tank healing as holy

[crocodylus]

i am a holy raid healer but sometimes i may be put into the role of tank healing because my guild is low on healers...i find it difficult to make the adjustment. is it possible to be a good tank healer as holy? have any good strategies for me? thanks.

[Deleted]

We need more info here.. I dont even know if you're a holy priest or holy paladin

[Chucknourishh]

its kinda obvious hes a priest why would a holy pally say hes a raid healer thrown into tank healing

[ziwcam]

We need more info here.. I dont even know if you're a holy priest or holy paladin

Also, considering this is in the priest forums…

[eternalwhitemoon]

It is possible to be a decent tank healer as Holy.

I don't have too many specific pointers for you, however, other than abuse your HW: Serenity, and use Serendipity for when the tank is getting bursted.

I'm sure that the legit awesome priests will be in the thread momentarily. Just don't give up

[manos]

Chakra:Serenity
Use PoM on tank
Renew 100% uptime on tank refreshing with serenity, heal or GHeal
Big spikes of damage on tank= flash heal to stack seredipity and then GHeal

[Skygoneblue]

Agree with Manos. Holy tank healing isn't easy, but it's possible.

1. Definitely get yourself into single-target Chakra (Serenity). The instant-cast burst heal is mandatory.
2. Renew and constantly refresh with Heal. This should be fairly mana-neutral with enough Spirit.
3. Renew and Heal won't be enough to keep the tank up. Depending on the fight, I watch the tank's health drop to 50-60%, then all at once... Holy Word: Serenity, Flash Heal x2 (to abuse the 25% crit buff from HW:S), and that should top the tank off well.
4. Because you did two Flash Heals, you'll have a nice Serendipity stack ready to drop a fat Greater Heal on the tank next time his health dips (which will inevitably be within 15 seconds).

From there, repeat Heal spamming until HW:S is off cooldown, and the tank needs another top off.

This isn't the *most* mana efficient way to do it, but I was able to keep our tank up in 10m Nefarian last night with that method, and was still able to throw an occasional CoH and PoH to help out the raid.

[crocodylus]

why would i post as a holy pally in the priest forums? im a priest.

thanks so much for the tips and replies, i will give it a try in my 10 man raids when i am called on to tank heal.

[Themos]

I holy tank heal quite a bit in FL10, we're on Majordomo at the moment and havent had a chance to do 10H fights yet (mostly due to attendance issues as well as our 8hrs/week raid schedule). However here are some pointers:


1) Stack Mastery over haste. Mana becomes much much easier, and your EoL + Renew on the tank is very efficient and has overheals ~20% or less.
2) Spam holy word serenity on cooldown, it's a small and very cheap heal and it bumps up your overall crit rate on direct heals toward 40%. *edit* Dont overheal too much, keep the tank at 90%+ health. Leave room for crits, b/c they will happen often.
3) Precast Gheals when the tank is topped off, castcancel by moving or whatever when it's about to go off and your tank is having a lucky avoidance string.
4) If your tank gets a couple hard RNG hits and gets low, spam Fheal, you can afford the mana b/c of mastery and you can use Gheal when he's up to about 80% to finish topping off. Instants like holy word serenity add to the burst up, if it's off CD use it in the mix.
5) Renew should never ever fall off, and use PoM on CD. If there are two tanks, Renew both but focus on one of them (youre not a holydin). And while it might feel natural, do not holy word the other tank. Save that crit buff for the one youre healing!
6) If you need to move to a better position due to AoE or range, dont be afraid to PWShield Body and Soul yourself. It's very handy to be able to move quickly and get back to healing.
7) Don't forget binding heal. If you and your tank are missing health, this is the spell to go for. Mostly not b/c of the HPS gain on the meter, but for the Serendipity buff(s) you gain which gives you bigger throughput on the tank.
8) Know when and how to use Guardian Spirit, and more importantly let your tanks know how this spell works. If a tank sees wings on himself, he save his CD's until *after* it procs and brings him up to half health *or* he can use Last Stand to inflate his health pool and boost the GS heal. Tanks at first are very reluctant to deliberately kill themselves but once they get used to the concept, most love it b/c it allows them to cheese their abilities better.


Hope that helps, I've tank healed everything in FL with only 2 healers in our raids:
Shannox (OT and MT), Spider skank (up and down), Alysrazor (i love this fight).
Ryolith I went HW Sanctuary
Baeloric, we 3 healed but I stacked sparks to 50+ first and did the majority of the heavy healing from then on.

It works quite well, and especially with reforging to mastery Im much more comfortable with managing my mana pool. Haste tends to screw you the last leg of the fight, when a lot of stuff in the zone is enraging =/

[FieryBull]

Generally keep HW:S on cooldown, but wait abit if you know it's gonna be useful in a few seconds (say the tank is full). Never ever mindlessly spam flash heal, at worst you should be casting 2x flash heal and greater heal in sequence (avoid doing that). But generally a single flash heal followed by greater heal will suffice (even in heroic fights).

Really, being good at it comes down to knowing how much mana you have to waste for the damage incoming, use the less flash heal as possible. Do not use prayer of mending except during movement or when there's there is a lot of raid damage around the tank. It really really comes down to managing your mana efficiently. Never ever stand around doing nothing, cast heal when tank is full. (it'll help keeping the inspiration on the tank)

Obviously keep renew up 100% of the time, and the bulk of your healing should come from greater heal. You should get alot of critical heals if you use HW:S correctly, and you should avoid overhealing.

Use guardian spirit as often as you can to save mana and/or save tanks from big bursts of damage. The optimal moments to use it will come with experience of the fights and the class.

During AOE phases (rhyo last phase, beth last phase, major domo scorpion phase and alys blazing buffet phase), switch to sanctuary and use flash heal on the tank to cast prayer of healing faster on the raid. You'll need alot of mana to do it, but you should be stacking alot of spirit anyway since it's the second best stat after intelligence for us.

Use leap of faith and body of soul when it's useful, etc, etc.