[6.2.3] Holy Priest PvE Guide and discussion

[bushkanaka86]

Is there an easy macro that could be set up to a frequently used heal to make sure Power Word: Solace is always used on CD without thinking about it?

I know this macro

/cast [harm][@targettarget,harm][] Power Word: Solace

will cast it on the target if it is an enemy or the target of my target if my target is friendly. That works great but can it be paired with a heal so it is on automatic? I suppose since it is on the GCD it would have to be a cast sequence macro?

Also, is there a good addon for tracking Renew on the raid? I can see the buff on my raid frames but it is very small and among all the other buffs I see, it would be nice to be able to quickly see who needs a renew or when the renew can be refreshed. Not that I have tried, but the yellow renew healing would benefit from this addon as well I imagine.

[Thirteen]

Also, is there a good addon for tracking Renew on the raid? I can see the buff on my raid frames but it is very small and among all the other buffs I see, it would be nice to be able to quickly see who needs a renew or when the renew can be refreshed. Not that I have tried, but the yellow renew healing would benefit from this addon as well I imagine.

You can use SPTimers, but tbh I find the Grid icons much easier to handle.

[Deleted]

Curious to hear what people think of the trinkets from BRF for Holy Priests? Even the heroic ones.

As of now I use Everburning Candle/Hourglass(Dont have Emblem yet) on mana heavy fights(Mythic imperator) and swap out Hourglass with mythic Quiescent Runestone for everything else pretty much. And for how long do we stick with Candle?

[Deleted]

Curious to hear what people think of the trinkets from BRF for Holy Priests? Even the heroic ones.

As of now I use Everburning Candle/Hourglass(Dont have Emblem yet) on mana heavy fights(Mythic imperator) and swap out Hourglass with mythic Quiescent Runestone for everything else pretty much. And for how long do we stick with Candle?

Here's how I've valued the trinkets, numbers come from stat weights I'm using so are ofc variable, but here they are just to give you an idea

Candle - 514
Goren Soul Repository H - 489.325
Goren Soul Repository M - 563.1
Unstable Talisman H - 478.665
Unstable Talisman M - 550.9665
Ironspike Chew Toy H - 522.597
Ironspike Chew Toy M - 600.1397
Elementalists Shielding Talisman H - 558.1315
Elementalists Shielding Talisman M - 641.76315
Auto-Repairing Autoclaive H - 556.9
Auto-Repairing Autoclaive M - 641.133
Blackiron Micro Crucible H - 494.5
Blackiron Micro Crucible M - 569.8963

These are literally just values based from stat weights, personally I value static trinkets > on use > proc for healing. Don't take this list as gospel I'm just using it as a tool to compare raw values.

Anyways, I'll likely be considering heroic chew toy the only heroic trinket above candle. Both the autoclaive and the talisman have higher numbers but the itemization just doesn't suit my playstyle. Static spirit is fine but having all of the throughput tied into a random proc it means you may not have it when you need it.
In terms of final BiS, I don't really like the idea of being forced into one of the throughput proc trinkets, I'll likely be aiming for chewtoy and picking my 2nd option based on how overall mana regen feels.

[Deleted]

Does Divine Hymn stack with Amplify Magic?

[Tomali]

Here are my holy specific thoughts on the current changes listed on the PTR:
Mindbender will outweigh solace for mana intensive fights, while surge might continue to be used for less mana intensive ones. However, with our 4pc giving us loads of serendipity procs, surge has lost value in our toolkit.
Cascade will be used over Halo. Divine star will still be used to proc surge for at least semi-stacked fights.

The more important conversation I think will be concerning CoP Vs Words of Mending.I see two play-styles emerging with these talents.

The first is basically the same renew spam with circle of healing and words of mending/mending on CD. You will have excess serendipity stacks to use for fast prayers. The major drawback I see with this style is that there will be many wasted serendipity stacks, and that prayer of healing might be too mana intensive, even only casting it as a 2stack.

The other would be combining DI and CoP to basically alternate building up serendipity stacks and burning them with CoP, which can proc DI. I think this style might be more mana efficient, but will provide less healing overall than the play-style above.

Also, given how both of these will involve us hard casting more spells, our mastery will rise in our stat priority.

[Deleted]

The first is basically the same renew spam with circle of healing and words of mending/mending on CD. You will have excess serendipity stacks to use for fast prayers. The major drawback I see with this style is that there will be many wasted serendipity stacks, and that prayer of healing might be too mana intensive, even only casting it as a 2stack.

it offers higher healing per mana and healing per second than renew / CoH so if it's draining too much mana you'd still be better off casting the 2stack PoH and afking a GCD or 2 after rather than not using the stacks

[Deleted]

Here's how I've valued the trinkets, numbers come from stat weights I'm using so are ofc variable, but here they are just to give you an idea

Candle - 514
Goren Soul Repository H - 489.325
Goren Soul Repository M - 563.1
Unstable Talisman H - 478.665
Unstable Talisman M - 550.9665
Ironspike Chew Toy H - 522.597
Ironspike Chew Toy M - 600.1397
Elementalists Shielding Talisman H - 558.1315
Elementalists Shielding Talisman M - 641.76315
Auto-Repairing Autoclaive H - 556.9
Auto-Repairing Autoclaive M - 641.133
Blackiron Micro Crucible H - 494.5
Blackiron Micro Crucible M - 569.8963

These are literally just values based from stat weights, personally I value static trinkets > on use > proc for healing. Don't take this list as gospel I'm just using it as a tool to compare raw values.

Anyways, I'll likely be considering heroic chew toy the only heroic trinket above candle. Both the autoclaive and the talisman have higher numbers but the itemization just doesn't suit my playstyle. Static spirit is fine but having all of the throughput tied into a random proc it means you may not have it when you need it.
In terms of final BiS, I don't really like the idea of being forced into one of the throughput proc trinkets, I'll likely be aiming for chewtoy and picking my 2nd option based on how overall mana regen feels.

Thanks for this! And honestly I am inclined to agree! Personally though I really like on use trinkets and I really want to try out the Emblem from Koragh. The haste on demand seems really good. Chewtoy is basically a much better version of Winged Hourglass and I agree it looks really good. Great static int with a juicy spirit proc once a minute.

[Deleted]

Did a small trinket spreadsheet for (not all) 6.1 trinkets.
Some of the proc calculations are slight approximations. If anyone finds mistakes please let me know.
If you make a copy of the spreadsheet you can enter your own stat weights. I took numbers from Myllior's Spreadsheet (here).

Enjoy!

[Deleted]

Seems you mixed up value of haste & multistrike in that spreadsheet. Multistrike should be 5.5 and haste 5.0.

[Deleted]

Myllior's Spreadsheet values Haste slightly above Multistrike.
The numbers in the spreadsheet had been rounded rather roughly. I have now input more precise numbers even though they are specifically calculated with Myllior's gear in mind (one reason for my rough rounding).

And as already mentioned: If you want to use different stat weights, you can.

[appro]

Myllior's Spreadsheet values Haste slightly above Multistrike.
The numbers in the spreadsheet had been rounded rather roughly. I have now input more precise numbers even though they are specifically calculated with Myllior's gear in mind (one reason for my rough rounding).

And as already mentioned: If you want to use different stat weights, you can.

Myllior can probably provide a whole lot more information on this situation however I'm under the impression the stat weights in his/her sheet are an average for 1 of every spell being cast in the holy toolkit.

What I'm getting at is that haste may be more valuable to say PoH given that it only requires 90 points to achieve 1% haste, and miltistrike might be worth a little more for renew because its our passive stat. When calculating stat weights you need to enter the number of a spell you cast throughout a fight, say 100xRenew and 10xPoH.
If MS is worth a little more to renew and we're casting 100 and haste is #1 for PoH but we're only using 10 then stacking MS will (could) give greater overall throughput as we're casting so much more renew to PoH.

Obviously this changes with a number of factors because its very unlikely we're all playing exactly the same and using the exact same number of each spell.
The common consensus is that either renew spam to use CoH or renew refresh are the strongest ways to play holy (for now!) which makes multistrike most peoples number 1 stat due to the far greater amount of renew being used comparative to other spells in the toolkit.

[Myllior]

Okay there are a few things going on here, so I'll try to answer/explain them clearly.

Myllior's gear

It's not actually my gear in the spreadsheet(s). Every now and again, it strikes me that people have probably gained enough extra gear that the numbers in the spreadsheet aren't representative for anyone who was raiding since Highmaul was available. So, I go and find a random Priest's Armory (generally, the Priest will be well-progressed and well-geared) and put those stats in to 'update' it. The best results are obviously those obtained using your own gear.

I'm under the impression the stat weights in his/her sheet are an average for 1 of every spell being cast in the holy toolkit.

The way the Holy spreadsheet works is to put the proportions of your pre-secondary healing into cells B39 to D39, which may be obtained either from studying a rotation (which takes far longer than I'd like; e.g. see my Discipline example), or by analysing logs. The default numbers that come in the spreadsheet are obtained by analysing a few logs and choosing numbers that seemed reasonable at the time. That being said, it's obvious that the numbers can vary significantly from these, so it's best if you analyse your own logs, or possibly even the logs of someone whose healing-style you'd like to emulate (although then you need to actually emulate it well for the resultant weights to be applicable).

Spreadsheet values Haste slightly above Multistrike.

Here's where things become a bit unstuck. While all of Intellect, Spellpower, Critical Strike, Multistrike, Mastery and Versatility lends themselves to being analysed by straightforward equations, they do so because factors such as casting order/speed and available mana are irrelevant in determining their values. That is, if you are following a certain casting pattern, then increasing any of these six stats will increase the healing of the pattern while not affecting your exact casting sequence nor requiring any additional mana to sustain the pattern.
However, neither Haste nor Spirit allow this, because Haste does affect your casting sequence while also requiring additional mana to sustain the pattern, and Spirit affects the mana available to sustain a casting sequence. Because of this, the spreadsheet doesn't even try to give a Spirit value, and Haste is treated extremely superficially (it even says so under 'Notes' in both sheets).
The stat weight for Haste literally only looks at the reduction in cast time/GCD...and that's it. For Holy, additional effects of Haste include the increase in the actual healing of HoT's, the additional mana requirement that comes with higher Haste levels, and (although I guess these two effects are of far lesser magnitude than the preceding two) the increased frequency with which CoH may be cast in Sanctuary, and being able to sustain more instances of Renew simultaneously while in Serenity. Because of this, Haste is not so easy to assign a value to, however its value is almost definitely overestimated by the spreadsheet; the difficult question is, by how much?

So to summarise all of the above, the spreadsheet is best if you put in your own gear, the spell breakdown may be altered as seen fit in the bottom left of the sheet, and the value given for Haste overestimates its true value, although the degree to which it does so is unclear (but it's likely that it should be behind Multistrike).

PS:

The common consensus is that either renew spam to use CoH or renew refresh are the strongest ways to play holy (for now!)

I thought I'd quickly touch on this with regards to the spreadsheet. In essence, there seem to be two main stages in playing your Priest; the first is to determine how to heal (i.e. 'the strongest ways to play'), while the second is to then what that method of healing needs to function well. The spreadsheet simply gives you information on the second stage, and even then, Haste and Spirit (both of which are important for Holy Priests) require more work to evaluate well. As such, the spreadsheet cannot be used predictively unless you're willing to design and evaluate casting patterns/sequences that may be considered to represent a 'good' way of healing. It is for the first stage of determining an 'ideal' casting pattern that tools such as SimulationCraft are ideal, if you know how to use them (I don't), because they allow you to vary the pattern in numerous ways and get a large set of data without spending days on hand calculations (the entire thing can indeed be done by hand, but the time involved would be ridiculous). So, when there are imminent changes that may have a drastic affect on the strongest way to play the specialisation (such as Holy's T17 bonuses), the spreadsheet cannot tell you the associated stat weights until the ideal casting pattern (or at least something representative of it) has been determined.
So the point of the above is, although we can see that the new way of healing, that may arise for Holy when Blackrock Foundry is released, will almost definitely result in an increase in the value of Mastery, the questions of how much it will increase, and of the degree of its superiority (or lack thereof) compared to current ways of healing, won't really be answered until someone does some ridiculous analysis using SimCraft or a similar tool, or until 6.1 is released and we can actually see how the different methods of healing all play out.

To summarise the above, we need lots of data before we can really get into the stat weights, and it probably won't be available until after 6.1 is live (there is a lot of data that can be gathered from logs due to PTR encounter testing, however many guilds keep such logs private - for obvious reasons - and there are almost always last minute changes made).

[Tomali]

I've made my BIS list for BRF. I valued pieces with multistrike on them, then haste. I am not including trinkets as they are dependent on the state of mana in the tier. All slots with spirit also have them. Tier is our highest priority.
Gruul: No Lootz
Oregorger: No Lootz
Beastlord Darmac: Flame Infusion Drape (cloak) haste/spirit AND Inferno Breath Sandals (feet) ms/crit
Flamebender Ka'graz: Chest Tier
Hans'gar and Franzok: Franzok's Headsmasher (1hand) ms/haste AND Six-Eyed Band (ring) ms/spirit
Operator Thogar: Shoulder Tier AND Engine-Stroker's Lantern (off-hand) ms/haste
Blast Furnace: Leg Tier AND Bracers of Spattered Steel (bracers) crit/ms
Kromog: Head Tier AND Talisman of the Fomor (neck) ms/spirit
The Iron Maidens: Hand Tier AND Deckhand's Rope Belt (waist) ms/crit
Blackhand: Essence

[Talhooo]

It might be even harder to evaluate how good haste is when we have our 4-set. If we are going to cast a whole lot more PoH with it, the value of haste for a PoH is divided by 2.

I'm also not a fan of proccing trinkets, and I would also value the Ironspike Chew Toy trinket as our BiS, 2nd best is probably the multistriking trinket, but I'm still a fan of the everburning candle. Which might be the 3rd best trinket, but I except to start hating on the random proccs when I don't need it that I will start valuing everburning candle higher.

[Deleted]

It might be even harder to evaluate how good haste is when we have our 4-set. If we are going to cast a whole lot more PoH with it, the value of haste for a PoH is divided by 2.

Care to elaborate on this? I don't see how serendipity devalues haste at all, not until we start hitting GCD cap anyway

[Talhooo]

Care to elaborate on this? I don't see how serendipity devalues haste at all, not until we start hitting GCD cap anyway

Our main haste affects the main 2.5seconds cast of PoH. I assume with serendipity that haste will only account for haste/2. Or is this calculated differently ? It might actually now that I think about it. I should probably go test this tonight .

[Deleted]

I'd say our main haste effect is more about how it affects renew tick than PoH cast.

Still, with 2 stacks of serendipity, PoH cast time is 1.5s at 0 haste.
Simply put, a full serendipitied PoH behaves the same as a flash heal.

Haste doesn't get less valuable with serendipity since it scales linearly (until 50%). It's just that you won't apprehend the effect of haste on a 1.5s cast time spell the same way than on a 2.5s spell. Of course, if your reaction time (or your computers') doesn't allow for 1 action every 1.5s or less, haste looses some value. But it's more of a personal issue than a theorycrafting one.

A while ago, I was debating on the forum about how good it would be to replace haste for crit assuming the use of a specific rotation. Turns out haste is still ahead.

[Desanya]

Is dancing as a Holy priest something that should be done for every encounter or circumstantial?

[Thirteen]

Is dancing as a Holy priest something that should be done for every encounter or circumstantial?

If you mean stance-dancing, then yes, you should be doing it on every boss.