Hey, I'm still kinda new at this whole healing thing. I've got a bunch of characters who tank or DPS or both, but for the 7 years I've played this game, I've never played a healer. I decided to finally level my priest and chose Disc as my spec-of-choice for leveling and Normal-level 85 dungeons. Now, I've recently finally gotten my iLvl above the old Heroics cap and I decided to finally give heroics a shot. As a tank, I know what I would *like* my healer to do, but I also like to try and play to their level, as to not stress them or the group out too much. I'd like the same attitude shown to me, but I've found that I'm the exception.
That said, I do just fine in Normal level dungeons with both a AA/A Disc spec and the SoS Disc spec. Never had an issue outside of really bad tanks (in playstyle, not gear, that can be accounted for easily at this level of play) or stupid DPS who like to stand in stuff, which can he healed through most times, as you know. But when I finally got into heroics, I don't know what I'm doing wrong but nothing makes people happy and I'm seriously losing confidence. I do my damnedest to keep everyone alive, especially the tank. Keeping PW:S for Rapture procs (I have a timer on it), keeping up PoM, using Penance to stack Grace and for quick burst, PoH for DA and group healing, and either Smite/HF or Heal for low damage times. I know I need more practice, but these are heroics, not HC raids.
Of the three heroics I've been in, two have been Pally tanks and one was a DK. The DK was arguably easier to keep up, but he had lower level gear (I'm assuming due to HP, as I didn't have the opportunity to inspect), but neither should be an issue, IMO. In all three heroics, even with no one dying (I can keep people alive, just lower HP % than full all the time), I got vote kicked within three pulls. First heroic was Lost City and I was kicked following the first pull. Now, I know the fights well, and I know this pull generally sucks if people don't do it right, but most people should overgear this stuff by now (especially this tank with 198k HP).
Am I having bad luck, or do I need to relegate myself to Normals until I get more pieces of higher level gear? I don't play a lot, maybe 2-3 hours a couple times a week, so it's slow, but it's been that way for 4 years now; I'm used to it. I don't raid, and I'm not in a raiding guild, so I don't have a lot of people will or able to walk me through heroics in order to speed up the process. Anyway, with all that said, does the Priest community have any sort of advice for me? I'm willing to do whatever I need to do, including spec and learn Holy, if that's what will work better at my gear level. I've gone through all the stickies both here and EJ, and looked over several other Priest-oriented sites for help, but nothing I seem to do really helps much. Maybe I'm just a crappy healer who needs to go back to taking it in the face or smashy-smashy-type toons.
Now, I know my gear sucks, I'm pretty freshly dinged, but here is what I have. I know my chest is not gemmed, that will happen soon. I just keep forgetting. My rep sucks, I know, I dungeon-crawled to 85. I don't have a ton of gold, but I'm trying to max enchanting ASAP, just kinda stuck at ~300 because of the lack of Arcane Dust at a decent price and people WAY overpricing BC greens. I'm working on it though, albeit slowly. So, here's my armory page. Critique away.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...adran/advanced
Try to keep the flaming to a minimum, please, I'm trying to learn here.