For those kyrian priests, when do you use boon of the ascended? The heal is pretty much garbage so is it more logical to use in a non-damaging phase and then benefit from the mastery buff afterwards? I have been doing mythics and raiding CN and have not found any intuitive moment to use it.
That’s always been the biggest problem with Boon of the Ascended: the ability hijacks our class, has a long CD, and it’s not immediate obvious when/how to get maximum value out of it without disrupting your other priorities.
Right. Because of this I am considering switching covenants. But I want to make sure I’m not making another mistake with another covenant.
I started my Horde Priest as Kyrian and I realized I didn’t like how the ability worked so I switched to Nercolord since this priest is Venthyr and I like Unholy Nova & the Shield a lot more.
People get blinded by what they read on guides and in simulations and sometimes forget to account for what fits our playstyle more.
3 Likes
Boon is a little jarring. It works well with Disc, because of Atonement transfers. You’re not losing out on your core rotation much, it’s just an extra big damage cooldown for heals.
As Holy it’s much more jarring, even moreso if you’re using Flash Concentration and are trying to maintain that buff. What I’ve found is, unlike Disc, it’s better to use Boon on trash/low damage encounters. Prioritize Ascended Blast, because it adds more stacks compared to Nova. If you’re seeing a need to cast Serenity or Heal prioritize that over Nova spam.
Can you elaborate more on Necro priests? Because from what I see on the various soulbinds, there is nothing really desirable. So is it just for the unholy nova that would be good to go necro?
Unholy Nova is complete garbage - don’t let anyone fool you otherwise. If you’re going Necrolords you’re doing it for Emeni’s buff.
That said, I went Necro at first and was extremely unhappy with it b/c Unholy Nova felt very unimpactful and costs mana instead of returning it.
In contrast, Mindgames is a very hard-hitting nuke, reverses spike damage, returns mana, and fits in perfectly to the holy rotation by basically replacing everywhere you would’ve otherwise used holy fire.
Sure, Emeni Souldbind is has the best benefits. Lead by Example is great to use when you are in burst healing situations and Gristeld Toes looks useful I in situations where you need the movement. Necrolord has good defense options which I like on the priest (especially Holy) it just fits my play style.
I like Venthyr more because of Door of Shadows and Mindgames but I think Necrolord is a solid alternative.
100% agree with this. I too went necrolord first as a holy priest. Unholy nova is completely underwhelming. Went to venthyr and never looked back
Venthyr way more fun and mind games is great.
2 Likes
I do love mindgames. But how are the soulbinds for Holy? Draven’s Built for War seems decent.
You’re going to have to make do with Theotar for now, which is no bad thing because the mastery proc is huge and my logs show it coming in 7 times in a 6 minute raid fight.
90%+ of the value of the entire soulbind system are the two potency conduits you get anywhere… the rest is just tweaking here or there around the edges in a way you’re unlikely to notice too much outside of the occasional rare moment.
Boon of the Ascended is good for countering Prideful, but don’t really know how else you would use it as a Holy Priest. Tanks take too much damage on Fortified week for you to break off and DPS for 10s to heal them.
It’s covenant for Disc only.
Caithyra, I notice that you are Night Fae holy priest which I haven’t seen too much of. With your numbers I’m assuming it’s good for both mythic and raiding? Damage reduction from the main ability seems quite decent.
I personally find it to be very good for raid healing because I can pop Fae Guardians a few times a fight and throw in some smites to get like 15k-25k mana back. There’s quite a few fights where you get some downtime to spread it out.
In M+ I don’t really use that feature unless I need too because I can drink between pulls and Prideful gives you infinite mana for a minute.
The damage reduction portion I pop as a defensive CD in M+ to drop on the tanks because on some packs they get smacked hard and every little damage reduction helps. I’ll usually throw it on tanks when I’m recharging my Divine Hymn cd in raids.
The Benevolent Faieries (cd reduction one) in M+ I usually cast it on one of the dps (if there’s a Shadow Priest it goes on them) to help reduce their big CDs cooldown so they can burn stuff faster. In raids I use it on myself to reduce the cd of Divine Hymn so I can basically get Divine Hymn down to a 2.5 minute cooldown instead of 3 minutes which lines up nice with phases and I can usually get an extra Divine Hymn off in a fight.
I think it’s amazing and largely overlooked because of the popularity of others. The mana recharge feature is really my favorite thing about it.
1 Like
I’m still amazed Venthyr is only in third place for holy, when it’s top for disc/shadow.
I blame the lousy no-good advice WoWHead and Icy Veins (initially) offered on how OP Necrolords were supposed to be, plus… you know, the cosmetics of Kyrian. But gameplay-wise, both Venthyr and night fae are clearly being undervalued.
1 Like
Blizz changed so much before Shadowlands launched. Kyrian was like god-tier, but got nerfed hard at the last minute, and then Necrolord was popular, but got nerfed. Venthyr w/ Mind Games is pretty much the must pick for PvP simply because it’s better than any of the other choices by a landslide.
I have it bundled/bound with my meh trinket plume thing that prevents my targets death. Boon is kind a last resort for me healing wise when I run out of mana. It allows to do at least some cleave healing (usually in the melee group) and lets mana build up momentarily. But as I said, it’s usually the last ability I use. At that point, I won’t care about keeping flash concentration stacks up because I don’t have mana for them anyway. I chose Kyrian to bind with Kleia and use those valiant strikes to throw in effectively a free miracle here and there.
Thank you for the info. I was actually kind of wondering if the soulbinds made such a huge difference. Personally I am seriously considering switching to venthyr just because these last couple of weeks has been a disappointment with Kyrian. I actually like the Kleia tree but overall valiant strikes just doesn’t add up to much in raids or mythics. Add that to Boon being nearly unusable and I may just bite the bullet and switch.
This is awesome information, thank you. It seems that night fae gives holy some utility that is sorely missing in the spec. I am seriously considering night fae now. It just depends if I want to do some pvp or not. I imagine night fae is also decent for disc pve as well?
EDIT: LOL I’m now conflicted between night fae and venthyr. Wrote my replies at different times.
I don’t think boon is unusable at all, its fine in both raid and m+. In m+ i prefer to use it on a trash pack where i can get full value from the dps, so usually an aoe pack that doesn’t hit too crazy hard. Sometimes i throw up gs on the tank during boon as a safeguard. Alternatively its good on bosses that summon ads and you can use boon during the ad phase. For raid i use it as long as im less than 90% mana to take advance of the free regen, the mastery buff is great as well. Its best during ad phases or during raidwide aoe damage to get full value from the free spells and the eruption. I think the boon spells usually do around 4% of my total healing on heroic plus you get to regen mana from using it and the pelagos mastery. Kleia isnt a good soulbind until her final row of stuff gets unlocked though.
I think necro or venthyr is better overall for raiding but kyrian is definitely usable, and i really like having a dps cooldown available.