[Warrior Priest] Path of Grace

[Inquisition]

I have been looking into the path of grace which is a melee healer. Curious to see how it is. Is it viable and if so tips appreciated.

[Stmichael1989]

It's a good option for leveling right now, and as soon as the devs get the patcher working ("Soon", they say) they're going to be doing some overhauls.

It has problems in its current form. Melee WP's get stuck in fairly easily and have only a m2 to break roots. One might think that wouldn't be a problem, but destro is stocked wall to wall with tanks. Between their block and parry, the naturally high toughness, and all that armor, you won't get much healing output.

I say it's good for leveling, however, because most people haven't stacked much armor in lower tiers. So if you do get to a squishy magus or witch elf, you're good to go.

A few tips:
Sigmar's Shield got changed for the better. Take it, it will save some people from focus fire.
Use Divine Assault as often as you can. It's your largest heal, and using your other abilities will refill your RF well enough.
Stack strength, not willpower. You want strength for damage and your lifetaps scale off the damage you deal.
Divine Fury and Fanaticism reduce the healing of only your cast heals, not your lifetaps. Slot both, they are invaluable.
Use your detaunt wisely. I mostly save it for sorcs, as they can and will kill you in the span of about 2 global cooldowns.
Spec renown into parry and dodge/disrupt. You should get enough crit from gear and your initiative debuff.
Find a good tank friend and get him to guard you. Ironbreakers offer you the most, but knights and swordmasters have their advantages too. The two of you will do more good for your team than him guarding a random derp DPS.

[Merrillian]

So going from your advice, stacking defense and weapon skill might be worth it over strength/will?

Here's the only part of the build I feel definitive on:
http://www.ror.builders/career/warrior- ... ,4154,4184

With all of the patch notes and redactions I'm confused whether I have to slot intimidating repent if I have a 2h equipped, would appreciate any clarification on that.

In a melee train leading the prayer looks great, but you give up a tactic and it's useless solo.

[Stmichael1989]

It's a bit of a balancing act that each melee WP figures out for themselves in their own way. On live with split sovereign/tyrant for stat bonuses I was able to spec my renown, talismans, and potion into weaponskill. Helped a lot, but I was already pushing strength cap due to gear and sigmars fist. I doubt anyone could do the same with this gear level.

Don't get any willpower. You don't make use of it with divine fury and fanaticism. Stacking defenses over offensive stats is one way to approach it, but it comes at a price. I personally slotted full armor tali's and got the 3 resist rings. Works decently well, but I don't get big burst self heals when I find a soft target. So it's a trade off.

You're correct about intimidating repent. They swapped position in wrath for hastened divinity and got rid of the innate AOE detaunt on 2 handers. You do have to slot IR to get the benefit.

Leading the prayer is somewhat of a personal preference thing. If you're in group with guys you trust that can get you a lot of procs from it, it'll provide some good survivability. Experiment with it. Some like it, some don't.

[Merrillian]

Cheers!

[Inquisition]

I think the stat lines (in our current state....aka pre-client control) will depend on how, where, and what we engage. If you are always beating on tanks then weapon skill should be used to some degree. The balance of strength vs defense is a trade off based on if you want to take less damage or heal through the damage.

I personally will be splitting between weapon skill and strength (~50% total) and the rest on defense (for gear and etc that can be chosen). This is because I plan on engaging tanks and spill over that gets to our other healers.

[Sigimund]

The weapon skill might not have such a big impact on your melee heals as they will either be spirit damage or heavily boosted by a fixed baseline heal.

It might help if your goal is to kill the tank though.

[Inquisition]

Just to keep the conversation going would anyone like to post suggested rotations ability rotations?

I am assuming Divine Assault should be used all the time and Sigmars Radiance should be the primary while Divine Assault is on cool down, but what other abilities would you stuff within the 8 sec cool down of Divine Assault besides Sigmars Radiance (especially from other tree once Grace is maxed).

I was looking at Sig Fist, Sig Shield, Sig Vision, Vow of Silence (when on casters), Castigation, Weight of Guilt.

Cheers!

[Stmichael1989]

Healers, and in particular melee healers, don't really fit within a rotation the way DPS classes do. For a DPS class, the goal is to maximize dps while making sure you stay alive. Rotations help with that because of the math behind it.

A healer is more concerned with keeping people alive. It's much more conditional than straight damage. I personally start off by tossing out Pious Restoration and Healing Hand (I know they're casted heals, but they add up over time.) Once I get into melee, I use SF and Castigation to maximize my damage potential, and thus my melee healing potential. Then it's a matter of balancing my personal survival to the healing needs of the group. If someone's taking a lot of burst damage, I'll start off with Sigmar's Shield and follow up with Divine Assault. If it's a more steady damage, I'll just maintain with the HoTs and SR. Since I'm always getting focus fired, I scan for good detaunt targets. Sometimes it's the melee train running at me, sometimes it's a sorc trying to blow me up. Sometimes there's both and I'm just screwed either way.

That's something you'll have to develop over time. Best of luck!

[roadkillrobin]

I personally use a hybrid playstyle and it is the highest heal output you gonna get when playing a WP/DoK. My heals are around 65% casting, 20% melee and 15% procs.
Its by far the moast fun healing playstyle of the classes, but in general its easier to just play it safe and backline heal. Im sure they are working on a fix for this tho. Im fairly new to the playstyle myself but I get decent ressault out of it and it has revitilazed my joy of playing the class.

Even tho it's playstyle has more to do with possitioning in midrange or frontline then backline rather then spec, here is the spec im running for WP.

http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=wp; ... :4159:4169:

Renown: http://waronlinebuilder.org/#renown;000 ... 4000000000

Full deftard talismans and jewlery.