Holy - Haste versus mastey?

[Themos]

which to that my answer is get at least 12,5% and then pursue whatever you feel like.

There is no point in gearung towards a spell that has the least impact on your heals. Renew is nowhere near as good as it was in WotLK and prior expansions. It's too expensive to spam, and the HPS of a CoH/PoM/Renew cycle is subpar. Unless that changes, a holy priest this expac shouldn't bother mousing over their haste and checking if they are over 12.5% or not. You always gear around your good spells, not your least impactful ones.

And even if you go all out Mastery, you'll have at least 515 anyway so this argument is rather silly.

[mitsoangel]

The reason the 12.5% is irrelevant is b/c Renew is at the bottom of the priority list of go to spells for Holy while in Sanctuary.

Help me understand a little better, cause honestly I'm a tad lost. If, say on majorodomo scorpion phase, you are in Sanctuary Chakra. There are a few seconds where, if you have good healers, everyone is topped off. At this point I normally throw a renew on the tank and a PoM while waiting for more aoe dmg to attend to, yes I precast my heals. In this situation, would you consider that Renew at the bottom of the priority list? I just want to make sure that I have all my ducks in a row...

[Themos]

Help me understand a little better, cause honestly I'm a tad lost. If, say on majorodomo scorpion phase, you are in Sanctuary Chakra. There are a few seconds where, if you have good healers, everyone is topped off. At this point I normally throw a renew on the tank and a PoM while waiting for more aoe dmg to attend to, yes I precast my heals. In this situation, would you consider that Renew at the bottom of the priority list? I just want to make sure that I have all my ducks in a row...

When I say bottom of the priority list, I mean what you cast when everyone's health is low.

For Sanctuary, your priority list looks something like this:

You go for CoH first
PoM next
Then PoH, CoH and PoM are on cooldown
If not at least 3 people in a party, PoH is no good, so you go for direct heals, Binding Heal/Greater Heal/Flash Heal depending on the situation and need

Then Renew comes dead last. You cast this when you're in the scenario you listed. Everyone is topped off and you have nothing better to do. I wouldn't spam it on the whole raid as it's too costly mana wise, but putting it on the tank is a good investment.

[vertigo12]

Actually I'm having the feeling of this never-get-tired discussion mode since the issue is pretty much prevalent when you discuss Holy vs. Priest, Regular Disc Healing vs. Atonement Healing, Haste vs. Mastery.

Investing in either Mastery or Haste have their own unique vibe/approach and effect to your playstyle. You pick, you decide, you experiment, you balance. All in all it's about your OWN UNIQUE PREFERENCE with regards to COMFORT,EFFICIENCY and consideration for the RAID GROUP.

[lenvik]

I've found on the 4.3 PTR that if you're ever going to be a tank healer at any point of a fight (which is pretty beastly now with a working Serenity crit buff) you want enough haste to be able to do Serenity Flash Flash Greater comfortably in the duration of the 6 second buff which I found with my latency (Australian player) to be around 15% haste raid buffed.

The ability to smash out three fast heals with a crit rate of over 50% is phenomenal especially since such a combo on a mere 7 second cooldown is pretty nice. After that point the tank healing is more increased by mastery than haste due to serendipity on the gheal, the high crit rate and the funkiness on the combo meshing with the serenity cooldown. Once you get the 4 set t13 bonus though you'll be able to keep serenity up 100% of the time on one tank which is going to be pretty epic.

I know that tank healing hasn't been the traditional mainstay for holy priests but from my experience of 10 man normal modes, the new 5 mans and 25 man LFR I've found my controlled single target burst is through the roof. You can also equally apply the new 'tank burst' healing in the context of random single target damage mechanics (ala face rage).

[Maladi]

When I say bottom of the priority list, I mean what you cast when everyone's health is low.

For Sanctuary, your priority list looks something like this:

You go for CoH first
PoM next
Then PoH, CoH and PoM are on cooldown
If not at least 3 people in a party, PoH is no good, so you go for direct heals, Binding Heal/Greater Heal/Flash Heal depending on the situation and need

Then Renew comes dead last. You cast this when you're in the scenario you listed. Everyone is topped off and you have nothing better to do. I wouldn't spam it on the whole raid as it's too costly mana wise, but putting it on the tank is a good investment.

That's a good priority list, when you're standing still. Renew sees tons of use on heroic rag and other fights that involve movement. I agree with kelesti that no reasonable gear set could possibly include less than 12.5% haste these days, but the consensus among top priests certainly isn't that renew is "bad" or that 12.5% haste isn't a minimum you should aim for should the issue ever come up. Between renew and our hymns, the 12.5% number should definitely be thought of as an absolute minimum and left at that.

One thing that's not getting mentioned much in this thread though is how Holy Word: Sanctuary is unaffected by haste. In 4.3, the spell is going to see a TON of use, which I feel gives mastery a pretty significant advantage.

[Nox165]

That's a good priority list, when you're standing still. Renew sees tons of use on heroic rag and other fights that involve movement. I agree with kelesti that no reasonable gear set could possibly include less than 12.5% haste these days, but the consensus among top priests certainly isn't that renew is "bad" or that 12.5% haste isn't a minimum you should aim for should the issue ever come up. Between renew and our hymns, the 12.5% number should definitely be thought of as an absolute minimum and left at that.

One thing that's not getting mentioned much in this thread though is how Holy Word: Sanctuary is unaffected by haste. In 4.3, the spell is going to see a TON of use, which I feel gives mastery a pretty significant advantage.

Sorry how dose 4.3 make holy word: sanctuary better?

[Maladi]

Sorry how dose 4.3 make holy word: sanctuary better?

A few reasons. First, it received a small undocumented buff I think. It was ticking for ~100 more per person on PTR for me than on live. Second, the mana cost has been reduced to 6.7k making it pretty efficient. Third, the encounters have a lot more opportunities to stack up for AoE healing.

[Nox165]

A few reasons. First, it received a small undocumented buff I think. It was ticking for ~100 more per person on PTR for me than on live. Second, the mana cost has been reduced to 6.7k making it pretty efficient. Third, the encounters have a lot more opportunities to stack up for AoE healing.

oh I see, I didn't even notice the change to the mana cost and it is indeed healing a bit more. thats pretty nice.

[Deleted]

A few reasons. First, it received a small undocumented buff I think. It was ticking for ~100 more per person on PTR for me than on live. Second, the mana cost has been reduced to 6.7k making it pretty efficient. Third, the encounters have a lot more opportunities to stack up for AoE healing.

also the priest 4set bonus is giving 33% longer duration on Holy words.

+ extra gear will mean that it's mana cost is less significant anyway.

[Themos]

That's a good priority list, when you're standing still. Renew sees tons of use on heroic rag and other fights that involve movement.

How many guilds are actually doing heroic Rag? Those that are will tweak specs and raid rosters in all sorts of ways to get the kill. I wouldn't make broad stroking decisions about how everyone should gear/reforge based on that fight. All other bosses in FLs have minimal movement save Alysrazor whom you can get the feather buff and free cast on the move. The only other fight that I can think of is Ryolith, but on that fight aside from dodging 'drunk' fire lines, you move at your own leisure.

Yes Renew moves up the list when moving, but that's not the way to gear.

I agree with kelesti that no reasonable gear set could possibly include less than 12.5% haste these days, but the consensus among top priests certainly isn't that renew is "bad" or that 12.5% haste isn't a minimum you should aim for should the issue ever come up. Between renew and our hymns, the 12.5% number should definitely be thought of as an absolute minimum and left at that.

I use Renew all the time in my 10 man while in Serenity, rolling it on 3-4 people depending. There is no breakpoint @12.5% in that chakra
The few times I use Sanctuary, I rarely use Renew (aside from the tank).

Setting a soft minimum around Renew is bad advise. Especially to priests in blues and starter epics, since they are starved for mana the most you shouldn't push them to stack haste so early in their gear progression. It makes healing heroics harder and perpetuates the FUD that Holy sucks.

Remember, only about 6% of 85s have killed Shannox on normal, that says alot about the target audience doing a quick MMO read up on how Holy priests work. They'll be reforging out of better HPM stats , when they need those the most. Some are even reforging out of Spirit to hit 12.5% for heroics where they aren't guaranteed a 5% haste buff. I've seen it in my ZA/ZG runs on my alts. And the most ironic part of it is that they're sitting in Serenity chakra while they do it... *facepalm*

One thing that's not getting mentioned much in this thread though is how Holy Word: Sanctuary is unaffected by haste. In 4.3, the spell is going to see a TON of use, which I feel gives mastery a pretty significant advantage.

This would make Mastery much more beneficial to a 25 man, imo. Perhaps a Serendipity driven FhealxN/PoH cycle with Sanct out and CoH/PoM on CD? Reminds me of the mid WotLK expac days.