Reflections From The Pond

Posts Tagged ‘priest’

So, my shaman Larue dinged 70 recently and have been trying out the Resto way for a little while. I have been healing mostly on my priest and a little dabbling on the side in the druid way of healing while still specced feral. In short, I have healed very little on my shaman, and while there are many similarities to the priestly way of doing it, there are also differences and it takes some getting used to.

A brief spell comparison
(Casts times with talents, mana costs without talents, healing amount without heal bonuses, spells or effects from set bonuses, trinkets and similar not included)

Slow large heal
Priests have Greater Heal, 2,5 secs cast, 825 mana, heals for about 2550, while shamans have a similar ability, Healing Wave, 2.5 secs cast, 720 mana, heals for about 2300.

Faster smaller heal
Flash Heal for priests, 1.5 secs cast, 470 mana, heals for about 1200. Lesser Healing Wave for shamans, 1.5 secs cast, 440 mana, heals for about 1100, so not much difference here either.

HoTs
Priests have Renew, instant cast, 450 mana, ticks for 222 heals every 3 seconds (about 255 with Improved Renew)

A draenei shaman has the racial ability Gift of the Naaru, which has a 1.5 secs cast, costs no mana and heals for (your level * 15 + 35) damage in total over 15 secs, which for a level 70 character means 217 heal every 3 seconds. This spell has a 3 min cd, which makes it marginally useful unless you have some way of remembering that its cd is up and its available for use.

Shamans also have Healing Stream totems, which can be considered a form of HoT as long as the group members stay in range of it (within 30 yards if the shaman has the talent Totemic Mastery). The Healing Stream costs 90 mana to pop and heals 18 damage (23 with Restorative Totems) every 2 seconds for 2 minutes. (Its not as low as it seems, Larue’s current heal bonus of 931 makes this totem heal 81 damage every 2 seconds.)However, this totem can’t be used at the same time as Mana Spring totem though, they both use the water totem.

Group heals
Priests have Prayer of Healing and (if specced for it) Circle of Healing. PoH has a cast time of 2.5 secs, heals group members within 30 yards of the priest for about 1000 and costs 1070 mana. CoH is instant, heals the target and group members within 15 yards of her (not the casting priest) for about 430 and costs 450 mana.

Shamans have Chain Heal, their white lazer beam heal with a 2.5 secs cast that heals up to three targets for about 900, 450 and 225 respectively (1080, 540 and 275 with Improved Chain heal) for a cost of 540 mana.

On-damage heals
Priests have Prayer of Mending, an instant spell that for 390 mana throws a frisbee to her target. When the target takes damage the frisbee heals her for 800 damage and then jumps to another group member within 20 yards.

Shamans place an instant cast Earth Shield on their target. The shield is instant cast, costs 450 mana and stays on the target with 6 charges that heals for 270 every time the target gets hit.

Oh-shit heals
When that oh-shit moment turns up, a priest pops a Power Word: Shield on the target, quickly followed by a Flash Heal or if time permits, a Greater Heal.

When a shaman needs an emergency heal, she pops Nature’s Blessing, followed by presumably a Healing Wave.

Aggro dumps
A priest has Fade, which drops her aggro level for 10 seconds, and by the time Fade fades, someone else usually has worked up enough aggro to keep the mob from going for the priest again.

A shaman has a Tranquil Air totem that she can pop. However, since this affects the entire group within range (30 yards if you have the talent Totemic Mastery) it’s usefulness is very limited.

Luckily, since a shaman can wear mail she usually can take a little beating before she goes down, which hopefully gives the tank or other enough time to re-establish aggro. (As a comparison, my freshly dinged shaman in greens and blues has 7200 armor whilme my epicced-out priest has 1500).

Mana preservation and regeneration
Mana regeneration for both priests and shamans at lvl 70 are calculated in the same way. Priests have a talent, Meditation, that allows 30% of this mana regeneration to keep going while they cast. Shamans have a somewhat similar talent, Unrelenting Storm, but this is deep in the Elemental tree and out of reach for a Resto shaman.

Priests have the talent Inner Focus that gives you a free spell cast every three minutes, and also a talent Holy Concentration that may give you another freebie.

A talent in the Discipline tree, Divine Spirit, also gives a buff that improves the priest’s Spirit-based mana regeneration, and the Improved version also increases the healing bonus. (This talent requires at least 21 points (23 for the Improved version) so if you choose this one you can’t have the Circle of Healing from the Holy tree)

Priests also have a Shadowfiend, a pet on a 5 minute cooldown that gives the priest mana back when the pet deals damage.

Shamans have no talents for mana-free spellcasts but they have a Mana Spring totem, that for a measly 120 mana pops a totem that with Restorative Totems will replenish 2800 mana for the 2 minutes its up.

Resto shamans also get the Mana Tide totem, which has a 5 minute cd like the Shadowfiend and gives mana back to all group members withing range.

Cleansing
Priests can Cure Disease and Abolish Disease (for those nasty mobs that keep contaminating people), they can Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel (extra powahful area dispell)

Shamans can Cure Disease and pop a Disease Cleansing Totem when hanging around unwashed mobs crawling with germs. They can also Purge mobs, but can’t dispel magic effects from friends. They can however Cure Poison and use Poison Cleansing Totems.

Fun-ness
I have been healing on my priest for so long now I can probably do it in my sleep (but don’t tell my fellow raiders I do this! ;P) and I still enjoy it. There are certainly still things to learn and ways to improve, but overall I am pretty happy with my priest at the moment. I will not bring her to Karazhan anymore because that probably would make me fall asleep, although she still could use some of the drops in there I have been there too many times to find it even remotely fun on my priest. I save the ZA and 25-man runs for Jools, that is where I enjoy playing her the most.

Shaman healins is not yet as instinctive but it’s novel and fresh and although there are many similarities it is different enough to be interesting, and I am really looking forward to honing her skills and abilities in normal and heroic 5-mans and it would be great fun to take her to Karazhan.

The day was bright and clear on Sporeggar (EU) as the gnomes and dwarves started gathering in Dun Morogh to join in that once-in-a-lifetime-event-Turpster-Dingstravaganza, the killing of the Turpster (lvl 69 undead Priest) by the armies of the Turpies!

Some were more prepared than others…

And looking stylish is no excuse for not gearing up!

 Some were trying to deter us from our goal by a pitiful attempt at annihilating us before we got started…

 But we laughed at them and gathered up outside the cave of the Turpster, forming an orderly line…

Some were taking the opportunity to try and score more than a boss kill though ;P

And even as we waited we had to clear some trash respawns…

… and the gnome ghost train was running back to the cave.

 When the event started we were 175 members in the guild the Turpies, none of us above lvl 6, + an assorted bunch of trial account raiders who could not be invited to the guild. We were easily more than 200 people waiting to assault the Turpster.

Time to go! We ran into the lair of the Turpster!

NOT a good idea to press CTRL-V!

I had my healbot configured to my two healing spells, Lesser Heal (Rank 2) and Lesser Heal (Rank 1).

Under the massive onslaught of the Turpies the Turpster was going down!

After this unique world first kill (SK Gaming eat our shorts! ;P) we all headed to IF to watch the Big T ding 70.

Some confusion arose as to where the actual ding would take place, and sadly I got to the SW tram station only in time to see the newly dinged Turpster hearthstone away :-(

Gratz to the Turpies for downing this imba boss, and gratz Turpster to your 70-ding!

It was a great event, and I would not have missed it for the world!

For more pictures (including one of the actual ding) visit Yet Another Warlock Nerf, or for a video of the event itself check out the Dingstravaganza at YouTube.

This here is Tessytoots, prepping for the Turpster Dingstravaganza on Saturday night. Prepping is easy in this case, all she has to do is ding lvl 6 and be ready for the appearance of the Big T.

I created Tessytoots and logged in on Sporeggar Friday afternoon, and to my delight I found out that there was a beta test coming up!

The Turpster showed up, dressed in rags, and the valiant members of the guild the Turpies immediately set upon him!

We gathered in numbers and the big ugly was soon overwhelmed by our determination and skillful attacks on him!

He was going dooown!

But the cunning one had a few more trick up his sleeve! He summoned an add! And ouch, Holy Nova hurts!

But in the end, the Turpies emerged victoriously!

The Big T showed up for a few more tests, and the main event is to take place tonight, Saturday June 14th, after the LIVE WoW Insider Show (3:30pm EST/8:30pm GMT), at around 4:45pm EST/9:45pm GMT.

When I logged out last night, Tessytoots being lvl 5,5, the Turpies had 70 members, none of them above lvl 6. I have no doubt that the Turpster will go down bigtime tomorrow and it will be a spectacular event!

Be there!

I don’t need both my hands to count the times I have used Shadow Word: Death. I have never understood what’s so great about it, and I figured it’s about time that I do.

So what is it? Tooltip says

Hmm a word of dark binding that inflicts about 620 Shadow damage to the target, with the added twist that if this does not kill the mob, the priest that cast it will get hurt for that very same amount.

When to use it
Uses I have found for it in PvE while trolling dah intarnet includes:

- Stopping a runner with an insta-cast spell, just make sure that it will kill the mob since you will get hurt yourself otherwise, and the 12 sec cd makes you unable to spam it even if you have enough health left to risk that.

- Tag mobs when farming. The Shadow Word: Pain ticks don’t set in at once and other players can steal your mob.

- Suicide by SW:D in wipe situations since you take no durability damage if you kill yourself.

- Shadow priests can get a large amount of healing from SW:D’ing a mob that has Vampiric Embrace on it, even though the Word does not kill the mob it seems very useful in raids.

- Holy priests can use it to pass on Prayer of Mending, since the PoM will jump to the tank or another player as it heals you when from the backlash of SW:D.

This is actually a truly imba use for a holy priest and I wonder why I have never thought or heard of it before. Example:

Jools in her healing gear has 597 bonus spell damage, so the total damage from a non-crit SW:D will be about 875.

She also has about 1455 bonus healing, so she will get about 625 extra healing to the PoM’s 800 base healing, or a total of 1425.

The PoM will thus heal her for more than the SW:D damages her. And since her Holy crit is about 5 % larger than her Shadow crit, the chance of getting a PoM crit is also larger than the chance of getting a SW:D crit.

The cost for the SW:D is 309, but Jools has the talent Mental Agility, so she only spends 278 mana on it. Putting out a new PoM would have cost 351 mana (or 390 for the untalented ones).

When not to use it

- The Curator fight. Killing yourself with a 300 % Shadow Word: Death crit would be a sure way to make you look naabish ;P

[Edit: After having started to write this topic I was healing in heroic Slave Pens, and now I definitely can't count the times I've used SW:D on the fingers of both my hands ;P]

The Isle of Quel’Danas is the new ganksta heaven it seems, the summoning stone more cluttered with skeletons and dead bodies than the one at Kara even. As we were trying to summon a friend here we got killed (of course) by the many sad loser hordes who should do as their parents tell them and go to bed members of the opposite faction engaging in world pvp. And as my priest Jool is specced for Improved Death of course the blue-white angel poofed up above the slaughtering scene.

And if you disagree, I am going to quote another line from Star Wars to you:

Darth Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.

And you better remember what the black-clad cyborg did to the man he was speaking to as he uttered those words… You don’t want Obi-Jools to end up Darth Jools, now do you?

(But as a side note, I am not really sure I agree with the tooltip, because (and to quote yet another character from the Star Wars movie)

Han Solo: I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit.)