Heal vs Flash/Greater Heal

[kyoharu]

So I haven't played a Priest since the middle of WOLK somewhere, and a lot has changed since then. So I was wondering, is the Heal spell actually useful now? Is that a regular spell to use, or is it's only real use to activate Chakra? I'm not really sure how to prioritize Heal, Flash Heal and Greater Heal. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[Dassen]

So I haven't played a Priest since the middle of WOLK somewhere, and a lot has changed since then. So I was wondering, is the Heal spell actually useful now? Is that a regular spell to use, or is it's only real use to activate Chakra? I'm not really sure how to prioritize Heal, Flash Heal and Greater Heal. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

You spam Heal when you know the incoming damage isn't too much for it.
Spamming Flash Heal/Greater Heal will surely empty your mana pool rather quick.

[skiiwee29]

Heal is your bread and butter spell for 5 mans. Should really only use Flash if A) Surge of Light Procs B) If your tank/dps fall below a threshold you feel uncomfortable with, me I say below 50% is when I start beefing up heals.

Greater heal should also be used with the 50% below (or what you feel needed) I personally use the 50% for my other spells. Best to do is to try and keep up serindipity through SoL procs (not to hard) and use a greater to top tank off.

You should also be sitting in Chakra: Heal to give you a good, cheap, instant heal for the tank and keep renew on him as in chakra heal, everytime target is healed with Heal, it will refresh the duration of Renew.

[Jademist]

So I haven't played a Priest since the middle of WOLK somewhere, and a lot has changed since then. So I was wondering, is the Heal spell actually useful now? Is that a regular spell to use, or is it's only real use to activate Chakra? I'm not really sure how to prioritize Heal, Flash Heal and Greater Heal. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Heal is like your poor man's healing spell. Low mana cost and not so high healing amount. But you spam it constantly until you know that incoming damage is too big, or everyone's really low on health or like your tank's health drops significantly. I always found that Flash Heal to be like the "emergency" heal and Greater Heal, since it has a longer cast time, to be the "anticipation of large damage" heal.

[aGit]

chakra: serenity, renew, heal, prayer of mending and holy word serenity will be enough for most situations as holy priest. ofc aoe fights and enrage mechanics require bigger heals, but most of the time the above will be enough to keep everyone alive. with enough spirit the above will also be enough to keep your mana at 100% or close to 100% throughout the fight.

[sacrypheyes]

pretty much like above. though in emergencies, i like to use HW:Serenity followed by FH+GH (<3 serendipity), that usually gets anyone out of trouble unless something is really going wrong.

[sp101]

Keep in mind that Greater Heal is much more efficient than Flash Heal. If you have a party member sitting at 20% HP, it may be the correct decision to use a Greater Heal or two on them if they will survive the long cast time. Flash Heal heals for a ton and quickly, but is less efficient than Greater Heal. However, since you are Holy, using Flash Heal means you get a cheaper PoH / GH to follow up with, so there's nothing wrong with going Flash Heal > Greater Heal to save a tank or party member from imminent death.

[[-Spiritus-]]

...there's nothing wrong with going Flash Heal > Greater Heal to save a tank or party member from imminent death.

The the key here is bolded. Some holy priests think that Serendipity makes FH efficient b/c of the cost reduction on PoH or GH. In actuality, it just makes casting FH slightly less painful. Serendipity should not change when you should use FH, it just makes its use less of a burden on sustainability.

[Themegatron]

So I haven't played a Priest since the middle of WOLK somewhere, and a lot has changed since then. So I was wondering, is the Heal spell actually useful now? Is that a regular spell to use, or is it's only real use to activate Chakra? I'm not really sure how to prioritize Heal, Flash Heal and Greater Heal. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

No. To be honest, it's okay in heroics when you're just starting out. But you'll quickly start using GH anyway (Twice the heal for 2.5 times the mana @ the same casting speed). Using it to activate Chakra is the only use it has on my bars now, and come patch I'll remove it all together.

In half decent groups i'm back to spamming flash heal, as it's more convenient.

[erotix]

90-100% health: Don't heal.
50-90% health: Heal.
30-50% health: greater heal.
5-30% heath: ZOMGAWD THEY GAWNA DIE FLLAASSHH HEALLL RAWRRR!

[Xelestial]

TL;DR Heal is useful now unless you're Disc Smite spec.

[fizikz]

90-100% health: Don't heal.
50-90% health: Heal.
30-50% health: greater heal.
5-30% heath: ZOMGAWD THEY GAWNA DIE FLLAASSHH HEALLL RAWRRR!

wut? certainly spam your heal if they're sitting at 90% hp. hell, even 95% because it's cheap and not 'spamming' it while you can will just make you use Gheal more.

more like 70-95% heal (though i even precast heal at 100% sometimes if I'm expecting damage)
30-70% serenity -> gheal (because if they get to 70%, heal ain't cuttin it, and you want to start casting it early to prevent need for flash)
10-30% flash
1-10% GS

[Vordie]

TL;DR Heal is useful now unless you're Disc Smite spec.

TLDR? It's like.. 5 lines!

Anyways, I'll disagree with people since I only use heal when I know my tank won't go lower than 80%. If he does, then Greater Heal takes over. It's really not that big a deal, I might have to drink every 2-3 pulls but I'm feeling comfortable with it. I'm thinking in 1-2 major patches, heal will be removed from our bars completely.

[Nørf]

I'm thinking in 1-2 major patches, heal will be removed from our bars completely.

You can always dream ofcourse

[Deleted]

You can always dream ofcourse

well as a disc priest i feel like im using greater heal way more often than heal. im using heal only as a filler if i know that there aint any big dmg incoming

[Deleted]

Constant Chakra + spam Heal to keep Renew up = recipe for 5man HC

With 346 Spirit gear you can cast it whole time and be always at 100% mana

[Zka]

TL;DR Heal is useful now unless you're Disc Smite spec.

Heal is actually useless for all disc specs (unless you run 5mans, where heal is prominent). In raids disc doesn't use heal for anything else than lowering the WS on the tank for higher rapture uptime. I'm not even sure it's worth to do that btw. From the next patch, gheal will work with SoS, rendering heal about 100% useless in raid settings.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Heal and the other "efficient spells" are supposed to represent the downranked spells from TBC and Vanilla (rank 1 Greater Heal)