constantius

Holy Priests and Raiding

Last updated (some stuff added, things moved around, new headers put in) July 21, 2008.

This is an attempt to condense all of the 'wisdom' shared in the previous compendium thread (See: [Priest] Holy Raiding Compendium (2.3.x)) and its predecessor (See: Holy Priest Theorycrafting) as well as other random scattered posts and threads on these forums. If you think there is something that should be added to the primary posts, send me a PM and I'll be happy to edit it in. Note that you can send PMs by left-clicking my name on the left box of this thread, above my Avatar.

Random Terms Used
OO5SR : Outside Of 5 Second Rule
I5SR : Inside 5 Second Rule
PoM : Prayer of Mending
PoH : Prayer of Healing
CoH : Circle of Healing
RSTS: Random Secondary Targetting System
HSE: Healing Spells & Effects (Blizzard notation for 'stuff that heals you')


 

Contents

1 Spec 2 Gearing Questions 3 Priest Regeneration (Math!) 4 Downranking and Spell Coefficients 5 Raiding as a Healing Priest 6 Consumables 7 Useful Addons and User Layout

[top] Spec

Q: What spec should I be as a holy priest?
A. If you are raiding T4, T5, or T6-pre-Sunwell content, and have (assumption) at least 2 resto shamans and 2 holy priests in the raid, the first priest should be 23/38/0 with 2/2 Improved Divine Spirit. The other priests should be deep Holy to pick up Circle of Healing, with points spent as you see fit. See further questions below for some indication as to where your points should be spent. This argument completely changes when you reach Sunwell, as CoH is decidedly overpowered for Felmyst, Twin Eredars, and (partially) Kil'Jaeden. In those situations, typically all priests spec CoH to bring the AE healing power to the raid.

Q: Is CoH worth it?
A: Depends on your level of content. If you're in T4 content, short answer is no. If you're in SSC/TK, it is situationally powerful. If you're in BT/HS, yes. Absolutely. Additionally, if you are going deep Holy (for 5/5 Emp Healing), you might as well take CoH, as the only other thing you can get is regular Divine Spirit, which someone else in your raid should already have. If you are going into Sunwell, the entire instance appears to have been designed to showcase CoH, so exploit early, exploit often.

Q: Is Lightwell worth a talent point?
A: Not really. Take it if you want; you won't lose anything extremely important. Looking forward toward WotLK, it appears as if Lightwell may get enough of a buff to make it worth taking. Stay tuned.

Q: Should I take SoR?
A: Yes. Full stop. The 5% spirit is worth it if nothing else.

Q: Should I take inspiration?
A: Yes. There's nothing else worth taking that is raid-centric at the 3rd tier of our holy tree, and it's amazing for tank healing. If you choose not to take it, you should always attempt to *not* heal tanks, since you will be gimped compared to any other holy priest or resto shaman who *does* have the talent. See below (Link) in the Interesting Math Stuff section.

Q: How good is Holy Concentration?
A: It's very good. The 6% proc rate means it goes off at least once a minute, which helps immeasureably in getting those oh-so-sexy OO5SR ticks that make priests so powerful. If you happen to get back-to-back procs, you can get some amazing regen time while sustaining very solid HpS.

Q: Holy Reach - yes/no?
A: If you are going for a CoH build, taking Healing Reach actually gives you a 35 yard diameter CoH, which is useful. For Sunwell, this is a must talent; find room to take it.

Q: Healing Prayers vs Mental Agility?
A: Mental Agility affects Renew, PW:S, PoM, and CoH; Healing Prayers affects PoM and PoH which, if you use PoH at all, is a net win. Some people argue for the 4% toward CoH versus 20% toward PoH and 16% toward PoM -- it really depends which one you use more. Basically, get some WWS logs, and find out how many of each spell you cast in a typical Black Temple (insert instance here) clear. Then compute how much you would have saved from each talent, and find your highest efficiency combination. Then spec that.

If you're spamming CoH, then take 5/5 MA. If you're using PoH occasionally, take 2/2 HP, because the amount of mana per cast it saves more than makes up for the 18 mana differential saved on each CoH from the 2nd point in MA. You'd have to cast 14 CoHs for every PoH to save more mana from taking the last 1/5 point in MA over 2/2 HP. Note that this is completely ignoring the 12% gain to efficiency in PoM you gain from going 4/5, 2/2. I find I use PoM a lot over a given raid, and I typically spec 4/5 MA, 2/2 HP.

Q: Can you give me some typical builds (a la WoW:Priest Forums).
A: 20/41/0 : Build with Silent Resolve; recommended for learning attempts
20/41/0 : Build without Silent Resolve; highest HpS build possible with heavy concentration in CoH
23/38/0 : Build with Silent Resolve; IDS / learning attempts
23/38/0 : Build without Silente Resolve; IDS and heavier concentration in single-target healing

Comments on the above: Silent Resolve is a useful talent, but it isn't critical once you are experienced with the encounters you are facing. If you are working on Black Temple, once you are finished with Illidan and on farm-mode, consider dropping points out of Silent Resolve to pick up other interesting things. Improved PW:S, while not an amazing talent, still provides much more return for your talent points if you are not using the threat reduction part of Silent Resolve. Similarly any points you can fit into Absolution will always be useful. If you are going IDS there is absolutely no reason to pick up Holy Reach, so put those points into Holy Concentration to push your critical rate higher. You will be healing tanks anyway (single-target), so you might as well have the highest possible HpS while doing it.

[top] Gearing Questions

In Patch 2.3.0 Meditation was changed from 15% to 30%. In Patch 2.4.0 there was an entirely new regeneration model implemented which made Spirit much much more powerful than Mp5. In fact, the change was so extensive that there are almost no situations where a priest should choose Mp5 over Spirit.

When you are looking at a piece of gear, and asking yourself if it is an upgrade, there a number of questions you need to ask. Firstly, how would you gem the piece? Always compare pieces to each other fully gemmed (with or without socket bonuses depending on your gemming choices). If you are unsure about how to gem, try two or three or four different combinations, and see which one seems to give the best result.

Gear Benchmarks
Q: What level of gear should I be at for <insert progression level here>?
A: To run Karazhan: 1400 +heal, 180 Mp5 *or* 400 spirit. Easily obtained through crafted pieces.
At the end of Karazhan: 1600 +heal, 275 Mp5
At the end of T4 content: 1700 +heal, 325 Mp5
At the end of T5 content: 2000 +heal, 380 Mp5.
At the end of T6 content (BT/HS): 2400 +heal, 430 Mp5 (all Mp5 numbers are I5SR)

The question is often asked "How much haste do I need to do Sunwell?" There is no right answer to this question. Some people (myself included) entered Sunwell with 0 Spell Haste, picked up a little along the way, and only really began stacking it once Sunwell pieces were obtained. Other people walked into Sunwell with 250 Spell haste already, and only scaled it higher. See below for some discussion on the mathematics behind Spell haste, and how it effects HpS concerns for Greater Heal and CoH.

Also, see below (next subsection) for a discussion of Gemming, and how it impacts your decisions for gear.

Gearing as a priest in Black Temple / Hyjal Summit
I'm going to assume that our typical raiding priest is grinding out Black Temple. You might not have killed Illidan yet, but you're into T6 content. If you are not, and are happily chugging along in Karazhan or SSC/TK, similar things apply, but with different examples chosen.

If you are on your way to Illidan, things you should have equipped from previous instances include:
[Earring of Soulful Meditation] (Lurker Below, SSC)
[Sunshower Light Cloak] (Kael'Thas Sunstrider, TK)
[Gown of Spiritual Wonder] (Badge of Justice) or [Vestments of the Avatar] (Kael'Thas Sunstrider, TK)
[Brooch of Nature's Mercy] (Akil'zon, Zul'Aman)
[Coral Band of the Revived] (Vashj, SSC)
[Adorned Supernal Legwraps] (Badge of Justice) [note: Best in Slot until Sunwell ... buy these]

Basically, look for items with sockets, high spirit and intellect, large amounts of healing, and possibly spell haste. Do not wear items with Mp5 and no spirit -- these are decidedly inferior in every way to the spirit alternatives. Learn how to compute the regeneration from spirit, and compare items intelligently.

Example: [Gown of Spiritual Wonder] with a [Teardrop Crimson Spinel] equipped. You should know what your raid-buffed intellect is +/- 10. Know this number. Memorize it. I use the number 660.
Create a small table, something like:
So effectively, you can think of (if you wish) [Gown of Spiritual Wonder] as a robe with 155 Healing and 22 Mp5. That is effectively what you gain from the item, raid-buffed (Blessing of Kings, Spirit of Redemption). Make sure you include gems in any other robe you are comparing it to.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the only way to really make intelligent gear choices is to understand the mathematics behind gear scaling, and do the computations yourself. Be aware of how SoR, BoK, IDS and Spiritual Guidance all play factors in the scaling. Practice the comparison on a few items to make sure you know how it works.


Gemming
Q: What rare gems do priests use?
A: [Royal Nightseye].
[Luminous Noble Topaz]
[Teardrop Living Ruby]
(note: do not use [Dazzling Talasite] -- it's a horrible gem)
[Purified Shadow Pearl] replaces [Royal Nightseye] for those who like a little spirit in their life, since 4 spirit ~ 2 Mp5 I5SR

Q: What epic gems do priests use?
A: [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire]
[Purified Shadowsong Amethyst]
[Luminous Pyrestone]
[Teardrop Crimson Spinel]
[Quick Lionseye]

The power of the spirit gem has to be seen to be believed. Effectively, you lose some +heal to equip them, but gain a *lot* of regeneration, which allows you to mix up your gear a little and wear some healing-heavy, regeneration-light items to balance it out. I prefer running over 700 spirit raid-buffed, as I feel it provides the best bang for my buck.

Metagems
[Insightful Earthstorm Diamond]: the most useful, and easiest to equip, metagem. The proc goes off quite often, and typically restores 4000+ mana over a 10 minute fight. Very useful, and the intellect also helps.
[Bracing Earthstorm Diamond]: useful metagem, but somewhat difficult to get activated. The 26 healing S&E is largely useless compared to 2500 +heal, whereas the mana return from IED above is still useful in end-game.
[Mystical Skyfire Diamond]: easy to equip, but only really useful if you are spamming on a single target. The haste proc is powerful, and can be a significant part of your play style if you mess around with it and learn how to use it.

[top] Priest Regeneration (Math!)

2.4 made a dramatic sweeping overhaul to the regeneration model. Previously, mana was computed as a regen per 'tick' (2 second interval), and depended upon your total spirit with a static scaling constant. In 2.4, the formula has been changed to be:
(quite seriously; this is the formula. If you really don't like math, you still need to figure out a way to compute the square root of your Intellect and perform this calculation to determine how much regen you gain from spirit)

This makes Spirit incredibly more valuable as a stat for priests, and also makes intellect marginally useful, instead of merely giving us a mana pool to play with. It also approximately doubled our OO5SR regen (I personally went from 660 Mp5 OO5SR to over 1100 Mp5 OO5SR, a *slight* change).

Example: JoePriest has (fully raid-buffed) 500 spirit and 135 Mp5 from gearing, as well as 500 intellect. His regeneration will be:
Note that any Mp5 gained from gear is not effected by the Meditation talent (30%), but simply applies statically to both Inside and Outside regen.

Q: How do I take advantage of OO5SR regen?
A: This is basically an experience thing, but take the talents Inner Focus and Holy Concentration, and start using /stopcasting macros (more info on the UI forum). Stop your casts anytime the tank does not need your heal, and start another one. Timed properly, this can get you full 5 second ticks OO5SR, which is worth a lot of regen.

Using a Holy concentration proc chained into an Inner Focus together with /stopcasting can easily give 15-20 seconds Oo5SR, while still landing two max-rank GH:7 heals. The third heal will terminate the II5SR time, but actually gives one final tick at full regen because of cast time.

Cheating the 5 Second Rule
Priest regen is all about cheating the 5 second rule. Blizzard's 5 second rule is currently set so that upon completion of a spell which *costs mana* (the critical factor), you enter a 5 second period (I5SR) where you regenerate mana at a reduced rate. This rate is dependent on your talent choices (Meditation = 30% regen I5SR) and upon your gear choices (3-piece Primal Mooncloth = 5% regen I5SR).

Given that priests gain so much regeneration from spirit, the typical difference between a regen tick I5SR and OO5SR is approximately 2x. It can range from 2x on the low-end (Mp5-heavy gear) to 3x on the high-end (spirit-heavy gear). In any case, a tick OO5SR is worth a minimum of 2x I5SR. My current gearing gives me 2.56x as much regeneration from an OO5SR tick as an I5SR tick, raid-buffed (since so many raid buffs are static Mp5).

So how do we cheat the rule?

Firstly, Inner Focus is a guaranteed way to exit the 5SR, since it makes your next cast "free" of mana, and hence does not trigger the rule. Typical sequence is something like:

• top up your tank target
• wait 2 seconds
• hit Inner Focus
• start /stopcasting GH:7 until heal is actually needed
• start a new heal -- when it lands, you re-enter the 5SR

If the tank is not getting owned, and if you are not the solo healer on that tank, you should be able to get 7-10 seconds OO5SR before the 2nd heal lands.

You can do exactly the same thing with Clearcasting, although it's a little harder to lead up to it, as Clearcasting is a random chance proc.

There are two trinkets in the game which can aid in this method of play. The first is [Bangle of Endless Blessings], an annoying drop from Botanica (I say annoying because in 18 runs, it refused to drop for me, so I hate it). The second is a drop from Lurker Below in SSC, [Earring of Soulful Meditation]. Both have a 2-minute cooldown Use-Effect which increases your spirit by an amount for 15 seconds.

Thus, if your Inner Focus happens to be up at the same time as your trinkets, and you get a Clearcasting Proc, your sequence should be something like:

• wait 2 seconds (to get close to the end of your current 5 seconds)
• hit your trinket Use Effect
• start casting GH:7, use /stopcasting, land it before the Clearcasting Proc falls off
• hit Inner Focus
• repeat GH:7 /stopcasting
• start a mana-costing heal, enter the 5SR as it lands

You can easily get a full 15 seconds of trinketed regen by doing this, which results in approximately (with Earring and 500 spirit raid buffed) 3000 mana. This varies depending on how much Mp5 and spirit you have, but it's worth a minimum of the amount of mana in a Super Mana potion, and sometimes more (current numbers for high-end spirit gear exceed 3500 mana).

Additionally, if you use ItemRack as an addon, you can use a Script to switch in spirit-based weapons while you do this for a little more oomph. This can also be done manually with a bit more work.

Taking Advantage of Shadowfiend:
If you've played priest for long, you've learned to hate our stupid mana regen pets. They're slow, they randomly attack the stupidest things, and they generally return a variable amount of mana that is undependable. Despite this, they're the only game in town, so we're stuck with them.

First thing to realize is that your shadowfiend's attacks are most definitely modified by AC. Accordingly, if you have the option, tell it to attack something that has 5/5 Sunder Armor, Faerie Fire, and CoReck up. Bosses are good for this. Additionally, either macro in the "attack current target" command into your Shadowfiend use, or learn what it is keybound to. Spamming "attack you stupid beastie" can often be the difference between two extra ticks at the start, and none as your shadowfiend wanders off to attack the sheep on the other side of the instance (exaggeration, but still ... stupid thing).

Finally, if you are using your shadowfiend in an environment which has constant AE damage (example: Felmyst), you may want to macro in a /target Shadowfiend, /cast Power Word: Shield, as the shield, while costing mana, can often save the life of your Shadowfiend and restore 2-3 more ticks of mana to you.

[top] Downranking and Spell Coefficients

Q: Is downranking spells still viable?
A: Of course. The changes to downranking made in TBC only removed our capacity for using Lesser Heal as a downranked spell, and penalized GH:1 a bit so that it wasn't completely overpowered. Given how much healing tanks need now, downranking to anything below GH:1 would be silly anyway.

Q: What spells are typically downranked?
A: Greater Heal 1 or Greater Heal 2 are easily spammable for a priest in T5 content, and GH:1 is still within reach for a priest in T4 content. Raid buffed, with full consumables and a tank with Amp Magic, GH:1 should hit for 2700+, for a minimal mana cost. It also scales fairly well with 5/5 Empowered Healing and Healing S&E gear, so that in full Sunwell gear, GH:1 will hit for ~3500, a *very* nice cheap spell to spam.

Downranking Math
In TBC a new system for downranking spells was introduced. There is a second coefficient modifier on the HSE portion of your spell value computation that is based on the rank of the spell you are using relative to your level.

Depending on what level you learned the spell, the coefficient changes. For example, if you go to: WoWHead: Greater Heal, you will see that we first learned Greater Heal: Rank 4 at level 58, we learned Greater Heal: Rank 5 at level 60, and so on.

The Downranking Coefficient is computed as "level at which you learned a new rank of the spell you are using"+5/current_level. To be more clear, consider the example of Greater Heal: Rank 4. We learned GH:4 at level 58. However, we learned a new rank of the spell at level 60. Thus, our downranking coefficient is (60+5)/70, or approximately 0.93.

When you are computing the value a spell will heal for, most priests are familiar with the spell cast time scaling. Every healing spell we cast (non-HoT; direct heals only) gets a HSE coefficient based on untalented cast time relative to 3.5. The two major ones that matter are:

• Greater Heal: 3.0/3.5 = 0.86
• Flash Heal: 1.5/3.5 = 0.43

When you go to compute a downranked spell value, however, you have to add in the second coefficient. The formula is:
Thus, GH:4 gains 80% benefit from your Healing Spells & Effects, while GH:7 gains 86%. Of course, this is completely ignoring the talent Empowered Healing, which is detailed below.

Empowered Healing
Empowered Healing reads Your Greater Heal spell gains an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects. This isn't tremendously clear, but some discussion (credit: Robbins of <Goon Squad>) on the WotLK Priest thread has revealed that the benefit gained from Greater Heal is not restricted by the cast time coefficient. It is not clear whether or not it is effected by the Downranking coefficient, although my suspicion is that it is not.

The final formula for computing benefit to a Greater Heal from Empowered Healing, assuming Downranking and Cast Time coefficients:
Also, be aware that Spiritual Healing and 4-piece T6 bonus are both multiplicative at the end of the process listed above. Thus, your final computation for Greater Heal, assuming both of those things, is:

[top] Raiding as a Healing Priest

Q: What spells should I typically be using?
This is a tough question. Every fight is different. I'll try to give an idea of different roles, and how each one uses our unique spells.

Tank Healing: Renew, GH:1,2,7, PoM, occasionally PW:S. Your primary duty here is to keep Renew up to smooth out damage, and keep a GH in the pipe all the time. When you can afford the mana, bounce a PoM off your tank for an easy 1000+ threat (roughly equivalent to a shield slam for a warrior). If you are on the move, hit the tank with PW:S and PoM to smooth out damage as you run -- instant casts are what make us better than paladins for some healing duties: use them.

Raid Healing: predictable damage can be healed, assuming the group is setup properly, with PoH and CoH. Be aware that CoH, while incredibly efficient (roughly 23 HpM), is less HPS than PoH, and if you *really* need to heal up a group, CoH may not be fast enough. [CoH works out to about 3.2k HpS, assuming 5 targets; PoH is 3.8k HpS]. If the damage is periodic, and you know you'll have 10 seconds before anyone will take damage again, use Renew 12 or GH:2. They both (at T5-levels of gearing) heal for about the same (3500-ish), and cost about the same amount of mana.

If you are clearing trash, and there is a lot of random AE damage coming your way (examples: RoF from Fearbringers in BT, poison volley from Lurkers in SSC, etc.), use whatever you have to in order to keep the raid alive. Trash (except for HS) is an example of a time when HpS is far more important than HpM. It's extremely rare to run out of mana on a 3-minute trash pull, so screw efficiency -- heal the raid. Keep people alive. Trash clears are one situation where Flash Heal is an acceptable spell to use, simply because it is fast (GCD), and heals for enough to matter (2500+). It's relatively expensive, but it's better to get 3 people topped up plus a PW:S in 5 seconds than to heal 2 people with GH.

Just don't get trapped into the mentality that "trash = Flash Heal". Be willing to use Flash Heal if people need a heal Right Now (TM), but use GH and our efficient spells when you can.

AE Healing: CoH rocks. Full stop. Its efficiency is obscene and it is an instant cast (on the move AE healing = win). If you are planning on doing a lot of AE heals, get and use CoH. You will be grateful you did.

How to Cross Heal Effectively
This is roughly an extension of the above paragraph on Raid Healing. Basically, there are two situations where a priest will be cross-healing a raid during a boss fight.

Situation 1: predictable incoming damage, along with some random variability. Examples: Morogrim Tidewalker, High Warlord Naj'entus, Anetheron, Felmyst.

The keys with this fight is *not* to go nuts and spam heals like a madman, aiming desperately to get everyone in range of you topped up Right Now. You need to know the total amount of incoming damage, and be perfectly aware of what can happen that will take someone at 20% life to 0% life. You also *must* know your responsibilities, and not stray outside them too much -- part of your job is preserving enough mana to heal the entire fight.

For example, if you spam heals like mad on Naj'entus, using Flash Heal and other inefficient spells, you will go OOM in about ... 90 seconds. The fight is roughly 5-6 minutes long. Your assigned people will die about 120 seconds in, because you screwed up and went OOM.

Know what the incoming damage is, and know what else can happen. On Morogrim, the key is mostly to get everyone above 6500 HP as quickly as possible, and rely on the Watery Grave healers to catch graved people and top them up. You're just trying to keep them from being so low that they can't be caught up. On Naj'entus, you know that splashes are coming for 3500+ damage, and that initial impact from a spine + first tick is about 6000 damage. First priority: get everyone above 4k HP. Second priority: everyone above 6.5k HP. Third priority: top them all the way up.

First priorities are situations where you use anything you have. Timing a PoH for just after the Naj'entus shield is actually a great way to conserve some mana while healing for a ton (2500 x 5, talented, results in approx. 15 HpM, while also being very time effective). As a comparison, if you used a GH:1 on each of those people, it would take you 4.1x longer to heal them up, and would actually cost 2x as much mana.

Always balance a heal with the question : do I have to top this person up right now, or do I have 5 seconds, or do I have 15 seconds? On Morogrim, most of the time, you can afford to use Renew, which is extremely efficient. It's also a GCD for 4k+ healing.

If you *have* to top someone up right right now, use Flash Heal. It's faster than anything else you have, and it heals for a reasonable amount. If you think you have time, use Greater Heal. If you *know* you have time, use Renew.

And the rest is experience. Learn to feel the rhythm of the fight, and know where the incoming damage spikes are. If you see a tank spike, and you're on raid healing, feel free to use a GCD to help out the tank healers, assuming you can afford the mana and the time. Saving a tank is not a wrong thing to do. Just never screw up your own responsibilities because you were spending too much time worrying about other people's jobs. If you're on cross-healing, trust the tank healers (most of the time). Let them do their jobs, and you do yours.

One final note: watch the other healers. Most of the time, a tank healer cannot afford the time to stop and heal themselves up. It is incredibly helpful for you to Renew a healer in passing, if it saves them 2.0+ seconds where they would have had to stop healing a tank to heal themselves, and possibly lost the tank in the process.

Situation 2: large incoming damage, but focused on a small subset of the raid population. Examples include Bloodboil, Hydross, Solarian, Illhoof, etc..

You know there is incoming damage, you know roughly how much it will be, but the target is RSTS. Frost Tombs on Hydross are an example. Solarian's Arcane Missiles is another. In this situation, it's almost always (excepting Bloodboil as an obvious counter-example) focused on one single person at a time, but that person is taking a tremendous amount of damage. A 100% frost tomb will kill 30-40% of the raid straight-out. They just don't have enough stamina to survive it.

In a situation like this, healing the person is highest priority. If you time it right, and you are in the right place, use efficient (but appropriately sized) heals. Catching a Frost Tomb @ 100% and landing a GH:4 on that person when you started the cast early enough is just fine. But if you're late, burn inefficient spells in order to save the person. If you're on the run, and see someone get Tombed, a PoM might be enough to save them. Or a PW:S. If you're assisting others in healing an AM target, PW:S on a target you got to late might be enough to save them until the FoL lands.

Situations like this are a balance between making sure people survive, and doing your best to use efficiency. Often, saving lives >> efficiency. Just be aware of fights like this, and do whatever you can to save mana here and there.

On Hydross, heal up Frost Tombs fast, and then take 0-50% of Nature off. No-one will die or even come close to dying from a 25% nature DoT. This is your time to get some burst regen. Use it.

For Bloodboil, CoH is amazing. I can easily heal two groups by myself, provided people stay within 35 yards of one another, and with the help of a good restoration shaman, 3 groups is well within reach. 2 CoH priests is actual ideal for this setup, but work with whatever your raid has available.

Threat Mechanics and You
There are two things you need to know about threat as a priest, and they are spells: Fade, and Prayer of Mending.

Fade: Fade out, discouraging enemies from attacking you for 10 sec. . Note that the threat lost from Fade is regained in full once the 10 second duration finishes, and that you continue accruing threat while Fade is up. It is extremely useful in some situations, and completely useless in others. Make sure you have it keybound or located in a convenient click spot; it can save your butt in numerous situations.

Also be aware that Fade acts as a straight subtractive threat modifier, which actually (used intelligently) can put you below body aggro threat levels on a mob. This can be extremely useful in places like Hyjal Summit when you are trying to shackle something without getting 4 shadowbolts to the face. If you wait until the wave initially aggro's on something (like a shaman's totem) and begin running into your raid, hit fade, and then run forward, you can reliably shackle without getting owned. Anyone in combat with the mobs will have 1 more threat than you do (until you use an ability), which means you won't get ripped apart. Just make sure other people are in combat first ... or you rapidly become a greasy smear.

Prayer of Mending: when Prayer of Mending procs (i.e. dmg taken, PoM charge gets used up), the threat from the healing done is attributed directly to the person being healed. This is incredibly useful for tank threat, as you can put PoM and a PW:S up on a tank just before the pull, and instantly refresh the PoM when the first charge is used up for an easy 2k+ threat for your tank. This is enough to land a 4k heal without pulling aggro: very useful for heroics where you have no salv and no CC.

Some people will try to tell you that pre-shielding a tank on a pull results in less threat, or a rage-starved tank. Unless you're running something with a fully kitted out mitigation-gear T6 tank (basically passive-crush-immune gear), this is patently false. Every mob of significance in end-game raiding hits for 3k+, and a PW:S+PoM will basically eliminate the first attack from the table, without causing *any* threat to you, as a healer. It is far better to keep the tank alive through the first 2-3 attacks than to worry about how much rage he is getting from those attacks. Realistically, almost every boss is pulled with Misdirect + Earth Shield + PoM + trinketed Shield Slam (warriors) anyway, so rage isn't really an issue when the boss is locked onto the tank and will be beating the crap out of him Very Soon Now. If your tanks really suck and need that rage to build threat ... then you're probably going to pull it off them on the first heal anyway, which negates the argument.

Overhealing and You
Some people pre-TBC would claim that anything over 20% overheal was a lack of skill, and clearly showed that you were a poor healer. There remain some who seem to think that overhealing is somehow bad.

Typical best-case numbers for tank healing in T5/T6 content is 30% overheal (for a priest); more typical numbers are 50%+. The reasons for this are fairly simple. Firstly, tanks are taking more damage than ever. It is not uncommon for a crushing blow to strike a tank for 9500+ when it manages to sneak past Shield Block (especially parry-hasted crushings). Accordingly, any direct healer responsible for tank healing will always have a heal casting, and will be using /stopcasting to interrupt it and start a new one if the tank does not need the heal (dodge, parry, miss).

Unfortunately, we do not play in a zero-lag predictable environment. And if comes down to you landing a complete overheal for 3500, and letting a tank die, you overheal the tank. Many priests' primary "nuke" heal is GH:2, healing for 3500-ish raid-buffed. If the tank still needs any healing when you hit the 1.9 second mark of your heal, just let it land. Yes, maybe the druid HoTs or a paladin will finish topping up the tank in those 0.6 seconds remaining. But maybe not. And if it heals for anything, it's worth spending those 0.6 seconds landing a heal than to interrupt, and be a full 2.5 seconds from landing any healing.

Always *work* on your overhealing, and try to avoid landing 100% overheal hits on a tank during a boss fight. Focus on your /stopcasting and Quartz lag-bar can help a lot with this, as can effective coordination between healers, and, if you have the luxury, use of 2 tree druids as primary tank healers. 2 Lifeblooms, 2 Rejuvs, and 2 Regrowths smooths out tank spikes so effectively that your overheal % will drop tremendously, because you will only have to land a heal if the tank is down enough to truly justify it.

Healing with higher latencies: (written by Eleanor of <Driven> on Hyjal-US)

If you are like many of us who aren't blessed with sub 100ms ping but instead play from Australasia or on a slow connection you can still be a top notch healer. However you will find that you may have to adopt a different healing style to healers with lower latency. These notes are mainly aimed at those with latency in the 400-800 ping range. This is high enough to be really noticeable but not so high as to render the game unplayable.

Effects of higher latency include:
1. Increased overheal
2. Increased environmental damage (charred earth, void zones etc)
3. Slower reaction times
4. Less time for time critical tasks such as killing your inner demon

Overheal: this is increased because while the target looks like they are down in HP when your heal goes off on your client they have in reality been healed by someone else in the half second it takes for that information to reach your computer.

Increased environmental damage: You will inevitably take at least one tick of damage from environmental effects that are randomly targeted on you. This is because of...

Slower reaction times: Most environmental abilities give you about 1.5 seconds before you take damage for standing in them but latency will totally eat up this slack time. Typically you will be notified 1/2 a second after the server places you into the effect. Recognition and reaction to the effect takes at least 1/2 a second and then the return trip to the server will take up another 1/2 a second before your character actually starts moving. You may find that extra stamina and defensive talents such as spell warding an asset for these events. Aditionally if moving your character is often not where you think it is and if you die you experience a jumpback effect as the client repositions your corpse where the server thinks you are.

A /stopcast strategy is much harder to use effectively with higher latency as even using a mod such as quartz you often have to stop your heal over a second before it is due to complete. This is because of how casting latency can build up during intense fights. Also you can't put as much trust in the reported life totals of the target.

While such a strategy can still be employed you may have more luck with a spamming greaterheal 1 or 2 strategy where you just let it land regardless. You will find with a strategy like this that the tank has in fact taken damage in the lag gap between you and the server and you have actually landed a useful heal.

To be an effective healer with higher latency you really have to be constantly acting/planning ahead of the action as much as possible. E.g. moving earlier than others for predictable effects and making sure you have your next heal planned and the recipient selected before your current heal finishes. obviously all healers should be doing this but your margin for error is much lower with higher latency so it becomes more important to you.

Try to ask for healing assignments that play to what you can do well such as healing the tank or predictable damage and try to avoid tasks that require fast reactions such as dispelling or fast spot healing, players with lower latency will always carry out these tasks better than you can.

The T5 2-piece Set Bonus
... is sexy. Oh-so sexy. If you are using GH as your primary spell in any fight, put 2-piece T5 on. 100 mana back from every single GH that actually tops up a tank works out to the equivalent of 2 mana pots over a typical 10 minute fight. It also reduces the cost of GH:1 to 214 mana (talented) ... which is less than most priests' Mp5 I5SR. It's amazing. Get it. Use it. Love it. Even in 2.4, with our massive new regen, this is a useful thing to have. There is a point where it isn't worth wearing yet, but I'm not sure I've found the exact cutoff.

[top] Consumables

Food: [Feltail Delight] or [Golden Fish Sticks]
Oil: [Brilliant Mana Oil] or (easier) [Superior Mana Oil] or (for +heal) [Superior Wizard Oil] (dmg+heal works)
Flask: [Flask of Mighty Restoration]
Potions: [Elixir of Major Mageblood] or [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] *plus* [Elixir of Healing Power]

The best consumable of all:
[Super Mana Potion] (equivalent to 100 Mp5 if chain-used)

Other things you can use:
[Dark Rune] or [Demonic Rune]
[Charged Crystal Focus] (additional healthstones in your bags)

Note that in 2.4, you don't want to use [Flask of Mighty Restoration]. In 2.4 terms, given raid-buffed stats of 600 intellect, 715 spirit, assuming a 10-minute fight, and IDS, for a priest:

#1: [Flask of Distilled Wisdom] : 23 Mp5 I5SR, 56 Mp5 OO5SR
#2: [Flask of Mighty Restoration] : 25 Mp5 I5SR, 25 Mp5 OO5SR
#3: [Elixir of Healing Power] + [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] : +62 Healing S&E, 23Mp5 I5SR, 67 Mp5 OO5SR
#4: [Elixir of Mastery] + [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] : +18 Healing S&E, 40 Mp5 I5SR, 118 Mp5 OO5SR

[top] Useful Addons and User Layout

Typical healer layout has some small variations, but is centered around the idea of having the complete raid in front of you (currently 25 bars+tank targets), with easily observable health totals, and some method of debuff curing.

If you're starting from scratch, the first thing you should do is:

• Replace your unit frames: ag_UF or Pitbull

as the base-WoW unit frames are horrid. Set these up in a convenient spot on your screen, and make sure you configure them fully to show health details and debuffs.

Second thing you should do is:

• Replace your raid frames: GRID, Pitbull, sRaidFrames and tank targets: oRA2, Pitbull

and make sure you fully configure the setup to show debuffs and buffs easily. Aggro notification is also a neat feature which can warn you of who will soon need heals.

From here, you can pick and choose which addons you'd like to use, starting with:

• Custom Bar Mod: Bartender3, Bongos. Something to let you organize, hide, and keybind all your abilities. Setting up a hidden bar that contains your primary 10+ keybinds is a great way to free up some real estate on-screen.

and adding some raid utility:

• Omen/Threat-1.0: useful to tell when the tank is going to lose a mob which will subsequently eat me for lunch.
  Deadly Boss Mods, BigWigs: timers, boss warnings, aggro notifications, all sorts of handy things.

and then add some personal organization:

• ArkInventory, AllInOne: bag mods to help organize your crap. ArkInventory is especially good because it allows for custom rule-sets which divide up your stuff into little categories (like consumables, potions, dps gear, etc).
  Prat: organize your chat tabs in an efficient way, and add some fun features.
  FuBar: extremely useful addon, with some amazing little plugins. Give it a try. One you should definitely get is RegenFu.
  Quartz: infinitely useful for /stopcasting. Definitely recommended.
  SCT: very useful as a visual tracker for healing and overheals, without having to watch a combat log scrolling by. Alternative from Ace2 is Parrot
  CasterWeaponSwapper: amazing for switching weapons on the fly, or to get SpellSurge procs.
  Clique: an absolute must for click-dispelling and generally for interacting with GRID in many useful and interesting ways. I personally use ALT+LClick and ALT+RClick as Dispel Magic and Abolish Disease respectively. It saves a lot of time.

If you're interested in UI design, swing by the User Interface and Addons forum and read some of the threads there.

Setting up GRID to be useful as a Priest:
When you to go to download GRID, be aware that many of its most useful parts come as addons to GRID, and must be downloaded separately. My list of sub-addons includes:
(to go files.wowace.com to see all possibilities)
GRID
GridAlert
GridIndicatorSideIcons
GridLayoutForHealers
GridManaBars
GridSideIndicators
GridStatusAFK
GridStatusHealingReduced
GridStatusHots
GridStatusRaidDebuff

and does not include:
GridFrameAutoSize (I found it to be buggy and of little use)
GridDynamicLayout
GridDynamicZoneSwitch

Once you have all of these downloaded and installed, load into WoW. I highly suggest another addon: FuBar, which makes (imo) configuring GRID much less painless.

Now, first thing you want to do is go GRID -> Frame -> Advanced -> and configure the Frame Width and Height. GRID refers to an individual in the raid as a 'Frame', so this is essentially your unit bar inside the GRID space. Configure this to a reasonable size.

Now that you have it to a good size, edit the name length by going GRID->Frame->CenterTextLength. I have mine set to 20; your mileage may vary.

Now go GRID->Frame->CenterText and set it to display what you want (I have Name listed here). Then go GRID->Frame->CenterText2 and set it to what you want (I have Health Deficit, AFK, Feign Death, and Dead listed here). This gets your text bars setup.

Now for mana/energy/rage bars. GRID->Status->ManaBars->Side (Bottom), ->Hide Non-Mana Bars (disable), and ensure ->Enable is clicked. This gives a nice blue/red/yellow bar at the bottom. You can modify its height in ->ManaBars as well, if you choose to do so.

For debuff display, go GRID->Status->Auras-> and you can then ->Add New Debuff. I use this to display things like Burn (Brutallus), Encapsulate (Felmyst), Bloodboil (Bloodboil), and so on. Once you have set a debuff here, go to GRID->Frame->Center Icon and enable the Debuff you just created to have it appear in the center of the frame as a purty little icon.

GRID->Layout->Raid Layout is handy for setting it up as you'd like it; I personally use By Raid (25) and don't bother with pets, because hunters are whiny.

GRID->GridAlert is handy for setting it up so that one someone is debuffed with something you can cleanse, it will go SPRONG (audio) and alert you to the issue.

Next, we need to make sure Clique can interact with GRID, so load up Clique, and choose "Options" at the bottom. Make sure anything labelled "Grid" is clicked on. This will let you setup mouse-click macros in Clique for dispelling, which is quite amazing, if I say so myself.

Finally, there are a couple of options you can mess with in GRID->Frame->(anything Corner) // (anything Icon) which will let you setup small icons/lights that will light up on certain circumstances. I use mine to show when people have aggro, when people have Renew ticking on them (from me), when people are missing buffs, and so on. It's quite powerful, and is the *real* reason you want to use GRID over any other raid frame.

From here, the sky is the limit. Configure!

Making Pitbull play nice and display Raid Debuffs
(note: I still recommend GRID, but for you die-hard Pitbull users, here's some helpful tips from Distomos of <Vindicatum> on Icecrown):

1. Open up PitBull and go to the frame where you want the notification to appear. This is going to be "raid" for this instance, but you can also do this for PvP and what-not, as well. For this example, I'll use Flame Sear and Conflagration from Eredar Twins as a debuff example.

(Note: If it's for your raid frames, you must be currently in a raid to configure it.)

2. Click on "Texts"

3. Click on "Other"

4. Click on "New Text" -- type in something like "Sear Notice" and press enter.

5. Go to your "Sear Notice" on the text list.

6. Pick a frame location for it. On my layout, "Inside, Left" looks best because it goes right over the person's name but still allows the health percentage to show.

7. Go to "Style - Custom" and paste:

[Outline][(if HasAura("Flame Sear") then
"Flame Sear! ":Red
end) (if HasAura("Conflagration") then
"Conflag! ":Yellow
end)]

If you wanted to do a single debuff for a boss, it would look like this:

[Outline][(if HasAura("Fire Bloom") then
"Bloom! ":Red
end)]

8. Press "save" and close your configuration window. I chose red for the Flame Sear notices and yellow for the Conflagration notices. You can pick any color you want. Adjust the font size as you see fit, as well.

Should work! Replace "Flame Sear" with "Power Word: Shield" to test.