Yeah, probably. I didn’t realize that Priests were a little underpowered in the regen department. That’s one of the benefits of doing stuff in guild groups. I was getting the encounters down, but they weren’t exactly the prettiest kills. Over the previous weekend when we were grinding out the heroics, I would almost get to the of end fights with zero mana. Actually, it wasn’t uncommon for me to hit 0 mana at 10% of encounters and just tell the rest of the DPS they’re on their own because I had to dump all my spells on the tank.
I haven’t had a go with Discipline yet, but I understand there’s a few challenges with it on the heroic side of things. I want to try it out sometime on the weekend.
- Blessed Resilience now increases healing received by 15/30%, up from 5/10%.
- Focused Will now reduces damage taken by 5/10% and 10/20%, up from 4/8% and 6/12%.
- Healing done by Glyph of Dispel Magic no longer improperly caps out at a certain health pool range.
- Holy Concentration’s mana regeneration component has been increased from 10/20% to 20/40%.
- Player-controlled vehicles return an Invalid Target error when attempting to use Leap of Faith on them.
- Rapture’s mana regeneration component has been increased from 1.5/2/2.5 to 2/4/6%.
On the raiding side of things, we’ve started entering 25s and put in several legitimate shots on Halfus. Him and his drake buddies are kicking our butt. The current progression focus is going to be on him but I’ve authorized guild groups to take charge and set up their own 10 mans if they wanted to try to push for Throne of the Four Winds or Blackwing Depths. With the logs data from Argaloth and the observations on the Halfus attempts, the leadership team’s going to try to split the top 20 performing players so they can head back in on monday. I want that sucker down before Christmas. I had no illusions that were going to be able to get him down on 25 largely due to gear, inexperience and other factors. That fight changed since beta and it’s incredibly front end loaded. I think we if can just time our cooldowns a little better (we’re able to get the first drake down) and really shut down the interrupts, we should be able to get him. Nether Scion and Storm Drake are tough cookies though. Our current approach is unlocking both Nether Scion and the Emerald whelps simultaneously. The whelps are split between both tanks but they’re still getting almost insta-gibbed.
By the way, if you’re having trouble healing heroics (as in you’re not sure what to do from the healer side of things), check the YouTube channel. I’ve been trying to upload a video a day of a boss on heroic from my viewpoint and narrating what I do. Wasn’t able to get to one yesterday night since it was a raid night.
If there’s any specific ones you want to see, give me a shout here. I’ve done just about all of them except for that Lord Commander guy in Shadowfang Keep (third boss). He just keeps stoning my group.
I haven’t set foot in a raiding environment yet, and as such I’m not in a good position to judge. However, the numbers I did earlier on this did indicate that the priests were sporting expensive spells, much like the Shamans but didn’t have the same regen levels. The difference was rather big so I’m not surprised the priest is getting a little push.
I’m not real sure we needed it or not, but always welcome a buff 🙂
Since hitting 85 I’ve mostly DPS’d since we seem to be heavy on heals. I did heal a bit two nights ago, and frankly was not having a lot of fun, but figured it was more of gear and just working through a new play style. By the end of the night things were ok.
Its just hard to judge right now with how fast gear is being upgraded.
I’ve been healing heroics as discipline, and while I’ve been surprised at just how fast my mana disappears, I would also say that I’ve enjoyed the challenge.
Proper timing of Fiend and HoH, constant use of Inner Focus, and I was set. Keeping people up (namely undergeared tanks) has been very difficult, but not impossible.
To be honest, I’m thoroughly enjoying myself and once I get a chance to heal a dungeon with the buff I’ll chime back at ya on twitter or something 🙂
First raid is on the 21st, so we’ll see what happens!
Yeah, Commander Springvale rocks every group that I’ve been in as well. I’ve done plenty of fights where I end up with 80% mana at the end (because we Holy Paladins are still OP, silly Blizzard, nerfing the wrong things), but that fight? OOM 50% into the fight every time. Seriously. At least he’s skippable.
Mana has been one of my top concerns as a healer and I venture to say for all others as well. Once I hit around 1900 spirit, its been much easier for me but my GM, a holy priest, is still having mana issues. I wouldn’t put fault solely on the healers and their mana pool/regen because I feel the tanks and dps are as undergeared as we are which makes healing them that much harder.
As for Commander Springvale, more melee=more dmg because not too many people are aware of the consecrate on the ground. If the tank can move accordingly while still picking up the adds the fight becomes much easier.
Fekrh, Resto Druid, Dragonmaw
hey matticus, would it be possible to do an article on what your “rotation” is.. ok, thats probably a bad way of putting it. I just mean your most common spells in order to stay afloat. For example I’m currently finding it impossible to use flash heal because it makes me oom really early and it used to be my main spell. Same with most other single target heals, so I’m a bit stuck on what to use to target the tank when he’s running low. Also… theres a bit of of a debate around inner fire vs inner will, which would you prefer. 15% less mana or a stronger heal. Sounds like it will balance out to me which makes it seem like it doesnt matter.
Anyway, would like to hear how your healing style has changed.
I’ll try to shoot a video.
Seconded! I just hit 85 and am starting to heal heroics, but was using too many expensive spells and running oom way too fast. I feel like I still need to get adjusted to the new healing style, but as of now I’m a bit paranoid about using any other spell other than heal because I want to delay hitting oom as much as possible.
I’m not seeing that these buffs are reflected in the game yet. I’m specifically looking at the tool tips in my talent trees for the items referenced. Do you know when these updates are scheduled to be applied?
I switched to Discipline soon after I started attempting Heroics. The switch certainly helped for some fights. Once I can confirm that these changes have been applied, I think it might be time to try Holy again.
Thanks!
@madness
I think the choice should almost always be inner fire. Inner will only affects instant spells, so it isn’t very good for heroics. Spellpower is throughput but it is also an him increase. We should almost always be using IF over IW for the same reason we gem for int not spirit.
I often run with a bit of an odd group, but we didn’t have significant problems with Commander Springvale. Group composition: prot warrior, shadow priest, elemental shaman, warlock, holy priest (me). We did a shackle on each of the initial adds and kept them out of the picture for the entire fight. Heroism on the first adds wave, and he was dead before the second one. Not sure how your would do that without a double shackle though – might be able to substitute a repentance for one.
Springvale made easy:
Have party jump down to the courtyard
Kite Springvale to the courtyard
Adds no longer spawn, have fun
As far as the priest buffs go, I did feel underpowered in the beta but have been running my druid. Going to level the priest over Christmas though so it’s nice to see the change.
Holy Priest tips: when starting heroics, I found that reforging crit & mastery into spirit REALLY helped my regen issues – that and the two spirit trinkets off the AH.
After a few upgrades from drops, JP and rep I went back and reforged back for haste – attempting to keep haste, mastery and crit all roughly equal.
I’m about to transition from heroics to raids. I’m still ok with regen but do see a lack of throughput.
I personally thought the buffs weren’t warranted at all, and I’m a little bit worried about future nerfs that we may get to compensate for them.
When I first zoned into heroics and my entire group had only just reached the item level 329 requirement, occasionally I had to rely on the mana management strategy of just plain hoping for more crits, but that went away pretty quickly. If you are running out of mana, it is possible you are relying on the wrong spells to heal with, or it is possible you are overhealing.
On overheal, if you are not overgearing an encounter your overheal should be zero (except with Prayer of Healing). If you cast a heal on someone who does not need the full amount that a critical heal can deliver you are wasting mana. There aren’t really any bosses that force you to overheal to keep tanks alive. There are a few trash pulls but they are generally shorter fights as wasting mana is not good.
With regards to spell choice, I haven’t tried out Holy yet but with Discipline you should basically do exactly the opposite of what you learned to do in Wrath. Power Word: Shield should be cast every 15 seconds, no more, since with a Rapture tick it is the worst spell in your arsenal. Flash Heal is a luxury that you can afford when you have better gear, but casting it when your gear is bad is reducing the probability of losing right now but virtually guaranteeing that you will lose later. Prayer of Mending can be good, but only if the damage pattern actually means it will get all its ticks off. Rely instead on Greater Heal, Prayer of Healing and Borrowed Time hasted Renew (you get a fifth tick if you get your haste to 25%, which isn’t hard if you have the 5% haste buff).
Springvale hits like a truck, it’s true, but SFK was our third heroic and we downed him in three or four attempts. Casting only efficient spells and only then on people who need the health will let you heal heroics in minimum gear.