives you more offense as well! Shame on me for thinking that way (*slap*).

Still, Mental Agility is an absolute MUST and I'm frankly surprised you didn't get it, Mongo. It's not just for Renews, as you well know. Critical spells like Shield, Dispel, Abolish Disease, Inner Fire, and of course scores more that are all instant-cast benefit from Mental Agility. These are all spells you can't go down a level to gain efficiency on like the heal spells. I'm aware you made a number of sacrifices to give yourself more healing power, and you do have better gear than Cleoboltra does (having all of BWL on farm status for months now), but I think you'll still find yourself gasping for mana too often.

Martydom I can't blame you for, playing on a PvP server where you're randomly attacked all the time. That's one of my "man, I wish I could get that for PvP" talents. Some rogue appears to gank you? Laugh in their face as you heal away their initial damage, uninterrupted...

I no longer care about Improved Prayer of Healing. It's used too rarely, and when I do use it I tend to use it with Inner Focus. With the new 3-minute cooldown, meh.

I'm still debating Silent Resolve. It's a must for Shadow Priests. Can I make the argument that I don't need it (Subtlety/Silent Resolve) anymore and it's my tank's fault if I get aggro? I've yet to pull aggro ever in BWL on Broodlord, Firemaw, Ebonroc, Flamegor with the pre-1.10 Subtlety. If I had 5 pieces of Transcendence, I'd be a bit more comfortable ditching Silent Resolve because I'd have my "backup" fade to rely upon. Chromaggus gave me two good whackings last night thanks to Time Lapse, despite my Fading (yay, soulstones). I could remove three points from Silent Resolve and dump them into Improved Power Word: Shield. But can I afford to? I don't know!

You can't deny that aggro reduction talents will help for Razorgore, the Suppression Room, and Nefarian Phase 1 (we got to Phase 2 last night, woo hoo!). What are aggro issues like in AQ40? Fights with lots of adds are always the most dangerous to us.

I'm also somewhat surprised that you'd get Spiritual Guidance without getting Divine Spirit, Mongo. You can make the argument that there's always going to be some other Priest in your raid with Divine Spirit, and you'd be right. But what about when you're not raiding? Divine Spirit will increase your damage when soloing, increase your healing in a small raid or 5-man, and of course provide you with that extra mana regen. All for one point. If you're getting Mental Agility, you have to get Divine Spirit, which I did. And I can't see myself NOT getting Mental Agility (see above).

Given the chance, I'd love to pick up all the Holy tree talents that you chose. But I can't. So, Mongo, where you and I disagree is on three points, all Discipline-tree related:

1) The power of Mental Agility
2) The usefulness of Divine Spirit
3) Wand Specialization vs. Unbreakable Will

On the other hand, my philosophy is this:  If you're not running out of mana, further mana efficiency is unnecessary.  I am assuming at this point that Greater Heal will become the dominant means by which priests heal in raids from now on.  Currently, most raids use the Flash Heal spam method to heal their tanks even though Greater Heal is currently (theoretically) 10% more mana efficient than Flash Heal.  But GH's efficiency is getting another natural 10% mana efficiency boost in the next patch.  Plus, Improved Healing will make it another 15% more mana efficient on top of that.  Putting it all together, that will make the new Greater Heal healing method 31% more mana efficient than the Flash Heal spam method most raids currently employ.

Greater Heal will definitely become the spell of choice for healing tanks. Before, Greater Heal was too long a cast to be safe under most conditions, unless it was also backed up by other Priests using Flash Heal to stabilize the tank (talking BWL here). There is one little catch here, though: Mana Conserve breaking in 1.10.

Now that Blizzard's disabled the StopCasting power, we can't use Mana Conserve anymore. Wasting a Greater Heal because someone else nailed a heal on the target 0.1 seconds before you did is going to cost quite a bit more than if you were flash healing. Fights like Firemaw where you have lots of healers raining them down on the MT are going to be somewhat brutal. I know our "guild"'s healers have discussed dropping down to lower ranks of heal/greater heal there and just spamming them constantly, to keep a continuous steady stream of heals on the MT, but that might not be good enough to handle a damage spike like a Shadowflame/crit/crit combo that can eat off 7000 hit points in a flash. The mana pool must be extended for fights like that, especially in a guild like mine that doesn't have its tanks decked out in BWL gear yet.

But that's not all.  Mediation is now available early in the Discipline tree.  Back when I was holy/disc spec'd and had Meditation plus 3-piece transcendence (a combined 30% mana regeneration while casting), I basically never ran out of mana.  Toss in an Inner Focus when you need to cast an expensive spell like Prayer of Healing, and spending the talent points to get Mental Agility and Mental Strength seem overkill.

Agree with you, except for the Mental Agility thing.

I'd rather have the Mental Agility. Renews will cost 10% less mana to cast. If the target's at 100% health, the extra healing power is wasted and I've blown more of my mana pool; if someone else casts another Renew on the target, the extra healing power is wasted and I've blown more of my mana pool.

Again, it's a difference in style that you and I have. There are situations where yours is better, and situations where mine is, but your next point always stands true. :)

Plus, yeah, I hate casting a Renew on somebody only to have the game tell me that a "more powerful" renew is already active.

I really wish Blizzard would fix this. Supposedly Renew's tick value will no longer be affected by swapping equipment around after you cast it (was this 1.10 or 1.11, can't remember), so maybe that's a step toward the game being able to calculate which Renew is REALLY stronger.

But what if Neriad really needs that extra staying power in a really long fight?  The solution is simple:  Drop down a rank in one's healing spells.  By dropping down a rank, Neriad will have heals that are just as strong as Cleoboltra's and her mana efficiency will be such that she could actually cast more Greater Heals before she runs out of mana than Cleoboltra will be able to, despite Cleoboltra's advantage in having an extra 10% mana.  Meanwhile, Cleoboltra will never have the option to go the other way.  That is, if Cleoboltra ever finds herself in a situation where she needs to heal very quickly, she can never "rank up" her healing spells and match Neriad's healing strength.

Likewise, Neriad can't "rank down" her dispel, abolish disease, PW:S, etc spells, so they're all costing her 10% more mana. It adds up in a dispel-heavy fight. If Priesting were all just pure healing and nothing else, it would rock. But I feel there's too many intangibles to dismiss the power of 10% cheaper instant cast spells.

Also, when you're soloing and 5-manning, you lose Divine Spirit. This would help you regen more, give you more +heal, let you do more damage (even if it's just with SW:Pain), and help your partymates who use mana as well.

My philosophy has always been "mix, mix, mix." A mixture of healing power, regeneration, and mana pool. Specializing in any one of the three leaves you weak in the other two areas. My initial build was heavy in mana pool but weak in the healing department, but I think yours is too weak in the regeneration/mana pool department. Perhaps you have the gear to make up for it.

As far as crits go, *crits are never wasted*, since I didn't spend mana on the extra healing. When healing tanks, my crits are actually very rarely blown as overhealing, since by the time I'm flash healing they're usually down 1500-2000 hit points or more (percentage-wise, not a large amount of their life). My Flash Heals crit for around 1900-2000 at the moment. You can't "waste" a crit because it never cost you additional mana in the first place. You can "waste" an Inner Focus trying to get a crit, but otherwise crits are a passive entity that fire off depending on your gear and spec. Take advantage of that.

I really badly want Lightwells to work.  If only they increased how long they last and decreased the cooldown on them, I could see them being a very mana efficient source of healing.  But so far, I don't see the advantage of them over, say, bandaging oneself, either.

Mana efficiency vs. real-world usefulness is always an issue. Otherwise we'd all have been casting Greater Heal all the time before 1.10, right? :) I think that's the crux of our different specs; you're saying yours is more healing-efficient, which I can't argue - but I'm saying mine (well, my new one) will have more real-world use.

As a Priest who operated without Subtlety pre-1.10, I'd be interested in hearing how much of a difference you noted in fights with lots of adds (Razorgore, Nefarian Phase 1, when things go wrong in 5-man groups). Do you use at least 5 pieces of Trans as well? I only have 4 at the moment. Did you need Subtlety when The Core was still learning these encounters? I know you also didn't have the edge of Blessing of Salvation, so it would have been even more critical for you.

I would love to dump out points in Silent Resolve to get Improved PW:Shield. But I can't decide.

Lightwell sucks. The most mana efficient heal spell ever, but way too limited in scope to be useful beyond certain sporadic occurances. <disclaimer>In my opinion.</disclaimer>

It's interesting that you as a PvE person choose to go with Unbreakable Will instead of Wand Specialization.&nbsp; I've always thought of Unbreakable Will as a PvP talent.&nbsp; If I didn't PvP, I would choose Wand Specialization, since I use my wand so much in parties, raids, and when farming alone.

Meh. Cleoboltra can't farm. Getting Wand Specialization will only be of use when soloing, and I just don't solo with her anymore. It's too painful. Sure, I USE my wand in parties and raids, as something to do when I'm not healing, but Wand Specialization isn't going to turn me into a DPS'er. Who am I kidding? My job is to enable others to kill things faster and more safely.

Last time I actually "farmed" anything solo with Cleoboltra was a month or so ago when I wanted to get a few Essences of Water. Chinese Farmers, decked out in greens, were outpacing me 2 to 1. God forbid an epicly-geared Rogue would have come along, or they'd have cleaned out the place before I could get 2 mobs. Remember, I'm not on a PvP server where I could just kill them if they were on the opposite faction in order to get them out of "my spot."

Meanwhile, every time Onyxia fears and I resist it, I laugh (remember, I'm on "easy mode" and keep my tank Fear Warded). Every time a warrior charges me in AV and I resist it, I laugh. Every time a rogue tries to keep me in stunlock and fails, I laugh. I think I even resisted a BWL Wyrmguard's stomp once. Yes, it's more PvP than PvE oriented, but there are cases in raids where it shines - I can keep healing while other healers are stunned and save the day. You and I both know it's those "little things" that add up to wipe-savers.

-Bolty

[vor_lord]

I no longer care about Improved Prayer of Healing.&nbsp; It's used too rarely, and when I do use it I tend to use it with Inner Focus.&nbsp; With the new 3-minute cooldown, meh.

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I didn't notice the new cooldown on Inner Focus! I pop inner focus with PoH half the time already, now it will be even more often. Hmmm, I think I may be dumping improved PoH now and picking back up inspiration despite its mehness for my gearing. Just need to find one more point...

This leaves me with this modification for my first build. I posted previously with my reasoning.

On another note, I've played a lot with subtlety and without. My experience is only up through ZG fwiw. The only difference I notice is that in a raid, with several healers healing, and new adds showing up, it's me that tends to draw aggro because most other healers have subtlety. Honestly I think if no one did we'd never see a difference. I normally get into trouble from healing threat when dealing with fresh adds, and I'd get it with subtlety or without. I consider the choice I made a long time ago to stay away from subtlety a very nice 5 point refund.

castille made a point earlier about threat levels when the tank dies. It's a good point, but I think the times that 20% margin will make a difference are few and far between, even only counting situations where the tank dies. Threat is built up by DPS characters generally only on the focus fire mob -- healer will generally be getting the others anyway. I figure the extra 150 points on the shield will be more useful to me. I'm more tempted by Martyrdom than Silent Resolve.

[MongoJerry]

Still, Mental Agility is an absolute MUST and I'm frankly surprised you didn't get it, Mongo.  It's not just for Renews, as you well know.  Critical spells like Shield, Dispel, Abolish Disease, Inner Fire, and of course scores more that are all instant-cast benefit from Mental Agility.  These are all spells you can't go down a level to gain efficiency on like the heal spells.  I'm aware you made a number of sacrifices to give yourself more healing power, and you do have better gear than Cleoboltra does (having all of BWL on farm status for months now), but I think you'll still find yourself gasping for mana too often.

Yeah, it would be nice. I just don't see what to take points from to get it.

I'm still debating Silent Resolve. It's a must for Shadow Priests. Can I make the argument that I don't need it (Subtlety/Silent Resolve) anymore and it's my tank's fault if I get aggro? I've yet to pull aggro ever in BWL on Broodlord, Firemaw, Ebonroc, Flamegor with the pre-1.10 Subtlety. If I had 5 pieces of Transcendence, I'd be a bit more comfortable ditching Silent Resolve because I'd have my "backup" fade to rely upon. Chromaggus gave me two good whackings last night thanks to Time Lapse, despite my Fading (yay, soulstones). I could remove three points from Silent Resolve and dump them into Improved Power Word: Shield. But can I afford to? I don't know!

You can't deny that aggro reduction talents will help for Razorgore, the Suppression Room, and Nefarian Phase 1 (we got to Phase 2 last night, woo hoo!).  What are aggro issues like in AQ40?  Fights with lots of adds are always the most dangerous to us...

As a Priest who operated without Subtlety pre-1.10, I'd be interested in hearing how much of a difference you noted in fights with lots of adds (Razorgore, Nefarian Phase 1, when things go wrong in 5-man groups).  Do you use at least 5 pieces of Trans as well?  I only have 4 at the moment.  Did you need Subtlety when The Core was still learning these encounters?  I know you also didn't have the edge of Blessing of Salvation, so it would have been even more critical for you.

Do you notice that the only times you picture in your mind that you need aggro reduction are when there are so many mobs that mobs are going untanked? If you are the only player that is on a mob's aggro list, it doesn't matter if your aggro was at 80% or 100% strength. It's coming after you. Meanwhile, Fade is a strong enough spell that it'll reduce your aggro to 0 (making someone else with proximity aggro on the top of the hate list) whether you have Silent Resolve or not. In effect Silent Resolve makes no difference on these encounters at all. The only time that it makes a difference is that if two priests, one with SR and one without, cast a heal, the one without SR will always pull the aggro of the untanked mob. But from a raid perspective, no change has occured -- a priest is being charged by an untanked mob. All SR did was determine which of the two priests got charged. Otherwise, the encounter remained unchanged.

Meanwhile, once a mob is tanked, SR makes no difference. After the first few seconds, tanks can lock down aggro easily enough to beat any healer in aggro generation. Plus, there is usually more than one healer healing any given tank, so many heals won't be landing or will be landing at reduced value, so the aggro generation of healers becomes even less. The only time I've seen healers pull aggro is when the main tank dies and if the backup tank hadn't been doing enough to generate secondary aggro. Otherwise, pretty much the only people to pull aggro are dps classes who go all out, even when a boss mob uses deaggro moves on a main tank.

I'm curious why you're pulling aggro in the Supression Room. The mages and warlocks are spamming aoe's, so there shouldn't be any problems with priests pulling healing aggro there. Do you guys clear out the elite mobs along your path first before charging through the room? If you do, then you can have your warriors run through and use battle shouts to get initial aggro and then the mages and warlocks come up and aoe spam the heck out of everything to clear the whelps. I can't think of a point in the Suppression Room where a priest is in danger of pulling aggro.

Regarding Chromaggus, having SR or not wouldn't have mattered. If all the tanks are Time Lapsed, then you're going to pull aggro, since those people who have Time Lapse temporarily have a threat value of 0. A priest without SR might be attacked first versus a priest with SR, but from a raid perspective there is again no difference -- a priest is getting eaten either way. The key to this encounter is to have the secondary tanks run around the corner a few seconds before Time Lapse goes off, so that they don't get Time Lapsed. Chromaggus chases them for a bit and then when Time Lapse wears off the main tank, Chromaggus will run right back to the Main Tank. So, again, Silent Resolve makes no difference in this encounter. What does matter is effective and skillful tanking (by multiple tanks in this case).

After the initial seconds of a fight, threat reducers aren't all that important for healing classes. However, I'd like to give Silent Resolve to a few mages and rogues I know.