How do i heal?

[Catalystics]

So playing a gazillion years on my sp i would like to try healing.
I tried it in dungeons (overgeared) but got no idea what im doing and what addons can help me with it!
I just need a little heads up here, i will read every guide on it if i must.
Whats easier to start with disc or holy, what are the basic heals i need (not the bigger cd's)
Do i cast every spell on everyone etc....
Hope u can help me out a bit without flaming, cause im a total heal noob (playing from 2006 and never "really" healed anything!

Ty in FW

[Deleted]

You can start by reading the following guides :

http://www.icy-veins.com/discipline-...-healing-guide
http://www.icy-veins.com/holy-priest...-healing-guide

then this one (more detailed) :

http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4484

Holy and Disc are different. Sadly for holy, disc brings more helpful things in a raid environment. IMO, both are fun to play even if Chakra sucks (Holy). They are not the best healer gameplay out there but still fun.

Good luck.

[Catalystics]

You can start by reading the following guides :

http://www.icy-veins.com/discipline-...-healing-guide
http://www.icy-veins.com/holy-priest...-healing-guide

then this one (more detailed) :

http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4484

Holy and Disc are different. Sadly for holy, disc brings more helpful things in a raid environment. IMO, both are fun to play even if Chakra sucks (Holy). They are not the best healer gameplay out there but still fun.

Good luck.

Ty Bro, just read all of it.
Think i like disc the best, will try when i get home but for some reason i dont get it......
I mean when i read upon dps guides and tank guides i see it come alive in my head but healing....i cant put my finger on it
Will try tho and come back to tell how well i did
Guess it will be a normal dungeon in raiding gear then :P

[Racthoh]

put a grid of player frames in the lower center of your screen and use mouseover macros. just hover over a name and start healing. learning which heals to use usually won't be too hard but you'll learn from experience.

[Diber]

Ty Bro, just read all of it.
Think i like disc the best, will try when i get home but for some reason i dont get it......
I mean when i read upon dps guides and tank guides i see it come alive in my head but healing....i cant put my finger on it
Will try tho and come back to tell how well i did
Guess it will be a normal dungeon in raiding gear then :P

Heya mate, and welcome to Disc healing!

Those guides are an awesome starting point!

That said, I've been healing as Disc for 8 years now, and I've come to think of it as a whack-a-mole with health bars, and many specialized hammers.

One heads up, for dungeons especially with your gear, don't fall into the "Atonement only healing" trap... I see a lot of Disc priests that only know how to DPS a boss, and actually will let people die, because they don't actually know how to do anything past the smart heal of Atonement. This isn't to say ignore it... Just learn your whole toolkit, not just how to use an adjustable wrench!

The basic way of healing to me as Disc, is to get some crit. Then get some more. This will allow you to get some Divine Aegis (DA) out. This will soften out spike damage (and yes, Atonement is quite good at this).

Typically the spells I use for low damage portions are:
- Penance Offensively (attacking the target)
- Smite (attacking the target)
- Holy Fire / Power Word: Solice (attacking the target)
- Heal
- Prayer of Mending (typically on CD, on a tank, glyphed too, since it's a fairly strong heal)
- PW: Shield on the tank / people who will be taking spike damage (Typically on a 12 sec CD for Rapture procs)

For the high damage portions, I use:
- Penance Defensively (healing a target)
- Prayer of Healing (Target the person in the general middle of the group for maximum healing!)
- Prayer of Mending (again, starting on the tank, or most damaged person)
- PW: Shield on the tank / people who will be taking spike damage (Typically on a 12 sec CD for Rapture procs)
- Greater Heal (or Flash Heal if there isn't time)
- Spirit Shell (If there is sustained high damage incoming, or if there is a large spike coming in)
- Archangel, You can save this until you really want for high damage, but 18 out of every 30 seconds to pop this is a massive increase in healing! If you've got the 2 piece it's also an added 10% crit, and worth using ALL the time!

That's the basics, and I'm sure I've missed something! :x A lot of healing is to just get used to not freaking out as everyone's HP is dropping, and continuing your spells, and not running OOM via the right spell selection.

Good luck in your healing journey!

[cityguy193]

I think druid healing is the best to start to learn with. It allows a greater amount of room for errors if your reaction time is slow.

[Kaniinchen]

I think the easiest way to learn to heal is Battlegrounds. You'll get various types of damage and you will quickly learn your spells in order to keep yourself and team mates alive. Start off with a few spells so you don't get overwhelmed , and you will soon know what situations they work best for, then expand your spells as you go.

[Cirque]

I think the easiest way to learn to heal is Battlegrounds. You'll get various types of damage and you will quickly learn your spells in order to keep yourself and team mates alive. Start off with a few spells so you don't get overwhelmed , and you will soon know what situations they work best for, then expand your spells as you go.

That's pretty much how I learn any new class or spec, just do an afternoon of battlegrounds.

Learning how to heal comes with experience. While I can't help you specifically with priests, which is the only healer I never played (unless you count dead mines healing..), the principle to all healers is the same. You prioritize who needs to live and who does not, immediatly, need your attention. While a lot of healing in wow is going to be AoE anyway, sometimes you will need to pick. Typically, that's gonna be you -> tank -> dps in any 5man situation or if your other healers in a raid are actually capable and a dead tank is disastrous, tank -> you -> dps. I used to let myself die a LOT when I started out healing just so I could save the mage, but then it would only result in a wipe.

As for cooldowns, this is just like dps: different situations call for different usage, and experience with the encounter will teach you how to use them correctly. Typically, in a serious raid setting, your cooldowns will be used and rotated on the tank in coordination with the other healers. Raidwide cooldowns are the same, it's usually pointless to use them all at the same time (healing tide + bubble + aura.. yeah, overkill. Better do it one by one). In a less serious raid setting, likely your tank will be the one taking an enormous beating and you will use your cooldowns on him anyway. Sometimes, mechanics will require you tu use cooldowns on dps. ToT's council with the debuff on someone required our priest to use all his crap on that dps. This is something you learn with experience and with communication with the rest of your raid.

Healing is, also, knowing when damage will happen. While as dps you're typically aware of what will kill you, I've noticed most dps are rarely aware of what will hurt them and for how much. Which is why tons of dps never use their defensive cooldowns. Healing will teach you to pay attention not only to health bars (though it will be perfectly normal for you to tunnel them at first ) but also understand which part of the encounter will do what to your raid, so you can prepare on time. You will know that, for example, some big hit will be incoming and your tank needs topping before it happens (if you ever did Lich King, think back of that). Or that your mage is really an idiot with fire and before the fire happens you already land a PW:S on him.

You played this game, have some confidence in yourself! You will quickly recognize which heal to use when. It's normal that you can't really see "it come to life" after reading those guides: Get some experience and then read the guides again - imagine having your friend read a warlock guide and asking him to then play it! He'll have no idea. Probably better to let him fiddle around with the lock first before going into guide details.

Dungeons will be very gentle on you, so you can practice all you want in these.

[Daoshi]

h2p is your best bet. www dot howtopriest dot com.

[Catalystics]

Ty guys for all the input, will give it a spin thursday (all day)
After i did it, i will certainly tell you how it went!
For know onwards to find a suitable guild -.-

Thanks again!

[Catalystics]

Oke guys, i tried healing......
I still suck. I even let people in normal dungeons die!
So at this moment im leveling a disc priest to see if i can get in the healing part!
If it still doesnt work i will throw my towel

[Deleted]

Oke guys, i tried healing......
I still suck. I even let people in normal dungeons die!
So at this moment im leveling a disc priest to see if i can get in the healing part!
If it still doesnt work i will throw my towel

Healing is not easy when you are not used to heal.

Have you tried the Proving Grounds ? Just try to reach endless wave 30.

[Deleted]

In my opinion, the best place to learn healing is in a PUG raid. In 5 mans, there's a lot of pressure/responsibility. It's quite easy to let someone die due to inattention or inexperience, and you'll get player aggro immediately. By contrast, if you are one of 6 healers in LFR, you can be bottom of the charts and no one cares. A raid also lets you benchmark yourself- you can see another priest who is doing more HPS than you and see (from recount etc) what kinds of spells they are using, you can armory them to compare gear etc. Sometimes it can be very educational (if disheartening) to see a worse geared priest do much more healing than you.

One tip I got on this forum was that the L90 priest spells are OP in raids. Spamming them (and knowing which to use, for which boss) can be a big help in improving your rank.

Early on as a priest, I tended to "babysit" one tank - shielding them and making sure they never dropped below a certain health. Better priests can cover both tanks, but as a rather inexperienced alt healer, I tend to stick to one (typically the most active, aggro pulling one - but sometimes the squishiest).

Ordos and Celestials are good raids to do once a week. LFR can be a real pain now, as any reader of these forums knows. But healer queues are short, so I would persevere with it.

So at this moment im leveling a disc priest to see if i can get in the healing part!

That's not a bad idea. I had a blast leveling a discipline priest, mainly through instances. They are pretty OP while leveling with heirlooms - the shield is massive. It's like being a healer, dps and tank altogether - you almost don't need the other party members.

[Tulani]

Hey!

First of all, grats on trying to heal it's always fun to explore a new part of the game!

Second of all: as you can see through the plethora of responses, the way in which you learn to heal is largely personal. I, personally, learned to heal by running five-mans (back at level 60) - but the place where I really honed those skills was in BGs. I choose one person to healbot when I go in, and follow them around (although sometimes I will just go with the group, mind you; just depends on how I'm feeling). The thing about PVP is, even if you're a primarily PVE healer, the situations are often quite challenging: you run into situations where the squishy people have aggro, situations where you can't use half your toolbox, even situations that are downright impossible. Sometimes, too, you faceroll and it's all easy-peasy. Sometimes the person you're healing is terrible, and sometimes they're amazing. But the common factor is you: if you can heal in all those situations, you at least have the skill set that you can then apply to PVE.

Not to say that PVE is easy - it's apples and oranges. I've been in plenty of difficult PVE situations - perhaps even more difficult when raiding at a high level - but it's a different kind of difficulty that is different to find these days. I think that PVP really hones your skills for when things go wrong in PVE, and also perfects triage.

I would definitely say to do at least LFRs every week. They are relatively low on the responsibility scale, but they will allow you to see what other healers are doing (compare yourself against other priests using Skada/Recount; what their top heals were, and how those differed from yours, etc) and to get used to watching Grid/VuhDo rather than the boss. It'll also give you gear and confidence. And keep doing those 5mans (maybe try to find a group of people learning their classes as well to play with, who won't be as angry if they die - and also won't be able to carry you 100%, which I think is important). And try proving grounds if you want; you won't be very good, but it is honestly good practice!

As for people dying - it's okay. It's going to happen when you're learning*. You don't want to be "decent" when you start out: you want to suck. People who are "decent" never get better, because they don't have any reason to; they are always "good enough" but never "good." If you suck, you feel a distinct need to improve - which, hopefully, never goes away.

Leveling a priest will be helpful. You don't even have to get it all the way to 90 - just get that gentle introduction to the majority of the spells. Others here have linked to spell usage and guides, so I won't really dwell on that.

Remember that in raids and such, you don't have to cover everything. Stick to just keeping a tank and yourself alive, getting familiar with spells and atonement. Then, as you get better, move to both tanks, or to a tank and a group. As long as you push yourself, you'll naturally start to get better; for instance, you might be healing the tanks, but realize the raid health has dropped, so you hit Divine Star, or maybe (if the tank hasn't been taking that much damage) you might PoH them. Constantly read and do research. Find videos or a streamer you like, and watch when you're bored or eating lunch.

I am confident that if you try, you will be good. Just make sure you are constantly pushing yourself to be better, and putting yourself in uncomfortable situations which facilitate learning.

*Hell, when I first started back in Vanilla, I constantly let the tank die, because I thought that damage=threat, and, ergo, healed damage=less threat. Nowadays, I raid in a top US20 25man guild. I was not gifted from the start; in fact, I was f*cking terrible. I just constantly tried to get better. It was something had to be learned.

[Petden91]

I would make sure you are familiar with the spells a priest has. Disc has a very large toolkit and can be very rewarding however if you dont make use of that toolkit it can be very lackluster. As a disc priest make sure you know how the damage occurs in an encounter. A disc priest wants to absorb as much damage as possible. I would go to a target dummy and get in combat with it and learn how large/small your mana pool is. I used to spend a lot of time trying to see how fast i can go oom, how expensive each spell actually is. Looking at the mana cost of an ability doesnt tell you how it will actually affect gameplay.

When I started healing in Cata I was level 78 or 79 and walked into BRC with a tank friend. He wasnt exceptionally geared and I was severely undergeared, I think I had 20-30k hp. He chain pulled the instance giving me no time to drink, at times it was frustrating however it taught me how to effectively use CD's and how to properly choose spells.

Reading is a good starting point however you have to get a feel for it, you need to be put in a position where you can make or break a situation otherwise you wont learn as quickly. Get into a flex raid with some friends and dont bring an obscene amount of healers- roughly 1 for every 5 people. Ask the other healers if there is a set cd rotation and just go from there. Here's another tip, learn how the other healing classes work. If you are paired up with a druid and a monk you dont need to have the entire group topped off 100% of the time, those two classes are hot depended and will do most of that work for you.

Gl and hf.