Going from 10m to 25m Healing

[Ellumina]

I've always been a 10man healer and I love being in sync with my two other healing partners. Our guild has decided to expand and give 25man raiding a shot starting this week. Our healing comp at the moment is 2 Holy Paladins, 1 Disc Priest, 1 Holy Priest (me, even though Disc is where my heart lies =[), and 1 Resto Shaman. The transition is throwing me off just a bit, since there's so many people to heal and so many more healers that heals get covered so quickly. And I have to be more selective where to throw my PoH, since I can't just alternate between 2 groups now. I'm overgeared/geared out by now, but I'd just like a little insight so I can get a better grasp on 25man healing.

Armory link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...umina/advanced
Link to my logs from last night, which is the first 6 bosses and I only healed 3 fights (you can check other dates for my 10man healing): http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-8fqdnfuqnjkwd0a4/

- Are there any significant changes I should make to my playstyle, spec, or reforging? I think I plan to spec out of Body and Soul (either take 1-2 points out) when I log on, and Blessed Resilience is something new I'm taking on. Used to need Body and Soul for Hagara to speed people and dispel for frost phase, and I used it to speed boost our blood kiting tank on Spine, but with a Disc now I assume I will be bubbling even less.
My reforge is Haste > Mastery > Crit to sync up well with Shadow (I am the OS DPS for 4 heal fights) and Disc (also my stat preference for Disc). And I don't have Spirit stacked incredibly high, do I possibly need more? I have H Spine and H Madness to heal still tonight, otherwise no fights gave me any mana problems (didn't even need to pop mana CDs for most)
- With the above in mind, is it more common to use Flash Heal in 25man as sort of a quick snipe heal? I don't use Flash Heal much as Holy unless necessary or I have a boatload of mana to waste (in other words I don't focus much on building Serendipity stacks).
- How bad is it to have 2 Disc Priests and no Holy Priests in our comp? I'm used to healing as Holy for all the fights I need to heal except Madness. I love Disc and AA/A so much for this fight and my mana problems are essentially non existent until Deathwing's platform on 10man. Is it fairly essential that I stay Holy for comp variety and DH?
- What are some useful Lightwell addons? I used to not have it glyphed since my raid didn't like to click it much =P cept for maybe Zon'ozz and Spine. I have the Lightwell buff shown on my grid if people click it, but I'm still interested in having an addon that could at least tell me the number of charges left. I don't need anything super fancy.
- Chakra Serenity vs Chakra Sanctuary: In 10man, I'm always in Sanctuary and only something go Serenity for healing debuffs on Spine. For 25man now, would there be ANY occasion in DS where Serenity may shine or be useful over Sanctuary?
- Is it common to have healing assignments where healers are assigned to a specific group to heal for AoE healing? We have loose assignments with our 10man healing, but more so regarding healing jobs like who's dispelling. Just wondering, because I'm used to just healing all the things =P not specified to a certain group.
- Random gear question: Should I continue to use H Bracers of the Banished for Holy? Or bring back my 397 crafted bracers and put two epic reds in the sockets? Because I think Dreamwraps has more int with two Queens Garnets and has spirit on it, but I've been using my 410 bracers for the item level *shrug*
- Specific question: Is Archangel worth having as Holy on Madness? I just can't imagine not smiting during down time on Madness (QQ I want to Disc!) and I'm wondering if it would be useful to pick up Archangel without Atonement for this fight.

Thanks for reading all my nonsense concerns and questions

Sincerely,
Ellumina, the bad Holy Priest

[helloberry]

My own opinions:

- Are there any significant changes I should make to my playstyle, spec, or reforging?
From my POV, I changed from 25 to 10 man. In 25man, there's less single target sniping you need/can to do because there are other healers that can do it better than us (RShaman, Hpally). You would most of the time focus on AOE healing. From what I'm seeing, you are not using your Prayer of Mending as much as it should be. Hopefully you are using it on cooldown because it should account for quite a bit of your healing %. Make sure you at least use it on high AOE phase like Hagara Ice phase stacked, Zonozz Black phase, Madness cataclysm etc any AOE aura type of damage.
Body and Soul is very situational in most cases. With your guild's progression (8/8 on farm?), ice phases should be quick and not much bloods will need to be kited on Spine with the 20% nerf. I am actually the same as you, I switch between Holy/Disc/Shadow so there's not much reforges I can do without spending time & 1k gold+ every week to respec and reforge. Reforges shouldn't affect your throughput much anyway. If you have too much mana I suggest you spec into Darkness instead for the extra haste.
- How bad is it to have 2 Disc Priests and no Holy Priests in our comp?
2 Disc is not terrible for 25man but should be the maximum amount there should be due to Rapture mechanic. However with your raid comp only consisting 1 Resto druid, you might want to prefer Holy for an extra Divine Hymn/Tranq on most fights.
- What are some useful Lightwell addons?
I use an addon called Raeli's Spell Announcer (RSA). It can announce that you have dropped the lightwell, track the number of charges left as well as who clicked it. Technically your raid doesn't have to click your Lightwell whenever they take damage. How I get my raid to click my lightwell is that I only remind them to cilck it on high AOE phases like Spine 9 stack explosion, rolls, Madness Blistering tentacles etc high damage phases. Make sure you remind them and let them know the location of your lighwell. Because most of the time they'll tell you I CAN'T FIND IT FFFF.
- Chakra Serenity vs Chakra Sanctuary:
Sanctuary all the way unless you do the Serenity renew on Spine. I don't see any other reason to give up Sanctuary on 25.
- Is it common to have healing assignments where healers are assigned to a specific group to heal for AoE healing?
That will have to depend on your healing partners. Are some of the healers new that you've barely healed with? Or old guildies that already know whats gonna happen. Some groups you can assign for the first time and they'll remember what to do. If you're in the guilds that swap healers all the time it's probably a good thing to assign healing cd's.
- Random gear question: Should I continue to use H Bracers of the Banished for Holy?
Depends if you need the spirit really. You can always use the Banish on farm fights and use the spirit ones on spine/madness where you actually need the spirit for longevity.
- Specific question: Is Archangel worth having as Holy on Madness?
Hmm I think if there's much down time on Madness you should drop a healer There's always something to heal, tentacle slams, blisterings, cataclysm, 4th platformomg


Also I do think that you could drop a healer for some of those farm fights as the overheal % of those fights are really high (45%-70%). It's hard to see performance when all the healers are doing tremendous overhealing I must be super bored to type all this.

[zakaluka]

I miss my 25 man, but loss of interest forced us back into 10s . I also felt my performance suffer a bit, and felt a little lost transitioning into 25. Biggest thing to realize is your priorities as a healer change a LOT in 25-man.

In 10-man you need to be able to carry really huge bursts, without many cooldowns to help you. Burst HPS is really really important. But In 25 this goes away mostly because you have ~5 healers with cooldowns to rely on. So overall HPS matters a lot more than your ability to burst. Basically you can gear for efficiency (sacrificing haste to do so). A bit different.

Group assignments: not usually a good idea, it gives people an excuse to not play reactively. What you will notice though is that worse players tend to heal people near the top of their raid frames, so you will spend more time healing groups 4 and 5 if you're paying attention. Just kind of a reality to cope with. It is normal though to assign someone as a primary tank healer, since tank damage is way higher. Even though, usually all 5 healers support tank heals so the 'tank healer' can still spend a lot of time raid healing.

Now it's a fact that mitigation CDs are much stronger than healing CDs in 25-man (except in spread situations, sic Zon/Hagara). But holy overall is VERY strong in 25-man. I suggest that the value of DA stacking isn't nearly as much in 25s, so unless you need the barrier, or unless you need a tank healer, even having no discs is preferable. But having 2 is bad because you'll be sniping each other's raptures. It doesn't work that well unless both tanks have high uptime (and nothing in DS meets that criteria).

This is only input on a few of your points, probably others have some good input for you.

[Ellumina]

My own opinions:

- Are there any significant changes I should make to my playstyle, spec, or reforging?
From my POV, I changed from 25 to 10 man. In 25man, there's less single target sniping you need/can to do because there are other healers that can do it better than us (RShaman, Hpally). You would most of the time focus on AOE healing. From what I'm seeing, you are not using your Prayer of Mending as much as it should be. Hopefully you are using it on cooldown because it should account for quite a bit of your healing %. Make sure you at least use it on high AOE phase like Hagara Ice phase stacked, Zonozz Black phase, Madness cataclysm etc any AOE aura type of damage.
Body and Soul is very situational in most cases. With your guild's progression (8/8 on farm?), ice phases should be quick and not much bloods will need to be kited on Spine with the 20% nerf. I am actually the same as you, I switch between Holy/Disc/Shadow so there's not much reforges I can do without spending time & 1k gold+ every week to respec and reforge. Reforges shouldn't affect your throughput much anyway. If you have too much mana I suggest you spec into Darkness instead for the extra haste.
- How bad is it to have 2 Disc Priests and no Holy Priests in our comp?
2 Disc is not terrible for 25man but should be the maximum amount there should be due to Rapture mechanic. However with your raid comp only consisting 1 Resto druid, you might want to prefer Holy for an extra Divine Hymn/Tranq on most fights.
- What are some useful Lightwell addons?
I use an addon called Raeli's Spell Announcer (RSA). It can announce that you have dropped the lightwell, track the number of charges left as well as who clicked it. Technically your raid doesn't have to click your Lightwell whenever they take damage. How I get my raid to click my lightwell is that I only remind them to cilck it on high AOE phases like Spine 9 stack explosion, rolls, Madness Blistering tentacles etc high damage phases. Make sure you remind them and let them know the location of your lighwell. Because most of the time they'll tell you I CAN'T FIND IT FFFF.
- Chakra Serenity vs Chakra Sanctuary:
Sanctuary all the way unless you do the Serenity renew on Spine. I don't see any other reason to give up Sanctuary on 25.
- Is it common to have healing assignments where healers are assigned to a specific group to heal for AoE healing?
That will have to depend on your healing partners. Are some of the healers new that you've barely healed with? Or old guildies that already know whats gonna happen. Some groups you can assign for the first time and they'll remember what to do. If you're in the guilds that swap healers all the time it's probably a good thing to assign healing cd's.
- Random gear question: Should I continue to use H Bracers of the Banished for Holy?
Depends if you need the spirit really. You can always use the Banish on farm fights and use the spirit ones on spine/madness where you actually need the spirit for longevity.
- Specific question: Is Archangel worth having as Holy on Madness?
Hmm I think if there's much down time on Madness you should drop a healer There's always something to heal, tentacle slams, blisterings, cataclysm, 4th platformomg


Also I do think that you could drop a healer for some of those farm fights as the overheal % of those fights are really high (45%-70%). It's hard to see performance when all the healers are doing tremendous overhealing I must be super bored to type all this.

Yeah, as our first night of 25, we decided to go more healers "to be safe". And we had too many healers around last night >< I think we had 7 at some point (not including OS healers), with only me with a strong DPS spec.

And I just love Madness as Disc because of AA/A, where I wouldn't have to do much actual healing during crush and could just Smite majority of the time, and I would be able to pop Archangel a lot.

And the Resto Druid from last night is a pug actually, and we're not sure if he'll be joining the raid.

I don't have a tracker for PoM (I have it shown on my Grid and how many charges, but I think now between there being 25 people and 2 healing priests, I completely lose track of where my PoM is and popping it). I'll create a power aura for it.

Thanks for your response ^^ Very helpful! DLing that Lightwell addon now.

[Kacie]

If you prefare to stay disc, it is fine to use 2 disc priests in a raid my guild sometimes uses 2 , I'm holy so I'll pop a few tips, we mostly raid heal so PoH, CoH, Sanctuary and Echo of Light are usually our top heals used.

Lots of guilds don't use any holy priests so I don't think that there needed, but they are useful.

I don't think many holy priests used serenity I use it sometimes but not very often, PoM and I also help out on tanks but I stay in sanctuary to do this, I'm on 3.5k spirit I'm not sure if you need more but that's how much I'm using atm, my guild isn't as high progressed as you were on 6/8 HC modes.

I use Lightwell Buddy for my lightwell, my guild leader likes it because it shows who's clicking it and how many charges left, alot of spam but he likes it that way.

Hope this helps.

[Ellumina]

If you prefare to stay disc, it is fine to use 2 disc priests in a raid my guild sometimes uses 2 , I'm holy so I'll pop a few tips, we mostly raid heal so PoH, CoH, Sanctuary and Echo of Light are usually our top heals used.

Lots of guilds don't use any holy priests so I don't think that there needed, but they are useful.

I don't think many holy priests used serenity I use it sometimes but not very often, PoM and I also help out on tanks but I stay in sanctuary to do this, I'm on 3.5k spirit I'm not sure if you need more but that's how much I'm using atm, my guild isn't as high progressed as you were on 6/8 HC modes.

I use Lightwell Buddy for my lightwell, my guild leader likes it because it shows who's clicking it and how many charges left, alot of spam but he likes it that way.

Hope this helps.

I just picked up helloberry's recommendation of Raeli's Spell Announcer ^^ Customized it so I'm good in the Lightwell department now. Is 3.5k the raw spirit you have? I have 2.9k raw (H 3.9k with my Heart of Unliving). HoU gives me a lot but I'm not too sure if I need any more base spirit. The amount I've been using has been fine for 10man fights, just not sure how things might effect my mana in 25.

[Kacie]

Yeah its 3.5k raw spirit in holy I use RSA with Lightwell Buddy Sometimes people just don't click it so lightwell buddy spam in raid chat helps that a little I would aim for at least 3k spirit, but then again you have the trinket, so maybe your good

[Ellumina]

Yeah its 3.5k raw spirit in holy I use RSA with Lightwell Buddy Sometimes people just don't click it so lightwell buddy spam in raid chat helps that a little I would aim for at least 3k spirit, but then again you have the trinket, so maybe your good

That's a lotta smiley faces Kacie XD I'll DL Lightwell buddy as well to check it out ^^

We ended up clearing Spine and Madness on normal because it was like DC galore last night, and now we know who to replace and what to recruit for next week ^^ We had too many healers again last night so we were 7 HEALING Spine O.O ain't that crazy? =P

I also reforged some of my haste into mastery. And my mana seemed pretty fine for H Spine (then again, 7 healing lol..) so I think I can leave my spirit alone for now =]

Also, I <3 SANCTUARY! It's still good in 10man, but it's super wonderfully awesome in 25, I love it XD tehee!

[Kacie]

Oops sorry about the smileys its a girl thing haha XD

We use 6 healers and 5 on ultraxtion one of our healers goes dps on that boss on hc mode Holy in 25m is great I <3 it, in 10man I play disc XD

I go Disc on Zon, Warmaster it's better for that fight I think =D

If you ever get to heal on Ultraxtion take green its pretty awesome for holy priest XD