Brem

Apologies if I did not make myself clear originally. I was not referring to the mechanics of renew and 8 set bonus working properly (which is does on VG afaik). I was instead referring to the functionality of the macro. It seems like something in the macro needs to be changed because you can't use it when the target has 8 set t2 hot on them. But if you just use any rank of renew from your spell book, it applies perfectly fine with the 8 set bonus. I agree with you to an extent. Renew is a very niche spell and it's not worth it to have multiple priests using it all the time. It does contribute a considerable amount of overhealing but that's just why you need to know when and how to use it effectively. I always recommend new raiders to spec into 1 or 2/3 imp renew simply because they will be gearing up in dungeons and will probably want it for 5/10 mans. But once you're done getting prebis and mainly just do 40 mans, I recommend speccing out of it completely. Having 1 priest in the raid with 3/3 keeping it up on tanks is the best way to do it. I listed multiple fights above that renew can be extremely beneficial though. So I would seriously argue your statistic of 99.999% waste. Detailed Prebis/MC/BWL list from Nost: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l2o5WhYf18AsprwRoLYvuaSP96Y2xxJE743xXyenfHk/edit#gid=1585012469 AQ40+Naxx bis list I personally made due to lack of information on other websites: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AMYy7gq5rSPqxexw6KWADPMXagng5gYynmo_HPhNgos/pubhtml#

So as far as the PI spec goes, I think it's acceptable to have 1 or 2 for buffing the mages. My guild is progressing naxx right now and we can't really afford to sacrifice the healing for it. You do have to give up quite a bit for it. In my mind, I guess if you can't sacrifice the priest's healing then why even bother bringing an actual dps priest. This might be more doable MC / BWL / AQ40 though. It's an idea I've played around with for quite some months now but never really tested it out. I might just be biased for the shadow priest since I raided as a warlock for awhile and always wanted that buff lol. I see what you're saything though. I guess it more so comes down to 15% damage bonus for the warlocks from shadow weaving vs. 15% damage bonus for all casters from nightfall. In which case, I guess nightfall would take precedence for being more beneficial for the raid. I still strongly believe that bringing more than 3 locks is highly beneficial for the raid. They really let loose when they aren't hindered by SM/ruin imp buff spec. You're gonna need 2-3 debuff slots for their corruptions though still. I would like to know the ppms on Nightfall and if it is working properly on Elysium right now (I assume it is, just to be sure). So if, for example, you have 1 ret paladin with Nightfall, what would the uptime on it look like for a 3 min fight. Then the increase in uptime from a 2nd. Then the increase in uptime from a 3rd. In my mind, I just see the marginal benefit falling off after a 2nd. Especially when you factor in the other debuff slots they will be taking up. But if we're trying to buff up that big smite priest then I do see the point in taking a 3rd and 4th paladin (Even though I think it would make overall raid damage suffer and is a laughable idea at best, especially bringing more than 1 smite priest. But it is interesting for sure.). I do not see the point in taking 8 paladins at all though. Especially not a prot paladin. 2-3 ret paladins for nightfall and judgements to buff the smite priest. 3-4 holy paladins for maybe 1 wisdom? But that's probably the extent I would go for the smite priest. Oh I believe you are correct with this. I thought you were counting on having 2 TFs in the raid. But I think you're right, it has the NR reduction debuff and the attack speed reduction debuff. My apologies. It just feels like so many resources are unnecessarily getting put into buffing this 1 hybrid average dps spec which could be used much better in other ways. This is definitely funny and interesting though. Thank you for the spreadsheet. I'll definitely take a look at it play around with the options.

@Theloras Glad to see you won't even address my argument due to old drama. I did not bring up Sorono at all either. I am well aware VG has sub par scripting, lots of bugs, and shitty biased GMs. Just because I am still playing there, because I love my guild, doesn't mean I am not allowed to play on Elysium and use the forums. I had a 60 on Nost and I am leveling on Elysium too just for your information. And no, I did not come here "to froth at the mouth against you." I've been maining a priest in vanilla for over a year and have been raiding as a healer in every expansion since wrath. So sorry for taking interest in a priest related thread? But don't worry, I went horde so I won't have to deal with the ret paladins. Also - News flash, you weren't the best guild mate either. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions though. #JustSayin Not sure how you can say that it is completely irrelevant. Crit has a significant impact on their dps no matter what, even if it's not needed to keep the ignites rolling (I know Elysium is only in MC right now but still). And you can get nightfall from 1 ret paladin then bring 1 boomkin as well. Best of both worlds maybe? Priests providing PI to the mages is not a common occurrence. My guild doesn't even have a single PI priest currently. At most a guild would use 1 because to use that spec is too detrimental on healing output just for a slight dps increase. Correct me if I am wrong, I've never played with a smite priest before, wouldn't they want to use PI on themselves? If so, that would make that argument irrelevant because they wouldn't be buffing the mages. I do agree with you that high nightfall uptime will increase dps significantly. But can't this effect be seen through just 1 ret paladin using nightfall? Also, most ret paladins would want to use an actual weapon instead of just being a buff bot for the casters. So you bring 3-4 ret paladins, force them all to use nightfall, which in turn lowers their personal dps, and takes up 3-4 debuff slots. I feel like you can achieve good enough uptime with 1 ret paladin using nightfall and only using 1 debuff slot for their judgement. Yes, their dps is generally lower than all other classes. But sacrifices 3 debuff slots to buff the warlocks with a 15% damage bonus. Just like 3 ret paladins sacrifice 3 debuff slots to buff the themselves and the smite priest who is providing almost nothing for the raid since they will most likely be using PI on themselves. Why are you only bringing 3 warlocks to the raid? 2 of them are needed as SM/ruin to buff the tank groups with imp stam. The rest of them aren't hindered by this and get to reach their full potential as DS/ruin. Some of the best dps in my guild are warlocks. What are you replacing warlocks with, more ret paladins? By your logic with nightfall uptime, the warlocks can be receiving 15% damage from nightfall as well as 15% damage from shadow weaving and 15% self buffed if they are DS/ruin. Fully buffed, I would say their shadowbolts crit even harder than mages fireballs and have a shorter cast time. True. Unnecessary. The hunters don't really need to be wasting debuff slots on hunters mark nor serpent sting. 1 ret paladin for nightfall and then holy paladins for wisdom stacking then? Sure the uptime falls off a bit but you can then open up 2 raid spots for better pure dps classes and open up 2 debuff slots. Or you could potentially achieve more overall dps with a non smite focused raid with: 1 Thunderfury (Let's be realistic) 1 Sunder Armor 1 COE 1 COS 1 COR 1 Nightfall 1 Fire/Frost Vulnerability 1 Ignite 2 Shadow Vulnerability (warlock and spriest) 1 Judgement Crusader or Wisdom 1 SWP 1 Mindflay 3 Flex Slots Open - Extra Judement from holy paladin? Hunters Mark? (probably not worth it) Corruptions? (You are gimping the SM/ruin locks by not allowing room for their corruption with judgements, but then again the Spriest is too technically) Or even Deep Wounds? (if you have a fury warrior) ============================ 16 Debuff slots used. I don't see there being a point for faerie fire either honestly, but that's a whole different story. So instead of your 4 ret paladins: - You can take 1 ret with nightfall, sure you lose some nightfall uptime, but you potentially increase the overall raid dps with other debuffs - 1 shadow priest to give the warlocks 15% bonus damage - 2 open slots for boomy/feral/pure dps class/healer/MAYBE a 2nd ret paladin for more nightfall uptime? So this would provide room for 1 boomkin and 1 feral if the raid wants them to buff the 4 top casters and 4 top melee. It also provides more debuff slots for the warlocks to use corruption to proc Nightfall. And if you really hate the idea of a shadow priest because they take up 3 debuffs slots, you could force them to not use SWP just like you force the ret paladin to use nightfall. Hindering their dps but benefiting the raid more. Then they would only take up 2 debuff slots (mind flay and shadow weaving) just like the ret paladin (judgement and nightfall). Their dps is probably much lower but essentially the same argument. Then you would just have to look at the marginal benefit of potential increase in uptime from more nightfalls providing 15% damage for casters plus the sacrifice of debuff slots with corruption for judgements (which will only buff the paladin) versus the 100% uptime of shadow weaving and corruptions for Nightfall procs for the warlocks.

I don't think that's the point Fisher is trying to make. Everybody gets it. You're a meter whore and everything can be viewed on your raidstats *insert Smiters realmplayer links here* Yes, ret paladin is capable of pulling competitive dps in the hands of the right player. That's not the point. The point is that raid spot is arguably wasted because aside from your pally buff (which can be brought by a holy paladin just the same) there is nothing else you bring to the table. That raid spot is better off being given to a healer or pure dps class that will do more damage. However, boomkins give the mages/locks crit and ferals give the melee crit. Both are arguably unnecessary as well but both can output just as competitive dps as a ret paladin if played properly and they provide more for the raid. What is the point of bringing a ret paladin over a different melee? Similar gear and skill level - all other factors considered to be on an equal playing field - rogues/fury warrs should always out dps the ret paladin. Making the spot a waste because they essentially provide nothing else for the raid. What is the point of bringing a boomkin over a mage or warlock? Similar gear and skill level - all other factors considered to be on an equal playing field - mages/locks should always out dps the boomkin. But the boomkin provides a crit buff for his group of casters overall boosting the total raid damage by a significant amount. This argument is essentially never ending. Fisher obviously believes it's not worth the raid spot and Smiter QUITE OBVIOUSLY believes that not only is it worth the raid spot but they should even bring 3-4 rets. The point is the raid spot used on 1 ret paladin is arguably unnecessary and a waste because they bring nothing else worthwhile to the raid. I don't think either of your opinions will be changed on this matter. Also, why did the discussion turn so heavily focused on ret paladins in a priest forum? You guys should go back to your thread and this should get back on topic.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better. I found Smiterr and Theloras preaching the good word of our lord and savior Jesus Ret Pally on a new server. I guess you're taking it a step further and recruiting smite priests now. First off - Hey, nice to see you again. Secondly - This thread is absolutely hilarious. 10/10 you guys are just so funny. You never cease to make me laugh :) Thirdly - Best of luck with your crazy ret pally / smite priest guild. I think it might be one of the stupidest ideas ever but good luck. I think you might really be overlooking the negative impacts of taking raid spots away from real dps. Especially trying to give 4 smite priests boomy group spots over mages. Are you literally nuts??? This has got to be the best joke in the entire thread by far. You really outdid yourself on this one Theloras. The ONLY thing you and Smiterr EVER cared about was the dmg meters. You literally cannot convince me otherwise. The 2 of you are just so up tight about proving that ret pallies work that you obsess yourselves over the meters. All Smiterr would ever do is post meters and gush about how much dmg he was doing. I'm sure glad you guys left VG. I believe your math though, for real. I get it's "viable." We're still raiding with a ret pally btw. He brings a healing set to every single raid and doesn't mind switching when needed and doesn't obsess over the meters. He's a cool dude and provides competitive dps. It's about the player, not the class imo. You can do amazing things in wow when played just right. And you are correct about a lot of this. But to fill up almost 1/4 of your raid with ret pallies and smite priests AND giving them boomy buffs over fire mages hindering their ignite stacking. In what world does a raid take 3 ferals and 2 boomies, let alone 5 rets and 4 smite priests? That's literally the most ridiculous raid comp I have ever seen. You are spending WAY too many resources on buffing Smiterr. Probably just so he can post his dmg meters on realmplayers and gush about how good it looks when you literally build a guild and a raid comp around making him look good. But that's all you guys like doing, posting realmplayers links and screenshots of dmg meters. Anywho, hope you and Smiterr the best with your new guild. Just thought I'd drop some insight and get this off my chest :) Also, to whoever this thread is actually about and is attempting smite priest - good luck dude. As a dedicated holy priest, I've always played around with the idea of smite and shadow in my head but have never attempted it. It's never something I would actually do nor would I let any of the priests in my guild do, but I would be interested to see how you do it and look at the potential.

It sure does! That's the macro I have been using for my priest on VanillaGaming which is another vanilla private server. I take rank 10 renew off my bars and just replace it with that basically. It basically just prevents you from casting renew if there is already 1 applied to the target. The only issue I have seen with it is for the 8 set t2. Technically speaking, I believe it should be a different "buff" but I don't think it has been letting me apply both. I'll have to do further testing since I only use 8 set t2 for Maexnna in Naxx right now. But other then that it works perfectly!

I ran into the same issue. I'm in Naxx now on a different server so I decided to make my own spreadsheet. I didn't fully understand the stat weights that the author of the Extended Priest BiS from Nost used but I tried to weigh in certain factors like Meditation talent, 3 set t2, spirit vs mp5 etc. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AMYy7gq5rSPqxexw6KWADPMXagng5gYynmo_HPhNgos/pubhtml#

You sure? I would challenge you to compare DPSmate Effective Healing Meters with me :) I think you would be thoroughly surprised after certain raids / fights. It is highly dependent on the fights. But if you are healing proactively and there is a lot of damage going out on the raid it is actually extremely effective. If the majority of it is going into overhealing then your guild is either overgeared for the content or you have too many healers. I assure you that renew is a very strong spell but it IS situational. You need to know when it's good and how to make it effective. If you can't do that then yes, you might as well not use it. There is an issue with overwriting renews from other priests during the raid. If you wanna talk about how bad renew is, at least mention this in your argument. It is a complete and utter waste if your priest group continuously overwrites each others' renews. It may be on accident or it may be to try to look better on the meters but you are essentially wasting your mana and the other priests' mana by doing this. Therefore, I force all of my priests to use this macro in place of their max rank renew to make sure this doesn't happen: /run local check=true; for i=1,32 do if UnitBuff("target",i)~=nil then if string.find(UnitBuff("target",i),"Spell_Holy_Renew") then check=false; end end end if check==true then CastSpellByName("Renew(Rank 10)"); end Here are some good fights from MC, BWL, and AQ40 that I think really can make renew shine: MC Shazzrah - Pretty nice to avoid the counterspell and keep heals going. As far as I know, BigWigs doesn't have a timer for the counterspell so you either try to count it in your head or spam renew. Golemagg - Extremely good to use on melee. I typically spam R3. BWL Razorgore - Phase 2 ONLY on conflagged tanks. Otherwise not very useful. Vael - Should have 100% uptime of max rank on MT Suppression Room - Very efficient for hatchers, especially when more than 1 are pulled. Can spam down rank on melee. Chrom - Should keep it applied before breaths on MT. Especially good for the poison breath. AQ40 Bug Trio - Specifically when the raid is killing Kri. Especially if you are light on poison cleansers. Visc - Can blanket the raid with down rank. Huhu - Should definitely try to keep max rank up on tank due to the stacking poison and constant damage. Can also blanket the raid with down rank. Cthun - Lots of movement gives you time to use it quite a bit.

Hey guys! I decided to switch it up a bit and play mage on Elysium. But I've been maining a human holy priest for over a year in progression on VanillaGaming and my guild is currently in Naxx. First off I'd just like to say this guide is great! As a priest class leader and officer, I've written some priest healing guides in the past for guildies but none of them have been this comprehensive. I absolutely love healing, especially as a priest, and I really enjoy discussing the theorycraft and math behind a lot of the decisions we make as healers during raids. There a few things I would like to point out though. Maybe it's just because I hate dwarves in general, but I disagree with this. Fear ward is strong for certain fights and stoneform has uses in AQ but I think you are undervaluing the benefit of 5% spirit from humans. Your tanks should be good enough to handle stance dancing and not need your fear ward. Spirit is just so op for priests, why pass up the opportunity to get a free 5% bonus?? You also don't mention Desperate Prayer at all which I think is strange. I can't tell you how much I love having that instant cast self heal. It has saved my life too many times to count. As far as talents go, they are pretty cookie cutter but I would recommend something more like this: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#bxT0sV0oZdxtcc0Vx Personally, I see no value in having 3/3 Imp PW:S. I have found that there are very few fights that I make good use of it and have moved those points into Silent Resolve. You can generate an enormous amount of threat during trash and some boss fights through GH, PoH, and spamming max rank FH once you've got some good gear. Fade just doesn't cut it sometimes. 4/5 SR plus threat reduction enchant on your cloak does wonders. It's generally accepted to have 1 priest in the raid be your designated "Renew Priest." This guy should be using 3/3 Imp Renew. I'm always partial to having 1 or 2 points in it though because most people are doing dungeons and what not outside of raid. Holy Nova is also completely preferential. I enjoy using it as kind of like a down ranked / instant cast PoH. But you don't use it very often so it is completely up to the player. Every priest should have Divine Spirit imo. There's no reason not to get it simply because there is no other worthwhile talent to replace it with. It saves mana and raid time if all priests have it. Consumables: Don't forget Blessed Sunfruit Juice and Sagefish Delight as alternative cheaper food buffs. I tend to save Nightfin Soup for healing intensive fights / long fights / progression. Blessed Sunfruit Juice can be bought from Argent Dawn vendor at Light's Hope Chapel. I like using that and Sagefish Delight for farm content. Here is a link to a Pre-BiS list that just has more options: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j81TgG0p_HrYKajiUiQfYIoSUx1culzy2u_Fc4wtiS8/edit#gid=1672142728