The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
A little bit of testing on 2.2…
by Vonya
1) I was utterly WRONG about warlocks being able to send the frisbee on.
This ability will now be triggered when a player takes damage from effects placed on friendly targets.
That sure sounds like Lifetap to me! But I’ve confirmed, it doesn’t work at all. Warlocks are still not the sharing type. *cry*
2) Lightwell. I like it. Somewhat. I say that cooldown is way too long, but at least it’s something I’ll use now. We tried it out in a couple of heroic runs, and it came in handy. I don’t believe I’d have had any problems with healing the situation without it, though, which means my OFFICIAL position on the spell is that sometimes it’s kinda nice to have.
It DOES heal for a lot now. I basically tacked a one thousand in front of the old healing amount, so it now does nearly 1,800 (not quite) per tick. The warlock likes it. I wouldn’t advise someone to try and bend over backwards to get the spell, nor is it something I’d expect another priest in the group to have.
But it’s better than it was, and situationally useful. I’ve heard people argue that every spell we have is “situational” and that’s true, but the situation where I use Binding Heal (as an example) happens with far more regularity.
It is most useful in a fight where the ranged dps is taking periodic damage. Not steady damage, but periodic. And with enough time between hits that they can use the Lightwell and not have the effect canceled.
The cooldown makes it useless for reducing downtime between fights. The number of charges makes it less useful for use on longer fights (like Nightbane. I’ll use it on Nightbane, mind you, it would just be a lot more useful if it had…say…ten charges).
BUT, it’s definitely much improved over the old version, and I wasn’t doing anything with that talent point anyway. In Kara, I think it’ll be useful on every single bossfight, and that’s a good enough recommendation for me.
3) I was told that Frisbee got a new graphic. I didn’t notice a difference…did anyone else?
4) I’m still distraught over the warlock thing. I was so HOPEFUL. I was so SURE! *crycry*
September 28th, 2007
As one of those ‘all (actually most) of our spells are situational’ commenters… yeah, you’re right. Some are more situational than others. And having advocated in favor of lightwell for a long time, I’m coming to wonder (based on some stats work) if I’m wrong in choosing it. Specifically, I’m getting a total of about 5 ticks per well. Not five USES, five ticks. I’m not sure if it’s my timing (too early, combined with excellent skills, makes it unnecessary and so unused) or too new to the team to which I’m assigned, or what. 450 mana to fuel ~5500 healing-on-demand is still a good measure, but… is it good ENOUGH?
Yes, I’m upset too about the lifetap thing. darnit. And didn’t notice the graphic till I was reading the notes and went back to look — not that big a change IMO.
September 28th, 2007
@Kirk
Hmmm, I’ll do some testing on that. I THINK I’ve been getting five actual chugs on the lightwell, and not just five taps. I’m nearly certain of it.
And Warlocks who steal Frisbees make priests cry.
September 28th, 2007
/sigh. I had that problem last night. The ‘lock kept getting the frisbee and not sending it on. I’m new to this spell, so I haven’t played around with it much. (Although I was thrilled when I saw it ping back and forth from the warrior to the pally!).
AND, also not knowing much about warlocks, my solution was to ask the warlock to try to keep his distance from the fight. I’m not sure of whether or not he made a conscious decision to back up or if the frisbee just decided to skip him, but after that he seemed to get the frisbee less.
I too am sad that the ‘lock can’t get the free mana and send the frisbee on….that…..would….ROCK! Maybe BRK can slip in the change with the Fel Reaver pet stuff….
September 28th, 2007
Ego, it’s situational (grin). I get a couple of people who get one tick, and another who gets all three. And then it goes down before someone taps it for the fourth or fifth chug. Voila - five ticks.
It’s not the well, it’s my use (and the players using it) that’s the problem. The question in my mind, therefore, is whether I can sufficiently retrain myself and my teammates to use it more effectively, or whether I should move that point somewhere else.
If I were getting five taps of three ticks each, I’d have no concerns. 450 mana (a little less, actually) for ~20,000 health is… who cares if it’s only once a battle (other than wanting MORE)?
September 28th, 2007
Understand that some Locks, especially if running their Imps for the Blood Pact buff for their Tank groups, cannot help the distance issue and POM as much as they’d like. Yes, there is the possibility of placing the Imp in a certain spot near the tank on “stay” command, but then you run the risk of it not reaching the other 3-4 members of the group and really wasting the full effect of the +STA buff, or even wasting too much time in repositioning in a fight that involves movement.
I personally, just click the POM buff off me when I’m sure that I won’t be taking any unavoidable splash damage.
September 28th, 2007
OK, so Life Tap won’t send the Frisbee on… what on earth does “This ability will now be triggered when a player takes damage from effects placed on friendly targets” mean then? I’ll be honest, that phrasing never sounded like Life Tap to me, but I also couldn’t figure out what it meant.
September 28th, 2007
Galadria
I pegged Lifetap for that partially because I really really wanted it, and because Lifetap is an effect placed on a friendly target (the warlock to himself) that also does damage.
It’s possible they’re talking about DoT ticks or something. I thought it was already doing that, but mayhaps I’m wrong.
September 28th, 2007
Ego, I agree. I’d never found anything but lifetap and bloodrage that didn’t cause it to bounce, and given all the other fun warriors have bloodrage is immaterial. So yes, I just figured it was an awkwardly phrased statement that the things that didn’t trigger it by loss of health now do so.
September 28th, 2007
Ego, I think when “target = self” that’s not counted as a “friendly target”–which seems to be defined as “notself”.
So here’s my n00bie priest question about Lightwell (please don’t laugh) (too hard): Would it be worthwhile at all as a post-fight spell? My thought is, it would save on a few bandages and maybe some food as well (although, if people need stat food as opposed to, say, mage food, what difference?). As you might guess, I’m still trying to decide if I want to drop 15g on Lightwell at this point. Again–no heroics or raids yet for our group.
And it seemed to me I could see the frisbee moving around better last night, but I’m not sure (and I may be confusing that with the Pally’s bouncy shield spell). It seemed the targets could see the Frisbee better, but that may be because they’re more aware of it now.
September 28th, 2007
Kestrel - but Shadow Word: Death (which strikes foe and self) triggers it. sigh.
And yes, I’ve seen it as such. In fact it used to be a major suggested use.
fwiw, perfect timing seems to be after some players have some (less than 20% down) damage and between 3 to 5 minutes before the end of the fight - or if used in a room with multiple pulls, before the anticipated end of the last fight, all assuming the whole thing won’t let you cast two lightwells (inside the 6 minute cooldown). First room of slab with an early level (ie, slow and challenged, not grinding for fun and profit) group, for example, I tended to get two and sometimes three of them off. One after the first group pull, one around halfway through the room, and one near the second warlock fight.
September 28th, 2007
@Kestrel
I’d say the 6 minute cooldown makes it fairly useless for a post-fight wrap up. It CAN be used for this, and does a good job, but to me it’s a waste. If that’s your biggest use of it, save your gold, IMO
September 28th, 2007
Is it possible that the text is referring to effects like Seed of Corruption, or other ‘bomb’ effects that bosses use? It is possible that it wasn’t properly triggering off of these because the source of the damage (your corrupted ally) is ‘friendly’?
Just a thought.
September 28th, 2007
@Kestrel
I’ve Lightwell seen used as a post-fight spell, particularly when there are warlocks, or when there’s a couple deaths and the priest has just rezzed them all. It’s useful because it allows the locks to lifetap to full mana (or as full as it gets without them killing themselves). It can be useful after a particularly hard fight. You know the ones I’m talking about, where everybody’s down to 50% health, the tank’s just barely above 60% and nobody has any mana left to do anything else… It’s not used super often, but then again, not very many priests spec into it. =)
@Ego
I’m wondering if the tooltip is talking about DoTs or damage caused by spell reflect. For instance, those naga mobs in I think it’s Steamvaults (?), I know there are quite a few in SSC as well, or the boss in Mechanar that reflects stuff back at you. Oh and also those troublesome boar up by Ogri’la with their reflective shields. When I cast a spell and it reflects off the shield, I get a “target is friendly” message, and then my spell comes back and eats my face.
I’m wondering if perhaps PoM was not bouncing around after that because your spell injured yourself, so they fixed it so that it did? It’s just a hunch, but I could be wrong. =P I want to say that it didn’t used to, but I don’t usually notice and if I see it up on me, a nicely timed SW:D sends it off again so…
September 28th, 2007
@Megan
I never just click it off. Blast the mob with SW:D and you can do damage and make PoM bounce. A shadow priest and I did this in Kara the other day back and forth.
Light Well is the ability you love to hate. It is almost sooo useful. I use to have it just because it’s fun to play with, and most people laugh when I drop it. Cut the cool down on it down to say 3 minutes and it would be even more common. I would still like to see it work on someone if they take AOE damage, but break on melee damage. That way you could pop it near some casters and they could manage themselves. I know that will never happen though.
September 28th, 2007
@Ego/Lauchis
Such as our Disc Talent Reflective Shield? I never spec’d this before but was this causing PoM not to bounce?
September 28th, 2007
@Ego & Lauchis: Thanks. Pretty much has me convinced that at this point, it’s not worth it for me. As Nobs says, if the cooldown were some reasonable time like 3 min, it would probably be a staple for Holy Priests. But 6 minutes? Not for a non-raider, I think.
September 28th, 2007
Kestrel,
One point to consider - even if it is a once-per-fight cast.
The worst I’ve ever gotten is five ticks. With my +1200 gear that’s 8 hpm that’s on-call regardless of what else I’m doing. That’s comparable to GH with full talents and the same gear.
I’ve gotten 25 ticks, which with the same +1200 is over 26 hpm. That’s double what Prayer of Healing can do if it hits five players.
Yep, once per battle thanks to the cooldown gimps it (IMO). But worthless? Not in my opinion.
September 28th, 2007
@Kirk
Once per fight?
You must go through instances very slowly (no insult intended) We spend less than six minutes per ROOM in a normal instance. One that we are familiar with takes much less time. It’s once per bossfight, to be sure, but I’m definitely not getting anywhere near a once-per-fight cast time.
September 28th, 2007
(banging head on desk) Boss fight, yes. Or large room with several fights.
Not once per fight. Please pardon the brainfart.
September 28th, 2007
@Kirk
Aha! Yes.
I’ll be using it this weekend on our raid, and I’ll do an update afterwards. I’m thinking it’ll be very worthwhile though, for raiding.
September 28th, 2007
@Ego
Lightwell has saved my bacon during Netherspite. @#$% Netherbreaths. Especially when pots, healthstones and bandages are on cooldown. Netherspite hates me as much as I hate him. =P
I’ve never used it for Nightbane or any other fight come to that. There’s too much movement for Shade of Aran, you’re too spread out for Maiden (and anyway, the person who is Holy Fired might be clear on the other side of the room and needs dispels, not a heal, although that is nice too!), I guess it might be useful during Illhoof, but I’ve not used it either. (My old guild would group up to the side in the middle of the AoE, I don’t know how yours does it.)
September 28th, 2007
Nobs:
“I never just click it off. Blast the mob with SW:D and you can do damage and make PoM bounce. A shadow priest and I did this in Kara the other day back and forth.”
I’m a Warlock.
And Lifetap isn’t damage, it converts Health into Mana.
September 28th, 2007
@Megan
If your health goes down, it’s damage. *winks*
You’re right, it’s not REALLY damage, but from my healer’s point of view, it has the same effect as damage.
When my EgoLock does it, we say he’s “gnawing on his leg”. I actually have to train myself to call the spell by its real name.
September 28th, 2007
@megan
To be honest, I think it’s better if you just left it up. Once the priest pops out a new PoM, it should go away (the same priest can’t have 2 PoMs up at the same time, and so if a new one is out, the old one goes away). Barring that, it’d just sit out the 30seconds and disappear.
On the other hand, if you took some incidental AoE damage so prevalent in instances these days, it would send it flying off while healing you at the same time with no threat to your healer.
September 28th, 2007
The PoM graphic does look slightly different from my point of view (keep in mind, I’m on the lowest quality visual settings). When you fire the PoM, it’s got a tail. When you fire it now, it’s tail seems to be a bit more vibrant/sparkly and uh… smoke-trail like. Maybe it’s just me.
On the other hand, it could be a change from 2.1 that they remembered to document now.
September 28th, 2007
@Lauchis
I am usually throwing PoM on the MT as soon as it is up but anytime I see a caster get it that more than likely wont be taking damage I make an effort to throw it at someone who will take damage.
October 2nd, 2007
I personally do like my lightwell, i pop it most of the time only for boss fights (a perfect example would be second boss in SL after his mind control “time for fun” thing, people click on it while tank gets aggro back…) i think it’s worth the point. The only thing i dont like about lightwell is how people cant seem to uderstand when i explain to them how it works “no, tank, dammit, quit clicking on it right before you pull boss!” *rolls eyes*
Also i love the frisbee…
October 4th, 2007
This thread is reaching TLDR limit, so I might have already missed someone saying this, but…
“This ability will now be triggered when a player takes damage from effects placed on friendly targets.”
I think what this means is if a mob places some kind of debuff on a player that causes them to do damage to friendly targets. For instance, the overload debuff from the arcane whatevers after Curator. Perhaps POM didn’t go off because the damage was coming from a friendly target… This is just a guess. I guess it’s too late to test if this ever were the case!