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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