How to improve my healing as a holy priest?

[Deleted]

Quick question: On my character (pressing "C"), it says I have 6,60% haste. Does this value include darkness or not? Because if it doesn't, I've been walking around with a lot more haste than I thought lol.

The haste rating shown on your character pane is from gear only. Though I do believe they are going to change it in the coming to patch to show your absolute haste, including talents and buffs.

[zenkai]

Sorry I meant 1.5x (which is still good) I was running out the door when I posted I tend to think as dps since for the moment I am primarily DPS(but I raid as holy a lot too), forgive me. I never said to stack crit I am just saying its not a bad stat one that you shouldn't avoid, there is no reason to stack haste, have haste is good but this isn't LOL WOTLK healing there is no reason to spam your spells if everyone is doing everything right. Healing to me is actually easier than it's ever been as a raider because you can actually think before you cast instead of playing wack-a-mole. So many people don't even know or understand the math on spreadsheets but they will chant what is being said as popular because that's what everyone else says.

Simple answer Haste = HPS and very little HPM on hots, the more you stack the less effective it is as lowering your spell casting and GCD
Crit = HPM/HPS procs inspiration, tends to not OH as much thanks to inflated health pools, but it's RNG so not one to count on.

And pointing out ones achievement is not a bad thing, if anyone has grown and changed with a game and knows its a different game i''s a person who has raided since classic and played the same class. I have had to adjust to many new play styles over the years, there has been many people who say x talent or x stat sucks and yet I have played with and out healed these same people. I was using lightwell during Heroic progressions back when people laughed at you for having it in WOTLK. TLDR is shows experience and experience is something you can't spreadsheet

Anyway there's not a whole lot of crit healing gear out there and you should never reforge for it and people who keep harping about a post i made a month ago especially when I didn't even bring up anything about crit is rather absurd and sad.

[Malania]

Sanctuary has a few different uses but yes, pointless in 10 mans but its not terrible in 25's given Holy Priest mana regen can afford it quite easily in a 25 man. It is situational but there's more than one or 2 situations.

I use it for Maloriak, Cho'gall, Magmaw, Chimaeron, Algaloth (sometimes) & Nefarion (P1/3 for crackles).

So theres a few encounters where raid grouping is needed with high AOE you can slip it in. You could do without it easily but I rarely notice much in the form of mana cost at this point. I've noticed my friend on HC Omnitron Defence use it with everyone elses when Magmatron is up.

[Mazi]

Quick question: On my character (pressing "C"), it says I have 6,60% haste. Does this value include darkness or not? Because if it doesn't, I've been walking around with a lot more haste than I thought lol.

Currently it does not include any haste benefit from buffs and talents. So if you are 3/3 in darkness you have 9.6% haste.

In 4.0.6 it will include those benefits on the char sheet.

[Daetrin]

Archicortex -

I think I may be able to help some of your woes by using examples of what was hardest for me to get used to in Cata:

Tank Healing:
- Renew Renew Renew. Make sure it's always up.
- HW: Serenity every Cooldown - it heals for as much as Heal, costs less, and buffs the crit on your next 2 heals basically. (Enough time for a Flash x Greater combo)
- Binding Heal is your Friend - it Stacks Serendipity
- Flash x Greater Combos are fantastic uppers for tanks with Serendipity
- PoM only in emergencies, it costs a lot to not have it bounce more than 2 times.
- Communicate with your tank so he doesn't blow Shield Wall or Last Stand at the same time you blow Guardian Spirit.

Raid Healing:
- 4.0.6 Renew is your friend again! Use it when 3 or less people need healing. When 4 or more need healing, PoH
- HW: Sanctuary may not heal for a lot, but it is a FANTASTIC supplement. Having a group standing in Sanctuary while you PoH + CoH combo will do some major healing.
- Try not to chain cast PoH on groups - the Glyph *will* overwrite itself, even if it is weaker. If you can manage, let the Glyph tick out before you do another PoH. Sometimes this can't be helped.
- Single Target Heals are never your friend in Raid Healing, use sparingly. - they will make you oom too fast, and it is a detriment to what other raid healers are doing. (Imagine a Priest and a Druid Raid healing, while you chose to Single target a group member up to full instead of AoE healing, you just waste the HoTs that the Druid just put on that target)

The ultimate point I'm trying to get across is:
- Chakra stances are your friend.
- Holy Priests have more versatility than any healer: It is our great strength, and our Achilles heel. I have 16 buttons for different healing situations.
- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY - Train your raid to use the lightwell. It is immensely powerful. No spell in the game save for perhaps Lay on Hands provides such healing for so little mana invested.

I'm leveling a priest and this is exactly the type of advice I'm looking for. But I've seen some people advise using PoM all the time and others not. Is it more useful in 5-mans than raids?

[Archicortex]

AS far as i've understood it, you should use PoM as long as it'll jump to at least 3 people and actually heal them. i.e, if only 2 players are taking damage in a group of 5 (tank and one melee dps), there should be no need to throw a single PoM. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Mazi]

AS far as i've understood it, you should use PoM as long as it'll jump to at least 3 people and actually heal them. i.e, if only 2 players are taking damage in a group of 5 (tank and one melee dps), there should be no need to throw a single PoM. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, if it will jump twice it has high HPM. But that doesn't mean that if it doesn't jump twice that it isn't good healing, just not mana efficient.

[Zeuq]

Currently it does not include any haste benefit from buffs and talents. So if you are 3/3 in darkness you have 9.6% haste.

It's multiplicative, not additive, so if you have 6.60% on your character sheet, you have 9.80% with 3/3 Darkness and 15.29% with both 3/3 Darkness and 5% raid buff.

---------- Post added 2011-02-01 at 10:45 AM ----------

Yes, if it will jump twice it has high HPM. But that doesn't mean that if it doesn't jump twice that it isn't good healing, just not mana efficient.

As an example, when tank healing, it's often worth casting when you're forced to move and Serenity is on CD, even if it likely won't proc more than once; it's better than not casting on the move and potentially being forced to cast a Flash Heal to catch up once you're done moving. It will be even better for this sort of situation in 4.0.6 with the new glyph.

[Daetrin]

Thanks guys, that sort of "how to think" is really useful for me. Of course I still have to spend time healing but hopefully less time noobing it up.

[ainra]

Archicortex -

I think I may be able to help some of your woes by using examples of what was hardest for me to get used to in Cata:

Tank Healing:
- Renew Renew Renew. Make sure it's always up.
- HW: Serenity every Cooldown - it heals for as much as Heal, costs less, and buffs the crit on your next 2 heals basically. (Enough time for a Flash x Greater combo)
- Binding Heal is your Friend - it Stacks Serendipity
- Flash x Greater Combos are fantastic uppers for tanks with Serendipity
- PoM only in emergencies, it costs a lot to not have it bounce more than 2 times.
- Communicate with your tank so he doesn't blow Shield Wall or Last Stand at the same time you blow Guardian Spirit.

Raid Healing:
- 4.0.6 Renew is your friend again! Use it when 3 or less people need healing. When 4 or more need healing, PoH
- HW: Sanctuary may not heal for a lot, but it is a FANTASTIC supplement. Having a group standing in Sanctuary while you PoH + CoH combo will do some major healing.
- Try not to chain cast PoH on groups - the Glyph *will* overwrite itself, even if it is weaker. If you can manage, let the Glyph tick out before you do another PoH. Sometimes this can't be helped.
- Single Target Heals are never your friend in Raid Healing, use sparingly. - they will make you oom too fast, and it is a detriment to what other raid healers are doing. (Imagine a Priest and a Druid Raid healing, while you chose to Single target a group member up to full instead of AoE healing, you just waste the HoTs that the Druid just put on that target)

The ultimate point I'm trying to get across is:
- Chakra stances are your friend.
- Holy Priests have more versatility than any healer: It is our great strength, and our Achilles heel. I have 16 buttons for different healing situations.
- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY - Train your raid to use the lightwell. It is immensely powerful. No spell in the game save for perhaps Lay on Hands provides such healing for so little mana invested.

I think this is very good advice. We don't have to talk about haste or mastery - while those are important to understand, it all comes down to personal prefernce and your raid. That will vary, we all just need to accept that! Crit is an unreliable stat no matter how you turn it though, so I don't think it's even worth mentioning. If you get it on gear that's an upgrade, well that happens, just reforge it to whatever your little heart desires and you will be better off.

[Deleted]

Learning what to heal makes the question " how to heal " alot easier. Sure, there are guidelines but if you just go by what other people says instead of understanding it then it's just a simple " rotation ".

The key to improving is practice. And tips on the way sure is helpful but you'll need to work that out yourself as well since another's situation may not be exactly the same as your own. Therefore the reason I made such an in depth post.

As for stats spreadsheet will always be spreadsheet. No stat is generally bad unless it really isn't for your class. Str for a caster etc but the secondary stats is something that we can favorize and tweak with as we want.

Haste is like I said a good throughput stat. As I didn't mention critt is that it is, in a raid healing perspective ( - holy ) less reliant than Haste + Mastery. Raid healing WILL benefit more from a sustainable and active healing rather than the RNG for a critt here or there whilst you benefit more on the overall increase from other stats.

THIS doesn't mean it's a bad stat, it all comes down to a certain preference. In Disc - Critt is very valuable due to Divine Aegis proccs.

So skip the stat vs stat discussion, it's not like anyone's wrong nor right. It's just that you need to overview the perspective.

[ruzhy6]

Sorry I meant 1.5x (which is still good) I was running out the door when I posted I tend to think as dps since for the moment I am primarily DPS(but I raid as holy a lot too), forgive me.

What exactly do you DPS as? Because its 1.5x for all spells. It is only 2x for melee.

[Zeuq]

What exactly do you DPS as? Because its 1.5x for all spells. It is only 2x for melee.

Yes, all spells are 1.5x Crits by default, but all DPS casters get 2x crits from their specialization.

[Afflictid]

I fail to see how haste is better then mastery. A 3% reduced cast time doesn't make up for 3% increased healing (random numbers). You simply can't stack enough haste in this raid teir, hence why Mastery is better for now.

Afflictid - Goblin Holy Priest - Laughing Skull - Night Lords (currently number one Horde guild on the server)

---------- Post added 2011-02-01 at 12:52 PM ----------

[QUOTE=Zeuq;10297371]It's multiplicative, not additive, so if you have 6.60% on your character sheet, you have 9.80% with 3/3 Darkness and 15.29% with both 3/3 Darkness and 5% raid buff.[COLOR="red"]

Hey I'd just like to point something out. I'm pretty sure you are calculating it as 33% not 3%.
Also, it isn't multiplicative. I literally adds 3% spell haste. So to have the extra tick of renew with 3/3 Darkness and full raid buffs, it would only ake 4.5% Haste.

[Zeuq]

Hey I'd just like to point something out. I'm pretty sure you are calculating it as 33% not 3%.
Also, it isn't multiplicative. I literally adds 3% spell haste. So to have the extra tick of renew with 3/3 Darkness and full raid buffs, it would only ake 4.5% Haste.

1.066 x 1.03 x 1.05 = 1.152879 or ~15.29% Haste. That is the number I posted, and it is the correct value.

It takes 4.022% or 516 Haste Rating to get a fifth tick, and we can prove this using the same process in reverse starting with the 12.5% Haste at which Renew gains that tick. 1.125 / 1.03 / 1.05 = 1.04022 or ~4.022% We also know that it takes 128.125 Haste Rating to get 1% Haste at 85, so 4.022 * 128.125 = 515.32, rounding up to 516.

If you're going to correct math posts, please make sure you have correct math first.

[zenkai]

4.022 * 128.125 = 515.32, rounding up to 516.

You know you're the first person other than me who I have seen used 128.125 has their haste value, but I been using 128.057 because everyone else is so I assumed I did something wrong when I was calculating haste values.

[Apostle]

I think anyone who has played a holy priest for any length of time knows this: by themselves, our individual healing spells aren't much to write home about. What makes us effective are our wide variety of heals which are to be used in conjunction with one another (PoH, CoH, PoM, Renew, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, Serenity/Sanctuary and the HoTs accrued by Mastery).

I don't use the basic Heal spell personally, but if you want to jeopardize your party/raid members with a spell that takes as long to cast as Greater Heal while being 1/4 effective then I guess knock yourself out.

We have more HoTs and smart heals than you can poke a stick at, making our basic heal entirely redundant. We're all about layering aoe heals and hots, and if it starts to heat up then we have spells like Binding Heal, Greater Heal, Guardian of Spirit and Divine Hymn to tip the scales back in our favour. Mana consumption while using this method should not be an issue at all, for any encounter.

Trinkets, Potions of Concentration, and most importantly Shadowfiend + Hymn of Hope are there to be used and have reasonable CD timers, enabling their use more than once in nearly all raid encounters - not to mention the mana regen benefits offered up by fellow raid members.

For encounters that require the raid to stack, be sure to co-ordinate with your fellow raid healer(s) and stack your static AoE heals on the raid, this is insanely mana-efficient and healing effective. For encounters where raid members are spread out, you have Power Word: Serenity - an instant cast single-target heal which buffs the target with increased healing crit chance. This makes all heals on the target more effective (including Renew), and is great for getting those low hps up quickly in a pinch. Inner Will is also great (I have it on pretty much all the time, as a lot of our heals our instant cast, the mana reduction is invaluable - don't be too concerned about missing out on the spell power of Inner Fire - you need to balance quality with quantity).

Then there's Lightwell... 4x more powerful than Renew and can be clicked from 20 yards away. Setting up a macro which reminds raiders to click it is essential at the moment in my mind, and reminding members during the raid that its there never hurts. Raiders for the most part still see the Wrath 'lolwell' as opposed to the 'totally OP lightwell' that it is in Cataclysm.

What makes Holy Priest awesome I think is that we can run around, throwing out instant cast spells hand over fist, while stopping to layer PoH quickly followed by CoH during heavy AoE damage. Meanwhile we've got a PoM bouncing around, mastery HoTs ticking over, Renews on the chosen few, and a few other great spells to carry any excess weight.

[Mazi]

I think anyone who has played a holy priest for any length of time knows this: by themselves, our individual healing spells aren't much to write home about. What makes us effective are our wide variety of heals which are to be used in conjunction with one another (PoH, CoH, PoM, Renew, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, Serenity/Sanctuary and the HoTs accrued by Mastery).

I don't use the basic Heal spell personally, but if you want to jeopardize your party/raid members with a spell that takes as long to cast as Greater Heal while being 1/4 effective then I guess knock yourself out.

So you talk about Serenity but you never use Heal? Please explain that?

How is Heal bad for tank healing when raid takes no damage? What do you do when there is no one taking damage? Not heal at all? Overheal the tank with Gheal & waste mana? I'm very curious

[ruzhy6]

Yes, all spells are 1.5x Crits by default, but all HYBRID DPS casters get 2x crits from their specialization.

I didn't notice that, thank you. Fixed for accuracy however.


Afflictid:
Actually a 3% decrease in cast time is very slightly ahead of(but practically equal) to a 3% increase to healing for said spell. Due to HPS being a rate:

Rate = Quantity / Time
HPS = Heal / Second

Not to mention the increased HPS of any HoT.

[Apostle]

So you talk about Serenity but you never use Heal? Please explain that?

Don't be a moron, obviously I'll cast it just so Serenity procs.

Yes, if no one is taking damage I don't heal at all. I'll just regen. if I'm anticipating that the target is about to take damage. I'll throw up a bubble and a renew, then wait to see how it plays out - perhaps proc Serenity and have it active & ready to go incase there's a sudden spike in damage received on the target.

I don't overheal the tank with Gheal... its called 'triage healing'.