Healing Talent Specs
What kinds of specs are there?
There are basically two generic builds for PVE healing:
Improved Divine Spirit or
Circle of Healing. Each has its place and uses, and I will touch on the major benefits and downsides of each.
Improved Divine Spirit
About the spec:
An Imp. DS build generally involves the priest talenting in Discipline down 23 talent points to Improved Divine Spirit, then filling out the remainder of their talents in Holy. Divine Spirit Rank 5 (the highest rank currently available) increases the target's Spirit by 50. 2/2 Talents in Improved Divine Spirit alters the spell as follows: "Your Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit spells also increase the target's spell damage and healing by an amount equal to 10% of their total Spirit." Simply put: Yum.
If you're the sole healing priest in your raid, and if you spend a good deal of time healing 5-man instances and even Karazhan, an Imp. DS build is generally going to be best for you and your group mates. When Imp. DS is combined with Spirit of Redemption (+5% spirit), Spiritual Healing (increases damage and healing by +25% of your spirit), and Meditation, it becomes very, very powerful, especially if you stack spirit already. In addition, the added damage and regen it gives the offensive casters in your raid is quite shiny.
If there is already an Imp. DS priest in your raid, it is not necessary for you to spec for it. But if you routinely heal 5-man groups, play solo, or are the only healing priest in another raid, it would serve you well to keep Imp. DS. You will sacrifice some raw healing power, and the addicting spammy joy that is Circle of Healing, but those losses are minimal until you are deep in end-game raiding (t5 and t6 content). And Imp. DS is yum.
Sample Imp. DS Builds:
"Cookie-cutter" Improved DS build â This is a pretty generic build
(see below for more in-depth, talent-by-talent discussion).
My Imp DS build â This is the build I generally use when I spec for Imp DS.
Circle of Healing
About the spec:
The Circle of Healing build generally consists of the priest talenting straight down the Holy tree to the 41 point talent, Circle of Healing. Circle of Healing is an instant cast heal that affects your target and your target's group (within a relatively small radius). This is a very specialized build, one that shines in certain circumstances and can seem a little "blah" in others.
Upside:
Circle of Healing is highly efficient for the amount of healing it provides, and is a quick way to top off a group instantly. It's an amazing spell in any dungeon with raid-wide splash damage, or for any encounter where a given group will be taking consistent, unavoidable damage. If you are raiding Zul'Aman, Serpentshrine, Tempest Keep, and beyond, it is invaluable and more than a little addicting.
Downside:
If you are raiding Karazhan and Gruul's Lair, or primarily healing 5-man dungeons, Circle of Healing has its uses, but they are somewhat limited. While you will still certainly find a use for CoH in these types of instances, it brings very little that a downranked Prayer of Healing or a few spot heals (or your paladin Flash of Light'ing or your shaman Chain Healing...) wouldn't do just as well. The spell is designed for the consistent splash damage in the later raiding encounters, and most priests find it lackluster unless they are healing that type of content regularly. I personally considered it to be quite useless in comparison to Imp. DS for a very long time, and I still prefer an Imp DS spec when healing smaller raids or 5 mans.
Sample CoH builds:
Cookie cutter CoH build â This is a pretty generic CoH build
(see below for more in-depth talent-by-talent discussion).
My CoH build â This is the CoH build I generally use.
Some Thoughts on Tweaking Your Build
After the core of the build is set, many healing priests (me included) tend to play around with our last 5 to 10 points, rearranging as situations call for it and our budgets allow. We have a lot of flexibility with our builds, because there are many more good talents available than we have points to spend!
Using the two CoH builds as an example... Giving up Mental Agility, especially in a build
built around an instant-cast spell, is a little painful. But I usually find it worthwhile for the increased CoH range from Holy Reach, and since I use Prayer of Mending every chance I get, Healing Prayers is a natural choice, and makes up a fair bit for the loss of Mental Agility.
Similarly, some priests prefer Spell Warding over Holy Specialization. In encounters or dungeons where damage is primarily or exclusively magical, or in places where there is heavy/unavoidable magical AOE splash damage, it's like having an additional 10% health, something very useful for anyone, but especially us squishies. I still prefer Holy Specialization over Spell Warding, but it is just that â preference. Your mileage may vary. None of these are bad talents, and I can't call any of them "better" than the others â it comes down to your play style, your role in the raid, and the encounters you are fighting in.
Individual Talent Discussion
Following are some talent-by-talent thoughts on the Holy and Discipline talents.
Discipline Tree
First Tier:
Unbreakable Will, 5/5
A must for raiding, and handy in most other situations. Badly times silences, stuns, and fears on the healer can mean the life or death of a tank, and any extra safeguard against those is a winner.
Wand Specialization, 5/5
A solid talent for leveling, but one I would drop in favor of Unbreakable Will well before you begin seriously raiding.
Second Tier:
Silent Resolve, 5/5
Yes, yes, and more yes. Even with the most solid tank, the most reliable crowd control, the most predictable encounter, times will come when you
will pull aggro. Minimize that as much as possible with this talent. Some argue that the necessity for this talent decreases the further you progress, but having handily pulled off a tank with Circle of Healing when a raid was being AOEâd, I can attest that it is always useful.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude 2/2
A must for anyone, raiding or otherwise. This talent increases the stamina granted by rank 7 PW:F from 70 to 101, which is a no-brainer.
Improved Power Word: Shield, 3/3
Not an impressive talent. With 2,000 +healing, it would increase the damage absorbed by rank 12 PW:S by approximately 250 damage. There are much better uses for those three points.
Martyrdom, 2/2
This is a talent for pvp and soloing. It is useless for PVE raiding â if youâre being directly hit, let alone
crit in a raid environment, youâre most likely going to die anyway.
Third Tier:
Absolution, 3/3
Situationally useful if you are involved in encounters that require a lot of dispelling, but still not a talent I would ever recommend taking for PVE healing.
Inner Focus, 1/1
Nothing is shinier than a mana-free, max-rank Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing with a nice boost to crit chance thrown in. Casting with Inner Focus also allows your mana regen to continue
as though you were not casting. This is a must-have talent.
Meditation, 3/3
Another must-have, Meditation is one of the talents which makes Spirit so important to a priest. Very close to the best talent we have. This should be mandatory for raiding, grouping, soloing...
anything. It is that good.
Fourth Tier:
Improved Inner Fire, 3/3
This might have uses in PVP. I wouldnât know, as I consider it a sheer waste of points, even if all you do is solo. For raiding, it is most certainly useless.
Mental Agility, 5/5
This is a very nice talent to have because many of our spells are instant casts. Renew, PW:S, Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing, all of our buffs. If youâre heading down the Discipline tree, this is very worth taking for the mana reductions to Renew and PoM alone.
Improved Mana Burn, 2/2
Another PVP talent. I once toyed with the idea of trying it on the Moam fight in AQ20, but regained my sanity quickly. To my knowledge, it has no viable use at all in present raiding.
Fifth Tier:
Mental Strength, 5/5
This is a nice talent, though not an amazing one. More mana is never a bad thing.
Divine Spirit, 1/1;
Improved Divine Spirit, 2/2
My absolute favorite buff in the game, Imp DS is
incredibly useful for any priest and the casters they group with. The Spirit alone would make it easily worthwhile; the Spirit-based bonus to damage and healing make it amazing.
Sixth Tier:
Focused Power, 2/2
A PVP and solo talent, useful only in PVE for the reduction to the Mass Dispel cast time. Wait, for that to be useful, Mass Dispel would have to be useful⦠Scratch that â PVP and solo talent.
Force of Will, 5/5
Great for a zomgSMITE build, but not at all useful for PVE healing.
Seventh Tier:
Focused Will, 3/3
Obvious PVP talent.
Power Infusion, 1/1
Boomies! PI is generally more useful when cast on an offensive caster than on yourself, and they will love you for it, even if they die afterwards. Itâs certainly fun to play with.
Reflective Shield, 5/5
Another PVP talent. A very fun one, mind you, but of little use in a raid environment.
Eighth Tier:
Enlightenment, 5/5
A
very solid talent for obvious reasons; unfortunately it is much too deep in the Discipline Tree to be practical for PVE healing.
Ninth Tier:
Pain Suppression
Even with the recent changes making Pain Suppression castable on others (among other things), this is still a PVP talent. I can think of a few instances where this would be useful in PVE raiding, but most are questionable. It would be nice to cast upon yourself when Fade is down and your tank canât get aggro away from you, but those situations are rare, and again, deep Discipline just isnât ideal for PVE healing.
Holy Tree
First Tier:
Healing Focus, 2/2
Protection against spell pushback is vital to any healing class, and we have the good fortune to find ours on the very first tier, for only two talent points. Win!
Improved Renew, 3/3
Very useful. Renew is an amazing spell already, being very mana efficient as well as our only spell to receive the full 100% benefit from +healing. Increasing its power is only a good thing.
Holy Specialization, 5/5
Critical heals are beautiful things, especially well-timed ones. Even if it is ill-times, unlike those of our leafy friends, our critical heals rarely cause threat problems (go, go fade). Paired with the third tierâs Inspiration, this talent becomes even more powerful. This talent also affects offensive holy spells, which is nice.
Second Tier:
Spell Warding, 5/5
Situationally, this is a very nice talent. In magic-heavy encounters, it is like having another 10% health, which is great for us.
Divine Fury, 5/5
This is a must for the time off Greater Heal alone. That the casting times of Holy Fire and Smite are also reduced make it that much more appealing. Even a healbot has to solo occasionally.
Third Tier:
Holy Nova, 1/1
Holy Nova, Holy Nova! A very fun talent, with... debatable... usefulness. It gives an AOE damage spell to a class that otherwise has none, and is great for short AOE pulls when you can get yourself in a group with the main AOEers and go âsplody for a few seconds. Considering the mana cost (875 at rank 7), this has very little practical value for raid healing, but for only one point, why not?
Blessed Recovery, 3/3
I have met some priests who like this talent, but I have never found it to be terribly useful, especially in a raid environment. Because, <insert broken record here>, you being directly hit is usually you being one-shot.
Inspiration, 3/3
A solid talent, worth taking if you heal a tank even part of the time. A nice use of this talent is to spam rank 1 Flash Heal on a tank just prior to a boss pull until you crit; the extra armor is a nice buffer while your tank is building aggro. If you run exclusively with a crazed druid tank who has maxed armor reduction, its usefulness lessens, but itâs still nice to have.
Fourth Tier:
Holy Reach, 2/2
A staple for many Circle of Healing builds. It isnât necessary, but itâs darn nice to have. If youâre not taking CoH, however, donât bother with this one.
Improved Healing, 3/3
Yes. Greater Heal is your powerhouse, but its max rank cost of 825 mana will make your mana pool cry. Maximize its efficiency anyway you can by downranking (see a later post about this!), /stopcasting (ditto!), using your Inner Focus, and taking this talent.
Searing Light, 2/2
If you play solo at all, this is a very worthwhile talent to have. At only two points, itâs not going to break your healing build to take it, either.
Fifth Tier:
Healing Prayers, 2/2
This is worth taking simply for the Prayer of Mending mana reduction (for more on why Prayer of Mending = Godly, see the later post on Spell Rotations, etc.). And if you use Prayer of Healing at all,
definitely take this.
Spirit of Redemption, 1/1
Even over Meditation, I would call this the best talent healing priests have, full stop. PVE, PVP, it doesnât matter. The 5% Spirit bonus is enough to make me drool; the on-death ability (and face it, loves; youâre playing a priest because youâre a masochist â you
know youâre going to die) is often what makes or breaks an encounter. Iâve been known to self-sacrifice close to the end of a new encounter, when Iâm out of mana and out of tricks, just to activate Spirit of Redemption and give a little more push to the end. Even in non-extreme situations, itâs great; it can save your party if you die prematurely. Take this talent, or face the wrath of Narâs flappy wings! Dooo eeeet.
Spiritual Guidance, 5/5
Yes and still yet more yes. Add this to Spirit of Redemption and Improved DS, and you get a
major boost to your +healing. Also helpful for soloing, of course.
Sixth Tier:
Surge of Light, 2/2
If you solo often, take this (along with Holy Specialization and Searing Light). Itâs minimal points and the payoff is substantial. Can be used for entertainment purposes when raiding (you can get the instant, mana-free smite after a crit heal), if you can spare the global cooldown on an offensive spell. I mourned for a long time when I finally gave up this talent. =(
Spiritual Healing, 5/5
Increases the amount healed by your spells by 10%? A no-brainer: this is an amazing talent.
Seventh Tier:
Holy Concentration, 3/3
I was dubious at first, but once I tried it, Iâd never go back. 6% happens a
lot more often than youâd think. Aside from the obvious benefit of a mana free heal (be ambitious â make it a Greater Heal!), when used back-to-back with Inner Focus, this can get your outside the 5 second rule for a substantial period of time, allowing for a healthy chunk of mana regen.
Lightwell, 1/1
If you can train your raid properly, Lightwell is a great talent. It does wonders for ranged dps who take periodic damage. If you canât train your raid properly (some of them are just stubborn like that), itâs great to drop beside yourself prior to a boss fight to top yourself off for free later on. And regardless of either situation... youâre a priest, you have Levitate, and you are a diva. Dance, honey, dance!
Blessed Resilience, 3/3
A good PVP talent; not so much with the good for PVE.
Eighth Tier:
Empowered Healing, 5/5
With 5/5 in this talent, you get 107% of your +healing applied to Greater Heal, and 53% applied to Binding/Flash Heal. Nom nom nom? Yes, nom nom nom indeed.
Ninth Tier:
Circle of Healing, 1/1
If youâre this deep in Holy, thereâs only one reason: the spammy, addictive Circle of Aggro. Take it, live it, love it.