Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Dual spec, take 1



Yay! At long last (and for a measly 1k gold), I can with impunity and joy reclaim the shadowy goodness I enjoyed in the days of my youth. Dual spec, FTW!  Now, my best-geared toon can finally work on dailies without them being the utter kick-in-the-face that they've been. (My desire to have additional options for my priestliness is why I've got a second priest at level 43. The announcement of impending dual specs is what stopped me from leveling her any further.)

So I bopped over to Ironforge and plunked my money down. Ba-zhing! Achievement! Whoa, didn't really expect that.  And guild chat switches to what my intended spec might be...  "She's going dual deep holy, or heavy holy/light holy, tough call."  I fended off giving straight answers.  I *do* plan to have my second spec be shadow, just not right away.  I've been intrigued by the lunatic fringe and their outright glee at the discipline spec, but didn't want to try it, /head-desk, and cause problems in raids.

So for now, I'm keeping holy and trying discipline... so the "heavy holy/light holy" joke wasn't too far off the mark.
First spec: 14/57/0 http://preview.tinyurl.com/ccrtne
I went through the holy tree and added points to everything that looked good, sounded good, or caught my eye. I ended up with ~60 points in Holy. Perusing the Discipline tree later, I saw I needed to reclaim a few points, ending up with the following:
Holy
Healing Focus: 2/2 Reduces pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting any healing spell by 35/70%.  Not sure it's the best use of two points, but I'm hoping it should mitigate the wipe-age when DPS fails to keep adds off the healers.
Improved Renew: 3/3 Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 5/10/15%. HoTs=joy. Better HoTs=15% more joy.
Holy Specialization: 5/5 Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 1/2/3/4/5%. There's talents later on that depend on holy crits and it's best to feed those.
Spell warding: 0/5 Reduces all spell damage by 2/4/6/8/10%.  General wisdom says not needed for PvE healers.  We shouldn't be the target of spells in general, and I'm not clear if boss spells would be subject to the mitigation offered by the talent.
Divine Fury: 5/5 Reduces the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal, and Greater Heals by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds.  The tried and true cast-time shortener for the Big Heal. Also makes those Holy dps spells a bit more fun.  And seriously?  Heal is still in the game? /shakes head.
Desperate Prayer: 1/1 Instantly heals the caster for 3716 to 4384.  I use it, I plan to keep using it to save my butt when things dip into Bad.
Blessed Recovery: 0/3 After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit, Blessed Recovery heals you for 5/10/15% of the damage taken over 6 sec. Additional critical hits taken during the effect increase the healing received. I'm a raid healer; if I'm getting critically hit, the shit has hit the proverbial fan and a small percentage of damage healed over 6 seconds isn't likely going to save the raid.
Inspiration: 0/3 Increases your target's armor by 8/16/25% for 15 sec after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, Penance, Prayer of Healing, or Circle of Healing.  This sounds nice, but when we get down to it, I'm a selfish healer. I want my talent points to help me and this helps, well, some *other* person. Seriously, "Heal" is still in the game?
Holy Reach: 2/2 Increases the range of your Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of your Prayer of Healing, Holy Nova, Divine Hymn, and Circle of Healing spells by 10/20%.  Anything that heads off out-of-range deaths is a good thing.
Improved Healing: 3/3 Reduces the mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, Divine Hymn, and Penance spells by 5/10/15%. Reduction in mana costs is a good thing.  LoL, "Lesser Heal" is still in the game?  (I checked my spell book and yep, still there.  It heals ~1000 damage for ~1100 mana. The healer equivalent of gallons per mile in a Winnebago.
Searing Light: 0/2 Increases the damage of your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova, and Penance spells by 5/10%.  Unless the tool tip is wrong, DPS only; skipping due to healing intents.
Healing Prayers: 2/2 Reduces the mana cost of your Prayer of Healing and Prayer of Mending spells by 10/20%.  I love raid healing and frequently use these spells; making them cheaper is awesome. The change to Prayer of Healing so it can be cast on other groups induces a happy-dance urge in my toes.
Spirit of Redemption: 1/1 Increases total Spirit by 5% and upon death, the priest become the Spirit of Redemption for 15 seconds. The Spirit of Redemption cannot move, attack, or be targeted by any spells or effects. While in this form the priest can cast any healing spell free of cost. When the effect ends, the priest dies.  I've never been too fond of this spell; I don't want to be of more use to you dead than alive. But... I've used it and find it helpful (especially when you're nearing the end of fight and have been OOM for a while, suddenly being able to cast off big spells can't hurt). Ignoring that, 5% increase in Spirit for just one point seems a bargain.
Spiritual Guidance: 5/5 Increases spell power by 5/10/15/20/25% of your total spirit. More spellpower, yay. (My gear has been leaning towards spirit, but I've got a number of things without it and my spirit is around 1k. Each point in this talent thus gives me ~50 spell power.)
Surge of Light: 2/2 Your spell criticals have a 25/50% chance to cause your next Smite or Flash Heal to be instant cast, cost no mana, but be incapable of a critical hit. This effect lasts 10 seconds.  Free, suddenly-instant cast spells!  I need to set up an addon to keep me aware of when this procs, but I see it frequently and love it.
Spiritual Healing: 5/5 Increases the amount of healed by your healing spells by 2/4/6/8/10%. Scalable increases to healing. Very nice.
Holy Concentration: 0/3 Your mana regeneration from spirit is increased by ??? 16/32/50% for 8 sec after you critically heal with Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, or Renew. This was a tough call and a place I harvested points from.  These are spells I use frequently and crit on all the time. But critting "all the time" isn't 100% of the time, and compared to the constant 50% mana regen from maxxed Meditation, this "for 8 seconds" just doesn't warrant the points.  It only looks worth it to me if you're not able to spare the points to get up to the second tier in Discipline.
Lightwell: 0/1 Self-service healy goodness. Some folks like it, but it doesn't suit my style of play.
Blessed Resilience: 0/3 Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 1/2/3%, and critical hits made against you have 20/40/60% chance to prevent you from being critically hit again for 6 seconds. Again, anything that depends on ME getting hit for its goodness to happen, ought to be rare enough (as a PvE healer) for this to be a poor choice of point spending.
Body and Soul: 0/2 When you cast Power Word: Shield, you increase the target's movement speed by 30/60% for 4 sec, and you have a 50/100% chance when you cast Abolish Disease on yourself to also cleanse 1 poison effect in addition to diseases.  Grab bag much? Maybe it makes more sense in a PvP scenario...
Empowered Healing: 5/5 Your Greater Heal gains and additional 8/16/24/32/40% and your Flash Heal and Binding Heal gain an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus healing effects.  Bigger heals FTW.
Serendipty: 3/3 When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell is reduced 4/8/12%. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 20 sec. Situational haste. Not sure this is a great use of three points, but it might be. I'm envisioning a situation where the damage is coming fast and I'm casting little heals because I don't have time for a big heal; 12% may not be the deal breaker, but I'm going to see how it goes. Probably something I'd want to have an addon remind me about.
Empowered Renew: 3/3 Your Renew spell gains an additional 5/10/15% of your bonus healing effects, and your Renew will instantly heal the target for 5/10/15% of the total periodic effect. Burlier renews AND front-loading the HoT?  Awesome!
Circle of Healing: 1/1 Heals up to 5 party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 958 to 1058.  My beloved instant cast, now with increased healing.
Test of Faith: 3/3 Increases healing by 4/8/12% on friendly targets at or below 50% health.  Very nice boost to healing when it matters most. Very aptly named.
Divine Providence: 5/5 Increases the amount healed by Circle of Healing, Binding Heal, Holy Nova, Prayer of Healing, Divine Hymn, and Prayer of Mending by 2/4/6/8/10% and reduces the cooldown of your Prayer of Mending by 6/12/18/24/30%.  All multi-target heals benefit from this which is great. And fully spec'd, the golden frisbee is available every 7 seconds.
Guardian Spirit: 1/1 Calls upon a guardian spirit to watch over the friendly target. The spirit increases the healing received by the target by 40%, and also prevents the target from dying by sacrificing itself. The sacrifice terminates the effect but heals the target of 50% of their maximum health. Lasts 10 sec.  My favorite use for this spell is to cover my ass when I'm sending off my shadowfiend to regen mana.  It gives that extra bit of coverage to my temporary distraction.  We've also been using it in larger raids, sequentially going through the priests to help take the burden of the healers when a boss enrages. A very nice talent to have in the deepest position of the tree.
Discipline
Unbreakable Will: 0/5 Reduces the duration of Stun, Fear, and Silence effects done to you by an additional 6/12/18/24/30%.  Sounds great, but I've not been convinced this is worth it.  It seemed to not work when I first tried it, so I've been resistant to it ever since.  And moreover, when I'm just barely dipping into the discipline tree, there's other things calling out for points.
Twin Disciplines: 5/5 Increases the damage and healing done by your instant spells by 1/2/3/4/5%. Five percent to both heals and damage is really sweet... and gets me to the second tier.
Silent Resolve: 0/3 Reduces the threat generated by your Holy and Discipline spells by 7/14/20% and reduces the chance your helpful spells and damage over time effects will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.  I'm less keen on the dispell part, but the threat reduction sounds great.  I'm skipping it due to needing to conserve points, hoping my threat reduction enchant, the general threat generation capable by our tanks, and my willingness to use fade will make up for it.  If threat becomes more of a problem, I'll revisit this one.
Improved Inner Fire: 3/3 Increases the effect of your Inner Fire spell by 15/30/45%, and increases the total number of charges by 4/8/12.  When Inner Fire was just armor, this was an easily skippable talent; now that it increases spell power, this is a wonderful place to rest a few points.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude: 2/2 Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 15/30%, and increases your total stamina by 2/4%.  Selfish healer or not, better buffs for the entire raid are worth the points.  
Martyrdom: 0/2 Blah blah blah, effect that only kicks in when I'm getting critically smacked. Moving on.
Meditation: 3/3 Allows 17/33/50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.  I've always been a fan of regenerating mana while casting; with the changes to the 5SR, this talent is even more important.  Getting this maxed was why I harvested a few points from my initial Holy tree wish list.
Inner Focus: 1/1 When activated, reduces the mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect.  If you don't use it, this is a waste of a point.  If you don't use it correctly, its a waste as well.  It gives you a free spell, so an excellent time to whip out the Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing.  It has an increased chance to crit, so it can be a wonderful lifesaver when you're low on mana (or rotated in earlier in the fight, so it can be ready again towards the end).  I use it when I'm hunting for any last bit I can do to squeeze a few more heals into the fight.  The worst thing: hitting Inner Focus, and suddenly the other healers have found their mana and are now keeping everyone topped off; I've ended up using it to cast a small heal or one that isn't capable of critting -- very sad moment.
Improved Power Word: Shield: 0/3 Increases the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield by 5/10/15%.  I grew up in the days of "don't shield the tank" and haven't gotten past that. Shielding is what I do to mages and warlocks when they pull aggro, but that's almost the extent of it.  I see other priests using their shield a lot, but it hasn't worked its way into my technique, so I'm guiltlessly skipping putting any points into this talent.  Which is also good, because I'm out of points. :p

My second spec is 57/14/0.  Penance looks way cool (the same button does both heals AND damage, depending on the target!).  The Discipline tree is ALL about shielding and having that be the lifeblood of your healing technique. So I'll have to see how it goes.

The interesting variation to me is how my stats changed, wearing the same clothes when I hit the button for the alternate spec: self buffed (yay, trainable divine spirit), same gear
       disc         holy
spirit         1144         1134
int         1081           941
spell power 1897         2180
mp5/casting mp5   695/380     647/356

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