The ultimate healing priest guide (Last update: 07-12-2009)Follow

2. What race should I roll?
Let’s take a look at each race and their bonuses individually.

Alliance
-Draenei
Gemcutting - Jewelcrafting skill increased by 5.
Gemcutting is obviously a nice bonus if you intend to go jewelcrafting, but it’s not a requirement or such for raids.

Gift of the Naaru - Heals the target (50 + 15/Level) over 15 sec - The amount healed is increased based on the caster's Spell Power or Attack Power. This ability does not lose casting time from taking damage. – Instant cast. – No mana cost. - 3 min cooldown.
Gift of the Naaru is an interesting spell; it gets the full 100% bonus from +healing, which basically means it scales great at end-game. It also costs no mana, which helps to when conserving mana. While the cooldown is long, it can definitely be a nifty trinket in PvE use. For PvP, it’s situational but not brilliant. The 1.5 cast timer the spell used to have is removed, so you can no longer have your holy tree locked down through somebody interrupting this. Also, the spell is off the global cooldown, which means you can cast it in between two other spells without suffering a penalty for it. It's definitely not great, but any healing helps.

Heroic Presence - Increases chance to hit with all spells and attacks by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards.
While more hit is quite nice for shadow priests, healing priests do not need hit at all; there is no chance that a heal will miss the target. Heroic Presence has some minor use in PvP, since you will cast the occasional spell at an enemy there, but it’s nigh useless for healing priests.

Shadow resistance - Reduces the chance you will be hit by Shadow spells by 2%.
Comparable to Heroic Presence. The buff is nice, but it probably won’t really help you in PvE. It has minor use in PvP (mainly when you are facing shadow priests who only cast shadow spells) but for a healing priest the talent is pretty lackluster.


-Dwarves
Stoneform - Removes all poison, disease and bleed effects. - Instant cast. - No mana cost. - 2 min cooldown.
This one has been a nifty trinket from the start. While exceptionally useful in PvP (Gives you another way out against rogues, warriors, death knights and since lately also feral druids), Stoneform also has some minor PvE uses. For example, back at 70, it could be used to remove Moroes’ garotte, making the Karazhan fight a little easier. It’s situational, but a fairly nice racial.

Gun Specialization - Your chance to critically hit with Guns is increased by 1%.
Priests cannot wield guns, thus, this racial is 100% useless to a priest.

Frost Resistance - Reduces the chance you will be hit by Frost spells by 2%.
Comparable to a Draenei’s shadow resistance. Nice to have the buff, but it isn’t going to help you in PvE. In PvP, it has minor use against frost mages.

Find Treasure - Allows the dwarf to sense nearby treasure, making it appear on the minimap. Lasts until cancelled.
While handy to know, find treasure does not have any use in end-game PvP. It’s use in end-game PvE exists, but is minimal; some instances have chests, but they will usually be so obviously located that this skill should not be needed. It can however be a nice buff to your gold pool while leveling.


-Humans
Perception - Increases your Stealth detection.
While nerfed with the release of WOTLK, this racial is still pretty powerful for PvPing priests. A correctly specced and played rogue should nearly always have the opener on you, but this does help a lot in BG’s and against feral druids.

The Human Spirit – Spirit increased by 3%.
Fairly useless for PvP; 3% spirit can be enough but it’s not something that will win you matches. For PvE however, 3% spirit is a very nice bonus. Even with the focus from spirit to intellect with the release of WOTLK, spirit is still very important to healing priests (and even more so to holy specced healing priests – more about that ahead). 3% spirit in PvE simply is a very nice buff. The spirit bonus is applied after gear but before buffs.

Diplomacy - Reputation gains increased by 10%.
Useful mainly for getting up your reputation with factions who sell item enchants, like the Sons of Hodir. A bit more useful for PvE than PvP, since most PvP item enchants can be bought in Wintergrasp and do not require reputation.

Sword & Mace specialization - Expertise with Swords/Maces and Two-Handed Swords/Maces increased by 3.
Both are nearly completely useless for a priest. Priests should never be meleeing a mob. Aside from that, priests cannot use swords.

Every Man for Himself - Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects.
Basically, this racial does the same as a PvP trinket. It does share it’s cooldown with the PvP trinket, so it’s not a free out. On the brighter side, what this racial allows you to do is equip two trinkets of your choice rather than the standard PvP trinket and just one of your choice. This has obvious use in PvP, but also some use in PvE; you’ll have a PvP trinket ‘equipped’ alongside your two healing trinkets, and have the ability to escape a number of crowd controlling abilities so you can keep on healing.


-Night Elves
Shadowmeld - Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect.
Next to useless in PvE for one reason, Fade. If you get aggro at one point (which should never happen in a raid) you’re better off using fade, which has the same effect but a shorter cooldown. One could argue that Shadowmeld doesn’t cost any mana, but all the same; you won’t use Shadowmeld a lot as a PvE healing priest, and can do without it just fine. For PvP however, Shadowmeld definitely has a bunch of uses. Mostly, it’s used when moving to an obvious spot or to pretend to jump of an object: If you are being chased, act like you jump off that mountain, but just before you jump, stop and use Shadowmeld. Odds are your enemy will blindly jump down. While not the most reliable and best racial there is, this definitely has use in PvP.

Elusiveness - Reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Shadowmelded or Stealthed.
Since priests can’t stealth, this racial is useless for them.

Quickness - Reduces the chance that melee and ranged attackers will hit you by 2%.
Somewhat similar to Frost and Shadow resistance. Useless in PvE, however. If you get aggro you will die in one hit; the chance that this 2% miss chance is going to save your behind is negligible. Somewhat useful in PvP, especially against rogues. Regardless, nothing to go wild over.

Wisp Spirit - Transform into a wisp upon death, increasing speed by 50%.
Another one of those ‘nice to have’ racials. This will shorten corpse runs by quite a bit. On the other hand, if you have a talent that improves you in combat you will have less chance that you actually need to do a corpse run.

Nature Resistance - Reduces the chance you will be hit by Nature spells by 2%.
Completely similar to Shadow and Frost resistance; has minor use in PvE, and some use in PvP (mainly against balance specced druids).


Conclusion
For PvE, Humans are hands down the best class for a healing priest. The 3% spirit bonus will be with you at every boss, all the time, unlike racials like Nature/Shadow/Frost resistance. On top of that, you’ll have an easier time getting reputation with the Sons of Hodir and have a free PvP trinket in PvE content. The second spot is reserved for Draenei; the Gift of the Naaru spell which has excellent scaling will also be with you all the time, at any boss. And while Heroic Presence might not benefit you, it can be useful for groupmates. On the third spot are the Dwarves. While most of their racials are useless to priests, Stoneform does allow for situational easy outs. Last but not least are the Night Elves. Shadowmeld is next to useless in PvE, and shamefully, it’s the only thing they have to offer that can compete.

For PvP, Humans and Dwarves tie for the first spot. Dwarves would be the better if they had any other decent racials; while fairly good, Stoneform is literally the only thing Dwarves have to offer. While none of the Human racials are equally as good for a PvP-playing healer priest, they do have a steady ******* of them. Since 3.10, Night Elves and Draenei are more or less equally good for PvP. Shadowmeld is not all too reliable but seriously handy in PvP while Gift of the Naaru is now a nifty trinket as well. In the worst case you can macro the latter to launch automatically when Pain Suppression is used.



Horde
-Blood Elves
Arcane Affinity – Enchanting skill increased by 10.
While nothing special, still a semi-nice talent. A lot of priests decide to pick up tailoring/enchanting as their professions, and this one ties in with that nicely.

Arcane Torrent - Silence all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec and restores 6% of your total Mana. - Instant cast. - No mana cost. - 2 min cooldown.
6% mana back for free, great. Not brilliant, but at level eighty 6% of your mana can easily be two or three spells. Wouldn’t say no to that. For PvP, this talent is pretty nifty. It is probably the least useful for a priest out of all Blood Elf classes, but it still has its use. If you close the gap on a enemy caster, you have an extra spell interrupt at your disposal.

Magic Resistance - Reduces the chance you will be hit by spells by 2%
Now we’re talking. Instead of just ‘frost’ or ‘shadow’ resistance, you get the same 2% against *all* spells. Still nothing that you’re completely going to love, but it’s starting to look good. PvP-wise that is. Once again, in PvE you should never be hit, (in)effectively making this racial useless.


-Trolls
Berserking - Increases your casting speed by 10% to 30%. At full health the speed increase is 10% with a greater effect up to 30% if you are badly hurt when you activate Berserking. Lasts 10 sec. - Instant cast. - No mana cost. - 3 min cooldown.
The bad thing about Berserking is that it doesn’t gain it’s full effect until you’re nearly death; which is the point where you cannot afford to wait for a 1.50 second global cooldown from a racial. Generally, this racial will be used around full hp, giving an effective 10% casting speed. While nothing splendid, this can be used in combination with a shaman’s Bloodlust and/or a discipline specced priest’s Power Infusion, effectively increasing your cast speed by up to 65%. In PvE, Berserking can be used when you know the tank is going to receive burst damage, while in PvP, it can be used whenever you can spare the global cooldown it gives. Combining it with Power Infusion in an arena to Mana Burn an enemy healer down is often a good idea.

Regeneration - Health regeneration increased by 10%. 10% of total Health regeneration may continue during combat.
Troll priests benefit most from this talent, since they generally have a high amount of spirit. The more spirit the higher your health regeneration. The higher your health regeneration the higher 10% of it. While nothing game-changing, definitely a useful racial for both PvE and PvP to remove a little bit of healing stress by somewhat lessening the need to heal yourself.

Beast Slaying - Damage dealt versus Beasts increased by 5%.
While not a bad racial per se, useless for healing priests. We heal and we don’t deal damage. The racial might speed up your leveling by a little bit, but not by a noticeable amount.

Bow & Throwing Weapon Specializations - Your chance to critically hit with Bows/Throwing Weapons is increased by 1%.
Useless. Priests do not use bows or throwing weapons.

Da Voodoo Shuffle - Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 15%. Trolls be flippin' out mon!
While this racial has minor use in PvE, it’s somewhat nice in PvP. Shorter slows means you’ll have an easier time avoiding incoming damage. The good thing is that it stacks with gems, as of such is can be combined with a -15% snare duration meta gem to effectively cut 1/3d of all slows used on you. On the other hand, there are better ways to spend your meta gem slot.


-Undead
Will of the Forsaken - Removes any Charm, Fear and Sleep effects. – Instant – 2 minute cooldown.
This racial has dominated the PvP boards since the launch of the game. While it has been thrown around and fiddled with, it is still plainly good for PvP. It’s basically a free weaker version of the trinket, and the two don’t share cooldowns. Not all too good for PvE, though it has its uses.

Cannibalize - When activated, regenerates 7% of total health every 2 sec for 10 sec. Only works on Humanoid or Undead corpses within 5 yds. Any movement, action, or damage taken while Cannibalizing will cancel the effect. – Instant – 2 minute cooldown.
Close to useless for a priest. While not spending mana is always nice, you will usually simply heal yourself up. Cannibalize has situational uses in both PvP and PvE, but generally you don’t need it.

Underwater Breathing - Underwater breath lasts 233% longer than normal.
Nice. A bit like the Night Elves’ wisp form. Nothing to go wild over, but it can be fairly helpful when questing and/or leveling.

Shadow Resistance - Reduces the chance you will be hit by Shadow spells by 2%.
Exactly the same as the Draenei racial. Wouldn’t say no to it, but it’s fairly lackluster.


Conclusion
Overall the choices for horde healing priests are pretty slim, and for PvE the Blood Elf is probably the best race to play a priest as. 6% free mana is just that bit better than Berserking. Trolls come in second, having the small advantages of Regeneration and Da Voodoo Shuffle in PvE alongside the use of Berserking. Undead come last; Will of the Forsaken, Cannibalize and Shadow Resistance are all so situational that Undead isn’t a race to go wild over.

For PvP on the other hand, Undead are on top of the board. While a silence is nice and so is casting speed, nothing beats a free PvP trinket (even if it’s a little less versatile as the normal one). Even in WOTLK, the Forsaken continue to top the charts racial-wise here. The Blood Elf probably comes second, with a combined silence and mana potion being just slightly more effective than -15% snare duration; Berserking is nice but not too noticeable.


Last but not least, a quick reminder. I’d just like to say that whatever you plan on doing, the racial differences are so small that you will generally not notice the difference between a Dwarf priest or a Troll priest. These racials only really matter if you want to get everything you can get out of your character, and if you plan on doing excessive high-end PvE or PvP. If you simply like the looks of a Blood Elf better than those of an Undead but want to PvP, just pick the Elf; in the end you’re the one who has to watch the characters back trough all his adventures.

Edited, Jun 20th 2009 6:47pm by Mozared

4. Basic healing tactics
Discipline is for PvP, holy can’t do anything else but raiding and shadow is purely for leveling and PvP.

Or at least, that’s how it used to be before WOTLK was released. The latest expansion has changed the way priests work quite a bit. For starters, the Surge of Light talent was changed. In addition to granting the priest a free instant Smite on a crit, the talent now also grants a free instant Flash Heal. Also, Holy Concentration was changed to work with crits, rather than having a small 4% chance on any spell, and Serendipity was added to the holy tree. In the disc tree, Rapture, Divine Aegis, Grace, Borrowed Time and Penance were added and effectively turned the discipline tree into something viable for raiding.

The changes in these trees have caused some kind of a split; with 51 points in discipline, you will mainly be a tank healer since you have Penance, the most efficient single target spell a priest possesses, at your disposal. Since the holy tree is mostly focused on area of effect healing, holy priests make for excellent raid healers. That’s not to say they can’t crossover, though. With semi-decent gear, a discipline priest can perform raid healing just fine, just as holy priests can usually get away with tank healing. Even in raids. Regardless, you generally want to stick with doing what you are specced for, since doing otherwise means you are simply throwing away talent points.

While you have to keep in mind that healing doesn’t know ‘rotations’ like DPS classes do, there are a couple of ‘rules’ you should learn and follow while healing if you want to play more effective. While the parts up next should make a good foundation for becoming a good healer, always keep in mind that a truly good healer always looks for something extra; there are always niches, situations, possibilities where one heal is better than the other or where doing something different will give you more woosh for your bucks. If you want to excel at the priest class, be on the lookout for those moments at all times.

Basic holy healing tactics
Quoting Teacake from the same thread here;

This is basically what you spend most of your time doing being holy priest in your average (heroic) instance. The only real difference between heroics and raids is that since you’ll be a raid healer as holy, you’ll barely be spending any time cancelcasting Greater Heal (more on cancelcasting in the ‘Priestly macros’ section). You will be using Prayer of Mending a lot in raids, and Circle of Healing as well – the latter mainly when the raid is taking heavy AOE damage and you don’t have time to throw down a Prayer of Healing.

Patch 3.10 also changed the way holy priests work quite a bit. The main tactic used to be abusing the 5 second rule to get full mana regeneration from spirit. This kind of tactic has been pretty much completely destroyed with patch 3.10, and holy priests now mainly regenerate through Holy Concentration. This talent as well as Spiritual Guidance are the main catalysts for determining how a holy priest gears. They focus on intellect and crit foremost, then spirit and then MP5. Spellpower is a more personal stat; while some find it equally as important as intellect and spirit, others do not feel the need to focus on it. While you will need a minimum amount at any point, see what works for you; you might find 1700 spellpower to be low for heroics while I am doing fine with 1300.

Last but not least, keep in mind Prayer of Mending is your friend. It’s HPM rises up to obscene levels as a holy spec, and it automatically jumps to whoever needs healing the most. Though there are some exceptions, you will generally want to have a PoM jumping around at any time during a boss fight.

Basic discipline healing tactics
Discipline specced priests heal quite a lot different from holy priests. The idea with a disc healer is that they stack loads of intellect first and foremost. More intellect means more mana, and more total mana means the effect Rapture has will be larger. Aside from intellect, crit is also extremely important for discipline priests because of the Divine Aegis talent. After intellect and crit, discipline priests will be focusing on spellpower; while it is a somewhat personal stat (as it is for holy priests), disc priests rely a bit more on spellpower to have decent numbers on their heals so Divine Aegis has a larger effect and they will have an easier time dealing with bursts on the tank they’re healing. While disc relies less on Spirit and MP5, a small amount will be needed anyway. For these stats, as a rule of thumb you can keep in mind that spirit = MP5 in about a 3:1 ratio. If an item were to have 15mp5, you'd need an item with at least 45 Spirit for it to be better for you as disc. Disc priests usually shouldn't have much regeneration problems however, due to the simple fact that their heals do not cost that much mana as a holy priests' while their mana pool is substantially larger.

This all ties in with the way discipline priests heal; their primary aim in a raid should be to keep Grace and Weakened Soul up on the main tank. Weakened Soul is kept up because Power Word: Shield is a pretty efficient ‘heal’ thanks to Rapture while the ‘debuff’ gives you a crit bonus on the tank while lowering the damage he takes, all thanks to Renewed Hope. Pain Suppression is used on bursts, or whenever the tank’s health falls too low.

For raid (or mainly group) healing, Discipline priests rely on preemptively casting Power Word: Shield and then topping their targets up with Renew, Flash Heal and Prayer of Mending. Prayer of Healing is used when the Borrowed Time haste bonus is up.

A word on haste
I haven't mentioned haste yet before, and there's a reason. Depending on your playstyle, the stat is completely useless or extremely valuable to your ******** The difference between healers and DPS is that DPS use haste to fit in more spells in X amount of time. Healers do not need to fit in more spells in the same amount of time since that would usually cause overhealing. Which is why haste is technically per definition useless for priests.

On the other hand, haste will lower your global cooldown and avoid situations where the tank dies 0,1 second before your heal would have landed, making it a decent stat when sh*t hits the fan. The problem is that to reach a noticable amount of haste you will need about 20%, which requires focusing on the stat even when you are talented for it. Which means you'll be picking up haste over the expense of another stat (which is mostly crit), which is something you shouldn't do since the other stats you can get actually have synergy with your talents.

Conclusion: If you don't feel you need it, don't focus on haste. Avoid it if possible. Keep it in the back of your mind though; there are some situations and fights where haste can be extremely useful and especially if you're playing with constant lag, there is nothing wrong with picking it up.

However, as an additional note here, if you really intend to min/max your character you will find that haste is of far more value for holy than it is for disc; disc priests will have their Borrowed Time up for the majority of the time, which means that if you do the calculations (and grab Enlightenment in your spec), you only need a meager 2% haste from gear to be haste capped when the Borrowed Time bonus is up. Because of the way the stat currently works it's impossible to calculate the ultimate value of haste (seeing as that value changes depending on your spec, the fight and if Borrowed Time is up), but even with that said, a purely min/maxing disc priest will want no more than 2% on his gear, which is roughly 66 rating. For more in depth info on this topic, look here.

Edited, Jun 20th 2009 6:48pm by Mozared

Edited, Dec 7th 2009 1:34am by Mozared

6. Priestly macros
While some people are hesitant to use macros because of their allegedly high difficulty rating, some macros can be a great addition to a priests' ******* and can greatly improve one’s healing. I will not explain how macros work specifically here (just look for a macro guide if you’re interested in that), but I will give a couple of macros that are of specific use to priests.

Cancelcast macro
First, let me give a short explanation on what cancelcasting actually is. It basically means you create a macro that when pressed automatically cancels any spell currently being casted and immediately starts casting a (greater) heal. This macro is then used to ensure that the priest is constantly casting greater heal – upon about 0,5 seconds before the heal would normally land, the macro is pushed again, cancelling the heal that was being casted and starting up a new heal. This effectively allows a priest to be permanently casting so that the heal can actually be allowed to land when it’s needed. Since you do not enter the 5SR until you actually launch the heal, cancelcasting is often used to keep out of the 5SR while keeping a heal on the tank close by. Like some will say; yes, it is possible you simply jump or walk to cancel a heal, but one should try a cancelcast macro to notice how much of a hassle that actually is. Also, not having to jump or walk saves time since a macro ensures you keep casting with barely any lag – if you jump, you will have to wait to land before you can start up another heal.

That said, here is the basic Greater Heal cancelcast macro:




Focus shackle and raid announce macro

An all in one macro for your Shackle Undead spell. What this macro does is shackle your current target and then set it to be your focus; a secondary click on the button will then automatically recast Shackle Undead on the same mob so you don’t have switch targets to reapply shackle. The macro also announces the target you are shackling in /say. Alternatively, the /s in the last line can be changed to “/yell”, “/p”, “/raid”, “/rw” as well to make the macro announce your shackle in the yell, party, raid or raid warning channels respectively. Last but not least, if your focus is dead or non-existent, the macro will clear your focus. If you have no idea what a focus is then don’t fret; you will not be using it for anything else.



Trinket macro

One of the simplest macros out there, all this one does is activate both your trinkets for bonus healing. Additionally, the /use 13 or /use 14 lines can be added in to for example the cancelcast macros so that your trinket will be used on a Greater Heal whenever it is off cooldown. I myself for example have my trinkets macro’d into Pain Supression and Inner Focus so that they will trigger whenever I use my emergency-situation-spells. Please note that you cannot insert two trinkets who share cooldowns here; doing so will result in only the first firing.




7. Handy links
Last but not least, a collection of useful links for priests. I will start off by stating that for healing in raids, a priest generally needs an add-on like Healbot, Pitbull, or Grid. All three of these add-ons can be found here (just search for the mod you want on the site). A mod that can also be found on that site is ‘Decursive’, one which will be of great help when dispelling magic and diseases. Another mod named PoMtracker might also be of use; it gives you a little frame that shows how much jumps your Prayer of Mending still has left, on who it currently is and how much healing it has done so far.

Additional handy links are;

The Elitistjerks’ priest forums, where more detailed explanations and calculations behind priest healing and mana conservation can be found.

WoWwiki’s priest section, a section of a site that has information on pretty much every little detail having to do with priests.

Wowhead’s priest talent calculator. ‘Nuff said.

Synntastic's WotLK Healing Pre-Raid Gear & Enchants thread. Looking for a way to gear up for raids? This is what you'll want.

The Holy Priest Gear Spreadsheet, an alternative to Syn's list specialized for holy priests.

Edited, Jan 21st 2009 1:45am by Mozared

Edited, Jan 26th 2009 4:14pm by Mozared

Reserved for constructive criticism, witty banter and immature name calling.

I might need more than one space.

Healing priests are pretty low on my totem of knowledge. Mine is a shadow priest and I have rarely healed anything.

Excellent Mozared, good work, I've skimmed most of it and I'll pop in some thoughts on anything that sticks out later.



Yes yes I know you're playing but to be honest I know some people don't always "get" Mozared but I've long thought he shouldn't be stuck at sub-scholar, he makes a good contribution to these forums, the Disc-priest side especially.

Edit: I'm also asking for this thread to be stickied (here), in place of the mediocre thread by Agoge - which is long past any point of validity - I'm sure Mozared will be more than willing to make changes if and when they're necessary or to fix any glaring errors.

Edited, Jan 16th 2009 7:38pm by cococj

If it gets stickied, might as well add my pre-raid gear list here to it. After all, can't have an ultimate healing priest guide without having a pre-raid gear list.

Edit: damn I need to edit that list, looks like I missed some gear...

Edit 2: How deep you thinking about taking this guide? http://dwarfpriest.com/2008/11/07/weighing-priest-healing-stats/ Has a nice article about healing stat weights for disc and holy priests, Don't know if you want to go into the discussion of how important one stat is over another when gearing. Some disagree with the way dwarf priest ranked the stats, but it's been working great for me so far, I've seen a steady incline in my healing when I use those weights to determine if an upgrade is worth it or not.

Edited, Jan 16th 2009 7:53pm by SynnTastic

Wow, Moz I am impressed! Rate ups for every one.

For the Holy healing blurb where you quote me, though, I would change that as it's outdated. My take would look something like this:

1. Keep Renew up on the tank at all times.
2. Cast Prayer of Mending on the tank every time it's off cooldown.
3. Cancel-cast Greater Heal, letting it land as needed.
4. Use Flash Heal for DPS who take damage, quicker heals on the tank, and every time Surge of Light procs.
5. For AOE damage, use Circle of Healing (instant, tops off 5 raid members, 6 with the glyph) and/or Prayer of Healing (longer cast time; heals for more but only the priest's own group; generally better for 5-mans).
6. Use Binding Heal when you take damage.

For 5-mans, all of these come into play. For raid healing, how many apply obviously depends on healing assignments. Tank healers will mostly use Renew, PoM, and Gheal. Raid healers will use a lot of PoM, Renew, Flash Heal, and CoH.


Edit: I also really disagree with this:



(my emphasis)

Spellpower is king. I would never put all those other stats ahead of it on my priority list. Ever ever. I'd look at Spellpower-> Spi, Int -> Crit. I don't usually look at MP5 at all (if something has it, fine, but I mainly get my regen from Spirit). Some Holy priests prefer Haste to Crit; that's a matter of playstyle.


Edited, Jan 16th 2009 9:34pm by teacake

nice one mate,
There was one thing i disagree with



The player that carries the heroic presence does not matter be it a priest or warrior, its what classes surround said player to recieve the buff. If the healer has it then it wont be wasted on the rest of the group which in a 5 man will be dps and a tank, so the mre hit the better for them.

It kind of depends on the role you're playing at the time. If its a 5 man you can pretty much keep healing regardless and the big mana pool will bear you out until the end of an encounter. If its a raid and you're tank healing you can cancelcast if needed, but its not like tanks take a vast amount of damage these days. If its a raid and I'm raid healing I'll use coh to proc sol and keep pom up, between coh and flash you can keep the raid topped and still get plenty of regen time on most encounters. The only one I've come up against so far where its really hard to regen at all is sarth with 3 drakes. You just have to spam coh and pom for about 2 minutes solid on that one to keep everyone alive.

I still think this vastly under-emphasizes the importance of spellpower. It's more important than intellect or spirit or anything else. The first thing I look at on any piece of gear is whether it's a spellpower upgrade. If it's got less spellpower than what I currently have, it would have to be a big jump in something else for me to take it.

Now I've said my piece (twice) so I'll let it go. :)

Thanks mozared, very helpful...

You know what, I'm going to edit it in to reflect both our views. Judging from that other topic there are more who bind a different value to spellpower than me. It's just that I'm doing fine even though I'm relatively low on spellpower; I suppose it's a preference, just like haste.



The message that I'm trying to convey is that the use of the racial is so incredibly small and situational that you generally shouldn't base your race on it. But yes, you're right, there aren't really any racials that are completely useless at all.

And thanks again for all the positive reactions =)