Are Priest currently the worst healers? (Proving Grounds Q, Also)

[TTom2755]

I have been playing a Holy Priest since vanilla, i perfer it over Disc.

In BC i raid hardcore and it wasnt hard to top meters.. i left the game when wrath came and and have now came back for mist, i continue to play holy priest and though not raiding i have managed to get ilvl 500+ gear form LFRs and such. i know how to gem and spec and reforge but i cant seem to get gold on proving grounds, what am i doing wrong?

Heal is way way to weak to keep the tank up, he takes so much freaking damage even with PoM and SW:Shield constantly on him. using FH and GH kills mana and i have to use Chakra Serenity for the heals to be stronger, if i go with Chakra Sanctuary the direct heals are weaker and the ground heal doesnt heal for as much as other classes like shamans and druid. i feel like proving grounds is unbalance as shamans can shock mobs and interupt and put grounding totems down to avoid those RNG Fireball Pyroblast kills.

do you more season priest have any advice? and please dont say "play disc" i hate the disc play style.

[Ebonheart]

I have been playing a Holy Priest since vanilla, i perfer it over Disc.

In BC i raid hardcore and it wasnt hard to top meters.. i left the game when wrath came and and have now came back for mist, i continue to play holy priest and though not raiding i have managed to get ilvl 500+ gear form LFRs and such. i know how to gem and spec and reforge but i cant seem to get gold on proving grounds, what am i doing wrong?

Heal is way way to weak to keep the tank up, he takes so much freaking damage even with PoM and SW:Shield constantly on him. using FH and GH kills mana and i have to use Chakra Serenity for the heals to be stronger, if i go with Chakra Sanctuary the direct heals are weaker and the ground heal doesnt heal for as much as other classes like shamans and druid. i feel like proving grounds is unbalance as shamans can shock mobs and interupt and put grounding totems down to avoid those RNG Fireball Pyroblast kills.

do you more season priest have any advice? and please dont say "play disc" i hate the disc play style.

I remember trying Holy for the first time during Firelands and going OOM in no time. Its clear that I ain't even a decent Holy Priest. But from my experience Holy Priests can be pretty mana intensive if you don't do the right things. Secondly Holy Priests ain't the best tank or dungeon healers. They get the job done but don't do it effectively or efficiently. Some swear that Holy Priests have a very fun play style. I could never get a hang of it. Even in raid heals, I often found Holy to be lacking. Maybe I wasn't going about it the right way, but I was pretty effective as Disc.

Proving grounds work around a dungeon group i.e 5 group members, something which Disc Priests excels at. I ain't telling you to play Disc but Holy Priests just are not as effective in that setting. They also don't make the best tank healers and are probably last on the list of tank healers. As a Holy Priest its just hard trying to heal the tank and the group at the same time when there is so much damage going out.

Your only best bet would be to reforge everything to spirit and give it a shot.

[Amerrol]

Priests are pretty bad at low gear levels. Holy doesn't have enough regen and Heal is very weak, and Disc does poorly with small amounts of crit. I can't speak for other classes, and I haven't tried Gold yet, but I'm sure it is doable. Remember, you don't have to top everyone off the second they take damage.

Switch to Inner Will to cast Renew on the DPS. Refresh them with Heal if you need to. PW:S is too expensive and the shield too small to be worth it. A GH costs less and will do much more. Just pre-cast everything on the tank, and don't forget to use GS, as even Heals will be quite strong there. Not sure if this will work, but grip the stupid ranged closer to the tank so you can utilize Divine Star and hopefully hit them all at once. Don't forget about Void Shift with a follow up Desperate Prayer + Healthstone. DO NOT use the ground AoE. Only hitting two targets for ~1000 is a complete waste of mana. If you could get all 5 then it might be helpful during the heavy AoE phases.

Hope something I wrote helps. Good luck!

[Isheria]

Is this a proving grounds question mostly? If yes then yes priests are the worst healers for it. If you have a stun as a healer in fact you have a massive advantage in proving grounds since stunning the most dangerous mobs per wave makes it extremely easier.

[Rangoo]

I have spent 5 or 6 hours doing PG, I could get my bronze and silver without troubles, but in gold I'm having troubles.
I'm doing as a disc.

I have done all CM without problems as a disc, I havent had problems with heal in CM, and I thing I'm not a bad healer.

and now I'm a little frustated in PG, I couldn't get this gold yet.

The first 2 hours I have spent in PG I couldn't pass to wave 6, it was frustrated to me.
Yesterday I could go to wave 9 but I run OOM and the damage was more than I could heal.

My experience: In the first wave if the piroblast mob hits so much the same dps then is better to restart the PG.
sometimes he does two or three piroblast on the same dps, and you need to spend so much mana healing this NPC.
If you are luck guy he will hit the hunter's mob (turtle) and the tank.

in the second wave the AoE mob should die first, then try top all your dps and tank for the third wave.
here you have to top all your NPCs, then the rat will apply that fuck debuff and the debuff will leave without troubles.

On the wave 5 the AoE damage is a little bit high I have tried to open my AoE CD here, in this wave the CC will help so much, but priest's fear doesn't work in PG =/
When the piroblast mobs spam, I tried to stay in a good place and I have used my leap of faith to push the hunter, In my opinion he is the worst.

On wave 7 the single target damage is a little bit high I tried to open my pain supression here.

On my runs I run OOM in this wave, I need to use my HoH earlier, because I could not use all his channel, but I haven't found a window to use all HoH and mindbeard together.

Reforges:
I have tried to do it using haste/crit reforge, but I have a big issue with my mana, and my damage doesn't help so much.
Now I'm doing with spirit/mastery it is better, I have flasked spirit and eat a spirit food, but for me int > spirit > mastery, maybe I need more mana management.

It was my experience, as a disc in PG.

I don't have CC to use, and when I need to top the NPC's life to dispel the rat debuff, I had some troubles because my heal is weak.
when the rogue use his kick right, then the run is a little easy, but he doesn't do it, and you have to have luck because hunter and mage like to stay on fire, they are stupid, the huntard is the worst.

I would like to use my fear, and see my shield helping to free the rat's debuff.

I'm disaponted with PGs, it is unfair I have CC but the mobs are immune for my CCs.

[Lovestar]

Disc is actually harder to do PGs with, unless you are a very skilled Disc player (multitasking DPS / amazing psychic powers for anticipating damage).

There are many very useful tips and excellent strategies in these two threads, I recommend a read-through.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...roving-Grounds
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ana-any-advice

Personally, I found Gold with Holy to be relatively easy compared to how hard I struggled with Disc, which required precision-knowledge of how every pull and phase proceeded and intense GCD multitasking between Smites and normal heals as on-the-fly conditions changed. Holy has the advantage of being entirely reactive and simply choosing the best solution to respond to damage, rather than being under constant pressure to prevent / anticipate it.

You will be on vapors as either spec towards the end, and Endless will have you watching your mana with extreme discomfort the whole time. It's doable, though, if you make very smart decisions with basically every GCD and spellcast.

PGs are definitely much, much more forgiving to "infinite mana" specs like Druid & Mistweaver, if they're played smartly. Priests are hit hard in the mana department when they're forced into starter gear levels, when they don't have another healer covering them, and when they're given no real breaks in damage pressure to recuperate.

[MyCelar]

Priests are pretty bad at low gear levels. Holy doesn't have enough regen and Heal is very weak, and Disc does poorly with small amounts of crit. I can't speak for other classes, and I haven't tried Gold yet, but I'm sure it is doable. Remember, you don't have to top everyone off the second they take damage.

Switch to Inner Will to cast Renew on the DPS. Refresh them with Heal if you need to. PW:S is too expensive and the shield too small to be worth it. A GH costs less and will do much more. Just pre-cast everything on the tank, and don't forget to use GS, as even Heals will be quite strong there. Not sure if this will work, but grip the stupid ranged closer to the tank so you can utilize Divine Star and hopefully hit them all at once. Don't forget about Void Shift with a follow up Desperate Prayer + Healthstone. DO NOT use the ground AoE. Only hitting two targets for ~1000 is a complete waste of mana. If you could get all 5 then it might be helpful during the heavy AoE phases.

Hope something I wrote helps. Good luck!

Disc is fine at low gear level with low crit. Make good use of Spirit Shell, Inner Focus, Rapture, Glyphed Mending on Chomp, keep Grace up and time your procs and Synapse Springs and you are golden. Wave 67+ should be doable for Disc.

Was one heal away from wave 50, and if I can get to 50, wave 57 comes easy. The real killer wave is X8 and X9. X4 hurts a bit from 30+, and wave 5 + 7 you are in real danger of falling behind if you don't manage your absorbs (SpiShell and then Inner Focus) with Twist of Fate + Synapse Springs perfectly.

[Blachshma]

I remember trying Holy for the first time during Firelands and going OOM in no time. Its clear that I ain't even a decent Holy Priest. But from my experience Holy Priests can be pretty mana intensive if you don't do the right things. Secondly Holy Priests ain't the best tank or dungeon healers. They get the job done but don't do it effectively or efficiently. Some swear that Holy Priests have a very fun play style. I could never get a hang of it. Even in raid heals, I often found Holy to be lacking. Maybe I wasn't going about it the right way, but I was pretty effective as Disc.

Proving grounds work around a dungeon group i.e 5 group members, something which Disc Priests excels at. I ain't telling you to play Disc but Holy Priests just are not as effective in that setting. They also don't make the best tank healers and are probably last on the list of tank healers. As a Holy Priest its just hard trying to heal the tank and the group at the same time when there is so much damage going out.

Your only best bet would be to reforge everything to spirit and give it a shot.

In Serenity Chakra, holy is a pretty good and effecient tank healer, and some priests even do AoE raid healing in that chakra via Renew spamming + Cascade to refresh (in 10s, this is a totally viable playstyle). I totally disagree that disc excells more than holy in 5-man, and while I'm not a great disc priest, I found holy the superior spec in PG, especially as atonment is just not strong enough, and disc's tools to bring people up are just not as strong as holy's aside of penance.

In PG gold, the key, for me, was to get through wave 5 safely. Once you get through wave 5 everything becomes a tad more relaxing, you just need to be quick to dispell and top people who are bleeding as quickly as possible. I saved DH for that wave in case things go wrong, I had lightwell up, I refreshed renew on at least 4 of us with cascade, and otherwise just spammed heal and serenity on cd. Its very easy to run oom if you aren't using your mindbender on cd. In wave 7 or 8 the mobs were finished 5-6 seconds before time was up, allowing me to safely channel HoH.

[Axi]

Wave 8/9 endless giving me problems, but I was an idiot and forgot to spec back into twist of fate so I lost a huge amount of potential.

I'll probably get to 10 next try, and after that it's pretty easy back up to 15/16, where you can't fall behind as MyCelar mentioned, assuming no mistakes I'll probably see myself making it to 18, beyond that I'm going to be up against it.

No synapse springs is a bit of a pain however.

[Deleted]

Heal is way way to weak to keep the tank up, he takes so much freaking damage even with PoM and SW:Shield constantly on him. using FH and GH kills mana and i have to use Chakra Serenity for the heals to be stronger, if i go with Chakra Sanctuary the direct heals are weaker and the ground heal doesnt heal for as much as other classes like shamans and druid. i feel like proving grounds is unbalance as shamans can shock mobs and interupt and put grounding totems down to avoid those RNG Fireball Pyroblast kills.

There are so many wrong things in that paragraph about how to play holy, that I think you need to read up on the specc. You missed the good lesson on cata early hcs. Constantly shield the tank as holy? HW: Sanctuary for what, 2 ppl, 3 if you stand in it too? Have you looked at the tooltip of the spell?

- Heal+Renew-glyphed (that gets refreshed by Heal)+HW: Serenity is the go-to way to heal the tank; for high dmg you can switch to flashx2+gheal and you can use guardian spirit too for the extra healing. I'm not saying that you should never touch PWS, but never as "keep it constantly on the tank". You are not a disc priest (ironically).
- HW: Sanctuary is a waste of mana that you cant afford for 2-3 ppl and in 463 gear.

Priests might have a bigger problem than other classes, but you have a problem with skill for now.