MoP Holy Priest Guide (5.0.4)

[Holygrail]

Holygrail’s Holy Healing Guide (PvE)

Patch: 5.0.4
Last Updated: 14/10/2012

Things to add:
Inner Fire vs Inner Will
Improve Stat Priorities
Improve the overall look and feel
Fix any errors from updating the guide from 4.3 to 5.0.4
Add in item & spell links for tooltips etc.
Re-word a few things that are badly worded at the moment
Add in new spells like Void Shift & level 90 talent spells

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Disclaimers
3. Talents
4. Glyphs
5. Inner Fire vs Inner Will
6. Stat Priorities
7. Reforging
8. Gemming
9. Enchanting
10. Consumables
11. Gear Options
12. Chakra
13. Spell Selection
14. Positioning
15. Healing in 10 mans
16. Healing in 25 mans
17. UI
18. Addons & Macros
19. Changelog


1. Introduction

I'm fairly new here so I best introduce myself.
I am Holygrail, a Holy Priest currently playing of the realm of Zenedar (EU). I was previously from Bronze Dragonflight before moving to Terokkar and eventually settling down where I am currently. I have been playing a Priest since the day I stepped foot in Azeroth, which happened to be mid-Burning Crusade. I levelled up as Holy and after a painful 32 days played time I reached the level cap. I got to know the class well and became attracted to Priests like no other class, nothing else quite had the same feeling. I have raided a lot in both 10 and 25 man sizes and have been doing so since mid-Wrath. I am currently in a 25 man guild named High Tempest, pushing for server firsts.

Armoury - YouTube

A little bit about my real-life character - I am currently attending Sixth Form studying Maths, Further Maths and Physics (Too much maths!). I am aiming to go to University next year to study Aerospace Engineering. I enjoy gaming whilst also doing the occasional thing outside on that rare occasion England has sunshine; these things may include Cycling or even Ultimate Frisbee.


2. Disclaimers

First off, I can't take full credit for this guide. A big thanks has to go out to Velosi for his Discipline PvE Healing Guide (5.0.4) and Mazi's Holy PvE Healing Guide (4.3). I used some layout ideas from both guides and also some wording about various sections in this guide as I couldn't be bothered to type in excess of 7,000 words. Also, some wording was taken from the Discipline Priest Guide over at Elitist Jerks. Finally, a shout-out to Bokoshoko, my old healing buddy, who wrote the vast majority of the UI and Addons section that I adapted for my UI.

I also remind you that this is merely a guide. By no means should this be your bible, just a reference point where you can obtain information and maybe a different viewpoint from myself on how I play the spec and class. I have one play style, you may have another - by no means is one right and one wrong. One may be better for one fight but not as good for another. A good healer is one that can adapt to every circumstance and make the best of it, but remember, no one is perfect.

I would love for people to discuss this guide and to put their opinions forwards about anything they feel can be improved, is incorrect or biased. Even general advice for the community is certainly welcomed.

This guide is aimed at all levels of play but if you are a beginner you may not understand everything. Feel free to ask anything in the comments about anything you are not sure about. Also, be prepared, this is one giant wall of text!


3. Talents

Talents have been revamped in Mists of Pandaria. All three specialisations of Priest can chose the same talents, which are now broken into six tiers with one talent in each tier that you can select and choose to learn.


Tier 1:



This is the Crowd Control tier. These will generally not affect you in PvE.

My personal preference is Void Tendrils as it does not require placement unlike Psyfiend, making it slightly easier to use in a hectic situation. Dominate Mind is mainly focused upon PvP and has restricted uses in PvE, it is useful for clearing trash but on the vast majority of encounters, any mobs in an encounter will be immune to this spell.


Tier 2:



This is the movement tier. To being with, Phantasm is mainly focused upon PvP and will most likely have limited uses in PvP, with that said it can be used to clear the root from the cobalt mines in The Stone Guard encounter. (Thanks Sistersaint!).
That leaves us with Body and Soul & Angelic Feather. Which talent is best is highly dependent on situation - your raid may require you to place down Angelic Feathers to help other raid members move about during an encounter however if this is not the case I prefer using Body and Soul as I have been using it since Wrath and am very comfortable with the talent (and it doesn't take up a spot on my action bars) - Body and Soul is just easier for me to use than Angelic Feather.


Tier 3:



This is the Mana regeneration tier. All three choices are viable in PvE.

However From Darkness, Come Light ("FDCL") is highly dependent on the encounter. The only time you would chose this talent over the other two is if you are casting single target heals very frequently. An example from Cataclysm for me would be Spine of Deathwing where I would Renew a debuffed target and cast a single target heal on them to refresh the Renew, this would make FDCL the best choice in that situation.

In most situations you would be better off choosing one of the other two talents; Mindbender or Power Word: Solace - here is a breakdown of each talent:

Mindbender
Replaces Shadowfiend. It has a 1 minute cooldown and restores 1.3% Mana per attack. At level 90 (300k Mana) you would get 39k Mana per cast.
For a 3 minute fight: 117,000 Mana

Power Word: Solace
No cooldown, 0.7% Mana per cast which equates to 2,100 Mana.

In order to match the mana regen of Mindbender using Solace you would need 13 casts over a 3 minute fight - 5 per minute.

So which ones is better?
Again, it is highly dependent on the fight. If the fight has a lot of periods where you are not healing, you can benefit from Solace a lot, thus making Solace the better choice. If this is not the case, Mindbender is better.
However, I personally do not like the play-style of Solace - I avidly detest it. I cannot match the mana regen of Mindbender with Solace on any fight and so by default I always run with either Mindbender or FDCL although there is not fight that I've healed in MoP where FDCL is better than Mindbender as yet. So for me, Mindbender is the choice for me.


Tier 4:



This is the Survival tier. Spectral Guise is focused for PvP and has almost no uses in PvE as yet.

Desperate Prayer
This spell has a 2 minute cooldown, if NOT on the GCD and costs no mana. It heals you instantly for 30% of your total Health and is very useful and is often a life saver if you make a mistake or something goes wrong where you need to be healed up as quickly as possible. It is often referred to as the "Oh Shit" button.

Angelic Bulwark
This is a buff you get when taken below 30% Health. It is a shield on yourself for 20% of your total health and lasts 20 seconds. This has a cooldown of 90 seconds so is less than Desperate Prayer.

So, which to go for?
If you are like me and a bit of a control freak, Desperate Prayer is the one for you.
However, if you are not then you still have a choice to make which will be down to the fight mechanics. If the fight is like Chimaeron where you are constantly on low health (which is intended) then the Angelic Bulwark will just be wasted and be of no use, thus leaving Desperate Prayer. If the fight means you are always on high health (never dipping below 30%) then Angelic Bulwark won't proc, meaning Desperate Prayer is best again.
Where you would choose Angelic Bulwark over Desperate prayer is when you have a fight with spiky damage and you can drop low quite suddenly. If you don't want to cast that heal on yourself and want to have an automatic bubble when you take a damage spike, then Angelic Bulwark is for you!


Tier 5:



This is the throughput (?) tier. None directly increase healing but their usefulness is dependent upon play-style and encounter mechanics.

Almost always your choice will be dependent on the fight, so here's a breakdown of when each talent is beneficial:

Twist of Fate
If raid members are going to be on low Health frequently, then this talent will shine. Whenever you heal or damage a target below 20% health you will get a 15% increase to your healing. How useful this talent is, is dependent on the uptime on the buff, which is dependent on how frequently you are healing or damaging targets below 20% health. On encounters with adds, you can cast a Smite on a low-healthed one and potentially get this buff to activate, so there is real potential to get the most from this talent and can be a very strong choice if you can get the maximum uptime with it. (Any damage spell will work if you hit an add below 20% health, I used Smite as an example but you could use Solace etc.) - Thanks to Laplacedemon for the heads up about this.


Power Infusion
This is a little mini-cooldown. A 20% increase to Haste and a 20% reduction in mana costs for all spells can be a big boost to healing when used at the correct time. On Elegon for example, this is extremely useful during the burn phase at the end. If at any time during a fight there will be a large amount of damage going out and you will have the opportunity to chain-cast Prayer of Healing, this talent will shine. For general use, this talent tends to be the strongest but it requires timing and knowledge of fights but can be extremely rewarding. Also the best if you prefer to have control over your spells as opposed to "RNG" styled procs.


Divine Insight
Whenever you cast a Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing you have a 40% chance to cast a Prayer of Mending that bounces to all targets without them needing to take any damage for it to bounce to the next target. This is good to use with the Glyph of Prayer of Mending too as the proc chance is very high. It is a very good talent to take however at this stage of an expansion, chances are you won't be using GH or PoH much as they are expensive heals - but if you are, then this may well be a great choice for you.


Tier 6:



This is the "extra cooldown healing spell" tier. All of the spells are good in their own way and their uses are situational.

Divine Star
This has a 15 second cooldown and costs 13,500 Mana. This spell is extremely strong if your raid is stacked up for lengthy periods of the encounter. It has a short cooldown and heals for a good amount.

Cascade
This spell is on a 25 second cooldown and costs 27,000 mana. This spell is going to be best utilized when you are spread out and you can get it to jump to all of your raid members. This works best in 25 man raiding as it can jump to 15 players and will not jump to the same one twice, this wasting 5 jumps in a 10 man raid.

Halo
This spell is on a 40 second cooldown and costs 45,000 mana. This spell highly dependent on positioning as you have to be 25 yards away from someone in order for it to be a maximum heal. In the current raids there is little opportunity to gain maximum benefit from this spell however it would be really good if you were stacked and there was a large wave of AoE damage that you could run 25 yards away and cast it, but this is a unlikely, at least at the moment.


4. Glyphs

Glyphs also got a small change - there are no longer Prime Glyphs, only Major and Minors.

Major Glyphs:



Glyph of Circle of Healing - This makes Circle of Healing heal another target (a total of 6) but at the cost of 35% increased mana the spell. This makes it less mana efficient but as Circle of Healing is an extremely powerful spell at the moment, it is a highly recommended Glyph to pick up, unless you have severe mana issues.

Glyph of Lightspring - Replaces your Lightwell and turns it into Lightspring. This HoT now heals for less than the original Lightwell but people no longer have to click it, instead they just have to drop below 50% health. This Glyph is proving to be simply amazing in MoP raids so far and is a mandatory choice.

Glyph of Lightwell - Adds 2 ticks to your Lightwell/Lightspring. Although it's only two ticks it can be more beneficial than the other choices if your Lightspring is using up all its charges in the 3 minutes it is active.

Glyph of Prayer of Mending - First charge heals for 60% more, but jumps one less time.
Useful if Prayer of Mending is unable to jump enough due to not enough people taking damage and is very strong in combination with the talent Divine Insight.

Glyph of Renew - Each tick heals for 33% more, but its duration is reduced by 3 seconds.
Very strong if you are in Chakra: Serenity as you are able to keep refreshing Renew.


All of these glyphs are strong choices. The recommended ones are very much dependent on what Chakra stance you will be in the most. This is my recommended setup (though do take it with a pinch of salt):

(DI = Divine Insight - talent)

Chakra: Serenity	Chakra: Sanctuaty	Chakra: Serenity (With DI)	Chakra: Sanctuary (With DI)
Glyph of Lightspring	Glyph of Lightspring	Glyph of Lightspring	Glyph of Lightspring
Glyph of Renew	Glyph of Circle of Healing	Glyph of Renew	Glyph of Circle of Healing
Glyph of Circle of Healing	Glyph of Lightwell	Glyph of Prayer of Mending	Glyph of Prayer of Mending

Minor Glyphs:



Minor glyphs are only cosmetic. They do not interfere with healing directly or indirectly at all.

They are completely your choice, the ones I use are in the picture above.


5. Inner Fire vs Inner Will

- To do -

Inner Will will increase efficiency considerably. I tend to use Inner Will for the lower healing requirement parts of a fight, which saves a lot of mana whilst not gimping healing too much. When healing gets intensive and you need to start using PoH etc, I'd swap back to Inner Fire.

Inner Fire gives you an extra 10% Spell Power. This buff is going to scale really well with gear, the more SP we get on gear the more this buff will give us. So in Tier15 Gear, we will be gaining more SP from this buff then we were in Tier14 Gear.

Inner Will Decreases the mana cost of ALL INSTANT CAST SPELLS (PW:Shield, Renew, Prayer of Mending, ext) by 10% and increases your movement speed. This buff does not scale with gear because we are at a fixed 300k mana at level 90.

So which buff should I use over the other? Well, preferably you should use IF for the extra throughput, but if you are having mana problems, IW will also be a good choice.

6. Stat Priorities

There are two main options at this moment in time:

1) Stacking Mastery
You should have spirit on every piece of gear to begin with; get PvP gear if needed as it can be an upgrade.
All Haste and Crit should be reforged into Mastery.
All gems ideally should have Spirit on, for instance you'd want a Perfect Purified Roguestone (Spirit + Intellect) for Red sockets, Perfect Zen Alexandrite (Spirit + Mastery) for Orange sockets & Perfect Sparkling Lapis Lazuli (Spirit) for Blue.
However, it is not always optimal to match the socket. I'd only match it if the socket bonus is Spirit (and sometimes Intellect if there is a justifiable amount of it). Just use your common sense really to decide.

2) Going for the first Haste Breakthrough Point on Renew
First off, gear and gemming will be identical with the exclusion of the Orange sockets; you'd want Perfect Energized Alexandrite (Spirit + haste) if you are struggling to reach the Haste requirement.
Personally I'd only recommend going for the 5th tick on Renew if you have the gear to support it, this is generally 10k Spirit or more and enough secondary stats to be able to make the requirement without too much of a stretch.
I don't think 10 is that much different from 25 at this stage, Haste stacking in my opinion is not really *that* viable without some serious Heroic Raiding gear.
As you want to reach the 12.5% Raid Buffed mark, you want to reforge to get the required Haste Rating as found in the table above. You also want to have Spirit on every piece of gear. You then want to reforge any extra Crit/Haste into Mastery.


Now, going into slightly more detail.

Priorities
Basic gearing strategy for Holy:
1. Get as much Intellect and Spirit as you can through higher item level gear.
2. Make sure every item has Spirit as a secondary stat, and gem/enchant/reforge for enough spirit to feel comfortable.
3. Get enough Haste to have 12.5% raid buffed (for the extra tick of renew).
This is not absolutely required, especially when you first begin to gear up, but you will probably find
that you prefer to have even more haste as you acquire better gear and begin to tackle more difficult fights.
4. Choose Mastery and Haste according to your preference and raid environment.
5. Avoid Crit, which has the worst conversion factors and is devalued further by our talents to
increase it.

When we first reach level 90, spirit is king. As you progress through normal dungeons and then heroics, you
will start to feel more comfortable with your regen and it will be time to take more serious look at your
other stats. After Spirit you want to prioritize Haste and Mastery. Now that HoT's scale with haste,
Renew gets an extra tick at 12.5%. After this point the values of Haste and Mastery are very close.


General Breakdown

Intellect - Your Primary Stat. Intellect gives you Spellpower and a small amount of Crit. It no longer gives a larger mana pool. Every piece of Cloth armour should have this Stat on.

Spirit - Your primary mana regeneration Stat. You will want this on every piece of gear, as it is statistically your most important Secondary Stat and is in fact on par with Intellect when you are starting to gear up. You may find yourself having so much Spirit that you never run out of mana, so at that point you may want to consider reforging some into Haste/Mastery - but I doubt that's ever going to happen.

Haste - There does NOT affect your Echoes of Light, only Renew and Lightwell/spring (and Holy Word: Sanctuary). It also lowers the cast time of your healing spells. More Haste means more spells being cast during a fight and quicker ticks of Renew. Although this is extremely useful, it also means you'll be using a lot more mana. At low gear levels, it's generally considered your worst Secondary Stat, because you will most likely be running out of mana quite often. I don't recommend going over the 12.5% breakthrough point either.

Mastery - Our mastery is Echoes of Light. Every healing spell you do (excluding individual Renew ticks) will create a HoT on the target healed. This will heal them for 'X' amount (based upon your current Mastery Rating) over 6 seconds. Not affected by Haste. As this is a "Free" heal, you'll generally want to stick with this over Haste after the Haste Breakthrough point.

Critical Strike - Generally considered the worst secondary stat in general, and something to avoid.


Some Theory Crafting
As a Holy Priest, you want to try and get 12.5% Raid Buffed for an Extra Tick on Renew. This only applies if you are in Chakra: Serenity State with an Unglyphed Renew. When you are in Chakra: Serenity, you can refresh the duration of Renew so gaining an extra tick through Haste means nothing.

The Haste Breakthrough Points go as follow:
(Credit: Totemspot)






7. Reforging

Depending on what you are aiming for will depend on your reforges.

If you are Mastery stacking then first make sure every piece of gear has Spirit on then reforge all Crit/Haste into Mastery.

If you are trying to get an extra tick on unglyphed Renew then after making sure all gear has Spirit on, reforge all Crit and Master into Haste until the designated value you need, then reforge all excess Crit/Haste into Mastery.


8. Gemming

Pretty simple. Intellect and Spirit are your Primary stats. You want Spirit on every gem at the moment. You generally want to try and get the correct gem colour for the socket, as the socket bonus is usually worth-while.

Red Socket: Perfect Purified Roguestone (Spirit + Intellect)
Blue Socket: Perfect Sparkling Lapis Lazuli (Spirit)
Yellow Socket: Perfect Zen Alexandrite (Spirit + Mastery)
(You could also go for Perfect Energized Alexandrite (Spirit + haste) if you want the extra Haste.)

For the Meta, you should stick with Revitalizing Primal Diamond. If you would prefer the extra throughput, then try Ember Primal Diamond, but the first one is highly recommended.


9. Enchanting

(In order of Strongest to Weakest)

Shoulder
Greater Crane Wing Inscription
Crane Wing Inscription

Cloak
Darkglow Embroidery
Lightweave Embroidery
Superior Intellect Enchant Cloak
Embroidery is Tailoring-only

Chest
Glorious Stats
Mighty Spirit

Wrist
Super Intellect
Mastery

Hands
Superior Mastery
Greater Haste

Belt
Living Steel Belt Buckle

Legs
Greater Pearlescent Spellthread
Pearlescent Spellthread

Feet
Pandaren’s Step
Greater Haste

Ring
Greater Intellect
Enchanters only

Off-Hand
Major Intellect

Weapon
Jade Spirit
Windsong


As Spirit is your main Stat, you will always want to try to get those Enchants, however if you want extra throughput, you will probably be better off getting Intellect Enchants.
As an example: Choosing Lightweave Embroidery over Darkglow Embroidery for an Intellect proc instead of an Spirit proc. For throughput, always go for Intellect.

Full credit to Derevka for writing this on H2P.
Weapon Enchants are tricky. If you are in desperate need for mana regeneration, have gemmed and raidbuffed yourself for spirit, a number of people are considering using Heartsong Enchant for an average static value of ~108 spirit. That being said, is 108 spirit worth more than what Jade Spirit's int proc can provide you or what Windsong's secondary stat proc can provide you--- NO.

According to final clarity from Blizzard, Jade Spirit equalized, should provide 396 intellect, and additionally has a 750 spirit proc when you proc the spell under 25% mana. (which results in ~45 spirit equalized, assuming you are under 25% mana for 25% of the fight). This is using the 12 second buff duration, and 50 second ICD and assuming you proc it as soon as it comes off CD.

Windsong is a bit trickier to evaluate since it can provide three possible buffs: 1500 of either Crit, Mastery, or Haste. Each has its own ICD, and multiple buffs can be active on a player at one time. It has a 1PPM, with a 1 sec CD between each individual stat proc. This puts each stat with ~20% uptime, which means the enchant is roughly worth 300 of each Mastery, Crit, and Haste.

At first glance it seems we should be considering debating the potency of secondary stat scaling or raw spellpower scaling. This answer may depend on your healing style. The enchant is about in line with the 1:2 ratio that primary:secondary stats have in Mists. Ultimately, it’s about a wash and you should be asking yourself "is gaining 429 int worth 900 total of secondary stats?".

10. Consumables

Food

Steamed Crab Surprise
300 Spirit

Fire Spirit Salmon
275 Spirit

Shrimp Dumplings
250 Spirit

Mogu Fish Stew
300 Intellect

Braised Turtle
275 Intellect

Swirling Mist Soup
250 Intellect


Flasks

Flask of Falling Leaves
1000 Spirit

Flask of the Warm Sun
1000 Intellect


Potions

Potion of Focus
45,000 mana over 10 seconds (channeled). Best choice for maximum mana gain - TO USE CAREFULLY. Try to call out to other healers when you need to use this.


Master Mana Potion
30,000 Mana. Great for immediate need of Mana when you cannot take the time for a Concentration potion.


Potion of the Jade Serpent
4000 Intellect for 25 seconds. Great for immediate need of increased throughput in a short duration. It is also useful to your raid to pot 1-3 seconds before a boss is pulled (known as pre-potting) on fights that require a lot of burst healing at the start.


11. Gear Options

Cloth. It has to be Cloth. A Priests physical strength does not quite match up to their mental strength and so we are only able to wear Cloth.
Every piece of Cloth gear should have Intellect. If it has Agility, you are probably the only Enchanter in the raid and you should really DE the item and ninja the shard.
Choose the items that suits you best. If you prefer Haste over Mastery (despite what I've said) then get the Haste item, as long as they both have roughly the same Intellect.
Remember: The piece with the higher Spirit will generally be better - because Spirit is the holy grail of stats.


12. Chakra

Chakra is now like a Warrior's stance, with an added 30 second cooldown.

When you click the icon, you get a little pop-out with 3 new buttons, these are the Chakra stances.

These include the following:

Chakra: Serenity
This is the single target healing Chakra. You gain 10% critical chance to direct healing spells, causes your direct heals to refresh the duration of your Renew on the target and Renew does 15% more healing. When you are within this Chakra your Holy Word becomes Holy Word: Serenity - an instant cast heal that increases your chance to Critically Heal the target by 25% for 6 seconds. This also refreshes the duration of Renew.

An important note:
When in this stance, Cascade refreshes the duration of Renew as well.


Chakra: Sanctuary
This is the AoE healing Chakra. You gain 15% increased healing to your AoE spells as well as reduces your cooldown of Circle of Healing by 2 sec. When you are within this Chakra your Holy Word becomes Holy Word: Sanctuary - 0.5 sec cast ground AoE healing spell.

You can ignore the other Chakra as it's merely a DPS boost and does not affect healing in any way.


13. Spell Selection

The initial thing you need to understand in order to play Priest better is how your spells work and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

As Holy you will can use both Inner Fire and Inner Will.

In Mists of Pandaria raiding, I find myself using Renew a fair bit, mainly as a filler, when in combination with Inner Will for increased efficiency by reducing the Mana cost quite substantially. Circle of Healing is better than back in Cataclysm, it should be used as frequently as possible. Prayer of Mending is fairly efficient and again should be used frequently. Prayer of Healing is surprisingly efficient, however it does tend to overheal a lot and so great use should be taken when using this powerful but costly AoE spell.

*Your Core spells therefore are going to be Prayer of Mending, Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing.*
Renew and Heal will be filler spells, which one is dependent on Inner Fire/Will and the encounter.


Circle of Healing
CoH is incredibly strong and does very little overhealing as it is a smart heal. You must use this on cooldown unless there is zero raid damage. Bear in mind that it has a lower Heals Per Mana than Prayer of Healing if you are using Inner Fire. If an entire group has taken enough damage for Prayer of Healing not to overheal, I'd recommend that instead. This is the holy grail of your spells.
The Glyph of Circle of Healing should be viewed as a direct increase to HPS, sacrificing mana.


Prayer of Mending
You might want to track PoM with an addon or on your Grid but most of the time you just get a feel of when to cast this spell. Some fights you will do it on cooldown and others you might only do it when you move because it won't consume the charges very quickly. I almost always try and cast it on the tank when they have taken quite a bit of damage so that you get maximum effect from the Glyph if you use it.


Prayer of Healing
Prayer of Healing is your strongest tool as a Holy Priest in 10 & 25m raids. If you can predict damage correctly you can do a huge amount of output using it. Try and get Serendipity stacks when you can without using Flash Heal during large AoE damage periods. Binding Heal is often a much better choice to build a stack of it.


Holy Word: Sanctuary
The only floor AoE heal we have - a big sparkle thing on the floor is going to be pretty terrible most of the time. I only ever use it when most of the raid is stacked up and there is going to be a long period of sustained heavy AoE damage. This should never be used in 5 mans, and only in 10 mans where almost everyone is stacked up and you have the mana.
In 25 it can be useful to cast on the melee as they generally take more damage than the ranged. The mana cost can be reduced by using Inner Will.


Holy Word: Serenity
Useful if you are Tank healing in a Raid. Fairly mana efficient spell and refreshes the duration of Renew. It buffs the target to increase critical chance of your healing spells by 25% for 6 seconds which is the main attraction to using it on a tank as opposed to another raid member.


Lightwell/Lightspring
For Lightspring, see the next paragraph. Lightwell is the highest healing per mana spell we have by far. It is also the highest HPS if lots of people are clicking it. You should encourage the raid to use your Lightwell as much as possible. Click your own Lightwell when you are low rather than healing yourself to get the maximum usage. How you position your Lightwell is important so that you get maximum clicks. The range is 20 yards so put it in a place where as many people can reach it as possible, including tanks. Put the Lightwell away from where there might be large graphical effects on the ground making it hard to click (for example in the heart of the melee). If you are getting good, quick usage from your Lightwell try and put it up a bit before the start of the fight so that you can get the cooldown up faster when it is consumed in a short amount of time.

Lightspring is basically the same as Lightwell but instead of people clicking it to gain the HoT, it will automatically apply the HoT to payers that fall below 50% health. This change dynamically affects how you should place it. Instead of placing for maximum visibility and ease of clickability, you should now place it where the maximum number of people will be in a 20 yard radius. You should remember that the HoT from Lightspring does less healing that the Lightwell counterpart, but overall as no one clicks the darn thing, Lightspring will win any day - and it'll make your raiders happier as they don't have to bother with clicking anymore! Everyone wins at the end of the day.


Power Word: Shield
This is not a standard spell for you but there are a few occasions you will use it. Primarily giving someone a speed shield with Body and Soul so they can get somewhere faster or dodge an ability. The only other use might be an emergency instant heal while moving but this is a real last resort.


Divine Hymn
This is an extremely mana efficient cooldown.
You should always try to plan ahead. If the fight lasts 4 minutes or longer you'll want to try and use it twice. It is a serious HPS gain and can easily mean the difference of 5k HPS over the period of a fight if used correctly. However, if your raid healer wants you to use it at a specific time, don't just use it to maximise HPS!


Hymn of Hope
Try to use this when you are low mana and some of your teammates are also needing mana. People will often ask for this but just use it at your own discretion most of the time. The important thing is to use it when healing is not needed or you know someone else will cover any healing requirements. Since Hymn of Hope also increases your maximum Mana this has the additional effect of improving some of your other skills. Shadowfiend and Arcane Torrent for example are based of max mana % so if you use them while you have this buff you will gain additional mana.


Shadowfiend/Mindbender
Shadowfiend has a 3 minute cooldown so you need to look at the length of the fight and decide when the best time to use it is. You should also find out from your Restoration Shaman when they are going to use Mana Tide because you don't want to top off your mana with Shadowfiend just before they drop it. Try and make sure you use it 2 times on most fights. Even if you have no mana problems at all you still need to use it since it helps out with a little bit of DPS.

Mindbender is the same, just a 1 minute cooldown and restores less mana per cast.


Guardian Spirit
This is a situational but very powerful spell. In order to use this spell effectively you need to understand the fight you are doing. Whenever someone (often a tank) needs either a lot of extra healing or may die then this is the time to cast it. You also need to watch for when the tank is using their own cooldowns. Never be scared to use it, it is much better for it to be wasted than to have someone on the floor because you didn't use it.

This spell is VERY buggy and seems to be selfish and not save the person's life a lot of the time.


14. Positioning

In fire seems to be a popular option. In short:
Range on as many people as possible so that if they take damage you can heal them.
Standing so there is the smallest chance you will have to move and interrupt casting.


Being in a good position to use Leap of Faith is also very important. You may be required to use this on certain fights.

Positioning yourself for PoH can help your healing. If you want to get the best possible PoH on your own group position yourself so that if you cast it on yourself it will reach all of the other group members. This also applies to who you target in another group for PoH, you must try and pick the person that will give the best possible group range.


15. Healing in 10 mans

The single best piece of advice is to be proactive. Knowing the encounter to a level that you know when the damage and how much is coming is a huge advantage as you can plan out how you are to approach healing the fight in advance.

Taken from Mazi's Guide as I can say this is genius - here's a checklist of things to ask yourself before you attempt an encounter which should help improve your healing, awareness and overall raid success.

✔ When is damage going to come?
✔ How much does each boss ability hit for?
✔ How long is the fight?
✔ How do I need to manage my cooldowns? Ex. When is a good time to use Hymn of Hope or Divine Hymn?
✔ What spells are going to be best used to counter boss abilities?
✔ How can I utilize my Priest specific abilities best in this encounter? Ex. Leap of Faith, Divine Hymn
✔ When is the raid going to be stacked? Spread out?
✔ How often am I going to have to move?
✔ What kind of stuff am I going to have to move out of?

Raid Healing

The basic 10 man AoE healing idea is as follows:

Before the pull, preferably at least 30 seconds before, enter the correct Chakra state for the fight. This will normally be AoE Chakra. Also, now is a good point to put down Lightspring. Try to keep CoH on CD at all times too.
1) If you have good enough gear, try to keep Renew rolling on all the tanks.
2) Use Flash Heal/Binding Heal correctly. It is very useful to built up Serendipity stacks, but it is heavy on the mana. Generally only used during very high damage phases.
3) With your Serendipity stacks, it is time to cast a hasted PoH. Once 4 or more member of a group in your raid take damage, use PoH to get them back up.
4) While your PoH is casting, get ready to queue up a CoH on raid members who are grouped together. This is most likely your melee group.
5) If your raid is still not topped off, use a Heal or Greater heal, alternatively you may need to push either a 1 stack of Serendipity PoH or a hard cast PoH (no stacks).
Repeat steps 1-5.

It is important to note that Holy Word: Sanctuary costs a lot of mana (Inner Will reduces the mana cost). If mana is not an issue this spell may be used on cooldown. However, it is best to restrict its usage to certain fights when all of your raiders are stacked up and will not be topped off very quickly.

More General Healing

Flash Heal is going to be your #1 spell to save lives, followed by PW:S and Greater Heal. You're choice of which heal to use is just as important as which player you choose to heal. If you know that more damage could potentially hit a target at very low health you are going to want to Flash Heal or PW:S. If you know a target is safe from taking more damage but is very low health you are going to want to use your larger, but slower Greater Heal.

You must assess who in your raid needs the most healing before spending a great deal of mana on a Flash Heal to heal a DPS who may not take another hit for another 20 seconds, rather than the Tank who might be sitting at 20% health. Heal your tank first before a DPS. Make sure to use Binding Heal if you have also taken damage. Binding Heal costs the same amount of mana as Flash Heal and allows you to get yourself and a fellow raider up.

Holy Priests aren’t the strongest tank healers, even in Chakra: Serenity. However, there is no reason why you should avoid healing the Tank in your encounters.

Make sure you keep Renew on your tank(s) as much as you can, especially if you're in Chakra: Serenity

Try to reserve your Flash Heals for your tanks as well if at all possible. Do not be afraid to cast Greater Heal or Heal while in Chakra: Sanctuary. You and your other healers work together as a team – help them and they will help you.

Cooldowns

Often times there is no need for an ill timed Divine Hymn being channeled at the same time as a Druid’s Tranquility. Be aware of Spirit Link Totem (Resto Shaman), Rallying Cry (all Warriors), Power Word: Barrier (Discipline Priests) and Divine Guardian (Protection Paladins). These are all powerful raid cooldowns that you may or may not want to combine with Divine Hymn.

Don’t just use Guardian Spirit on the fly, the glyph no longer resets the CD to one minute if the heal isn’t triggered.

Placing Lightspring in a good position will maximise it's healing and help to use up all of it's available charges if the fight allows so. This is an incredibly powerful "spell" and so great care must be taken in positioning. Always remember that.

Desperate Prayer is also a great personal cooldown for those times when you stand in fire just a little too long. Make sure you keep an eye on this cooldown as well, otherwise you may find yourself trying to use it before it’s up again.

Mana Management

This is a little more complex with the addition of Power Word: Solace. If you don't have Solace then just try to get the most benefit from Mindbender/Shadowfiend as possible by planning how long the fight will be and using it pretty much on cooldown. To gain maximum mana from Shadowfiend/Mindbender, send in your pet and begin to channel Hymn of Hope. Hymn of Hope will further increase your mana pool, thus resulting in an almost complete regeneration of your mana pool. If you are unaccustomed to this method, don’t be discouraged if it takes you a few times to get it perfect. Often, just a Shadowfiend/Mindbender and HoH will do the trick and you can continue healing for the remainder of the encounter.

Announcing your Hymn of Hope channel will also benefit your other healers. Resto Druids can time it to their Innervate and Holy Paladins can time it to their Divine Plea as both of these moves are also dependent on maximum mana.

Pre-Casting

You must always think one step ahead of everything that is going to be happening in a raid if you want to be an effective healer. Boss Timer Addons can help you do this but you need to have a good understanding of it yourself. This allows you to start casting a PoH before you know the damage is going to hit. You can also keep a target in focus so that you know when it is doing a certain ability. You do not use Holy Word: Sanctuary in Chakra: Sanctuary very often but when you are all stacked up during a high damage phase you should put it down on the ground to anticipate the incoming damage. It lasts for 30 seconds so if you do it correctly you can cover all the breaths. There is an endless number of these kind of tips for each fight but the important concept is just to predict the damage and do everything in your Spellbook that you can to deal with it. This is actually one of the best things about Priests compared to other healers. We have a lot of different spells to use for different situations and there is a good way to use almost all of them.

The Filler Spell

Heal. When everything is going perfectly, there is no need for spam AoE healing, Tanks are surviving, feel free to cast a Heal. It's better than nothing. If everyone in the raid is topped off, just throw a Heal on a tank. Even if it does 100% overhealing, your Mastery ticks might just do that little bit extra.

However, a strong alternative is to use Inner Will and Renew. This is a highly recommended alternative to Heal especially when in Chakra: Serenity.


16. Healing in 25 mans

The single best piece of advice is to be proactive. Knowing the encounter to a level that you know when the damage and how much is coming is a huge advantage as you can plan out how you are to approach healing the fight in advance.

Taken from Mazi's Guide as I can say this is genius - here's a checklist of things to ask yourself before you attempt an encounter which should help improve your healing, awareness and overall raid success.

✔ When is damage going to come?
✔ How much does each boss ability hit for?
✔ How long is the fight?
✔ How do I need to manage my cooldowns? Ex. When is a good time to use Hymn of Hope or Divine Hymn?
✔ What spells are going to be best used to counter boss abilities?
✔ How can I utilize my Priest specific abilities best in this encounter? Ex. Leap of Faith, Divine Hymn
✔ When is the raid going to be stacked? Spread out?
✔ How often am I going to have to move?
✔ What kind of stuff am I going to have to move out of?

Raid Healing

Taken from Mazi's Guide as I couldn't be bothered to reword the masterpiece that he wrote (tweaked for 5.0.4).

As a raid healing Holy Priest your main niche is burst AoE healing through Holy Word: Sanctuary, Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing.

Let's look at a situation where there is going to be heavy, predictable damage coming out, what do you do? The first thing is knowing what your mana is like and whether or not you can afford, or even need, to cast Holy Word: Sanctuary. HW:Sanc's mana cost is effected by Inner Will.

HW:S is a great tool to drop before damage comes out, as it will be a pure HPS boost. The best time would be about 2-3 seconds before damage comes out so then you can begin queuing up a PoH on one of the groups about to take the heavy damage. This is a very important aspect of raid healing - knowing when damage is going to come and being able to prepare for it. Saving those 2 seconds of casting can make a difference between the life and death of a player.

Once you've got your queued PoH going prepare to CoH on someone, if your raid is not stacked be sure to find someone that is near other people, usually best placed on the melee in spread out scenarios, although CoH does heal people within 30 yards of the target and this is a solid distance so there's not too, too much to worry about here. Then continue to PoH a 2nd group, 3rd and so on until everyone is capped up, and use CoH again when it's off cooldown.

When there is "pulsing damage" incoming you are going to want to make sure you have Prayer of Mending up on someone ready to bounce before the damage comes out. Prayer of Mending is an awesome smart heal that heals the person when they take damage and then jumps to someone else within 20 yards up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec on each jump. The tank is a great choice for your initial PoM due to the Glyph that increases its healing done by 60% on the first target.

When the raid is mostly stable and only a few people are getting hit you should use CoH close to on cooldown whenever there are 2-3 or more people that could use the healing. It is also a good idea to use spells such as "Heal" during these low damage times to help top people off without hurting your mana, as Heal is considered a no-cost spell (meaning that your mana doesn't go down when you cast it due to the regen you gain while casting and the small mana cost of the spell).

Another filler spell to use in these low damage situations is Renew. It is a great way to stabilize someone who is not in immediate danger but may or may not take more damage. It's also acceptable to pre-hot people with Renew before going into a damage phase, whether it be heavy damage or pulsing damage. Renew will shine the most in a pulsing damage situation, but should not be overrused. It is a powerful tool when used properly, but it is not a part of your main arsenal - keep that in mind!

While Binding Heal and Flash Heal are not efficient spells, BH is far more efficient than FH. Whenever you've taken damage and another raid member could use the immediate heals don't forget about your awesome BH. Not only does it heal you and them, but it also applies 1 stack of Serendipity, decreasing the cast time and mana cost of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing. You definitely want to take advantage of this buff through BH & FH. In high raid damage situations with high risk of death for members it is great to BH once or twice and then PoH for the increased speed. This is only necessary if you and the other person are near death, and not so much in a situation where everyone in the raid is at equal health because you are essentially spending more mana to get Serendipity and then even more time getting the cast up before you PoH on an entire group that needs heals. Generally don't cast to get Serendipity unless you have somewhat endless time and mana to do so.

Divine Hymn is our raid cooldown of awesomeness. Try to use it often, or talk to your other healers about when they plan to pop theirs to counter big damage from an encounter. It's important to note that Divine Hymn is affected by Haste in the sense that you gain more ticks from it. The best time to cast DH is during Bloodlust/Heroism (assuming there is raid damage to be healed) because you will get 30-50% more healing out of it. Use that cooldown baby!

More General Healing

Flash Heal is going to be your #1 spell to save lives, followed by PW:S and Greater Heal. You're choice of which heal to use is just as important as which player you choose to heal. If you know that more damage could potentially hit a target at very low health you are going to want to Flash Heal or PW:S. If you know a target is safe from taking more damage but is very low health you are going to want to use your larger, but slower Greater Heal.

You must assess who in your raid needs the most healing before spending a great deal of mana on a Flash Heal to heal a DPS who may not take another hit for another 20 seconds, rather than the Tank who might be sitting at 20% health. Heal your tank first before a DPS. Make sure to use Binding Heal if you have also taken damage. Binding Heal costs the same amount of mana as Flash Heal and allows you to get yourself and a fellow raider up.

Holy Priests aren’t the strongest tank healers, even in Chakra: Serenity. However, there is no reason why you should avoid healing the Tank in your encounters.

The mana reduction of Renew and the increased healing of it from Chakra: Sanctuary has made it viable to keep reapplying to a target. Make sure you keep Renew on your tank(s) as much as you can.

Try to reserve your Flash Heals for your tanks as well if at all possible. Do not be afraid to cast Greater Heal or Heal while in Chakra: Sanctuary. You and your other healers work together as a team – help them and they will help you.

Cooldowns

Often times there is no need for an ill timed Divine Hymn being channeled at the same time as a Druid’s Tranquility. Be aware of Spirit Link Totem (Resto Shaman), Rallying Cry (all Warriors), Power Word: Barrier (Discipline Priests) and Divine Guardian (Protection Paladins). These are all powerful raid cooldowns that you may or may not want to combine with Divine Hymn.

Don’t just use Guardian Spirit on the fly, the glyph no longer resets the CD to one minute if the heal isn’t triggered.

Placing Lightspring in a good position will maximise it's healing and help to use up all of it's available charges if the fight allows so. This is an incredibly powerful "spell" and so great care must be taken in positioning. Always remember that.

Desperate Prayer is also a great personal cooldown for those times when you stand in fire just a little too long. Make sure you keep an eye on this cooldown as well, otherwise you may find yourself trying to use it before it’s up again.

Mana Management

This is a little more complex with the addition of Power Word: Solace. If you don't have Solace then just try to get the most benefit from Mindbender/Shadowfiend as possible by planning how long the fight will be and using it pretty much on cooldown. To gain maximum mana from Shadowfiend/Mindbender, send in your pet and begin to channel Hymn of Hope. Hymn of Hope will further increase your mana pool, thus resulting in an almost complete regeneration of your mana pool. If you are unaccustomed to this method, don’t be discouraged if it takes you a few times to get it perfect. Often, just a Shadowfiend/Mindbender and HoH will do the trick and you can continue healing for the remainder of the encounter.

Announcing your Hymn of Hope channel will also benefit your other healers. Resto Druids can time it to their Innervate and Holy Paladins can time it to their Divine Plea as both of these moves are also dependent on maximum mana.

Pre-Casting

You must always think one step ahead of everything that is going to be happening in a raid if you want to be an effective healer. Boss Timer Addons can help you do this but you need to have a good understanding of it yourself. This allows you to start casting a PoH before you know the damage is going to hit. You can also keep a target in focus so that you know when it is doing a certain ability. You do not use Holy Word: Sanctuary in Chakra: Sanctuary very often but when you are all stacked up during a high damage phase you should put it down on the ground to anticipate the incoming damage. It lasts for 30 seconds so if you do it correctly you can cover all the breaths. There is an endless number of these kind of tips for each fight but the important concept is just to predict the damage and do everything in your Spellbook that you can to deal with it. This is actually one of the best things about Priests compared to other healers. We have a lot of different spells to use for different situations and there is a good way to use almost all of them.

The Filler Spell

Heal. When everything is going perfectly, there is no need for spam AoE healing, Tanks are surviving, feel free to cast a Heal. It's better than nothing. If everyone in the raid is topped off, just throw a Heal on a tank. Even if it does 100% overhealing, your Mastery ticks might just do that little bit extra.

However, a strong alternative is to use Inner Will and Renew. This is a highly recommended alternative to Heal especially when in Chakra: Serenity.


17. UI

UIs are very personal things and I don't offer mine as a recommendation or as a searing example of great taste or aesthetics, rather I'm using mine to highlight a few things which, I believe, are essential.

The image below is a resized screen shot of my current UI shown in combat in an LFR Raid group:



Before going into detail about the various add ons used and why I chose them there are some basic "rules" I used when trying to put this together:

1) The center of screen where "stuff" happens should be kept as clear as possible with only important messages or indicators appearing
2) Raid frames should not need you to look away from the center of the screen or to have the peripheral vision of a Chamaeleon
3) Less important information should be pushed off to the sides

I also try and make use of transparency a lot - Omen, Prat, Recount etc all have fairly transparent backgrounds and are set to click through so that I can still see things that would normally be obscured by these windows if they had opaque backgrounds.

Raid Frames

This screenshot is a crop from the main UI screenshot showing my raid frames:



I use HealBot but to avoid encouraging a debate of religious proportions there are other healing add ons available and the best thing to do is for you to try them out and settle on the one that you feel most comfortable with. The main other two to check out are Grid and Vuhdo.

Essentially you want to achieve some very simple things with your healing frames:

1) Clear indication of raid member health
2) Clear indication of active HoTs with timers/stack counts etc
3) Clear indication of a raid member having a debuff that you can dispell
4) The ability to cast a heal by mousing over a target and either clicking the mouse or pressing a key

Most healing add ons can do a whole lot more than these 4 things but as long as you have those 4 functions you are good to go.

I'll run through what my healing raid frames are showing so you can get a sense of how these things can be setup and how they offer functionality over and above that provided by Blizzard.

Firstly the obvious things; my frames show me the party member's name, the colour of the name and health bar shows me their class. A player who is below 100% health also shows their HP deficit to the right of their name (look at Bulltrue as an example) and the health bar is shown decreasing.

A player who as agro is also displayed with their name wrapped in >> and << - this makes it very easy to spot who is likely to be taking damage or has "got their gun off" early. Also, there are red borders around their health bar to indicate aggro.

If you look at the frame for Slumdog you can see some additional items. The green square (Renew icon) with the number 4 in it is my Renww tracking icon. The 4 is showing how many seconds left before the HoT falls off. Finally you can see some green extension to the brown bar - this is the incomming healing from other players. The exact amount that the player's delta will go to is indicated by the numbers in the brackers (In this case, the healing will heal him to full health and then do 11,533 of overhealing.)

On one of the other frames you can my Prayer of Mending with the number 1 in it - the number indicates the number of charges remaining.

It doesn't matter how this is done or what the add on is that I'm using the key thing is raid frames make it very easy and very quick to see a complete overview of the state of the raid, covering their health, currently active HoTs and although not shown on this screenshot any active debuffs.

Player Frames, Cast Bars, Buffs and Debuffs

Just above my main HealBot frames you can see this:



This block of frames covers mine and the target's cast bars & my targets buffs and debuffs. The gap in the middle is for any Power Auras I have set up.

I use X-Perl unit frames to provide cast bars and have them move from left to right for me and left to right for my target. They are configured to display the name of the spell and are long enough and obvious enough that it's easy to see if my target is casting. Colours, fancy directions, sparks, textures etc are just affectations the key is to have something setup so you can clearly see when your target is casting and also to monitor your own casting.

The Rest

So the sections above cover the key parts of my UI and my, personal, opinion on what the "rules" are and what functionality you really need. In addition to the add ons I've specifically singled out I run all the usual suspects; DBM, Omen, Recount, MSBT etc.

Generally speaking I try and configure any addons to only display information that's actually useful - the vast majority of add ons are, by default, configured to display everything they possibly can (have you run MiksScrollingBattleText with it's default settings?). This is not necessarily a good thing; although lots of icons, numbers, text etc may look interesting you run the risk of losing the truly important information in a sea of largely irrelevant stuff.

Consider whether, as a healer, it's truly useful to know that internal cooldown on the tanks Dalaran Fireworks has just completed? It probably isn't so use the various spam control options in add ons to reduce the information flow to information that truly has value.

Moving, Keybinding, Mouseovers

How you interact with the game is important, having a nice, pretty layout is great, having a 1000 add ons to tell you that a rare NPC has spawned is possibly useful but the real priority is that the basic tasks of casting and moving are done as efficiently and rapidly as possible so this part looks at some of the things to consider:

Moving
WoW offers a number of ways for you to move your character around; the keyboard, click to move and the mouse. For raiding there's only one way to move: the mouse. Use your keyboard keys to strafe but turning and moving is a job for the mouse - it's the only way you can react quickly enough to mechanics. This becomes even more significant when you need to turn - using the mouse you can do it instantly, using the keyboard you have the turning circle of an oil tanker and the inertia to match.

Backpedalling is bad because you move so slowly but we all do it - try to minimise the times you do but it's not always the heinous crime it's often portrayed as, just don't do it to move out of damaging mechanics.

Keybinding and Mouseover
You can cast your various abilities by using the mouse to click on the unit you wish to target and then using the mouse to click the ability alternatively you can do it right. If you use a click to target and then click to cast approach it takes 2 actions to get that cast off. If you use keybindings and mouseovers it takes 1 - it's simple 1 is less than 2 so use keybinds and mouseovers for all of your frequently used abilities.

How you choose to setup your keybindings is purely a personal choice but try and make sure your most used abilities are in close proximity and don't require you to try and hit a random assortment of keys that in the middle of an encounter you can't find.

The Wrap Up

There's a lot of personal opinions in this section, a lot of addons that reflect my personal tastes but having said that the basic rules for a UI are the same and however you choose to meet those rules is completely up to you:

1. Keep the UI clean with the centre of the screen clear and reserved only for critical information
2. Use a healing addon that displays information clearly, concisely and offers you the ability to use keybindings and mouseovers
3. Take time to configure add ons to have them display information that you care about or can do something about
4. Keybind all your frequently used abilities and always use the mouse to move


18. Addons & Macros

Addons

Most of them were mentioned in the UI section, but here's a list of a few well known and well used addons.

Grid - One of the most popular raid frame addons. It requires some setup to get it how you want it but it is well worth the time and your options are really endless. There are also a lot of plugins for Grid that I may add in a little section here specifically for that. For now though, I cannot be bothered.

Clique - This is an excellent addition for Grid and other similar raid frames including the default Blizzard ones. This addon allows you to create mouseover and click cast combination heals. I personally really like click-cast healing and so if I was to use Grid, I would certainly use this addon alongside it.

Vuhdo - Another one of the most commonly used raid frame addons. Provides healing through keybinds and click combinations. Similar to HealBot.

HealBot - A less commonly used raid frame addon. It is generally the healing addon that the community rages at for being "useless". I have to admit it's not flawless, but I like it and I've been using it for 4 years so I've grown into it. Anyone who says it's not viable is just prejudice though - I've performed just fine in raids using that addon, even picking up a Rank 1 parse on World of Logs at one point for Elegon 25N.

Power Auras Classic - Easily one of the most powerful raiding addons out there next to boss mods. You can use PA to track your spell cooldowns, buffs, buff timers, debuffs, debuff timers, etc. It's a massively complex addon and I can't be bothered to go into detail here, there are pleanty of guides out there to help you - also it's currently broken in MoP.

Bartender - This addon replaces the Blizzard action bars and makes it to where you can reseize/move them around. I highly recommend an addon like this so that you can make your bars the way you want them and improve your UI.

oRA3 - Track the cooldowns of your fellow raiders. I tend to use it for tracking the CD on the Shaman's Mana Tide.

Macros

Cascade cast-on-self to avoid casting it on an enemy

#showtooltip Cascade
/cast [target=player]Cascade

Cast-on-self Power Word: Shield to make yourself have a nice speed boost with Body and Soul

#showtooltip Power Word: Shield
/cast [target=player]Power Word: Shield

Shadowfiend/Mindbender macro to make sure it attacks the target as soon as it is spawned for maximum mana regen.

#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/cast [nopet] Shadowfiend
/petattack
/cast Shadowcrawl

19. Changelog

(DD/MM/YY)
13/10/12 - Initial release
14/10/12 - Fixes to inaccuracies/changed layout of final section/added references that I had missed

[darassper]

Very nice! In Depth good place for some reference.

Seems quite accurate and is perfect for some new comers wanting to learn.

+1 for sticky!

Ill have a look to see if I can find anything to offer constructive criticism

But all in all great guide!

[Deleted]

Nice guide thanks for this. One thing though, phantasm can be usefull in pve. It can be used to clear the root from the cobalt mines in the stone guard encounter if your purge is on cooldown and your a little slow on moving or just clearing them up to free up space when cobalt is petrifying

[Mazi]

I would have appreciated a heads up or asking about using my guide for this.. I spent 40+ hours on it. But thanks for taking over the reigns as with current raiding requirements for heroic progression are far too time consuming for me to be able to update my guide.

[laplacedemon]

Twist of Fate

*snip*

Power Infusion
Elegon for example, this is extremely useful during the burn phase at the end.

Must be a useful guide, but from the wording in Twist of Fate and that you used Elegon as an example, I felt the need to add that dpsing something under 20% would give you the healing buff from ToF too. It doesn't go for holy as well as it goes for disc -especially if you don't use Solace, but you can have a high uptime nonetheless.

[derevka]

Weapon Enchants are tricky. If you are in desperate need for mana regeneration, have gemmed and raidbuffed yourself for spirit, a number of people are considering using Heartsong Enchant for an average static value of ~108 spirit. That being said, is 108 spirit worth more than what Jade Spirit's int proc can provide you or what Windsong's secondary stat proc can provide you--- NO.

According to final clarity from Blizzard, Jade Spirit equalized, should provide 396 intellect, and additionally has a 750 spirit proc when you proc the spell under 25% mana. (which results in ~45 spirit equalized, assuming you are under 25% mana for 25% of the fight). This is using the 12 second buff duration, and 50 second ICD and assuming you proc it as soon as it comes off CD.

Windsong is a bit trickier to evaluate since it can provide three possible buffs: 1500 of either Crit, Mastery, or Haste. Each has its own ICD, and multiple buffs can be active on a player at one time. It has a 1PPM, with a 1 sec CD between each individual stat proc. This puts each stat with ~20% uptime, which means the enchant is roughly worth 300 of each Mastery, Crit, and Haste.

At first glance it seems we should be considering debating the potency of secondary stat scaling or raw spellpower scaling. This answer may depend on your healing style. The enchant is about in line with the 1:2 ratio that primary:secondary stats have in Mists. Ultimately, it’s about a wash and you should be asking yourself "is gaining 429 int worth 900 total of secondary stats?".

I too would have appreciated a heads up if you were going to take from my guide, moreover if you are going to quote verbetim my guide at HowToPriest, I'd appreciate the reference instead of just taking it and not siting the source. Cheers.

[Deleted]

This is silly, just add name of the gem.

2) Going for the first Haste Breakthrough Point on Renew
First off, gear and gemming will be identical with the exclusion of the Orange sockets; you'd want Spirit+Haste gems (don't know what they're called) if you are struggling to reach the Haste requirement.

8. Gemming

Pretty simple. Intellect and Spirit are your Primary stats. You want Spirit on every gem at the moment. You generally want to try and get the correct gem colour for the socket, as the socket bonus is usually worth-while.

Red Socket: Perfect Purified Roguestone (Spirit + Intellect)
Blue Socket: Perfect Sparkling Lapis Lazuli (Spirit)
Yellow Socket: Perfect Zen Alexandrite (Spirit + Mastery)
(You could also go for Perfect Energized Alexandrite (Spirit + haste) if you want the extra Haste.)

[laplacedemon]

Shadowfiend/Mindbender
Shadowfiend has a 4 minute cooldown with the talents and so you need to look at the length of the fight and decide when the best time to use it is.

Being taken from Narilka's Disc/Holy guides for 4.something, this is obviously outdated.

And I wouldn't flat-out give advice to 10man raid healers to heal just as 25man healers do anymore. In most of the situations, staying in Serenity Chakra and relying more on Renew is a valid and more mana-friendly option. While the whole Chakra system hasn't been very popular, with the less need of burst healing; both Chakra states are valid choices in 10s.

[Veiled]

It seems as though you've borrowed a bit from various places, like Derevka's guide... Please use the quote codes and site your sources if your words aren't your own. It's pretty standard practice in this community and others tied to it.

[Holygrail]

Phantasm can be usefull in pve. It can be used to clear the root from the cobalt mines in the stone guard encounter if your purge is on cooldown and your a little slow on moving or just clearing them up to free up space when cobalt is petrifying

That's a good shout, didn't think of that. Will change the talent section somewhat to make it slightly less opinionated.

From the wording in Twist of Fate and that you used Elegon as an example, I felt the need to add that dpsing something under 20% would give you the healing buff from ToF too. It doesn't go for holy as well as it goes for disc -especially if you don't use Solace, but you can have a high uptime nonetheless.

Will add that in, something I overlooked.

I too would have appreciated a heads up if you were going to take from my guide, moreover if you are going to quote verbetim my guide at HowToPriest, I'd appreciate the reference instead of just taking it and not siting the source. Cheers.

Sincere apologies, I'll change it.

This is silly, just add name of the gem.

This was originally a 4.3 guide that I updated for 5.0.4, there's still problems in there that I didn't fix; thanks for pointing that one out.

Being taken from Narilka's Disc/Holy guides for 4.something, this is obviously outdated.

And I wouldn't flat-out give advice to 10man raid healers to heal just as 25man healers do anymore. In most of the situations, staying in Serenity Chakra and relying more on Renew is a valid and more mana-friendly option. While the whole Chakra system hasn't been very popular, with the less need of burst healing; both Chakra states are valid choices in 10s.

Issues still being fixed, thanks for the head's up; also, I'll look into changing the wording about the issue you raised.

---------- Post added 2012-10-14 at 01:40 PM ----------

It seems as though you've borrowed a bit from various places, like Derevka's guide... Please use the quote codes and site your sources if your words aren't your own. It's pretty standard practice in this community and others tied to it.

Hopefully I've done that now, might have missed a few that I'm not aware of though.
It was a great error of mine not to have done this to begin with, it was something overlooked. This started out as a guide written in patch 3.3.0 and was re-written for 4.2. It was always a guide I kept internally in the guilds I was in and I finally updated it for 4.3. I failed to reference everything I had used and as a result I missed a few things when I was updating this to 5.0.4. Looking back at what I've done a day later makes a big difference and it was a mistake to release it in the state it was in, I should have had more patience and released it a day later with considerable fixes applied.

An apology to the community for the mistakes I've made so far, I'll try and make it up to you.

Also, most of the issues raised to do with inaccuracies have hopefully been fixed. Thanks for the help so far.

[Drye]

I still think its really cute that you have yet to ask to use some else's work. And just took it with out asking, so cute of you!!!

[Deleted]

I'm not so sure I would recommend Chakra: Sanctuary over Serenity. I just healed The Stone Guard with my guild today, and 4 people in a group are never gonna be missing hp at the same time. At least not if they're doing their job to some extent.

[Ananaias]

Just throwing this out there for anyone interested or curious.

Using Solace on Will of the Emporer netted me a lot more mana return than Mindbender. Spamming Solace during Devastating Combo was easy to gain more mana, just with the 3039 haste cap. This of course relies on having melee/tanks that don't get hit, or don't get hit often. I think our tank got hit once.

I was in Serenity through the main phases, since raid damage is relatively low, and switched to Sanctuary for Titan Gas, then switched back to Serenity when Titan Gas ended.

Also, I'd recommend putting in a Void Shift/Desperate Prayer macro in the macro section. It's come in handy quite a few times when Tank damage is high, and raid damage, not so much (IE: Will).

/showtooltip Void Shift
/cast [@mouseover, help, nodead] Void Shift
/cast Desperate Prayer
/use Healthstone

[Kelesti]

An apology to the community for the mistakes I've made so far, I'll try and make it up to you.

There's "mistakes" and then there's blatant theft. I appreciate the effort you've taken to put something together, but with how this played out, yeah, no, sorry.

Get what you want/need out of this thread for your personal use, but we won't be having it posted here.