Friday, August 21, 2009

August 21, 2009

I now have enough of the Ulduar 10 tier pieces to benefit from the set bonus. Interestingly enough, it is an increase in the crit chance of Prayer of Healing. That's a spell I rarely use because it takes so long to cast. I use it as part of my healing strategy on Loatheb, but besides that, rarely.

Well...after reading around on various sites, I realized I was ignoring a talent that lowers the cast time on PoH -- Serendipity. I was feeling like an idiot for wasting this talent until I realized that it's because they changed it completely in some patch and I hadn't noticed. It used to be a mana regen talent.

Anyway...I made some changes to my spec to cut down on the cost of PoH and Prayer of Mending. I also added a setting in Power Auras to alert me when I had Serendipity charges built up. Then on Wednesday I tried out the new spec. I'm embarrassed to admit that I caused a wipe on the first boss in Heroic ToC because (a) I forgot to switch from the lance back to my equipment, and (b) I was focusing too much on Serendipity and not on actual healing.

But...once I settled into a routine I got the hang of using Serendipity charges. I think I've already seen an improvement in my effectiveness.

Ulduar
We went back to Ulduar on Tuesday and Wednesday. Fresh run. New bosses we got down were:
  • Freya -- One shot! It went much more smoothly than our other attempts.
  • Mimiron -- Also one shot! We changed our positioning and it made all the difference.
  • General Vezax -- We wiped a few times. But, once we realized our biggest enemy was being too close together when he does his life leeching ability, we changed our positioning and breezed through it. It was incredible how we finished the fight. I had only enough mana left to cast one more Renew. I cast that renew on the tank then started wanding the boss. Moments later, he fell. Had I not saved mana for that last renew, I think we would have lost. That was close...and FUN!
We stopped before attempting Yogg-Saron. It was really late and we East coasters had to go. We might try to get him down after our Naxx 25 run this weekend.

During the run I got a few drops: Waist: Binding of the Dragon Matriarch, Wand: Nurturing Touch (which has an awesome appearance), Dagger: Plasma Foil (I didn't win the roll for it, but the mage who did, gave it to me when he realized it wasn't better than his current weapon. Gotta love the ability to trade BoPs!).

I also earned enough emblems to get my tier chest: Conquerer's Robe of Sanctification. I'm not 100% sure it's an actual upgrade from the Embrace of Madness that I'm currently wearing. Once I gem and enchant it I'll see. The highest level gems available at this point are really expensive though, so it's painful to buy the gems without being 100% sure it's the direction I want to go. Currently I don't know of a site that allows equipment experimentation including the newest gems. Those I've used in the past still don't recognize the new gems. :(

More About Changes for My Priest
As I mentioned above, I changed my spec for my priest. She's still Holy, but I switched a few talents around to reflect how I actually play. For example, I had Test of Faith. It's a really good talent if you're dealing with people at below 50% often. It's good for tank healing and it shines when healing after Gluth uses his Decimate ability. But, I'm rarely the main tank healer and Gluth is only one out of dozens of encounters. So, it wasn't doing me much good.

My new build is this, with the glyphs: Flash Heal, Circle of Healing and Guardian Spirit. Each of the glyphs are extremely useful to me, especially the ability to cast Guardian Spirit more often.

I still might change my spec again in the future. Mental Agility is very attractive, considering how many of my spells are instant casts (PoM, Renew, CoH, PWS, Guardian Spirit). But, with the new focus on Flash Heal/Binding Heal and Prayer of Healing in order to use Serendipity, I might find I use the instant ones less and less. Time will tell.

One other aspect is gemming. I have been checking out the equipment and gem choices that another priest has made. He's the one who suggested I apply to his big raiding guild while with me in Naxx a few weeks ago. I noticed that he doesn't stack Spirit at all. His gems are all Spell Power and Intellect. He has Mental Agility to help lower the cost of instant spells. But, I wonder if there's something about Intellect I'm missing. Did its mechanic change with a recent patch? So hard to keep up! I do see how stacking Intellect could be really helpful for the General Vezax encounter. It's all about having more mana, not mana regen. But I can't imagine making gem choices based on one single encounter. Hmm...I'll have to find out more about that.

2 comments:

  1. Serendipity was THE most overpowered mana regen talent in the game!? And you missed it... what!?!?

    Intellect IS mana REGEN.
    It scales with shadowfiend, mana tide, hymn of hope, spirit regen and more importantly... it's how you're getting mana from REPLENISHMENT. The reason we're stacking intellect is NOT for a larger mana pool, it's for Mp5!!

    1% crit = 166.67 intellect
    1% crit = roughly 12mp5 (Holy concentration)
    1 intellect = 0.1875 Mp5 (Replenishment)
    1 intellect = 0.208 Mp5 (6min fight, mana pool size)
    1 intellect = 0.104 Mp5 (6min fight, shadowfiend)
    1 intellect = 0.145 Mp5 (Meditation, 1200 spirit assumed)
    1 spirit = 0.313 Mp5 (Meditation, 1400 intellect assumed)
    1 spirit = 0.25 spellpower (Holy, Spiritual Guidance)


    Overall Regen Gains: Holy
    Spirit: 0.362Mp5 per point
    Intellect: 0.792Mp5 per point
    (1 raw point; gearing, buff, etc; then scaled by other buffs and talents)

    Signed:
    Another female gamer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for giving me the math on Intellect. Although I like to min/max, I have to admit I get dizzy when looking at the numbers on sites like Elitist Jerks. It's helpful to see them in isolation like this.

    Also...to clarify about Serendipity. I didn't overlook it. I simply didn't notice when the mechanic regarding it changed. I remember it being something along the lines of returning mana back to you when you overhealed. I didn't realize it changed in a patch to what we have today.

    ReplyDelete