Given the recent discussion on CoH here, I have made an exceptional effort to use CoH -as much as possible- over the last two weeks of raids, the guidelines primarily being that using it would hit at least 3 people. I have also asked groups to watch their positions and didn't really have an issue where people were too spread out that could be avoided.

The result?

Other than RoS/Naj'entus (done with 6 healers, with no Shaman so I was on melee as well as my group)/Bloodboil I simply could not break more than 40% of my healing from CoH. There were just not enough opportunities.

Fionna - WWS
Fionna - WWS (note: doing RoS P3 with a MT with latency issues is bad :P)

Combined for both reports:
This is also quite biased in CoH's favor due to our odd issues on RoS, thus having 3 wipes and getting to repeat RoS P2/P3 4 times--which is CoH padding heaven. Without those atypical wipes, I'd be looking at 30% or less from CoH.

I'm questionable if much higher numbers are really all that practical honestly. I don't think I could physically use CoH much more than I have without actually losing HP/s.

Here is a question for you: does the member using CoH 85% of the time gain anything from doing so? I mean in the form of items, gold, etc?

I ask this because I am very much anti-meters, and feel that if you are given a tool (CoH, Chain Heal, Lifebloom), use it.

I look at yesterday's BT wws, from Teron to end, and I am 1st. I could not care less, and do not run Recount, but if one were to look at my spell usage, you would see 90% CoH.

The kicker? Not many people died, and the raid went smoothly. Classes used the best tools available to them, and did so with proper results.

He gets some criticism from using it so much.
From a loot standpoint, no - no gain.
He does only have to click one button and still can appear to effectively heal a lot on the meters.

My point and question comes from people obsessing about CoH. Don't get me wrong, for T6+ content, its amazing. Just because its amazing tool doesn't mean its the only tool we should use.

Reasons I don't like the obsession:
People focus too much on meters and efficiency. Sure, its efficient to spam it and top of groups that are in range and have -800 to -1200 hp. I disagree with prioritizing this type of 'topping off' instead of healing people that *need* healing; a tank that just aoe taunted, shielding people that pull aggro, dispelling, keeping renew up on the tanks, the list goes on. With CoH numbers over 80% I feel pretty confident that this prioritizing is not happening. Did those people sitting at 9.5k health *really* need to be at 10.5k? I say no.

"just because you can, doesn't mean you should"

I'll be a little hypocritical here, but I can still top the meters of a 80%+ CoH spammer using my spell breakdown and heal people that are arguably more in *need* of heals. On the other hand, maybe both approaches are needed because having the raid topped off is not a bad thing.

More discussion please.

WWS from the first 7 bosses in BT: Psykal - WWS

This is my Circle of Healing breakdown in each encounter.

Naj'entus: 53%
Supremus: 2%
Akama: 27%
Gorefiend: 53% (I was first to get ghosted so came back with a Soulstone at around 25%, raid taking major damage. Uncommonly high percentage.)
Bloodboil: 73%
RoS: 43% (47% Renew)
Mother: 42%
Trash: 38%

CoH is just insane in some of these fights and a large proportion of trash mobs use some sort of AoE spell. I cast this spell a lot, I think it's great but its overall healing percentage from the raid? 44%, just like Vie and Jayde and my typical average each week.

I cannot see myself casting the spell any more than I do right now, I love it. This guy (and you, const! ) who has 85% of his healing done as CoH for, say, an entire BT raid just amazes me, how do you mange that and still maintain high healing output? Surely there are situations where other spells are better, or have I missed something?

edit: This percentage would be a lot lower of PoM was included, I often cast that spell more than CoH. That's probably true for others though so let's discount this factor.

Earlier today I posted our WWS report, that's the first full healing done report I have seen(we do not spam them in /raid and I very rarely run any sort of healing/dmg meters). So, basically, my healing style has never been focused around topping meters. Still, now that I saw those reports, turned out CoH is 66% of my healing done(my basic rule is not to CoH unless 3 people have taken damage, sometimes I do top up 2 if I feel lazy/my mana allows). Surely it is less than 85% and I do not deny there are priests out there who use every possible method to top the meters because it looks kewl. What I like to look at them is my own spells used, their hps, hpm, overhealing etc.

Our usual raid heal setup is 2-3 holy priests, ~2 holy paladins, 1-2 resto druids and ~2 resto shamans(for BT+Hyjal+starting sunwell now). For most encounters, it's priests+shamans on raid, druids and paladins on tanks. Often we've a shaman chaining tanks+melee in fights like bloodboil and RoS. This also goes for trash. On trash paladins focus primarly on tanks, along with druids helping and shamans and priests take care of the raid. Generally it is not my job to GH spam the tank on trash unless paladins are out of range/afk/in trouble. Renew on tanks of course but that can be done along with raid topping. And most of the time I do not top groups who take 500hp hit, actually majority of trash does 2-5k dmg per aoe hit easily, and bumbing up raid HP in those cases is CoH heaven.

What many people forget about, when looking at healing meters and such, is that different healers are possibly assigned in different sort of tasks and in some tasks you heal more, in some less, in some you dispell/decurse more, in some you gain 70% overheal no matter what you did and so forth. While it is important to have eyes open, notice if other healers need help and are in trouble and have good situation sense, in my opinion it is important also to trust your team and stick to your own task first and foremost and trust the others to do their part.

Or, alternatively, they are fulfilling their role as raid healer, and using one of the best tools for it. My guild does not typically assign trash roles, but we mostly know what to do. I PoM and CoH for the most part, since they are my best tools. Yes, I also Flash Heal, but to say that someone who is CoHing with such a high % in a successful raid is doing something wrong is a throw-back to the mindset a lot of healers had pre-tbc. Back then, high OH% meant you were a bad healer and needed to watch it.

If the raid was wiping consistently on trash, and it was due to the 85% usage of CoH, then yes, maybe some evaluation is needed. Why comment on someone who is keeping the raid alive from fight to fight, and then say they need to change?

In terms of CoH spam, when we're running BT, it's basically all I do. I'm a cross-healer; it's my job. We have 7 healers in the raid, and tanks rarely need more than 1 ... if I'm cast-cancelling GH, I'm not really doing much. I do it when it's needed or helpful, but the rest of the time, I'm watching the raid.

And it is exceptionally rare for someone in the raid to take damage in BT without 2 other people in their group ALSO taking damage. The Teron trash, the Bloodboil trash, the RoS trash ... it's all MADE for CoH.

I also use Mass Dispel a lot; usually over the course of a clear I'll be first or second in total dispels for the run. It's easier for me to do it than to ask someone who is healing a tank to stop and dispel someone else.

And ya, it's 'lazy' spamming CoH, but I can do the same thing with GH, Flash, and Renew if I choose to. It's just suboptimal. Instant cast heal for 420-odd mana that hits up to 5 people for 1k each. I can target on the run, cast on the run, change facings on the run ... and still be healing.

And when you consider that for Naj'entus, Teron, Bloodboil, RoS, Shahraz, Illidari Council, and Illidan I use CoH to greater or lesser extents (more emphasis on the first two and last, obviously), the total % of my healing done by CoH climbs to very high numbers.

Would anyone tell a resto shaman who had 80% of their healing done by Chain Heal that they weren't healing properly? If you spec CoH, it's to ... get CoH. Use your abilities effectively.

[e] There is absolutely no reason for me to ever use anything BUT CoH & PoM on RoS (P2 and P3) and Bloodboil (all phases, since I top up the remaining boils while we deal with the Fel Rage). There is absolutely no reason for me to use anything but CoH & PoM for Illidan P2. There is little reason for me to use anything but a mixture of GH (tank) and CoH (raid, esp. melee group) on Shahraz.

It all comes down to raid balance. If we have 2 resto shamans in the raid, I'll use a little less CoH and a little more GH. If there is 1, I spam CoH all day long. Because it's me+that single shaman who are *dedicated* to raid healing for trash clears. And that's where the majority of that healing comes from. Look at the parse I linked a page above.

Breaking down that parse:
- Trash: 5, 726, 000 healing done with CoH
- Bosses: 2, 373, 000 healing done with CoH, heavily focused into RoS, Bloodboil, and Illidan P2

Every single clear (from boss -> boss) has stretches where the primary source of incoming raid damage is AE. The mobs on the way to Supremus; the mobs on the way to Akama (any of the demon packs, primarily), and pack which has Broken in it; the mobs on the way to Teron (hugely so; frost nova and spinning blades is large AE damage).

My job is not to snipe heals -- who am I sniping them from? 2 resto druids, 2 holy paladins, 1 IDS priest, 1 resto shaman, 1 CoH priest. The resto druids will be tossing Hots around -- my job is to stabilize the HP of the raid while the hots do their work. If someone is down 4k, I'll CoH once or twice, and then move on -- I'm not topping them all the way up, just making sure they don't spike any more.

If a group of rogues eats a whirlwind and is down 8k, I hit them with 2 CoH. By that point, most of them have gotten a FoL or a FH or a HoT, and the resto shaman was working with me to hit the group with a CHeal.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this style of healing IF your raid balance promotes it. If you run with 3 resto shamans (we do sometimes; this was an odd day) your % of CoH will be much smaller. That's fine.

The overheal % on CoH was 57%. That means that basically it hit a minimum of 2 people on every single usage, and in a number of cases, hit all 5.

That means in 1.5 seconds I healed 2 people for 1000, instant-cast. Or I could have used that 1.5 seconds to heal one person for 3k, likely overhealing by just as much as CHeal sneaks in and tops them partially up in the process.

CoH is a stabilization tool.

(Final note: the single resto shaman healed more with CHeal (gross healing done) than I did with CoH. He had a grand total of more healing done, so his % was less, but you can basically assume that 8 million healing each was all the trash healing *needed* for the clear + the bosses)

To Fionna: I'm not focusing on efficiency or on HP/s. Those really don't factor in. What I'm focused on is keeping the raid alive, especially on trash. In that role, with only one resto shaman working with me, CoH is the best tool I have to keep the most NUMBER of people alive. Someone might die (mages, lawl), but overall, the melee group stays up through anything but direct aggro. And that makes for a smoother, faster clear.

And tbh, given that we did BT in 2:44, I don't think there was anything wrong with our setup.

I appreciate your comments, but I feel they are biased. You typically have very objective support for your decisions and I didn't get what I was hoping for. I think we may be set in our ways and a little stubborn.

What do you do when nobody is below 4k? 88% CoH on trash for the night leads me to believe you still CoH - but you say otherwise.

I'm not questioning using CoH on lots of the trash, BB, RoS or Illidan, those are fights are ideal for CoH. I agree with you on those 100% and use CoH almost exclusively.

My point is this. Those fights where CoH is truly amazing, are not 82%+ of BT's raid damage.

If you elaborate on how your healing assignments are setup I think it would help me understand.

Edit:
You embellished here. It's only 2000 IF you hit 5 people every time. That number drops whenever you can't hit five people. It drops to ~1720 (4*1000*0.43) if you say the average was 4 people per CoH, a more reasonable estimate. This is substantial considering you cast nearly 6000 CoH in BT. Thats a lot of CoH for a 2:44 clear.

If no one needs healing, I'd assume he'd sit there and let his mana regen.

Vie, I don't presume to speak for others, but at this point, I am trying to understand what YOU are getting at. If, using your example, there are not enough opportunities to cast CoH, what other spell should he be using? There are not many situations where 1 person in the raid is taking damage, so one would presume that on a mana per heal basis, healing even 2 people is worth it to use CoH.

[e2] Again, not making assumptions, but from your posts and others, it appears that people are upset with CoH-healers simply because they top the meters. I do not think that this is true, but I am not seeing evidence from anyone to support other assumptions.

Some people (not all) spam CoH, get high effective healing, but by doing this, sacrifice needed healing. See my previous posts for examples, but even the author of this thread implied he will continue to CoH even if a mage needed heals. If a mage is AoEing there is typically very little raid damage, other than what is hitting the AoEers or the tanks. In this case, I would switch to pre-shielding and spamming flash on the AoEers that get aggro.

[e] I'm not upset for this reason at all. I'm curious because I think he can do more healing, and most importantly, needed healing by not spamming CoH as much. I consistently top the priest that spams CoH @85% in our raids but I'm using the full arsenal of our spellbook.

We typically have 3 pallys, 2 CoH priests and 2-3resto shaman (0-1 resto druids)

[e2]
I thought about this on my way home from work:

Let me phrase it this way. Do you think the CoH priests that are only using CoH for 50% or less of their effective healing in BT are gimping themselves by using flash, prayer, renew, greater, binding etcl for the other 50%?

Now I'm confused.

This comment comes from another thread but is worth repeating: Healing done by anyone is healing that doesn't need to be done by someone else.

Balancing the rising tide of CoH with a combination of direct Flash/Gheal/PoM/Renew/Binding and other direct heals is the overall most effective way to heal random damage. Context sensitivity is what makes the difference between a good healer and a Great healer. At the same time, specialization (heavily preferring one type of heal) can work very well when mixed with other healers who also have preferred habits.

Mana efficiency, healing efficiency, effective healing, and our other measurements are all fine and dandy, but the bottom line is this: Are people staying alive?

As corollary to that question: Are they constantly running out of mana and putting the raid at risk?

Anything past that is optimization. (Optimization is a good thing, but is fundamentally a secondary issue relative to the general principle of "Does it work?")

How about you reverse the order:
"top people up enough that they aren't in danger of dying"
"I'm not topping them all the way up"

One of aspects in healing is learning to prioritize targets? Example, whole raid is at 10%. Do you heal 1 group to full hp first and then move to others? Example 2, only 1 target in whole raid has taken dmg. Of course you heal him to full.

Ah i finally got 60 badges to spend (70 actually) and i have no idea what to get. Anveena's touch or Light-Blessed binds to replace my T4 gloves, or maybe i wont get anything at all.

I hate making decissions when it comes to gear lol.

Side note. Thanks for making this thread, so much information in it that i have been able to use. Although the math has made my head explode, it's been worth it.

[Wristguards of Tranquil Thought], in my personal opinion. [Anveena's Touch] also isn't a bad choice.

Do not discount [Violet Signet of the Grand Restorer]. As funny and depressing as it is, it is a very good ring and only slightly behind [Anveena's Touch] in item points.

Maximize your badges and look at what is truly a proper upgrade.

In my opinion Anveena's Touch is kinda a poor use of badges as it's worse than Grand Restorer and only ever so slightly better than Mender's Heart Ring at that gear level. Don't really think it would be a good use of a first batch of badges.

[Voodoo Shaker] is pretty much best in slot unless you're doing Archimonde, [Slippers of Dutiful Mending] are only really beaten by Sunwell loot, etc. So a so-so ring is probably not worth it atm. However, he already has Voodoo Shaker, so looking at the gear upgrade delta here...

I'd probably recommend this order in terms of how much of an upgrade they provide vs. badge cost:
1) [Adorned Supernal Legwraps]
2) [Light-Blessed Bonds]
3) [Slippers of Dutiful Mending]
4) [Wristguards of Tranquil Thought]
5) [Gavel of Naaru Blessings]
6) [Essence of the Martyr]

Seconding this, you likely won't replace them until Kalecgos and they are a huge upgrade over the pre-t6 options.

Do you guys think this would be the right place to discuss tactics for dailies/farming as PVE raiding spec? Everyone who raids needs to do it, and I wasn't sure it deserved a new thread.

Not every raiding priest needs to do it... any priest with an alt will avoid farming at all costs. Even if your priest is the only toon you have, your best bet is to just do the dailies that don't require killing things. We don't have any opportunity cost for doing those because there's no advantage to any toon in those quests.

I do the spectacle one in nagrand, the bombing runs, and any gathering dailies, and then I just leave the rest of the farming up to my alts.

2.4 dailies in healing gear... works for me. Can do the whole island in 30-45 minutes for far more gold than I really need. Combo of being bombing runs, fetch quests, and killing mobs with pathetically low HP makes it quite easy. Made 150g after repairs the other night after doing BT + 2.4 daily quests.

I have a well-geared 70 Warrior and Mage, and still prefer to do the quests on my Priest. No downtime and no risk. (Even a zerg of 6-8 mobs can't kill me )