Solo as HolyFollow

Hello, this'll be my first post on the Priest Boards so bear with me if I'm a bit noobish. Also, my experience with a priest goes all the way to lvl 37, so yeah...

Anyway, I'm currently leveling my priest as holy in hopes of being a good healer in raids and instances beyond 60. I think I'll stick with it until 40 then switch to Shadow to help leveling along even more and then switch back to holy at 60.

So I've been wondering, is solo-ing at 60-70 with a holy build difficult at all? I'd like to be a healer but I fear that if I stay in the shadow tree for too long I'll never be able to bring myself to be a good healer (I leveled my hunter as MM and have been stuck with it, same goes for my rogue and combat, it just seems to be too difficult for me to switch specs from one tree to another).

So I've tried putting together a decent healing build with some solo ability - Linky. I was hoping that some of you could help me out and tell me what I'm doing wrong and right, or if it's just a bad idea altogether.

I thank you all in advance.

Your build looks very nice for healing and such, but I was looking for something like a healing build with some level of damage dealing ability, since I know I can't run instances all of the time. I'm trying to get something that allows me to heal nearly as well as a more proper healing build in instances while still giving me some edge against mobs for quests and the like (Kill X amount of Y for example).

I don't mean to be rude or anything, it is a very appealing build and I will probably be switching over to something much like it once I get more into raid/instance healing.

Double post.

Edited, Dec 26th 2007 9:24am by UnkemptSuperman

If you're going to switch to shadow at 40 and then back again at 60 you might as well respect to shadow now and respec at 60.

Ok, firstly I don't know how difficult solo-ing and leveling as a full holy priest is nowadays, because I was never full holy while leveling. Nevertheless I am in the mood to rant on a bit (flame me if you will).

I leveled using what I eventually called my "b*stard spec". This was a 40/14/7 discipline spec. I took deep disc talents such as reflective shield and enlightenment over mental strength + power infusion, which I saw as unnecessary. Once I had these I went into spirit tap and improved pain, picking up the last 14 holy as an afterthought. Leveling was a blast. I loved healing instances like ST, and even BRD was fun despite its terrible size and layout. Reflective shield was amusing, spirit tap was great, and other discipline talents helped ensure my survival. All the way up to 70, I didn't consider myself seriously gimped in terms of survivability, killing speed or healing capacity.

Any pre-70 instance, healing is a function mainly of group ability and competance, and probably latency and spell selection, rather than spec. As long as your tank was competant enough to hold aggro, and had the mitigation of sword-and-board, he was healable.

I cannot see how solo-ing at holy one would have to drink every few pulls, even on double pulls. Setting up a spell routine using a minimum of damage spells and a good degree of wanding should see you at almost full mana by the time you take your next pull (ok, so it is spirit dependant). It is arguable whether burning a good deal of mana on nuking down a target with direct damage spells before drinking, or doing a couple then slowly wanding it to death before casting renew and moving is quicker, but as a stingy gold obsessed freak I know which is cheaper (without having a pet mage). If my previous and current killing speed was "slow", then "fast" must be incredibly quick.

Anyway, with your build; unbreakable will is useful in pvp and certain raiding situations, but in solo work wanding is such an easy source of dps. If you want to level from 60-70 (or do daily quests in a timely fashion, for that matter), wand spec makes a much more noticable difference. I "used to" think that silent resolve was a compulsory talent, until I analysed my deaths in pve situations and realised I was usually hit when a mob broke CC early or simply wasn't being tanked at all. It does make a difference, very occasionally I wish I put a few more points into it (just managing to pull aggro off thunder clap for instance), but improved power word: fort is probably a better choice. There are a couple of other things (1 point in martyrdom = lol for pve), but otherwise your spec has most of the important things.

Personally, I find myself consistently casting damage spells on the tank's primary target while saying "take some proper damage you tankadin freak so i'm no longer bored". This includes heroics. I dunno maybe I'm just lucky.

Just stop right there. If you haven't leveled with full holy then why are you claiming it's just as fast?




Said the disc priest. Listen holy is for healing. It's not a damage or survival spec. It's the slowest killing spec for priest and you will have the most down time. Disc helps with mana and survival. Of course you can't see how they'd have to drink every now and then. Shadow is a high damage spec.

Listen if you're going to give advice at least know what you're talking about. Respec full holy and go out and farm for a bit. See how much of a huge difference it is. Holy =/= Disc and assuming it's the same is just plain stupid.