Optimum 8 Player Configuration

[mjdoom]

When people tell me Fear Ward is so uber, my only thought is that Fear is dispelled with Dispell Magic.  While undoubtedly Fear Ward is nice in PvP in order to protect *yourself* against a *single* cast of Fear (it then wears off, right?), with the 15% extra resistance to fear as the basic Discipline talent and the ability to dispell Fear on any party member with an instant-cast spell, I don't know if Fear Ward really overcomes 5% spirit in a PvE environment.  At least with my playing style which puts high value on mana regen.  Then throw Feedback in the equation as a plus for Humans.

I am not familiar enough with Fear Ward's and Feedback's specifics - how *exactly* do they work?

-Bolty
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It seems to me that the biggest advantage to fear ward is that a warded player will never lose aggro to the target. In some cases if your main tank loses aggro even for a second or two it can be deadly. Fear ward is also nice in situations where the priest himself might get feared as you cannot dispel fear if you are running in fear yourself.

Your assertion that fear ward "wears off" after one fear effect is correct. That said, in many PvE cases (and PvP if you are not facing multiple fearing players or a warlock) you can recast fear ward quick enough to essentially make it permanent as I think its 30 second cooldown is similar to the cooldown of most skills that cause fear. It can also be nice to have it up on your entire party so that you don't have to go dispelling multiple fears against mobs with aoe fear attacks.

What it basically boils down to is it buys you a slight decrease in mana usage (because you can prebuff it) which is minimal but more importantly you can make it so that players can play straight through one fear effect without ever losing aggro or control. I was in Z'F last night and being turned into a frog as MT is very annoying. Sure priests can dispel the hex, but I would certainly prefer if we could prevent it from ever happening in the first place. This is the same idea.

I profess to have no knowledge of Feedback but from its spell description it doesn't seem to be that useful so with the knowledge I have it comes down to whether you want some more utility in Fear Ward or a minor boost to mana regen. Assuming 300 spirit and that 3 spirit=1 mana per tick (to make math easy) this would give you an extra 5 mana per tick when not casting and maybe 1 mana per tick when casting with the appropriate discipline talents (depending on exact formulas and rounding). I don't know if there is a "right" choice but those are the options as I see them.

- mjdoom

Edit: Forgot it but a few other people mentioned stoneform. This skill is very useful sometimes as priests can't get rid of poison (blech) on their own. Especially places like the abominations leading up to Rammstein in Stratholme it is nice to have a way to instantly cure poison and it even gives you a modest armor increase to boot. The loss of mobility shouldn't be an issue.