Holy Priest Feedback Please :)

[Hound02]

Hi all, we recently just took a Holy Priest on as a trial to our guild and took them on their first raid with us tonight!

Now, he hadn't healed heroics before in SoO, so tonight was his first time in heroic modes with us being progressed at 9/14hc currently. His gear is a little lackluster too at only 553ilvl, however, his healing did seem quite low in general with tonights performance. I don't want to go telling him his healing is bad if it's not after his first time in heroics as I don't know much about Holy Priests and he seems like a really nice lad and seems to want to improve as much as possible. With how hard it is to recruit good healers these days I hope to get some tips from you guys that I can give to him to help him out if there is stuff he can improve on. We also kind of need him to heal heroic Malkorok with us Friday!


Logs for tonights raid - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/1ukccll4470w3z16/

He was on the kills shown: Fallen Protectors (Didn't do trial, we only have our Disc Priest do it) / Norushen and Iron Juggernaut


Anything that can improve his healing will be greatly appreciated. Feel free to ask me any questions in relation to this thread or you could message me for a realid add if you want to help him in person!

Thank you very much

[Mazi]

You're asking a hot healer to compete with absorbs (disc + paladin). Of course his overall healing is going to be lower. I didn't look at logs much but his burst looks fine.

[blargh312]

1) Yeah, his healing is going to be low when you're 3 healing a 2 heal fight like Norushen.

2) Of the fights you guys have killed I'd say Holy is only viable on Malkorok and Juggernaut. He'd be quite a bit better off going disc for the rest of the fights.

He's got a ton of spirit considering he has two regen trinkets. He has a ton of haste but he's still ~2k short of the 13163 breakpoint, which is the only one past 4721 that matters for 10m, so that's like 6k in wasted stats right there. In 10m he should be pretty much exclusively using Cascade for his level 90 talent because in Serenity chakra, Cascade refreshed the duration of Renew.

[Kacie]

His healing looks fine as others have said try 2 heal fights, his renew usage looks good has alot of spirit he could reforge some away i guess but other then that 3 healing fights holy priest will always be at the bottom.

[Hound02]

Thanks very much for the feedback so far Should he lose the haste and gain mastery or crit instead or should i get him to change some of those spirit gems and reforge a bit more to reach the next haste break-point? I'm assuming reaching that haste break-point would mean more renew blanketing?

Considering we're 10man, wouldn't the haste break-point be worth getting over the mastery (Which I believe is better 25man?)

[Drugshock]

Reaching the next (13.1~) breakpoint would be good, but that would mean a way different healing playstile (like Jhazrun from Paragon does).... That means keeping some renews rolling, refreshing them with cascade and direct heals. Almost full time on yellow chakra (switch to red when dps is needed). no more coh, way lower usage of pom/poh and lots of glyphed binding heals. must see if he can adapt to that as fast as you guys keep progressing =D

[Nottatank]

This guy has a lot to work on.

I'm looking at Nourshen Logs:
1) His EOL is way down there on healing done (which is understand if he thinks its acceptable to renew spam, which it isn't)
2)He is using the wrong level 90 talent.
3)I couldn't believe my eyes when i saw he casted 'heal' 5 times.
4)His overhealing is way below average for a holy priest (50ish%), so you know his output may be lacking in certain spots
5) HES IN SEREDINTY CHAKRA for 88% of the fight.... WTH
6)From his armory, you can tell that hes super clueless, his reforging/gemming strat is just plain wrong as you can see he's hanging out between 2 very insignificant haste breaking points and even reforging out of mastery to get there

Its not competing with absorbs that are bringing this guy's numbers down... its his execution and lack of fight and class knowledge. . In my honest opinion this guy doesn't really put a lot of effort in and doesn't know whats going on. "Helping" him might take A LOT of time.

[worcester]

This guy has a lot to work on.

I'm looking at Nourshen Logs:
1) His EOL is way down there on healing done (which is understand if he thinks its acceptable to renew spam, which it isn't)
2)He is using the wrong level 90 talent.
3)I couldn't believe my eyes when i saw he casted 'heal' 5 times.
4)His overhealing is way below average for a holy priest (50ish%), so you know his output may be lacking in certain spots
5) HES IN SEREDINTY CHAKRA for 88% of the fight.... WTH
6)From his armory, you can tell that hes super clueless, his reforging/gemming strat is just plain wrong as you can see he's hanging out between 2 very insignificant haste breaking points and even reforging out of mastery to get there

Its not competing with absorbs that are bringing this guy's numbers down... its his execution and lack of fight and class knowledge. . In my honest opinion this guy doesn't really put a lot of effort in and doesn't know whats going on. "Helping" him might take A LOT of time.

are you for real? i can only assume that you are trolling as the op is clearly a 10m raid. i find it very interesting that 25m holy priests think they actually know something about the spec and seriously mislead others.

[Hound02]

@drug Thats something i can ask him if thats what he plans to do when he reaches that breakpoint if hea trying to reach it!

@not Knowing what he does wrong is good, but what help is it without knowing how it should be done? You gave me no suggestions / tips on what he should be doing and how to do stuff. Everyone deserves the chance to improve and some may learn faster then others, you claim it would take A LOT of time to 'help' him also, well that is completely true with the advice you gave Maybe tell me what he actually needs to do, how he should gem and how to improve his performance?

- - - Updated - - -

are you for real? i can only assume that you are trolling as the op is clearly a 10m raid. i find it very interesting that 25m holy priests think they actually know something about the spec and seriously mislead others.

Yep we are a 10man guild :P The plan is to be having this holy priest 2 heal fights with us but since he had 0 experience and a couple of fights we 3 heal, it just seemed a tad to low on his part so I wondered if there were tips I can give him! I am aware that 25man holy priests go about stuff differently to some 10man ones, this thread is for 10man tips and advice

[Drugshock]

And again, as other said, with 3 healers (2 absorbs) on those fights, IMO, even playing 100% he SHOULD be below both of you. Not that much damage to heal after all those shields and stuff, plus fight against your smart atonement healing makes him look way worse than it is

[luckystone]

are you for real? i can only assume that you are trolling as the op is clearly a 10m raid. i find it very interesting that 25m holy priests think they actually know something about the spec and seriously mislead others.

agreed. my 25m guild is doing some 10m this week and as a holy priest i found the experience very different - definitely needs 10m specific healing strategies.

in fact, i'd like to get some pointers too. from what i read, in 10m holy priests are supposed to use a lot of renew and keep it rolling. can someone explain how it's done using 10m heroic as example?
1) immerseus: my experience is the whole 10m raid are taking frequent, pulsing damage. will renew/cascade be able to handle it? or should i go back to AOE chakra?
2) protectors: i suppose i can renew (yellow chakra) when spread out, and switch to group heal (blue chakra) in AOE phase?
3) nurushen: again constant aoe damage, is yellow chakra renew still viable or just stay in blue chakra (that's what i did)
4) etc. etc.

i guess i'm just asking in 10m heroic, is renew really the main spell to use, and if chakra dancing is really as crucial as it seems? thanks a bunch!

[worcester]

agreed. my 25m guild is doing some 10m this week and as a holy priest i found the experience very different - definitely needs 10m specific healing strategies.

in fact, i'd like to get some pointers too. from what i read, in 10m holy priests are supposed to use a lot of renew and keep it rolling. can someone explain how it's done using 10m heroic as example?
1) immerseus: my experience is the whole 10m raid are taking frequent, pulsing damage. will renew/cascade be able to handle it? or should i go back to AOE chakra?
2) protectors: i suppose i can renew (yellow chakra) when spread out, and switch to group heal (blue chakra) in AOE phase?
3) nurushen: again constant aoe damage, is yellow chakra renew still viable or just stay in blue chakra (that's what i did)
4) etc. etc.

i guess i'm just asking in 10m heroic, is renew really the main spell to use, and if chakra dancing is really as crucial as it seems? thanks a bunch!

in short: yes, renew is the main spell which you will be generously spamming for most of the encounter. chakra dancing is not crucial at all and all encounters can be handled in yellow chakra alone.

from my experience, the main reason for using yellow chakra in 10m is that you have much more control over who gets healed which is important when you might be healing with only 1 other healer. Higher proportion of tank damage means that you will have to contribute healing the tank and rolling renew is very efficient. As for raid healing, rolling renew with cascade is just a consequence of having to be in yellow, although arguably its very strong raid healing strategy (for 10m at least).

You can handle all siege encounters in yellow chakra without ever having to go into blue. You just have to be consistent with regard to your playstyle and gearing: highly recommended you aim for 13.1k haste or even 18.2k if possible and substantial amount of spirit, having t16 2 set and FDCL talent is also highly recommended, binding heal glyph is also recommended and renew glyph is mandatory (if that isnt obvious enough), cascade is the go-to for the level 90 talents. in fact, i would say that it would be ill advised to use blue chakra at all with these reforges and talent/glyph choices.

as for the playstyle itself, just renew generously with whatever heal seems appropriate (heal/fh/bh), as for aoe damage lever out serendipity stacks with poh (dont worry about changing to blue chakra) and gh for ST.
as for using circle of healing, some argue that it is a waste of a gcd as it is kinda inefficient if you are in yellow chakra and have little mastery, however there are very unique circumstances where you can squeeze it in.
rebind heal, you are going to use it often. high haste makes it good for using on tanks when no one else it tanking damage, otherwise you are going to mostly resort to renew spam + fh/bh + using serendipity stacks if there is any moderate damage going out.

twist of fate can be really good if your vigilant about using holy fire on low hp targets - its very much worth the mana and gcd imo.

having said that, still expect to be last on almost every encounter depending on co healer, besides the few holy can shine in.

as a final note, you aren't doing any favours for your guild playing holy over disc no matter how fun holy is, if your guild is trying to progress and you will look very bad on the meters if your group has outgeared the content already (but who cares about meters right? ).

[lichee]

Icy Veins has a good write up on what he should be doing and even breakdown spells during which type of dmg is being thrown out:
<cant post links but it's on Icy Veins under the Holy spec for priests>

Honestly, it sounds like he's just (relatively) new to the class/spec or a raid setting and needs help. You being 9/14H is not where you want to take beginners for a stroll and teach them. They need to be able to run on their own.

Another thing that I dont think was brought up was if the person is willing to even listen to critiques from someone that knows nothing of the spec. Some people dont like to be told how to play and it sounds like that is what you are wanting to do. Your intentions may be good but your better off sending him on his way. Stop wasting 10 people's time.

[luckystone]

@worcester: thank you so much for the detailed reply. this should answer some of OP's questions too.

Regarding the new priest issue, i don't think it's a big deal to take on someone new and train him/her. after all we're already so late into this expansion and there's hardly any meaningful race going on. given the fact that the next raid won't be added till maybe end of next year, guilds might as well take it slow and enjoy the journey. how else can we spend the rest of the time of MOP...

- - - Updated - - -

Again i'm adding some more questions, not trying to derail the OP, but i hope we can all get some 10m heroic pro tips from experienced holy priests.

rolling renew with cascade is just a consequence of having to be in yellow, although arguably its very strong raid healing strategy (for 10m at least).

1) should i try blanket the raid with renew most of the time?
2) or should i start renewing only after the damage hits, and only on the targets that have taken damage?
3) from the sound of it, cascade should be used to extend renews even if i know it'll be mostly overheal?
4) i found it difficult to maintain more than 4 target. is there any tip for rolling renews? what is the # of target that can be maintained for an average holy priest in heroic soo encounters?

highly recommended you aim for 13.1k haste or even 18.2k if possible and substantial amount of spirit

5) is it still practical to play 10m holy without reaching this break point? i reforged for 25m and we may go back to 25m after the holidays so i'm being lazy with reforge and i only reached the 1st break point (around 4800 haste)

for aoe damage lever out serendipity stacks with poh (dont worry about changing to blue chakra) and gh for ST.
as for using circle of healing, some argue that it is a waste of a gcd as it is kinda inefficient if you are in yellow chakra and have little mastery

6) is it worth the GCD to actively squeeze in a FH to get serendipity stack in the middle of an AOE phase (e.g. dark meditation)? or only wait for FDCL?

as a final note, you aren't doing any favours for your guild playing holy over disc no matter how fun holy is, if your guild is trying to progress and you will look very bad on the meters if your group has outgeared the content already (but who cares about meters right? ).

7) my apologies since this may not be helpful to the OP at all - but the reason i stayed holy is because we have another strong disc priest in the 10m. in fact i switched from disc to holy when i joined this 25m guild and our healings work very well together. i probably could talk to my disc pal but i imagine it'll be difficult to work together with weakened soul debuff and rapture management etc.

[blargh312]

7) my apologies since this may not be helpful to the OP at all - but the reason i stayed holy is because we have another strong disc priest in the 10m. in fact i switched from disc to holy when i joined this 25m guild and our healings work very well together. i probably could talk to my disc pal but i imagine it'll be difficult to work together with weakened soul debuff and rapture management etc.

Unless you're both the shield spamming type (which outside of LMG procs you shouldn't be as it's a pretty inefficient way to heal), 2 disc in 10m is no problem. On 3 heal fights my guild runs disc/disc/rdruid and I don't think either of us have ever had problems with WS. The damage output you get from 2 discs is substantial and the ridiculous DA and SS absorbs can completely negate potentially deadly abilities like War Song or Swelling Pride. The only fights I like going holy on are Malkorok (for obvious reasons) and Juggernaut (huge instant heals save lives on this fight and renew blanketing+Cascade is great for phase 2)

[worcester]

1) should i try blanket the raid with renew most of the time?
2) or should i start renewing only after the damage hits, and only on the targets that have taken damage?
3) from the sound of it, cascade should be used to extend renews even if i know it'll be mostly overheal?
4) i found it difficult to maintain more than 4 target. is there any tip for rolling renews? what is the # of target that can be maintained for an average holy priest in heroic soo encounters?

you won't be able to keep renew up on the whole raid. however the first thing you do when anyone takes damage is put renew up on that person so you should have a decent number of renew already running. renew lasts around 8-9 seconds. refreshing it with 13.1k haste refreshes it to 12-13 seconds. without it, it will only refresh back to 8-9 seconds (4 ticks vs 5). you should only try to blanket renew before raid damage and cascade which should put up a 12-13 second renew on 8-10 targets for that cascade. if its constant raid damage you will also use binding heal, hw:serenity and flash heal procs to extend the duration. But you wont have renew up on everyone except for every other cascade. i usually just let renew fall off on dps if its not worth the gcd to refresh it.
dont worry too much about overhealing.

5) is it still practical to play 10m holy without reaching this break point? i reforged for 25m and we may go back to 25m after the holidays so i'm being lazy with reforge and i only reached the 1st break point (around 4800 haste)

i have played with 4717 haste and i prefer having more haste. your gcd goes from 1.3s odd down to 1.05 which makes it significantly easier to use bh/fh in quick succession. although 4717 haste is completely viable too (as has been in t14) its just slightly annoying after you get used to higher haste. in that case you can reforge excess mastery into crit, although with the echo buff(?) you could just stick to mastery also. since your healing breakdown is usually 30% renew and ~12-8% of bh/fh/echo/cascade/pom each with poh/gh varying depending on encounter so it should put up more echo heals.

6) is it worth the GCD to actively squeeze in a FH to get serendipity stack in the middle of an AOE phase (e.g. dark meditation)? or only wait for FDCL?

for high raid damage use binding heal but otherwise it is totally fine to use a FDCL flash heal to get a serendipity stack. a charged up poh will make it worth it at the end.

7) my apologies since this may not be helpful to the OP at all - but the reason i stayed holy is because we have another strong disc priest in the 10m. in fact i switched from disc to holy when i joined this 25m guild and our healings work very well together. i probably could talk to my disc pal but i imagine it'll be difficult to work together with weakened soul debuff and rapture management etc.

stay holy imo, prettier sparkles.

[Zenkyto]

I hit the 18,300 haste breakpoint and can roll renews with very high uptime.

Holy priest 10m is interesting because there are several ways to gem/reforge for different playstyles. I have pretty quick reaction times, so I've found that haste stacking has been my favorite playstyle.

logs for the curious: (can't post links, just look at 10m holy priest ranks)

Holy has incredible throughput but will get dominated by any absorbs introduced into a raid comp.

Just my 2c