Osprey at 80: Deep Holy Template

Introduction

If you’re a long-time reader (or even a short-term visitor) you probably know I don’t do theory-crafting, and I don’t pontificate a lot on how to play a Priest in World of Warcraft. Well, that’s about to change. Over the past few months, my knowledge of the Holy tree has grown tremendously, and I want to share that knowledge with people I consider my core audience: The casually dedicated healer of 5-man groups and 10- and 25-man raids.

I don’t have the benefit of having been in the Wrath of the Lich King beta to tell you how to heal in Northrend yet, but there are some excellent resources you should be reading, including Dwarf Priest and World of Matticus. As we move into the expansion and start to level, though, I will be sharing my observations, experiences, and opinions more and more.¹

As the article title indicates, I want to share with you how Osprey looks today, and how I expect him to look at level 80. As always, Osprey’s Armory profile can be found by clicking the link on the right. For this article, I’ll be linking to Wowhead’s Talent Calculator.

The role of the deep Holy Priest, as I see it, is to heal damage to both single targets (e.g., tanks) and the raid as a whole.² Holy Priests, of all healing classes, are uniquely talented to perform this double-duty, as you probably know already. We have an arsenal of single target heals, such as Renew, Flash Heal (FH), and Greater Heal (GH), as well as some very effective group heals: Circle of Healing (CoH), Holy Nova (don’t laugh; there are occasions when this is now a viable heal, although if it shows up in your top 5, we need to talk!), and the one-time laughingstock of the healing world, Lightwell.

Osprey Today

Currently, Osprey is specced 14/47/0.  Unlike many of my contemporaries, I elected to not go down to the 51-point talent, Guardian Spirit, at this time. The key here is at this time. At level 80, I’ll definitely have it!

Before we discuss the talent point allocation from 71-80, I want to make a few comments on the current template.

Since the 3.0.2 patch, I’ve done a lot of healing in Zul’Aman (ZA). (Unfortunately, I have not healed any 25-man instances since the patch.) While the dynamics are somewhat skewed due to the nerfs to Outland instances and bosses, it’s clear to me that CoH is now a bread-and-butter spell, and Lightwell (especially with a 3-minute cooldown (CD)) is going to be important to almost every boss fight, especially those where the group/raid will be taking AoE (area of effect) damage.

I mentioned Holy Nova a couple paragraphs ago. I’ve used it a lot in ZA as we have worked to beat the sacrifice timer. It comes in especially handy when fighting flocks of dragonhawks and lion prides before the Eagle and Lynx bosses, respectively. The beauty of this spell is I can heal the main tank and off tank, as well as melee DPS, while also inflicting some AoE damage myself, all without gaining threat! Obviously, it remains to be seen if similar utility will occur post-expansion.

Disicpline Talents

With respect to the Discipline talents I’ve selected so far, Twin Disciplines is a no-brainer, even if you never cast an offensive spell. Considering that two of the top three or four heals you will cast (Renew and CoH) are instant-cast, you can’t do without this talent. And while tanks seem to be generating metric tons more threat than pre-3.0, Silent Resolve is another must-have. Keep in mind that all of your heals (except, as noted above, Holy Nova), including Prayer of Mending (PoM, or frisbee), now accrue all threat to you, and not to the person(s) healed.³

Likewise, the other three Discipline talents I have thus far, all contribute to my ability to either heal more effectively or build the stamina of my group, so I have more of a cushion for getting off a heal before my target is dead.

Holy Talents

Over in the Holy tree, I opted out of taking Healing Focus for a couple reasons. First, spell push-back is already limited to two interrupts, not to exceed .5 second each. Second, I generally shouldn’t be in a position where I’ll be getting hit while healing (and if I am, I have those lovely instant-cast heals at my fingertips).

Divine Fury over Spell Warding in Tier 2 is important for one simple reason: Taking 3 seconds to cast Greater Heal is about 1 second too long, most of the time. Cutting that extra second in half is critical.

Spirit of Redemption (SoR) is important, not for the Spirit of Redemption, but for the five percent Spirit boost, and it’s a prerequisite for Lightwell. And as I alluded to earlier, Lightwell is going to be critical at least for boss fights, if not a lot of other situations. I can think of plenty of trash pulls (Mt. Hyjal, anyone?) where the ability to tap the Lightwell between attacks can be extremely beneficial.⁴

Serendipity is new with 3.0, and is quite a nice boon. Let’s face it: Overhealing happens. And a lot of overhealing happens when you cast Greater Heal. Being able to recoup 25 percent of the mana cost of the spell for even one point of overheal is huge. 

Leveling to 80

So now you understand some of my reasoning for the talents I have today. Let’s move forward to next week and beyond: Taking Osprey to Northrend and Level 80. My plan in selecting my current talents was that I would not have to respec at 80. That’s still the plan. So we have 10 talent points to play with: One for each level from 71 to 80, inclusive. Here’s how I plan to allocate them:

• 71: Grab that 5th point in Holy Specialization. Granted, we don’t crit like a Beast Mastery hunter, but Clearcast at a crucial juncture can be the difference between OOM and sweet epix.
• 72 and 73: Divine Providence 1/5 and 2/5. Anything that increases healing and decreases any CD is a Very Good Thing.
• 74: Guardian Spirit. The new class-defining spell of the Holy Priest. More on this in a moment.
• 75 – 80: Alternate between Test of Faith (ToF) 1/2/3 (see below for more on ToF) and Divine Providence 3/4/5.

So here’s where I will be at level 80: Osprey at 80

A Closer Look

Test of Faith gives more healing and more spell critical effect (i.e., critical heals do even MORE healing) to the targets who need it most: those below 50 percent health. What does that mean? It means the targets of your CoH get healed more, and faster. And this means the next time you cast CoH, the chances are that different targets will be healed. We’re talking, theoretically, a lot more damage control for your CoH buck, assuming there were some serious AoE hits going on there. Think of some of the boss fights in ZA, for example, when everyone is taking a lot of damage. It’s not unusual for two, three, or even four people to be below half-health. Get them up above midway quickly, and everyone breathes more easily. ToF will help you do that.

I mentioned in the bullets that I consider Guardian Spirit (GS) to be the new class-defining spell of the Holy Priest. Let’s take a look at the tooltip: 

 

I know a lot of people, across a lot of classes, are complaining their 51-point talents aren’t so great. I’m not one of them. To me, GS looks to be extremely well-balanced: Mana cost is minimal. The effect can be huge. The cooldown is fine for trash encounters, and you might cast it as many as three times in a 10-minute boss fight. (Obviously, you’d prefer boss fights to be a lot shorter than that!)

Think about it: Healing received by the target is increased 40 percent over 10 seconds, and the target can’t die! (Well, of course she can, from subsequent damage, but this is almost like a pally bubble, except the target can still fight.) And not only that, when the Spirit sacrifices itself, the target is healed for 50% of her maximum health. This means, if the target is at or above half-health, she will be fully healed! On a fully buffed pally tank with Tier 5/6 gear, we’re talking on the order of a 10K heal, for only 6 percent of your base mana! 

Clearly, GS is a situational spell, but as time goes by and we see the boss fights more often, we’ll know those situations when it’s time to cast GS, and literally save the raid. How utterly cool is that?

Now It’s Your Turn

So what do you think?  Is my plan a viable one? Should I put more points in Discipline? What about Desperate Prayer and Healing Prayers? Should I take either, or both, of those? If so, what do I give up?

I’d really like to see some give and take on this issue, because we can all learn a lot from each other. Hopefully, I’ve spurred you to take a closer look at your own plan to get to 80. So share it with the rest of us!