Holy Priest spell choice.

Looking for a holy priest who can give me a breakdown on when you use what spells, chakra states, holy word spells, and what not.

And, the million dollar question. Do you ever use PW:S?

Never use pws for its shield. Only for body and soul. Will answer more when I'm not on my phone.

lev can explain better then i can... so i am not even going to try... >.>

It has been interesting so far. I HATE Disc right now. I don't like the smite / holy fire to heal mechanics. It doesn't feel interesting. It feels... half baked after watching the Smite heal that is supposed to be smart heal stupid.

But Holy..... And Chakra... I feel like I'm cheating. The shear amount of healing that I'm able to push is astounding with the mastery.I'm sure it will even out as I get higher in levels and health pools even out, but right now, its mind blowing.

Shoju wrote:It has been interesting so far. I HATE Disc right now. I don't like the smite / holy fire to heal mechanics. It doesn't feel interesting. It feels... half baked after watching the Smite heal that is supposed to be smart heal stupid.

You don't have to spec into that to heal as disc.

Atonement is an option for Disc, not a requirement. If you legitimately needed healing to be done you should have been using your heals and not smiting and hoping Atonement picks the right target.

Anyways, Holy Word Sanctuary is massively niche in it's use. If you can't preplace it you're better off forsaking it for PoH/CoH spam. CoH is awesome. ProM is godlike. You will generally be running in Sanctuary for raids, Holy Priests are the weakest single target healer atm from what I've seen. On the bright side, between our AoE heals and Sanctuary we're really really good at AoE healing.

Serenity isn't bad at all, it's just outshined in a lot of situations. The ability to roll renew is hot and Holy Word is ballin too.

Nikachelle wrote:

Shoju wrote:It has been interesting so far. I HATE Disc right now. I don't like the smite / holy fire to heal mechanics. It doesn't feel interesting. It feels... half baked after watching the Smite heal that is supposed to be smart heal stupid.

You don't have to spec into that to heal as disc.

No, you don't have to spec into it, but then... Disc is rather dull otherwise. This is coming from someone who can without a doubt say that I enjoyed being the bubble spamming dispel freak on my first LK10 kill, and felt immensely satisfied even though my first kill was on an alt.

I loved bubbles. I loved all teh crazy bubbles. I don't like disc as is currently. My only 'hope' / desire for the spec was that smite to heal wouldn't suck. I find that it sucks immensely.

Levantine wrote:Atonement is an option for Disc, not a requirement. If you legitimately needed healing to be done you should have been using your heals and not smiting and hoping Atonement picks the right target.

If it were a life and death situation, yes. I would have been using a 'real' heal. But, the dps stood in something, took half health as damage, and then my smite I was casting went off, and hit the tank, not healing the DPS, but overhealing the tank. I just couldn't do it.

Anyways, Holy Word Sanctuary is massively niche in it's use. If you can't preplace it you're better off forsaking it for PoH/CoH spam. CoH is awesome. ProM is godlike. You will generally be running in Sanctuary for raids, Holy Priests are the weakest single target healer atm from what I've seen. On the bright side, between our AoE heals and Sanctuary we're really really good at AoE healing.

Serenity isn't bad at all, it's just outshined in a lot of situations. The ability to roll renew is hot and Holy Word is ballin too.

I kind of noticed that my single target heals were... 'ok' while my AoE healing was just nuts. Last night in a BWD the fail group managed to pull both sides of the adds + the elementals after Karsh. We lived. No problems. No Freak out. and we just kept rollin' I was pretty impressed.

Hmmm....my 2 cents on Holy Priest healing (since the really knowledgable people have not responded after a couple of days)...

1. Chakka Serenity is very nice for 5-man Heroics but not so nice for raids. I concur that I think Holy Priests are weakest at single-target healing right now so should not be asked to do much of that in raids. While you have an okay single-target tool kit with PoM, Renew, Holy Word: Serenity (abuse on CD, always) and Heal/Greater Heal, it does not equal the "other" single target tools of Earth Shield, Lifebloom, Beacon or Pennance.

However, that being said, I think there are a lot of times as a 10-man healer in FL that you might choose to go with Serenity.

On Shannox if you are assigned as the Riplimb tank healer. Primary single target heals along with a few AoE to get raid members back up after a spear throw.

On Beth, if you are the "up" healer.

On Baleroc due to only needing to heal a single person at a time (save the Holy Word Serenity as your instant "direct" heal on a shard tank in order to maintain stacks).

On Alysrazor as one of the "side" tank healers.

Now, in all these cases, there is, perhaps, a better place to put a Holy Priest but these are all possible jobs for him and where they might decide that Serenity is better.

2. Holy Word: Sanctuary is GREAT if you can get it down prior to the AoE damage going out but is lack-luster if you miss a couple of tick of damage and/or have to use a GCD to place it versus casting another CoH/PoH instead. Holy Priest has, BY FAR, the best burst AoE capability in the game with a CoH, PoH, PoH, CoH spell rotation. In heavy AoE situations, you do not want to break up that throughput by using a GCD (and on screen targeting time) by casting HW: Sanctuary during the burst.

3. Obviously, PoM is an incredible spell as is Lightwell. Need to probably build a Macro when you place a Lightwell that tells raid members that it is GREAT healing and to click on the dang thing and that it will not change their target, etc, etc. People still will not use it.

4. The "base" spell for Disc is Power Word: Shield. The "base" spell for Holy is Renew. DO NOT use the other spell when in the other spec (no shield for Holy, no Renew for Disc). When not propped up by talents and glyphs, those spells are not very good at all.

So, to answer your original questions:

-- In Chakka: Serenity for 5-man and perhaps in raids if you are primary healing a tank. Use Holy Word: Serenity pretty much on CD for the Crit buff.

-- In Chakka: Sanctuary any time you are the "raid" or "floater" healer (although, again, for Alysrazor as floater healer, I would be in Serenity during phase 1 and Sanctuary during phase 3). Lay down Holy Word: Sanctuary whenever you know there is going to be AoE damage and you can get it down prior to the damage starting. Otherwise, just spam CoH / PoH.

I like Holy healing so much more than Disc healing right now as well. So much so that I am thinking about ditching Disc as my Priet's off-spec and picking up, ick, Shadow so I can DPS older raids if needed.

Cheers,

I find Lev to be one of our really knowledgeable HPriests.

At the end of the day, it also depends on how far spread out your raid is. Missing targets from my CoH annoys me to no end. I think there's an addon that helps you show people that would be good members to cast CoH on. I forget the name right now. I'm sure you can find it.

Chakra is nice is that it gives me some flexibility based on fight mechanics but generally, I feel like it's AoE or bust sometimes. It's nice that we have a tank saver in GSpirit and we are more than competitive with Shamans in a spread out raid but when they can clump up, Healing Rains is incredibly powerful. Druids are well, still insane, but that's life.

In terms of spells, we probably have the largest toolbox available which can hurt or help depending on the situation and the player's skill. There are some nice PA strings in the Addon section of this site that are specific to priests as well which can help.

I know you're asking for spell choice but really it's all about who you're healing with and the situation. I use nearly all my spells save for Holy Nova. Maybe I could use those on Spiderlings in Beth'ilac...

PS - I'd also roll over to plusheal.com and check out the priest forums. It's moderated by derevka who authored talesofapriest.com and raids with meloree whom I'm sure you know from this site. Needless to say, that priest knows her stuff.

Shoju wrote:If it were a life and death situation, yes. I would have been using a 'real' heal. But, the dps stood in something, took half health as damage, and then my smite I was casting went off, and hit the tank, not healing the DPS, but overhealing the tank. I just couldn't do it.

What kind of dps was it? If it's melee, should not have been an issue, at all. But if it was ranged, it's very possible the dps was out of range. I find that I usually have to move closer to the tank in order for my smites to heal me if I need it.

Amirya wrote:

Shoju wrote:If it were a life and death situation, yes. I would have been using a 'real' heal. But, the dps stood in something, took half health as damage, and then my smite I was casting went off, and hit the tank, not healing the DPS, but overhealing the tank. I just couldn't do it.

What kind of dps was it? If it's melee, should not have been an issue, at all. But if it was ranged, it's very possible the dps was out of range. I find that I usually have to move closer to the tank in order for my smites to heal me if I need it.

it was a rogue.


And thanks for all the info guys

Then that's a very strange reaction on the part of Atonement, but hey...it's a rogue.

The rogue ddn´t want to repent and atone.

Dantriges wrote:The rogue ddn´t want to repent and atone.

But...Repentance is a paladin spell.

I think the poor rogue just got confused.

Eh, I'm loving Holy right now. I love the AoE healing. I love the hot's tacked on to every direct heal.

Are the 3 heals Heal / Flash Heal / Greater Heal all of equal value to a priest?

I ask because healing surge is just absolute garbage for R>Shaman to the point I don't even have it on a key. (i think it's on a bar, but not keyed.

I wouldn't say equal value but they certainly have their place on your bars. Flash heal is useful to build up serendipity which can certainly help during burst healing phases. Heal is useful when you have down time in healing and gheal is useful for a tank heal if your tank healer is in a bind and obviously works well if you have serendipity stacks.

Equal? No.
All useful? Absolutely

Ok. Thanks. I haven't messed with Other healers at 80+ yet besides my priest and shaman. I wanted to make sure that I was sort of trying to at least do it kind of right.

No, it's a valid question since spells like Flash of Light and Healing Surge aren't really used that often in the other healing classes.

(I have no idea if the druid's version of it is used. . .swiftmend?!)

I certainly don't abuse Flash Heal as my mana pool can't sustain it but it's definitely useful when I can predict/time a burst AoE healing spree. It all depends on the fight but if you had me put a percentage of usage on those spells it would probably be something like 50/35/15 for Heal/Gheal/Flash Heal. That includes SoL procs as well.

i pretty much only use flash heal to build serendipity stacks and if i get a Surge proc.
heal is a decent filler if you arent casting anything else (and iirc its more mana efficient then renew)

Cogglamp wrote:No, it's a valid question since spells like Flash of Light and Healing Surge aren't really used that often in the other healing classes.

(I have no idea if the druid's version of it is used. . .swiftmend?!)

I certainly don't abuse Flash Heal as my mana pool can't sustain it but it's definitely useful when I can predict/time a burst AoE healing spree. It all depends on the fight but if you had me put a percentage of usage on those spells it would probably be something like 50/35/15 for Heal/Gheal/Flash Heal. That includes SoL procs as well.

Nourish is what you're thinking of.

I typically use Nourish as a filler, and to keep Harmony (mastery) active.

So Nourish is like Heal?

What's the version of a Flash Heal/Flash of Light for a druid?

My IQ of a resto druid is pretty much the equivalent of the IQ of an empty mayonnaise jar. I'd like to know more about them and I read up on ej.com but the number of HoTs/spells/buffs started to make my eyes glaze over as it's a Friday afternoon. I'll look more at it this weekend.

The closest equivalent is Regrowth. But Regrowth differs in that it also applies a HoT beyond the mastery (I believe FH and HS apply a mastery HoT?).

If anyone could make a dumbed down version resto druid guide, I'd totally give you an internet high five.

Er...I can try, but tbh, I don't know how much time I have to devote to it. How dumb do you want it to be?

Don't worry about it. I'm sure there are guides floating out there in the interwebz. Maybe I'll just post mechanic questions once I get into it.