Thinking about trying to heal.

[Kaelwryn]

As the title says, I'm thinking about trying my hand at healing. Despite leveling my priest, I never really tried to do so, though a few low level instances I did have to (though low level healing =/= heroic/raiding healing as I have realized.) I'm a bit scared to mostly because I don't like failing when I have a responsibility. Anyway, a few questions for y'all.

1. Does it matter what spec I go with? Would Disc be easier for a first time healer or would Holy? Also what would be a good build to use?
2. Would it be possible for me to heal while wearing my Shadow gear? I ask this because I really didn't think about keeping any gear that might've been better for healing as I was gearing her up.
My Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...nar&cn=Rhimari if it matters much. Also please don't mind the dual spec holy thing, that was me just looking around, and filling up the emptiness.

Beyond that any tips/advice/etc would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, and sorry if this has been asked a lot. I have done a bit of reading here as well as on EJ and whatnot. But I still would like to hear what y'all think. Thanks!

[Chob]

If the only 'healing' gear you have is shadow gear I advice you to start healing as discipline at least, the two gearsets for disc and shadow are very similar. I also believe discipline is easier to start off with, holy might provide more throughput but with sub-optimal knowledge and gear you will run out of mana pretty fast. This is less of a problem with discipline.

[Purno]

As the title says, I'm thinking about trying my hand at healing. Despite leveling my priest, I never really tried to do so, though a few low level instances I did have to (though low level healing =/= heroic/raiding healing as I have realized.) I'm a bit scared to mostly because I don't like failing when I have a responsibility. Anyway, a few questions for y'all.

Don't be scared to fail. Try to heal a few random heroics. You could state at the start you're not too familiar with healing yet. If they flame you, put them on ignore and move on to the next. Your gear seems sufficient enough to pug some heroics.

1. Does it matter what spec I go with? Would Disc be easier for a first time healer or would Holy? Also what would be a good build to use?

I'm not familiar with Discipline. I have a Holy Priest myself and loving it. As far as I can tell, all you need is to read your spells carefully and remember what they're doing. I find myself mainly using Flash Heal and Renew, along with some Prayer of Mending, Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing spellcasts.

As for a good build, anything which increases your healing or increases your mana effeciency. Talents which reduce your own damage taken can be left, as you shouldn't get hit as a healer. The rest kinda depends on your playstyle and your favourite spells.

2. Would it be possible for me to heal while wearing my Shadow gear? I ask this because I really didn't think about keeping any gear that might've been better for healing as I was gearing her up.

Meh, Holy Priests also need Intellect and Spirit for mana regen, Spell Power to make you heal more, Haste to make you heal faster, Crit to proc some effects. The only thing you don't need is Hit rating. I think you can start trying some heroics fine, and you'll probably find out the thing you're missing. (Like, is your mana regen sufficient?).

Beyond that any tips/advice/etc would be greatly appreciated.

Ignore flaming. Your gear is good enough to do some heroics, even though you're not massively overgeared like others. If you can't heal because they didn't wait for your announced mana break, it isn't your fault

Thanks, and sorry if this has been asked a lot. I have done a bit of reading here as well as on EJ and whatnot. But I still would like to hear what y'all think. Thanks!

Basicly, just try it. It's the only way to find out if healing is something for you. As for Discipline, I didn't really try it out, so can't say much about it.

[TheSpid]

Discipline is probably is easier for a first time healer.

Use this spec and glyphs - or something similar: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...1,aOpORe,10482

Hit is of course not useful, but your gear is so far beyond heroic level that you should easily be able to heal it. Other than that spirit really isn't a very good stat for disc priests. Primarily you want sp, int and crit, and mp5 for mana regen.

Your trinkets are quite bad for healing obviously, but it won't give you problems as long as you stay in the regular heroics until you are more experienced. You could go for the healer trinket from ToC normal while you gain experience.

[lilbandit]

anyone that says your gear is not up to healing is dumb. you know 90% of us started healing heroics in level 70 epics, or if we were lucky, level 80 blues? ilvl 200 ftl. you have ilvl 245 gear, even if it's not optimised for healing, it's still pretty damn good.

on my druid at start of LK (granted not a priest) I started healing heroics with about 1400 healing bonus iirc, which is a lot less than you've got. and this was with tanks with sucky gear, not usually what you get now.

if you don't feel confident healing heroics, just do a couple ...normal... (/shudder) runs to get used to it. as someone said earlier, annouce you are new to healing, and if they are asshats about it, /quit and come back in 15 minutes after a cup of tea.

as far as I know, disc is a bit more lenient than holy for starters, though I've not played a lvl 80 priest, only level 70 (of which I healed instances in nubby shadow gear as disc). Fairly sure you want to be using penance almost every cooldown, PoM, and flash heals. Also shield as much as possible. Don't take my word for it though.

[Kaelwryn]

Thank you for the replies. We'll see how things go from here.

[Azyoulike]

Definitely go discipline, the toolbox is just better suited to heroics and the longevity will work better with your shadow gear. I cannot think of a single place in 5 man where holy has an easier time of it than disc.

[harky]

Yes. Disc is much easier to begin with and once you have proper gear you can just shield and help DPS to make things go faster. I can't remember the last time I actually did more healing than damage in a heroic. Probably a crappy HoR run.