Nepiton wrote:Excellent guide, I've been following the site for a while--first post, though. I've played Disc for a long time (since I returned to the game in early Uld days) and have seen a lot of changes, as everyone else has. To be honest, I wasn't even sure I'd like these new changes, I didn't when 5.0 launched in DS, but I gave it a shot in MoP and I love it so far.
What I have yet to master, though, is the usage of Spirit Shell (I'll abbreviate "SS" from hereon). My biggest question is what is the best way to use it? I understand it is highly situational, but, what is best (for 25 mans) when PoH stacking. I have been tossing up 1 PoH on each group, sometimes coupling SS with PI to get an extra PoH off which I throw on my tanks group (or I'll use the extra to squeeze out a GH on the tank). Is it more effective to focus 1-2 groups--I recognize it can only stack so high, so I wouldn't want to overspam a group and waste absorbs--or do what I've been doing? I guess it's a question of would you rather have 2 groups take little to no damage, or every group take a little less damage.
It might also be important to note (your guide doesn't mention of it) that casting PW:S right before using SS, to proc BT, which, depending on your haste levels, can lead to being able to fit another PoH/GH into the rotation, which I find very, very important/beneficial/crucial.
My next concern is I've found the PoH spamming method to be [/i]very[/i] costly on mana; whereas in DS I could PoH spam for days without running out of mana, and of course that is no longer the case. Like I said, I'm often coupling SS with PI, which obviously helps with mana, but I still find myself losing (ballpark numbers here, I haven't actually checked) 20-40% of my mana in those 12 seconds. I'll double check on those numbers, I wasn't really paying attention and I think it's around there. My gear isn't too good right now--I had some real life things to attend to when MoP launched so I just dinged 90 a few days ago--and I'm running about 6.5k spirit, so that could be an issue. I'm currently gemming towards spirit (blue/green/orange gems) and using Inner Fire, not Inner Will. I have no problem with sacrificing throughput for mana conservation; throughput is great, but it matters none if you run OOM with 2 mins left in the fight.
My last question (I swear) is talent based. I know most of them are "personal preference" but I haven't been able to test them all out in a raid setting (missed my guild's first two weeks bc of said RL interference), so I'm curious as to what you think. The talent I'm unsure of is the third tier: FD:CL, Mindbender, PW:Solace. I currently am specced into PW:Solace and like it a lot, but I'm thinking of switching into Mindbender although I'm not sure of its effectiveness vs. Shadowfiend. Of course I will test it out myself, I just like getting other opinions as well!
Sorry for the wall of text I have a lot of questions having just reached 90 in preparation for my guild's run tomorrow :P
Solace is absolutely terrible. FDCL is ok if you are VERY heavily into a single target role, but still tends to be outperformed by mindbender.
For solace, you would need to spend roughly 18% of all of your healing time casting solace (including haste, mindbender benefits from haste too), in order to work out to be EQUAL to mindbender. In order to actually be better, you have to spend even more time, looking at 25-35% of all your time, or more like 40-50% of all your spellcasts given that most will be in the 2.5 second category.
There is really no conceivable boss fight or gear situation where solace would be preferable.
FDCL is just a low proc off of low used spells. No numbers on this one, but when I spent a couple attempts on H Gara'jal Gheal spamming my tank (fishing for divine aegis) and only got 1 proc, I figured it to be a total dud. Maybe if your playstyle is to spam smite and spot heal occasionally, but that isn't really a good playstyle to have anyway. FDCL is probably best when what you need are INSTANT flash heals rather than for the mana savings, but depending on a proc for that sort of thing doesn't strike me as a good idea either.
Also, Solace on the whole provides LESS granularity than mindbender does, because you are stuck with the full 3 minute shadowfiend. At a 1 minute CD, you generally don't have to worry about what your current mana is when you cast mindbender, but the 3 minute on shadowfiend is quite a different story. Between that, and the fact that solace can only be cast when you have an opportunity and does not effectively give you control over your mana pool (instead, that control is dependent on boss mechanics), solace really isn't good for anything right now.
One last note, solace can tend to FEEL more stable. This is a trick. The reason solace feels better on the mana pool is because time spent casting solace is time spent not spending mana at all, effectively the same as just standing there looking stupid. You could easily replicate this effect with Mindbender by just not casting for large portions of the fight, but you don't want to do that do you?
derevka wrote:Belevon wrote:Hello all
First off great guide derevka been a disc priest since TBC and never looked back. My question is since the hot fix for Patch 5.0.5 on October 12. They posted this for priest "•Archangel now affects Spirit Shell properly." and I was wondering if you have or anyone else has tried checking it out? I have not had the chance. It would be nice to know that Archangel now add to Sprit Shell and effectively equals out to be stronger absorbs per cast.
yep, and it works pretty amazingly... as always with AA (and any other on use throughput ability/trinket) you want to try to get the most you can out of it, and use it in line with boss abilities *IF ABLE*... but dont sit on it too long or you just wasted a cooldown! ;)
Actually, Archangel is a little more complicated then "don't sit on it for too long" because of the additional damage and mana savings provided by evangelism. If you aren't going to make much use of it, and you are going to keep casting smite/penance/holy fire and maintain the evangelism buff, it might in some situations be better to effectively waste the CD.
