I'm in ur Outlands, holyin' my Priest
The Priests in my guild are falling off to the dark side, one by one. The most die-hard Holy one went Shadow today, after hitting level 64. However, I've refrained, instead having taken the advice of our guild's shadowiest Shadow Priest and specced into dps-focused Holy. As of level 62, I was 14/32/7:
Discipline (14 points)
5/5 Wand Specialization
3/5 Silent Resolve
2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude
1/1 Inner Focus
3/3 Meditation
Holy (32 points)
2/2 Healing Focus
3/3 Improved Renew
5/5 Holy Specialization
5/5 Divine Fury
1/1 Holy Nova
3/3 Inspiration
3/3 Improved Healing
2/2 Searing Light
1/1 Spirit of Redemption
5/5 Spiritual Guidance
2/2 Surge of Light
Shadow (7 points)
5/5 Spirit Tap
2/2 Improved Shadow Word: Pain
And as a matter of fact, I'm now level 64 and haven't figured out where to spend my two more TP.
I'm particularly proud of this build since I managed to pick up Inspiration while still keeping all the solo stuff I wanted. The way to do this, of course, is to skip the gimmicky, PvP-focused anti-crit talents (Blessed Recovery, Blessed Resilience, and Martyrdom). I've used it for two levels so far, mostly in Zangarmarsh, and it's done great. My usual casting order is Holy Fire, SW:P, PW:Shield, 2xSmite, and then wand till death. If Surge of Light procs off the last smite, I throw an extra one on if I'm not running low on mana. Now at this point, you may ask: why only if you're low on mana? Aren't SoL smites free?
Well, no, actually. That's my biggest annoyance with this build: Surge of Light is bugged. Here's the talent's description:
Surge of Light - Rank 2/2
Your spell criticals have a 50% chance to cause your next Smite spell to be instant cast, cost no mana but be incapable of a critical hit. This effect lasts 10 sec.
Which would be great for mana efficiency, right? Especially considering I've got close to a 20% holy crit rate. Unfortunately, the talent is not working that way right now. Instead, when it procs, it gives you an instant smite that is capable of a crit, but costs full mana. Nice for dps, but doesn't help on the mana front.
In my soloing gear at the moment, I've got +399 damage/healing, 18.35% holy crit chance, 6.5k max mana, and 203 regen. I can solo with the above casting order for usually 10-20 minutes before I have to drink, which is pretty sweet. And the best part is that I haven't had to sacrifice very much healing ability to do it. I keep a separate healing set (+584 heal, 16% holy crit, 6.7k max mana, 250 regen), and with that gear on I've been healing just fine in Blood Furnace and Underbog. So if you're a Priest and looking for a compromise build, you might want to give something like this a shot. Respeccing is very cheap now since gold comes so fast in Outlands.
My question for you: Where should my next points go? If you do the math, Spiritual Healing comes out to be an immensely powerful talent, at +2% to all heals per talent point, and even more so post-2.0.1 because it's now applied after your +healing gear. (My "gold standard" for talents is 1%: if it adds 1% to your output or takes away 1% from incoming damage, it's probably a pretty good talent.) On the other hand, I've been using Prayer of Healing tons more than I thought I would, so making such a costly spell significantly cheaper with Healing Prayers is attractive. Where do you think I should go from here? Also, are there any unusual builds that you've been enjoying for your escapades above level 60?
P.S. When I talk about "regen" in my different gear sets above, I'm referring to the "Mana Regen" stat that appears under "Spell" in your character sheet. Just in case anyone was confused.
