Priest Healing Spec

[cajuncharm]

My healing Spec is currently 27/44/0. I did start out raiding with a build deeper in holy and then began to experiement after i was told that previous build was the noob standard build for holy priest. With this build i gained 2000 more mana, 4% spirit/haste, and alil more spellpower and mp5. I was beginning to think this was a good build for me until lately. I was brought into a 10Maly group and blame was put on me for the wipe cause i didn't heal during vortex. i was kicked after i told them it was because i'm not spec'd into CoH. My guild has been through 10/25man Naxx, VoA, OS, and Maly and currently progressing through 10man Ulduar. During these raids i'm usually MT or OT heals...rarely raid heals, if you were wondering why i didn't spec into CoH.

So, is this build really a bad build?? i keep the tanks up no probelm and i really don't have that much of an issue going oom.
And i've been told i need to go Disc. So is Disc healz > Holy healz??

i'm 2093sp unbuffed with 289mp5 and 192haste.

CLICK HERE FOR MY BUILD

[Ollin]

Yeah, it's a pretty bad build for raiding. It might cut it in heroics, and you might be able to get away with it in raids if no one inspects you, but you're missing some vital talents.

First, you're missing your clutch talent. You know, your go-to spell for oh crap moments and predictable incoming large hits. For discipline it's Pain Suppression at 41 points, and for holy it's the 51 point Guardian Spirit.

Without one of those, especially in 25 mans, you're missing about a third of the reason you'll be picked to fill a raid slot as a healer. Unfortunately, healing isn't the only reason you get picked for a raid, and you seem to have missed the memo.

Second, you're a holy build, but you don't have Circle of Healing. Yes, as you feared, you need CoH because Holy is a priest's raid-healing tree. Raid-healing is what Holy priests do that sets them apart from Discipline priests. You didn't think you earned a spot with improved death alone did you? As a holy priest you'll be brought to a raid because of Holy's ridiculous healing throughput. Between CoH and Prayer of Healing you'll bring more group-level heals to the raid than any other healer in the game bar none. All on demand; all immediate; all heavy hitting. Resto shamans cap out at three targets per cast, and druids have to wait for their healing to take effect. If an entire group is about to die, you want a Holy priest to pull them out of the fire (or to just make sure they live long enough to run out of the fire depending on the boss).

In a similar vein you don't have Light Well. Some priests love it, most priests hate it, and yet more are indifferent. As a warlock (on top of a priest) I personally like light well as it allows those of us with a mind towards self-reliance, who don't like to be a burden to the healers if we can help it, to take care of ourselves. Recent buffs to Light Well also make taking a second look worth it as it is the single largest healing per mana in the game bar none. The second place contender is so far behind it's not even funny. It's total value is a toss up and greatly depends on the individual raid, but you specifically skipped it which makes it worth mentioning.

Finally, Disc is not better than Holy. It's different.

Discipline excels at single target healing, damage mitigation, and longevity.

Holy excels at raw throughput with group healing (if you count the shield from Divine Aegis Discipline's heals hit way harder than Holy's do given similar gear).

If you care about healing meters (hint: you shouldn't. They're inaccurate and don't actually display useful information at any time. Ever) then go Holy and don't look back. Go full holy too. Not anything related to this disaster of a hybrid build you've got going.

If you want to specifically tank heal (you'll always have a job. Most priests I know are Holy and Holy paladins have been in astoundingly short supply as of late for some odd reason) then go Discipline all the way to Penance and make sure to pick up a good single-target clutch rotation while you're at it.

[Mootilate]

I have tried Disc but Deep Holy with CoH and GS makes life so much easier.

With this build HC's are laughable and 10 Mans if you are MT healing you can still pop out a lot of raid healing too CoH, PoM, PoH inbetween MT/OT Heals

The World of Warcraft Armory

[Gale]

Holy is better for raw output, disc has higher effective output.
Holy is better at healing damage that's even, disc is better at burst damage healing
Holy is better at multi target healing after damage has landed, disc is better at single target healing and multi-target damage prevention.
Holy priests talent for output and gem for regen. Disc priests talent for regen/mana conservation and gem for output.

Disc is better for heroics due to its damage mitigation and regen capabilities despite shitty gear.
Holy is better for Naxx, disc is pretty useless during most fights there. Where it shines is Ulduar, especially hard modes.
Disc has better at mana management. During mana intensive fights, aoe healers like a holy priest will go oom long before tank healers, like a disc priest will.

10 man Ulduar tank healing : Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Hard modes: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Raid healing: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Hard modes: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

You can switch the talents around a bit, everyone has their own healing style, but that's the general idea.

[cajuncharm]

Thanks for all of your input.

I guess i was trying to get the best of both worlds. I'm going to have to choose between Disc and Holy becuase when my guild run 25man Naxx, they take me in and i go shadow and we're short 1 healer for the Instructor fight since Shadow priests are very rare and a good Spriest is almost nonexistent on my realm. I guess i'll just go back to rethinking everything and probably go back heavy holy.

[Flee]

This post is for everyone who wants to know the truth about holy priests and how to make them work better then any other build you will ever find (including disc). This build and information has been collective from over 5 years of priest healing experience and has been modified for the Wotlk enhancements for patch 3.1

Most of you find that going full holy, or at least to get guardian spirit is a must. (its really not; infact you can get more healing done putting ur pts elsewhere)

For those of you who thing surge of light, critting, flash healing, circle of healing, light well and spirit of redemption is a must.. (psst. UR ALSO WRONG)

How do I know this and what makes my post any different then everyone elses? Do the math ladies. ppl say spirit doesn't benefit you as much anymore (It never changed much.)

Spirit has always given a percentage towards Spell Power. If you put 2 identical items but one has same int/sp but the difference is spirit. put them on and you will see that more spirit adds to spell power. (THIS IS A FACT)

Second of all ppl think that spirit doesn't help u as much (WRONG), spirit gives you MORE mana while not casting vs mp5. try it out for urself. take 2 pieces of gear (use RAWR if you want to do it quicker) and compair the differences between the same stats vs more spirit and see what goes up higher.

Now that you have done ur own testing try this. Take a look at my holy build. You will find a talent build completely unheard of, however, I reassure you its 100% the strongest healing build a priest can possibly have for patch 3.1 I have taken priests who have healed with Identical holy builds you all have been using forever now and although skeptical, these individuals have decided to try it.

They now hit harder with their heals, hit faster with their heals, can out last discipline healers (on main tanks) and can even provide the raid with raid heals when necessary.

If you do not believe me, try it out for yourself, try the glyphs, the build, the gear. See what happens. Instead of me going into detail to point of insanity I would like you all to just try it and see where it gets you.

It never hurts to try something new. budwelser - demon soul

[Thaak]

(EDIT:This is directed at Flee, not the OP)
I'm sure I'll come out of this looking like a horrible troll and a huge ass but here we go.

First, your post rambles and jumps around. It says lots of things, yet you fail to provide any proof or even theorycraft in regards to these things. Anyone can make statements claiming anything to be true. For your arguments to have validity, you need to show you did more than sit down and type out a few lines.

Second, you state all these "assumptions" that people have and then afterwards simply state they are wrong. This comes across as childish. It could be that this is not intended, as i would surmise that english is not your first language based on your spelling/grammar(I'm not calling you out on your spelling/grammar, merely showing my reasoning for assuming english is not your native tongue).

Third, you do not mention anywhere how this spec is supposed to work. You have glyphs for PW:S, PoH, and Renew, so i'm guess it works around that, but you also pick up a lot of talents that support other spells.

Fourthly, You have Glyph of PW:S, but you put 3 points in a threat reduction that is not needed, instead of putting those points into Improved PW:S. So not only are your shields less effective than they could be, the glyph doesn't see its full potential.

Fifthly, You talk about how great spirit is, yet you don't pick up Spirit of redemption for 5% more spirit. If spirit is that great, take one point out of your 3/3 enlightment(going from 6% to 4% spirit from elightment) and put it in the SoR. 4% and 5% together are better than 6% flat. AND now you have a few extra seconds if you die to try and heal people.

Lastly, you provide no data at all. If you really want to be taken seriously, provide links to WOL, WMO, WWS, parses of you healing in the hybrid spec versus you healing the same fight in a normal spec. All you give is your assurance that this is the best. (This is where its going to sound really bad) According to your armory you've done FL and Kolo in Ulduar10 and thats it. FL requires no healing. So you've in essence used this for one boss in Ulduar. Considering thats 1/13th of bosses in Ulduar requiring a healer, and that you've completed none of the hard modes, how can you be in any position to say that this is the best healing spec. Naxx healing IS NOT Ulduar healing. I've seen fresh 80s heal through Naxx10, and then i've seen fully naxx25 geared healers fail horibly in Ulduar, because they couldn't heal and move. Maybe your numbers on recount look good, but healing isn't about meters.

I AM NOT SAYING YOU ARE BAD. I AM NOT SAYING THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR YOU. I AM MERELY POINTING OUT PROBLEMS WITH YOUR POST/SPEC.

[Flee]

Thaak,

I completely understand your reasoning. I am sorry I did not have a great deal of time to dedicate to my initial post because I was at work. However, I feel as if you chose to deliver a sense of aggressiveness and derogitory marks. I do not feel intimidated at all and I would greatly appreciate the next time you make a post that you place yourself in the readers shoes before you hit submit. With that said, allow me to demonstrate in better detail.

First off you will not find very many articles going over this kind of healing in which i am about to describe, simply because ppl have a set way of how they are "used" to healing.

I am not out to prove anything, i am only going to state the facts and how to use them in this post. It is not worth my time to give u every single number in the book. If you really want to be the best at what you can do you will do your own research reguarding the matter.

You made a couple statements regaurding specs, i will break down the reasoning why i have deterred from using the talents u have spoken of.

Spirit of Redemption, it is true u would recieve a slight boost from the spirit and the benefit of healing while dead for a short period of time. However, 3% spirit is nothing to cry about in terms of spirit vs the 3% spell haste which can prove invaluable. Fully Talented in "Enlightenment" I receive enough haste to knock my GH spell to 2.17 seconds. What good is having uber spirit/sp if you fail to heal ur target b4 they die?. The only time you would want to move 1 point from enlightenment to spirit of redemption is when you dip below 2 seconds on your greater heal.

About the PWS: Even Glyphed it stops 2,230 dmg. Lets say I put 3 points in their for an extra 15% more dmg abosorption. That leaves us with a total of 2,564.5 dmg absorption. Would u seriously toss 3 points away to stop 334.5 damage.... What boss let alone a trash mob hits for 334.5? That will stop a misquito bite one time but thats about it. In that tier of disc you only have 2 other options. 2/2 Martyrdom: Gives you a 100% chance to gain the focused casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after being the victim of a melee or ranged critical strike. The focused Casting effect reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Priest spells and decreases the duration of Interrupt effects by 20%. Think about this, how often do u actually get hit and critically hit for that matter for this to actually proc? Highly unlikely, this leaves us with 2 other options 1 point per 100 dmg reduction from a shield that barely stops dmg anyway and u won't use much or 3/3 Silent Resolve: Reduces the threat generated by your Holy and Discipline spells by 20% and reduces the chance your helpful spells and damage over time effects will be dispelled by 30%. I can tell you from trial and error this is the way to go. While being untalented I found myself pulling even tiny loose mobs that barely hit for anything but distract ur spell casting on various raid bosses IE: Maexxna in Naxx. Talented, I find I rarely pull any because theirs less mobs that bother me during the fight my shield easily holds them off or a simple fade does the trick. Otherwise I found that the shield did not hold them off because their was simply too many and fade was a constant cool down.

The reasoning behind this build is quite simple when you begin to add some numbers. First check out these links so you can compair flash healing vs greater healing.

You want links here are links:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Flash_Heal
http://www.wowwiki.com/Greater_Heal
http://www.plusheal.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=717&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
http://www.worldofmatticus.com/tag/spirit/

http://www.wowwiki.com/Talk:Formulas:Mana_Regen
There is a very easy way to compare mana per second regen and spirit regen. Someone who never casts spells will benefit 100% spirit, but the more they fight, the less mana they would regen when compared to the mana per second item. At some point, those two values will be equal. That's the number you want to find.
Lets say I have two pieces of armor. One regens 8 mana per 5 seconds, the other has 20 spirit. When should I use one and when should I use the other? 8 mana per 5 sec = 1.6 mana per second. 20 spirit = 2.5 mana per second (when not "in combat", in other words having cast a spell in the last 5 seconds.)
Let x be the % of when we are in combat
1.6 = (1-x)2.5
Solve for x. You get 36%. In other words, if you spend more than 36% of the time "in combat", you should wear the mana per second gear. You can also factor in talents that give you 15% mana regen when in combat.
1.6 = (1-x)2.5 + (x)2.5(.15)

Ok, now that you have looked at some examples of the mana effeciency take a look at your own numbers. Though some people will not be willing to spec, gear, and gem to go through the numerous amounts of testing see what the healing will do for you per mana. Go and read the amount of time it takes to cast 1 flash heal and times it by 2. Now take the amount of time it takes to cast 1 greater heal. You will always find it takes LONGER to cast 2 flashes over 1 greater regaurdless of spec. Now add the numbers that u receive. Even if you are talented and glyphed into flash you will see the greater heal hit very close. Now what do u think will happen if you put more effort into that GH. Lets take a look into this.

My Gear is comprised of Focusing Spell Power. I have chosen more times then not to utilize +19 sp gems over another gem, such as spirit or int to get a +4 spirit socket bonus because you will recieve a stronger heal from the 19 spell power over a tiny bit more spirit. Here is the logic behind stacking spell power and spirit.

Lets take 2 examples of the often seen Holy gear types.

"Heroes Robe of Faith" - 67 stam, 60 Int, 68 spirit, (1 red & 1 blue socket) *socket bonus +6 spirit* Equip Bonuses: Increases Spell power by 85 and Restores 17mp5, set bonus's are; Your POM bounces 1 more time and the 4-piece set bonus gives you "The cost of your GH is reduced by 5%". (Hint, Blizzard said GH not FH and stresses towards not casting constantly, which is suggested by adding more wait time bc now POM bounces 1 more time). Often times you will see a priest use a (Royal Twilight Opal: 9 sp & 3mp5) or a (Purified Twilight Opal: 9 sp & 8 spirit). However, if you add it up 19 spell power is 2x stronger then the RTO and about 1.5x stronger then the PTO.

Now think about this. For each time you take away from the maximum amount of spell power you could have to go into mana regen, you force urself to have to heal more to compensate for the amount of healing you could have done... If you keep stacking this idea you run into OOM issues in longer fights. If you take a renew for example, which is more beneficial, a renew that ticks for 1400 a tick or one that hits for 1400 then ticks for 2200 a tick? Well if you take away from the SP for int or mp5 you now have less healing for that mana u just issued on ur renew. This applies to ANY healing spell. If you are healing for less bc u chose to go more int and mp5 over sp and spirit you are not hitting for as hard as u could potentially hit for. This does not matter per spec, gear, or glyphs. Spell power is spell power, period. The less u have the less ur going to hit for. The more you have, the less healing u will have to issue, thus the less mp5 you will need to keep ur tank alive and the more OOC regen u will begin to use.

Lets pretend we are on Iron Council in ulduar. We already know that u can hit harder with a greater heal over a flash heal, it takes less time to cast 1 greater heal and hits for more then 2 flashes. We also know that the tank takes substantial dmg rather quickly. If you are gearing towards mp5/int, you sacrifice that ability to; have renews ticking for more during the fight, your heals hit for less then what they could have hit for *thus requires you to cast more heals back to back to keep up*, and your crits when you do crit will not be as high. Lets say ur healing a paladin tanking this fight, you know he will take considerable burst dmg, but is annointed with the raid warning "Fusion Punch". A properly specced prot paly will have 5/5 in Divinity: Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 5% and 3/3 in Improved Devotion Aura: Increases the armor bonus of your Devotioni Aura by 50% and increases the amount healed on any target affected by any of your Auras by 6%. How can someone who has less spell power take full advantage of his talent? Adding 11% of a 10k heal is 11,100 vs 10,000. or a 20k crit turns into 22,200 vs 20,000. Why would a discipline priest who only slows down the dmg benefit as much as a holy priest or holy paladin who can hit harder or hit with high crits.

The idea behind my current build, gearing, and gemming is this. The harder you hit, the less casts you will need to accomplish the same goal as someone else who hits for less per cast. If you cast less you can utilize spirit even more so then people who constantly cast because the information that i have linked simply proves how much more mana you will recieve from not casting and while casting. not only that, but it explains in great detail why greater heals have better mana efficiency over flash healing. If anyone needs even more articles to read from I would be more then happy to add additional information.

[Tradita]

Flee,

Looking at your spec reminds of vanilla WoW days and the old hybrid holy/disc spec that just about all healing priests were in those days. It worked then but the class has evolved so much further since Tier 1, 2 and 3 content.

I'm not going to go into a lot of long theorycrafting because quite frankly, it's been said elsewhere by better people on multiple sites. I'd suggest you do more research.

Your spec will make you OK for healing tanks and complete fail for raid healing. However, a disc priest will beat you on tank survivability and a holy priest will beat you on raid healing every time. You're kinda the jack of all trades but master of none. In today's raid content, people aren't looking for a jack of all trades. Your current spec would only make you slightly viable for tank healing. Honestly, a disc priest will be a better choice because they bring more options to the table. Damage reduction is becoming a large factor in the fights - even Blizzard is moving in this direction with the upcoming change to Inspiration (which should tell you something).

I'm dual specced myself - Discipline for one and Holy for the other so I can swap as the raid balance or fight mechanics require. For tank healing, I would suggest you look more closely at the higher talents in the discipline tree and see why Flash Heal is used a lot by disc priests when compared to Greater Heal. You used the IC fight as an example but Fusion Punch is a single ability of one fight in Ulduar. That one ability does call for a well timed large heal but it's a one off situation. Overall, as disc, Greater Heal is hardly in my rotation because my tank isn't getting spiked enough to need it. Frankly, you don't want your tank spiking - it's scary. Also, most of the fights in Ulduar are highly mobile and stopping to cast a lot of greater heals will get you killed. You need fast or instant casts that allow you to keep moving out of danger yourself.

As for raid healing, your spec is no good for that at all - full stop. By the time you've healed one person in a group, the others will be dead since you don't have A. instant bubbles from deep disc or B. COH from deep holy (one or the other).

I'd be curious to know how long you've been playing the game because you're not the first person I've seen trying to carry on with vanilla WoW spec ideas with the same results on the parses as well as dead players and tanks - not good. Also, if you're worrying a lot about mana efficiency then I'm assuming you're raiding without hardly any replenishment in which case I'd point an error at your raid balance. There's basically only one fight where I have an issue with running out of mana and that's General Vezax (surprise surprise). Otherwise, my own mana regen plus the raid wide replenishment is sufficient to where I never need anything more than my own shadow fiend and hymn of hope to keep me going. Also, gemming pure spellpower might be factoring into your mana regen. Consider that intellect plays into spell crit and mana regen, you might want to swap to the Luminous Monarch Topaz to increase both. Also, work on your Sons of Hodir rep to get your shoulder enchant asap.

I'd suggest you go to the elitestjerks priest forum and do some research there:

Priests - Elitist Jerks

A lot of the theorycrafting is explained in detail and much testing has been done.

Good luck.

[Flee]

I am greatly dissapointed that most people feel this way, and I'm thankful for your reply in a great tone. Unlike before, I am unwilling to spend a great deal of time explaining my concepts. When someone can show me a discipline priest out heal & out last me on either a tank or raid in equivelent ilvl gear I would he honored to learn from them. However, from the amount of times on both realms that i have been on I have been unable to find anyone with even slightly better ilvl gear do the job better. The tank spiking is perfectly acceptable if you have appropriate timing, and if you are not that good you should carry a druid in ur back pocket to slow down the dmg. In fact, discipline priests are pew pew when it comes to healing tankadins because they derive from being healed for their mana. No dmg taken = waist of talent points for mana.

Thank you all for the posts and I hope some people decide to try what I have shown.

[tylianna]

Im new to this forum but i do need to know the best raid spec for cata im leveling a priest for my guild.Right now im shadow/disc my toon name is tylianna and im on galakrond alliance side im wanting to know where to put my points so im effective in 5 mans as well as raids im currently 65 hopeful to be 85 by the weekend