Difference in playstyle?

[LimeSudz]

I had my first raiding experience in Cata on Friday where we downed Omnitron. our group makeup was pretty heavy on pally's (2) druid's (3) and priests (3)

we had a holy pally on tank duty while me (holy priest) and the other priest (also holy) were on raid duty. about 1 minute into the fight I noticed the other priest has about 10% mana left when I was sitting around 60%-70% he also got all 3 innervates throughout the fight. at the end I was sitting at around 20% and he was oom.

he favors haste and hates mastery and his strategy is to keep his renews ticking while refreshing them. I obviously went the CoH + PoH and PoM route. when we talked later he told me he was never really 'oom' and he could easily get a heal or Gheal off with regen alone. from what I can tell he casts shield and Gheal to get a hurt player back up to a reasonable level.

he also scolded me for using flash heal when a DPS was in a critcial state and told me he never cast it since cataclysm came out. He also said it reflects poorly on me to have mana saved up since some players might think I'm slacking.

basically I want to know if his impressions of me were correct. I wouldn't mind switching up my playstyle to better help our progression, however his playstyle just seems odd to me.

[Folomo]

IMO, he is right about you ending with too much mana (it means you have too much mana regen, so basicaly you are wasting your gear), but he is wrong about preferring a shield + Gheal over a FH + heal/GHeal with serendipity.
But still, flash is something you should almost never use.
PoH >> renew in 25 man. in 10 man I think its PoH > renew. You should try to use CoH only if if there a lot of people damaged in diferent groups.

IMO, Being oom is not being incapable of casting heals. Its being incapable of casting the spells you want to cast. So, if he has enough regen to cast a heal, but he needs to cast a GH o PoH or other spell, he is really oom.

[Ultima]

Need to see logs.

If he is not spamming Flash Heal (since he told you off for doing it), I'm curious as to what he is doing.

[Liagala]

Did you and this other priest do a similar amount of healing over the course of the fight? If he took care of 70% of the raid damage while you took only 30% of it, then yes, you're doing it wrong. If the numbers are fairly even or skewed in the other direction, then he should take a few hints from you: putting out similar healing while using less mana = good.

Flash heal (and its equivalent in other classes) seems to have very little purpose in Cataclysm other than screwing over people who can't stop themselves from hitting that button. Sometimes you have no choice but to bite the bullet, but avoid it if at all possible.

Having mana saved up doesn't make you look like a slacker, IMO. If people are dying (to unavoidable damage) and you have lots of mana, yes. But blowing it just for the sake of having a mostly-empty blue bar? No. That's ridiculous. I watch healer mana bars in my guild, and when I see someone with a bar at 50%+ any time other than the start of a fight, I corner them later and ask how, so that I can improve. Having mana on hand means that you can cast whatever you need, as many times as you need, whenever you need it. You just have to find the right balance between mana conservation and healing output.

[Mazi]

Need to see logs.

If he is not spamming Flash Heal (since he told you off for doing it), I'm curious as to what he is doing.

Post teh logz!

[LimeSudz]

the healing meters were fairly close .2% more for him on our succesful attempt I had a bit more overhealing though (I chalked that up to me casting PoH)

I probably do cast flash heal a bit more than I should but maybe it's because I'm worried I'm going to try for the Gheal and accidently let someone die, however I do my best to catch people before it gets to the point where I need to cast Flash Heal.

as it stands right now my spirit is around 2300 which I thought was still fairly low. maybe it's my trinkets? (Heroic Tear of Blood/Heroic Blood of Isiset(SP?)) it used to be 2500 but I replaced some spirit gear with gear that has more mastery/int on it (I do my best to avoid crit)

from what I gathered he was casting a lot of Shields on people targeted by slimes for the body and soul effect. Obviously we downed Omni so I'm not too concerned right now. However it'd be nice to know what's going on before we get to more healing intensive fights.

[Mazi]

Logs aren't about who outhealed who, they are about seeing spell usage, buffs gained, damage taken, etc.

It's honestly "ok" for you guys to have different playstyles as long as you aren't doing wasteful things like spamming FH & PW:S, etc. You have to think about the overall team and complete your task. Everyone doing the same thing is not going to be as effective as people working off of each other's healing styles and create a synergy between all healers.

Just my 2c

[LimeSudz]

Logs aren't about who outhealed who, they are about seeing spell usage, buffs gained, damage taken, etc.

It's honestly "ok" for you guys to have different playstyles as long as you aren't doing wasteful things like spamming FH & PW:S, etc. You have to think about the overall team and complete your task. Everyone doing the same thing is not going to be as effective as people working off of each other's healing styles and create a synergy between all healers.

Just my 2c

that's fair and I wouldn't expect someone to change how they play the game just based off of how I play it.

as for log's I'd love to post some although, I might get flamed for this, but I'm not entirely sure how to. I doubt my guild saved them unless there is a way for me to record my own logs?

[Deleted]

I myself play very differently to most Holy Priests I have seen around, it's not a good or bad thing it's a different thing. If you had 20% mana left at the end and your casting FH when you need to, then you probably have a bit too much regen. I have about 5% left after most fights and I cast FH whenever it's the best spell to use. However Flash Healing a DPS is FAR more efficient and useful for me (+25% healing from Echo with Mastery) because my heals slow since I have virtually no haste. There's a growing difference in Holy Priests either stacking Haste or Mastery, it's very dependent on if you're doing 10s or 25s and your healer comp, I've been told countless times in heroics I'm an idiot for gimping haste only to have them retract it at the end and tell me I surprised them at how well the healing went. Holy is the most versatile healing spec in the game IMO, by quite some distance too, so you're bound to see a lot of variation in gearing and play styles.

[Mazi]

I myself play very differently to most Holy Priests I have seen around, it's not a good or bad thing it's a different thing. If you had 20% mana left at the end and your casting FH when you need to, then you probably have a bit too much regen. I have about 5% left after most fights and I cast FH whenever it's the best spell to use. However Flash Healing a DPS is FAR more efficient and useful for me (+25% healing from Echo with Mastery) because my heals slow since I have virtually no haste. There's a growing difference in Holy Priests either stacking Haste or Mastery, it's very dependent on if you're doing 10s or 25s and your healer comp, I've been told countless times in heroics I'm an idiot for gimping haste only to have them retract it at the end and tell me I surprised them at how well the healing went. Holy is the most versatile healing spec in the game IMO, by quite some distance too, so you're bound to see a lot of variation in gearing and play styles.

Nice continuation of what I said

That's the best part about being a Holy Priest - your style can vary completely from another yet you are still an effective healer

[Lecktor]

Flash heal (and its equivalent in other classes) seems to have very little purpose in Cataclysm other than screwing over people who can't stop themselves from hitting that button. Sometimes you have no choice but to bite the bullet, but avoid it if at all possible.

Cho'gall Flame's Orders = Flash Heal ftw!

[zodiaak]

You said he needs 3 innervates during a fight, IMO he is the one with the issue. I do sometimes end fights with 60-70% mana depending on my mana cds. If my shadowfiend is up even on a boss at 5%, i use it. Sounds to me that hes spending mana just to spend it, isnt watching his overheals. Wish we could see logs, but since we can't I just have to assume he is overhealing. Flash heal isnt something to be used very often, but I have used it when I see people drop waay too low. If your not ooming from excessive use of it, I dont see the harm in using it to keep someone alive. We have all these different spells for a reason. Flash heal comes at a heafty mana cost but you have to weigh if using it is going to oom you, since you arent having that problem I would just ignore that other priest. You arent relying on other people to keep your mana up and you dont seem to be spending when its not neccesary, thats how cata healing is supposed to be.

[Aiurwyn]

It sounds like he was blanketing renews on the whole raid and using PW:S.

B&S is nice but unless the person needs it to get away he is just wasting mana on it right now since the shield is almost worthless.

[scandore8472]

Ya, he has no right to criticize you if he's spamming renew. You're spirit is where it needs to be for raiding.

[Ultima]

Cho'gall Flame's Orders = Flash Heal ftw!

Pfft, that's what Healadins are for.

[LimeSudz]

Thanks for all the input guys,

I'm now looking to tweak my gear a little, since my only upgrades are just going to give me more regen (Tyrande's Favorite Doll,
Staff of Ammunae if I get lucky) I might look into grabbing a few more caster pieces to increase my throughput.