But before I dive into the meat and potatoes of the post, I will provide a brief update on myself: it has been a chaotic January for me.  Work has been quite busy with a lot of travel, my SO and I are on the property hunt here in Boston (Rant: SO EXPENSIVE), and I am prepping to go away on vacation on a cruise at the end of the month with some friends.  Progression has been pretty solid, as of today we are working on Heroic Sha of Fear 25-Man, everything else is on farm. I expect a kill in the next few nights… It seems like one of those fights that just clicks and you make leaps and bounds forward. (Dear Huddle in Fear, why you love me so much?)

For this “Best Practices” I am going to split it into two sections, one for Holy and one for Discipline. Now I know a vast majority of us priests are playing Disc over holy simply because Disc is that much stronger at the moment— but for better or for worse, that will change in 5.2. While I personally feel that Holy will still be underpowered, despite GC’s “holy only seems underpowered because Disc is so overpowered…” we’ll see a lot more opportunities to play and shine as Holy than we do now in 5.1.

##Discipline##

Best Practice #1 – Smite, You Fools! (Diagram)

Atonement healing is nothing short of amazing. First, its exceptionally mana efficient… particularly if you have 5 stacks of Evangelism.  Secondly, the healing it provides its smart. So on many fights, which have periods of low raid damage, you can contribute easily to raid DPS, while triaging (smartly) and tank healing direct with Atonement heals. Penance, until 5.2, is often best used OFFENSIVELY unless you are stacking Grace on a target.  (Sidenote: Amazing with 4pc)

Additionally, on fights that have +damage taken on the boss. (eg. Heroic Lei Shi) It is not uncommon to see 100+k heals smartly healing your Scary Fog soakers. Delicious.

Perhaps most importantly, Smite/Atonement Healing is necessary to gain your Evangelism stacks to be able to use Archangel— and consequently other Best Practices.

Some fights, Atonement healing is NOT the best choice, and you should only be stacking Evangelism via Instant Holy Fire’s or while Weaving a smite/penance in between your POH’s since your raid is just taking Constant raid damage. (eg. Heroic: Garalon)

Best Practice #2 – Use Archangel With Spirit Shell

In a build earlier this year, we gained the ability to couple Archangel and Spirit Shell. (Previous TOAP Post). Archangel can increase your healing by up to 25%, and in turn adds a 1.25 multiplier to the Spirit Shell calculation… so a substantial increase. Spirit Shell is generally used to prepare you raid for incoming damage, which means you have specific times where you are going to be using it— why not prepare yourself by aligning this powerful cooldown to further augment Spirit Shell.

I have a Spirit Shell keybind with AA already built in. Since both SS and AA are off the GCD, macroing them together works perfectly to use them in tandem. Remember, AA lasts a few seconds longer than SS so even after SS expires, you still have a few seconds left with your heals empowered.

Best Practice #3 – Use Archangel Off Spirit Shell

Yes I know this is (intentionally) counter to my previous best practice, however the cooldown for Archangel is short enough that it allows you use it with Spirit Shell, and once without Spirit Shell before SS’s cooldown is complete. So many Disc Priests forget to use AA, even in periods of low damage and they are simply smiting away. There is no good reason to not have AA running, if it will be back off CD when you will need it (or if you will be casting Spirit Shell) before big damage hits.

A great way to do this is to monitor its cooldown, its duration, and your stacks of Evangelism. I suggest using a tracking mod, or simply import the Weak Auras I’ve created here.

Bonus Disc Tip: Use Inner Focus with Spirit Shell

This effectively gives your Spirit Shell target(s) a double shell, as Inner Focus will “crit” that cast of GHeal, Flash Heal, or POH. Nothing says raid mitigation, like a 200k+ shield on 5 targets!

##Holy##

Best Practice #1 – Pre-Cast Lightwell/Spring

You should have your Lightwell out before the tank pulls (or before damage goes out that you’ll need it)… I tend to prefer to have it out a good 30+ seconds early. Lightwell’s cooldown is your standard 3 minute cooldown. Some fights, like Tsulong, start the fight with large amounts of damage –sometimes consuming your entire Lightwell before the 3 minute cooldown is up.  IF you have pre-cast Lightwell, your CD will be up sooner, providing a shorter total downtime of the Lightwell for your raid to access.

Best Practice #2 – Stance Dance; When Appropriate

Evaluate when you should be in Serenity or Sanctuary. Look at your logs, are you casting POH/COH more than you are casting Single Target heals while you are in Serenity? Perhaps it is better to be in Sanctuary. A very easy fight to know when to stance-dance is Tsulong. You almost always want to be in Sanctuary during Night Phase, and almost always Serenity for Day Phase. This is a great fight to get used to going in and out of difference Chakra states.

Sometimes you ARE single target healing, before you start AOE healing… you need to look at the fight and determine if the 30 second Chakra cooldown is short enough to swap stances, and be able to swap back to the appropriate stance when the time is right.

Best Practice #3 – Use Your Words…

Yes… I said USE them. Our Holy Words may be flawed, but they are still a part of our toolkit. I rarely use HW: Serenity in 25 man, since I primarily am Sanctuary, but when I am in Serenity I use HW: Serenity on cooldown. Why? Because its mana efficient, instant, and provides a buff. Amazing? No… but something we should be using on CD when in that Stance. HW: Sanctuary, on the other hand, is something I use sparingly. It is expensive, hits like a wet noodle, but is not useless.

Do I think HW: Sanctuary needs developer love? Yes. However, if you have the mana to spare, your raid is camped in a given area, and constant raid damage is going out… any extra healing is helpful, so why not cast it? Don’t dismiss the spell as “useless” and refuse to cast it… sometimes, even though it is a bad spell in its current form, does not mean it doesn’t provide healing that is helpful.

Bonus Tip: Use Renew Effectively

A lot of people gear specific haste levels and glyph for Renew— but never cast it. Why are you gearing for a Renew breakpoint but cast it so infrequently? You’ll likely get more bang for your buck with Mastery. Your mileage may vary… but take a look at your logs: How often are you casting renew? How much are you overhealing with it? Would increasing your Echo of Light be a better option and provide you with more raw output? (most cases, probably yes)

Need more?

I would be remiss not to suggest that everyone visit www.HowToPriest.com and register there for more good priest ‘best practice’ discussion Healing and otherwise. Its where I spend most of my Priest forum time. Lately, I’ve found the official forums, EJ, MMOC I find woefully lacking in discussion beyond QQ. Besides all sorts of awesome people hang out there… myself included!

Holy and Disc Best Practices is a post from: Tales of a Priest

In early MoP Beta, Disc had a lower base regen than Holy did forcing Disc to rely on Rapture returns to get into parity with Holy in terms of regeneration. Then came changes, increasing our Meditation to 50% for both Holy and Discipline, making Rapture just added gravy. I had concerns, however, it really didn’t culminate until Rapture was buffed to 200% spirit.

Every time your Rapture procs, you gain 200% of your total spirit back as mana– on a 12 second CD. At the moment, this also includes Temporary Spirit Gains.  So this means any temporary spirit proc/boost, if active when Rapture procs, also contributes to your Rapture Regeneration. (eg. Mana Tide Totem, Tailoring enchants, DMC trinket, Tsulong trinket, low mana Jade Spirit proc). This is in addition to whatever baseline regen this spirit grants you through the normal regen calculation formula.

Combat Regen Per 5 = Total Mana *0.02 +(1.1287*SPI*Meditation%) 

As of now, you only need 9,150 spirit to make a single PW:S case per Rapture CD mana neutral. With the plethora of spirit procs  you are often seeing Rapture returns in excess of 30k– now yes, some of these trinkets have ICDs longer than a standard Rapture CD, but still restores substantially more mana during that proc’s uptime. Many priests, myself included, are tracking our Spirit Procs and timing Rapture’s during that proc’s uptime.

Some might argue you should subtract the cost of PW:S from the mana restored, since that costs mana to cast. However, you should NOT do this. Why? You need to assume that you would have cast that PW:S anyway, and the cost is sunk as the mitigation happened. If the mitigation didn’t happen, you would have had to heal it up anyway, thus the cost of the PW:S is not included.

Is Rapture a Sign of the End of the World is a post from: Tales of a Priest

First let me just say…

In all seriousness, people need to KEEP CALM. The state of the priest is not as dire as some of the forum posts I have seen might suggest. Perhaps the biggest question I am seeing all over forums (official forums, H2P, and otherwise): Why are priests so under-powered and horrible right now?

This. Is. A. Fallacy.

I am sick of seeing all that garbage. Are priests in need of a slight buff here and there– sure. Do I think it is as dire as the forums would let you believe? No.  Did Discipline need a buff to its output to compensate for Holy’s Chakra Scaling on our Level 90 abilities, and larger raid healing toolkit? Yes.  Does Holy need the throughput increase (coming in 5.1) to compensate for the lack of utility? Sure.

Holy is doing well when played well, use Lightspring, find the correct places to use your Hymn, when and where should you be using Cascade/Halo/Star? Are you playing too cautiously? Could you be healing more aggressively? Do you have the opportunity to swap Chakra stances for certain fight mechanics/phases? (e.g. Serenity for Day Phase Tsulong, Sanctuary for Night Phase). Figuring out which Chakra stance, and when will be even more critical come 5.1 when Chakra stances are buffed 10%.

Disc now can blanket a raid (10 and 25) with Spirit Shells in preparation for incoming damage– this playstyle is exceptionally powerful. (Perhaps too much so?) In fact, you are already starting to see Guilds stack multiple Disc Priests to stagger/chain DA and Spirit Shells to “STOP DAMAGE NOW”. (I’m looking at you Force and Verve!)

Simply because these buffs just came out/are coming, does that mean Priests are in a bad spot right now? No.  Our output is pretty solid, heck, the image in the masthead has myself and my priest-partner in guild holding our own in one of our first Heart of Fear kills. (Disc/Holy combo) Not once have I thought, “Man, I should sit out of this fight there is nothing I can bring to the table of value.” And that includes 4 healing fights on 25 man.

I do think a lot of the doomsaying about priests is directly related to the perceived FOTM-Status of Mistweaver Monks. Are Mistweavers powerful healers? Yes. Are they being nerfed in 5.1? Yes. Is a lot of Mistweaver healing overstated and overhyped? Yes.  Are Mistweavers great additions to your healing team? Yes. However it does not mean that “reroll MW or GTFO” is what we should be thinking here— quite the contrary. With Monks as the new class, you’ll be damn sure that Blizzard has all eyes on Monk performance and balance. Priests have ALWAYS been well rounded healers, not once in my long tenure healing in WOW have I felt that Priests wouldn’t land on our feet. We always have.

My guild, Something Wicked, is doing a great job our Heroic 25 man progress (as of this post we are Realm 1, and in the US top 50) and we have ZERO Mistweavers in our healing team. Yep…. zero. Mistweavers are by no means “required”. Play your priest well, and leverage your abilities… you’ll be fine!

Keep Calm, Keep Healing, and Keep Learning.

Post Publication Edit:

In a twitter conversation with Chase, a rather good point was made. A lot of this priests suck/reroll or GTFO mindset is infecting the community as a result of people only looking at WoL/RaidBots for data. What we all need to keep in mind Healing Meters on WoL/RaidBots does NOT account for differences in raid comp, strategy, healing role, skill, or healing style. These all can dramatically affect the Parse results. Healing logs/parses simply do NOT paint the whole picture and we should NOT live and die by them— regardless of what people are yelling about on the forums or trade chat.

Keep Calm and Keep Healing is a post from: Tales of a Priest

 ”Sanctuary should scale with haste like Efflorescence. It just adds more ticks.” 

Well, I must say I was pretty darn excited! It didn’t make sense that it didn’t scale from haste previously.  I quickly logged into the beta to test out the breakpoints I had previously calculated and to see these additional ticks at work…

But wait… they added Haste scaling, but took away mastery’s scaling from HW: Sanctuary. Noooooo!  I then broke out our handy-dandy spreadsheet and started to crunch the numbers trying to answer the questiosn: What does this change mean? Is it a net buff or a net nerf? How does this impact our gearing choices? 

First I looked at 3 breakpoints assuming NO raid haste buff:  and that worked out to a net healing loss of ~25.58% at the first gained tick. It wasn’t until the second additional tick of Sanctuary where having Haste Only scaling work out about neutral to Mastery Only scaling, and it wasn’t until the third tick where haste started to creep ahead. (note: Haste breakpoints are available under Resources Menu: here)

Now, since most of us here are raiders, we can probably assume we’ll be running with a raidwide Haste Buff (provided by Shadow Priests, Moonkin,  and Elemental Shaman), which tilts the numbers slightly making haste better than mastery, but only specifically at certain breakpoints, before or after a break you fall behind what we .

Below is a chart illustrating the scaling of Haste Only and Mastery Only for HW: Sanctuary. I used a 2,000/tick healing point, but because these numbers scale linearly, the scaling is the same regardless if you used 1,000/tick or 50,000/tick. Each tick is capable of critically healing, but for purposes of analysis, and the fact that Holy will not be stacking crit analyzing crit’s RNG impact will not be done.

Now, of course if we look at JUST HW: Sanctuary, Haste seems devalued between breakpoints. The argument is moot, however, since Haste (and crit)  is  the combat stat that scales HW: Sanctuary. The biggest thing to look at is the trend line in these charts. It scales pretty similarly, and works out about the same…  So overall its a nerf at the interim points. However, interim haste ratings, will increase the HPS of Sanctuary by increasing the speed in which it ticks, but not adding additional ticks and thusly not affecting HPM.

At the end of the day, the change really won’t be a huge change to the HPM of the spell, and works out pretty close to nuetral. (ie. At the 4,717 haste breakpoint, the difference is under 2%) It does mean we will be looking at Haste a bit differently since we’ve now “lost” a spell that is affected by Mastery and gained one now affected by Haste….  Breakpoints are important to know, particularly if it means that a simple gem swap or reforging into haste to hit that breakpoint. (Of course, providing you are using the spell that is reaching that breakpoint).

All this analysis is done with the point of showing the change, not that Mastery is better— why? Well because Mastery does not affect HW: Sanctuary any longer… haste does. We have no choice, this is the stat that scales the spell and this is how the stat interacts with it.

From my raid testing, Mastery is still a potent stat for us, and will be the go-to stat for Healers in between attainable Haste Breakpoints.

Commentary and Concerns About HW: Sanctuary’s Scalability -

If you compare HW: Sanctuary to the current Live version, it has scaled the least of our spells from 85 to 90, has regained its 6 Target+ DR, and has lost its CD reduction from Tome of Light– I would much rather see its mana cost increase, and output increase as well… since right now there is little incentive to use Sanctuary unless you have surplus mana to burn.

UPDATED -
This chart and post has been updated as of Beta Build 16004, and includes the changes to HW: Sanctuary extending to 30 second duration. You’ll notice that this affects and makes early haste breakpoints easier to hit.

Holy Word: Sanctuary – Scaling in Mists of Pandaria is a post from: Tales of a Priest

However, it doesn’t mean I love every change that they make… and sometimes, its important for us to point out changes that could be missed… and I do think that Blizzard is missing the mark when it comes to Chakra.

Chakra was introduced in the 4.0 build and during Cataclysm’s beta we saw a number of changes to the spell as it rolled out. Chakra was released as a way for priests to “feel in the zone” and so we can maximize our output. It was introduced to give us flexibility and opportunity to be fluid in our healing and to align ourselves with the role we’re playing in our raid. However, with the current incarnation… and the current beta build it actually is doing the opposite It has become restrictive, punitive, and disadvantages priests.

First let’s understand where the spell is CURRENTLY ON LIVE. Chakra provides PVE Healing Priests really two ‘stances’ to be in, one specialized for AOE Healing and the other for Single Target Healing. (Let’s ignore Chakra: Smite as that really is a questing/psuedo-DPS stance— if you can call it that!) Additionally, each Chakra stance, through Revelations,  gives us access to one Holy Word: Sanctuary and Serenity for our AOE healing, and single target healing respectively.

The current incarnation of Chakra is pretty poor considering the fact that in a PVE situation, very rarely are you ever going to use Chakra: Serenity over Sanctuary; something which  GC acknowledged earlier. (here) The benefits of Sanctuary greatly outweigh the benefits (and cost) of Serenity.

The latest beta build (15799) introduced these changes:

• Chakra: Sanctuary: Increases the healing done by your area of effect healing spells by 15%, reduces the cooldown of your Circle of Healing spell by 2 sec, and transforms your Holy Word: Chastise spell into Holy Word: Sanctuary.
• Chakra: Serenity: Increases the healing done by your single-target healing spells by 15%, causes them to refresh the duration of your Renew on the target, and transforms your Holy Word: Chastise spell into Holy Word: Serenity.

You’ll notice that Serenity received a huge buff over the previous incarnation and Sanctuary lost the 15% buff to Renew (sidenote: making renew very weak overall, hopefully we’ll see it buffed to be more in line with the mana cost required). This is great news, right? No, actually it causes and exacerbates some really complicated problems when you consider how class-balance is benchmarked…

Benchmarking

The development team does a good deal of testing and benchmarking. This includes being certain that no one class’s potential output is meaningfully weaker or stronger than another. This means, when Blizzard is bechmarking our AOE healing they are weighing in the 15% AOE Bonus that Chakra: Sanctuary provides us and when benchmarking our single target healing they are weighing in the bonuses that Chakra: Serenity provides us. Good, right? No… The concept of Chakra immediately puts us at a disadvantage should we heal “oustide our stance”. Why’s that? Because we are benchmarked assuming we are in the ‘buffed’ stance.

If I am in Chakra: Sanctuary my AOE heals are healing for what I am balanced around other class AOE heals. Now, if I were to assist healing the tank with my Single Target heals… my single target heals are now healing without the 15% throughput bonus that the other classes are balanced around.  No other healer is disadvantaged when this occurs… is a HPally hindered when he casts Radiance or Light of Dawn? No. Is Wild Growth nerfed if a druid is rolling LB’s on a tank? No. The fact that we have to ‘give up’ a static buff (ie. each stance’s respective 15% bonus) should we decide to enter our ‘single target’ stance is punitive.

Even if I compare Holy to Disc, Holy is disadvanted by nature of how Chakra works. Let’s compare single target healing:  Discipline has Grace, which provides added throughput (up to 30%) to single target heals. To match a Greater Heal as Holy, I would have to be in Chakra: Serenity (15% buff)… if that same Disc Priest, who just was healing the tank, casts Prayer of Healing…. he is guaranteed his added throughput since Divine Aegis is Guaranteed on POH. The Holy priest would need to be in Chakra: Sanctuary to stay in lockstep. The BASE healing  of these spells are the same, its the Chakra/Grace/Divine Aegis interaction that brings it up to the benchmark.

We are not advantaged when in a Chakra state, we are balanced around that state. If Chakra stances gave a meaningful benefit over other healers, as the  opportunity cost of having “oustside of stance” heals inferior… then I might be Ok with it. However, that then brings up even more balancing issues… if Chakra: Sanctuary priests could inherently be the ‘strongest AOE’ healer, while giving up either single target throughput; you’d simply have raids stacking priests and have them specialize for their roles. Not what we want to accomplish here.

Further, this seems to be extra punitive to 10 mans, when cross-healing is the name of the game, while in 25′s you sometimes can have the luxury of ‘exclusively’ tank or raid healing. Cross-healing immediately is wounded by the disparity between stances.

Stance Dancing Doesn’t Correct the Problem

Chakra has a 30 second cooldown. So even if I were to swap back and forth, I am locked into the corresponding Chakra buff for 30 seconds; disadvantaging any ‘outside of stance’ heals. Even if Blizzard were to remove the CD on Chakra, it then would become painfully maintenance-y. You’d be swapping in and out every time you wanted to cast a different heal.

A great example of why this doesn’t work was when I was Raid Testing Imperial Vizier Zor’lok the other day: he mind controlled me, and immediately put me in Chakra: Chastise. This then left my heals (BOTH single and AOE) disadvantaged for 30 seconds. If another healer was MC’d, even if the MC used a cooldown… their subsequent heals stayed just as potent as they were prior to the mind control.

No other healer has to give up their throughput in one form of healing to be equal in another.

Potential Solutions

Scrap the current form of Chakra. It is inflexible, complicated to balance, and frankly does the opposite of what it is trying to do. Balance our AOE and single target throughput baseline. In the interest of full disclosure and due diligence, this would require a passive Holy-only buff, as Disc has POH/DAs guaranteed and Grace.

Then, have all the Holy Words share a cooldown. If you cast Sanctuary, you can’t cast Serenity until Sanctuary is off CD (and visa versa). This still gives us access to the benefits of the two spells, and situational usage of them both, but doesn’t allow us to use them any more frequently than we could have before.

I would much rather have Chakra be the Holy counterpoint to Disc’s Archangel. Simply put: make Chakra a throughput cooldown… “Align Chakra”, or something. Allow US to DECIDE when we need the improved throughput in AOE or Single Target… don’t balance around it as some mutually exclusive stance.

I am curious to understand how Blizzard balances around Chakra’s stances, and the give up we have to take when doing this. It is materially different than what the other healers have to do if they want to AOE or Single Target heal… and its materially different enough, and in a substantive way that it is punitive.

Maybe we’re all missing something here… I don’t see it and I would love to be enlightened. I don’t want to be overpowered or over-advantaged. I only want to be able to do my job well, and not worry about impairing my ability to be flexible. Afterall, isn’t that supposed to be the new mantra in the healing world? That all healers should be able to do every job effectively?

Note: I have updated the Mana Regen Talent post to reflect the buff in Beta Build 15799 to Mindbender (here).

Chakra and Why You Should Be Concerned is a post from: Tales of a Priest

Regen will be a big part of our playstyle and gearing in Mists, so it is important to understand how each of our regen abilities work. I think we’ve covered and understand how Spirit and Rapture work from my previous post (here). But let’s take a look at the talent choics in our Third Tier that is available at Level 45.

**note that this post has been updated on 7/30/12 to contain data from Beta Build 15913**

From Darkness Comes Light – FDCL is arguably the hardest talent to quantify the amount of mana we ‘regen’, since it mostly is a mana savings ability. That said is is the least predictable source of mana regeneration since it purely revolves around RNG. Additionally, for FDCL to proc you have to be casting one of the required spells to trigger it— depending on your role, casting a Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, or Smite might not be something you do with much regularity (ie. If you are primarily raid healing). If that is the case, you might not proc FDCL often enough to benefit from it. If you are doing a lot of Single Target Direct Heals (STDH) , and have good RNG on the proc, it could work out greatly to your advantage. And for Holy priests, FDCL’s free-Flash Heals, also can translate into discounted Greater Heals and Prayer of Healings via Serendipity.

Mindbender – We’ve seen this little critter get changed a number of times over in the last several builds– most recently increasing it from 1% to 1.3. (though the math seems to be using 1.33…%) The first thing to keep in mind is that this replaces Shadowfiend. If you do not spec into this, you will still have access to baseline Shadowfiend. The latest incarnation has it have a 60 second cooldown, and restore 1.3% mana per swing. The biggest boon with this change is that we can cast it more often (well, duh)… It gives you greater uptime of the spell, despite per CAST Shadowfiend restores more mana. The fact that you get more off in a given encounter is the critical point.  That said there are some issues with both Shadowfiend and Mindbender. We should be able to assume SF would give us 8 swings (3% regen per swing), and MB would give us 10 swings (1.3% regen per swing). Even with 0 Haste (remember MB/SF swings are affected by haste, so it is possible to get MORE than 8 or 10 swings) you can be ‘shorted’ swings and in turn result in less mana restored. For purposes of analysis, we are going to assume we don’t lose (or gain) swings.

Power Word: Solace – A 2 second cast that simply restores 2% of our mana back. Currently, even if you miss damaging the target with the spell, you are still granted the 2% mana back. (Resto Shaman everywhere just screamed… since missing a TC Lightning Bolt was painful). For priests who are comfortable with ‘weaving spells’ (e.g. Atonement Priests in Cata), this could be a net gain back for you. The question is, will you be GCD capped too often that you won’t be able to weave these back in. That said, potentially the biggest strength of PW: Solace is its granularity in the method it regens (ie. you dont have to worry about holding off on the spell to ‘cap’ your mana pool).

Ok lets take a look at some of the numbers— for purposes of this analysis, lets ignore Haste as it will provide scaling for all 3 options, and any ‘Free/Discounted Heals’ provided by FDCL will be consumed as raw healing.

Per Proc/Cast Analysis – Data

From Darkness Comes Light – when proc’d is worth a free Flash Heal, at a mana value of  19,800. (A each Stack of Serendipity provides a discount of 1980 on GH, and 1500 on POH.) Per proc “Regen” is worth 19,800 for Disc and 21,300 – 21,780 for Holy. We will not deduct the cost of the spell that proc’d FDCL as that is a sunk cost. (The same reason we do not count PW:S’s cost into Rapture regen assumptions). Average regen: Disc at 19,800 and Holy at 21,540

Mindbender – provides ~40,000 (rounded due to repeating) mana per cast.

Shadowfiend – (remember if you don’t spec MB, you  still have SF!) provides 72,000 mana per cast.

Power Word: Solace – provides 6,000 mana per cast.

Potential Simulation and Theoretical Mana Returns

Now that we have a per cast, calculation we need to equalize the information (for ease of consumption, we will use a per minute comparison). Additionally we will need to make assumptions regarding FDCL procsrate, and the number of possible PW: Solace casts you could weave in during a given period of time. Additionally, the FIGHT DURATION is important, as you may or may not be able to get full use of Shadowfiend. (ie. 2 minutes left on CD of Shadowfiend… Mindbender would have had 2 additional casts). To equalize that, let’s take a look at a 5 minute fight. (This is typically the standard fight assumption). (2 casts of Shadowfiend, and 5 casts of Mindbender) Perhaps most importantly, we need to keep this haste nuetral as you must create a constant.

Lets look at these one by each, first the easiest comparison….

Mindbender vs PW: Solace…. Ready? Fight!!!

Lets take a look at the lowest common denominator… a 3 minute fight, where you get 1 Shadowfiend and 3 Minbenders– aka Advantaging Mindbender as much as possible given the synching of CDs. This means Mindbender grants you 117,000 mana (3 casts, regenning 40,000 each). With two casts of Solace Per minute, you’ll outpace. In fact in this example, you’d only need one additional solace over the 3 minutes to match Mindbender. Simply, you’ll need 2.6667 every minute– since you can’t cast .6667 of a Solace,  any additional casts of Solace beyond your 3rd would put PW: Solace in a superior position (over the length of the fight)… again, provided you can find the GCD to not heal, and cast Solace. It might require slightly more work or planning on your part, but if you can find your way to cast additional, you’ll be able to outpace Mindbender. 

It is important to recognize that the 3 minute fight advantages Minbender as much as possible (because of the length time and how it syncs up with cooldowns). The 5 minute fight, at ~3 casts per minute is about equal to Mindbender (though slightly more) given how the cooldown of Shadowfiend lines up and ‘catches up’ any disparity in mana. The key you need to remember is that this assumption forces you to have 6 seconds (3 casts at 2 seconds per cast) with no raw cast-healing output. Inspired by some numbers that Malevica did, I want to present the information similarly so you can easily see how the fight duration impacts “which is better” at what interval, and number of Solaces.

This chart illustrates the importance of understanding the fight’s length and when/where additional Solaces might be needed.

From Darkness, Comes Light is a bit trickier… with a 15% proc chance, normalized, you would need to cast 7 qualifying spells to proc it once. Again, under zero Haste assumptions, this means (provided you are chain casting spells that could trigger the proc) the most you could get in a minute (normalized) is roughly 3 (potentially 4, depending how often you cast Smite). How likely are you going to be chain casting those qualifying heals? Not very. Normalized, you should only be experiencing 1-2 per minute…. that is, if you are remembering to cast those Single Target Heals! It really will vary depending on how much triage healing you’ll be doing, and how much AOE healing you’ll be doing. For argument’s sake lets also account for Serendipity‘s discount as well.

PPM = Procs Per Minute. FDCL numbers include Shadowfiend Regen

Now it is important to realize that FDCL, might look incredibly overpowered… but its not ‘true’ regen. Its illustrating the psuedo-regen from the fact that you could heal with that Surge of Light proc for free, and then the impact of the cost savings from Serendipity (if spec’d Holy). So, you need to ask yourself “Will I be in a raid encounter that requires me to single target heal often enough, to then need a free single target heal again? Is that the regen/mana savings I need?”

With that in mind, I foresee FDCL being powerful for Priests who are doing a good deal of single target healing; be it 5 man healing, 5 healing in raids, or raid encounters that demand single target healing… (eg. Baleroc, Spine of Deathwing…). Now we could simulate triage healing, and 15% chance of that triage healing… but making up simulations like that is a bit of a red herring. A 10,000 foot view of analysis is sufficient to get the big picture… running parses in real raid encounters is typically superior form of analysis. Besides…. maybe you do single target heal a lot in your raid group. If so… FDCL, might be the talent of choice.

Based on the facts current as of Beta Build 15882… PW: Solace still seems to be the strongest potential for regen. FDCL is the hardest to evaluate but really depends on your spell and damage design of a given encounter. (Our ability to respond to the encounters, illustrates the benefits of the MoP talent system very well). Mindbender’s buff was probably due… and it really depends on how much movement, and your ability to weave and learn how to get those PW: Solace casts in. (A simple mouseover/assist macro should make this easier for folks) Mindbender is much stronger than the previous Beta build, however has a finite amount of restoration, while Solace relies on how much YOU can cast it– thus greater potential regen.

These abilities, just like the rest of our talents we need to remember that we can respec! A measly 12 gold will allow us to buy a reagent to respec. So, if you are in a fight where you think one ability is superior… then by all means use that one over the other. The biggest change to the talent system is something that allows us to respond to the encounter:  Evaluate the encounter– look at your spec, and respond accordingly.

Mists of Pandaria – Priest Regen Talent Choices is a post from: Tales of a Priest

At 90, all Priests will have a total mana pool of 300,000 regardless of intellect. Spells will now cost a fixed percentage of total mana (changed from Cata’s “% of base mana”). This is means if Greater Heal costs you 6.6% mana (or 19,800 mana at level 90), it will always cost the same amount regarless of gear level. This addresses and interesting issue that Blizzard has always struggled with: mana cost scaling as people gear up through tiers.

Remember hitting 85 and realizing that the one greater heal you just cast seemed to cost 20% of your mana pool? Well, thats because they needed to balance mana costs so the cost scaled with gearing. Look at yourself now in Cata, probably walking around in Dragon Soul gear… one greater heal is a fraction of your mana pool. Well, in Mists of Pandaria that cost is going to feel the same at just hitting 90 and being geared to the teeth in full T14 gear.

This also impacts how we look at our regen as well, and means that mana regen abilities that used to scale with our gear will not do the same in Mists of Pandaria. Take Shadowfiend for example: Shadowfiend restores 3% mana per swing. Well, in Cata this 3% scaled as your mana pool got bigger, increasing the value of Shadowfiend’s regen as you geared up. Well… in Mists, it will still be 3% per swing, however since our mana pool will not increase that 3% per swing at Level 90 is 9,000 mana per swing. That is 9,000 mana as a fresh level 90 in quest greens, or in full Tier gear. The same logic applies to Hymn of Hope, Innervate, and all the other “percent of mana” restorative abilities.  Since these are now essentially fixed amounts of restoration, you can think of them similar to a Mana Potion: a flat amount of mana you will get back that does not scale.

What does this all mean?

Well, it means we have to look at mana a bit differently. It really will become a finite resource and the way we look at our pool will be the same regardless of gear level…. until we layer in regeneration. Aside from our static regen abilities (Shadowfiend, Hymn, Mindbender, and Mana Potions) we will have spirit based regeneration. As of the latest beta build the spirit regeneration while in combat is provided by Meditation.  Holy and Disc have their own versions of Meditation (Currently, both Holy have 50% of their spirit based regen, continue while in combat), while Shadow does not have a spirit based regen model while in combat. (their primary regen is through Vampiric Touch).

This means, Disc and Holy will need to look to Spirit as their go-to stat for regeneration.

Every priest, regardless of spec, spirit level, or combat status will have an innate baseline regeneration amount. This is 2% of Total Mana every 5 seconds. After backing into the ratio in the charsheet, Spirit, is worth 1.1287 MP5.  This then allows us to back into our formula:

Combat Regen = Total Mana *0.02 +(1.1287*SPI*Meditation%) 

Now that we have our formula, we can take a look at how spirit as a stat will scale for both specs. Baseline, they have equal regen based on spirit. However, it is important to note that Disc still has the Specialization ability Rapture. Putting my personal feelings about this ability aside, Rapture now creates a really tricky balancing act for the developers to keep Discipline’s mana in check.

What Rapture provide’s Discipline, isn’t necessarily “regen”, but when Power Word: Shield is used on Rapture’s cooldown, it provides a Shield at a very reduced cost. This is because when the Shield is fully consumed, the priest is restored mana based on their total spirit… essentially providing an exceptionally mana efficient shield.

At 90, with Inner Fire active, PW: Shield costs 6.1% mana or 18,300– with 10,000 spirit, attainable in the first Tier of MOP raiding, Rapture restore’s 15,000 mana, which means this shield costs 3,300 mana. Exceptionally efficient– regardless of how much it shields for.  From a scaling perspective, this could put Discipline at a marked advantage, providing them with a “free PW: Shield and additional regen” once they reach 12,200 spirit. (The point where Rapture restores the full cost of PW: Shield)

Scaling

Since Combat Regen scaling is so single stat-linear now (unlike in Cata it had interaction with both Intellect and Spirit), depending on the total amount of spirit available on MoP gear, there WILL come a cross over point where there will be threshholds on where spirit will be devalued. (there is in the Cata model as well, but its less evident given that it moves based on two stats vs MoP’s single stat)

Its actually pretty easy to model since you know how much MP5 a finite amount of spirit restores, and you could make mana consumption assumptions. Its one of the downsides and follies to having total mana and the per point value of spirit equal in Quest Greens at 90, and Full Epics at 90.

Conclusion

The take away for everyone is:  Spirit will play a notably important role for both Disc and Holy’s mana regen model. Now, spirit, while not a direct throughput stat like Crit, Haste, or Mastery… it does provide indirect or “pseudo throughput” since you will have more mana regenerated, and thus will be able to cast more spells.

This will be different than what Disc priests  have been used to up until this point, who have always looked at Intellect as their go-to stat… However, ultimately, this new model could result in balance cross-tier if they can balance how fast Spirit/Spirit Regeneration scales in the long term. I do have some concerns that upper tier will result in so much spirit based/innate regen that this balance could tip… but time will tell.

Editor’s Comment: Updated as of 8/28/2012

Mists of Pandaria’s Spirit Regen and Mana Models is a post from: Tales of a Priest

For those who haven’t made your way over to the official preview and calculator, as you level up you get certain spells and bonuses unlocked with specific paths and bones for both Holy and Disc (and Shadow too).

However, upon a closer inspection there are substantial gaps in the Specialization spells… and by gaps, I mean spells and key traits are completely missing. While, yes, Blizzard did they they were going to be pruning our spellbooks down; some of these missing tools seem to be clear oversights. Others, however might not be oversights and just will be changes into the way we play. Before we all go screaming that the sky is falling, lets remember to keep ourselves in check… this is just PREVIEW and is still under development. Therefore, by no means any of this is final. (and with some of the gaps, it obviously isnt final)

Shared  Potential Gaps and Commentary:

• Prayer of Healing is currently not anywhere to be seen. This seems to be an error as there are talents that specifically augment this.  (Serendipity/Chakra: Sanctuary)
• Holy Nova is gone, which is something I am not overly worried about. (Though I did like using it on HM Ragnaros during World in Flames or when Seed Kiting) The part that is quite curious is the fact that at Blizzcon they said they wanted to try to incorporate Holy Nova into the Disc Tree. (Possibly another omission)
• Meditation is gone… this could be a huge change in how we handle regen in Mists. However it is present for Druids and Shaman. (Pallies currently don’t have it) Remember, they said they were changing how mana was going to work for us. Perhaps losing our in-combat regen is just the first step.
• A number of our throughput/mana saving abilities are missing. (eg. Divine Fury, Mental Agility, Twin Disciplines) These could be explained away as part of the overarching changes in MoP, but still surprising to see them gone… especially Divine Fury given the cast times of our Heals.
• Inspiration is gone, as well as its Shaman counterpart, Ancestral Fortitude– perhaps this very ‘high mantenence’ spell is time to retire.

Discipline Potential Gaps and Commentary:

• No specialization, aside from Mastery, that increases PW: Shield size or augments it. Especially interesting since PW: Shield is a shared spell between Disc and Holy.
• Divine Aegis is missing; another clear accidental omission.
• Heal is currently Holy only. This could mean they want us to use Smite as our Heal, however Atonement is missing– so there are still some questions up in the air.  Further, if Heal  is going to be less important, we should also consider potential oversight of Strength of Soul. (Heroic Baleroc anyone?) Additionally, this only leaves Disc with GHeal, Flash, and Penance as our targeted single target heal. However, in one of the class Q&A’s we did learn about Spirit Shell, which is a cast time shield that doesn’t have a Weakened Soul component– perhaps this is the quid pro quo.
• Perhaps they want us to use PW:S more; but we still don’t have Soul Warding in the current preview.
• Renewed Hope is a huge player in the Disc Tank Healing arsena but is currently MIA; unless they decide to merge it into Grace
• No innately higher intellect from Enlightenment to offset Holy Concentration via Rapture.
• Hymn of Hope is Disc only. I kind of like the opposing hymns for each of the two Specializations it gives them a certain flair (accidental or not). That said, I’d argue that HoH could use a slight buff if that is the case; and Holy’s regen would need to be adjusted for the lack of it.

Holy Potential Gaps and Commentary: 

• Holy is actually looking pretty solid; only really some shared gaps and some potential throughput concerns. It makes me wonder if Blizzard looked at Holy first and will be coming back to Discipline.
• I do find it interesting they are doling out Lightwell and Spirit of Redemption. (Improved Death) since these spells were very “choices” in current content. (I still dislike Spirit of Redemption. It is just a talent that keeps you alive just a little longer after you messed up— just seems wrong to me)
• Currently Binding Heal is Holy Only; could be interesting to tie this spell just to Holy; but what would the trade off for Disc be? Nova?
•  Divine Hymn is currently Holy Only; though without Heavenly Voice we could be back to ground zero with it.

Talent Trees
There have been a number of bloggers out there who have commented on the talent trees and the choices we have at 15, 20, 45, 60, 75, and 90. While, I have been working on a post analyzing those choices… the talent system is less of a ‘choice’ than it ever was. With the ability to change our talents like Glyphs we will have the flexibility to customize our Tree to the boss encounter itself.  Further, we still don’t know exactly how a number of these abilities will work… and I really don’t like speculating.  I even hesitated to write this post as it is mired in speculation. There is simply TOO MUCH UNKNOWN and existing 4.0 talents could be merged into existing 5.0 ones. Until I can get my hands on concrete information about how these new abilities actually work in practice(eg. Void Shift), I think we are just speculating for speculations sake. Let’s see them in action before we make snap judgements.  Of course I DO have some preliminary opinions and gut reactions to a number of the new Talents… I just need to figure out how I want to communicate that on the blog.

Given the number of holes and unknowns, doing too much fretting over these trees is like tilting at windmills. The most we can do is keep our concerns in the back of our minds, and see what future Mists of Pandaria previews have in store. As of now there are too many obvious errors to really get too worked up. Is it possible that this is the final Priest Specialization/Talent Tree… sure; though it seems HIGHLY unlikely. So, calm down… pour yourself a glass of wine and relax; more information will be coming…. soon™.

Mists of Pandaria: Official Priest Talent Preview (Take 1) is a post from: Tales of a Priest

First let’s take a look at this Divine Hymn buff — In 4.2, DH was actually a HPS loss (For both Disc and Holy) when compared to YAWNPOH(POH/COH) spam. Once 4.3 drops, we’ll be turning that completely on its head.

4.2 Live Hymn:
“Heals 3 nearby lowest health friendly party or raid targets within 40 yards for 4009 every 2 sec for 8 sec, and increases healing done to them by 10% for 8 sec. ”

4.3 PTR Hymn (Build 14976 – Release):
“Heals 5 nearby lowest health friendly party or raid targets within 40 yards for 4009 every 2 sec for 8 sec, and increases healing done to them by 10% for 8 sec. ”

While Disc only gains a greater amount of targets hit with the heal and buff when compared to the 4.2 Hymn, this gain is much more substantial for Holy Priests. The increased impact is due to their ability to cast it multiple times in a standard encounter as well as 100% increased healing if a Holy priest is specced into Heavenly Voice. Additionally Holy gains increased throughput from Chakra: Sanctuary, and Holy’s Mastery being a guaranteed application. (Sidenote: the icon for Heavenly Voice has a rather ironic likeness to Rebecca Black— HA)

Hymns and Haste

Now, we aren’t talking up upping the tempo in a song here, nor are we talking about making some weird Hymn of Hope dubstep. (/waves glowsticks) We’re talking about the impact that Haste has on both Hymn of Hope and Divine Hymn.

By now we all should be familiar with how haste affects spells with HOTs/DOTs, but its important to understand that it also affects Channeled spells. Some spells (ie. Mind flay and Penance) cannot gain additional ticks of themselves, but can reduce the overall channel time. How do we know how much haste affects the total number of ticks? Well… here’s the formula:

ROUND (Base Spell Duration / ( Base Tick Time / (1 + Haste %)))

That said, the breakpoints for these spells are:

12.5% (5th tick)
37.5% (6th tick)
62.5% (7th tick)
87.5% (8th tick)

Woah there buddy… now before you go chasing these breakpoints, I am displaying these more on an academic level. Haste, as a general rule, is a great way to increase your output based on the fact that you’ll be doing things faster. (Faster cast times, channels, GCDs, etc).

That said, any haste beyond any of these breakpoints will simply shorten the channel time but retain the amount of any additional ticks. For example, if you had 37.4% haste, you would have only 5 ticks (Meeting the 12.5% breakpoint but not the 37.5%) however your channel will be substantially faster (actually as fast as possible without gaining an actual tick).   While having exactly 12.5% haste would keep you at the longest possible channel(8 sec), and still 5 ticks of the Hymn. The overall healing that the spell did is the same, but the HPS is higher for the shorter channel (as you are getting the same amount of healing out in a shorter period of time)— more importantly, sorter cast times free you up to move or begin casting a new spell sooner.

How should you leverage haste when you are channeling your Hymns? The easy answer is for Discipline: always cast hymns when you have Borrowed Time.  That is immediately a free 14% haste included in your channel.  Holy Priests, since they do not have a on demand Haste ability, can leverage either Haste Trinkets or Heroism/Bloodlust should they line up to be used at an appropriate time. Protip: Your tick gains and haste calculations are made at the START of the channel. So if you start a Hymn with 1 sec left on Hero/Lust, your channel is cast under those higher haste assumptions. 

To provide an example, on the PTR I have 18.34% Haste, unbuffed. As Disc I can leverage Borrowed Time and cast a Hymn with 34.90% Haste (Remember: Haste gains are multiplicative, so you just don’t add haste together). As Holy, I won’t have access to Borrowed Time, however, I could use Shard of Woe (despite its regen nerf in 4.3) and cast with 33.75% haste.  (For those curious:  Shard, Borrowed Time, and Power Infusion I landed at 82.97%. )

It should be noted, however, that the tooltips for both Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope both state “Maximum Targets”. (4.3 PTR Divine Hymn: 20; and Hymn of Hope: 12). For several patches now, this bug has simply allowed for additional ticks to be gained. If it is ever “corrected” (a la the HW: Sanctuary 6+ targets “bug”); we should still continue to value Haste for these Hymns if anything for a decreased channel duration. (bug confirmation)

Disparity Between 10-Man and 25-Man

Purely based on the total number of targets available, a single Hymn (Hope or Divine) will have different results in 10 and 25. Taking range out of the discussion, a 10 man raid will be much more likely to “double hit” (or Triple) a single target with a Divine or Hope tick… while a 25-Man raid might have more “equitable distribution” of each tick. Further affecting our hymns, is the fact that each hymn provides a lingering buff, that makes subsequent ticks even better– and in turn making the impact of raid size disparity difficult to really gauge

Leveraging Our Hymns

How and when should we be using Hymn? Say it with me (again) know the fight. The more you know the boss encounter, the better you can plan and time your cooldowns.  This is particularly important for Holy Priests, as they can leverage their shortened cooldowns to get multiple hymns cast in a single fight. For example, in the Dragon Soul fight against Zon’ozz, a Holy Priest can time their Hymn to be available for every other round of Black Blood of Go’rath. (Depending how many ‘bounces’ you do of the shadow orb).

Of course, we should also use Divine Hymn as a “OH CRAP!” panic button when the raid takes a sudden surge in damage. (Just remember, this may adjust your cooldown rotation and your raids should be prepared to handle that)

Hymn of Hope is always a little tricky, since it can be a 8 second (non-hasted) period of pure altruism! The casting priest is not guaranteed a regen application. On Heroic Ragnaros, I have trained (or attempted to!) our Warlocks to Lifetap before I cast HoH; this helps in getting the mana to the folks that really need it. (A bit of my soul dies when I see my HoH buff sitting on a Prot Pally on Grid)

8 Second Channels are a long time to be casting a single spell… get the most out of it, and you’ll be really pushing your output to new levels.

4.3 Hymns, Leverage, and Haste is a post from: Tales of a Priest

For Holy Priests, one of the biggest changes 4.0.6 brought was the change to Chakra. Chakra now lasts a full 60 seconds when activated, and has a 30 second cooldown; on top of that change we also saw a change to State of Mind. State of Mind now will reduce the cooldown on Chakra by 6 seconds (with 2 points).

This does change a couple of things for us, and let’s review those:

1. Chakra Maintenance – this means we can cast Chakra once and know we’ll be in our corresponding Chakra state for 60 seconds beforing needing to cast Chakra again. Previously, via State of Mind we were able to extend Chakra and stay in one state without having to recast it; now we will have to manage our State a bit more carefully.  I keep an eye on my Chakra cooldown with Power Auras, and have a visual notification when I am in combat and NOT in  a Chakra state— I should ALWAYS be in a Chakra state. (especially with a 4-piece bonus)

2. Added Flexibility – With State of Mind now reducing the Chakra Cooldown by a maximum of 6 seconds, you can more readily bounce in between your Chakra states.

Wait a second here… 2 points for a whole 6 second decrease in our ability to swap stances? Sounds good on paper doesn’t it? Let’s think about this…

How often are you really changing from one Chakra state to another? Most 25 man (and 10 man) Holy Priests are nearly always in Chakra: Sanctuary… the added benefit of swapping stances might seem great; but in reality we really aren’t changing often enough (if at all) to warrant 2 points for a measly 6 second reduction.

If you aren’t finding a need for that 6 second improvement in your flexibility, you might want to consider spending those 2 points elsewhere. Perhaps you skipped Desperate Prayer (also buffed this patch), or perhaps you didn’t spec into Rapid Renewal or Surge of Light… if you find that those 2 points are better used elsewhere: move them.

For my Holy Spec, I moved my talent points around, skipping State of Mind, and capped off the Renew Talents (Divine Touch, Rapid Renewal) and Desperate Prayer. (I also gave up Spirit of Redemption, due to previous discussions and not wanting to use points on “improved death” since I shouldn’t be dying).

Have you been using State of Mind? Where did you move those points if you haven’t been?

Flash Heal articles are a short, quick, and easy to understand posts. Flash Heal posts are meant to be less involved and detailed than a full article you are used to seeing here at Tales. Flash Heal posts are posts post that will give you some form of tip, trick, or gem of insight on anything from a spell to a boss mechanic. Got a suggestion for a Flash Heal post? Send us an email!

Flash Heal: An Azerothian State of Mind is a post from: Tales of a Priest