Spiritual Guidance: More 3.1 thoughts
by Matt Low 
Mar 4th 2009 at 6:00PM
That's a picture of the upgraded Penance! It looks really weird when you cast it on yourself. I imagined that the bolts would fly forward before arcing skyward and back down towards the original caster. Too much to hope for sadly. Maybe in a future patch!
Hymn of Hope makes its triumphant return back to the Priest arsenal! For the past week, I've been receiving emails and DMs on Twitter asking me the same question:
Why put in a Hymn of Hope glyph if Hymn of Hope is going to be removed?
My personal theory is that it was just a general brain fart. Upon closer inspection and reflection, the motive's a bit different. We know Resto Shaman mana regeneration is the new standard that all healing classes are going to reach. Perhaps the theory is to nuke certain Priestly mana regenerative capabilities and then start from there.
Last week, Alex wrote up a nice summary of Priest glyphs. One glyph he did not mention (because we both thought it was pointless since the spell was removed) is the Hymn of Hope glyph.
Your Hymn of Hope provides 2 times the normal amount of mana per time, but the duration is 50% shorter.
Twice the mana per tick, but half the channeling time, right? Looks like this might be another mandatory glyph for Discipline and Holy Priests. So here's what my updated glyphs will look like (I think):
Disc PvE
- Glyph of Hymn of Hope
- Glyph of Penance
- Glyph of Power Word: Shield
- Glyph of Renew (I may swap this with Glyph of Guardian Spirit depending on encounters)
- Glyph of Circle of Healing
- Glyph of Hymn of Hope
What about the Flash Heal glyph? I do want to fit that in somewhere. I haven't quite figured it out yet. I still use the spell a lot. On the other hand, maybe Hymn of Hope with the glyph isn't really that good after all compared to the other glyphs around it. Decisions, decisions! I supposed I could set aside my dual specs for now. I could set one for single target healing and the other for pure mana efficiency and regen.
Speaking of mana efficiency, I did spend some time on the PTR last week. I was able to get in on some of the Hodir testing before my live raids took over. This was normal Hodir not heroic Hodir, mind you. I didn't run into significant problems with mana. On the flip side, I didn't last longer than 2 and a half minutes so saying that I didn't have significant mana problems isn't saying much.
Speaking of mana, some of you might be curious as to how severe the 3.1 nerf actually is. Here's a quick before and after screenshot of my mana regeneration from the PTR and from live servers.
So the above shot is two screenshots mashed together. The top screenshot is my current regeneration on live. The second half below is a shot on the PTR. These values are all before raid buffs. Remember that I'm also a Disc Priest here so my out of combat regen is going to be much lower than a Holy Priest. My mana regeneration while casting remains largely unchanged. Note that it also doesn't take into account abilities like Rapture.So as a Disc Priest, I don't feel like I'm going to be too affected by the changes.
Now as a Holy Priest, some things are going to be slightly different. I've read some of the stuff out there in terms of blog posts and forum posts. Everything points out that haste is superior than crit. But the new Holy Concentration says that your mana regen from Spirit increases by 16/32/50% for 8 seconds. I think this might change things a little bit. I've been predominantly Discipline on the PTR. I haven't had a chance to go Holy yet (and ugh, my gear's not suited for it since I don't have Spirit gems loaded).
More wait and seeing will have to be done. More PTR time is going to be needed.
Priest grouping
This is another topic that I'll address another time on Raid Rx. It has to do with where you group your healers. Right now, some of the healers and raid leaders I've surveyed stagger their healers across different groups. This is to maximize spells like Prayer of Healing and Tranquility. Resto Shaman's Mana Tide totem and any Priest's Hymn of Hope are reasons to combine healers together. But since we currently don't have mana problems, there's no mana-riffic reason to stack together. Sure we can group together for totems and stuff. But other than that, there's not much else. Even then, totem changes are upcoming where that isn't as necessary anymore.
With the mana regen nerf, this presents some interesting opportunities. It might be time to gather up the healers again into a single group.
Remember that Prayer of Healing is raid wide targetable spell now. It's no longer exclusive to the group of the Priest that casts it. This means Holy Nova is now the only party wide heal remaining among Priests.
Now if only the PTR can just remain stable for longer periods of time. My guildie wasn't kidding when he called it the Patience Test Realm.
Want to find more great tips for carrying out your Priestly duties? Spiritual Guidance has you covered with all there is to know! And don't forget to check out our other Leveling Guides as well as our Wrath Guides and Galleries!Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Tiis Mar 4th 2009 6:10PM
With these changes to mana regen, I am seriously debating whether its time to just go shadow.
Ronix Mar 4th 2009 6:22PM
Just outta curiosity, as you are on the PTR, what's it like healing with the new rapture? Our old rapture was much much more of our mana regen than mp5; are you still able to function as a healer without it?
If not, how much of other stats do you have to sacrifice to get a decent level of mana regen back? (via stacking more spirit/mp5)
I'm really curious how discipline priests are performing without their old rapture ... we got some thoroughput buffs, but I don't know if it makes up for the stats we'll likely have to focus on mana regen now ...
Jack Spicer Mar 4th 2009 6:36PM
I can't believe that you are seriously considering glyphing for a spell (Hymn of Hope) that can only be cast once every 5 minutes. This glyph needs to be made into a minor glyph or its useless.
Daniel P. Mar 4th 2009 6:47PM
Just a note about Hymn of Hope, currently it is labels as "Hymn of Hope [PH]"
[PH] = Placeholder.
So they probably just don't have the replacement ready yet, resulting in them just giving us the old version again until they get the new one ready to go.
Additionally, that glyph isn't trainable or discoverable on the ptr yet so I wouldn't take it's existence as proof of anything.
AyaJulia Mar 4th 2009 6:48PM
With all these people running around and claiming the sky is falling and we're all going to respec dps over the mana regen changes, it really makes me wonder. Just how often WERE you guys outside the 5SR for mana regen? Raiding lends itself now more than ever to quick reaction times. I know I, at least, am constantly casting Flashes, PoMs, and Circles every GCD, and it's REALLY tough for me to run out of mana. Inside-5SR regen is not changing, so mana regen isn't really going to be changing if you have this healing style.
It's going to hurt our solo work, but I intend to dual-spec into spirit tap for this. Beyond that, it's really not that big a deal.
Tridus Mar 4th 2009 8:09PM
They also removed Holy Concentration's clearcasting and Serendiptity's mana restore on overheal. Those two things hurt Priest mana effeciency more then the Spirit nerf.
AyaJulia Mar 4th 2009 11:36PM
So, maybe I'll end fights at 4k mana now instead of 19k mana?
It's really not worth threatening to respec over is my point. Adapt or fail. Like it or not, this is the new paradigm and we have to get used to it. And it's not going to be as bad as everyone is making it out to be.
drwatson Mar 4th 2009 11:59PM
Thank you! This is exactly what I was thinking. As a disc healing priest, I never worry about the fsr, OR my mana. My GCDs are taken up by heals, or dispels, or abolishes, and running out of mana has never been a problem. As long as they don't nerf our in fsr regen, I'm not worried.
On a side note, what is the reason for not making it the "in combat" rule. It seems retarded to nerf a mechanic that, if it didn't exist, most people in current content wouldn't even notice.
Lorne Pearl Mar 4th 2009 6:56PM
Hi Matt,
I was wondering if you knew where the writer for http://dwarfpriest.com/ dissapeared to.
Lorne Pearl Mar 5th 2009 10:52AM
I didn't mean it that way. I just meant that dwarfpriest was pretty much a bible for gear ratings during BC, and early Wrath, and then the writer dissapeared. I was hoping there was a community of WoW people, and maybe someone knew what happened.
Percy Mar 4th 2009 9:11PM
The Hymn of Hope glyph is entirely not worth it as is.
They'd have to greatly reduce the cooldown of the spell to even make it worth considering picking up the glyph.
Holy Priests should get:
CoH (duh)
Flash Heal (duh)
Prayer of Healing (Cause its AWESOME NOW!)
Renew gets benched sadly.
Wyred Mar 5th 2009 3:21AM
Currently running with glyph of Coh, Flash heal and Shield on my holy priest. The first 2 I won't be changing, the 3rd I'm debating. Renew is getting buffed to make it worthwhile again, but I'm not sure higher hps/lower uptime is what I want from a hot. PoH will be awesome, so a definite candidate. The Guardian spirit glyph looks pretty good as well, but it's a slightly gimicky spell, so I'm not sure. If I got the glyph would I use it enough to make it worth it?
Radiophonic Mar 4th 2009 10:36PM
Why are they changing this out of combat regen anyway? Was it broken? Was it bad? I don't see the sense in it. Oh wait, they need to make a new raid harder so they start by screwing with class mechanics...echoes of BC, only worse.
hp1 Mar 5th 2009 1:45AM
Maybe as AyaJulia says, the fights will end at 4K instead of 19K mana, so now we'll all be sitting around drinking for 45-60 seconds after every decent fight, chain chugging our pathetic 13k mana per 30s drinks when we could be chain pulling the next mobs.
I use my regen to survive speed runs and heal thru chain pulls; I never used it outside the 5 second rule while in combat.
Will I learn to live with it. Obviously. Will CoS be super fun the first time? No.
Mike Mar 5th 2009 2:15AM
Seems to me that if our regen is all being nerfed to a shammy baseline, then our spells should also be similarly efficient, and our mana regen options comparible.
At least one pally in our raid has already specced out of beacon of light and into high crit, easily getting over 75% crit efficiency on FOL, and effectively getting back to infinite casting. For him (and I suspect other pallies once they dump beacon), the change has effectively not happened.
For druids, lifebloom and spirit nerfs are certainly annoying, but most druids were giving away their innervates - there's a simple (albeit slightly nerfed) solution for them.
So if shammies are baseline what then with priests? My impression is our spells are not highly efficient since they assume a large amount of oo5sr regen - with that gone...
...well Matt - someone more clever than me really should do the maths.
Zusterke Mar 6th 2009 5:16AM
Luckily, that's not hard.
Assuming:
- 1000 base spirit (1050 unbuffed)
- 1000 base int
- 85% FSR
- 85% Replenishment presence
- Fiend
3.0 gives us 766 effective regen.
Assuming 90%FSR in 3.1 (due to loss of clearcasting we up the FSR), and a 25% uptime of holy concentration, with same stats, replennish, fiend, we get 814 effective regen.
Do the maths and you might actually look forward to a patch for a change Mike.
mike Mar 6th 2009 10:43PM
Sorry Zusterke I think you misunderstood. Our regen will be fine, in fact it's baselined. It was comparitive spell efficiency and mana back options I was thinking to compare.
Zusterke Mar 18th 2009 10:08AM
I wouldn't be too sure about that. Some of our spells beat their efficiency pretty well, provided our overhealing is comparable. In my experience, they typically score worse.
CoH still beats any spell by a mile, despite the 6s cooldown, and it's healing just got increased. The same goes for Holy Nova (especially with the change) and PoH.
PoM is just crazy.
This leaves us with our Flash/Binding/Greater healing spells which don't do as well as chainheal, but considering they all beat it in speed.. that's a price I'd be willing to pay. Especially considering the support from AoE you have.
Admitted, we do not have the same efficiency on some spells, but the total package we get is strong and a fair match. Even so, our regen is likely to remain higher than that of the Shaman. The latest theorycrafts, some including my own calculations, show that the boost given to Shadowfiend practically makes up for the OFSR regen nerf. Only we get the new holy concentration on top of it where a 30-50% uptime is fairly easy to get. I'm not sure how it weighs against the old Serendipity, but I know for sure most Priests were just spamming Flash Heal a lot, regardless of serendipity. I bet if you track their serendipity ticks, you'd see a lousy % of flash heals actually returning it... unless the fight was already under complete control in which case mana isn't an issue.
marvel07 Mar 5th 2009 3:28AM
i dont really see the point in hymn of hope glyph. It doesnt give us *more* mana, just faster. While glyph of flash heal is pure savings.
Also, how's new rapture feels like?
Zusterke Mar 5th 2009 6:49AM
With Rapture taking a big hit, and some spells no longer benefiting from it, I think the Disc priest will reduce some of his mana efficient spamming.
I think that intellect is still an interesting stat for the Disc priest but no longer the only interesting regen stat. Spirit might get back in the picture for them, though I'm not sufficiently familiar with the changes to Disc to know if they benefit a lot from it.
For the holies, our single target healing has vastly improved with the new serendipity mechanics. Helloo Patchwerk. And since GHeal has a higher efficiency, it can be used to increase our efficiency as well. We won't get tangled in funny logics where large heals are more efficient but lose efficiency due to heal sniping and the efficiency of fast heals is killed if a shred of damage removed your overheal. It will be more straightforward.
I wouldn't worry too much about the regen for holies TBH. With the HC changes we probably lose an acceptcable portion of our OFSR regen while gaining some IFSR regen. Combined with the more than linear scaling of our regen model, we shouldn't suffer too badly. I fear the beginning, blue geared raiders will feel the punch the hardest.
Still, without serendipity cutting mana, I would strongly recommend the glyph of flash heal though.
Also, I'm a big fan of the holy nova glyph now. With the ability to cast PoH so fast, it might replace a part of HN's functionality and devaluate the glyph. I doubt the glyph of PoH is really worth it though. I've rarely seen it do more than 6% of the direct healing.