I’ve switched from the role of a Holy priest in ICC-10 to Discipline priest in ICC-25. I’ve also finally had the pleasure, in a rather short span, of seeing all the ICC bosses – heroic Putricide included. Crazy! I intend to continue looking into Holy and Smite specs, but my recent shift in guilds may put those on the wayside until the release of Cataclysm. Or, at the very least, it will put my practice of them on the wayside.

For all you Holy and PvP lovers though, I am keeping my alternate spec Holy PvP, and expect some Holy PvP videos from me in the near future. I’m just dealing with some touch-ups to my PvP gear. I tried Smite spec in PvP the other night, but my druid boyfriend quickly lamented about the lack of healers and I switched back to classic (and yet still not oft used) Holy PvP.

Do not expect Discipline PvP articles on this blog because, quite frankly, it’s not my playstyle – although feel free to discuss it as much as you’d like!

I’m looking forward to the potentiality of Serendipity-like benefits to Smite in Cataclysm and hope this drives my non-raid-healing spec into a Smite direction. I’ll be leveling a Worgen rogue with my boyfriend and his buddy in Cataclysm, and if I understand rogue PvP fun factor right, that will make me abandon priest PvP pretty much altogether. Anyone out there crazy enough to level priest twice just to have a priest Worgen (before race changes include Worgen, of course)?

Update: For kind readers and Kalecgos stalkers, we are currently guildless due to things not working out on a social level in Pirate. (I thought they talked way too little and were way too serious, then they picked a fight with one of the people that joined with me. I didn’t wait for strike three.)

I’m sure they’re a great guild and it just didn’t work out for us. We’re just too far into WotLK, which I’m not a huge fan of, and too close for Cataclysm, for me to waste any mental energy in it.

I’m in Vegas at the moment, but I’ll be doing an update soon on some of the predicted changes on see for Smite in Cataclysm due to its current alpha! (I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting into the beta and then this blog will primarily change to that focus versus WotLK, as an FYI.)

So, the story. The first thing I did, of course, was comb around for smite benefits. A sad face struck me when I saw how they would be balancing the mastery system (it’s all healing fun for the Discipline and Holy trees), but then my shadow priest friend pointed out later the possibility of Smite being thrown into Chakra, the Serendipity-Replacement-on-Steroids.

Here’s Ghostcrawler’s quote:

The idea behind the Holy “cast three in a row” talent (it’s called “Chakra”) is that we’ve always positioned Holy as a versatile healer. This talent lets you shift into different modes. If you need to be a tank healer, cast three single target heals and your single-target healing is now better. Cast three area heals, and you can be a temporarily specialized group healer. We’re going to try to play this mechanic up with a cool UI to try to get that “I’m almost in the zone” feel. We’ll let it apply to as many types of spells as we can, perhaps even Smite for those times when nobody’s taking damage.

The way Chakra was described earlier in the post is an “improved healing state” that Holy priests will have access to. I imagine it’ll be deep into the tree to avoid Discipline priests getting access to it in addition to their already stellar bubbles. (Did I mention they’re finally doing the group bubble and — wait for it — LIFE GRIP!?)

The other thing I really liked about the changes – beyond the fact Smite has a chance, however small, of being as neat as it was in Burning Crusade once Cataclysm hits – is that they’re addressing Holy in PvP. Now, I already PvP Holy, so whatever they do will be a bolster in my stubborn land. Hurray for Discipline not being the only way to go!

To read more, check out the priest preview on the forums.

There are standard uses forPower Infusion, like when you’re chucking out your Smite spells or trying to get a fast ninja heal in. I’m not going to go over those. Instead, I thought I would point out four uncommon and yet beneficial uses of Power Infusion:

1. Mana Burn. Let Power Infusion speed up your Mana Burn rate in PvP.
2. Another DPS. Unless I’m in an epeen war while smiting, I find that dropping Power Infusion on another DPS caster is the best way to go. It’s saved me before from close-call enrage timers.
3. Another healer. Paladin healers that are cranking out the single target heals on a tank benefit from Power Infusion and will love you forever. Sometimes it’s best to hand it to them if you’re HoTing.
4. With Divine Hymn. Divine Hymn does a great job by itself, but if you throw Power Infusion on it, the healing rate is nothing short of ridiculous. You’ll be awed at your HPS during that time.

What are some of your favorite situations for Power Infusion? A couple weeks ago, we had a mage that two Discipline priests were alternating Power Infusion on — along with Heroism — and he doubled DPS in comparison to the rest of the raid. Score!

Enjoy your Power Infusion!

While the changes to shadow priests in 3.3 are catastrophically orgasmic, we smite priests still aren’t wiped entirely away from the picture. (Not any more than they were already wiped since the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King, anyway.) There are priests that, regardless of the differences in DPS, will always prefer the play mechanics of smiting over shadowing; if you stuck us in pure DPS classes, you’d have an epic mage vs. warlock showdown. Because of this, while I strongly recommend any priest that wants to do l33t DPS should switch shadow, I also advise that the priests that love smite stick with the spec that’s faithful to them and deal with the ridicule. After all, you’ve already listened to it for years; for expansions.

And to really understand just how much you’ve screwed yourself, I’d like to turn to the the bread and butter of smite spec: Surge of Light.

Why is Surge of Light screwing me?

Surge of Light is located in the dead center of the Holy tree, deep enough that Penance is not possible but early enough that Power Infusion is capable of taunting you. It’s strategic placement in the Holy tree (along with Power Infusion’s placement in the Discipline tree) forces the real smite priest to abandon the notion that they can just “cast Smite while healing” and design a real Holy DPS spec that falls short of the pure Discipline and pure Holy healing counterparts. Surge of Light is your lifesaver and your doomsday bringer.

I REPEAT:

There are priests that have tried to Holy DPS with Penance; forget it. You need Surge of Light and it needs you.

There are priests that have tried to Holy DPS with the Holy tree alone; forget that, too. Surge of Light leaves you room for critical things like Power Infusion and Focused Power.

Surge of Light makes sure that you design a smite spec that gimps your healing, but still makes you a better healer than the shadow priest. You’re a schmuck middle man. But it gives you free Smite procs, so you can’t judge it too terribly!

Does Surge of Light have an internal cooldown?

According to Sinespe on WoWHead, yes. Granted, it’s mighty difficult to test something that only procs 50% of the time to begin with, but he managed to grab a piece of his combat log over 7.28 seconds that showed the internal cooldown:

0.00: Sinetest gains Sinetest's Surge of Light.
      Sinetest gains Sinetest's Holy Concentration.
      Sinetest's Inspiration is refreshed on Sinetest.
      Sinetest's Flash Heal heals Sinetest for 0.(4985 Overhealed)
1.38: Sinetest's Surge of Light fades from Sinetest.
      Sinetest's Serendipity is refreshed on Sinetest.
      Sinetest gains Sinetest's Inner Focus.
3.14: Sinetest's Prayer of Healing heals Sinetest for 0.(6381 Overhealed) (Critical)
      Sinetest's Serendipity fades from Sinetest.
      Sinetest's Inner Focus fades from Sinetest.
      Sinetest's Inspiration is refreshed on Sinetest.
4.52: Sinetest's Flash Heal heals Sinetest for 0.(7644 Overhealed) (Critical)
      Sinetest gains Sinetest's Serendipity.
      Sinetest's Holy Concentration is refreshed on Sinetest.
      Sinetest's Inspiration is refreshed on Sinetest.
5.90: Sinetest's Flash Heal heals Sinetest for 0.(5032 Overhealed)
      Sinetest gains Sinetest's Serendipity (2).
7.28: Sinetest's Flash Heal heals Sinetest for 0.(7306 Overhealed) (Critical)
      Sinetest gains Sinetest's Serendipity (3).
      Sinetest gains Sinetest's Surge of Light.

Sinepse believed, from this data, that Surge of Light has a roundabouts ICD of 5 seconds. Pretty fast, but still there. You’re more than likely not going to push it unless your critical strike rating is out of hand. (And if that’s the case, I recommend Haste to get an extra Smite in during Holy Fire; see my Lvl 80 Smite Priest Guide for more tips there.)

How much mp5 does Surge of Light generate?

If you get a Surge of Light proc every 8 seconds (which is feasible with around 25% crit rating), you’re looking at 390.625 Mp5. This is also derived by Sinepse from the above combat log. One of the flaws to his research is that it’s taking Circle of Healing into account (which has the chance to proc on multiple targets), but I do not feel this should differ much given the fast-paced casting time of Smite with the appropriate Haste gear. I, for one, have no problems getting a Surge of Light every 8 seconds.

And what with mana being one of the key issues of smiting, you once again see how Surge of Light has destroyed your chance for Penance and yet taken over your smiting world.

Interested in reading about priests trying to find their way to smite spec? Then check out Surge of Light on WoWHead. You’d be amazed how many people know, either from reading or simple deduction, that this is the backbone of Holy DPS; the discussion of smite spec is always centered around these 2 talent points in the middle of the Holy tree bedlam.

Note that these items are friendly to smite priests and, as such, will come along with hit. Not that grand for healers! Check back tomorrow for the same list, healing priest style. (Shadow priests will also benefit from these items, but due to the nature of itemization between smite and Shadow, they might not be as ideal.)

In no particular order (I’m doing a circle around the WoW Armory doll)…

1. Chest. Ancient Polar Bear Hide. Ick, Pit of Saron. I’m a big fan of the spirit and haste on this (although you’ll want to make sure you have an ample crit rating before getting too much haste; see the Lvl 80 Smite Priest Raiding Guide for more on itemization.) What I like the most though is the fact that druids seem to take offense to the item’s name; lots of laughs. Alternatively, the Mord’rethar Robes will give you the precious spirit you need for mana regen if you’re already hit capped.
2. Bracers. Bracers of Worn Molars. Falric, Halls of Reflection. Crit and hit rating; totally designed for the smite priest save the lack of spirit! When you’re trying to pick which slots are going spiritless (since smite priests really need spirit on at least half their gear, if not two thirds), bracers should definitely be on the list. It’s hard to pass these up.
3. Off-hand Frill. The Shriveled Heart. The Captain’s Chest, Halls of Reflection. Off-hands are hard to come by, and this one comes packed with haste and crit rating. Of course, you’ll have to deal with one of the ugliest, level-30 graphics in WotLK.
4. Wand. Soulsplinter. Falric, Halls of Reflection. Get your hit and crit in one item with this wand. Wands don’t rain from the sky like some other slots, so it’s always a plus to find a nice one.
5. Gloves. Suspiciously Soft Gloves. Marwyn, Halls of Reflection. Crit rating, spirit, and a hilarious name? These are the best smite priest dungeon gloves around. Of course, with the lack of hit rating, it might not work if you’re still putting your first set together.

Looks like a lot of Halls of Reflection! Make sure to grab a good tank.

Stick around for other THE BEST entries in January from Johannah the Smite Priest.

Fuyuko brought up an excellent point in the last post about how difficult it can be for priests to make the switch over to smite spec. (Oh, but we’ll convert you all yet…) For priests that are stumbling upon one or more of our blogs in search of the how’s and what’s of Holy DPS, here are three recommendations I can make:

1. Don’t just respec and jump into a group! There’s a reason I call the Lvl 80 Smite Priest Raiding Guide a raiding guide, not an instance guide. Trust me, it works dandy for instances (there’s no way I’m paying respec fees between 5-mans, 10-mans, and 25-mans on top of the respecs I do anyway to randomly dabble in Discipline and Shadow), but you should be ready and equipped for raids before you even think about smiting. Fuyuko and my hit post make it clear on how difficult it is to put this gear together. I highly recommend either a) healing and collecting emblems [assuming Shadow makes your skin crawl like me] or b) doing what Fuyuko mentioned and just specing Shadow until you get your gear together. Easier to roll on hit gear when you’re the well-known priest DPS tree.
2. Try it out in the security of your own guild first. The new dungeon randomizer makes it so easy for you to just leap into the fray of a bunch of people you don’t know, but people are going to criticize/mock you. It’s best to at least learn the ropes of smite in the comfort of people that you know won’t “WTF” you for it before going out into the harsh and judgment land of random queue. That said, the randomizer is amazing for getting all the hit gear you need really fast.
3. Have dual spec. There are going to be times when you just can’t smite, especially if you’re currently doing ICC. It has it’s moments, and I’m a big fan for it (*looks around at the blog*), but you should always have a healing spec–or, if you simply have to DPS, a Shadow spec–to fall back on when smite’s weaknesses (like Saurfang’s enrage timer + a learning raid) are bringing you down.

Welcome, Fuyuko, to the… smite priest blogging… land… place. Make sure to go visit Fuyuko’s blog to read more about WotLK smite priesting!

Back in May 2008, WoW Insider featured an article in 15 Minutes of Fame about how “Arena team Smites its way to the top.” The team ranked 7th in the Ruin battle group back in the day.

In order to achieve this success, the 5’s team claims they rolled with four healer-type classes: Ental the elemental shaman; Iashu the holy paladin; Vorgestellt the frost mage; Molimo the balance druid; and Grackel the smite priest. They named their team MLH, after “Moonkins Love Heroism.”

Grackel mentions that as a shadow priest, he was always the first kill on the arena teams; the switch made all the difference. If you’re a shadow priest that is pewed into nothingness in arenas, smite spec may just be the thing for you!

“But this team was back in the Burning Crusade days!” you say; that’s why Johannah the Smite Priest is here to provide some PvP arena advice for Wrath of the Lich King.

What smite spec do you use in PvPing in arenas?

When I take the time to spec switch, I use one that is much more holy-based than the PvE spec I suggest for raiding. By moving deeper into the holy tree, I can acquire Blessed Resilience, which I find infinitely useful in my survival.

But most priests seem to be married to this idea of using Pain Suppression, so I’ll go with describing that one first.

THE PAIN SUPPRESSION APPROACH.

Most non-shadow priests that PvP do it with Discipline because of Pain Suppression. If this is your play style, you could roll with a discipline-heavy spec for Pain Suppression while still keeping the Surge of Light for Smite, kind of like this one (44/27/0):

With this spec, you’ll want to have the following glyphs:

• Glyph of Pain Suppression
• Glyph of Power Word: Shield
• Glyph of Smite

But then, Pain Suppression has a cooldown and is just another facet to add to your “stay alive” routine. If you’re like me and it’s just not working out for you, consider the Blessed Resilience smite spec below instead.

BLESSED RESILIENCE APPROACH.

I personally find that Blessed Resilience gives me more survivability than Pain Suppression. You can find Blessed Resilience incorporated into smite spec with a setup similar to this one:

With this spec, use the following glyphs:

• Glyph of Renew
• Glyph of Power Word: Shield
• Glyph of Smite

So why am I so in love with Blessed Resilience?

In addition to the obvious–3% more healing done–a holy priest can proc Blessed Resilience when they’re not crit. They’re going to need a substantial amount of resilience though before they start seeing this effect. The way it works: resilience is taken into account last, so that if your resilience prevents a critical hit, it will still be registered as a critial hit for purposes of Blessed Resilience, but your holy priest will not take the extra critial damage. Again,

1. Rogue crits you hard.
2. You proc Blessed Resilience. Now you can’t be crit again for 6 seconds.
3. Your resilience prevents the crit, so you actually just got the Blessed Resilience proc for free.

Blessed Resilience receives it’s maximum effects when it is stacked with Martyrdom and Blessed Recovery, for obvious reasons.

What does a smite priest cast in arenas?

Just like in raids, your viability does not come from being the max DPS’er or the max healer, but the fact that you can switch off instantly and perform better in both than other hybrids. You will want to keep up Prayer of Mending up and Power Word: Shield, and you will want to do your best to keep Holy Fire on your primary target you are Smiting.

Thanks to your investment in the Discipline tree (with either aforementioned spec), you will also be in charge of Mana Burn and Mass Dispel. Don’t let those pallies get away with bubbles!

Lastly, remember that holy damage currently has no resistance (although Resilience does affect it)–so the more pews you can get off without anyone dying, the better! And if your Surge of Light procs, that could be that extra damage or heals that you need in order to push someone over/away from the edge.

Any additional advice?

Taken straight from Grackel’s interview in 2008:

Ok, lots of readers want to hear it straight from a successful team: can keyboard turners survive in Arena?
Vorgestellt: NO.
Ental: No, LOL.
Iashu: NO.
Molimo: No, LOL.
Grackel: Wuts a keyboard turn?

Ages ago, I used to use the arrow keys. Stop.

Enjoy your smite arenas!

Further Reading:

• Resilience affects Holy damage
• Smite priest PvP spec
• Holy priest PvP spec

• Guild Wars. Forum thread, Smite priest good?
• Aion. Priest class guide with Smite as an integral strategy
• Warhammer. About the Warrior-Priest.
• Dungeons and Dragons Online. Read about the Cleric class, the arguable tabletop RPG predecessor to the WoW smite priest (though the spell of choice in that case would be Flame Strike)

Cheers to our fellow smite priests in other games!–sometimes I consider trying Aion out just to see what a flying, smite-viable character would be like.

Your PvP dual spec might benefit from holy damage

Holy damage is considered useful for a wide variety of reasons, and yet is only available to smite priests and paladins. Here’s eight reasons you might’ve heard why Holy damage is considered a great asset in any DPS situation–and whether it’s true or not!

1. There’s no resistance to Holy damage. This is true. Races and classes reliant on resistance as part of their makeup will find no solace against Holy damage, making it ideal in PvP.
2. Holy damage bypasses resistance. I’ve yet to be able to confirm this, but rumors still float around about how Holy is unaffected by Resilience. I intend on testing this tomorrow. I know for quite some time in Burning Crusade, this rumor had a ring of truth to it.
3. Holy damage hits undead  creatures harder. While some paladin Holy spells are designed specifically to thwart demons and undead, it’s not a general rule that Holy hits an undead mob any harder than anything else. You’re thinking too much like Final Fantasy here.
4. A Retribution paladin can boost a Holy priest’s damage. In Burning Crusade, Retribution paladins could use Seal of Righteousness to improve Holy damage. Unfortunately, this mechanic was changed in Wrath of the Lich King and no longer benefits Holy priests.
5. There are no abilities that reduce Holy damage. Mages have the means to reduce/absorb Fire and Frost damage; mobs everywhere can avoid Nature and Shadow. But are there any that spite Holy? Believe it or not, a few mobs in World of Warcraft have Damage Reduction: Holy; check out which ones are able to thwart your spells!
6. There are mobs that are vulnerable to Holy damage. Just like how there are a few random mobs that reduce Holy damage, there’s a few that take increased Holy damage–and they’re not necessarily undead! A good example is Vek’nilash. Nice and random.
7. There will be a Holy form released some day that benefits Holy as much as Shadow benefits from Shadowform. In Sunwell Plateau, there were priests that could use Holyform and started a speculation pre-WotLK. Talk about the new expansion seems to stir this up here-and-there again. Unfortunately, even if Holyform was released, it would more than likely only affect healing spells. Holy damage isn’t going to see anything useful here.
8. There’s only one wand in the game that does Holy damage. In vanilla WoW, this was true, and it was the Wand of Eternal Light specifically. You can find all kinds of random forum posts from the ancient days about it. Now, there are six of them, including Nurturing Touch from 10M Auriaya and Fading Glow from 25M Loatheb.

Do you know any random trivia that may be a real benefit–or a debunked myth?–to Holy damage? Feel free to share!

19. Mimimalism’s Level 19 Twink Priest Guide.

29. Warsong Gulch and Tamji the 29 Holy priest twink.

39. Mairyl from Gnomeregan, fun 39 Holy priest video.

49. Twink priest video and a 39 vs 49 twink priest discussion. Also, check out the 49 priest spec/gear guide!

59. A guide for 59 priests.

I’ve read about 69 twinks as well, but that just seems silly to me. Level to 80 at that point in my opinion.

Read more about Holy DPS twinking in this forum thread. Happy Holy pewing!