The Holy Guide will be updated in the next 24-48 hours, although it has minimal changes from 5.1! (Grrrr….that irritates me on a number of levels. Holy’s shortcomings being overlooked).

Hope everyone is enjoying the Throne of Thunder, stay tuned for the Holy update, as well as a State of the Union 5.2 in the next week.

Keep calm, and keep healing.

5.2 Discipline Guide – Thunderstruck! is a post from: Tales of a Priest

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

Earlier this week NBC reporter, Ann Curry, said, in remembrance of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut:

“Imagine if everyone could commit to doing one act of kindness for each precious life lost. An act of kindness, big or small — are you in?”

(or click here)

I responded and said, “Yes, I am in…”

This “movement” as taken the internet by storm on Facebook as as well as on Twitter via the hashtag #26Acts.

In real life, I did a #26Acts at the Starbucks I frequent every day… and treated 26 strangers to their morning coffee (picture). 

I then got to thinking… what if I could bring this into Azeroth as well- we can make an impact. We can remember. We can remind people about humanity. The WoW Community is generally quite strong, we could do this! Here is what I will be doing: Over the course of the next few days, I’ll just pick 26 random people I see walking around Azeroth and give them a Pandaria Level Flask that they could use and the following message:

“Hi there, I am doing 26 Random Acts of Kindness in honor of the 26 in Newtown, CT. You are number [Number Here]– enjoy. Pay it forward if this made you smile.  facebook.com/26acts or #26acts on Twitter. Have a good day.”

Now, I can’t affect most folks who might read this personally in game. (Since most of you are not on my server!) If this post, and/or Ann Curry’s message inspires you… I urge you to start your own chain of #26Acts. A few minutes of your time to run a lowbie through a dungeon, a free flask, a random BOE, or even a simple “do you need a ride on my flying mount to your quest hub?” can do it.

Ok, Azeroth…. are you in?

26 Acts of Kindness — In Azeroth 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

• Divine Aegis creation has been increased from 30% to 50%.
• Archangel now affects Spirit Shell properly.
• Spells affected by Inner Focus cast while Spirit Shell is active now fully apply critical effect to the shield provided.

All three of these changes are really good news as they are substantial and direct increases to our output— caveat: when used properly. If I have said it once, I have said it a million times: “The single best thing a Discipline priest can do to increase their effective healing is to know the fight.”  It is as simple as that, know the fight. Know when damage is coming and to prep the raid for that oncoming damage.

Knowing the fight is important for a number of reasons, but simply put it is to know when to effectively use your cooldowns . (And Disc has MANY) When in a fight will your raid be grouped up and PW: Barrier will be best used? When will activating Archangel (and subsequently when will stacking Evangelism be a priority) be best used? When will Spirit Shell’s mitigation be needed? All these questions are things you should be asking yourself as you go into a fight– complicating these questions is, of course, being sure you aren’t sitting on the cooldowns so long that you are WASTING the cooldown itself. (ie. Could you have used it a second, third, or fourth time in that fight if you didn’t hold it?).

Could you simply just blindly spam your absorbs and have them be eaten up by incidental damage and be effective? Yes. But it isn’t the best way to play your class. One example of this kind of gameplay is when people simply macro Spirit Shell to their POH keybind— again, is this effective? Yes… is it the best way to heal? NO! Spirit Shell is best used when in conjunction with specific boss abilities– know when they are coming. Before the raid look at the Dungeon Journal, look at Wowhead tooltips, watch your bossmod timers, prepare your raid for the damage, and do what Disc is designed to do: MITIGATE.

Lets take Blade Lord Ta’yak as an example. In our most recent Heroic 25 kill, we used two Disc Priests. We both prepared the raid (we assigned ourselves 2 groups and shared the 3rd) by popping Archangel with about 15 seconds lead time before Unseen Strike hit.  When the raid soaked Unseen Strike, when combined with our PW: Barrier rotation our HP barely moved!

Spirit Shell is unlike no other ability in the game. What other ability allows you to prepare a raid and pretty much “STOP ALL DAMAGE NOW”. Heroic, Normal, and LFR fights all value the ability to stop damage– and many Heroic encounters greatly lean on this as part of healing strategy. Damage Avoided (or mitigated) is generally superior to damage re-healed. Figuring out what you can do to maximize this ability, by both gearing and playing correctly is something we should be thinking about.

Even though Spirit Shell has a short CD, we still need to maximize it’s output during its uptime. (beyond just gearing correctly— Mastery is gold). This often means finding time to stand and “turret-heal” for the duration of the buff. One of the worst things you can do is waste the CD by casting it right before you have to do a good deal of moving. Now, this does now beg the question: how many casts can you actually FIT in this 15 second window? Remember, Spirit Shell only applies if the buff is active when you complete the cast. Our fellow priest theorycrafter, Aidinne, actually did a great analysis of that question (here).

It is important to keep in mind that generally most disc priests are NOT gearing for Haste (and they really shouldn’t be). To summarize my interpretation of Aidinne’s results, in most raid environments you’ll likely be getting 6 POH casts in during Spirit Shell’s uptime. (This is assuming you are Raidbuffed with 5% haste;  you’re only looking at 1-2% haste when adjusted for latency and human lag).  The 7th cast of POH during that 15 second period would require higher amounts of haste than you’d probably like to have, particularly considering the amount of Mastery & Crit you’d have to sacrifice to get that amount of Haste in current gear.  If you decide to run Power Infusion concurrent with Spirit Shell, you would be able to get 7 casts in that window.  Of course, if you have a Borrowed Time banked prior to activating Spirit Shell, you likely will able to get an additional POH, but generally we should be planning for 6 casts of POH during Spirit Shell’s uptime.

Now that we’ve laid out the facts, I’d suggest looking at your gear and your logs. When doing this, instead of trying to figure out how to gear to be able to ‘sneak in’ additional casts during Spirit Shell, evaluate how effective you are being with your time when Spirit Shell is active. Are you doing a poor job deciding when to activate it and are forced to move and lose a second or two? Are your keybinds too complex to activate SS, AA, and Inner Focus at the same time without losing precious seconds of the buff? Are you activating Spirit Shell too early, and as a byproduct losing Shells on people before the ‘big damage’ comes? Are you able to time Borrowed Time into that rotation?

A tricky thing we need to keep in mind is to not waste casts during Spirit Shell. For example, if you have time to cast multiple casts on a group (or a single player) capping Spirit Shell over 60% of the casting priest’s HP is wasteful. Now that Inner Focus applies to Spirit Shell casts, it is easier to cap. At the moment, there is not a plugin (that I am aware of) for any raid frame that lets you know if a Shell is capped; and a lot of “intuition” needs to be used when cycling through targets. (Less of an issue with POH, but more of one if you are casting single target heals)

Perhaps the most interesting question you could ask yourself regarding Spirit Shell is: should I be using Power Infusion (assuming you are spec’d for it) to get a single extra cast of POH during Spirit Shell? Sometimes the answer is no. It might be better use of Power Infusion to cast raw POHs and get actual healing out. Evaluate your fight’s damage patterns— know the fight, and respond with our vast toolkit.

Disc is a fun spec, however mastering it does take some time. A lot of being good at disc is not just learning how to play the spec, but also learning the encounter and how your raid’s strategy impacts that encounter’s damage. Prepare, Mitigate, Succeed.

Getting the Most Out of Disc and Spirit Shell 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

1. Am I spec’d into the most appropriate regen model for this fight? Are you struggling to find gaps to fit your PW: Solace in? Are you getting fewer than (in aggregate) 8 Solaces per minute? Would Mindbender work better for you? What about FDCL?

2. Are you using your potions at an opportune time? Are there a section of the fight where a Potion of Focus would fit? (eg. Phase Transitions with Elegon)

3. Hymn of Hope – is there a place where you can cast it, maximizing the number of healers who will benefit?

… and perhaps the most important question:

4. Am I getting spirit from the most appropriate sources and sacrificing throughput stats appropriately to do so?

Hamlet, of EJ Druid fame, wrote an interesting post on this topic (here). While I don’t agree with 100% of the finer details on his post, the fundamental point and the spirit of the post is true:  Just because you think you need more spirit doesn’t mean that really is the case; you could just need to play better. I think that Hamlet, in very much his fashion (and is why I like him), is very matter of fact and delivers this important message in a manner that could be expanded upon and discussed. So let’s do that…

What Hamlet briefly touches upon, but I think needs more expanding and really is the crux of the argument we should be understanding is “itemization budgeting”. Gems now have an itemization budget with a 1:2 ratio of Primary Stats to Secondary Stats. This means that a gem with 160 Intellect, could be budgeted at 320 Spirit. (ie. Brilliant Primordial Ruby vs Sparkling River’s Heart). There is, at least, some reward for using a secondary stat over a primary stat: double the stat. Does that mean this is inherently superior? No. This can make the decision to gem one way over another a bit clearer– or, perhaps more explicitly, whether or not you want to break or match a socket bonus. Weigh your options.

Other items, such as food, do not enjoy that 1:2 budget. Mogu Fish Stew vs Steamed Crab Surprise are 300 to 300. In situations where it is a flat trade off, the answer is less clear. Is a 1:1 trade off worth the lost intellect?

Hamlet makes a good point and boils down his flask choices to additional mana over the course of the fight. Lets look at that example in another way: A 300 spirit food, grants you ~170mp5. Over the course of a 10 minute fight, that is an additional 20,400 mana. Which is about 3 more Renews over the course of the fight. Or 300 intellect impacting every single one of your spells— more importantly your efficient  and low overheal spells.

Of course, little spirit gains (from foods or flasks) here and there can add up,and over the course of a fight can result in thousands and thousands of additional mana… but at what cost? A lot of the answer revolves around gameplay. Are you playing your priest as well as you can? Are you overhealing a lot? Can you be more efficient? Can you improve your overhealing? Those answers alone could mean you could gain raw throughput (via Int or even Haste/Mastery in some situations), improve the spells effective healing, and actually heal for more per cast allowing you to use the existing mana you have more effectively.

The answer is even less clear for Discipline Priests since Rapture’s impact on PW: Shield’s HPM is directly correlated to the amount of spirit you have. One PW:S per Rapture is incredibly mana efficient… that is clear, even with very little spirit.  The real question is, what happens to your HPM if you cast a 2nd or 3rd PW:S within that Rapture CD?  This answer does vary depending on the fight (if the Shields will be fully absorbed) as well as your Mastery and Intellect levels since that too, affects the HPM by increasing the amount the shield absorbs for.

Now, by no means am I saying to NOT gem and gear for Spirit– this is where Hamlet and I diverge in opinion. Keep an eye on the budgeting and the throughput that the spirit costs you.  Know when and where to pull back from spirit. Know what the COST for using a spirit gem/food/flask is. Me? I am still using my Spirit Flask, however, now that I am Pandaren I have started using 300 intellect food. (Epicurean also grants me an additional 300 intellect from that… so I am comparing 600 spirit to 600 intellect). Why? Because the gained throughput, is outweighed by the regen from that 600 spirit.

Are you starting to feel comfortable with your regen or perhaps are you feeling like you need more oomph in your output? That is when you should be pulling out of low item budget spirit sources such as your food and flask– and, likely, before that point.

It is a fine line to walk… and this has always been our trade off as healers: Regen vs Throughput. I urge you to read the post Hamlet put up however please keep perspective when gemming, buffing, and gearing your priest. There is a certain amount of “gear your priest to preference and playstyle” involved here—- but that perhaps begs the biggest questions in this post:  Could you be playing better?  Are you working the best you can with the resources at your disposal?

“It’s not the size of your mana pool that matters.  It’s how you use it.” – @HamletEJ

Mana Regen vs Throughput is a post from: Tales of a Priest

I have to really stand up and applaud Blizzard for Mists of Pandaria; it really is probably one of their most polished expansions to date. Visually its really impressive, the story-line is fun to follow, the graphical improvements are nice, the mob polygons have been increased, and there is really SO MUCH to do…. this is where I have mixed emotions: There is almost too much to do.  I know a number of people have shared similar concerns with the plethora of things to do. Beru summed up some of the concerns with the dailies nicely (here).

Aside from the few of the quests having some bugs, which will hopefully be fixed with today’s maintenance, my issue with the hubs and hubs of dailies is that, as a pretty well progressed raider (We finished 52nd US in T13) I feel obligated to do all these dailies every day, since getting access to those VP items sooner than later will be critical in staying in the top. Not starting Heroic Raids “on time” puts us off pace for the whole tier. What also needs to be underscored is that these dailies not only provide access to the VP items, but the profession patterns as well. Yes, VP is throttled so it isn’t QUITE as much of a big ordeal… you can’t buy anything with 1,000 VP (Week 1′s cap)… but you can in week 2.

Farmville - 

Ok I joke when I call it Farmville… but I kinda like it. Food mats are VERY expensive since many Heroic Raiders will not settle for below 300 stat level food, which requires grinding to max level cooking in your preferred stat to craft.  (For me, at least at the start of the tier,  it will be Spirit, Spirit, Spirit!) The items to cook these foods will be heavily farmed, and very expensive on the AH, so being able to grow some of them on my farm has been handy. (I just hit Revered with the Tillers today, and now have 12 plots on my Priest to till). I have gone so far as moved 4 of my alts out to Halfhill to just tend their 4 plots of soil. That is 16 additional plots a day for me to farm my extra food mats.

I am camping the rare spawn location (waiting for it to rain, since that apparently is the cue for the spawn) to hopefully get the Ancient Pandaren Fishing Charm to hopefully make getting the fish I need a bit easier.

Raiding and Gearing -

Starts tomorrow (Wednesday) for us (we raid Wed/Thurs/Sun)… so I am very excited to get to see the final changes to the raids I did lots of testing on in Beta. My priest is pretty well set for the raid tomorrow, I need to finish a few minor tweaks… and hope for a couple of dungeon drops that SIMPLY DON’T EXIST, and perhaps grab a BOE or two from the AH/BMAH.

I will probably run the first week as Holy, since that is what I had spent the most time in dungeons running… and see how the raid does with only one Disc priest. (SPIRIT. SHELL. IS. THAT. AMAZING… don’t let people tell you otherwise. It really is.)

I have my Cranes deck all set to go for the Faire this weekend and will have my Relic of Chi Ji in time for Heroic Raids, which with that much spirit should hopefully make my regen concerns a moot point.

Gearing has been fun, running dungeons with my guildies… I’ve even been doing a good deal of DPSing in my shadow spec! (Lots of overlap between my Holy and Shadow Gear). Now I doubt I’ll be doing that in many (if any raids), but it is possible— and I do like the new ‘rotation’ for shadow, it is a lot more fun than the old one from Cata.

Favorite Moment -

Aside from the Realm First! spam and whispers… probably a tie between entering a Heroic Dungeon for the first time in the x-pac and my guild assembling to take down the two world bosses. What was yours?

What have YOU been doing? What do you like? What did you not like? 

Don’t forget to check out the Resources section as well as the Holy and Disc Guides!

Mists of Pandaria: Initial Impressions is a post from: Tales of a Priest

What is most important if you are staying up late (or as the case may be: early) to grind to 90 is to take care of yourself! Expansion launches are often a time when people toss caution to the wind, eat crappy food, guzzle down Red Bull, coffee, and stay awake until their eyes are red and sore from staring at your screen. I came across this blog post at The Healthy Gamer which outlines a lot of key things when pushing yourself for a long play-session at a MMO Launch. While the blog is mostly GuildWars 2 focused, the fundementals discussed there are really important.

I am a bit of a health nut myself, so I did want to share this with everyone. Now, by no means is eating healthy one day going to change your life forever… but its still a smart move, and clearly better alternative to chugging Red Bull and Pizza on launch day. Here are some key tips that I urge everyone to do in the long gaming sessions ahead of us for the MoP Release in just over a week!

1. Food – Try to NOT have too much sugary stuff. Nuts, cheese, sandwiches, anything high protein is best. “Slow” Carbohydrates are also beneficial as they do not cause your blood sugar to spike quite as much as simple sugars. If you are pushing for Realm First!  you might want to go so far as prepping your snacks… those precious minutes it takes you to make a sandwich or scramble an egg could mean the difference between first and second. I regularly take a multivitamin, as it helps me insure I am getting all of what my body needs, that my diet might not be providing me. If you’re not taking one now, you should consider one.

2. Drink – stay hydrated. Guzzling caffeinated drinks (which are usually sugary) actually can hurt you in the long term. You’ll likely crash shortly after your surge of caffeinated energy. Also caffeine is a natural diuretic which could mean you’ll need more bio-breaks… but more importantly it can dehydrate you in excess. Drinking water, keeps you hydrated and less likely to become fatigued. (Wikipedia)

3. Get Moving! – If you want to work out before your big session (if your gym is open that late) it can help improve your mental acuity. If not, be sure to move around periodically. I’ll say it again, move around: During quest/NPC RP, flightpaths, any break you take… Do a couple of push ups, squats, crunches… literally, do them. It keeps your blood moving, and can help release endorphins. Moreover, I am familiar with this because I fly so much– Deep Vein Thrombosis can be a very real danger. (Mayo Clinic)

4. Be Like a Pandaren: Feng Shui – ORGANIZE YOUR DESK and clean your immediate surroundings…. clutter can actually make you less efficient and distracted.

5. Breathe – Open your windows: fresh (and cool air) can help you stay awake and alert.

6. Music- As you get later into the afternoon and start to get tired… non-rhythmic music is key. Stuff that has too predictable of a pattern can lull your brain off.

7. IRL Rested Bonus- Pre-Launch Napping: If you are going to take a nap before hand… if you can’t get at least 4 hours, only take a true “nap”: 20-30 minutes tops. Your brain doesnt fully enter Stage III, IV, or REM, and only really is in Stage I or II sleep. Any longer, you can enter Stage III, which is the beginnings of deep sleep… waking up mid sleep cycle can really cause more harm than good by messing with your circadian rhythm. For an average person it takes about 45-90 minutes to enter Sage III, this is why for an effective nap you should keep your nap down to a max of 45 minutes, or else you risk going into Stage III. Even 45 minutes is sometimes too much. (Wikipedia)

Have fun during the launch! But more importantly stay healthy! See you at 90!

Chicken, Oats, Protein, Cheese, Yogurt, Apples, Trail Mix, and Water. (and yes, my backup laptop in case my desktop dies)

Stay Healthy During Mists of Pandaria is a post from: Tales of a Priest

This isn’t mechanically different than POH spamming to prepare a raid with Divine Aegis prior to damage occuring that many priests have been comfortable doing in 4.3. Spirit Shell now simply allows us to do this much more effectively, and with much greater ease. Note: Spirit Shell caps at 60% of the Casting Priest’s HP and each Disc Priest in your raid can cast a unique Spirit Shell.

Using Spirit Shell effectively will be a hallmark of a good Discipline Priest. You could simply use Spirit Shell on cooldown and either pad a tank, or POH pad a raid and see fairly positive results— however the real marker of a good Disc Priest will be using SShell when its needed the most. Despite it having a fairly short cooldown, we might want to pause a second or two to line up Spirit Shell’s absorbs to large raid/boss damage. Simply using the ability on cooldown will be effective, but ultimately not as effective of using it when the fight benefits from it. The tricky part is not delaying it so much, that the short cooldown is wasted.

Why is understanding Spirit Shell so important? Spirit Shell will represent a LARGE PORTION of your output on many/most fights… understanding its mechanics and stat scaling will be critical.

Spirit Shell scales exceptionally well from both Mastery and Crit. Each cast of a heal while Spirit Shell is active will be the same (barring throughput procs). The Spirit Shell calculation takes Mastery, Crit, and Divine Aegis creation into account and rolls it all up into a single absorb– making this one of our most scalable heals in our arsenal. Spirit Shell scales linearly by Mastery as well as by the amount of critical strike chance you have. Additionally, when Spirit Shell is active, it essentially ignores the RNG aspect of Crit as it provides direct scaling based on your critical strike chance (guaranteed). (It does this by essentially looking at Crit as an aggregate stat, not as a RNG stat based on a single heal)

Spirit Shell’s Calculation is as follows:
Non-POH Shell = Average Heal * (1 + Mastery %) * (1 + Crit %) * (1 + (Crit % * 0.30)) 
POH Shell = Average Heal * (1 + Mastery %) * (1 + Crit %) * 1.30

As you can clearly see, SShell’s stat scaling is quite liberal, scaling crit linearly with the amount it absorbs as well as mastery. This method of scaling essentially guarantees crit chance to provide scaling to the heals cast when SShell is active. (as well as accounting for Divine Aegis).— This method of scaling, in fact, is better than the baseline spell’s scaling  just by nature of Spirit Shell. In fact, it may be too good on a number of single target heals– be careful don’t overcap the 60% cap on SShell! Currently, a single GHeal gets you about 80% capped…. and with full stacks of Grace and a healthy amount of Mastery, you’ll likely get capped in a single GHeal cast.

Haste does not have a direct throughput increase to an individual cast of Spirit Shell, however it does allow you to cast faster while the Spirit Shell proc is active, and theoretically, create more Shells during a single Spirit Shell cooldown. Generally speaking, you should be able to fit in 6 GHeal/POH casts during Spirit Shell’s uptime. (some haste and spell conditions might allow for upwards of 7). Haste scales Spirit Shell in a tiered fashion, given the fact that you must complete the cast when Spirit Shell’s buff is active. If you cannot complete the cast when the buff is active, it is considered a regular heal. Once you get enough haste to complete that cast in the time allotted, then you can count it towards SShell scaling.

How do you make the most out of Spirit Shell? Know the fight. That is always the biggest boon to a Discipline Priest. The more you know and understand the fight, the better you can be at predicting periods of large amounts of damage and preemptively preparing the raid (or Tank) with Absorbs.

Spirit Shell does not scale with Archangel, so save this cooldown for after/before Spirit Shell is going to be used. Further, Inner Focus only provides the mana cost reduction when Spirit Shell is active. (this is intentional given how Spirit Shell’s guaranteed crit scaling is already accounted for). Remember to use, and time these abilities appropriately before or after a Spirit Shell period.

Generally, absorb mechanics are fundamentally superior to raw healing. This is because it actually preventsthe damage from happening to a player. If a killing blow is prevented via mitigation, regardless how much a player can raw heal, that mitigated damage is tops.

Editor Comment: Thanks to my friends Valen and Dayani for assistance in the TC and confirmation of calculations.

Demystifying Spirit Shell is a post from: Tales of a Priest