Shadowlands

Flash Concentration and How to Use It

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Going into Shadowlands, it seemed universally agreed upon that the Harmonius Apparatus was going to be the top throughput legendary for Holy Priests. Who doesn’t want Holy Word spells getting further cooldown reduction and indirectly feeding Holy Word: Salvation, right?

It wasn’t when I started trying to heal in mythic dungeons that I felt I was struggling more than most compared to Shamans and Druids (as usual). I considered Flash Concentration (or FC), though I was skeptical about it at first until I received a few recommendations about it. After a few dungeons and select raid bosses, I am now a believer.

Flash Concentration is a great pick among Holy Priest legendaries. It slots in either your wrist or neck slot. I selected the wrist slot for mine so I could apply a +15 Intellect enchant to it.

Each time you cast Flash Heal, Has its casting time reduced by 0.2 sec and healing increased by 3%, stacking up to 5 times.

For some reason, when I read that, I interpreted that it would apply only to your next Heal. That’s not what happens though. The FC buff lasts for 15 seconds. For that window, your Heal cast time is 1 second less which puts it as the same cast time as a Flash Heal and increases the healing throughput of it. You can squeeze off about 9 consecutive casts of Heal before having to hit Flash Heal to refresh it. Last week’s Fortified affixes included Grievous which was a struggle to heal through but having FC completely trivialized it.

Usage in dungeons

My talent setup

There is wiggle room. Shining Force gets the nod over Censure during a week like Necrotic where the slow and knockback can help your tanks shake off their stacks. I personally like Censure in most cases (largely because I’m not great in my Shining Force usage).

Depending on your dungeon layouts, Benediction is often the better move because you don’t need to fret about accidentally pulling an unintentional mob pack with Divine Star or Halo.

With the last row, you can make a case for Light of the Naaru or Apotheosis. I prefer Apotheosis just because of the on-demand reset for Holy Words in case something accidentally happens. This is my pug dungeon insurance. If I’m running with my guild or other players that I know consistently, I’ll convert over to Light of the Naaru instead.

Tip: Keep Mind Soothe handy. I’ve found it to be great when trying to get around certain packs.

Usage in raids

My talent setup

This is a slightly different setup for FC in raids. Enlightenment is now a necessity due to the increased time spent on the encounter. Cosmic Ripple gets you some increased passive healing. Censure or Shining Force is dependent on the encounter. Surge of Light continues to be valuable here to help maintain your FC stacks (otherwise I would just have Prayer Circle active). Halo is the main selection but there is merit to Benediction for certain encounters (like Huntsman and not breaking crowd control).

By default, I’ll keep Harmonius Apparatus equipped. For progression, I’ve got my awesome X’anshi, Return of Archbishop Benedictus pants! We’ll talk about that later though.

There are a few bosses in Castle Nathria where FC shines. If you’re working on progressing through Huntsman Altimor, I recommend using it. During Bargast, if your tank isn’t at full, a fully empowered Heal can help restore the Rip Soul spirits to full health quite quickly. It can top up your 3 players that have been hit with a Sinseeker.

On Mythic, it becomes even more crucial as there are more Rip Soul spirits that spawn off the Sinseeker targets. Whatever Holy Word: Sanctuary doesn’t catch, Flash Heal and Heal will finish off.

If you really want to have some fun, put this on when you’re about to start Sun King’s Salvation. Grab a healing orb, hit Kael with a Guardian Spirit, and start bombing away with Flash Heal and Heal. You will phase him into the Shade in no time.

WeakAuras

I recommend using this Weak Aura to track FC. It doesn’t take up a lot of space and it comes with audio cues for time remaining on FC before it needs a Flash Heal refresh. Mine is positioned above my frames. You can see a Surge of Light weak aura right next to it (Thanks, Kyu!).

If you’re Holy, I can’t recommend using Flash Concentration enough for dungeons and pushing keys. I doubt it’ll make us crazy competitive at the high level but it’ll be more than enough to help get us through some of the affixes coming out. The cast sequencing does take a bit of time to get used to. I admit, I’ve let my fair share of FC stacks drop and really unfortunate times.

Don’t Ask your Guild about Shadowlands

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(No story spoilers)

I missed writing. But between raiding, orchestra practice, and the esports job, something had to give and it was blogging. Though with the current states of affairs going on in the world right now, I find myself with a little more time than usual. Dusted off the site and applied some paint to give it some more life. I’m going to need to dive deeper into the rest of the archives though to see if anything broke.

How about you? How’ve you all been? Take care of yourselves (and each other) out there.

Shadowlands

If you’re like any other guild and you ask them their thoughts on Shadowlands, I guarantee you the consensus you’re going to receive is that it is literally going to be the worst WoW expansion ever. Some of the reasons include:

  • Covenants are going to make everything so imbalanced.
  • Literally every class is going to be overpowered.
  • There is clearly no testing going on.
  • There is a mission table (still).
  • Rogues exist (still).

I’m telling you, Shadowlands is going to be the best expansion (for Holy Priests)! As I was huffing around beta, I jumped into a dungeon queue. Bless that 2 minute healing queue which is both a blessing and a curse. If you ever want to feel pressure, it’s setting up your keybinds via the default system UI, dragging spells out of your spellbook, and configuring talents whilst keeping your party alive.

Everyone’s been all over Discipline in this expansion and Holy Priests are like that forgotten lip balm you have tucked in your drawer somewhere. Prayer of Mending is instant cast. Casting Circle of Healing can reduce the cast time of your next Prayer of Healing (via talent Prayer Circle). The resurrect cloak from Legion has returned in some fashion. Power Word: Shield can be spammed again across the party. I can access Power Infusion (take a number, stand in line)! I am quite delighted with where the class is at right now. Are we going to be throughput monsters in Shadowlands? That’ll most likely be a hard no. Holy was always designed to be above average to good at everything but I know we’ll never excel at one thing.

There is no way I can contain my giddyness. There is going to be a boss somewhere that involves some kind of soak mechanic or else the raid is going to wipe. Obviously, it’s going to go to some Ice Blocking Mage or a Bubbling Paladin first. But there will come a time when the raid leader will say, “Matticus, we’re out of options. You know what to do.” and I will gladly take a dive in the name of progression!

Seriously though, it does seem like my guild has a giant, dark cloud looming over them. I wish I could snap them out of it but I don’t know how. My worry is that they’ll be so demoralized to the point where they want to quit the game. Then what am I going to do? I’d have to go look for another guild to raid with again :(. I understand how seemingly inflexible covenants can be but to Blizzard’s credit, they’ve actually come out and said they’re prepared to allow for ease of use for switching if the system is deemed unsalvageable. I can’t remember the last time the dev team openly saying something like that about a new system they’re shipping with an expansion. So in a way, the acknowledgement is a step in some direction.

Other news

  • We cleared Mythic N’zoth (316 pulls).
  • Reached Platinum 1 in Valorant.
  • My vibrato technique continues to be non-existent.
  • I haven’t cut my hair since January.