World of Warcraft

Hello, i'm Zandalah and i'll be throwing out a few tips on how to heal efficiently and well in Cataclysm patch 4.2, as well as a few tactics on some heroic bosses you might stuggle with. I suggest you read the majority of this thread, since you will otherwise miss out on some important info. This thread is subject to constructive criticism as well as positive feedback and advices. Questions are welcome aswell, and i will gladly answer each and every one of them. Please keep the language mature, and behave. Get comfortable. :-)

First you will need to become familiar with your arsenals of spells and tools. Some people don't realize the usefullness of many of their spells, but priests have the biggest arsenal of spells, and we're capable of handling every situation if played right.

Chakra
Grants a bonus to either AoE healing or single-target healing.

Chakra + Heal = 10% Crit chance on all direct single-target heals, AND those spells refresh the duration of Renew. Will give you Holy Word: Serenity.

Chakra + Prayer of Mending/Healing = 15% more AoE healing done, and reduces the cooldown of Circle of Healing by 2 sec. Will give you Holy Word: Sanctuary.

Heal
Your most basic spell. You wanna keybind this on 1 or 2, since you'll be using this alot. Low mana, low healing, slow cast time, incredibly efficient. Use this to heal through non-stressful situations. Make sure to keep up Chakra and Renew while casting this. For most HC boss encounters, this spell (along with Chakra / Renew) will keep your tank topped off. Only a few require heavier heals.

Greater Heal
Your big, slow version of Heal. High mana, high healing, slow cast time. Costs 3 times as much mana as Heal, and heals 2.5 times as much. Its high burst makes this a good tool for tank healing aswell, if your gear allows you to cast this a lot. Use it for topping off your group, if one of them loses, say, 50% Dmg. It'll heal 25-30% Of their HP, and you can quickly turn your focus back on the tank. Again, healing with this while Chakra: Serenity is on will ALSO refresh the duration of Renew.

Holy Word: Serenity
''Whats this?'' This is what your Holy Word: Chastice becomes if you cast Heal, Greater Heal, Flash Heal or Binding Heal while Chakra is activated. Very low mana (!), medium healing, instant. It's also a good tool for tank healing, due to incredible efficiency. The 25% crit buff will also give you a good chance of scoring a critical heal afterwards, which goes a long way The 25% crit buff from this lasts merely 6 sec. This is also a good tool for saving a party member without losing focus on your tank, thought I'd mainly use it on the tank due to the crit bonus.

Renew
Wave goodbye to renew-spamming everyone. The only situation where this is ''acceptable'' is TG Anhuur, when everyone is running around killing snakes, and where you don't have the time to stop and cast. It's only good when tank healing. Again, Chakra: Serenity will make all direct heals refresh the duration on Renew) 12.5 % Haste gives this an extra tick, so i would recommend getting atleast 7.5% Haste from gear alone. Refer to the stat priority chapter further down the page for this.

Flash Heal
Your panic heal. Use only if your mana allows it, and you have no choice except this spell. Its very inefficient, and its only upside is that it gives you a stack on Serenpidity (look in your talent tree). You can get Surge of Light from casting Heal, which give you an instant & free Flash Heal. It's an awesome talent, though don't count on it proccing a whole lot.

Holy Word: Sanctuary
Creates a small circle that heals for 6-800 per 2 sec. It's quite weak, and it's only positive side is that it's passive, and you can cast other heals WHILE it's there. Deserves either a buff on healing done, OR a larger area affected. Again, just my humble oppinion.

Prayer of Healing
Your INCREDIBLE, awesome AoE heal! It's literally like casting Heal on all 5 targets. Stunning! Use only if 3 - 5 players need the healing, and only if people are below 80%. Glyph it, and it'll heal an extra 20% over 6 sec. Along with its Chakra improvements, you can't even begin to think how awesome it becomes. Don't be afraid to use it, because it is very, very good!

Circle of Healing
A good tool to top off people, and incredible for movement fights. Since 4.3 landed, the glyphed version of this one makes it more inefficient, and my advice is therefore to use Prayer of Healing rather than Circle of Healing whenever possible. Circle should be used if there's movement involved, or if you desperately need the burst.

Binding Heal
Heals you AND a fellow player for slightly less than Flash Heal, which means it's more efficient than most of your heals. It also gives you a stack of serendipity. Be sure to use Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing once you get 2 stacks! When you and a group member needs healing, use this, despite the high mana cost, because you're worth it.

Prayer of Mending
A nice instant heal which acts a bit like the shamans Earth Shield. It will only heal once the target takes damage, and thus shouldn't be applied if the target already had PW:S on him,. Can be used to migitate some light damage on a party member, or simply as a filler on your tank. Also good in movement fights.

Power Word: Shield
With the Body & Soul talent, this gives a sprint buff to the target. Good for many occasions, but is not a direct healing tool. Handy in heavy movement fights to migitate damage.

Lightwell & Divine Hymn
Light Well should be glyphed and cast at the beginning of each fight. It is very efficient, and it's very good even if you're the only one using it, and you somehow take lots of damage.

Since 4.3 Divine Hymn is officially the most bad-!@#, efficient and completely, utterly, stupidly overpowered healing spell in the game. Ladies and gentlemen, don't be afraid to pop it.

Dispel Magic, you will need to use it a lot, so keybinding it is a good idea. I have mine keybinded to ''Q'', so that I can easily reach it even while moving. And yes, I play on a laptop, so my buttons are very close to each other.


I have keybinded all of my ''core'' healing spells like this: 1-2-3-4-5 and F1-F2-F3-F4-F5, however some keyboards aren't suited for that. Where you place them is all up to you.

Situations

There is tank healing & Group healing. (I know, i'm repeating myself a few times, but here it is):

For tank healing, you wanna keep renew on your tank. Pop Chakra and cast Heal, to gain Serenity. Spam heal, and if needed, Holy Word: Serenity on every cooldown. If the damage is not too high, save HW: Serenity for another party member. While spamming this, you'll surely see Surge of Light proc (only 6% chance though). Again, IF the damage isn't too high, use this on a party member. If the tank drops below 60%, use Greater Heal 1 or 2 times to get him back up. Remember, keeping a tank on full HP is much more important than keeping your DPS on full HP. Use Guardian Spirit on your tank OR a DPS, if you either need to heal massive amounts, or you want to save his/her life. Guardian Spirit acts as a second chance. It can save a player from death, if for example he makes a mistake that WILL ONESHOT HIM. Like the chasing elementals on Drahga / Valiona in Grim Batol. I lost count on how many times i saved the tank using this, because the tank usually forgets all about the elementals.

Group Healing:
This is not necessarily AoE healing. If 2 DPS'er drop to 50%, you wanna quickly get them back up, while not forgetting your tank. Use Greater Heal on one of them, and HW: Serenity on the other, and finish off with Circle of Healing, then return to the tank. This way, you will only spend 4-5 sec healing your allies, while still healing group members. Remember, this is all about getting the most out of your spells. If everyone is on 50% HP, there is no need to cast Heal on everyone, just because its slightly more effective than using, say, Greater Heal. Especially not if it takes 3 times as long.

Try to adapt. It will take you MANY runs before you get comfortable with healing, let alone healing through some of the harder bosses. I suggest you go with a guild, or find a decent group in Trade Chat. That way, you won't encounter so many brain-less people (no offence to those who use the LFD system, and still play well).

Next up: Stats, Talents & Glyphs!

Stat Priority

Stats are very important, and throughput is no longer the only important matter. You want to have Intellect on your trinkets, and I even have a few good suggestions.

Generally the stat prio looks like this:

Intellect > Spirit > Haste / Mastery > Crit

Intellect -> It's on all gear except trinkets, but it's still the most important stat. It increases mana regen by making your mana pool larger, which makes things like Shadowfiend, Hymn of Hope ect. ect. return more mana.

Spirit -> Spirit is THE most important secondary stat you have. Spirit = Throughput, because with more regeneration, you can also cast your bigger & better heals, without having to worry so much about mana. Contrary to Discipline, Holy doesn't have great synergy with Intellect at all in terms of mana regeneration and sustainability. Yes, it provides throughput and more mana from Shadowfiend, but Spirit is a lot more vital. A trinket like Jar of Ancient Remedies would be a horribly bad choice for a Discipline priest due to no Intellect, while as Holy it's a perfectly good trinket.

Mastery -> Grants additional healing over time. Advantage: Free healing. Down-side: Potential overhealing.

Haste -> Increase cast speed, renew ticks and global cooldowns.

Crit - > Decent stat, arguably good in terms of Healing per Stat, yet I find it too unreliable.

Gemming & Enchanting

These are the ''cheap'' gems you'll want to be using as a starting priest. If you're thinking into Epic gems already, you propably don't need to read this guide. Or you just got too much cash.

Brilliant Inferno Ruby
Artful Ember Topaz
Purified Demonseye
Reckless Ember Topaz

Epic gems should really be saved for 378 gear or higher.

Enchants:

Cheap solution:
Enchant Weapon - Heartsong

Expensive, arguably better solution:
Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent

Trinkets

There are many options, but i'll list a few of my favorites.

Tyrande's Favorite Doll - It's epic, it's awesome, however if you haven't got so much time on your hand, you might not have the time to grind to 450 Archaeology, let alone farm Night Elf artifacts until you get the Doll. It is one of THE best available Pre-raid, but it requires a lot of luck, and a lot of time. Available to anyone, though. :)

Darkmoon Card: Tsunami - It's epic aswell, and since it first became available in beginning of Cata, the price has dropped tenfold. Cost depending on your server and the date. Once the best in slot trinket for any healer, it's still among the best.

Core of Ripeness - Slightly better than the Doll as Holy. Available for 1650 JP. Worth getting as a starter trinket!

Foul Gift of the Demon Lord - Drops from the chest from Mannoroth in Well of Eternity. As this is the highest leveled item, it's also the best you can get before raiding. Prepare to fight many caster classes for this however.

Figurine - Dream Owl. For jewelcrafters only - iLvl 346, pattern / Quest item is a random world drop, however the drop chances aren't so bad. Intellect + a Use that gives spirit. Ideal!

Tear of Blood - iLvl 346 from Heroic Stonecore. It's decent. :)

Witching Hourglass - iLvl 346 from Heroic Blackrock Caverns. No spirit proc or Use, though.

Blood of Isiset - Mastery is also nice, but INT is ideal. Procs Spirit too.

Talents:

I use this, but there are a few things that can be changed, depending on what you like.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bchZfurMR0rksdobo

READ: It's up to you whether you want a shorter Shadow Fiend cooldown through Veiled Shadows or slightly more haste through Darkness. This is completely preferential.

Spirit of Rememption is just bad. You're most likely not gonna find a useful situation for it.

Glyphs

Prime

Glyph of Lightwell
Glyph of Prayer of Healing
Glyph of Renew


Major

Glyph of Circle of Healing
Glyph of Dispel Magic
Glyph of Prayer of Mending

Minor - Optional, since they aren't gamebreaking.

Glyph of Fortitude - Good for rebuffing a recently combat ressed party member.
Glyph of Levitate - Well, you never know when you're gonna fall down, do you?
Glyph of Shadowfiend

On a final note i should add that Inner Fire is usually a much better choice than Inner Will. The only good situations for Inner Will is for example Asaad in Heroic VP, where you will need to dispel a lot. In other words, you will be using instant spells a lot. Even on this boss it'll be better to just Mass Dispel. I personally never use Inner Will.

Inner Fire > Inner Will.

And that's really all i have to contribute with. My 2 cents. Feedback apprieciated, questions are warmly welcome and criticism of course too. If you want your comment to be taken seriously, BE serious. Any tips and tricks are welcome aswell, and i will gladly add them if they're good. Thanks for reading!

Zandalah of <Rhythm>, Tarren Mill-EU.

Good Post Mate :)

Good post.
Nevertheless there are somethings that I would change.

Glyph of Lightwell is great, and I think that it's a way better choice than Flash Heal.

On your talents, I would drop Rapid Renewal. Like you say on your post, we can't spam renew on the raid, another point in Darkness is more valuable.
Also, I think that one point in State of Mind is enough to ensure that you'll be always in chakra state. Change it to Body and Soul or maybe Veiled Shadows.

17/01/2011 5:25 PMPosted by Zandalah

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bchZfurrRkbkcdob

That build has some useless talents in it.

Try http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bchZfhrrR0rkcdoh instead.

Glyph of Guardian Spirit is also a bit more useful than Glyph of Flash Heal.

Good post.
I would change few things myself as well as we are talking about 4.0.3 Hpriests.

As Prazzinofoss said Glyph of Lightwell is best glyph there is for holy atm, as long as you party/raid knows how great tool it is. Also would change glyph of Fade to Glyph of Spirit of Redemption, even tho idealy you shouldn't die at all, but if that happens the extra 6secs in spirit form might save the raid in the end and because you shouldn't be needed to use fade so often that you need glyph for it. Also Glyph of Renew is something I dont have, as I have Glyph of Guardian Spirit.

About the spec, again as Prazzinofoss said, Renew is almost useless skill atm as it costs pretty much mana and heals next to nothing, altho you want to keep it on tank all the time, so Rapid Renewal is useless talent. Also Desperate Prayer is pretty useless until Blizz buffs it in next patch. I would give those two point to Body and Soul as it's great talent, even tho rarely needed that much, but in some fights pretty handy(Antramedes comes to mind).

Also I have to kinda dissagree with how usefull Mastery stat is for us. Yes it provides extra healing, but most of it healing is overhealing. If you are on tank healing job, Mastery is almost next to useless, but it's pretty useful in raid healing with PoH + PoH Glyph + Mastery + CoH + More mastery healing. So you should have atleast 12,5% Haste with raid buffs, which is pretty easy to achive. After that Mastery is better stat than Haste.

And last but not least, Lightwell is great tool in heroics as well, ofc only in boss fights as it will save a lot of our mana when dps/tank/you push it DURING the fight, not before or after :P Also in so many fights there is some AoE dmg going around so you do want to use PoM, specially after we get great glyph for it in next patch.

That's it for tonight,
- Xerm

I somewhat agree that our Mastery can cause overhealing. If your gear, your skills or a combination of those two render you able to easily keep your party on 100% Hp WITHOUT the Echo of Light mastery, then yes, Haste would seem better. However, in raid situation in Cata, to which i can honestly say i haven't got so much experience with, people are rarely topped off to 100%. And like Xermos pointed out aswell, Mastery IS better than Haste, only you reach 12.5%, which is easyli achieved, granted you have a Shaman with the Spell Haste totem (i can't recall its name, sorry :) ) OR a shadow priest. 5% Haste, along with 7.5% from your own gear and talents

@Xermos
Renew is not useless. Chakra: Serenity makes sure its on the target all the time, and it's a great boost to tank healing. Rapid Renewal & Divine Touch does seem bad, though. The glyph is still worth keeping.

@Cyracus

Desperate Prayer will recieve a major buff in the upcoming patch, so you should consider getting it in 4.0.6. However in 4.0.3, i must say, it's quite bad. Also Body and Soul over Spirit of Redemption doesn't really make much sense to me. I never cast PW: Shield as Holy, and i since it's currently a ''bad'' and underpowered spell already (even as Disc) i can't see any reason to waste a GCD, let alone mana on that spell)

That being said, i have another suggestion, if you want to review it.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bchZfurMRzrkcdoh

Divine Touch and Rapid Renewal has been excluded. Everything else is optimized. I didn't want Veiled Shadow, because you will NOT be able to use Shadowfiend twice in a fight, atleast not in Heroics, that's for sure.

On a final note of tonight, i would like to add: This compendium is propably not well suited for raiding priests. That's why i didn't want Glyph of Lightwell for example. I made it, because i'm hearing a lot of complaints and threats of un-subscribing because of the changes in Cata. It does made me a little sad (even though a few of them are just whiners that needs to L2P). I want to help the priests out there, so that they can get through HCs aswell. :)

Not speccing Body and Soul is a crime, the awesomeness of the sprinting Priest is the main reason many people like myself went Holy in the first place. The sprint can be very handy in quite a number of fights (I can imagine a clever priest helping the tank kite the adds in last phase of Nefarian, as an example). Moreover, it gives you the ability to dispel poisons, which is not insignificant. A must talent for me.

I don't understand why you took twin disciplines, ditch that and go for Veiled Shadows for less Sfiend CD. I also didn't take Desperate Prayer, neither Spirit of Redemption. And yeah, don't put 2 talents in State of Mind. 1 is enough to keep Chakra up all time.

I still haven't figured out what to do with Renew either... it's not healing much, but it's a HoT anyway, so I've kept the talents and the Glyph, like you did.

I also didn't take the Lightwell Glyph, on my 10-man we usually use Lightwell after heavy damage on all the raid (e.g. :Chimaerron massacre, the end of Al'Akir phase 2, Nefarian crackles) and it's just practical to have 1 charge per person in raid, so we know we can only use it once.

As for stats, haste till 12,5%>mastery is the truth, even though our mastery is excellent!
Holy Priests really should be raid healing most of the time from what I've experienced, and mastery popping HoTs on all our targets is great.

But good post, I hope to see more discussion on the Glyphs, as I'm not so certain of mine (I followed what was on EJ, but I think the post is a bit out-dated).

PS: forgot a major disagreement, you suggest Spirit as the main gemming stat but I would go for Int rather, which provides both output AND regen.

@ Zandalah, PW:S is being buffed significantly in coming patch. Although i am Disc and do not really know that much about holy i still recommend using it now and again on the tank once the patch is out, atm your right it sucks even for me as disc, however once the patch is released its base absorb is being increased rom 3k to 8k (roughly dnt know exact figures) also the absorbtion is increased by 48.5% of SP if i remember correctly (again not exact figure as i dnt have them to hand) so for disc this is a very well needed change and i am looking forward to it, as i dnt play holy and no nothing about it tbh this is merely a suggestion
so you probably know better :)

I don't understand why you took twin disciplines, ditch that and go for Veiled Shadows for less Sfiend CD. I also didn't take Desperate Prayer, neither Spirit of Redemption. And yeah, don't put 2 talents in State of Mind. 1 is enough to keep Chakra up all time..

Twin Disciplines = 6% Healing done. The tooltip clearly says so. Veiled Shadow, atleast for 5man HCs, is useless. You will never use Shadowfiend twice in a heroic fight. Never.

Like i said, this guide is not aimed at raiding, but 5 mans, and heroics in particular.

@Faba
I changed the talent suggestion last night. It now includes Body and Soul, but excludes Divine Touch and Rapid Renewal.

As for gemming, spirit equals throughput. If you can get a high amount of spirit, you can afford to heal with larger and faster heals, which equal throughput. It is, of course, your own decision. :)

17/01/2011 8:57 PMPosted by Zandalah

Desperate Prayer will recieve a major buff in the upcoming patch, so you should consider getting it in 4.0.6. However in 4.0.3, i must say, it's quite bad. Also Body and Soul over Spirit of Redemption doesn't really make much sense to me. I never cast PW: Shield as Holy, and i since it's currently a ''bad'' and underpowered spell already (even as Disc) i can't see any reason to waste a GCD, let alone mana on that spell)

That being said, i have another suggestion, if you want to review it.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bchZfurMRzrkcdoh

Yeah looks good, when desperate prayer gets buffed again I'll probably go back to a build just like the one you posted. Divine touch is pretty crappy indeed, even with the renew mana cost decrease in 4.0.6. I'm still torn about Spirit of Redemption since it's very rarely useful, either you die and wipe or you don't die. I don't really remember an occasion where it would've actually helped in downing a boss. But I might pick it up after the patch, if I find myself with 1 talent point spare.

Oh and yeah, Body & Soul is a must-have talent for holy, it's incredibly good on a number of movement-heavy fights. It doesn't matter if PW:S is good or not or whether you normally cast it or not, you use it to help people run away from laz0rs faster (Atramedes in particular when it comes to raids, but B&S has a use on a number of heroic bosses as well to help you avoid cone AoE like on the 2nd and 3rd bosses in Grim Batol, etc).

Great posts, both from the OP and the rest of the ppl's notes. Are there still stickies on these new forums?

I believe there are, but i don't think players may get them. I considered asking, though. :)

Well, this deserves to be be on the first page, and i think a lot of confused starting holy priests would benefit from the summary.

Indeed, that's why i made this. I'm a bit upset that it's already on page 2. It's drowning in QQ threads and things like that. The forums are a pity sight these days. :/

20/01/2011 8:53 PMPosted by Zandalah

The forums are a pity sight these days.

Indeed, it's always fun coming here and seeing the first post topic being something like "...." "WTF BLIZZ AGAIN" "PLZ STOP NERFING", etc.

It seems that mostly only little crybabies frequent these forums, and those who are unable to read and follow patch notes. :<

I hate to generalize, but it's true. :( - By the way, thank's for the feedback. Let me know if i missed something.

Nice guide for heroics. Couple of points.

Note that binding heal procs serendipity. People often overlook this, but it is important. Binding heal is in itself a very efficient spell with good throughput. It is way better than FH for both efficiency and throughput. And it stacks serendipity. Nuff said.

I have lightwell glyphed and I love it. I have my guild trained to use it and in several fights it gets fully used up before it is off cooldown! (hint: place it one minute before the pull and you're more likely to be able to cast it again when it gets used up) For mana efficiency Lightwell is far and away the best heal in the game as far as I know. I hardly ever cast flash heal, maybe a handful of surge procs, so the FH glyph is not worth much to me.

I am puzzled by the haste target of 12.5% for an extra renew tick. I have 3% haste from the shadow talents, and my character interface tells me I have 9.1% haste from items, hence total haste 12.1%. And yet I get an extra renew tick, unbuffed. Perhaps the character interface misses out haste from reforging? Or from enchants? I don't know what is going on here, but try it out on yourself to be sure whether you get the extra tick or not!