Resto druid looking for advice for fellow priest healer.

[Deleted]

Hello fellow readers, just as the title says I'm looking for serious advice concerning a holy priest guildie of mine.

We are a 10 man raiding guild (currently 5/13 hc) and due to attendance problems and raiders quitting the game we had to recruit a few new people. I was recently promoted to the healing officer in charge of our healers.

Our current raiding roster looks like this most of the time:
* 2 feral bear tanks, both with moonkin OS.
* 1 warrior tank, dualspecced prot/prot.

* 1 Retribution paladin, prot OS.
* 1 Survival/MM hunter.
* 1 Fire mage (our GL) and 1 arcane mage, both with pvp frost OS.
* 2 Fury warriors, currently both have a prot OS. One of them isn't raiding as much as the other.
* 1 Frost death knight, with frost pvp OS.
* 1 Affliction warlock.

* 1 Holy paladin, prot OS.
* 1 Resto druid (me), either resto pvp or moonkin OS.
* 1 Resto shaman, went to social a few months ago and recently came back.
* 1 Holy priest.

I'm pleased with both the paladin and the shaman, but the shaman can't be there as often as we would need him to.
Then we have the priest healer. She is a friend of the GL and she got invited while I was gone for 2 days, I didn't see the application on the forum until after she had been invited. I wasn't pleased with the application and what turned out even worse was that she had been in our guild back in Wrath, when we were doing ICC25 hc. Our GL back then was very harsh and direct when he didn't like something, and ended up kicking her on Saurfang. He said in gchat "Sorry, but you are not doing anything at all. You are only wasting our time with your slacking" or something in that style and then kicked her from the raid and guild. We have another GL now, but I was still surprised when she was invited due to the fact that several members confirmed that she was slacking majorly and had been removed because of it.
Anyway, I decided to give her a chance, and invited her to the following nights raid in BoT. I had earlier that day looked at her armory site and I wasn't a fan of either the spec or the glyphs, politely adviced her to switch out Glyph of Flash heal to Glyph of Prayer of healing, as she would be assigned to AoE healing. She did this without complaining.

We killed Halfus hc, I felt like with her gear she should have been doing more healing, decided to try let her and the paladin 2 heal Valiona and Theralion, as we 2 healed it before without problems. It failed.
I respecced resto from moonkin and we continued to down bosses. We did 1 shot Cho'gall, which I honestly doubted we would with a couple of new people that never done the fight before, but her healing was in my opinion again too low. Other officers agreed with me and GL claimed she was underperforming due to being nervous. Sure, I can buy that. During my first raid with the guild in ICC hc I failed to being nervous aswell.
Yesterday our paladin healer couldn't make it due to work, so we went Throne of the four winds with me, the priest and the hunter on her paladin as healers. Conclave went okay. Al'akir not so much. Healing was assigned, but the people she was responsible for was not getting healed. When we downed him I had a look at the healing meter and I didn't like what I saw. She had done about 6-7k HPS.
I'd also like to add that there's also some tactics she haven't learned that well yet, corruption on Cho'gall, tornados on Al'akir and debuffs on Ascendant council in p2 are good examples.

Tonight we are going to progress on heroic modes in BWD. I have to tell her that her performance isn't good enough as it is right now, and that she needs to improve. Why I'm posting here is because I'm not as experienced with holy priests in Cata, and I could really use some advice that I can pass on to her in how to improve. I'd really like to help her out, without being an asshole like our previous GL was.

Should she switch any glyphs? Is it worth it to stack mastery for 10 man raiding? How is her usage of different spells, too litte/too much of what?

I can't link anything yet, and it's my first time posting, but I'll try to add armory link and WoL of both that BoT run and Al'akir.

Armory:
eu [dot ] battle [dot] net/wow /en /character /aggramar /soteira /advanced

Bastion of Twilight -

Halfus: www [dot] worldoflogs [dot] com /reports /qavydxj5c3qfjrcz/sum/healingDone/?s=0&e=257

V&T: www [dot] worldoflogs [dot] com /reports /qavydxj5c3qfjrcz/sum/healingDone/?s=1753&e=2022 (kill)
www [dot] worldoflogs [dot] com /reports /qavydxj5c3qfjrcz/sum/healingDone/?s=1142&e=139 (wipe)

Ascendant council: www [dot] worldoflogs [dot] com /reports /qavydxj5c3qfjrcz/sum/healingDone/?s=2996&e=3360

Cho'gall: www [dot] worldoflogs [dot] com /reports /qavydxj5c3qfjrcz/sum/healingDone/?s=4258&e=4660


Al'akir: www [dot] worldoflogs [dot] com /reports /e9kh3mrb4nd262zg/sum/healingDone/?s=295&e=646 (wipe)
www [dot] worldoflogs [dot] com /reports /e9kh3mrb4nd262zg/sum/healingDone/?s=809&e=1140 (kill)

I apologize if the links are messy. :<
Thanks in advance!

[Verth Aeyta]

Well one thing I can say about her gemming is that she shouldn't worry about socket bonuses EVER unless it's +20 int or +30 of a good stat (Haste or Mastery or Spirit) she should be gemming pure int except for the 2 to get the meta bonus.

Also she can do with some more Haste, my priest is up to 17% raid buffed and 14% Mastery, shouldn't be hard to achieve with reforging and gear.

Her Holy spec seems to be fine for the most part but her Disc, she should pick up Atonement, especially if you guys are doing H Halfus, Smite healing is OP in that fight.

Here is a link to mine to match up a few things: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...n/verth/simple

Oh and my ring says it has hit on it, I'm aware of that I was using it on my lock last night and forgot to switch it back that should be reforged to spirit :P

[Deleted]

Yeah, I thought the same about the socket bonuses. :> She told me she prefers holy over disc, and I've seen atonement spec can do nice healing on Halfus, but I think she will stick to holy as she lacks experience with disc in Cata. With our current setup we don't have 5% spell haste without our resto shaman and she won't be getting Dark intent, but haste is still a better stat for her than mastery then?

Thanks for reply! :>

[Metric]

Well one thing I can say about her gemming is that she shouldn't worry about socket bonuses EVER unless it's +20 int or +30 of a good stat (Haste or Mastery or Spirit) she should be gemming pure int except for the 2 to get the meta bonus.

One thing about socket bonuses -- no stat is bad for Holy Priests (excluding the obvious ones). For Disc I believe you want as much Intellect as you can though. Ignoring socket bonuses is more of a DPS thing. :3

Onto haste and mastery. There is a large debate over this however my preference is absolutely haste. To me mastery is usually just overheal and it normally won't save a raid member from dying.

My armory link is in my signature. I'm Shadow atm but have most of my healing gear still on. (I do have 4 pc for healing). I never ignore socket bonuses. I don't usually look at healing meters but my boyfriend tells me I did 17k HPS when we downed H Chim a week ago. ^_^ Our progression is slightly slower than your guild's because we are a very tight knit group of friends that only raid two days a week, 3 hours a day. We have no replacements for our raiders either, so if someone doesn't show we are usually screwed. D:

Edit: Btw I never reforge from Spirit... that would be my Shadow gear lols. For more clarification I try to aim for haste or mastery + spirit on all my gear and reforge any mastery to haste.

Another edit. I can't seem to look at your logs. But imo this sounds like a play style problem more than anything. With her gear and spec she shouldn't be doing that terribly. :\

[healsdude]

From my experience, it helps to hear people out first on the reason why particular choices were made. IMO she made a few weird choices in her talents.

3/3 Mental Agility is a no brainer and there are no excuses for not taking it. Take one point from Veiled Shadows or Desperate Prayer/Rapid Renewal.
Either Desperate Prayer or Rapid Renewal should go to Test of Faith.

With the level of raids you are doing, I don't think she can get away with blues and with cheap enchants.

Other weirdies are that shes gemming for intellect/haste but reforging haste to mastery. I asume she wants a mastery heavy build so I would suggest she follows these optimisations: www askmrrobot com /wow /gear /eu /aggramar /soteira#v1-z1. If she wants a haste heavy build, go to presets and choose haste on mr robot.

Even if she would follow whatever advise everyone is giving you here, it is not going to bring her to the top of the charts. Bad or slacking players don't get better with a few new gems or talent points.

Have a chat with her and let her explain how she is playing and keep an open mind without being condensending or judgmental. If she feels shes understood and appreciated/valued, shes more likely to open up and she might admit she feels she is struggling or screwing up but afraid to admit it. Either way, you will get some insight in how she's playing and you'll be able to help her better.

Last but not least, make sure she puts in the effort towards improving herself. Don't allow her to become dependent on other people to give her advise and tell her what to do - it is everyone's own responsibility to learn to play whatever class they chose to play. Too much hand holding and nurturing does not make people better players, they'll just slack more

[Deleted]

You are spot on about one of my problems with her, I feel like I shouldn't have to learn my raiders how to play. The GL decided to invite her very quickly without asking my opinion about her, since she is his friend.

I'm also not expecting her at top of the charts, but I want her to pull her own weight and not slack/not try to improve because others can make up for her.

I'm kinda torn. I want her to understand that it's required that she improves or she will get replaced. From what people are saying it sounds like there might not be logic behind her choises of for example gems and reforging. And that kind of stuff indicates for me that the player might not be what we are looking for in a raider.

---------- Post added 2011-05-18 at 07:44 AM ----------

I might have failed while trying to post a link, heh. I added some blank spaces, maybe if you delete them you can see the log?

Since she is so new she haven't gotten a lot of loot. I was talking to my boyfriend, another of the officers, about trying to take her to Nefarian to get her 4 set (she got the heroic chest from Halfus). Although I don't think she is having that much mana issues, I think it's a play style issue. Do you happen to have a WoL of your priest?

[healsdude]

WoL is down at the moment, at least from where I am sitting.

[Deleted]

I had problems with WoL being down when I was making the first post. Gah, damnit. :/

[healsdude]

Its back up.

From what I can see I think she's playing as if its still WotLK. She's blanketing the raid with renews and renew is her top healing done. That is not good at all.

Also, she used Holy Word: Serenity 20 times and never Holy Word: Sanctuary. Does that mean she's raid healing in Chakra:Serenity? :O That's not a good sign either.

Her spell priority for raid healing should be Circle of Healing, Prayer of Healing, Lightwell if appropriate, heal, flash heal, greater heal, renew. At the end of the day, it should look something like this: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/h...ge/details/23/

And no, that's not me. No idea who that is tbh all I looked at is spell priority (ignore the rest :P), it looks about right thats all I have to say about it .

Looking at her stats and considering the above, I don't get the impression she is slacking badly. She's using pretty much all spells she has available, she didn't take much damage, didn't die more than others. She just need to relearn to play in Cata, her class has changed quite a bit.

Her active time is a tad low, but maybe she was struggling with mana and needed regen or whatever. Plenty of things going on there.

Have a chat with her, I'm sure she can turn around and become a valuable player in your team.

[babylon]

first of all im playing disc, was only doing holy on atramedes hc before nerf, so there is a big chance of me being wrong

1. haste seems very low. this priest seems to be in love with renew, still not aiming for the extra tick, seems odd.
on the other hand, i just checked some holy priests from top world guilds and they all seem to have under 5% haste and mastery stacked to 17-18%, so maybe thats the trend now? (pls someone tell me in case im forced to go holy again:P)

2. she seems to be using lots of renew, so maybe dropping 1 point in veiled shadow and taking third point in mental agility would be better. unless she never suffers mana problems, then its irrelevant. anyway it still feels like bit too much renew, imo there should be more of prayer of healing used. also make sure that groups are correctly set for poh.

3. on halfus logs i see only 5 prayer of mending hits, should be more!

4. Noone clicked lightwell on council. Noone clicked lightwell on chogal. why, was the lightwell not present?

5. as for gems, i wouldnt overestimate them. its not like gems will heal for you.

6. resto druid + holy priest doesnt seem optimal setup for 10man, we go with resto druid and disc priest and it seems to work very well. in general holy priests seem to have bit smaller output than other healing types in 10man (there ofc are some exceptions)

Her spell priority for raid healing should be Circle of Healing, Prayer of Healing, Lightwell if appropriate, heal, flash heal, greater heal, renew. At the end of the day, it should look something like this: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/h...ge/details/23/

when i was asked to go holy i scanned multiple wol reports from end game guilds and renew seemed to be quite popular for priests there, usually 3rd top healing tool (but yes, never top). so i would guess that there is more than one way of prioritizing spells as holy.

[Ynna]

Gear
There isn't much wrong with her gear, as far as I can see. She should obviously lose the PvP ring, because Resilience is just a wasted stat in PvE.
There's nothing wrong with favoring Mastery over Haste, but you have to do it consistently. It's weird to gear and reforge for Mastery and then put Haste gems in your sockets.
About gemming pure Intellect: Yes, this is more optimal, but it isn't bad to go for socket bonuses. It's a small min-maxing thing and will not cause massive differences in healing done or mana longevity. After all, there isn't really a bad stat for Holy (apart from crit).

Spec
She could easily drop the points in Veiled Shadow and Rapid Renewal. Then she can maximize Mental Agility and Test of Faith and put the last remaining point, well, anywhere.

I can't comment on her spell selection, because I can't get the WoL links to work.

[healsdude]

when i was asked to go holy i scanned multiple wol reports from end game guilds and renew seemed to be quite popular for priests there, usually 3rd top healing tool (but yes, never top). so i would guess that there is more than one way of prioritizing spells as holy.

Well, yeh if you specced into it and got it glyphed and won't go OOM, go for it. I did say "something like" . I don't claim to have stated the know-all-end-all spell prioritization - theres no such thing, I'm merely trying to give an impression of what it should look like. Obviously there is always room to use spells according to playstyle and situation. The point I made still stands though, too many renews and not enough CoHs and PoHs and I think she's playing in the past (ie, WotLK with renew blanketing).

[Verth Aeyta]

One thing about socket bonuses -- no stat is bad for Holy Priests (excluding the obvious ones). For Disc I believe you want as much Intellect as you can though. Ignoring socket bonuses is more of a DPS thing. :3

Onto haste and mastery. There is a large debate over this however my preference is absolutely haste. To me mastery is usually just overheal and it normally won't save a raid member from dying.

My armory link is in my signature. I'm Shadow atm but have most of my healing gear still on. (I do have 4 pc for healing). I never ignore socket bonuses. I don't usually look at healing meters but my boyfriend tells me I did 17k HPS when we downed H Chim a week ago. ^_^ Our progression is slightly slower than your guild's because we are a very tight knit group of friends that only raid two days a week, 3 hours a day. We have no replacements for our raiders either, so if someone doesn't show we are usually screwed. D:

Edit: Btw I never reforge from Spirit... that would be my Shadow gear lols. For more clarification I try to aim for haste or mastery + spirit on all my gear and reforge any mastery to haste.

Another edit. I can't seem to look at your logs. But imo this sounds like a play style problem more than anything. With her gear and spec she shouldn't be doing that terribly. :\

The reason I will always follow the +20 int or +30 of (Haste, Mastery or Spirit) rule for gemming is because it seems like a waste to got for a +10 spirit bonus and lose out on the Int or go for +10 Int socket bonus in which you lose 10 int to gain 20 haste? For me this doesn't make sense me and I tend to value int far more as I get a good amount of Haste/Mastery from gear itself. But this is where a to each their own plays out

[Deleted]

Healsdude - I also thought that it seemed like she was using renew too much, but I didn't know if there was exceptions when renew "spamming" was viable. I don't know which Chakra she was in, or which she should have been in/switching to.
I did tell her she would be on raid healing mainly on Halfus (we did the tactic with 3 tanks where the warrior taking whelps and Time warden doesn't need much healing), and after that healing wasn't assigned very strictly as it was normal modes and me and the paladin could have 2 healed it. She was basicly helping out where needed with main priority raid.

Babylon - I don't know if the lightwell was present at those bosses or not. Some of my guildies tend to forget to click it though. I still agree about the renew, and I even made a comment saying the exact same - if she uses renew so much, why not get the extra tick of it? I would prefer the resto shaman we have over the priest, but he can't attend to as many raids. And yes, you are right, gems won't heal for you, but it helps if you are gemming and reforging for the same thing unless she is trying to reach some cap.

Ynna - Thanks, I'll advice her that about the spec, since more people have mentioned it. The WoL seems to be up and then down, I don't know why. :/


Thanks for all the answers guys.