Thursday, September 30, 2010

Wowza

Hey guys! I got really behind on my video's, but I promise there will be one soon.

With the new changes to the talent trees for 4.0, I will be sure to get a video posted for that once 4.0 goes live. (I started to make one with the PTR changes, but they keep getting changed.)

I've gotten several messages via youtube to do a video on my UI/addons.  So within the next few days I hope to have a video up about that.  And you can be sure to find a video on the new talent changes within a week of 4.0 going to live servers.

On another note, I transferred my priest to the server Spirestone.  Things are going well for now... stuck on Phase 2 Lich King 25m heroic.  However, progress was made tonight so I'm happy!

Monday, August 9, 2010

Speccing a Holy Priest

The video is fairly detailed, but I couldn't fit everything in that I wanted to.  If you have questions about a specific talent, and why I take or don't take a talent feel free to scroll down the list.  I started with Disc talents I take, Disc talents to avoid.  Then Holy Talents I take, and Holy Talents to avoid. (I know the post is long, and I promise in the future the posts will be much shorter. I just feel like the spec is very important and requires a lot of information)

Talent Tree:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuZfvzcbMqihhIuVo:0dNzM0








Discipline Tree Talents 
Talents to get:
5/5: Twin Disciplines - This will increase the damage and healing done by your instant spells by 5% (This will effect your renew, empowered renew, and Circle of Healing spells)

2/2: Improved Power Word: Fortitude - This will increase the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 30%, and also increase YOUR total stamina by 4%. (This is crucial, especially for ICC. That extra 30% stamina for your raid and 4% extra for you will save many lives, I promise)

3/3: Improved Inner Fire - This will increase the effect of your Inner Fire spell by 45%, and increase the total number of charges by 12. (With this talent, your Inner Fire spell grants 3538 Armor and 174 spell power, with 32 charges. This is almost like having an additional piece of gear.  The way inner fire works, is each time you are struck with an attack it removes 1 charge.  And luckily for us, we don't get hit often in raids.)

3/3: Meditation - This allows 50% of your mana regeneration to continue wile casting. (I will talk about this a lot more in a later blog/video, but to briefly explain to you: If you press C and open up your character journal, You will see ''Mana Regen'' under the Spell Stat's tab.  There are 2 numbers listed.  The top number is your mp5 while not casting, and the bottom number is your mp5 while casting.  The top number is completely meaningless, as there are very few times where you are standing still and not casting for more than 5 seconds at a time. You want that 2nd number to be as high as possible, mine currently sits at 426 with only self buffs.)

1/1: Inner Focus - When activated, reduces the mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect.  (This ability has a 3 minute cool down.  And to be honest, I use it once every 8 minutes with Divine Hymn.  Divine Hymn is an ability that is great for those emergency situations, but it costs 2500 mana.  This will not only make it cost 0 mana, but it will increase it's crit chance. Amazing ability)


----------------


Talents to avoid:
Unbreakable Will - Reduces the duration of Stun, Fear, and Silence effects done to you by an additional 6, 12, 18, 24, 30% (This talent is not useful for raids, as there are only a few bosses who have a fear, like Blood Queen, and for that you can use fear ward.  Also, there are very few bosses with any sort of stun or silence that can't be avoided)

Silent Resolve - Reduces threat generated by your Holy and Discipline spells by 7, 14, 20% and reduces the chance that your helpful spells and damage over time effects will be dispelled by 10, 20, 30% (This is without a doubt, a fantastic PVP talent.  However, in PVE there is no reason for a healer to need a threat reduction talent.  Furthermore, there are no bosses with mechanics that can dispel your hots and dots!)

Martyrdom - Gives you a 50, 100% chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 sec after being the victim of a melee or ranged critical strike. The Focused Casting effect reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Priest spells and decreases the duration of Interrupt effects by 10, 20% (A lot of words for a fairly useless talent in PVE.  Basically it boils down to if you're getting crit, you're going to die) 

Improved Power Word: Shield - Increases the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield by 5, 10, 15% (Leave this one to the disc priests in your raid.  The Holy priest bubble has a 4 second cool down, and doesn't absorb enough to make much of a difference. 


------------------

Holy Tree Talents
Talents to get:


2/2 Healing Focus - Reduces the pushback suffered fromd amaging attacks while casting any healing spell by 35, 70%. (I didn't used to get this talent, however I now find it extremely useful, especially on fights such as HM Festergut and Rotface, because of the AoE damage that is continually going on.)


3/3 Improved Renew - Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 15%. (Definitely a winner in my books.  Renew is used quite frequently, especially in fights such as Festergut, Rotface, Blood Queen, and several others with large amounts of constant slow AoE damage)


5/5 Holy Specialization - Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 5% (I don't think this one requires much explanation.  5% Crit for the win?)


4/5 Spell Warding -  Reduces all spell damage taken by 8% (At first look, this may look like a PVP talent to you. However, there is a lot of magical damage in ICC.  Lady Deathwhisper's Ghosts and frost bolts, Gunship rockets, Festergut's Pungent Blight, etc etc.  We need to spend 4 points in this tier of the tree in order to advance as far down as we need to, I will explain later in the post why 4/5 Spell Warding trumps 4/5 Divine Fury)


1/1 Desperate Prayer Instantly heals the caster for 263 - 325. (This ability has a 2 minute cool down and is effected by your spell power.  Many times this has saved my life, especially when someone runs a ghost into me on Deathwhisper or our silly boomkin doesn't move away from me during HM Princes)


3/3 Inspiration -  Reduces your target's physical damage taken by 10% for 15 sec after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, Penance, Prayer or Mending, Prayer of Healing, or Circle of Healing spell. (Whew that's a lot of abilities! Most of which we use.  I find Inspiration an amazing talent, not only for tank healing, but for raid healing.  Marrowgar's Bonestorm is considered physical along with Saurfang's Blood Boil and others)


2/2 Holy Reach - Increases the range of your Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of your Prayer of Healing, Holy Nova, Divine Hymn, and Circle of Healing spells by 20% (Not much needs to be said here, as a holy priest you will use Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing so often, and with the way most fights work people are really spread out.)


2/2 Healing Prayers - Reduces the mana cost of your Prayer of Healing and Prayer of Mending spell by 20% (This will help from ooming you on those fights with lots of AoE damage)


1/1 Spirit of Redemption - Increases total Spirit by 5% and upon death, the priest becomes the Spirit of Redemption for 15 sec.  The Spirit of Redemption cannot move, attack, be attacked, or targeted by any spells or effects.  While in this form, the priest can cast any healing spell free of cost.  When the effect ends, the priest dies. (I don't think it has ever been argued that this talent isn't worth the point.  This could be the difference between a wipe and a sloppy finish.)


5/5 Spiritual Guidance - Increases spell power by 25% of your total spirit. (As a priest, many of our pieces of gear will have spirit on them.  This is definitely worth the 5 points) 


2/2 Surge of Light - Your spell criticals have a 50% chance to cause your next Smite or Flash Heal spell to be instant cast, cost no mana, but be incapable of a critical hit. This effect lasts 10 sec. (I once tried 1/2 Surge of Light to open up a point for something else, however I just didn't like how big of a difference it was between 25 and 50%, so I now spec 2/2)


5/5  Spiritual Healing - Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 10% (No explanation needed)


3/3 Holy Concentration - Your mana regeneration from spirit is increased by 50% for 8 seconds after you critically heal with Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, or Empowered Renew. (Great talent.  This will make the difference between you going oom, and having enough mana to finish the fight)


3/3 Blessed Resilience - Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 3%, and critical hits made against you have a 60% chance to prevent you from being critically hit again for 6 sec. (Of course the 2nd half of this talent is strictly PVP based. I had a discussion with a priest in my guild about this talent, and he thought it was worthless.  I however, believe that the 3% increased effectiveness of your heals is worth the 3 talent points)


3/5 Empowered Healing - Your Greater Heal spell gains an additional 24% and your Flash Heal and Binding Heal gain an additional 12% of your bonus healing effects. (If I had 2 extra points to fill this talent out, I would.  However, I can't see sacrificing 2 points elsewhere to put into a talent that mainly effects a spell that I don't use, Greater Heal)


3/3 Serendipity - When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell is reduced by 12%. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 20 sec. (I have seen many priests either not fill this talent out or skip it completely.  Of course, they aren't wrong.  But I think having a really quick Prayer of Healing is fantastic.  It helps for fights with constant AoE damage, and fights with burst AoE Damage like Professor Putricide. It also helps for those emergency situations when your Holy Paladin is dead waiting for a brez and you need to get a quick greater heal off on the tank)


3/3 Empowered Renew - Your Renew spell gains an additional 15% of your bonus healing effects, and your Renew will instantly heal the target for 15% of the total periodic effect. (I love this talent.  The instant 15% is addictive)


1/1 Circle of Healing - Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 343 to 379. (This spell is effected by spell power.  This spell should in theory be on cooldown all the time.  I hit my Circle of Healing just about every 6 seconds.)


5/5 Divine Providence - Increases the amount healed by Circle of Healing, Binding Heal, Holy Nova, Prayer of Healing, Divine Hymn and Prayer of Mending by 10%, and reduces the cooldown of your Prayer of Mending by 30%. (As Holy priests, we use every single one of these heals and this talent is worth all 5 points without a doubt.)


1/1 Guardian Spirit - Calls upon a guardian spirit to watch over the friendly target.  The spirit increases the healing received by the target by 40%, and also prevents the target from dying by sacrificing itself.  This sacrifice terminates the effect but heals the target of 50% of their maximum health. Lasts 10 sec. (This will save many tanks.  My only gripe about this talent is that if you use it on a Prot pally and their Ardent defender procs, it will consume your Guardian Spirit along with Ardent defender. So just keep this in mind.) 


------------------


Talents to avoid:
Divine Fury - Redues the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal, and Greater Heal spells by .1, .2, .3, .4, .5 seconds. (If there is a holy paladin in your raid, you will never use Greater Heal)


Improved Healing - Reduces the mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, Divine Hymn, and Penance spells by 5, 10, 15% (Lesser Heal and Heal are 2 spells that you will never use.  Great Heal is a spell that you won't use if there is a Holy Paladin in your raid.  Divine Hymn should be used only with Inner Focus. Penance is a spell that we don't have as holy.  I cannot stress to you enough, that if you learn ONE thing from my video or blog post, that this is the thing you learn.)


Test of Faith - Increases healing by 4, 8, 12% on friendly targets at or below 50% health. (This talent sounds very fancy, however, there are very few times when any of my raid members are at or below 50% health, and that's the way I like it.  Honestly, this talent isn't worth spending points in)


------------------
 
Useful Macro!


/Cast Inner Focus
/Cast Divine Hymn


1 Click to do 2 Jobs!