Geared healer can't heal

[DiGG]

I hope I'm gonna have some help or pointers here, as I have difficulty healing thru massive aoe damage for more than a 90 secs fight...

First of all, I barely started running Ulduar 10, so maybe the term "geared" isn't exactly what I would be, but I've been working hard on getting the best items/enchants/gems. I got 2x T7, 2x T8, the superb healing mace from H ToC, some other 226 items.

This is what my stats looks like:


I've mainly build a mana regen set. In all heroics instances, except maybe CoS which has pretty much no rest between fight (running timed event), I don't run out of mana. But I was VERY sad to see I wasn't able to heal thru reg ToC on the second boss (the priestess dudette). There's massive aoe damage in there, I use PoM, FH, CoH, PoH and yet after 90 secs, the health of my party continues to slowly get down until... deaths happen. And then we wipe...

Could someone tell me what should I do? Should I lower my mp5 madness and raise crit? :-[ Thanks.

[Danner]

I assume you are a holypriest, it's not like discpriests end up with massive mana issues

Ghostcrawler says that "holypriests are in a really good spot, manawise", but anyone playing a holypriest knows that is a crapload of manure. I say, mana troubles as a holypriest can be a real gamestopper if you are undergeared. And frankly, you are. Unless you have all-slot ilvl 226 you are undergeared for pretty much everything in this world as a holypriest.

First of all, drop the T7 items. The setbonus isn't that good, and pretty much any alternative beats it. Set items for healing priests are by definition subpar, as they cater for both discipline (additional spellpower / mp5 / haste ) and holy priests (spirit), and as such don't really hit either spec's sweetspot demands, and are outclassed by items that do. The T8 2set bonus is nice enough, but it's not that awesome either, so if you find a good upgrade, don't hesitate to break the bonus.

Second, try to avoid the ulduar10 ilvl 219 items. They are extremely subpar in terms of manaregen in general (with very few exceptions). Naxx25 drops are usually superior when it comes to manaregen. Join some naxx25 pugs and gear up there.

Thirdly - as a holypriest you need to stack spirit and MP5 and intellect above everything else. You have a decent amount of intellect, and I can't see how much MP5 you have, but your out-of-combat regen is pretty low. At your gear level, stacking MP5 is the best of the three, but spirit will overtake it if you gear up some more.

Of course, changing all that gear is tiresome and will take a long time. The most important thing you can do until then is to get yourself some proper trinkets and use cooldowns liberally.

Uld10/Kologarn drops a trinket called "spark of hope". Tell your guildies that that trinket is yours, you need it and anyone disagreeing with you will have to bandage heal themselves instead of getting heals. If you have it already - grats - but I think you do. I do not believe holypriests capable of sustaining long-term healing without it, and it is pretty much a must to be able to stay alive.

For the second trinket, aim for either of the trinkets listed in the stickied thread above labelled "mana-regen tirnkets". Until you outgrow your pressing mana troubles, you will need two mana-restoring trinkets. There is one dropping in the 5-man normal ToC that's really nice and easy to get your hands on.

Opt for a staff if you don't. They offer slightly more regen, but notably less spellpower than a MH+OH combo. They can also be enchanted with 45 spirit for even more regen. And that's what you will need.

Make damned sure you have the metagem giving mana retuns. Any other metagem is an automatic failure.

Even with all this, you will run out of mana. If spamming Prayer of Healing you will consume about 3000 MP5, and no amount of gearing will help you cover that deficit. This is where your (and others) cooldowns come in. You need the following to heal through heavy PoH spam:

- Replenishment. Don't join groups not bringing replenishment.
- Shadowfiend. Use it at every possible cooldown. It's good dps, and nescessary regen.
- If possible, try to use Hymn of Hope at the same time as your shadowfiend. It increase its returns by 20%, but bars you from healing while channeling. Often that is not an option, but keep in mind that the buff lasts for 8 seconds after you get it, even if you no longer channel.
- Use Inner Focus on a Prayer of Healing to lower its cost
- Use Inner Focus on a Divine Hymn to get 8 seconds of out-of-combat regen time.
- Don't use greater heal, ever. If the tank needs healing, use renew and flash heal and guardian spirit if he dips low. If that is not enough, find a new tank. As holy, you cannot afford spending mana on gheal. You may need it for prayer of healing later apparently.
- Get the glyph of flash heal if you use the spell a lot. It makes flash heal the most efficient heal in your arsenal.
- If grouped with a druid, make damned sure to get their innervate.
- If grouped with a paladin, make him use lay on hands on you to give you mana.
- Stock manapotions.
- Stock Demonic runes. They do help on the mana issue.
- If you are a blood elf, arcane torrent rocks and should be used on every cooldown.

If course, all this will only stem the tide. If still you do run out of mana, ask yourself if the encounter took too long time. Low DPS means the encounter lasts too long and that means you will run oom. If so, this is not your fault, but it's still your problem. After all, all other healers can go on longer than you. In terms of palatress, it really helps to dispel her renew. Shadow protextion buffs also helps a lot on this fight.

Sometimes it works to replace the PoH with renew, CoH, ProM and binding heal. These spells are drastically cheaper to use than PoH and allows you to heal pretty well. They also offer less HPS, but often this is enough. If you opt for this solution, make sure to pick up every renew talent available.

Also, it is quite doable if you respecc discipline. While your healing output will be lower, you make up for it in shields and it's drastically easier to heal as discipline while undergeared. It's sad when that's the solution, but it's there.

--

As for crit, you have plenty, really. Crit is only really good for proc'ing Holy Concentration, which again is only really worthwhile if you are stacking spirit heavily. And even if you do, it's not really much better than pure MP5.

[Rtwo]

Thirdly - as a holypriest you need to stack spirit and MP5 and intellect above everything else. You have a decent amount of intellect, and I can't see how much MP5 you have, but your out-of-combat regen is pretty low. At your gear level, stacking MP5 is the best of the three, but spirit will overtake it if you gear up some more.

i got to disagree with you here. And i think this is what the OP did wrong, i guess he has lots op mp5 on his gear.

spirit is far superior to pure mp5 (even without the extra spellpower)

it also get the +5%spirit talen + kings

not saying mp5 is terribly bad, there are just better alternitives.

Make damned sure you have the metagem giving mana retuns. Any other metagem is an automatic failure.

and if you are tailoring, get the darkglow enchant, the best mp5 you can get from a profession imho


To OP,

i have a priest geared with 1/3 ilvl200 blues, 2 or so ilvl213 and the rest ilvl200 from hc's (geared him before emblem upgrade)

i focused fist on spirit, i have about 1000 spirit and 1000 int and 2k sp, and i rearly go oom (self buffed)
i am low on crit (about 12%) but that is not a priority if you have mana issues.
even after very intense long fights, i have to use SF/HoH but i never had to stop healing because i was oom.
ofc, this isnt ulduar, but with my gear i can heal anything pre ulduar, so i guess you should be able to heal ulduar with your gear.


i think we can help you out better if you would post an armory link.


EDIT:
i just noticed you only have 755 spirit, i guess this confirms what i thought.
which is that you have mp5>spirit.

as a starter i would sacrifice some of that crit for spirit. crit is nice, and also a regen stat with HC, but for that you need spirit ...

[DiGG]

My Armory.

(hope it shows when I'm holy, I switch alot...)

Also take note, I got Tears of the Vanquished maybe not showing on armory.

---
As I said, eventhough you're thinking I would have mana issues, it's not really the case. It's more that I'm unable to properly heal everyone in the long run on those massive aoe fights. I can cast PoH or CoH or PoM all I want (well, not exactly but...) and it feels like my 2k bonus healing isn't enough.

But I'm in a small guild, we only run 10s, we're about to start U10 on a regular schedule, maybe I have to stop dreaming of being a great healer and just focus on dps...... :'(
(but not being able to heal reg Toc, that's frustrating)

[Rtwo]

perhaps its not you, but your buddy healer that is underperforming / undergeared for ulduar.

and some haste will also increase your hps, because 5% haste isnt much.
i think getting more haste will help you more now then getting more spell power.

also depends on what raidbuffs you get.


as for ToC, i know as a priests it is alot easyer if you despell. also offensive, like there is a guy who tosses renew around (dont know his name / target with renew). stuff like this may make the fight shorter and keep your party alive.

you can also increase your aoe healing with your spec.

drop 'Improved Healing' and put it in 'Holy Reach' and 'Healing Prayers' (healing prayers will save you more mana then improved healing)
drop 'Empowered Healing' and get 'Blessed Resilience' and get one point from it to one of the talents above
becouse the 3% healing will give you more hps if your primary skills are pom, poh, coh, ... and it also affects FH and GH.


EDIT:
just noticed you might want to change a minor glyph (probably fade) and change it with shadowfiend, because there are lots of fights that your shadowfiend can die early.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Ok. If you use Shadowfiend+HoH once a fight and have someone giving you replenishment, INT is the superior pure regen stat. That is straight up maths, assuming your not spending large chunks of time OS5SR (which in Ulduar rarely happens for me).

Another reason why you may be going OOM is poor spell selection, or improper timing of your spells. If you have a WWS or WoL parse that you can post, I can help you figure out how to better use your spell selection/timing.

Oh, and a previous poster already said this, but pick up Healing Prayers and drop Imp Healing. PoH will oom you fast, but without Healing Prayers, you might as well plan to spend half the fight wanding.

Do you use a healing mod? Grid+Clique or Healbot? This will help you with better spell selection and reaction time. Guaranteed to up your efficiency.


Also, I wouldn't consider yourself "geared" by any stretch. Your at a good start.

[DiGG]

perhaps its not you, but your buddy healer that is underperforming / undergeared for ulduar.

and some haste will also increase your hps, because 5% haste isnt much.
i think getting more haste will help you more now then getting more spell power.

also depends on what raidbuffs you get.


as for ToC, i know as a priests it is alot easyer if you despell. also offensive, like there is a guy who tosses renew around (dont know his name / target with renew). stuff like this may make the fight shorter and keep your party alive.

you can also increase your aoe healing with your spec.

drop 'Improved Healing' and put it in 'Holy Reach' and 'Healing Prayers' (healing prayers will save you more mana then improved healing)
drop 'Empowered Healing' and get 'Blessed Resilience' and get one point from it to one of the talents above
becouse the 3% healing will give you more hps if your primary skills are pom, poh, coh, ... and it also affects FH and GH.


EDIT:
just noticed you might want to change a minor glyph (probably fade) and change it with shadowfiend, because there are lots of fights that your shadowfiend can die early.

I actually did all you said in there, went on a couple of heroics, it went superbly. Was afraid losing Empowered Renew would make a huge difference (on wws, it's usually first or seconds), but the gain from all the rest made the difference without a problem. It felt easier to heal, and I also got more mana at end of each fight, so I guess mana conservation is better now.

I will try slowly converting my gems/enchants thoward spirit/int, but at the same time I want to wait and see if something can drop for me from U10. Might also be able to get in some H ToC (as dps) so I could gear up my heal side.

Thanks for you inputs, I already can see the diff. Now, unto retry to heal that reg ToC hahaha...

[Sesshou]

Hmm seems a lot of people are saying to get more mana/mana regen. But when I read your post and you say you couldnt heal through the 2nd fight in ToC, Im reading that as the damage out did your heals and not as you died because you went oom. Maybe Im wrong... However, if Im not, then most of those suggestions telling you how to save mana arent going to help you. And you dont seem to be saying your raid heals are a problem right?

If you want to change something so that your healing can beat that damage which slowly killed your group, you want to get sp not crit. Also something to keep in mind, glyph holy nova for that and use it.

Yes the glyph was nerfed from 40% more healing to 20% more healing, but PoH was nerfed by 30% on the coeffecient. Now you probably can't really use this for raids (in most cases) since its only your own group, but for the most raid damage intensive fights in Ulduar: Mim hard mode, one of the best strats was holy nova for its amazing hps. The catch is you will have to make sure you are able to hit your whole 5 man heroic group or its pointless. But aside from gear upgrades, or resocketing for sp, I would say holy nova is the easiest way for you to heal through that.

And if you do decide to get a gear set more focuses on sp, make sure you keep a regen set as well for raids since you don't really have all that much regen for raids as it is. 5 man boss fights are usually far shorter and less mana intense so you could probably get away with it.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Your right, the OP did ask about his throughput. However, I cannot imagine a holy priest with the OP's regen stats, using maximum use of his/her CGD and *not* running OOM, on a raid boss of any consequence (barring innervates). It is possible that the OPs play-style is either too conservative, or not using the proper spells for the proper times. That's why its hard to guess at what the root problem is w/o a WWS/WoL.

Of course, if you've identified that throughput is your main issue, then gemming/chanting for SP is the way to go. I was merely disagreeing with others that SPI is currently the premier regen stat. INT is, at least the moment, king. If you need to ween off the regen... then start switching to SP/INT gems and go from there.

Glyphed HN is a very situational spell... and is only helpful in Mimi HM because its a repetitive AoE that can be cast on the move... something that has to happen on that fight. If movement isn't a concern, then PoH has far superior throughput.

2k SP should be sufficient to heal 5man H-Toc. I healed the entire instance with my lance equipped on a dare. Its my guess that the OP needs a better interface for quicker reaction, needs better spell selection, or just needs more time healing to become comfortable in the role.

[Rtwo]

agreed, int is better then spirit or mp5 (if you get enough replenishment)

it was probably better to mention int aswell in my other post.

[DiGG]

My problem was indeed NOT mana depletion but effectively heal thru Paletress/shadow counterpart massive aoes. Now I haven't retried to heal that instance yet, but I want to... last time I went in there healing, the fight went for too long, and as someone said it would be easier to dispel the renews she cast on her summoned counterpart. I will have to remember that hehe!

As for HN glyph, I still mainly just do 5 mens and as I said only run Naxx10/U10 at the moment, so I guess I don't need to think I need that already. But it's a nice reminder.

[Rtwo]

i'd say try toc again ^^

but watch the dps/tank closly, i havnt done the encounter myself (becouse i'm rerolling on another server for friens)
but i've read alot about stuff and there is alot of nasty AVOIDABLE aoe (green stuff on the ground ?)

if you notice some of the dps doesnt bother to move out, he might be the one responsible for the wipe.
also, watch how much dps they do, i've read that p3 on the black knight is a dps fight.
the loot you get there is nax25 (ilvl213), so i would expect the dps to do nax25 dps (around 2k or more)

[Larivas]

Not being a priest, so I have very little input to your mana issues, but in regards to your ToC run, the priest (imo) is a difficult fight to heal through if your dps or tank are undergeared. During the aoe fear she continues to smite random people in the group, so make sure everyone is topped off beforehand, and if you can toss out a hot and a bubble it'll help. The paladin is very easy, so if you run it again, hope for him.

[elcher]

short answer:

Roll a paladin.

Long answer :

roll a paladin, with their godlike gimmicks (bubble, divine sac, HoS, judgements etc) they are awesome, do not have mana problems if played correctly (using cds and so forth) and thanks to 3.2 we are also awesome grouphealers in 10man (ok, not group, but spothealing that rogue and the tank for 16k+ is awesome, also one has to time his melee swings (in ulduar 10man necessary so that one doesnt run oom on fights like XT HM).

all in all i just lol at my priests and druids in 10man because IF someone DOES drop low i just instantly HS and then FoL with around 50% chance. GG druid hots and priest shields..

paladins ftw

[joxx]

the guy is asking for advices to play a char that he chose to roll, not to listen to some person telling him to reroll an other class. >.>
For the ToC fight, pom on CD with a fear ward on you at least. Try to go with geared people if you're a bit undergeared so fight doesn't last long.

[Kelesti]

One of the easiest things to do in that fight is to Binding Heal. Learn it, love it. Her aggro table doesn't really exist, and while she's smiting she'll probably hit you a few times. She'll also hit other people. Damage on two targets (one of which being yourself)? That's where Binding Heal really shines. It's a little expensive on the long term, but meh.

Learn it, live it, love it. And hotkey it so it can save your ass further down the progressiontrain.

[zsun]

Well the Argent Confessor Paletress I must admit is hard to heal. But assuming you have successfully healed through the first fight, the 3 faction champions. I dont see how you are unable to keep up. Maybe it was just me and my bad luck etc, because when I healed through the first boss, the three faction champions, I found it a lot harder to heal, and usually averaging a 3.3k HPS on that fight

Argent Confessor Paletress for me is nowhere near a 3.3k HPS. I will try to provide you with some advice on how to get past Paletress.

Assuming you dont really have much mana issues (because you said so), Precast fear ward on yourself, as well as flash heal 3 times to get three stacks of serendipity before the raid begins, and always keep those 3 stacks saved up until you see the group is dropping fast. However, only use Prayer of Healing when at least 3 members are damaged. Other than that stick to Flash heals/renews/PoM when she smites random party members. Keep in mind that it is very likely that she will smite the same person twice in a row. So maybe a Flash heal/renew or a Flash heal/PoM combo on that person is handy. I prefer flash heals since it builds up Serendipity stacks. Dont forget you still have Guardian Spirit. Use it on the tank even when he's healthy would still mean a few seconds of free healing on the rest of the group. Also dont forget desperate prayer is your friend. If all else fails, Divine Hymn.

Binding Heal also works and is better than flash heal but remember It is more mana consuming. Using binding heal as a permanent flash heal replacement is very bad on mana. Therefore should only be used if Desperate Prayer is on CD. I couple of things I noticed about binding heal is that I rarely use it outside of healing intensive encounters. Even on those healing intensive encounters I still rarely use them. It is a very powerful tool I admit. But it just isnt inside my "snap-judgment" toolbox. Usually when I make a snap judgment, or an automated response to a given situation. I am more likely to hit the flash heal button than a binding heal, unless like I said before the encounter is somewhat healing intensive and in those cases I put more consciousness into what skills I use. But the trade off is that if you put more consciousness into your skill choices, you have longer reaction time as well as less attention on the raid as a whole.

[Vongimi]

Link your spec?

[Rtwo]

Link your spec?

My Armory.

(hope it shows when I'm holy, I switch alot...)

[Firegod1385]

Well the Argent Confessor Paletress I must admit is hard to heal. But assuming you have successfully healed through the first fight, the 3 faction champions. I dont see how you are unable to keep up. Maybe it was just me and my bad luck etc, because when I healed through the first boss, the three faction champions, I found it a lot harder to heal, and usually averaging a 3.3k HPS on that fight

Argent Confessor Paletress for me is nowhere near a 3.3k HPS. I will try to provide you with some advice on how to get past Paletress.

Depending on the boss selection, the first boss can be really easy. (if you have alot of melee, but dont have lets say the warrior to whirlwind pwn your face, or the rogue with the constantly annoying poisons debuff / floor poison.)

So its possible that they got a lucky first string of bosses. I'd say, that she was a bit of a whore the first time I healed her. As others have suggested, put fear ward on yourself at the start of the fight. You'll need it for the second 'phase'. If you have a shaman, you're in luck cause a tremor totem makes this fight significantly easier. Hell, if ANYONE in your group can break the fear on themself, it will make the fight much easier. The fear + aoe damage is really a painful, painful skill.

I don't play holy, but what others have said make the most sense. Keep serendipity stacked up until at least 3 more people are injured (to make it worth casting). Keep prayer of mending up, the bounces really help on keeping people up during that portion. Pre-emptive renewing could be fairly beneficitial there, too, if thats the portion thats really giving you trouble. (Sorry if thats not good advice, I use to pre-emptive shielding with disc being good, so a few pre-emptive hots could be good)

Then again, What i've found makes that heroic harder to heal than ANYTHING, is the tank. Based on how much damage the tank takes can make a big difference in how hard the dungeon is to heal. I've had warrior tank before that could not stop the incoming damage worth shit and I was pushing 3k-3.2k HPS + over 800HPS in shielding to the group. (Not on paletress, first boss) but the rules still apply. If the tank is getting destroyed by the 'memory' it makes it harder to keep the group up, as you have less time to heal them since much of your focus is on the tank.