So, I have been seeing a lot of priests on the forums latley talking a lot about how bad holy regen seems to be[mainly because we only really have 1 source of additional regen other then spirit at any given time]
So I decided to create this thread that is OPEN for constructive discussion on strategies people use as holy priests to best regen mana throughout the course of fights.
1) Pop shadowfiend/mind bender as early as possible. Don't wait till you get to 20% mana to pop your shadowfiend, pop it 20 seconds into a fight to cap your mana back up and you will find that it could be available 2-3 times per fight.
2) Mana potions, macro these bad boys with your archangel/arcane torrent/trinket procs 30k mana is 30k mana, period.
3) Macros:
/use 10(Engineers)
/use 14(or 13 depending on what your "use" trinket is)
/cast arcane torrent
/use Insert_manapot_here
4) PW:Solace: I can't say enough how useful this spell is specifically as holy. A lot of people argue mindbender is better, but if you are using shadowfiend early in the fight this creates a second source of mana regen, even if you only get to cast it 5 times during a downtime moment. thats 2100x5: 10,500 mana, most fights i cast this at LEAST 3 dozen times. Thats a lot of mana.
Also, if you are using PW:Solace with cooldowns like HYmn of Hope, you are gaining aditional mana per cast, it's important to time solace with abilities like that to MAXIMIZE as much regen as you can.
5) This somewhat relates to the macro I posted, but you need to be using your trinkets ON cooldown. Macro them into your casts, other abilities something so you can ensure that you are getting full benefit from them(granted you have use trinkets)
6) Be selective with your casts, if you are stacking mastery take advantage of the fact that that extra 20-30% HoT is going to heal the last 10k health that people have, trust me it will. You don't need to cast PoH until it's overhealing ESP with mastery stacking.
7) CoH/PoM/Divine Insight: Circle of healing + glyph is a great instant heal, a lot of people I watch in videos and talk to are missing the great short cooldown on this spell. You should be using it on cooldown is there are more then 4 people in the raid with 20k or more damage done to them. Don't rely on PoH to be your ONLY aoe healing spell
Divine Insight: For most fights, you almost NEED to have a weak aura/power aura to track this bad boy. It's amazing, basically a second circle of healing as well as a pretty low mana cost for PoM. This could replace an entire PoH cast or CoH.
PoM: should be casting it on cooldown, it's a smart heal and once its cast, you are already regening the mana and it will continue to heal after you have cast it
8) Don't snipe heals, yea healing meters are cool, you can do awsome HPS sure, but in 25 mans you have 3-4 other healers, and in 10 mans 1-2 extra. It's not about topping meters, it's about making sure you are benefiting the ENTIRE raid esp your other healers, if you are trying to snipe heals to be "top on meters" you are doing it wrong.
If there are 2 healers in a raid, play as if you are healing with two characters, not just trying to be the single best healer
if there are 3 other healers, play as if you are healing with 3 characters.
9) DON'T USE HW: SANCTUARY
FOr the mana cost, and the diminishing returns on this spell it just is NOT worth it. I have never seen a single WoL parse with sanctuary doing any WORTHWHILE healing. Sure it's a heal that lasts 25-30 seconds but at most its critting people for 2.5k.
COmpare it to healing rain, it's just not good.
It's a mana drainer, plain and simple, you have much better heals to cast then sanctuary.
Hope this helps, everyone should be adding insight as to how you manage your mana as holy. Holy REALLY doesn't have as many mana problems as people think, most of the time people see holy as the "OMG SPAM HEAL SPEC FOR AOE AWSOMENESSSS" and is what causes them to go oom.
HOly is about using your "SMART" heals efficiently to maximize your output(which can be massive if you control them well enough)
POST YOUR OWN OPINIONS/FEEDBACK AND CREATE DISCUSSION ON THIS TOPIC
Please post constructively and don't bash people.