New Holy Priest -- Need some raiding pointers

[Reucht]

Hello guys, thanks for reading my post and I hope you let your experienced light shine on my noob questions.

First of all, this is my char (I know the gear isn't awesome, but I'm gearing up asap):
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...scale&cn=Razha

I have a couple of questions:

1) My Spec. What about it? Is it okay, good for raiding? Would you do things differently, why? Yes, I have searched priest forums for an up-to-date answer, but none appealed to me.
2) My Glyphs. I think they're good, but what do you think? Would you change them, why? Yes, I have searched the priest forums for an answer and checked multiple chars on armory, but if there is something wrong, please tell me.
3) Necessary Addons. Atm I don't use anything apart from DBM and Shadowed Unit Frames. But I would like to know how to add a range indicator (so I see which players are out of my range for healing) and a dispel indicator (shows me if there is something to dispel in a blink of an eye). What do you recommend?

4) Last but certainly not least, practise. What do I do wrong? When I'm raid healing I find myself mosly spamming Flash Heal to heal people individually (hardly ever use Greater Heal), CoH for the instant aoe healing on say melee/ranged, PoM and renew on the tanks. The occasional renew on another player, but mostly it's just a waste of mana? The occasional PoH when my FH buff stacks to 3. With all these actions, I'm still below all other healers on recount and I know my gear isn't great, but I would like to know if it's my playstyle or my gear (or maybe both).

I always considered myself a good player, but with my priest (and healing) I feel like I'm "sloppy" (can't find another word).

Hoping for response!

[Saintsaen]

Hey Reucht,
I would suggest in your spec adding Surge of Light. It procs a whole lot and off of pretty much any spell you cast healing. I don't theorycraft, but I would not be afraid to say that it has a 85%+ chance to proc on every coh you cast. It amounts to a whole lot of mana free instant cast flash heals that you get to throw around. You probably do not need the 2 points in healing focus so there is where you can get them. I've never had pushback issues with anything in Wrath so far.

It can be annoying at times to see when it procs until you get used to it. I used to run an addon that let me know every time it procced, but I've just got used to recognizing it automatically and don't run one anymore. Maybe someone else has a suggestion on a good one for you.

I personally run Test of Faith as well, but its not a make or break talent. I know a few priests who do not run it do just fine.

Nothing wrong with your glyphs. Some people like the Glyph of Guardian Spirit, but its up to you.

For addons look into maybe a complete package raid frames addon like healbot, xperl, or grid. All of those come with your range indicators, dispell indicators, etc. wow.com just did an article on a new raid frames addon like this. I haven't tried it out, but give it a read over on their addon spotlight section.

Gear will come with time. Your a little low on SP, but don't know if you have spirit buff and inner fire up on your armory char. As your gear gets better try to get up to around 3k sp and you will notice a huge difference in your numbers.

Healing wise its all just practice and getting a feel for what to cast and when to cast it. Some basic suggestions are keep POM on cd, don't be afraid to poh even if its not hasted if you have to cover a lot of damage. Casting 3 flash heals to fully haste it can waste valuable time sometimes. It just depends on the situation. Greater heal is not bad if you have a lot of haste on top of seredipity stacks, but doesn't get a ton of use. FH spam is pretty typical. Renew isn't bad, but not fabulous, I keep it rolling on the tank when I have the time or use it on life tapping locks lol. Also, it can give you a little bit of cushion if your on the move and need to cover a bit of damage. Keep practicing and you will be weaving your whole healing arsenal together like its second nature.

Don't worry about recount too much. Check your precentage healed to see where you are at within the healing group you have. We run 6 or 7 heals in 25's. Most of the time I end up in the middle but as a group we are within 1% effective healing done of each other. If your way below everyone else, just keep working on it. You will get in the groove

[tatienne]

shadowed unit frames has a range indicator. you can increase the amount the frame fades out if it's out of range.
are you using mouseover macros? if not consider them or the clique addon since actually targeting the person that needs heals in a raidhealing role is very timeconsuming. you say you're using flash heals alot and yet you don't have 1 point in surge of light. it's a great talent. try it with one point and then with similiar gear with two points and see which one you like the most.
you also say you don't use greater heal yet you have divine fury. now, personally I think the talent is nice since I do occasionally use gheal (I don't heal many raids on my priest so it's mostly heroics). are you doing icc healing or toGc? if not, the body and soul could be worth skipping as it's situational in those raids and even less used otherwise.

alot of people don't think empowered healing should be maxed since they don't use gheal or fheal so vigourosly and in icc/togc gear they prefer renewing when there's no SoL proc. it's a playstyle issue though.

I'd replace your metagem with the insightful (I think that's what it's called). I think it gives about 50-63 mp while chaincasting (when the icd has expired)
I'd also replace the glyph of prayer of healing for the guardian spirit glyph but that's probably because I'm not a big fan of the PoH one. if they've been PoH'd they're probably at full health anyway. the guardian spirit glyph can help the tankhealer in several dire situations or when he's activating divine plea.

the experience thing is just that, experience. you need to learn the encounter to master it more than with dps. you need to start healing before the damage hits so that your first PoH lands 0.2 seconds after the big aoe-damage hits. and try out new things, as a healer there's not much rotations to stick to.


________
edit: holy reach is awesome for CoH.
and imo test of faith is really good. there's often big burstdamage in this expansions raids that will take your mates below 50%.

[Reucht]

Thanks for the replies, I'm glad I didn't make all that many mistakes. I'm gonna respec a bit later.

a) I would suggest in your spec adding Surge of Light. You probably do not need the 2 points in healing focus.

b) It can be annoying at times to see when it procs until you get used to it.

c) I personally run Test of Faith as well, but its not a make or break talent.

d) Nothing wrong with your glyphs.

e) For addons look into maybe a complete package raid frames addon like healbot, xperl, or grid.

Thanks Saintsaen!

a) I will respec later tonight and will try to implement the changes you said and see how it goes from there.
b) It's not the first class that gives procs on casts, I think I'll manage without ^^
c) Will consider it in my respec tonight.
d) Awesome!
e) I'm kinda against full packages as they often tend to require a lot of resources, but maybe grid might be a good idea, since I've heard so many good things about it.

a) shadowed unit frames has a range indicator. you can increase the amount the frame fades out if it's out of range.
b) are you using mouseover macros?
c) you also say you don't use greater heal yet you have divine fury.
d) I'd replace your metagem with the insightful
e) I'd also replace the glyph of prayer of healing for the guardian spirit glyph but that's probably because I'm not a big fan of the PoH one.

f) the experience thing is just that, experience. you need to start healing before the damage hits so that your first PoH lands 0.2 seconds after the big aoe-damage hits
________
g) edit: holy reach is awesome for CoH.
and imo test of faith is really good.

Thanks Tatienne!

a) Could you tell me how to enable this range indicator? I have been searching for this, but not good enough prolly.
b) I'm not a big fan of mouse-over macros, prolly becuz it has been said over and over again to me that clickin is bad. I use my mouse to select raid members and heal with keybinds.
c) I use Greater Heal, but not during 25mans. The healing there is way too fast so there is prolly not a single person in the raid who could use a 17k (hasted) GH.
d) I'll check for gems tonight, thanks!
e) I'm actually a big fan of the PoH glyph, the extra healing from the hot is quite nice imo. Prolly personal preference.
f) I hope I get good very fast :P
g) Since you're the second person that says so, it must be true :P

Thanks all for the replies! I will check tonight, if you have more info, lemme know.

Regards Reucht/Razha

[Kelesti]

First off, you get cool points for the curvy Dwarf. +2 internets.

Secondly, if you've searched the Priest forums for an answer, but none appealed to you, then I have to wonder whether you're just not caring what anybody says (a little arrogant) or you never actually did the search. What we say here may very well be treated in the same way.

Third, your talent build. You've fallen into the Greater Heal talent point trap (13 points "wasted" in Divine Fury, Improved Healing, and Empowered Healing). At 3200 spell power, for example, the difference of 5/5 Empowered Healing, and 3/3 Blessed Resilience +2/5EH is 61 health on a Flash Heal. 61, for the added output of every other spell. Granted, I feel Test of Faith is even better, but hey. No reason not to get at least one (most likely two) points in Holy Reach. Spell Warding is really hit or miss. I still like it, but then again I have a bit more haste than you and a double digit ping.

My personal suggestions: Drop Improved Healing, put those points directly into Improved Renew and Holy Reach. Divine Fury is your choice for Spell Warding, keep it if you want. Drop the 5/5 Empowered Healing. It's jut bad. Toss those points, preferrably into Test of Faith first, and Blessed Resilience second. More importantly than success on the meters is having those heals larger when it counts.

What are you using Inner Focus for? If you're using it on cooldown, I'd suggest actually dropping that for 1/2 Surge of Light. You'll have higher mana sustainability from just that switch.

Moving on. Your Glyphs are pretty standard, except I don't like the feel of Prayer of Healing's glyph. It sorta sucks. When raidbuffed, on anyone you didn't crit (hooray RNG), it's only a 680 tick, that goes off at 3 and six seconds after the prayer went out. It's too weak to actually stem the flow of additional healing, from both yourself and other healers. So a) It's either 100% overheal, or b) the targets need outside healing anyways. Sure, on some encounters such as Lana'thel/Twins it looks really nice on meters, but its successes are few (if any). I'd recommend the Renew glyph (more on that later).

Necessary addons: I'd recommend Grid, in all its awesome functionality. Tack on a Grid-Raid-Status-Debuff to go with it, and its own set of mana bars, and you have a set of convenient raidframes that can show you the whole picture in much less screen space. Faster, as well. Get yourself a set of mouseover macros. Your reaction speed can go up at least a half second per target switch.

Things to practise: You have enough haste at this point that Serendipity isn't even required for the Prayers. It's nice, sure, but casting it without the third stack is actually faster. You were brought on as a Holy Priest, and to most people that means a multi-target burst healer. Pausing to build up the third stack for the occasional Prayer is a lost cause. Get your runs to actually sort melee/ranged/tanks into their own groups like you did in TBC, you'll find your Prayer button one that isn't actually that difficult to push (even at zero stacks). Circle of Healing shouldn't be used on cooldown, it should be used as a clean up spell (either directly after severe AoE damage, or directly after your own Prayer went off to counter it). Its smart-target works against your Prayers so you'll want to maximize both.

As for Flash Heal, replace it for the most part with Renew, especially now that (if you've listened to me) you've picked up 3/3 Improved, and you glyphed it. The Empowered portion and the first tick equate to roughly 80% of a noncrit Flash. But it also adds a buffer zone to help mitigate some incoming damage. It's also instant cast, so you can cover while moving, and the HoT helps keep people up when you or they slip out of range. All this, for the same mana cost as a glyphed Flash Heal. : Seems pretty obvious to me. Sure, if someone's going to "die rite nao" you shouldn't be using Renew, but as a Healer you should be adaptive to any situation no matter what class/spec you play, and for general use it sees much more promise.

I am up to answering more questions, but you won't be seeing me for another 10 hours until I get home from work anyways. :

[kaizokunoou]

when he says mouseover macros, he means keybinds you press while hovering your cursor over the target; that way you don't actually have to change targets. it may not sound like much, but it makes a huge difference in reaction time when healing. i personally use grid as unit frames and clique to manage my spells, but that's mostly because i'm too lazy to write up a bunch of macros.

if you've never tried it, i suggest creating some macros or grabbing an addon and hopping in an av or other bg where you won't be hurting anyone while you try it out. i think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[tatienne]

like kaizoo said.
you bind it to your normal keys (for instance, my CoH is on R and PoH is on T while flash heal is on mousewheelup)

the one I've written goes like this.

#showtooltip Fancyspell
/cast [target=mouseover, help, exists] [] Fancyspell

the "target=" can be done with @mouseover instead
this lets your spell to be cast if you have a friendly raidframe under your mouse or even a friendly player. if you don't, it will default to your current target (I usually target tanks if anything).

you could do it like this though:
#showtooltip Fancyspell
/cast [@mouseover, help, exists] [@targetstarget, help, exists] [] Fancyspell

that way if you don't have something under your mouse it will check if the target of your current target (you should be targeting the boss for this) is helpful and cast the spell on it instead. if that fails it will default to you current target (and heals don't work on harmful targets so if you are targeting a boss it will fizzle)

about shadowed, I'll check it soon. am not logged in right now. check for updates.

oh, I didn't even notice improved healing. yeah, that's mostly a waste. no wonder there were so many lost talentpoints.
and as kelesti points out, glyph of renew is nice, I just don't raidheal so much so that's why I forgot it existed for a moment.

____
update: ok, I think this is it but I'm not entirely sure as I'm not on my account.
type /suf (I think you know already knew that)
go to unit status tab and click the raid-box if you haven't already
then either go to unit configuration -> global and check raid and other things like party and target or whatever or follow the step after the break
go to subtab general
the third option should be named range indicator. enable it and play around with the out of range alpha bar (I personally have it quite low to make a big distinction)
while there, under border highlighting, check the box for curable debuffs. this will make the border of people with dispellable magic debuffs blue and brown for people that you can cast abolish disease on (green for poison and purple for curses) this will be a huge help


if you want different faderoptions for different frames go to unit configuration -> raid
in the general tab the same kind of menu opens up but it will only change your raidframes to those settings. more configurability, more work.

[klaugh]

At your gear level I was definitely flashing a lot more than renewing. So the flash setup might be the way to go for you until you get more gear. As you get more gear, renew (imo) starts to outpace flash in terms of heal and effectiveness, as well as fitting my playstyle and typical raid setup much better.

My flashes hit for a regular of 5.5-6k and can crit for 22-26k depending on the target and what buffs I have up on them, but in normal situations without really heavy raid damage, renew is just awesome. My renew (glyphed + empowered renew) the initial cast heals for 1.5-2.5k and each tick is a good 2.6-3k depending on buffs, and keeps getting better as I improve my gear. I can cast three renews in the time it takes to cast and finish the flash heal, healing more people, albeit slightly smaller immediate heal, but if they take some more light damage right after that, it'll continue healing them a little bit, since I run with a resto druid, disc priest and h-pally my renew+coh+poh+pom are plenty enough coupled with the druid's hots to keep raid topped off 90% of the time, so renew is better for me than flash since the druid hots will end up sniping a lot of the healing, and for 5 mans it's excellent as well.

I personally use Grid+Clique, I find it to be very useful, all the information i need in a relatively condensed space that I can react to quickly without searching for a button on my bars. Mouseover macros work as well.

Your spec and glyphs, I agree with what Kelesti said almost 100%, 'cept that it's my preference to use Spell Warding over Divine Fury; after looking at several parses from raids, I found myself using gheal less than 5 times an entire two raids per week, so I've stuck with my renew+flash when needed setup and it's serving me well so far.

Experience raid healing was my biggest problem upon starting to heal as well. My priest is just over 5 months at 80, and only about 1 month with raiding. I know I've still got a lot to work on, such as timing and picking the correct heal in as close to 100% of the situations as possible, picking the right time, target and keybinding to cast Guardian Spirit, things like that. However, as long as your raid isn't wiping due to healing, you are doing well enough and getting better will come as you raid normally, with raids getting easier and easier over time (read: over gear improvement and experience gained).