Strength of Soul

[Migraine]

My priest is a fairly new 85 and an alt, now that I have got that out the way, should I be using strength of soul in my build? I am healing 10's, I read somewhere to treat weakened soul as a buff that increases your heals but I thought that grace had the same effect.

My armoury for reference is http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ckét/advanced and yes I am a tremendous douche for forgetting to enchant my helm.

[Deleted]

Its quite good, also for fitting in rapture, since it only got 12secs CD while Weakend debuff last 15 secs without Strength og soul.

[jifjosh]

You're losing 15% of your healing on burst phases without Archangel and to get it you need to HF/Smite, so not having Atonement is not a good plan either. In light of those two, SOS is not as important as you might think. You have two tanks right? You can certainly maximize Rapture on cooldown between them regardless of the 15 WS debuff.

Edit: also, inner sanctum is next to useless for PVE.

[Deleted]

^Depends on fights
But ye, i would also recommend that you go for Atonement and Archangel.

[Migraine]

I switched out from atonement when I started healing at 85, now that I am a bit better geared I could go back to it, I can see where to get the 3 points for evangelism and archangel, the two points for atonement do I need to drop veiled shadows for this?

[jifjosh]

Are you having mana problems?
If you need the fiend more, then my guess would be train of thought is your best bet, though it's nice to have that penance come up faster.
As blizz doesn't want you bubblebotting anymore, you could take points out of soul warding if you are comfortable with that.
I wouldn't suggest taking them out of inspiration.

[Migraine]

I do have some mana issues, but I think that is a bit of a l2p issue rather than anything else, taking points out of strength of soul will pretty much guarantee that I get rapture off every mt shield, while I try and watch the cd on rapture I know that I reshield too quickly sometimes and miss it.

I haven't used the fiend twice in many fights so I think I will drop veiled shadows in the first instance and then see how that plays out.

Thanks for the input.

[dento77]

i am not a fan of SoS. for my playstyle, i find it to easy to miss out on rapture procs while tank healing. ideally, you would watch the bosses swing timer to land a shield right before a hit to make sure it gets used. then your tank might get lucky with a dodge/parry streak and blow your timing out the window. all i do is wait for weakened soul to drop and shield gets re-applied. i don't use rapture timers either, don't need another thing to watch on my screen while i'm healing, staying out of the bad stuff and still try to have fun with the occasional lolgrip during an attempt. i would advise against dropping Soul Warding. while i do not encourage bubblebotting, sometimes it is necessary to drop a shield or 3 on guildies ASAP who may have been sleeping at the pc ,took a bit to much dmg from fire or w/e and AOE dmg is seconds away.

as always, your mileage may vary. what works for me may not work for you.

[Kelesti]

Strength of Soul is a single target throughput increase that goes well beyond Rapture. Shield is pretty much an instant cast greater heal on a tank, and pumping out more of them faster on some of the hard fights is well worth its mana cost, because it generally, y'know, keeps them alive.

i don't use rapture timers either, don't need another thing to watch on my screen while i'm healing, staying out of the bad stuff and still try to have fun with the occasional lolgrip during an attempt.

This is the sign of a bad raider.

[dento77]

Strength of Soul is a single target throughput increase that goes well beyond Rapture. Shield is pretty much an instant cast greater heal on a tank, and pumping out more of them faster on some of the hard fights is well worth its mana cost, because it generally, y'know, keeps them alive.

This is the sign of a bad raider.

excuse me? what gives you the right to call me bad based on my selection of add-ons? are you implying that disc REQUIRES the use of a rapture timer? i'm sorry, but i RESPECTFULLY disagree.

[[-Spiritus-]]

excuse me? what gives you the right to call me bad based on my selection of add-ons? are you implying that disc REQUIRES the use of a rapture timer? i'm sorry, but i RESPECTFULLY disagree.

I think what was meant was the sign of a good raider is someone who wants to maximize all aspects of their play and does so while healing, staying out of bad stuff and doing the occasional lolgrip.

If you have a better way to track the ICD of rapture w/o using an add-on, then by all means. However, to not wish to track the ICD of rapture means you aren't willing to grow as a healer, which is troublesome if you are a raider.

I hope that properly expands Kelesti's enthymematic argument.

[Kelesti]

excuse me? what gives you the right to call me bad based on my selection of add-ons? are you implying that disc REQUIRES the use of a rapture timer? i'm sorry, but i RESPECTFULLY disagree.

Discipline doesn't. But from the sound of things the only thing you're watching is your health bars.

don't need another thing to watch on my screen while i'm healing, staying out of the bad stuff

If you think something like a timer, or even an addition to Power Auras (probably the most functional addon in WoW's history), is not beneficial, but it's in the way, and that's your reason for not running with Strength of Soul?

That's your justification, because it can "throw off your Rapture timing" that a) you're not timing anyways (15 seconds > 12?) not to mention b) even if you were going off tank healing, you screw that up further when you shield someone else. By all means, justify not running with a Rapture timer.

I run basic UI, for crying out loud.

But not running with a Rapture timer, and using that as an excuse for Strength of Soul messing up your "timing" (of something that you're already hindering yourself on), that's you being bad.

[dento77]

thanks Spiritus, that does shed a little more light on the subject other than "you're bad". while i totally agree with using tools to help ones performance grow, personally i like to make choices for myself. while they may not always be the correct ones, i still get the job done. could i have been more effective if i had a proper timer, absolutely. i am not denying that one bit. the ability to have multiple choices of what to do at any given time is what drew me from shadow during TBC (gawd i miss the REAL VT) to try out healing. i love the certain randomness (in my mind anyways) that healing has to offer and despise having choices predetermined for me.

Kelesti: maybe i should have added that i don't get the luxury of being a dedicated tank healer 100% of the time. i often raid heal as disc in our 10mans while supporting our 2x hpaly heals... if they both show up. maybe the rdrood shows up for a night and i'm back on tank duty while a pally sits. point is, i do what i have to do to keep my raid alive. if we kill the boss and i have mana leftover even with pisspoor rapture timing. is a timer really needed? granted we are only 10/12 (guild used to be top 12 on my server during tbc/early wrath...burnout and attrition killed us...), which is why i responded to a "freshly dinged 85"post to share what works for me. if you are talking about heroic raid content, respectfully, this isn't the thread for that. i have zero experience with hard modes this xpac, but i do understand a rapture timer may be a necessity at that point.

TLR= unless you are paying my $15 to play, as long as i'm getting the job done AND having fun, why can't i play the way that works for ME?
if you really want to call me bad or whatever, PM me and i'll give you a WOL link. based on my performance, and not this thread, you may THEN call me bad if deemed necessary. until then you are just blowing smoke out of your ass. respectfully blowing smoke that is...


edit: after re-reading and realizing i forgot to add another reason why i don't use SoS in favor of Soul Warding(not to turn this into a debate about talents but i run 33/8 with 2/2 Emp Healing, 3/3 DF and 2/2 Inspiration). our 10 man has been playing together on vent calling out CDs for years. we aren't the best and do make mistakes, myself included. for that reason my healing partners appreciate the near instant shield on a couple raiders that make mistakes so they don't get insta-gibbed by the incoming AoE damage. through teamwork, we can over come some pretty big oops.

[Prod]

Discipline doesn't. But from the sound of things the only thing you're watching is your health bars.
If you think something like a timer, or even an addition to Power Auras (probably the most functional addon in WoW's history), is not beneficial, but it's in the way, and that's your reason for not running with Strength of Soul?

Not to mention that really, timers like that can easily be monitored by your peripheral vision. No one actually stares at power auras and/or timers, but you still notice it anyways. Plus, you can configure your Rapture timer (most people use Ingela's), you can make it play a sound instead of having a visible timer. Surely that won't block anything on your screen.

With that said, I used to run without a Rapture timer and just kinda ball-park it with Strength of Soul. But when I did start using a timer, my mana situation noticeably improved.

[Deleted]

I read somewhere to treat weakened soul as a buff that increases your heals but I thought that grace had the same effect.

Correct, that's the talent Renewed Hope. So as long as either Weakened Soul or Grace is up, you'll have +10% crit on that target.

should I be using strength of soul in my build?

Strength of Soul is most helpful for single target healing. Throwing a shield is not only equal to an instant greater heal but also provides a hasted following heal by borrowed time. SoS lets you throw a shield more often and thus significantly increases single target throughput. I suggest you just give it a try for a week or two and see if it fits you. I love it and I think that talent is commonly underestimated.

My two cents regarding the rapture timing: I used Ingelas Rapture Timer addon when I began raiding (anew in Cata as Healer), because I had 0 mana to spare. Meanwhile I'm mostly not only healing the MT but inbetween also throwing a shield here and there (25's), so there are quite a few shields running and apparently this lets rapture proc soon enough when it comes off ICD, so currently I don't feel the need any more to observe it.

[Migraine]

Again thanks for the input, I had not factored in borrowed time uptime when considering the dropping of SoS, I respeced last night to an atonement spec I am going to give this a go and see how I get on with it in terms of throughput and mana usage.

Unfortunately I only managed to run a couple of the zandalar heroics last night and with an undergeared tank it wasnt the best testing ground. I should hopefully get an alt run going tonight in BoT which should help me test it.

[Kelesti]

i love the certain randomness (in my mind anyways) that healing has to offer and despise having choices predetermined for me.

Nothing about addons pre-casts. It infact, could make your choices more enlightened, helping you have more information, but nothing's automated about your healing by taking advantage of an element of the open coded User Interface.

Kelesti: maybe i should have added that i don't get the luxury of being a dedicated tank healer 100% of the time. i often raid heal as disc in our 10mans while supporting our 2x hpaly heals... if they both show up. maybe the rdrood shows up for a night and i'm back on tank duty while a pally sits. point is, i do what i have to do to keep my raid alive. if we kill the boss and i have mana leftover even with pisspoor rapture timing. is a timer really needed?

With better Rapture management, you could drop a lot of your Spirit Gear, and go for more output.

People don't come to look for advice from a "freshly dinged priest" that's three healing normal mode content. They're asking advice because they want to know what to do to better their game, rather than deal with the status quo. It doesn't matter what level of content a player is in, you don't ask a person on the street how to better your golf swing; he might give you advice, but do you want to take it when he gets triple bogies on a par 3?

TLR= unless you are paying my $15 to play, as long as i'm getting the job done AND having fun, why can't i play the way that works for ME?

It's your $14.99, but the rest of the raid's $134.91 says to know your role.

edit: after re-reading and realizing i forgot to add another reason why i don't use SoS in favor of Soul Warding(not to turn this into a debate about talents but i run 33/8 with 2/2 Emp Healing, 3/3 DF and 2/2 Inspiration). our 10 man has been playing together on vent calling out CDs for years. we aren't the best and do make mistakes, myself included. for that reason my healing partners appreciate the near instant shield on a couple raiders that make mistakes so they don't get insta-gibbed by the incoming AoE damage. through teamwork, we can over come some pretty big oops.

Better your rapture play, and you can take two points out of Mental Agility, which is where my current Discipline build is sitting. I moved on from trying 0/2 Soul Warding, because yeah that was a dumb idea.

Again though, my biggest point wasn't that you were terrible for not using a Rapture Timer. I don't, a lot of Discipline Priests don't. I run the basic UI. Period. My point to call you terrible was that you claimed it was something else to be a distraction on your screen, and that's why you don't run Strength of Soul. You can justify it by it not fitting in your build because you're a full time raid healer, a bubble bot, the only heals on a tank are Atonement, or whatever else you want to. But blaming it screwing up a timing that you aren't actually taking advantage of... that's not really the signs of someone trying to up their game (something any raider that's not 13/13 should always be doing, and even then). That, more than anything else, is the sign of a bad raider.

[Noradin]

I read somewhere to treat weakened soul as a buff that increases your heals but I thought that grace had the same effect.

Correct, that's the talent Renewed Hope. So as long as either Weakened Soul or Grace is up, you'll have +10% crit on that target.

Just to make this more clear: Strength of Soul will never ever result in you missing out on Renewed Hope (which is a requirement to get Strength of Soul) as long as you have points in Grace (which you should) as every cast which reduces the duration of Weakended Soul due to this talent applies Grace, which lasts at least as long.

[scandore8472]

You're losing 15% of your healing on burst phases without Archangel and to get it you need to HF/Smite, so not having Atonement is not a good plan either. In light of those two, SOS is not as important as you might think. You have two tanks right? You can certainly maximize Rapture on cooldown between them regardless of the 15 WS debuff.

Edit: also, inner sanctum is next to useless for PVE.

Depends on your healing assignments. If you're the tank healer, then it's better not to spec as aa/atonement. If you're raid healing, then yes, go AA/atonement.

[dento77]

ok Kelesti, i get it. you don't care for soul warding at all. and thats fine, its fits your playstyle and your raid group. your group is fairly good i assume? as in people take minimal avoidable damage, which is how it should be. clearly, an instant emergency bubble which can be applied quickly several times in succession if needed has little value for you because of the alertness of your fellow raiders. my group, as much as i hate to admit it, still can use the emergency bubble to make it through .. you guessed it.. avoidable damage take by fire, void zones or whatever other nasties that can be found while scraping the floor of WoW dungeons/raids. long story short, we are not as pro as you, but we aren't a bunch of 13 year old don't want to put any effort into anything mouth breathers. we are your average 10 man raiding team, very much like i assume a lot of guilds to be. shoot, we just downed cho'gal last week for the first time after a few nights of concentrated attempts. yes, we 2 healed it and yes.. i was scraping the proverbial mana barrel dry at the end of it. if i had a proper rapture timer, would i have been in better shape in the sub 5% stage? yes, no doubt about it. can it be done without a timer sans SoS? yes it can, as one can use WS as a indicator of when to reapply a shield. in the 8:48 it took us to kill cho'gal for the first time, rapture returned 221,807 mana based on my mana pool of 119k buff (gogo gnome priests). not including 11 Power Torrent and 9 pattern procs (my maffs sucks) thats aproxx 2/3rds of possible rapture procs based on 12 second intervals. figure in PT/pattern and yes, that 2/3rds does drop some. so for a semi-sloppy first kill, hitting close to 2/3rds of raptures in a best case scenario (thats every 12 secs from zero second to 8:48), running light on spirit at around 2500(light in my mind anyways for 2 healing cho'gal) and with no timers... yup.. clearly.. i must be bad. i wasn't tank healing either, i was on raid while supporting the hpally (which is already crying after seeing the logs).

the big point is... what works for you doesn't for me and vice versa. there is nothing wrong with that and to call somebody "bad" because of that... well.. just isn't right at all no matter what you believe. we are arguing about 2 talents points and subsequent timer to maximize aforementioned talents. you favor the hps that SoS gives while i favor SW for the quick "save" if you will. i DO NOT ENCOURAGE BUBBLEBOTTING IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM! stop implying that i do as you still haven't PM'd me for WoL link. i'm giving you a chance to legitimately call me a bad raider, do you want it or not? or are you just going to keep calling me bad for whatever reason you can think of next? again, i'm not the greatest priest out there and far from it, but i am certainly comfortable in what i do and it shows. i learned triage from a holy priest with a pre-nerf mu'ru kills under his belt(you want a name/armory? pm me) so i'd like to think i learned what i know about being a priest came from a pretty knowledgeable raider even if that content is outdated today( it wasn't when he schooled me. anybody remember spammable CoH and infinite mana if you knew how to use the 5 sec rule to its fullest. hello Inner Focus!). i was under the impression that pre-nerf sunwell kills took extreme amounts of skill/co-ordination (and buttlust stacking). maybe he filled me full of poo, could be.. but i doubt it.


i will admit the my money my way was pretty lame and juvenile. i am one of the few left in our group to say "c'mon guys, pull it together, stop jerking around and lets get this done."