Issue #2: Clerics CornerFollow

Beta 6 was a Blast! Lets Get Healing!
Clerics Corner Issue #2

So while the lag settles down (3FPS during Zone Invasions LULZ), the hots roll off on the new rift spec that I have come to love. Finally reaching the 30’s I found myself loving Wardens during a rift or invasion.

So lets take a look at what makes it so special (at level 30).

rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00jeG.x0A.xV0xVz.V

RIFTER MADDNESS

Alrighty, so first thing’s first. AoE crazy heals. The first talent to note, is Still Waters. It’s on the 4th tier of the Warden Tree. 4 second cast time reduction of Deluge. Deluge is an annoying spell because of it’s huge cooldown. 2 Second cast, but the cooldown is 8 seconds. So even with a 4 second reduction, it’s still 4 seconds. The actual global cooldown is still around 1.5 seconds, so you’re left waiting for a couple seconds in between casts.

Edit (Beta7): Now Deluge is a 7 second cooldown with a 2 second cast. Meaning you are only waiting for around 1 second between casts. Much smoother feel to it.

Why this spell is so important, and how to deal with the delay between casting is actually quite simple. Use other spells. HoTs are rolling on other members, and you want to basically pay attention to the first person you cast on, and then when that hot needs to be refreshed, it will obviously need to be refreshed on other people as well. So using that one person can help a lot when managing cooldowns. It's a great heal because for every hot on the target it does extra heals. Being a HoT Soul, this is perfect.

Normal rotation that I tried to stick to at the start would be:

Ripple (instant buff no GCD) -> Healing Current (cast time hot) -> Healing Flood (instant hot) -> healing spray (instant hot) -> Deluge once or twice.

By this time, the hots are starting to fall off, so refresh as needed, and if there’s a delay, Healing Breath (instant sentinel heal) is good for some people, casting Healing Spray on some others in the raid, that sort of thing. Just, you basically never want to stop casting.

Note on Ebb and Flow, however, is that the proc time (and essentially the stack time) is really low. It rarely hits 5, and is usually around the 2-3 mark. Sometimes even then it falls off. So if it needs to be fine tuned, then it may become a bit better. If it gets tuned too much it could be really over powered in pvp, so I wouldn’t put your hopes on it too much.

Edit (Beta7): Ebb and Flow seems to have been tweaked a bit. It now actually procs a lot more. *Thank You* :D

Anyway, that’s all for this Issue. Next time... well, we’ll see what comes in the next beta, and how much trouble we can get into.


Edited, Feb 8th 2011 4:36pm by Kardall

Edited, Feb 17th 2011 10:40am by Kardall

Alright, so I wasn't happy with the video from Beta 6. So I am in the process of editing some Beta 7 stuff. It's for the best, because there are so many changes in Beta 7, that I had to remake it anyway, as the content was just different.

So, stay tuned, I should have it up by tonight!

Hmmm that's interesting. I haven't actually toyed around with Purifier yet. A lot of people say they make really great healers, but that is my next tree to play around with :)

And on the note of the mana usage, I haven't really ran into problems unless I'm on a rift invasion boss, and then I'm starting to dip into the low 10% area for mana near the end, otherwise, I haven't had a problem with mana usage of the spells, even spamming them like that. I like the comment about Ripple + Healing Spray. Ya it does work nice as well, and I can't tell if Healing Flood is or is not doing things properly. It shouldn't do it on extra people on every hot, but it should pick extra people around that main target and do it. It's really hard to track given the current logging capabilities. Would have to sit there with the combat log open in a rift with 40+ people, wait till they get damaged, then cast Ripple then Healing Flood, and see how many people get the Healing Flood, if 7 people gain it out of say 12, then it is actually doing it, but it's trying to apply the extra HoT to the same people that get the initial one.

I have to assume that it is doing just that, and it might hit an extra person but... regardless if it does or not, I am doing all the other spells as well.

Your statement about healing flood is correct, except, The floods 20 yard range is you, Not your target. Which is something i really feel kills my synergy when healing. Not in a major way, i just wish it was my target, and not me.