Healing and Aggro...

[Latetrain]

I went through a few random dungeons today with my first healer (16 Priest). She's Holy/Disc, but at 16 I'm guessing it doesn't make much difference. It was ugly, and while I enjoy playing a priest - I realized, I'm not any good... So I have some very basic noob questions. I'm watching my party's meters closely. I just got Heal and frankly had better luck casting Lesser Heal previously. I am mindful of healing priority - Tank, me, DPS. When tank got sub 60% I fire off a Heal and supplement with Renew on players hovering in the 80%+ range. Mana didn't seem to be a real problem, although the group didn't wait much for any drinking. I think I was leaning on Heal, vs. Lesser Heal, than I should - I'm not sure.

Often, I got an AGGRO message, and the mobs came after me. Most of the time I tried to avoid them, hoping someone would pull them off me. Never happened. I died a couple of times in pretty easy dungeons. First, is their something fundamentally wrong with my approach that is pulling more aggro than necessary? Second, is there something I should be monitoring before the mobs are actually pulled so I have a better sense of when to pause healing. Lastly, I am assuming I have next to 0% chance of taking the mob down, some I am not fighting back. I assume fighting back just makes more aggro. Is it correct, in general, to stop fighting and casting when you pull?

Thanks for your help.

Kimil

[Lamiae]

I see things like this when the heal from my glyph of PW:S lands on a tank before he has full aggro, and I generally try to avoid casting on a tank before a pull. Using bubbles instead of heals before the pull may help, because by the time the tank needs to be heal, everyone else has threat above you. Either that, or bad tank is bad.

The way healing and threat works (at least how I've understood it) is that your healing spells create 1/2 the threat of a damaging attack. So you would get threat equal to half your heal's damage on the mob(s). Range is also an issue, you don't want to be touching the tank's ass the entire way. Probably more than you wanted to know. :P

[smokeydown]

I'm leveling a priest now too and I find heal and lesser heal not all that great. I try to use PW:shield and Renew as much as possible and use heal when I need a big heal. I would also suggest getting the Renew Glyph.

Getting aggro as a healer almost always means your tank is just bad, but at you're level you're going to run into a lot of bad tanks so there are some things you can do.

1. Run to tank. This makes if easy for the tank to get aggro back. Don't ever run away from the mob or attack it.

2. Fade. You should have or should be getting this ability soon and it drops all threat for 10 secs. But after 10 secs are up, you get all your threat back so it's probably a good idea to run to the tank when you fade.

3. Line of sight (los). If casters are attacking you, get behind a wall or rock. This will give you a sec to heal yourself and will normally pull the casters to the tank.

4. Try to hold off on heals for the 1st few seconds of the fight to give the tank a chance to hit them all before you doing anything that can cause aggro. This includes Renew ticking on the warlock or someone else in the party. You can shield the tank before he pulls, but if you do it just as he pulls all the mobs except the ones the tank hits will run straight at you.

[Latetrain]

Thanks a ton. I ran again yesterday with some minor adjustments, and it went sooo much better. Gave the tank a bit more time. Bubbled before combat. Ran TOWARDS the tank when I pulled aggro, and I became friends with the fade button. I got several nice comments on my heals which was a big change.

[martyisokay]

Even at lvl 80 running ICC raids and the heroic dungeon, fade will still be your friend and be heavily utilized. Good luck in your leveling. I rolled a priest back in early BC and have never looked back. I love it!

I'm leveling a priest now too and I find heal and lesser heal not all that great. I try to use PW:shield and Renew as much as possible and use heal when I need a big heal. I would also suggest getting the Renew Glyph.

Getting aggro as a healer almost always means your tank is just bad, but at you're level you're going to run into a lot of bad tanks so there are some things you can do.

1. Run to tank. This makes if easy for the tank to get aggro back. Don't ever run away from the mob or attack it.

2. Fade. You should have or should be getting this ability soon and it drops all threat for 10 secs. But after 10 secs are up, you get all your threat back so it's probably a good idea to run to the tank when you fade.

3. Line of sight (los). If casters are attacking you, get behind a wall or rock. This will give you a sec to heal yourself and will normally pull the casters to the tank.

4. Try to hold off on heals for the 1st few seconds of the fight to give the tank a chance to hit them all before you doing anything that can cause aggro. This includes Renew ticking on the warlock or someone else in the party. You can shield the tank before he pulls, but if you do it just as he pulls all the mobs except the ones the tank hits will run straight at you.

This is spot-on for advise in surviving as a priest.

Good luck in your leveling!

[Töasty]

Shield the tank before combat, then when shield wears off, either recast shield if you can, or put renew on tank, and reshield. Rinse and repeat. Try to spend as much time not casting so you can regen more mana. Since renew heals over time it gives the tank time to build aggro, so if a dps takes some damage breifly, just toss a renew on them, rather than lesser heal. I leveled disc with my cousin leveling prot pally. Holy might be better if you plan to heal and solo level, but disc is still doable.

[Deleted]

havent played priest in ages so my comment might be way of, but i remember tanks complaining about power word shield because they dont make rage from getting hit when shield is on.

[ZeroKasutoa]

havent played priest in ages so my comment might be way of, but i remember tanks complaining about power word shield because they dont make rage from getting hit when shield is on.

They did fix that, thankfully. Paladin tanks (above 40, Spiritual Attunement talent)) will still complain because they get mana back from getting real heals, not damage prevention; when healing a paladin as a discipline priest, pretend they are immune to your PW:S and just keep it on the DPS instead. As a holy priest, PW:S becomes less valuable as you level anyway.

As for the aggro thing, most tanks will generate enough threat with one white attack to keep most mobs off you at lower levels (30 and under). Later on, as the tanks (hopefully) get better at what they do, you learn to watch for the signature pickup moves: Thunderclap, Consecration, Swipe, etc. and you probably shouldn't need to heal before those anyway.