constantius

This guide was written in 2.3.0. It only really holds (in part) to the mechanics that existed in 2.3.x. I am in the process of re-writing it for 2.4.x, with trinket information and regeneration updated for the new patch. I will probably start a new thread and let this one go to Archive at that point, seeing as we're up to 35 pages of stuff that mostly no longer applies.

Holy Priests and Raiding

This is an attempt to condense a 21 page thread down to one post, to provide something to refer to when you want to know a quick answer about holy priest raiding and theorycrafting. It does not attempt to be the be-all and end-all of priest guides: this is mostly concerned with more advanced topics, as well as raid balancing questions.

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

Spec
Q: What spec should I be as a holy priest?
A: First priest in the raid should (most of the time) go 23/38/0, with 2/2 Imp DS and then up the Holy tree as you see fit. Every subsequent priest should be 1x/4x/0, up Discipline to Meditation and Inner Focus, and up Holy to CoH, with extra points spent as you see fit.

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.

Q: Is Lightwell worth a talent point?
A: Most people who use it think that it is, especially post 2.2.2. It heals for around 4500 per click now, providing a partial top-up heal for fights like Naj'entus where the raid takes predictable raid-wide damage. If you chose to not take this talent point, there's not a lot you can take that is better: usually Holy Reach or Holy Specialization is chosen.

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.

Q: How good is Holy Concentration?
A: It's decent. 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.

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. It's not critical, but it helps, and the points are there for switching around.

Q: Can you give me a cookie cutter build (a la WoW:Priest Forums).
A: 20/41/0 : Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
23/38/0 : Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Note that for the 20/41/0 build the 5 points in Spell Warding (which some really like) can easily be split into Holy Specialization, Holy Reach, and Healing Prayers, as you see fit (with a minimum of 2 in Holy Specialization).

Q: Healing Prayers vs Mental Agility?
A: Healing Prayers wins almost always. 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. It's not a critical talent, but it helps with sustainability. Some people argue for the 4% toward CoH versus 20% toward PoH and 16% toward PoM -- it really depends which one you use more.

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 36 mana differential saved on each CoH from 2 points in MA. You'd have to cast 7 CoHs for every PoH to save more mana from taking the last 2/5 points in MA over HP.

Note that this is completely ignoring the 12% gain to efficiency in PoM you gain from going 3/5, 2/2. I find I use PoM a lot over a given raid. If I use it 2x for every CoH I cast (easily a conservative estimate), the argument swings completely in favour of HP. It's not even close.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is probably the heaviest "efficiency" build I can come up with that still includes CoH, and its net loss compared to a classic 20/41/0 build is 40-50 +heal from Spiritual Guidance. Given that full T5 equates to over 2100 raid-buffed +heal, that's not a huge loss for the efficiency it offers.

Gearing : Spirit vs Mp5
Note that 2.3 basically skews the table almost entirely toward spirit builds. The change to Meditation is huge, and means that the power of spirit starts to outshine Mp5 in almost all circumstances for priests. It also gives a purpose for all the spirit-heavy gear that litters T5 and T6 content.

If you are just starting as a priest, go tailoring. Make the 3-piece Primal Mooncloth set, get the 2-piece Whitemend set made, and stack Royal Nightseyes in everything you can.

Gearing is a fairly easy question to answer beyond this: look on the WoW forums if you need help deciding where to start farming for quick upgrades.

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, 200 Mp5 *or* 500 spirit.

At the end of T4 content: 1700 +heal, 200 Mp5 *or* 500 spirit (don't gain much from Gruul/Mag)

At the end of T5 content: 2000 +heal, 230 Mp5 *or* 600 spirit.

Note that these numbers change dramatically in 2.3 when the Meditation change goes live. Numbers are raid-buffed (food, oil, flask or two potions).

How does Priest Regeneration work?
Priests gain 1 MpTick (OO5SR) for every 4 points of spirit they have. Mana ticks are computed every 2 seconds for some bizarre reason, so you have to remember to convert Mp5 and ticks to a common time domain. Total regen can thus be calculated:

OO5SR: [(spirit/4)+13]*2.5
II5SR: OO5SR * 0.15 + OO5SR * 0.05 (pre-2.3)
OO5SR * 0.30 + OO5SR * 0.05 (post-2.3) [with Primal Mooncloth set bonus]

OO5SR * 0.15 (pre-2.3)
OO5SR * 0.30 (post-2.3)

Then add whatever Mp5 you have static on your gear plus consumables to reach your regeneration model.

Example: JoePriest has 500 spirit and 135 Mp5 from gearing. His regen is (pre-2.3):
[(500/4)+13]*2.5 + 135 : 480 Mp5 (OO5SR)
345 * 0.15 + 135 : 187 Mp5 (II5SR)

Some theorycraft says it is [(spirit/4)+12.5]*2.5. I'll check this.

Q: How do I take advantage of spirit?
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 (II5SR) where you regenerate mana at a reduced rate. This rate is dependent on your talent choices (Meditation = 30% regen II5SR in 2.3.0; 15% in 2.2.2) and upon your gear choices (3-piece Primal Mooncloth = 5% regen II5SR).

Given that priests gain so much regeneration from spirit, the typical difference between a regen tick II5SR and OO5SR is approximately 3x. It can range from 2x on the low-end (Mp5-heavy gear) to 4x on the high-end (spirit-heavy gear). In any case, a tick OO5SR is worth 2+ II5SR.

So how to 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) 2000 mana. This varies depending on how much Mp5 and spirit you have, but it's worth around the same as the low-end of a mana pot.

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.

I have a macro which goes something like:
which equips [Nightstaff of the Everliving] and [Soul-Wand of the Aldor] (with a +20 spirit enchant on Nightstaff), putting me over 800 raid-buffed spirit with trinket Use effect. It makes for a very nice 15 seconds of regen.

Downranking
Q: Is downranking spells still viable?
A: Of course. The changes to downranking only removed our capacity for using Lesser Heal as a downranked spell, and penalized GH:1 a bit so that it wasn't completely OPd. 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.

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 (2200+). 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, it is an instant cast (on the move AE healing = win), and it will (in 2.3) start scaling more with our gear (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 Warlock Naj'entus, Anetheron.

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 3k+ 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.

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.

Gemming
Q: What gems do priest use?
A: [Royal Nightseye].
[Dazzling Talasite] if you want a set bonus and need a yellow gem.
(or [Luminous Noble Topaz])
[Teardrop Living Ruby] for red sockets if you like stacking +heal.

If you are spirit-focused:
[Purified Shadow Pearl] replaces [Royal Nightseye], although 4 spirit will never beat 2 Mp5, even post-2.3, unless you guarantee an innervate to yourself.

To prove this: 4 spirit = 2.5 Mp5 with 100% OO5SR. Assume SoR and Kings, so actually, 4.62 spirit = 2.89 Mp5. Assuming (post-2.5) 30% regen II5SR, and assuming a 50-50 split (generous; most of us run 65+% II5SR), this gives the average gain from 4 points of spirit as 1.88 Mp5, versus 2.0 Mp5 from a [Royal Nightseye]. Assuming you get one innervate per fight, you gain 46 mana from the 4 spirit, versus 8 mana from the 2 Mp5 (in the same period).

10 minute fight, 264 mana gained from [Purified Shadow Pearl]; 240 mana gained from [Royal Nightseye], *assuming* you gained an innervate. Thus, if you can guarantee an innervate, the Pearl > Royal, even ignoring the 1.6+heal benefits (very small, but it slowly adds up).

What about [Lustrous Empyrean Sapphire] vs [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire]
[Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire]

[top] 11.55 spirit raid-buffed

> 7.22 Mp5 OO5SR
[Lustrous Empyrean Sapphire] = 4 Mp5 OO5SR

10 minute fight, gain 544 mana + 115.5 from Innervate from 10 spirit gem. (50/50 OO5SR)
10 minute fight, gain 480 mana from 4 Mp5 gem.

The cutoff in favour of the 4 Mp5 gem is actually at 83% II5SR, with innervate. If you assume no innervate, the cutoff becomes 64% II5SR.

So, assuming you manage to stay OO5SR at least 36% of the time, the 10 spirit gem will provide more innate regen (and give some scaling +heal) than the 4 Mp5 gem.

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 extremely difficult to equip given priest gem setups. Having Yellow>Red>Blue basically screws over our use of [Royal Nightseye], and given that Yellow gems are the most worthless, is really not worth equipping. Leave this one to a paladin who stacks crit gems.
[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.

Stopcasting
Q: Should I use stopcasting?
A: pre-2.3, absolutely. Don't jump out of spells. Train yourself out of the habit (as most of us have had to). It's inefficient and actually wastes partial seconds in between casts. We still haven't figured out how crap Blizzard's implementation of server-side spell queues are, so we don't know what we'll have to do post-2.3.

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 40%+. 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.

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 II5SR. It's amazing. Get it. Use it. Love it.

Consumables
Food: [Blackened Sporefish] or [Golden Fish Sticks]
Oil: [Brilliant Mana Oil] or (easier) [Superior Mana Oil]
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)

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

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

 

constantius

Trinkets
This write-up is courtesy of Vurrin, of <Rebirth> on Khadgar-US.

[Memento of Tyrande] 118 healing and a proc valued around 20 mp/5. This is effectively the best trinket in the game, which makes sense given that it drops off the final boss of T6 content.

[Alchemist's Stone] the primary benefit is the roughly 40 mp/5 gained when chain using super mana potions, but the increased stats also contribute some additional hp healing and regen as well. The fewer potions you use the less the benefit.

[Earring of Soulful Meditation] 66 healing is very solid, and the 300 spirit when combined with a clear casting proc/inner focus or simply a break in the encounter can regenerate ~750 mana making this trinket worth on the high end 31 mp/5 ( if my math is wrong here please correct it). Additionally this trinket is affected by talents/traits/buffs so a human with SoR and BoK would gain roughly 200 additional mana over the 20 second duration. Also spiritual guidance/Imp. DS ensure even if you need to break your OFSR you gain additional healing (around 120 raid buffed +heal).

[Tome of Diabolic Remedy] (New in 2.3) 18 mp/5 and an effective + heal of around 65 is very well rounded.

[Figurine - Talasite Owl] Worth 29 Mp5 overall, and has the advantage of being able to use the effect when you actually need mana.

[Essence of the Martyr] 84 healing and an effective 49 healing if clicked every time. If healing throughput is what you're lacking this trinket is good.

[Bangle of Endless Blessings] the Click effect is about 40% of what you'd get from Earring of Soulful meditation or 14-ish mp/5 max, and the proc effect is ~48/mp5 @ 459 spr ( on the low end) or assuming 1 ppm 12mp/5. If your raid buffed spirit is higher obviously the benefit is also slightly increased at a rate of about 1 mp5 per 50-55spirit ( inexact math sorry). Total benefit if used properly of about 28-30 Mp/5

[Ribbon of Sacrifice] 73 effective healing. The trinkets effect is of lesser single person benefit than many trinkets, but on fights where you either A) repeatedly heal the same people or B) have multiple people healing your target it can be effective.

[Lower City Prayerbook] 70 innate healing and assuming 7 casts per click 13 mp/5 or 18 mp/5 in the theoretical best case. 1 minute cool down. It should be noted that if you use all the clicks, this trinket is functionally identical to [Rejuvenating Gem]. If you have Rejuv, though, stick with it -- this one is a lot more hassle to manage, for no net benefit.

[Eye of Gruul] 44 healing and 450 mana reduction proc. Proc rate is exceedingly low, but if you can use a spell with a low enough mana cost ( gheal rank 1-2/renew/PoM etc) you can drop OO5SR with the trinket. This trinket is basically designed for CoH spam; there is no other situation in which a priest will obtain enough benefit from it. A talented CoH is below 450 mana, and the chance-on-heal is per HIT, so each cast of CoH has 5 chances to proc it. Extremely valuable for a fight like Void Reaver (if you're healing melee) or Bloodboil (if you're healing a boil group).

[Pendant of the Violet Eye] is not a priest trinket. It is exceptionally good for paladins and shamans, but the net benefit for regen for priests is pitiful, given that we have no real way to obtain the Mp5 except by using healing spells; shamans can use their totem drops, and paladins can use a low-rank of FoL.

[Ashtongue Talisman of Acumen] is not particularly strong for holy priests; don't use this unless you feel like playing around with it to try to make it effective.

[Fel Reaver's Piston] has a 45-second internal cooldown. It's basically the [Shard of the Scale] with a crappy proc.

[Scarab of the Infinite Cycle] 70 healing + haste proc.If you like haste for MT healing or some such this is a solid trinket.

[Warp-Scarab Brooch] Lesser version of Diabolic Remedy. Bit underpowered compared to Prayerbook or Bangle which are of a similair level.

If you raided before TBC, especially in Naxx:

[Eye of the Dead] the "next five casts" is a serious detriment to this trinkets overall usefulness.it is better than Martyr in situations where you're picking and choosing where you want your enlarged heals to land as opposed to trying to get off as many empowered casts as you can. As soon as you cast a sixth spell (during the first 20 seconds) Essence fo the Martyr becomes a better trinket. Given that you would only cast more than 5 GHs in 20 seconds in an OMG TANK DYING situation, this is functionally the same as Essence of the Martyr, and last it was checked, the +heal Use Effects stacked.

[Warmth of Forgiveness] Worth at least 24 mp/5 overall. Also potentially useful in situations like Kazrogal where you instantly want mana returned. An incredibly useful trinket to have in your bags if you were lucky enough to kill 4HM and obtain one.

[Scarab Brooch] is mostly a toy. Fun to play with, though.

[Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] Due to low proc rate this trinket's effectiveness can vary dramatically, but overall ( and depending on gear) this trinket can be worth around 25 mp/5. It also has some small synergy with Bangle/Earring in that if you click either of those 2 trinkets while the blue dragon affect is up you will receive the maximum amount of regen ( but you'd lose regen if you waited for this trinket to proc before clicking them). Since this trinket can not raise your regen above 100% in 2.3 it will be essentially 15% less effective. This is especially useful for a spirit-based healing priest; full regen at 700 raid buffed spirit is around 2000 mana per proc. Last time we did tests on the procs, it seemed to be accurate at 2%, and have a rate of around 0.5 ppm. At that rate, it's effectively a second potion timer, which is useful. If you have this, hang onto it until you get a lot of spirit, and then play with it.

[Rejuvenating Gem] remains one of the finest healing trinkets in the game. Its balance between healing and regen is only matched in [Memento of Tyrande], and remains a staple of many priests' gear right through to Illidan.

[Shard of the Scale] is still a reasonable trinket, assuming you are not a JCer and that you never got Warmth of Forgiveness. Replace this with Diabolic (in 2.3) or Fel Reaver's if you really love that Mp5.

Enchants

Head: [Glyph of Renewal] (HH - Revered) or [Prophetic Aura] (ZG Honored; requires a drop from Bloodlord Mandokir or Jin'Do the Hexxer)

Shoulders: [Greater Inscription of the Oracle] (Scryers - Exalted) or [Greater Inscription of Faith] (Aldor - Exalted) or [Zandalar Signet of Serenity] (Zandalar - Exalted)

Cloak: Subtlety or Armor (no 'good' enchant)

Chest: +15 spirit; +6 Mp5; +6 all stats; +150 mana (poor choice)

Bracers: +6 Mp5; +4 all stats; +30 healing

Gloves: +35 healing

Pants: [Golden Spellthread] (Aldor - Exalted : Recipe) or [Prophetic Aura] (Zandalar - Honored; requires drop)

Boots: Vitality (4 Mp5); 12 stamina; Boar's Speed (if you're willing to use 12 stam, this is a superior enchant due to run speed being useful)

Rings: +20 Healing (enchanter-only)

Weapon: +81 healing; Spellsurge; +20 spirit (only for a spirit weapon)


Suggestions
Any further major sections missing? I've added a few things over the last couple of days; I need to do a re-read of pages 2-3 of this thread to pick out things that should be added.

I also intend to add a "playing from Australasia" section, courtesy of someone on page 4.

 

Aliniz

Add Luminious Noble Topaz to the yellow gem listings. Could also be wise to list unique-equip gems from Heroics that are useful.

 

denandra

Very nice compendium.
Maybe add something about the using of Bangle of endless blessing/Earing of soulful meditation for maxmising OO5SR regen. And the fact that having good dmg-gear helps alot when if you wanna get passed Leotheras.

 

viva

I think you are underestimating Mental Agility in the deep holy builds. You seem to have forgotten that CoH is an instacast. If I'm going to spec deep enough to get CoH, I want 5/5 Mental Agility and 2/2 Holy Reach to maximize the range and improve the mana burden on CoH. I think a 20/41 "cookie cutter" build makes more sense than your 18/43, but it may be just splitting hairs.

 

• Sunchips

You should add a section on add-ons and helpful healing mods.

 

Ellyh

Maybe discuss overhealing and how it's become more common and less problematic since vanilla? Possibly as part of the healing as a team section. Not so much for priests themselves but as something that we can point to when raid leaders raised in vanilla content start harping on about it.

 

Dhotti

Probably some discussion about spell selection and how we shouldn't be using Flash Heal as a staple anymore. I still see a lot of priests (on trial) who do the bulk of their healing with Flash Heal and demand innervates after going oom.

 

Bohemienne

Seconding the spell selection. I just learned I'm the only holy priest in our raid team who uses the top rank of GHeal at all, much less uses more than one rank. /facepalm I want to take Flash Heal off their action bars and beat them with it.

I've also seen spreadsheets showing that Renew 10 is just as good as Renew 12, as it still gains 100% bonus from +healing, ticks for only slightly less, and costs significantly less. I'm afraid to try it out for myself though. Anyone have opinions on this either way?

Edit: I'm c/ping a scrapped holy priest guide that I had started writing for my guild's forums. Feel free to pick and choose from it as you see fit.

 

Tri

Nice job on the guide =] Was interested in seeing what the priest one would look like with the new call to arms as it were.

Things I'd like to see added:
A section on getting the most out of our shadowfiend.
Links to some of the other relevant threads on these forums.
Citing sources to specific posts in those threads. Like where you say 4 spirit will never beat 2mp5, the math is somewhere on these boards, be nice to be able to hop right to it (and leave your post uncluttered with details).
Mention threat mechanics of PoM.
Show the relationship between binding heal and flash heal's efficiency, and mention it's modified threat (it's quite situationally useful).
The word Super Mana Potion should probably show up somewhere =]

 

Taldar

It's 1 mana per tick (2 seconds) for every 4 points of spirit, not 1 Mp5. You'll need 1.6 Spirit for 1 Mp5. I'm guessing it's just a typo?

I'm also fairly certain the regen model is

OO5SR: [(spirit/4)+12.5]*2.5

If you try that out with your gear you'll find that it's usually a perfect fit. The number 12.5 makes more sense if you think of it as [(spirit+50)/4]*2.5. I was recently looking at gear choices for 2.3 using wowequip and the number 13 just didn't add up, but 12.5 did in every case.

 

aadric

Royal Nightseye and Dazzling Talasite are attractive because of the "rounding error" that gives you 2mp5. However, when you get into epic gems, rounding is no longer an issue.

Blessing of Kings, Imp Death, and the human racial are multiplicative, and combine for a 27.05% bonus to Spirit. Don't forget to count that human racial when comparing gear.

While 2.3 brings enough damage on our healing gear for Leo, its probably still a good idea to swap out some gear to get 3% +hit.

I find that an addon that displays an FSR countdown bar and tracks my FSR time in a fight to be invaluable.

 

uphir

I'm not in BT/MH myself, but I've looked at the armory profiles of many holy priests who are. Some seem to stack +22 healing gems, but o