Spiritual Guidance: Disc Priest gives Arcane Mages 600+ spellpower
by Matt Low 
Apr 26th 2009 at 6:00PM
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new UI blog for all classes. Today, Matt teams up with Arcane Mages to deliver some serious pain!
It's not very often I write posts about DPS. It becomes even more rare when I write about Mages. My only wish out of Mages is for them to learn another rank of Conjurable food and water.It's at the point now where I need to consume two of them to get a full mana bar back nearly.
But Priests, lend me your ears!
As I was working my way through Ulduar earlier in the week, I received a whisper from one of them Mages. He requested that I spam him with Power Word: Shield as often as possible. He wanted to try something out on the Deconstructor encounter. The raid got ripped up in the first try but we were able to shut him out on the second. I asked the Mage to stick around after the raid so we can have a chat about what happened and if the effects were what he was hoping for.
Here's what we talked about.
Incanter's Absorption
Arcane Mages have a talent called Incanter's Absorption.
Incanter's Absorption
Rank 3When you absorb damage your spell damage is increased by 15% of the amount absorbed for 10 sec. Total spell damage increase cannot exceed 5% of your health.
I think you can see where I'm going from with this. Let's look at Power Word: Shield closely.
Power Word: Shield and it's bonuses
Power Word: Shield
Rank 14Draws on the soul of the party member to shield them, absorbing 2230 damage. Lasts 30 sec. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. Once shielded, the target cannot be shielded again for 15 sec.
WoW Wiki suggests that it receives an ~80.68% bonus from spell power.
Twin Disciplines
Rank 5Increases the damage and healing done by your instant spells by 5%.
I believe Twin Disciplines increases the amount of damage absorbed by the shield as well.
Improved Power Word: Shield
Rank 3Increases the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield by 15%.
Admiral Ackbar would be jealous by now.
Focused Power
Rank 2Increases damage and healing done by your spells by 4%. In addition, your Mass Dispel cast time is reduced by 1 sec.
Hmm, amount absorbed is still going up.
Borrowed Time
Rank 5Grants 25% spell haste for your next spell after casting Power Word: Shield, and increases the amount absorbed by your Power Word: Shield equal to 40% of your spell power.
Holy that's a lot of preventive fire power going on! Now I don't know exactly what the final number is. But I daresay it's way over 2230. I have spellpower that's around the ~2300 mark.
My math isn't that great so I'm going to pull a guestimate of the amount of damage that a shield absorbs to be in the 4000 range. The Mage earlier happened to notice that one of the shields I cast on him was able to absorb 6000.
Anyway, 15% of 4000 is 600.
Results
Your Arcane Mage is getting spellpower boosts of 600 every 15 seconds or so.
Okay, if you really want to get all nitpicky about it you can. It's true that in order for this to work, your Mage has to take lots of damage often. It's a great thing we have a raid instance like Ulduar where raid damage is a dime a dozen! We've taken on two bosses now where this becomes feasible:
- XT-002 Deconstructor: Tympanic Tantrums, Light Bomb, Gravity Bomb
- Kologarn: Shockwave
For Deconstructor, obviously Mages want to avoid Light Bombs as much as possible. But most of the time, players will take a tick or two before the affected player gets out of range. When hit with Gravity Bomb, they're about to take a lot of incoming damage anyway which is guaranteed to use up the entire shield. Tympanic Tantrums are also another form of shield consumption.
For Kologarn, his Left arm will proceed to sweep and Shockwave the raid every so often. If the Disc Priest manages to shield the Arcane Mage, odds are good they're going to get hit by a Shockwave consuming the bubble. There is a level of timing and luck involved and it may not be as surefire as an encounter like Deconstructor is.
Final thoughts
Obviously this is only going to work on some fights and not others. Raid encounters that are tank and spanks where it's unlikely for your Mage to get hit, this technique won't work as well. But on fights where raid damage is all but a certainty, this technique is worth exploring. Coordinate with your Mage(s) if they plan on trying to pull this off. Your priority should continue to be on your main healing assignment. If you can sneak shields off on Arcane Mages, then feel free to do so.
As a comparison, I checked the charts after the raid to see how significant of a DPS spread this would be between all 3 excellent Mages. What better way to run an experiment when those you're experimenting on don't even know they're participating in your secret study!
| Mage spec | DPS | Damage done |
| Frostfire Mage | ~4200 | 1.4 Million |
| Arcane Mage (No Incanter's) | ~4700 | 1.5 Million |
| Arcane Mage (Yes Incanter's) | ~5700 | 1.8 Million |
This is actually a pretty lame scientific study. I only had a sample size of 1 attempt which turned out to be a kill with only 3 participants. But all Mages are within a percentage point of each other on Patchwerk (using similar specs). Gear levels of all of them are also roughly the same. In fact, the only way you can tell them apart is by their race (Gnome vs Humans).
Hope you guys find this piece of information useful! I'd love to hear some results and feedback from Mages and Priests who happen to be trying this out.
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: Mage, Priest, Tips, Tricks, Raiding, Talents, Buffs, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Cedrich Apr 26th 2009 6:13PM
Your math is indeed flawed, with 2300 SP your PW:S will be easily be absorbing 6k+ per shield. I'll dig up the exact formula for you in a minute. Disc is so absolutely ridiculous in PvE at the moment.
Yaikage Apr 26th 2009 6:17PM
If his math is flawed, then by your math, he underestimated... which is even better.
Draniest Apr 26th 2009 7:37PM
4 to 6k is definitely low. As a disc priest, I'm only at around 1.9k spell power right now, and my shields absorb between 7k and 10k damage. The easiest way to check this is with the PW:S glyph, which heals target for 20% of the totaly amount the shield absorbs. When you cast your shield, check and see how much that glyph makes it heal for. Mine heals for 1k on the rare low end to 2.4k or so right now, so if you cut that in half (forgive my backwards math), you have 500 to 1.2k being 10% of the total shield value. From there it's as simple as adding a "0". 1.2k is 10% of a 12k shield absorbtion amount, so Cedrich is indeed right about disc doing a ridiculous amount in PvE.
Cedrich Apr 26th 2009 8:03PM
To the comment above: The glyph does not use the correct absorption amount. It's close, but its not right. The heal from the glyph can also crit, which is why you are seeing higher numbers sometimes, it doesn't vary if your spellpower remains static.
To add to my original comment: I can't find an accurate formula at this time. I've done some testing, and i've found that a fully talented PW:S with exactly 2k SP will absorb 5821 damage. I found this by adjusting my gear to get exactly 2k SP and having a friend Lava Burst me, Lava Burst hits hard enough to consume the shield in 1 hit, showing the absorption amount in my combat log. Raid-buffed SP will bring you over the 6k mark.
To expand on the glyph issue: In the same gear I used to do the above test, I looked at the amount of healing I gained from each Glyph of PW:S heal. This was 1159 HP.
1159 * 5 = 5795 absorption on the Shield, which is inconsistent with what I had already found, but closer than I had expected. Good enough for a rough estimate i'd say.
I'll look into this more tomorrow. I'm surprised the folks at Elitist Jerks don't seem to have tried to figure this out. Couldn't find any info on the subject over at their forums.
Para Apr 27th 2009 12:43PM
Draniest dont talk pure BS about how much your shield absorbs, those numbers of yours are all way to high with max SP i dont think any shield absorbs more than into 6k.
7k + shields might be possible by the end of ulduar not without the best gear though.
Karilyn Apr 26th 2009 6:14PM
Interesting idea, but in general, I would think it would not be a viable option to have a healer to spend global cooldowns improving a DPSers DPS instead of healing.
Yaikage Apr 26th 2009 6:19PM
except for the fact that in order to increase that dps, the healer would have to prevent damage said dps would be taking and thus, the healer would have to heal.
Someone was gonna heal that damage eventually, why not deal some extra damage in the meantime.
Wyred Apr 26th 2009 7:13PM
If they don't take dmg, it's once every 30 seconds. If they do, then as Yaikage says it was well spent. Anyhow, disc priests have no cd on their shields, get mana back from casting them, and have spell haste built in via talents. Shield spam is not a problem. Interesting mechanic, I love this stuff that wow players work out that you've gotta imagine was never thought up intentionally by blizz, just the way it all interacts.
6K shields are what a geared disc priest can put out, so you're looking at more like 900 spellpower(!), if you assume the mage has something like 15k hp raid buffed, that'd cap it at 750 (still godly). Their HP is probably higher, so somewhere between 750 and 900 seems about right assuming the shield is consumed. From the bone shield exploit in naxx, you can assume that this bonus can stack (not sure if this is still true).
The only cap then is that weakened soul lasts for 15 secs, while incanter's lasts for 10 secs. Assuming that the shield isn't taken down immediately, this doesn't necessarily mean that the incanter's buff drops off. If it refreshes as more dmg is taken, it is quite possible for it to continue to stack right up until a new shield is put up by the priest. I believe mages also have shields of their own that could help with this. NB, I'm not sure that this is how this mechanic works, and there would be practical difficulties in executing it in a raid, but still, can you imagine a stam buffed mage getting 1k+ spellpower bonuses and what that could do for their dps? I'm off to post on EJ
Dige VII Apr 26th 2009 6:15PM
:D
Anonymoose Apr 26th 2009 6:20PM
Power Word: Shield isn't healing and so does not get the benefits of Twin Disciplines or Focused Power.
Toss on the Power Word: Shield glyph and use that to determine just how much your shields can asborb.
Cedrich Apr 26th 2009 6:51PM
In theory yes, but only in theory.
As far as people have been able to conclude, the glyph does not take the full talented absorption into account when calculating the heal.
Might have been fixed in 3.1 but somehow I doubt it.
Antistes Apr 27th 2009 3:53AM
"Power Word: Shield isn't healing and so does not get the benefits of Twin Disciplines or Focused Power."
Do you have any data to support your statement Anonumoose? It might just be a case of a poorly worded tooltip.
Maybe it should read "Increases the power of the effects done by your instant spells by 5%." ?
ebs2002 Apr 26th 2009 6:20PM
[quote]Interesting idea, but in general, I would think it would not be a viable option to have a healer to spend global cooldowns improving a DPSers DPS instead of healing.[/quote]
Well, the only way this works is if the mage takes damage; so in fact, the healer *is* healing, and the DPS just gets the side effect of a DPS increase!
sean Apr 26th 2009 6:26PM
I'm an arcane mage and this definitely sounds like a plan that would work. I must say though... taking points out of, say Torment the Weak, kinda bothers me. For certain fights, yes, the dps increase would be much more significant. But what about an overall arcane spec? Maybe a point or 2? Do you guys think the talent isn't worth it unless it has all the points in it? Just an idea. I use my 2nd spec for pvp, so this article sparked my arcane interests. Thanks.
P.S. The Arcane Brilliance column sucks.
Soteria Apr 26th 2009 7:01PM
Taking points out of Torment the Weak would be retarded. That's not where you take the points from. Try arcane mind, or maybe magic attunement or slow if you don't need that in your raiding spec. Something like http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#of0Vfz0IzLGuGxedcZMhf0o
Avis Apr 26th 2009 7:05PM
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#of0Vcu0szxGuGxedcZbhf0o:zNio0m
why would you ever need to take points out of ttw ?
sean Apr 26th 2009 8:05PM
I wouldn't want to take out those points, that's why I was kinda at a loss of where to go. I love intellect to much to take away from arcane mind, so maybe i'll try taking them out of meditation since i use mage armor with the buff anyway. thanks for the spec suggestions and responses.
Stig Apr 26th 2009 6:33PM
This is actually even better on the Iron Council. When Steelbreaker is up the whole raid takes (in the 25 man version) 2500 damage every 3 seconds. Thats a whole shield absorbed every 9 seconds at most. Add to that the runes of power on the ground (if the mage can get into it) and that 600+ spellpower you gave the mage just got roughly doubled. You can do that every cooldown as long as steelbreaker is up (significantly helping with DPS especially on hard mode!) Add to THAT the chain lightning from Brundir and you'll have a hard time NOT having the buff up!
therationalpi Apr 26th 2009 7:06PM
This may be a reason to invest in dual specs for PvE, grab one spec with three points in the absorption and one without it. That said, so many fights in Ulduar have peripheral damage (Off the top of my head, every fight has it, just in varying amounts), it may be worth putting the points in Absorption in general. However, I believe that if this becomes too popular, Blizzard will simply hotfix Encanter's Absorption to proc only on the mage's shielding effects, greatly reducing it's effectiveness (Mana shield is a huge drain on a mana hungry spec). This would also hurt the Mage/Priest and Rogue/Mage/Priest arena specs, which would be sad to see, indeed.
Jennie Apr 26th 2009 7:21PM
How about those DA procs as well? Incidental healing>wasted GCD's
And I believe the SP buff is per absorb, not the full shield, though if a full shield gets popped that would definitely be huge.
Take for example the DoT from Tantrum - 10% max health (say 20k) for each second for 12 seconds. On a mage that has a disc priest bubble (My disc priest's PW:S are 8-9k on average, with not quite BiS Naxx gear + Rapture), the first tick hits for 2k, that means 300 DPS increase for 10 seconds - but only for as long as the shield holds. Lets say the shield drops with a hit for 1575 absorbed - the actual 10 s countdown will refresh with an SP buff of 236.25, or probably 236.
Not confirmed but this is likely the way it will play out.