Priest Healing Guide
A good priest is always highly valued in World of Warcraft (or any MMORPG for that matter). I hope this WoW priest healing guide can assist you in improving your skills so that you and everyone in your party or raid will have a more rewarding experience.
While in an instance or raid, never use Greater Heal as your opening healing spell because if you score a critical, there`s a high chance that you could steal the agro from the tank. If this happens, then you better prey your tank is skilled and taunt isn`t resisted. Instead, either cast flash heal or “heal” in conjunction with renew while people move into position. You may wish to cast power word shield (PW:Shield) prior to combat as a slight damage soaker, but not once the fight has started as it causes a high amout of threat. Some warriors may insist you don`t use PW:Shield on them unless incase of an emergency since a major portion of their rage comes from damage inflicted upon them.
Rage for warriors is similar to mana for priests and needed to maintain threat on their target. PW:Shield should generally only be used as a last resort to ensure someone doesn`t die as previously mentioned it generates a high amout of threat, but it is also mana inefficient. If you find yourself relying on PW:Shield to keep your tank alive then maybe…
- You gear isn`t good enough
- You`re not paying enough attention
- You need another healer, or
- You need re-evaluate how you`ve spent your talent points
Throughout the fight, ensure renew is always healing your tank, pay particular attention to your surroundings and especially your threat level displayed on KTM Threat Meter. From my experience, threat monitoring addons are reasonably accurate but not perfect. If your agro is almost equal to your tanks, it may be wise to reduce your healing for a short while if possible and be prepared to use “fade”.
Note: Fade only temporarily decreases your agro for 10 seconds so after the timer runs out, your threat level returns to what is was prior to using fade.
An experienced tank with the right gear and know-how should be able to generate a sufficient amount of threat in long fights, meaning you shouldn`t have to worry about agro too much except on trash mobs, or certain bosses with spawning mobs or threat reducing actions such as knock back. In the case of spawning mobs, use smaller healing spells such as renew to ensure you don`t catch agro since HoTs (healing over time spells) cause very little threat.
Mana Efficiency
Boss fights are often long and tedious in instances and especially raids so mana efficiency is extremely important. A priest without mana is useless and certainly won`t do much good trying to wand a boss to death. Here are some important ways to conserve mana.
Use Downgraded Spells
To get the full benefit from +healing, healing spells must have a 3.0 second spell cast time (spell casting time reduction talents do not affect this). For example, Greater Heal and “Heal” both have a 3.0 second cast time so they receive the full bonus but Flash Heal does not since it`s cast time is a quick 1.5 seconds. Greater Heal (rank 2) heals for around 2,200 with 1,400 +healing, using significantly less mana compared to rank 7 which heals for around 3,800.
Priests usually must spam heals constantly throughout a fight so using a lower rank will help you conserve mana, yet still allowing you to heal effectively. Greater Heal (rank 2 or 3) is usually sufficient, but you will need to use rank 7 if the tank is taking too much damage. Using downgraded spells when appropriate will also limit the amount of over healing done (see below). Flash heals should only be used as emergency heals and using “heal” rank 4 to top off another team mate`s health is nice if the tank is in no danger of dying.
Mana Regeneration (+Mana /5 seconds vs Spirit)
The advantage of +Mana per 5 seconds is that is allows you to regenerate mana while casting, whereas spirit only begins regenerating mana 5 seconds after your last casted spell. For this reason, most priests prefer +Mana /5 seconds over spirit as priests rarely get a chance to rest long enough for spirit mana regeneration to come into effect. +Mana /5 seconds is more useful than +healing for long fights as regenerating mana fast is important.
Potion Timing
Use your first mana potion early in the battle so the cooldown is ready sooner. Always pay close attention to the cooldown timer and use a mana potion as soon as the timer is ready unless it`s obvious that you won`t need another.
Shadow Fiend
A priest`s shadow fiend is an extremely useful way to regenerate mana for a short period of time. Unfortunately, shadow fiends die easily so depending on the boss, timing when to use it may be necessary. For instance, if the boss has an AoE (area of effect) spell use your shadow fiend immediately after to be safe.
Don`t Over Heal
Over healing refers to healing beyond a players maximum health points. If a team mate is mostly full on health and not taking damage, it would be pointless to cast Greater Heal rank 7 because of the amount of mana it costs to cast. The best option would be to use renew or even a lower rank renew depending on how much health they have. Alternatively, if you have time and it`s safe to do so, cast a “heal” spell.
When healing your tank in 10 man raids such as ZA which often requires intense healing, spamming Greater Heal rank 7 is a must as a tank`s health can quickly dive from 15k to 0 in an extremely short time. In this case it`s inevitable that over healing will occur but that`s just the nature of raid. Karazhan is less intense from a healer`s perspective so over healing should occur less.
Note: Over healing does not cause extra threat. Threat is only produced from the actual amount of health healed.
Remember: Efficiency means nothing if you can`t keep your tank and team members alive so cast flash heal, shield, prayer of mending…anything. If a team member dies it will always make the fight more difficult.
On that note though, some deaths are unavoidable and totally out of your hands. May it be someone who draws agro off the tank or someone who dies from a boss`s AoE because they didn`t respond fast enough. Do the best you can and your utmost to ensure the tank doesn`t die because a dead tank usually results in a wipe.
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