Holy Priest 6.2

[Guest ItsLexiYO]

Is this like mega outdated?  The "Glyphs" portion isn't very helpful with all this "without Draenor perks" terminology.  The expansion has been out over a month, with a large part of the community at level 100, with the WoD perks.  Is it time to assume the opposite of the suggested glyphs (i.e. Glyph of Renew) ?

 

 

[Guest Guest]

FYI

 

Mark of the frostwolf wep encghant suggested DO NOT proc from heals, only attacks. Which makes it kinda useless as holy, unless you use some form of dmg spell.

[Guest Guest]

Is this guide going to be updated for WoD any time soon? The stat priority is incorrect, and a lot of other things are still assuming level 90.

[Guest Nick]

 

 

Note that in small raid sizes, Mastery is of lower importance since it does not benefit from  Renew.

 

I've seen that when I have used Renew, Echo hits and therefore does benefit from the mastery, though at the time of writing this I think it might only heal for the initial hit of about 1,400 heals (really not much, but it still does)

 

One thing that I have done to get more Circle of Healings was by using renew to keep people topped off at low damages to reduce the Circle of Healing CD per cast. Is this something that others have done to try to increase the amount of aoe heals?

 

Also, I have discovered that Circle of Healing does trigger the Mastery (though it was supposed to single target?)

[Guest Fsac]

Looks like section 3.1.2 could use an update/rewrite.  The entirety of the criticism of this spell seems to be aimed at it's mana cost.  Currently, at 2.5% of your total mana, or 4k at level 100, "extremely expensive" is the last thing this spell is.

 

In fact, I'm surprised this guide doesn't delve at all into swapping stance mid-fight in order to make the best use of both Sanctuary and Serenity.  Perhaps there is little need of this when one has the luxury of a well-run static raid group, but as one who is out there roughin' it with the PUGs, I find stance-dancing to be a must.

[Guest Fultrim]

You neglected to factor in procs of surge of light for divine star.  In a dungeon you get 1 proc more than 50% of the time you cast it.  In a raid you get 1-2 nearly 100% of the time and a very frequent amount of doubles.  That gives you constant supplies of free and instant flash heals.  

 

 

[NeonLemon 0]

I have used this guide to the letter and I still feel as though I'm doing something wrong during raids. I only say this because I am being out-healed by the shaman and druid healers in my raid group by about 10k hps and I'm not sure why. When I review my healing done, CoH is always my top heal, usually followed by Echo or renew, with the 3rd highest healing spell usually being a situational spell.

 

I tend to use binding heal to keep Serendipity up, to make use of PoH for aoe dmg or Heal for spot healing single target. I keep Mending up off CD, as well as CoH. I also cast Cascade off CD when it will hit 3 or more targets due to its low mana cost.

 

My charc name is Stfuitsmyalt (Kil'rogg-US) if anyone would care to look me up and see what I might be doing incorrectly. Would appreciate the help. Also, this is my first time healing on a priest, as I'm used to healing on a druid, and also the first time healing since Cata. Maybe I'm just rusty? 

[Guest Mercurial]

Prayer of Healing (PoH) still exists for disc and holy it's Greater Heal that has been removed and replaced by Heal.

[Vlad 411]

Is this ever going to be updated? The last update was pre-WoD and the stat priority is completely wrong.

 

Is this guide going to be updated for WoD any time soon? The stat priority is incorrect, and a lot of other things are still assuming level 90.

 

Is this like mega outdated?  The "Glyphs" portion isn't very helpful with all this "without Draenor perks" terminology.  The expansion has been out over a month, with a large part of the community at level 100, with the WoD perks.  Is it time to assume the opposite of the suggested glyphs (i.e. Glyph of Renew) ?

Thank you for pointing it out. All these things should not have been fixed. The stat priority has stayed, however, since we still feel that it's correct.

 

FYI

 

Mark of the frostwolf wep encghant suggested DO NOT proc from heals, only attacks. Which makes it kinda useless as holy, unless you use some form of dmg spell.

Thank you very much, fixed now!

 

Looks like section 3.1.2 could use an update/rewrite.  The entirety of the criticism of this spell seems to be aimed at it's mana cost.  Currently, at 2.5% of your total mana, or 4k at level 100, "extremely expensive" is the last thing this spell is.

 

In fact, I'm surprised this guide doesn't delve at all into swapping stance mid-fight in order to make the best use of both Sanctuary and Serenity.  Perhaps there is little need of this when one has the luxury of a well-run static raid group, but as one who is out there roughin' it with the PUGs, I find stance-dancing to be a must.

Thank you. I've done the re-write in a way that is more accurate.

[Fsac 1]

I have used this guide to the letter and I still feel as though I'm doing something wrong during raids. I only say this because I am being out-healed by the shaman and druid healers in my raid group by about 10k hps and I'm not sure why. When I review my healing done, CoH is always my top heal, usually followed by Echo or renew, with the 3rd highest healing spell usually being a situational spell.

 

I tend to use binding heal to keep Serendipity up, to make use of PoH for aoe dmg or Heal for spot healing single target. I keep Mending up off CD, as well as CoH. I also cast Cascade off CD when it will hit 3 or more targets due to its low mana cost.

I feel this is just "nature of the beast."  When compared to most of the other healers out there, the Holy Priest is more reactive than proactive.  Whereas the others have long duration HOTs, spammable absorbs, and plenty of "fire-and-forget" spells, the bulk of the Holy Priest's toolkit is centered around solid, efficient heals on injured targets.

 

There are also times when the Holy Priest simply does not shine as much as other classes. Generally speaking, the larger the raid, the worse my numbers typically look.  My throughput is rarely impacted, mind you... it's just that other classes are better equipped to heal large groups (even if half of it is overhealing,) and so their numbers grow exponentially, while mine sit about the same, regardless of if it's a 10-man, or 30-man raid.  Throw me in a 10/12-man Butcher in Highmaul Normal and I can all but guarantee I'll be top of the heals and bottom of the overheals with equally geared healers.  Switch it up to a 30-man Brackenspore and 100% I am at the bottom by a solid 20%.  In the end, as long as the attempt as a success, and few/no deaths occurred, it really doesn't matter either way.

 

Now, as far as the guide is concerned... I'd say it's mostly right.  As right as a general guide can be, anyway.  There is always room to grow your knowledge and build upon what you've learned, though.  For example, there are many encounters which require frequent movement, and on-the-move healing.  This limits your options a good deal, so anticipating them and saving short cooldowns like CoH, HW:Serenity, and Surge of Light procs is hugely beneficial... whereas this guide would all but have you using each of these things on CD.

 

The only thing I flat out disagree with in this guide (as well as Noxxic's) is their love for Prayer of Mending.  I just don't see it, I guess.  As one of our only real proactive abilities, it's just flat out underwhelming to me.  For roughly the cost of a Heal, you get less total healing in an uncontrollable, unpredictable spread.  I still use both the 100 talent, as well as the glyph for it... but I can hardly justify casting it in combat these days.  I'd much rather blow a little more mana and get a Flash Heal out there.  That said, I suppose I haven't really sat down and studied my Recount logs.  Maybe there's just something I'm missing here.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Fsac

[Guest You're Wrong]

FYI

 

Mark of the frostwolf wep encghant suggested DO NOT proc from heals, only attacks. Which makes it kinda useless as holy, unless you use some form of dmg spell.

It most certainly does. Did you even test it?

[Gwenymph 414]

I have used this guide to the letter and I still feel as though I'm doing something wrong during raids. I only say this because I am being out-healed by the shaman and druid healers in my raid group by about 10k hps and I'm not sure why. When I review my healing done, CoH is always my top heal, usually followed by Echo or renew, with the 3rd highest healing spell usually being a situational spell.

 

I tend to use binding heal to keep Serendipity up, to make use of PoH for aoe dmg or Heal for spot healing single target. I keep Mending up off CD, as well as CoH. I also cast Cascade off CD when it will hit 3 or more targets due to its low mana cost.

 

My charc name is Stfuitsmyalt (Kil'rogg-US) if anyone would care to look me up and see what I might be doing incorrectly. Would appreciate the help. Also, this is my first time healing on a priest, as I'm used to healing on a druid, and also the first time healing since Cata. Maybe I'm just rusty? 

 

@NeonLemon and @Fsac,

 

I have finished the Heroic/Normal Disc tips and am currently working on finishing the Holy Highmaul for Priest updates.  Holy can definitely be competitive but it may cause some to change up their accustomed Holy playstyle.  As of this moment 3 of 7, Holy are up along w/ Heroic kill vids in the Priest Forums.  The three vids include 2 Holy Priest in raid fighting for the Top spot.  You'll get a little more focused feedback from regulars by posting in that Forum.  Hope to see you over there!

 

Holy Highmaul Link

[Guest bbartlog]

You can tell that the reviewer just sort of skimmed this guide and said 'yeah, close enough for the plebs'.

 

By which I mean that if you look at the actual, publicly available logs for Jazhrun (here's a good one - Paragon wipes on Mythic Twin Ogron: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/rpkwaHNJF3bhf8gX#fight=12&type=healing&source=88), the spells being used match the raid healing suggestions in the guide rather poorly. Point by point:

 

- the guide suggests Prayer of Healing as a frequent mainstay. He never casts it in this fight.

- the guide suggests Prayer of Mending as a spell that should frequently be maintained Oops, he doesn't use that either (except as an automatic effect of Words of Mending).

- the guide mentions Holy Word: Sanctuary as if it mattered. Yes, he cast it once. It healed for half as much as his healthstone, coming in dead last in the list here, which is what we would generally expect given how crappy it is.

 

I think the fact that he doesn't use PoM is actually interesting (I think it's worth casting) and it would be cool to hear why, exactly, he chooses not to use it. But anyway, it looks to me like the guide was written by someone who doesn't really know what they're doing and then they just slapped Jazhrun's name on as reviewer to give it a bogus claim to credibility.

 

[Aurelion 1]

I think that some of the advice in the 'Holy Priest Healing Rotation' is basically bad, and further doesn't reflect the actual practices of the reviewer or other effective holy-specced priests. For example, here's a log for Jhazrun (and two other holy priests) doing Mythic Twin Ogron:  https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/rpkwaHNJF3bhf8gX#type=healing&fight=14

 

Specifically:

 

- the guide presents Prayer of Healing as some kind of bread and butter spell that should be getting cast in many situations. In reality it's rarely used, even when everyone is damaged.

- Prayer of Mending is supposed to be kept up ... well, I actually don't necessarily disagree with this, but apparently Jhazrun and others do; he doesn't cast this at all (though he still gets the automatic casts from Words of Mending)

- Holy Word: Sanctuary is mentioned three times, even though it's utterly ineffective.

- Heal is simply not used very much, even in small raids, despite being suggested as some kind of go-to spell. This is because one of three situations normally holds: either lots of people are taking mixed damage (in which case Circle of Healing and Renew work better), or one person/tank is taking damage spikes (in which case Flash Heal and Holy Word:Serenity work better than the slowcast/slowthroughput Heal), or everyone is getting pounded on at once, in which case the cooldown spells are best and in any case a single-target slow heal is *not* going to do the job. We would have to imagine some case where there's a really long, mana-draining fight, so that Heal's efficiency matters, and the damage is steady but moderate to one target, but somehow Renew and the other healers can't quite cover the damage ... basically, the situation to justify using Heal doesn't really exist.

Would make more sense for the guide to emphasize the importance of keeping Renew up on all and sundry, and also its role in efficiently reducing the cooldown until the next Circle of Healing can be cast (assuming Chakra: Sanctuary is active). I realize that spamming Renew and CoH mixed with Flash Heals as needed (while using strategic cooldowns) is less interesting than the multiple-choice healing options presented in the guide, but it seems to be the effective choice.

 

(edit): I see on reviewing a few more logs that Heal does find an effective role in the Imperator Mar'gok fight, because it's such a long fight that mana conservation is actually a big deal. This is pretty unusual, though.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Aurelion

[Gwenymph 414]

Heya Aurelion, jump on over to the Priest forums.  They are updated more often than the class guides as things in game change.  There is also a link from the Class guide to both Healing approaches to Tier 17 bosses, Holy and Disc, for Normal/Heroic and some Mythic encounters.  I hope more of your concerns are addressed there and by other contributors in the threads beneath the Pinned Highmaul posts.  You'll also see that people post their approaches to encounters that they find effective that are not included in the general "how to" of the OP 

[Guest Malocrawne]

Sorry for my english, it's not my native language. :p

 

I use addon very usefull. Prayer of Mending Tracker

 

Allows real-time monitoring your spell :

1. Track your real-time spell with the number of remaining charge,
2. Track on which player's raid,
3. Track Total amount healing.

You can distribute your spell in a more useful and make the right decision to restart, If the need arises.

[Arthonor 0]

Each time you crit, you can either have a break or have time to cast a longer cast time spell, or keep on healing insanely, and if you live, you know that the crit saved you all.
If you choose to have a break from healing, because of the crit, you save mana. 

So crit helps spirit.

Crit kinda never procs, if you have less than 15% or it only proc to overheal. So if you have no crit rating, the raid buff of 5%, will be wasted.
IMO you should have 5-10% crit.

 

But the way this guide explains stats, you might as well go for equal on all secondaries.

Stats is NOT scaled by priority. 

Versatility boosts multistrike and all, but crit does that as well, only in a different way.
If you like to keep peops topped instead of 95% and slowly give the rest, and you are afraid of overhealing, I can see why you would waste some stat ratings.
I would rather waste some healing on overhealing.

In situations where you need it, it is sad to have wasted ratings. To waste overhealing, just to top peops off, would be in situations where you can afford it.

Haste can be filled with ratings, but it is good to find a soft cap for your liking. 
With too much haste, you may loose healing effectiveness, and thereby need to cast twice as many spells to get the same effect. You kinda loose all the haste then. And it will drain your mana fast.
Find a haste that fits rotations or move, stop to cast, then move again with out beeing hit by crap. Also it should fit with the 30% haste from bloodlust/heroism or whatever haste boost. Don't get too little haste, or you can't cast your heals in time. When you have found the percentage you like. Try and keep it, whether your item lvl is 600 or 700.

Some say that Renew is their top heal, and that indicate that mastery is to be considered less important. But it could also indicate that they need more mastery so the others heals will be better than Renew. 
Remember that, mastery benefits alot of spells, so to compare you need to use more advanced math, than just see if Renew is still on top. Maybe also change your rotations. PoH will never be at top, if you don't use it.

Large groups or small groups affects how much mastery is worth, some claim. It may be true, but I suspect that it is only true in your logs.
You can't really use that. 
Even in 10 mans, you can not use Renew on all in presured situations. And that is when it matters. 
You could argue that Renew saves you mana the rest of the time, so you have full mana in stressed times. But I think mastery can do that, if you let it. 

In the end, maybe it dosn't matter much, because the rating you take from mastery, you put into something, that benefit all spells and also boosts the effect from mastery. 

Most of this is just what makes sense to me, I havn't testet all of it.
 

[Guest Prime]

Sooo you didn't explain Multistrike... the most important stat. Just saying.

[Guest ilia]

I would just like to point out that Intellect is listed as 3rd in the stats priority but bellow it is stated that it is the primary stat which would mean the it would be listed as #1 on the stats priority.

[Kevinsan199 1]

You have incorrect stat priorities for holy priest because Renew does benefit from Mastery. 

[Guest Guest]

Cascade can heal a target more than once since 6.1

[Guest BounceyBall]

I would suggest to build a mage tower in your garrrison. That way you will have a 100% crit spot that you can situational use. Raiding will be harder because of the loads of AOE spam and running around but smaller groups will certainly benefit from it. It triggers quite often and is a serious boost to your healing. Just my opinion of course, but everything helps!

[Orthios 271]

I would suggest to build a mage tower in your garrrison. That way you will have a 100% crit spot that you can situational use. Raiding will be harder because of the loads of AOE spam and running around but smaller groups will certainly benefit from it. It triggers quite often and is a serious boost to your healing. Just my opinion of course, but everything helps!

The Mage tower proc, so to speak, doesn't work within any sort of instances zone.

[Guest davesignal]

It's pretty funny that the talent section basically says "Never cast Prayer of Mending", which is the spell that actually triggers the tier 18 set bonus.

[Brewmonksta 157]

It's pretty funny that the talent section basically says "Never cast Prayer of Mending", which is the spell that actually triggers the tier 18 set bonus.

Im not sure where you read this. All i see in the rotation section(here) is:

 

Cast Prayer of Mending on cooldown.

 

In almost all situations.