PTR 3.1: Build 9626

More changes were added as well as some clarifications to previous questions.  I also have some more funtimes with math!

• Glyph of Fade – Reduces the cooldown of your Fade spell by 9 sec. (Down from 15 sec)
• Glyph of Mass Dispel — Reduces the mana cost of Mass Dispel by 50%. (Up from 20%)
• Glyph of Mind Control — Reduces the chance targets will resist or break your Mind Control spell by an additional 17%. (Old – Increases the duration of your Mind Control spell by 30 sec.)
• Glyph of Smite — Your Smite spell inflicts an additional 20% damage against targets afflicted by Holy Fire. (Old – Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Smite by 100%.)
• Glyph of Scourge Imprisonment — Reduces the cast time of your Shackle Undead by 0.5 sec. (Old – Increases the chance of success for your Shackle Undead spell by 8%.)

Some more Glyph changes, all for the better.  The Smite one makes me giggle a bit, here comes my lolSmite build offspec rawr!

Discipline

• Grace doesn’t reduce damage dealt to the target anymore but now increases the healing received from the Priest by 3% (Up from 2%)

The increase to the heal from Grace is kewl.  It seems to be bugged on the PTR at this time though.  Having Grace up on someone then healing someone else gives the other person Grace, but it doesn’t fall off your first target.  Not sure if that is intentional or not.

• Renewed Hope now also give you a 100% chance to reduce all damage taken by 3% for 20 sec to all friendly party and raid targets when you Power Word: Shidld a friendly target.

The change to Renewed Hope is either really good for some groups or useless.  My 25 group always has a protection paladin so this seems very moot.  Its possible the damage reduction could stack though, but I’d wager against it.  If you don’t have a protection paladin then this is a pretty good addition.  A very nifty way of giving the Blessing of Sanctuary damage reduction to everyone.

The comments about Discipline Priest throughput and our lack of PW:Barrier atm has prompted this response from the Blues.

I believe there are 1 or 2 more Disc talent changes you don’t have yet that boost healing a little more. We’re not worried about Disc mana generation, because it was really good before, but let us know if you get on the PTR how it feels.

And finally I want to talk about Rapture… again.  On the Elitist Jerks forum the Discipline Priest Compedium has exploded with the 3.1 patch.  Prior to the patch I think it was at 3 or so pages and now you are looking at 10+.  It can be tough to read through all of it but a lot of it is theorycrafting and numbers (which I love to read, but I’m guessing others don’t really care about the math).  Squeakster, a consistent poster on the thread, posted the following math.  He took the current live server Rapture and determined his mp5 over the course of a raid with it and compared it to his theorycrafted mp5.  I’ll list my math below but I followed his formula and while I would end a fight at about 15% mana, I would still have some is the point.  That is without potion, shadowfiend or innervate.

Begin Maths…………………………………………………………………………….

Naxx25 2.14.09:
Patchwerk – 3mins 3seconds (183secs / 5 = 36.6 rounded to 37)
Old Rapture: 38757 mana returned / 37 = 1047mp5

Flash Heals Cast x78:
Live: 48906 mp
PTR: 41574 mp
Live – PTR = 7332 / 37 = 198mp5

PWS Casts x7:
Live: 5607 mp
PTR: 3738 mp
Live – PTR = 1869 / 37 = 51mp5
2.5% of 28k = 700 * 7 = 4900
+4900 mana / 37 = 133mp5 (Only casting PWS on the tank I was healing would result in a Rapture trigger every cast)

PTR MP5’s: 198 + 51 + 133 = 382mp5

Live mp5 – PTR mp5 = 666mp5 loss

666 * 37 = 24642 mana NOT regen’d during the fight.

……………………………………………………………………………….end Maths.

With my current raid buffed 28k mana pool I would still have ended this fight with around 4-5k mana.  I also didn’t take full advantage of the new Rapture either by keeping Weakened Soul on my tank which would have resulted in a large return of mana.

“We are continuously faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.”
- Lee Iacocca

RIP: Rapture

When they began talking about nerf’s to mana regen I wasn’t at all feeling threatened.  Rapture gave me what I needed to stay in the game.  I chose to stack INT so I had retarded mana regen but I could have easily sacrificed that to pickup more spellpower or crit or haste or whatever I was wanting.  3.1  Patch Notes came out today and I read this…

Rapture (Tier 8 ) revamped. Now a 3 point talent. When your Power Word: Shield is completely absorbed or dispelled you are instantly energized with 1.5% of your total mana (2.5% w/3 pts), and you have a 33% chance to energize your shielded target with 2% total mana, 8 rage, 16 energy or 32 runic power. This effect cannot occur once every 12 seconds.

There is plenty of stuff I wanted to comment on about 3.1, but this seems the most significant, important part of the patch notes to me.  What does this mean for our mana regen?  Let’s see a few of the other talents that MIGHT help to mitigate this…

Improved Flash Heal, Tier 7, 3 point talent – Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 5/10/15%, and increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal by 4/7/10% on friendly targets at or below 50% health.

First, some math…

Priest Base Mana Pool: 3863
Flash Heal: 18% of Base Mana (696)
Flash Heal (glyph): 627
Flash Heal (imp flash): 592
Flash Heal (additive): 522
Flash Heal (multiplicitive): 533

Flash Heal is so efficient due to our current Rapture.  A recent post I did about Flash Heal gave me an average of 180 mana returned while completely unbuffed (22k mana pool), the bare minimum that I would see in return.  I have the Glyph of Flash Heal, which would put the cost of my average Flash Heal at 447 (as of 3.0).  Raid buffed I sit around 28,000 mana though which would yield an average return of 225, making Flash Heal cost 402.  I realize this is a lot of number crunching that people aren’t interested in but we are looking at a substantial nerf to our mana regen in my opinion.  The new Rapture also fails to return mana from Greater Heal, Penance, or Divine Aegis which are all spells we rely heavily on.

Soul Warding, Tier 5, 1 point talent – Reduces the cooldown of your Power Word: Shield ability by 4 sec, and reduces the mana cost of your Power Word: Shield by 30%.

More Math….  EDIT:  Rapture is 2.5% when 3 points are put into it, not 1.5%.

PWS: 23% of Base Mana (889)
PWS (mental agility): 801
PWS (soul warding): 623
PWS (mental / soul): 534
PWS (mental / soul / rapture w/28k mana): -166 (You would gain 166 mana)
PWS (mental / soul / rapture w/22k mana): -16
Every 1000 mana = 25 mana return from PWS

An interesting talent that allows us to spam PWS a bit more.  While we can’t spam it on the same person due to weakened soul we can toss it more freely around to the raid.  The change in Rapture benefits PWS significantly, as it would be possible (in theory) to gear your intellect to make PWS actually return mana (about 36,000 mana pool).  As per above you would only need 22k mana to start recieving benefits from PWS. This means we can expect a nerf to Rapture in the future.  This assumes the shield is fully used and that the 12 second CD mentioned in Rapture ONLY applies to the energizing your shield target.  If  the 12 second CD for energize doesn’t apply to JUST the portion on the target then Rapture will be… useless?

There is a few more changes to the Discipline tree…

• Penance (Tier 11) Damage increased slightly across all ranks.
• Grace (Tier 9) now lasts 15 sec. (Previously lasted 8 sec)
• Focused Will (Tier 7) now increases spell critical strike chance by 1/2/3% in addition to its previous effect.
• Reflective Shield has been moved from Tier 7 to Tier 5. It is now a 2 point talent and causes 22/45% of the damage you absorb with Power Word: Shield to reflect back at the attacker.
• Enlightenment (Tier 6) is now a 3 point talent and now increases your total Spirit by 2/4/6% and increases your spell haste by 2/4/6%. (Previously a 5 point talent)
• Meditation (Tier 3) now increases mana regeneration by 17/33/50%. (Previously 10/20/30%)
• Improved Power Word: Fortitude (Tier 2) now also increases your personal stamina by 2/4%.
• Unbreakable Will (Tier 1) now reduces the duration of Stun, Fear, and Silence effects done to you by an additional 6/12/18/24/30%. (Previously 3/6/9/12/15%)

I don’t need to comment on all of these, at best I would say ‘meh’ on most of the changes.  Reflective Shield is still pretty much useless.  My BIG concern… no mention of Power Word: Barrier.

I’m waiting on my patch for the PTR to get done DL’ing and I already have my character copied over.  I’ll do an update as soon as I found out more specifics on things.  So far though I’m very saddened by the changes to Discipline.

The changes to Rapture were best expressed by one of my best healy friends…

Every decision I’ve made about my priest for the last 3 months… what spells to use, what stats to stack, what talents to take…. undone.”    -Kraylessa

EDIT (2.26.09):  World of Matticus: Thoughts on Rapture and Mana Regen – A positive outlook on the changes.

Challenge Accepted

Since I’ve started doing the blogging thing I’ve tried to expand a bit more and follow other peoples blogs a bit better.  Learn from the things they do and try to make mine just as good.  I’ve seen several of these ‘blog challenges’ where a blog challenges another blog to do something.  The first challenge I accepted was Matticus’ Valentine Post, hence the Love Affair with Flash Heal.

A few days ago I saw this challenge issued to Sydera, a blogger from the World of Matticus.  I decided to take it on as well, it sounded like a ton of fun.  Only problem is I reformat my computer so often that sadly my screenshot archive is rather lackluster.  Most of my screenshots are ‘business’ oriented.  Pics of us downing bosses so I can photoshop them for our guild website, Relentless.  Other pics are things I consider important information, like when someone gives me specifics on how hard a mob is hitting or how they are utilizing dps / healers /etc or even things like IRL phone numbers (cuz I like to call people when they are late to raiding and ask them where the F*** they are).

I went and did a little grooming of my screenshots folder, moving boss pics to a folder and srs bsnss pics to a folder.  I then put ‘em all in thumbnail view and counted down 6 rows and across 6 columns.  That got me this picture.

Rug Mojo

I was the first 450 tailor on our server and one of the first with a rug.  This is from 12.15.08.  During TBC I had considered dropping Tailoring since I only used it to make bags but when I saw that carpets were coming in, zomg, I couldn’t let it go.  I wish we were sitting on the carpet, meditating when flying, but I can’t bitch to much.  I really do love my rug.

Leafshine, one of the blogs challenged, had a SUPER OLD pic of her doing Deadmines for the first time way back in April of ‘05.  How kewl is that?!  Makes me kind of sad I don’t have my old screenies anymore.

Anyway, I don’t really know any blogs who know me so I think that means I can’t challenge anyone… no idea.  Leafshine did it kewl in that she challenged everyone who hasn’t been challenged and would link them if they replied to her.  I’m gonna copy that and say a BIG THANKS for the challenge Leaf!

3.1 Mana Regen on Disc Priests

My dawg GC was nice enough to clarify more on 3.1 mana regen,

The goal is to have mana last about the same for all healers. We don’t think many players would be that interested in a style where you heal crazy good for a short period and then run OOM. How classes manage their mana varies a lot, and we are making tweaks to it for 3.1 to try and keep them in line. For example, the shadow fiend needs to be more reliable.

I am still not following the logic that Int now trumps Spirit by even more. It may have been a better stat already, but these changes shouldn’t affect it that much unless you A) skip Meditation and Intensity, or B) relied a whole lot more on OOFSR regen than the average raid healer of reasonable skill.

I will break from our normal practice and go ahead and provide the numbers, just to make sure nobody is guessing about the details when doing their estimates:

• The amount of base mana regen granted has been reduced 40%. We called this “Spirit” in the notes, since most players associate OOFSR regen with Spirit, but in reality Int factors into the equation as well and we only lowered the constant, not the relative contributions of Int or Spirit. In retrospect, this probably caused more confusion than it alleviated, but mana regeneration is a fairly technical concept.
• The effects of talents that provide mana regen while casting have been increased by 67%. This includes: Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap, Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac, and Spirit Tap. For example, Intensity and Meditation are now 17/33/50% mana regen while casting (up from 10/20/30%). For most dps classes who never got much mana from OOFSR in the first place, the results should not be noticeable. Boomkin may be a possible exception because of Innervate, and we’ll take a look at that.
• This should leave mana regeneration while casting (even the contribution of Spirit) relatively unchanged, but reduce mana regeneration while not casting by 40%. (If you don’t understand our logic, I suggest you re-read the excellent post I quoted above.)
• Since paladins don’t rely on any of those abilities for mana regeneration, we lowered the healing penalty of Divine Plea to -50%. We are also likely to make Spiritual Attunement provide less mana for non-tanking paladins. We are not touching Illumination for the moment. Nor are we lowering the effects of Replenishment (though as I have suggested, it would be our likely next target if we aren’t happy with the results of these changes).

This is much more substantial to people who actually get OO5SR.  Disc priests however are rarely OO5SR.  Personally I’m never out of it thanks to the wonder of flash spam and rapture.  Meditation gives you an increase from that ‘overall’ mana you can regen so they are buffing it.  From what they say you shouldn’t see a reduction to your current mana regeneration while casting.  I’ll make sure to get on the PTR and test that once 3.1 comes around.  All in all though this makes me quite happy to know that it only effects my out of casting regen.

A Love Affair with Flash Heal

The age of the Discipline Priest has arrived (ie. 3.0).  The changes in old talents and the addition of new talents plus glyphs have changed the way people look at Flash Heal.  No longer is it considered slumming, but can new Discipline Priests break their love for Renew?

For along time Flash Heal was considered dirty.  It was mana inefficient and considered the sign of a bad priest, relegated to the dark alleys.  During those times you would use down-ranked Greater Heals and Renew to cover for a lot of the smaller damage that came out.

When I first switched to discipline I still put the talent points into Renew.  I was still trying to use it to cover small bits of damage like before.  I was sorely mistaken though and my lover Renew let me down.  Why though?

The HPS (heal per second) on an improved-glyphed Renew is quite good… it quite often never fulfills what you wanted it to do though.  You have those cheating COH Priests that to top off people (not to the extent it did prenerf) as well as WG (Druid: Wild Growth, AE heal).  You have holy paladins and other flash heal loving disc priests topping people off as well which ends up negating a lot of the effect of Renew.  I’m not saying its useless, there’s still instances it helps in such as when you need instant heals like Malygos Vortex and Heigan Safety-Dance.

You hear people talk a lot about synergy and using abilities that compliment other abilities.  Renew is anti-synergy with discipline spec, it feels like its spitting in your face sometimes.

-Renew cannot crit (which means no Divine Aegis procs).
-Renew does not stack Grace (which increases our heals on that target).
-Renew does not return mana via Rapture.
-Renew rarely ticks for the full amounts (see above paragraphs).

Flash Heal can critical hit, stacks Grace, returns mana via Rapture (and Divine Aegis’ procs) and most likely hits for full on a person.  Flash Heal can also be reduced down to your global cooldown (about 1 second) via an easily obtained amount of haste without having to worry about socketing for that stat at all.  Flash Heal continues to scale as your mana pool increases becoming cheaper and cheaper.  Flash Heal treats discipline with respect and showers us with gifts!

A bit of testing on mana return of Flash Heal.

Mana Pool: 22468
Grace Off
Base Renew (with 5/5 Mental Agility): 590
Base Flash Heal (glyphed): 625

3794 Flash 186 – Rapture (Flash Heal Cost: 439) Loves Me
Renew Heals  0 – Rapture (Renew Cost: 590)…… Loves Me Not
3559 Flash 172 – Rapture (Flash Heal Cost: 453) Loves Me
Renew Heals  0 – Rapture (Renew Cost: 590)…… Loves Me Not
3560 Flash 175 – Rapture (Flash Heal Cost: 450) Loves Me
Renew Heals  0 – Rapture (Renew Cost: 590)…… Loves Me Not
3767 Flash 185 – Rapture (Flash Heal Cost: 440) Loves Me

I think we know who loves me.

The effects of Rapture scales beautifully with both intellect and spell power which is a key component of using Flash Heal over Renew.

Using Renew in place of Flash Heal is the complete wrong thing to do.  If you are having trouble getting away from this philosphy of using Renew then toss it out, knock it off your toolbar and put Flash Heal in place of it.  That’s what helped me adjust.  I still have Renew on a toolbar that I can click in case I need it (see above paragraphs) but really… I never use it.

I hope this helps you adjust, move on, and see the difference between your ex and your new love, Flash Heal.