Raid Healing as Holy. Few Questions

[Spoonman]

Hey guys

Since the 4.3 hit the live servers my main has been a Priest, Im loving the class tbh.

While I havent played Priest for that long ive came up with a few concerns during my times in Dragon soul and im looking for some help on this

Ok so, the way I currently see it there 2 ways to approach healing as Holy.

The first one, (which I used at first) is:
Im using Inner Will instead of Inner Fire also going 3 points in Mental Agility. Im gemming for Spirit on Prio, kinda going on Spirit as main stat. The way Im playing this is that all my Instant casts now are very good and doesnt take much mana. Renew is my top healing spell.
I found this spec to be acctualy very good. Its easy to heal people that is spread out aswell as when there stacking.

The second, (which im currently trying out) is:
Using Inne Fire, only have 1 point in Mental Agility due to lack of spending it somewhere else. Gemming for Intellect.
I picked this spec up due to the fact that everyone I see in game and look up on armory uses this spec and gemming style. I have tried this abit now and my top healing spell is Prayer of Healing while using Renew is just a huge mana loss. It also feels like this is good for stacking but is not as good when spreading out compared to the first example.

When comparing the both together I would say that the mana issues are the same in both. They seem to heal for about the same aswell. Saying it this way Im kinda saying that the first setup example must be better since its good during times of both Spreading and Stacking.
Which leaves the question, why doesnt noone go like the first example?


Note: I checked this up on the Holy guide here on Mmo Champ, still I didnt find any answers

[Deleted]

Well, there's lots of fights in DS where the raid is stacked.

You should always have 3/3 mental agility. There is no reason not to. (IMO) Don't drop points in Mental agility then say that "renew is a huge mana loss".


I don't really know what to say. If its working for you then its working for you.

[zakaluka]

Why people don't renewspam, and why int > spirit?

WRT renew, It's pure numbers, and there are two perspectives you can take.

Spells have an HPM (healing per mana) value and also HPCT value. I don't have accurate numbers anymore, but at the end of t12 when I checked HPM values were Renew: 10, PoH: 16 (fully specced/glyphed renew). Also Renew's HPCT value was about 10% below PoH's. Because Renew stops benefiting from haste, and never benefits from mastery, Renew's HPM/HPCT will scale much more slowly than PoH's will. All of that means: (1) if you had spent every Renew cast on PoH instead, you would get more total throughput (2) if you had cast PoH instead of casting renew, you would have spent less mana. Double whammy, you can't really reason yourself into renewspam with all that info. Renew is useful for spiking with precasts, also as supplemental healing on a tank with threat. That's about it.

On the other side of the issue, PoH is very precise - you can directly control how much overheal it does. Good priests get the overheal figure on PoH to below 20%. Renew is horribly imprecise - you have no way to ensure low overheal on renew, unless the whole raid is taking constant high damage. In which case you'd be best off to precast your renews before the damage, then switch to PoH since it does more healing per time anyway.

Int>Spi? Actually, spi's value depends on whether or not you OOM. But even then, how much extra healing a point of spirit will give you depends entirely on how long the fight is. Int will give you WAY more healing per point than spirit, even if you are running out of mana. The fight has to be longer than 12 minutes, and you have to be carrying an average heroic ilvl to be able to make a case otherwise. I simmed spi vs int against 4.2, and you can make a case for spi after you break ilvl 400 or so (spi mp5 scales with int), on fights that are longer than 12 minutes. Only one fight this whole expansion meets this criteria, and in hardcore only.

[Spoonman]

Why people don't renewspam, and why int > spirit?

WRT renew, It's pure numbers, and there are two perspectives you can take.

Spells have an HPM (healing per mana) value and also HPCT value. I don't have accurate numbers anymore, but at the end of t12 when I checked HPM values were Renew: 10, PoH: 16. Also Renew's HPCT value was about 20% below PoH's. Because Renew stops benefiting from haste, and never benefits from mastery, Renew's HPM/HPCT will scale much more slowly than PoH's will. All of that means: (1) if you had spent every Renew cast on PoH instead, you would get more total throughput (2) if you had cast PoH instead of casting renew, you would have spent less mana. Double whammy, you can't really reason yourself into renewspam with all that info. Renew is useful for spiking with precasts, also as supplemental healing on a tank with threat. That's about it.

On the other side of the issue, PoH is very precise - you can directly control how much overheal it does. Good priests get the overheal figure on PoH to below 20%. Renew is horribly imprecise - you have no way to ensure low overheal on renew, unless the whole raid is taking constant high damage. In which case you'd be best off to precast your renews before the damage, then switch to PoH since it does more healing per time anyway.

Int>Spi? Actually, spi's value depends on whether or not you OOM. But even then, how much extra healing a point of spirit will give you depends entirely on how long the fight is. Int will give you WAY more healing per point than spirit, even if you are running out of mana. The fight has to be longer than 12 minutes, and you have to be carrying an average heroic ilvl to be able to make a case otherwise. I simmed spi vs int against 4.2, and you can make a case for spi after you break ilvl 400 or so, on fights that are longer than 12 minutes. Only one fight this whole expansion meets this criteria, and in hardcore only.

Wow dude Cheers for that info <3. Still currently going as the second spec which I explained in the top post it feels like I dont have a good spell to use for just single target healing. Renew burns mana like hell now which makes the normal Heal/Flash Heal/Greater Heal the spell to use I guess. When I used the first spec I never used any of these spells exept when a talent procced. The renews kinda did that job for me even tho it does uncontrolable overhealing.

[ishootblanks]

first thing's first.. do you raid 10 or 25 man?

are you doing LFR or Normal?

how does your healing team operate? are you just another raid healer? are you back up tank healer? what other healers are in your normal group?

the awesome thing about being a priest is you have two totally different healing specs that have multiple sub-specs..

basically unless your role is to just sit there and spam POH.. then you probably want INT in your gem slots.. and as much haste and spirit as you can get.. if you're a backup tank healer.. go int and mastery..

honestly as COH and Renew are going to be some of your most efficient and effective spells.. I can't think of any reason not to take 3/3 mental agility..

if you're armoring world first/ server first level guilds.. then you're looking at people who already have BIS gear.. raid with the same people constantly.. each healer knows their exact role and what the other healers in the group will be doing as well..

---------- Post added 2011-12-27 at 08:11 PM ----------

Wow dude Cheers for that info <3. Still currently going as the second spec which I explained in the top post it feels like I dont have a good spell to use for just single target healing. Renew burns mana like hell now which makes the normal Heal/Flash Heal/Greater Heal the spell to use I guess. When I used the first spec I never used any of these spells exept when a talent procced. The renews kinda did that job for me even tho it does uncontrolable overhealing.

the big downside to POH though is that it only heals the group the target is in.. so if only 1 or 2 injured people are in the group.. you're just wasting mana..

just one spell over and over regardless of how you cut it though is a sign of an inexperienced healer.. priests are equipped with a ton of spells for a reason!

and if you're doing a lot of single target.. or small group healing on targets that are spread out.. try serenity chakra and it's little single target heal.. it's instant cast.. heals about 50% more than a regular heal and makes your next single target heal have a 25% additional crit chance.. not to mention it refreshes renew!

[Spoonman]

first thing's first.. do you raid 10 or 25 man?

are you doing LFR or Normal?

how does your healing team operate? are you just another raid healer? are you back up tank healer? what other healers are in your normal group?

the awesome thing about being a priest is you have two totally different healing specs that have multiple sub-specs..

basically unless your role is to just sit there and spam POH.. then you probably want INT in your gem slots.. and as much haste and spirit as you can get.. if you're a backup tank healer.. go int and mastery..

honestly as COH and Renew are going to be some of your most efficient and effective spells.. I can't think of any reason not to take 3/3 mental agility..

if you're armoring world first/ server first level guilds.. then you're looking at people who already have BIS gear.. raid with the same people constantly.. each healer knows their exact role and what the other healers in the group will be doing as well..[COLOR="red"]



just one spell over and over regardless of how you cut it though is a sign of an inexperienced healer.. priests are equipped with a ton of spells for a reason!

and if you're doing a lot of single target.. or small group healing on targets that are spread out.. try serenity chakra and it's little single target heal.. it's instant cast.. heals about 50% more than a regular heal and makes your next single target heal have a 25% additional crit chance.. not to mention it refreshes renew

I raid 10man, Normal currently. got 1 on HC. Im just a Aoe Healer I guess. We use a Paladin, Druid+ Me.


Also im not saying that all I do is use Renew/POH. The Spell that does the most healing is one of those spell depending on the different specs