Holy Priest healing, need help and advice

[Michultradk]

Hey guys, http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/Gilneas/Thanz/simple

I finally took the time to get my priest to 85, I have aquired the gear for heroics and did my first two last night. I can safely say that healing is a nice break from constant tanking, not saying it's easier, just a nice change of pace.

When I get decently geared tanks with some enchants and maybe a gem or two things seem ok, but lots of times they will have PvP gear, no enchants or even DPS gear and I struggle to keep them alive, not to mention the DPS.

It seems my healz are not that strong, like when I cast my VuhDo tells we the estimated heal and sometimes the bar barely moves. I understand that I need Intellect, spirit, haste and Mastery and not necessarily in that order. I have played around with spirit and haste a little and can tell the difference in regen and speed.

How can you tell when your regen is enough, or how can you tell when the speed feels right, and does more mastery really make your healz stronger. I understand that as I get better gear things will change, but I'm always going to be pushing the next highest content so gear for that fact wont matter. I want to be a good strong dependable healer that cranks out good strong healz that can be depended on.

Even on normals or heroics I keep a flask and spirit food, though I'm not using pots yet. I know I need a helm and shoulder enchant but I don't have the rep for the BIS enchants, though I do have several enchants in place and all gemmed up on pieces with sockets.

I like to min max my toons but since I'm still learning the ins and outs with healing I know I am making mistakes, I feel I do pretty good healing but would like to do better if possible. You don't have to point out enchants I'm missing, or a belt socket, but I ask for advice on spec, certain important caps to shoot for, and personal experience with rotation you might have that makes you a better healer.

I keep Chakra running for the added benefit to my direct healz, I use POM on CD, keep renew on the tank, use Flash Heal and heal, though heal is very slow, I use serenity on CD. I also have mana issues because I'm trying to keep everyone full health and I know that's kinda wrong. I use PW:S and renew on heavy damage takers. I have a bad habit of moving to much and cancelling my healz, I guess thats from tanking so much and never playing a caster but I'm working on that.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[aresius]

Aliena has a very good post on holy priest healing on the healing thread. you should definitly look into that.
Statiwise : The spirit from your base gear is enough. Dont gem for it (enchant only when there is no beter option). This is assuming you only took "healing" pieces (all pieces should have spirit).
Int > haste (untill 12.5%)> mastery > rest(crit).

- i find gemming for int (not necissarily pure int gems, but mainly gems with int) is alweys best since other stats are gainable through reforging -

What your probably doing wrong is your "rotation". flash heal is *only* for when the tank has 3% hp and you just have to save him. Its a completely desperate spell. Single target healing is more something like (chakra *forgot the name*-the one from heal) - renew, heal heal heal (single target chackra insta heal), greater heal (when he is getting below 2/3 hp)...
Multi target is with chackra serenity and spamming prayer of mending on CD, circle of healing on CD, and using prayer of healing in between. You can throw a few renews on the tank to make sure he doesent fall behind and use heal or greater heal on occasion, but thatts mostly it.
On dungeons normally im using the single target set, some specific fights make it worth using chackra serenity (when your tank isint too squishy and requires constant attention).

PW:S hase very situational use for holy priests (not bread and butter like disc). Mostly only when you have to run (its insta-cast) or want to give someone the speed boost.
Renew generaly jsut for the tank when healing single target.
I only use the serenity ability when i know the entire group will stay stacked for a extended period of time.
And making sure your using mana cds when needed is important, its often that a healer doing everything prefectly will run out without his shadowfiend (or hymnn).

Hope it helps out. Im not a pro healer myself so i still strongly recomend you take a look on the guide at the healing forums.

[Michultradk]

Thanks for the advice.

I have read all the guides, TS and EJ, but of course I was looking for more of what you have written. I need some specific advice on how to handle certain situations, and the tip about the gear helped as well. I was having a little trouble distinguishing between DPS and healer gear, but if spirit is the ket then that makes sense.

I have been doing my rotation all wrong as well, sounds like I've been tanking the easy way out just spamming Flash Heal, I will surely try it your way. That will surely make a big difference in my mana as well and I can prolly quit reforging for it, once I get gear with it already on it and get rid of my crit gear, or keep it for a DPS set.

Thanks again for your help

[Griff]

DMC:Tsunami - its a wondermous trinket if you can spare the gold.

As for the cast time of heal - it is a bit long, but if you keep it rolling and interrupt (move a tiny bit or stopcast macro) right before cast completion if you don't need it, you generally have it on queue. A lot of heals do seem like they don't do much, but if you're doing stuff right, renew, echo of light, circle of healing, PoM -- it all adds up.

[Michultradk]

Thanks Griff,

I did my best to use Heal as much as possible last night, man did that really make a difference in my mana usage, I was still using PW:S on certain DPS when they take damage, usually PW:S with renew and if the damage kepps ticking I use heal on them. I started using CoH more and got away from the more expensive group heal PoH. I barely used FH and I kept PoM rolling on CD.

One thing I can say for sure is healing is a strategy game, like really stratagizing about the best way to do something the most efficient way. Maybe I'm overstating something a little, but right now thats the way it seems.

I will surely find that trinket and buy it, I picked up a belt last night in my efforts to get away from the DPS gear I had. I still have a couple pieces but will have that changed out very soon now that I know the difference between gear, good thing is I have a decent set of DPS gear :)

Thanks again