My perception based on raid healing since MC is that usage of GH as a raid healer depends heavily on:

1) The fight (of course)
2) Haste / Talents (lower cast times are easier, of course)

3) Raid setup & responsibilities

I think #3 is a core component of this discussion that could lead to different opinions based on experience.

The tighter a 25 person raid controls raid healing by giving more specific roles for raid healers, the more likely GH could be used perhaps. If it is totally wide open, and depending on what other classes you have and what their healing style is like (FH spammers, etc), then GH as a raid healer may overheal too much or get cancelled too much to deem purposeful.

A few things in Wotlk should make GH slightly more advantageous as a raid healer:

- Getting mana back if it does overheal
- Fights being less about spam and more about having a sustainable HPS cadence: this should lessen the likelihood of heal sniping and give more windows for GH usage imo

It still won't be used as much as FH, for example, but if I cast 5% GH today as a raid healer it might go up to 10-15% perhaps. I'd have to see the encounters to be sure.

Ok, lets have an example that looks vastly different.

Here's one from Pugnas, also one of the fastest kills at 9'05'':

Wow Web Stats

What you will notice is that Flash heal plays a minor role there. Also of note is the high percentage of overheal. You will just have to trust me that 78% overheal on GH is not a necessity - they just don't care, they could easily downrank, but if the mana is there - why bother?

From my own fights I unfortunately no longer have a WWS as I only do 10-mans since a few months ago. The healing distribution was a lot of CoH and flash heal until I had learned the fight, from then on GH and CoH were the runners up where Renew, Binding Heal and PoM, with Flash heal of less than 10%.

Now the point is: as a priest, since the mana reg patch, you can choose almost any method you like to heal on Illidan. The time is there to almost not use FH in the entire fight, it's really so predictable.

In some way, unfortunately, this applies to almost all of BT/MH nowadays: if you don't go with the minimum amount of healers, no priest will have serious mana problems - no matter what healing technique he or she uses. So you will really have trouble to argue "look, they mostly use FH because GH is too slow."

A good example for speed being an issue is the Akil'zon fight if you don't go with lots of haste gear. Raid healing with GH at 2.3s is just a tad too slow to really keep up, and FH ends up being worth the mana.

One of the best ways to do this is to account for all 4 scenarios:

1A&B) Casting w/o mouseover on current hardtarget: friendly or foe

2A&B) Casting with mouseover: friendly or foe


/cast [target=mouseover,exists][harm] Mind Blast;
/cast [target=mouseover,exists][help] Greater Heal;
/cast [harm] Mind Blast;
/cast [help] Greater Heal

This ordering checks for mouseover targets FIRST, and then if you aren't moused over anything will check for hard targets. I suppose one could add focus targets into the mix, but I haven't looked into that.

I might have a syntax error, but you get the point. Most of my spell macros are configured this way.

I did accidentally Mind Blast my own shackled target in Kara one day because I went to heal someone but wasn't moused over them exactly and it moved on to Mind Blast my hard target

Our Priest has 78% overheal on Greater Heal and 37% overheal on Flash Heal. Which means that if he threw Flash Heals rather than Greater Heals, he would have generated 50% more throughput at a double the mana efficiency with better response time.

I'm not sure how you would take this as a counter-argument to the premise that Greater Heal's casting time is a limitation on its usefulness in healing non-tanks.

It shows that the casting time is not a limitation, since he can easily get away with using GH.

As for switching to FH: GH1 costs less mana than FH (until later this week course..). If you do not need more than 1 GH1 to heal the target to full, GH is still more mana efficient than FH. Had he switched, he would have produced less overheal while consuming more mana. Consider also that in these Top 20 WWS parses, all priests will carry 4pc T6.

I will offer another angle to address the FH/Gh issue:

Here's one additional WWS, it's from an older full ZA run of mine. Some alts were swapped in after chest 4, though. At that time, I was feeling pretty stretched. Equipment was just Kara/ZA/badge loot, so some healing stats were a bit low and I didn't have all the willpower nor the meta gem. At the same time, we were itching to get our bears (it turned out we had to wait 12 more days), so both the druid (thankfully fully BT/MH equipped) and me were playing it safe, by healing people up as quickly as possible within the mana constraints.

Didn't take the time to ask all mates, so here's the anonymous link: Wow Web Stats

What you will find is an overall low to reasonable level of overheal, with a widely varying level of spells used between encounters. At that time, I only used FH where I felt GH was not safe to use. Even on trash, you will see more GH than anything else.

What the WWS of course does not properly provide is the usage of PoM. If I remember correctly, PoM was always a major contributor to effective healing.

The reason why I am taking this rather old WWS is that it's reasonably clean, everyone was focused on the team goal and not risking anything, trying to squeeze everything out of the character, and that I can probably answer all questions that might arise.

All -

My wife just respecced to holy a few days ago and neither of us profess to any level of holy priest expertise at this point. Can you suggest a 'cookie cutter' build as of tomorrow @ 70? Key would be a 'forgiving' build since she is still learning; from a content standpoint we're talking light stuff - heroics , kara, maybe some za.

I've scanned through about 6-8 pages of the thread and so far only found lvl 80 specs. If I've just missed it and there is a good definitive cookie cutter 70 holy build, feel free just to say 'page xx'.

Thank you Incoherence. If we were going to go for some of the other talents you mentioned (surge of light/lightwell/test of faith) where would you recommend removing the points from to get them?

Unless that's Rogue T6 he's wearing, he's not throwing 3500-pt. Greater Heal (Rank 7). Presuming that his overheal percentage was reflective of spell choice, Flash Heal (Rank 9) would have still been higher throughput and higher mana efficiency.

What you're missing is that healing isn't just a matter of matching damage - it's also a matter of matching other healers.

Imagine two players with 5k damage and two players with a 5k and a 2.5k heal. If both players choose their 5k heal, there is a 50% chance they will choose the same target - and one of them will end up overhealing. If they both choose the 2.5k heal, neither will overheal at all since if they both choose the same target initially they'll both choose the same target on the second spell as well.

Level 70 holy specs are a bit silly at the moment because you will (most likely) not have enough crit to take advantage of the 11(+) talent points devoted to getting spell crits.

I don't know what you are doing exactly, if it is not raiding tier 6 or higher, have no use for circle of healing, etc... I would say discipline is a more friendly spec, penance is very good at 70, disc is great for any situation where you don't need CoH.

Its early for there to be any cookie cutter builds, and those depend on other things like the tree you wish to spec deepest in and the content you are in. Also, the challenge and joy of playing a healing priest is the multiple tools you have at hand coupled with being able to make almost reflex decisions as to using so as to get the most bang for the buck in actual play, while keeping everyone up.

As such a priest is not really new user friendly, unlike others, who have very limited tools and play decisions comparatively.

If you want to see a cookie cutter raid healer Holy spec presently for tier 6 type content, armory my priest, Shylena, on Skywall.

Note what others already said about crit based talents and where you will be as to crit %. I have tier 6 gear and under 10%.

All that said, with where you are in the game, she might take a look at this one I put together quickly:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...00000000000000

The GH of around 3400-3500 you see are GH rank 1 at 314 mana a pop as compared to a FH costing 470 mana. How can replacing these be mana efficient? You would have to rank FH down to rank 5 in order to actually use less mana. In that case, if you are sure you have that much overheal on the small GHs (this would be around 50% on a GH1), you can still use "Heal rank 3", which costs even less. Most healers would then not heal at all, though. The GHs at around 4600 are rank 3, which cost the same as a FH rank 9.

Regarding the healing scenario, this can happen anytime, and if healing is an issue you will make sure healers watch what other healers heal. If they are good players and actually want to give the best, they will see the incoming heal on the target and select a different target instead. With PoMs and chain heals flying around, this will still produce some amount of overheal.

Moin,

I like your build but I think i'm going to try this one to start:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...11515300420122

I don't think I'll be spending the GCD on Renew nearly as much as I used to due to the changes in PoM and CoH. I primarily raid heal but usually at some point in the night I get assigned to MT heal so I feel this is a good compromise for both roles.

I'm not sold on Imp. Holy Concentration because I believe I'll get plenty of free casts with the reg HC, and with the free Flash Heals from Surge of Light I just don't see IHC being worth the points at level 70. Obviously this is subject to change once I see how the proc rates of HC and SoL play out. Once Wrath hits obviously we'll all be making some changes again :-).

Oh, while I won't be gemming for crit I will be trying to obtain a few select items to help with crit. I can already hear the QQ starting from the DPS casters...lol.

I'd probably do something similar but:
- Max out 2/2 Healing Focus. This is a no-brainer, especially in Sunwell raiding. Why would you skip this talent, ever? If you want to squeeze points into getting more crit, Healing Focus is NOT the place to do it.
- Imp Inner Fire instead of Silent Resolve. Even less reason to get Silent Resolve now than before (and there was practically no reason for it to begin with).
- Drop a point from Spiritual Guidance for Lightwell.
- Drop a point from crit for Desperate Prayer. As a human priest, I've had the luxury of raiding with it this whole time. I wouldn't lose that for anything in the world.

This is likely to be the build I'll be running with this week:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

@Sheylena: Why do you put 47 points into holy fot t6 content without picking CoH?

@Discussion about FH/GH with Illidan: With a possible exception of the Dark Barrage-target I cannot remember using FH at Illidan at all. I use some BH but mostly to cover 2 targets not only one. There is also plenty of time to use PoH in a very efficient way. So using GH should be no problem at all. Well most times I do raidhealing in p2 and am assigned to tankhealing in the other phases (but there were some killes where I did raidhealing the whole time). GH has a fair amount of overheal (about 50%) there. But if I would downrank much more (or even try to cover it up with FH) that could be the death of the tank if he misses a shear or has bad luck with hits. Illidan can hit hard.

@Discussion about Hexlord: You can do PoH even without a concentration aura. Simply cast a shield on yourself (and maybe the other healer). With maybe neck and cloak you should not get any interrupts. I wear the shadowresi not because I fear that I will die to fast but to prevent hits so I will not get interrupted (longer). That is quite easy to do since you know exactly when the dmg will occur.

@Discussion about lvl70 holy-speccs. I think I will try something without Desperate Prayer, Healing Focus and Silent Resolve. I dont use Silent Resolve at the moment - even with BB and on progression. So if I dont have any thread-issues at the moment I will not have any with the patch. (When I have learned not to precast PoM.)

I cannot see any value in Healing Focus with the patch and the changes to pushback and the talent itself. Even if Renew will become less effective I think it is more usefull than nothing and I have to put points somewhere to get to the lower tiers. And I think at 70 renew will stay something comparable.

I cannot think about a PVE situation where I would use Desperate Prayer over f.e. BH. At least if I could get anything else for that point.

The points in SoL are to expencive for such a situational talent if I understand it correctly. So I my first try of a talent-tree will be without it. I dont have a high crit-value even if I am one of those with some crit on healing gear at the moment. With that said I will skip IHC, too.

Test-of-Faith seams to be a much more interresting choice - even if it is a weak talent. But I think it is the one talent for a safe playing style. And since I will be not that proficient with all the new changes I want something safe for my first attempt.

Lightwell may be a good or bad thing - I will not take it for the first build. The reason is that everybody will be busy to learn all their new stuff. There is no way I can teach them (and me) to use that thing over all they have to adjust in the first place. Especialy since we will be on progression content and everybody has to think about the encounter and not about a glowing well somewhere in the room.

CoH is something I need at the moment so it is a now-brainer for me.

Empowered healing is a good talent and needed on the way to the last reachable tier so I take it - together with the only good new thing I will have: serendepity.

(And I'm very sad about that last comment of mine if I consider all the other new stuff all my alts will have.)

Edit: please ignore my bad english. I'm not a native speaker and it was very late when I wrote it. I dont have time to correct it so.

The change they're making to spell pushback isn't going to do jack for PvE. It was mostly done to address the PvP issue of having a melee on you and effectively doubling or tripling the cast times of your spells (if they don't interrupt it outright, that is).

Even with the changes, pushback is going to remain enough of an issue in PvE that you will want Healing Focus. In a raid, a single untimely pushback to your cast can be costly. That's the reason you got Healing Focus in the first place.

More specifically (from Spell Pushback changes in WotLK Beta | Ten Ton Hammer ):
In a raid situation you're rarely, if ever, in a situation where your cast gets pushed back more than once or twice (exception: Fel Rage on Bloodboil). To argue that the pushback change removes the necessity for Healing Focus is equivalent to arguing that you never needed Healing Focus to begin with.

If my sources are accurate, Inner Fire does not provide spell power until PAST level 70. If they changed this so the level 70 rank gives spell power, then you would be right.
Relatively small-sized heal on a two-minute cooldown? I'll stick with flash heal, especially for PvE.
I think players in the heat of battle would rather focus on their DPS or tanking tasks, rather than have to click this thing to get a HoT. Spiritual Guidance is amazing compared to Lightwell, I'll keep my 5/5 there.
As Liriel said:
"I cannot see any value in Healing Focus with the patch and the changes to pushback and the talent itself. Even if Renew will become less effective I think it is more useful than nothing and I have to put points somewhere to get to the lower tiers. And I think at 70 renew will stay something comparable."
I couldn't agree more.

Some priests are telling me we will not need HF in WoTLK, but even with the new pushback formula, you could still be getting 1 second consistently added to your spells. Along with the points you made, I have been wondering whether the new tuning of the encounters will lessen how important 1 second can be when healing, and my thinking is presently it is worth taking over the other options.

I'm sorry but doing a holy build in 3.0 without CoH is not reasonable. Not with the current state of disc. I cannot justify a pve healing build (70 or 80) that does not have either CoH or Penance.

The strength of a holy build is that it can do comparable single target hpm/hps to disc while also having very strong aoe with CoH (and talented ProM). The way I see it if you're not taking that you might as well not spec holy at all and go full disc instead.

I don't think a GH spamming build like what the old 23/38 used to be has a reason to exist anymore.

With raid-wide auras, we're going to be getting Concentration Aura for any fight where pushback is theoretically an issue. That's 35% reduced duration of pushback (Concentration Aura - Spell - World of Warcraft) to start; more if they improve it.

So if I take 2 hits from something while trying to cast GHeal, I'll lose 0.65 seconds (i.e. the cast will take 2.7 seconds with my haste). But that means I'd need to be taking unusual damage; KJ or M'uru are the only two fights I can think of where I'd be taking that much damage, that fast, and even then, it's unusual.

And if you're taking pushback on Bloodboil, You're Not Doing It Right. Last I heard, CoH was instant. Not using CoH and PoM to heal Bloodboil is like cuffing your arms behind your back before a boxing match. Use the tools for what they are designed for.

Hey guys, I need some input on SoL, because I am very confused on what people are talking about with this spell.

People keep saying that SoL can be used to get free mana via Serendipity, is this actually correct? If SoL procs and you were to cast a FoL and overheal the target, you will be given 25% of the mana that the spell cost? To my knowledge the spell cost of that FoL was 0 due to it being a SoL proc. Am I missing something entirely? Are you saying if SoL procs I can then immediately hit a Rank 1 FoL on a target with full health and receive 25% of the cost of the Rank 1 FoL?

By that same logic, if Holy Conc procs, you could just cast a Rank 1 Gheal on a target with full health and be given the free mana as well via Serendipity?


Again, am I missing something completely, or is that ACTUALLY what you are able to do? Because if this is the case, to me that is a bug. Because those talents set the mana cost for those spells to 0, why would you be given free mana?

Serendipity is a mana refund. If you spend nothing, you get nothing. You are correct in your understand, Minko.

My take on a L70 raiding spec for T6/early sunwell.

Healing focus is a waste of points. You want to get 5/5 crit to help make up for the lack of procs on Holy Concentration/Imp holy conc. Divine providence is nice to have but hardly key and test of faith is of limited utility for a raid healer even with smart targeting (please let it be non retarded). Don't underrate desperate prayer It saved my ass countless times and will still be good even with a mana cost, the cooldown has also dropped from 10 mins to 2. Silent resolve is the "Least bad" option of T2 disc until we get spellpower on inner fire which is at 71.