Shokoti

My Priest on Gorgonnash

Shield Spec vs Utility Spec

Shield spec will mainly use PW:Shield to mitigate damage. There are some issues with this however:

• You give up utility, namely things like Pain Suppression or Power Infusion, as well as more health, spirit, etc.
• Many talents in Disc are for crit, yet PW:S can't crit. Making such talents less useful.
• With lots of crit, means less spellpower, making your shield less useful.

As such, shield spec seems to be of limited use, because PW:S should be more of a situational spell (when dmg is coming in faster than you can heal).

Lvl 80 Spec

Here is the talent tree I'm going for at 80, with an explanation of each item: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVIbzhxtrxoVfRzcxpcc

Disc
Tier 1

• Twin Disciplines (5/5): Straight dmg/heal increase (NOT spellpower) to instant spells, which is more powerful.

Tier 2

• Silent Resolve (3/3): 20% decreased threat. However, unclear if this affects Vigilance on Warriors, as less threat means less threat transfered to the warrior. May skill back if needed.
• Imp Inner Fire (3/3): Increases armor by 1138 and Spellpower by 54.
• Imp PW:Fort (2/2): Increases Fort buff by 50 Stam (215 total)

Tier 3

• Inner Focus (1/1): Mana free spell on next cast with +25% crit chance (almost guaranteed Divine Aegis and Inspiration procs). Best used when tied to Prayer of Healing (since PoH costs a ton, and crit procs will affect a lot more people).
• Meditation (3/3): 30% mana regen while casting

Tier 4

• Mental Agility (5/5): 10% less mana on instants (basically every spell I use except Flash/Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing)

Tier 5

• Mental Strength (5/5): 15% more Int, most likely a couple thousand mana at 80 and more +crit
• Divine Spirit (1/1): +80 Spirit buff for everyone
• Imp Divine Spirit (2/2): Divine Spirit also gives +80 Spellpower to everyone

Tier 6

• Focused Power (2/2): +4% dmg/heal to all spells. Again, not spellpower, making this better.
• Enlightenment (5/5): +5% to Spirit, Stamina AND haste. Greater Heal drops to 2.85 secs with this talent. Divine Spirit ups to 84 Spirit. Fort ups to 226 Stam.

Tier 7

• Power Infusion (1/1): Person buffed gets 20% less mana cost on spells and 20% haste for 15 secs (most likely to go on me or Ryan).

Tier 8

• Rapture (5/5): Up to +2.5% of my max mana any time I heal or dmg is absorbed from a Divine Aegis. Scales with mana pool (thus works in tandem with Mental Strength)
• Aspiration: (2/2): Reduces many Disc cooldowns by 20%. Mainly to get Penance down to 8 sec cooldown.

Tier 9

• Divine Aegis (3/3): Creates a shield absorbing 30% of the amount of crit heals. Lasts 12 secs. Stacks with itself. Procs Rapture. Works on AOE heal crits as well.
• Pain Suppression (1/1): Person buffed has all dmg reduced by 40% and threat reduced by 5% for 8 secs. (most likely to go on me or Mouser).
• Grace (2/2): Heals on target increase further heals by 2%, and dmg taken reduced by 1%, stacks 3 times. Mainly for use with Penance to get instant full +6% heal and -3% dmg. Lasts 8 secs, which is why we get Penance down to 8 sec cooldown with Aspiration so it's constantly up.

Tier 11

• Penance (1/1): Channeled heal with three bolts over 2 secs. Fully stacks Grace. Each bolt can crit, procing both Divine Aegis and Inspiration. Heals as much as Greater Heal for half the cost. 8 sec cooldown (with Aspiration) only downside. (also does dmg if you want! :).

Holy
Tier 1

• Imp Renew (3/3): +15% heal to renew
• Holy Spec (5/5): +5% crit to all holy spells (obviously helps with crit procs)

Tier 2

• Divine Fury (4/5): Reduces cast time of Greater Heal by 0.4 secs (2.45 sec heal with Enlightenment)

Tier 3

• Desperate Prayer (1/1): Instant big heal for myself. The "oh shit" self heal (basically a healthstone).
• Inspiration (3/3): Crit heals increase armor of target by 25% for 15 secs. Works on AOE heal crits as well.

Tier 4

• Imp Healing (3/3): 15% less mana cost for Penance and Greater Heal.

Spell Use

The usage of spells while healing has changed a bit since lvl 70. Here are the basic spells to use and how to use them:

Penance
This will become my main heal. It fully procs Grace which means I should always have 6% more added to every heal and the tank should always be taking 3% less dmg. That's almost a 10% swing just by using it once. Since each bolt can crit, both Divine Aegis and Inspiration should be up often. If DA procs, it means I might be able to wait out the cooldown (especially if it procs twice on one channel and stacks itself). Inspiration can last almost two cooldowns, so it should almost always be up on the tank. Because of this it pays to use it even if the tank doesn't need it, just to keep up Grace, DA and Inspiration. If you can wait out the cooldown, you can regen almost all of the mana it takes to cast it. Also, because of the proc buffs, it comes in handy pre-pull.

Greater Heal
Greater Heal is to be used right after Penance if incoming dmg is great. Still our best heal, and a crit will proc a huge DA shield. Alaways choose Penance over GH if it's up though, as Penance is only a 2 sec cast, heals just as much, heals faster (channeled) and costs half as much mana as GH.

Renew
Large constant dmg can be evened out with renew. This can help wait out the penance cooldown if there's steady damage that's just a bit too much. Also the best heal to cast on players that do NOT have aggro and need healing.

Prayer of Mending
This used to be the bread and butter heal, but no longer. PoM now generates threat for the priest, not on the person it's on. As such you CANNOT use it on a pull or you will grab aggro right away. However, this change opens up a new possibility for it. If non-tank players keep getting aggro (or there is a lot of AOE), PoM is excellent. Since threat goes to the priest now, you are not exacerbating the problem of aggro on players, yet you have a good heal to bump around with those weird mobs that just like to randomly target people.

Prayer of Healing
AOE heal. Situational. At least 3 players need healing for this to be worth the mana (it's expensive). It also has a long cast (3 secs). Perfect for one-pulse AOE dmg. Best part now is it acts like 5 separate heals at once, meaning each players heal could crit, procing Diving Aegis and Inspiration on those players that it happens to crit on (at least one person is basically guaranteed a crit based just on general odds).

Power Word: Shield
This is supposed to be the main way to "heal" in Disc, but because of what I wrote above, I'm not specing into it. As of now this is my "oh shit" button. Shield goes up if someone is close to dying and I need some time to get a heal off. It would be more beneficial if speced into it (mana/dmg absorbed would be close to Greater Heal in effectiveness), but I save between 11 and 13 points by not doing so.

Glyphs

Unfortunately there aren't a lot of glyphs for my style of play as described above. Here are some I've been looking at though.

Major

• Glyph of Renew: Reduces duration by 3secs, but ups healing by 25%. Basically heals the same but in less time. Perfect for its use.
• Glyph of Prayer of Healing: Heals an additional 20% of amount healed over 6 secs. Since this is cast on the entire group, it can help top off those that may still need a little extra on the end which is very nice.
• Glyph of Mass Dispel: Mass Dispel is an awesome spell, it just costs a TON of mana. This reduces it by 20%. Since I will have it talented down to 1 sec cast time, it may be worth it.
• Glyph of PW:Shield: I'm trying to stay away from shield but this glyph does work for how I use it. It heals the target for 20% of the amount absorbed. Since I'm only using shields when near death to give time for me to heal, this helps by basically adding 20% to the shield value.

Minor

• Glyph of Shadow Protection: Increases Shadow Protection by 10 mins. Nice cuz I never put it on anyone since the duration is so short.
• Glyph of Levitate: No more feathers as reagents!
• Glyph of Shackle Undead: Increases range by 5 yards, which is sorely needed when you actually have to use this spell.