Primary healer priest - choice of talents

[Nikodemus]

Well, after burning eh ... 1 + 5 + 10 + 15 + 20 + 25 + 30 gold on respecs I've finally tested everything worth testing and thought I had it just right yesterday. Then when I burned another 35 gold on another respec I of course ran into a problem with my optimal build ... didn't meet the prereq 25 points for the tier 6 talent in holy. Darnit.

Anyways ... here's what I'll definitely get:

Discipline:
Unbreakable will 5/5
+15% resistance against stun, fear, silence

Improved power word:fortitude 2/2
+30% effect on PW:F (at level 60 that's another +160 hit points to all party members)

Improved power word:shield 3/3
Without this talent you can't cast a new PW:shield on the same person again 'till after 30 secs. With the talent you can re-shield after 15 secs.

Mental Agiligy 5/5
-10% mana cost on all instant cast spells

Mental Strength 5/5
+10% maximum mana

Inner focus 1/1
Instant cast spell. No mana cost. The next spell cast after inner focus has its mana cost reduced to zero, and gets a +25% bonus on chance to crit. Casting inner focus and spell does not interrupt regen / 5-second rule does not kick in.
5 minute cooldown.

Total: 21

Holy:
Improved renew 5/5
+15% healing on renew

Spiritual healing 5/5
+10% healing on flash heal, (less/normal/greater) heal, prayer of healing

Subtelty 5/5
-20% healing aggro

Improved healing 5/5
-15% mana cost on heal and greater hea

Improved prayer of healing 2/2
-20% mana cost on prayer of healing

Total: 22

So that's 43 points, leaving another 8. The plan was to get focused casting in discipline (3 points) and master healer in holy (5 points) - but master healer requires that you've already spent 25 in holy.
So the last 8 can either be used on ...

Holy:
Improved flash heal 2/2
70% chance to not lose casting time when taken damage while casting flash heal

Spirit of redemption 1/1
All group members get healed ~1000 points instantly and another ~1000 points over 24 seconds when the priest dies

Master healer 5/5
Reduces casting time on greater heal by 0.5 second (from 4 to 3.5)

OR

Discipline:
Martyrdom 2/2
Grants "focused casting" (see below) for 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical.

Focused casting 1/1
Instant cast, 30 mana, 1 minute cooldown.
For the next 8 seconds the priest does not lose casting time when taking damage. (spells can still be interrupted by stun etc.)

Meditation 5/5
Allows 15% mana regeneration to continue while casting and during 5-sec rule.

So ... if anyone's made it this far and has an idea what I'm actually rambling about ... :)
21 disc / 30 holy
29 disc / 22 holy
Which one?

[Ironman]

21 disc / 30 holy

I'd go with that one. :D

[FuSs]

Holy:
Improved flash heal 2/2
70% chance to not lose casting time when taken damage while casting flash heal

Spirit of redemption 1/1
All group members get healed ~1000 points instantly and another ~1000 points over 24 seconds when the priest dies

Master healer 5/5
Reduces casting time on greater heal by 0.5 second (from 4 to 3.5)


spirit of redemption isnt worth it. once you are dead the group is in trouble whether they have one more tiny heal or not.
improved flash doesnt look great either. its 1.5s anyways and its only a tiny heal. but i dont play a high level priest and maybe you use it a lot.
the reduced timer on the greater heal really makes a difference.


Discipline:
Martyrdom 2/2
Grants "focused casting" (see below) for 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical.

Focused casting 1/1
Instant cast, 30 mana, 1 minute cooldown.
For the next 8 seconds the priest does not lose casting time when taking damage. (spells can still be interrupted by stun etc.)

Meditation 5/5
Allows 15% mana regeneration to continue while casting and during 5-sec rule.


focused casting looks a lot better than improved flash heal.
with a good tank you shouldnt get damage that often so the 1 minute cooldown isnt a great disadvantage.
to regenerate mana the whole time looks also good. its not that much but maybe it sums up for another heal in the end ;)


so its improved casting while under attack and permanent mana regeneration versus 0.5s faster greater heal.
not sure how much trouble you have timing your heals but i think i would take the discipline talents.

[Nikodemus]

@Shy;
You're absolutely right about spirit of redemption. It's *really* cool when it actually does save the day, but that is really rare ... and usually just means the group will have to wait for me run back anyways because they can't rez me :)

Improved flash heal is ... well, compare it to focused casting:
- focused is 100%, improved flash 70%.
- focused can be used to force through any spell: prayer of fortitude, greater heal ...
So well it's a bonus, but nothing important.

The reason to use those 3 points (spirit of R, flash) would simply just be to get up to master healer.
Master healer ... is a bit iffy. One one hand, it's a quite small bonus for such a huge talent point investment (30 points!). One the other hand, the main problem with greater heal *is* the casting time. -0.5 seconds is not enough, but it does help, that's for certain.

I think I do tilt towards the discipline talents atm ... it looks to add as much usefulness in instances as the holy talents, while giving me something that's really usefull while soloing (focused casting + chaincasting smite/MB = weeeee).

Also, a guy on the main forums wrote a very detailed post about how he's doing quite ok by going absolutely nuts with mana regen (460-something spirit, meditation, relying on instant cast spells etc.) ... might be fun having a look at.

But well ...
Retail is coming up so I'll have a good amount of time to decide while levelling AND there's a dev-started thread on the official forums that might lead to some changes :P