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Hee. You DPSers with your meters and your target dummies. So insecure. :)



If everyone (in a five man) or your target (in a raid) is alive and you didn't go OOM before the end of the fight, you win.

If some people are dead but it's their own damn fault, you still win, although there is often a lot you can do to make up for other people's idiocy.

Recount can also be useful for analyzing overhealing, use of particular spells, etc. Just be aware that in a raid, healing assignments will greatly affect how much healing a particular person is throwing out, so using it to compare yourself to others is only occasionally useful.




PoM the tank. Occasionally there may be a good reason to PoM someone else instead, in which case do that. But throwing one out before the start of each fight is pretty much standard.

This is less important than it once was, because once upon a time the heal from PoM caused threat for the person healed, so it was a nice little something for the tank at the start of the fight, but this is no longer the case. Still, PoM is a great spell, and it makes for nice insurance if someone takes damage you weren't expecting.

Another good use of PoM is when you need to damage yourself. PoM + SWD, for example. It's also another instant heal in your ******* when there's panicking to be done.




In an ideal world, shield/PoM/Renew/(FH) take care of the tank in between and you cast Penance every time it's off cooldown. It doesn't always work out that way, but as annoying as this answer is, you'll get a feel for it just through doing. In general, note the parentheses around that Flash Heal. If something gets left out, you want it to be that, so if there's another second until Penance is up and the tank can wait, wait. A huge thing I think new healers need to get used to, because it's not intuitive at all, is that occasionally (in a five man, less so in raids) the right answer is to stand there doing nothing but looking cool.




Shield the tank. Shield anyone else you know will be taking damage. Especially if you have the glyph, shield splash damage. Your entire spec is built around strong shields and Penance. Shield is your johnny-on-the-spot. When in doubt, start with a shield.

Flash Heal - as needed between Penance cooldowns, and for non-tanks when needed.

Prayer of Healing - When there's significant AOE damage. This is a really nice spell, but it's also a mana hog. It's a great choice for your Inner Focus button.

Binding Heal - If you're taking a little damage this is a great quick way to heal yourself without ignoring the tank. IIRC it's not particularly efficient mathwise, so don't get too happy with it, but don't forget it's there either.

Greater Heal - you're a Disc priest. You don't even need Gheal on your toolbar. ;) I kid, but you will use it only very rarely with your spec, mainly when there's a spike and Penance is on cooldown.


Edited, Sep 24th 2009 8:49am by teacake

As for my addition to the thread...


You throw it down whenever it isn't up. It's the most efficient spell in your ******** healing for between 20 and 40 HPM on average if you get it to do all 5 jumps (which - definitely in raids - is usually no big deal). As a comparison, in my Ulduar 25 & TotC 25/10 gear a critical hitting Flash Heal has a HPM of 11 and a critical hitting Gheal is about 10 HPM. In a chaotic situation you'll be pretty much using ProM whenever it's off cooldown - in more controlled environments about once every 30 seconds.


To drag HPM back into the discussion; my Penance has a HPM of about 16, and that is when none of the ticks crit. Which means that an non-critting Penance is about 1.5 as efficient as a critting Gheal. Penance is aside from ProM (and possibly Divine Hymn, haven't tested that one yet) the most efficient spell priests have had in ages. It beats pretty much every other spell we have and is fast as well. You do not hold back on Penance - casting it whenever it's off cooldown will make you go OOM less fast than when you're using Flash Heal instead. The only reasonw here you'll want to hold back on Penance is where you're the sole tank healer and the boss hits in huge bursts - Vezax, before all the nerfs, is such a fight. He would often take the tank to 40-50% hp with one hit after which I'd throw a Penance which left the tank on 30% hit points once it had fired - at that point a 1.5 sec Flash Heal isn't enough healing to save the tank and Greater Heal's cast time is too long. To counter this I actually cancelcasted Gheal and Penanced right after I let the heal drop as it is the only thing that would counter Vezax' spikes. I don't think any encounter currently in the game has so much burst damage that this is necessary though (Maybe NB-25 HM, but even there you usually aren't tank healing alone which means you'll be Penancing+Flash Healing rather than cancelcasting).


As disc: you shield whoever's going to take damage - especially once you get enough gear your mana pool will be able to handle you shielding the entire raid during fights like Ignis. Flash Heal is used to heal up people who are shielded (or simply need healing and not a shield) and Prayer of Healing is used when an entire group gets below 70% - as an example, during Hodir's Frozen Blows phase I often get into a hastebeam, shield up everyone really quickly and then throw some PoH's around. Greater Heal is dead, completely. The only use it could still have is as a tank healing spell for holy priests in 5-man instances, but even then you're probably usually better off just using Flash Heal. Binding Heal can be used for the 'in between' situations where you a group heal wouldn't be quite as effective but where you aren't on full hit points yourself.

As holy: you pick up B&S, hug it, love it tender and never let it go. Then you shield everybody who are A) about to die or B) need a speedboost for whatever reason. The rest of your heals are a bit more straightforward since you have a 'rotation' as holy; CoH > (instant) Flash > Flash > Flash > PoH. Getting 3 stacks of Serendipity is almost always your priority, and when you have those 3 stacks but a PoH is not needed you can use Binding Heal.


... I should've just told you to go read the sticky ;P

Moz makes a great point about Holy being a whole different ballgame. I think a lot of priests respec or dual spec and then try to heal the same way they're used to. Holy and Disc are a lot of the same spells but used completely differently, and you really need to stick with the fundamental philosophy of the spec.

Holy is about straight up healing: supplying a constant stream of health to everyone taking damage. Your core is CoH, Renew, and Flash Heal, and you use the others situationally around that. Disc is about mitigation: prevent the small damage and burst down the big. Your core is shield and penance, and you use the others situationally around that.

That's simplified, of course, but you know what I'm saying.


Edited, Sep 24th 2009 10:48am by teacake

I did, and it helped on showing how (in)effective heals are but I still wanted to know more and tell my story so I still made the thread.
And what's been typed down here tells a whole lot more than what's in the sticky.

Since I'm going Disc PvP I figured I'd spec Disc PvE as dualspec because 1 spec of healing is enough to have to learn for now.

Everyone above has covered it :) I only add this as my two cents.

PoM any groups receiving aoe dmg, blizzards/gas clouds/anything that ticks. Like teacake has mentioned, it does act as a good safety for the tank taking unexpected spike dmg. PW:S, PoM, Renew is great if you know the tank is about to take a huge hit.

PoH if there a 3 or more people in a group down below 70% health. Also, if you know the raid will take a good chunk of dmg at a certain time; pre-cast bubbles on as many people as you can, then start a PoH that will land just after everyone get hits with dmg.

You basically know if you are doing your job right if, a) Your assignments are alive (if not, could you have prevented it?), b) if the other healers are not running oom trying to help pick up slack.
Anything after that is just min/maxing your skills and spells.

Can we just sticky this as well? Lol

That even goes for hunters, or at least the importance of attacks varies by spec.

I love disc already, if only because Shield + Penance triple crit and then see that person's health not move for a while even with a mob of allies beating on him/her is pretty damn awesome.




That said, any advice for Naxxramas fights?
I'll likely do 10man naxx this weekend as we have a bunch of alts who just dinged 80 and if there are any fights where a disc priest can totally kick *** I'd like to know beforehand so I can create the illusion that I know what I'm doing

I've been going over the fights, but I haven't come very far yet except "heal the tank, disspell crap from people" on almost all fights.
Although with Thaddius I guess throwing PoM on the target of the chain lightning would be a good idea?
(I'm not sure for how long he targets them, but I'm likely to have bosses as focus target anyway so I'll see who he is targeting. That also reminds me that I need to make macros for my damage spells in PvE healing so they fire at my focus and I can keep whatever target I want.)

I'm a raider! I'll be fine.

And another question, do debuffs stack up through PW:Shield or not?
(For example the debuff the zombies on gluth give, or the scarabs on Anub)

Anub'Rekhan - Stay at max range from the tank due to Locust Swarm.

Maexxna - Shields and renews on people who get web wrapped to the wall, Penance works well too.

Heigan the Unclean - Know the dance before you get there. Just before you run down to dance, shield and Renew yourself if possible.

Loatheb is interesting for healers.


I personally switch to holy on this fight to throw a PoH, CoH combo. As disc, I'd think about spamming PW:Shield then throwing PoH 2 seconds before the window.

Sapphiron - Frost Resist gear can help. PoH to heal up the groups when there are ice blocks.

Kel'Thuzad - Beware Frost Blast. PW:Shield / Penance combo saves the day.


Edited, Sep 24th 2009 4:20pm by dadanox

Don't let people dip on Patchwerk, this is one fight where PoM is truly great, bouncing around the tanks. Just have to be aware of dps that use self-damaging abilities, PoM occasionally escapes to them and remains there. Once it gets going, I normally find a rhythm where every 15 seconds, I will shield 2 and sometimes the third tank if we are using 3 and put a renew on them. Of course, until you get comfortable with it, just concentrate on your assignment. =)
(If we are 2-tanking 25-man, I stay on single target spam duty.)

Find the caster dps that you want to be good friends with and work out the PI setup with them. If they know its coming, they can prep for it better. (It stands to reason that the top caster dps will benefit most from PI, but the recipient is ultimately up to you.)

Whip out that speedy Mass Dispel in the military quarter. (I have a thing for getting offensive dispels off before dps and tanks.) Bone Armor, Hysteria and the debuff they toss on the melee all are good practice for Mass Dispel (although with your penchant for BGs, I bet you are already quite proficient with it.)

I freaked the first time I tanked in the back for 4HM on a 10 man. Now, I would rather go back there to make sure it doesn't get screwed up.*edit* almost forgot to add: If you are tanking in the back, use that imp during switches to tag the other boss. Shadowcrawl gets him there in a flash.

Upstairs, Disc really shines. Sapph is more a Holy and Tree fest, but Disc is the perfect counter for KT's Frost Blast. You can reliably save 3 people yourself if extra people get frozen. Shield, clipped Penance, Shield in under 2 seconds. Then go back and shield that clipped Penance before he dies.

This kind of brings me to one of my little secrets- using cancelcast. It used to be a standard to cancelcast your Gheal to save mana. While that is no longer used as much, I keep a type of cancelcast alive and kicking with PW:S.

/stopcasting
/use Power Word:Shield

This will give PW:S precedence over other spells. Say, for instance, you are casting a Penance on someone and see someone else taking spike damage. Without the /stopcasting in the macro, the penance will have to finish before shield can be cast. With the /stopcasting, you can interrupt any cast to use the shield right away. Of course, the first spell will not land (unless it is Penance which you can intentionally clip), but more times than not you will wind up saving someone that otherwise would have waited for a heal to land.

Edited, Sep 24th 2009 5:55pm by Trylofer

I think you people are forgetting that I've ran Naxx more times than I care to remember.
So I do know all a healer should do and how it works, I just don't know the details and little things that can set you apart from the rest (in a positive way of course ^^)

Right! Shame on us for not keeping your personal play schedule foremost in our minds. Plus, it's not like there are ever other people who might benefit from this discussion, and if there are, shame on them for reading your personal thread!

:P

The key to all this is information. What are you using for raid frames? You need to be able to instantly see which of 10 or 25 people have a disease to cure or magic to dispel, or if it hits multiple people that you need to mass dispel. You need to be aware of who gets a special debuff from a boss, so you can take action rather than just observe the damage.

The most popular raid frames used by healers are Grid, Vuhdo, and Healbot. You may want to consider using one of them. Healbot is pretty simple to setup. Check this video to get started with healbot configuration. I'm currently using Healbot. Here's my old grid configuration post. Vuhdo is capable, but a little confusing to configure. Youtube has some videos on configuration.

Any of these can be used one of 3 ways.
1. Click a person to target, then a hotkey to heal.
2. Mouseover macros - same as above but without the requirement to click and target the person.
3. Mouseclick heals - use a combination of mouse clicks (left, right, middle, shift-left, etc) to cast your different spells. In this scenario, you could left then right click a person to PW:Shield and renew them. Then maybe a side mouse button to Penance or flash heal. This style of healing has a lot of fans and I have switched to it recently.

Yes, you need to watch DBM. As a matter of fact, I have my warnings scaled huge and people yell at me because my interface is ugly. But DBM is just one part. It isn't enough by itself, without a good raid frame setup.

Edited, Sep 25th 2009 10:01am by dadanox