1. #1

    Holy Priest questions and concerns.

    Good day, fellow MMO-champions!

    I have recently swapped back to my Priest, a 14/57/0 Holy Priest with roughly ICC25HM gear level (I haven't played him for a while)

    Yesterday I healed a ToGC 25, and while I didn't do terrible, I felt like I wasn't at my best potential regarding meters.

    My usual rotation is Renew on the tanks, the Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing right after, using Flash Heal as a filler between renewing Renews on the tanks and Prayer of Healing the group that likes to stand in fire.

    I did bad on Northrend Beasts, scoring last place on meters with a measly 3.2k hps, I was about on-par with a trial Holy Paladin we were trialing (so there goes his trial, eh?). On Jarraxus I did better, jumping from top of the meters (5.6k hps) to around 3rd when the encounter ended (4.3k hps). I still felt I wasn't doing as best as I could.

    On Faction Champs I was last, due to me being the only designated mass dispeller in the raid, keeping up renews on the tanks and myself, and dispelling HoTs, DoTs, Fears, Frost Novas etc, I only did around 1.5k hps, so I was terrible there.

    On Twin Valks, I often found myself in the Top 3 with 8.6k hps done, so I felt I did pretty good there, keeping PoM and CoH on cooldown for the whole fight while renewing myself and the tanks.

    So I come to you guys in the Priest Sub-forum. I didn't take WoL logs last night, so I can't provide those, but I wanted to ask:

    1. Is my rotation adequate for maintaining good HPS thoughout the fight?
    2. What should I include in my rotation to further increase my out-put?
    3. Should I swap to discipline? (armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...uzad&cn=immota )
    4. Is my SP, crit, haste, mp5, and intellect where they should be at for HICC25 content?
    5. Do I need to regem anything?

    Thanks loads for reading this, and I look forward to your replies. I have an HICC25 scheduled for tomorrow night (24 hr maint. today) and I would like to be as raid ready as possible. I have read all the priest guides, and I now need some interactive help.

    Thanks in advance.

  2. #2
    Kind of hard to say without knowing what is included in that 14/57/0 spec specifically. It makes a huge difference if you are speced for using renew as a filler or if you are still into the old early/mid Ulduar habit of using FH as a filler to proc Serpendity for hasted PoH healing sequences. If specced properly into imp/emp renew, Blessed Resilience+ToF rather than emp healing you definatively need to let go of that FH button and use renew as your filler spell. It's also hard to tell why someone fell behind on total healing/effective healing/hps meters without knowing who was in the raid, what damage there was etc so can't help you on 1 fight specifically without having been there or having very detailed reports.
    Last edited by Blakkeyez; 2010-07-20 at 04:39 PM.

  3. #3
    I included my armory, so I guess that sums up a few questions.

  4. #4
    Noticed now that you linked your char. Well your spec is a bit of a mixed up thing. You need to decide on your playstyle and spec from that. (or actually preferrably the opposite - chose the best spec and learn to play that). There should be plenty of discussion on that topic on these forums already. Go search f ex the discussion on wether to take Surge of Light or not and the topics on renew spam. Or the basic guides.

    ---------- Post added 2010-07-20 at 04:46 PM ----------

    Also be a bit careful with the glyph of renew - it increases healing on a few targets but you will not be able to keep many targets renewed at once (which is key on some fights with constant incoming damage to stabilize healing).

  5. #5
    Swap renew glyph with PoH. Clean up your spec a bit, I'm sure you can find better specs on these forums..
    Get more haste. You can think of spellpower as roughly equal to haste, with haste being preferable I guess. In ICC however, haste is a very very clear winner.

    Don't get stuck with the notion of rotations, just deal with damage as it comes and think about when PoH will be useful. (PoH being useful requires 2 things: 600+ (pref 800+) haste AND 3 damaged people in one group).
    Generally, it's not worth casting flash heals on purpose for the sake of stacking serendipity. If you need to PoH, do it regardless of having stacked serendipity or not.

    I recommend 4pc t10 and tuskarr's on boots

    Also, when there's a lot of damage, PoH first and then CoH. Your bread and butter should definitely be PoH; CoH can fill gaps afterwards.

  6. #6
    Well, me swapping from my holy paladin to my holy priest caused a gap that needs to be filled. Any suggestions for tank Disc/Holy specs and gemming templates?

  7. #7
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    You referencing all those meter numbers makes me cringe and sad at the same time. 3 Weeks ago I lambasted our Raid leader when he threatened to kick me from the raid because my meter numbers were no where close to the Restro Druids numbers. ( Druid was raid healing and I'd been asked to go Disc off spec to tank heal ) It was at that point that I shot back to him the Overhealing numbers showing the druid doing 87% Overheals, then saying, "I don't give a rats ass about numbers or meters. I only care about effective healing."

    Ditch the worry about numbers. Effectively heal and the Boss dies and the Raid lives. INC loot.

  8. #8
    Well, in my humble opinion, if your output is high, you're doing your job.

    If the top druid in the raid did 8.6k hps, while you do 3.2k, sure you downed the boss, but you got carried, especially if you're a raid healer and you're doing the same job as a resto druid. Sure I don't really care about numbers, but it's output that counts. I was bottom on the overhealing chart with those numbers.

  9. #9
    Just going by my memories of togc25 on my holy priest...

    After gormok i would be SIGNIFICANTLY ahead of the other healers,
    after worms died, others would have caught up to me, notably resto druids.
    after icehowl, it would be pretty even, but hots are pretty dramatic for topping people off while stunned from the crash

    Jaraxxus didn't feel like a great fight for me ever. I recall being middle of the pack.

    Faction champs i was typically low, dispelling (defensively as well, the dots tick for ridiculous amounts, so get rid of them)

    For twins, we always did the cheesy door strat because we have many dps who arent smart or who have bad computers and play with 2 fps in 25mans. Here I was (unsurprisingly) behind the druids, but by all means certainly high. The cooldowns and burst healing that holy priests brought to that fight made it possible with that strategy, I don't think druids with their lolhots could've handled the vortexes.

    Much to my dismay, we never seriously attempted anub because some of the administration in the guild was lazy, did not want to find a block tank, and the fight is so ridiculously gimmicky. Everybody needs special gear and/or talents/glyphs.

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  10. #10
    Deleted
    To try and answer your questions directly:

    1. Is my rotation adequate for maintaining good HPS thoughout the fight?

    So long as you're flexible, you're doing it roughly right. Try not to make CoH too maintainancey/rotationary. Especially with fights such as beasts where damage is a lot more spikey than consistant (obviously this doesn't apply to aura fights like Valks or even constant-damage fights like Faction Champs). More raid-renewing isn't a bad case on most encounters, simply given that encounter design nowadays generally suggests that raid targets are likely to take damage in the near future.

    2. What should I include in my rotation to further increase my out-put?

    I really dislike the idea of a "rotation" playing Holy. Unless the damage is in a 100% consistent pattern you really can't have a "rotation". Your priorities are about right for standard raid healing though, as I say, you could be using Renew more on your raid-members (in place of Flash where appropriate).

    3. Should I swap to discipline? (armory: )


    That may be quite a good idea. You have a fairly high amount of crit for Holy, and a fairly low amount of haste (most of which coming from gems which you would replace). I'd say your gear generally suits Discipline more than it does Holy.

    4. Is my SP, crit, haste, mp5, and intellect where they should be at for HICC25 content?

    Your spellpower and regen seem fine, though I think your Crit and Haste priorities are somewhat reversed for Holy. You have a lot of crit pieces and rather low haste for playing Holy, which is generally a more suitable gear setup for Discipline.

    5. Do I need to regem anything?

    I personally wouldn't gem 10haste/10spi, I'd go 12sp/10spi, but that's preference I guess. Overall your gemming is fine for Holy.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Lysdexic View Post
    Swap renew glyph with PoH.
    I dont agree with this, i'd leave the glyph of renew. You're specc'd into renew, and imp renew, so i'm guessing you use renew over flash heal as your filler.


    @the OP - Your spec could do with a little work. You have wasted points in talents such as Imp Healing, and again with the Divine Fury, i'd swap that to Spell Warding.
    Last edited by Eyxx; 2010-07-22 at 11:43 AM.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Eyxx View Post
    I dont agree with this, i'd leave the glyph of renew. You're specc'd into renew, and imp renew, so i'm guessing you use renew over flash heal as your filler.
    Glyph of Renew makes more sense for 10M than for 25M. If he's doing 25M content, glyph of renew has the potential to be counter-productive. Yes, it ticks for more but you are able to keep in on far fewer targets. It's a matter of weighing whether you want more powerful hots ticking or just more hots ticking. Running w/o it glyphed lets you cover more of the raid.

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  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Eyxx View Post
    I dont agree with this, i'd leave the glyph of renew. You're specc'd into renew, and imp renew, so i'm guessing you use renew over flash heal as your filler.
    If you where to swap any for glyph of PoH, it would be the CoH.
    Terrible advice, don't listen to this. Renew glyph is terrible for renew specced priests.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eyxx View Post
    I dont agree with this, i'd leave the glyph of renew. You're specc'd into renew, and imp renew, so i'm guessing you use renew over flash heal as your filler.
    If you where to swap any for glyph of PoH, it would be the CoH.

    @the OP - Your spec could do with a little work. You have wasted points in talents such as Imp Healing, and again with the Divine Fury, i'd swap that to Spell Warding.
    Both Divine Fury and Spell Warding have their uses. If you notice that you can use Greater Heal without too much overheal on a slightly regular basis, I'd go with Divine Fury.
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  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Eyxx View Post
    I dont agree with this, i'd leave the glyph of renew. You're specc'd into renew, and imp renew, so i'm guessing you use renew over flash heal as your filler.
    If you where to swap any for glyph of PoH, it would be the CoH.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kalmah View Post
    Terrible advice, don't listen to this. Renew glyph is terrible for renew specced priests.
    Not to mention what terrible advice it is to tell him to let go of the CoH glyph in the first place. One additional target on one of your most powerful spells is massive.


    I know you mention that you don't want to have set rotations and that is good. You shouldn't. But try to get into the habit of using CoH and PoM on cooldown. There is almost always something that need those heals. This does of course not mean that you should do it when waiting on some phase transition when no one at all are taking damage or anything. And if you know you still have 3 charges left on your PoM and it's on a target that you know will take damage there is no need to refresh it of course. But try to get it into your mindset that you are aware of everytime those spells comes of cooldown (there are plenty of addons that can help you track it as well if you need that).

    Think of it as if you are laying a foundation of heals while the rest of your brain is figuring out if someone need to be saved immediately, who will be taking damage soon because of some predictable ability or if you have time to help the druids topping off a couple of targets, if theres breathing room to get some mana back with Hymn of Hope and/or shadowfiend etc. Those decisions will be affected by what you are assigned to heal but in general you should use renew both as a buffer for smaller upcoming damage, for anything that you thought you needed to use FH (the frontloaded heal + the hot is usually more than enough) and for targets that need to run away from you (very common thing in both ToGC and ICC because of debuffs that have you go to others or away from others).

    You should also maintain renews on a set group of targets to counter constant damage auras and this is where that glyph of renew comes in. If you are assigned to heal a few set targets then the glyph is strong as long as you don't have to be away from your targets. If you are assigned to cover a larger chunk of the raid then the glyph will work against you. This will mostly depend on your raid composition and what you are expected to do. In 10-mans there are fewer targets to begin with which makes the glyph a solid choice for that.

    When more targets are taking predictable big chunks of damage you should/could be using PoH instead to cover the raid. There are some drawbacks to this though that you need to be aware of. First the rather long cast time without haste can be deadly on fights where the damage comes in constantly. For big damage bursts that you can predict and have the PoH land timely it's an awesomely effective spell even without loads of haste but in situations where target may die in the meantime renews will be more effective. You need to learn when the first one is better than the other or when it's safe to use a mix of both. The second drawback is that casting too much PoH consume a lot of mana. The glyph of PoH tend to result in a lot of overhealing but it's not a bad choice as a third after CoH and Guardian Spirit as the other options are not that great (unless you use glyph of renew in specific situations or Flash Heal if you are really starved on mana and cast that more than you should).

    What makes a priest really powerful is that we have plenty of different heals for many different situations. Use that to your advantage. Do not forget you can use Binding Heal when you and a target need a heal at the same time. There are situations where you may want to Flash Heal but always remember that you probably could have healed instantlu and more effectively with renew. It's easy when you are used to casting lots of Flash Heals to underestimate the power of that initial tick of renew. you really only need to get a feel for that in practice to know when a Flash Heal is really needed.

    Greater Heals are sort of the black sheep of the family. The situations where you would actually need to cast them are very few. The priest camp is somewhat divided between those who still pick up the cast time reduction talents to be able to cast a really fast GH with Serpendity stacked if they need to help out with a really big heal on the tank or so (your paladin or shaman that was main tank healing may have run off someplace) and those that disregard it completely because we have other tools to deal with that and the situation is so rare that spending 10 talent points to strengthen it isn't worth it. I tend to agree with the latter.

    Another heal you may want to use that is a bit debated is Divine Hymn. It can be a very powerful spell to get a raid that goes into a really bad state to get back on track again. If you use it you should be using it with inner Focus activated to get that 2k+ mana cost reduced to zero (and a few guaranteed crits to go with it). There are arguments against this such as renew on multiple targets being as effective in many cases without taking you out of the fight for several seconds channelling. I like it for a simple reason. It buys me time to think. When the shit hits the fan sometimes being able to hit that button and then have a few seconds to evaluate the incoming chaos is what I need to get the situation under control and start building the raid up to full health again. It's maybe just that others are more pro than me and don't need that but it suits me. One warning though. Never use it as an "automatic heal device" to get the raid up when you are assigned to stay on a specific group. I'm thinking Mimiron phase two or Blood-Queen Lana'thel for example with healing assigned to groups. You can't predict who it will heal. Other healers are busy with their targets. They will likely be happy for the support heal on their lowest targets that your Hymn provides but you may end up with your own group dead. Careful!

    That's a few tips along the way that could help you a bit at least I hope. Good luck.
    Last edited by Blakkeyez; 2010-07-21 at 05:02 AM.

  16. #16
    Makes me sad when healing has a rotation, can't wait for cataclysm to come out!

    But yea, I wouldn't worry too much about healing numbers. You say you felt carried because the druid did more healing than you but that's just the way druids are, spam rejuv/wg. The only way to compete against that is renewx4, coh, mending but most likely if the druid has good gear you still wont get close to him. He'll have a little less healing done, you'll have a little more but it's not like he had to work extra hard cause you did less healing. Who knows maybe you had a clutch guardian spirit or flash heal or mending or body and soul shield that stopped a death; and in the end preventing death and helping kill bosses is what we do and those won't show up on any meters.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Blakkeyez View Post
    Not to mention what terrible advice it is to tell him to let go of the CoH glyph in the first place. One additional target on one of your most powerful spells is massive.
    I got my spells backwards (had my head up my ass when typing this.) CoH is a must, PoH is a dam selfish glyph.

    Flash Heal= nice to use when surge of light is procc'd, it proc's enough to get your 3 stacks of serendipity pretty fast.
    Last edited by Eyxx; 2010-07-22 at 11:44 AM.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Eyxx View Post
    Flash Heal= nice to use when surge of light is procc'd, it proc's enough to get your 3 stacks of serendipity pretty fast.
    What?

    Surge of Light = no mana cost
    Glyph of Flash Heal = Reduced Mana cost

    They don't stack in any way, shape, or form. If you have a SoL proc the glyph is useless

  19. #19
    Deleted
    I unfortunately can't access your armory, it doesn't seem to be working. And I recently respecced holy to shadow for fun so I can't link my own spec either, doh. But I'll try to explain a bit of my speccing and healing, and maybe you can get some new ideas from that.

    Regarding meters, I'm usually first or second while being holy, and last if I'm being disco (one of your best heals doesn't even count towards your hps..). Remember to not only analyze the numbers, but what actually happened in the fight. Did you get to do massive group healing, and did loads of PoH and CoH and PoM? It'd be weird for you not to be first (think Stinky and Precious). But in fights where the tanks are taking the bulk of the damage, I wouldn't be surprised to have a pally or drood take the first spot.

    Rather than rotation, I have a priority. Renew up on tanks at all times. PoM on every cooldown (most often on the tanks). CoH on every cooldown. PoH in those "oooshit the whole raid went down to 5%" moments, especially when you know it's coming. Renew and flash heal on anyone who takes damage, but depends a bit on the type of damage. Random spike damage - flash heal, or continuous damage - renew.

    As for speccing I avoid everything that boosts Greater Heal since I never ever use it. I go with both the Flash Heal glyph and Surge of Light since flash heal is such a big part of my healing. As for renew I took the talents that boosts it (instant healing! booyah), but avoided the glyph since I feel that having it last longer actually heals for more (and the way I heal - using it when there's small damage all the time - I only need small healing)

    Of course you need to adjust your healing after the encounter, CoH on Saurfang isn't gonna do you much good. There's probably different ways to do it, but you wanted numbers, and this is how I get there, just don't let the numbers blind you.

  20. #20
    Rather than rotation, I have a priority.
    PoM on every cooldown snip CoH on every cooldown
    ???

    Maybe I'm just arguing semantics now, but I think even priority is the wrong word to use (especially in this case).
    Call it a tendancy. I tend to use PoM on cooldown. I tend to keep renew on tanks. It's stupid to say that 1) Renew on tanks is #1 priority and a commandment.
    Sorry Mr. Dps about to die, I can't save you because refreshing renew on tanks has a higher priority than you!!

    If you do 10mans, there's a good chance you'll need greater heal. It's still a nice spell, so dont forget about it. CoH should, as has been stated many times already, not neccesarily be used on cooldown. It's not Wild Growth.

    I also think flash heal is among the weakest spells in our toolbox, so making flash heal a core part of your game plan (2/2 SoL and FH glyph) seems a bit weak to me.

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