Can't adapt to priest healing I think....

[Nyeesh]

Hey there...

My main on BC was a holy priest and when wotlk came out i switched to a resto druid... After getting REALLY bored of resto druids I decided to go back to priest healing.. Turns out that even tho I got bored of the resto druid, I kinda miss the possibility of spamming heals thru all raid..
What has been happening is that I run oom really fast in fights, what I do is:
CoH every CD, PoM every CD, Empowered Glyphed Talented Renew on tanks and when I antecipate some damage I spam it on the rest of the group, PoH when some nasty AoE happens (GOD I LOVE THIS SPELL) and instant flash heals.
What annoys me is "waiting" for damage to happen, I can't play like that.. I'm an ultra high spammer of spells its boring if I don't do that but I run oom like in the middle of the boss (after using Mana Potions, Fiend + HoH combo)...
On my druid I always said I liked to "prevent" damage and I never waited for some damage to happen, if it did, some hot would be there to heal it, and no wonder I was 90% of the time top heals and top overheals too without having mana problems at all...

Here is my armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ream&cn=Nyeesh

My questions are:

- Am I doing something wrong?
- I "think" I should use CoH only when some damage happens instead of every CD but it's hard to adapt cuz that's how I always did with Wild Growth... what should I do?
- Is it possible for holy priests to be high spammers or should I just learn to be fast at healing damage instead of "preventing" it?
- Am I running oom so fast just because my gear is bad?
- How is my spec (I will remove empowered healing because it seems rather useless since I don't use flash heal too much)?

Help me out as possible.

Thanks.

[Zymn]

Try disc? Its a damage prevention spec if that's what your used to, but its more proficient at single target than raid healing.

[Nyeesh]

I have a disc spec.. I find it rather boring tho even considering I spam heals at my hearts content... :-\
Holy is lotsa fun (and I play this game for fun) but the mana regen is annoying me...

[Kelesti]

Lemme start with: Forget meters exist. Druids are pro at them. Holy's not quite. If you like preventative damage, maybe switch to Discipline instead of Holy? The shift isn't hard to turn preventative HoTs to preventative shields. Holy is very much a reactive healer, where most of its real effects can't really take effect until after the damage has been done, but on something like a Prayer that doesn't mean you can't cast it before and let it go off timed just right. Practice this, both on Discipline and Holy.

About Circle of Healing: push it a step back. Using it every cooldown when it's not needed is kinda bleh. You're right in that it's not wild growth. Second, using it on a higher priority before Prayer means that not just your smart heal goes out, but everyone else's and you're lucky to actually hit two people with a prayer by the time you finish casting it. Prayer first, circle should be a cleanup spell (nothing more).

Holy Priests aren't really high spammers. They can be constantly doing something, but endlessly targetting raids with HoTs and that sort of thing is a druid's job. A Holy Priest can shift focus to tanks when raid damage is light, and the shift back from tanks is easier as a Priest than it is as a druid. A Discipline Priest is always doing something, though, and again stacks preventative measures on the raid as needed.

Your Intellect and your Spirit are a little low for Holy's regen. One peice of crit gear may also help increase your Holy Concentration uptime. Get what you can, RNG is RNG afterall.

And your build?
Drop the Prayer glyph. It's bad. Guardian glyph is really good. Drop Empowered Healing, like you figured out, and go down to 1/2 Surge of Light. Pick up Test of Faith and Blessed Resilience, or Test of Faith and Body and Soul (and have a bit of fun).

From here, the only real thing you can do is work at it a little more, and let it come naturally.

[IgotRICKrolled]

Edit :
Did not get notice of kelesti posting - I apologize any look-a-likes(if that is not too bold) .

Well first of all you are listed in your discipline spec.
Do you use the same gear or du you have some pieces I can not see ?

- And if you can, get rid of snowflake as fast as possible. Read the sticky about trinkets and you will see how badly nerfed it is.

Your right about spec - it need a wee hand.

Try the standard cookie cutter spec : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuZfLtcbMqihhcuAo
[Well the usual Cookie cutter would have Spell warding instead of divine fury - But I would rather be able to do a faster Gh than 10 % less magic damage.]


Get glyph of shadowfiend - It dies very easily.


Regarding your playstyle, I think its more a matter of habituation.
I have seen priests with holy pallas as main just standing there spamming Fh/gh as holy.

It is not like we do the /stopcasting like in tbc. However what a holy priest is all about is burst healing and mending.

While you dont have any raid burst - keep the raid topped up with CoH, Renew and FoL procs.
And if you a familiar with the contend you are raiding - precast your PoH so that it lands as on time as possible.

CoH is not WG .

But yeah , druids do have infinite mana compared to priest (exaggeration is goood ) so keep that in mind.
Even try relaxing sometimes to maybe get a few seconds OOFSR.

Besides stress is bad for you ^^..

[Mr_Bojangles]

Not to ignore the obvious, are you using your shadowfiend at a proper time? You can increase the amount you get from it by comboing it with hymn of hope as well. Once you cast shadowfiend, cast hymn of hope, one tick of the spell is all you need because it increases your max mana by 20%, which makes your shadowfiend restore more.

[Krisbit]

Hmm, I have the same problem as OP. But I am back to holy from discipline. I healed as holy when leveling but after I hit 80 I truned to disci. I didnt use holy spec for like 4 month or more.
I am back to holy beacouse I thought it can be more helpfull at healing dragon fight in icc10/25.
Unfortunately, I noticed that when I am assaigned to cross healing (raid+dragon) and to NOT enter to portals I am going oom too fast.

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...ash&cn=Krisbit

There is my item build and specs. I am healing in the same items in holy as in disci.

What I can't get is spell priority. And 'what it is all about'. Atm I am focused about timing serendipity and surge of light. But well, as I told, fh > fh > fh > gh rotation (+ some CoH, PoH and PoM every cd) is taking me oom incredibly fast.

[Nyeesh]

So here's the build I will try out:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbu...qhrcuAo:0NfMzV

How is it?
By the way, is the gemming on my gear correct (yes the gear I use for holy and disc is the same I hit 80 recently and don't have any other pieces I could swap)?.

So I'll have to learn to stop casting CoH every CD and actually use it when aoe damage ocurrs... I think that will help quite a bit on the mana...
Flash heals really just when I have the Surge of Light proc... If I need to heal someone I'll just renew and maybe consider a flash heal if the people is kinda low and needs health back up fast, correct?
Also, any strategies for PoM? Or should I just use it on the tank always and wait for it to bounce?
Seems I'll have to learn to use the heals a bit more instead of spamming then... it might actually pose a bit of challenge for me which is nice..

Thanks all.

[tehmark]

your talents are fine. don't ever pick up body and soul.

[fierceangel]

don't ever pick up body and soul.

False information. A few fights in ToGC and ICC benefit a lot from this talent. Don't dismiss it like a nab, its a situational talent but never say "dont ever" pick it up.

[Danner]

So here's the build I will try out:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbu...qhrcuAo:0NfMzV

How is it?
By the way, is the gemming on my gear correct (yes the gear I use for holy and disc is the same I hit 80 recently and don't have any other pieces I could swap)?.

So I'll have to learn to stop casting CoH every CD and actually use it when aoe damage ocurrs... I think that will help quite a bit on the mana...
Flash heals really just when I have the Surge of Light proc... If I need to heal someone I'll just renew and maybe consider a flash heal if the people is kinda low and needs health back up fast, correct?
Also, any strategies for PoM? Or should I just use it on the tank always and wait for it to bounce?
Seems I'll have to learn to use the heals a bit more instead of spamming then... it might actually pose a bit of challenge for me which is nice..

There is a lot of flexibility in Holy talent specs. Which I think is a good thing. Some people pick Divine Fury, some people go for spell warding. Some people go heavily into renew, some people go heavily into flash heal, some people go heavily into aoe heals. Either case works, but should be backed up by corresponding spell usage.

Your talents should work just fine. And yes, I wholly approve of Body and Soul. It saves lives, and it's awesome fun to run around fast.

Flash heal is mostly something I throw around when there is downtime in the fight. I often throw a random heal on the MT or OT, just to proc inspiration, and build up serendipity at the same time. Of course, I've got a ton of manaregen to afford it. At lower gear levels, you really need to hold back as a holypriest.

As for prayer of mending: stick it to a tank. The tank is usually hit at least every second, making it just away VERY fast. If you're not unlucky, it will jump right over to the offtank. On fights with damage blankets (twins, sindragonsa, blood queen, putricide), just throw it on whomever seem to need it the most.

[Eletharin]

Body and Soul isn't useless ... its useless 90% of the time and the 10% when its useful it can be compensated by people paying attention and being where they are supposed to be. That being said, when we were pushing ToGC Anub I took the talent, but I've since respecced and unless we're in a tight spot like that again I doubt I'll pick it up.

Your gear looks fine, but just remember that as you gear up more, mana becomes easier

There is a lot of contention about talents. All of the sudden people who screamed "RENEW IS TERRIBLE" realized its actually kinda OP now and started screaming "FLASH HEAL IS TERRIBLE" and everybody is dropping all points in Empowered Healing. Depending on the healing team you work with, the strength of flash heal in your rotation will vary, and based on this decide if you need the points or not. Same applies to Divine Fury. By dropping the potential for a 1.5s HUGE heal (almost pally huge) that benefits from an extra 40% of your spellpower, you get an extra 3% overall and a few other sparkly goodies .... I keep DF and EmpHeal because it adds a very powerful tool to my toolbox. Also, CoH, PoM on CD with renew spam is inarguably max HPS .. but why not just bring a druid that can do the same thing only better? Versatility is what priests bring to the table, so locking ourselves in a renew box can be a dangerous thing.

Your rotation is pretty much max HPS on heavy AOE damage fights. CoH, PoM on CD, use your surge procs, and renew in between. But this does eat a lot of mana, and on non-raid heavy fights its definitely possible to mix it up and not lose much effective healing (basically just mix some FHeals in and hold onto CoH unless you need it). One thing that will help your mana problems is stop using PoH. Switch to Divine Spirit glyph and move the keybind down to like '7' or '8' PoH does have its place, but unless there is a big, predictable spike of raid damage (precious/stinky decimate for example where throw PoM, queue up melee PoH, and be ready to CoH) its better to just stop using it. On constant AOE heavy fights it will drop both your HPS and your mana efficiency.

Oh .. and my spec ... Eletharin's Armory

Happy Healing!

[Lysdexic]

Kelesti is a great poster, all his advice is solid, but I'd just like to highlight:
GET MORE SPIRIT.
It's annoying but we really do need it, since it's how our regen scales with Holy Concentration.

Your gemming isn't bad, as holy mainspec I tend to go sp/haste in yellow sockets, but int is obviously better for disc. I'd probably try to stick to sp/int instead of pure int however.
Try to farm U10 for Spark of Hope, I'm pretty sure that little sucker is still BiS.

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...ear&cn=Nyneave
There's my profile although there's the chance you may find me in disc or pvp gear.

P.S Gogogo Body and soul, crackbubble ftw

[Mr_Bojangles]

@dyslexic: The value of intellect sticky clearly shows intellect to be a superior regen stat to spirit. So if your mana is low, your better off stacking intellect instead of spirit.

[Kelesti]

your talents are fine. don't ever pick up body and soul.

Body and Soul isn't useless ... its useless 90% of the time and the 10% when its useful it can be compensated by people paying attention and being where they are supposed to be.

Guardian Spirit and Pain Suppression aren't useless. They're just useless 90% of the time, and the 10% of the time they could be useful can be compensated by using a Paladin tank. Same can be said about a Paladin's Divine Guardian. Body and Soul is a utility talent, that may not be "useful" (in your eyes it seems to be required in an encounter to make it a viable talent choice. What is this, Firefighter with glyphed Nova?), but in reality its use is limited by your ingenuity. If your Discipline Priest is a meter spamming whore, then sure you'll see little use in this. If you're a complete tool who can't think for yourself, you'll see even less use from this.

There is a lot of contention about talents. All of the sudden people who screamed "RENEW IS TERRIBLE" realized its actually kinda OP now and started screaming "FLASH HEAL IS TERRIBLE" and everybody is dropping all points in Empowered Healing.

Empowered Healing has been poorly budgeted points since 3.0, but we didn't really have much better to put them in. Renew was garbage with Regen the way it was (spam flash over a boss fight, and you'll end up higher mana than you were before you started!).

And then came the Regen nerf, but at the same time Empowered Renew! The increased coefficient is huge. The instant ability to heal is also huge, especially when said instant heal can crit and proc's most on crit abilities (with the exception of Inspiration for some reason :). It's not that people are saying Flash Heal is terrible, most of the time it's saying Flash Heal is a very unimaginative mediocre heal when you have better tools in your toolbox (at almost all times).

Depending on the healing team you work with, the strength of flash heal in your rotation will vary, and based on this decide if you need the points or not. Same applies to Divine Fury. By dropping the potential for a 1.5s HUGE heal (almost pally huge) that benefits from an extra 40% of your spellpower, you get an extra 3% overall and a few other sparkly goodies .... I keep DF and EmpHeal because it adds a very powerful tool to my toolbox.

I'd like to debunk this for just a second. First I'll start with Flash Heal "if you need the points or not."

Take 3200 Spell Power. Lower than mine, but higher than the OP. It's a nice easy number. Take your average Flash Heal. 80.68% spell power coefficient prior to Empowered Healing (and 90.68% with the points). Base healing is averaged out to 2040. Spell Power contribution (0/5 EH) came out to 2581.76, so prior to modifiers you get 4621.76, and including Spiritual Healing (10%), Tree of Life (6%) and the Blessed Resilience that I suggested (3%). Grand total? 5550.6, or if you include 2/5 Empowered Healing because you don't like Body & Soul, that total goes up to 5704. Great.

Now let's drop Blessed Resil, and go 5/5 Empowered. Spell Power contribution is now 2901.76. But your total output is 5762. 3 points for 60 healing on a single spell? Badly budgeted, and bad calls for people who say it's for stronger flashes (it is, but really?)

Okay. Say you do it all for your clutch Greater. Great. I use greater too!

Same applies to Divine Fury

What? Divine Fury and Spell Warding are both filler points. Sure, Divine Fury has more use now, just as Spell Warding had a tonne of use in Ulduar, and some moderate effectiveness for ToGC. But really, neither affect the main tools of the Holy Priest. So sorry, but commenting on people that "drop it" is moot here when it's nothing but filler. Talent comparison is again Empowered Healing vs. Everything Else. Generally, if someone (even a tank) is low enough to warrant using a Greater (and you have the reaction speed for it), having it land for the heavy impact is generally a stronger view point than trying to maximise its output. Greater is big and clunky, but it has its uses, sure. A quick finger on an accessible hotkey (for me it's "x") can and does save the day.

But in a raid setting, the difference between a 2 point Empowered (11.6k) and your 5 point Empowered (13.2) are really, really negligible. For 5 points. Sure when you factor in Guardian Spirit, Divinity, and/or Vampiric Blood the distance splits a little but the important part is having it land more than actually wasting points by spec'ing into Empowered Healing.

Also, CoH, PoM on CD with renew spam is inarguably max HPS

Mending on Cooldown is irrelevant because you should be doing it anyways. But the highest HPS is Prayer, Circle, Surge a low target if necessary, if not go back to Prayer with Renews already ticking.

.. but why not just bring a druid that can do the same thing only better? Versatility is what priests bring to the table, so locking ourselves in a renew box can be a dangerous thing.

By sticking so strongly to Flash Heal, you're doing more locking yourself into a Paladin's heal style than a Renew does to a Druid. You move off of your target after healing them, and they take more damage, you need to waste more time and mana to cover them, or someone else does. It's lost time, and a lost cause.

Your rotation is pretty much max HPS on heavy AOE damage fights. CoH, PoM on CD, use your surge procs, and renew in between. But this does eat a lot of mana, and on non-raid heavy fights its definitely possible to mix it up and not lose much effective healing (basically just mix some FHeals in and hold onto CoH unless you need it). One thing that will help your mana problems is stop using PoH. Switch to Divine Spirit glyph and move the keybind down to like '7' or '8' PoH does have its place, but unless there is a big, predictable spike of raid damage (precious/stinky decimate for example where throw PoM, queue up melee PoH, and be ready to CoH) its better to just stop using it. On constant AOE heavy fights it will drop both your HPS and your mana efficiency.

What? What the hell are you smoking, really? Despite the omgnerf that Prayer took in late 3.1 early 3.2 (I don't quite remember exactly when it was, but it was fraking over powered) it's still the strongest outgoing heal that you have. In your spellbook. Hands down. But yet you suggest running Greater at times, but dropping Prayer?

No wonder people seem to think Priests are "falling behind".

Raid damage doesn't wait for your smart-healing cooldowns (unlike Shaman). You have a job to do and if you're incapable of pulling your weight you probably shouldn't be healing.

[harky]

I actually agree, Priests aren't falling behind. That would imply that it's an ongoing process, when that was finalized towards the middle of ToC. So no, Priests aren't falling behind. They are behind.

Priests have been given a very large toolbox with some very fun tools. If you play very well and have a lot of experience then Priests are fine. They really are. You can go out of your way working over how to spec and gear to compete and how to react to a lot of situations in exactly the right way in an effort to keep up. If you do really well, you'll keep up. Paladins were given a hammer. Every nail that pops up they slam it down as hard as they can. Shaman were given a rake. Whenever problems are scattered around they gather them up. Druids were given a fire hose and spray it all over the place like the worlds gunna burn and they're the only thing between here and infinity. Priests? Well, Priests were given a pocket knife and a roll of duct tape. If you're McGyver you can make a helicopter and lead us all to freedom. If you're not quite sure what to do? Well... just try not to get your finger caught in the blade and don't duct tape your leg hair. Seriously, it hurts.

[IgotRICKrolled]

I actually agree, Priests aren't falling behind. That would imply that it's an ongoing process, when that was finalized towards the middle of ToC. So no, Priests aren't falling behind. They are behind.

Priests have been given a very large toolbox with some very fun tools. If you play very well and have a lot of experience then Priests are fine. They really are. You can go out of your way working over how to spec and gear to compete and how to react to a lot of situations in exactly the right way in an effort to keep up. If you do really well, you'll keep up. Paladins were given a hammer. Every nail that pops up they slam it down as hard as they can. Shaman were given a rake. Whenever problems are scattered around they gather them up. Druids were given a fire hose and spray it all over the place like the worlds gunna burn and they're the only thing between here and infinity. Priests? Well, Priests were given a pocket knife and a roll of duct tape. If you're McGyver you can make a helicopter and lead us all to freedom. If you're not quite sure what to do? Well... just try not to get your finger caught in the blade and don't duct tape your leg hair. Seriously, it hurts.

Haha. I really liked reading this.

I love fun metaphors - especially when it hits bullseye.

Off Topic:

Switch to Divine Spirit glyph

I just read this in kelesti's post ( a quote from whom I do not know)

But wait what .. That glyph doesn't even excist. !!!!(?)

[malkolm]

your talents are fine. don't ever pick up body and soul.

Nah.
We've been using our holy priest specced body and soul and it helps a lot on Rotface and Professor.

[Doors79]

I've never understood the need for desperate prayer in any holy pve spec. It just seems a waste of a point to me. If I'm going to die in a raid it's generally because I have not been doing my job as a raid healer or that a tank has died and I have healing aggro.
Besides desperate prayer there's variety of places where you can stick your points around your play style. I think though the general feeling is that holy priests very rarely chose to cast greater heal so points in empowered healing and divine fury are pretty useless. Body and Soul is useful is some fights. I personally am spec'd into lightwell at the moment and trying to get my raid to use it at it is very good if only you didn't lose target to use it.

Anyway back to the OP post, I think many people have said it already but a holy priest is generally a reactive healer, which is why it is one of the more fun healing classes to play. We don't just sit there spamming away on a button or two we actually have to pay attention to what is going on. I agree with Kelesti on most points except that push CoH priority on raid damage behing PoH. Generally raid damage is not on a single party (except raid wide ofc in which case Kelesti is 100% correct) so use CoH first. This is just another example of the fact that as a holy priest we have to keep an eye on what is happening and use the correct spell in our arsenal to do the job.

[AetherMcLoud]

Off Topic:
I just read this in kelesti's post ( a quote from whom I do not know)

But wait what .. That glyph doesn't even excist. !!!!(?)

Most likely the Divine Guardian glyph, one of the most awesome glyphs ever made.