Holy looking to move from normal to heroic mode

[sarad]

Hi guys!

My guild's downed Madness on a normal a few times now and we're looking at taking a step up to heroic next lockout. We three heal all of the fights on normal (rDruid, hPally, and hPriest) and I normally (read: all fights except ultraxion) on top with about 38% of the healing done and about 18-22% overheal. Sadly, we don't log with WoL so I can't show you guys what I'm doing, but I'll take any tips you guys have for someone who's never raided heroic before.

I'd also appreciate it if you looked over my gear (Nimai in the sig) and suggest any changes that need to be made. Only thing I can't do right now is swap out some of the extranneous orange gems for reds; just can't afford them as it is.

Thanks!

[Deleted]

I havn't played holy since tier 11 but some of your glyphs seem kind of odd to me

Prime:
No lightwell glyph. Would probably use that instead of guardian spirit. If you grp isn't clicking it, they should...

Major:
Should use Cirle of healing instead of desperation

Minor:
Just add Fortitude (for in-combat rebuffing) and Fade, both are situational but will save you some mana.



As for your gear, Your haste is a bit too low for my liking (I prefer having at least 12-13% before darkness), but that's up to you i suppose.
I also don't like the Valor trinket at all as a healer.

[Tihr]

You should be gemming Intellect in red sockets.
Pick up a Disc spec. You'll need it for heroic modes.
While I hate the talent, Veiled Shadows becomes really useful on some fights on heroic as Holy. You have far too many points in your Holy tree, and you should pick up Mental Agility instead. You should also try to pick up Blessed Resilience. Drop either Divine Touch + Rapid Renewal, or Surge of Light.
Swap your boot enchant for Lavawalker (Mastery + 8% movespeed)

[zakaluka]

@heap, some people have found very good use of the GS glyph specifically for Madness when doing Nozdormu 2nd. GS is available for bolt+impale on 3rd+4th platform, as well as one round of monstrosities. Plus in 10m lightwell makes for one good heal-CD per platform, maybe 1st blistering. Adding the glyph is mostly just an effic boost since you don't get to coordinate clicking it a 2nd time.

You're right though, just felt like pointing these things out. There are times where GS on a 2:30 timer is supergood.

When we still had troubles keeping tanks up on madness, I ran GS, and I was doing 25's at the time . But then we switched Alextraszha to 2nd and Nozdormu 3rd and I put in the LW glyph. Then I get GS for 4th platform impale+bolt, again for 2nd set of monstrosities.

[sarad]

Heap - It's a 10m, I hear CoH glyph in 10m is situational; since we have two hunters, I'd see the extra heal going to pets. And in the raid, I've got 12.5% haste. Have the 384 seal in my bag, swap back and forth between than and the valor depending on the fight.

Tihr- Like I said, I can't afford more intel gems. I've tried disc, I suck at it, and will not be using it. No time to try to learn it. I'll consider dropping surge for resillience, as it rarely seems to proc for me. I do use renew heavily, though. No mana problems, so I skip mental agility and veiled shadows in favor of throughput.

zakaluka - yeah, we use GS almost every platform on madness, that's why I like to keep it glyphed. I normally drop lightwell when we kill the corruption so that the raid uses it during cataclysm. Sometimes there's 1-3 leftover charges, so glyphing it wouldn't make much sense.

[Deleted]

Alright, keep guardian spirit if you get more bang for your buck from that
I'd still trade Desperation for CoH though as even healing a pet (which it mostly shouldn't, i think...) would give you more return than Desperation as you just don't get to use that one at all.

[Sakamae]

I agree with the above posts that you need to swap some points around in your tree and change out some glyphs. This is the current set up I'm using. In 10 mans I find glyphed GS to be quite valuable, and Surge of Light procs quite a bit for me, since you don't just PoH spam in 10s like in a 25 man setting.

The stat priority for you really depends on your playstyle. I personally prefer a haste build. I'm sitting with 2k haste and 12 mastery. Echo of light is around 9-10% of my total healing done on an average fight. In FL I leaned a bit more on mastery, but in DS I find the haste more valuable. You should be sitting with at least 12.5% haste to get the extra tick on renew, and then dump everything else into mastery if you want to go that route, but imo 9% is too low.

All of the heroic modes are doable as holy, but a lot of them are much easier as disc (with Hagara as the exception). You'll have a lot of people telling you to go disc, but you should be able to stay holy if that's your preference.

[Deleted]

I also tend to lean towards a bit more haste when raiding DS 10 hc as holy. Do you know if you'll be 2 healing the hc fights (some of them at least) with the Druid or the Holy Pal? That decision could also change where you decide to put points also per fight basis.

One thing you could try as practice though, if you've been 3 healing all the normal fights in DS10, is to maybe try one lockout 2 healing at least the first 6 fights as practice since some of the hc fights will require 2 healing and are a lot more demanding than 2 healing the normals. (but since the nerf I guess you could get away with 3 healing them if you have very good dps).

[sarad]

On all of our main runs, our dps all top 40k consistently, so we've never looked into 2-healing. I've suggested trying it, but the RL hit this...comfort zone, for lack of a better term, that some us are trying to break him out of. Normal's just too easy now, we have it cleared in under and hour and a half.

Out of curiousity, though, why a haste build? Sure, faster casts, but less healing done by the free heal.

[Deleted]

Well personally I try to reach a cast time of 2 seconds, then go for mastery. With the upgrades in hc, I tend to feel that even by doing so, I have sufficient mastery for the free heals to make a difference but that could be me (I have around 15 mastery). I just found through logs that my mastery tended to overheal a lot so didn't think dropping it slightly in favour of getting the 2 seconds cast would be that bad.

It's up to you really, I think the best is to try out both and see which you're more comfortable with. With 3 healers though I'd imagine it would end up more as overheal but I could be wrong.

[Ellumina]

- Not a fan of the VP trinket at all. I see you mention you have a LFR Seal, I think that would be better.
- Get 3/3 Mental Agility. It will be helpful to you in heroics.
- I don't like Spirit of Redemption in a raiding spec, because it's a wasted point into expecting that you'd die (except maybe Spine. I sort've wish I have it for H Spine since I always die at the very end -.- Healing aggro, yayyy)
- Your gemming is a bit weird to me. You have non red gems in red sockets (shoulders, cape) yet you put an epic gem in a blue socket. Get an epic red in your cape when you can, it's your BiS cape.
- Most 10m fights are fine as Holy (I personally heal Morchok, Zon'ozz, Hagara, and Spine as Holy and it works perfectly fine).

I may post more later. In a rush to get to class x.x

[sarad]

- Not a fan of the VP trinket at all. I see you mention you have a LFR Seal, I think that would be better.
- Get 3/3 Mental Agility. It will be helpful to you in heroics.
- I don't like Spirit of Redemption in a raiding spec -snip-
- Your gemming is a bit weird to me. -snip-

I'm still comparing the seal with the vp trink, honestly. I like the VP trink for spine (recovering from when more than 2 people have the absorb debuff) and during cataclysms (instead of blowing a cooldown, especially when I try to use DH for bolts).
SoR has saved me a few times, kind of a crutch.
The gemming is odd 'cause I can't afford more reds, and I got the gloves loooong before the cape (which I got last lockout). The purple in the shoulders is because I had gotten the spinel in the same lockout and still couldn't afford another pair of reds, so I figured I might as well make due. This lockout only resulted in 1 epic, which promptly went into the headpiece (because I had just got that, too.)

[kaneseNP]

The seal is going to be better all of the time, even if it is lower ilevel than the vp trinket. You have more than enough spirit from gear not to mention you have HoU

[Ellumina]

I'm still comparing the seal with the vp trink, honestly. I like the VP trink for spine (recovering from when more than 2 people have the absorb debuff) and during cataclysms (instead of blowing a cooldown, especially when I try to use DH for bolts).
SoR has saved me a few times, kind of a crutch.
The gemming is odd 'cause I can't afford more reds, and I got the gloves loooong before the cape (which I got last lockout). The purple in the shoulders is because I had gotten the spinel in the same lockout and still couldn't afford another pair of reds, so I figured I might as well make due. This lockout only resulted in 1 epic, which promptly went into the headpiece (because I had just got that, too.)

I'M DONE WITH CLASS! I'm back!

I'm one who believes in saving epic gems for BiS pieces, specifically the red ones since they're friggin expensive (well, that's how our guild does it. We put all epic gems in the gbank, and gem people once they get BiS pieces).

Also consider getting crafted bracers. They're really great with 2 red sockets (spirit/haste). I passed on H bracers to casters since the crafted ones are pretty darn good.
Replace your belt with the VP spirit/crit one IMO. 2 sockets (3 once you put in the belt buckle), and spirit is always a wonderful thing to have.
Get tier pants when you can. Good itemization. In the end, you'll want gloves as your offpiece (and have H Spine gloves), but having H Morchok shoulders wouldn't be so bad either.

Without logs, I can't give any direct criticism aside from what I see in your armory.

I also saw you mention 3 healing all the fights. This is entirely unnecessary on many fights, and would only drag the fight out longer than necessary if not hitting berserk timers. 2 heal fights would be Yor'sahj, Ultraxion, and Blackhorn (I think some also 2 heal Morchok and Hagara, but I'm not entirely sure).