Jansyu

Warning: Noob alert. I love healing!

I'd like a link to a web site that has basic information for a new priest. Like how do you setup your toolbar. What are the spell rotations to heal .. Party / Instance / Raid. What is the best talent setup for my knowledge level. How best to keep others alive, etc.

I've read a lot here but this seems more for people who know what they're doing. I don't even know the basics, such as the shortform names for the spells I have, and I don't really understand what they do.

I've been a Holy Pally all my life in WoW (200+ days playtime). I've rolled a priest. Levelled from 1-62 as holy (but no instance healing). Then I changed to Shadow, levelled to 70. Sat on the shelf while my pally lvled to 80 for Lich. Have just completed levelling to 80 as shadow. Have dual specs atm - Shad & Disc. Plan eventually is to be Holy / Disc. This will be my new main.

 

Starfire

Should check the forums: http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t54618-w...craft_dargons/

It's a pretty good link. There aren't healing rotations, we aren't DPSers.

 

Jansyu

Sorry, what I meant to say was that I was unclear on how to proceed. For instance as a holy pally, I would first
1) find out my main targets, set focus
2) buff me/party/raid
3) eat my food buff
4) take my flask/elixir
5) start my Seal
6) set my aura
7) check my mana pool
8) Just before pull, set Beacon on either MT/OT/me
9) on pull, cast Sacred Shield
10) get to position, casting Holy Shock while running there
11) If HS critted, cast FoL (now instant) or start Holy Light cast
12) Next cast is DI / HL macro
13) then look for opportunities to cast a Judgement

I use the keyboard to cast my heals, mouse to select targets.
Keyboard is setup specifically for each hand with the appropriate keyboard shortchuts on my toolbars.

Its that sort of mechanical information that I was after.

 

Mandrus

What I do as a Disc priest. Always check if you got enought candles for buffing. Check buffs, look out for inner fire ( I use power auras for warning about my buffs wearing off and Weakened Soul / Grace (3) ). Always put PW:S and PoM on tank before pull. And flash heal lesser wounds, penance for burst healing. But that's what Disc does, keep Weakend Soul and Grace (3) on the tank, becouse that's mainly our job. As a priest you will have great deal of troubles with poisons. But as said above, read other people's compendiums they really do help alot.

Edit: none will tell you technical preferences they play becouse it depends on player, I for example have no healing spells binded on 1 to 5. Most on shift. What you first need to know is mechanics, and how to gear up.

 

Elimbras

1) Ensure you have enough candles. You can use up to three for each (partial wippe). 60, (or better) 80 are usually a safe horizon. Buff people, stam and spirit at least, shadow if that can be of any use for this fights / trashs.
2) Take your buffs. As disc, you most likely want to take spellpower food and flask, maybe int if you're lacking regen. As holy, there are lots of meaningful choices. Take spellpower / int / crit / haste buffs, depending on what you are lacking.
3) Check for inner fire.
3) As priest, you'll need to use a lot of spells, keep some on cooldowns, etc. Make sure you have an appropriate interface. Tracks useful information, such as POM stacks on player. Keyboard for spells, mouse for target seems mandatory for me.
4) Use the focus if you want. Either on tank, or on the boss. Or whatever you want to, there is not best choice.
5) Before pull, POM tank, and if disc, PW:S it.
6) Get in position. Depending on boss / heal composition / spec, you might want to drop an early renew on the tank, or throw a quick penance as disc.

I won't give you details about what you want to do during the fights. Priests have lots of healing spells, and there are all useful in some situation. So you need to learn. You'll find plenty of useful information

In very short, allways use POM.
As disc MT healing, spam flash (or gh) for small wounds. Use penance for spikes. For "regular" bosses, you keep PW:S on cd on tank. If there is dangerous extra-large blows on the tank, you keep PW:S to smooth them.
As disc, if you want (have time / are asked) to help / heal on raid, PW:S is an incredible tool when you can anticipate damage, or if people are at risk of dying. BT-Hasted POH is powerful for raid damages. If you're healing MT and helping on raid, help mostly with PW:S. You'll keep your BT hasted great heal if needed on tank, and grace stacks will stay also.

As holy, you should be raid healing usely (otherway, prefer disc as soon as you have to heal a tank in raid). Use and abuse of POM / COH. Use POH, if possible Serependity hasted, for big raid damages. Fill with renew / flash, depending on the situation and your spec. Don't forget binding heal, it's really really good in some cases. Keep one eye on your mana, you can run oom fairly quickly : holy is more a burst healer, that follow (or anticipates) incoming damage than a constant hps spammer like paladins.

 

Bonemage

I apologize if this has been answered before; searched this thread and several others found the question being asked but no luck on an answer within a couple pages. I'm trying to help out a SP in our guild so I am not as up as I need to be on various mechanics. If a SP refreshed VT before it fully ticks down, say they clip .25 seconds off it, will they lose that tick or will it still hit?

 

Nurru

You lose the tick.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Mandrus

You can't manually refresh spell. As SP only SW:P is refreshed by talent, casting new spell, whether its VP or other dot it will overwrite the old one unless previous one was casted while you had more spellpower so cast will be interrupted.

 

• DeeNogger

Tell him you want to refresh VT an infinitesimally small amount of time after the last tick. However, since refreshing the VT an infinitesimally small amount of time before the last tick is a dps loss, its best to error on the side of caution and aim for some reasonably small amount of time after the last tick, with the less amount of "dead time" (time when no VT is on the target at all) being the better. You'll get better with practice, and there is no substitute for it.

Also, if he doesnt have a dot timer, put him on your lap, pull down his pants and spank his ass.

I write things The word of DeeNogger -- New Blog Post November Something

 

Nurru

You're making this a lot harder than it needs to be. If your hasted VT cast time is 1.3 seconds then don't cast it again until there is < 1.3 seconds left on the debuff. Done.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Aeshun

I recently dropped Spirit Tap + Imp. Spirit Tap to pick up Shadow Affinity + Improved VE, as I've seen some other shadow priests do. The only problem is is that I have noticed myself having a few mana problems prior to the switch. Will there be a noticeable change now that I've lost the spirit tap talents or are the talents really that bad for raiding?

 

Jansyu

Thanks for this information

 

Jansyu

This is perfect -- thankyou for taking the time to answer my "noob" questions.
This shows the process I need to master.

I'm gonna see if I can con a few guildys to let me try and heal em next weekend ...

 

wayth

The reason they're currently out of vogue is that effectively only one spell we use procs IST. With Mind Blast only being castable roughly every 7 seconds, you're looking at popping IST once every 21 seconds or so assuming a 33% crit rate which seems about average with full raid buffs.

It's not that it's a bad talent, but since SW:D isn't in our rotation anymore (at least not regularly) and MB is on such a long cooldown it doesn't give much for the 5 talent points you put in.

Personally, I still have the talent as I don't see much else worth taking. I don't have mana issues with proper use of Dispersion and Shadow Fiend so I have 0/3 into Focused Mind. I haven't ever been in a situation where aggro was a problem so I don't see the need for Affinity.

Frankly, even as bad as a IST is, it is still a dps increase however marginal and until there's some other valid choice that increases my dps more, I won't be dropping it.

 

Bismal

As a Shadow Priest, I know that SW:P Doesn't recheck the buffs on a target when refreshed by Mind Flay (At least, this is how it was, Has it been fixed?).

With this in mind, will I need to refresh SW:P When affected by certain buffs in fights. For Example: If I am standing in a Rune of Power in Iron Council, would it be beneficial to recast a SW:P so it gets buffs? Another few examples is if I am buffed with a Storm Cloud in Hodir, or should I recast after 25 stacks of Singed is established? I am most interested in the Hodir examples because I find myself recasting SW:P With the assumption that, Yes, the buffs will make SW:P stronger throughout the refreshes.

 

tedv

The refresh will check debuffs on the target but not buffs on you (except for spell power). This means that you want to refresh it when you get Rune of Power or Storm Cloud, but it's not useful after a 25 stack of Singed is up on Hodir.

 

wowsaa

Another gear question from me: How should I gem my glacial gear?

 

• constantius

Why are you wearing Glacial Gear?

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

• Snowy

You need to elaborate what this is for. I wear [Glacial Waistband] for Thorim hard in 25 man as either spec, and straight up gem it with +24 stamina gems in each socket. The added FR + extra stamina went a long ways at the start to prevent unfortunate Volley + CL gibs, a little extra buffer if you need to back into a blizzard to avoid Lightning Charge without chaining CL into another group, etc.

If you're wearing multiple pieces, you're probably giving up too much damage or healing.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

wowsaa

Ulduar. I don't wear it for anything else.

 

• constantius

There's only one fight in Ulduar you wear Glacial gear (as Snowy indicated), and that's Thorim. And for Thorim, the only person who might ever wear more than 1 piece would be a shadow priest MCing mobs and standing in the "safe spot" (from lightning charge) where you eat lots of Blizzard ticks.

If you're not a shadow priest, get the [Titanium Frostguard Ring], socket for healing, enchant for healing if you have Enchanting, and call it a day.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

Glasswizard

Does Lightwell instantly disappear if I respec to disc?

 

wayth

Unless they've hotfixed it within the last week or two, no it does not.

 

Bramme

Hello everybody

I'm a starting wow player (been playing since right before 3.1) but recently got my priest in a guild, so now i'm also a starting raider. I've been coming here (and other places), updating my knowledge, trying to get the max out of my shadow spec. Ulduar has been good for me and with my [Soot-Covered Mantle], I can finally start replacing some of my hit gems, one is still in my [Cowl of Sheet Lightning].

From here and from discussion with guild members, I have learned that basically "sp > all" (when you're hit capped). However, yesterday I downloaded Rawr (suggested by a friend) and was surprised to see that it recommended a [Reckless Monarch Topaz], instead of a [Runed Scarlet Ruby] as best (even the 9sp, 8 crit is supposedly better).

Rawr seems like a decent program, but I was wondering how much I can trust it, seeing as it says something different than anyone else.

Can anyone explain to me, if the Reckless Monarch Topaz is better, why it is? Or does Rawr simply use different coëfficients for their stat weighing? As far as I can see, it rates haste better than crit (while the Shadowpriest topic here suggests, crit is a little better (0.04 to be exact). Shadowpriest.com also rates crit higher than haste...

edit: I just realised this has probably everything to do with the socket bonus. Is that a correct assumption?

 

The Not So Evil

Rawrs haste rating evaluation can be icky from time to time. But socket/meta bonus can often explain some situations. Be a bit careful with how Rawr handles haste however, I'm working on fixing it eventually.

Rawr - Coder of HolyPriest (Healer) and ShadowPriest (DPS) Modules.
Get Your Rawr 2.2.20!