Shaman Healing 101

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This is the last installment of our Healing 101 series! Today Rowin, Ascended's awesome Shaman class leader, explains the basics of Shaman healing and how it can be more than just facerolling chain heal.


Shaman Healing 101!

At the request of Averna (resident druid queen of Ascended), I have written this general guide on restoration shaman to give our branched brethren some insight into your resident totem dropping & heroism/bloodlust machines.

Resto shaman have traditionally been primarily raid healers, relying almost exclusively on chain heal. In Naxxramas, a restoration shaman could literally spec 71 points into resto, bind every key to chain heal, roll their forehead across their keyboard while clicking flashing grid boxes and be a fairly effective healer. In 3.1 the role of the resto shaman is starting to become more varied based on encounter, deferring to other healer’s strengths on each encounter and supplementing gaps in healing assignments. In Uludar a restoration shaman needs to be flexible, knowing when and how to utilize all available tools at their disposal to be an effective healer.

Totems, Totems, Totems!

Totems are the defining ability of the shaman class and the main source of shaman provided raid buffs. We are able to have 4 totems active at any given time, with only 1 totem up from each of the four elements: earth, fire, air, water . . . . heart! (just kidding, shaman are currently unable to summon captain planet, I have high hopes for 3.2 though). Each time a totem is dropped, our GCD is triggered. With changes made in WotLK, most of our totem buffs are now raid wide, there are however a couple of exceptions: mana tide totem, healing stream totem, cleansing totem and tremor totem. Also note, most totem buff effects have a range of 30 yards.

General totem dropping guidelines are:

Earth: If there is no enhancement shaman or DK cast => Strength of Earth (155 str and agi buff untalented). If there is an enh shaman cast => Stoneskin (1150 armor buff untalented)
Fire: Default cast => Flametongue Totem (144 spell power buff untalented)
Air: If there is no enhancement shaman or frost DK cast => Windfury (16% melee haste untalented). If there is an enhancement shaman or frost DK cast => Wrath of Air (5% spell haste)
Water: If there is no paladin buffing blessing of wisdom, cast => Mana Spring (91mp5 buff, 109mp5 talented). If there is a paladin buffing blessing of wisdom, cast => Healing Stream *Party Only* (weak HoT, 2 sec pulse)

Situational totems

Earth: Tremor *Party Only* (fear, sleep and charm break, 3 sec pulse)
Earthbind (snare effect, 15 sec cooldown)
Fire: Fire Elemental (big fire dude, rawr! 20 min cooldown unglyphed)
Frost Resist (130 resist)
Air: Grounding (consumes 1 harmful spell, 15 second cooldown untalented)
Nature Resist (130 resist)
Water: Mana Tide *Party Only* (24% mana restore over 12 sec, 36% glyphed, 5 min cooldown) – 31 point talent
Cleansing Totem *Party Only* (poison and disease dispel, 3 sec pulse)
Fire Resist (130 resist)

Why is our raid leader so pissed off when there aren’t any shaman in the raid?

Heroism/Bloodlust 26% of base mana, 5 min cooldown

Heroism/Bloodlust is a raid wide buff, that when activated increases spell and melee haste by 30% for 40 seconds. These spells were changed in 3.1 to have a 5 min cooldown instead of a 10 min cooldown; the spells give a debuff called Exhaustion which lasts for 10 min and makes a player unable to receive Heroism/Bloodlust. The exhaustion debuff can be removed by death, so if your raid wipes to a boss, it is likely you will have Heroism/Bloodlust off cooldown for the next attempt. Heroism/Bloodlust is incredibly powerful for critical situations where you need raid wide dps to be increased for a short period of time during an encounter. The best example of this is Kael’thas’ shock barrier in Tempest Keep. Even when there is no such situation during an encounter, the buff provided effectively shortens any given fight giving the raid a little bit of extra cushion when facing an enrage timer or if a fight is extremely healing intensive.
As an added bonus, it acts as an epeen enlarger to all dps classes in your raid and they will love you for it. The only downside is having to endure comments like “ZOMG I can do like eleventy billion dps with heroism/bloodlust up!!! I am AWESOME!!!”

What's in a resto shaman’s spell arsenal?

Riptide (alias RT) 18% base mana, instant cast, 6 second cooldown – 41 point talent
Riptide is the 51 point resto tree talent that gives resto shaman our only instant heal (besides a nature’s swiftness cast, 3 min cooldown). Approximately 60% of the healing is instant and the remaining 40% is a 15 sec HoT (21 sec HoT glyphed). If a target currently has the riptide HoT applied, when the shaman subsequently casts Chain Heal on that target, the chain heal for an additional 25% (this increase affects jumps), but the riptide HoT will be consumed. This mechanic only applies to riptides and chain heals cast by the same shaman and the target must be the primary target of the chain heal to gain the bonus (it does not trigger and consume on chain heal jumps). Riptide also has a 100% chance to proc tidal waves. See tidal waves in “What are a few talents you can’t live without?” below.

Chain Heal (alias CH) 3 second cast, 2.5 second cast talented
Since its arrival in Burning Crusade, this has been the restoration shaman’s signature heal and also most mana efficient. Chain heal can heal up to 3 targets (4 targets glyphed), each jump target is selected based on absolute value health deficit, healing for 50% less than the previous jump. The jump range of the spell is approximately 10 yards; if there are no targets in range or if all targets in range are at full health it will not jump. Each jump of a chain heal can crit, although the base healing done on the next jump is based on the non-crit value of the previous heal. If the primary target of a chain heal currently has the riptide HoT applied, the chain heal will gain a 25% bonus, although the riptide HoT will be removed. Chain Heal also has a 100% chance to proc tidal waves. See tidal waves in “What are a few talents you can’t live without?” below.

Lesser Healing Wave (alias LHW) 15% base mana, 1.5 second cast
This is a shaman’s small single target heal, our “nourish”. While the tidal waves buff is active, cast time of LHW is reduces and healing coefficient is increased. See tidal waves in “What are a few talents you can’t live without?” below.

Healing Wave (alias HW) 25% base mana, 3 second cast, 2.5 second cast talented
This is a shaman’s biggest single target heal, our “healing touch”.
While the tidal waves buff is active, cast time of HW is reduces and healing coefficient is increased. See tidal waves in “What are a few talents you can’t live without?” below.

Earth Shield (alias ES) 15% base mana, instant cast – 41 point talent
Earth shield is a 41 point resto tree talent that when cast, the target receives a shield with 6 charges (8 charges talented). When a shielded player takes damage, one charge is consumed and they are healed, this effect can only occur every few seconds.

Earthliving Weapon (alias ELW) 6% base mana, instant cast
Earthliving weapon is a temporary weapon imbue shaman use in place of mana oil. It increases healing spell power by 150 and has a 20% chance to proc a weak HoT on any target healed by the shaman.

Water Shield (alias WS) no mana cost, instant cast
Water shield is a base shaman talent that when cast, the shaman receives a shield with 3 charges (4 charges glyphed). This is a self buff that increases mana regen by 100 mp5 (130 mp5 glyphed) and when the shielded shaman takes damage, one charge is consumed and they receive 400 mana (460 mana talented), this effect can only occur every few seconds. Additionally, shaman have a talent called improved water shield which gives mana back from RT, HW and LHW criticals. See improved watershield in “What are a few talents you can’t live without?” below.

What are a few talents that you just can't live without?

Since the consolidation of a number of resto tree talents in 3.1, there is essentially one widely agreed upon cookie cutter spec: Elemental (0) / Enhancement (16) / Restoration (55) - (0/16/55) a.k.a. 16/55 or 1x/5x

There is minimal room for the movement of points, but it is generally not advised, usually involving sacrificing elemental weapons for nature’s guardian or healing way. Since it’s pretty straightforward going through the trees which talents are useful and which ones aren’t, I’ll hit on some of the most vital talents in each of the trees.

Improved Watershield (3/3) – Resto Tier 3
This talent is somewhat similar to a illumination for paladins. Depending on your playstyle, it can be more or less beneficial as it does not proc off of Chain Heal. Essentially, the more you cast RT, HW and LHW, the more important this talent is. For a shaman who primarily uses chain heal, this is not a significant source of mana regen. For a shaman who primarily uses LHW, this talent is critical, as without it LHW spam is not sustainable.

Mana Tide Totem – Resto Tier 7
This talent is a resto shaman’s only active mana regeneration ability. It restores a total of 24% of your total mana (36% of total mana glyphed). The true strength of this ability is it is a unique party buff that can help sustain heavy mana users in a raid, usually other healers.

Cleanse Spirit – Resto Tier 7
This talent is a must have, especially for 5 man dungeons and 10 man raids where you may or may not have a class with the ability to decurse. It also gives the added benefit of only having to use one spell to remove debuffs on friendly targets.

Ancestral Awakening (3/3) – Resto Tier 10
Depending on your playstyle, this talent can be more or less beneficial as it does not proc off of Chain Heal. Essentially, the more you cast RT, HW and LHW, the more beneficial this talent is. As of 3.1, the healing from ancestral awakening is based on the total heal value (effective heal + overheal) of your RT, HW or LHW critical. This is a smart heal and due to the 40 yard range, typically has very low overheal.

Tidal Waves (5/5) – Resto Tier 10
This talent is a must have for any playstyle, but is especially critical for any shaman that is assigned to do any amount of single target healing. It not only increases HPS through cast time reduction, it also increases HPM through coefficient boost. With the tidal waves buff active, with a moderate amount of haste, it gives LHW a cast time of less than 1 second, which increases LHW’s usefulness as a spot heal. Tidal waves is what also gives a shaman the ability to heal a tank or off tank effectively when assigned to.

Shaman glyphing!

Recommended Major Glyphs:
Glyph of Earth Shield – increases the amount healed by earth shield by 20%
Glyph or Chain Heal – Similar to druid's Glyph of Wild Growth!
Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave – LHW heals for 20% more if the target is also affected by your Earth Shield.
Glyph of Water Mastery – increases the mana regen of water shield by 30% and gives you 30mp5.
Glyph of Mana Tide Totem – Buffs your Mana Tide totem. Increases total mana return to 36% over 12 seconds vs. 24% unglyphed.
Glyph of Riptide – increases the duration of riptide by 6 seconds.

Generally, most resto shaman will take Glyph of Earth Shield and Glyph of Chain Heal and then choosing their third glyph based on mana regen needs. Glyph of Water Mastery provides the greatest increase in personal mana regen, so if mana is a significant issue, then choose this glyph. Glyph of Mana Tide Totem provides less personal mana regen, however the glyph benefits all of your mana using party members, so if party mana is a significant issue, then choose this glyph. Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave is my general third glyph of choice as it is useful in the case that you get assigned to MT healing (unlikely), off tank healing (more likely) or when a MT healer dies during a fight (good luck!). If you have no mana issues and don’t plan on doing any tank healing or if you choose to adopt a LHW focused healing approach, you may want to consider the Glyph of Riptide which will allow you to keep the riptide HoT up on more targets at one time.

How do shaman put their skills to use? Two ways to raid heal.

At present there are 2 main schools of thought regarding the optimal way to heal as a shaman. In truth, both methods can be optimal dependant on the mechanics of an individual fight, strategy used and raid makeup. As a resto shaman, your job is to adapt and choose a healing style in any given fight that you are comfortable with and allows you to cover the responsibilities assigned to you by the raid leader.

Chain Heal focused healing
This is the stereotypical healing strategy used by the majority of shaman. The basic strategy is to decrease the cast time of chain heal as much as you can and spam chain heal as much as possible. Your main responsibility is to keep your totems up and make sure that your Earth Shield is up on the tank at all times. Riptide is used as a tool for spot heals, to give a weak HoT for a target who you know will be taking damage and to super charge your chain heals. Lesser healing wave can be used to spot heal when Riptide is on cooldown and a player is taking spike damage quickly, giving you no time to cast a chain heal. When you aren’t doing any of the things listed, you are looking for a target to cast chain heal on. In this play style, it is not uncommon or unusual for Chain Heal to make up 70%+ of your total effective healing. Using a Chain Heal focused strategy is most effective when most of the raid is grouped tightly together, increasing the chance that your Chain Heal will be able to heal 4 targets every time you cast it. It is excellent for when you are assigned exclusively to melee healing as melee are almost always grouped close enough together on any given fight for Chain Heal to hit the maximum number of targets.

Lesser Healing Wave focused healing
With the original nerf to improved water shield, decreasing the proc rate from 100% down to 60%, many people had presumed this strategy to be dead. A many shaman had difficulty regenerating enough mana to keep up the LHW spam and CH was able to push much more HPS with the fight spacing in tier 7.5 raiding. Due to a number of factors, this strategy has experienced a resurgence in support and is being utilized by many shaman in progression guilds. At a certain gear level, with enough intellect and critical strike rating, LHW spam can be sustained reliably. The tier 8/8.5 set bonus reducing the cooldown to Riptide by 1 second, allows a smoother RT/LHW/LHW spell rotation allowing almost all LHWs to be cast with Tidal Waves up, thus increasing healing throughput. The change to Ancestral Awakening now being calculated off of total heal, instead of effective heal, in addition to the introduction of the Riptide glyph, have given a nice throughput boost to the play style as a whole. The other factor having a big impact on making this play style viable is the fight spacing in Ulduar, with many encounters requiring raid members to spread out right at the limit or beyond the range that Chain Heal is able to jump.

The basic strategy here is to cast Riptide whenever it is off cooldown and cast Tidal Waves hasted LHW a la a Vanilla WoW Paladin flash of light spam. Again, your main responsibility is to keep your totems up and make sure that your Earth Shield is up on the tank at all times. The rest of the time you are playing raid frame whack-a-mole casting Riptide and LHW. As Riptide is an instant cast and a Tidal Waves hasted LHW is typically well under a 1 second cast, the theory is to raid heal with fast reactions and the ability to directly target many players and heal them in a short period of time. Ancestral Awakening procs will help to even out the damage taken across the raid. It should be noted that even while utilizing a LHW focused strategy, Chain Heal is still a valuable tool, especially when the raid is grouped close together and you can predict when the damage will occur and start your cast ahead of time.

What happens when sh*t hits the fan?

Nature's Swiftness (alias NS) 3 min cooldown
Just like druids, shaman also have nature’s swiftness, 21 point resto tree talent. It makes the next nature spell cast an instant cast, this includes heals and damage spells.

Tidal Force (alias TF) 3 min cooldown
Tidal force is a 11 point resto tree talent that increases the crit chance of the next healing wave, lesser healing wave or chain heal by 60%, with each critical heal decreasing the buff by 20%.

The most common way shaman use nature’s swiftness is to macro it with tidal force + healing wave - it will make your healing wave an *instant* heal and almost guaranteed to crit (common macro alias: NS + TF + HW). If you want to take it a step further you can also bind any on use trinkets you use as well as gift of the naaru if you happen to be an alliance shaman.

How do shaman choose their shiny purples?

Primary Stats – Intellect and Spell Power and Stamina:
You will find intellect, spell power (and stamina) on all pieces of resto shaman gear. Your intellect, spellpower and stamina levels will be primarily dependant on gear iLvl as stat allocation for intellect, spellpower and stamina remain relatively similar amongst items of the same iLvl.

Intellect (int)
Your primary stat is going to be intellect. Without mana, you cannot cast any heals, that’s why it’s your number 1 stat. Intellect increases your mana pool and mana regeneration from Replenishment. It will also boost your spell critical strike rating and also your spell power through the talent Nature’s Blessing.

Spell Power (sp)
Your other primary stat is going to be spell power. Spellpower isn’t really number 2 to intellect, but more like 1b, you will need both intellect and spellpower to be an effective healer. Spell power is a great way to increase your HPS and HPM since it will make your spell casts more powerful. Also, for the only way to increase the healing effectiveness of the HoT portion of riptide is increasing spell power as haste and crit provide no benefit to HoT spells.

Secondary Stats – Haste, Crit and Mp5:
Except for when gemming, with intellect and spell power effectively fixed when choosing between items of the same iLvl, you choice will depend on 3 stats: haste, crit and m5. Commonly, most items have 2 secondary stats in addition to intellect, spellpower and stamina. Which item you choose will depend on your play style and current stat balance.

Haste Rating
Haste rating is primarily a stat that increases chain heal HPS. Lesser healing wave derives a significantly smaller benefit from haste rating due to its shorter base cast time and the fact that tidal waves hasted lesser healing waves are already shorter than the GCD (since tidal waves reduces only cast time, not GDC length). Also note, haste will not affect the output of earth shield, riptide or earthliving. Although haste only provides a significant benefit to only one of your heals, the mechanics of chain heal benefit hugely from haste, scaling significantly better than any other stat. If you are a heavy chain heal healer, then haste rating will be your focus. If you are a heavy lesser healing wave healer, haste is more the icing than the cake.

Critical Strike Rating (crit)
Critical heals will heal your target for 1.5 times the normal amount. Critical strike rating will benefit all of your non-HoT direct healing spells, primarily chain heal, lesser healing wave and the non-HoT portion of riptide. Crit also provides the benefit of applying the 25% armor buff from ancestral healing on targets you critically heal. In addition to making your heals crit more often, your critical riptide and lesser healing waves will also trigger a couple of talent based procs. Ancestral awakening will trigger off of your riptide crits and lesser healing wave crits, it should be noted that the effective healing of ancestral awakening procs is typically very high. Improved water shield triggers 100% off of riptide crits and 60% off of lesser healing wave crits, increasing mana regeneration; this is a key source of mana regen for any shaman who heals primarily with lesser healing wave.

Mana Per 5 Seconds (mp5):
There are two regen stats in the game, spirit and mp5. Spirit is a regen stat for priests and druids and is completely useless for shaman, you should never have any items with spirit equipped unless you are a new shaman and a rotting piece of priest/druid gear is of a significantly higher iLvl than your current item. Mp5 increases your mana regen while casting spells and is the regen stat intended for use by shaman and paladins. The amount of mp5 you need is going to be dependent on the length of the fight and the amount of haste you have since haste is the only thing that will cause you to burn mana faster. How much mp5 you gear for is entirely up to you, the rule of thumb is if you run out of mana regularly, you need more mp5 and if you always have mana left over, you have too much mp5.

Balancing and prioritising your stats:
There is no magic number of intellect or spell power to obtain as they are both good all around stats and more of either will always benefit you and the will both naturally increase as your gear improves. Most shaman look for items with crit/haste as the two secondary stats seeking to maximize thoroughput and then fill in the other slots with crit/mp5 and haste/mp5 items. If you are a shaman who primarily uses chain heal, then haste will be prioritized over crit. If you are a shaman who primarily uses lesser healing wave, then crit will be prioritized over hit. Remember that crit is also beneficial to the chain heal play style and haste is beneficial to the lesser healing wave play style, so don’t completely stack one while totally ignoring the other. The most important thing to remember is balancing your stats is that more haste needs more mp5 and the more crit you get the less mp5 you will need.

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Paladin Healing 101

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This is the third installment of our Healing 101 series! Holy this, light that? What's it all mean? Pallymar helps clear up any questions us trees have about the paladin healing class. For more info, check out his blog!

Healadin-ing 101

Averna challenged a guildie of each healing class to develop a guide for healing to serve as a resource to all healers in order that we can better work together as a team, rather than as competitors. I want to take this one step further and gear it towards both current Healadins and up-and-coming Healadins in addition to the general healing community.

The objective is to cover a few general points that Averna laid out, while shying away from "too much theorycrafting."

• What's your general rotation - what spells do you use and what do they do? When do you use them?
• What are your "oh shi-" buttons? How do they work?
• What talents are absolutely necessary? If you spread talents between trees, why do you do that?
• What stats are best for you and why? spirit? int? crit or haste?
• How does beacon of light work exactly? What are those judgment things and which ones do you use?

Let's hop to it and see what we come up with!

1. The Arsenal

Healadins have a tremendous number of weapons in our arsenal. The best Healadins are the ones who know, understand, and can use all of them reflexively. Let's start with the baseline tools and then work our way to the talented tools from top to bottom. We'll leave Seals and Blessings for another section.

Baseline:
Holy Light - Our heal of choice, also probably the *biggest* heal in game (cooldown heals withstanding). With a cast time of 2.5 seconds (hasted down to 1.4 seconds in Naxx 25+ gear), this is also easily our highest HPS-yielding heal. Holy Light typically hits for 11-15k while critting in the 20-25k range.

Flash of Light - Our filler / smaller heal. We can spam this heal for almost eternity and beyond without running out of mana. The trouble is that it's not a very powerful heal and could *never* keep a tank up full time in Ulduar content. With a cast time of 1.5 seconds (hasted down to 1.0 in Naxx 25+ gear) It's a *great* tool for raid heals or for the in-between heals that don't require Holy Light bombs, but that's about all it is. These will hit in the 4-5k range with crits in the 6-7k range.

Lay on Hands - Our biggest "Oh Shi-" button. Lay on Hands is an instant cast spell that grants the target health equal to your maximum (buffed and topped off) health pool and some extra mana to boost. The downside? A 20 minute cooldown.

Cleanse - Our Swiss Army Knife of debuff removals. A single instant cast will remove a poison effect, magic effect, and a disease at the same time. It's important to keep Cleanse handy by way of a keybind or an easily accessible click.

Redemption - WTB Rez, PST!

Divine Plea - A *major* source of mana regeneration (25%) with a *huge* caveat: a 50% reduction in healing. When your mana pool reaches 30,000, a 25% return is 7,500 mana. Suffice to say, this is something that any Healadin has to be really careful before hitting. If you know your tank is going to be taking major damage really soon, then now is a *bad* time to hit it. Never put yourself in a position where you *have* to hit Divine Plea.

Avenging Wrath - This spell is typically used by Protadins to jump ahead on threat and by Retadins to blast some extra DPS. However, a Healadin uses this 3 minute cooldown to put out some extra healing. You know yourself better than anyone else. Learn the fight and try and time it for key moments. Alternatively, consider hitting it when you *need* to hit Divine Plea and you can't afford the loss of healing, as a counter to some of the loss.

Sacred Shield - This spell is effectively our *only* way of mitigating tank damage on a regular basis. In addtion to reducing tank damage, we receive a 50% bonus to our crit rate on Flashes of Light cast on our Sacred Shield's target. A *good* Healadin can and should maintain a 100% uptime of Sacred Shield on the tank taking the most damage.

Talented:

Aura Mastery - A situationally useful spell that causes your Concentration Aura (yep, you have to have this one up to utilize Aura Mastery's full benefit) to make everyone affected by your Concentration Aura immune to silences and spell interrupts. Additionally it grants a 100% bonus to all *base* aura abilities (ie. It doubles the armor bonus from Devotion Aura but if a Protection Paladin put up Devotion Aura, it doesn't double the heal bonus.).

Divine Favor - An instant cast spell that prefaces any of your three main heals (HL, FoL, HS) that causes that heal to automatically crit. It's an excellent tool, especially when you know exactly when the target is going to take a massive chunk of damage.

Holy Shock (31 point talent) - Consider this one to be the crust to our bread and butter heal spells, especially with thanks to Infusion of Light which ensures that when we crit, we get bonuses to our bread and butter spells themselves.

Divine Illumination (41 point talent) - This spell was far less valuable in TBC than it is now. Modern day Healadin-ing dictates that we cast Holy Light. A lot. Any time you're about to spam holy Light for whatever reason, pop this spell if it's up. A 50% reduction in cost of spells is a MAJOR bonus.

Beacon of Light (51 point talent) - This tool happens to be *the* tool that allows us to effectively serve other roles than the dedicated "main tank healer" that never casts a spell on anyone else. The way it works is as follows: 1) The Healadin casts Beacon of Light on the main tank. 2) The Healadin now heals a raid member within 40 yards of the main tank. 3) All effective healing that Healadin did on this raid member gets duplicated on the main tank. The key phrase was "effective healing". If your main tank is the only one taking damage, then regardless of whether or not you have Beacon of Light up on the main tank, heal the main tank directly.

2. Talents

In this section we'll cover all of the talents that a PvE Healadin would likely pick up (at my discretion, of course).

HOLY:

Spiritual Focus (5/5) - A 70% pushback reduction on major heals? Yes please!
Healing Light (3/3) - A 14% bonus to our 3 primary healing spells? Yes please!
Divine Intellect (5/5) - With intellect being our PRIMARY stat (to be discussed in detail shortly), this is a MUST take!
Aura Mastery (*/1) - We covered this in our "arsenal" above.
Illumination (5/5) - This is easily one of our most critical talent in the entire tree. Without this critical source of mana return, we'd be out of mana in no time. Every crit returns us 60% of the base cost of the spell cast. When we crit 45-60% of the time, the returns on mana are invaluable. Bear in mind the key phrase *base cost*, as cost reduction items and talents do not count against the 60% return on mana, so in reality your return may be higher.
Improved Lay on Hands (*/2) - We've already covered Lay on Hands above, but the improved form comes with a 50% armor bonus for 15 seconds and a 4 minute reduction in cooldown. With Glyph of Divinity (we'll cover this later), it's also something to consider casting if you've already potted and you don't quite want to hit Divine Plea just yet. Casting it on yourself is actually a *double* bonus in mana, but be careful - then you're out on an "oh shi-" spell.
Improved Blessing of Wisdom (2/2) - As Blessing of Wisdom is our blessing of choice (supposing we only had one to choose from), it's important to make sure we have the most upgraded form of it available. If you have another dedicated Healadin who is picking this up, then feel free to pick up a side talent option.
Improved Concentration Aura (*/3) - I wouldn't call this a "must have" talent for you to do your job well, but it's a good idea to pick it up if you can afford the points. The extra 15% effectiveness and the 30% reduction in the duration of silences is nothing to laugh at.
Divine Favor (1/1) - We covered this in our "arsenal" above.
Sanctified Light (3/3) - Due to Illumination and the bonus effect to throughput, crit scales really well for us, so this is a "must have" talent.

At this point you need to put at least ONE talent point in one of the optional talents above in order to move on to the next tier.

Holy Power (5/5) - More crit? Yes please!
Light's Grace (3/3) - After casting Holy Light, you automatically get a bonus 0.5 cast time reduction on your next Holy Light for 15 seconds (bear in mind that you're casting Holy Light a lot, so this buff should actually be up most of the fight).
Holy Shock - We covered this in our "arsenal" above.

At this point you now need to put a SECOND talent point into one of the option talents above in order to move on to the next tier.

Holy Guidance (5/5) - Yet another reason why Intellect = Awesome for Healadins.
Divine Illumination (1/1) - We covered this in our "arsenal" above.
Judgements of the Pure (5/5) - This talent benefits us two-fold: 1) Judgements hit harder, so that's good for soloing/questing or loldpsing during easy stretches on boss fights. 2) Judgements increase your haste by 15% for 1 minute. The latter benefit is the *big* one. This talent alone brings down our haste soft cap (the point where our GCD = 1.0 seconds = 687 haste).
Infusion of Light (1/1) - This spell highlights one of the main benefits of casting Holy Shock, in either the instant cast Flash of Light or the increased crit chance on Holy Light.
Enlightened Judgements (2/2) - This talent increases the range on your judgements, which allows you to judge while healing from afar to trigger the Judgements of the Pure buff. Additionally, since Healadins have no +hit bonus, the 4% increased chance to hit with judgements go a long way.
Beacon of Light (1/1) - Last but not least, the star of the show (we covered this in our "arsenal" above).

At this point you should have 51 points in your Holy tree, which means you have 20 points remaining to put either in your Holy tree or in your Protection or Retribution trees.

PROTECTION:

Divinity (*/5) - A 5% bonus to throughput, plain and simple.

At this point you can either switch right over to the Retribution tree or you can fill in the points in the Protection tree to reach Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian. This would be a situational benefit that you'd have to determine the worth of. The in between points are typically PvP or further situational abilities, and are beyond the scope of this guide.

RETRIBUTION:

Benediction (*/5) - While a 10% reduction in cost on only a small percentage of your spells isn't a big deal, it's your only option to reach the 2nd tier.

The 2nd tier isn't much more impressive than the 1st tier but the 3rd tier is where you want to be so until then, your best fillers are Heart of the Crusader (*/3) and Improved Blessing of Might (*/2) for further raid utility.

Conviction (*/5) - A 5% crit bonus to *everything*? Yes please!

Pursuit of Justice (*/2) - The primary benefit of this talent is the 15% movement speed increase. This typically never makes or breaks a fight, but it can be found as situationally useful. If you're taking this talent then you're likely giving up 2% throughput on healing from Divinity, so be sure of it!

Sanctity of Battle (*/3) - A 3% crit bonus to *everything*? Yes please!

Your results may vary but it should resemble my preferred raid build (51/2/18) to some extent, perhaps with different optional talents taken.

3. Major Glyphs

Glyph of Beacon of Light - An extra 30 second duration is *nice* but the mana savings from only casting it half the time doesn't justify using this over Glyph of Divinity, for comparisons sake.

Glyph of Divinity - Double mana for your target (3,900 mana) when you cast Lay on Hands, and a return of the same amount of mana for you (also 3,900 mana). This is a *must* take. I should also add that if you cast Lay on Hands on yourself, that's a return of 7,800 mana.

Glyph of Flash of Light - The 5% crit bonus to Flash of Light is nice but is really situational only. If you're the type of healer that likes to throw in a lot of raid heals, you'll see more benefit from this than the typical Healadin who spams Holy Light. All in all, not a bad glyph but there are better options.

Glyph of Holy Light - This one is probably the most critical glyph we have. This is effectively a passive healing bonus that can easily comprise 15% of your overall healing in a raid.

Glyph of Holy Shock - Shockadin anyone? Stay away from this one.

Glyph of Seal of Light - You're going to have a seal up while healing at all times in order that you can judge, so you may as well take either the 5% healing bonus OR the next glyph:

Glyph of Seal of Wisdom - A 5% reduction in your spells cast. As a Healadin, you'll likely find yourself needing the extra mana reduction moreso than needing the extra throughput.

RECOMMENDATION: Glyph of Divinity, Glyph of Holy Light, and Glyph of Seal of Wisdom.

4. Gearing a Healadin

Paladins focus on 5 primary stats: Intellect, Critical Strike, Haste, Spell Power, and Mana Per 5 (MP5), typically in that order (more on this later). Any piece of plate or mail gear that has these stats will do you fine if you're just starting out. Do yourself a favor and shy away from cloth and leather. Wearing higher "armor class" gear is a part of what we can bring to the table (translate: we can take a few more hits before we go down).

A general rule of thumbs: The higher the item level, the better the piece. However, as you work your way up in progression, your numbers matter more and more and you need to figure out who you are as a Holy Paladin. Are you the type of Healadin who loves to spam Holy Light left and right? You probably want to put an emphasis on stacking intellect and haste. Are you the type of Healadin who prefers the Burning Crusades style of healing with primarily Flash of Light? You probably want to put an emphasis on stacking spell power and mp5. Let's figure out what each of these means.

Intellect - Our primary stat without exception. Endoscient posted in Elitist Jerks a really nice breakdown of what 100 intellect brings to the table:

• 126.5 Intellect, with BoK and Divine Intellect
• 1897 Mana at the start of the fight
• 39.5mp5 from Divine Plea, if its used on CD.
• 21.3mp5 from Replenishment, with 90% uptime.
• 4.7mp5 from Arcane Torrent, if you are a Blood Elf.
• 25.3 Spell Power
• 0.759% Spell Crit

Crit - Every heal that we cast has the ability to crit which increases the amount healed by 50%. At first glance this benefits only our throughput. If you recall from earlier, the mandatory talent of Illumination enables us to earn a return of 60% of the *base* cost of the spell whenever one of our spells crits. Suffice to say, Healadins run around with *a lot* of crit. The 35%-45% unbuffed range isn't uncommon.

Haste - The definition of haste as it relates to Healadins is the ability to cast more spells in the same amount of time. Translated, haste reduces the cast time on our spells. Gryphonheart posted a detailed explanation on how haste works here.

The important thing to know is that our soft-cap is 676 haste. What this means is that with our talent Judgements of the Pure, a Wrath of Air Totem from a Shaman, and either Boomkin or Retadin form of the 3% haste buff, we can reduce our global cooldown to 1.0 seconds. This also means that our Flashes of Light are also cast in 1.0 seconds. At around this level of haste, Holy Light can be cast in 1.4 seconds.

MP5 - While this constant source of mana regeneration is good, it's easily our most inferior stat relative to its item budget. It's more favorable to increase your crit rating and intellect if you're in need of mana regeneration than it is to increase your MP5. This does *not* mean that MP5 is a BAD stat, merely an inferior stat. Don't gem or gear for it, but don't pass on upgrades just because it has MP5 on it.

Spell power - Last but certainly not least, this stat is *the* number that influences the size of our heals. The higher your spell power, the bigger your heals. There's nothing wrong with gemming for spell power but it's not as optimal as gemming for say, intellect. You're sure to acquire plenty of spell power through the gear stats alone. That said, don't hesitate to throw a spell power gem into a piece of gear to meet a *good* socket bonus.

5. Judgements

In the Burning Crusades, Holy Paladins *never* judged while healing. Nowadays, it's a fundamental part of our play. There are 2 reasons that a Holy Paladin should judge: 1) Our talent Judgements of the Pure increases our haste significantly, and 2) each judgement has a positive effect on the raid as a whole.

The 3 different types of judgements are:

1) Judgement of Wisdom - This judgment gives a return of 2% of the attacker's base mana on each attack, whether it be ranged or melee.

2) Judgement of Light - This judgement gives a return of a certain amount of health (determined by the stats on the Paladin judging) to the attacker on each attack, whether it be ranged or melee.

3) Judgement of Justice - This judgement prevents the target from fleeing and reduces the target's movement speed. This benefits of this judgement do *not* work on bosses, however the judgement hits like any other.

The tricky part of being a Paladin is knowing *which* judgement to judge. From a Healadin's perspective, we can't judge Judgement of Justice from ranged as Enlightened Judgements does not work on Judgement of Justice, so that one is eliminated from our options.

When you're the only Paladin in the raid, it's generally more favorable to use Judgement of Light for the added overall healing. If you're finding that the healing is really light, feel free to help your DPS'ers out with Judgement of Wisdom.

When it's just you and a Retadin, ALWAYS let the Retadin use Judgement of Light while you use Judgement of Wisdom. There are two reasons for this: 1) a Retadin will always generate larger heals due to their higher attack power / spell power combination, and 2) a Retadin will be able to maintain a much higher uptime than a Healadin on the more important judgement, as judging is a significant portion of their DPS.

When there's a Protadin AND a Retadin in the raid with you, let the Retadin use Judgement of Light, as usual. Since Healadins *can't* judge Justice from range, the ideal circumstance is that the Protadin uses Judgement of Justice so no one overwrites his debuff on the boss, and the Healadin uses Judgement of Wisdom.

6. Seals

The basic premise function of Seals are to allow you to judge. Without a Seal up, you can't judge ANYTHING. If you can't judge, then you can't attain your Judgements of the Pure buff. As for deciding *which* seal to put up, this one is easy! Of the six seals (Blood/Martyr, Corruption/Vengeance, Justice, Light, Wisdom, Righteousness) that are available to a Paladin, only two of them are affected by your glyphs in a positive manner for healing (see above section on Glyphs):

Seal of Light - When you melee the target, you gain x amount of healing based on your attack power and your spell power.

Seal of Wisdom - When you melee the target, you gain 4% of your maximum mana (translated: raid buffed). With 25,000 mana raid buffed, that's 1,000 mana per attack. With 30,000 mana raid buffed, that's 1,200 mana per attack. This is a fairly reliable and reasonable source of mana regen when there is down time from healing (ie. when Razorscale is grounded during phase I, or when the heart is out on XT-002).

Make sure you use whichever seal you're glpyhed for!

7. Auras

A Paladin can choose one of seven auras to use at any given time. Whichever aura is chosen will impact everyone in your raid group that is standing within 40 yards of you (which should typically be most of the raid).

Devotion Aura - Grants a bonus of 1,205 armor to anyone affected by this aura.
Retribution Aura - Causes 112 holy damage to any target who hits anyone affected by this aura.
Concentration Aura - Causes anyone affected by this aura to reduce the loss in cast/channeling time when damaged by 35%.
Shadow Resist Aura - Grants a bonus of 130 shadow resistance to anyone affected by this aura.
Frost Resist Aura - Grants a bonus of 130 frost resistance to anyone affected by this aura.
Fire Resist Aura - Grants a bonus of 130 fire resistance to anyone affected by this aura.
Crusader Aura - Increases the mounted speed of anyone affected by this aura by 20%.

Choose whichever aura is most likely to benefit you and the raid as a whole depending on the boss fight. When in doubt, the Healadin should put up Concentration Aura.

8. Blessings

Blessings are buffs that a Paladin can cast on any raid member that lasts for 10 minutes. Each blessing has a "greater" compontent that allows the Paladin to cast that particular blessing on *all* members of the class that they are buffing. There are only three blessings available to a Healadin (Tankadins get a fourth - Blessing of Sanctuary):

Blessing of Wisdom - This blessing grants a bonus of 92 mana per 5 seconds to all affected targets. When this blessing is blessed in its improved form (talented), the bonus is increased to 110 mana per 5 seconds.

Blessing of Might - This blessing grants a bonus of 550 attack power to all affected targets. When this blessing is blessed in its improved form (talented), the bonus is increased to 688 attack power.

Blessing of Kings - This blessing grants a flat 10% increase to all baseline stats (strength, agility, stamina, intellect, and spirit) to all affected targets. This is easily one of the most powerful buffs in the game and the buff most sorely missed when a raid lacks a Paladin.

Part of playing a Paladin is knowing whom to buff what. The addon PallyPower while isn't required to buff a raid effectively, can serve as a tremendous asset in doing so.

If you're the only Paladin in the raid then as a general rule, buff all tanks and warlocks with Blessing of Kings, all melee DPS and hunters with Blessing of Might, and all ranged DPS and healers with Blessing of Wisdom.

9. Hands

"Hand" spells are spells that used to be Blessings in the Burning Crusade that were given a new category in order to make accommodations for Blizzard's change in philosophy with raid buffs in Wrath of the Lich King. The only exception to this rule is Hand of Reckoning which is a new ability that was added in 3.0.8. These "hand" spells are now all situational usage type of spells. They are as follows:

Hand of Freedom - This hand has a 25 second cooldown and grants immunity to movement impairing effects to the target for 6 seconds. If you find yourself or fellow raid member limited by a movement impairing effect, hit them up with one of these.

Hand of Protection - This hand has a 5 minute cooldown and protects the target from all physical damage for 10 seconds. BE CAREFUL when using this hand, as it also limits the target from being able to attack during the duration of this hand. If you see a mob that accidentally got pulled by a healer or a DPS'er, hit them up with one of these.

Hand of Reckoning - This hand was recently added in 3.0.8 to give Tankadins a single target taunting ability, and this does exactly that. This hand doesn't have any real use for Healadins with the exception of a possible situation where the tank is overwhelmed with mobs and you see an add beating on another healer you can hit Divine Shield followed by Hand of Reckoning for a temporary reprieve until the tank can pick the mob up.

Hand of Sacrifice - This hand with a 2 minute cooldown is our best "oh shi-" type of abilities when coupled with a Divine Shield beforehand. This combination directs 30% of the damage taken by the target to yourself (whom is immune due to Divine Shield), effectively mitigating 30% damage. The downside is that this is really an "oh shi-" type of ability that is primarily prepped ahead of time when you know a big hit is coming.

Hand of Salvation - Your DPS'ers favorite hand! This hand has a 2 minute cooldown and will reduce your target's total threat by 2% every second for 10 seconds. If you see a DPS'er climbing the threat list a little bit too fast, don't hesitate to hit them up with one of these! (Just make sure you *never* hit the tank up with one of these!)

10. Conclusion

Here's what we learned in each section:

• The Arsenal - We covered all of the Healadin's tools used to heal effectively.
• Talents - We covered all of the talents that a Healadin would conceivably pick up in a PvE build and we made note of the mandatory versus the optional talents.
• Glyphs - We covered the major and the minor glyphs that a Healadin should use and gave recommendations as to which to take.
  
• Gearing a Healadin - We covered the primary stats that a Healadin looks for on gear and how they affect the Healadin.
• Judgements - We covered the three judgements that are available to Paladins and we discussed how to determine which Judgement a Healadin should use.
  
• Seals - We talked about the two *real* seals that a Healadin has available and explained that the Healadin should use the one that he/she glyphed for.
  
• Auras - We discussed the seven auras that are available to a Paladin and gave a recommendation for which to use when in doubt.
  
• Blessings - We covered the three blessings that are available to a Healadin and gave a general rule of thumbs as to how to decide which people get which buffs.
  
• Hands - We covered the "hand" spells and explained what they were all about and suggested situations where each could be used.

Good luck!!!

And make sure you take the time to check out Pallymar's blog here!
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Holy Priest Healing 101

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This is the second installment of our Healing 101 series! Today Fuyuko, fellow guildmate and healer, will discuss everything you ever wanted to know about healing the priest-y way. For more info, check out her blog!


Priests: Why we are sexy!

I've been reading various blogs and websites recently in an effort to better my raid healing ability, and I've noticed a lot of misconceptions about us from non-priests, as well as a lot of acronym spewing by the priest community themselves. So when Averna asked me if I'd write a "Whut r priests?" kind of post, I was excited to do so! But keep in mind, this is coming from a holy priest, not a disc priest or even a "healy" priest (Ya know, one of those people who dual-spec holy/disc??? Craziness!!)

What is a holy priest’s job and what are the main spells he/she uses?
Well, I start every encounter with a PoM on the MT, and some HoTs, and then CoH every CD with a PoH on AoE…..

BAH. As Lindsay Lohan called it in Mean Girls, “word vomit.” And yes, I totally quoted Lindsay Lohan. HAHAHAHA.


Anyway, here’s the real story.

Holy priests are raid healers, as well as your all-around healers. We do very well with AoE damage, while also fitting in to the roles of other healers to a lesser degree. Shaman are still the AoE healers, but priests are a good second. We can save a tank, single-target heal, or HoT up the raid, although to a lesser degree than our counterparts (if they know what they‘re doing). We should be assigned to raid healing most of the time, although there are always times that call for our abilities in other areas (such as OT healing and watching the raid). MT healing really isn’t our forte unless our Guardian Spirit is called for, especially in Ulduar, because our mana pool can’t sustain incredible hits for long, long fights, and a Disc priest’s bubble is far superior to any we cast.

To quote Elitist Jerks: "Tank Healing: Don't heal tanks unless you absolutely have to. Blizzard gutted holy priest tank healing in 3.1, and it's a lost cause. Without IHC and the old Serendipity, we can't even hope to keep up with shamans, no less paladins or druids. Just don't heal tanks. If you want to tank heal, go Disc."

Our big spells are below, and the numbers in the brackets are the [average hit/max critical hit] of my spells that I took from one of our WWS pages. These are gear-based, raid-buffed numbers, but I thought they might help show what these spells can do in 25-man raids.

Circle of Healing (CoH): Instant cast. 6 second cool down. [2,779 / 5,730]
This is the big spell that everyone remembers from Sunwell. It used to be an instant, no-cool down smart raid-heal, but a 6 second cool down was added to keep some priests from merely banging their heads on their keyboards for 3 hours and then begging for innervates. It targets up to 5 people in the raid with the lowest health, and heals them. It's kind of similar to Wild Growth, only with no heal over time component, and can affect players in a larger radius.

Prayer of Healing (PoH): 3 second cast. [5,569 / 9,846]
Many priests put this one away for a long time, only recently to realize when they pulled those shiny AoE-healing jeans out of the closet that they now fit juuuust right. Prayer of Healing heals each member of a targeted party and, if glyphed (which I personally think you should be), also adds a heal-over-time effect to each party member for 20% of the amount healed. PoH used to be the priest’s own party only, but Blizzard was kind and made it a target-party ability.

Prayer of Mending (PoM): Instant cast. [4,374 / 12,367]
Prayer of Mending sits on the target for 30 seconds, and when the target is damaged, gives them a quick instant heal before bouncing on to another target. It bounces up to 5 times, and is that fun little “piiiiiiiiiing” sound you may hear during raids. It's got a 10 second cool down.

Renew: Instant cast. [2,011 / 2,920]
Awww… poor Renew has no acronym. =( But Renew doesn’t care if its name is too short to… uh…. shorten. Because Renew is awesome sauce. It is the priest’s heal-over-time spell, and can gain many bonuses from talents and glyphs. It can be thrown onto a dpser, such as a shadow-priest who just cast Shadow Word: Death, for example, and will heal them over a period of 15 seconds. This should be on your MT at all times, as well as on any OTs.

Flash Heal: 1.5 second cast. [5,656 / 11,661]
Man, this spell was fun on Patchwerk. Flash Heal is exactly what it says. It’s a quick heal that can crit, and lets us pretend we’re pallies, if only for a short time... Some priests use Greater Heal more than Flash Heal, but it has a longer cast time, costs more mana (32% base mana versus 18%), and will probably be overheal by the time you get it cast in a raid. It’s more useful for heroics, in my opinion.

In short, if things are going fairly well, a holy priest will put Prayer of Mending up every cooldown, use Circle of Healing every cooldown (unless everyone is topped off, then I see no point in wasting the mana when it’s an instant cast), and Prayer of Healing for heavy AoE encounters, such as Tantrum on XT. We keep Renews on the tanks, and throw them on to the naughty fire-bathing DPSers, and toss around a Flash Heal here and there.

**Note: We have another AoE heal spell called Holy Nova, whose role is currently being debated in the priest community. It used to be an extremely expensive, aggro-sucking spell because it both healed and dealt damage. Its mana cost has since been reduced, and through glyphs, it can be an awesome situational mobile AoE heal because it is an instant with no cool down. I’m currently considering picking up the glyph for a raid and giving it a try…


Oh no! I was alt-tabbed out on Facebook and didn’t see the tank drop!!!! Whut do I doooooooo???

(This is Fuyu's old forum sig. Note that if you want this achievement, you do NOT want to use Guardian Spirit. Also, you will most likely get gkicked and/or pugkicked if you actually earn this achievement. Achieve at your own risk.)

Never fear!!!! Guardian Spirit is here! Guardian Spirit is an instant cast buff (wings graphic) that stays on the target for 10 seconds. It increases healing on the target by 40%, and if the target’s health hits 0 before it expires, that target will be brought back up to 50% health instantly.

YEAH. It’s THAT good. And glyphed, if the spell expires without being used, the normally 3 minute cool down is reset to 1 minute. It’s the “oh shi----” button of holy priests, although some holy priests don’t take the talent. I personally find it necessary, because even though “doing it right” should mean the spell isn’t necessary, when something DOES go wrong, Guardian Spirit can save your butt.

Now, this shouldn't be confused with the big blue wings that appear when priests hit the floor. If you see this chick in a raid, you know that your priest has died (oops), and also has the Spirit of Redemption talent.

What talents should a holy priest take?

This is my build.

There is a loooooooot of discussion on this right now, and I am a very lazy person, so I am going to link my current build because it is the one I have found to be amazing in raids. The other holy priests in our guild all have different versions of their holy trees, with points moved here and there (say, from Empowered Healing to Blessed Resilience and such), and it really depends on your play style. I saw a Lightwell in our raid the other night (a mid-tree talent that not all priests take)! Body and Soul also gives a nice speed boost to targets with Power Word: Shield.

And, to quote EJ again (Wait, am I writing an English paper??): "As well, if you spec'd into Body and Soul, make sure you explore how to best use it to save people from their own stupidity. The speed boost really helps when avoiding things like Light Bomb explosions on XT, or Shadow Crash on General Vejax."

The disc tree of a holy priest should look almost exactly like what I have linked, with the exception of possibly speccing into Inner Focus, which gives a mana-free, +25% crit chance spell every 3 minutes. I didn’t put the point into it because I never use it anyway, but a lot of priests find it helpful. If you’re a priest and you’ll remember it’s there, then take it if you like. One might also argue for points in Improved Power Word: Shield, but for a holy priest, I find that to be more of a soloing talent/pvp/disc priest talent.

What stats do holy priests look for?

Man, I miss the days of healing power and spell power being separate stats. I really do…. I hate losing an item called “Blah Blah of Great Healing, Life-Saving, Save-y-ness” to a DPS because it has the same stats they use… plus, the pretty glow. T_T

The main stats holy priests look for nowadays are spell power, spirit, intellect, haste, and crit. The general rule is to gem and enchant for regen until you are comfortable with your mana, and then change to throughput. Surge of Light, another mid-tree talent that can proc a free Flash Heal on some spell crits, stops benefiting from crit around 30%, so if a priest is getting pretty close to that in raids, he/she will usually go for spell power or haste.

Spirit used to be the bomb-diggity for out-of-combat regen. I used (and still do use) Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon, and in Naxx 25s under the old out-of-combat spirit regen mechanics, I was gaining up to 1400mp5 while casting when this procced. Blizzard has since changed the way regen works, and many priests switched to stacking intellect instead of spirit. Both impact our regen in different ways.

And haste is... well.... haste. Yeah.

What other cool stuff do Holy Priests do?

Priests in general bring some pretty nice buffs to the raid:

Prayer of Fortitude (Fort): Increases all party/raid members’ stamina by 165 for an hour, and 214 when talented.
Prayer of Spirit: Increases all party/raid members’ spirit by 80 for an hour.
Prayer of Shadow Protection: Increases all party/raid members’ shadow resistance by 130 for 20 minutes, 30 if glyphed.

We also have Fear Ward, which blocks one fear on one target, and can be used in some raid encounters on ourselves or a tank, etc., as well as Inner Fire, a self-buff that increases our spell power by 120 and armor by 2440 for 30 minutes for 32 charges, talented.

We have two channeled hymns as well that we use:

Hymn of Hope: Restores 3% mana to 3 nearby low mana friendly party or raid targets every 2 sec for 8 sec, and increases their total maximum mana by 20% for 8 sec. Maximum of 12 mana restores, 6 minute cool down.

Divine Hymn: Heals 3 nearby lowest health friendly party or raid targets for 3024 to 3342 every 2 sec for 8 sec, and increases healing done to them by 10% for 8 sec. Maximum of 12 heals, 10 minute cool down.

And then there’s Shadowfiend, which got a shiny buff recently. We get 5% mana back when he attacks a target, and with glyphs, even more. We can use him every 5 minutes.

Priests can also abolish diseases, dispel magic, shackle undead mobs, AoE fear, and fade to drop aggro.

TL;DR Version

Holy priests are awesome raid healers and should generally be assigned to do such. We can do OT healing decently, and keep HoTs rolling, but should not be on MT healing unless it’s absolutely necessary. We have our own version of everything other healers can do, but as with many jack-of-all-trades, we don’t do it quite as well. We raid heal through AoE smart heals and targeted party heals. We can restore mana and health to raids through our channeled spells; we bring stamina, spirit, and shadow resistance buffs; and have an amazing “Oh shi--!” button with Guardian Spirit.

For more priesty goodness and information, head on over to Fuyuko's blog, The Unconventional Priest!

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Druid Healing 101

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Hi there! Are you not a druid? (*cough*reroll*cough*) Or maybe you're a low level druid or have a druid alt! Do you read through my blog and wonder what GotEM is but are too lazy to look it up on wowhead? Do you lay in bed at night, wide awake, wondering how lolblooms work? Perhaps during the day you stop, puzzled, gaze off into the distance with a look of curiousty, and ponder: Why do trees need so much spirit?

If so: Welcome, treenubs! This is the blog post for you!

Too often, I browse the blogs of other classes and have no idea what's going on. People throw out acronyms like there's no tomorrow. "Use FoF followed by a quick QsE and you'll be good to go!" ....Uh, what huh? Granted, people of that class KNOW what they're talking about, and the blog is written for those particular people, so the blogger isn't really responsible for telling me what FoF stands for, what it's used for, when it's used, and why. If I want to know, I can look it up, right? (Right!) A real life example from the DK forum on Elitist Jerks:

"Currently the best rotation for 44/27 (I actually use 45/26) is a priority rotation and PS is not a part of it. Start with IT, then prioritize HB>FS>IT and blood strike when needed. You'll be pumping out HB every 5 seconds and FS every time it's up so RPM is not needed."

As someone who doesn't play a DK, I have no. idea. what this means. Not that the poster is obligated to explain to a nub like me - it's just that I don't understand it.

And so, I think it might be nice to have a little information about the basics of druid healing, a little FAQ, if you will, for those that are interested.

And without further ado!

What's in a tree's spell arsenal?

We have a variety of heals (seven, to be exact), most of them are heal-over-time heals (aka, hots!). I'll list them here.

Lifebloom (alias Lolbloom; LB), instant cast
The bread and butter of trees everywhere! You spam cast three on the tank, wait til they tick down and are close to expiring, and then cast one more to keep the stack at 3 and refresh it. It costs a LOT of mana to keep these "rolling" (rolling LBs = refreshing a 3 stack before it runs out). You get back some mana if you let it bloom, plus your bloom is bigger if you have more stacks (bloom can crit up to 22k).

LBs tick each second. With good gear (Best in slot Naxx), a three stack on someone will tick for about 1500+ per second.

Rejuvenation (alias Rejuv), instant cast
A basic heal over time. Lasts for ~18 seconds. Ticks for about 2k every 3 seconds. When you put it on someone, it won't start to tick until the third second.

Wild Growth (alias WG, not to be confused with Wintergrasp), instant cast, 6 sec. cool down
Our AoE heal. Target someone, hit WG, and WG will start ticking on people who are near that target who need it the most. A 'smart heal'. It lasts for 7 seconds, and ticks once per second. It'll start off at around 800 per tick, and wind down to around 550 per tick towards the end.

Regrowth, 2.0 sec cast to start, typically a 1.7-1.8 sec cast with average haste
This heal packs a direct punch at the beginning, and then puts a slow hot that continues for ~27 seconds. It ticks every three seconds for about 1.2k. The direct heal portion of Regrowth crits for around 7-8k with good gear.

Nourish, 1.5 sec cast to start, typically 1.2-1.3 sec cast with average haste
A quick direct heal, no hot involved. But, if you have hots on the target, it will heal for more. A nourish that's not buffed by hots crit for about 6k. A nourish that's buffed with a lot of hots will crit for about 10k.

Healing Touch (alias HT), 3 sec cast to start, can be brought down by haste and talents.
Our one big heal. Druids rarely, rarely use this. It can crit for up to 16k in good gear.

Tranquility, a channeled spell. More on this in the "oh sh*t" section!

Too many spells, bah!

Lemme break it down =D

We have 3 spells that are strictly hots. All of these are instant casts:
1. Lifebloom
2. Rejuv
3. Wild Growth

We have 2 spells that are strictly direct heals, with cast times:
1. Nourish
2. Healing Touch

And one spell that's a hybrid of both: Regrowth.

(Tranquility is kind of in a class of it's own, being a channeled spell).

See how that breaks down?

Ok, so which of these healing spells do you actually use?

LB on the tanks - a three stack will do just fine. Keep those three stacks rolling (although it DOES cost a lot of mana to roll them, so we have to keep an eye on our mana).

If our mana gets low, OR, we want to get a big heal on a tank, we can let the 3 stack bloom. This will 1. give us mana back, and 2. give a huge heal to the tank.

Rejuv on the tanks as well.

Regrowth on the tanks as well.

(See a pattern here?)

Essentially, we want as many of our hots as possible on the tanks. That way, when they take damage, we have LB ticking, rejuv ticking, regrowth ticking, etc. The goal is to inch them back up to full health as quickly as possible. This also provides a "buffer" to other healing classes who might have lots of healing spells with cast times. While they're casting, we're helping out by inching the tank's health up.

There's also the raid to worry about, however. If a lot of people take damage, I look for someone who's in the middle of a lot of damaged people and pop a WG on them. This way, I know that all those people will get healed (well, five of them, at least). I also will sometime put one LB, or one rejuv, one some dpsers for "insurance". Rarely will druids use healing touch, because the cast time is just too long.

Nourish is used on raid healing (when you want a speedy heal on random dpsers) and on tank healing (when you have a bunch of hots on the tanks, you know Nourish will help heal them AND be buffed by all those hots).

Ok, but, but, TL,DR! I want to know what heal you use the MOST!

Good question. Unfortunately, there's not a clear cut answer to that.

Some data: In the past two weeks of raiding Ulduar (four raids total), my top three heals have consistantly been 1. Lifebloom, 2. Wild Growth, 3. Nourish. But other healers rely on regrowth more. Some use LBs a lot less than I do. Hell, SOME druid healers put all their talent points into buffing healing touch, and use healing touch a ton (I would say a very, very small percentage of druid healers do this, and only then to fulfill a specific role, like to fill a paladin's shoes. So don't think that's the norm).

What happens when sh*t hits the fan?

We have two "oh shi-!" buttons that we use regularly, and one that we use less regularly.

1. Swiftmend. If you have a rejuv or regrowth on a person, you can swiftmend them and it'll instant-heal them for around 7-8k health (crits for about 13k). Because the cooldown is fairly short (15 seconds), this isn't JUST reserved for tanks. You can swiftmend dps or healers, too, and know that in 15 seconds, it'll be ready to go again.

2. Nature's Swiftness (alias NS). A 3 min. cooldown - I definitely reserve this for tanks if at all possible. The most common way to use Nature's Swiftness is to macro it with Healing Touch - it will make your HT (your biggest heal!) an *instant* heal. (common macro alias: NS + HT).

Both of these are learned about halfway down the healing tree. You have to spec into them.

3. Tranquility. We channel this spell for 8 seconds, and it heals everyone in your party for about 4.5k every 2 seconds. It's got a 10 minute cooldown that can be reduced to 4 minutes with talent points. Keep in mind that it's only a party heal, and it's only for the druid's own party. This is usually a last ditch effort to keep dps alive during huge AoE damage.

Another minor "oh shi-" button that we can use is Barkskin, but this only works on ourselves. We can't cast it on other people, unfortunately. Barkskin is forever touted as a PvP ability (which it is), but it can also be used in PvE. It's got a 1 minute cooldown.

What's tree form do, anyhow? Why do you wanna heal in tree?

Tree form does a few things.

1. It increases our armor!

2. All of the hots we do in tree form that are received by people get straight up increased by 6%. Plus, it increases the overall spell power of your healing ("bonus healing", if you will) by 15% of your spirit. (See why druids want spirit now? ^^)

3. Having the talent point for tree form reduces the cost of mana for ALL healing spells.

So tree form = more healing power + less mana spent. Woot!

What buffs do you bring to raids?

Look for the purple 'splatter' icon for Gift of the Wild. (I know, it's three paws. To me, it's a splatter.) It increases your armor and your stats. You can't lose!

For tanks, we give out Thorns, which is a brown icon of a thorny branch.

What are a few talents that you just can't live without? What's your 51 point talent?

Wild Growth is our 51er! A definite must-have!

And in terms of other talents...

Gift of the Earthmother (alias GotEM) is a talent that's right before the Wild Growth talent. It's a 5 point talent, and I Got 'EM all! (BAHAHA! See wut I did thurr? I am *awesome* /selfhighfive). Remember those three insta-hots I listed above? Well, GotEM reduces the global cooldown that we incur right after we cast them by 0.3 seconds. The GCD is typically 1.5 seconds, but with GotEM, it's 1.2. Sweet! Then you add some haste on top of THAT (because haste reduces cast times, AND global cooldowns), and you can get it down to a sleek one second.

Living Spirit increases our spirit, and in turn, our spell power.

Intensity is also a must-have, and helps with our mana regen. (Intensity and Living Spirit are in the middle of the resto tree).

Omen of Clarity is towards the beginning of resto tree. Heals costing zero mana FTW! It seems to proc fairly often with no internal cooldown, which is nice. I don't believe it procs off of hot ticks.

And finally, the 11 point talent in the Balance tree, Nature's Splendor. This extends some select hot durations. It's where the very typical 11/0/60 spec comes from. =)

So now, gentle reader, you can impress your friends by using GotEM and WG in a sentence together, by throwing the phrase "eleven-zero-sixty" around, or by discussing nature's swiftness macros - all with confidence!!!

Any other basic questions you're dying to have answered? Let me know!

And for an even more in depth guide, read this massive 5 parter from Ice at Druid Main: Part 1: Spells, Part 2: Glyphs, Part 3: Learning Curve, Part 4: Talents, and Part 5: Stats. She also recently updated all of these for 3.1, so make sure you check them out!

Soon to come: Paladin Healing 101, Shaman Healing 101, and Priest Healing 101!

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