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# Healing Priest FAQ v4.0.1: Surviving until December, 7th

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### #21 Elimbras

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Posted 13 October 2010 - 11:08 PM

[b][SIZE="5"]
How did you come up with those numbers? If the only hastebuffs we can get in raids is 5% and BT being 14% and Darkness.

14% + 5% + 2% (lets say we use OPs spec) = 21%
Wouldn't that mean we need 29% haste from gear to reach the gcd hardcap while shieldspamming.

Or have I completely missed something in this new Patch?

Haste effect are multiplicative.
So if you add 14% haste effect, a 5% buff and 2% from Darkness, you get 1.14 * 1.05 * 1.02 = 1.22094 = 22,094% haste. You then need 1.5/1.22094 = 1.228 = 22.8% haste to be GCD capped.

### #22 Carnathagia

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Posted 13 October 2010 - 11:30 PM

I went through and retested spell coefficient and base values for level 80 in 4.0. The results are in this Google Docs spreadsheet. The 30% permanent increase to Power Word: Shield is still active, which makes it look better than it is inside ICC where everything is 30% larger. I also updated the spreadsheet healing ranges, and base values for level 80.

It looks like mana isn't much of an issue, even reforging as much spirit as I could off of my gear. Only the ICC Holy raid healing rotation was tight on mana.

Here are some stat weightings taken from the spreadsheet. These are based on my gear on Live, but should be relative, or at least close for most people at 80.

Disc Atonement
[TABLE]Intellect | 0.96
Spell Power| 0.77
Critical | 0.61
Haste | 0.73
Mastery | 0.61[/TABLE]

Disc Shield Spam
[TABLE]Intellect | 0.82
Spell Power | 0.76
Critical | 0.18
Haste | 2.23
Mastery | 4.29[/TABLE]

Holy PoM > CoH > Renew
[TABLE]Intellect | 1.58
Spell Power | 1.17
Critical | 1.34
Haste | 3.00
Mastery | 1.23[/TABLE]

Holy Heal+Gheal
[TABLE]Intellect | 0.57
Spell Power | 0.43
Critical | 0.46
Haste | 0.86
Mastery | 1.24[/TABLE]
EmraldÃ¨ - Resto/Balance Druid - Carnathagia - Holy/Disc Priest - Liltankh - Prot/Fury Warrior
Jovavich - Arcane/Fire Mage

### #23 Nysem

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Posted 13 October 2010 - 11:57 PM

How did you come up with those numbers? If the only hastebuffs we can get in raids is 5% and BT being 14% and Darkness.

I apologize, that was my mistake, and it is 14%. I redid the table.

### #24 ramennoodleking

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 03:31 AM

My Thoughts on 4.0.1, ICC/RS, and the Holy Priest

After raiding ICC and having read your post on Holy Priests, I just want to offer a few points of suggestion:

First off, your suggested talent tree build. I have a few problems with it, the first of which is speccing any points into Divine Fury. As we stand in 4.0 and level 80, while we are no doubt capable of healing tanks, we are not built for that just yet considering Heal is useless in current content. Speccing three points in what will boil down to a shorter cast time on Greater Heal is an utter waste. As a holy priest in this content/situation, greater heal is one of the last spells on your list of use. Short of 3 stacked serendipity on dreamwalker, I never have used Greater Heal in ICC content. Never. And it will not change until Cata, rest assured.

A second thing I bring up is the unwillingness to spec into Spirit of Redemption. While I admit that dying during a fight is generally unacceptable, in the event that it DOES happen, having this talent is by no means useless. If we, of course, take into account the uselessness of Divine Fury, you have some points to play with, which forces you to spec into this anyway.

Thirdly, considering the notion that the three points in Divine Fury are wasted, you are forced again to take Desperate Prayer. In and of itself, some argue Desperate Prayer is for bad priests. I beg to differ. It is an effective "oh crap!" spell that actually helped me stay alive during Heroic LK after eating a vile spirit. While I admit it is indeed a situational spell, when the times comes that you need it you wont regret having used it.

Finally, there is no need for more than one point in State of Mind. If you Chakra: Renew, you will be casting so many Renews that even with a 2 second addition to the timer, you will not run out before the next chakra use is available. If you use Chakra: Prayer of Healing (which in my experience in ICC 25 heroic is more useful--not only was my healing stronger, I also didn't burn through near as much mana), you will be casting enough PoH and CoH to keep the timer up long enough for chakra to go off CD.

The following is my suggested build:

WoW Talent Calculator - Sigrie.

NOTE: Surge of Light is indeed useless in this content. I'd redirect those points to Divine Fury, at least that is a little LESS useless.

The reason I take the two points in Veiled Shadows is because Holy Priests burn through mana faster than any of the other healing classes. Druids and Shammys can nearly spam to their hearts content, but if you are an effective Holy Priest, mana will take it's toll. If you find that mana is not a problem, distribute those two points into Darkness and Twin Discipline.

Some fun ICC details after 1 week:

In terms of healing in ICC, I have found that we are, literally, the BEST Dreamwalker Heroic healer at this point. Our guild was selling the ICC drake achievement this week, and due to this the clutter in the portals was pretty thick, but despite missing two portals (and of course losing stacks) i managed to double the healing of the person below me. I started the fight with a renew, Guardian Spirit, and then Flash heal spam--my mastery Echoes of Light at one point ticked for over 100k per second.

Chakra: PoH is pretty OP. If you glyph for PoH, you get not only 20% of the healing done as a tick, but also the mastery ticking right on top of that. This is especially useful on the following fights:

Marrowgar
Festergut
Putricide
Blood Princes
BQL
Sindragosa

On the other fights, I suggest the following:

Lady Deathwhisper: Chakra Renew (phase 1 is a joke, and phase 2 sees raid damage primarily through Frostbolt Volleys, rendering Chakra: PoH sub-optimal)

Lootship: Who cares? you could almost spam holy nova if you wanted

Rotface: Chakra Renew (CoH will be up enough to manage any spikey raid damage, and the extra hot on the tanks is nice)

Dreamwalker: Chakra Renew (I started off the fight pre-casting Chakra. I then used renew, Guardian Spirit, Chakra: Aspire, and then Flash Heal spammed. I flashed until right before entering the portal, in which case i Renewed Dreamwalker then entered the portal. Chakra is, in general, not entirely useful here if you are healing the boss...and trust me, you should)

LK: we stopped after Sindragosa for tonight, as the achievement run and adustments to new skills/server bugs pushed us a bit behind schedule. I imagine Chakra: PoH will be especially useful, particularly in the Throne room, but I'll need some time to see.

NOTE: I do not assume to be correct, these are only my personal observations. Situations dictate different reactions, so your results and conclusions on being a Holy Priest in current content may vary.

Thanks!

### #25 Dtekkar

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 05:35 AM

Thus far, as holy, I have seen next to no place for heal chakra in current content. Heal is simply too small and too slow for wrath style raiding. My flash hits for heal's crit, and does so twice as fast and the mana cost is largely irrelevant.

When in doubt, renew chakra is generally the right answer, since it takes 1.0 seconds to add time to the chakra with State of Mind and can be sustained by just hotting 2 tanks as the renews expire. Additionally, having a second set of hots on these tanks is something to do when everyone is at full health, and since heals in general are so effective since the patch, you will find yourself renewing near-full health targets in anticipation of raid damage quite often, having nothing better to do but prep the hots whether the spike comes or not.

Holy Word: Aspire is a very odd spell, but it scales well with mastery and it is very efficient and in anticipation for cata it would be prudent to practice fitting it in. It hits for 3500 and ticks 6 x 1100 on my hpriest. It seems like in current content it is only used in the following circumstance:

1. An ally is taking constant periodic damage and is getting low but is not in immediate danger, but the periodic damage outpaces his renew and COH and ProM are on cooldown or are bad solutions (E.G. isolated ranged target and only coh is available, etc).

2. An ally that has a deficit of about 3-5k, and is expected to take more damage.
-AND-
Your prayer of mending is on cooldown (prayer of mending is obviously a superior spell in this circumstance)

If the deficit is much more than that, flash heal is safer, it will top them up faster, and is roughly the same total healing as Aspire. If the deficit is much less than that, a emp renew + a tick will fit better.

3. On cooldown to replace renew in order to save mana.

This occurs rarely in current content, and all things being equal renew restores time to your chakra.

So the renew chakra raid healing rotation might be the old familiar COH/ProM on CD, renew filler, with HW:Aspire on 'gentle' spikes and tanks, with flash/GS/shield saves, and POH if you end up with a full stack of serendipity from saves if appropriate. Whew! (I love priest)

POH chakra is very good. Holy word: Sanctuary is amazing to pop down on a stack of people - usually the melee - in many fights and phases. However, I found holding the POH chakra open for a full minute generally requires horrendously inefficient moves like POH'ing a tank's group and crossing your fingers. I like the benefits of POH chakra the most - a bigger CoH on shorter cooldown is great - but POH might be the only spell left in wrath we can't afford to spam full-time and since it is so situational, renew chakra generally ends up winning out.

In festergut, I stayed renew chakra until the blight, cast chakra->poh while he casts blight, and sanc spammed the melee while topping everyone up with coh/mend/poh and the fight ended just after.

In sindy, I stayed POH in all phases and sanc the back of phase 2 ice blocks and the melee stack as needed. Note that sanc does not add to your stacks of unchained magic, and glyphed holy nova is actually good to hit now while running from blistering cold. flash flash POH isn't necessarily better than just POH POH.

Lastly, with serendipity, admittedly it is best to work in gheal. After two stacks, gheal is bigger than flash, at the same speed as flash, but cheaper by around 30%. It is worth holding a stack for a POH as needed, but sparingly.

***Edit: Sorry for the mass edit. There was wife aggro and so there was some word vomit and misinformation here. ***

### #26 Namika

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 09:49 AM

Thus far, as holy, I have seen next to no place for heal chakra in current content.

[Snip]

Lastly, even with serendipity, I haven't seen much use for gheal except to save some mana so that I don't need to trouble a druid for an innervate. It is still situationally useful for predictible tank spikes, most notably breath attacks.

**Before I begin let me state I haven't had the luxury of an ICC group yet, but we are raiding on Thursday evening***
I began to find myself completely ignoring Chakra in instances to avoid overhealing. Instead I am picking low-damage instances to work on how to sustain all the different heal-based chakras while still responding to damage across different characters.

Chakra Renew is proving to be the easiest to upkeep for me, however in 5 mans the benefit was nearly wasted as Renew made little damage to control that wasn't on the tank. I'm sure the HW:Chastise would benefit, but I am still having to force myself to use that spell and its proc.

I tried to use the Chakra Heal in several heroics to accept the new form of healing. I found it slow and clunky compared to Binding Heal/Serendipity.

As for Serendipity, perhaps the GHeal isn't useful, but if i'm not mistaken it still procs PoH (per tooltip on wowtal.com it does). Ever since GH lost its utility I have been using a Serendipity stack on PoH mixed in with my CH/Renew heal style. This may make the Chakra PoH less tedious to manage, especially if you are using Chakra PoH for heavy AoE fights like sindragosa/festergut. It works well for me. Perhaps it causes a bit of overhealing, but it does ensure the group is up and I forsee it helping me maintain that chakra.

I feel that if I use chakra PoH at all, I will still spec into Serendipity.

Surge is wasted in the holy spec as given L80 casting patterns you can easily go an entire fight without even casting a spell that would proc it. Pretty much any talent would be better. Also with over 1/2 your time casting proccing spells you would only get about 1 proc per minute. It's just not worth it.

I could see pushing towards Surge of Light if you are a smiter. I am someone who has always been guilty of smiting when damage isn't going on, so I look forward to the introduction of Evang/Arch in my playstyle. If you're smiting and someone needs a quick-pick-me-up of healng, that instant/free Flash may be nice - especially as our mana control dwindles.

In my mind, however, the conversation of whether or not to take Surge is based on playstyle and a discussion of 'what else is out there'. Blizzard left us very few talents to question.

Bear in mind you will have to put points into either SoL or Divine Fury to move down the tree.

### #27 Lyssa

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 09:58 AM

Okay, I think I was too quick in stating the ICC buff does apply to shields. I've checked the logs a bit more thorogouhly now, and the only time the absorbs go over 11k is when the tank also has Illuminated Healing (paladin absorb) on him; which would suggest the PW:S isn't getting the ICC buff (as I originally thought). This most likely means LK heroic won't be easily doable now, at least not by using disc priests to cover Infest.

### #28 Havoc12

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 10:35 AM

A few things to note with holy. PoH adds 2/4 sec to chakra state duration PER TARGET HIT. So if you cast one poh and it hits 5 targets you get 10/20 sec back.

I disagree with the poster above me, holy is an excellent tank healer ATM. I think people just don't get what they are supposed to do in the Heal chakra. It is an efficiency chakra not a throuput one and the design is steady healing with fast spike response. So here is my suggested tank healer (efficiency) rotation.

2x flash to build serendipity up, then renew and heal spam using SoL or casted FH occasionally to keep serendipity up. If tank spikes use serenity-gheal and 2x flash. You would need a cancelcast macro on serenity to make sure you don't get committed to a long weak heal. Gheal with 2 serendipity stacks is the same cast time as FH.

For those who want to see numbers here they are in the next section. Those who don't you can skip to the end ( the section is marked by double lines)

===============================================================================
I have 3.1k spellpower (completely unbuffed) 23.81% crit and 18.3% haste.

Heal: 2.1sec cast time 4.5-5k heal --> ~2.24K HPS average (crit not included)
Flash: 1.26sec cast time 9.5k-10k heal --> 7.7k HPS average (crit not included)
Gheal: 2.1sec (1.26 with 2x serendipity stacks) 12.5-13.5k --> 6.19k HPS average or 10.3k HPS average (crit not included)
Renew: ticks for 2k every

Each heal adds a 6 second HoT that adds 10% of the healed amount.

In the heal chakra you have 10% increased chance and you have renew constantly ticking on the tank without refreshing it. You also have serenity which is an instant 7k heal but also adds 25% increased critical chance for the next 6 seconds.

Spamming heal maintains 2.24*(1+0.3381*0.3) + 2000/3 = 3.13k HPS from the direct heals

Also you have 10% added as a hot. To calculate the contribution lets take any length of the time T, then during that time the amount of healing done H = T*HPS. 10% of that heal will fuel the Echo of Light HoT, so you will get 10%*H healing from it in total and the time in which the healing will be done will be T+6. So HPS from Echo of Light should be 10%*H/(T+6) = HPS*T/[10*(T+6)]. However its important to realise that in a short period of time the heal is end-loaded. That means there is a period where the HPS for echoes will be lower than this and another period where the HPS will be higher. Eventually a steady state will be reached where the HPS is constant.

Let us try to obtain a formula for the steady state: Using heal means that you only get 2 tick in between casts, which means you transfer 4/6 = 66.7% of the HoT amount to the next one. So if the amount that is to be healed after the 1st spell then amount to be healed after the 2nd spell is H*(1+2.3). Conversely the amount to be healed after the 3rd spell is H*(1+2/3)*2/3+H = H[1+2/3+2/3^(2)]. Clearly after the nth spell the amount to be healed is H*K(n-1)

Where K(n), with n an integer is the sum from i=0 to n of 2/3^(n). [I know I know I should use latex. I will fix it later]

This is basically a geometric progression of the form m*r^(n) whose sum is dead easy to calculate it is

H*(1-2/3^(n))/(1-2/3).

This series clearly converges (take +infinity limit) towards H*1/(1-2/3) = 1/(1/3) = 3*H.

So at infinity this HoT will tend to do 3*H healing over 6 seconds, so it will tick for H/2 per second.

As a result heal spam after a relatively large number of casts will effectively double the HPS of heal by adding 2 ticks of H/2 every 2.1 seconds. (Remember that the duration is reset). With stacked mastery this can be considerably higher due to the nature of the formula.

We conclude that just plain heal spam (with renew ticking constantly ofc) under a heal chakra will within a certain amount of casts (about 20 or so) achieve a near-steady state of about 6k HPS with my gear. This is nearly as much as gheal spam and certainly comparable with flash heals. However we are forgetting something. The rotation also includes a few FHs to keep serendipity up. This is going to raise the HPS by a small about to around 6.8k HPS. If the tank spikes we respond with serenity (a 14 second CD) which is about 7k for me. The heal will become either instantly or at the very worse 1s after the spike (since a cancelcast macro is used) and then followed after 1.26 seconds by a 13k gheal and naturally 2x9.5k FH spaced every 1.26 seconds. All 3 of them with an improved crit chance of 23.8+25 = 48.8% crit chance. Thus we are looking at the very worst case senario 20k in the first 2.26 seconds followed by an average of 25k in the next 2.52 seconds. During this period you can also expect a couple of 3k ticks frm all your HoTs. At the end of this period if all this was not enough you have another Gheal on a 1.26 sec cast time and you have guardian spirit.

=================================================================================

Overall I disagree with previous poster's suggestion that holy is not built for tank healing at this time. My theoretical predictions suggest that a well geared and skilled priest can easily maintain a steady 7-8k HPS and have a very strong 50k burst to unleash if the tank spikes. In my humble oppinion "omg heal suxxorzzzzz 'cause it healzz for shite-all!!!11!!1!!!111!" is not a valid qualitative argument capable of determining the ability of holy priests to tank heal or the usefullness of heal and the heal chakra. I think its necessary to re-evaluate our thinking of how priest should heal. The new mechanics are really game-changing as far as I can see.

My observations tell me that yes priests can tank heal with the heal chakra and a FHx2-->heal spam + fheal SoL when its up and if necessary Fhealx1 to reset serendipity. Save serenity and serendipity gheal for spikes. For higher throughput serenity and gheal can he used whenever serenity is out of CD so that the gheal and subsequent 2x fheals benefit from the 25% increased heal chance. It should be noted that there is a set up time for this and it may be necessary to start with a little FHx2-GH spam to stack the Echoes of time.

An alternative approach, which I havent modelled at this time is using the Renew chakra and keeping renew + aspire up, then a rotation of FHx2-healx2-gheal (the gheal can be used early if the tank spikes), or for greater efficiency. This method relies on setting up a fairly massive HoT on the tank with the duel boosted HoT spells and EoL. I do not know what its HPS or burn rate are.

I am quite surprised to hear people still say talk about Gheal and Fheal in the same terms as before. The spells have changed so drastically that they have nothing to do with 3.3. Gheal does not heal double the amount of Fheal anymore. Its just 30% more but in fact its slightly cheaper than FH. With 2x serendipity stacks even if you dont have divine fury its pointless to use FH instead of GH. Also its very important to realise that sta is overbudgeted on items right now, so we are going to see MASSIVE HPS on tanks

### #29 Dtekkar

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 11:16 AM

Havok, I agree with you that holy is a capable tank healer. And as soon as healing efficiency matters again, heal will be in the rotation for more than just hallion and LK. Until then, flash->flash->gheal ad naseum and chakra to throw some raid heals out seems to work best from what I've seen thus far. Admittedly I haven't tried LK yet, supposedly his shadow traps are bugged, but there may be a time in the fight where I will use heal chakra almost exactly as you described. If not surely we'll see it in cata. Excellent work btw.

I was just playing with the echoes behavior in dal before I made my post, and I was able to get it to tick for 10,000 per second with flash heal by the time my mana ran out. Its been 10 years since I took a math course, so i can barely recognize that math manipulation, but after reading your post, I logged back in and tried to stack heal as high as I could. Mine has a 1.97s cast, which I suspect is nearly the worst possible casting time, since I was unable to get my echo above 1200 per tick. My flash heal, on the other hand, is ~1.2 seconds and so I suspect casts ending in .1-.5 roll echoes much more rapidly. I suspect having a 1.01 second flash heal would be the fastest way to stack echoes, but perhaps the extra .2 seconds buffers against player error and latency variations.

Would I be correct in saying that you want your echo to refresh just after a tick and not just before in order to get it rolling?

### #30 Hegen

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 12:10 PM

In my mind, however, the conversation of whether or not to take Surge is based on playstyle and a discussion of 'what else is out there'. Blizzard left us very few talents to question.

Bear in mind you will have to put points into either SoL or Divine Fury to move down the tree.

Instead of replying to all of the individual suggestions regarding the spec, I will just use this here to highlight why my spec suggestion is as it is.

Namika's points are one reason, the other reason is that which I originally mentioned: this is now an excellent time to try things out. We know our content by heart, it's nerfed to death with the 30% aura, and the stat conversions for our level 80 gear were so far over budget that we also don't have any mana problems.

My spec suggestion allows players to try out all features and playstyles in the holy tree including tank healing without really sacrificing stuff. Spirit of Redemption and Desperate Prayer are talents that we long know and shouldn't really need in farm content. For the record, outside of farm content, I think Desperate Prayer is very decent and Spirit of Redemption is close to useless.

One thing that I found interesting was the observation that two points in State of Mind aren't necessary now. This is a thing to watch, as it's then really a waste of a talent point that isn't mandatory in the tree at that level. Though it may become mandatory in Cata, when we probably do use the Heal chakra more.

One other thing to follow up on is the tank healing capability. I hoped as much, which is (along with being good for smiting when bored) why I recommended 3/3 over 2/3 or even 1/3 options. More input on this is appreciated, though I will be on the road for a week, so don't expect a new section on this in the FAQ soon.

The simple fact is this. We are told to concentrate more. But we can only do that if we are allowed to go considerably faster.

### #31 Goombaheals

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 01:13 PM

I've been working with the disco atonement build suggested, and I can't find atonement healing effects in any of the log systems I'm using. Is atonement still bugged? Does anyone have logs showing actual healing stats on this build yet?

### #32 Diatrive

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 01:21 PM

Concerning Atonement: Was definitely not working last night, but after my server had a restart this morning it is working now.

### #33 HayMakr

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 01:32 PM

Have you come up with any numbers for this elusive 4-tick penance? I've read that it comes into play at 22% haste + 3/3darkness +BT+5%raid buff. I currently have all of this plus some and I'm not seeing 4 ticks. Any insight is appreciated

### #34 ramennoodleking

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 02:05 PM

One thing I noticed is that Holy suffers from mana problems more than druids, disc priests, and shammys at the moment.

Even after all the changes to SP -> Intellect, I find that my priest in 264/277s with Solace of the Defeated is having immense mana problems; on rotface, if I attempt to blanket the raid in renew (in chakra state, of course) my mana drains ridiculously fast, faster than it was prior to the patch, even though I have more of a mana pool.

So i respecced and took 2 minutes off of shadowfiend. Is anyone else having this problem?

Not: my armory is wrong and not updated, I have the 277 cloak off of Saurfang now, and my talent trees are not correct, for some reason they have not been updated.

The World of Warcraft Armory - Sureilltank @ Archimonde - Profile

I'm usually top heals, 1-3, in 11/12 heroic 25. I just don't understand my mana problem.

Also, I switched from heroic Sliver of Pure Ice to Lunar Dust. I think that should help?

### #35 Elimbras

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 02:15 PM

===============================================================================
[...]
Also you have 10% added as a hot. To calculate the contribution lets take any length of the time T, then during that time the amount of healing done H = T*HPS. 10% of that heal will fuel the Echo of Light HoT, so you will get 10%*H healing from it in total and the time in which the healing will be done will be T+6. So HPS from Echo of Light should be 10%*H/(T+6) = HPS*T/[10*(T+6)]. However its important to realise that in a short period of time the heal is end-loaded. That means there is a period where the HPS for echoes will be lower than this and another period where the HPS will be higher. Eventually a steady state will be reached where the HPS is constant.

Let us try to obtain a formula for the steady state: Using heal means that you only get 2 tick in between casts, which means you transfer 4/6 = 66.7% of the HoT amount to the next one. So if the amount that is to be healed after the 1st spell then amount to be healed after the 2nd spell is H*(1+2.3). Conversely the amount to be healed after the 3rd spell is H*(1+2/3)*2/3+H = H[1+2/3+2/3^(2)]. Clearly after the nth spell the amount to be healed is H*K(n-1)

Where K(n), with n an integer is the sum from i=0 to n of 2/3^(n). [I know I know I should use latex. I will fix it later]

This is basically a geometric progression of the form m*r^(n) whose sum is dead easy to calculate it is

H*(1-2/3^(n))/(1-2/3).

This series clearly converges (take +infinity limit) towards H*1/(1-2/3) = 1/(1/3) = 3*H.

So at infinity this HoT will tend to do 3*H healing over 6 seconds, so it will tick for H/2 per second.

As a result heal spam after a relatively large number of casts will effectively double the HPS of heal by adding 2 ticks of H/2 every 2.1 seconds. (Remember that the duration is reset). With stacked mastery this can be considerably higher due to the nature of the formula.

I have difficulties to follow your math. I guess that's because you don't state clearly your assumptions, and mostly because your notation is fluctuating.
However, I think there is a flaw in your math. You seem to confuse two things, both denoted by H in your post:
1/ the amount of direct healing in an interval of size T;
2/ The amout of mastery healing after a single heal.

I'm rather authoritative here, but if the mastery hot rolls as I expect (ie. as Ignite / Deep Wound, that is to say that there is a "bank" for the hot, which is increased by 10% (or more) of each direct heal, and decreased by the amount of each tick when the tick happens, and ticks happen every second for 1/6 of the bank), then from the mass transportation principle in Palm theory, I'm sure that the mastery adds an expected 10% (or whatever mastery percentage you have) of your direct hps. By no way it can double it...

If you want a quick "first impression" of it, consider the easy case with 2.0s cast time and a expected size (crit included) of H. Assume that your mastery hot ticks exactly as T = 0s, 1s, 2s, 3s ,..., and that your heals lands at T=0.1s, 2.1s, 4.1s, 6.1s, etc.
Then the amount of the bank Bn at T=n s, just before the mastery tick, follows the relation:
$B_0 = 0$
$B_1 = 0.1 * H$
$B_2 = B_1 * 5/6$
$B_3 = B_2 * 5/6 + H * 01$
$B_n = B_{n_1} * 5/6 \text{ if } n \text{ is even}$
$B_n = B_{n-1} * 5/6 + H * 0.1 \text{ if } n \text{is odd}$

In particular, you have the relation :
$B_1 = 0.1 * H$
$B_{2n+1} = B_{2n} * 5/6 + H*0.1= B_{2(n-1)+1} * 25/36 + H * 0.1$

Taking the limit with n to infinity, we have that the limit B* verify :
$B^* = B^* * 25/36 + H * 0.1[\latex]
and we conclude easily that
.
So at odd seconds, we get a tick that is [latex] H * 18/ (55 * 6) = H * 3/55 " alt=" B* = H * 36 / 110 = H * 18 / 55 " alt=" B^* = B^* * 25/36 + H * 0.1[\latex]
and we conclude easily that [latex] B* = H * 36 / 110 = H * 18 / 55 " />.
So at odd seconds, we get a tick that is [latex] H * 18/ (55 * 6) = H * 3/55 " />

At even seconds, the bank before the tick is 5/6 * B*, ie H* 3/11, and the tick is H * 1/22.
Every two seconds, you hence get as expected mastery healing of value [latex]H * 3/55 + H* 1/22 = H * 1/10 " alt=" B* = H * 36 / 110 = H * 18 / 55 " />.
So at odd seconds, we get a tick that is [latex] H * 18/ (55 * 6) = H * 3/55 " alt=" B* = H * 36 / 110 = H * 18 / 55 " alt=" B^* = B^* * 25/36 + H * 0.1[\latex]
and we conclude easily that [latex] B* = H * 36 / 110 = H * 18 / 55 " />.
So at odd seconds, we get a tick that is [latex] H * 18/ (55 * 6) = H * 3/55 " />

At even seconds, the bank before the tick is 5/6 * B*, ie H* 3/11, and the tick is H * 1/22.
Every two seconds, you hence get as expected mastery healing of value [latex]H * 3/55 + H* 1/22 = H * 1/10 " />

The behavior is the same when everything is not phased in the best way, but the proof is more complicated. Of course, everything works nicely with more mastery, and a different mastery percentage.

Edit : it seems that there is a weird behavior for the mastery hot, where you have a high incentive in keeping it rolling. It might be the old behavior of similar dots / hots, where the hps / dps of the hot is increased by the new addition, and duration is refreshed. It means that as long as you keep it rolling, you only add hps in the hot, with not limit at all.
I haven't done any testing, and it might be the case, but in that case, I don't expect it really staying for a long time in live. We have control on the fact that we can keep it rolling, and the mechanism is clearly not what is stated, and not intentional or equilibrated from Blizzard.

Edit 2: there might be also a second reason for a weird behavior. When the mastery hot ticks about the same time that the new heal lands, there is some time a database concurrent actions issue. Both events reads the state of the current bank, both update the local value, and commit it to the database. Then the last event overwrites the previous event.
In short, the following sequence can happen:
- Current bank is B;
- Mastery tick. Server reads the current bank B, and heal for B/6.
- Heal lands for H. Server reads the current bank B.
- Server computes the new bank after the hot, which is B * 5/6, and stores it.
- Server computes the new bank after the heal, which is B + H*01, and overwrites the previous bank.

You got a free tick from the mastery here, that was not deduced from the bank. Note that this can happen in the other way, where your heal is not added to the bank, if the events happens in the other order. In this case, the "ideal" behavior is to have near 1s heal, phase with the hot, which happens just after the hot. And once again, you have not limit on the amount of your bank, because it is never decreased. If you use a 2.0s heal, correctly synchronized, you can't reach impossible amounts of bank, but you double your mastery healing.

### #36 Mindaika

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 02:58 PM

Surge is wasted in the holy spec as given L80 casting patterns you can easily go an entire fight without even casting a spell that would proc it. Pretty much any talent would be better. Also with over 1/2 your time casting proccing spells you would only get about 1 proc per minute. It's just not worth it.

It's probably not the best talent, but the only other choices are Blessed Resil and Spirit of Redemption, which are both PVP talents. You have to take at least 1 point to move down, even taking everything else.
Tastes like Awesome, because it's made of Awesome™

### #37 Iluminati

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 03:55 PM

Atonement worked fine on Tuesday, then they broke it all day Wednesday : (. Here are some things I tested out:

1. If Smite crits, the Atonement heal is a "crit." This will proc Divine Aegis.
2. Atonement will not proc most proc effects (Glowing Twilight Scale, Trauma)
3. The Atonement heal cannot crit independently of smite.
4. On non crits the Atonement heals for exactly 100% of the damage done (or exactly 50% if it targets the Priest), +/-1 for odd/even numbers. This is not modified by any talents or effects that I can find (Grace from a priest or the Divinity talent from Prot paladins).
5. On critical strikes something weird happens. It heals for DamageDoneBySmite + 40 (and then / 2 if it's on the priest). I have no idea what is causing this.
6. Players outside of your party/raid are valid targets.

I haven't been able to determine who it chooses to heal just yet. I think it chooses the player in range with the largest health deficit. I'll be doing some more testing.

### #38 Sokaris84

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 04:43 PM

...
Edit : it seems that there is a weird behavior for the mastery hot, where you have a high incentive in keeping it rolling. It might be the old behavior of similar dots / hots, where the hps / dps of the hot is increased by the new addition, and duration is refreshed. It means that as long as you keep it rolling, you only add hps in the hot, with not limit at all.
I haven't done any testing, and it might be the case, but in that case, I don't expect it really staying for a long time in live. We have control on the fact that we can keep it rolling, and the mechanism is clearly not what is stated, and not intentional or equilibrated from Blizzard.
...

Well here's an interesting log I came accross. Heroic Val, healed in 1 minute 30 seconds almost entirely from a holy priests mastery using Holy Nova...

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Insane. Testing it on myself I can't seem to get the ticks to ramp up past 2000. I mustn't be getting the timing right =/

### #39 Doktre

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 05:01 PM

Insane. Testing it on myself I can't seem to get the ticks to ramp up past 2000. I mustn't be getting the timing right =/

When I first heard about Holy Nova/EoL, there was blurb about the priest needing either version of .

### #40 Guest_Akarai_*

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Posted 14 October 2010 - 06:01 PM

One thing I noticed is that Holy suffers from mana problems more than druids, disc priests, and shammys at the moment.

Even after all the changes to SP -> Intellect, I find that my priest in 264/277s with Solace of the Defeated is having immense mana problems; on rotface, if I attempt to blanket the raid in renew (in chakra state, of course) my mana drains ridiculously fast, faster than it was prior to the patch, even though I have more of a mana pool.

They increased the base mana cost of renew by 4%. You could always put points into Mental Agility to decrease it.

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