Priest Discussion

Discussion about the Priest class.

Deciding Who Gets to Pick IDS

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Candle

Image courtesy of alexkalina

When Priests get to the upper echelon of raiding, they’re going to eventually run into one extremely important question. It’s pointless to have more than one Priest pick up Improved Divine Spirit. Joveta did an excellent feature showcasing the differences between the two specs. I’m not here to regurgitate what she illustrated. I’m here to help you decide which lucky monkey gets to go IDS.

The Supremes is a raiding Guild with 3 Priests, 4 Mages, and a handful of Resto Druids. It also has miscellaneous DPS.

Raid times:

  • Tuesday, 4 hours, farm content
  • Thursday, 4 hours, farm content
  • Sunday, 7 hours, progression content

Let’s assume you’ve got 3 Priests:

  • Steve McQueen: Always shows up, never missed a raid, sports 2350 healing
  • Stevie Wonder: Can only commit to 2 of the 3 raiding days, sports 2100+ healing
  • Steve Harvey: Able to only come on the last raiding day that Wonder isn’t able to attend, sports 2100 healing

Optimizing for Time

When you’re deep into raiding, it’s either CoH or IDS. You don’t need more than one IDS. From this perspective, you want to pick the most stable Priest who is able to come every day. This will ensure that every raid you go into has the IDS buff. This is the best bet since raids will go that much quicker. Just look at Joveta’s post for all the numbers. Go with Steve McQueen for guaranteed IDS.

Optimizing for Performance

On the other hand, one would argue that farm content doesn’t necessarily need IDS at all. By making Steve McQueen pickup IDS, his healing output does get slightly diminished. Another solution is to make Steve Harvey go IDS. This ensures that progression night raids will have the buff. If you really want to pick things up, you can ask Stevie Wonder and Steve Harvey to grab IDS. This way, you don’t handcuff Steve McQueen’s all star performance.

Picking out volunteers for IDS is never easy. I’ve rarely ever encountered an individual who wanted to do IDS. I myself had to respec IDS because our Priest corps is no longer as stable as it once was. One of them took off for college, the other’s having computer issues. I’m the current lynchpin Priest and I swallowed an extremely bitter pill in order to pick up IDS knowing that our floater Priests can stay IDS.

Anyway, there’s many ways to pick out who should get IDS. If you happen to have a Priest who wants the job, by all means let ’em have at it! If not, I highly suggest coin tossing as an alternative. I hear dice rolling is an excellent choice as well. Now dart throwing is a revolutionary way to make decisions as is bottle spinning…

Death and the Priest

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bad-title

This week, we were given the option of a freestyle post.  I’m sticking with that, though I am using one of the topics presented in the competition to do it.  Matt, I’m sorry but I totally disagree with you when you advocate letting your dark side out and forcing a wipe. 

So Who Calls It?

Wipes happen, every group has been there.  It may be due to a bad pull, lack of focus, or simply the process of learning a fight.  It sucks, and can feel like a waste of time.  However, it is not the job of anyone other than the raid leader to determine when it is time to throw in the towel.  The raid leader is the person you agreed to listen to in raid, they are the person you hopefully trust to tell you what to do.  I’m not advocating a blind following of everything said to where you forget your own common sense, but the authority of the raid leader is totally undermined if one of the 24 other people in the group go over his head and make these decisions without him.  If you think it’s hopeless, poke the raid leader to call it, don’t make that decision yourself.  If you are making that decision, you need to ask yourself why, if you’re not going to let him lead, is he the raid leader at all?

Why not call it?

There are really only two kinds of wipes out there; the wipes that happen on farm content because of fluke or lack of attention, and the wipes that happen while you’re in some stage of learning a fight.  In neither of those instances are early problems reason to give up immediately. 

Everyone has experienced the shaky pull, where you lose one healer and a dps or two fairly early on, and still manage to beat it.  We’ve had Bloodboil on farm for months, every week is a one-shot.  But last night, we were running with 7 healers (where we usually run with 8 ) and lost one early on to Fel Rage (he was picking through the healing crew) bringing us down to 6.  It was stressful and crazy.  Then one of our warlocks got double-boiled because someone else hadn’t been paying attention.  You guessed it, he was the next Fel Rage target and died.  Bloodboil turned and Acid Breathed the tanks, costing us two of them.  With our highest-aggro mages and warlocks “off-tanking,” we still brought him down from 20% to dead with only our pally tank up.  It was a slow kill, but it would have wasted more time to wipe, rez/run back, and start all over from the beginning.  Problems are not a guaranteed wipe. 

As for giving up early while learning content, well, why show up to begin with?  Most bosses are not the type which look at you and fall over, offering up their shiny loot because you scare them so much.  Learning a boss can be hard!  You can spend weeks, 5, 10, 15 wipes, just trying to get a boss down once.  My raid group is currently working on Kalecgos.  It’s going slow, it’s frustrating, and it’s mainly due to the expansionitis that most raid groups are facing.  We don’t call it when the first healer dies.  We don’t even call it when the first tank dies, when we know it’s a guaranteed wipe at that point.  We still need the practice on when to move, keeping our portal rotation, where to stand, how to manage the details of the fight.  There’s a lot of learning that can be accomplished by pushing forward, even if you know you’re not going to win.  If you give up at the first sign of trouble, you are never going to improve.

Things to remember

  1. Discreetly forcing a wipe just means you have something to hide.  If you have something to hide, why are you doing this in the first place?
  2. Playing this off as an innocent mistake means you know you’re in the wrong and are looking for plausible deniability.
  3. Communication is key, as is trust.  Forcing a wipe totally ignores both of these things.

In short, if you have a problem, or things look dire, talk to your raid leader, don’t take over his job yourself.

The Mana Efficient Priest

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mana-efficient 
Image courtesy of Xanderalex What do you think mana-pots taste like, anyway? I vote for blue-raspberry kool-aid.

Note: I wrote this piece BEFORE the news announcement about down-ranking spells in WotLK. I anticipate that this will make a tremendous impact on mana-regen, along with the possibility of debuffs like Potion Sickness, and I look forward to finding out how new talents like Serendipity help mitigate this situation. (I’m not specc’d into Serendipity right now on the Beta, mostly because Matt says it doesn’t work yet.)

In the 2.4 game mechanics, mana-regen for any class whose relevant stats include spirit is nothing short of phenomenal. Still, some of my colleagues occasionally have trouble making it through particularly intense fights with only self-sufficient regen tools. I’m of the philosophy that in most situations, Holy Priests can and should keep their own mana up just fine. If you are having trouble doing that, here are some troubleshooting tips for improving your own self-sufficiency:

When You’re The Problem
  • Forgetting your CD (cooldown) rotation. Do you wait to take a Mana Pot until you’re nearly out of mana? Do you keep an eye on your Trinket, Shadow Fiend, and Inner Focus cooldowns and use them all to their fullest potential? Be honest with yourself, and if you know you could be getting more out of your built-in tools, either find a mod to monitor them for you, or move them to a more visible portion of your UI.
  • Over-extending yourself. If your assignment is to heal parties 3 & 4, but you find yourself topping off the tanks and sneaking heals onto the melee, you’re probably just trying to give your best effort to your raid – and that impulse is good. What’s NOT good is that you’re under-serving the players you’re supposed to be protecting – and if they take sudden damage while you’re in the middle of casting a heal, even as a best-case scenario they’ll have to wait at least a 1.5 second cast or a GCD to get the heal that they’re supposed to be getting from you. This means some other healer is probably going to have to pick up YOUR slack. Even if you’re carefully monitoring your assignment, healing where you’re not supposed to gives an unrealistic experience to the healers that you’re “helping.” Sure, you know that FoL-spamming isn’t enough to keep up the MT, but that loladin that’s supposed to keep him alive will never figure it out if you keep sprinkling in ProM, G.heals, and Renews. You’re robbing him, and your guild, of that Pally’s chance to become a better healer.
  • Improper gear optimization. Let’s face it, no one cares that your Greater Heal will hit for an average of 6k if you’re oom and can’t cast it. You don’t need 2,000 unbuffed +healing to heal Karazhan. (Or Kael, for that matter, and I have screenshots to prove it.) No matter what level of content you’ve reached, continuing to stack +heal after being fully capable of healing the incoming damage for your current raid content comes at the expense of other stats. This means objectively evaluating the stats YOU need for gems, enchants, or on relatively equivalent pieces of gear. (For example, T6 offers two healing staves – the Apostle of Argus (Archimonde) or the Staff of Immaculate Recovery (Bloodboil). The Apostle has more +heal, but the IR has balanced Spirit and Mp5. You need to be able to decide which stats will make the greatest impact on your gameplay.)
  • Poor consumables. Raiding isn’t cheap. If you don’t want to spend the money on the best enchants, gems, and consumables you shouldn’t be running end-game content. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be playing WoW, just that you need to find some other less resource-intensive passion within the game. Know what your options are, and don’t try to cheap out. The repair bills and nights of frustration end up being more expensive, anyway. So if the flasks you should be using are pre-BC, and the food you need to eat is rare, and the pots you ought to use don’t come from a freebie quest reward…. Suck it up, use the premium consumables, and see what a difference a few little things will make in your mana-return.
  • Overhealing. If you don’t downrank your spells, you’re burning extra mana. There is absolutely no reason to cast a 6k heal on someone taking 1k hits who is only missing 2k health. Overshoot it by the incoming 1k damage, throw a 3k heal on them, and spend the 2-300 mana you just saved on someone else.
When Something Else Is The Problem
  • Poor class make up for the fight. Because Priests CAN do any healing job, frequently the burdens of under- or incorrect staffing fall on our shoulders. We’re the only class who can always pick up the slack. There’s not much you can do about this during a raid, but afterwards, approach your healing leader, raid leader, or GM with solutions – Maybe a healer-friend who would be an excellent addition to the roster, or a positioning strategy that would help lessen the strain.
  • Poor group composition. Some fights, until you gear-soak a bit, you really just need a mana battery. If you don’t have a Shadow Priest, or a Shaman with a Mana-totem, ask for one. Check around with friends who have done the same fight, and see if they’re getting some kind of support that you’re not.
  • Re-speccing. I’m assuming you’re a Priest as you read this. If your guild can’t decide whether you should be Improved Spirit or CoH, know that both healing-styles are different enough to affect your mana regen. Auz over at ChickGM is a dyed-in-the-wool IDS priest, and averages 65% of her time in the 5SR. As CoH Spec, I spend upwards of 85% of my time “casting.” That is a HUGE difference in non-casting mana regen, and makes Mp5 more valuable to me as a stat than it is to Auz, EVEN THOUGH WE’RE BOTH HOLY PRIESTS. You can’t control wishy-washy raid leadership, but keep a couple extra trinkets and consumables to swap around to make sure you’re good to go no matter which way they tell you to Spec.
How To Fix It
  • Train yourself. Don’t do this on a progression run, but learn how to wean yourself off the crutches: Instruct your Druids that they should use their innervates for themselves. Ask for a Mage to be given your spot in the S.priest group. (Added bonus! Your Mage-buddy will love you!) Bring smaller mana pots, and use them as you would the Supers – you stay in the habit of burning your cooldown, but get used to operating with less mana. Swap your trinkets out for less-helpful ones. (Keep them similar, so you keep in the habit of popping them.) Or just swap your trinkets in general – maybe the proc from the Bangle is worth more than the extra 170 Spirit use from the Earring.
  • Use mods that keep track of how much time you spend “casting” and learn how to maximize your inherent regen. (My favorite is RegenFu, but it requires FuBar to work.)
  • Chain your abilities. When you get a Clearcast proc, use it, and follow up with an Inner Focus – If both are used with 3-second casts, and followed up with a stop-casting macro, you can buy a lot of oo5sr time without abandoning your job.
  • Fix your broken gear. I don’t mean repairs (but check that, too!) Do the research and spend the money to make sure that your gear is fully optimized. No common gems, no cheap enchants. Make the most of what you have.
  • Know your capabilities. Test on your own to know what your current gear can do when pushed to its max. Swap an item or trinket and test again. Research and find out what other Priests are capable of doing.

It’s not that you’ll never need any outside support to maintain your mana pool. If a lot of healers have died, or you started out short-handed, or you’re truly under-geared for your content, you could need some help. Obviously, Vampiric Touch, Mana Tide, and Innervate are in the game for a reason. The idea isn’t that you should never need them, just that if you always rely on them, you’re cheating yourself and your raid out of the exceptional contributions that you can make, not to mention hogging resources that could go to other players.

Luv,
Wyn

BETA: The Dawning of the Death of Downranking

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Image courtesy of deboer

A blue post has yielded valuable information that will change the way we heal:

This is not a bug.

In the latest WotLK beta push, we made a large change to the mana cost of spells.

All player spells now cost a percentage of base mana rather than a fixed cost. Base mana is a special value determined by the player’s level and class, regardless of any effects or items that increase intellect. It is the size of a player’s mana pool if the player has zero intellect.

This change was made primarily to prevent downranking, as it’s a technique that was never quite intended. Rather than continue to find ways to penalize players for casting low-rank spells, we decided to essentially make doing so obsolete. If rank 5 and rank 6 of a spell cost the same amount of mana, but rank 6 does more damage/healing, then there is no reason to consider casting rank 5.

So, each spell line (eg. Frostbolt, Shadowbolt, Greater Heal, Rejuvenation, etc.) has a fixed percentage of base mana that it costs for most of its ranks. That means each time a player gains a level the cost will go up some. The percentages were picked to attempt to keep the costs relatively similar to what they are currently in World of Warcraft. For most spells, that percentage will drop some when the player receives their highest-rank spell in existing Burning Crusade content. This was done to better fit the existing cost curve, and to keep the mana cost for level 70 players as close as possible to existing costs. Level 70 characters will see most of their maximum rank spells change in cost slightly up or down, but not by significant amounts.

We anticipate there being some balance concerns due to this change, and our development staff will be ready to implement new spells, abilities, or talents to resolve those issues as the testing process continues.

Zarhym

Old and busted

In the past, downranking our heals served primarily as a way for Priests to maintain mana as much as possible. Why spend almost 500 mana to cast a Flash Heal when a rank 2 Greater Heal that costs 210 mana does the same? Okay, sure, I stretched the cost slightly, but not by much. But I trust you get the idea.

Between downranking, chain-potting, trinkets, talents, spells, and other abilities, getting mana back was like tapping into the oil sands in Alberta for gas. There’d be enough to fuel one person for a long time.

The new hotness

Your max rank spell now costs more than a down ranked spell. My max rank Greater Heal cost me ~750 mana and all of my downrank spells cost ~860. The big question going into the expansion right now is how mana regeneration will function in raids. Chain potting has been nerfed big time with that debuff (although the debuff itself no longer appears, I’ve heard scattered reports that the debuff itself is present. It just doesn’t show up on the buff bar. Downranking now removes another form for casters and healers to conserve mana.

So what’s left?

  • Trinkets
  • Abilities
  • Gear
  • Tuned encounters

Trinkets, talents and abilities are simple no brainers. Gear is going to be jaw droppingly and fist pumpingly awesome. I’m anticipating about 110 spirit and 150 intellect on level 80 epic items. That will help increase our ability to regenerate mana yes. To counteract this effect, our spell prices will also increase once we’re at level 80.

I suspect raid compositions and raid specs will shift slightly from a DPS optimization build towards raid mana endurance. An example would be bringing classes that can help restore mana (Shamans, Druids, Shadow Priests, etc).

The last thing now is to ensure that the encounters in the game are at a bar high enough to present a challenge and low enough that it can be reached by the dedicated and the few (at least early on before it understandably becomes nerfed).

We are now at the mercy of Blizzard.

Halfway through level 71. My new job is keeping me busy on the weekdays. I cannot blog, raid, beta, and work at the same time! Need to max out time management skill to 300!

Mass Resurrection? More Like Mass OP!

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Mass Resurrection: Wow. Now Paladins have more of a reason to DI Priests, AMIRITE?

Cost: 76% of base mana
Range: 50 yards
Cast time: 1.5 seconds

That’s redonkulous! I have a big time feeling the cast time will get nerfed. But maybe not. Time to download the beta build and check it out!

Also coming up tomorrow morning, my thoughts on downranking and its effect on Priests (did I use the right “it’s”? Goddamnit this happens every time).

Edit: Forgot to add, thanks Breana!

Edit: Fixed. When in doubt, if you could say “it is” use the contraction “it’s” to mark the removed space and letter i. If it’s not two words, you don’t need the apostrophe. Thanks to everyone who caught it before I could pull it up at work. Luv, Wyn