Talent questions...

[Fechak]

I know (especially with Sorch) there are healers out there that have toyed with talents more than I have... but I wanted to run this build by anyone that cared to take a look. I don't really like going too deep in any tree, so I went for a healty mix of disc/holy.

Build 1.0

Thoughts?

[Sorcha'Rei]

That looks pretty good to me. I haven't found that getting a deep mana pool is all that hard, so I might swap the 5 points in Mental Strangth for 2 in Holy Prayers and 3 in Holy Concentration.

In heroics and Kara, you will use Prayer of Mending all the time, and the 20% reduction in mana cost will probably make up for the loss of mana from the disc talent. I also find that the clearcasting heals are a big boon, even though it's a random procc.

For comparison, this is the specc I use for Rhaina. I used to have Inner Focus, but I traded it for Holy Nova bacause there are times when having an AoE makes all the difference.

Still, your specc should work fine.

A different small tweak you could make would be to drop one point off Spiritual Healing and pick up PI. It can oomph up your healing spells on command, and is very useful to use when you have a trinket procc (or an on-use trinket) that does the same thing. Plus, it makes mages follow you around and offer you endless free mage water if they think you might toss a PI on them from time to time ;-)

[Fechak]

hehe, I've actually never been a fan of non-emergency cooldowns cause I always forget to use them.

I'm a mana conservationist, so holy nova makes me twitch! hehe, I guess fully buffed up with +heal it could make itself useful. I'll toy with the idea, I just really like Inner Focus for emergencies.

I've actually spent the last 6 levels in shadow just so I can cruise into 70, so I haven't yet used Mending. It's a good idea however, and depending on my final playstyle, I'll give that a shot.

For now, I need the extra 10% in mana, maybe when my gear catches up I'll swap it out in another tweak.

[Fechak]

Also, I was toying with the idea of getting rid of improved shield... how useful is that really? I would think that before that 15% gets ticked off by an average mob, I can get a heal off... if not they're dead anyway.

[Sorcha'Rei]

Imp Shield is a waste of talent points in my opinion. If unimproved shield won't buy you enough time to get off a heal, then Imp Shield isn't going to change that.

I hated the thought of Holy Nova, and it's true that the annoying TIME FOR FUN guy tends to blow all my mana using it, but it is HUGELY useful for doing the manaforge quests in Netherstorm, and for healing in the sewer in Shattered Halls, where the little oozes will interrupt all your non-instant heals. It's very mana-intensive, but when I need it, I REALLY need it. And I always forgot to use IF for anything other than buffing, anyway.

I looked at your gear in the armory, and I agree that the extra int is probably useful to you at this point.

I can't overstate the importance of Prayer of Mending, I don't think. It makes many fights in heroics and KZ possible. One incredibly nice thing about it is that the threat from the heals accrues to the person who gets healed, not to you. This means it is almost always worth tossing it on a tank, especially one who is having trouble holding aggro when you crit two heals in a row. It also buys you time to get your first heal off at the start of the fight, which lets the tank build threat.

[Fechak]

Actually my current gear is built for +damage in shadow, and not my healing set. That said, even with my healing set, I could benefit from the +int.

I suppose shaving off 2% to my healing might be worth getting holy nova. I'll move those other points from imp shield into something more useful... more to come I'm sure.

[Fechak]

Build 1.1

[Sorcha'Rei]

I done stared at this for 15 minutes and then compared the URLs. How is this different than 1.0? (Grats on 70, BTW!)

[Fechak]

Oops, sorry - fixed that.

Basically took the points out of Imp. Shield and put them into holy, also moved one point from crit into +heal. Thanks, btw

[Sorcha'Rei]

That looks like a very strong healing build with some considerable discipline oomph. I'll be interested to see how (or if) you tweak it after you play with it some.