Random Thoughts & Tips

I play with very few mods, the only one I would really miss in a stripped UI is the focus frame, which Blizz will hopefully add to their default in the near future. Its kinda surprising that they didn't add it to begin with, but we'll let it slide since they always seem to be a few patches behind with implementing useful mods.

Focus Selection:
The first thing I do out of the gates in every game is set my focus target as I'm sure most people do.There's a lot I'd like to be able to keep track of but only one frame/quick target macro to work with. In the past I've been torn between what to pick but after playing around with different targets, the two best choices that I've come up with are:

1) Their main CC class (usually mage, sometimes warlock). This lets me see the poly coming before it lands and often gives me the time to pre-spam dispel or make my way out of LoS to avoid it myself. It's also a very reliable way of knowing when to cast SWD to break yourself out of polys (which is really not as hard as it may seem). I tend to use this in the smaller brackets (2v2 and 3v3) where avoiding CC can be game breaking. There are some really nasty CC chains that can put you out of commission for long enough to end the game and being the only dispeller on my teams, I really have 1 on-call break every 2 minutes.

2) Our primary target (the one we're trying to kill first). This is often my choice for 5v5 games since getting poly'd and CC'd myself isn't as big of a deal. In most cases I'm the focus target and even when I'm not, most teams will put their CC on dps (aka the warrior/mage) rather than the secondary healer. The only CC that I get hit with relatively often in the 5v5 bracket is fear, so as long as I keep fearward on and have my trinket up, I'm in good shape.

Now, for the actual focus selection. It allows me to bind a dispel focus target macro which speeds up offensive dispels significantly and it lets me keep track of their life. Being able to predict a bop and pre-spamming dispel before it comes on will often wipe it as soon as its put on, which needless to say is pretty huge. Same goes for iceblocks, if you see a mage getting low, it's not hard to predict that an iceblock is coming soon. Having a mass dispel ready to take it off will speed that up by at least a second or two. You can also time your offensive fear on the pally when the target is low rather than sitting comfortably at 100%.

I know a lot of people assist their warrior to get a hold of the dps target and even though it'll work a lot of the time, I've found that it isn't always reliable. Not all warriors have tunnel vision and keep their target from start to finish. They'll switch targets from time to time to hamstring or pummel something. Especially when a BoP or iceblock goes off, most good warriors won't sit there swinging at an immune target for long and if you assist them at the wrong time, you'll quickly find that dispelling that BoP isn't as fast as you'd like it to be.

The Beauty of PoM:
Another thing that I've noticed recently is that a lot of people talk about pom being such a great heal but most of it seems to be because it's instant and it adds to the priest's array of "on the move" heals. That's true and all, but there's a second, huge component of the spell that gets ignored pretty often. With talents, it costs under 300 mana and heals for ~1500 per jump. If you look at it as an instant cast heal and disregard the bouncing component, its still a pretty decent heal. However, if you do factor in the fact that it can jump 5 times and heal for up to 7500 in a matter of a few seconds, it becomes quite possibly the most efficient heal in the game.

Now you're probably thinking "yeah, good luck getting it to bounce 5 times between targets that are taking consistent damage" and in a lot of cases, you're right. You'll get your 1-3 bounces off a pom and you won't complain. There are scenarios though, where you can use it to its full benefit if you're smart about your positioning, most of which involve a warlock. Think about any warlock team you've played against in 2v2 or 3v3. How often do they keep dots on only one target? Most of them have the mentality of "more dots on more targets = more damage = more pressure" so they'll almost always toss meaningless dots on anyone in range/LoS whenever they have free time.

If you notice that you and one or more of your teammates have ticking dots on them, its a perfect time to pom. Get near them and throw a pom off as you run with them wherever they go. Within 4-5 seconds it will use up all the charges and you'll both take 3k+ healing for less than 300 mana. Its a little harder to coordinate if you don't have dots on you and its both your teammates that do, but there's really no reason why you shouldn't tell them to bunch up if they have the opportunity. If the warlock thinks he's all smart and decides to only keep dots on the focus target, that's fine too, you've just reduced the amount of damage their team's doing to yours significantly. Just keep a renew on and it'll heal through at least half of his damage with just one cast every 15 seconds.

We often play an outlast game, so things like getting the best efficiency out of heals goes a long way.

Update: Woo, the dates are back on track. I made a few drafts of posts to keep ideas that popped up and I guess the date shows when the post was created rather than published.