Originally Posted by Palantir, level 80 newbie Mystic

Mystic Class Readme
Executive Summary: You are a dedicated healer type. You have some good utility, but you have one function: to keep people standing. If you want flexibility for DPS and healing, pick a Fury or an Inquisitor.

What’s a Mystic?
A Mystic is a priest. Our role is to keep our group and raid standing with Buffs, Wards, Cures and heals (in that order). We are in the Shaman subtype, which means we have to think ahead. Our Wards and heals are extremely long casting so we are in trouble if we get behind in our job, but if you plan ahead your group won’t notice they’re being hit by mobs.

Mystics have excellent stat buffs, both in our group buffs and in two single target buffs. Only Templars can give more AC with their group buffs than we do, and we give more HP and melee stats. We belong in a group full of melee types, with a Coercer for ourselves if one can be found.

Our Wards are our bread and butter. We get lots of them, and they come in different flavors, but what they do is they prevent a certain amount of damage from ever hitting our groupmates. This is awesome, but they come at a price. Our heal agro is frontloaded, which means you have to pay attention to what the tank is about to pull, and how they will pull it/them so you know how much is safe to load on them ahead of time. More on this later.

Besides these two categories, we have some good utility. We can dramatically diminish the mob’s damage potential by taking away large numbers of stats, DPS and attack speed. This leaves less damage to hit your Wards. Our cures are excellent.

As for our damage….we have none. Mystics don’t do DPS they do DPM. People only talk about Mystics being decent DPS in comparison with Defilers (they have even less DPS potential than we do (their heals are a smidge better, but they have a smidge less utility)). Unless you’re soloing (and Pantheon help you if you are), just ignore your damage spells (except for Master’s Smite which has a debuff on it). Your casting time is much better spent elsewhere. (I’m actually debating taking them off of my spellbars entirely and putting them on a separate bar I only bring up when I’m duoing).

So what do I need to build towards?

Gear:
As stated, your single job is to keep people up. To do that well you need to boost your Ward spells and the stats and AA’s tied to them. Your casting times are horrendous and your reuse timers aren’t great, so bonuses to those get high priority, on a par with heal crit itself. Each of these three bonuses has diminishing returns, so spreading the bonuses out is better than focusing on one. Get a respect mirror. We need one. You will also burn mana on protracted fights. Group Ward eats mana. It’s not so bad when you’re prewarding because of out-or-combat-regen, but if you’re casting it lots in combat, you’ll want potions, shards, hearts, gear that procs refreshes, whatever you can get for when you can’t find an Enchanter.

Stats:
We’re Priests, so our WIS determines our mana pool and healing bonuses. In addition, our Mythical gives us an additional healing bonus equal to 20% of our WIS. So even if you’re way up past the soft or hard cap for WIS, our Mythical doesn’t care, and will still take 20% of that number and slap it on our Wards and heals. If a piece of gear has more WIS on it than what you’re wearing, all other things being remotely equal, you want it. You’re not ever going to damage a mob significantly with a spell, so INT is unnecessary (it doesn’t help us land our debuffs, does it??). You’re not going to melee anything that AOE’s to save more Ward for the tank so you don’t need STR. You’re not going to be tanking anything, so you don’t need AGI. STA is moderately useful because our HP per STA conversion isn’t actually horrible.

Spells:
Start saving your allowance. We have more spells that need Mastering than many other classes.

Buffs: We group buff AC, HP and resists like any priest. We also group buff STR and STA very well, and can put Avatar on a group member to further raise all of that person’s stats. We are the stat and HP buff monsters. Put Premonition on your defensive type (usually a Zerker) and Avatar on your offensive type (usually an Assassin). And don’t forget about Bolster- large bonus to all stats (including 20% more HP), can be used offensively and defensively.

Heals:
Get to know your Wards well, they are your best first line of defense, and your actual heals are worse than other priests’, so you need to get the most out of your excellent Wards. As mentioned above though, your wards will start getting you agro as soon as the mob hits the tank, not after the tank is all comfy with their agro lock. You have to know what's going on and pay attention to what the tank is about to do. If the tank is going to body pull, you cant pre-ward or you'll get agro and pull the mob out of position. If the tank is pulling a group encounter, ward lightly to not drag extra members out of position. Pre-ward the tank's pants off on named pulls and stand nearby in case the tank has to yank agro back.

Also notice which of your wards havent expired from the previous pull- these count as pre-wards for the next pull. Stacked Wards also take damage in LIFO order, so time your casts for your desired effect. You have to pay attention and know what is coming. You will get hit some anyway though. That's why we get metal armor and more HP than most. Dead Shammy = Shammy didnt pay attention and pre-warded too much. Dead group = Shammy didnt pay attention and pre-warded too little. It's always under your control, so improve!


Umbral Warding: This is your group ward. It puts a Ward for X damage onto the whole group, and anyone taking damage is protected. This also means that if you can keep 5 people from taking damage, then it is a huuuge ward for the one who is taking damage. Find a way to stay out of AoE’s to help improve this effect. This is your longest casting combat spell, so it’s your first priority to pre-ward. You also have an instant clicky version of this heal.

Ancestral Ward: this is your primary single target Ward. Pretty standard functionality, prevents X damage to the target within the next 30 seconds and heals the remaining value if it expires. You should be able to keep this up on two or three people as a protection from AoE’s or Ripostes if your primary defensive target isn’t taking damage and eating through his Wards. You also have an instant clicky version of this spell.

Important! The above two spells DO NOT STACK with other shamen’s versions of them. Work out in advance a coping strategy for this based on whose spells are better, whose buffs are better (which would determine that one person should cast these on the MT only), or if the mob is going to put out so much damage that overwriting is the lesser concern (and therefore everyone should cast these on the MT)

Torpor: This single target spell is a combination Ward and HoT. The Ward portion also regenerates. That makes this quite good. It also stacks with other Shamen’s Wards, which makes it great. It does snare and slow the attack speed of the target somewhat. The power is worth the pain if the tank has good agro already, but make sure the target knows they’re snared.

Oberon: this single target spell is also a regenerating Ward and HoT, stackable with other Shamen’s Wards. It stuns you while you have it on, so it is even more of an emergency-only type spell than Torpor. Study your encounters. Know what the tank is about to pull. The best use of this spell is to absorb the first onslaught of damage from a raid target, so that this ward gets eaten through first, and you can go back to casting your normal ones after soaking up the first 5K on the tank.

Ancestral Savior: Our death-prevention spell. Not as good as a Defiler’s, but it’s better than not having one.

Ancestral Sentry: This is a really cool spell, and one you’ll have to notify other raid healers about if they’ve not often raided with a Mystic. This summons a pet named Ancestral Sentry (you can’t change the name) that looks like a ghost of you and stands in the raid and every tick puts a Ward on the whole raid (significant distance AoE) which takes half of the damage of the raid and puts it on the Sentry. The Sentry lasts for one minute or until the damage it takes kills it. Here’s the fun bit: any healer can heal/Ward up the Sentry to make it live longer, and eat more of the raid’s damage. It’s not important to keep him in the green, as he’ll die in a minute anyway. But keeping him alive is a good use of mana if there are open spots in someone’s cast order.

Beyond this, we have a bear that acts like a smaller version of the Sentry, but its range is supposedly so short that its usefulness is questioned. We have standard heals, a group and two single targets. These are small and long casting, but the do buff STA while they’re on. We use what we got.

Utility:
As said, our cures are excellent. We group cure Nox and Arcane, the two most common types. We can quicken their cast time and shrink their mana cost to make them more useful. Beyond that we can also spend AA to 1) make the cure target immune to that kind of attack, 2) heal some damage of the cured type and 3) ward against further damage of the cured type. We also have a nox/poison only ward, situational but useful.

We can also severely retard the mob. Defensive debuffs include four attack speed debuffs, two of them group based in Haze, Umbral Trap, Lethargy and Mourning. Offensive buffs include two debuffs to drain STA and other stats/resists from the group/encounter, Deteriorate and Cry of the Ancients. Any time you’re waiting for a Ward to get used up or waiting for the recast, put these onto the mob to lock it down.

Damage:
Again, I’m not going to mention these. You get some token damage spells, but they’re laughable. Use Master’s Smite because it also debuffs the mob’s attack speed even more.

AA’s
In general, spend points in Shaman, then Shadows then Mystic.

On the Shaman line, hit the puppy line (STR) hard and early. The puppy carries on it an interrupt, group haste, group ward and AoE immunity (for it and the group). Get the puppy, love the puppy. All of these effects only occur when the puppy is engaged in melee combat, so don’t forget to send him. Add a /pet attack macro step to each and every debuff spell you cast and Master’s Smite too, so you’ll be more likely to have him properly engaged (but do put him permanently on peace though, he’s no tank). The WIS line is next, getting down to bettering your reuse timers. The AGI line is a temporary expenditure. If you’re a newbie Shammy (like me), your heal crit hasn’t gotten to diminishing returns, so you need to spend AA to get yours up there. Once you can hit 60 or so (without the ones provided by AA), you’ll want to get out of the AGI line and into the STA line for making your cures bigger faster and stronger. Whatever you do though, make sure you budget to pick up the STR and WIS terminals; puppy AoE immunity and Alacrity. Alacrity just supersizes whoever you put it on, caster, scout or healer. Use it as the situation dictates, use it every time it’s available.

The Mystic line is what your AA mirror is for. If you’re soloing/duoing, you’ll want to pick up the third tree, which lets us put out more DPS. Get rid of these points if your group size is bigger than 2. You will always want to have points in the second tree, the one that makes your buffs bigger. Key targets are Precognition (more HP and AC on two group members) Mastodon (more STA for the group), Oberon (huge bonus to an emergency heal), and Bolster (makes the huge buff last longer). Pad out with other points as necessary. I’m still researching the second terminal, 3% more triggers doesn’t seem like a lot. The second thing the mirror is good for is the first and last trees. The first tree is all about combat rezzes. Pick this up if the encounter you’re going into will need lots of combat rezzzes, ignore it if you have good Dirges. If you have good Dirges, then you can spend points in the fourth tree and get kickbutt Cures/Immunities.

Shadows: More straight forward. Pick up HP and mana. Then pick up our heal spell and group AC buff from the Priest line. The raid rez is nice, but if you’re short on points like me, pick it up later. For the Shaman line grab the improvements to Ancestral Ward, Umbral Ward and precognition in that order. This tier is awesome for us, get to 135 aa as fast as you can. Again, the new pet attack is nice, but if you’re short on points then pick it up later. In the Shammy line, pick up Ritual Healing, and Mastodon, then our healing stance (OMG, cast time improvement), group heal and Sentry. After doing that you have 3 points left to pick up the stuff you blew by.

Our Myth procs mana and attack speed for our group. The mana is for us and the tank, and the attack speed is for all the scout DPS we’re with. It’s a nice Myth, love it if/when you can get it.

That’s it for now, more when I’ve had more practice and have read more.