Noob Priest Raid Healing Question

[Keelie]

With the changes to downranking, what do you use to heal?

I'm spec'd Disc. I use PoM/Renew/Penance obviously, sometimes PW:S, but do you do max rank GHeals with stopcasting or Flash Heal spam? My first raid was in Hyjal (lolnerf), and I used a lot of Flash Heals and was okay on mana and did okay on the healing meters.

I rarely saw an opportunity where GHeal would be very useful or not be a massive amount of overheal. So I used PoM/Renew/Penance/Flash Heal. I usually PvP, so I don't plan on changing my spec from a Disc PvP spec until 80, if I raid.

[Worshaka]

If you're spec'd disc you should have PW:S up on the MT every weakened soul CD.

[Bigslick]

Specced disc here too - loving it. Played around using my 'standard' regen healing set and never went below ~ 90% mana in raid, so switched out to the lolsmite set I'd built mixing some badge items w/ my primary shadow set and gained an additional 130 spellpower and an extra 14% crit, but at the cost of about 130mp5. Generally speaking, in raid, it seems I can get by with that set in all but the longest, most mana-intensive fights (Council, Illidan I switch out a couple of pieces).

With the glyph, 2 flash heals cost about the same mana as 1 greater, so flashes cost about the same mp5 to cast (unless you're putting points into Divine Fury, which at 70 really isn't necessary). GH does get a stronger coefficient, though, so will deliver more HPS.

If the tank's not taking much damage and mana isn't an issue, I usually keep PoM, shield on CD, keep a renew up, and just throw FH's as filler where needed - Penance is an incredibly strong 'oh crap' heal for the amount it delivers over 2 seconds and is nice to have on reserve for that dps that somehow snags aggro since w/ enough crit it almost always procs at least 1 DA. Love the fact that one cast of penance delivers a full stack of Grace! When tanks are taking more damage, obviously shield should be kept on the tank every CD... If I'm going to throw a GH (or PoH), it's pretty much always after a bubble.

One thing I do right before the tank pulls a boss that you know will hit like a truck from the first swing is... Pop Inner Focus & cast GH (solid chance of getting a huge Divine Aegis), bubble, PoM, Renew. This can load front-load the tank with up 8-12k damage mitigation before he takes his first hit as well as some reactive healing (not a bad idea to Fade right after he engages). Then Penance is all set to fully apply a triple-stack of Grace, and you're good to go.

[Eurekasev]

Ya i have a holy speced priest but first day of 3.0 i went disc to see how it is. i liked it more as a 5man healing spec though personally not as much in raid. but might have ben cause i went from top healer overall to maybe dead last and got people makign fun of my healing cause of it. i cant help going from coh raid aoe healing to single target healing can i lol. but back on track, FH is a filler spell when its needed, Shield, renew, and greater heal or else spam flash will drain yur mana. not as bad as it drained mana pre 3.0 but still a drain. i get enough mana regen pre 3.0 for free FH every tic and still drain was terrible with me slowing heals down. GH is best bet for disc and holy healing as yur big spell. who cares if flash is faster heals for half of greater and u can and should be able to depend on and trust yur fellow healers like palis to get faster heals out.

eurekasev on smolderthorn if anyone needs to check my gear or my holy spec on armory. look me up leave me mesages criticism and comments always welcomed.

[Kelesti]

I try to stay away from Renew, it can't crit and doesn't give any returns from Rapture. PoM on the other hand, might not directly give mana back, but it can crit (and then Aegis gives us manaz ). Try to Shield whenever possible. Even Glyphed, Flash Heal is still more expensive than Penance (pew pew holy lazor beemz), but yeah, with Rapture not working on overheal, try to stay away from Greater until you can get divine fury (and even then not if you're running with paladins or other flash-types).

[Keelie]

I'll try to use Shield more. Is it still bad to Shield a Warrior or Druid tank early on for rage generation, or is that changed?

[meowmeow]

I'll try to use Shield more. Is it still bad to Shield a Warrior or Druid tank early on for rage generation, or is that changed?

it has change, the rage regeneration allows you to sheild the tank as discipline.

i rather play as holy. when i speced discipline on the beta i didn't take divine fury, for various reason - threads where on this forums you can read. i found out that indead its not needed for the discipline spec.

how did i heal: i healed when it was needed: rapture returns mana when you effectively heal, not when you overheal. my main heal was Penance and flash heal, followed by Prom and renew (i glyphed flash heal for 10% less mana). my main mitigation spell was divine ageis, i used sheild alot less then i use my actual heal spells.

i always start with penance, to instantly apply grace, then i go Prom, flashy flashy (take in consider healing isn't that intense i need to chain cast, in 10m nax, damage is not brutallus Mt healing), then i penance again.

most of the time i kept this rotation, sometimes instead of a flash i sheild. but mainly flash and penance. when mana became abit low (happened only once in 25 malag. ), but when i needed to regen my mana, i used sheild more often. when i wanted to use Hymm of hope i sheilded and renew and prom and then was usually safe for a full 8 secs of hymm.

Flash heal with the glyph costs almost no one, penance is better then greater heal in the amount heal so worth casting, and costs also almost no mana. the on thing you should remember: effective healing and mitigation - not overhealing. (meaning, grace should always be up, and either a divine ageis or a sheild).

i will recoment more the holy spec for pve raiding, more versatile, fun and when it comes to MT healing i believe and i proved - heals 10 times better then the mitigation "you'll absord it".

[Ntrails]

I healed a raid for the first time last night. BT. Yes I have been ninjaing healing gear about to be DE'd for a while, but CoH is obscene at the moment. I was not even bothering with full buffs.

I was always raid healing.

PoM every time it was appropriate. Renews on tanks when not busy.

CoH whenever more than one person was below 80%

Instant flash heals from an almost constantly up surge of light proc whenever I saw someone taking significant damage.

Mana was only an issue once, Najentus, I was playing very badly. Still learning (shock horror!).

Disc is an awesome tank healing spec. CoH is Godly for raid heals. Nova is amazing for AoE group pulls

[Keelie]

Finally, and this is more of an ePeen issue. Do most damage/healing meters take into account damage prevention as healing?

[meowmeow]

I healed a raid for the first time last night. BT. Yes I have been ninjaing healing gear about to be DE'd for a while, but CoH is obscene at the moment. I was not even bothering with full buffs.

I was always raid healing.

PoM every time it was appropriate. Renews on tanks when not busy.

CoH whenever more than one person was below 80%

Instant flash heals from an almost constantly up surge of light proc whenever I saw someone taking significant damage.

Mana was only an issue once, Najentus, I was playing very badly. Still learning (shock horror!).

Disc is an awesome tank healing spec. CoH is Godly for raid heals. Nova is amazing for AoE group pulls

its funny to see this talk about holy priest, when the talk is about discipline healing, i must say on the beta i dont spam the coh , yet now on live when all takes 50 secs to kill... ofc coh wins. thats the amount of time you go oom by spaming it more or less (lol).

Finally, and this is more of an ePeen issue. Do most damage/healing meters take into account damage prevention as healing?

idd unfortunatly some players, if not most care mainly about healing. the nice part is that looking nice on healing meters doesn't mean your doing any good to the raid. a discipline priest will not contribute much to the raid healing or raw healing, yet will add much to the tank mitigation/survivability. these cannot be judged by meters but simpley if the disipline priest is able to keep him up or not. (for example, i went to patchwerk 10m as discipline once and as holy once, both times i MT healed, different ways ofc: holy i toped the Raw healing meters, providing high HPS, the tank didn't die, was close once but thanks to GS was okey, discipline i was last on the raw healing meters, the tank didn't die, my mana was good, no spikey damage on tank, yet i couldn't assist raid healing at all).

its all a matter of veiw, alot look at healing meters and think "oh that priest is top he must be pro" you check spell usage and see CoH spam. on "kara level guilds" it works, and you don't need more, but when it comes to progressed guild other "pve" aspects are checked, healing meters can show you someone extremely high, yet when he dies nothing happens, at the same time a healer can be lowest, but you know that when he dies it'll be a wipe cause of "lack of healing". CoH spamer will never be "missed" and can always be replaced, even though he tops the meters.

meters aren't all - its using the correct spell on the correct time. and that spell isn't always CoH, and shouldn't be.

[Keelie]

I know, that's why I said it was an ePeen question.
=D

We have a CoH Priest who does almost twice the HPS as anyone else. I know he's a really solid healer, but I think the guild relies too much on healing meters to determine skill and contribution to the raid.

[Izenhart]

Holy priest sure takes "less skill" than a disc one, (come on, spam one single button) and in the meters are always first with the other monobutton spam class, resto shamans.
But, add what a disc priest prevent to be healed with PW:S (should be always up due to the mana regen, but even more for the weakened debuff that gives you +4% crit) and Divine Aegis.

[meowmeow]

Holy priest sure takes "less skill" than a disc one, (come on, spam one single button) and in the meters are always first with the other monobutton spam class, resto shamans.
But, add what a disc priest prevent to be healed with PW:S (should be always up due to the mana regen, but even more for the weakened debuff that gives you +4% crit) and Divine Aegis.

\

did you even try holy spec on beta? its far from going to a nerfed sw that you finnaly have a chance to see cause its all nerfed and spam CoH. comparing it now to a level 70 view is by far the idiotic thing you can do. you should easy compare it to a level 80 priest, which by what you write - you have no clue.
from what i see. "less skill" refers to the state as it is now, 2 min encounter, sw nerfed to a place where my blue geared alt, with a alt raid managed to get to KJ, encounter lasting 2-3 mins is just another reason to not care about mana, when you reach to level 80 talk then, i willassume your "less skill" will not allow you to spec holy . discipline on beta was far from hard to play, was not challenging and is basically just like a spam bot, i mean a holy paladin healing MT. the only difference: holy paladin heals, disci priest absords damage and heals only when needed (hence rapture mana return requires an effective heal). i am really sorry to hear that you think a holy priest has less skill then you, yet as i mention comparing to level 70 now is totally clueless, as you seem to be. yet if you compare 1 button spamage, thats alot of what every class does, every class has the 3-4 buttons it mainly uses, tbh for me - since i have the level 80 xp from the beta, discipline was much more spam mode then holy. as discipline every time you heal you get mana, really not alot of mana issues really extremely easy to play. didn't require me even to "bother" much, or be much involved (by the meaning i didn't even log on the vent).

before deciding the "skill you need" i assure you reveiw the facts, casts, spells, logs, read around, or test by yourself on a level 80 char, and see what really requires skill.

raid healing on the beta was far from spam coh (although now, when you finnaly saw sw, and youstill don't understand that it was nerfed to a point where you could spam coh, it is far from that at level 80), at level 80 a priest won't play like you do and spam CoH, or he won't have mana to use other heals, that are much more needed. but i guess if you play with "less skilled" and just spam your CoH button, go discipline, you already suck at holy. (i will again open your eyes and say: level 80, not now when all is nerfed and easy that you could do it also).