Brothers of Arms

[Tafale]

I'm sorry if this sounds elementary for the majority but I think it would be nice for people either starting as a BS or it might even be of some usage for the other priests.

Premise
This guide will mainly focus on using buffs, debuffs and healing in raids.

Builds
Support (MT)
Vidicator gives +2% hate for soldiers in defensive stance which is a lot since e.g. DTs has normally about +7.5% so you will bumping it to +9.5%! There are also some damage buffs for the tanks: Reaper (team procs: +10% base weapon damage) and Rune of Aggression that is really nice for initial aggro building. Other than that it focuses on buffs and debuffs but also keeping your own damage decent with Sun, Blood Champion, Blood Fever, etc.

DPS
If you're not primarily in the MT group this will provide a wide specter of buffs and debuffs while still maintaining a high level of damage. Sun is your main manifestation because of its decent DoT and 6 sec 75% base weapon increase. With good gear it can pull up to 850 DPS single target and 1000 DPS on trash!

Attributes
You should look out for primarily strength (damage and armour) and constitution (health), while stats like: combat rating, critical rating and hit rating are also nice. Mana from wisdom is not important because of manifestation plus fully feated untamed regeneration. My profile illustrates this, even if the gear is DPS focused I still don't have e.g. mana problems.

Healing
There are four different types of healing: blue, green, passive and big heal.
- Blue (Blood Flow): only one can be used at a time on a target (unfeated 384 HP for the first tick on target (iirc about 200 extra with a stack of 10 Nature's Wrath) when the timer drops below 10 sec and 192 for the succeeding ones). More info about proper use off this and other healing capabilities later on.
- Green (Renewal): only two can be used at a time on a target
- Passive (Manifestation: Regrowth, Claws of Life and Bloodthirst): Unlimited in different types?
- Big Heal (Fierce Recovery): One per priest class per target per minute. Clarification: One target can receive up three big heals (one per priest class) during a one minute period. Although it should be noted that this don't limit the use of big heal to only one per minute since the recast is 28 sec one can use it for people not affected by the first big heal (having the 60 sec counter still running).

General:
- Use abilities when best suited to recover or preserve team (those affecting them directly: e.g. Rune of Resilience) or raid (e.g. Fierce Recovery) health.

Healing is just a tool to preserve health not the end (more on this later on with buff/debuffs).

When using heals it's very important to be situational aware when using these capabilities. To exemplify this I will use a couple examples:
- Kykkilly's Kryp:
Both Priest and Honourguard are straightforward and not healing intensive (use the blue heal again when the timer drops below 10 sec to get the double tick) but the Spellguard is different since it has a pretty nasty AoE nuke. Preserve your passive and big heal heals for the latter: use Regrowth a few seconds into the fight (if its nuke is still unused and the fight usually last more than the ability's duration of 30 sec) so it will be running (about 60 per tick) when it nukes and follow up with Fierce Recovery (about 1500 heal) and various buffs/debuffs.
- Yakhmar:
If you are in the main tanking group things will get interesting. This boss has both stun and knock back to make healing more difficult, so if your blue heal runs just after a stun your tank(s) will be without a blue heal (!) for a few seconds and therefore it's better to use the blue one more often to prevent this since a tank without a blue heal will quickly get its health reduced, especially if a add attacks during this period. Try to have both passive and green heals running during a stun / knock back to prevent downtime in healing.

Buffs/Debuffs
BS has some fantastic buffs and debuffs affecting only yourself, team, single target or even AoE.

Yourself:
- Rune of Grounding: -95% hostile spell damage with 75% snare for 15 sec.

Team
- Rune of Aggression: +40% base weapon damage (melee) for 15 sec (45 sec cd) and chance for -15% melee mitigation debuff
- Rune of Resillience: +925 protection elemental and holy/unholy for 6 sec (60 sec cd)
- Rune of Resistance: +1650 protection electrical for 6 sec (45 sec cd)

Target
- Crush Armour: -900 armour rating (should always be a x5 stack on raid bosses)
- Ursine Brawl: +8% miss chance

AoE (Manifestations)
- Spirit: -10% (when feated) magic and regular damage for 10 sec refreshing your 5 m aoe every 3 sec (25 sec cd)
- Forest: -10% melee and poison invulnerability for 30 sec
- Sun: Regen and healing debuff for 15 sec
- Winter: small AoE frost damage tick every 3 sec

All manifestations have a vision that activates when using it in combination with internal bleed (More info).

Now I will explain the statement: "Healing is just a tool to preserve health not the end"
A very good example on this is the spellguard:
. Spirit for extra tank damage migration just before he nukes
- Forest to burn it down quicker
- Rune of Aggression to burn it down quicker
- Rune of Grounding against nukes so you can do your stuff in peace
- Rune of Resillience in combination with Fierce Recovery for extra team unholy immunity

DPS in Raids
This section is focused on the DPS build since the MT one requires more Crush Armour, Ursine Brawl, etc.

When possible you should always position yourself behind a mob to easy hit the tank with Blood Flow and it will also bump your DPS because of less shields. Use Sun just after tank pulls and hit the mob with Internal Bleed (mediocre DPS so also low hate building) and use Shrewed Blow mixed with Crush Armour till next Internal Bleed is available. When you've used the third Bleed, if timed correctly, switch to Spirit and continue till Sun is off cool down.

Move around to find a better position (shields, can hit more at once, etc.) and be dynamic with combos if shield position change so you hit less shielded areas, especially if you're boxed in by team mates.

In general you should always have a manifestation up because of Blood Fever and use Blood Flow when it's 8 sec left to refresh Blood Warrior plus stamina regen (an added bonus is the double healing tick).

[Gert]

Good post Taf Few things to add to the healing side of things given that it's just not priests who can heal but a good primer for people looking at BS's or starting to raid with them

note to self: get the Karma mod installed

[Tafale]

Good post Taf Few things to add to the healing side of things given that it's just not priests who can heal but a good primer for people looking at BS's or starting to raid with them

note to self: get the Karma mod installed

Thanks and yeah some other classes can heal in one degree or another.

[Gert]

Any updates on this based on the big changes that happened recently (well, few weeks ago )?

[Gambit]

Increased the mana cost of the 4 Manifestations.
Added a new mechanic to the Bear Shaman: While the Bear Shaman has any Manifestation active, any target hit with Internal Bleed will suffer from the following effects:
Manifestation of Winter causes the Arctic Slumber vision. The target is drained of stamina and mana over time and when this effect expires, they are snared for a short time.
Manifestation of the Sun causes the Desert Bloom vision. The target takes fire damage over time and when this effect expires, the Bear Shaman receives a damage boost for a short time.
Manifestation of the Forest causes the Tree of Life vision. The Bear Shaman gains a self-stacking Armor and Protection buff and when this effect expires, the Bear Shaman gains additional Armor and Protection for a short time.
Manifestation of Spirit causes the World Walker vision. The target takes poison damage over time and when this effect expires, they suffer a large amount of damage.
Changed Manifestation: Hostile Territory to Manifestation of Spirit. This spell is gained at level 15 and pulses a 5% damage debuff to all enemies around the Bear Shaman.
Manifestation: Enfeeble has been replaced with Manifestation of Winter. This spell now has only one rank is gained a level 35 and pulses cold damage on all foes around the Bear Shaman while active.
Replaced Spirits of the Earth with a new Spell - Manifestation of the Forest. This spell reduces the physical invulnerability rating of all foes around the Bear Shaman by -10% while active.
Replaced Spirits of the Debased with a new Spell - Manifestation of the Sun. This spell reduces the hate generated by the Bear Shaman and reduces the incoming healing received by all foes around the Bear Shaman by -10% while active.
Renamed Manifestation: Regrowth to Rune of Regrowth. This spell no longer shares buff lines with any Manifestations.
All manifestations have had their durations changed to 25 seconds, their cooldown changed to 50 seconds and their cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds.
Reduced Aspect - Blood Fever to a 3 point feat. This feat no longer grants a new ability.
Changed Blood Fever to increase weapon damage by 5/10/15% while any Manifestation is active.
Changed Untamed Regeneration to no longer grant a new ability. It now grants the same amount of regeneration while any Manifestation is active.
Internal Bleed III has had its combo-sequence reduced from three steps to two (UR>UP)
Internal Bleed IV has had its combo-sequence reduced from four steps to two (LR>UP)
Added a New Feat: Mutilation. The feat is located above Bewilder in the Wrath tree and increases the critical chance of the Internal Bleed damage over time effect by 5/10/15/20/25% per respective rank and increases the critical bonus damage by 60/70/80/90/100% per respective rank.
Crushed Bones has been changed from affecting the combo opener for Internal Bleed to affecting the finisher damage. The bonus has been recalculated accordingly.
Crushed Organs has been increased by an additional 1% per rank.
Removed all Spirit Totem spells. Some of the bonuses granted by these Totems has been added to different Claw effects as follows: Claws of Corruption and Claws of the Reaper now provide additional Combat Rating (Unholy) passively. Claws of Life and Claws of Stone now provide additional Armor passively.
Ursine Spirit has been moved to the place Spirit Totem: Miasma used to occupy.
Spirit Totem: Miasma has been renamed to Gangrene. It now increases the periodic damage of Manifestation of Winter.
Spirit Walker has been changed to modify the damage over time effect and the ending damage of the World Walker vision.
Shards of the Earth has been changed and now significantly increases the damage of Ursine Crush.
Ursine Roar no longer grants a spell and has been renamed Ursine Spirit and is now located in the Spirits tree. It now improves the damage debuff component of Manifestation of Spirit by 1/2/5% per respective feat point.
Added a new feat to the Wrath tree: Winter's Bite. This feat increases the power of the mana and stamina drain effect of Arctic Slumber and the power of the ending snare effect caused by Arctic Slumber.
Scarred Hide has been changed to have a chance to give the bonus armor buff on all physical hits, not just critical hits. The proc chance has been adjusted down to 3%/8%/16% and the armor bonus to 10%.
Iron Hide has been significantly improved. The duration has been lowered to 6 seconds, but it will now fully absorb up to 100 attacks during that period. In addition, attacks against you while Iron Hide is running will grant you a damage increase during and after Iron Hide activation. The more attacks you absorb, the higher this damage bonus will be. The cooldown of Iron Hide has been increased to 2 minutes (up from 1.5 minutes).
Ursine Crush has had its cooldown lowered to 1 minute.
Created a new 3 point feat on the third tier in the Wrath tree: Ursine Fury. This feat increases the duration of the stun effect caused by Ursine Crush by 0.5/1/1.5 seconds per respective feat point.
Created a new 1 point feat on the sixth tier in the Wrath tree: Ursinity. This feat reduces the cooldown of Ursine Rush by 15 seconds.
Created a new 2 point feat on the eighth tier in the Wrath tree: Rampaging Crush - This feat increases the radius of Ursine Crush by 1/2 meters per respective feat point.
A new feat Companion Spirit has been added into the Spirits tree, as a requirement to Booming Roar. When you perform a physical critical hit you have a 10/20/30/40/50% chance of spawning a Companion Spirit, and whenever you perform a fatality a Companion Spirit will be created. Regardless of how the Companion Spirit is summoned, a Companion Spirit cannot be summoned more than once every 15 seconds. The bear attacks with you and stacks up the Physical Torment debuff on the enemy. Additionally, if you have Claws of the Reaper running, it will apply the Claws of Stone debuff on the target, and if you have Claws of Stone running, it will apply Claws of the Reaper instead.
Claws of the Reaper now provides all players attacking the cursed target with a damage boost if they are currently affected by Renewal.
Switched the locations of Claws of Life and Claws of the Reaper.
Increased the bonuses granted to the Crush Armor combo by the Rupture feat to 20% (up from 5%).
Bloodthirst has had the final step of its combo-sequence changed from UP to UL making the new sequence LR>UR>UL
The damage of the Bloodthirst combo has been increased.
Blood Champion has been changed from a clickable to an additional passive damage bonus when casting Blood Flow. The damage bonus has been reduced to 6/12/18/24/30% weapon contribution.
Increased the duration of the Blood Warrior effect to 15 seconds.
Ursine Rush has been changed to a 1 point feat.
Changed the Rune of Slaughter feat to "Slaughter" This feat now passively increases Armor Penetration.
Added the Physical Ruin proc to the Rune of Aggression spell.
Increased the cooldown of Rune of Aggression to 45 seconds.
Slightly increased the weapon contribution bonus gained from Rune of Aggression.
Weight of the World no longer grants an ability. It now increases critical damage by 2.5/5% per respective feat point.
Battle Roar no longer grants a new spell. It instead provides a reduced bonus to weapon damage and max health passively.
Increased the Miss Chance debuff values of Ursine Brawl to 3/5/8% per respective combo rank.
All ranks of Ursine Brawl now share cooldowns.
Increased the bonuses granted by Ursine Onslaught to 9/18/27/36/45% (up from 2/4/6/8/10%)
The cooldown of Ether Theft has been reduced to 25 seconds, down from 30.
Lycanthropic Bite has been made instant-cast, down from 1 second.
Ursine Crush has been adjusted so that the damage component occurs before the stun component.
The casting time of Booming Roar has been reduced from 1 second to 0.1 seconds.
Renamed the Fierce Recovery blocker effect to 'Hibernation' to avoid a naming conflict.


Taf did a good job writing that down, only thing I can add is in a group/raid use the manifestations

[Tafale]

Finally updated the guide.