New Holy Priest Help

[rmlunsford]

So I've been maining a resto shaman since the beginning of mists but we currently have 3 resto shaman in our healing team (25 man). Further, resto is fugly right now so I want to switch to my priest, however, I've had a heck of a time finding much discussion regarding holy priests. If anyone can point me in the direction of something helpful I would really appreciate it. From browsing wol and some basic icy veins I have compiled the following info:

Talent Build:
T1) Who cares
T2) Going feather as I've used it while levelling
T3) Mindbender
T4) Fight by fight but mostly desp prayer
T5) Divine Insight
T6) I have huge questions. I really don't understand how these work and would greatly appreciate a link to any explanation. I see a lot of h priests using cascade.

Glyphs:

1) Circle of Healing
2) Lightspring
3) Renew??
I see some people use lightspring and lightwell, do they stack?

Reforging:
Just reforge to Mastery? Is there a haste breakpoint that matters? It doesnt seem that any of our big spells benefit from additional ticks given by haste?


"Rotation" (This is during heavy damage phases, I'm not worried about light damage stuff, but I would appreciate any info on something that needs ramp up")

1) Cascade on CD. Best targets?
2) POM on CD. I assume most people are putting this on a tank? Is this the best practice? Also, what do you do when you have a free one from Divine Insight?
3) Circle of healing on CD. Do you use the Vuhdo tracking thing like I do with chain heal to choose the best target? Just pick a low health player thats not in the middle of nowhere?
4) POH low health groups.
5) Lightwell w/ glyph of lightspring. Do you use this as a cd during big damage phases? Do you drop it before the pull?
6) Holy word Sanc. When do you use this? It doesnt seem to heal for very much. Only useful when everything is on cd and everyone is stacked?

Single Target healing: Whats the go to here? Renew? Greater heal and heal are the slowest damn spells I've ever tried to cast. Seems like by the time they hit the guy is dead or someone else healed the damage.

I appreciate any help! Thanks.

[Rhianne]

Disclaimer: I play disc main spec . There used to be a really good holy walk through pinned to the top of the priest forums. You could still probably find it if you do a search.

For Talents, I would recommend Body and Soul over the feathers. That's a personal preference, in a raid situation I never have time to pick a target on the ground and then run through it, and contrary to the tooltip, it only hits one person no matter how many people are on top of each other when you cast it.

Cascade is typically chosen because you don't need people grouped on top of each other for it to be good. Halo, you need an addon and you have to stand in the perfect spot, plus if you get too close to CC'd mobs they will break. For the star one, everyone needs to be stacked on one spot or in a straight line. Cascade you just pick a semi low health player (not the lowest) pop it and go.

To your questions about spell usage.

1. Cascade, yes, use it on cooldown. Pick a low health target, probably not the lowest unless you think he won't live long enough for it to bounce to him. Cascade gets stronger as it goes.
2. PoM. PoM is great in that it bounces to low health targets. So you can cast it on tank. Or if two people are dotted and standing near each other (think poison during the horridon fight, or frostbite during the council) toss it one of them and it'll bounce back and forth. Typically I choose two dotted people over a tank because a tank will generally have hots rolling already.
3. Circle of healing is smarter than chain heal. Just pick someone in the middle of a group that needs heals and cast it. It will pick the 5 lowest health in range, regardless of who you cast it on... as in I've cast it several times where the person I had targeted didn't get healed at all.
4. Yes PoH low health groups. Also it helps to have groups set up to be priest friendly... ie melee in one group and ranged in another. Remember your mastery leaves a HoT at all times, so don't heal to 100% otherwise you're sniping your own heals, and increasing your overhealing even more than it already is. (PoH is a good choice if 3 targets need a heal, but that means that the other two might be complete overhealing so you generally have high over heal numbers)
5. Lightwell, I drop it before the pull. It has a long cooldown and if someone gets below half health they need it anyway. The sooner you drop it, the sooner you can drop another.
6. Holy word sanc is not a great spell. It remains up for a reasonable amount of time, and most fights are stack then spread, so if you're going to use it, you probably want to drop it early, then cascade/pom/poh, otherwise people are going to run out of it before it runs out.

[mookspal]

I play mostly disc, but do some fights as holy. I do pretty well with holy when I play it. I gear 100% for disc tho. Here is a log of the first 2 bosses in the new content. I did first boss as holy. Take a look at my spell usage. We are rebuilding so no jokes about only killing 2 bosses. Cheers.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/k...?s=2677&e=2925

Just adding a few things to previous poster.

1. Cascade, yes, use it on cooldown. Pick a low health target, probably not the lowest unless you think he won't live long enough for it to bounce to him. Cascade gets stronger as it goes.

I would not use on cooldown. Use during times of AOE/ multi people below X health. You will use it a ton, but not on cooldown. I always pick a target that is farthest away from group to max HPS. See tool tip.

2. PoM. PoM is great in that it bounces to low health targets. So you can cast it on tank. Or if two people are dotted and standing near each other (think poison during the horridon fight, or frostbite during the council) toss it one of them and it'll bounce back and forth. Typically I choose two dotted people over a tank because a tank will generally have hots rolling already.

PoM is awesome. Make sure you have the talent that allows for proc's. During heavy AOE this can be amazing. I usually precast a few PoH to get it to proc before heavy AOE. The instant jumps are nice and heal for a ton

3. Circle of healing is smarter than chain heal. Just pick someone in the middle of a group that needs heals and cast it. It will pick the 5 lowest health in range, regardless of who you cast it on... as in I've cast it several times where the person I had targeted didn't get healed at all.

yup.

4. Yes PoH low health groups. Also it helps to have groups set up to be priest friendly... ie melee in one group and ranged in another. Remember your mastery leaves a HoT at all times, so don't heal to 100% otherwise you're sniping your own heals, and increasing your overhealing even more than it already is. (PoH is a good choice if 3 targets need a heal, but that means that the other two might be complete overhealing so you generally have high over heal numbers)

Yup

5. Lightwell, I drop it before the pull. It has a long cooldown and if someone gets below half health they need it anyway. The sooner you drop it, the sooner you can drop another.

Yup

6. Holy word sanc is not a great spell. It remains up for a reasonable amount of time, and most fights are stack then spread, so if you're going to use it, you probably want to drop it early, then cascade/pom/poh, otherwise people are going to run out of it before it runs out.

I use this like once a fight and i usually regret it. Poor spell. Should be redesigned similar to healing rain. Until then, mehh

[Deleted]

Our Holy priest seems to be doing really well in our 25s at the moment, holy seems rather strong, probably not the least due to the bubble nerfs allowing Holy (among other healers) to shine more. If you want to check some logs to see 25s spell usage you can check from our last clear.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/b...mp/details/22/

As you can see, PoM is ridiculous (she has the 2set now too though).

Cascade is very strong, but don't underestimate Divine star, it's fairly amazing when the raid is stacked on various bosses.

[rmlunsford]

Our Holy priest seems to be doing really well in our 25s at the moment, holy seems rather strong, probably not the least due to the bubble nerfs allowing Holy (among other healers) to shine more. If you want to check some logs to see 25s spell usage you can check from our last clear.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/b...mp/details/22/.

Thats pretty funny, Toraah was one of the logs I browsed prior to this post. Thanks for the feedback.

[Deleted]

Thats pretty funny, Toraah was one of the logs I browsed prior to this post.

That is pretty funny, what are the odds

[rmlunsford]

I use this like once a fight and i usually regret it. Poor spell. Should be redesigned similar to healing rain. Until then, mehh

I promise, you don't want it redesigned similar to healing rain. Then you'll have a spell that makes up 30% of your healing w/ an incredibly limiting positioning requirement and you'll be searching for a new spec