Holy PvE - Beginner - Need help/suggestions

[Antixmother]

FYI: No, I have never played any healing class before; Yes I've read the sticky on the forum

I was wondering since there obviously isn't a rotation, how should I practice? I am no where near comfortable with Holy so I don't necessarily want to just jump into dungeon and I've heard that going to BG's is a good place to start. The issue with that is I just end up running around healing people and it doesn't seem to help me get used to anything but spamming Holy Shock and Light of Dawn.

Any help/tips would be appreciated.

[Shad0wembrace]

You really should just jump into a dungeon. :-P Take some friends with you that understand that you're new to healing.

Depending on how well you're geared, holy light spam and holy shock spam are the ways to go in heroics. For a really quick heal, Flash is good in binds. Divine Light spam if you need to (IE, ONLY if you need to. Otherwise you'll go oom very quickly). Beacon of Light your tank. Depending on the situation, you wish to use Word of Glory and Light of Dawn as needed when you have 3 Holy Power. I generally use WoG when it's only the tank taking damage, and use LoD for when my party/raid members are taking a lot of damage.
Holy Radiance is also good for party damage.

Mastery is pretty bad, so you wanna reforge crit/mastery out for haste.

If you have any other questions, feel free to message me.

[Suliso]

First of all get a comfortable way to heal
I for my self use Grid + Clique 2 addons so you can modify your mousekeys to for example
left click =Holy Light
shift +left Click= Holy shock and so on

there are also other addons like Healbot or the standard mouseover healing macro

Find the one wich suits you the most and get used to it.

Next is Healing is all about decission making. Is the small slow heal enough or do i need the fast expensiv one?
Can I heal the random dd standing in fire or should I just let him die to keep my mana stable ^^
You also need to know wich boss does what you cant use ur cooldowns properly if you don't know when the big fucking AE dmg is incoming -.-

Also for starters Shad0wembrace said nearly everything.

I assume you got the right glyphs and you know to use Seal of Insight.
Keep Judge on Cooldown it returns some% of your Base mana on 85 its 3,6k and it also gives 9% spellhaste
there is also an addon to track your Beacon of light and the time for your 9% spellhaste
its called BoLT = Beacon of Light Tracker

Thats what I can tell you about Healing as a Pally.

Feel free to ask your Questions here I am sure me or someone else can give you a hand ^^

[PowerGamez]

Queue for the easy normal cata dungeons i.e. BRC/ToT/VP. Run these a few times till you get really comfortable with how to heal then move other normals and then eventually heroics.

You ideally want every piece of gear to have spirit on it as you'll need lots of this.

-Try to use judjement on CD as much as you can - it is our biggest source of mana regen (macro it for ease)
-Use Holy Shock as much as you can, it should always be on CD
-Beacon the tank and you can mostly heal the group. If the tank is in no danger of dying and you're party members aren't at full HP, hela them up and repa the benifits of your beacon healing the tank for 50% of the amount - smart healing is good healing and you want to minimise over heal.
-Use HR if it's a dire situation - most of the time you can recover juts by casting Holy Lights.
-Cast Holy light A LOT! Shock > 3 x HL > repeat > WoG @ 3 HP ( more of ten than not you're better off using WoG in 5 mans instead of LoD)
-Use CDs a lot, get to know them and stagger their use. I just re-rolled a Holy Pally for cata (played Disc/Holy Priest in Wrath) and a big difference is how many CDs you have to use - I often forget I have them so try get into a habit of using them.
-If the tank requires more healing DL on him. try to avoid using FoL as much as possible.

[Fiercon]

Healing is - just like tanking and DPS - an evolutionary process.

First tip:
Begin simple
- Don't change several things at once since you won't know what of the 15 things you just changed is something that rather annoys you and what worked out to be good

Your UI first
- Just like living, your UI should be comfortable first of. Take the Unitframes you like, with the healing method you find appropriate (for me it's grid+mouse-overmacros)

Your go-to spells next
- After you figured a first setup (I guarantee it won't be your last) arrange your spells in a manner that suits your UI and the quantity of usage
- focus on go-to spells only - meaning: Only consider holy light, holy Shock, word of glory and furthermore Divine Light and Flash of light

rearrange your go-tos
- Now that you know what to use when, rearrange it for comfortable usage - I for once had put divine light on "3" and "4" since in hectic situations I tended to miss -.-

visualize your needs
- realize how you never have a good view of your holy power? Don't know if divine favor, Avengingwrath or hand of sacrifice is on cooldown? Do you still have your hastebuff or do you have to judge next (believe me, you will want to judge every spare CD)?
- Make all the things you cannot keep track of visible - I use "power auras" to make my screen go shiny and wobbly in several spots for different cooldowns as long as CDs are of cooldown. Avenging wrath (especially when talented - which you should) is better spent 3 times a fight in a rough situation than once in an "Oh Shit" spot.

grow
Now that you know your basics - take healing a step further
- incorporate Light of dawn and find out when to use it
- incorporate holy radiance and find out when to use it
- set a good bind for dispell (since it often saves more mana by using it instead of healing the damage caused by the debuff later on)
- make "oh-Shitbuttons" easy accessable without cluttering your often-used spells


If you have questions this forum is a great and pleasant host of information. Even firecrest is nice sometimes - He won't mince matters but his advice is most accurate. So is most of the mod's and other paladin's posts too.

[Hateful]

FYI: No, I have never played any healing class before; Yes I've read the sticky on the forum

I was wondering since there obviously isn't a rotation, how should I practice? I am no where near comfortable with Holy so I don't necessarily want to just jump into dungeon and I've heard that going to BG's is a good place to start. The issue with that is I just end up running around healing people and it doesn't seem to help me get used to anything but spamming Holy Shock and Light of Dawn.

Any help/tips would be appreciated.

Well, just firstly off the bat, Light of Dawn isn't really good in BGs apart from IoC and AV where people are clumped up and you want a large heal on the tank (your beacon target). Hits like a wet noodle on teammates and you're usually better off dropping a WoG on someone getting focused.

In terms of healing heroics, you are basically healing around the CD of your Holy Shock. Holy Shock is your most efficient spell, mainly due to the fact that it will eventually lead to a Word of Glory, which is strong and free, with a chance to give you 2 in a row. You basically want it on cooldown at all times, thus maximising your HoPo gain. The only time you SHOULDN'T cast HS first is if you a) Have a 3 Holy Power WoG ready to be used b) Tank is in dire need of a FoL or DL. Apart from these situations, HS is basically > everything else.

Just some key points:

1. Cast Holy Light around the cooldown of your Holy Shock (6 seconds, typically 2-3 HLs depending on haste levels)

2. If Daybreak procs (2 HS in a row) use the 2 HS as quickly as possible - of course, if you get a Daybreak proc on 2 Holy Power, DON'T use both, use 1 followed by WoG then another HS if Eternal Glory doesn't proc.

3. Use all your cooldowns. Paladins have by far some of the best tank healing cooldowns, don't be afraid to Hand of Protection your tank, pop Avenging Wrath or drop a Lay on Hands or use your Guardian of Ancient Kings. To make yourself more comfortable with using them, try to use HoP every pull whenever possible and have Avenging Wrath as your fall back. Lay on Hands is definitely your last resort (but that doesn't mean don't use it if you have to!), and GoAK can be just as powerful.

4. If Infusion of Light procs and your tank is dropping somewhat, feel free to use a Divine Light. If the tanks HP is good, just use the Infusion on a normal HL (or you can attempt to save it, typically I've never found this to be a problem). DL is always better than Flash of Light, *if you have the time to get the cast off*. In most cases, you should never have to use Flash of Light in a geared / quality group. If DPS are dropping low and you have to spam Flash of Light to stop them dying, it's their fault, end of story.

5. The only real way to heal up your group is to divert direct heals to them - this might mean you Holy Shock one person, HL twice, followed by a HS and a WoG on someone else (depending on your HoPo levels). You might think "but won't the tank drop low while I heal these people?", but don't forget that the 50% healing from Beacon of Light is very powerful - be thankful you have it, even if it isn't as strong as it used to be.

6. If your tanks health is dropping, don't immediately freak out and assume you have to cast your largest heal possible to get them back to full straight away. A tank at 50% is still okay, and chances are they will dodge / parry / block an attack allowing you to get their total health back up. It's even better when you chain a HL --> HS --> 3HoPo WoG straight after each other, as it provides a fast injection of healing.

And lastly, jump straight into heroics. Ignore people who complain if they die or call you a bad healer as you start to learn. The skill curve of healing is fairly steep for those who are new to it, but once you get over the first hump it will become second nature to you. Or, if you aren't that confident, try doing some of the 85 normals (don't do Throne of the Tides or any of the other 80-83 ones, it's basically a waste of time apart from learning basic mechanics).

Don't forget to Judge whenever you have a free moment (especially in at early gear levels). Divine Plea during periods of boss fights where there is minimal damage being taken - and remember that you do not HAVE to plea on every fight.

Edit: Oh, I almost forgot, in just about 90% of all situations in Heroic Dungeons, Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn will be useless. Only in amazing situations where everyone is perfectly aligned or stacked does it come in handy. That's okay, these are by far more powerful tools in a raid, not a 5 man. Don't feel like you are not optimising yourself by resisting the urge to use these abilities unless the stars and planets align.

And in PvP, you will majority of the time be casting Flash of Light, not Holy Light, so the healing "rotations" are practically nothing alike.

Additionally, if you'd like some feedback on gear / talent choices just chuck up an armory for people to look at. Best of luck.

[Tuccoyote265]

Personally I think the best way to learn the basics is to hop into a straight random heroic if you have the gear. That way you'll get the 4 stacks of Luck of the Draw. I think everyone has touched on the basics of healing heroics, it's of course a bit different in raids, but this will get you a solid base.

I do disagree on the Light of Dawn thing, it can be better than WoG in heroics, but only if you line it up right. It's a rectangle that is 10 yards wide and 30 yards long, depending on group composition, you can usually line up 4 people to hit with it if you stand just behind 1 of the ranged. If the group has 1 or 2 Melee, 1 pet, 1 or 2 ranged at the right angle, plus the tank, plus you, you can hit 5 people (of course that doesn't work if the ranged stand too far out and there is only 1 melee and no pets). That will heal up 5 for the price of 1, shoot all that healing/overhealing up through the Beacon and place a very small crappy absorb shield on all of them that will probably be wasted (but could be a small benefit). That will usually wind up being more healing on the tank than a single non-crit WoG, plus healing 4 other people.

[y02mustang]

Personally I think the best way to learn the basics is to hop into a straight random heroic if you have the gear.

I have to disagree slightly here. I'd recommend doing random regulars until you know what to expect as a healer perspective, since it is different than a tank/dps role. When you're comfortable there, then you can jump into heroics when you're ready gear-wise and have an idea of mechanics.

Advice on this page is quite thorough, find your playstyle and have fun. Good luck! Healing is challenging and fun.