Post by seanyk
So I'm incredibly excited for the new patch, I feel as if blizz read my mind. I'm actually going to be excited to bubble now instead of just use it as a mana regen. But it now begs the question, Mastery for disc priests?
I'm wondering if it might be worth it now. at least as a second rate to crit.
At my current gear level. (340) my shield mitigates 10.5k damage.
And with a 208% buff, it will start mitigating a little over 30k
Times that by say 10 points in mastery (25% roughly) and there's another 7.5k
Thoughts?
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/frostwolf/momssmistake/simple
Post by Pachuca
****
Sorry for the wall of text...
****When it comes to defining my stat priorities, I have to look at my current healing role.
If I'm in 5-man dungeons and gearing up for raids in heroics, I can assume that I'll mainly be tank healing. What spells am I likely to use the most? Well, I'm AA specced, so I'm going to be using a lot of Smites, along with the obvious PW:S, Penance, and Greater Heal, with the occasional PoH to keep party members up on certain bosses that cause AOE.
In raids that I do with my guild, I can assume that I'm going to be focusing mainly on the tank; it's been my role in my guild for years. I also have to help out with AOE healing, as pretty much every boss has an AOE effect. So that means a lot more GH's and PoH's, and only keeping Shield and Penance on the tank(s). So my GH and PoH usage goes up, Smite usage may come down depending on the fight (except on Halfus, it's almost all I use).
So now that I know what spells I can expect to use most often, I just have to figure out what stats are best for each spell:
Power Word: Shield :Benefits most from: Mastery
Why? Absorption, absorption, absorption. More mastery = bigger shields. Haste and crit don't affect it because it has no cast time (aside from GCD) and it can't crit. Patch 4.0.6 is boosting our PW:S spell by "208%", so Mastery will also be twice as attractive.
Penance :Benefits most from: Haste >= Crit > Mastery
Why? Haste is constant, so it's the most reliable in terms of throughput. Mainly going to be used on a target with Weakened Soul, so some crit chance is already being inherited. The RNG nature of crit makes it less reliable, and thus Mastery will not be as effective here. Patch 4.0.6 will also be boosting this spell's throughput a little bit.
Greater Heal :Benefits most from: Haste > Crit >= Mastery
Why? Slower spells gain more from haste. Macro Inner Focus to your GH casts, in combination with Weakened Soul and you've got yourself 35% bonus crit on the tank, which can create some HUGE Divine Aegis procs, and that's when mastery comes into play.
Smite :Benefits most from: Haste = Crit > Mastery
Why? Haste of course to lower cast time. Faster casts = more Atonement hits and faster cooldown reduction on Penance via Train of Thought = more healing done. Crit is pretty tasty here because Atonement is not affected by Weakened Soul or Grace, however it is buffed by damage buffs such as
Curse of the Elements and
Improved Shadow Bolt, which are basically the smaller cousins of WS and Grace. Smite crits will, of course, apply a Divine Aegis to whomever your Atonement just healed, which was hopefully the tank.
Prayer of Healing :Benefits most from: Haste = Mastery >= Crit
Why? Slow cast time, so haste shines. Automatic application of Divine Aegis, regardless of crit, so Mastery will play a huge role if you know that there will be more incoming AOE damage. Use PoH to heal your raid and also protect it from the next AOE attack, the usage is two-fold. Assuming the Divine Aegis you apply will be consumed by another attack within the next 12 seconds, then Mastery will be even more effective. In patch 4.0.6, crits will apply another "layer" of Divine Aegis on top of the default one, so crit rating will become slightly more attractive.
Prayer of Mending :Benefits most from: Crit >= Mastery = Haste
Why? Not much to say about this. Instant cast means haste will only lower the GCD, nothing more. It can crit (but don't rely on it) and when it does, Mastery will play a small role.
Those are the spells I use most often.
I still use the occasional Borrowed Time-hastened Renew on high-movement fights. I still use Binding Heal if I'm getting low on health. There's also channeled spells like Hymn of Hope and Divine Hymn which benefit from haste, but I save HoH for the end of Bloodlust and I have Divine Hymn macro'd to Power Infusion and with BT it's already pretty quick.Right off the bat, I can see that Haste will be of most benefit to the bulk of my healing spells, lower my global cooldown and long casts like GH and PoH. Mastery affects a lot of my core healing mechanics such as the soon-to-be godly Power Word: Shield, and Prayer of Healing, regardless of my crit chance (means less reliance on RNG). Crits are always nice, but you already get a decent crit boost through Inner Focus and Weakened Soul, so I try and allocate only about 12-13% base crit to my gear and reforge the rest into haste or mastery. With full raid buffs and the Weakened Soul effect, in addition to the times when Inner Focus is applied, I'm still getting plenty of crits.
Some highlights of my last WoL parse:
1079 heals from Prayer of Healing; 22% of them were crits
947 hits of Penance; 27% were crits
832 Atonement heals; 21% of them were crits
147 Greater Heals;
40% (wow!) were crits
That's a lot of PoH's. In fact, it was my top spell for the entire night. Moving ahead, I'm going to be looking for a lot more Haste and Mastery.