My objective, as a raid healer, is to:

1) Minimize or eliminate the risk of non-tanks dying
2) When #1 is in great shape, assist on tanks (PoM, Renew, FH mainly - for reasons below)

Since raid damage usually takes one of these forms:

A) Consistent damage (aura, splash - predictable rate and target(s))
B) Intermittent damage (random rate and target(s))

If it is (A), then I am usually using CoH, PoH, BH to supplement PoM - CoH especially if I am also taking consistent damage (pushback)

If it is (B), then I am might be using FH or CoH to supplement PoM depending on how many targets need healing at the time.

Especially in the case of (B), time spent casting a spell like GH really becomes important because I may need to change targets quickly to another emergency raid target - it isn't predictable. Getting caught in a longer heal sucks when this happens, and thus the more unpredictable the raid damage timing and raid target(s) taking that damage are, the harder it is to use GH. Additionally, most of these raid targets are not going to take sustained damage (depends on the fight), so a smaller heal is just fine to take them out of the danger zone. If everyone in the raid is out of the danger zone, then GH works just fine, but a Renew is less risky perhaps for similar reasons.

I would add that nobody gets any extra credit points for ending a fight with 50% of a mana bar.

If I could have used that bar to cast "safer" heals instead of being overly conservative with HPM concerns, it would have helped the raid. The includes overhealing more as a safety factor, or using lower HPM heals that hit their targets faster. Once someone has done a fight a few times, they should have a good feel for how conservative they need to be. If I end a fight with 5-10% mana, then I feel my mix was probably pretty good.

Except, of course, you're still ignoring the part where it's been pointed out that these logs aren't exactly saying what you claim they are saying.

Except you're neglecting the part where in plenty of fights, it is in fact safer to use a downranked GH over Flash Heal because it does more healing.

And it's never a bad thing to be conservative with your mana, because you never know when you might actually need to spend that extra reserve of mana. Something might go wrong (i.e. a healer may die) and you'll need to use all that mana you've saved to keep the raid alive for that last 20%.

It's not about getting extra credit for ending the fight with a full mana bar. It's about always being ready for the worst.

Did I miss something about GH1 that would allow it to still be used for down-ranking post patch 3.0.2? Does it have a lower percentage of base mana then the other GH ranks? If not, any discussion of down-ranking is moot.

No, they're arguing about something that no longer matters, as though it still did.

Subtle Though I totally agree, its like arguing 'I use Heal 4'

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is my current spec that my wife has come up with because she's not quite sure of what she needs. She is mainly a MT healer. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I would help her; however, I'm a boomkin...so my insight isn't quite as helpful as it should be.

So I've been reading this like mad back and forth now (I just got home from my vacation), does concentration aura stack with the other effects or not?

I apologize for leaving that information out. She is lvl 70 and raiding BT. We are working in our guild on RoS currently.

From my experience (and what thotbott says), Concentration Aura does not stack.

So either you take the 35% it gives you (50% if talented), or you put 2/2 in Healing Focus for 70% and call it a day.

I am sorry to bring this up again but it really concerns me how many of you are still valuing 3/3 Improved Renew over any of our other talents. Hell, I'd rather put 3 points into Spell Warding.

Renew has, is, and always will be one of three things:

1. A 5-man/Heroic dungeon spell
2. Tank buffering to try to smooth out the hard hits
3. Useless

If you are wanting to spec deep holy (14/4x) then you should almost always start with this.

The new surge of light is going to be great as well, and with a couple quick regems, a raid wide Boomkin aura (+5% crit), and more benefit from crit, why not take it.

I for one will be specing like this come today's patch.

Well the total removal of any mana savings for downranking was imo the worst thing about WoTLK for healing priests.
So as already noted, downranking and its utility, etc., is as of now moot. And mana conservation and the intelligent usage of it very much back in play.

Since mana was not a real problem since the regen buff in TBC I did not worry much about overhealing. Now, I will be paying close attention to it, although I do think CoH with its intelligent targeting and raidwide application will be responsible for much less overhealing than before. I doubt Discipline priests will have serious mana problems, so long as there is some skill and coordination present.

I tend to think more coordination among the raid healers will pay dividends in WoTLK, and we may well see healer rotations again, harkening back to the early days of MC.

Sinndir, with the change to how CoH works I think not taking holy reach 2/2 is a big mistake. Before it could be argued that CoH could reach everyone in a given party fairly easily. With it being a smart cast, having it go for as wide a range as possible is likely more desirous.

I think I'd sacrifice surge of light for better greater heals and better CoH. While SoL will undoubtedly improve mana efficiency, it's a bit unwieldy to use and does not necessarily solve a problem. In other words, it's somewhat wasted if you need to be casting greater heals or CoH regardless of a free FH.

Inner Fire only gets the spellpower buff at level 71, so for now, Imp. Inner Fire only helps your armor and charges. Which for a main tank raid healer is useless.

I think Reflective Shield will be a judgment call. My sense is that since a Disc healer is starved for talent points, there are more healing-oriented talents to be chosen, and 3/3 Ref. Shield could be saved for later levels or abandoned. On the other hand, those three points pack a decent DPS/point ratio. Personal choice.

Picking up things like Pain Suppression or Power Infusion are things you (or rather your wife) will want to do at some point, if only to get a feel for how they work and when they're useful. Power Infusion on a Mage is money if you can spare the GCD. If you have a Shadow Priest in your tank group, Power Infusion counts as sorta kinda extra healing, given the Vampiric Embrace buff.

As a tank healer, I think getting as much Divine Fury as possible can only be a good thing, since in between Penances you'll be using Gheals. To get there, however, I don't know whether 2/5 Holy Spec + 3/3 Imp. Renew is better than 5/5 Holy Spec.

I'm also going to be a main tank Disc healer (albeit in much lower content). I'm looking at this build. However, I'm taking IDS, which your wife may not need to provide, in which case those points can go elsewhere.

There's no point in taking IDS for 25-man raiding, so a spec like:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

would do just fine for tank healing. You could argue for Surge of Light, but if she's primarily tank healing, using a Flash Heal (even if instant cast) isn't going to be that helpful. Serendipity and 3/3 IHC are almost required to be a pure tank healer. It'd play very close to what she's used to, except without Divine Spirit, so a little less regen. There's no way to get Divine Spirit and get the *required* holy talents anymore, unfortunately. Even 1 DS = no Serendipity.

[e] For those suggesting Disc specs, remember that Penance/PW:S/Flash is a foreign style to someone used to a 23/38/0 spec for the last few months. Tank healing as mid-to-deep holy is all about GHeal spam, with Renew and PoM. To make it comfortable for her, hand her the next-best-thing: deep holy without IDS, no CoH.

The loss in 10% is not that hard, not to mention for most of the fights I can think of in sunwell (at least the way we do them), it will 'easily' hit 5 people with 0/2 holy reach.

Kalecgos, Brutallus, Felmyst, Twins, M'uru, and KJ... our strat calls for there to almost always be 4 others near the person.

-Edit-

Oops, I forgot about the current Inner Fire not giving spellpower, so a quick change results in this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Keep in mind that the reason you 'rotated' was to take advantage of Spirit Regeneration. But in WotLK, there really isn't any healer who is going to have top notch Spirit regeneration most likely. Paladins/Shaman don't use spirit regen. Druids have near-100% FSR due to HoT rotations, so tend not to emphasize it. And as has been discussed at length on this thread, even Priests get better mana return out of Intellect than Spirit in WotLK.

i know we've been there done it and dismissed it many times, but the brand new patch notes (MMO) once again say CoH has indeed now got a 6 sec CD.

Hopefully it is still the stupid unupdated oversight we always figured.....

indeed just mentioned it as I was suprised they still hadnt weeded out the 'error' from tonights patch notes.

I do remember when they removed CD there was a kinda you've got it back for now and we will see sort of comment, which kinda always stuck in my mind - since then I've always figured we will likely get some sort of CD eventually just to even up the AoE healing a bit especially by 80 end game mana/regen levels.

Honestly I wouldn't trust the patch notes as far as I could throw them. There are all sorts of oddities and inconsistancies. Hopefully MMO champion or some other reliable source will have actuall gameplay data soon to resolve this and a number of other isuues such as twin faiths being listed back as a flat 5% damage and healing boost.

Oh, if this is indeed true, then I will gladly join the camp that doesn't spec Healing Focus anymore.

In TBC, they stacked.

I'm also somewhat in favor of dropping Imp Renew from the picture atm. The spec I just chose on Live right now is this:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I basically do agree. Playing disc is one completely different style of healing and you have to get used to it, no question. But this is the Wotlk-Thread. I´d be very pleased if people could cease to argue about issues that will no longer matter in 1 month (read 'downranking' or 'healing on Hexlord'). It´s simply not interesting and doesn´t enhance our priestdom. Talk about WotlK but don´t argue and number-crunch about pointless topics for several pages.

So I, for one, value renew a lot. Because I heal a lot of 5 mans.. Because it's saved the bear-boss tank more than a dozen times... Etc... That said, I have to agree here. At lvl 70, those points are now a waste. You can't afford them. There are too many better talents to be taking. Whether you choose interruption protection, CoH radius, inspiration, surge of light, desperate prayer, improved holy concentration, etc. and in whatever combination, you're going to get more value out of them than you will out of improved renew at this point in the game. It's certainly true at 70.

You want to reconsider at 71? well that's something to think about. Inspiration might be completely unnecessary at that point (I have no idea how hard the early dungeon bosses hit, but I'm going to guess "not very" is the answer). Improved Inner Fire replaces Silent Resolve at that point straight up, but that's in the other tree and doesn't go straight to addressing the questions around holy. In the meantime, for the next month, it's time to let ~100-150 per renew tick go by the wayside and pick up something actually valuable.

Many things have to be seen in their context. ImpRenew (or Renew at all, if you like) might not be viable at lvl70, but who cares anyway? 1 month and we´re done with all of that. At lvl80 I feel I use Renew quite a lot. For example I´d rather give away Flash Heal than Renew (hypothetical, of course, since the question does not occur). Do not forget that having healing spells of all categories (direct heal, instant, group heal, HoT, absorb) is what defines us and seperates (and to some extent elevates) priests from other healing classes. Renew is our only HoT and there are bunches of situations where HoTs prove to be useful.