discipline

Order of Operations: Surge of Light, Clearcasting, Improved Holy Concentration

by

clearcast

A question was posed this morning on the two articles I wrote on Spiritual Guidance this morning. A number of talents have been modified for Priests in the Holy tree.

If Surge of Light, Clearcasting, and Improved Holy Concentration proc, will Flash Heal eat all 3?

(Not the exact question, but the exact question was much longer which sort of leads to the same direction)

A quick examination of the talents:

Here’s an action shot of my buffs. You’d think activating all 3 (well 2) would be rare. It actually occurs more often than you’d think. So here’s the million dollar question:

What happens?

In all of my experience at beta healing, I noticed that Surge of Light gets checked first. If you cast a Flash Heal, it eats Surge of Light. Clearcasting and the 2 charges of Improved Holy Concentration remain active. The next direct heal you cast (Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal) will trigger the Clearcasting and 1 Improved Holy Concentration charge. This will result in you having only 1 Imp Holy Conc charge remaining. The next direct heal you cast will consume this.

What if we open up with a non Flash Heal spell?

Dropping Greater Heal first will activate Clearcasting and 1 Improved Holy Concentration charge. Surge of Light will still be available. Casting Greater Heal again will eat the Improved Holy Conc charge left. Lastly, Flash Heal will then trigger Surge of Light.

So to summarize, if you have Surge of Light on you and you cast Flash Heal, it will always be free and non-crit.

Things to remember

Watch your freakin’ buffs! Have your sound effects on! You should be able to recognize the distinctive chime of Clearcasting! When you hear it, dart your eyes to your buff bar and see what happens. Use up the effect that has the least amount of buff time remaining. In the shot above, since I have only 4 seconds to use Surge of Light and 10 seconds on Clearcasting, I have 3 seconds to make a decision to cast a free Flash Heal or I lose out on my freebie.

Don’t forget that Surge of Light also activates on Smite. So if you don’t have any present targets to heal at all, target the boss and slam your Smite key. It’s free!

On the other hand, if you have less time remaining on Clearcasting as opposed to Surge of Light, cast a non Flash Heal. You probably want to use Greater Heal at this point first since the Flash will be instant.

What about Inner Focus?

surge-focusI’ve noticed Inner Focus and Clearcasting be consumed at the same time after one Greater Heal.

Surge of Light also gets eaten if Inner Focus is activated. Check out the shot on the right. I was able to proc just a Surge of Light. Casting Flash Heal knocks off both Surge and Inner Focus respectively. Even though there’s a slightly increased chance to crit, I highly doubt it can due to the restrictions imposed by Surge.

Sigh. Isn’t that just we need? More things to watch for. More complications. More conditions. More ifs, ands, or buts. Gone are the days where I could mindlessly spam stuff while watching games on TV.

However, I’ve adapted. It will take some time for you to do the same (even the most veteran of Priests). I promise to do what I can to ease the transition from old school healing to that of the new hotness. 

Observations taken from beta. Could change at any time. Disclaimers own you.

BETA: Instance Discipline Talents: Did Matt Choose Right?

by

70-spec

Note: If you wish to avoid reading about beta related information, feel free to navigate away or mark this post as read.

Click the picture on the left to navigate to the Wrath WoW Head Priest talent page with my choices on it

You might be thinking to yourself upon closer inspection that this isn’t a leveling spec.

You’re right! It’s not!

My colleagues at WoW Insider asked me if I wanted to help them heal a run tonight in Utgarde Keep and I responded with an immediate yes!

As a result, I’ve picked my talents out as best I could with a strong emphasis towards the Discipline tree to find out how it plays. I’m contemplating liveblogging the run later on tonight when I go in there (it’ll be around 10 PM PST).

The Group

Warrior
Cat Druid
Hunter
Paladin
Priest

Notice that I intentionally skimped out on Power Infusion because out of the 5 classes, I’m the only caster that would be able to utilize it. I don’t think I’ll really need it at all and none of the other players will use it anyway.

Remember, this is not a leveling build. I just picked this set of talents out to try out Disc healing out of the box as a 70.

Thoughts?

Guest Post: Synergies Between a Priest and a Hunter

by

This is a guest post from Trackhoof. Check out his blog at Survival Hunters Anonymous.

Well, Matticus wanted a nice little guest post, so’s he’s gonna get one!

I felt it’d be appropriate, as he plays a priest, and I play a hunter, and I used to play a priest, to talk about the awesome, ass-kicking synergy the two classes have for each other.

We’re talking Tango and Cash, Mick and Keef, Jay and Silent Bob, Glenn Tipton and K.K Downing, Jet Li’s left foot and Jet Li’s right foot; some seriously awesome kind of teamwork that creates things that are truly awesome.

First off, you have Hunter + Healy-Priest. This is still a solid combination, but more Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston than Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone. The priest does their job, keeps everybody in good health, and makes sure they’ve all got plenty of team spirit.

The Duty of a Hunter

The Hunter, on the other hand, is the wrangler. If possible, assign a hunter to protect a priest, or any other healer, all the time; they’re amazing DPS, but even better at peeling loose mobs off healers and sending them back to the tank. While boss strategies may require a different approach than most trash pulls, if possible, have a hunter protect each healer.

Hunters have lots of high-threat abilities, but even more importantly, the ability to re-direct threat to where it needs to go; so that rogue add who’s about to smack down your priest will get popsicle’d and sent back to your sword-and-boardsman in the space of ten seconds. Priests do have Fade, and while that DOES help with aggro, it won’t help as much as a good hunter will.

By the time you have them in raids, Hunters should understand the basics of their class, but also understand their dual role as an assist; they are the kings of emergency crowd control.

If they have pets, even better. If they’re Beastmastery, you have something even better than regular crowd control; crowd control with teeth. Intimidation, Growl, and threat-building abilities will make a mob’s head spin faster than a merry-go-round with a jet engine.

Marksmen should be masters of the Scatter-trap, and Survivalists have the almighty trapping skills. Wyvern sting is not something I’d recommend for this if you need more time to bring the tank over, but if you slap a Misdirect and unload on the sucker immediately, it’ll more than do the job.

Discipline Priests

Now, second, we have Discipline priests. They have great survivability, but above rules apply. Hunter = bodyguard. But it’s like giving a bodyguard to somebody that can fend pretty well on their own, but still needs the help anyway. Like assigning Chuck Lidell to be Jean-Claude Van Damme’s bodyguard.

Shadow Priests

Finally, we have the most synergistic of the combinations: Shadow Priests and Hunters.

This is what I’m talkin’ about!

First off, Shadow Priests take less physical damage, and can still use Power Word: Shield. Score! That makes life easier for any Hunter providing emergency CC.

Secondly, they have Mind Flay. It slows the target down, and makes them easier to intercept. Psychic Scream is another good one.

Thirdly, and most crucially, they have Vampiric Touch, on top of massive amounts of pew pew. I havent done any straight-up number crunching on the subject, but trust me, the proportion of Hunters who want Shadow Priests in their raid groups for this very reason is staggering.

We, as Hunters, are mana hogs. We are the SUV’s of mana conservation. Pairing us with Shadow Priests is like driving along and having somebody fill up our tank while we’re driving. If we happen to be Survival Hunters, then that SUV just became a Hybrid.

So, in summation – Holy Priests, come with us if you want to live. Discipline Priests, we respect your crazy asses, we’re here to help. Shadow Priests, don’t waste mana. Raid with a Hunter today.

–Track