Priest

Priest class mentor is Anowyyn.

Well here goes, gonna give my best shot at this. There are several issues I will address in addittion to a bit of friendly priestly advice.

FIRST this goes for holy priests, though discipline priests may pick up some tips too. If you're shadow I know a bit, but not going over it here. Sorry Vampiric Embrace doesn't count as healing

I'm not going to post my spec or a spec. I think about every priest has their own spec, which works for them. And with the new patch comming out this would change anyway. I will point out some very useful talents, that I think most healing priests should have. Though again this will change in 1.10. As there will definitely be a line between Discipline and Holy priests. And I'll write on that when it happens. I know Angelisa is a Discipline priest, maybe I can have a chat with her about posting some Discipline priestly advice

Some important formulas to remember!

4 Spirit = 1 mana regen/2 secs
9 Spirit = 1 Hp regen/2 secs
Mana Regen/tick = Spirit/4 + 13

Talents

Discipline
Improved Power Word Fortitude
-Always important to have, the more stamina everyone has the better they'll stay alive

Mental Strength
-Nothing better than increasing your mana pool. This is nice, and in 1.9 you can have it with a full holy spec, however in 1.10 you will not be able to have this and the better holy tree talents. Which I think finally allows for a fine line between Discipline and Holy priests. Don't be too upset by this Mental strength loss for those going holy it only adds about 600 or so mana to your mana pool, which is one maybe two spells. And there will be other ways to help with this mana loss further in the holy tree in 1.10.

Meditation
-This is an awesome talent, and it will be available to priests in 1.10 that spec holy. What this does is allows a little bit of early mana regeneration (15 percent with full points) during the five second rule after the casting of a spell is complete. This is important for all priests, and especially useful for those with mana regeneration gear (Mana per second (mps) gear) which also works during the five second rule. Here is an illustration (go me) to help with it.

[--- casting heal ---] [----------5 seconds----------]
[--- 100% regen ---] [-meditation working here--]

Divine Spirit
-Spirit is the second most important stat for priests. This is our mana regeneration. The higher our spirit the higher our mana regeneration, and in 1.10 the better our healing, with the new talents in holy. However Divine spirit, no longer being bottom tier is only available in the lower end of the Discipline tree, so those with full Discipline or partial trees will gain this ability. And if you can get it, spirit is a good thing ( No room in my new talent spec for it).

Holy
Improved Renew
-Always a good talent to have, gives a bit extra hit points per second back to the person you're casting this on. An improved power word shield, with a renew, can help quite a bit.

Subtlety
-This talent will be moved to discipline, changed into Silent Resolve but still available to holy spec priests in 1.10. This talent lowers the threat we generate when healing. We already get enough hate, lower it as much as you can. Very important talent.

Inspiration
-Raising your targets armor by 25%, which usually happens most on long fights can help out a lot more than you think. This is an excellent talent, that I have and will have next patch.

Improved Healing
-This talent reduces the mana cost of your Lesser heal, Heal, and Greater Heal by up to 15 percent. Talents that reduce mana cost of the spells you use a lot are a great thing. Currently I do not have this talent, however in 1.10 I will with the casting speed of Greater Healing lowered to 3.0 seconds (with the .5 second talent).

Spirit of Redemption
-Next patch even more useful when you die, 10 seconds to cast whatever you want at no mana cost. Currently a specific amount healed to your party. I have this talent, and I like it. I tend to sacrifice myself a lot to save my party/raid. Which is probably not a good thing in most cases, however we have probably some of the best tanks anyone could ask for.

Master Healer
-Decreases the casting time of your big heals. This talent is fused with Divine Fury in 1.10. An important talent for holy priests. What's better than getting your big heals off as quick as possible?

Holy Nova
-Does a burst of healing and damage to everyone in a certain radius. Currently I don't have, but I will in 1.10 cause umm, it's fun. But a warning, it is a huge waste of mana. It costs something like 700 mana to cast. Fun, but expensive.

Patch 1.10

Discipline
Silent Resolve
-This talent will replace Subtlety in the holy tree. Reduces threat generated. Good talent for healing bots!

Improved Power Word Shield
-Increasing the damage your shield is good. I personally will have too many holy talent points for this, but an excellent talent, and use your own personal judgement.

Power Infusion
-Discipline Priests get love, or they can give it! This talent increases damage and healing by 20 percent for 15 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown. Nothing better than upping your healing ability or the damage output of a friendly mage/warlock.

Holy
Divine Fury
-This talent in 1.9 I don't have, however in 1.10 I will have, it decreases the casting time of your Holy Fire, Smite, and Greater Heal spells. VERY handy with the already lowered casting time of Grater Heal in 1.10.

Healing Focus
-Lowering the chance that a spell is interrupted by damage is good, especially when you have to cast a spell in an area where you will be taking damage, mainly from aoe, or when getting pummeled by a mob that escapes the main tank.

Holy Specialization
-I do not have in 1.9, but I will in 1.10, increasing the chance to crit with your holy spells is wonderful. I've found that this procs quite a bit with decent gear in 1.10. A good talent to have, but again, personal preference plays a part.

Holy Reach
-Increases the range of your Prayer of Healing and Holy Nova, as well as Holy Fire and Smite. I took this becaus eI cast Prayer of Healing quite a bit. Personal preference for this one as well.

Spiritual Guidance
-This increases your spell damage and healing by up to 25 percent of your total spirit. Remember I said Spirit was probably the second (close first) most important stat? This is an excellent talent, only available to holy priests, or a mix that went far down in the holy tree. I'm close to 400 spirit with some gear. 25 percent of that is 100, so with that gear, I can add 100 to my healing spells with 3.5 second cast or greater. This is the BASE casting time, so even though you have talents which lower the casting time, it still counts as the original casting time when adding plus healing to yor spell. With the patch changes an absolutely excellent talent to have, especially with high spirit.

Spiritual Healing
-This increases your healing done by your healing spells by up to 10 percent. A wonderful talent for holy priests to nab!

Lightwell
-Ok this talent is a complete and total personal preference talent. I will be taking this talent. I have tested it and I love it. It will be very handing for a certain few fights. Such as Shazzrah, Baron Geddon, the 7 wave rush in AQ20, and I know I'm leaving a few out. This talent allows for 1600 (I believe at max rank) health to be renewed over 10 seconds. The lightwell will have 5 of these charges and will last for 2 minutes, however the devs have said on the boards they are discussing raising this time limit. The cooldown of the spell is 10 minutes. This does stack with bandaging. And as soon as they fix the bug, does not cause agro. However if you are attacked it cancels the healing, however getting debuffs does not. Only physical damage to you, just like a bandadge, but does not cause the bandaged effect. I will be taking this talent, as I can see the usefullness of it, but I have tried this talent on the test server. If you still have the option to do so, I suggest it.

Advice

I spent a lot of time on talents, talents help to define a priest and their abilities. So consider your talents long and hard. A few other tips I'd like to go over about healing, and dispelling.

Currently Flash Heal is your friend! It will continue to be your friend in 1.10, however, when the patch does go live, start working on casting your Greater Heal spell more often, I will be working on this in little 5-10 man groups, so that come raid time I am comfortable casting it and timing it to cast when a tank needs it most. Spamming Flash heal now is unfortunately most of what priests do, and not just on your group, with CT raid you can show EVERYONE in the raid on your screen and heal them. Do this. Healing is not a competition, it's to keep the raid alive, well, and progressing. Without us, hey where would they be? Dead. That's right.

Heal everyone in your raid, and dispell any harmful effects that you can, start with your party, and then anyone that is in dire need of it. I when dispelling assume I only have to deal with my party and those without priests. However I do dispell those that have their priests out of mana, or are too concerned with other things. For this reason I am usually no where near the top of the healing meters. I could care less about how much I am healing as long as I am keeping spells off of people so that the other priests can do their jobs and heal them up. However we all would have our healing on the meters boosted if Everyone would keep track and be able to dispell effects on their individual parties and get back to healing.

A lot of priests use Decursive. I haven't ever really liked it, so I use the /racure ability that comes with CT Raid. What this does is it allows for the first dispelling of your own party members and then the rest of the raid if you keep clicking on it, that are in range, and it will not dispell something that another raid member casting /racure is already dispelling. This is why I like CT Raids /racure ability. It does not do mulitple dispellings on a person and waste mana.

Again, dispell your own group, then move to those who REALLY need it and then get back to healing. Boosting EVERYONE'S healing on the meters is what is important, not your own personal place on that meter.

Well I hope I haven't come accross as pushy or obsessive or anything. And I'm sure I've made a lot of mistakes. But I hope most of all I hope that I have given advice to someone that needed it. If you have questions, or anything to add please do so. I am a very open person. You have a better suggestion or need help post!

Thanks guys, hope I helped.

Anowyyn

ZOMG Gear!

Ok Gear! A rather important aspect of priestliness.

There are several types, and I think I'll go over two. Plus healing and MP5 aka Mana per 5 seconds.

Plus Healing

Ok, this is the direction I chose after getting my Benediction staff. Here is the thing to remember with plus healing gear:

3.5 second cast spell = 100% from plus helaing gear

If you're a numbers person then you can do the calculations. I hate numbers, and math, but I'll do it anyway

This is how you figure how much your plus healing gear will add:

**Spell Casting time** / 3.5 And if you get a number 1 or greater then it's 100%

SO, here is the break down, as long as my math is correct:

Greater heal will receive 100% of that bonus.
Flash heal will receive 43% of that bonus.
Renew will receive 100% of that bonus.
Renew ticks 5 times, so every tick of renew will be +20%

I choose plus healing gear so that I am able to cast my lower costing spells with the same base effect of my largest heals. Ok, here's an example. I have about plus 450 healing gear. So if I cast my Greater Heal spell at rank 3 it's range would be the same as my rank 4 Greater Heal, but instead of costing 960 mana it costs 800 mana. This difference will be even better with the changes in 1.10, if taken the right talents. You could easily cast Greater Heal rank 2 with the same effectiveness of Greater Heal rank 4, for over 500 less mana.

Plus Healing gear is not for everyone. I was MP5 before I got benediction, and I know a lot that will and are still MP5 after.

MP5 (Mana per 5 seconds)

There is a whole range of equipment that is MP5. MP5 gear is basically this, while other healers are running out of mana and have to wait longer to get that mana back to cast their spells, you are constantly casting, because your mana regneration rate is so very high. And during that time you are constantly casting, the 5 second rule:

[--- casting heal ---] [----------5 seconds----------]
[--- 100% regen ---] [--------------MP5------------]

Along with the talent Meditation, MP5 gear works there too. It is a constant regeneration of mana, that keeps MP5 gear priests from being out of mana, and keeps them constantly healing.

I love MP5 gear, because you at an eventual point in the game will be a never ending mana pool. Plus there is a heck of a lot less math involved with MP5 gear, no figuring out how much a certain spell is going to be effected by plus healing gear.

Conclusion!

I have found that I personally enjoy plus healing gear, but that's what this is all about! PERSONAL PREFERENCE! Gear types along with talents make up the majority of being a priest. That's it, gear and talents. Mix the ability to play your priest, and play it well and you are an unstoppable healing machine!

Take the advice given, and run with it! You'll improve yourself beyond your expectations and help the guild as a whole to graduate from Onyxia, and Molten Core into Black Wing Lair, and Ahn'Quraj!

Ok I think I've covered the most important aspects, and sorry Shadow priests, you have something to add do it! I am a healer, and as such I post on it I love our shadow priesties, but I don't know enough (or have time) to post on it.

Ok guys, cheers!

Anowyyn

I like your post Anowyyn and didn't find it pushy at all...

It's ok Anowyyn. We all know -I'm- the pushy obsessive one here. ^_~

Ok I think I've covered everything that I feel needs to be covered. And look I wrote a novel

Come 1.10, I actually think I'll be retiring Flash Heal from my main bar. I don't recall the exact numbers, but if you're specc'd right, Greater Heal rank 1 heals more hp for less mana than the highest rank Flash Heal in a very reasonable 2.5s.

You say that you went plus healing gear because it allows you to cast lower ranking heals with the same effect as your higher ranking ones. But wouldn't that gear have the same effect on your higher ranking heals as well? For example your Rank 3 greater heal still wouldn't heal as much as your rank 4 because your +healing goes towards that spell as well right? I dunno maybe I'm confused...

I was a bit confused by that too, I think maybe what Anowyyn meant was same healing efficiency (healing done per mana spent). With lots of +healing gear, lower rank spells are often much more mana efficient (at least they are for Paladins, I'm not as familiar with priests), but you have to worry about whether your healing per time will be sufficient to keep your targets alive. But as for how much +healing your gear adds, it should be the same for all ranks of the spell (assuming they have the same casting times).

Also, one note to Anowyyn's description of +healing gear being multiplied times casting time divided by 3.5 - if the casting time is less than 1.5 seconds (or instant), then it still uses 1.5 seconds as the casting time (so 43% coefficient).

Yes Mink when I wear my plus healing gear it has the exact same effect at all ranks. The reason I choose to use a lower rank is to help save mana. Simply saying that when I cast the highest rank of a spell and it heals someone to completely full, why would I want to spend that extra mana and heal them for way more than what their max hit points are? This is the purpose, to use a lower rank of your healing spells, which in turn uses less mana, but has the same effect as that higher spell, without overhealing your target.


Example:

I'm healing someone with 5000 hit points, my max rank of greater heal heals for about 2400 every hit, add my plus healing gear and it reaches nearly 3000 a hit. Why not use a lower rank of my greater healing?

I'm going to start casting my spell when they are above, but close to half health, and by the time it's cast they are maybe down to about half or just under. Casting my rank 4 would cause me to overheal, while casting my rank 2 or 3 would both save mana and not waste those health points both at the same time. Using Rank 3 instead of 4 would still heal that individual to full life, and rank 2, just under. But by doing this you again don't waste the health of your healing, and you save a ton of mana.

Plus healing gear is there for both mana efficiency and to help heal better. I hope this helps

I guess my style is a bit different then. I'm not a very logical healer, I just heal when people need it and leave them alone if they don't. I normally have mana at the end of a fight so I figure I'm doing ok, but I prolly do a lot of over healing. I dunno, I've never seen myself on the charts so I guess I could be doing bad as well.

I -absolutely- hate using lower ranks of spells. I figure hey they gave me this rank why not use it. But with the comming of 1.10, that's changing quite a bit. I am slowly realizing how much more efficient I can be when I do heal by using lower ranks and having plus healing gear.

I could care less about the healing meters. I tend not to look at them unless we have someone with us that is new, or just to occassionally check and see how the others are doing. But for the most part I set it at the beginning of the raid and forget about it, till it's all said and done. Then I reflect.

Though lately if we are to succeed and move on to BWL and have successful AQ20 runs we need to get all our people on the same path. So that's why we came up with this mentor thing. Emarori is a smart one

I agree that this mentor thing can be a very big help. I mean it's helpping me a bit already and that's cool, me being one of the most newb priest. I'm a big supporter of personal preference and I am happy that your explanations and such include this a lot. I just hope a lot of the other "mentors" will take that into account...

I’m not sure I have much to add at this time to the thread. It seems that Ano and I will have a very similar talent build come 1.10 and I’ve also switched from an MP5 gear set to a +healing set. But… I think I counted 22+ pieces of gear in my bags that I swap out for various situations.

Anyway, I was thinking about what I could add from things I’ve learned so I guess I’ll give it a shot:

1. Healing Priority: Tanks, Healers, Casters tasked with AoE - This is kind of a “use your best judgment” call but generally you’ll want the primary healing focus of any encounter to be on the above three. Sorry everyone else. >_>

TIP: Since I use CT_RAID and don’t feel like reconfiguring it for various situations, I will typically open up the regular built-in raid interface, click on “Warrior” and drag it to my screen. Then I have a nice list of all the warriors in the raid and pay most of my attention to them in major fights.

2. Threat: Generally this isn’t so much of an issue because we have great tanks but it’s something every healer needs to be aware of and control as best they can. For healers, threat per HP healed is about 3/4ths of that per HP of damage the mob is taking. This does not include any threat-reducing talents one might have. This is a decent ratio for those fights with few mobs, but because the tank has to build threat on every mob individually (I think?) and our healing threat affects every mob in the fight at once, we’ve all experienced the sudden rush of 3 mobs running at us brandishing big scary weapons and twirling about like madmen (Incidentally when this happens, don’t back away from the fight and pull the mobs further away from people. Head toward your nearest friendly neighborhood warrior and hope they notice your impending death).

Because of the threat to every mob at once kinda deal, using lower ranked spells in the beginning of a fight becomes more important. If you’re too eager and cast your highest rank prayer of healing in the beginning of the fight to heal the 600 hp missing on 2 of your party members, even fade probably will not save you. If you can get away with renew and lower ranked flash heals, then you should use them because they generate less threat. Threat is a big issue in BWL so, now is a good time to get used to this stuff.

TIP #1: Fade at the right times. Fade takes away a medium amount of threat for 10 seconds. At the end of that period it is supposed to return the amount of threat. Apparently sometimes it doesn’t. As you approach the end of a fade it’s good practice to not do anything for a second or two that might trigger the aggro back to you. Hopefully during your fade, someone else has put themselves higher on the aggro list. Ideally, healers are standing back from the center of combat. If you do gain aggro, it’s helpful to let the mobs run almost right up to you before hitting your fade and then let them waste time running back to the fray. It’s a small bit of time but taking a few mobs away from attacking others even for a short time can help quite a bit. And remember if you can’t get the aggro off you, run toward every one else. Don’t back away further.

If you’re going to cast your highest ranked Prayer of Healing, try to make sure your fade is up and ready. Typically I will cast a Prayer of Healing, followed immediately by a fade, or I will fade first and then cast a Prayer of Healing or two.

Tip #2: Shield and HoT (Renew) before the fight starts: This doesn’t generate aggro so, it’s good to do this to the Main Tank right before battle. In general, and this is again personal preference, I don’t cast Shield very much at all unless it is before a fight, someone is about to die, or on AoEers because they die too quickly and need it. Shield, in my opinion, is a high threat, mana-inefficient spell and should be used sparingly. >_>


Other Tips:

Inspiration and Rank 1 Flash Heal: If you have full points in Inspiration and the tank is pretty much at full health (and you have a decent mana pool), why not hit him with some Rank 1 flash heals at the measly cost of 125 mana in hopes of getting a crit? Even a rank 1 flash heal crit will give the main tank the armor boost from Inspiration.

Inner Focus: If you have inner focus it’s important to note that while using it and casting a spell, it does NOT affect the 5-second rule. So if you are regenerating mana at 100%, you can use inner focus and cast a Prayer of Healing (for instance) without resetting the 5 second rule and continue to generate 100% mana there-after.

Weapon Swap: It's good to have a high spirit/MP5 weapon on you that you can swap out when low on Mana. If you run out of mana, swap in your High Spirit/MP5 weapon-set and use that until you've accumulated the mana you need. You can just put the weapons on your action bar if you have room for easy swapping =)

Potion Use: A lot of times priests will use Mana Potions when they have no mana left. If you know you need lots of mana for a fight and know that you will typically run out of mana, try popping the potion when you're at 50% mana. That way by the time you are low on mana again, the timer will have hopefully reset (or be close to it) and if necessary you can pop another potion.


Okay… I think I said I didn’t have much to add but… apparently I did so… I’m just gonna stop here.

Bah Inner Focus, the one I use every time it's up, completely forgot about that one, thanks Jaede

Take everything Jaede says to heart, she's one of the best healers I've seen. The other is Matron when he decides to show he can