Calling holy priests

Dcully

Ok ive been loving my death knight and getting some nice epic gear [fun class and is probably my main now] but alas my priest has being calling me,i love healing

I dinged 80 a few days ago on my healer and am decked out in mostly blues and a few greens [ill never level another 70to 80 ].
Im looking at running some heroics to gear up.

Currently im specced something like this
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcb0hZdxtcc0qiuVIst

but while my gear isnt the best im running out of mana faster than i like, mostly a problem when dps in group is not great.

This got me thinking of a spirit and mana build but wonder would the loss of circle of healing be too great?
Im looking at this build
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVIb0hLtbZfxxcsMqV0Vh*

Thoughts appreciated

Ivan

A guildy priest went spirit/mana build with a funky disc/holy build. He had insane mana regen in raids/5 mans and found it really hard to go oom. Once he got some better gear organised, he switched back to mostly holy.

Circle is a crutch. One that is being nerfed in the next few weeks and therefore one you can learn to play without. You already have an insane amount of healing tools at your disposal, so it is silly to limit yourself to just one.

Mana regeneration is key to playing a priest, if you can get to the stage where you really have to go out of your way to go oom, then the +healing will build up on its own

Not to mention that you get some nice spirit -> spell damage buffs/talents.

Dcully

Thanks for that Ivan, ill try out the spirit/mana build .

Anyone

Try a disc build until you gear up a bit more. I had terrible mana issues when I hit 80 as Holy. A bit better gear and its better now. I know a few priests who went Disc and said they never had mana issues.

10 Man raids I still struggle though(usually 2 healers). 25 man content is easy though once you have a few replenishers.

Blowfish

Anyone wrote: »

Try a disc build until you gear up a bit more. I had terrible mana issues when I hit 80 as Holy. A bit better gear and its better now. I know a few priests who went Disc and said they never had mana issues.

This. I levelled as a Disc build (link). The mana return from Rapture/Shadowfiend/Replenishment means you can pretty much ignore spirit/mp5 completely and base all of your regen around int. The only time I've come close to running out of mana was completing this achievement as basically everyone just sat there and nuked while I spammed PoH to heal through the lightning nova's.

smellslikeshoes

Ivan wrote: »

A guildy priest went spirit/mana build with a funky disc/holy build. He had insane mana regen in raids/5 mans and found it really hard to go oom. Once he got some better gear organised, he switched back to mostly holy.

Circle is a crutch. One that is being nerfed in the next few weeks and therefore one you can learn to play without. You already have an insane amount of healing tools at your disposal, so it is silly to limit yourself to just one.

Mana regeneration is key to playing a priest, if you can get to the stage where you really have to go out of your way to go oom, then the +healing will build up on its own

Not to mention that you get some nice spirit -> spell damage buffs/talents.

I couldn't agree with this post more. I was having the same problem early on when I dinged and eventually settled on a disc heavy holy build (taking coh) till i got to a suitable level gearwise. At the time fights were lasting very long because it was the first few weeks of WOTLK but I was topping healing meters consistently in raids against equally geared healers because of being able to heal for much longer without oom.

A few things I would mention though that might help the OP if not already known.

INT is much more important in WOTLK than in TBC. INT is now just as important as spirit for priests (and some would say more important). Spirit took a nerf in the regeneration model and because now shadow fiend and replenishment work as percentages of your maximum mana, not to mention int giving you more crit so more procs of surge of light and holy concentration.

Don't shy away from gear with crit on it. It used to be the case when crit gear dropped it was more dps than healer but crit is now great for holy priests. Ive passed 25% holy crit raid buffed and I can firmly say its absolutely awesome. I can now almost always get a free heal after a single cast of coh because of Surge of light and holy concentration. Though secondary it also makes farming much easier which is definitely a good thing.

Circle is a crutch. One that is being nerfed in the next few weeks and therefore one you can learn to play without. You already have an insane amount of healing tools at your disposal, so it is silly to limit yourself to just one.

I agree its definitely a crutch but for the moment its stupendously overpowered and should be used to the best of its abilities. Even as a priest I'm looking forward to the nerf because it can get boring but its definitely amazing right now.

Dcully

Ok i went with this build in the end

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/priest/talents.html?tal=050320113050012000000000000003505003230115053005301030000000000000000000000000000

I respecced to the above only lastnight for an experiment, as of yet i havent tried it out.
Previous to that i went with a similar build but had 5 talents in mental strength and had no points in COH and Divine Providence,it worked great for mana regen etc but at times i did miss COH.

Im going to try my latest build linked above to see how it goes, if i dislike ive no problem going back to 5 points in mental strength instead of coh and dp.

tobi

Just a few comments on that build

Improved divine spirit - very limited talent, doesn't stack with totems so useless if you raid on your priest. Has some use in 5mans but i'd spend the points else where.

Surge of Light - must have for every holy priest. Its a free instant cast flash heal. The old talent was a purely dps talent giving you a free smite but they added flash heal, can proc of any crit. With coh hitting up to 6 targets with the glyph it goes off a lot.

Improved Holy Concentration - Stacks with Holy Concentration giving you 45% chance of entering a clear casting state another free heal, this combinded with inner focus can get you few valuable seconds outside the 5sec rule.

Holy Reach - Not a bad talent but since coh is smart targeting now its questionable if the extra reach is worth it.

If you haven't already put /stopcasting before your greater heal, you can press it mid cast to start casting again. Great for tank healing. Just chain cast until the tank takes a hit and then let the heal go.

Dcully

If you haven't already put /stopcasting before your greater heal, you can press it mid cast to start casting again. Great for tank healing. Just chain cast until the tank takes a hit and then let the heal go.

Sorry to seem like a noob but i never quite learned macros and commands too well, can you explain further on how to do this please.

I see your points too, i may tweak build a bit more.

Heres my armory profile if you wish to suggest a build got current gear.
Ive progressed pretty well with the gear since i hit 80 a week ago.
I am raidiing aswell as heroics, im guessing there are better builds for each.
While raiding the other healer is usually a shaman and the odd time a pala.

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Thiswillhurt

Thanks to all for input, very valuable indeed and much appreciated.

tobi

This is my GH macro

#showtooltip Greater Heal
/stopcasting
/cast [target=mouseover,exists][] Greater Heal

I use mouseover healing so you dont have to click on your raid/party frames and then start casting. Takes some getting used to but overall its speeds up the process. Also allows you to target trash mobs/bosses and dispel some buffs.

If you don't use mouse over healing just remove it

#showtooltip Greater Heal
/stopcasting
/cast Greater Heal

Hopefully i can explain a bit better, this is how stopcasting works
You press your gh button, gh is 2.5 secs with talents. At 1.5 secs into the cast you notice that your tank is on full hp so you press your gh button again, this interrupts the orginal cast and gh starts casting again. Basically it has the same effect as moving or jumping to interrupt the heal from finishing so you don't waste mana. Can be very useful with practice. Gives you more regen time. Another advantage is when your tank does take a big hit you have a heal loaded so instead of your reaction time + 2.5 sec cast the tank should receive the heal in 1 to 1.5 secs.

Dcully

Im using healbot, what way can i set it up with healbot?

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Dcully wrote: »

Im using healbot, what way can i set it up with healbot?

There is an option to set it to right left or middle mouse button. You can have three heals bount to your mouse buttons. Healbot makes things so much easier.