Priests mana regen in Ulduar, moar feedback!

[Izenhart]

I'd like to see some feedback from Holy/Disc priests about your *new* mana regen in Ulduar, but mostly from the Holy Priests, due to the huge "cut" to our OO5SR and the new Serendipity/HC changes.

[Lootasisew]

I'm having no problems at all in Ulduar as of yet. We've only downed the couple bosses though, more to come tonight. I'm disc and healing is relatively easy. Seems like our shadow fiend got a big boost too, getting 1.1kmp per attack compared to 800-900mana per attack pre 3.1

[Abandon]

Mana regen from the shadowfiend was increased from 4% per hit to 5% per swing, so that makes sense.

[[-Spiritus-]]

I'm not having major issues for either holy or disco. If I have to "heal for two" in holy, I do burn up a whole load of mana. However, I just wait for an opportune moment to pop SF+HoH, and I'm back at full.

I haven't even dipped into my regen trinkets, which would drop my SP by 200, but give me a massive regen boost if needed.

[Kexmeister]

I'd like to see some feedback from Holy/Disc priests about your *new* mana regen in Ulduar, but mostly from the Holy Priests, due to the huge "cut" to our OO5SR and the new Serendipity/HC changes.

I started out Ulduar as Holy, and encountered huge mana problems, as i've basically stacked sp to the limit since mana was so trivial pre 3.1.
I'm now disc and have no problems with mana at all.

[-Ethos-]

On 25 i've noticed i actually need to pot and pop shadowfriend now on fights, but nothing too overly hard to manage, Hodir's frozen blows and Mimiron's pyscho attacks havent been too much hassle.
10 mans without replenishment though... yeah 10 man's are a bit more scary to heal.

[Syrenne]

I'm still having no mana issues at all holy or disc spec. Aside from using normal game mechanics (having to pop shadowfiend or get a feral druid's innervate). I haven't had much time to channel hymn of hope while healing though, it makes people die. >.>

[Bigslick]

Discipline here. No issue at all with replenishment, though the 10-man run the other night without it was tough (but manageable).

Interesting thing with the shadowfiend... If you are totally OOM but at a transition where you have a few seconds - or where other healers can cover you - if you pop your shadowfiend and then channel Hymn of Hope you'll go to 100% in short order due to the returns going against your heightened mana pool.

[kzargroth]

Disco priest here. 25man goes pretty smooth without mana problems this far. Have been only in Razorscale and XT-002. The new Voa10man was pretty tough the first try we tried with. I was healing with holy priest. In first tries we both oomed towards the end. When dps got their act together and started to run from aoe blast we finished that boss with over 50% mana left.

Lot's of new bosses coming in future. I'm not that worried about my mana regen. It tends to get easier when tactics are in order.

[Mandible]

Haven't really had any big issues so far - even with doing healing like I normally do (not caring about mana ). Hymn of Hope is also alot better than I imagined it would be - and how I saw it on ptr.

[Gzilia]

Haven't really had any big issues so far - even with doing healing like I normally do (not caring about mana ). Hymn of Hope is also alot better than I imagined it would be - and how I saw it on ptr.

I was in a 10 man last night, resto druid.
we had 2 other healing priests that night.
and no problems ever. than patchwork comes up.
75% both priests are oom, and i'm spamming my heals -> oom.

Note both priest had atleast 10/25 man gear >_>

[darkdestiny]

I dont have very many mana problems but i would say i have more trouble with holy on regen than disc. Disc actually has very good mana conservation. I did a pug naxx last night and i switch my spec to disc for patchwerk. Me and a holy priest were healing the same tank. She went oom before he even enraged. I still had mana left over. Oh and mana on 10 man ulduar is alittle tough, but I was healing that as holy.

[Danner]

I whined/talked a lot about holy mana issues before 3.1, and the patch is here now, and I've tried it in serious action, not just in cheap fights and theorycrafting.

In some ways, it's better than I feared. Uptime on Holy Concentration is pretty good (haven't measured it, TBH, but it's giving good returns). If there is anything I must admit, it's that Holy priests are borderline overpowered if given infinite mana. 3.1 really increased our output a lot. When learning new fights, I usually go all out almost spamming Prayer of Healing nonstop. Almost, it's usulaly better to wind it up with flash heals, but PoH really turned into a staple spell which really saves lives. Yes, this totally kills my manabar in a very short timeframe, but considering how fast the other raiders can mess up and die, even the totally awesome output of PoH or Divine Hymn is often not even enough.

I have to use PoH a lot. I'm getting complaints from tanks that I generate too much aggro, might even have to go a bit into threat reduction talents now. And I think that's a good sign.

On the longer fights, like deconstructor, I usually end up spending half my manabar in 1.5 minutes, using inner focus + mana trinket + belf racial, running completely oom after 3 minutes, popping shadowfiend, running oom again nearing 5.25 minutes, popping the trinket + belf racial again, and around the 7 minute mark I use a potion followed by Hymn of Hope. The latter is actually very good. Because it is bugged right now. Instead of temporarily giving you +20% max mana, it also gives you +20% current mana, but does not take away the current mana when the effect fade. As such, this spell is actually very very good; I'm not sneering at 5-6k free mana from HoH, even though things usually die when I cast it. Of course, it will be nerfed, but right now, this saves both mine and our druid's manabars.

By this strategy, I can last 8 minutes at "good output". It's not my maximum potential, but it's good enough for normal mode fights in Ulduar (I really really feel like I make a major difference, and things don't die unless they do something wrong, and the healing meter if you care about those things is usually in druid/priest favor). We're not in a bad situation compared to the other healers right now, if anything I think we're kind of stomping at the shammies feet again. Still, 8 minutes it's the most I can sustain for prolonged periods at my current gear level, and that's not at maimum output.

Of course, that's normal mode output. It's not remotely enough for hardmode fights if you ask me.

Still, our druids have it a lot harder than me in terms of regen. Of course, I had to go 18pt into disc now, there was just no choice, but it means the druids will oom before me. They really struggle with their innervates alone, and I'm not about to steal it away from them. Some of our druids have already contemplated going dreamstate.

Our paladins have infinite mana, no real change noticed. Our discpriest had to slow down a little he says, but if anything I think he's even more dependable as a MT healer now, we can often place him on the MT alone. Any other healer at the same spot usually lose the tank alone, and that means he's usually basically healing for two. Gotta love that, discipline is seriously strong right now if you ask me. Our shaman boasted that his mana was good, but is actually running OOM pretty fast as well. Mostly, I think this is because he has to go to maximum output now.

To be honest, mana is a major concern in Ulduar. It should be, but as I already have pretty decent gear, it's not as bad as I feared. For anyone below me in gear level, the new regime has to be hell though; I think there is a post every 2nd hour on the blizzard forums about levelling priests in pain. But either way you twist it, staying alive is all the more pressing than watching your manabar; we've only had one wipe so far due to healers going dry. And that's out of more than 80 wipes so far. Priests are good at dumping mana at troubles, and Ulduar almost requires it. In the end, having an empty blue bar is less of a problem than having the other bar running out.

[nikkita]

Danner, i was am glad to see this post. Ofc i now agree with you Holy priests are now shining, especially the good ones. We can heal every situation, our down side is our mana, but has always been. And a good priest know how to survive (mana wise) the encounter. Our shadow fiend returns more mana now, HoH feels like a contribute, Divine Hymm is like an improved tranq with a longer CD, something that you can use once a encounter and save the raid (it is pretty amazing as holy i must say). PoH is optimal for group damage, but ofc not every encounter has group damage. I personal have the same spec i posted: 14/57 with test of faith (and yes we have 2 hard mode kills and test of faith is really noticeable - for example seeing my prom jump around healing for 10k-12k on a low hp raid member). Ofc as i always said i hope they add to renew abit more synergy, add to serendipity, and make something useful out of lightwell (heal pet!).

About mana regen, yes mana regen was nerfed, yes i use my CD's, yes i end low on mana, yes i can run oom. I just make sure it won't happen. (Before 3.1 i wouldn't even need a manabar, with replenishment i would never run oom and rarely use a fiend).

[Danner]

It would be fun trying to heal Sartharion 3D in the current regime, to be honest. I don't think I'd be able to heal it anymore. I know our druids wouldn't, and I'm totally passing the Spark of Hope trinket to them if it drops.

But right now... 3.1 made healing fun. And that's all that matter. I'm no longer spamming one button. It almost feels like back in the TBC days, where I used lots of different abilities all the time.

The cynic in me is just waiting for this to be hotnerfed :P

[[-Spiritus-]]

"It was not our intention for holy priests to be the best at anything in the foreseeable future for World of Warcraft. As such, the Serendipity and Holy Concentration talents have been removed from the holy tree and Prayer of Healing has been placed on a 6 second cool-down. We apologize for not keeping with our amorphous holy priest class design, and have put procedure in place to make sure this does not happen again."
--Ghostcrawler

[Izenhart]

Finished the 2nd raid in Ulduar 25, where Kologarn/Auriaya/Iron Council/Ignis got killed, and raided as holy.

Holy Priest, if in 3.0.9 could have been considered the master of aoe healing, now it's even more.

The size of the AoE you can pull out with CoH/PoH+Serendipityx3/FH+Sol/PoH+Serendipityx1 is just enormous, it's around 60-70k heal in around 3 seconds, you indeed go near the oom, but with HoH+SF out at around 30% of the boss (for me) gives you back all the mana and allows you to go all out for the last part of the encounter.
I'm definitely enjoying the new changes to Holy regen, above all because the Serendipity change actually allows you to improve your raid healing, showing your skills in timing combos with it, rather than just getting mana back if you overhealed.

[rcastudios]

From my experiences in 10 man ulduar (in mostly 25 man gear) mana regen is not an issue at all for holy priests. If you know how to heal as a priest and use the proper spells you shouldn't even have to think about it. If you're going oom fast then you're either using the wrong spells overhealing too much, not letting other healers do their job, or your other heals aren't pulling their weight. I rule the heal meters on most fights, simply because holy spriests are so great at raid healing when played right. Pop the shadowfiend and you'll get around 3/4 of your mana back, crazy! Inner focus is good to use on a POH close to the start of the fight so you can use it again a few mins later (possibly with divine hymn the 2nd time or whatever is needed).

Either way as a holy priest you should have no mana issues...at least this is my experience so far! Holy FTW!!!

[Moxal]

Have you guys shifted your gear around at all?

I've been playing with more crit lately (swapped matriarch's spawn for accursed spine, etc) and it seems nice. Through, maybe I just over did the haste a bit in my holy set...

Edit: I've only tested this in emalon10, eoe10, naxx25 and sarth25. No Ulduar yet for me, been busy with rl stuff and missed my guild's attempts...

[Selerious]

I'm Holy and Spirit heavy, I haven't changed out any gear except for a new +100 spirit trinket to go with my spirit world Glass. In both 10 and 25 man Ulduar I've had very little mana trouble. Only once have I had to blow a mana potion and that was after a BR on Ignis. And I am not someone you can call conservative when it comes to healing. I am constantly casting Flash, PoM, CoH, tossing out the random Gh's and sometimes PoH.

I have not gone back and done OS3D since Ulduar came out but I don't see that I'd have any problems. I do think though that for priests that are not as geared or just starting 10 man Naxx/Ulduar after hitting 80. Mana will probably be a big issue.