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The Holy Priest Guide to Cataclysm
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Edited by Àroll on 12/10/10 2:14 PM (PST)
A thread like this was bound to pop up at some point, but it required someone to take the time to not only gain the experience necessary to create the guide, but to fully understand the present complaints people bring up.
Common Misrepresented Complaints about Holy: - Heal is useless. Doesn't heal for enough, too long of a cast. - Flash heal costs too much. - lol lightwell - regen is horrible The Truth:
This is your main spell. Stop complaining about it and realize that everything you thought you knew about holy from Wrath of the Lich King is completely irrelevant. This is an entirely knew healing experience, and thus requires a completely different mindset.
Note that just because a tank or dps dipped low does not automatically mean you need to flash heal, or greater heal, them. It's situational. As you learn the fights, you will know what health people need to be at to survive.
The base issue is that yes, it still needs to be clicked, but with how powerful it presently is... too bad - you need to force people to use this amazing spell. In heroics, it practically does all my raid healing for me. Imagine what your mana issues look like, as a holy priest, if you don't have to worry about raid heals for parts of the fight? I Glyph it for 5 extra clicks and let it go to town. It's time to take off the blinders. This is an absolute must have spell for holy, and dps will learn to use it or die. There choice. This is no longer some optional play thing - blizzard stated many times they wanted this spell to be viable and important for Holy, and it finally came true. No more excuses.
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Edited by Àroll on 12/10/10 2:13 PM (PST)
Making Holy Healing Easier for You in Cataclysm:
In heroics, presently, keeping dps around 40 to 50% health is ideal. No need to keep them above 80%. With the inflated health pools, most abilities will only drop them 20% or so in health unless they continue to stand in/screw up. I, personally, keep them aroudn 50 to 60% just to be safe, but until you get to know the ins and outs of each fight and have that mana to spare, doing so may be difficult. I know several healers that are ending each fight with dps at 10% health. You need to find that happy medium.
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I am definitely seeing your point, and its going to be a challenge to adapt our minds (or at least mine) not to panic when someone is sitting at 60%. I would like your insight on using Chakra and bubble, I am finding a lot of people say don't use it, but the idea of Chakra is awesome but I feel the pay out is minimal. Also, and I asked this on another thread, do you have a supplement you offer for while you are waiting for that 2 second heal to go off?
The fight that I think about most often when posting on these forums is the Karsh Steelbender in Heroic BRC. This fight required AoE and tank healing, luckily I had a pally tank tossing heals on himself but am I supposed to be able to sustain this entire fight alone? |
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I like to keep Renews rolling on people, especially melee. 3 is easy to set up.
Chakra was changed so all direct heals refresh Renew, not just Heal. When you first cast Renew, the duration is only 12 seconds, but when you refresh it, it jumps up to 15 or 16. I've even seen 17 before. Not sure how that works. It will get easier as we get more gear. Keep farming exalteds and crafting gear, and get that 359 ilvl. |
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Edited by Onebelo on 12/10/10 2:48 PM (PST)
WOW what a great guide! All the Priests out there QQing NEED to read this asap.
I was really nervous about sticking with my priest going into Cata but now I've realized that all the QQ is just a bunch of baddies who can't handle healing being more difficult. Personally, I can't wait to hit 85 and have healing be a challenge. I'm glad that I won't just be using Renew, Flash Heal, PoM, and Greater Heal. Again, thank you so so so much for explaining this in a logical manner for people like myself who want to prepare for 85 and also for making clear that this is not Wrath healing. EDIT: Also, your other good point that people need to get ahold of is that people don't need to be at 100% all the time. I understand it is hard for us healers to see health bars at around 60%, but I think healers, DPS, and tanks will get all of this soon enough. |
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Heal Chakra is presently the the choice of champions (har har). Bubble not so much. Shields can be used pre pull on the tank and occasionally to help you or another move for something, but that is the extent of shields as holy. Chakra Heal is amazing. It refreshes the renew on the tank, adds crit (sounds minimal, but crit heals with heal are essential to succes), and allows for Holy Word: Serenity. That ability is an instant heal that heals for 9134 base healing, crits often, and if specced properly and using Inner Will, only costs 800 mana. It has a 10.5 second cd with the right spec. 10.5. Those are three big reasons heal chakra is very viable. Unfortunately, not very many situations have risen where Sanctuary is viable right now. I look for this to change once I get into raid situations.
That fight is extremely short if done right, like, insanely short. We are talking 30 seconds to a minute long, when done correctly. On heroic, naturally it takes about a minute nad a half. It can be tanked in a such a way that adds never spawn. If you star tout stacking him to 5, max dps on him, and run him back through the fire for ONE additional stack each time the stacks are close to dropping (thus always keeping stacks on him), there will never be adds. This makes the fight a joke. What does this mean? Starting out there is going to be 5 aoe pulses for each of the stacks being applied. Only way I surive this is PoM up with a PoH spam, using PoH Chakra. Usualyl 3 poh's does the trick to keep people around 50% health. Through all this, lightwell is done, so any additional healing the dps need after he is pulled out to recover for the next aoe heal is done via lightwell. I resort to heal spamming tank, and switching chakra states. For each additional aoe stack that is gotten to keep up stacks taht causes a pulse, again, I don't have to heal it. Lightwell takes care of the duty. Heal/renew tank, use holy word serentity when needed. SoL procs, etc. Pretty easy. Fight is over before even popping a mana regen cooldown. |
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Edited by Àroll on 12/10/10 2:53 PM (PST)
While I will not fault the logic of keeping 3 renews up, and I am aware all direct spells refresh renew when in the Heal Chakra, I fail to see the overesiding "point". Keeping renew up, or even casting renew in heroics on more than the tank, is a waste of mana. DPS can sit at 50% health and need no help. Lightwell will take care of most of all healing any of the 3 dps need. It's much more mana efficient as well, as you wont nee dto cast anything to refresh renew. As for renew being refreshed by more than heal - this is true, but it's not viable, most of the time, to worry about it. Heal is your main spell. Flash and GH are very situational. Heal is what will be refreshing it 90% of the time, and with it only being on the tank primarily, your already spamming heal on him to begin with. Serentiy and SoL procs refresh the renew, but again, dps damage is almost always avoidable. Still, three renews is fine. I find I blow a bit more mana now doing more healing than is necessary just because I am at the point of "mastering" my choices and abilitiy use for each fight. All wipes occur now due to failure on dps or tank, not for me having lack of mana. |
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The point of this thread is that our class doesn't NEED to be fixed. If you go to any other healer board, they have the same complaints we do. Compared to most, thanks to chakra heal and lightwell, Holy Priests have it insanely easy. There is nothing to be fixed: We are working as intended. Everything is doable. As we get more gear and more skill (as I have), it gets even easier. What is there to fix? You are not going to see anything be like it was in Wrath during cata. Those days are gone. |
In a perfect world you're right, it's a waste of mana. But I find that my dps and tank will make mistakes during fights. When that happens it's nice to have that renew going on the more "accident" prone members. I know, I know, "Let them die, and learn" - but I'd rather win the fight than intentionally force a wipe by losing a dps. We don't have the margin of error to play teacher right now. |
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*cough* If a boss fight, or trash pull, is done correctly it is only going to need to be popped once... and never for trash. The extra minute shaved off is more of a preperation for raid fights that will last 10 minutes. If done correctly, every single heroic boss save 2 so far are done in 4 minutes or under. If it's going beyond that... you're doing it wrong. There isn't time to pop two fiends if the fight is done correctly. The issues that people have is that these heroics were a "wake up call". People got complacent with not actually having to be good or care about spell choice in Wrath. Everyone is guilty of this. Times have changed, and I am happy for it. Separates the good from the bad. |
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I never said don't heal through mistakes, I am saying correct them. If they continue to make those mistakes, there are going to be fights you simply cannot complete because you will go oom making up for those mistakes. Wipes are going to be common. There are plenty of them in my runs. 3 or 4 wipes later - the boss goes down so easily people wonder why we struggled at all. If people never learn, we will continue to struggle. |
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Hey man thumbs up for you on this post!! Well written and covers everything people need to know about healing now. I am going to book mark this and refer people to the post rather then type similar info out every single time I respond to posts about how Holy/Disc is horrible atm.
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Exactly what I have macro'd, though mine's a bit more verbose: Greetings. My name is Elethia and I will be your healer for this run. I have been healing for almost five years. I probably have more experience than you. This is not Wrath. This is early BC heroics; this is Classic. So, please, listen. First, no crowd control, no healer; no focus fire, no healer. Get rid of the notion that the derpderp aoe of Wrath is going to suffice here. Second, I will not babysit you. Stay out of the fire, poison, void zones and acidic Jell-O. Third, watch your threat and watch your positioning. I will not heal two tanks. Finally, if I am sitting to regain health/mana, you are sitting to regain health/mana. Just try to make my job easier and this will be as fast and easy as nympho hooker. I'm in the process of refining it further. I'll probably take out the adverbs. |
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Edited by Rilok on 12/10/10 3:05 PM (PST)
We need more mana regen. The only control players have is by getting better gear with more int, sp, and spirit. Hymn of Hope needs to give more mana, shadow fiend needs to give more mana, or they need to increase the gains from spirit.
I like the current slow marathon playstyle, but holy priests don't have the staying power to complete the 5 mile run. We get winded half way in and poop out. Let group heals refresh renew in Chakra: heal, or chakra: PoH / PoM. Give us more bang for our buck. |
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I pray ask, how the hell am I, and other Holy Priests, completeing the 5 run just fine, sometimes even easier than every other Healing class in the game? We ALL have had our regen completely destroyed from what it use to be, and it's intended. Back during classic we had to constantly worry about ooming. Those days have returned, and for some it's a welcomed sight. Holy Priests, I would argue, are one of the most powerful healers in the game as it stands. If played correctly, hardly any other class can compare to our throuhput combined with our ability to conserve mana. |
