@Seriah, I have seen priests do that! Thanks for reminding me to point it out.

@Mediocredreams, What if you already have Weakened Soul? I usually keep PW:S on me throughout the entire fight, not just on ohshit! moments.

As far as Desperate Prayer saying lives, I’ll admit it doesn’t do that to me. I so rarely used it before getting rid of it. I just cast PW:S on myself during oshi- moments, since it’s hot keyed already anyway. *shrugs*

I do agree with Haruki. Pushback is so, SO rare in raid encounters. The only time it’s ever been an annoyance is during Faction Champions, and bubbling myself nips that problem. It’s a waste of points – I dump mine in Spell Warding for survivability.

Again, great guide.

You should know that pushback in this phase (Rapid Burst) was removed over 2 months ago.

>> But the magical damage reduction in PvE is pretty much negligible.

This is the real reason I’m commenting. I think you’re opinion is rather naive and severely underestimates the value of this talent. Ulduar for example has, maybe, 3 or 4 of the 14 bosses that don’t do some significant amount of raid wide damage. In Crusader’s Coliseum 3 of the 5 bosses do raid wide damage with a “highly likely” on the other 2. Very quickly,

Ignis – Flame Jets
XT – Tantrum
Iron Council – High Voltage
Kologarn – OOOoooblivion!
Auriaya – Sonic Screech
Hodir – Frozen Blows
Thorim – AOE Frost Bolt, Frost Nova, and possibly Chain Lightning
Freya – Nature’s Fury, Sunbeams, Ground Tremor
Mimiron – Hand Pulse, Rapid Burst, etc.
Vezax – Profound Darkness
Yogg – Debatable because there isn’t technically a raid wide magic hit (I think) but there’s enough random magic flying around that you may get hit
Algalon – Cosmic Smash, Black Holes, Black Hole Explosions

I wouldn’t call that negligible. I’m speaking mainly from a Hard mode perspective but it’s also relevant to up and coming priests (at or below gear level) doing Normal modes.

While this may not be 100% accurate mathematically, think of it this way … 10% spell damage reduction is equivalent to 10% HP increase. I have 24000 HP raid buffed so that’s an additional 2400 HP. That’s almost 2 Flasks of Stoneblood. Would you call that negligible?

And yeah, that talent is really nerve-racking. I don’t bother going that far down the Holy tree. Having to put any points in it with a deep-Holy spec would make me very sad.

Even as a holy priest, I find ‘Improved Healing’ a really difficult talent to deal with. The thing is, without it, it makes ‘greater heal’ pretty much non-viable, even if you only cast it while you’re feeling serendipitous. (When I was messing about with builds – not very well, admittedly – I jettisoned it on principle and then I realised greater heal cost something like 4 years to cast). But obviously you never ever ever use heal or lesser heal, and as a holy priest, you don’t have access to penance. Equally I’ve used divine hymn something like 3 times but that’s probably me not taking full advantage of it.

What I’m trying to say here is that it’s a talent that kind of demands you spend a point or two in it, but seems to give you very little return, regardless of whether you’re disc or holy. Gah! Worst of all possible worlds.

Sorry, this is totally epic and a bit about holy healing which you probably don’t care about :)

Inspiration no longer increases armor, it reduces physical damage taken by 10% instead.