Archangel vs Fiend

[Hresna]

To start things off, I am mainspec shadow but, as of late, been offspec healing (holy) a lot of our raids due to attendance (so forgive me if i'm way off the mark here)

I initially started healing without archangel and was doing just fine (we have two druids for innervates when needed and I was getting much better at mana conservation). That said, I wanted to try out using archangel thinking that it might help both with some output and mana regen so the innervates could be used on other healers if need be and not have to rely on them. However, the first night of raiding, I found myself struggling to find good niches to fit in smites and even let chakra fall off becuase I was not used to watching for new timers to try and keep up my stacks (that's more of an issue where I was not used to the different play style). During the course of a boss encounter, I found myself only being able to "safetly" use my fully charged archangel 3-4 times at most because I could not afford to stop healing to throw away the cds.

My question is the following. Would it be better to just drop archangel and put points into imp fiend for the 1minute cd reduction? If the lost healing output (due to smites/inner fire to build stacks) is offset by the bonus healing% that archangel gives, the only real benefit over the mana regen component would be slightly higher burst healing for a short duration. So if that balences out, would it not be better to pop fiend early and get a second cast of it later in the boss fight and not worry about keeping stacks/archangel up at all?

Also, I have no experience doing hardmodes yet so I'm not sure if there would be a big difference in spec utility.

[LimeSudz]

My question is the following. Would it be better to just drop archangel and put points into imp fiend for the 1minute cd reduction?

personally I wouldn't take either, Archangel works a lot better for Disc (and not even that great anyway) you will find it difficult to fit smites into your rotation because I have never found that nobody needs heals in a raid.

and the imp shadowfiend is very situational. the time it takes to down a boss usually doesn't allow a third shadowfiend to be cast (I think the fight needs to last quite a bit over 10 minutes to make it viable) and even then it's only going to be one or two fights throughout the raid.

I'm not sure of your current spec so if you post it I'm sure others can help you out a bit better.

EDIT

So if that balences out, would it not be better to pop fiend early and get a second cast of it later in the boss fight and not worry about keeping stacks/archangel up at all?

you should always pop your shadowfiend early, make sure that you pop it at the right time so it'll give you it's full mana return without 'over-filling' your mana. regardless if you took the shadowfiend talent or not you will be able to get a second shadowfiend later into the fight. I usually pop mine fairly early (maybe a minute or two in) then when my shadowfiend is off of CD I pop hymn and shadowfiend at the same time (hymn increases your maximum mana meaning shadowfiend regens more mana)

[Deleted]

Archangel doesn't give you mana regen, it costs about 15,5k mana and gives you 5% total mana in return. For that you gain +15% healing for 18 seconds, but you have to smite for 10 seconds to get 5 stacks, so unless the encounter allows you smite regularly and then do massive heals just skip it all together.

[jamlol]

I didn't do any math on it or anything, but it just feels like I get more mana back by popping a volcanic pot before using fiend+hymn, instead of using a mana pot.

As far as archangel goes, I couldn't really see fitting it into a holy spec at all - you wouldn't have atonement to get some heals on tanks/melee while building your evang stacks.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bcbZfurrokrkczohb is the spec I use, seems to work pretty decent.

[Deleted]

Archangel doesn't give you mana regen, it costs about 15,5k mana and gives you 5% total mana in return. For that you gain +15% healing for 18 seconds, but you have to smite for 10 seconds to get 5 stacks, so unless the encounter allows you smite regularly and then do massive heals just skip it all together.

Bear in mind that this can happen over a full minute with AA spec, once every 10-15 seconds is fine for casting a single Smite. That said, Holy has a fair bit of extra regen talents.

[Mazi]

I didn't do any math on it or anything, but it just feels like I get more mana back by popping a volcanic pot before using fiend+hymn, instead of using a mana pot.

As far as archangel goes, I couldn't really see fitting it into a holy spec at all - you wouldn't have atonement to get some heals on tanks/melee while building your evang stacks.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bcbZfurrokrkczohb is the spec I use, seems to work pretty decent.

You don't gain more mana (but you do gain throughput, compared to a normal pot). http://www.howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=108

You're better off using Conc pots

[sicness]

You don't gain more mana (but you do gain throughput). http://www.howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=108

This is why people pick it up. Not the mana regen, but the healing throughput for encounter mechanics that are predictable and require a lot of healing combined with down time at other points allowing you to get Archangel up. It's mostly only useful for heroic modes and even then it's pretty situational, but can be a difference.

[Mazi]

This is why people pick it up. Not the mana regen, but the healing throughput for encounter mechanics that are predictable and require a lot of healing combined with down time at other points allowing you to get Archangel up. It's mostly only useful for heroic modes and even then it's pretty situational, but can be a difference.

He said it gave him more mana, which it does and doesn't. You can't really beat the 22k from a Conc pot - there are so many opportunities to use them in every fight - even heroics (I'm 5/13 with work on Omno)

[Hresna]

Thanks for all the imput. I think I will just revert to my previous spec and not worry about arch or the imp fiend. I was not struggling before and just thought that I would get a bit more out of speccing into either.

[Mazi]

Imp fiend is really only useful when you get into heroic modes with the 7-10min fights, IMO. I never really found a use for it in normals. If you're not having mana problems then you can drop the talent for more throughput.

You should probably skip out on the Archangel too, if you're having a hard time with it then you're probably better off without it. Generally from what I've seen, with AA you'll put out about the same numbers overall anyways, it's just that you are putting out more at the times when it really counts, which is a big deal but not everyone can handle the smites. The key to Smiting is to just go about it gradually - you have the buff for a while before you have to cast another Smite, so just sneak one in here and there - it won't kill ya

But don't use AA as mana regen because it's not, you'll spend more mana Smiting than you get back from AA - the point of AA is the extra throughput in the big moments of the encounter.

[Shakalager]

personally I wouldn't take either, Archangel works a lot better for Disc (and not even that great anyway) you will find it difficult to fit smites into your rotation because I have never found that nobody needs heals in a raid.

A Disc priest specced AA/Atonement finds AA working amazingly and, with Atonement, Smite becomes a heal.

OT: As Holy, I wouldn't take either Imp. Sfiend or AA. There are many other great talents available further down the tree.

[Kelesti]

OT: As Holy, I wouldn't take either Imp. Sfiend or AA. There are many other great talents available further down the tree.

Really? Because I can't seem to find them.

Sure, take Revelations out, and put it in Spirit of Redemption or 1/2 Blessed Resil if you really want while it's bugged (when it's fixed, good luck with that). But the only thing I'm really giving up is 1% haste.

[LimeSudz]

A Disc priest specced AA/Atonement finds AA working amazingly and, with Atonement, Smite becomes a heal.

Fair enough, I knew AA/Atonement worked well together I just main Holy and I thought I heard Disc's saying they found it hard to find an opening to fit a couple smites in

[Deleted]

Like people have mentioned already. Archangel is pretty much a throughput talent and not mana regenerative whilst it still may "seem" to be. But other than that it's very handy to get used to. In progression encounter / Hard Modes you will probably be the burst healer, remember that it differs alot in 10man to 25man since in 10man you're 3 healers leaving less space to Smite than in 25man environment. Archangel favors the "habit" of refreshing it when you have a brief second to do so. If you can't manage, then don't use it.

The other option you mentioned isn't really viable except for certain fights. It's very rare that you'll get 2-3 fiends out in one boss fight so if you want to keep respeccing between the fights then sure but overall I don't find it suitable at all. I'd rather use Archangel / Darkness as filler talents imo. It really comes down to your own playstyle and how you use archangel/Sfiend in this example.

[HDPriest]

Sure, take Revelations out, and put it in Spirit of Redemption or 1/2 Blessed Resil if you really want while it's bugged (when it's fixed, good luck with that). But the only thing I'm really giving up is 1% haste.

It's quite possible I'm missing something obvious, and I don't mean to derail the thread; but could someone please tell me what's bugged on Blessed Resil? I'm in love with that talent!

[Kelesti]

It's quite possible I'm missing something obvious, and I don't mean to derail the thread; but could someone please tell me what's bugged on Blessed Resil? I'm in love with that talent!

Well, that wasn't the bug I was talking about, but it is bugged.

The bug on Blessed Resil which makes it better than you think is it also triggers from crit-heals recieved, not just damage, so it can be up before you take those 10%+ hits, and help recovery that much more.

The bug I was referring to is letting people not talent into Revelations, and still have access to the other Holy Words. Sure you get a talent point for free, until it's fixed. I wouldn't count on that lasting long.

[HDPriest]

OK, thank you so much for clearing that up. I had noticed that BR triggered from crit heals, but wasn't aware of the Revelations thing, and jumped to the wrong conclusion since I'm such a fan of the "haha I'm not going to die so I don't need an AngelOfDeath" talents.

On topic, I really think it's going to depend alot on your playstyle and raidcomp. I personally don't see a need for Archangel in my Holy build, but can see the benefits of having the healing CD. Personally, I take the Renew and survivability talents and put 1 point in Veiled Shadows because I don't have anywhere else to put it. I probably don't use Renew enough to warrant the talents (I just like being able to put out as much as possible when moving and don't like wasting a whole GCD throwing a weak instant spell..if it was a choice between Renew and PoM, I'd spend it in PoM, but alas), and if I decided to try Archangel that would be where I pulled the points for it.

[Avalastia]

Spirit of Redemption helped saved our raid on several bosses. Having 0 mana, and suiciding for infinite mana gives me 15 seconds of flash heal spam FTW.

[HDPriest]

Oh, I never meant that SoR is a bad thing or that I never take it. Just that I prefer not to. If I were facing a new, very long and manaintensive fight, I wouldn't go without it for the free mana heals before Brez. I'll almost definitely pick it up before Nefarion, but I'm doing OK on mana so I may not need it...we'll see, lol. There are some talents I prefer over others, and I'm not a Huge fan of SoR....but I AM a big fan of using the best tools for the job and often change up 4 points in my build for certain fights.