Please keep in mind that anything I talk about here or that I suggest are things that have worked for me or other priests that I communicate with and that they may not necessarily work for you.  What matters more than anything else is being able to admit that something is not working for you.  If you are doing something that is a bit outside the box and you are genuinely seeing results with it – meaning that your mana bar is not always running on empty, you are keeping up the people you are assigned to heal, etc. then by all means keep doing what you are doing.

But if you are stalling on progression fights, you cannot keep people alive like you should be able to, and you never seem to have enough mana to make it through the most basic encounters, you may want to accept that what you are doing is not working and that it may be time for you to try something else.  Do not be afraid to have that conversation with yourself or with others.  You cannot fix something if you will not admit that the problem is even happening in the first place.

With that in mind, let’s get started!

Table of Contents:

I. STATS
II. STAT PRIORITIES
III. REFORGING
IV. HEALING SPELLS
V. BUFFS
VI. OTHER ABILITIES
VII. CHAKRA
VIII. TALENTS
IX. MASTERY
X. HOW TO TANK HEAL
XI. HOW TO RAID HEAL
XII. GLYPHS
XIII. ENCHANTS
XIV. GEMS
XV. CONSUMABLES

I. STATS

Intellect

• Increases your Spell Power by 1.
• Increases your spell Critical Strike chance by .001541.
• Increases your mana pool by 15.

Note: The first 18 Intellect will not increase the size of your mana pool and the first 10 Intellect will not grant you any Spell Power.

Spirit

• 1 point of Spirit gives 0.00836*SQRT(Int) MP5.
• Spirit is going to be essential for regen, because of Meditation and Holy Concentration.

Haste

• 128.06 Haste is equal to 1% at level 85.
• With enough Haste, you can reduce the cast time of your spells, the time in between ticks of channeled spells, and make some of your HoTs tick faster (which can lead to extra ticks).

Mastery
- 179.28 Mastery is equal to 1% at level 85.
- Echo of Light: Direct heals that you cast on someone will heal them for an additional 16% over 6 seconds. Each additional point of Mastery that you have will increase the size of this heal by an extra 1.25%. This HoT will tick 6 times, or once per second, and is not affected by your Critical Strike or Haste rating.

Critical Strike
- 179.28 Critical Strike is equal to 1% at level 85.
- As of patch 4.2., critical heals now heal for 200% of their normal amount, up from 150%.

II. STAT PRIORITIES

The stat priorities that I would suggest you use can be quite different, depending on at where you are at as a holy priest. If you are someone who has just turned 85 or who hasn’t been 85 for that long, I would suggest the following priority:

Intellect > Spirit > Spell Power > Haste (to 12.50%) > Mastery > Critical Strike

As you start to run the high end Normal dungeons and break into Heroics, it’s going to be very important for you to manage your mana pool properly. Especially if you plan on gearing up through the Dungeon Finder. Make sure that you have Spirit on every piece of gear possible. If it doesn’t have Spirit on it, reforge into it. Even though most of the Heroic 5 mans have been nerfed, you may not be able to count on that to see you through.

At the very least, you want to make sure that you are at the first Haste breakpoint, which is at 12.50%. This will give you an extra tick from Renew and Divine Hymn. You will not have enough Haste on your gear to even come close to reducing your Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing down to a 2 second cast, much less aim for the second Haste breakpoint of 37.50%. Because of this, I would suggest taking any excess Haste you have past the first breakpoint and converting it into Mastery or gear for Mastery once you reach that point.

The other reason I suggest not going for Haste as you are just starting out as is because Haste is considered to be a “negative regen” stat, meaning that it helps you cast spells faster, which usually leads to casting more, and that leads to spending more mana. As you are in the process of gearing up and getting more experience on your priest, mana is going to be a limited resource for you. You are going to need to get the hang of “triage healing,” which is where you heal people for only as much as they need and not just to top them off. With triage healing, you may have to get more comfortable seeing your tank at 90% or lower and the DPS may sit at 75% or even 50% while you are learning the ropes of being a holy priest and how to spend your mana wisely. As you can see, stacking Haste and triage healing do not go hand in hand.

The only reason Critical Strike would be important to you is for Inspiration and you should have enough Critical Strike on your gear already or through Intellect where you do not need to go out of your way to gear for it. In fact, Critical Strike rating is usually the first secondary stat that you will reforge into something else, if you have the choice. We will talk more about reforging a bit later in this post.

If you are raiding at the current level of progression or just slightly behind it, meaning you’re raiding Firelands or Dragon Soul, your stat priority should look a little something like this:

Intellect < Spirit < Spell Power < Haste (to 19%) < Mastery < Critical Strike

At first glance, it looks like your priority may be the same as a holy priest who is just starting out, but there are a few changes. Even though you can do without the excessive amounts of Spirit that a novice priest might need to get by, I still suggest that you take gear with Spirit on it over pieces that do not. Spirit makes a great secondary stat that you can reforge into another stat that you might need, without having to give up other stats that are useful to you on an existing piece of gear. With that said, the Spirit that you have now should already be on your gear. You should not be reforging into Spirit, enchanting for it, or anything else like that.

The second Haste breakpoint of 37.50% is still going to be just out of your reach, although certain procs from weapons or trinkets can certainly help you get there. However, you should be able to obtain enough Haste, through your gear, reforging, etc. where you can reduce the cast time of your Heal, Greater Heal, and Prayer of Healing spells to 2 seconds. As you will probably spend most of your time as a holy priest healing the raid, having a 2 second Prayer of Healing can make a huge difference in your throughput and reaction time to incoming damage. You can expect to reach this point once you have about 19% Haste, fully buffed. You will probably need to gem for Haste, enchant for it, and put points into Darkness to get here, but it is well worth it.

After that, because you probably will not be able to reach the next actual Haste breakpoint on your own, I would recommend prioritizing Mastery next. One could argue that by gearing for Critical Strike over Mastery that your spells will heal for more, which in turn will leave a more powerful HoT on a target from Echo of Light. However, Critical Strike rating is not a consistent throughput stat. You could just as easily gear for Mastery, which means that your HoT will always heal for a set percentage of the original heal, rather than relying on Critical Strike to possibly make it heal for more.

III. REFORGING

If an item has Spirit and Haste on it:

• reforge the Haste into Mastery, if you are just starting out.
• reforge the Spirit into Mastery, if you are not.

If an item has Spirit and Mastery on it:

• reforge the Mastery into Haste, if you are looking to go past the first Haste breakpoint.
• reforge nothing, if you are not.

If an item has Spirit and Critical Strike on it:

• reforge the Critical Strike into Haste or Mastery, depending on your preference.

If an item has Haste and Critical Strike on it:

• reforge the Critical Strike into Spirit, if you need the regen.
• reforge the Critical Strike into Mastery, if you do not.

If an item has Haste and Mastery on it:

• reforge either of the stats into Spirit, if you need the regen.
• reforge nothing if you do not.

If an item has Mastery and Critical Strike:

• reforge the Critical Strike into Spirit, if you need the regen.
• reforge the Critical Strike into Haste, if you do not.

IV. HEALING SPELLS

Holy priests have a large arsenal of spells from which to choose from. It is important to know which spell is the right one to use for any given situation.

Power Word: Shield

• Instant cast spell, which surrounds the ally and absorbs damage.
• Does not actually provide any healing, unless you glyph for it.
• This spell is typically not used by holy priests, unless they are trying to grant someone the speed boost that goes along with Body and Soul.

Binding Heal

• A 1.5 second cast spell, which heals yourself and the target of your heal.
• Generates a low amount of threat.
• This spell will leave a HoT from Echo of Light on each person healed.
• If you have Renew on yourself and someone else, and you use Binding Heal while in Chakra: Serenity, it will refresh the duration of the Renew on both characters.
• This spell is twice as likely to trigger a proc from Surge of Light than other spells included in this talent. You can read more about this here.
• Can be expensive if used repeatedly and should be used wisely.

Circle of Healing

• An instant cast spell which heals the 5 most injured players or pets around the target.
• You can heal up to 6 people with this spell, if you glyph for it, but this comes with an increased mana cost.
• Should not be used too often in 5 mans, unless you need to heal on the run.
• This is a core spell for a raid healing holy priest and is frequently used on cooldown.

Desperate Prayer

• An instant cast self heal, which costs no mana and comes with a 2 minute cooldown.
• Should be used in emergency situations where you need a fast, efficient heal.
• The healing provided by this is affected by Echo of Light.

Divine Hymn

• A channeled spell that heals the 5 party or raid members with the lowest health within 40 yards every 2 seconds for 8 seconds and increases the healing done to them by 10% for 8 seconds.
• Divine Hymn determines who the most damaged party or raid members are prior to each tick going out and then heals them. This means that the same 5 people may not receive all of the healing from Divine Hymn, as each heal will always go to the raid member who is most in need of healing.
• Normally caps at 20 heals, but this can be increased to 25 heals by reaching the first Haste breakpoint of 12.50% Haste.
• This spell should only be used in situations where the group or raid is taking heavy amounts of damage that you feel you may not be able to react to in any other way. It also works well when used with other people’s cooldowns, as it will increase all of the healing done to those healed by Divine Hymn, in addition to the healing provided by Divine Hymn.

Flash Heal

• A 1.5 second cast direct healing spell which is meant to be used as a fast, emergency heal.
• Can be expensive and should not be spammed.
• Use immediately after Holy Word: Serenity for a quick way to get someone back up to full health.

Greater Heal

• A 3 second cast spell which provides a large amount of healing to a single target.
• Greater Heal is best used in conjunction with Serendipity, due to how expensive it is and how long it takes to cast.
• Can be used by itself, but should only be used in emergency situations. It is not meant to be a spell that you spam, or cast repeatedly.

Heal

• A 3 second cast spell which provides a modest amount of healing to a single target.
• This spell is very mana efficient and is best used during periods of moderate and predictable damage.
• Heal may not provide enough healing to top someone off after a large damage spike. Use Flash Heal or Greater Heal, instead.

Lightwell

• A unique type of heal that creates an object which people can click on to receive a short burst of periodic healing.
• Lightwell lasts for 3 minutes and typically comes with 10 charges, or you can glyph for it and have it come with 15. Each charge gives an ally the Lightwell Renew effect, which heals them for a certain amount over 6 seconds, or three ticks of healing total.
• If a person using the Lightwell takes damage equal to 30% of their health, it will cancel the Lightwell Renew effect.
• The healing provided by Lightwell is not passive. A player must actively mouse over the Lightwell and click on it in order to begin receiving healing from it.
• The healing provided by Lightwell Renew does not trigger Echo of Light and is not affected by your Critical Strike rating.
• With enough Haste rating, it is possible to get a fourth tick out of a charge from Lightwell. Raid buffs, such as Moonkin Aura, Wrath of Air Totem, or Mind Quickening, and talents like Darkness will not have any effect on this, as they increase your Haste and not your Haste rating. This is widely considered to be a bug that has not yet been addressed by the developers. Because it is unclear how much actual Haste you need to reach this point (my research has shown anywhere between 1700 – 3600 Haste does the trick) it is not something you should go out of your way to achieve. However, if you are already gearing for Haste, it may be possible to reach this point, with the help of trinkets or weapons that come with sizable Haste procs (like Seal of the Seven Signs or Ti’tahk, Steps of Time).
• Lightwell lasts for 3 minutes, until all of the charges are consumed, or until you move too far from away it and it despawns.

Prayer of Healing

• A 2.5 second cast heal, which heals the friendly target and their party members who are within range of them.
• It has a healing radius of 30 yards, but has a cast range of 40 yards. This means that the person you want to target with Prayer of Healing must be within 40 yards of you and that the people in their party need to be within 30 yards of them to receive the healing from this spell.
• Glyph of Prayer Healing enhances the throughput from this spell, by healing all affected targets for an additional 20% of the initial heal over 6 seconds.
• This spell is best used in situations where at least 3 people in a party require healing. Circle of Healing should be used first, followed by Prayer of Healing, when in a raid setting. In a 5 man dungeon, Prayer of Healing should be used over Circle of Healing, unless you have to heal the party while moving.

Prayer of Mending

• An instant cast spell, which puts a reactive buff on the target that heals them when they take any damage and then moves or bounces to another party or raid member within 20 yards.
• Comes with a maximum of 5 charges, which are not consumed by environmental damage (i.e. falling or fatigue) or spells that reduce the caster’s hit points (like Life Tap). However, spells which cause damage to the caster, like Hellfire or Shadow Word: Death will cause Prayer of Mending to jump to someone else.
• The heal from Prayer of Mending can crit and is affected by Echo of Light.
• Tanks make the best targets for Prayer of Mending, as they are the ones who are most likely to take damage and to keep the buff active. It is best used at the start of a pull, but Prayer of Mending does not stack, and so it is possible to cancel out a Prayer of Mending already on the target with one that is recently cast. This can cause some strife between the healing priests in your raid, if you run with more than one, so be sure to coordinate this type of thing with them, or simply wait until theirs has been consumed before you cast yours.
• Any threat that is generated by Prayer of Mending is considered to be generated by the healing priest, not by the recipient of the heal.
• Prayer of Mending should be used on cooldown, whenever possible.

Renew

• A HoT spell, which provides a set amount of healing over 12 seconds.
• Renew normally provides one tick of healing every three seconds, to give a total of four ticks. With 12.50% Haste, you can receive a fifth tick of healing from Renew and a sixth tick at the next Haste breakpoint, which is at 37.50%.
• The ticks of healing from Renew will not trigger Echo of Light, but the direct healing component of Divine Touch will. Heals provided by Renew also have a chance to crit.
• Renew should be kept on the tank at all times, either by re-applying it or refreshing it with the use of direct heals while in Chakra: Serenity.
• This spell is best used as a spot heal, for situations where there may not be enough people taking damage to warrant the use of Circle of Healing or Prayer of Healing. It is not meant to be used on a large number of people, like holy priests used to do in previous expansions.

V. BUFFS

There are a number of buffs available to priests that you may want to make sure are cast on people either prior to the pull or immediately upon resurrection.

Fear Ward

• An instant cast spell which makes the target immune to a single Fear effect.
• This effect lasts for 3 minutes and Fear Ward comes with a 3 minute cooldown.
• The buff is consumed, even if the target is already immune to fear (like through Berserker Rage).
• Can be used prior to a pull that you know is going to lead to a target being feared or immediately before a spell is cast which will lead to that outcome.

Inner Fire/Inner Will

• Free, instant cast self buffs.
• Only one may remain active at a time and you should always have one on you at all times.
• Inner Will is primarily for priests who are just starting out and who may not have the mana efficiency required for Inner Fire just yet. Once you feel that you have a handle on your mana pool, Inner Fire is going to be the buff of choice.
• It is possible to “dance” between buffs, as needed. For example, if you need a movement speed increase, you can swap from Inner Fire to Inner Will and then revert back once you do not need that advantage anymore. Or you can go from Inner Fire to Inner Will if you are running low on mana and feel that the buff could help your mana conservation.

Levitate

• A utility based spell that allows the target to levitate, reducing the speed of falling and allowing them to walk on water, or other liquid surfaces.
• Levitate cannot be cast on targets who are mounted and any damage received will break the effect.
• Can only be cast on people in your raid group or party.
• Normally requires a reagent to cast, but Glyph of Levitate removes the need for this.
• While it does not have many practical purposes in a PVE environment, Levitate can be used to avoid the Quake ability from the Crystalspawn Giants in the Stonecore instance.

Power Word: Fortitude

• A party or raid buff that provides a certain amount of Stamina to the group for 1 hour.
• This buff should be kept up all times and refreshed promptly, if a target dies and is brought back to life.
• Does not stack with Blood Pact, Commanding Shout, or Qiraji Fortitude.

Shadow Protection

• A party or raid buff that provides a certain amount of shadow resistance to the group for 1 hour.
• This buff is only required for fights that involve shadow damage, as it significantly boosts your resistance to shadow spells only.
• Does not stack with Resistance Aura.

VI. OTHER ABILITIES

Dispel Magic

• A spell that can remove magical debuffs from yourself or your allies and that can remove buffs from enemy targets.

Mass Dispel

• A spell that will attempt to remove 1 harmful debuff from any friendly targets or 1 buff from any enemy targets within a 15 yard radius.
• Can affect a maximum of 10 friendly or 10 enemy targets.
• Mass Dispel can remove magical effects that Dispel Magic cannot, such as Banish, Divine Shield, or Ice Block.
• Targets those closest to the center of the green targeting circle and then moves outward.

Shackle Undead

• A form of crowd control that works on Undead enemies and makes them unable to move or attack.

Cure Disease

• Removes one disease from a friendly target.

Chakra

• Please see the Chakra section of this guide for more information on this ability.

Guardian Spirit

• An instant cast ability that causes a target to receive 60% more healing for 10 seconds. If a player dies while under the effects of Guardian Spirit, the Spirit will sacrifice itself to heal them for 50% of their maximum health.
• Guardian Spirit is not affected by the global cooldown and the heal from it is able to crit.
• The most Guardian Spirit can heal for is 200% of the maximum health of the caster, not the target.
• The component of Guardian Spirit that increases healing received only lasts as long as the target survives. If the target dies and is brought back to life by Guardian Spirit, they no longer have that part of the buff on them, even if there was still enough time left on the buff for them to benefit from it.
• This spell is most often used on tanks and can either be used at your discretion or can be requested in advance.

Hymn of Hope

• A channeled spell that restores 2% mana to up to 3 nearby party or raid members with the lowest amount of mana for 8 seconds and increases their total maximum mana by 15% for 8 seconds.
• Should be used in situations where you or others around you are low on mana and need help getting some of it back. For the best effect, use abilities that give you mana back, based on your maximum mana while the buff from Hymn of Hope is active (i.e. Arcane Torrent, Shadowfiend).
• Priests now have 100% spell pushback while channeling this spell and will not be interrupted or lose channeling time because of incoming damage. However, you can still be stunned or interrupted and be forced to stop channeling because of this.

Leap of Faith

• Also known as “Life Grip,” and pulls a party or raid member to your location.
• Can be used to help with kiting situations or to help pull an ally out of something bad they are standing in.

Resurrection

• Brings a dead player back to life. Cannot be used in combat.

Fade

• Used to temporarily reduce the amount of aggro that you have or that you generate while in groups.
• Should be used wisely and not spammed repeatedly throughout an encounter.

Psychic Scream

• A form of crowd control that causes up to 5 nearby enemy targets to run away in fear.
• Psychic Scream is not a reliable form of crowd control and should be used wisely in instances, especially in places where enemy targets are tightly grouped together. If you find that you have aggro, it is best to run towards the tank, so they can pull the enemies off of you. Using this spell to make them run away in fear only makes it harder for the tank to pick up threat on those targets again.

Shadowfiend

• Summons a pet that temporarily fights for you and whose attacks help you regenerate mana when they land.
• Each successful strike from a shadowfiend returns 3% of your maximum mana, so it is best to use it when you are under the effect of something that will increase the size of your mana pool (i.e. Power Torrent, a trinket like Fiery Quintessence).
• Should be used on targets that are not near death, as the shadowfiend may not find another target right away if its current target dies and it may stand there and do nothing.
• Can return more mana if used while Bloodlust or Heroism is active.
• It was widely suggested at one point to use shadowfiend with Hymn of Hope to get the most mana back. While this strategy does indeed work, it can also be a challenge to time both abilities just right and to make sure that each ability sees its full duration (i.e. the shadowfiend does not die early or stops attacking or you get interrupted while channeling Hymn of Hope).

VII. CHAKRA

Introduced in Cataclysm, Chakra is a core ability for any holy priest, whether they are doing dailies by themselves or in a group and providing much needed healing. Chakra can be confusing and even overwhelming to some priests, but can become easy to use and adapt to with a little patience.

To place yourself in a Chakra state, simply cast Chakra and then cast one of eight spells immediately after that. Whichever spell you choose to cast next will determine which Chakra state that you enter.

Casting Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, or Binding Heal after casting Chakra will put you into Chakra: Serenity, which is our tank or single target healing stance. While in this particular Chakra, your direct healing spells have a 10% increased chance to crit and they will refresh the duration of a Renew that is already present on the target.

Casting Prayer of Mending or Prayer of Healing after casting Chakra will put you into Chakra: Sanctuary, which is our AOE or raid healing stance. This Chakra increases the healing done by your AOE healing spells and Renew by 15% and reduces the cooldown of Circle of Healing by 2 seconds.

You can also choose to enter a third state, called Chakra: Chastise, by casting Smite or Mind Spike after casting Chakra. This state increases your total damage done with holy and shadow spells by 15%.

In order to get the most out of your Chakra states, you want to place a talent point into a nearby talent in the holy tree called Revelations, which will convert your Holy Word: Chastise spell into another ability, depending on which Chakra state that you are in at the time.

Being in Chakra: Serenity will give you access to a spell called Holy Word: Serenity, which provides an instant cast direct heal on a target and increases your chance to critically heal that player by 25% for 8 seconds. Comes with a 10 second cooldown.

Holy Word: Sanctuary will become available to you once you activate Chakra: Sanctuary and lets you create a zone of healing light on the ground which heals anyone standing inside of it every 2 seconds for 18 seconds. It used to provide diminished returns, if more than 6 people were standing inside of it, but this was recently removed. Comes with a 40 second cooldown.

Chakra: Chastise is the only Chakra state which does not change Holy Word: Chastise into something else. The spell remains exactly the same as it is when you are not in a Chakra state.

Chakra comes with a 30 second cooldown, so if you enter the wrong Chakra state by mistake, you will have to wait at least 30 seconds to change into the correct stance. However, once you enter a Chakra state, you can remain in it, indefinitely. In the past, you had to maintain your Chakra state by casting certain spells (the ones that you would use to enter a Chakra state, to begin with), but that was removed a short time after Cataclysm launched.

For more information on Chakra, please see my Guide to the Chakra Sutra.

VIII. TALENTS

The most popular talent builds for a holy priest do not leave much in the way of versatility or options, mostly because we have very few filler talents to speak of. All of our talent points go towards things that we need in order to do our jobs well, and so we rarely have additional points to play with or to put into less useful things.

The two most common builds tend to revolve around your stat priority or which secondary stats you decide you want to gear for. Some talents are optional, while others are quite mandatory. Here are some builds that I would suggest for you to choose from, depending on your current situation.

For the holy priest who has just turned 85 or is gearing up through 5 mans:

This spec makes a great starter build for an up and coming holy priest, with an emphasis on talents that will help you manage your mana and that will help enhance the basic spells that you will be relying on in a 5 man setting.

Darkness and Divine Fury are important, as your spells are going to feel like they take a long time to cast, and every little bit of Haste helps. You also want to try and start gearing towards that first Haste breakpoint of 12.50, so you can get an extra tick of Renew and Divine Hymn. Speaking of Divine Hymn, I only placed 1 talent point into Heavenly Voice, as you should not be using Divine Hymn too much in a 5 man dungeon. Most of your talent points in this build will go towards enhancing your single target heals, like Heal, Flash Heal, and Greater Heal.

For the raiding holy priest, who is choosing to gear for Haste over Mastery:

This build is not much different than the previous starter build, with a few noticeable differences. Surge of Light has been removed, as you will most likely not be using most of the spells that would proc this talent in a raid enough where you would really benefit from having it. A second talent point has been placed into Heavenly Voice, as Divine Hymn is a very powerful cooldown and will be used frequently. One point was placed in Rapid Renewal, as Renew will start seeing more use as a spot heal once your gear improves and you should always be keeping Renew on the tank.

For the raiding holy priest, who is choosing to gear for Mastery over Haste:

This build is a more refined version of the previous two and focuses more on survivability and raw throughput, with less emphasis on Haste. Darkness is out, which leaves 3 additional talent points to put elsewhere. I would recommend placing these points into Inner Sanctum, as Blessed Resilience only helps you if you are the focus of an attack. Any damage caused by general raid damage or things like that will not proc this talent for you anymore. The 6% reduction in spell damage will benefit you in situations like those and especially if you find yourself breaking into Heroic modes, where the incoming raid damage can be quite intense.

IX. MASTERY

Our Mastery is called Echo of Light and it allows each direct heal that you cast on someone to heal them for an additional 16% over 6 seconds. Each additional point of Mastery that you have will increase the size of this heal by an extra 1.25%. The heal over time portion of Echo of Light ticks 6 times, or once per second. This healing is not affected by your Critical Strike or Haste rating.

“How does Echo of Light work?”

Any time that you cast one of the above mentioned heals or healing effects on someone, Echo of Light will leave behind a heal over time effect on them for 16% of how much that ability healed them for. For example:

Obscene’s Flash Heal heals Obscene for 16471
Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 454 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light

Admittedly, that doesn’t sound like a lot. Where Echo of Light really shines is with abilities that heal more than one person, like Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing. Having numerous people receive an additional heal over time on them after you heal them is pretty nice and makes a difference on fights with heavy AOE damage. People standing in the effects of Holy Word: Sanctuary will also receive heals from Echo of Light and it will refresh itself as the person stands inside of it and for as long as the healing zone is generating heals.

Obscene’s Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Obscene for 680
Obscene gains 19 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene’s Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Obscene for 674
Obscene gains 19 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene’s Echo of Light is refreshed on Obscene
Obscene gains 28 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene’s Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Obscene for 621
Obscene gains 28 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene’s Echo of Light is refreshed on Obscene

This brings up a very good point and the next thing I will talk about.

“How does Echo of Light refresh itself?”

At first glance, it is easy to think that the heal over time placed by Echo of Light from a larger heal will be clipped by one from a smaller heal and then the overall effectiveness will be reduced. I used to think this way, too. Luckily, Echo of Light works in such a way where the overall HPS does not change because of this and will still provide a consistent amount of healing. Let’s say that I cast Greater Heal on myself and then Heal shortly after it.

Obscene’s Greater Heal heals Obscene for 21408
Obscene gains Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 592 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 592 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene’s Heal heals Obscene for 8026
Obscene’s Echo of Light is refreshed on Obscene
Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 518 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light
Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light

You may notice that the ticks from Echo of Light which came after Heal are healing for less than those that came after Greater Heal. You may also notice that refreshing Echo of Light before it was finished ticking down caused a 7th tick of Echo of Light to take place the next time around. As stated earlier, Echo of Light typically only provides 6 ticks. What does it all mean? It means that you did not actually heal for any less because you refreshed Echo of Light with a smaller heal. Let me show you how.

If you total up all of the Echo of Light ticks that took place in the previous example, you would come up with 4803. This is roughly the sum of 16% of the amount of your Greater Heal (3425) plus 16% of the amount of your Heal (1284) or what each would have normally healed for had the heal not been clipped. You can see that you have not actually lost any healing. You probably gained some, depending on how much Mastery rating you have. Mine is currently at 13.25 for the purpose of these examples.

The game took the amount of healing done by Echo of Light from the first heal (21408 x 16%), subtracted the healing that was already done (592 + 591) and then adds the healing that would take place by Echo of Light from the next spell (8026 x 16%). Then it divides that amount by 7, which give you 7 ticks of Echo of Light.

3425 – 1183 = 2242 + 1284 = 3526/7

When you add it all up, you will see that your Echo of Light was not affected negatively and you have not lost any healing by casting a smaller heal over a larger one.

(Excerpts taken from my original post, called “Understanding Echo of Light.”)

X. HOW TO TANK HEAL

For the rare occasions that you will be tank healing, you will want to make sure you are in Chakra: Serenity before you do anything else. Tank healing while holy tends to follow more of a rotation, so here are the steps I would suggest to follow when doing so.

Step #1: Cast Prayer of Mending on the tank and refresh on cooldown.

Step #2: Cast Renew.

Step #3: Spam Heal, as it is extremely mana efficient and keeps Renew and Echo of Light rolling on the tank, along with Inspiration.

Step #4: Use Holy Word: Serenity if the tank suddenly gets low. Follow it up with a fast heal, like Flash Heal. Use another Flash Heal if the previous one was not enough and then Greater Heal, if you require even more healing.

Step #5: Repeat, as necessary.

Flash Heal will give you one stack of Serendipity each time that you use it, so make sure you try to stabilize the tank with Flash Heal before you go straight to using Greater Heal. Trying to cast Greater Heal without any stacks of Serendipity present will be more expensive and it will take longer to cast.

Use Renew as a spot heal for individuals who may need healing in your party or Prayer of Healing if at least 3 people in the party require healing. If you take damage, use Binding Heal on the tank or someone else. Try not to use Circle of Healing too much in a 5m setting, unless you find that you need to heal while moving.

XI. HOW TO RAID HEAL

Chakra: Sanctuary will be your Chakra of choice, for when you are asked to heal the raid, which will be more often than not. Make sure you are in this stance before you begin tossing out heals. There tends to be less of a rotation for raid healing than there is for tank healing, but there are some important things to bear in mind.

Rule #1: Start off the pull by casting Prayer of Mending, preferably on the tank. It is possible to cast it on other targets during an encounter, depending on how much raid damage is going out. As stated in the tank healing section, you should be using Prayer of Mending on cooldown.

Rule #2: If at least 3 people in the raid, who are not in the same party are taking damage, use Circle of Healing.

If at least 3 people in the raid, who are in the same party have taken damage, use Prayer of Healing. Always use Circle of Healing first, then try to heal any groups back up to full with Prayer of Healing.

Rule #3: Always drop a Lightwell. Make sure you have a macro to announce that you have cast a Lightwell and be sure to vocalize where the Lightwell is in Vent or Mumble, if you can. If you notice that people are not clicking your Lightwell, ask people if dropping it in a better place may help. The most common reason that people do not click it is because they either cannot see it or they cannot reach it. Try to meet them halfway on this.

Contrary to popular opinion, it may not always be best to drop a Lightwell at the start of the pull. Some fights like Yor’sahj or Ultraxion have raid wide damage that takes a while to get going. Make sure you are dropping your Lightwell during times where it will get the most use.

Rule #4: Use Holy Word: Sanctuary carefully. Be sure to use this spell only during times where people are guranteed to be grouped up and standing still long enough to benefit from the healing that it puts out. For instance, you do not want to drop it when everyone is running around the platform on Hagara. But you will want to drop it throughout most of the Ultraxion fight, as you are standing in one place for the majority of the encounter.

Another piece of advice I would give you about Holy Word: Sanctuary is to give it time for it to do its thing. The healing that comes from this spell does not come quickly, but it does build up over time to eventually put out some nice numbers. It does not make any sense to drop a Sanctuary zone and then immediately override your own heals by spamming Circle of Healing or Prayer of Healing. There are situations where the outgoing raid damage is so intense that you will be casting frantically, in order to keep up. But more often than not it does not hurt to cast Holy Word: Sanctuary and then keep an eye on the healing that it is slowly being put out, filling in gaps when needed.

Rule #5: Do not spam Renew. Renew makes a great spot heal for individuals who are taking damage and in situations where your group healing spells may be overkill. Renew is great to keep rolling on a tank, if you can afford to do so. But please do not use Renew en masse to keep your raid up through incoming damage. You have other spells that can handle this better and without causing you to run out of mana so quickly.

XII. GLYPHS

Prime

The first thing I would like to suggest, regarding glyphs, is that you always keep a stack of Dust of Disappearance on you. There are some fights where some glyphs may shine more than others and it helps to tailor your glyph choices to meet your needs. While there are a number of glyphs available for holy priests, there are only a select few that are worth even considering. Here are some of the top choices that you may want to pick up for yourself.

[Glyph of Power Word: Shield]
This glyph can be useful when you are first starting out, as the heal that comes from putting a shield on someone is considered a direct heal, for the purpose of refreshing Renew while in Chakra: Serenity.

[Glyph of Lightwell]
This is a vital glyph that gives your Lightwell 5 extra charges for people to use. The only downside to this glyph is that like most things concerning Lightwell, its usefulness is dependent on the people in your raid or party actually using it. If your group tends to ignore the Lightwell, this glyph may not be the best for you.

[Glyph of Renew]
This glyph can be useful, depending on how often you use Renew and how much of your healing on the tank from Renew goes straight to overhealing.

[Glyph of Prayer of Healing]
An essential glyph, which leaves a HoT on targets healed by Prayer of Healing for 20% of the initial heal. Shines in a 5 man setting, but shines even more in raids.

[Glyph of Guardian Spirit]
This glyph used to be much more powerful in the previous expansion, but still has some use in recent times. If you are about to heal an encounter where Guardian Spirit is really relied upon or you are expected to use it at specific times, this glyph may be a good choice for you. If you are using Guardian Spirit on more of a “free for all” basis, I would consider a different glyph.

Major

[Glyph of Desperation]
This glyph is considered to be more of a PVP glyph, but I have found uses for it in a PVE setting. You can use it while entombed on Hagara and also while wrapped up in a tentacle on Spine of Deathwing. While it is not overwhelmingly useful, there are situations where this glyph can come in handy for you. Feel free to experiment and see what other fights you could get some use out of this one on.

[Glyph of Circle of Healing]
The recent change to this glyph, which increased its mana cost by 20% means that it could be less useful to you in a 10m setting, where Prayer of Healing tends to be used more and often times for less mana. I would consider this an essential glyph for a 25 man raider, but more of a toss up for someone who is raiding in a 10 man group.

[Glyph of Prayer of Mending]
Another glyph that is mandatory, this glyph causes the first heal provided by Prayer of Mending to heal for an additional 60%. This should be more of an incentive for you to keep Prayer of Mending bouncing at all times and the healing from this glyph can make a nice showing on the meters, too.

[Glyph of Fade]
This glyph can be useful when first starting out, especially if you are running with tanks who have just hit level 85 and are finding their footing, too. There should not be too many situations where you would need this glyph in a raid setting. If you do, this may mean you need to have a conversation with your tanks to try and understand where the problem lies.

Minor

[Glyph of Fortitude]
This glyph can help save you a bit of mana when you are buffing the raid before the pull or if you have to buff someone who has just received a battle res.

[Glyph of Shadow Protection]
This glyph makes it so that you do not have to re-apply the Shadow Protection buff as often. Mind you, there are not many situations where you need it for more than 30 minutes at a time, but this glyph is there if you do find yourself in that type of predicament.

[Glyph of Levitate]
More of a vanity glyph or something fun to have on you. Levitate has never been an essential spell, but not having to carry reagents around is always a good thing.

[Glyph of Shadowfiend]
Some priests feel that this glyph has declined in usefulness, as Shadowfiend now takes 90% less AOE damage. I still think it is better to be safe than sorry and the added insurance does not hurt. This glyph may not be as useful as it once was, but I think it still has a place in one of your glyph slots.

XIII. ENCHANTS

Head

Arcanum of Hyjal
+60 Intellect and 35 Critical Strike Rating
Guardians of Hyjal – Revered

Shoulders

Lesser Inscription of Charged Lodestone
+30 Intellect and 20 Haste Rating
Therazane – Honored

Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone
+50 Intellect and 25 Haste Rating
Therazane – Revered

Felfire Inscription
+130 Intellect and 25 Haste Rating
Inscription

Cloak

Enchant Cloak – Intellect
+30 Intellect
Enchanting

Enchant Cloak – Greater Intellect
+50 Intellect
Enchanting

Darkglow Embroidery (Rank 2)
Chance to increase your Spirit by 580 for 15 seconds when you cast a spell
Tailoring

Lightweave Embroidery (Rank 2)
Chance to increase your Intellect by 580 for 15 seconds when you cast a spell.
Tailoring

Chest

Enchant Chest – Mighty Stats
+15 to all stats
Enchanting

Enchant Chest – Peerless Stats
+20 to all stats
Enchanting

Bracers

Draconic Embossment – Intellect
+130 Intellect
Leatherworking

Enchant Bracer – Speed
+50 Haste
Enchanting

Enchant Bracer – Greater Speed
+65 Haste
Enchanting

Enchant Bracer – Mighty Intellect
+50 Intellect
Enchanting

Gloves

Enchant Gloves – Greater Mastery
+65 Mastery
Enchanting

Enchant Gloves – Haste
+50 Haste
Enchanting

Legs

Ghostly Spellthread
+55 Intellect and 45 Spirit
Tailoring

Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
+95 Intellect and 55 Spirit
Tailoring

Sanctified Spellthread (Rank 2)
+95 Intellect and 55 Spirit
Tailoring

Boots

Enchant Boots – Haste
+50 Haste
Enchanting

Enchant Boots – Lavawalker
+35 Mastery and Minor Movement Speed
Enchanting

Enchant Boots – Mastery
+50 Mastery
Enchanting

Weapons

Enchant Weapon – Heartsong
Chance to increase Spirit by 200 for 15 seconds when healing or dealing damage with spells
Enchanting

Enchant Weapon – Power Torrent
Chance to increase Intellect for 500 for 12 seconds when dealing damage or healing with spells
Enchanting

Which should you choose?

If you are interested solely in regen, choose Heartsong. If you are interested in less regen with some throughput on the side, choose Power Torrent.

For more information on both of these enchants, please view my original Heartsong v. Power Torrent post.

Off-hands

Enchant Off-Hand – Superior Intellect
+40 Intellect
Enchanting

XIV. GEMS

If you are looking to fill a red socket:
- Brilliant Inferno Ruby: +40 Intellect (rare)
- Brilliant Queen’s Garnet: +50 Intellect (epic)

If you are looking to fill a yellow socket:
- Artful Ember Topaz: + 20 Intellect and 20 Mastery (rare)
- Artful Lava Coral: +25 Intellect and 25 Mastery (epic)

OR

• Reckless Ember Topaz: +20 Intellect and 20 Haste (rare)
• Reckless Lava Coral: +25 Intellect and 25 Haste (epic)

If you are looking to fill a a blue socket:
- Purified Demonseye: +20 Intellect and 20 Spirit (rare)
- Purified Shadow Spinel: +25 Intellect and 25 Spirit (epic)

Meta gems:
- Ember Shadowspirit Diamond: +54 Intellect and 2% Maximum Mana (requires at least 2 yellow gems)
- Burning Shadowspirit Diamond: +54 Intellect and 3% Increased Critical Effect (requires at least 3 red gems)

XV. CONSUMABLES

Flasks:
- Flask of Flowing Water: Increases Spirit by 300 for 1 hour
- Flask of the Draconic Mind: Increases Intellect by 300 for 1 hour

Food:
- Delicious Sagefish Tail: Increases Spirit and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour
- Severed Sagefish Head: Increases Intellect and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour
- Basilisk Liverdog: Increases Haste and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour
- Lavascale Minestrone: Increases Mastery and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour

OR

• Seafood Magnifique: Increases Intellect and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour

Potions:
- Mythical Mana Potion: Restores 9250 to 10,750 mana. 1 minute cooldown.
- Potion of Concentration: Restores 22,000 over 10 seconds, but requires you to stand still and channel to gain the full effect.
- Volcanic Potion: Increases Intellect by 1200 for 25 seconds. Great for situations where mana is not an issue, but additional throughput is.

“What world are you living in?  I don’t need friends.  I need fans.”

- Jill Roberts – “Scream 4.” 

It’s been a while since I have written a rant type post and this has been something that’s been grating on my nerves for a while, so I figured I would start the new year off right and get some of this off of my chest.

Last night, there was a kerfuffle on Twitter over some comments that a famous World of Warcraft personality, known for his YouTube videos had made about how women should be treated when they dress a certain way.  While his comments did ruffle my feathers a bit, I was more concerned about something else.  This is someone who has built an audience creating humorous machinima type parodies about things pertaining to World of Warcraft, but I wasn’t seeing any indication that this person actually plays World of Warcraft

Now most people who blog or host a podcast relating to a game that they enjoy will usually do something to indicate that they actually play said game.  You may find an Armory link on their blog or they may give their guild a shoutout on their show.  But this gentleman had nothing of the sort on any of his various pages.  I looked at his YouTube page and didn’t find anything.  His Facebook page and Twitter bio came up empty, as well.  Apparently, he likes World of Warcraft enough to use it as a means to build his following, but not enough to actually, you know, play it. 

Something about that seems kind of wrong to me and maybe even a little malicious.  The sad reality of it is that he is hardly the first person to potentially be guilty of such a thing.  Take another YouTube personality, for example.  This person has built a following on looking attractive while they read various patch notes and giving out very simple tidbits of advice pertaining to World of Warcraft, but there is no mention of this person having a character or actively playing the game.  Sure, when they first started they would sign off by saying their name and their realm.  But, if you go looking for that exact name on the Armory now, odds are you won’t find that character anywhere.  You will, however, find a slew of characters with a similar name, but those were probably created in honor of said person and are most likely not that person’s actual toon. 

Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?  In my opinion, this is no different than the current state of celebrity outside of the gaming world.  People have become famous for doing nothing at all.  They haven’t done anything to show that they have any reason to be talking about the things they’re attempting to talk about.  It would be like me going to work for ESPN.  I know nothing about sports.  I go to baseball games for the snacks, for God sakes!  I have no business being in front of a camera or behind a microphone talking about the player’s stats and which team I think should win.  It wouldn’t be hard for someone to notice this and to call me out on it and they would be well within their rights to do so.

Yet nobody seems to mind that the podcast you’re listening to, where one of the hosts is telling you how to raid has never done a raid before.  Nobody minds that the person ranting about Mists of Pandaria changes on their YouTube channel probably won’t even have a character at the level to explore Pandaria when it comes out.  People like them because they’re witty, or because they’re cute, but not necessarily because they have actually done something to warrant being listened to.  They just happened to be there at the right time and said or did the right things. 

I wish there was a way to check people’s credentials before they decided to start some kind of endeavor like this.  You want to write a blog about PVP?  Show me that you PVP.  You want to critique the leveling experience of a new game you just purchased?  Wonderful.  Show me that you actually have this toon.  When I stopped playing a resto druid, I stopped talking about them, because I knew that I no longer had any business doing so.  Sure, I may dole out small (OK, maybe bigger than that) doses of snark about resto druids and my love/hate relationship with them, but any chance I had of discussing theorycrafting or more advanced topics pertaining to them went right out the window when I decided to become a priest.

And even now, you can see that I have a priest.  You can see what my character looks like.  You can see where I chose to place my talent points.  You can see that I’m practicing what I preach.  I am a priest who is raiding and seeing current content.  I have absolutely nothing to hide.  I have shown that I have a reason to talk about the things that I talk about and that what I talk about comes from experience.  I’m not telling you how to spec and then doing the exact opposite.  I’m not telling you how to heal a boss fight that I myself have yet to experience.  I talk about what is happening to me and to other people, as I understand it and as I have seen it.     

In closing, I would like to see more focus placed on the people who are genuinely doing things to better the community and have shown that they are actually doing such things.  There are people hosting podcasts who are excellent at PVP or who are playing the game that you happen to play.  They really are guild masters and mothers, raid leaders and husbands.  There are people who record instructional videos that have actually seen the fights.  They have been there and they will go beyond that.  You shouldn’t have to settle for someone who is just telling you what you want to hear or giving you what you want to see, simply so they can have more subscribers or use their endeavors as a platform to something else, which has nothing to do with the very games that they used to become successful, in the first place.  I won’t settle for it and you shouldn’t, either.

As part of Blog Azeroth’s Furtive Father Winter event, I recently received a guest post from Katarnas, over at Resto Is Epic.  Unfortunately, I didn’t receive it until I was well on my way out of town for the holiday weekend, but I promised that I would post it as soon as I got back and settled in.  If you’re interested in the post that I submitted, which was a gift for my friend Rilandune, you can check that out here.

And now, on to the lovely guest post!

So this year I decided to take part in the FFW event on Blog Azeroth. This was probably not my best idea ever, as over the last few weeks I haven’t had a lot of time to write stuff and so on (as it evident from the lack of blog posts, inactivity on twitter and the fact that it has taken me so long to get this sorted for Oestrus. Sorry O)

However one of the main reasons for the lack of time has actually been WoW related and given the time of year that it is, it is a rather good topic for this guest post;

Warcraft and International Relations

As grand (and pretentious) as that sounds, it really is very simple. At the core of Warcraft (and any MMO) is the fact that it is a social game. The degree to which you choose to immerse yourself in that aspect of the game is entirely up to you – you could level completely on your own and treat the game simple as some kind of huge single player game, or play in a group through LFD, LFR etc but remain totally anonymous and never interact with other players. I have seen people who have been in a guild for quite a few years, yet no-one knows anyone else’s real name. Then at the other end of the scale are the players who do get involved with other players, make lasting friendships and even meet up IRL when they can with people they have met in WoW. I am in this latter catergory.

Some of the more long term readers of RiE may remember that back in May I had a little break from posting as I had guildies staying with me. This has also been the case recently. Currently we are hosting a pair of WoW guildies, and have had them staying with us since the week before Christmas and they are with us until next weekend. Also, over the next couple of days, we are expecting at least two more to show up for New Year, and originally we had up to another four possibly showing as well, but they have had to cancel due to work etc. This got me thinking earlier in the year, and again now, about how we came to meet these people and how if it wasn’t for WoW we never would have meet them.

The marvels of the internet mean that we can talk as easily to someone on the other side of the world as we can someone in the same room. Combining this with an immersive environment such as WoW puts together a lot of people from different countries who have forged lasting friendships but who would never have met otherwise. Through my guilds, I have met people from Russia, Korea, South Africa, Australia, America and just about every country in Europe. These are people who I otherwise would never had the chance to know (I don’t travel a lot and besides; how many friends do you make on a holiday?) and some of whom I am now sharing my house with and have had an awesome Christmas with. I think it is wonderful that I can share something like this time of year with new friends from Sweden, Holland and Portugal. They say that friends are the family you choose for yourself, and I think that is very true.

On a larger scale, Warcraft in general has introduced me to a huge range of people across the world, both in game and out. If I hadn’t started blogging and then getting active on Twitter, forums etc I would never have met a whole bunch of amazing fellow gamers. As with guildies, maybe I will meet some of them some day, maybe not, but either way I have come across some rather awesome people and an excellent community – whatever people say (and is true) about the online community in general (and WoW specifically), those people who generally go that bit further to do something they love (such as a blog) are on the whole an awesome bunch of people and restore one’s faith in humanity when compared to the dross covering the forums etc.

I know this is a rather meandering post and not really going anywhere, but I just felt it really needed to be said how wonderful it is to be a part of a community like this, even this event itself – a group of random people taking the time to write, draw or whatever a little something for someone else they don’t even know.

While I am always thankful for the social side of the game, it is especially at this time of year and seeing all the FFW posts, greetings across Twitter etc, and sitting down to large tasty meals with guildies for company that I really think it is particularly amazing, and I am even more grateful for the people I have met and become friends with.

So to Oestrus, my guildies and everyone else out there helping to make an awesome community and contributing to new friendships and such throughout WoW

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

“What’s In A Name?”

Nothing like finding out your screen name for the past three years is actually something offensive that is worthy of a ban by Blizzard Entertainment.  I was feeling so many things when I was going through that whole debacle.  I was frustrated and bitter, seeing people with worse names than mine running around major cities, while I was being punished.  I was upset that the people at Blizzard wouldn’t give me the benefit of the doubt and that they didn’t even try to see things from another angle, with regards to how offensive my name truly was.  Lastly, I was sad at the thought of giving up a name that I had developed a very personal attachment to.  This post showed exactly what happened, as it went down, and really showcased my anger at the final outcome.

“I Am Legend(ary).”

This post was inspired by the heated discussions that I witnessed going on around me, on Twitter, and in the blogging world, regarding how various guilds were handling the decision making process when it came to who was going to be awarded the legendary staff from Firelands.  I felt like a lot of emphasis was being placed on those who just make the decisions and not necessarily those who get chosen to wield such an incredible piece of equipment.  I wanted to show the other side of what it’s like to win a legendary – the anxiety, the stress, the isolation.  I think this post did a good job of illustrating that and hopefully some other people were able to relate to what I went through and did their best to not treat others in a similar fashion.

“Sellout.”

I wrote this post when I was really at my lowest point, in terms of my feelings of burnout with World of Warcraft and at a point when I was desperately clinging to my identity as a priest and as a blogger.  Firelands was a dark time for me, for a number of reasons, and this post really encompassed everything I was feeling around that period.  I feel like I have come a long way since then, in that I understand how important it is to be a versatile healing priest and how you are kind of selling yourself short if you don’t stay open to that possibility.  With that said, I don’t take back anything I wrote here or that I felt at the time.  I do still resent guilds that sat holy priests or put unfair demands on them to be something they’re not.  It was never the idea of being discipline that I was against.  It was the idea that many priests, including myself, were forced into it.  We didn’t have a say.  We were told to do it, or else.  That’s where the emotion behind this post came from.

“How To Create Your Own Luck With The Dungeon Finder.”

I tend to have a better attitude towards Random dungeons than most do.  I leveled my resto shaman alt entirely through the Dungeon Finder.  I don’t mind doing Randoms to score my last few Valor Points for the week.  The things that would upset or annoy most people tend to roll right off of me in a Random 5 man.  I use a few of the tips featured in this post to get me through the experience and I genuinely think that they could work for other people, too.  When I wrote this post, I wanted to show my support for the Dungeon Finder and the Call to Arms system and I still stand behind them, to this day.

“Understanding Echo of Light.”

This post was my first foray into number crunching and I received a lot of link love for writing it.  Writing this post inspired me to want to know more about my spells and abilities – how they really work, the numbers behind the way that I heal, etc.  I would like to think that this post got people to take me more seriously as a priest blogger and not just as a storyteller who happens to be a priest.

“Mirror, Mirror.”

One thing I have never been afraid to do, as a blogger is cast myself in a negative light.  I’m not afraid to paint myself as the villain or the bad guy in a certain scenario and I think this post really showed that.  I have a very nasty competitive nature that I have toned down quite a bit, but that still rears its ugly head from time to time.  I was really surprised by the response that I received from this entry, mostly from people who had felt the same way that I did, at one point or another.  Overall, I think it’s natural and healthy to feel competitive towards others, if you channel it properly.  I didn’t always do that and that’s what this story was really about.  The best part about this post was that I actually got back in touch with the person that I wrote about, who inspired me to write this, and he and I made amends.  How cool is that?!

“Balls.”

2011 was a year of firsts for me.  This article talked about the first (and hopefully the last) time that I rage quit a guild.  This was easily one of the most divisive posts that I have ever written.  I think this changed quite a few people’s opinion of me and not necessarily for the better.  I own that and at the same time, I also had people who agreed with what I did and said they would have done the same thing.  I would say that I was just starting to feel the burnout that led me to take a four month break from World of Warcraft and that this was sort of a preview of things to come.

“Waste Not, Want Not.”

Cataclysm changed the game, in many ways.  One of those ways was how we look at raiding and how accessible raiding has become for most players.  Blizzard expressed the desire to have more people be able to see and experience the content that they work so hard on and while I agree with that idea, I do think that the overall work ethic of raiding has sort of gone down the tubes.  I think that some people feel like because it has gotten easier to see content that less effort is involved and that you don’t have to try as hard.  I don’t agree with that at all.  This post was my response to people who felt like doing certain things was too much to ask and why I felt like this was a sign of things to come.  This was another hot button issue and I was really glad to see how the topic really took off.

“Queen.”

This was a more recent post of mine, written after I had come back from my break from the game.  I was dealing with some things in my personal life that I also happened to be facing in my gaming life and it felt right to combine the two and write about what I was feeling about all of it.  I have always been eager to defy and shed labels and I think this post really summed that up nicely.  To this day, we as women players and as personalities still have to fight to overcome stigmas and barriers that keep us from being seen the way that we would like to.  While I have never really considered myself too much of a feminist, I definitely think this post kind of sparked something in me that made me want to do more in that arena and to learn more about others who may feel the same.

“Out.”

Last but not least, the post that changed it all.  To this day, I still get comments about this post.  I cannot even begin to tell you what I was feeling or thinking when I wrote this.  I think I spit it out in less than an hour, with very few edits or changes needed.  I think that I had secretly already had the post written in my head and I was just waiting for the right time to get it out on the screen.  I remember thinking that my time as a blogger was over.  I thought I would become a social pariah and that nothing good was going to come from this.  I had nothing but doomsday scenarios playing over and over in my mind.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  I received so much support and love that I absolutely did not anticipate.  I would like to think that maybe I inspired others to come out, too.  Even now, I still have to take a moment when I think about this post and let everything just sink in.  Like, “Did that just happen?”  It did.

Honorable mention:

“Why I Hate Al’akir.”

I said that I would not witness another Al’akir attempt, so long as I live, and I have kept that promise!  I don’t care if I’m wearing Tier 15 and someone wants to drag me back there.  I was happy to see that so many others felt the same about this encounter, an encounter which I feel is absolute bullshit and easily one of the worst designed fights in the history of World of Warcraft.  This fight serves absolutely no purpose to me.  I do not mind explaining to each and every person who looks at my Armory profile why there is a gaping hole right there, where an Al’akir or even a Conclave kill should be.  You would think I would have downed one of them by now, but no.  I won’t go.  You cannot make me.

Thanks for taking this stroll down memory lane with me!  I look forward to seeing what other people have in store for the upcoming year and what kind of trouble I can get myself into, as well.  Please be safe and have a wonderful New Year’s weekend.

“What is Heart of Unliving?”

Heart of Unliving is an epic quality trinket, which comes from the Spine of Deathwing encounter, in Dragon Soul.  When it first came out, Heart of Unliving had no Intellect on it and only provided a stacking Spirit buff.  Shortly after patch 4.3 went live, it was changed to now look like this (from Normal difficulty):

“How does Heart of Unliving work?”

Heart of Unliving comes with a flat amount of Intellect, but healing spells that you cast can give you a buff called Expansive Mind, which gives you 88 Spirit for the next 10 seconds and this effect can stack up to 10 times.  So, if you are good about watching and maintaining your stacks of this buff, you could enjoy a near constant 880 Spirit.  That’s pretty mind-blowing.

“What spells/effects will proc Heart of Unliving?”

Unlike similar trinkets that you may have had in the past, like Majestic Dragon Figurine or Solace of the Fallen, the stacks from Heart of Unliving are a bit more difficult to keep up. You may have noticed that when I answered the previous question that I said “healing spells that you cast can give you a buff called Expansive Mind,” meaning that not every healing spell in your toolbox is guaranteed to give you a stack.  It’s important to not only know what spells or abilities will give you stacks, but which ones will also help you keep those stacks up, so they don’t fall off and so you don’t lose the Spirit buff.  Also, please note that you do not gain a stack of Expansive Mind until you finish casting a spell.  So, there is a possibility that you can lose your stacks in mid-cast.

The following spells/effects will give you one stack of Expansive Mind, unless otherwise stated:

Binding Heal – Gives 2 stacks, one for each person healed.
Circle of Healing – 1 stack, per person healed.
Divine Hymn – 1 stack per heal, per person healed.  Using this spell with Heart of Unliving is guaranteed to give you a full 10 stacks of Expansive Mind.  Any heal from Divine Hymn that would give you more than 10 stacks will instead refresh the stacks that you already have.
Flash Heal
Greater Heal
Heal
Holy Word: Serenity
Lifeblood
Penance – 1 per tick of the channeled spell.
Power Word: Shield
Prayer of Healing – 1 stack, per person healed.
Prayer of Mending – 1 upon casting, no stacks are given when the spell bounces.
Renew – 1 for the cast, the HoT portion does not give any stacks.

These spells or abilities will not give you stacks of Expansive Mind:

Cure Disease
Desperate Prayer
Dispel Magic – Does not give a stack, even if you glyph for it and it heals the target.
Fade
Fear Ward
Guardian Spirit – The cast itself and the heal given by the spell both do not give stacks of Expansive Mind.
Holy Fire – Atonement healing from this spell did not give any stacks.
Holy Nova
Holy Word: Sanctuary
Hymn of Hope
Inner Fire
Inner Focus
Inner Will
Lightwell – Neither the cast itself or using charges from the Lightwell will give stacks.
Mass Dispel
Pain Suppression
Power Infusion
Power Word: Barrier
Power Word: Fortitude
Shadowfiend
Shadow Protection
Smite – Atonement heals from this spell did not give stacks of Expansive Mind.

“Should you be using Heart of Unliving?”

Yes!  However, I didn’t start really needing it, for regen purposes, until I started working on the Warmaster Blackhorn encounter with my group.  My mana was fine, when I was healing everything up to that point.  As we started working on Blackhorn, Spine, and Madness, I was really having to watch my mana usage and I had to make every cooldown count.

One thing that will benefit you in the long run is to make sure that the resto shaman in your raid get this trinket before you do.  Heart of Unliving is one of the few trinkets that works in tandem with a shaman’s Mana Tide Totem – something that every caster in your raid will benefit from, including yourself.  It may be tempting to take the trinket for yourself first, but you will gain more by giving it to a shaman, instead.  Think of what will benefit the raid as a whole, before you think of what benefits only yourself.

If you find that you’re not having any luck with Heart of Unliving dropping in your raid, try running LFR and getting it that way.  While you will get slightly less Intellect and Spirit than you would from the Normal version of the trinket, it’s still a mighty nice item to have on you.  I would take it any way that you can get it.

Due to a number of changes that took place after patch 4.3 came out and several pieces of loot that managed to slip under my radar, I have decided to re-vamp my loot listing, add some things that I didn’t before and take out some things that I feel made the original post seem cluttered or made it more difficult to understand.  Hopefully this revised edition is more streamlined and gives you a better idea of what pieces really are the best for you, during your time spent in Dragon Soul and beyond.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.  Please enjoy the rest of the post.

Sincerely,

- O.

A couple of things to note, before we begin:

-  As you may or may not have noticed, the items mentioned within this post are no longer just exclusive to holy priests.  This is because I have become a lot more open to the idea of being discipline and have had the opportunity to try it out on various fights.  I tend to enjoy the tank healing side of discipline more, but I’m slowly getting the hang of raid healing in that spec, too.  While I can’t say that I’m an expert on anything related to discipline healing, I can say that I want this loot listing and others that I write to include all healing priests and not just one type.

- All of the loot mentioned will be from the Regular difficulty of the Dragon Soul instance.  I will not be including Heroic gear right off the bat, as I don’t want to assume that everyone is clearly the instance as fast as others are.  With that said, I will also not be including any loot that will come from the Raid Finder, either.

- While the majority of the new cloth armor in 4.3 does come with Spirit, which is a welcome change from the lack of said pieces in Firelands, I won’t automatically assume that a piece with no Spirit on it is not meant for a healing priest.  I also won’t suggest any pieces that have Hit on them or that come with a DPS type proc, either.  With that said, when determining what piece is considered “best in slot,” pieces with Spirit on them may take precedence over pieces without it.  This doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Spirit being primarily a regen stat, but also the fact that Spirit can easily be reforged into secondary stats, like Haste or Mastery, as desired.

Overall, I would like to think that priests did a phenomenal job of adapting to the lack of Spirit that we had to deal with in Firelands and that we even learned that we could do fine without having Spirit on every single piece that we had on.  It was nice to see priests who weren’t afraid to slap Power Torrent on their weapon, or take a ring or belt with no Spirit on it, etc.  Depending on your play style and how comfortable you feel with your mana this time around, you may be able to continue this trend in the Dragon Soul.

Where your upgrades will come from:

- The new 5 man Heroics (End Time, Well of Eternity, & Hour of Twilight)
- Tailoring
- Valor Point vendors
- The Dragon Soul raid instance (Raid Finder, Normal, & Heroic difficulty)

Regalia of Dying Light

Our set bonuses are, as follows:

(2) set:  After using Power Infusion or Divine Hymn, the mana cost of your healing spells is reduced by 25% for 23 sec.

(4) set:  Your Power Word: Shield has a 10% chance to absorb 100% additional damage and increase the mana granted by Rapture by 100%, and the duration of your Holy Word abilities is increased by 33%.

Helm

Cowl of Destiny < Cowl of the Cleansing Flame < Soulgaze Cowl < Cowl of Dying Light

Ideally, you should be going into Dragon Soul with either the Cowl of Destiny, which comes from a quest in the End Time instance, or the Cowl of the Cleansing Flame, from Firelands.  After that, your best in slot helm will be the Cowl of Dying Light, which drops from Warmaster Blackhorn.

The Soulgaze Cowl, which you can purchase with Valor Points has 31 less Spirit than the Tier 13 helm, and comes with Mastery instead of Haste.  Depending on your resources and how you choose to get your 4 piece set bonus, you could get by with the Soulgaze Cowl and not be worried about that missing 31 Spirit.

Neck

Firemind Pendant < Heartstone of Rhyolith < Petrified Fungal Heart < Threadlinked Chain

Unfortunately, none of the new 5 man Heroics come with any available amulets for casters (or anyone, for that matter).  Luckily, the Firemind Pendant can now be purchased with Justice Points, so I would suggest picking that up, if you didn’t have any luck with getting the Heartstone of Rhyolith to drop in Firelands.

From there, it comes down to either the Petrified Fungal Heart, from Morchok, or the Threadlinked Chain, which you can buy with Valor Points.  While the Fungal Heart has 15 less Spirit, it comes with 181 Haste, as opposed to the 154 Critical Strike that the Chain has.  Even if you don’t find that you need either stat, you could still get more out of the Fungal Heart, in terms of reforging.  You could turn that 181 Haste into 72 of a different stat, versus the 62 of a different stat that you would get from reforging the Chain.

Shoulders

Mantle of Time < Mantle of Closed Doors < Mantle of the Cleansing Flame < Mosswrought Shoulderguards < Mantle of Dying Light

The Mantle of Time drops from Murozond‘s cache, in the End Time instance and is comparable to two other shoulder pieces which come from Firelands.  Once you have either of those three equipped, you should set your sights on either the Mosswrought Shoulderguards, from Morchok, or the Mantle of Dying Light, from Hagara Stormbinder.

The Mosswrought Shoulderguards and the Mantle of Dying Light have exactly the same amount of Stamina and Intellect on them, and both come with two red gem sockets and a 20 Intellect socket bonus.  The only differences between the two is that the Shoulderguards have no Spirit on them, and have Haste and Critical Strike on them, while the Mantle only comes with a large amount of Mastery.  Personally, I’m considering taking these over my tier shoulders, as the lack of Spirit doesn’t bother me and this piece should be fairly easy to obtain, seeing as how Morchok is a rather simple boss to get past.

Cloak

Cloak of Subtle Light < Flowing Flamewrath Cape < Woundlicker Cover

The Cloak of Subtle Light, from Asira Dawnslayer, in the Hour of Twilight, is comparable to the cape that you can purchase from the Avengers of Hyjal faction, upon reaching Friendly status with them.  From there, your best in slot in cape will be the Woundlicker Cover, which you can buy with Valor Points.  The Cover is a noticeable improvement from the Flamewrath Cape, as it comes with 65 more Stamina, 24 more Intellect, 24 more Spirit, a red gem socket with a 10 Intellect socket bonus, and 148 Haste.

Chest

Whisperwind Robes < Robes of Smoldering Devastation < Robes of the Cleansing Flame < Lightwarper Vestments < Robe of Glowing Stone < Robes of Dying Light

The Whisperwind Robes, which drop from the Echo of Tyrande, in End Time, are just as good as two of the chestpieces which come from Firelands.  From there, the competition gets a bit more stiff, in terms of which piece could be considered your next best in slot.

The Lightwarper Vestments don’t compare to the Robe of Glowing Stone or the Robes of Dying Light, simply because it comes with one red gem socket less than the other two.  You may not think this makes a huge difference, but it does.  Putting two Brilliant Inferno Rubies in the Vestments only gives you a total of 100 Intellect (that’s 40 + 40 + 20), as opposed to the 150 Intellect that you could gain by using one of the options (40 + 40 + 40 + 20).  50 Intellect is a pretty big deal.

Between the Robe of Glowing Stone and the Robes of Dying Light, it really comes down to stat preference and weight.  The Robe of Glowing Stone, from Morchok, has the same amount of Stamina and Intellect, but comes with 21 less Spirit.  Both pieces have three red gem sockets and a 30 Intellect socket bonus.  However, the Robe of Glowing Stone has 290 Haste, as opposed to the 260 Mastery that the tier chestpiece has.  Like the Mosswrought Shoulderguards, the fact that Morchok is rather easy to defeat makes the Robe a lot more attractive than the tier version.  You be the judge.

Wrist

Firesoul Wristguards < Bracers of the Black Dream < Bracers of the Banished < Bracers of Unconquered Power < Dreamwraps of the Light

Patch 4.3 introduces new crafting patterns for Tailoring, which include potential upgrades of bracers and pants.  The two choices for bracers happen to be our initial best in slot items.  Whether or not you prefer Spirit will determine which one you want to have made for yourself.  Let’s go over why the other options may not compare to the new patterns that just came out.

The Bracers of the Black Dream come from Valor Points and have 271 Intellect on them, Critical Strike, and no gem socket.  This immediately sets it apart from the other selections.  The Bracers of the Banished drop from Hagara Stormbinder, and come with no Spirit, and one red gem socket.  Putting a Brilliant Inferno Ruby in there gives you a total of 301 Intellect, overall.  However, both sets of crafted bracers come with an additional red gem socket, which gives you 331 Intellect, overall.  That’s a net gain of 30 Intellect.

The only difference between the Bracers of Unconquered Power and the Dreamwraps of the Light is the materials that it takes to craft them and the additional stats that they come with.  The Dreamwraps have Spirit on them and require 8 Dreamcloth to make them, as opposed to the Bracers, which have no Spirit and require 5 Dreamcloth.  Both pieces require 4 Essences of Destruction, which are Dragon Soul’s equivalent of Living Embers.  Since Dreamcloth isn’t that hard to come by anymore, I would take the Dreamwraps over the Bracers.

Hands

Safeguard Gloves < Gloves of the Cleansing Flame < Gloves of Liquid Smoke < Handwraps of Dying Light <  The Hands of Gilly

The Safeguard Gloves, from an escort quest in Hour of Twilight compare to our tier gloves from the Firelands.  After that, you have a couple of items to choose from.

First up are The Hands of Gilly, which you can buy with Valor Points.  These are only slightly better than the Handwraps of Dying Light, from Warlord Zon’ozz, as they come with a red gem socket and Haste, as opposed to a blue gem socket and Critical Strike.  Another choice is the Gloves of Liquid Smoke, which come from the Spine of Deathwing.

The Gloves come with no Spirit, but two red gem sockets and a 20 Intellect socket bonus.  They also have 1 more Intellect than the Hands or the Handwraps, but that’s neither here nor there.  That additional red gem socket makes the Gloves really stand out.  However, the Hands of Gilly come with 237 Spirit that you can either take as is or reforge into Haste. If you are interested in your 4 piece set bonus and looking for an off-set piece, the Hands of Gilly make a fine choice for this.

Waist

Embereye Belt < Historian’s Sash < Tentacular Belt < Cord of the Slain Champion < Vestal’s Irrepressible Girdle

In my opinion, I find the Historian’s Sash, from a quest in Well of Eternity to be slightly better than the belt from the Avengers of Hyjal faction, only because of the 210 Spirit.  Technically, the Embereye Belt has 1 more Intellect, but that’s not really a game changer for me.

From there, you can buy the Tentacular Belt with Valor Points or get a similar piece from Warlord Zon’ozz.  If you’re going to shell out the Valor Points for a belt upgrade, I would suggest getting Vestal’s Irrepressible Girdle.  The Girdle has 248 Spirit, while the Tentacular Belt and the Cord have no Spirit on them.  You could either reforge the Critical Strike rating into a much more needed stat or you could shave off that excess Spirit and change it into something else.  In any event, I feel you would stand to gain much more from the Spirit than you would the couple more Intellect that you could receive from the other two choices.

Legs

Time Traveler’s Leggings <  Legwraps of the Cleansing Flame < World Mender’s Pants < Legwraps of Dying Light

Once you have either the Time Traveler’s Leggings, which are a shared drop in End Time, or your tier 12 legs, you should set your sights on the Legwraps of Dying Light.  You could go for the World Mender’s Pants, which come from another new Tailoring recipe, but you could get better for far less trouble.

The selling point of the Legwraps of Dying Light, which drop from Yor’sahj the Unsleeping, again revolves around the socket bonus.  The Legwraps have two red gem sockets, a yellow gem socket, and a 30 Intellect socket bonus.  This means that you actually stand to gain more Intellect by going along with the socket requirements than not doing so.  Overall, you would gain 130 Intellect from the Legwraps, as opposed to a maximum 120 Intellect from the World Mender’s Pants – and that’s if you used 3 Brilliant Inferno Rubies instead of going along with the socket requirements.

I admit that 10 Intellect less isn’t a huge loss, but it is when you factor in the Dreamcloth and the Essences of Destruction that you would need to make the World Mender’s Pants.  If these items are trivial to you, then go ahead and have those made, instead.

Feet

Coalwalker Sandals < Endless Dream Walkers < Janglespur Jackboots <  Splinterfoot Sandals

The Janglespur Jackboots, from Warmaster Blackhorn, have no Spirit on them, Critical Strike, Haste, two red gem sockets, and a 20 Intellect socket bonus.  It has the same amount of Stamina and Intellect as the Splinterfoot Sandals, which you can buy with Valor Points.  However, the Sandals come with Spirit on them, and a red and yellow gem socket.  Gemming the Jackboots correctly would give you 20 more Intellect than any possible way that you could gem the Sandals, so I would think this would make them the better choice.  But, the 216 Spirit that you would get with the Sandals could easily be reforged into 86 Mastery, which means you would get a nice mix of all of your desired stats from one piece of gear, instead of just a slight Intellect boost that you would get with the Jackboots.

Rings

Horned Band < Signet of the Twilight Prophet < Soothing Brimstone Circle < Quiksilver Signet of the Avengers < Ring of the Riven <  Band of Reconstruction < Signet of Suturing

The two best rings for priests didn’t even come from the Firelands instance, itself.  One of them came from Valor Points and then other came from gaining Exalted status with the Avengers of Hyjal faction.  If you weren’t able to get your hands on one or both of these rings, you can find reasonable substitutes from Pero’tharn, in the Well of Eternity instance, or from a quest in the Hour of Twilight.

Going forward, the two best rings for you will be the Band of Reconstruction, which you can purchase with Valor Points, and the Signet of Suturing, which is a shared drop between the first three bosses in Dragon Soul (Morchok, Warlord Zon’ozz, & Yor’sahj the Unsleeping).  While the Ring of the Riven, from Hagara Stormbinder, is a decent ring to equip, it’s the Spirit found on the other two rings that stand to make it a bit more desirable for you.  Even if you don’t need a lot of Spirit, it’s still useful to reforge into other stats that you may prefer to have more of.

Trinkets

What you could end up with:

Bottled Wishes
Reflection of the Light
Foul Gift of the Demon Lord
Heart of the Unliving
Seal of the Seven Signs
Windward Heart

What you should end up with:

Heart of the Unliving
Windward Heart

Bottled Wishes and Reflection of the Light can be purchased with Valor Points and I would only advocate buying these if you don’t see yourself doing a lot of actual raiding and if you have already purchased everything you may need and happen to have some stray Valor Points laying around.  In my opinion, these two trinkets aren’t that great, compared to the other options that are available.

Foul Gift of the Demon Lord, from Mannoroth in the Well of Eternity, is one that I have been after since 4.3 was released, simply because I was gone for a lot of Firelands and I haven’t been too lucky with drops, since I came back.  It has a 15% chance to proc and a 45 second internal cooldown.  For someone like myself, who is gearing for Mastery after Haste, this is pretty nice.  I would consider this one to be a step up from the previous two, but it can be more difficult to obtain.

Next up is the Seal of the Seven Signs, which drops from Warlord Zon’ozz.  Preliminary testing on this trinket shows that it has a 2 minute internal cooldown (which is rather high) and comes with a 20% chance to proc.  The Seal has also been shown to work with Atonement healing, specifically heals that come from using Smite and Holy Fire.  I can see this trinket being more useful for a discipline priest, as they would have more of a use for all of that Haste than a holy priest would (anything past the 12.50% haste breakpoint is questionable) and the long internal cooldown would stack nicely with Power Infusion.

The first of the two trinkets that are being considered best in slot for healing priests is the Heart of the Unliving, from the Spine of Deathwing.  This one snuck under the radar for quite a while, due to the fact that it didn’t have any Intellect and just came with the stacking Spirit effect, similar to the Majestic Dragon Figurine, from Wrath of the Lich King.  Shortly after the patch was released, 323 Intellect was added and it suddenly went up in value.  While you could get more Intellect from other trinkets, you could stand to have a constant 880 Spirit, simply by using the Heart and by being able to keep your stacks up.  For holy priests, this trinket is especially good, because we are so reliant on Spirit based regen, thanks to Holy Concentration.  Even a discipline priest would be hard pressed to pass up 880 Spirit for a little over 100 Intellect, despite them deriving most of their regen from Rapture.

The other trinket you will want to round out your gear with is the Windward Heart, which is a shared drop between five of the eight encounters in Dragon Soul.  With a 20 second internal cooldown and initial testing showing that the healing it provides benefits from 130% of your Spell Power, this trinket is mighty hard to turn down.  The Windward Heart is fantastic in the hands of a holy priest, who tend to heal a lot of targets at once, which means a more likely chance that one of those heals will crit and then trigger the proc – or in the hands of a discipline priest, who may heal fewer people at once, but who have a higher chance to crit on the targets that they do heal.

Wands

Crescent Wand < Scorchvine Wand < Finger of Zon’ozz < Scintillating Rods

Going into Dragon Soul, you can either choose to spend Justice Points on the Scorchvine Wand, or you can take the Crescent Wand, which comes from a questline in the End Time instance.  From there, you can choose between a drop from Warlord Zon’ozz or another wand that you can purchase with Valor Points.  Personally, I would choose the Rods over the Finger (that sounded a little filthy).  While the two have the exact same amount of Stamina and Intellect, the Rods come with 112 Spirit.  I figure the DPS casters are going to be chomping at the bit for the Finger (again with the dirty wand references) and if we can choose things with Spirit, we should

One-handed weapons

Scepter of Azshara < Chelley’s Sterilized Scalpel < Ko’gun, Hammer of the Firelord < Vagaries of Time < Scalpel of Unrelenting Agony < Maw of the Dragonlord

If you prefer to use one-handed weapons and an off-hand, you may want to start off with either the Scepter of Azshara, from the Well of Eternity, or one of the two choices from Firelands.  After that, you could choose between the Vagaries of Time, which is a shared drop between Morchok and Warlord Zon’ozz – or go with the Scalpel from Yor’sahj the Unsleeping.  I would choose the Scalpel over the Vagaries, simply for the 141 Spirit, which you could reforge into Mastery and would give you a weapon with all of the secondary stats that you could want, instead of just some of them.  The clear winner for best in slot priority is the Maw of the Dragonlord, which comes from the Madness of Deathwing encounter.

A couple of things to note about the Maw, so far:

-  The healing from the Maw can crit, but will not trigger Echo of Light.  No word yet on whether or not it will proc Divine Aegis.
-  There doesn’t appear to be a “cap” or limit on the number of people that the proc will heal.
-  The additional healing will not heal you, just those in a cone in front of you.  The cone is roughly 140 degrees wide and heals people within a 10 yard range.
-  The effect can proc from direct heals, HoTs, and heals which come from a Lightwell or trinkets (like the Windward Heart).
-  Early testing shows it to have a 15 second internal cooldown and a 10% chance to proc.

Off-hands

Demonic Skull < Goblet of Anger < Dragonfire Orb < Ledger of Revolting Rituals

If you’re an interested in using a one-handed weapon to get you through the Dragon Soul, you’re going to need an equally powerful off-hand item to go with it.  The Demonic Skull, which comes from a quest in the Hour of Twilight is just as good as the Goblet of Anger from Firelands.  Of the two new off-hands available in Dragon Soul, I would choose the Ledger of Revolting Rituals, from Ultraxion.  The only difference between that and the Dragonfire Orb, which is a trash drop, is that the Orb comes with a sizable amount of Mastery that the Ledger does not have.

Staves

Jaina’s Staff < Stalk of Corruption < Funeral Pyre < Smoldering Censer of Purity  < Visage of the Destroyer < Ti’tahk, the Steps of Time

The two staves from End Time and Hour of Twilight, respectively, are sidegrades to the two staves from the Firelands.  Another staff drops from Hagara Stormbinder, but that one comes with a lot of Hit on it and is very clearly for DPS casters.  Of course, one could also argue that Ti’tahk isn’t necessarily meant for healers, either, or that Maw of the Dragonlord is better.  Let’s look into this a bit.

The proc from Ti’tahk, called “Slowing The Sands,” gives you 1928 Haste for 10 seconds, and also gives 386 Haste to up to 3 allies within 20 yards.  Initial testing has shown it to have at least a 45 second cooldown.  It may be possible to position yourself in such a way to give certain allies the benefit of the added Haste over others.  I’m tempted to say that this might be a better item for discipline priests than holy priests, as their direct heals would be more impacted by the Haste boost than the raid heals from a holy priest.

If Ti’tahk sounds like a risky proposition and you want something a bit more geared towards you, let me suggest the Visage of the Destroyer, from Warmaster Blackhorn.  This staff comes with at least 119 more Stamina, 78 more Intellect, 40 more Spirit,  and 452 more Spell Power than either of the staves before it.

In closing, we have a lot to look forward to with this next tier of content and I’m happy to be in a place where I hopefully get to see everything that I want to see for myself.  I look forward to seeing (and writing about) the changes that are being made to holy priests and I’m excited to see their representation hopefully increase in the Dragon Soul, from the worrisome levels that they were at in Firelands.  I’m anxious to get more practice at being a discipline priest and learning how to adapt to that play style and all of the cooldowns that come with it.  It’s a good time to be a priest in the Dragon Soul and hopefully these new upgrades motivate you to be just that.

Happy hunting!

Out of the new vanity or quality of life features, the only one that I really have gotten any use out of or that I look forward to using more is transmogrification.  I have never been a packrat.  I’m not hurting for bag space.  I have never needed an entire guild bank to store all of my crap in.  Void Storage really doesn’t affect me.  Whenever I ask people why they hold on to so many seemingly useless things on their characters, I always feel like I’m watching an episode of “Hoarders.”  The reasons people give you are very similar to the reasons people give you on the show, as to why they can’t throw out a half dozen stacks of home remodeling magazines or why they need that can of hairspray from 1996.  “But, I might use this someday,” or “I can’t part with this, because it reminds me of ___ .”  They should seriously do a show for World of Warcraft hoarders.  I would watch the hell out of that.

I didn’t really plan ahead for transmogrification, so I basically just used whatever epics I had laying around in my bank, which happened to be the Merciless PVP set for priests.  I had the shoulders, helm, and gloves, and then I found a similar looking robe on the Auction House.  I finally found a way to use up those Justice Points that I had laying around!  Between buying the rest of the Merciless set and then having my eye on the Vengeful pieces, I’ll be farming Heroics just to keep up.  I’m also tempted to save up for the ICC tier set, which I deleted and don’t know why.  All of this focus on my appearance has also made me consider a race change, but performance also factors into that, too.  I’m torn between becoming a Blood Elf or a Troll, though I worry that choosing a Blood Elf seem common.  And I mean common in an “everyone has one” sense, not in a “floozy” kind of way.

The first thing I did on Tuesday was run the new 5 man Heroics, one after the other.  I grouped up with some guildies that I had never run with before and it was an interesting experience.  Some of them seemed really green or just immensely overwhelmed by everything happening around them, which is understandable.  I didn’t find either of the three new instances to be terribly hard, though Murozond in End Time seemed to hit harder than I expected, and the hourglass mechanic took some getting used to.  What has annoyed me about the Murozond encounter since then is that people still don’t seem to understand basic concepts regarding fighting dragons.  You don’t tank the dragon facing the raid.  You don’t stand behind them and get swiped by the tail.  Things like that.  We are on our third expansion and people still don’t remember these things.  It boggles the mind.

Most people seemed really stoked to be able to group side by side with Illidan in Well of Eternity, but I was never an Illidan fan girl, so that was lost on me.  The first boss is mighty annoying, mostly because of the demonic eyes that try to find you when you’re in stealth.  They find me every single time.  I think I managed to avoid them once and that was only because I was hugging the ring of fire and doing laps around the room.  I felt like I was humping pillars in the Arena all over again.  Truth be told, I was there to see Azshara.  I have always had a great appreciation for the character and I still cling to the hope that she will be an end boss that is given her proper due, someday.  Some people think her encounter is difficult, but I’m not one of them.  If anything, I was more bothered by the fact that her model is kind of wonky and the voice acting was overly feminine.  I imagined her being kind of angry and sounding a tad creepier, sort of like Vashj.  Instead, she sounded more like an overzealous party hostess, which I guess was the plan all along.

Hour of Twilight felt like it was over, before it even began.  The only boss that bothered me was Asira Dawnslayer and the fact that I was constantly interrupted or silenced.  I read that I could line of sight the dagger, by having people stand in front of me.  That didn’t work.  I tried putting a pillar between me and her, which kept the dagger from hitting me, but also kept me out of line of sight for healing the tank.  When I ran out to heal them, I got hit with the dagger almost instantly.  The problem with that fight is that the targeting debuff is permanent.  It’s not like you can line of sight it for a brief time, let it fall off, and then run back out.  You always have that mark on you, which means that you can always be chosen to be silenced and you can’t do much about it.  It’s an odd mechanic, to say the least.  Thankfully, she doesn’t hit too hard and things like Lightwell and Earth Shield (from when I ran this on my shaman) kept the tank healed throughout the encounter.

The next day, I set foot into the Raid Finder, to see what all the fuss was about.  I didn’t have a bad experience, but there were a couple of trends that I saw which concerned me enough to where I don’t see myself taking part in it on a regular basis.

-  The “go, go, go” mentality from Heroics is extremely common in the Raid Finder.  People want to do the fights as quickly as possible, which doesn’t make sense to anyone who has ever done some actual raiding.  Nothing about raiding is fast.  There are the feasts and cauldrons before the pull, discussing the strategies, performing ready checks, running back, mass ressing people, etc.  If you have somewhere to be or you’re itching to get things done in a hurry, raiding is not for you.  I found it interesting that everyone was in a rush to get a kill and then either drop group or move on to the next encounter.  I don’t feel that’s an accurate representation of what real raiding is and it worries me that people are going to see this and think it’s really like that.

-  Healing is sort of a free for all activity.  There aren’t healing assignments.  Nobody asks you what spec you are in (in my case, because I’m a priest), or seems to know what the various healing specs do.  People see that you have healing capabilities and they ask you to do it.  It’s that simple.  There’s no coordination of defensive cooldowns or battle resses.  It’s just balls to the wall.  The one group that I spent the most time in probably would have done better, had we communicated these things to one another.  Because we were too busy healing ALL THE THINGS, we didn’t have that focus or the means to really identify what was going wrong with our performance.  It felt sloppy and dare I say it, random.

-  The loot system is more controversial than ever.  The odds of you actually receiving loot from the Raid Finder are quite slim, in my opinion.  I was even rolling on multiple items that dropped off the same boss, in the hopes that I would win something and I went home with nothing but repair bills.  I think if you’re planning on using the Raid Finder to get your tier bonus faster or to otherwise get ahead with your gear, you’re doing it wrong.  I would not rely on the Raid Finder for loot.  I just wouldn’t.  Combine this with the fact that the system of determining when you can roll seems a bit harsh and the fact that certain top tier guilds are rumored to be exploting the Raid Finder for their own competitive purposes and nobody can seem to agree on just how the loot should be handled.  I would rather stay out of it, all together, and just get my loot the old fashioned way – by saving up my Valor Points, or getting upgrades as drops from the new Heroics or the Dragon Soul.

Which brings me to the Dragon Soul.  Man, it feels good to be in there.  It’s definitely a challenge, at least for my group, and I kind of like that way.  I like that we didn’t clear everything in a day and that we weren’t crestfallen and such because of it.  While it was frustrating to spend most of our night wiping on one boss, it felt terrific when we finally did get it down and to know that we all rose to the occasion and made it happen.  I was quite pleased by our progress and our determination.  For the record, we kept wiping on Zon’ozz – not Morchok.  We’re not total baddies.

I started off our first night in Dragon Soul as holy and closed it out as discipline, due to the tank taking insane amounts of damage during the Zon’ozz encounter and I suggested that my absorbs might be able to help with that.  I’m not going to be so bold as to say that I made that much of a difference, but I would like to think I certainly contributed to our tank surviving a bit better than he did before.  It was neat to hear everyone offering suggestions and trying new things, rather than reading one set strategy and just imitating it.  I didn’t end up as high on the meters on the kill as I would have liked, but I think that’s because that fight really favors raid healing and I was determined not to let the tank die, so I didn’t do as much AOE healing as I could have towards the end.

Some other things I could stand to improve upon:

-  I didn’t use Power Infusion, like at all.  I didn’t even have it on my action bars.  Oh, yes!  Needless to say, I was mortified and have rectified the situation.  Come Sunday, everybody is getting Power Infusion.  Even you.

-  I gained a new appreciation for Inner Focus, as in I love it and want to marry it.  Love it!  The fact that it gives a free heal isn’t even the draw of it.  It’s the fact that it gives our next heal a 25% chance to crit, which means a Greater Heal that’s going to crit on the tank leaves a nice Divine Aegis proc on them, which is just plain fabulous.  Again – not nearly as dilligent about using it on cooldown as I should have been, but I will certainly get better at it.

-  I keep forgetting to raid heal or do some amount of group healing as discipline.  I was good about dropping my Barrier, but I could have popped Divine Hymn to help out, or used Inner Focus for a free Prayer of Healing or two.  Like I said before, I think I was just so determined not to lose our tank, because a number of our wipes were due to the tank dying, that I was scared to leave him without heals.  I’ll be sure to slip in some things to help the raid next time.

-  My Lightwell positioning kind of sucked.  I wasn’t sure where to put it on Zon’ozz and I didn’t even drop it on Morchok.  Looking back, I think it might do the most good during the group up phase on Zon’ozz, especially because the whole room gets really dark and the Lightwell would stand out nicely and help out with the massive amount of damage that goes out.  It could have done a lot more good, had I dropped it at a better time or in a better place.  Noted.

Truth be told, I’m enjoying discipline a lot more than I ever thought I would.  I think it’s that I don’t feel like I’m on auto-pilot when I’m healing as discipline and I feel more engaged.  I don’t know what everything does just yet and I’m still piecing together how my talents and spells work.  I have played holy for so long that I don’t even have to think, when it comes time to react to something.  I just do it.  I like to learn and have those “A-ha!’ type moments and they come few and far between, when I’m holy.  It’s all very “been there, done that.”  Don’t get me wrong – the new Divine Hymn is absolutely delicious and Echo of Light seems to be making a huge impact.  But, I would love to have more opportunities to be discipline and to master that side of things, too.

I sort of chomp at the bit to play discipline now.  I’m really lucky that I have a raid leader who trusts me, as a priest, and lets me make those decisions for myself.  I don’t think I have ever been put in a position where I was forced to play one spec over the other, since I’ve been here.  I was asked what I thought about changing specs for a certain fight, but it was never “You must do this or we lose – or you fail.”  That was the main issue with being asked to go discipline back in Firelands, with my last guild.  I wasn’t given a say.  I wasn’t given a choice.  It was “You will do this.”  They didn’t trust me to know enough about my class to know that I didn’t need to do that for the group to succeed .  I wasn’t given the feeling that my opinion mattered.  I was given an ultimatum, which made me less enthused to change specs.  Now that I have the choice and the freedom to decide how I want to play, I’m living it up.  I’m reading up on discipline more and I can’t wait to really get the hang of it.  I’m having a total blast!

This weekend will be spent farming a trinket out of Well of Eternity, possibly gearing up my shaman a bit more, and finally respond to comments on my blog.  I’ll do a bit more preparation and log splicing before the raid on Sunday, but I’m hungry for more action.  Hopefully you all are enjoying this new patch as much as I am, or that you’re on the road to getting there.  Let me know what you think!

I’m not proud of the fact that I went through three different guilds, to get to the one that I’m currently in and that I don’t know how long I will remain with this one, either.  I’m not proud of the fact that there’s a huge three month gap in my activity, due to burnout, which led me to try other games and to pursue other avenues.  I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t have a single Al’akir or Conclave of Air kill on my record, despite the fact that I’ve spent countless nights wiping on said bosses, but missed out on the kill as a result of poorly timed nights requested off.

I can do better than that.  I know that I can.

Last night, I attended my 10 year high school reunion, and I came back home with a lot on my mind.  It was midnight and I needed something to do, something to take my mind off what I was going through, so I clicked on a link that someone posted on my guild’s forums and found a documentary called “Race To World First.”  It was an hour long film, which documented the competition that exists between guilds like Blood Legion, Premonition, Method, Ensidia, etc. and what goes on behind the computer screen, as well.  As I lay in bed, with a carton of milk and a package of cupcakes by my side, I thought to myself “I could do that.”  Then I asked myself, “Why aren’t I doing that?”

I don’t presume to think that I’m “good” enough to ever get into a guild like one of those featured in the movie, but I definitely think I could shoot for something higher than I have been.  I admit that I wanted something casual, to close out Cataclysm, simply because I missed too much and I wouldn’t have any legs to stand on if I tried to shoot for something better.  But, I think when Mists of Pandaria comes around that I want to go for something bigger.  I would like to be in a high ranking guild, somewhere between the top 250 to 500 range.  That’s the goal that I have decided to set for myself.  Bear in mind, that I am technically in a guild that meets that criteria, but I’m not part of the group that actually got there.  Right now, I’m just a casual ranked member, and I’m OK with that.  Come Mists of Pandaria, though, all bets are off.

I realize that I have a lot of work to do and a lot of time before I can make this dream a reality.  Here are a few of the immediate things that come to mind, in terms of things I could stand to work on:

1)  A profession change.  Most of the cool kids don’t keep a gathering profession and a crafting profession.  I would probably have to swap out my Herbalism for something else.  As long as I have an alt that can farm the herbs needed to level Alchemy, I should be OK.  But what profession would I take in its place?  Inscription?  Enchanting?  I don’t have it in me to level Jewelcrafting, so that’s out.  But I would need something else, to squeeze that extra drop of performance out of myself and my character.

2)  A change in perspective.  If I’m going to shoot for something loftier than what I’m doing right now, I have to be more flexible.  I can’t just be a holy priest or a discipline priest.  I have to be a healing priest.  I can still have my preferences and have that spec which I enjoy playing more, but I have to be willing to do what’s best for the fight and for the raid, as needed.  I would like to think I’m already making progress with this, but I still have a lot to learn with getting as comfortable with discipline as I am with holy.

3)  A change in attitude.  Ah, the big one.  I admit that I can be a handful and that I tend to jump to conclusions.  I admit that I don’t always know when to keep my mouth shut.  I work hard, I play hard, but my attitude and people’s perception of me always seems to get in the way of that.  That can’t happen if I’m going to try and hang with a different crowd of people than I’m used to.  It has to be about the work, about the performance.  I can’t let my opinions or my snark get in the way of that.  I can still be myself, but I have to rein it in a little bit.

I know I have a long road ahead of me, before I get to the point where I feel I’m ready to do this, and that’s even if a guild is gracious enough to see the potential in me to take me on board.  A number of stars are going to have to align for this all to work out, but I really want it and I’m determined to make it happen.  I want better for myself and I know that I can do it.  My mind is made up and now I have to start plotting out my course.

Who’s with me?

I forgot to e-mail Ophelie, to let her know which dates and times I was free this week, so we could record the next episode of our podcast.  I forgot about the birthday brunch that I’m due to attend on Sunday morning and that I will need to buy a birthday gift and a card for.  I forgot to make sure the foreclosure date on this loan I am reviewing was pushed back, so I can make sure the home doesn’t go to sale before I have a chance to take a look at it.

One thing I didn’t forget was International Transgender Day of Remembrance, which was on November 20th of this year.  I remember reading this post and seeing the 10 transgender victims that were paid tribute and I knew that I had to somehow tie this into another blog post that I had yet to write.

Earlier last week, I was asked to take part in Blog Azeroth’s annual Thanksgiving event.  Admittedly, I haven’t spent much time on the Blog Azeroth boards and I was kind of surprised they asked me, to be quite honest.  I would have figured that someone would have clued in to the fact that I haven’t spent a lot of time there and that would have sort of disqualified me for the job.  But, apparently that wasn’t the case, and I was beyond flattered that they even thought of me, much less asked me to participate in such an important way.  I was chosen to be one of the judges for the event and to critique those participating on their blog posts, which they were asked to write and thank their favorite bloggers and podcasters for making an impact on them, in some way.  I didn’t feel right just judging and not participating, so I knew that I had to write a post of my own.  Then International Transgender Day of Remembrance happened.

I am lucky to be here.  That should be me in that tribute.  That very easily could be me.  When I read things like that about people like myself, I realize how thankful I am to even be where I’m at today and to be alive.  I’m thankful that I can be myself and that I’m surrounded by co-workers, friends, family, bloggers, podcasters, guildies, and other friends in the gaming community who love and support me.  I’m thankful that I have never wavered in my desire to always want better for myself and to not settle for temporary bits of validation and acceptance wherever I can find them.  I have always demanded more and better for myself and it makes me so sad to see other transgender people not do the same.  We settle for sex work and we settle for deceiving people that we have sexual relations with, because it makes us feel like we are succeeding in the gender that we have chosen to live as.  It makes us feel like we belong, if only for a moment and if only for the all the wrong reasons.  I can say from experience that this is not the right way to go about it.

I’m thankful that I have never come out to someone that I was interested in being intimate with and had them violently shun me or berate me for being what I am.  I’m thankful that I have come out in a job interview and that it didn’t change a prospective employer’s opinion of me.  All of these things that we do on a daily basis, that you would think wouldn’t be obstacles to overcome I have had to overcome, and so have many others like me.  I’m thankful that I made it.  There are far too many people like me that don’t.

I’m thankful to everyone that I met at BlizzCon, who made me feel like the most normal person in the world for four whole days.  I’m thankful for the eighty-some odd comments, most from absolute strangers that I have had no contact with, who thanked me for coming out and for being brave in doing what I did.  I’m thankful to the people who have continued to read me and support me and Follow me, when they really don’t have to and yet they choose to stay on board and follow along with whatever crazy adventures I get myself into.  I’m thankful for the people who act like it doesn’t matter, because it really shouldn’t.  I’m a writer.  I’m a priest.  I’m a gamer.  I also happen to be a transgender woman.  I don’t have to choose.  I can be all of those things.  You have no idea how thankful I am to have it that way.

This post came out a lot more disjointed than I had planned, but you just can’t help but realize how thankful you are for everything you have when you see what others do not have.  I saw the photographs of ten dead transgender people, whose lives were stolen from them far too soon and yet I’m here.  I’m here judging a blog writing contest, that to anyone else would be pretty insignificant.  I saw the faces of ten dead people who should be doing what I’m doing.  They should be surrounded by all of these things and all of this love and feeling thankful for everything that they have, but they can’t do that.  Everything that you take for granted suddenly seems so much bigger when you think of things like that.  It’s easy to be thankful for the big things – your car, your family, your job.  But, I know what it’s like to be thankful that you’re even alive and that you are able to exist in a way that you choose to and that you know you were meant to exist as.  That’s something I don’t think anyone should ever forget to be thankful for.  I know I sure won’t.

Let’s take a look at how the Fiery Quintessence and the Rune of Zeth stack up against each other.  Are they worth taking?  Why or why not?

The real difference between these two trinkets is not the amount of consistent stats that you get from them – the 383 Spirit from the Quintessence and the 383 Critical Strike from the Rune – but the amount of Intellect that you get from the on-use effect, the duration of the effect, and the cooldown of each trinket.  These three factors are what set these trinkets apart from one another and will help you decide which one is right for you.  The initial stats that they come with will play a part in this decision, but not nearly as much as the on-use effect will.

Let’s start off with exploring the proc a bit further.

The Quintessence gives you 1149 Intellect for 25 seconds, with a 1 minute and 30 second cooldown.  From looking at the logs for my group’s collective boss kills in Firelands, the average boss fight lasts about 5 minutes.  Using a formula that I picked up from the forums over at AskMrRobot, we will take a look at how much overall Intellect that proc will give you, if used properly.

4 x 25 / 300 = 33%

We will start by converting a 5 minute boss fight into seconds, which is 300 seconds.  Assuming that you use the Quintessence on the pull, you will then be able to use it at the 90 second mark, the 180 second mark, and the 270 second mark.  The fight will end at 300 seconds, meaning it will end before your next chance to use the trinket, which would be at the 360 second mark.  Overall, you will be able to use the trinket 4 times.  The buff that you receive from the Quintessence lasts 25 seconds.  So, the formula goes like this:

# of times the trinket is used x  duration of the effect / duration of the fight, in seconds = percentage of overall Intellect gained over the course of an encounter

The on-use effect from the Quintessence gives you 1149 Intellect.  33% of this is 379 Intellect (rounded down).  So, if you use the trinket when you are supposed to, you can expect to have an average 379 Intellect, overall on a 5 minute encounter.  This gives you more Intellect than other trinkets with a flat amount of Intellect on them, like the Darkmoon Card: Tsunami or the Vibrant Alchemist Stone, and even comes close to giving you the same amount of Intellect as newer trinket, such as the Jaws of Defeat or the Eye of Blazing Power.

Those calculations were for what is considered to be a short fight.  Let’s see how the Fiery Quintessence stacks up on a longer fight, like on Ragnaros.  Our average attempts on Ragnaros lasted about 9 minutes, which converts to 540 seconds.  I would use the trinket at the pull, then at the 90 second mark, the 180 second mark, the 270 second, the 360 second, and the 450 second.  Because the fight would presumably end at the 540 second mark, I will assume that I won’t pop the trinket at that point, because the fight will already be over and I should have to do too much healing at that point.  So, I will be using the trinket 6 times on the Ragnaros encounter.  The formula will now look like this:

6 x 25 / 540 = 27%

1149 x 27% = 310 Intellect

On a longer fight, the amount of overall Intellect was much less than most trinkets that you would otherwise have available to you, even ones from a tier behind the current one.  So, for Ragnaros, I would probably use one of my other trinkets instead of this one.  If I’m healing a shorter encounter, like Alysrazor or Beth’tilac, I would probably use the Fiery Quintessence, but not for longer encounters that could go well beyond 5 or 6 minutes or even up to 9 or 10 minutes.

We have seen what the Fiery Quintessence can do and how much it can help you on shorter encounters, but what about the Rune of Zeth?  Does the fact the Rune of Zeth gives you more Intellect make it more desirable than the Quintessence?  Let’s crunch those numbers and see!

While the Rune of Zeth may give you 1277 Intellect, over the Quintessence’s 1149, the on-use effect only lasts for 15 seconds, instead of 25 seconds.  The Rune also comes with a one minute cooldown, as opposed to the 90 second cooldown from the Quintessence.  Because of these things, the formula is going to look a bit different.  Assuming that we have the Rune of Zeth equipped, instead of the Fiery Quintessence, on a 5 minute fight, the formula will look like this:

5 x 15 / 300 = 25%

You would use the Rune immediately on the pull, then at the 60 second mark, the 120 second, the 180 second, and the 240 second mark.  Again, the fight would end at the 300 second mark, and you would probably not need to pop the trinket and continue healing once the fight is over.  You would get to use the Rune 5 times during this encounter.  5 times, multiplied by the 15 second duration of each effect, divided by the 300 second duration of the encounter gives you 25% of the on-use effect in Intellect, overall.

1277 x 25% = 319 Intellect

As you can see, this is much less than what the Fiery Quintessence would give you, on a fight that lasts for the same amount of time.  You were getting more Intellect with each use and you were able to use the trinket one more time, but the duration of the effect was 10 seconds shorter each time.  This led to a lower uptime of the buff being active, which cut into your overall Intellect gained.  Now, let’s see how the Rune of Zeth works on a longer fight, like our 9 minute Ragnaros encounter.

You would use the Rune of Zeth on the pull, then at the 60 second mark, the 120 second, the 180 second, the 240 second, the 300 second, the 360 second, the 420 second, and the 480 second mark.  The fight would end at 540 seconds and the trinket should not need to be popped again.  This means you would be able to use the Rune of Zeth 9 times on a 9 minute encounter.  Your formula should look like this:

9 x 15 / 540 = 25%

Interesting.  You still get 25% of the Intellect from the Rune of Zeth’s on-use effect during a 9 minute encounter, as you would during a 5 minute encounter.  That would give you 319 Intellect, as opposed to the 310 Intellect you would get from the Fiery Quintessence on the same fight.  While both are still well below what other trinkets can give you, the Rune of Zeth would give you more in this situation.

What I choose to take away from this is that in terms of raw Spell Power, the Fiery Quintessence appears to be better, but only for fights with a short duration.  Longer fights will not give you the overall Intellect that other trinkets would and would result in a loss of Spell Power.  If you’re looking at either of these two trinkets for regen purposes, it’s safe to say that discipline priests will probably want the Rune of Zeth (as the slightly larger amount of Intellect on there will help them with Rapture, which is based on your total amount of mana at the time) and holy priests would want to stick with the Fiery Quintessence (as we get more from raw Spirit, due to Holy Concentration).

While there are certainly better trinkets in Firelands, itself and even in the up coming Dragon Soul raid, it never hurts to keep your options open and to swap out trinkets, as needed between fights.  Until I can get my hands on better, I have no problem equipping a Fiery Quintessence and seeing what kind of results I can produce.  Hopefully, I’ve given you all something to think about and maybe you will even consider trying one of these wonderful trinkets out, the next time you swing by the Avengers of Hyjal Quartermaster.

A huge thank you to the folks over at AskMrRobot, for the fantastic information and formulas that were given on the thread that I linked above.  Feel free to give their site a try sometime and see how your gear and build look, according to their calculations.  You just might be surprised at what you find there.  I know I was!