Luckily, my raid leader (MT) has a holy priest alt that he's raided plenty with, so he knows how to form groups for healers.

Hi,

i'm new to this forum and done some browsing but still have a few questions to which i can not find an answer.

im a holy priest stuck at tier 4 raiding still and my gear is PMC and Whitemend set.
since the 2.4 badge loot came available i am wondering if its worth to upgrade some of my gear.
i am affraid for breaking my set bonusses and find out that maybe it would have been better not to upgrade at all but just leave it as it is.

i don't really lack healing power i think. i haev about +2100 bonus
and my mana regen seems to work pretty ok for me also. not really getting in trouble there. but not sure about all this after the upgrade

If possible i'd like some advice on wether to relace [Whitemend Pants] with the new [Adorned Supernal Legwraps]

and the same for replacing my [Primal Mooncloth Robe] with [Gown of Spiritual Wonder]

i understand it can be hard to answer this but i would appreciate some help.
if you need more information please ask me

thanks in advance.

I find that tactic very innefficient. The best way to farm as a priest for me is this (917+damage/1800+healing in DPS gear):

Holy Fire, smite, pain, starshards, fear ==> target another mob, PWS, holy fire, smite, smite, pain ==> target another mob, holy fire, smite (2nd smite if you can), pain, fear ==> target another mob, PWS, holy fire, smite, pain, starshards ==> target another mob shadowfiend, pain ==> target another mob, holy fire, smite pain, fear ==> target another mob, PWS, holy fire, smite, smite, pain ==> smite+pain on shadow fiend target

If any mob lives through the pain I SW:Death them or fire a wand. If fear pulls extra mobs, I use them as my new target. In fact fear helps a lot with pulling as I dont have to waste time moving. I basically have a mob dropping every 15 seconds this way and can be killing up to 6 simultaneously.

I continue this sequence non stop until I kill every mob in sight. I loot and start again.

I never rest. In fact I never carry any water. I regenerate purely through shadow fiend (having the on use +heal trinket is great for this) and by spending 75% outside FSR, due to the move to next mob and cast holy fire combo, that easily nets me 3.5 secs regen every 15 seconds.

My main problem with this tactic is when an area is sparsely populated. If mobs have high HP, i.e. 8k or so, this tactic is not so great, this tactic is also not so great against mobs that can disable you or stop you casting.

I can't pull up your armory profile using armorylite, and the official armory is blocked for me at my current location, so all of this may be moot depending on what you have in these slots. That being said...

Depending on what you have in the other slots, I think the most solid gains for you would be in the slots you don't currently have these two sets in. Items like [Wristguards of Tranquil Thought], [Slippers of Dutiful Mending], [Light-Blessed Bonds], and then the [Gavel of Naaru Blessings] and [Voodoo Shaker]. The [Adorned Supernal Legwraps] are certainly very good also, but you can get substantial upgrades from the other items without impacting your set bonuses. IMHO, the Whitemend bonus isn't that valuable anyway, but YMMV. For Tier 4 content and even early Tier 5, the gear you have sounds more than adequate.

I'm in pretty much the same boat as you and I find my +heal and mana regen more than adequate for the content we're tackling.

I've all ready got rid of the Whitemend set. I replaced it with a [Pontifex Kilt] and [Light-Collar of the Incarnate] as they are what I had to hand. The items you listed are superior to those so I'd use them in a heartbeat.

I'm also thinking of breaking the PMC set. The badge robe or the ZA robe are both very nice so I would personally make the swap. I'd have to admit that looks is part of this equation so I'd lose the PMC shoulders as well, probably for [Pauldrons of the Solace-Giver] unless I can magically get hold of the [Swiftheal Mantle] recipe.

Why do you flash heal on AoErs that get aggro? If a mage with 9k HP is going to die before gheal lands he needs to be tanking 3k DPS. If he is taking 3k DPS, flash heal at 1.6k DPS will probably kill him. If he has aggroed something that hits really hard its even worse.

Here is a simple senario: A mob that attacks every 2 seconds (less than gheal cast time) and hits a mage for 6k per hit (3k HPS).

The mob breaks away you precast your heal.

0 sec DPS gets aggro. 0.2 seconds later you start your flash heal
1 sec 6k hit, DPS at 3k.
1.7 sec you flash heal for 2.7k
3secs 2nd hit lands and DPS dies.

Flash heal has just killed your AoE DPS in 3 seconds. You are buying other healers ZERO time with flash heal. The mage survives exactly as long as he would if you did not heal them at all. If another healer manages a heal before the first hit, you will save the DPS, if they cant you will lose him.

Here are some different strats:

The mob breaks away you precast your heal.

0 sec DPS gets aggro. 0.2 seconds later you start your flash heal
1 sec 6k hit, DPS at 3k.
1.7 sec you flash heal for 2.7k, you chain PWS
3secs 2nd hit lands your DPS is alive at 1.9k HP.

Same thing with max rank gheal

0sec DPS gets aggro. 0.2 seconds you start your max rank gheal
1 sec 6k hit, DPS at 3k.
2.7 sec your gheal lands for 5.7k, DPS at 8.7k
3 secs 2nd hit for 6k your DPS at 2.7k

You wanna see something funny?
0sec DPS gets aggro. 0.2 seconds you pom
1 sec 6k hit, DPS at 4.8k.
1.7 PWS
3secs 2nd hit for 6k your DPS is alive at 0.9k HP.

Just pom followed by PWS will buy your DPS a second hit 8 out of 10.

If your overaggroing DPS takes so much damage that gheal won't land, flash heal will never save them it heals for too little. The correct way to ensure your mage will live, is to PWS/PoM them before the pull and spam max rank gheal on them during the pull. The PWS/PoM will allow you to focus on others and only heal the mage is he pulls aggro and your max rank gheal is slow enough to ensure your DPS takes enough damage for gheal to land in full.


Ask yourself what niche does FH fill? It has poor HPM, luckluster HPS, its not instant and hence poor for

That does not mean full CoH spam is worse. Its only one case, how do we know that this priest is not suffering from high latency, how do we know he uses PoM and shield appropriately. The main reasons that I can see for him falling behind on healing, is that he is very ineffectual with his gheals, he spends significantly more time healing MT than you do on average and you have more +healing than he does. Its very hard to tell from the WWS stats what your relative performance is like. Unless you use recount to study the fights closely (especially the logs for raid member deaths), you can't really tell what happened. The WWS report, is not great for dissecting healing tactics.

The best way to figure out what the maximal spell sequence is, is to analyse the damage patterns. Do a second by second recreation of the type of damage taken and look at how you can fit heals in there to achieve the highest possible HPS/HPM.

ooops

Hello, my name is Hyjal trash. Nice to meet you. (There's an assumption in your post that either you're the only healer, or you know pre-emptively which mage or warlock is going to pull aggro. In my experience with Hyjal trash both of these things are untrue, which is why you play whack-a-mole with Flash Heal instead.)

On trash... I CoH and spam flash heal. Flash heal saves lives. PoM and PWS do as well.

Your assumption is a bit flawed. You're assuming that you're only healer healing that target. With the healers in my raid, if I actually take the time to shield, then PoM, then gheal, my gheal will be pure overheal (which is a good thing).

People should be able to react fast enough to heal a person if they're taking dmg (tank or otherwise). You should see a lifebloom or some flash of lights going off on people (or chain heals going off).

Just my thoughts.

My guild is learning Hyjal right now (got 3/5 last night), so I've got a good chunk of very recent trash experience

I do 6 things in Hyjal trash: Prayer of Mending, Renew, Bubble, (Fade/)Shackle, Circle of Heal and Gheal. I *almost* never flash heal, because we've usually got a holy pally or two, along with a couple priests who think they're holy pallies (I've discussed this before).

I try to PoM every cooldown and keep renews up on the pally tanks, to soften the spike damage that bad shacks can produce. For Oh-Crap heals, I bubble then immediately start casting max gheal, because I tend to have the quickest bubble reaction, and that 1.5k sponge can be the difference between a tank death and the 2 or 3 incoming flash heals, which bide the time for the big heal.

As far as using gheals, I stopcast rank 2, which usually puts me at the bottom of meters, but it's usually nice to have a priest near full mana for the times when the mages and locks start aoe early and try tanking themselves. DPS slows down a lot, and we can end up with the new group dropping on top of the old group before it's dead. Then the gheals shine. CoH on the melee if a bunch are taking damage, or if the group is aligned as such, I'll even spam CoH with 3 or 4 tanks all taking damage at once.

Like I said before, priests are the last class that I would prefer casting a fast heal. The pallies and shamans buy time with the fast heals, and we drop the Sportscenter nukes.

True, but if you shield and another priest PoM's, then you both start casting gheal while the pallies FoL, that's not usually going to be much overheal on a tank with 20k life.

I see what you're saying. I think I do the same thing I do for tanks if a lock or mage pulls aggro... I bubble and start a gheal. If it's not needed, I don't finish the cast. If I'm the only one healing, my gheal won't make it, but my fheal wouldn't keep them up anyway, and the bubble is there to buy time for the fast heals to make it. If my gheal finishes and he needs the heal, my fheal wouldn't have contributed as well as a gheal.

It all depends on who you're healing with and what everybody's habits are. My bubble-gheal usually works well for us, but not always. /shrug

Edit for clarity.

Yup, I totally get what you're saying too.

Guess it just depends on the raid environment and the spur of the moment OMG I HAVE TO HEAL situations

As long as we keep doing what we're doing and not... suck, it's all good :p

You flash heal, because all paladins are busy with tank(s), shammys are chaincasting 2,5 second chain heal and druids are busy with hotting stuff. You need to cast a heal on that person NOW and not 2,5-3secs after. Thats the place to use flash heal, and usually I use that kind of apporoach on raid healing. Especially on trash. And, often there are too many targets to heal (spread out so no CoH), and using gheal on every single one of them is way too slow.

Happens more often than you'd think.

Worst case scenario of Greater Heal addiction is in my opinion a holy priest who does only Greater Heal when raid healing Illidari Council. Not the place and not the time to use that spell. As a replacement for Flash Heal, at least.

I think its all about style and personal preference.
That being said, I am lot like Beltheshazzar.
For trash in BT/Hyjal, I use the full gamut of those spells listed plus binding heal.
As he points, usually the shaman CH plus the Paladin FoL spam is going to keep up the whackamole situation AoE'ers.

As a priest, I like to use my tools as stabilization/buffer, (PoM, Shield, Renew, quick CoH), and then can queue up a GH for a tank.
Of course part of the reason I got away from Flash heal, was that if chaining through Flash Heals on one trash pack, usually I will be oom after each trash pack, and the amount healed (around 2-2.4kish per heal) just was not being effective enough.

GH is quite good on Council, however Flash Heal is also very useful on that fight in particular. That said, FH will not top people off who take tons of damage and casting FH multiple times in a row on the same target is very inefficient and probably would not save them if they were to get hit by another ability if they are very low on HP anyway.

I primarily use FH on targets with Deadly Poison to make sure they don't get gibbed by Envenom, but GH on targets who are at mid to low HP to top them off as quickly as possible. (GH7 is more HPS, after all, so it's better in the long-run in many cases as long as the person is moderately safe. Most sources of damage on that fight do not happen instantly, as even Blizzard/etc. take 2 seconds to tick in. Envenom is very dangerous though.)

I do use FH more on Council than any other fight I can think of, but I wouldn't dismiss GH entirely.

I was at the same stage 2 weeks ago. I got bored of WM and PM sets and was looking for replacement. I made some list for my horde priest with items that can be bought for badges, crafted or can be found out of 25-man raids as I am not raiding 25mans

Robe of Eternal Light / Gown of Spiritual Wonder / Robes of Heavenly Purpose
Light-Collar of the Incarnate
Adorned Supernal Legwraps
Swifheal Mantle
Hands of Eternal Light / Light-Lessed Bonds
Belt of the Long Road
Swiftheal Wraps / Wristguards of Tranquil Thought
Slippers of Dutiful Mending / Two-Toed Sandals
Kharmaa's Shroud of Hope / Stainless Cloak of Pure Hearted
Brooch of Nature's Mercy / SSO exalted neck
Blue Diamond Witchwand
exalted karazhan ring / Aveena's Touch
Gavel of Naaru Blessing
Voodoo Shaker

With this gear you are rdy for most content you can meet in this game.

thanks for the advice.

however i can't complain with my current gear.
its just i get bored of the way my char looks :P
luxury problem i guess hehe
it's frustrating to find out that the differences won't be that big when upgrading your gear.
i think i will stick to spending gold on buying new gems and resocket my gear :P

i'm not raiding 25 man yet. we're currently gearing up our members.
hope to start there soon!

I currently see no other alternative than these three gem choices (especially as a CoH Priest):

All Blue Slots: [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire]
All Yellow Slots: [Quick Lionseye]
All Red Slots: [Quick Lionseye]

Unless you are really wanting to achieve set bonus' then I would throw in a [Teardrop Crimson Spinel]...

Now if only Blizz would make a Green gem that had 5 Spell Haste and 5 Spirit... /drool

Hello. Thanks for such an interesting post for us priests.

Here I come with my question: My guild is currently progressing through BT and MH, and I'm on tier 5 gear. I have around:

-450 spirit and 530 intellect.
-260 mp5 I5SR and 610 mp5 O5SR
-Around 1940+ healing.
-CoH spec

I have always prefered the [Royal Nightseye] for my blue slots, and for the past few months as we were progressing through the likes of SSC and TK my goal was to improve my mp5 I5SR as much as possible due to the fact most of the fights I found myself inside the 5SR 90% of the time.

But now, I'm getting more chances to replace my tier 5 level gear with MH/BT drops and I was wondering whether I should go for the spirit gems no matter what on my blue slots or should I keep focusing on healing and mp5 gems? (Keep in mind that I spend most of the time I5SR due to my playstyle, which might (?) make mp5 gems more attractive than spirit gems.
I have just got [Leggings of Eternity] and I dont know what gems should I use on it.

Also I have another question. I have had my [Boots of the Long Road] for quite a lot of time and I was wondering if its worth replacing them with [Boots of the Divine Light].

Thanks in advance.

We have done the first wave of trash (until the boss came and wiped us) for fun with 4 healers and 20 ppl. I did not use a single flash heal (only binding heal) mostly max rank gheal.

It's entirely personal preference though, with the haste that's been put on the Sunwell loot and a few other select pieces you don't really need to gem for it.

Consider:
[Brooch of Nature's Mercy]
[Dark Blessing]
[Cuffs of Absolution]
[Boots of Absolution]
[Belt of Absolution]
[Cowl of Light's Purity]
[Handguards of the Dawn]
[Robe of Eternal Light] -or- [Robes of Faltered Light]
[Shawl of Wonderment]

If you were wearing all these items excluding the shoulders so you can keep your 4-piece T6 bonus you'd be at 242 haste rating wearing the crafted robe, 234 wearing the dropped robe, which equates to a 2.16/2.18s GH and a 1.3/1.31s COH. (source: Casting speed - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft)

I can't think of any situation where I've needed to drop an extra 0.1s off my CoH which is how I'd imagine gearing with +10 gems would equate to, but I generally always need the extra +heal from the spinels.