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# Cataclysm Holy Priest Compendium

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### #41 wwraver

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 11:03 AM

Speaking from a strictly heroic point of view, I find Rapid Renewal to be a complete waste. Yes, it's only one talent point, but I never find myself Renew blanketing a group of five. If there's a lot of AoE, I resort to CoH and PoH, along with the Lightwell.

I have a question regarding Divine Touch though... does that talent have some kind of "hidden" perk to it? Like it would happen every time you reset Renew with Heal chakra? Otherwise I can't see why it's worth taking this talent for Heroic purposes.

### #42 Guest_Alv!ra_*

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 11:40 AM

At one proc per 85 seconds, this is 344mp5, or 172mp5 per talent point. This is almost 3 times as strong as Veiled Shadows (62.5mp5 per talent point).

If the free FH saves mana corresponding to that of a Flash Heal, you would have to assume that if SoL had not procced, you would still have casted a regular FH.

I tried SoL for a while in my disc build, but specced out of it again as I find it to many times proc where I didn't really need it - I would be fine just regularly healing by Heal or Gheal. The duration and procchance of SoL is now so low that you can't just let it sit there till someone needs an urgent heal; you have to spend it pretty fast. This clearly limits the use of it, and worse still, this constricting mechanic is built into the talent itself: If you're spamming Heal, you're most likely in a mana-conservation phase of an encounter, so what are the chances you would need to cast a FH then?

I realise there are some additional synergies for holy that probably warrant taking SoL, but in itself (as in, a rare mana-free, instant cast), it's not that awesome any more.

### #43 Elerion

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 12:13 PM

Fair point, I guess you could declare GHeal as the alternative cost rather than Flash Heal (Heal is not a fair alternative since the HPCT is so much lower), which would lower the value of the talent by 25%. That still puts it at 129mp5 per talent point if you cast Heal once per 5 seconds. It does move the break point versus Veiled Shadows to one Heal cast per 10 seconds. If you're casting Heal less frequently than that, Veiled Shadows is better.

As for not having a use for the proc, I'd argue that aside from some unique encounters: If everyone in your raid is topped off the majority of the time, you're not really having mana problems. That's from a Holy perspective, in the Holy thread.

It is different for Disc. Heal is no more efficient than GHeal for Disc, thus Heal should only be used in exactly those rare occasions: When everyone is topped off. That reduces the frequency of Heal a lot, and causes the issue you mention where the only times you're casting it is when you don't really need to heal that badly anyway.

### #44 Axhel

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 02:07 PM

According to my napkin math, Surge of Light is very valuable as long as we're still using Heal as our bread&butter filler spell.

At 6% proc chance, you expect a Surge every 17 Heal casts. If we assume one Heal cast per 5 second period on average, this will be once every 85 seconds. The mana value of a Surge proc is roughly:
a) one Flash Heal with no crit: 20590 * 0.28 / (1+0.18/2) = 5289 mana
plus
10% mana reduction on a GHeal (assuming 2/2 Serendipity): 20590 * 0.27 * 0.10 = 556 mana
Sum mana value of a Surge proc is: 5825 mana

At one proc per 85 seconds, this is 344mp5, or 172mp5 per talent point. This is almost 3 times as strong as Veiled Shadows (62.5mp5 per talent point).

That said, at some point our mana regen (and HPS requirements) will be so high that Heal will be degraded to something you only cast to keep Chakra going. In some raid phases, this is already true. This will make the value of Surge of Light plummet. If my napkin math above is correct, Surge of Light will be less valuable than Veiled Shadows once you're casting less than 1 Heal per 15 second period.

You're banking on the fact that you'll get the opportunity to use your Surge of Light proc every time it occurs. Let's say it procs during a long phase change, during a period of time where players need no healing what-so-ever, or at the end of a trash pull. Then its benefit drops to 0 mp5. Always keep in mind that this talent is based on probability and situation. After running Heroic Deadmines last night, I can recall only using SoL twice when it was absolutely necessary (mostly because GHeal is dominating my casts) throughout the entire instance. Right now, for me 3% haste outweighs SoL by a mile.

### #45 Elerion

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 03:00 PM

Surge procs off heals. The only way it will proc during a period where "players need no healing whatsoever" is if it procs off the final heal you cast before/during that period. Statistically speaking, that will occur (less than) 6% of the time.

Like any ability that relies on you casting spells to provide a benefit (Like Mental Agility), its effect drops to zero when there's nothing to do. Such occasions are the exception, not the norm.

If GHeal is dominating your casts to the extent that you are not casting at least one Heal every 10 seconds on average, Surge is worse than Veiled Shadows. I already covered that above.

I have never suggested dropping 3% haste to get it. Those talents are neither comparable nor mutually exclusive.

### #46 Senres

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 03:07 PM

There is a difference between healing in a raid and healing in a heroic. I have often had SoL proc in a heroic when I didn't need it and it was essentially wasted. I have already moved one point out of the talent and plan to move the other point out tonight.

I expect the free heal would be wasted far less often in a raid setting.

### #47 fknlo

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 04:08 PM

Speaking from a strictly heroic point of view, I find Rapid Renewal to be a complete waste. Yes, it's only one talent point, but I never find myself Renew blanketing a group of five. If there's a lot of AoE, I resort to CoH and PoH, along with the Lightwell.

I have a question regarding Divine Touch though... does that talent have some kind of "hidden" perk to it? Like it would happen every time you reset Renew with Heal chakra? Otherwise I can't see why it's worth taking this talent for Heroic purposes.

I never put any points into Rapid Renewal and am strongly considering pulling the points out of Divine Touch as well because it seems like a complete waste of 2 points as I'm simply not casting renew enough. Trying to keep renew up on 2 locks during Magmaw last night decimated my mana and the 1200 heal I'm getting is laughable with Cata health pools. The only time I have renew going is if I'm in heal Chakra, and as far as I know it doesn't "proc" Divine Touch when it renews. Is there something I'm missing that makes the points in Divine Touch worth it?

### #48 Zigizi

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 04:42 PM

The only time I have renew going is if I'm in heal Chakra, and as far as I know it doesn't "proc" Divine Touch when it renews. Is there something I'm missing that makes the points in Divine Touch worth it?

Renew is buffed by the Sanctuary Chakra, not Serenity. If you're only using Renew while in Heal Chakra, then Divine Touch is less useful. If you use renew while in Sanctuary Chakra, the buff of the Sanctuary Chakra will also buff the Divine Touch instant heal amount.

### #49 pocketmage

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 04:58 PM

Renewing a lot in Sanctuary Chakra is far too draining on mana. You're already using Binding Heal, CoH, PoM, and PoH. Bringing Renew into the mix is a bad idea, as is Flash Heal (aside from SoL procs). Filler of choice should be Heal or Gheal with an eye on mana pool. Divine Touch is not very useful at all, regardless of which Chakra state used at this point, but good luck getting beyond 19 points into the Holy tree without it.

I also find Inner Will to be the best thing you can do for your mana pool while in Sanctuary Chakra. Well worth the loss in spell power.

### #50 kcomfort001

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Posted 16 December 2010 - 11:33 PM

What are your opinions on Surge of Light? I picked it up for early heroics because of the mana issues I was having, but now, especially with the increased regen that we were so kindly given, I'm not sure how much it's really worth it.

I've stated my opinion above, I use heal quite frequently as a holy priest but surge of light doesn't proc enough to be worth taking in my opinion.

On paper it does look good but you should redo the math really I don't think its worth taking things you would have to include is how many heals are you actually tossing out during the average fight I stood in ogrimmar healed myself 60 times and surge of light proc'd twice, mana regen.. too many variables and I'm not good at math.

I don't have solid numbers at the moment, but I want to say from memory heal is around (i could be wrong will edit my post after work) 1853 mana cost at 85, currently my mana pool is at 72k running heroics and normal dungeons.. So if you were doing nothing but heals you would get around 38 normal heals .. lets face it you're not going to be doing just heals, this is not accounting for any kind of regen so at max surge of light will proc twice before you're out of mana. Personally I'd rather have the spirit of redemption talent to continue to heal mana free after death for 16 seconds.. (that's alot more mana free healing then you're going to get off from surge of light) and it can make the difference in a 5 man for sure especially with the glyph that increases the duration.

When I start running out of mana, I make sure I'm the last one to get healed.. when i'm out and its hectic I die sometimes playing the sacrificial lamb, but that talent will make more of a difference then surge of light ever will in my opinion.. maybe in a raid where you're healing more surge of light will come into play but from what I've seen so far it seems pretty pointless.

I've gotten to the point where i'm considering changing positions on my hotbar for heal/flash heal. I use chakra with the heal state I want to say its serenity and use that as my emergency heal instead of flash heal.. at any rate please see my post above for what I suggest instead of surge of light .. do your own testing I'm not here to debate whether this talent is truly worth taking ( I feel that it isn't, have stated my reasons why, and offered an alternative ).

### #51 Elerion

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 12:15 AM

For what it's worth, Spirit's sustained healing value can probably be increased by 28.5% (90% / 70% - 1) to account for the buff to Holy Concentration. In the context of the figures in the OP, that puts it at a 3.60 scale factor.

[TABLE]Stat | Burst | Sustained
Intellect | 0.82| 2.73
Spirit | | 3.60 (up from 2.80)
Spell Power | 0.71 | 0.60
Critical |0.27 | 0.23
Haste| 0.50 |
Mastery | 0.57| 0.48[/TABLE]

This implies spirit is now a significantly better stat than intellect in long raid fights, which is where the challenge currently lies for most of us. Since intellect is a primary stat and we were already getting items with spirit as secondary, the main thing this changes is gem priority. The best raider gem looks to be +40 spirit, with +20 spirit +20 int, and +20 spirit +20 mastery as necessary for bonuses/meta.

Need someone to run the numbers through a simulation engine to be sure.

### #52 Zigizi

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 03:14 PM

For what it's worth, Spirit's sustained healing value can probably be increased by 28.5% (90% / 70% - 1) to account for the buff to Holy Concentration. In the context of the figures in the OP, that puts it at a 3.60 scale factor.

[TABLE]Stat | Burst | Sustained
Intellect | 0.82| 2.73
Spirit | | 3.60 (up from 2.80)
Spell Power | 0.71 | 0.60
Critical |0.27 | 0.23
Haste| 0.50 |
Mastery | 0.57| 0.48[/TABLE]
.

With these numbers, isn't the old boot enchant (18 spirit) worth more to a holy priest than the newer boot enchants (50 haste or 50 mastery)? Run speed enchants are still preferred by many raiders of course.

### #53 Feralminded

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 03:36 PM

With the stealth buff I was able to never go effectively out of mana while raid healing on Halfus and Magmaw simply through effective use of my CDs. I only have ~2200 spirit ATM (although I do have a heartsong, the JC on-use spirit trinket, and the spirit proc trinket out of HOO). My point is that I believe spirit will now be similar to +hit for DPSers, in that it will be the best stat for you to get as holy ... until you have *enough*, and then you go for throughput. I feel I am at the point now where I can go for throughput. I'm not saying 2200 is enough but at this point I am no longer in the "must get more spirit" frenzy I felt a week ago. I will get more now passively through epic upgrades and through more gem opportunities. Yes mana is still tight in raids but efficient use of my spells and CD's has been enough so far, and that's with half the healing core being dramatically undergeared (3 of us were carrying the rest through the encounters).

### #54 Senres

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 05:35 PM

I think we'll start to see diminishing returns on spirit, but I don't expect we'll ever hit a "cap" per se. When you think about it, Spirit is a throughput stat, though indirectly. Allow me to explain.

Flash Heal offers significantly more throughput than Heal at a given level of SP, crit, haste, and mastery. In fact, Flash Heal offers more than 3x the throughput. Keeping things (overly) simple, just taking these two spells into account, we can compute a Priest's maximum throughput over a time t as a function of total mana and mana regen:

$T_{max}=HPCT_{Heal} * Heals + HPCT_{FH} * FlashHeals$

Where Heals and FlashHeals satisfy:
$TotalMana + \frac{t}{5} * mp5 - (Heals * Mana_{Heal} + FlashHeals * Mana_{FH}) = 0$

I don't care to work through all of the math, but it's clear that as mp5 increases your ratio of FH:Heal casts can increase over a fixed amount of time thus increasing your throughput. The same holds with Greater Heal, our other higher throughput spell.

Thus, the cap is the amount of spirit required to allow the ratio of FH:Heal -> infinity, i.e. where we can completely replace Heal with Flash Heal and not run out of mana. It'd be interesting to know for what values of TotalMana and mp5 that is true. I could be wrong, but I don't expect us to hit those levels in Cataclysm.

It's also worth noting that what I am saying is more about sustained throughput than burst throughput. Spirit only affords us to use our burst throughput more often (thus increasing sustained throughput) but does not increase our burst throughput. Burst throughput is likely to become much more important in later tiers of raiding.

### #55 Kilborne

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 05:41 PM

As for not having a use for the proc, I'd argue that aside from some unique encounters: If everyone in your raid is topped off the majority of the time, you're not really having mana problems. That's from a Holy perspective, in the Holy thread.

Elerion, I think you have done perfect math to show the maximum possible benefit that the SoL talent is capable of producing. The pushback you are getting is because that maximum possible benefit will never be reached. Once every five seconds is a fairly high usage of the heal spell, but a lot of people probably will see that level of use looking at a log. What doesn't get translated well is that heal is the spell you use precisely when the raid is topped off. Which makes the instant cast nature of the free flash heal and the possible serendipity stack far less likely to be useful.

Again, you have done an excellent job to show the upper possible pontential of the SoL talent, but Blizzard has also done an excellent job of reducing the potential of the talent by linking it with a spell that you never cast when anyone actually needs healing. When the raid isn't topped off, you will be casting something else.

To put it another way, if I'm casting heal I don't need the throughput of a flash heal, so it somewhat questionable to value the SoL proc at the mana level of that unneeded flash heal.

### #56 Feralminded

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 06:45 PM

I think we'll start to see diminishing returns on spirit, but I don't expect we'll ever hit a "cap" per se. When you think about it, Spirit is a throughput stat, though indirectly.

I concur with this assertion however my only point was that I've reached the point that I can heal all of the damage I'm required to without running out of mana (so far), and I'm doing it with a half undergeared healing staff. At this point in order to scale my character haste, mastery, and int take priority (I currently have some pure +Spi gems and +Spi enchants that I can begin to replace with throughput stats). I will continue to increase spirit as my gear improves but I am not longer going after it as actively as before, at least not until I encounter situations where I am heavily mana starved again.

In the raid encounters I have completed so far (Halfus, Magmaw, Omnitron), I'm basically keeping alive 2-3 groups with AoE heals and renews, not single target healing, so even if I could cast flash heal indefinitely it still wouldn't be enough HPS for the raid. In fact Omnitron is the only fight of the three where I do much single target healing at all and switch to serenity, most of the time it's prayer of healing/mending. That's just the damage profile of those fights so far ... indeed it will be hard to assess specific needs before I see all 12 encounters. I'll certainly know more next week as we need more time for the slow levelers to gear up.

I'm also very curious if anyone has found much use for Sanctuary yet ... so far the spell is a bust to me.

### #57 Fricassee

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 07:00 PM

SoL provides a small amount of utility in addition to the MP5 buff. In the cases where Heal is enough to keep the tank/raid up, you can use the SoL proc with HW:Serenity and PoM to reposition without stopping heals or resorting to Renew spam.

Although, the big complaint I have with SoL is that the buff only lasts for 10 seconds. It's utility works better when you can save it for the right moment, but currently it ends up being more of a "use it or lose it" buff.

### #58 Feralminded

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 07:05 PM

SoL provides a small amount of utility in addition to the MP5 buff. In the cases where Heal is enough to keep the tank/raid up, you can use the SoL proc with HW:Serenity and PoM to reposition without stopping heals or resorting to Renew spam.

Although, the big complaint I have with SoL is that the buff only lasts for 10 seconds. It's utility works better when you can save it for the right moment, but currently it ends up being more of a "use it or lose it" buff.

I only have 1 point in SoL as I couldn't find room for 2 but I will say even though the proc is rare I never fail to find a use for it. Effectively when I get a proc I look at it as a ~50k heal in ~3 seconds for ~5k mana as I inevitably follow it up with the 1-serendipity stack greater heal. This works out pretty well as that's a very nice bump in throughput that you sometimes need to catch up on the tougher heroic encounters.

But it is indeed underwhelming and worse, random. If I did more tank healing I might like it more but right now my raid healing utilities are so good that I'm probably going to be doing that for the foreseeable future.

### #59 tedv

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 07:09 PM

I only have 1 point in SoL as I couldn't find room for 2 but I will say even though the proc is rare I never fail to find a use for it.

Cut Desperate Prayer and Spirit of Redemption to max out Surge of Light and Body and Soul.

### #60 Kilborne

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Posted 17 December 2010 - 07:31 PM

I only have 1 point in SoL as I couldn't find room for 2 but I will say even though the proc is rare I never fail to find a use for it.

Oh, it is far from useless. My only point is that is isn't a simple math equation to compare it to other talents. Free healing is free healing, but what is the mana value of that healing? If you are in a situation where you are casting heal, then there isn't a lot of critical healing going on, so I feel that is a misrepresentation to 'value' the SoL proc at the full mana cost of an extremely inefficient flash heal. The only time that would be valid is when you get a proc right before a high movement or high damage phase, it which you would have used a flash heal. Due to the random, and low, proc rate, this will be a rare event.

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