It’s Priest-Talk Time, So Pay Attention
So we received a long and detailed letter from a priest who reads BRK. We’d call it “excellent” but the only thing we know about priests is that we kill them first in battlegrounds. Now although it’s not a hunter-specific letter, it does contain some useful information on how we should behave in instances. Thus, we present a BRK Exclusive:
“Prayer of Mending (PoM) is THE best healing spell in the game – hands down, no questions asked, pack your bags and go home. This spell will save rogues, pets, tanks and anyone else taking damage within melee range of the original cast. The problem is that in order for this divine spell to reach its full potential, the entire group needs to understand its basic mechanics. That said, let us gaze upon the tooltip for PoM:
“Now I hear you muttering “WTH? 800hps? That’s nothing!” Well, the tooltip assumes zero +healing gear. My priestly wench runs a reasonable amount of +healing and her PoM clocks up close to 1500 per jump – now we’re talking!
“Onwards to a brief insight into the math of healing. Hit-points-healed per mana-point-consumed is the figure that keeps our little undead toes warm at night. More HP healed for the same or even less mana? – H3ll yes, (we’ll take that with fries)! This is the theory behind spell downranking; a fairly straight forward concept whereby you conserve mana by using more economic, lower ranked spells. I’m fairly sure this also applies situationally to most DPS classes, (I know of more than one hunter who uses Rank 1 spells for marathon kiting efforts).
“PoM comes into its own here as it gives us an insane amount of healing-per-mana. Since we love math examples, I’ll throw in a mini snapshot. With my personal stats plugged into Ancallagon’s Spreadsheet of Awesomeness*, we can see the following:
Flash Heal (Rank5): 5.25 hp/m (hitpoints per mana)
Flash Heal (Rank9): 4.80 hp/m
Greater Heal (Rank2): 7.55 hp/m
Greater Heal (Rank7): 6.78 hp/m
Prayer of Mending (Rank1): 16.46 hp/m
“Crazy!! More than double the value of our downranked Greater Heal – we know it and by your pet’s fur, we LOVE it. If we get all 5 jumps out of our PoM, the group gets heals to the tune of +7K for the cost of a measly 273mana. Now that we’ve covered the why of PoM – we move on to the how.
“After looking at the figures above, we realise any priest worth their salt is more often than not going to have one of these babies bouncing around. Its easily identifiable by its fairly unique ‘ping’ sound on cast and ensuing jumps – also accompanying this is a golden lance effect as it jumps between group members. When you obtain this super buff, it looks like this:
“With the (5) counter being the number of charges remaining. The charge also has a 30second lifespan before fading out if it isn’t triggered.
“How can this endearing, lifesaver of a spell be ruined? In a few ways, but the primary complaint is ‘non-needy (i.e. non-damage taking)’ people standing within the 20 yard melee range. As far as I can see, PoM jumps from the original recipient to the group member with the greatest health deficit, (i.e. the person/pet hurting most). This is perfect, however a few simple, logical ideas need to be adhered.
“Warlocks are the prime Killer of PoM, and our Life Tap loving, PITA friends don’t even realise their regular transgressions. Life tapping warlocks constantly stand well within the 20yard melee range. More often than not, PoM gets dropped on the tank and immediately jumps to said Warlock where it sits rotting for the next 30seconds. Unfortunately Life Tap does not trigger a PoM jump. If your priest is too preoccupied to instruct Mr Warlock on PoM etiquette, feel free to address the issue yourself – after all, it IS effectively your pet’s heals that they’re stealing.
“The other classic scenario I see is our tank picking up a cleaving/AoE mob, hunters trap their targets and put pets on main target - all is well with the world. Ice trap breaks early? Hunter gets beaten on a bit, kites the mob further back, re-traps then runs back inside the 20 yard melee range. PoM jumps to damaged hunter and proceeds to rot for the next 30 seconds because they’re standing outside the AoE range, (oh no, you just stole your own pet’s heals!). There are times when stealing this spell is totally unavoidable – there is also a pull or two in Shattered Halls that do a localised AoE damage which fails to trigger PoM for some reason. This makes us sad and usually winds up with dead or really hurt pets.
“Learning the mechanics of this spell is a win/win, for not only do you keep your priest happy but you get ‘free’ heals on your pet in the mix. Learn it, work it, love it – Prayer of Mending is your friend!”
* For the more curious, Ancallagon’s Spreadsheet of Awesomeness can be found at: www.randyland.biz/priest.xls
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18 Responses to “It’s Priest-Talk Time, So Pay Attention”
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So I’m confused?!? What is the solution to this problem? Do we go get hit real quick? Do we click the buff off to send it on its way.
Interesting.. but I want to ask some guild priests if they think it’s a waste to use POM in situations where they know it’s just going to sit dead.
In other words, is your new priest friend a pro at casting it at the wrong time, wasting the CD and the mana.
You can’t control who POM goes onto without controlling positioning. When raiding, positioning is decided by the fight, not the priests need to use POM.
I’m sorry I caught your POM and it ‘died’ on me, what do you want me to do? Go get hurt? I didn’t think so.
-guy
I love and hate POM spam. I appreciate the fact that it gives Priests a breather with a nice instant cast heal that’s decent with gear and covers multiple targets for PVE.
I loathe it in Arena PVP where clutch POM + “tanking” talents + high Stamina/Resilience can really make it a pain to burn down a target, I shudder at the memories of it having no cooldown.
This spell is commonly referred to as holy sp**ge in my guild. I just hit 70 on my Priest and made a Money Shot macro.
/cast Prayer of Mending
/s Money shot!!!
“PoM jumps from the original recipient to the group member with the greatest health deficit, (i.e. the person/pet hurting most)”
We here at the BRK School of Trapping and Pwnage are taught to not get hit during fights…so, not sure where Samasia is going with this.
Just kidding - nice post.
“Sp**ge me plz”
Nice spell - is the greatest health deficit a ‘real’ deficit, or a % deficit. I’m guessing the former, but not sure.
Also, wouldnt you normally pull a mob back towards you before retrapping, avoiding the problem?
Am I missing a trick, or do some hunters just do that?
@Joe - it’s based off real deficit.
As far as retrapping goes, idealy you want to do your retrapping the same distance from the fight, so you would sidestep, lay a trap, sidestep, pray and spray. like I said though, that is ideal, so if you get in a bind, yes getting the trap as far away from the fight is a priority, but you dont want to get too far away from your healer in case you did get a couple hits.
——————–
Oh and to add something about myself…
I just hit 70 on my Priest and am 100% Shadow, and let me tell you, the Casters and Hunters in my guild love me. With VT up on a bossfight, they never have mana issues as long as their in my group. And it’s always nice to see people get mad when they get placed in the “No VT for you” group.
I’m a level 70 priest, and use POM all the time. My brother is a hunter and his pet loves the ‘free’ heal that it provides mid-fight. I didn’t know that it was drawn to the next target that has taken the most damage, I just thought it was proximity, so I usually tell people who aren’t melee to stand out of range.
As for it landing on non-combat people who probably won’t get hit, just recast it! It ‘destroys’ any current ones, and starts the count/timer anew. If its healed only 2 people you’re already doing better than flash heal. Yes, its on a 10 sec cooldown, but by the time its left the tank, maybe hit a 2nd person, then on to a 3rd non-useable person, 10seconds is up… recast on tank, spank you very much!
When dealing with trash mobs, I don’t usually ever have to cast anything but POM and Renew on the main tank, leaving loads of time to DPS as a priest, making our way to bosses that much faster… yes you heard me, DPS…
Although the instances I run most nowadays are Shadow labs, AC, Mech, Arc, with the occasional Shattered halls… in regular mode. Obviously this hinges on the quality of tank, which I have been extremely lucky in getting.
Misfit: I love grouping with shadow priests, it makes healing that much easier, as I usually don’t have to concentrate on anyone except the main tank, even on most AOE mobs. This means I get to throw 1100dmg (1800 crit)smites in between casts… yes, its minimal when compared to most other classes, but I’m a priest, and I’ve just added 5-10k dmg to the mob that normally wouldn’t be there.
LUV Shadow Priest and VT!
Hmm … I play a warlock main in addition to my hunter, and have seen Prayer of Mending ticking away but didn’t fully understand its mechanics. Thanks for the very thorough explanation.
Since Life Tap does not count as damage
… I was wondering if Hellfire counted.
Hellfire (Rank 1)
645 Mana - Channeled
Ignites the area surrounding the caster, causing 83 Fire damage to himself and 83 Fire damage to all nearby enemies every 1 sec. Lasts 15 sec.
Its a helluva mana hit to keep PoM going, but if it heals me for 1000, and Life Tap will convert 580 health into ~1300 mana, it would be worth it to keep the heals going.
From a shaman with his own hax healing spell with a similar mechanic to PoM, the takeaway is if you know you’ll be taking damage regularly, say Netherspite with it’s constant AoE or shadowbolt/fireball volley mobs, please stand near people who will also take regular damage so the PoM/Chain Heal has someone to jump to.
If you’re not going to be taking regular damage, try to stay back away from stuff that’s tanking so you don’t grab PoM by accident. Generally it’s good to have a melee cluster at the mobs and a ranged cluster back out of PoM range.
I don’t feel like the solution is to then go in and take a hit for a 1.5k heal. Especially if you run heroics this is not a workable solution. Truthfully it’s the hunters fault. Don’t stand on your trap and be prepared with another trap before the last one breaks. It takes a bit of good timing, but there it is.
Also, my main is a 70 priest. I play priest and hunter exclusively. I believe that PoM has a range for jumps. If you stay outside of that jump range than even if you do happen to take a beating, you can stay out of PoM jump range.
We finally have a shadow priest in my guild. We are keying him for Kara as we speak. As a resto shaman i cant wait for that extra mana…mmmm…mana
Any Shammy’s know how PoM’s mana efficiency stacks with Shamman’s Chain Heal? I’ve read that Nihilium prefers shammans for healing specifically for that spell…
Given all the references to a ‘20 yard melee range’ I figured it was fairly obvious that the objective was to stay outside of it :p. So yes, if you’ve taken a one off beating or are life tapping.. stay the h3ll outside of the 20yard melee range where possible!
This isn’t about wasting CD or mana. Even if it only uses one charge, it is effectively an instant downranked flash heal for less cost (yes Guy, there are situations where we use it purely for this purpose). The purpose of writing this was to make people aware of their positioning in AoE fights. Exactly the sort of fights where ranged are (or should be..) ranged and melee are melee.
Pat: Priest’s Shadow Word Death feedback damage makes it jump. Hellfire sounds like it is more likely to also - grab a priest and test it sometime!
Yaja: Recasting it is what we do! Its really not alot of effort to do so either. However group mechanics always work that little bit better if everyone is aware of what abilities other classes bring to the table and try to maximise them.
Hope that answers most :p.
Hellfire doesnt make it jump unfortunately.
Also I would like to add my voice to the argument that chain heal is the best heal in the game. PoM is cool but I think the fact that it is reactive is detrimental to its place on the top spot, just because it gets caught on people who are low on health but unlikely to get damaged. Just my point of view though I am always jealous of our shaman’s chain healing.
I play a hunter and a priest. POM doesnt sit wasted on a target usually. Priests fire away a new POM usually as soon as CD is free.
Fireing away a new POM will delete the old one automatically. Only on POM per Priest can be active on a given target.
I think the general point is that *ranged* classes generally have a 40something yard *range* on their *ranged* attacks and should possibly not be standing within the 20 yard melee zone, like, maybe ever… unless some fight specifically requires it.
Ran Mech last night with a priest throwing PoM around a lot. Got a chance to test Hellfire out, and yes, it does cause PoM to jump. But not consistently. Sometimes I had to go two ticks of Hellfire for it to jump. If I could make it jump consistently with one tick of Rank 1 Hellfire, I would do it, but otherwise its just not worth it.