A review of Holy Talents V2.0 (BETA)

Post by Elrael

Since the changes to the Holy Talent Tree making the best Holy Spec is impossible. Each time someone post a spec at least four people say that they would change something.
This is a guide where priest that are eager to learn can build there own good specs but also where new priest can pick up a good seconds in seconds.

This is a PvE healing review.

Index
Holy Talents Tier 1 - 6
Holy Talents Tier 7 - 11
How to Spec Properly
Example Talent Builds

Some basics about Holy Priest

13 points in Disc Rule
You need 13 points in Disc, no exceptions. You want Meditation which is the best mana regen talent priest can have. Also all points towards getting Meditation help all specs of priest.
Twin Disciplines works for renew, flash heals under surge of light, circle of healing, shield, prayer of mending.
Inner Fire also increase the spell power part thats available on the two highest ranks of Inner Fire.
Power Word: Fortitude is a much wanted buff by everyone and it makes your healing job easier. Also it increases your stamina.

Tank Healing? Raid Healing? What I am doing?
Some people tend to get confused when it comes to holy. At first you get talents that help tank healing and suddenly there is one of the best AoE spells in game. The short answer is: "A holy priest can do both. So you need talents for both.
If you want a specific role you don't got the talents for that. You end up taking a lot of weird fillers just because you didn't want to do both holy roles and you lose one of the greatest flexibility and uniqueness of the Holy Priest.

Plus Healing and Plus Bonus Healing.
They seem to the same thing, but they don't.
Plus Healing increases the amount the spell does by a flat modifier.
Example:
Spell A does 5000 healing.
Talent A says +10% healing
Spell A now does 5000 * 10% healing, 5500 healing
Plus Bonus Healing references to the spell coefficient. Every spell get a certain percentage of spell power added as healing, +bonus healing increased that coefficient.
Example:
Spell A gets 80% of spell power as bonus healing and has a base of 1000 healing
With 2000 spell power this spells heals 1000 + (2000*0.8) = 2600
Talent A increased the bonus healing with 10%, making the coefficient 90%
With 2000 spell power this spells heals 1000 + (2000*0.9) = 2800

All talents are rated according the following system:

1/5 = terrible
2/5 = below average
3/5 = good
4/5 = great
5/5 = must have

Recent changes
Updated, renewed and kicked some live back into this.
Added a few samples specs .
Changing the How to Spec Properly

Post by Elrael

Tier 1
Healing Focus
Tank 2/5
Raid 3/5
This talent togheter with a Paladin with Concentration Aura make you completly and pasive imune to push backs on spells. So you can heal trough any ability or even trough aggro. You can get the same effect with casting Power Word: Shield on yourself, but then you need to be active to be immume to push backs. It's a good back up talent, but the fights where you use are uncommon.

Improved Renew
Tank 4/5
Raid 3/5
Renew is a healing over time spell. For raid healing you aren't using renew a lot, but still if you got time keeping renews up is good and almost pasive healing. Especially when it's empowered. For tank healing you are always keeping renew up so improving it helps a lot.

Holy Specialization
Tank 5/5
Raid 5/5
As far as I know all priest healing spells are Holy(with the exception of the healing from Glyph of Power Word: shield), so basically this talent increases your healing crit with 5%. Now with all the talents based on crit this is a really nice talent.

Tier 2
Spell Warding
Tank 2/5
Raid 2/5
Some people use this as filler because It helps surviving and gives more time for you (or other healers) to heal. Almost all bosses do some sort of magic based AoE damage, so it works against most bosses. But you won't want to take this over talents that really improve healing.

Divine Fury
Tank 5/5
Raid 1/5
Yup Divine Fury adds nothing for a raid healer. It only works for greater heal which is one of the least used spells during raid healing. At the other side it is one of the most used spells for tank healing. And then this talent adds a lot haste.

Tier 3
Desperate Prayer
Tank 3/5
Raid 3/5
Compared to spell warding this is healing on demand personal survival. You get hit for 7k and you instantly heal yourself for 7k, can be used while running and is quite cheap in mana cost. Great for panic moments.
Fun fact: 1 point in spell warding is better then Desperate Prayer if a boss does more then 500k magic damage.
(Desperate Prayer heals max for 10k. Spell warding takes 2% of every magic, which means 10k is 2% of the total boss magic damage, which results in 10k*50)

Blessed Recovery
Tank 0/5
Raid 0/5
This talent is only useful when you get critted by a melee of ranged attack, which shouldn't happen in PvE.

Inspiration
Tank 5/5
Raid 1/5
This is sometimes a overrated and sometimes a underrated talent. This talent is great for tank healing, 25% extra armor can mean the tank gets ~10% less damage per hit. For raid healing you most likely won't have it up more then once during a entire fight.

Tier 4
Holy Reach
Tank 2/5
Raid 4/5
Hard to judge. The extra range always sounds so tiny. This talent adds 3 yards to CoH and 6 yards to all others. For tank healing range is mostly a lesser problem because you and the tank don't move that much. Compared to DPS thats always spread out. A good talent when people are spread out, but when everyone is togheter it doen't help.

Improved Healing
Tank 4/5
Raid 2/5
The only spell this really effects a lot is Greater Heal. As raid healer you won't be touching this one a lot, but as tank healer is one of your main spells.

Searing Light
Tank 0/5
Raid 0/5
This talents increased your damage, which you shouldn't be doing/needing as healer.

Tier 5
Healing Prayers
Tank 1/5
Raid 4/5
As tank healer you won't be using Prayer of Healing. Prayer of Mending you will be using but is really quite cheap and efficient. For raid healing Prayer of Healing is our second favorite AoE spell since the changes in 3.1.

Spirit of Redemption
Tank 5/5
Raid 5/5
5% spirit for one point? Take it now! Not only is spirit a great stat this is the kind of talent the scales excellent with gear upgrades.
Owh and when you die you change in angel. Spam healing for 15 seconds and giving a sign to the raid you died. It gives time for other healers to pick up your job or druids to combat ress you. It's a great back up for when you die. Even when you shouldn't die it happens. Even the best of us die.

Spiritual Guidance
Tank 5/5
Raid 5/5
25% of your spirit is a lot. At 500 spirit it's already 125 extra spell power. Thats almost 7 free spell power gems. At 1000 spirit, a common number for a raider, it's 250 spell power or more then 13 free spell power gems. Also another talent that has excellent scaling power.

Tier 6
Surge of Light
Tank N/A
Raid N/A
With this talent every CoH can give you a free Flash Heal that you can cast while walking.

Spiritual Healing
Tank 5/5
Raid 5/5
10% healing for all spells is a lot.

Post by Elrael

Tier 7
Holy Concentration
Tank 5/5
Raid 5/5
As a tank healer you could get a 100% uptime on this, as raid healer you still can has a decent uptime. It's a lot of extra regen during that moment. Earlier theories said this talent could at least ad 100mp5.. Some math I did earlier seemed to point this talent at 100mp5, based on 2 flash heals(or Improved Renews) everyone 8 seconds, 25% crit, 1000 spirit, 1000 intellect. And 100mp5 for 3 points is great.

Lightwell
Tank 2/5
Raid 4/5
Lightwell can be one of the strongest, most mana efficient and cool looking spells in game. If used properly this spell can quickly become 50k healing for 300 mana. Shamfully most people won't bother using it but within in a guild you can also try to teach them how to click. You can get the healing effect even while casting, during global cooldowns and while feared.

Blessed Resilience
Tank 2/5
Raid 2/5
The 3% healing on this talent is nice. It's sounds like a reference to the scaling and not a flat increase and because of that isn't so strong. Anyways a large part of the talent is PvP oriented and not used in PvE.

Tier 8
Body And Soul
Tank 1/5
Raid 3/5
For healing tanks this talent is worthless. The poison effect only works on yourself and the extra speed is not so interesting for a tank. In worse case this means he is faster out of range of healers when he needs to move and getting less heals. But for raid healing I start to love this talent in Ulduar. Many bosses have a running element (Ignis, Razorscale, XT-002, Iron Council, Kologarn, and it even helps on Mimiron, Freya, Hodir and Thorim.) It's a great utility tool and a form of preventing damage, but you need to active watch people to shield and that can take time from healing.

Empowered Healing
Tank 5/5
Raid 3/5
Three of your most used single target spells getting more healing from spellpower. It's great for tank healing, but the extra healing is less important for the random Flash Heals a raid healer does. It stills adds extra healing and is a talent most people use anyways.

Serendipity
Tank 3/5
Raid 5/5
Serendipity is a talent that gives new options when used probably. Ever since 3.1 made PoH castable and a lot bosses do predictable heavy AoE damage you can nicely build up some Serendipity secs and shoot a fast PoH. For tank healing this enables a rotation of Flash Heals and a really fast Greater Heal when the tank takes a heavy hit. It's great tool but you need to learn to use it.

Tier 9
Empowered Renew
Tank 4/5
Raid 3/5
Renew is a spell you use constant on a tank. Most raid healers didn't bother that much with it, but this talent now gives renew a chance to crit, only on the initial healing, and proc Holy Concentration. You can can also use it to heal top people up during constant AoE and ensure continues healing on them.

Circle of Healing
Tank 4/5
Raid 6/5
This was the main AoE spell of a priest. The soul of AoE healing, the engine behind the high HPS and even with all the nerfs (and buffs) it's still a fair balanced much(always) used AoE spell. And for one point even a tank healer shouldn't skip it.

Test of Faith
Tank 3/5
Raid 4/5
This is talent really based on your playstyle. If you spam a lot you will get less out of this talent then when you careful land good timed spells after a heavy hit. It's a lot extra healing in the right hands but it needs heavy Hits/AoE to reach full potential.

Tier 10
Divine Providence
Tank 3/5
Raid 5/5
It's 10% healing with all AoE healing spells, how can you not want that. Also 30% cooldown of PoM makes it nice. For tank healers it's one of the rare spells you can use for instant healing.

Tier 11
Guardian Spirit
Tank 5/5
Raid 5/5
Extra healing and saving lives. Don't be shy and use it a lot. If you got the feeling the dieing part gets wasted to much get the glyph. It makes it almost spamable on a tank. I tend to use this also on heavy hit moments because the extra healing counts from all sources(other healers!). If you know the fights or learn them you mostly see moments you can use Guardian Spirit

Post by Elrael

How to Spec Properly.
The problem with Holy Specs is there isn't any real Cookie Cutter anymore, there is a lot room of personal touches, dislikes and preferences. But no fear, this small guide is going to make your idea of holy into a proper spec.

Let's make a quick recap of the talents.
Tank Healing Score

5/5 Holy Concentration
5/5 Divine Fury
5/5 Inspiration
5/5 Spirit of Redemption
5/5 Spiritual Guidance
5/5 Spiritual Healing
5/5 Holy Concentration
5/5 Empowered Healing
5/5 Guardian Angel
4/5 Circle of Healing
4/5 Improved Renew
4/5 Empowered Renew
4/5 Divine Providence
4/5 Improved Healing
3/5 Serendipity
3/5 Test of Faith
3/5 Desperate Prayer
N/A Surge of Light
2/5 Healing Focus
2/5 Spell Warding
2/5 Holy Reach
2/5 Healing Prayers
2/5 Light Well
2/5 Blessed Resilience
1/5 Body and Soul

Raid Healing Score

6/5 Circle of Healing
5/5 Holy Concentration
5/5 Spirit of Redemption
5/5 Spiritual Guidance
5/5 Spiritual Healing
5/5 Holy Concentration
5/5 Serendipity
5/5 Divine Providence
5/5 Guardian Angel
4/5 Holy Reach
4/5 Healing Prayers
4/5 Light Well
4/5 Test of Faith
3/5 Healing Focus
3/5 Improved Renew
3/5 Desperate Prayer
3/5 Inspiration
3/5 Body and Soul
3/5 Empowered Healing
3/5 Empowered Renew
N/A Surge of Light
2/5 Blessed Resilience
2/5 Improved Healing
2/5 Spell Warding
1/5 Divine Fury

Based on tank healing we get this spec.
This is a more balanced spec and probably spec that also can excel great in raid healing. For raid healing missing Improved Healing prayers can hurt a bit when you spam PoH a lot with not so great gear or in ten mans.

Based on raid healing we get this spec and 6 points spare. Unlike the tank healing spec (that turned out quite balanced) pure raid healers have more choice.

For raid healers the lower tiers are the hardest to get trough because so many talents are tank healer aimed. I assume the best possible raid healer lower tier talents are in the lines of this.

The last six points are the most personal. I would advice to go for one point on Empowered Renew so it can crit and proc Holy Concentration.
Some specs I can advise include:

Mental Agility Build with one point spare. Only use this when starting naxx in low gear or starting 10 men Ulduar without having 25 man gear.
Utility Build with Body and Soul. This build only works for Ulduar because naxx doesn't have that much fight people need to run. It's a special kind of spec and not advisable for any one. (More Information)
Max Healing Build with Blessed Resilience for... max healing!
Any combinations of those or something with a personal touch like taking Empowered Healing

Post by Elrael

Some people asked me for glyphs, I'm not going to do that.
Aldones has a good Glyph List in Gearing up for Raids II (Which is also a great list for gearing)

Thanks and a free virtual cookie to:
Aldones
beanee70
Exofficio
Nedo
Razzem (but ssst)

All readers that made it to here.

Post by 239466

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Aldones

Elrael, I have to say this is a great guide! There are a few little things that I noticed here and there though that need modifying.

Holy Specialization
As far as I know all priest healing spells are Holy, so basicly this talent increases your healing crit with 5%. Now with all the talents based on crit this is a really nice talent.
Mandatory

If PW:S is glyphed, the healing it does is still considered a discipline heal. While this doesn't have much effect on holy, the 5% crit would not affect it (it's mostly important for spriests).

Desperate Prayer
A situational self saving heal, because dead priest can't heal. It's a lot healing (4k over flash heal), instant (run and heal), cheap and Dead Priest can't heal. But if the situation doesn't happen this spell isn't going to get used.
Filler

While I personally wouldn't spend a point in here in a holy build, many priests would go far enough to say it's mandatory. I would compramise and say the spell is good.

Blessed Recovery
This talent is only useful when you get hit, which doesn't happen in PvE.
Useless

Only usefull when you get critically hit.

Holy Reach
This talent adds 3 yards to CoH and 6 yards to all others. A good talent when people are spread out, but when everyone is togheter it helps less.
Filler

Considering a raid healer's 2 main AoE spells will be PoH and CoH, I would consider this good. More range = better chance of getting the full AoE effect.

Improved Healing
Every Holy Priest is going to use Greater Heal, a lot.
Mandatory

Wrong link.

Lightwell
A great spell that is hard to use and requires thinking and teamwork from other players. If used correctly this spell can quickly become 50k healing for 300 mana, but when no one uses it it's just waste. Because in general people seem to be lazy or think Lightwell sucks and don't click on it this talent is worth going for. But if you are in some utopia guild take it, now.
Filler

Lightwell is potentially a priest's most powerful heal. You even say take it if the guild knows how to use it, and if they don't, I strongly recommend making them learn. Even if the group won't use it, it can be a great heal for personal use, or letting a tank have a say in thier own healing. I would change the "filler" to "good."

Empowered Renew
This talent makes renew a great spell and with the instant healing also nice to use during constant AoE damage.
Good

With points in Empowered Renew, it would be worth it for a holy priest (raid healing) to cast it on a tank, even if it's a discipline priest tank healing. Our Renews will be a heck of a lot more effective.

Divine Providence
All spells in this talent are great and 20% on those makes then even greater. Also 20% less cooldown from PoM is nice.
Mandatory

Your comment on the spell is wrong.

Edit: At the beginning I would also specify the difference b/w +%healing and +%bonus healing.

Post by Elrael

a lot corrections and smart things
Thanks for those ^^
Edit: you deserve a fee virtual cookie!

Also I updated Lightwell to a less "people are retard" view

Yeah I see my simple rating system is underrating spells now. :<

Considering a raid healer's 2 main AoE spells will be PoH and CoH, I would consider this good. More range = better chance of getting the full AoE effect.
There are various reasons to take it or not take it and I don't think either side is 100% correct of 100% wrong. There needs to be a better way to rate spells like Holy Reach who are really more a personal choice above anything else. Some people will hate it for just being 3-6 yard range, other people will love because it gives the raid more room to spread out.
It's on my to do list.

Ulduar in 15 mins, I will correct the other minor points and add the difference b/w +%healing and +%bonus healing on the to do list.

Post by razzem

PS- Eld, On Healing Focus, I think you should view it as a HPS increase. Obviously it's great for pvp, but it's good in pve to get much better HPS when aoe damage is going on. ie, instead of 1 second of pushback on a heal, it's .3 seconds. That's a huge difference, and especially when it matters.

Post by Elrael

If PW:S is glyphed, the healing it does is still considered a discipline heal. While this doesn't have much effect on holy, the 5% crit would not affect it (it's mostly important for spriests).

This is sort of confusing, but even though there is a Discipline "Tree" in your spellbook and for your talents, all priest spells are either Holy or Shadow with regard to schools of magic. When you get Kicked or other interrupted when casting a heal (Holy), PW:S gets locked out, ie, even though it is in the Disc tree in your spellbook, it is in the Holy school of magic.

The reason that PW:S won't pop a spriest out of shadowform is because it's not considered a heal. And even though the tooltip says that "holy spells" will knock you out of Shadowform, it is incorrect for PW:S. Is this weird? Yes. Is this how it works? Yes.

Are you talking about Glyph of Power Word: Shield?
Just checking, because you call it PW:S and thats confusing!

PS- Eld, On Healing Focus, I think you should view it as a HPS increase. Obviously it's great for pvp, but it's good in pve to get much better HPS when aoe damage is going on. ie, instead of 1 second of pushback on a heal, it's .3 seconds. That's a huge difference, and especially when it matters.

Unless your can PW:S yourself, shouldn't be a large problem is most battles. It's a choice and Healing Focus is one of the better fillers, but I won't say every priest is going to benefit from it. Some do, others don't.

Really the personal factor in holy is huge.

Post by OscarDivine

Post by Elrael

Excellent talent overview. Admittedly I didn't read every word since it's a holiday week (which means wife is home from work and I constantly have to find an off-tank for the aggro) but from what I have read at this point, very solid.

Purely for organizational purposes, you might want to add in a small "Summary" note at the bottom showing a quick overview of which talents are in which category.

Gold star for u!

I think the How to Spec Properly part I just added in is going to be the recap of talents. Unless there is preference to see it really as an independent part?

Post by razzem

Neither the glyph heal, or PW:S are considered "Discipline". There is no such thing as a Discipline school of magic. That's all I'm pointing out. PW:S is a Holy Spell. The glyph is therefore Holy. However, whether or not the glyph benefits from Holy Specialization (Holy spells gain 5% crit) is doubtful, because the heal from the glyph is not a spell, not because it is a "Discipline" heal. Complicated, and two seperate issues that are intertwined, but just wanted to clear that up.

ps- Yeah, I agree that Healing Focus is fully preference, but people rarely see it as a HPS increase. My point is that it can be viewed as desirable for the HPS that it gives, and most people don't give it credit for that, let alone look at how much time it saves you and in what situations.

Post by OscarDivine

Post by 174266

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Post by 217276

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Patty

The problem with Holy now is, SO much choice!
You can't pick up everything and my spec is running without holy reach or test of faith...because there just aren't enough points to spare (yes I do use Lightwell, shame the groups don't unless it is after a wipe).

Post by Elrael

Edit: At the beginning I would also specify the difference b/w +%healing and +%bonus healing.

Done it now. ;)

Good start -

For a raid spec, I disagee on some of the ratings ->

Spell Warding is PVP -> what, use 5 points to save 2k on a 10k damage. That's a renew/bh
Improved Healing-> is good-> you are using 3 points to reduce the mana of GH by 50/100/150; while I do use GH, I don't use it enough to warrant this. If you are the main MT healer, it would be different.
Blessed Resilience -PVP
Holy Concentration-has become mandatory ala 3.1
Serpendipity has as well. I actually didn't this at 1st until I stepped into Ulduar. The quick POH for raid damage makes this pay off.
Healing focus ->I would rate this as useless. It was in Naxx. Maybe it will not be in uldar. This is the second post on this subject that I read today. Am I to believe that the pally aura and priest spec actually STACK? Idk. Even if they did, I have not seen a need for it.
Last-> Inspiration-> I read a post here on this subject. i always ran around with 1 point here. I was convinced that it should be 3 based on the damage reduction.

In terms of glyphs -> glyph of power word shield is considered a disc heal bc a disc build should use this glyph. Holy should not use this glyph.

These are my thoughts -> for what they are worth

- Bean

Spell Warding -> Has his uses in filler, but fillers don't seem to make the spec now.
Improved Healing - No Comment, check down below why
Blessed Resilience - Marked as ~~"useless"~~ "not used"
Holy Concentration - I removed the "(probably)".
Serendipity - I don't see a Holy Priest casting that much flash heals during AoE fights. At one of my last moment as holy my HPS bumped from 2k to 3k when I switched all my Flash Heal casts with PoH casts. This talent still is good in any case.
Healing Focus - now preferable. And indeed it stacks with the paladins aura to 105% immune to push backs! And I saw a lot of AoE in ulduar, also of the kind that pushed your spell casts.
Inspiration - I should get some math for it.

Glyphs - This is a maybe, but let me get the talents right first. ;)

It could be a little easier to read if you wrote Mandatory,Good, etc next to the talent name instead of under the description. I couldn't get my head to understand why Inspiration was Useless, but then I discovered that I read it wrong.

Nice information though. Good job.

Good Idea, I directly used it.

The problem with Holy now is, SO much choice!
You can't pick up everything and my spec is running without holy reach or test of faith...because there just aren't enough points to spare (yes I do use Lightwell, shame the groups don't unless it is after a wipe).

Choice is nice, but the real problem is, we want it all! Thats why I started this, to make choices easier and help people with guiding them into a good spec.

So that was a lot of quoting.
Three quick question of people reach it down here.

1) Is the new rating system better?

2) How do people think about a pure raid healing holy spec? Or a pure tank healing holy spec?
Some talents seem to be close to useless when you not raid heal or not tank heal. (Like Improved healing for instance)
I know it's one of the strength of a holy priest to do both, but still.

3) How is the new layout of the talents?

Post by 240898

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A review of Holy Talents V2.0 (BETA)

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