Healing as Holy

[h3lladvocate]

Hi, I usually heal as disc, but lately, I've been asked to go holy for better raid healing potential. The problem I'm having is that A. I seem to run out of mana MUCH faster than disc and B. my overall healing output is much lower. Can anyone help to figure out why this may be the case. My "rotation" is CoH every CD > PoM every CD > Flash Heal if SoL Proc > refresh renew on tank > Flash Heal any remaining damage > Greater Heal w/ 3 stack Serendipty if absolutly needed. Here is a link to my armory. I use the same gear for disc and holy.

Edit: Appearently I can't post links yet... Um... how do I link my armory then?

[Auraye]

If you are taking the absorbs of PW:S into the equation, it's been my experience that a competent disc always comes out on top of holy, if not #1 for EHPS for most fights. The absorb comes before a health deficit for you to heal - basically, other healers get the "leftovers" that a shield didn't catch. Not only will absorbs beat reactive heals to the punch, you also run the chance of sniped heals. Don't beat yourself up about it. I'm not saying that you can't improve, but game mechanics are working against you when you compare disc to holy.

The reason why you're running out of mana faster may due to no longer getting mana returns from Rapture procs.

I'm curious as to why they'd tell you to drop disc for holy. Disc also brings Renewed Hope, a 3% damage reduction for the entire raid. It just sounds strange to me. Do you not already have a holy in your raid?

Can you copy and paste your armory URL? If you just tell us the toon name and the realm you're on, we can also look it up ourselves.

[h3lladvocate]

Yea, I use skada, which count absorbs as well as heals. Here is my armory:
http: //www .wowarmory. com/character-sheet.xml?r=Burning+Legion&cn=Faera

Edit: Sorry, has to be like that, I'm new and new members cant post links =(

[Cirawin]

To my eyes, your gear isn't bad and your mana regen isn't all that terrible. Are you making sure to use your trinket cd along with your Shadowfiend? Your fiend solely exists to give you back some mana on long fights, don't be afraid to use it if you're getting down towards 35% and you still have more than 20% on the boss. If you can even squeeze it in, throw out your fiend, then channel Hymn of Hope to increase your mana pool temporarily, since your fiend returns mana based on your maximum mana.

As far as your output is concerned, you'll be up and down as a raid healer. Your biggest judge of your healing skill is if everyone stays alive, not where you rank on the meters. My advice is to not use your CoH immediately on cd, but make sure it makes sense when you actually do use it. If it makes sense to use it as soon as the cd is up every single time, then your team is doing something wrong. Also, it has a short range, so make sure you have enough people that it will hit and that they have enough health to heal back.

PoM isn't bad to use every cd, but I always play it by ear. If I'm not hearing it jump after a few seconds, then I'll see who it is on and make a quick judgment on if I think they will take damage soon. If you've played with your guild enough to know who's who, then this shouldn't be hard to figure out. If you're fairly certain that person will not take damage within the next couple of seconds, then throw it back out.

Also, renew is your friend. Don't underestimate it.

Those are my opinions, best of luck to you as you continue with Holy.

[vazar_da_priest]

holy priests stack spirit and haste

disc priests stack SP and haste

it that simple

[Auraye]

Disc priests don't stack haste.

[rknDA1337]

You prolly can't beat a disc on healing+absorb meters, so dont spill any tears about that.
CoH on CD, PoM on cd = good, but I think you should put up renews alot more on ppl taking dmg, it helps alot.

[Melonberry]

CoH on cd, PoM on cd, fill gaps with PoH. It's really the only other spell holy has that's worth a damn.

[AC]

Your gear looks pretty good, but you will certainly want to get over 600 haste ASAP. Before that point your Renew is better used if it is Glyphed, after your lose some healing because it heals the targets too fast.

When I heal ICC i tend to use Renew a good amount (as was said, Renew is your friend). Flash heal as needed and when you get to three stacks of Serendipity the decision is more of using Prayer of Healing. Greater Heal is still good, but when raid healing you want to make sure to heal the raid. The Glyph of Prayer of Healing makes this even better (I suggest you drop the Glyph of FH, Prayer of Healing is much more useful for raid healing). I tend not to use CoH every CD and use Renew and FH more often instead (unless the damage is clumped up of course).

I had posted on a "Rate the Healing Priest Above You" Thread and got some very very helpful talent advice. Here is my Armory:

Provi from Skywall, Guild is Knights of Nobility - won't even let me have a copy and pasted URL!)

It is the basic Holy build from what I know, but it does deviate somewhat from yours.

I'll explain some of the "Why's" of the build (and if I am wrong surely someone will correct me):
Healing Focus - it's nice and you will need the points there later
Spell warding - take this to reduce some of the damage you take, Divine fury is nice but Greater heal isn't that important (you have Serendipity for making Greater Heal faster).
Healing Prayers - you want to be using Prayer of Healing to heal the raid
Blessed Resilience - basically a 3% increase in healing
Body and Soul - seems like it is not too useful, BUT it actually has some practicality aside from moving down to the next tier, the movement speed is nice on certain fights (and I'll save the examples since this is already long winded)
Empowered Healing - I was basically told that these points could be used in better places


As was said earlier raid healing doesn't really have numbers to follow but is more, "Are raid members dying?" Not to quote numbers from recount (but instead to use and example) I tend to range from 1.5k HPS to 6k+ HPS. It is all about the encounter and your other raid members.

Hopefully this was helpful!

[harky]

A few problems I can see:

1. Sounds like you're over-using Flash Heal. Try to rely a bit more on Renew.
2. Only cast PoM on cooldown when tank healing. PoM should be cast every ~10 seconds (slightly more than 10) otherwise.
3. You're also over-using CoH. It should not be blindly used on cooldown, but instead used when you know you can hit at least 4 targets with it for reasonable healing.
4. Spec problems. You need Healing Focus. Not optional. You need Healing Prayers. Not optional. Never put points into Empowered Healing unless Blessed Resilience is already maxed. Body and Soul is better than the remaining 2/5 Empowered Healing.
5. Gemming issues. It looks like you're very confused on what to do. I would recommend SP in Red, SP/Haste in Yellow and SP/Spirit in blue for you specifically. Just match gem colors as any bonus will be fine in keeping your stats well balanced.

You will blow through mana as Holy a bit faster than as Disc and you need to be more gung-ho about using cooldowns for mana, it's just a fact of life.

One thing to keep in mind is to never get into that whole, "Did anyone die?" mentality. It leads to very lazy healing. Your train of thought should always be to first make sure you are healing targets optimally and second to be as active as possible. If you can do those two things you'll never have to worry about low performance.

[kenn9530]

on my alt priest i heal as disc as on almost every fight i can be on top and i like to have shadow for my OS, for gems i just go for socket bonuses to balance stats betweem sp haste gems and sp spirit and if i go back holy the stats are good for that too, i would say just heal in what spec you prefer and disc is a little more fun i think. In holy i never really use flash heal i use renew spec and coh and pom on cd, but holy burns mana fast anyway but when im healing as anyone of my healers i burn mana fast anyway unless im on my pally.

[Azyoulike]

My "rotation" is CoH every CD > PoM every CD > Flash Heal if SoL Proc > refresh renew on tank > Flash Heal any remaining damage > Greater Heal w/ 3 stack Serendipty if absolutly needed.

Ok so first off, forget FH, well not completely but it's no longer your go-to heal. FH is now your emergency heal for somebody who won't survive long enough for renew, renew is your filler heal. Priority is more like this:

CoH > PoM > PoH (if 3 or more targets will benefit) > Renew

with FHeal only being used when somebody needs healing immediately.

Holy can outheal disco on aura fights, otherwise disco will generally outheal holy, after including absorbs ofc.

As for regen, like you my gear is gemmed and setup mostly for disco, so when I go holy I use PLD and Spark of Hope. If I had it I would use SoF & Spark. Ask guildies to help you farm them if they really want you to go holy.

[Cjeska]

Why does everybody say PoM on cd? If there is constant aoe damage, its better to just let is use up it's charges and put that gcd to better use. Thats the one reason why so many fail to heal as a holy priest, you can't just sqeeze all those abilitys into a one-fits-all rotation.

[Azyoulike]

Why does everybody say PoM on cd? If there is constant aoe damage, its better to just let is use up it's charges and put that gcd to better use. Thats the one reason why so many fail to heal as a holy priest, you can't just sqeeze all those abilitys into a one-fits-all rotation.

Because PoM hits for more than FH, even if it only jumps once. And since it is reactive it has very low overheal on tanks. Finally PoM procs inspiration, and keeping that up on the tank is a big help.

On non-aura fights PoM won't use up all its charges, it will most likely bounce to a dps target and languish there. If it's bouncing nicely between two tanks on mgar then sure, leave it unrefreshed, but that's quite rare.

So yes PoM on CD is useful even on non-aura fights - there is however a case for not using CoH on CD.

[Cjeska]

On non-aura fights PoM won't use up all its charges....
So yes PoM on CD is useful even on non-aura fights

How is that any different from what I said?

[Azyoulike]

How is that any different from what I said?

Sorry - I'm still half asleep - I had what you were saying backwards. Yeh you're right - on pure aura fights, let the fella jump.