Priest end-game stuff.

[Mak]

I finally got to 60, obtained some devout and other stuff and I'm considering farm those +healing items. You can get over 450 +healing on items but u sacrifice a huge amount of other stats so I think i'll go for around 300 and get some sta/int/spi too. Anyone know how this work in practise? Is it better to go pure int, mix of sta/int/spi , +healing , +crit%? or any mixes? mass pure +healing is working in instances? help me!:P

[Hedon]

Now there are three different types of what I call "effect boost eqipement"

a) the +% to crit. Very highly demanded drops. Crits are just too good to pass on any chance increasing their chance.

b ) the items that state +X to a certain effect such as healing.

c) the items that state "up to X" to certain effect or more commonly a certain school of magic or all magical effects.


The b ) items are of course better regarding the "effect boost" than c) items, although the c) items have a broader range of use, and retain some bonuses on attributes like intelligence, spirit and stamina, while the b ) items often have just the +X effect without any other bonus.

I would recommend to go rather with the c) items than the b ) items, because the b ) items just cut to deeply into your manapool by the lack of intelligence or spirit bonus on them. Especially in prologend fights a bigger manapool is imho more important than raw HPS output, so the c) items look like a good compromise.

Of course others may have come to different conclusions. It's just the way I go about this.

[Alarick]

The +crit% items are mostly useless for priests. The heals of a priest are designed to be effective without taking crits into account. Thus, a crit frequently is just wasted.

It may be nice to go with +healing items, but keep in mind how much you will be sacrificing in terms of stats and mana. One of the more commonly used spells, Flash Heal, apparently gets about 40% of the listed bonus to its healing amount because of the faster casting time. The only spell that gets the full amount is Greater Heal, and its applications are limited.

I'm not really sure how the whole +healing and +damage thing will turn out in the very long run of the game. Blizzard seems to think that they will be the equivalent to adding DPS for weapons. However, with the nature of PvP, quick spells are what needs to be cast as much as possible, and this limits the use of the enhancements. On top of that, so far all items I've seen sacrifice stats for +damage or +healing, while weapon DPS goes up without sacrifice to any stats.

It's a problem that will have to be figured out soon. Most likely, by the time raids start clearing Blackwing Lair regularly like they are with Molton Core now, there will need to be some balance figured out for the stagnating spell damage and healing. If not, PvP will degenerate even more and melee fighters will have an even bigger edge on casters.

I got aa bit off topic there, so to get back on I reiterate: be careful about going +healing, because the added healing is limited by the spells, and the stats you will lose (particularly with the current setup of armor) can easily be far worse than the added healing.

[Xanthix]

One of the more commonly used spells, Flash Heal, apparently gets about 40% of the listed bonus to its healing amount because of the faster casting time.  The only spell that gets the full amount is Greater Heal, and its applications are limited.
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Supposedly heal-over-time spells like Renew also get the full bonus. In Renew's case, the full bonus is divided over all 5 ticks, so 20% of the bonus is added to each tick.

[mjdoom]

The +crit% items are mostly useless for priests.  The heals of a priest are designed to be effective without taking crits into account.  Thus, a crit frequently is just wasted.
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I'm not sure that this is totally true. Very often I am flash healing for less than the amount of damage someone has taken because I am comfortable with the rate at which they are taking damage. An extra crit heal in this case will not necessarily be "wasted" and could potentially save me some mana. Because of my healing methods I'm not as concerned about overhealing.

*Hijack alert!!!*

Ok, off topic here but this caught my attention. Recently I've been trying to find a way to balance my priest for both PvE and PvP simultaneously (yes, I'm crazy). I've already respecced to a 22/19/10 Shadow/Disc/Holy build that is currently working reasonably well. I've successfully 5-manned Scholo with it and done perfectly fine in a few raids. The major loss I've had over my original 31/20 Disc/Holy build is that my mana regen isn't as consistent.

I've slowly been adding some +crit% and +damage to spells items to my inventory and along with shadow reach and 2 points into improved Mind Blast my MB is a decent PvP spell. Silence is of course also exceedingly useful in so many situations.

That said, I really liked my huge mana pool that rarely ran dry with my disc/holy build and even before I respecced to have some shadow I formulated a backup plan in case it didn't work out. As much as I doubt it I'm wondering if anyone has tried this and can give me some perspective before I sink time into the test server to futz with it.

The basic idea is to go back to Disc/Holy with a 32/19 configuration. This time it will be reconfigured to be more appropriate for PvP though. The key is to grab Force of Will, Holy Spec, and Imp. Holy Smite to make smite into a higher octane damage dealer. With these three talents the damage for smite would be on par with Mind Blast but it would have a 5% higher crit chance (and along the way Mind Blast will become a more damaging spell as well). Along with the +4% crit chance I currently have from items (and hopefully more to come) I can have a 22% chance to crit with Smite which seems pretty nice. Once every 5 minutes I could activate Inner Focus for a smite with a whopping 47% chance to crit. Holy damage also has the advantage that the only way to lower its damage (that I know of) are holy protect pots which aren't very common whereas shadow resistance is available from priests. Also, there are items with shadow resist while there are none with holy resist that I know of.

There are some drawbacks though. First off, Smite is a 2.5 second cast while MB is 1.5 second cast. PvP targets don't stand still very often so the difference in casting time can be noticeable. I would also lose the awesome utility of silence and no longer have shadow reach (another negative with moving targets). In addition I would lose improved fade and the chance to stun with blackout, but I won't miss those as much. This will, however, be a build that should be able to make it through places like MC while not running into mana difficulties. As I've been told by some friends in raiding guilds, you can always tell what priests have some shadow because they tend to go OOM faster. This can always be masked partially by better equipment but it is a fact that disc/holy will generally give you better healing mana efficiency.

So, what are some general thoughts? Is the chance to get a spell with an almost 1 in 4 chance to crit that great? I'll still never match the spell damage of a mage, but for a priest built for healing to be able to regularly crit for 650-750 damage (before +damage mods) seems like a nice tool. In addition I can still be a highly effective healbot. I lose some shadow utilities that are very nice though.

Has anyone ever tried something like this? I get the fealing that Imp. Holy Smite is a rarely used talent so I am guessing not. Thoughts?

Note: Here are how I got my crit numbers. This is interesting because of how things mix and match for certain situations.

Assumptions: 5% base crit chance
5% crit chance from Force of Will (for offensive spells)
5% crit chance from Holy Spec. (for holy spells)
3+% crit chance from int (assuming 100 int= 1% crit chance, my current configuration gives me about 350 int depending on how I mix and match gear)

PvE healing: 5% base + 5% HS + 3+% int + 1-3% items (depending on situation) = 14-16+% crit chance per heal

PvP Holy Smite: 5% base + 5% FoW + 5% HS + 3+% int + 4% items = 22+% crit chance

PvP Mind Blast: 5% base + 5% FoW + 3+% int + 1-3% items = 14-16+% crit chance

Also, here is the talent spec for those who are curious:

Discipline Talents (32 points)

Unbreakable Will - 5/5 points
Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by 15%.

Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points
Reduces the duration of your Power Word: Shield's Weakened Soul effect by 15 seconds.

Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 2/2 points
Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude spell by 30%.

Mental Agility - 5/5 points
Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 10%.

Mental Strength - 5/5 points
Increases your maximum Mana by 10%.

Meditation - 5/5 points
Allows 15% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.

Inner Focus - 1/1 point
When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect.

Force of Will - 5/5 points
Increases your spell damage by 5% and the critical strike chance of your offensive spells by 5%.

Divine Spirit - 1/1 point
Holy power infuses the target, increasing their Spirit by 23 for 30 minutes.


Holy Talents (19 points)

Holy Specialization - 5/5 points
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 5%.

Improved Renew - 4/5 points
Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 12%.

Improved Smite - 5/5 points
Increases the damage of your Smite spell by 10%.

Spiritual Healing - 5/5 points
Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 10%.


Shadow Talents (0 points)

None

- mjdoom

Edit: One other question I had that I forgot to include in the original post is whether Force of Will will also increase the amount healed by my healing spells. Does "Increases your spell damage by 5%" apply to healing spells? Anyone know?

[Skandranon]

The only thing I really question about this Smite build is that there isn't a talent which increases its range. I assumed there was when you originally discussed this build with me, but since there isn't...

I have enough trouble lobbing a 3 sec cast fireball at 41 yards range. You get shot at even when tossing MBs and SW:Ps at 36 yards, and those cast quicker than 2.5s. I would spend some serious time PvPing and dueling with Smite to get a feel for whether it's usable in the situations you describe before respeccing.

[mjdoom]

And I accidentally hit "Edit" instead of "Reply" and edited your post. I am truly sorry. This hasn't happened since I first started administering things, and I can't get the post back. So sorry :( -- MongoJerry

[MongoJerry]

Has anyone ever tried something like this?  I get the fealing that Imp. Holy Smite is a rarely used talent so I am guessing not.  Thoughts?

Anything with a casting time on it is difficult to use in PvP with all the ways people have to interrupt or stutter spells, or suddenly move behind you to break the cast, or whatnot. I have enough trouble just trying to cast Mind Blast with its 1.5 second cast time on someone who is actively fighting me. Even with Imp Holy Smite, Smite's cast time is just too long.

Regarding +healing/damage items, I've found that yes, having a healthy mix of them added to one's equpment is definitely helpful. When I didn't have them, I found too many times where my healing rate wasn't keeping up with the damage being dealt. Having some extra healing power definitely helps and having some extra damage dealt definitely helps in PvP. You have to balance your stats, though. I agree that +crit% items are pretty much useless for priests, because you often have to give up too many other stats to get them and often critical heals get wasted in overhealing someone. I only have a couple of +crit% items myself.

[russ]

+crit chance is really overrated in the current setup. Even on the highest rank of Gheal, a priest will only get around +13 healing. Flash Heal only the equivilant of +10 healing. While you'll hear a good many stories about a lucky crit saving someone's ass, well, there's a lot of emphasis on the luck. The bonus itself is pretty much crap on average.

The only real reason to grab +crit is if you've gotten a lot of talents like Inspiration, but the benefit of those talents is fairly argueable over the long-term.

+healing, thanks to Dire Maul drops, can be more viable than a lot of people expect. Although it's easy for druids, priests likewise get a major benefit just from the improved HoTs. There are druids out there with 400 health every 3 seconds Rejuvinations; these druids can simply toss a HoT out and let their gimped spirit fill back their gimped mana pool over the next 12 seconds. Not particularly appetizing, but viable.

The best strat, in my opinion, is to get a decent level of intellect and spirit, then simply grab whatever decent +healing drops you run across. For instancing, Stamina isn't really necessary unless you don't trust your tank.

Also, Hedon, "+x healing" and "up to x healing" are the exact same thing, just different methods of saying it.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread...mp=1#post5[/url]]When an item has the effect "Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 20", the damage dealt or hit points healed by one of your spells will be increased by a fixed amount up to 20. The actual amount that the spell is increased by is not determined randomly, but by which spell you are casting. You are not recieving a random bonus value between 1 and 20 whenever you cast a spell. Some random items, such as those with the property "of Shadow Wrath", indicate that they provide "+X Shadow Spell Damage". The actual amount of the bonus is again determined by the spell being cast.

[MongoJerry]

Also, Hedon, "+x healing" and "up to x healing" are the exact same thing, just different methods of saying it.

Yep. I was looking for that quote, too. I'm glad you found it. This belief that there is a difference between the two is a persistant myth.

[acidjax]

For reference, Greater Heal and Renew receive 100% of the bonus from +healing items while Flash Heal receives around 43%. It looks like 43% may also be the low cap of which even instant spells receive. The source is from a dev post on the europe forums.

http://forums-en.wow-europe.com/thread.asp...p=1&tmp=1#post4

[Drasca]

MJ already mentioned trouble with long casting time. IMO with longer casting times and loss of silence, stun you'll be eaten in small and 1v1 pvp situations. Larger battles will love you, but only as a healer and dependent on others for DD cp contribution. That is, if they stink, you won't get much cp.

Don't fall into the crux of a shadow priest. They use mana fast. Against hunters and warlocks, your mana will be drained to nil if you use too much too fast.

"Why didn't you SW:P DoT?"--fellow Warlock and damned good one with felhunter out 1v1 dueling.
"You think I'm an alliance priest?" -- shadow priest, and damn fine one. Knows when to and when not to use mana. P. Screams every chance he gets, dispels a lot, and to get out of shadowform early enough not to be killed.

[Lord BEEF]

Generally, all + damage and + healing items increase your dps or heal per second by the amount listed divided by 3.5.

If you have +100 damage, there's no need to cast fireballs instead of scorches, as both will receive roughly a 28 dps increase.

[Drasca]

Generally, all + damage and + healing items increase your dps or heal per second by the amount listed divided by 3.5.
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Bad math.

DoTs, Channeled, full bonus, partial bonus... very bad math.

[BoddoZerg]

Generally, all + damage and + healing items increase your dps or heal per second by the amount listed divided by 3.5.

If you have +100 damage, there's no need to cast fireballs instead of scorches, as both will receive roughly a 28 dps increase.
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Not really.

For one thing, the + to damage/healing occurs *before* talents are applied. So if you have a ton of talents, you are actually increasing your DPS/HPS considerably more.

Second, stacking a DoT(HoT) with other spells also makes the actual DPS/HPS increase considerably better.

Third, not all spells recieve a bonus equal to (cast time / 3.5). Channeling spells especially. For example, Mindflay has a casting time of 3.0, but it only recieves 43% of the +shadow bonus.


That said, Renew benefits an ungodly amount from +healing equipment. A priest with a lot of +healing gear will often rely on Renew as much as possible due to its supreme mana efficiency with +healing.

[Treesh]

A priest with a lot of +healing gear will often rely on Renew as much as possible due to its supreme mana efficiency with +healing.
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Aleri relies on renew regardless of if she's got +healing gear on or not (most of her straight +healing gear stays in the bank since it's still not enough to give up the 700 or so mana I lose from trading out the equipment). That plus the occasional flash heal is usually enough to keep Gnolack healthy (except for those rotten mortal strikes and around a lot of magic users) and really doesn't draw aggro to me.

[Mak]

I went this +healing path, and curently i have 6.5k mana unbuffed, 3k life and a bit more then +300 healing. I sacreficed some spirit but i still dont think it that useful;p With that setup and 31/20 shadow/disc build i did most instances 5 men and didnt have many harder moments, so i thinbk its more then enough for pve. (I dont have any MC stuff and much experience there, couse my guild just started doing MC- EU server:). My priest changed with battlegrounds couse i quickly rolled to disc +imp flash +flay, and noticed how powerful i became in healing;p My renew got 254 a tick and on other spells +heal gives me around 10% better healas, wchich is like an aditional talent. Someone can say that i sacrificed 2 or so flashes thx to my better heals, but i found mana regen per 5sec to be xtremly useful bonus(many +heal items have that stat). When i switch my staff to some crap from Maraudon (8mana per 5sec) i get 32regen that is a new flash every minute. When i get all non-MC items and enchants i recive 500mana more , +100 heal and some more regeneration of mana. I suspoect i'll need spirit gear for MC but +healing stuff is fun and is defenitly good all-around gear. (and i dont look like every priest in devout on my server:D