The Cataclysmic Healing Priest Guide
Disclaimer: Note that this guide is still WIP as the expansion has only recently been released, and I will probably make some big edits within the upcoming days as I receive feedback.
Introduction
After the 'success' of my sticky for healing priests in WOTLK, I've decided to stay with it and write up a new guide for Cataclysm. The game has changed quite a bit, and I'd like to put my knowledge forward and at the same time inspire discussion to make an easy to-go guide for both aspiring priestlings and old gits. I've taken a few learning points from my old sticky and decided to make this thread more of an actual 'guide' and less of an actual encyclopaedia. No more information on every spell we have, more go-to information you want to know. Questions can always be asked if there's a need to go into specifics.
Who are you and why should I take your advice?
I don't want to go and act all high and mighty with a list of accomplishments, but I am Mozared, known otherwise as Bellu from Moonglade-EU. I've raided as a healing priest in Vanilla and lateron in WOTLK, downing pretty much all relevant content at some point. In the latter expansion this means everything up to heroic Lich King, which I've gotten to 34%.
Table of Contents
1. What should I expect as a healing priest?
2. What race should I roll?
3. What gear should I go for?
4. Talent specs and glyphs
5. Basic Healing Tactics
6. Macros
7. Handy Links
Update log
04-01-2011: Added a note about Holy Word: Sanctuary under Holy Healing tactics, and clarified haste gearing for holy in the gear chapter.
29-12-2010: Added a section on 'Heal' under basic healing tactics, cleared up some stuff regarding racials.
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:38pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 29th 2010 6:08pm by Mozared
Edited, Jan 4th 2011 4:26am by Mozared
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1. What should I expect as a healing priest?
While Cataclysm changed a lot of things for our class, our core has remained the same. The healing Priest is still a class wanted in both PvE and PvP. In PvP we are still an incredibly strong offensive healer and in PvE our health buff and jack-of-all-trades type of healing make us desirable for practically any raid encounter. You can still expect to, both in PvP and PvE, spend your time in the back, watching health bars and monitoring the fight. Keyphrase for playing a healing priest would be "man behind the curtain".
Because of the amount of heals priests have and the fact that they are the only class with two healing specializations, they are arguably the hardest healing class to play. Regardless of opinions here, it is true that priests are very hard to master completely, and combining it with raid leading and constant awareness can be interesting for those seeking a challenge in the world of Warcraft.
Skills to master as an end-game PvE healer:
-How to be mana efficient & when to use what heal
-How to deal with tough/emergency situations
-How to predict incoming damage and how to heal preemptively
-How to dispel magic and diseases effectively
In PvP, DPS+healer teams have ruled the boards from the start and in fact still do so. Regardless of the class you play, end-game PvP usually has a higher phase than end-game raids. As a healer priest specifically, you will be generally running around a BG or arena, avoiding hits while keeping your teammates alive. You will be avoiding ‘up close’ situations, but will often be required to deal minor damage or mana burn the enemy's healer.
Skills to master as an end-game PvP healer:
-How to survive by hiding/running until your teammate(s) need heals
-How to time your mana burns and CC in an effective way
-How to dispel magic and diseases effectively
While Cataclysm changed a lot of things for our class, our core has remained the same. The healing Priest is still a class wanted in both PvE and PvP. In PvP we are still an incredibly strong offensive healer and in PvE our health buff and jack-of-all-trades type of healing make us desirable for practically any raid encounter. You can still expect to, both in PvP and PvE, spend your time in the back, watching health bars and monitoring the fight. Keyphrase for playing a healing priest would be "man behind the curtain".
Because of the amount of heals priests have and the fact that they are the only class with two healing specializations, they are arguably the hardest healing class to play. Regardless of opinions here, it is true that priests are very hard to master completely, and combining it with raid leading and constant awareness can be interesting for those seeking a challenge in the world of Warcraft.
Skills to master as an end-game PvE healer:
-How to be mana efficient & when to use what heal
-How to deal with tough/emergency situations
-How to predict incoming damage and how to heal preemptively
-How to dispel magic and diseases effectively
In PvP, DPS+healer teams have ruled the boards from the start and in fact still do so. Regardless of the class you play, end-game PvP usually has a higher phase than end-game raids. As a healer priest specifically, you will be generally running around a BG or arena, avoiding hits while keeping your teammates alive. You will be avoiding ‘up close’ situations, but will often be required to deal minor damage or mana burn the enemy's healer.
Skills to master as an end-game PvP healer:
-How to survive by hiding/running until your teammate(s) need heals
-How to time your mana burns and CC in an effective way
-How to dispel magic and diseases effectively
2. What race should I roll?
One thing the Cataclysm did change, are the bonuses playing a specific race gives. Here as well however, the core is still true: you will want to play the race you find most aesthetically pleasing, as you're the one who will be watching your characters' back all the time. Racials still do not make enough of an impact on characters to make a real difference in any kind of content, so don't be hassled if your favourite race's racial isn't too interesting. A lot of people are indifferent as to what race they play though, and this page is for them: if you want to min/max and get the most out of your character, you'll want to pick a decent race.
Horde
If you've decided to fight the good fight and settled for a horde character, your first stop in terms of useful racials for PvE will be the Blood Elf. As I'll explain in chapter 3, Cataclysm for priests is all about mana and conserving it. Arcane Torrent, on its 2 minute cooldown and castable off the global cooldown, gives you back 6% of your total mana, which is a huge lot. It's basically two free potions on any decent boss fight. You will use this ability, and you will use it a lot.
After the Elves, Trolls are your next stop. These agile blueskins have an on demand cast speed bonus (that can be coupled with Power Infusion for discipline priests) which can be a usefull addition when you're in a pinch.
Both Forsaken and Goblins are equally (not) useful for PvE - their racial abilities are situational, but fairly nice when they can be applied. Tauren priests for PvE are generally worthless, as their only racial worth mentioning is a stun that requires your targets to be in melee range.
For PvP, Forsaken used to be the top dogs, but their spot is being contested with the arrival of the Goblins. Aside from the minor advantage that Goblins (like Gnomes) are harder to manually select, they get a get-out-of-jail-free-card in the form of the Rocket Belt. Gap creators are something priests lacked before and now have access to. When push comes to shove, the ability to break an additional CC is probably still more valuable than anything else, but for PvP, Goblins are in very close pursuit. All three other classes are decent with all of their racials being situational.
Alliance
If you're intent on playing an alliance character, there really is no hope for you.
Nah, I'm kidding. Humans are still the best race for PvE, with a 3% spirit bonus being nothing to scoff at - especially not with Cataclysm's insane demands on longevity and mana regeneration. Draenei are probably in the second spot. Due to the heavy tax on mana, a free HoT that scales extremely well is very welcome in the ******* of any priest. Up next are Gnomes and Worgen, who really are on pretty much the same level with, again, all racials being situational. Night Elves and Dwarves both have racials too situational to be of any real use.
For PvP, the same is more or less true, but the gap is closer. Humans are still top dog here because of their free trinket slot, but the other classes have some pretty interesting bonuses. Night Elves come second due to their Shadowmeld - in arenas, this allows them to get out of combat to get drinks off, which is an incredibly powerful tool. In Battlegrounds, this allows a Night Elf to remain stealthed until needed, which is another powerful boon. Up next is a three-way tie between Gnomes, Worgen and Dwarves. Gnomes and Worgen have the much-appreciated gap creator, but Dwarves have an edge against our arguably most hated enemies - rogues. All of their racials are situational, but pretty damn useful when they can actually be used.
Draenei are relatively weak in PvP, but in the end all classes are just really close together. One could argue that Night Elves are better than Humans, while Draenei have a better all-purpose racial with the leftover races having racials that are immensily powerful when used right.
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:40pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:40pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 29th 2010 5:53pm by Mozared
One thing the Cataclysm did change, are the bonuses playing a specific race gives. Here as well however, the core is still true: you will want to play the race you find most aesthetically pleasing, as you're the one who will be watching your characters' back all the time. Racials still do not make enough of an impact on characters to make a real difference in any kind of content, so don't be hassled if your favourite race's racial isn't too interesting. A lot of people are indifferent as to what race they play though, and this page is for them: if you want to min/max and get the most out of your character, you'll want to pick a decent race.
Horde
If you've decided to fight the good fight and settled for a horde character, your first stop in terms of useful racials for PvE will be the Blood Elf. As I'll explain in chapter 3, Cataclysm for priests is all about mana and conserving it. Arcane Torrent, on its 2 minute cooldown and castable off the global cooldown, gives you back 6% of your total mana, which is a huge lot. It's basically two free potions on any decent boss fight. You will use this ability, and you will use it a lot.
After the Elves, Trolls are your next stop. These agile blueskins have an on demand cast speed bonus (that can be coupled with Power Infusion for discipline priests) which can be a usefull addition when you're in a pinch.
Both Forsaken and Goblins are equally (not) useful for PvE - their racial abilities are situational, but fairly nice when they can be applied. Tauren priests for PvE are generally worthless, as their only racial worth mentioning is a stun that requires your targets to be in melee range.
For PvP, Forsaken used to be the top dogs, but their spot is being contested with the arrival of the Goblins. Aside from the minor advantage that Goblins (like Gnomes) are harder to manually select, they get a get-out-of-jail-free-card in the form of the Rocket Belt. Gap creators are something priests lacked before and now have access to. When push comes to shove, the ability to break an additional CC is probably still more valuable than anything else, but for PvP, Goblins are in very close pursuit. All three other classes are decent with all of their racials being situational.
Alliance
If you're intent on playing an alliance character, there really is no hope for you.
Nah, I'm kidding. Humans are still the best race for PvE, with a 3% spirit bonus being nothing to scoff at - especially not with Cataclysm's insane demands on longevity and mana regeneration. Draenei are probably in the second spot. Due to the heavy tax on mana, a free HoT that scales extremely well is very welcome in the ******* of any priest. Up next are Gnomes and Worgen, who really are on pretty much the same level with, again, all racials being situational. Night Elves and Dwarves both have racials too situational to be of any real use.
For PvP, the same is more or less true, but the gap is closer. Humans are still top dog here because of their free trinket slot, but the other classes have some pretty interesting bonuses. Night Elves come second due to their Shadowmeld - in arenas, this allows them to get out of combat to get drinks off, which is an incredibly powerful tool. In Battlegrounds, this allows a Night Elf to remain stealthed until needed, which is another powerful boon. Up next is a three-way tie between Gnomes, Worgen and Dwarves. Gnomes and Worgen have the much-appreciated gap creator, but Dwarves have an edge against our arguably most hated enemies - rogues. All of their racials are situational, but pretty damn useful when they can actually be used.
Draenei are relatively weak in PvP, but in the end all classes are just really close together. One could argue that Night Elves are better than Humans, while Draenei have a better all-purpose racial with the leftover races having racials that are immensily powerful when used right.
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:40pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:40pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 29th 2010 5:53pm by Mozared
3. What gear should I go for?
Gear has become somewhat less of an interesting topic for priests with the expansion's release, as it is now more straightforward than it ever was. Stats healing priests are going to have to deal with are the following;
Intellect Spirit Haste Rating Critical Strike Rating Mastery Hit Rating (to a small extend)
Main stats
While leveling, you will not come upon a lot of the last four stats in that list, and will simply want cloth gear that has both Intellect and Spirit on it. At 85, it gets more interesting. Generally, you will want gear with both Intellect and Spirit on it. Cloth items without Spirit should be regarded as caster DPS gear - you can have one or two of these items if you insist, but you will go out of mana so much faster that it generally isn't really worth it.
Secondary stats
Aside from those two main stats, there is haste rating, critical strike rating and mastery. Holy priests will want to focus on getting mastery and avoiding crit. Mastery is good because it directly improves your healing. Crit is bad because it has no synergy with the talent tree - unlike disc priests, holy priests do not have a talent that works better with a lot of crit. Haste is somewhere in between; no talents really benefit from it but it, but it gives Renew an additional tick when 12.5% of it is attained. Once you're able to reach that number raid-buffed, mastery becomes clearly more powerful.
Discipline priests will want to balance out all these stats as they synergetically improve eachother. The more mastery you have, the more your PW:S and Divine Aegis absorb for. The more crit you have, the more your Divine Aegis will be proccing. The more haste you have, the more heals you can cast to proc Divine Aegis with. All three stats really are pretty much equally good here and you should prioritize neither over the other.
Hit Rating
Hit rating is a bit of an odd man out. In general, healing priests will want to avoid it, but we do obtain it through other means. Discipline priests who pick up the Archangel and Atonement talents will want to use the Glyph of Divine Accuracy to keep their Smite from ever missing. Some priests sub-spec into the Twisted Faith talent in the shadow tree, which converts their spirit into hit. Depending on whether you are doing PvE or PvP, and whether you are disc or holy, this will allow you to forego hit rating altogether.
As a rule of thumb, though; if there's hit rating on a piece of gear, pass it on to the DPS. PvP healing priests who like playing offensively but do not want to spec into Twisted Faith really are the only group of priests that should ever actively attempt to obtain hit rating on their gear, and they can buy this gear from honor points without taking it from DPS classes who actively seek it.
Gems and enchants
Gemming should be done in accordance with the earlier mentioned prioritization of stats. For disc priests this generally means gemming to get socket bonuses for maximum use (as they want all stats pretty much equally anyway), and for holy this is for the larger part the same. In some case, holy will want to forego socket bonuses (like crit or spirit at a certain level of gear) to gem mastery or intellect, but as a rule of thumb - get the socket bonus.
For your meta gem, there are two options. The Ember Shadowspirit Diamond (54 int, +2% max mana) or the Revitalizing Shadowspirit Diamond (54 spirit, 3% crit healing). Not all the maths on these have been done yet, but it would seem that the Ember Shadowspirit Diamond is marginally better for non Blood Elves, and better by far for Blood Elves.
As for enchants, these are really obvious as there tend to be only one or two enchants per item slot that have benefit for healing priests. Enchant according to your preference and what's mentioned under the Main Stats and Secondary Stats headings. There really are only two interesting things to mention here.
The first is that a 1-hander + off-hand is now always the better choice for healing priests than a staff, due to the possibility of enchanting the off-hand with the +100 intellect enchant and putting Heartsong on the main-hand. The second is the boot enchant. With the introduction of Inner Will, movement speed may or may no longer be your best choice. Should you decide to always play with Inner Will on, and especially if you pick up the Inner Sanctum talent in the discipline tree, you will want to consider the 50 haste or 50 mastery boot enchant over the two that add movement speed.
Faction reputation
Last but not least, the factions healing priests will be wanting to get reputation with are Therazane, located in Deepholme, and the Guardians of Hyjal, located in Hyjal. The first one has the shoulder enchant for every class, and the second one has the priest's headpiece enchant at revered reputation, and an epic healing belt at exalted. Therazane has a number of dailies available, and just questing through Hyjal should put you halfway through revered with the Guardians of Hyjal - a tabard and a few heroics will do the rest.
All other factions (Ramkahen in Uldum, The Earthen Ring in Vashj'ir and Hellscream's Reach in Tol Barad) are mildly interesting depending on your gear once you get close to dinging 85. At honored, Ramkahen has a useful ring and the Earthen Ring a decent necklace. Hellscream's Reach has a 1-handed mace and a bunch of epic trinkets that may be useful depending on your playstyle. The Dragonmaw Clan has absolutely nothing of any use to a healing priest.
Edited, Jan 4th 2011 4:25am by Mozared
Edited, Jan 4th 2011 6:39pm by Mozared
Gear has become somewhat less of an interesting topic for priests with the expansion's release, as it is now more straightforward than it ever was. Stats healing priests are going to have to deal with are the following;
Main stats
While leveling, you will not come upon a lot of the last four stats in that list, and will simply want cloth gear that has both Intellect and Spirit on it. At 85, it gets more interesting. Generally, you will want gear with both Intellect and Spirit on it. Cloth items without Spirit should be regarded as caster DPS gear - you can have one or two of these items if you insist, but you will go out of mana so much faster that it generally isn't really worth it.
Secondary stats
Aside from those two main stats, there is haste rating, critical strike rating and mastery. Holy priests will want to focus on getting mastery and avoiding crit. Mastery is good because it directly improves your healing. Crit is bad because it has no synergy with the talent tree - unlike disc priests, holy priests do not have a talent that works better with a lot of crit. Haste is somewhere in between; no talents really benefit from it but it, but it gives Renew an additional tick when 12.5% of it is attained. Once you're able to reach that number raid-buffed, mastery becomes clearly more powerful.
Discipline priests will want to balance out all these stats as they synergetically improve eachother. The more mastery you have, the more your PW:S and Divine Aegis absorb for. The more crit you have, the more your Divine Aegis will be proccing. The more haste you have, the more heals you can cast to proc Divine Aegis with. All three stats really are pretty much equally good here and you should prioritize neither over the other.
Hit Rating
Hit rating is a bit of an odd man out. In general, healing priests will want to avoid it, but we do obtain it through other means. Discipline priests who pick up the Archangel and Atonement talents will want to use the Glyph of Divine Accuracy to keep their Smite from ever missing. Some priests sub-spec into the Twisted Faith talent in the shadow tree, which converts their spirit into hit. Depending on whether you are doing PvE or PvP, and whether you are disc or holy, this will allow you to forego hit rating altogether.
As a rule of thumb, though; if there's hit rating on a piece of gear, pass it on to the DPS. PvP healing priests who like playing offensively but do not want to spec into Twisted Faith really are the only group of priests that should ever actively attempt to obtain hit rating on their gear, and they can buy this gear from honor points without taking it from DPS classes who actively seek it.
Gems and enchants
Gemming should be done in accordance with the earlier mentioned prioritization of stats. For disc priests this generally means gemming to get socket bonuses for maximum use (as they want all stats pretty much equally anyway), and for holy this is for the larger part the same. In some case, holy will want to forego socket bonuses (like crit or spirit at a certain level of gear) to gem mastery or intellect, but as a rule of thumb - get the socket bonus.
For your meta gem, there are two options. The Ember Shadowspirit Diamond (54 int, +2% max mana) or the Revitalizing Shadowspirit Diamond (54 spirit, 3% crit healing). Not all the maths on these have been done yet, but it would seem that the Ember Shadowspirit Diamond is marginally better for non Blood Elves, and better by far for Blood Elves.
As for enchants, these are really obvious as there tend to be only one or two enchants per item slot that have benefit for healing priests. Enchant according to your preference and what's mentioned under the Main Stats and Secondary Stats headings. There really are only two interesting things to mention here.
The first is that a 1-hander + off-hand is now always the better choice for healing priests than a staff, due to the possibility of enchanting the off-hand with the +100 intellect enchant and putting Heartsong on the main-hand. The second is the boot enchant. With the introduction of Inner Will, movement speed may or may no longer be your best choice. Should you decide to always play with Inner Will on, and especially if you pick up the Inner Sanctum talent in the discipline tree, you will want to consider the 50 haste or 50 mastery boot enchant over the two that add movement speed.
Faction reputation
Last but not least, the factions healing priests will be wanting to get reputation with are Therazane, located in Deepholme, and the Guardians of Hyjal, located in Hyjal. The first one has the shoulder enchant for every class, and the second one has the priest's headpiece enchant at revered reputation, and an epic healing belt at exalted. Therazane has a number of dailies available, and just questing through Hyjal should put you halfway through revered with the Guardians of Hyjal - a tabard and a few heroics will do the rest.
All other factions (Ramkahen in Uldum, The Earthen Ring in Vashj'ir and Hellscream's Reach in Tol Barad) are mildly interesting depending on your gear once you get close to dinging 85. At honored, Ramkahen has a useful ring and the Earthen Ring a decent necklace. Hellscream's Reach has a 1-handed mace and a bunch of epic trinkets that may be useful depending on your playstyle. The Dragonmaw Clan has absolutely nothing of any use to a healing priest.
Edited, Jan 4th 2011 4:25am by Mozared
Edited, Jan 4th 2011 6:39pm by Mozared
4. Talent specs and glyphs
Talent specs are another thing that has been completely overhauled with the arrival of Cataclysm. In WOTLK, we used to have 71 points, but such a buttload of obligatory "+X% healing done" talents that pretty much all of those were predefined, even for the priest, a class which used to have a relatively large amount of room to shuffle with. The new system of being locked into a tree until you've spent 31 points there and talents themselves having been nerfed has changed this quite a bit. Those 8 talent points we still have free after filling up our main tree are in most cases completely preference based and really can be thrown wherever you want them. I will however add the most common and basic builds to this guide to give some basic insight into our new specializations.
Discipline Builds
Basic Discipline PvE cookie cutter (with Smite trick) This build is the most basic Discipline build you can get. It isn't optimized for any role, but it picks up all the tricks you can get. I recommend it for someone who is new to disc and is still learning the ropes - this build will allow you to play with all the bells and whistles and get familiar with the whole tree, after which you can more easily optimize your tree by leaving out the stuff you don't want for more stat bonuses.
Basic Discipline PvE cookie cutter (without Smite trick) While quite similar to the basic build, this one skips the Smite trick. The thing is that while it sounds good in theory, in practice the whole Smite+Atonement ordeal often ends up being just as good as simply casting Heal instead. And why waste five talent points to obtain something you already have?
Min/max PvE Discipline This is a more hardcore build for people who intend on specializing completely in high-end raiding. Strength of Soul's use is arguable because Rapture can only proc every twelve seconds and PW:S becomes too expensive to keep up, hence why the real hardcore players will want to skip the talent. Surge of Light is skipped for Darkness, as it is too unreliable and will likely not weigh up to a pure stat bonus in the long run.
Basic Discipline PvP cookie cutter (without Smite trick) The most basic PvP discipline spec without grabbing the Smite trick. PW:B is skipped because of its relatively high mana cost and slight uselesness in a mobile PvP fight. The leftover seven points can be distributed by preference. Most people would want to fill up Divine Aegis and Inner Sanctum, though some spec into Darkness, Veiled Shadows and Twisted Faith.
Basic Discipline PvP cookie cutter (with Smite trick) And the Smite version of the above build. Again, the leftover seven points can be distributed by preference - prime talents to fill out would be Divine Aegis, Inner Sanctum, Darkness or Twisted Faith.
Holy Builds
Basic Holy PvE cookie cutter Similar to the basic discipline build, this one picks up all the bells & whistles of the holy tree. It is a great starting point for players wanting to get familiar with the tree. Desperate Prayer is skipped because while free, it heals for paltry amounts thanks to the new Cataclysm improved health poolsâ„¢. Veiled Shadows is picked up to help with mana problems and the points in Twin Disciplines are there for extra throughput. Spirit of Redemption is picked up because while people will argue that you should not be dead to begin with, Cataclysm's starvation for mana has in some cases made it a viable tactic to kill yourself off when you run completely out of mana just to get fifteen seconds of free healing. This can, especially at lower gear levels, often be the difference between a wipe and a kill.
As a little sidenote to holy PvE builds - do not ever pick up Evangelism and Archangel. They are not worth it for holy, you will never get any chance to cast non-healing Smites. Also note that Lightwell is now a must-have in pretty much every holy build; I'll touch upon this in the healing tactics chapter.
Min/max PvE Holy A build optimized for throughput, this one isn't recommended until higher gear levels are attained (think full T11). Spirit of Redemption is dropped, and Darkness is picked up as a decent stat bonus.
Basic Holy PvP cookie cutter With a full nine points to spare. Most PvPers will fill those points up like this, but there are several options possible. Going into disc for a now semi-useful Archangel is another option. Revelations is skipped because while HW: Serenity is good, a PvPing holy priest will want to be able to stick in Chakra while having HW: Chastise available to him. Inspiration is skipped because it lacks a lot of it's allure in PvP, especially since there is so much non-physical damage going around.
Glyphs
Glyphs too have become more lenient with Cataclysm. The new glyph system has also made it possible to easily change your glyphs on the fly, allowing you to simply learn all of them and switch according to the fight, if necissary. Prime glyphs are still mostly set in stone, but I'll give a simple rundown of all non-minor glyphs here.
Prime glyphs
Discipline has Penance and Power Word: Shield as must-have glyphs. Power Word: Barrier is a strong third choice, but so is Prayer of Healing, which becomes an incredibly potent heal when coupled with Divine Aegis as well. PvPing priests may want to look into Shadow Word: Death or Shadow Word: Pain.
Holy wants Renew and Prayer of Healing. Lightwell and Guardian Spirit are both options for a third, with Lightwell being the best on most fights. For PvP, Prayer of Healing can be dropped.
Note that Flash Heal has been nerfed significantly from what it was and is now useless for pretty much all purposes, except for perhaps the ocassional fight with mechanics that instantly take down the entire party/raid to 1% hp and are based around timing your heals correctly (think decimate).
Major glyphs
For holy, Circle of Healing is the only must-have here. For disc players who use the Smite trick, Divine Accuracy is one you'll certainly want. Past those, there is lots of room for playing around. Dispel Magic, Holy Nova, Mass Dispel, Psychic Scream, Smite and Spirit Tap all have some kind of use in most PvE content. If you just want to grab the 'best' three and be done with it, get Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel alongside your must-have.
If you're a PvPer, must-haves as disc are Mass Dispel and Pain Suppression (and Divine Accuracy if you use Smite). As holy, Mass Dispel really is the only required major glyph. Inner Fire, Dispel Magic and Smite are all interesing alternatives.
Talent specs are another thing that has been completely overhauled with the arrival of Cataclysm. In WOTLK, we used to have 71 points, but such a buttload of obligatory "+X% healing done" talents that pretty much all of those were predefined, even for the priest, a class which used to have a relatively large amount of room to shuffle with. The new system of being locked into a tree until you've spent 31 points there and talents themselves having been nerfed has changed this quite a bit. Those 8 talent points we still have free after filling up our main tree are in most cases completely preference based and really can be thrown wherever you want them. I will however add the most common and basic builds to this guide to give some basic insight into our new specializations.
Discipline Builds
Holy Builds
As a little sidenote to holy PvE builds - do not ever pick up Evangelism and Archangel. They are not worth it for holy, you will never get any chance to cast non-healing Smites. Also note that Lightwell is now a must-have in pretty much every holy build; I'll touch upon this in the healing tactics chapter.
Glyphs
Glyphs too have become more lenient with Cataclysm. The new glyph system has also made it possible to easily change your glyphs on the fly, allowing you to simply learn all of them and switch according to the fight, if necissary. Prime glyphs are still mostly set in stone, but I'll give a simple rundown of all non-minor glyphs here.
Prime glyphs
Discipline has Penance and Power Word: Shield as must-have glyphs. Power Word: Barrier is a strong third choice, but so is Prayer of Healing, which becomes an incredibly potent heal when coupled with Divine Aegis as well. PvPing priests may want to look into Shadow Word: Death or Shadow Word: Pain.
Holy wants Renew and Prayer of Healing. Lightwell and Guardian Spirit are both options for a third, with Lightwell being the best on most fights. For PvP, Prayer of Healing can be dropped.
Note that Flash Heal has been nerfed significantly from what it was and is now useless for pretty much all purposes, except for perhaps the ocassional fight with mechanics that instantly take down the entire party/raid to 1% hp and are based around timing your heals correctly (think decimate).
Major glyphs
For holy, Circle of Healing is the only must-have here. For disc players who use the Smite trick, Divine Accuracy is one you'll certainly want. Past those, there is lots of room for playing around. Dispel Magic, Holy Nova, Mass Dispel, Psychic Scream, Smite and Spirit Tap all have some kind of use in most PvE content. If you just want to grab the 'best' three and be done with it, get Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel alongside your must-have.
If you're a PvPer, must-haves as disc are Mass Dispel and Pain Suppression (and Divine Accuracy if you use Smite). As holy, Mass Dispel really is the only required major glyph. Inner Fire, Dispel Magic and Smite are all interesing alternatives.
5. Basic Healing Tactics
Our healing tactics have been pretty much completely revamped as well with Cataclysm. In Wrath of the Lich King, like Ghostcrawler put it, if a party member was not on full health, he would either be there or be dead within the next three seconds. Cataclysm's healing style is way more reliant on mana & resource management and preventing any damage possible by not standing in the fire. Because of this, a good healer is trademarked by having little overhealing, prioritizing his targets and managing to keep everyone from dying (note: I am not saying "at 100%" here with a reason) while keeping his mana up.
Healing while leveling
Healing while leveling can be tough if you do not know what to do. All you really need to know here is that you need to use Heal as your primary spell. Try to get by with just using Heal for as long as you can, and only use other spells when sh*t really hits the fan. Disc priests get Penance early and can use this to their advantage as it is a very mana efficient spell. Holy priests have a couple of levels to go, but should have an easier time once they reach Lightwell at level 29. They also have the advantage of having early access to core healing talents for any priests in the form of Inspiration, Divine Fury and Surge of Light.
Heal at 85
Heal at 85 is one of the strangest spells we've ever had to cope with. Once your gear gets decent enough, Heal becomes the spell that effectively 'cancels out' the main source of damage in the average battle. What you need to know about the spell is this: Heal is what you cast to keep your current target at the health it currently has. Greater Heal is what you use if you want to keep the target where he is, and add some HP to his pool. The differences between disc and holy are noted in the rest of our ********
Discipline healing at 85
When Heal isn't enough, Disc priests can mix up their Heal-'rotation' with some other spells. PW:S can be held up on the tank easily in combination with Strength of Soul, and Penance can be used as a quick and efficient heal on any group member who needs it. The Inner Focus talent has been revamped to be one of your most effective tools, use it. I would almost go as far as to say that you want this spell on cooldown permanently. Combine it with a Greater Heal for best effect. If the tank has lost enough health to warrant a Greater Heal, do it if Inner Focus is on CD - stick with Heal if the damage allows it and Inner Focus is up or nearly coming up.
If you've got the Smite trick in your spec, Smite healing and Heal overlap for the larger part. Heal will now be reserved for ranged DPS taking damage, while Smite should take care of the tank in normal situations. You will however, still need to couple it with Inner Focused Greater Heals and Penance to heal through the more intensive damage. If someone is getting really low, really quick, you're going to need to use a Flash Heal if Penance is not available. If the dying person is the tank, you'll want to Inner Focus that Flash Heal.
Note that Surge of Light can be a real help when spamming Heal, and also note that Archangel should generally be used whenever five stacks of Evangelism are attained. Prayer of Mending is still a semi-efficient heal and should be kept up whenever there is a risk of more players than the tank getting damaged. Save Prayer of Healing for when at least four out of five group members are damaged enough to receive the full healing from it.
Holy healing at 85
Holy healing, too, relies on using Heal a lot - the spell works similarly as it works for disc. Since Chakra is free, you will generally always want to be in a Chakra state, even if just for the passive bonuses. For a good majority of the fights, Heal Chakra (called Serenity) will do, as we already have plenty of AoE healing available to use as holy priests. For a small amount of fights, you'll want to use AoE Chakra (Sanctuary), because there is very little tank damage present. On a last note regarding Chakra; you'll want to use Holy Word: Serenity (the Chakra Holy Word) over Heal whenever possible, as it is way more powerful and costs even less mana.
Lightwell is now one of our best spells, due to the fact that it heals for sick amounts, is clickable from 20 yards away, does not make you change your target and has 10 (or 15, when glyphed) charges. On boss fights, you will want to precast it - on some fights you will simply get no chance to heal anybody who isn't a tank, and Lightwell alone will be the thing keeping the DPS alive. Tell them to use it. If the Lightwell disappears before it goes of cooldown again, they are doing it right - if they're below 40% hit points and a Lightwell is up, they are doing it wrong.
Other spells you should be using are Circle of Healing and Binding Heal. Whenever possible, 2X Binding Heal into a Greater Heal on the tank works wonders. If your tank is dropping like a brick, go for Flash Heal X2 followed by a sped up Greater Heal. Power Word: Shield is used solely to provide players with the Body & Soul speed bonus, which can be a lifesaver in some fights.
On a last note; Holy Word: Sanctuary has, when all of its ticks hit, an effective heal per mana of about 5. Holy Nova is around 6.2 and Prayer of Healing is on 11. I won't say "don't use it", but consider it the "Flash Heal" of a holy priests' AoE heals - be careful when you cast it, and only use it if you're sure you're gonna get the full benefit of it and actually need the healing. If you can PoH, PoH.
PvP healing at 85
There are honestly not a lot of hints I can give here. PvP healing is mostly similar to PvE healing, with the difference being in the fact that you can never just stand comfortably and heal. You need to make do with as many instants as possible (Renew for holy, PW:S for disc) while trying to get spells like Greater Heal off whenever you get a chance. Note that Heal takes a step back in PvP - while mana efficiency is all good, Heal and Greater Heal have the same cast time and Greater Heal actually heals for a noticeable amount. When you finally get those three seconds of spare time to throw up a decent heal, you want to actually notice its effect.
All that's really worth mentioning here is that Lightwell is clickable while CC'd or while casting - make use of this. Do note however, that Lightwell does cancel any spell you might be channeling if clicked, meaning that you cannot click it while casting Divine Hymn of Hymn of Hope.
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:39pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:43pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 27th 2010 6:35pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 29th 2010 6:06pm by Mozared
Edited, Jan 4th 2011 4:22am by Mozared
Our healing tactics have been pretty much completely revamped as well with Cataclysm. In Wrath of the Lich King, like Ghostcrawler put it, if a party member was not on full health, he would either be there or be dead within the next three seconds. Cataclysm's healing style is way more reliant on mana & resource management and preventing any damage possible by not standing in the fire. Because of this, a good healer is trademarked by having little overhealing, prioritizing his targets and managing to keep everyone from dying (note: I am not saying "at 100%" here with a reason) while keeping his mana up.
Healing while leveling
Healing while leveling can be tough if you do not know what to do. All you really need to know here is that you need to use Heal as your primary spell. Try to get by with just using Heal for as long as you can, and only use other spells when sh*t really hits the fan. Disc priests get Penance early and can use this to their advantage as it is a very mana efficient spell. Holy priests have a couple of levels to go, but should have an easier time once they reach Lightwell at level 29. They also have the advantage of having early access to core healing talents for any priests in the form of Inspiration, Divine Fury and Surge of Light.
Heal at 85
Heal at 85 is one of the strangest spells we've ever had to cope with. Once your gear gets decent enough, Heal becomes the spell that effectively 'cancels out' the main source of damage in the average battle. What you need to know about the spell is this: Heal is what you cast to keep your current target at the health it currently has. Greater Heal is what you use if you want to keep the target where he is, and add some HP to his pool. The differences between disc and holy are noted in the rest of our ********
Discipline healing at 85
When Heal isn't enough, Disc priests can mix up their Heal-'rotation' with some other spells. PW:S can be held up on the tank easily in combination with Strength of Soul, and Penance can be used as a quick and efficient heal on any group member who needs it. The Inner Focus talent has been revamped to be one of your most effective tools, use it. I would almost go as far as to say that you want this spell on cooldown permanently. Combine it with a Greater Heal for best effect. If the tank has lost enough health to warrant a Greater Heal, do it if Inner Focus is on CD - stick with Heal if the damage allows it and Inner Focus is up or nearly coming up.
If you've got the Smite trick in your spec, Smite healing and Heal overlap for the larger part. Heal will now be reserved for ranged DPS taking damage, while Smite should take care of the tank in normal situations. You will however, still need to couple it with Inner Focused Greater Heals and Penance to heal through the more intensive damage. If someone is getting really low, really quick, you're going to need to use a Flash Heal if Penance is not available. If the dying person is the tank, you'll want to Inner Focus that Flash Heal.
Note that Surge of Light can be a real help when spamming Heal, and also note that Archangel should generally be used whenever five stacks of Evangelism are attained. Prayer of Mending is still a semi-efficient heal and should be kept up whenever there is a risk of more players than the tank getting damaged. Save Prayer of Healing for when at least four out of five group members are damaged enough to receive the full healing from it.
Holy healing at 85
Holy healing, too, relies on using Heal a lot - the spell works similarly as it works for disc. Since Chakra is free, you will generally always want to be in a Chakra state, even if just for the passive bonuses. For a good majority of the fights, Heal Chakra (called Serenity) will do, as we already have plenty of AoE healing available to use as holy priests. For a small amount of fights, you'll want to use AoE Chakra (Sanctuary), because there is very little tank damage present. On a last note regarding Chakra; you'll want to use Holy Word: Serenity (the Chakra Holy Word) over Heal whenever possible, as it is way more powerful and costs even less mana.
Lightwell is now one of our best spells, due to the fact that it heals for sick amounts, is clickable from 20 yards away, does not make you change your target and has 10 (or 15, when glyphed) charges. On boss fights, you will want to precast it - on some fights you will simply get no chance to heal anybody who isn't a tank, and Lightwell alone will be the thing keeping the DPS alive. Tell them to use it. If the Lightwell disappears before it goes of cooldown again, they are doing it right - if they're below 40% hit points and a Lightwell is up, they are doing it wrong.
Other spells you should be using are Circle of Healing and Binding Heal. Whenever possible, 2X Binding Heal into a Greater Heal on the tank works wonders. If your tank is dropping like a brick, go for Flash Heal X2 followed by a sped up Greater Heal. Power Word: Shield is used solely to provide players with the Body & Soul speed bonus, which can be a lifesaver in some fights.
On a last note; Holy Word: Sanctuary has, when all of its ticks hit, an effective heal per mana of about 5. Holy Nova is around 6.2 and Prayer of Healing is on 11. I won't say "don't use it", but consider it the "Flash Heal" of a holy priests' AoE heals - be careful when you cast it, and only use it if you're sure you're gonna get the full benefit of it and actually need the healing. If you can PoH, PoH.
PvP healing at 85
There are honestly not a lot of hints I can give here. PvP healing is mostly similar to PvE healing, with the difference being in the fact that you can never just stand comfortably and heal. You need to make do with as many instants as possible (Renew for holy, PW:S for disc) while trying to get spells like Greater Heal off whenever you get a chance. Note that Heal takes a step back in PvP - while mana efficiency is all good, Heal and Greater Heal have the same cast time and Greater Heal actually heals for a noticeable amount. When you finally get those three seconds of spare time to throw up a decent heal, you want to actually notice its effect.
All that's really worth mentioning here is that Lightwell is clickable while CC'd or while casting - make use of this. Do note however, that Lightwell does cancel any spell you might be channeling if clicked, meaning that you cannot click it while casting Divine Hymn of Hymn of Hope.
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:39pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:43pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 27th 2010 6:35pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 29th 2010 6:06pm by Mozared
Edited, Jan 4th 2011 4:22am by Mozared
6. Macros
There still aren't a lot of useful priest macros around, though there are three that some people might find interesting.
Cancelcast macro
The first one is a cancelcast macro for Greater Heal. Cancelcasting was a technique popular in vanilla WoW. What it means is using a macro to cancel your casting Greater Heal while instantly starting up a new one. This is useful when the tank is on full health and you want to make sure you can land a heal at any time without constantly overhealing or completely draining your mana. A cancelcast macro looks like this;
While cancelcasting isn't as useful as it used to be, you may want to consider using one - in some situations, at the start of some fights, being able to cancelcast Greater Heal might give you a bit of a benefit.
Friendly/Hostile macro
Something I've been doing myself since the launch of WOTLK is macroing offensive and healing spells together. One button/hotkey that when pushed, detects whether your target (or mouseover) is hostile or friendly, and fires a specific offensive spell or heal depending on the result of that question. A basic friendly/hostile macro looks like this;
Stuff like mouseover macros can be added as wanted, but I suggest you look for a proper macro guide for this information - there are longer and better guides on the subject of macros and the purpose of this chapter is just to state the basics for priests.
Holy Word mouseover macro
A problem a lot of players have had with out new changing Holy Word spell is that it's hard to make a single mouseover macro for the entire spell. Alenoria from MMO-Champion has found a reliable solution for this problem. The technique itself is too complicated to post down here exactly, but it can be found here.
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:39pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:43pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:43pm by Mozared
Edited, Jan 27th 2011 5:49pm by Mozared
There still aren't a lot of useful priest macros around, though there are three that some people might find interesting.
Cancelcast macro
The first one is a cancelcast macro for Greater Heal. Cancelcasting was a technique popular in vanilla WoW. What it means is using a macro to cancel your casting Greater Heal while instantly starting up a new one. This is useful when the tank is on full health and you want to make sure you can land a heal at any time without constantly overhealing or completely draining your mana. A cancelcast macro looks like this;
#showtooltip Greater Heal /cancelcast /cast Greater Heal
While cancelcasting isn't as useful as it used to be, you may want to consider using one - in some situations, at the start of some fights, being able to cancelcast Greater Heal might give you a bit of a benefit.
Friendly/Hostile macro
Something I've been doing myself since the launch of WOTLK is macroing offensive and healing spells together. One button/hotkey that when pushed, detects whether your target (or mouseover) is hostile or friendly, and fires a specific offensive spell or heal depending on the result of that question. A basic friendly/hostile macro looks like this;
#showtooltip [noharm] Flash Heal;[harm,exists]Smite /cast [noharm] Flash Heal;[harm,exists] Smite
Stuff like mouseover macros can be added as wanted, but I suggest you look for a proper macro guide for this information - there are longer and better guides on the subject of macros and the purpose of this chapter is just to state the basics for priests.
Holy Word mouseover macro
A problem a lot of players have had with out new changing Holy Word spell is that it's hard to make a single mouseover macro for the entire spell. Alenoria from MMO-Champion has found a reliable solution for this problem. The technique itself is too complicated to post down here exactly, but it can be found here.
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:39pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:43pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:43pm by Mozared
Edited, Jan 27th 2011 5:49pm by Mozared
7. Handy links
Last but not least, a collection of useful links for priests. I will start off by stating that for healing in raids, a priest generally needs an add-on like Healbot, Pitbull, or Grid. All three of these add-ons can be found here (just search for the mod you want on the site). A mod that can also be found on that site is ‘Decursive’, one which will be of great help when dispelling magic and diseases. Another mod named PoMtracker might also be of use; it gives you a little frame that shows how much jumps your Prayer of Mending still has left, on who it currently is and how much healing it has done so far.
Additional handy links are
The Elitistjerks’ priest forums, where more detailed explanations and calculations behind priest healing and mana conservation can be found. WoWwiki’s priest section, a section of a site that has information on pretty much every little detail having to do with priests. Wowhead’s priest talent calculator. ‘Nuff said.
Last but not least, a collection of useful links for priests. I will start off by stating that for healing in raids, a priest generally needs an add-on like Healbot, Pitbull, or Grid. All three of these add-ons can be found here (just search for the mod you want on the site). A mod that can also be found on that site is ‘Decursive’, one which will be of great help when dispelling magic and diseases. Another mod named PoMtracker might also be of use; it gives you a little frame that shows how much jumps your Prayer of Mending still has left, on who it currently is and how much healing it has done so far.
Additional handy links are
And one reserved post, in case it's ever needed.
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:43pm by Mozared
Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:43pm by Mozared
Very nice thread. Looking forward to returning to this multiple times.
Now I just have to get that Shadow sticky finished soon. I'm finally figuring out our stat weights.
Did you know that haste is worth more than hit for us right now? Which means that as long as you have as muhc haste as possible, you don't need to be hit capped.
Go figure.
Now I just have to get that Shadow sticky finished soon. I'm finally figuring out our stat weights.
Did you know that haste is worth more than hit for us right now? Which means that as long as you have as muhc haste as possible, you don't need to be hit capped.
Go figure.
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I have a racist ****.
Steam: TuxedoFish
battle.net: Fishy #1649
GW2: Fishy.4129
IDrownFish wrote:
Did you know that haste is worth more than hit for us right now? Which means that as long as you have as muhc haste as possible, you don't need to be hit capped.
Go figure.
Cause you can try refresh early and MF only checks hit on first tick. IS the reasons why hit is not as good for Shadow.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
Oi, take your evil shenanigans over to the dark side! This topic is for happy, sparkly priests!
Would like feedback by the way, once you folks manage to read through the wall of text. Still looking for PvP information as I'm not actually doing any myself right now...
Would like feedback by the way, once you folks manage to read through the wall of text. Still looking for PvP information as I'm not actually doing any myself right now...
Horsemouth wrote:
IDrownFish wrote:
Did you know that haste is worth more than hit for us right now? Which means that as long as you have as muhc haste as possible, you don't need to be hit capped.
Go figure.
Cause you can try refresh early and MF only checks hit on first tick. IS the reasons why hit is not as good for Shadow.
Oh, I know the reasons why. It's just weird, because I've been shooting for the hit cap for years.
Mozared wrote:
Oi, take your evil shenanigans over to the dark side! This topic is for happy, sparkly priests!
You guys may be happy and sparkle, but we look sexy in black.
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I have a racist ****.
Steam: TuxedoFish
battle.net: Fishy #1649
GW2: Fishy.4129
IDrownFish wrote:
Horsemouth wrote:
IDrownFish wrote:
Did you know that haste is worth more than hit for us right now? Which means that as long as you have as muhc haste as possible, you don't need to be hit capped.
Go figure.
Cause you can try refresh early and MF only checks hit on first tick. IS the reasons why hit is not as good for Shadow.
Oh, I know the reasons why. It's just weird, because I've been shooting for the hit cap for years.
Feral doesn't need to cap hit/exp either for similar reasons. Also find it weird.
My priest is ready for heroics, going to try some today.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
I'm taking time away from holiday cookies to note my approval of the new sticky. Great job Moz and thanks.
I'm glad to see you left Revelations out of the holy PVP build. Beyond that the hardest adjustment for me in PVP has been that I can't just use my instants and keep moving; I can't rely on Renew anymore because it's just too expensive. My personal rundown on holy priest abilities for PVP looks like this:
Lightwell anyplace you'll be for more than a few seconds - as with PVE, it's the best trick you have right now.
Chakra for the passive bonuses because you need every drop of healing you can get. I use Sanctuary chakra much more often in PVP than I do in PVE.
Chastise, Scream, and Shield (with B&S) for getting away from enemy fire. When protecting a flag carrier, use the same abilities but tell the Disc priests to keep their Shields off him and use yours instead for B&S; keep him shielded for as much of the run as you can afford mana-wise.
Find ways to get away from people long enough to cast Greater Heal (regular Heal seldom heals for enough to be worth standing still for the cast time).
Renew and Flash Heal when you need them, but as with all Cata healing, think about whether you need them rather than casting them just because.
CoH and PoM on cooldown in any brawl situation.
PoH when you can.
In emergencies, Guardian Spirit-Flash-Flash-GHeal (assuming you have Serendipity) is your IWIN button. Glyph of Guardian Spirit is great for PVP.
I'm glad to see you left Revelations out of the holy PVP build. Beyond that the hardest adjustment for me in PVP has been that I can't just use my instants and keep moving; I can't rely on Renew anymore because it's just too expensive. My personal rundown on holy priest abilities for PVP looks like this:
Lightwell anyplace you'll be for more than a few seconds - as with PVE, it's the best trick you have right now.
Chakra for the passive bonuses because you need every drop of healing you can get. I use Sanctuary chakra much more often in PVP than I do in PVE.
Chastise, Scream, and Shield (with B&S) for getting away from enemy fire. When protecting a flag carrier, use the same abilities but tell the Disc priests to keep their Shields off him and use yours instead for B&S; keep him shielded for as much of the run as you can afford mana-wise.
Find ways to get away from people long enough to cast Greater Heal (regular Heal seldom heals for enough to be worth standing still for the cast time).
Renew and Flash Heal when you need them, but as with all Cata healing, think about whether you need them rather than casting them just because.
CoH and PoM on cooldown in any brawl situation.
PoH when you can.
In emergencies, Guardian Spirit-Flash-Flash-GHeal (assuming you have Serendipity) is your IWIN button. Glyph of Guardian Spirit is great for PVP.
Thanks a bunch Tea. I'm not adding in every little detail, but this shows why I need feedback - your information on not using Heal seems sound and logical, but it's something you won't know if you haven't experienced PvP first hand. I've put that in the healing tactics section.
Hope to edit in some hyperlinks to WoWhead in the near future (though I'm not sure what Zam's doing on that instance - whether they'll show tooltips and all), and expand some sections. Also taking suggestions for the link department - I removed some I had in the old sticky since they seemed to be outdated. I might make myself a "what items you want from heroics" list soon.
Hope to edit in some hyperlinks to WoWhead in the near future (though I'm not sure what Zam's doing on that instance - whether they'll show tooltips and all), and expand some sections. Also taking suggestions for the link department - I removed some I had in the old sticky since they seemed to be outdated. I might make myself a "what items you want from heroics" list soon.
Mozared wrote:
Humans are still top dog here because of their free trinket slot, but the other classes have some pretty interesting bonuses...Draenei are somewhat weak in PvP, but their free HoT at least gives them an edge over Night Elves, which are just generally fairly useless.
The human racial is inferior to a PVP trinket: it has a longer cooldown. Many humans end up equipping a PVP trinket for the resilience and shorter cooldown, making this racial useless to them.
Shadowmeld is one the best PVP powers a priest could hope for. Being able to drop out of sight and out of combat in order to drink is strong, and staying stealthed until you are needed is significant protection.
Quote:
The human racial is inferior to a PVP trinket: it has a longer cooldown. Many humans end up equipping a PVP trinket for the resilience and shorter cooldown, making this racial useless to them.
I did some background checking on this, and you've got a good point. The racial was nerfed somewhere along the beta, which puts a huge dent in the Humans' PvP supremacy. I will update that tomorrow, when I'm not dropping dead of sleep deprevation.
Quote:
Shadowmeld is one the best PVP powers a priest could hope for. Being able to drop out of sight and out of combat in order to drink is strong, and staying stealthed until you are needed is significant protection.
This one however, I'm still puzzling with. Being able to drink would be a mighty strong boon with Cata's new healing, there's no argueing that. The latter is also a very strong racial feature, especially so in Battlegrounds. What I'm wondering about is how combat and drinking in PvP works nowadays. Are there still simple drinks that can be used while out of combat in arenas? And if so, does Shadowmeld reliably put you out of combat in arenas, even with pets on you? I'll also edit this bit once I've got it all clear, as you've definitely made a good point.
The human racial has been reverted to 2 min, so don’t bother updating.
You can drink anything in a regular battleground. In arena and rated BGs, you have to have mage cakes.
Shadowmeld gets you out of combat, which is why NE druids can jump into flight form almost at will. I suspect pets do not detarget you.
I’d take Shadowmeld over any other racial if I could choose one for Holy PVP.
You can drink anything in a regular battleground. In arena and rated BGs, you have to have mage cakes.
Shadowmeld gets you out of combat, which is why NE druids can jump into flight form almost at will. I suspect pets do not detarget you.
I’d take Shadowmeld over any other racial if I could choose one for Holy PVP.
I tracked some stuff down, figured it all out and took care of the updating. Thanks for the head's up Emmit, it's all included now.
Why are dwarfs good against Rogues?
Stoneform removes all poisons, bleed and disease effects. Rogues don't have diseases, but Stoneform removes Garotte, which is a common opener against casters (as it silences), a possible Rupture, Crippling Poison, Wounding Poison and Mind Numbing Poison. It basically negates all debuffs they can put on you instantly. When used at the right time this means the rogue loses a ton of damage *and* you're easily able to create a gap. Also, I think it's off the GCD.
The weapon enchant is heartsong, not rainsong ;-)
As far as I know, this is the best weapon enchant for holy priests; while for disc priests it doesn't matter much between heartsong (spirit proc) or power torrent (int proc). Heartsong is by far the cheaper enchant so the choice is still obvious.
edit: and might be better to link to wowpedia, rather than wowwiki: http://www.wowpedia.org/Priest
Edited, Jan 4th 2011 7:11am by Callu
As far as I know, this is the best weapon enchant for holy priests; while for disc priests it doesn't matter much between heartsong (spirit proc) or power torrent (int proc). Heartsong is by far the cheaper enchant so the choice is still obvious.
edit: and might be better to link to wowpedia, rather than wowwiki: http://www.wowpedia.org/Priest
Edited, Jan 4th 2011 7:11am by Callu
Quote:
The weapon enchant is heartsong, not rainsong ;-)
You're right - Rainsong is a trinket I've got in my bags, I mixed the two up. I updated it a couple of days ago. What's left to do for now is a small update to the gem section - I want to put some more emphasis on the fact that intellect is in fact a good stat to gem for. I'd still say get the socket bonus, but try doing so with a gem that gives intellect and not a pure mastery/haste/crit one. Spirit is cool if you're only just entering raids.
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