Leveling Oom

My school session finished last Friday, so now I have two weeks of free time to do whatever I please...at least to a certain extent, my work schedule changed from one day to six days a week after my boss found out about my holiday schedule (ops...), but at least I don't have to puzzle through problem sets or write lab reports so no complains there.

I figure it's not really worth the money to resubscribe again only to play for maybe a few hours a week for the next two weeks before completely locking my account until the summer. So instead, I opened up a trial account to test out my leveling theory crafting. With no gold, no party invite privileges, no glyphs, and battling server lag due to streaming, I managed to get to level 10 on Day One. Many will do better than that, since I spend half the time enjoying the scenery. Indeed, I miss Azeroth very much.

So enter Falaris, Night Elf priest on Illidan (US, PVP).

The first 3 levels are relatively easy to get through. Smite casting time is only 1.5 seconds, and it does good damage, so a mob is usually dead within 3-4 casts. Mana and health regeneration is insane, between looking at quest logs and finding the next mushroom, an empty mana bar is usually restored back to full. No drinking required.

At level 4, Shadow Word: Pain is learned. Although it costs a good chunk of mana, this spell does do good damage. At this point, my mana regeneration can still sustain casting this spell, so I went ahead and used the following cast sequence:

Smite -> SW:P -> Smite until 5% -> Weapon damage until dead

The trick so far (due to lack of wand), is to grab a fast weapon, rather than a high damage one. This means that if a quest offers you a mace and a staff, you take the mace unless there are green stats offered by the staff. My reasoning is this: when you attack a mob a level above you (most of the times), you will miss sometimes due to lack of hit rating. It's better to fail at a short small damage then to miss on a big hit that takes forever to execute.

At level 6, Power Word: Shield is learned. This spell is expensive, and with rank 2 Smite coming to the picture, your damage spells are no longer cheap, so you need to save mana as much as possible. Comparing with Lesser Heal, PW: Shield recovers less hp but it does prevent spell pushbacks so it's worth the mana. Rank 2 Smite surpasses SW: P in damage while costing less mana. So what I recommend from here on is to stop casting SW: P and simply go with the following rotation:

PW: Shield -> Smite until 5% -> Weapon damage until dead

Note: If the mob runs, Smite it down before it aggros another mob. Weapon damage only when you feel it's safe to do so.

At around level 8 ~ 9, you will reach a point where if you fight mob one on one, there is no chance of dying from their damage. To save mana, stop casting PW: Shield and simply Smite (yes single button faceroll) until the mob is dead.

Some quests will require you to fight an Elite. In that case, your goal is to bring down the mob before it kills you, so bubble up, dot up, and Smite away.

I think I'm fuzzing too much over the early levels, but I think 1-20 is probably the most painful period in any priest's leveling experience, so I hope this helps.

Edit: Don't forget to buff Power Word: Fortitude.

The Path of Light: 1 - 80 Smite Leveling Guide [3.3]

A priest's offensive arsenal is made up of two school of spells: Holy and Shadow. This guide explores the talent build followed by those who wishes to level using the Holy school of spells. It focuses primarily on talents in the Discipline and Holy tree.

Before we get started, here are some helpful tips

• Always make sure you have the most updated wand possible. Wanding costs no mana, so it's great for finishing a mob off when it's at 10% health.
• Level first aid as you go. Bandages cost no mana and the profession is great for getting rid of those cloth scraps stuffed in your bags.
• Save up gold for glyphs.
• Carry a few stacks of food and water, a few mana and health potions for emergency.
• When you see another class on the road, cast Power Word: Fortitude and Divine Spirit on them. They will most likely return the favour and give you Mark of the Wild, Arcane Brilliance or Blessing of Wisdom. These short buffs will improve your stats temporarily, making you level faster at least for a little while.
• Make friends, party up, drop a heal on someone in danger. You are a priest, play as one.

The build we are aiming for looks like this: 41/27/3 Holy DPS Farming Build

Spell Rotation

Level 1 to 3: Smite until dead
Smite is your only offensive spell besides melee, there aren't a lot of options here.

Level 4 to 9: Smite -> SW:Pain -> Smite until dead
For in depth breakdown, please visit my Leveling Oom post

Level 10 to 19: Mind Blast -> SW:Pain -> PW: Shield -> Smite until 5% -> Wand until dead
Mind Blast does a lot more damage than Smite at this point because of rank differences. It also takes a lot less time to cast. Use this as an opener so that it will be available again for the next mob.

Level 20 to 61: PW: Shield -> Holy Fire -> Smite x 3 -> Mind Blast or Wand
You will learn Holy Fire at level 20. From now on, it is important to pre-shield to avoid interruptions when Glyph of Smite is in effect. Wand until Holy Fire cooldown is finished, then move onto the next mob.

Level 62 to 80: PW: Shield -> Holy Fire -> Smite x 3 -> SW:Death
Use Power Infusion and Inner Focus every cooldown. Don't forget to cast PW:Shield because you now have the reflective shield talent.

Fighting Elites: SW:Pain -> Devouring Plague -> PW:Shield -> Holy Fire -> Smite x3 -> Mind Blast.
Keep DoTs up, refresh shield. Rinse and Repeat.

Shadow

Level 10: 1/3 Spirit Tap
Level 11: 2/3 Spirit Tap
Level 12: 3/3 Spirit Tap Maxed Out!

Holy

Level 13: 1/5 Holy Specialization
Level 14: 2/5 Holy Specialization
Level 15: 3/5 Holy Specialization

Major Glyph I: Glyph of Inner Fire or Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain or Glyph of Power Word: Shield.

At level 15, you will unlock your first major glyph slot. Since Smite damage at early levels are not that high until you reach Searing Light, you will need to cast Shadow Word: Pain as part of your rotation. Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain will give you some mana back. However, depending on your server's economy, this glyph might be priced higher than usual depending on player demand, so an alternative is to grab Glyph of Inner Fire instead.

Glyph of Inner Fire will reduce the physical damage taken by your priest by approximately 8%. Less damage taken means higher survivability and less downtime spent on casting healing spells.

Edit: A third alternative is to take Glyph of Power Word: Shield. The 20% healing from PW: Shield can save you a cast of healing spells here and there, thus saving mana and helping you survive better. It should also be noted that Glyph of PW: Shield can proc Surge of Light at later levels! (Courtesy of Luthvian)

Level 16: 4/5 Holy Specialization
Level 17: 5/5 Holy Specialization Maxed Out!
Level 18: 1/5 Divine Fury
Level 19: 2/5 Divine Fury
Level 20: 3/5 Divine Fury

Major Glyph I: Replace with Glyph of Smite

At level 20, you will learn a new spell called Holy Fire. Glyph of Smite will now come into effect so purchase it as soon as possible from your closest Auction House. Unfortunately, you will not get another major glyph slot until level 30 so you must destroy whatever glyph you have in your slot for now to make space for the Smite glyph.

Level 21: 4/5 Divine Fury
Level 22: 5/5 Divine Fury Maxed Out!
Level 23: 1/1 Desperate Prayer
Level 24: 1/3 Blessed Recovery
Level 25: 2/3 Blessed Recovery
Level 26: 3/3 Blessed Recovery Maxed Out!

Blessed Recovery doesn't heal for all that much but the keyword here is that it doesn't cost any mana at all. It works regardless of whether the damage you take is absorbed or not. So a small ticks here and there might just save a few casts of heals from time to time.

An alternative to Blessed Recovery is to take 3/3 in Improved Renew. Renew is instant and can be used on the run or in between pulls to fill your health up. It might be a slow heal but when you are in no danger of dying, it is your most efficient heal.

Level 27: 1/2 Healing Focus
Level 28: 1/2 Searing Light
Level 29: 2/2 Searing Light Maxed Out!
Level 30: 1/2 Holy Reach

Major Glyph II: Glyph of Holy Nova or Glyph of Inner Fire or Glyph of Power Word: Shield

At level 30, you unlock your second major glyph slot. If you are feeling a bit daredevil-ish, grab Glyph of Holy Nova and try out some aoe grinding. Cast SW:Pain and Devoured Plague on the first mob, and SW:Pain on all other consecutive mob you pull. PW: Shield yourself, and wait until all the mobs are gathered neatly around you. Holy Nova spam until everything is dead. Cast a Renew on yourself to even out some of the damage. If you accidentally pulled too many, drop a fear bomb (Psychic Scream) and heal up. Make sure you are at full health and mana before every pull. Don't try pulling too many at a time or else you will certainly die. Five is usually a nice number, but you can pull more if you think your mana pool can sustain it.

If you prefer single target steady leveling, grab Glyph of Inner Fire or Glyph of Power Word: Shield.

Level 31: 2/2 Holy Reach Maxed Out!
Level 32: 2/2 Healing Focus Maxed Out!
Level 33: 1/5 Spiritual Guidance
Level 34: 2/5 Spiritual Guidance
Level 35: 3/5 Spiritual Guidance
Level 36: 4/5 Spiritual Guidance
Level 37: 5/5 Spiritual Guidance Maxed Out!
Level 38: 1/2 Surge of Light
Level 39: 2/2 Surge of Light Maxed Out!

Discipline

Level 40: 1/5 Twin Disciplines
Level 41: 2/5 Twin Disciplines
Level 42: 3/5 Twin Disciplines
Level 43: 4/5 Twin Disciplines
Level 44: 5/5 Twin Disciplines Maxed Out!
Level 45: 1/3 Improved Inner Fire
Level 46: 2/3 Improved Inner Fire
Level 47: 3/3 Improved Inner Fire Maxed Out!
Level 48: 1/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude
Level 49: 2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude Maxed Out!
Level 50: 1/1 Inner Focus

Level 51: 1/3 Meditation
Level 52: 2/3 Meditation
Level 53: 3/3 Meditation Maxed Out!
Level 54: 1/3 Improved Power Word: Shield
Level 55: 2/3 Improved Power Word: Shield
Level 56: 3/3 Improved Power Word: Shield Maxed Out!
Level 57: 1/3 Mental Agility
Level 58: 2/3 Mental Agility
Level 59: 3/3 Mental Agility Maxed Out!
Level 60: 1/1 Soul Warding

Level 61: 1/2 Reflective Shield
Level 62: 2/2 Reflective Shield Maxed Out!

At level 62, you learn a new spell called Shadow Word: Death. This spell makes a nice finishing move and it is instant. If you like using this spell, replace Glyph of Holy Nova with Glyph of Shadow Word: Death. This will increase the damage done by SW:D by 10% for mobs under 35% health.

Level 63: 1/5 Mental Strength
Level 64: 2/5 Mental Strength
Level 65: 1/2 Focused Power
Level 66: 2/2 Focused Power Maxed Out
Level 67: 3/5 Mental Strength
Level 68: 4/5 Mental Strength
Level 69: 5/5 Mental Strength Maxed Out!
Level 70: 1/1 Power Infusion

Congratulations on reaching level 70. From here on out, you have two options. If you wish to continue the path of solo leveling, follow this guide. If you are more interested in healing instances, try reading my other 70 to 80 wrath leveling guide which further breaks down the talents and explains some of logic behind it.

Level 71: 1/3 Focused Will
Level 72: 2/3 Focused Will
Level 73: 3/3 Focused Will Maxed Out!

The reason I'm recommending Focused Will before anything else here is to give you the option to start some serious aoe leveling via Holy Nova. Focused Will not only gives you extra crit, but also significantly reduce the amount of physical damage taken when you are beating on by a train of mobs.

As for pulling style, the generic is quite simple. PW:Shield yourself, gather up the mobs, activate Power Infusion and do Holy Nova spam until everything is dead. Use the Surge of Light proc to kill off the lowest health mob to proc Spirit Tap. Also, use Surge of Light to heal yourself if your health drops too low.

An alternative is the following:

1. Grind Holy Fire/Smite style until 25% mana (but 100% health)
2. Send out Shadowfiend (Offensive) on target A, activate Shadowcrawl.
3. PW: Shield yourself and pull target B,C,D,E,F,G etc.(as many as you can handle, but no more than 10) do this quickly.
4. Gather B,C,D,E,F,G neatly around you and run to Target A.
5. Shadowfiend will now expire, you should now have 90% mana. Target A should be at near death.
6. Activate Power Infusion and start casting Holy Nova.
7. The first few casts will kill Target A, its death will grant you Spirit Tap.
8. Use Surge of Light Smite to kill off fleeing mobs or use Surge of Light Flash Heal to heal yourself
9. Spirit Tap from target A will now expire, target B,C,D,E,F,G etc will drop dead soon after, and a second Spirit Tap will kick in while you loot the bodies

Sounds complicated? Perhaps, but the whole point of this is to make sure you have Spirit Tap up for the whole duration of your Holy Nova aoe, as it will boost your in combat mana regeneration significantly.

Shadowfiend has a long 5 minutes cooldown, so you need to make sure that you take full advantage of it when it's up. For this reason, it is not recommended that you use it on the same target you are smiting, as the target will likely die before your Shadowfiend expires.

Level 74: 1/3 Enlightenment
Level 75: 1/3 Rapture

Rank 1 Rapture will essential reduce the mana cost of your PW:Shield by 50%

Level 76: 1/2 Aspiration
Level 77: 2/2 Aspiration Maxed Out!
Level 78: 2/3 Enlightenment
Level 79: 3/3 Enlightenment Maxed Out!
Level 80: 1/1 Pain Suppression

At level 80, you will unlock your final major glyph slot.

Congratulations on reaching level 80. I hope you have enjoyed Smite leveling so far, but the fun has just started.

The 41/27/3 build you now have at level 80 is actually a farming build designed specifically for doing daily quests. So use it as a dual-spec option for saving up that epic flyer or other things required for the many gold sinks Blizzard have made for us.

Major Glyphs: Glyph of Smite, Glyph of Holy Nova, and Glyph of Shadow Word: Death (single target heavy)/Glyph of Inner Fire (aoe heavy)

Minor Glyphs: Glyph of Levitate (for fun). The other two slots are completely up to you.

Designing My Own Priest Talents/Glyphs for the Next Expansion

With the announcement of the new expansion, I'm quite excited to see what the class designers have in mind for the priest class. Well...actually I just have nothing to write at the moment so I thought I'll make up my own. The idea here is to favour Holy DPS but not to the point of destroying class balance - ie. nothing too overpowered.

Glyph of Holy Fire - Reduce the cooldown of Holy Fire by 3 seconds and increase its damage over time component by 15%.

Holy Fire cooldown ruins smite rotation, so remove it.

Glyph of Surge of Light - Your Surge of Light will automatically fire a non-critical Smite at the enemy when triggered. This effect costs no mana and does not consume a global cooldown. However, your Surge of Light no longer affects your Flash Heal spell.

GCD of Surge of Light ruins smite rotation, remove it, but not let it affect Flash Heal so that healing priest won't go into god mode.
Talent Fix:

Searing Light 3/3 - Increase the damage of your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova, and Penance spell by 5/10/15%

10% damage increase is not enough, let's increase it slightly.

Holy Precision 3/3 - Increase your chance to hit with offensive holy spells by 1/2/3% and reduce the mana cost of your Smite, Holy Fire, and Holy Nova spell by 5/10/15%

No one wants to carry 600 spell hit rating on their gear at level 85, don't leave us out with the heavy duty gear please.

Improved Spirit Tap 2/2 - Your harmful spells have a 3/5 % chance to grand you the effect of Spirit Tap during combat.

This will benefit our mana regeneration. It's also great for leveling and the talent is still beneficial to shadow priests. I see this as a build in mana trinket.

NEW* Martyrdom 1/1 (Replacing Lightwell) - Activate Spirit of Redemption at will. When the effect ends, the priest's health is reduced by 50%. 3 minutes cooldown.

Lightwell sucks, no one knows how to use it. Priests have been crying about it for years now. I figure it's only logical to have a talent related to Spirit of Redemption, why would you set it as the prerequisite otherwise? I added in the side effect because the talent is overpowered in pvp otherwise. But it is still useful in pvp, just pop guardian spirit after this, heal up and your guardian spirit will reset to 1 minute cooldown.

So what do you think? Feel free to post ideas on your own blog. Let me know and I will link your post back to here.

Response Posts:
Smite Priests and the Mastery System by Kourtnie McKenzie

Surge of Light vs. Non-SoL: Not So Serious Version

This is my most recent attempt at number crunching Surge of Light vs. non Surge of Light. And no this is not a well planned "serious" post, I'm doing this for two simple reasons: 1. To show that this blog is not dead, and 2. To hope that I can attract a wow math wizard somewhere to verify my calculation. (I'm very unsure about my method of calculating this) I'm incapable of developing a straightforward formulas for every possible variable combination (lack of brain I apologize) so I'm using an excel sheet to help me generalizing numbers, just so I can see the range of things.

So let's get down to business, what we are looking for is whether Surge of Light actually improves the dps output of a 37/27/7 Holy Fire Spec (I say Holy Fire because without it, Smite nuke numbers are low).

Assumptions:

• You have enough haste to enable 1.33 global cooldown and 4 x smite in every holy fire DoT duration.
• Cast duration is 272 seconds (4 and half minutes non stop approximately)
• 24 cycles: 24 Holy Fire, 96 Smite, so we have a total of 120 casts.
  
• Ignoring damage done by other spells
• Hit capped, 2000 spellpower, 37/27/7 pure holy dps build

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/2585/screenshotlc.png

Top table is with SoL, bottom table is not. Blue represents "real time", orange represents "ideal time or pure dps"

The Smite glyph has a lot of limitations, the fact that holy fire DoT runs shorter than Holy Fire cooldown creates "gaps" in between casting. During these gaps, casting Smite un-glyphed is inefficient, it also reduces the effectiveness of haste, since the primary advantage of a SoL smite is that you spend only 1.33 seconds casting it instead of 1.74.

As you can see, in "Real Time", SoL dps is lower than non SoL dps, but that is perhaps compensated with filler spells such as SW:Death or Mind Blast, since 1.74 seconds normal smite won't allow you to squeeze those spells into your rotation (at least not as many).

However, if you were to assume "pure dps" calculated ignoring spell cooldown and waiting times, SoL spec will have higher dps output than non SoL build up to and until 80% critical strike rating.

Note: spreadsheet not done with easy understanding in mind, it's just a quick sum up of what I imagine the calculation should be, some columns should be ignored as they are used to check formulas and consistency.

Serious Blow to Holy DPS: Heartcrashing Statement from Blizzard

08/04/2009 12:17:15 AM PDT

We have no intention of majorly supporting a Smite-centric, Holy-damage-focused priest build.

Smite is there to give you something to hit at low level and give you some ability to do damage in a Holy or Disc build. But we don't expect it to do competitive dps with a Shadow build. Shadow is your dps spec.
_____________________
Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer

Source: WoW US Forum

The statement is harsh but never the least unexpected. *goes back to target dummy* No I am not closing this blog. I have had too much fun frying hordes with 6k smite crit to quit at this point.

Holy Fire Damage Calculation

DD - Direct Damage
DoT - Damage over Time

DD Tooltip Dmg = (Tooltip Maximum Dmg + Tooltip Minimum Dmg)/2
Holy Fire DD Tooltip Dmg = (890 + 1130)/2 =1010

DD Base Dmg = Tooltip Dmg + (Spell Power x Spell Power Coefficient)
@ 2000 Spell Power
Holy Fire DD Base Dmg = 1010 + (2000 x 0.5711) = 2152.20

DD Total Dmg = Base Dmg x % Modifier A x % Modifier B x ... % Modifier Z
@ 2000 Spell Power w/ Talents: Searing Light (10%), Focused Power (4%)
Holy Fire DD Total Dmg = 2152.20 x 1.10 x 1.04 = 2462.12

DoT Base Dmg = Tooltip Dmg + (Spell Power x Spell Power Coefficient)
@ 2000 Spell Power
Holy Fire DoT Base Tick Dmg = 50 + (2000 x 0.024) = 98

DoT Total Dmg = Base Tick Dmg x Number of Ticks x % Modifier A x % Modifier B x ... % Modifier Z
@ 2000 Spell Power w/ Talents: Searing Light (10%), Focused Power (4%)
Holy Fire DoT Total Dmg = 98 x 7 x 1.10 x 1.04 = 784.78

Total Dmg = DD Total + DoT Total
Holy Fire Total Dmg = 2462.12 + 784.78 = 3246.89

Crit Dmg = DD Total x Crit Modifier* + DoT Total
Holy Fire Crit Dmg = 2462.12 x 1.5 + 784.78 = 4477.96

* Crit Modifier is 150% or 1.5. Only Holy Fire's direct damage (DD) component can crit. Damage done by DoT component will remain the same.

Side Post: Check Out My Chick Scratch on Deviantart

I picked up my paint brush again after so long. This is my latest piece, not the best but it's good for a laugh.

Tier II Transcendence

I think I will be drawing Faith next, probably on a Dwarf priest :D