How to holy priest?

I thought I was doing quite well as a healer. I was healing ICC10 and 25N no problem until I had downloaded recount and had to face the reality that I am underperforming gravely. I can barely pull 8.0k H/s on bosses like Blood Queen Lana'thel. Yesterday I tried to do 10H and it was an utter failure. I ended up requesting the raid leader to replace me because I didn't want to ruin the raid for them. (It was a Grun BTW, not a pug)

I am fully gemmed and enchanted and I double checked using Boonsbane's guide http://forum.warmane.com/showthread.php?t=239652
My current talent build is this http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#bVcbhZrEzcbMqihMeuVo

One thing I realise I still need to improve is how much haste I have. Currently I have 776 which lands my Flash Heal at a 1.21s cast, which is very slow. But otherwise I feel like I should be doing much better, considering my gearscore is 5877, and no, I didn't donate for my gear.

So I believe the only thing I must be doing wrong is the way I am utilising my spells. My two most preferred heals are http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48071 and http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48089. I also like to keep tossing http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48113 on a tank and applying http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48068 on the raid when there is moderate but steady damage. I also like to utilise http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48072 when there is large raid wide damage, I even glyph'd this spell. It's especially neat if I have http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=63737 up.

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Also, I talked to this guy who supposedly does super well in ICC25H and is near BiS (though he could be premium IDK). His talents looked something like this http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#bVcbubbZfE0cb0qqhG0uAo

I was horrified to see that he has neither http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=63737 nor http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=33162.
Also he said the only spells he uses are http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48068, http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48071 and http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48089. Maybe http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48113 if he feels wild.

I thought the renew spammer spec was no longer a viable option, but this guy was hell bent on proving I am braindead for using http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48072 and spending points in http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=15018 and http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=63737. He's claimed he's been playing Holy Priest for 5 years and knows what he's doing but it all seemed fishy.

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So without further ado, I ask; Am I not doing holy priesting correctly? Should I alter my talent build or stop using one of my spells? Is it a matter of not having enough haste? Or Holy just not that good? (Been told this a couple of times) I really don't feel like respeccing into Discipline, but at the same I just cannot progress with the way I am performing currently.

Hey there,

I been playing holy priest for like 3 years or more so, here is my armory and the talent im using;
http://armory.warmane.com/character/...ecrown/profile
http://armory.warmane.com/character/...ecrown/talents

Well.. yes haste is very important if you gonna cast those flashs and prayer of heallings.(Otherwise some other Rshamy or Rdudu might stole your hp/s)My gear score is 6485 and even i cast flash heal @1.1 sec.I used to raid with (Hpaly, rdudu, shamy, disco) combo, so i can't really go in to burst heal race or situlation with this setup and there is no need too.They gonna recover the damage done pretty quickly with my help of a couple spells.My role in the raid is more supportive than bursting heal.I never used healbot, i got grid i don't know if its better but it helps me alot.I'm the guy who watches over the raid.As holy priest we got pretty decent cc @icc(shackle), dispels, shield speed boost, guardian spirit.You can't really die easily on my watch.I don't give too much crap about healling done as long as boss dead.Depends on the boss i could be bottom or top.

10hc's shouldn't be a problem if you have a good setup.(But still disc outperforms in 10 man)In your case maybe people were stacking during the fight also we don't have any rotation so you should change your playstyle for each boss.@bql10hc i go more with renews&PoM and then PoH&CoH considering i have a hpaladin partner.So far i haven't seen any renew spammer but hey, this is holy priest.There is no do's or don't.Play it however it fits you.
I hope this helped you a bit.
p.s:Whoever said holy priest bad, he could thank my guardian spirit later.

I tried to tweak my playstyle a little bit to include more Renew, which was admittedly a filler spell to me beforehand. Honestly, I have a hard time trusting this spell because the output is kind of weak. I was doing ICC10N the other day and the other healer was a lesser geared shaman so I was the top healer naturally. I pulled some somewhat nice heals on Blood Queen and Saurfang for example. It somewhat reassured me about my choice, but then at the end of the raid I was told again to consider respeccing into Discipline.
http://motherboard-images.vice.com/c...8997900669.jpg

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Originally Posted by lecztamas

(...) consider respeccing into Discipline (...)

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https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...f32dee426f.gif

Think of this as a chance mate!

Ugh, but I really don't want to. Holy is the spec that I've grown accostumed to and liked for so long. I played some disc before and didn't enjoy it much. And double tapping into Disc/Holy would be overkill. I want to have Shadow as secondary.

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Originally Posted by lecztamas

Ugh, but I really don't want to. Holy is the spec that I've grown accostumed to and liked for so long. I played some disc before and didn't enjoy it much. And double tapping into Disc/Holy would be overkill. I want to have Shadow as secondary.

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Don't. (S)He's advocating Discipline because that his/her own spec choice. You should play what you enjoy.

@ your talents; A fair number of the Holy talents are niche, situational or preference. Your talents are fine if that works for you. I assume that you prefer not to be a Renew-spamming healbot, since you don't like Disc, as spamming Renew is the same as spamming shields - just a different spell. There are only 3 talents I would change.
- Take 1 point out of Spell Warding and put it into Improved Renew. 2% spell damage reduction to 5% increased Renew healing trade-off.
- If you are confident with your mana, you can drop Healing Prayers. If you are still having OOM problems, then keep the talent.
- Body & Soul is niche. I understand why you'd want it. It is a fun talent and can be useful at times. But keep this talent in mind when you need points for something else.
- For points 2 & 3, you can take the free points from there and put them either in to Blessed Resilience (for flat healing gain) or Test of Faith (if you feel you are healing people at low health regularly).

@ your gear; Gearscore doesn't tell me much, unfortunately. It doesn't tell me how much spirit you have, how much crit you have, what your trinkets are, etc.
- The usual "haste cap" for a Holy Priest is the one that caps your GCD. A GCD without any haste is 1.5s, and can be reduced to 1s, if you didn't already know. If you aren't spamming Renew, then you should go ahead and get however much haste makes you feel comfortable with your cast timers - makes you feel your cast times are decently fast.
- Make sure you are getting spirit on most items. Spirit isn't just your mana regen. It is also a source of spell power for Holy.
- If you have spirit on a bunch of your items and you are still having mana troubles, try using less of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing. If those two spells aren't what's killing your mana, then consider getting some items with crit on them (or preferrably, crit/spirit). Crits proc your main mana regeneration talent (Holy Concentration).
- After those stats are situated and fine, you can then focus on building your spell power. Spell power is good for pretty obvious reasons; it increases the strength of all of your heals.

@ spell usage; A lot of people will tell you to "use X and/or Y spell on CD". Don't do this. This is the mark of a careless healer who does not pay much attention to what they are doing.
- Power Word: Shield should almost never be used if you are healing along the side of a Discipline Priest. If that is not the case, however, then you should consider using this spell when you expect a large chunk of damage incoming on the target.
- It seems like you're using Renew mostly appropriately. It is a tool you should use to help keep someone stable in addition to healing minor but steady damage intake. You should try and keep it on anyone that you heal regularly.
- Prayer of Mending with the glyph is great for use on a tank. But it can also be useful for healing up other people while they are still taking in damage. It is an instant cast, remember that.
- The rest of your spell usage seems fine. But I'll point out that the mark of a great healer (not good, but great) are those that can predict damage incoming (DBM can help with this via mechanic timers). When you can predict damage, you can then cast your heals at just the right moment to instantly heal that damage up.

@ "Renew spam spec"; the spec DOES work. However, the usefulness of the spec is niche. Very niche. To outperform the standard Holy Priest, it has to be in a 25-man raid environment with a competent healer team that is going to snipe any of your other healing spells before you can get them off (mainly via Resto Sham and Resto Druid). Outside of that circumstance, though, the guy shouldn't be trying to convince you of anything. Much less insult you for playing your Priest differently than he does his.
Renew-spam builds will always be inferior to the standard Holy Priest build in 10-man raids and 5-man dungeons as well. Anyone who tries to claim differently - their gear is carrying them through the content.
Honestly, a competent raid leader would just get a Resto Druid instead.

@ "Or Holy just not that good? (Been told this a couple of times)"
This comes from people who are either A) clueless, or B) only care about HPS (healing per second). While a Holy Priest is very capable of dominating any other healer in a raid, unless the tank is paper (yay holydin heals), in HPS (it's not seen very often on here because there aren't many competent Holy Priests) - it doesn't need to. Healing isn't about flexing your ego on the meters. Healing is about keeping your raid-mates alive, first and foremost. And if you can do that, then you've already succeeded. You can worry about meters after that point. As for the clueless point, there are people who legitimately think that Holy Priests are bad. Which is really odd, because that has only been the case on this private server as far as I know. Especially when you include that people think that Discipline Priests are good (when the spec was considered largely inferior to Holy except on Lich King on Live aka 'Retail'; thanks to Infest).

Don't let people get you down. Just focus on improving your gear and your skill. You'll be fine.

Thank you so much for the lengthy explanation. It is appreciated.
I think I will take out Body and Soul from my build. It's proven to be way too situational to justifify two points. Now I'm not sure about Healing Prayers. Truth to be told, I don't find that I deal with mana problems using Shadowfiend, Hymn, Runic Mana Potion and flask (though sometime I go for spell power flask instead of MP5), but I feel like I would be in trouble without those talents. I think I will try anyway and then see how much they are needed. I think Test of Faith would be beneficial right now.

Currently I have 776 haste which is obviously not enough and my crit rating sits at 17.64% which could also be more, but it's hard to get gear with both crit rating and spirit/haste.

Hi, I have been playing Hpriest for a while now and there it a huge stigma unfortunately attached to the spec on Warmane, mainly through misinformation and a player base that tries to play hpriest like one of the other healer trees which it is not. Personally I play what I call the Instant playstyle, I very rarely cast the only times would be phase trans on LK (using a pot, troll racial or lust if available) this is just for PoH spam with the glyph which I highly recommend. My bread and butter healing would be CoH almost off CD (use common sense) as a smart instant heal I believe it be one of the best in game, with the glyph hitting 6 targets generally will give an instant flash proc which normally goes on the tank or whoever needs. Down the prio from this is prayer of mending which has had a history of being less than perfect on warmane but working properly it is an excellent spell. And finally if there is nothing else to do I will drop some renew's on people at low health or who I think will be taking damage. With this setup, I try to maximize my stats across the board and not simply stack haste to lower GCD. Another tip would be if you struggle mana wise, increasing your crit chance and using more renew casts can alleviate the problem without compromising throughput too negatively, I use RS cloth bracers and back as they simply give the most stats for this reason. Personally I have 0 issues with mana but I am sat with perfect gear, I'd say its generally a feeling thing and knowing the fights, keeping a solace or EoF trinket in the bag means you can change your gear to suit the fight without losing massive amounts of output (Abacus vs Solace)
http://armory.warmane.com/character/...ecrown/summary Here is my main priest, please fire away any further questions you may have and sorry if the structure of my response lacks readable flow (I'm tired)

Wow, I wrote an essay about this then I accidentally backspaced.

I hate my life.

To put it in one sentence : No, you are not a bad healer, it is not because Holy Priest sucks. It is because there is just nothing to heal. Resto Druid's Rejuvenation with other HoTs tick much faster than Holy Priest's Renew much more mana-efficient also. Holy Paladin's Holy Light has shorter casting time than Greater Heal with x3 Serendipity. Resto Shaman's Chain Heal out performs Circle of Healing in anyways. Circle of Mending heals so little than passes on to the next guy due to Rejuvenation being counted in first.

Every healers have their own roles in raid. Holy Paly heal tanks, Resto Druids heal raids. Holy Priest is a support. It can heal tank with x3 Serendipity Greater Heal while Holy Paly is getting girlfriend aggro'd and have to alt-tab. Also can heal the entire raid when there is no Resto Druid. Do not unspec Body and Soul. It is a very great talent. It is actually the only talent in this entire game that increases the movement speed greatly without penalty. Comes handy in every single encounter in ICC.

Do not be intimidated by number. Play what you want and play what you are comfortable with. The only weakness of Holy Priest is that it cannot heal the entire raid on its own when the raid is in critical condition ( < 35% ) because Renew just doesn't tick fast enough to save people.

Again, do not be intimidated by number. If raid leader calls you out for having low number, screw him, find another guild/raid.

Again, your number is low because there is nothing to heal. HPS is not like DPS. DPS is like mining from a cave with infinite nodes while HPS is not. It has limited amount of nodes with 4 other people competing for it.

If you ever wipe SOLELY because of lack of heals, that would be the right time to actually review how you are playing. Trust me. I know how it feels. I've been there.

If you have problem/questions about anything (including other specs, classes, tactics, even quests), come on to Warmane unofficial Discord Icecrown channel and find me (Silent). " https://discord.gg/hAays8M "

P.S. Although Mercy disagreed, I recommend Renew spec. Personally was easier to play than Flash Heal spec.

Oh now, was meant to be a joke ;) I can't imagine someone would really put much thought into such a random comment.

On topic tho, if holy is the spec that gives you most satisfaction and fun then just stick to that and simply upgrade your play. You seem like a sensible player, open to suggestions, so I believe you're half way to reaching a different level of playstyle development.

I won't go into detail as I'm not a truly competent holy priest but what I would advocate doing is maybe start tracking your ingame performance? That works for everyone. Like maybe World of Logs, instead of only monitoring Recount/Skada. I can only speak for myself but this helped me gain a lot of crucial knowledge. By that I don't mean ONLY info about stuff I cast but also how I perform in particular environments, in different healer comps and raid setups. How did a fellow raid memebrs' action affect my situational healing or which of my talents actually proc to benefit me?

This also gives you a broader perspective and builds up your confidence about your grasp of the given spec : D

Prepare a base and work around that. Best of luck.

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Originally Posted by Zelda1220

P.S. Although Mercy disagreed, I recommend Renew spec. Personally was easier to play than Flash Heal spec.

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I don't mean to say that it is a bad spec, because it isn't. It's just that it is strongest in the proper environment. The thing is that Renew-spam spec and the standard Holy Priest spec have different strengths. You've pretty much covered the strengths of the Renew-spam spec. The standard spec's strength lies in its versatility, it can do many things. It may not necessarily be the strongest in any of those things, due to how specialized any of the other healer specs are, but it can do them and do them fairly well.

Nowadays, people run with 4 healers or less in say ICC25hc. People in guilds with capable and coordinated healers, for example. A standard-spec Holy Priest wouldn't be needed there because you can expect that those other healers will do their jobs. However, having the standard-spec Holy Priest there is like having an insurance policy. They are capable of doing whatever job they're needed to in a pinch. That's why they were popular, especially in progression raiding (speaking of live, here). Let's say your group has no more battle-resses available and one of the healers get gibbed; that Holy Priest is capable of filling the void until either another battle-ress comes up, or until the encounter finishes with a kill or a wipe.

I agree with you, Renew-spam spec has its role and its place. But it's a playstyle that I don't enjoy, and it's not a spec I would recommend for a Priest that is still working on gearing up and still focusing on 10-man ICC.

@ 06akeyworth, he also gave some useful input. What he's said there is a very valid way to play, and I know I find myself doing it with some frequency as well.

As everyone pretty much said before me, do not loose faith :) Holy priest is such a flexible class, I enjoy it the most of all healing classes.

As Mercy said, your healing output depends a lot on the raid setup. Depending on the resto dudu/shamy you can be top or bottom of the line.

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Originally Posted by Mercy

- Prayer of Mending with the glyph is great for use on a tank.

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You've mixed cata for wotlk. Priests don't posses a PoM glyph in wotlk.


I am not sure about PoM right now, but about 1 month ago it got some fixes, and healed before the damage was done. Correct me if wrong. But I noticed, it doing a lot of healing for me when the raid got heavy aoe damaged. So I wouldn't reccomend it on the tanks only :)

I use the following talents: http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#bVcbhZfvzcb0qihrfuAo
But you can swap around the points as you wish. One friend of mine uses sort of a renew spamming build with serendipity, and uses flash heal only when it procs.

Oh and forgot to mention, that imo what makes Renew spamming build so viable and outstanding is Valanyr. It can work w/o it perfectly fine, but the mace gives it a big boost.

But you do you, explore holy healing :)
Try out what works for you the best. till that, just

http://shrani.si/f/12/y/F3uDvNZ/rsz1...041d5be63f.png

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Originally Posted by Nemmish

You've mixed cata for wotlk. Priests don't posses a PoM glyph in wotlk.

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Seems so. After playing so many expansions, it's sometimes difficult to separate them in memory.

Whoa whoa, what a sudden surge of replies! Thank you all for being so helpful. I'm learning a lot from these.
I need a bit of time to test things out, I haven't had the chance yet.

One question that popped in my mind is, are there healer comps that are not compatible in a 10H group? ie, I would imagine if the two healers are disc priest & holy priest that wouldn't be beneficial. How well do Holy Priests operate next to druids, shamans and paladins? Are all of them viable comps?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lecztamas

Whoa whoa, what a sudden surge of replies! Thank you all for being so helpful. I'm learning a lot from these.
I need a bit of time to test things out, I haven't had the chance yet.

One question that popped in my mind is, are there healer comps that are not compatible in a 10H group? ie, I would imagine if the two healers are disc priest & holy priest that wouldn't be beneficial. How well do Holy Priests operate next to druids, shamans and paladins? Are all of them viable comps?

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Because of the holy priests flexibility I think those compositions are all viable, but through different talents and playstyles.
For example a renew spamming build would not be too beneficial with a resto druid, because you can't pull off effective greater heals often enough, to heal the tanks.
I like to be a holy priest paired with a holy paladin the most, because I can predict that way the most of the incoming heals, and I can heal up the raid and preheal the best. But imo shamans and druids can work too, you just have to twist your playstyle around :)

Yeeah I tried healign with disc-holy too for the fun, but that one didn't come out well xD