Cleric Promised Heals/Interposition (and Why You Shouldn't Block Them on Raids)

Discussion in 'Priests' started by Clarisa, Nov 19, 2020.

  1. Clarisa Augur

    (Note: I wrote this post for my guild a year or so ago to inform them about promised heals and interposition, which some members were not aware of. I thought I would share it here as some still believe that these spells are "useless," mostly due to how healer mercenaries use them. Though not all clerics will find these spells as useful as others do, I hope most will agree that they can be useful when used by a cleric with a brain and that players should avoid keeping them blocked during raids.)

    Cleric Promised Heals/Interposition (Information and Usage)

    A few years ago, clerics received an ability called 'Promised Interposition' that provided a significant incentive to use heals from our 'promised' delayed heal spell line. The intent of this post is to inform guild members about Promised Interposition, hereafter referred to as 'PI,' and how it makes promised heals, sometimes referred to as 'PR,' worth casting.

    If you don't want to read the rest of the post, the main point is that promised heals/PR should not be blocked by anyone in raids, provided that there are clerics and/or druids in the raid willing to use them (and most of us here are). Please take a few seconds at the beginning of each raid to unblock them if you have them blocked for group play.

    What is PR?

    PR refers to the cleric and druid promised heal lines (most recent cleric version shown below):

    [58680/4814] Promised Redemption Rk. III
    Classes: CLR/113
    Skill: Alteration
    Mana: 1727
    Target: Single
    Range: 200'
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Focusable: No
    Casting: 0.25s, Recast: 15s, Timer: 12, Rest: 1.5s
    Duration: 18s (3 ticks), Dispelable: Yes
    1: Cast: Promised Redemption Trigger III on Duration Fade
    2: Stacking: Delayed Heal Marker (53802)
    3: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 2 is 'Delayed Heal Marker' and < 0
    4: Stacking: Overwrite existing spell if slot 2 is 'Delayed Heal Marker' and < 0
    Text: You are promised divine healing.
    Imbues your target with the promise of a *#1#1 point heal in %z. Will heal for *#1#2 hit points instead if the target is under 20% of its maximum at that time.

    [58683/19758] Promised Redemption Trigger III
    Target: Self
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Focusable: No
    Casting: 0s
    1: Increase Current HP by 53802 (If HP Above 20 Percent)
    2: Increase Current HP by 69943 (If HP Below 20 Percent)
    Text: The promise of divine healing is fulfilled.
    Heals you for #1 hit points, or for #2 hit points if you are below 20% health.

    When this spell is cast, the target receives a buff in their spell window with an 18 sec timer. When that timer has expired, they receive an instant-cast heal. The heal is focusable and can critical heal depending on the target's healing AA.

    Because of the long timer, these heals do not always land. When they do, however, the results can often be significant:

    [Sun Aug 11 20:32:21 2019] Foob is infused by divine healing. Foob healed itself for 240544 hit points by Promised Remedy Trigger III. (Critical)
    [Sun Aug 11 20:32:21 2019] Foob is no longer berserk.

    The cleric version technically can heal more if it lands on a target with less than 20% of their health as well, as it probably did in the above case bringing Foob out of his berserk state.

    The advantage to these heals is that they can land on the target when they are out of range of the cleric (when kiting, for instance) and provide an extra layer of healing in addition to the healing they are receiving from the cleric. A cleric can cast a promised heal on the tank on engage before he has taken damage and then begin casting fast direct heals. At some point during the casting of those direct heals, the 18 sec timer of the promised heal will expire, providing the tank with an instant heal. This has the potential to increase the amount of healing to the tank when combined with direct and duration-based healing like elixirs, making it easier for the cleric to keep him alive.

    It also could land when the tank does not need a heal, as he could be at full health when the timer expires. The thing about promised heals, however, is that they are often the best healing action a cleric can provide at a moment when direct healing is not necessary. Using the example from above, at about 2-3 seconds before engage, a direct heal would be a waste to cast, especially our fastest heals, which land in 0.5 sec. If a cleric spends 0.8 sec casting a promised heal instead, then the tank has 18 sec before that heal lands. While it still might not land and end up being wasted, there is a better chance that the tank will need a heal 18 sec from now (when he is actually taking damage) than 2-3 sec before engage when he definitely does not.

    Promised Interposition, or PI, is another benefit that a tank receives from the casting of the promised heal, which I will cover next.

    What is PI?

    PI is an additional reactive heal that a target receives with every promised heal cast.

    [16036/49511] Promised Interposition VII
    Classes: CLR/254
    Skill: Melee
    Target: Single
    Range: 1000'
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: No
    Stacking: Promised Interposition 7
    Focusable: No
    Casting: 0s
    Duration: 18s (3 ticks) Song, Dispelable: Yes
    1: Cast: Promised Interposition Heal VII if 15000 Melee Damage Taken in Single Hit
    2: Cast: Promised Interposition Heal VII if 15000 Spell Damage Taken in Single Hit
    Triggers *#1%n, healing *#1#1 health, if you are hit by a direct damage spell or melee attack that deals $1 or more damage.

    [16053/49514] Promised Interposition Heal VII
    Classes: CLR/254
    Skill: Melee
    Target: Self
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: No
    Focusable: No
    Casting: 0s
    1: Increase Current HP by 40000
    Text: Your promised interposition is fulfilled.
    Heals #1 health.

    In addition to the buff with the 18 sec timer in their spell window mentioned earlier from the promised heal cast, the target will receive another buff in their song window with an 18 sec timer. What makes this buff different is that if the target receives at least 15000 damage in a single hit (either melee or spell damage), they will instantly receive a 40000 point heal, which is focusable and can crit based on the target's healing AA. Here is what that heal is capable of:

    [Sun Sep 20 18:40:07 2020] Rune's promised interposition is fulfilled
    [Sun Sep 20 18:40:07 2020] Rune healed himself for 30151 (138756) hit points by Promised Interposition Heal VII. (Critical)

    [Sun Sep 20 18:41:18 2020] Rune's promised interposition is fulfilled
    [Sun Sep 20 18:41:18 2020] Rune healed himself for 82438 hit points by Promised Interposition Heal VII.

    [Sun Sep 20 18:41:51 2020] Shmid's promised interposition is fulfilled
    [Sun Sep 20 18:41:51 2020] Shmid healed himself for 63170 (164738) hit points by Promised Interposition Heal VII. (Critical) <-- even higher total on knights with healing aa

    Note that it can, depending on other healing buffs, crit for up to 165k.

    Though it might seem small, keep in mind that this heal is damage-reactive, meaning it happens at the point damage is received. Unlike the delayed promised heal itself, which isn't too accurate because of the 18 sec. timer, this PI heal is incredibly accurate. It will almost always be the first heal that lands on a target, provided he is taking enough damage to reach the 15000 damage threshold before the 18 sec timer expires. Unlike the delayed promised heal, if a target does not take 15000 damage in 18 sec., then they receive no healing from PI -- it just fades without doing anything.

    Taken together, then, PI and PR provide a target with an instant damage-reactive heal that is pretty much guaranteed to counter the first 15000 points of damage they receive in most cases, and a potentially useful heal that will land 18 sec. later, all in a spell that can be cast in 0.8 sec with a low recast timer of 16 sec.

    How to Best Use PI/PR

    PI/PR is useful when direct healing is not necessary but a cleric still wants to provide a healing action to the target. It can be used before engage, as described earlier, so that the target is protected from the first 15000 points of damage that land on them through the PI heal and could potentially receive another 53000 or more (before focused effects and critical heals) 18 sec. later. In this way, a cleric can provide support to a target they are not actively healing. If I am focusing most of my direct heals on Main Tank A, I can provide Off Tank A/B/C/D with PI/PR in between those heals so they gain some healing support from me.

    It can also be useful when solo healing if you have a good feel for the incoming damage, allowing you to squeeze more healing in than is possible with just casting direct heals. Timing, however, is incredibly important. You do not want to cast PI/PR when direct heals are needed because they are not an adequate substitute for those. This is also why mercenaries are terrible at using PR (besides the fact that they do not have access to PI) because they are not able to identify when it is safe to cast PR and will cast it to maintain it on the target, regardless of the target's immediate healing needs.

    It is especially useful when you know the target will be out of healing range soon, which happens when kiting or dodging an emote. Wherever the target ends up, they will receive both the instant heal of PI and delayed heal of PR regardless of how far they are from the group.

    Stacking Concerns and Differences Between Cleric and Druid PR

    The druid version of PR technically has a higher delayed heal marker (55919 compared to cleric 55207), even though the base heal value is actually lower. This means that it will overwrite the cleric version, while the cleric version cannot overwrite the druid version. The cleric version will overwrite another cleric version (assuming they are the same rank or higher). Or, to summarize:

    Druid PR -----------------> Cleric PR ----------> Cleric PR
    overwrites/blocks overwrites

    The problem is that druid promised heals do not give the target PI, so a target will only receive the delayed PR heal instead of both the instant PI and delayed heal of the cleric version. For this reason, druids should not cast promised heals on tanks unless they are in a tank group and the amount of clerics in the raid doesn't allow them to cover all of them. That doesn't mean that promised heals can't be used within a druid's own group or on targets (casters and melee) who are unlikely to receive promised heals from a cleric.

    Though cleric PR overwriting another cleric's PR is a problem as well, it mostly means that the target will have to wait longer for the delayed PR heal because every time a PR is overwritten, the target receives a fresh timer for the delayed heal and a new PI heal. PI heals are used up very quickly if a target is taking active damage, so even if PR is chained on him by multiple clerics, it's possible that he will receive a PI heal from each of them even if the PR heals keeps getting delayed with a new timer.

    Overwriting of PR is not ideal, because you want a target to benefit from both heals, but in a typical fast-paced raiding environment ensuring the target has a fresh PI is usually a more immediate concern as it (compared to the delayed PR heal) has a better chance of being useful. For that reason, I am not as concerned about clerics overwriting each other but if you notice a particular tank receiving a lot of PI heals (Pano has created a trigger you can ask him for which will tell you when it has fired and on whom), that's an indication that you probably could be casting it on someone else.

    Blocking Promised Heals (and Why You Shouldn't)

    Typically, most players block promised heals when grouped with healer mercenaries because, as mentioned earlier, they don't use them well and blocking them prevents the merc from using them at the wrong time.

    As I hope this post has demonstrated, clerics and druids who are knowledgeable about promised heals can use them more effectively than your merc, so there is no need to block them on raids and doing so actually makes their job harder because you're removing a potentially useful tool from their toolset when healing you. Simply put, there is no good reason for anyone who might be healed directly by a cleric or druid at any point during a raid to ever have these blocked.
    Jhenna_BB, Bigstomp, Zipe and 4 others like this.
  2. gnomeboss Augur

    two thumbs up to clarisa for sharing this info.

    even outside of raiding, pr/pi is totally worth a gem. clarisa was spot on, saying pi is "damage-reactive, meaning it happens at the point damage is received." that's a heal that happens when it's needed without needing any help from you. as a filthy casual grouper who boxes a cle, anything that heals without requiring me to press more buttons is a huge boon.

    but talk is cheap, mirite? wru numbers? boom! numbers! this log is from tov trash mobs i was grinding an ear on and randomly had my log on. and you can see that for some of this, i had a dru in my group, so i'd guess that 10-15 percent of these fights didn't even have my cleric. but check out the returns on pi:

    [IMG]

    tl;dr: cast pr on your tank and don't block pr if you are playing with a real cleric.
    Kamor likes this.
  3. aozs Augur


    Hmm, 1273 SHPS is very low for 115. How does it compare to the healing output of your druid/cleric? I'm assuming that log is just from the warrior's PoV.

    I could see PI being useful from the perspective of dampening a big spike opener on pull, but I don't think it really shows its value in raw healing numbers.

    Also, if anything, that log shows that PR isn't really worth using in group content. 159.45% overheal is pretty extreme and 662 SHPS is basically negligible. The numbers show that its biggest drawback (unpredictability) make it a suboptimal tool. The fact that it uses the target's heal crit% and modifiers is also not great for warriors.

    I think it'd be a different story if damage and healing was much slower. The PR line is a replacement for Complete Heal, but the Complete Heal playstyle is basically irrelevant in today's game since tanks can spiked to death (or healed to full) in a matter of a couple of seconds.
  4. Chaosflux Augur

    Aozs you are overlooking the fact PI fires in the same round as the damage so if the damage taken was enough to kill you, but you would be able to survive if the heal landed you survive. Helpful when DI is down.

    Similar to how if you take a nasty flurry of damage of shining procs or reptile or whatever, you can take more damage then the HP you had left before the attack and walk away.
  5. Zipe The Healer

    Hello,
    Thanks for sharing this info.
    I'll consider adding Promised to my Pre-combat routine along all the other pre-combat buffs. Ward of Assurance have been enough for that Pesky engages, but will be good to add that second layer of protection.
    Also, while doing so, will check who have it blocked, then I may consider adding it to my combat routine.

    I would like to remind that if you are multibinding and you add Promised down the line (something like after your second intervention and two remedies) you'll cast Promised just after it fires naturally, so it won't overlap itself so you don't have to actually micromanage it. I do that for group content and I must admit that my GamParses show a Promised Interpossition efficiency like the one posted on the previous post.

    Good luck!
  6. Metanis Bad Company

    Great post! I use a GINA trigger for the fulmination message and my fingers work in a recast as part of my normal healing weave. And since learning about the PI component I have encouraged any cleric in the raid to use this at any time.

    Also, PR can be your distraction insurance when you're trying to keep up with raid or group chat and you break your heal rhythm as you try to process what you're reading.
  7. aozs Augur


    Agreed, I think the spell can be quite good in those situations. I was just remarking about the fact that PI doesn't show its true value in raw HPS numbers.

    I think it's a much harder argument about PR though. It's really difficult to predict how much HP your target will have in 18 seconds which makes it hard to ensure value. I agree with not blocking it for the specific situations Clarisa described, but as a general purpose healing tool it doesn't seem very effective because the game is too fast nowadays.
  8. Metanis Bad Company

    Several ways I look at this. Much healing is reactive. PR is slightly proactive. In much the same way we can't predict if our tank is going to die in the next 23 minutes but we put a DI on them anyway.

    And from a risk/reward standpoint the payback is awesome. PR is almost free to cast. There's little downside so the return on investment is huge even if you only see a few life-saving fulminations a night.

    Yes, there is a big nuisance factor. When you have events going 30 or 40 minutes that's 100 casts to keep it going the entire time. But you're going to be casting something anyway so adding this in the mix is not really all that difficult. If this lands instead of a remedy that did zero real healing what have you lost?
  9. Rolaque Ancient

    That's right, much of healing is reactive. Since PR is an anticipatory heal it's real benefit is when you know ahead of time when it will be needed. Short of that, why randomly cast PR at all and drop in an extra spell refresh timer, when you don't know if it's going to do any good?

    As for DI, or in my case druid preincarnation, those are buffs. They aren't heals, but they prevent deaths when healing is short or lacking.
  10. gnomeboss Augur

    on the odd chance that some young gnome is getting started in the heal business and is leery of promised because of all the "stuff" people have noted above, just know that no pr, no pi. honestly, i don't care if promised ever heals for anything at all. i cast promise to get pi procs. pi are at the top of the reactive heal mountain because they only heal when the tank gets smacked in the mouth. that's a heal that happens when it's needed and without you having to recognize the need and/or react to it. pepper says it best:

    [IMG]

    it kinda kinks my tail that druids don't get some pi equivalent to their promised spell, but then again, i have no idea how i could fit another spell onto my poor druids spell bar so maybe it's for the best. =p
  11. Siraj Lorekeeper

    A simple and preferred solution, would be giving us access to the spell bar of the mercenary. So we can tell them what spells to cast or not cast by not having them memmed :p
    Rolaque likes this.
  12. Nylrem Augur

    IMO, shouldn't put promised on your multibind when raiding, unless there is just 1 designated healer using it.

    As a pre-buff before engage, fine, but multiple clerics casting on a single target is a waste, since they don't stack. Not just of the .8s cast time, but the added ~1.8s recast time as well.

    Also, when do use it, if you are the only one using it, check your heal parse. PR + PI has never once out parsed even 3rd highest Remedy for me, and is the reason I stopped using, except during lulls/pre-engage.

    If PI was a constant buff, and could proc more than just a single time per PR cast, it would be the best healing spell/AA ever, by far. But, since it only procs one single time, per PR that lands, it's only meh.

    PR also has the drawback that it's not a 'direct' single target heal, so it does not fire off the HUGE knights' personal healing/tapping procs from their buffs.

    Knights' personal buffs/AA that proc huge taps and/or heals, but only from direct, single target heals, is MORE than any 1 healer can heal. But, they require direct, single target heals cast upon them. That is why the fastest cast heal is always the best, when single target healing a knight. (Remedy > Remedy > Remedy)

    Even your 4th highest Remedy is better than ANY other non-remedy heal, when actively single target healing a knight. It may only heal for average of ~20k, but their proc/tap is going to add ~80k average heal (for them, and probably ~30k average group heal) on top of that, and is why knights that are tanking are ALWAYS the highest on their heal parse.
  13. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    For those looking to learn (like me), could you point out those buffs/AAs? The description you've posted doesn't ring any bells for me, and I'd like to learn more.

    Thanks!
    Tolzol likes this.
  14. Szilent Augur

    All three tank classes have "Confluent" self-buffs that add value to incoming heals. The issue with comparing their procs to Cle Promised proc is that Interposition procs *in* a melee round. Confluent bonuses are nice, but they only happen, by definition, when the tank is already getting a heal.
  15. Wulfhere Augur

    This is also why a tank blocks indirect heals to force their healer merc to cast only direct heals. It's also why there was such an outcry over healer merc's failing to cast Remedy line spells at all (and for years).

    No not really. Generally the priest is limited to the last 2 spells in a line because the buffs have min and max spell levels, so older spells won't trigger the desired effects. E.g. the Confluent buffs limitations:

    5: Limit Min Level: 106
    6: Limit Max Level: 120 (lose 100% per level)
  16. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Thanks. I was really confused, because I'd never heard of buffs which do this before. I looked it up, it's level 113 (my mains are 111), and CoV (which I don't have). So that explains why I hadn't heard of it!
  17. Wulfhere Augur

    These Harmonious spell lines were introduced in EoK almost 4 years ago.
    Szilent likes this.
  18. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Huh, so they were. LOL. I think because the spell description made it really cryptic as to what they did, and due to the short duration, I kinda just ignored them.

    And, to be clear, I just had a char at a level to get those spells in the last 5 months :)

    Also, digging into it a bit, I was intrigued by the recourse healing the whole group. Only the Paladin spells do that. The SK and Warrior spells only heal them. Unless I'm reading it wrong.
  19. Q2moveit New Member

    Thanks for the post. It's been very difficult to get some guildmates to unblock these spells for raids. I will present some of your ideas.
  20. Gnomereaper Augur

    The spell should be redesigned so people don't want to block the spells in the first place. It just becomes just one additional thing to remind people of. The spell worked fine until there was a metagame shift in dps. This means the spell needs to be updated to the current metagame.
    Wulfhere likes this.