I’m going to go into a huge 3.3 Discipline versus Holy priest healing war again, this time in regards to talent mechanics.

I’m sure if you’re a Wrath of the Lich King priest veteran, you’ve heard of Serendipity; it’s that Holy talent located near the end of the tree. Through its 3-point splendor, priests can lower the casting time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing by up to 36%. This is the equivalent to the Discipline Borrowed Time, which grants 25% spell haste to the next spell cast after Power Word: Shield.

Why Holy is a more enjoyable and strategic experience versus Discipline

I call Serendipity “the fun of Holy” because it requires priests to strategically rotate between Flash Heal/Binding Heal and Greater Heal/Prayer of Healing. It adds an extra dynamic to Holy healing that Discipline priests don’t have. Consider the two haste options:

• In the case of Borrowed Time, the priest can get 25% haste through one casting of one spell (Power Word: Shield) and may then apply the haste to any spell.
• In the case of Serendipity, the priest can get 12% haste through the one casting of two spells (Flash Heal or Binding Heal) and may then apply the haste to two spells (Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing.) Eww compared to the Discipline version! But then, the priest can get 24% haste through two castings of two spells or 36% haste through the three castings of two spells. Sounds cooler.

Discipline priest? No brainer, black-and-white rotation mechanism. Holy priest? Decisions, decisions, decisions, and a whole lot of strategy.

How to effectively execute Serendipity 3

When I try to explain to Holy priests how to use Serendipity, first I go over how to get Serendipity 3, or 36% haste. You’re going to want to get 3 Flash Heals as fast as possible, which is easier than you think thanks to Surge of Light (SoL also drastically helps the mana efficiency of three Flash Heal casts.) This is the rotation I use when raid healing and trying to get Serendipity 3:

1. Prayer of Mending, insta-cast
2. Circle of Healing, insta-cast, usually crits at least one of the five targets (CoH glyph FTW)
3. SoL Flash Heal, insta-cast
4. Another Flash Heal, at regular casting time and mana expenditure
5. Prayer of Mending crits, another insta-cast
6. Serendipity 3!

Of course, it’s not always that ideal, but you’d be surprised how often this magic flows. I call it the “music effect” because you develop a GCD beat, with a longer note / slightly more time spent on that regular casting time Flash Heal. After you reach Serendipity 3, you can choose to Greater Heal the tank or further beef your raid heals with a Prayer of Healing. You can also squat on Serendipity 3 if you think big damage is coming soon and you want to react fast. Keep in mind that Borrowed Time does not let you squat on its effects for nearly as long as Serendipity.

To make this even more complicated (and therefore fun), let’s go back to how Serendipity is proc’d with Binding Heal. I’d venture to say a good 50% of healing priests space on the fact they have Binding Heal; before Serendipity, I hardly cast it. There really is no excuse in wasting mana healing yourself though when you can use it to heal yourself and someone else; so whenever you take splash damage (or PvP ouchies), turn to your Binding Heal to get yourself to full–someone else to full!–and get your Serendipity proc. It’ll make you feel like the l33tsauce.

When to use Serendipity 1 and Serendipity 2

Now that you know how to strategically Flash Heal and/or Binding Heal yourself to Serendipity 3, let’s go back to Serendipity 1 and 2. Remember that Serendipity 1 gets you 12% haste and Serendipity 2 gets you 24% haste.

Serendipity 2 is dangerously close to the same effect as Borrowed Time, except it only applies to two spells. (When I healed Discipline, I strangely found myself Borrowed Timing my way through Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing 90% of the time anyway, so what’s the huge difference?) You can get yourself to Serendipity 1 in a flash simply through the Circle of Healing / crit! / SoL Flash Heal trick. Serendipity 2 doesn’t take much more, at a casting bar Flash Heal or an SoL Flash Heal from your bouncing Prayer of Mending.

And then you got to figure out whether Serendipity 1 or Serendipity 2 is worth casting.

In high-stress battles, the FH / FH / GH / FH / FH / GH rotation works like a charm. It could be because 24% from Serendipity 2 is so similar to 25% from Borrowed Time that I feel cozy with that method. When the raid is taking continuous, mind-throbbing damage, that’s when Serendipity 1 comes in; something as simple as a quick CoH / crit! / SoL Flash Heal on tank / Serendipity 1 PoH can do the trick.

There are situations for all stages of Serendipity and that is part of why the strategy is so much greater than the static Discipline counterpart. GG, Borrowed Time.

I missed the NaBloPoMo post yesterday (whoops!), but hopefully the Serendipity guide was well worth it. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments with your own Serendipity pointers.

I’ve looked at smite priest PvP before, but I thought I’d touch back on this topic since smite is more attractive to PvP’ers than PvE’ers. Last time I focused more on battleground PvP; let’s take a look at smiting in arenas!

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

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!