I Might Be Last on the Healing Meters But, Dammit, the Mages Love Me! — or Khaeli’s Guide to Power Infusion

WHAT

Power Infusion
Infuses the target with power, increasing spell casting speed by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%.  Lasts 15 seconds.

2 minute cooldown (lowered to 1.6 minute with 2 points in Aspiration)  Does not trigger the GCD.

HOW

I’m a big mouseover macro fan, as clicking on someone to target them, then clicking on a spell is too slow and unwieldy.  It’s also good practice to notify someone they’ve received Power Infusion because even though they should notice the animation and the buff, they might not (and/or might not realize what Power Infusion does.)

The following macro casts PI on your mouseover target and sends them a whisper:

/cast [target=mouseover] Power Infusion
/script local n,r=UnitName”target”;if(r)then n=n..”-“..r;end;SendChatMessage(“Power Infused! +20% haste at -20% mana for 15 seconds. Go!”,”WHISPER”,nil,n)

Penance Priest has some other macro ideas, including the addition of quartz cooldowns and error checking.

WHO

As Power Infusion gives the recipient increased casting speed at a reduced mana cost, the spell should obviously be cast on someone who a) casts spells and b) uses mana.  Duh.  When determining who will benefit the most from PI, consider a) who can use an increased casting speed and b) who can use the break on mana consumption.  Duh +1.

Although I’ve read some suggestions that Disc Priests use the buff solely on themselves (and have raided with a Disc Priest who did just that), I think it would be a difficult argument to make that a Disc Priest needs help with mana.  (Maybe if you’re undergeared?  Maybe if you’re healing a heroic with 4 melee who won’t step out of whirlwinds?  Maybe if you’re using spells that don’t proc Rapture?)  If you feel you are struggling with the healing in a particular encounter, then by all means, buff yourself.  Otherwise, I’d recommend buffing someone else.

I don’t use Power Infusion as an “Oh shit!” button for more healing, but rather as a “Hell yeah!” button for a high-dpsing caster.  Consensus seems to be that mages are the best recipients of PI — they get the most bang-for-the-buck from the haste and the mana reduction.  However, depending on the makeup of your raid and the DPS of your caster group, you might chose a different target.

I don’t use Recount, and I don’t monitor the DPS of a fight, but if I don’t know my fellow raiders and don’t have an established target, after the first encounter, I always ask Kaleyen who the top caster and the top mage were so that I can gauge who gets PI.  If appropriate, I’ll Raid Leader if they have a preference for who receives it.

Mages who respond to my PI whisper macro with “??” do not get the buff again.  Mages who respond to my PI whisper macro with “omg i love you” do.

WHEN

Power Infusion does not stack with the mage talent Arcane Power, and the haste portion of the spell does not stack with Heroism/Bloodlust.  You’ll want to track these spells so you aren’t wasting a cooldown.  You can use the addon Need to Know to track the latter.  I use Grid to track Arcane Power on mages (See this post for help on setting up Grid).  If you try to cast PI on a mage who has Arcane Power up, you will get the “a more powerful spell is active” error message.  The mage will, however, be able to override PI with Arcane Power.

It’s also worth having a conversation with your casters to ask about their preference for receiving the spell.  Good DPS have their casting rotations down to a science, and they’ll be able to tell you when the buff would most benefit them.  For example, the mage Mirror Image ability reduces a mage’s threat, and so Mirror Image and Power Infusion work well together as the mage will be able to pump out the extra DPS without the risk of pulling aggro.  This spell is often their opening salvo, and if so, you should cast PI on them right away.  (I need to figure out a better way of tracking when a mage has Mirror Image active — other than, ya know, looking at the screen)

With a 1.6 minute cooldown, one can cast Power Infusion a lot over the course of a raid.  (You can use WWS to check the “uptime” of the spell.  For help with WWS, check here.)  This is something I’m trying to improve in my own gameplay, making sure that PI gets worked into my “rotation” regularly.

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I Slash Command Thee

I have loved macros ever since I learned that I could include some sort
of public shaming alongside my resurrection abilities.  In EQ2, my
dirge had a series of macros for Cacophony of Blades, one of the
class-defining abilities, including the wonderful "/g This group needs
more cowbell! /useability Cacophony of Blades."  Of course, when you
are spamming an ability each time the cooldown is up, even the wittiest
of macros gets old quickly and thus "/g Hit it like you mean it! 
Cacophony of Blades for 14 seconds" gets shortened to "/g COB for 14
sec."

The macro system in WoW provides a lot more functionality
than Everquest 2's as you can do more than simply equip/unequip,
announce, or use an ability.  As with my add-ons and UI, I'm constantly
experimenting with different macros in order to enhance my efficiency.

Typically,
I bring a new macro into my repertoire like this:  First, I notice a
problem.  For example, as K- and I began duoing with the shadowpriest
and DK, I realized that I needed to Power Word: Shield Kaleyen
regularly.  But switching back and forth between a friendly and
unfriendly target was inefficient DPS-wise.  So I look for a macro to streamline my clicks (gasp!).  To follow up on this example, then, as I noted before, I
created this macro and bound it to Button 3 on my mouse:

/cast [help][target=targettarget, help][target=player] Power Word: Shield

The
problem I'm toying with now concerns abolishing disease and dispelling
magic.  I'll be the first to admit that I veer towards OCD when it
comes from removing debuffs from those in my group or raid, and so I
need to get my macros situated for this as soon as possible.  Because
while I know my DPS suffers when I hit Dispel Magic, intending to cure
Kaleyen and instead get the error message "Nothing to be dispelled" on
my DPS target, my concern here is (sadly) less the detriment to my DPS
than it is the knowledge that I'm not curing fast enough.

So I
did some poking around on various forums and websites today to come up
with some ideas for macros for Dispel Magic and Cure Disease. 

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:alt,target=player] [target=mouseover, help] [target=target, help][target=targettarget, help] Abolish Disease

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:alt,target=player][target=mouseover, help][target=target, help][target=targettarget, help][] Dispel Magic

I also found these macros that I might implement as well:

To send my Shadowfiend out when I have a friendly target, rather than a DPS one:

#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/cast [harm,nodead][target=targettarget,harm,nodead]Shadowfiend

To case POM on my target's target:

/cast [help][target=targettarget,help] Prayer of Mending

I need to get one now for Shackle Undead, a spell whose usefulness I only just realized in PVP against DKs.

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L2Play

OK, OK, so I was power-leveled to 60, and I really need to learn how to play my class. But the last few nights of questing and instancing have raised some concerns for me about the shadowpriest.

Vampiric Embrace
While
I understand the need to nerf this spell so that shadowpriests' damage
could be increased, Kaleyen and Khæli have really felt the pain while
duoing.  On Wednesday night, while running around Hellfire Peninsula,
he seemed to always be at around three-quarters health, while Khæli was
blissfully at full.  Now if soloing, sure, it's nice to have one's
health returned at a solid rate, but for duoing, the 5% return on the
person taking the majority of the damage doesn't really work… Or it
works, but just not how we'd envisioned our duoing to work.

Power Word: Shield Macro
My interim solution — before I respec to dump those two extra points
in "Improved" Vampiric Embrace and before anyone strong-arms me into a
healing role — was to make the following macro.  This allows me to
shield Kaleyen while still maintaining my DPS target:

/cast [help] [target=targettarget, help] [target=player] Power Word: Shield

Shitty DPS and the Search for a Spell Casting Rotation
We did an Underbog run last night, and once again, the group was chock
full o' DKs.  My DPS was shit — fourth out of five.  My mana regen was
also horrible, and I found myself using Dispersion as a pseudo-mana-pot
several times.  So obviously I need to figure out a better spell
rotation, one that may or may not include Vampiric Embrace.  Looking at
threads on Shadowpriest.com and on Elitist Jerks, here's a
recommendation that I'm going to try on for size:

VT–>MB–>DP–>SW:D (for Shadow Weaving stacks)–> SW:P (+ trinket)–>MF–>MF–>MB–>reapply DoTs

(What about VE, I wonder?  When is it appropriate to cast it?)

Now granted, I'm level 65, as we all know the mantra right now, "the
game is balanced around level 80," but still… I don't like to perform
poorly.

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