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Holy Cataclysm! - Beginners guide to healing PvE as a holy priest
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Post by
donnymurph
This guide is now out of date and no longer being maintained. Please refer to
this guide
, written by
Patty132471
, for more up-to-date information. Thanks for all of your support.
Latest Patch Notes (4.2.0):
There has been quite literally nothing in patch 4.2.0 for healing priests. I guess Blizz just thinks they are doing well right now.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Spells
Healing Spells
Single-Target
Multi-Target & AoE
Non-Healing Spells
Builds
Talents
Holy Talents
Discipline Talents
Shadow Talents
Glyphs
Prime
Major
Minor
Stats
Intellect
Spirit
Haste
Mastery
Crit
Gearing
Gear
Reforging
Gems
Enchants
Professions
Races
Alliance
Horde
Consumables
Flasks
Potions
Food
User Interface
Addons
Post by
donnymurph
Spells
Single-Target
Holy Word: Serenity
Cast time: GCD*2 (3 seconds base)
Base Heal: 3136-3644
Mana Cost: 9% of base mana
Coefficient: 36.24%
Spammable single-target heal. Slow to cast with a moderate healing amount. For 5-mans, or tank-healing, this is your bread and butter spell, partly because it is extremely cheap. Also can be used for spot-healing when incoming raid damage is slow and/or light.
Triggers
.
Flash Heal
Cast time: GCD (1.5 seconds base)
Base Heal: 6272-7288
Mana Cost: 28% of base mana
Coefficient: 72.48%
Fast, fairly large heal. It is also more expensive than any other healing spell except
Divine Hymn
, so while it is spammable, it should really only be used for emergencies. This is a large change from the cheap, moderate heal that Wrath players would be used to.
Triggers
.
Heal
Cast time: GCD*2 (3 seconds base)
Base Heal: 8362-9716
Mana Cost: 27% of base mana
Coefficient: 96.72%
Slow, very large heal. If someone is getting very depleted (usually the tank), cast this instead of
Holy Word: Serenity
. Expensive, but cheaper than
Flash Heal
.
Triggers
.
Renew
Cast time: instant
Base Heal: 1224 per tick
Mana Cost: 17% of base mana
Coefficient: 13.1%
Instant, spammable HoT. The time between ticks is reduced by haste, such that at 12.5% haste, it gains an extra tick, and at 37.5%, it gains another one. The ticks can now crit. You should try to keep this on the tank(s) at all times, as well as using it for spot-healing, partly due to the 1.0 second GCD (from the
talent) which allows you to react to random damage then quickly get back to more pressing tasks. However, for heavy AoE damage, it is no longer the spell of choice. That mantle has been given back to
Prayer of Healing
. With the reduced mana cost as of 4.0.6 it is a little bit more spammable though.
Cast time: instant
Base heal: 5198-6100
Mana Cost: 8% of base mana
Coefficient: 60.4%
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Only castable while in
. The heal is smaller than
Flash Heal
, but instant-cast,
extremely
cheap (even cheaper than
Holy Word: Serenity
), and provides a
crit buff
on the target you're using it on. For 5-mans or tank healing, this should be used pretty much as soon as the cooldown is up.
Power Word: Shield
Cast time: instant
Base absorb: 8136
Mana Cost: 19% of base mana
Coefficient: 87.06%
Cooldown: 3 seconds
There is a common idea that holy priests should never, ever cast Power Word: Shield. This is a pretty narrow-minded idea - it is cheap, instant, incapable of overhealing, and can buy time to cast a bigger heal in an emergency. Not to mention it gives a handy
run-speed boost
to the target. However, Power Word: Shield is, for all intents and purposes, a discipline spell - not only does a discipline priest's Shield absorb more damage, but it also heals the target, increases the discipline priest's haste, and is a large source of the discipline priest's mana regen. The issue is that the debuff that is applied by Power Word: Shield -
Weakened Soul
- is shared among all priests, meaning that if a holy priest shields a target, the discipline priest can't shield him for 15 seconds. As you can see, this can be very detrimental to the overall survivability of the group due to players having inferior shields. So while PW: S is fine for 5-mans, or 10-mans without a discipline priest (even 25-mans I guess, but that would be a pretty rare occurrence), you should avoid casting it if you are raiding with a discipline priest, unless you have great communication.
Desperate Prayer
Cast time: instant
Base heal: 30% of total health*
Mana Cost: 0
Coefficient: N/A
Cooldown: 2 minutes
NOTE:
This effect is incapable of being a critical heal.
Controversial talent/spell. There are some narrow-minded people who think that taking this talent is the hallmark of a bad priest who stands in the fire and/or doesn't know how to heal. This is untrue, as damage comes from many sources, often unavoidable, or not caused by the priest themself. This spell is a useful addition to our toolbox, as an instant, free heal. Excellent for when you need a quick heal while you're on the move and your other options have been exhausted.
Link
to a thread where I described some uses for this spell (in old content, admittedly, but it should help you with ideas as to why you might like to pick up this talent).
Cast time: GCD/3 (0.5 seconds base)
Base heal: 2878*10
Mana Cost: 30% of base mana
Coefficient: 30.8%
Cooldown: 3 minutes
Yes, you have to take this talent now. Ever since it was first introduced, this spell has been the target of endless derision from the entire WoW community, including about 90% of holy priests. Well with the change in healing style that we are seeing in early Cata, some of the good bits are even more important now, while the issues with some of the bad bits have been addressed.
Everything You Need To Know About Lightwell
Right-click it to use it. Your cursor will turn into a cog if your mouse is over it as it would a seat.
Has 10 charges and can be
glyphed
to 15 charges.
The heal,
, scales with spell power. If you are using
for a fight, I suggest switching to
to cast Lightwell.
Can be clicked from up to 20 yards away.
Clicking it no longer de-selects your current target.
Clicking it does not trigger a GCD.
Cannot be re-clicked until your current
has worn off.
Useful macro:
#showtooltip
/cast Lightwell
/stopmacro
/run local c=GetNumRaidMembers()>0 and "RAID" or "PARTY" SendChatMessage("Casting a "..GetSpellLink(724).."! Click it for big heals! (Lightwell breaks after damage >= 30% max health.)",c)
This macro casts Lightwell, as well as checking for a raid or party, and sending a message to raid/party chat telling people to click it. Copy and paste it as is and it won't produce any error messages. Thanks to
pelf
for this macro!
Multi-Target and AoE
Prayer of Mending
Cast time: instant
Base heal: 2979 per jump
Mana Cost: 18% of base mana
Coefficient: 31.8%
Cooldown: 10 seconds
I might be biased, but this has got to be the nicest healing spell in the entire game. Instant cast, it sits on your target until the next time they take damage, at which point it heals them and jumps to the lowest health raid member within range. Then rinses and repeats another 4 times. The beauty of this spell is, if there are only 2 players taking damage (eg 2 tanks), it will simply bounce between both of them. If damage is raidwide, it will bounce raidwide. If the incoming damage is frequent, it will bounce frequently, and if the damage is infrequent, it will bounce infrequently. This is the one spell that, no matter what, whether you are raid-healing or tank-healing, you want to keep on cooldown all the time.
Triggers
(initial cast only - not subsequent bounces).
Prayer of Healing
Cast time: GCD*1.67 (2.5 seconds base)
Base heal: 3087-3261 per target
Mana Cost: 26% of base mana
Coefficient: 33.9%
This spell will heal all 5 members of one particular group, provided they are all within range of the targeted player. This spell is very handy if your raid groups are organised based on role, as melee DPS tend to take AoE damage together, as do ranged and healers etc. In general it will be your go-to spell for dealing with AoE damage. One other benefit of this spell is that it ignores line-of-sight for all except the targeted player. You can make benefit of this on line-of-sight fights by asking your raid leader to put you in the same group as the tanks - as you are the one player who is guaranteed to always be in line-of-sight of yourself. Then you can cast Prayer of Healing on yourself to heal the tanks. :)
Triggers
.
Holy Word: Sanctify
Cast time: instant
Base Heal: 2309-2551 per target
Mana Cost: 21% of base mana
Coefficient: 26%
Cooldown: 10 seconds
This is a very useful heal for 6 targets. It is an instant-cast smart heal that will heal the 6 lowest health targets within its range. You can use this to buy some time for a slower, bigger heal, and just generally because it is good HPS. Prioritise
Prayer of Mending
before this, but otherwise, keep it on cooldown all the time when raid-healing.
Binding Heal
Cast Time: GCD (1.5 seconds base)
Base heal: 4752-6110 on your target and yourself
Mana Cost: 28% of base mana
Coefficient: 54.3%
For when you need a heal - heal someone else at the same time! Costs the same mana as a
Flash Heal
, but does
almost
twice as much healing.
Cast time: instant
Base Heal: up to 1696-1970 per target; up to a total of 8480-9850
Mana Cost: 15% of base mana
Coefficient: 19.6%
This spell has a tiny range, and mindlessly spamming it can eat your mana pretty quickly; however, it can be handy when people are stacked up. Assuming it heals 5 or less targets, it does almost as much as
Holy Word: Sanctify
, however because it is a "true AoE" (ie it affects everything within its range), it is subject to the AoE cap, and will therefore heal each target for less when there are more than 5 friendly targets.
Cast time: GCD/3 (0.5 seconds base)
Base heal: 299-352 per tick
Mana Cost: 40% of base mana (wowsers!)
Coefficient: 3%
Cooldown: 40 seconds
Aimable AoE HoT, this spell can be tricky to use. If people are stacked up and not moving, this can be quite useful and can do quite a lot of healing, however it is a mana monster, so you'll want to make sure that the raid is in a position that they get the absolute maximum use out of it. Only castable while in
. Like
, it is subject to the AoE cap.
Divine Hymn
Channel time: 8 seconds*
Base heal: 4009 per tick
Mana Cost: 36% of base mana
Coefficient: 42.9%
Cooldown: 8 minutes
NOTE:
This spell is affected by haste in a different manner to other spells. Up until 12.5% haste, it is affected as normal, however at 12.5%, the channel time is reset and it gains an extra tick. The same happens again at 37.5% haste.
The ultimate "oh crap" button, with a massive cooldown to match. At 0 haste, this will tick 4 times, each time healing the 3 lowest-health party or raid members, for a total of 12 heals. Increasing your haste to 12.5% will give this an extra tick, just like your Renew. This is the button to press to prevent wipes.
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Post by
donnymurph
Non-Healing spells
Purify
- Does exactly what the name says it does. Can be used offensively or defensively. Good dispelling can completely turn the tide of an encounter. Priests have the strongest magic dispel in the game, removing up to 2 magic effects from the target. Has a handy (but situational)
glyph
, especially considering how high health pools are in Cataclysm.
Mass Dispel
- Aimable AoE dispel magic. Also an extremely important tool in the hands of the right priest, but it eats mana for breakfast.
Dispel Magic
- Standard disease dispel ability. They've taken the old Abolish Disease out, which was a dispel-over-time for the same mana cost, so you've gotta put this one back on your bars now.
Leap of Faith
- Interesting ability which pulls the target towards the priest. The idea of this ability is obviously to pull a raid member out of something that will hurt him (e.g. Fire, an add's cleave, etc.). It is a very cheap spell, so using it will almost always be better than healing through whatever damage the player is taking/about to take. It is on a long-ish cooldown though, so try to only save it for big damage mechanics.
Link
to a thread with ideas for the use of this spell.
- A 3 minute buff with a single charge that makes the target unfearable. For any fight with an AoE fear mechanic, you will want to use this on yourself so you can try to Mass Dispel as many people as possible (since fear mechanics are usually magic debuffs).
Psychic Scream
- AoE fear. Can be used as a survival button if a mob is attacking you, or for general CC purposes. Fearing can be dangerous in instances as feared mobs may accidentally pull other groups of mobs or even a boss, so use it wisely. It can be broken by damage as well. The
glyph
makes it a better CC spell, but if you are using it to stop a mob from attacking you, you'll need to run away from it before you can keep casting.
Shackle Undead
- Renders an undead NPC completely incapable of doing anything. Good CC, the best way to use it is to stand at max-range and Shackle a particularly dangerous mob in a group pull, at which point you will have aggro on the whole group, but with some space on your side. Then once the group is far enough away from the shackled mob so that he won't be damaged by AoE, the group can be killed. There are 2 downsides to this ability: it is immediately broken by any damage at all; and it only works on undead mobs, of which there are hardly any in Cataclysm content.
Fade
- Reduces your threat to zero for the duration of the effect, then restores the threat, plus any other threat generated, upon the cancellation of the effect. Usually this is enough time for the tank(s) to regain control of the situation. If you're casting pre-emptive healing spells before the pull, use this first so you don't pull aggro.
Symbol of Hope
- This is a channeled, "smart AoE" mana cooldown that restores 2% of a player's maximum mana every 2 sec for 8 sec (before haste is included), and increases their mana pool by 15% for 8 seconds. The first 2% tick is not affected by the 15% pool increase, however all subsequent ticks are. This can be a tough spell to use for several reasons. First, if you are using it to restore your own mana, you will need to make sure you are one of the three lowest-mana raid members. This can be very hard to keep track of, so it really can't be safely used for this purpose until you are very close to OOM. Secondly, unless you only want 1 or 2 ticks, it renders you unable to heal for 8 seconds, so everyone needs to be in a position where they can live for 8 seconds with 1 healer down. It also has quite a long cooldown.
Shadowfiend
- This is a temporary pet that can be used as either a DPS or mana cooldown - as a healer, 99 times out of 100, you'll want it for the mana. The pet lasts 15 seconds, and returns 3% of maximum mana per swing (down from 5% in Wrath). It has a base swing timer of 1.5 seconds, meaning it would swing 10 times and return 30% of your mana, however it now scales with haste, meaning you must use the following formula:
10 * (1 + Haste*0.01)
to calculate the amount of times it swings. Shadowfiend can be affected by
Ancient Hysteria
/
Time Warp
/
Heroism
/
Bloodlust
if he is already active when it is cast. If he is summoned during a Heroism/Lust/Time Warp/Hysteria, he won't be affected by it. This can obviously be quite tricky to time unless your group is communicating very efficiently. Shadowfiend is also affected by the mana pool increase from Hymn of Hope; so, if possible, you should cast Hymn of Hope immediately after casting Shadowfiend.
- Permanent self-buff that increases your armor and spell power. Mutually exclusive with
. It is also the one that you will probably use for most fights.
- Permanent self-buff that increases your movement speed and reduces the mana cost of instant cast spells (which is the majority of our arsenal). Mutually exclusive with
. If you are having mana problems, or if you are in a high-movement, stay-out-of-the-fire type fight, then you should use this instead of
.
Power Word: Fortitude
- 60-minute, group buff that increases the stamina (health) of all party and raid members. Obviously, this should be used at all times. It should also be re-used immediately after someone is
battle-rezzed
, or at the end of a fight where anyone died. This no longer requires a candle as it did in Wrath.
- 60-minute, group buff that increases all party and raid members' resistance to shadow magic, causing them to take less damage on fights that include shadow magic. The only reason not to use this buff is if you are absolutely certain that the upcoming fight has no shadow damage. If it does, or if you are unsure, use it. As with
Power Word: Fortitude
, if someone is
battle-rezzed
try to recast it.
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Post by
donnymurph
Builds
Talents
Holy Talents
While I am reviewing the every talent in the holy tree, the fact of the matter is there are 37 total points available in the tree, and you will be wanting to spend the bare minimum (31) so as to maximise the amount of useful talents you can get in this discipline and shadow trees. So you will only be skipping 6 points in the entire tree, and 2 of these are almost certain to be in
. The 4 other points you miss are totally up to you, it really depends on your playstyle, preferences, group composition, and what role you are actually filling.
Tier 1
- Nerfed compared to the Wrath version, but it buffs one of your main raid-healing spells and unlocks other important talents.
- Makes your tank-heals bigger.
- Makes your tank-heals faster. Also hastens smite and holy fire, a holy priest's main 2 offensive spells, which is important if you choose to take
/
(which you probably shouldn't). Of the talents in the first tier, this is the one where skimming points seems most attractive at first glance - however each point spent here is progressively more powerful than the previous point spent, so skimming here is also kinda counter-intuitive. See how you go with the rest of your tree before making a decision.
Tier 2
Desperate Prayer
- I said enough about this in the section about single-target heals. For 1 point, you'd be a fool not to take it.
- Shuffled around for 4.0.6, it can now proc off of
Holy Word: Serenity
,
Flash Heal
and
Heal
(and as of 4.1.0,
Binding Heal
); and for the first time ever, it is capable of being a critical heal. Will proc a lot more now, and there is always room in our arsenal for an instant, free heal, so it will probably find its way into most holy priests' specs now.
- This is a very handy buff for a tank to have. Despite the fact that you should be keeping your crit low, focus healing the tank should cause this to have very high uptime, especially considering Shamans provide the buff as well. It can also proc off your main AoE spells, and seeing 2 of those are smart heals which will be very likely to be healing the tank, and the third one heals whoever you want it to heal, it should be easy to maintain this buff even when you're raid healing.
Tier 3
- Like the old Empowered Renew, although significantly nerfed in comparison. The effect is still nice to have, as it helps make renew more viable for spot-healing, and it is capable of critting.
- Increases our combat regen from its original 50% of our out-of-combat regen, up to 80% of our OOC regen. This is a massive boon for our mana regen, and is what largely helps to make spirit our number 1 regen stat again.
- Covered enough about this in the single-target healing spells section.
- Reduces the cooldown on your holy words, providing an overall throughput and utility increase.
Tier 4
- Handy little talent, it lets you get back to doing something else after renewing someone, or helps you pump out a lot of renews really quickly if you need to. Basically just a nice time-management talent.
Spirit of Redemption
- A lot of people have a lot to say about this talent. Usually something along the lines of "Oh this talent is only useful when you're dead, so if you're actually getting decent utility from this talent, you must be a terribad player". Well, raiding, and especially progression, isn't as cut-and-dried as that. RNG happens. People get tired and make mistakes. Players, yes even the best players in the world, do die from time-to-time. When that happens, this
could
be the talent that prevents a wipe. Just another interesting thought: you're completely out of mana and the group is going to die unless they get some bulk healing very soon, simply go get yourself killed (stand in fire, cleave area, anything that will kill you) and then you have 15 seconds of mana-free healing, which again
could
mean the difference between a wipe and a kill. Back in Wrath, this talent was mandatory as it gave a static 5% spirit boost, but that is not the case anymore.
Holy Words
- Very handy talent to have during phases where the tank is taking burst damage, or any phase where you will need to switch seamlessly between tank- and raid-healing. Two stacks of Serendipity is the only thing that will make the HPS of
Prayer of Healing
exceed the HPS of
Holy Word: Sanctify
.
Tier 5
- I guess you could call this the "defining talent" of the holy tree, essentially we pop this every 30 seconds and it buffs whatever we are doing at the time. There are three Chakra states, although you will likely only be using two of them in a raid:
Chakra: Serenity
(for tank-healing), and
Chakra: Sanctuary
(for raid-healing). As of 4.1.0, it now has unlimited duration, so Chakra management should be much easier than previously, as you now only need to press the button when you want to change from
Chakra: Serenity
to
Chakra: Sanctuary
and vice versa.
- Converts your
Holy Word: Chastise
into a new spell, relevant of your current Chakra -
or
. These spells are described above, in the spells section.
- Pretty much the only talent in the entire tree which will be useless for PvE healing. Perhaps if the planets align in some manner that hasn't happened in the last 850 million years, the extra received healing from this talent might be useful. But it's so extremely situational you wouldn't, and shouldn't, even bother.
Tier 6
-
Fantastic
way to spend 3 points. No really, I will sit for many hours and argue until I'm blue in the face against any priest who is considering dropping it. I once dropped it, for about a month, and when I picked it back up, I just went "Woah, what have I been missing?". You'd be amazed how often players dip below 50% in a raid, this talent really makes those moments a lot less scary.
- Now does the complete opposite to what it used to do, reducing
's cooldown instead of increasing its duration. Slightly more useful than before, it allows you to switch
very quickly, but I still don't like the talent.
's cooldown is already half as long as its duration, I don't see why anyone would need to be changing their
more often than 30 seconds. At least not frequently enough to warrant spending points in this talent.
Holy Word: Sanctify
- Covered this in the multi-target spells section. Has been the trademark holy priest talent since The Burning Crusade.
Tier 7
Guardian Spirit
-Another talent that is the subject of derision by narrow-minded players who say "Oh if you have to use this you obviously just aren't healing enough". This is a fantastic spell that can be used as a general "Oh crap" button or can be worked into your strategy for a particular fight. You can use it, for example, to allow a player to do something that would otherwise be very dangerous to do. Unfortunately, the glyph nerf essentially constitutes a nerf to the spell, seeing that every Wrath holy priest who was worth their salt used that glyph.
:(
Change for 4.0.6: The combined absorb/heal
from the death prevention effect
can now no longer exceed 200% of the target's maximum health.
Discipline Talents
- 6% boost to all of your healing spells. How can you not take this?
- If you are tank healing you won't be using many instant casts at all, especially since
Chakra: Serenity
causes
Renew
to be constantly refreshed. However if you are raid healing, 3 of your 4 main spells are all instant-cast, and these 3 points become a huge boost to your longevity.
- For 5-mans, or raiding without a discipline priest, you might find this beneficial if you are using a lot of shields. Really though, you should steer clear of this.
- This is a dangerous talent for a holy priest. Sure we can smite things up to get a 15% healing bonus after 5 smites, plus a small mana return. The problem is, because we don't have enough points to reach
Atonement
, it's very difficult to be able to find a time when you can smite safely. Only reason I listed this here was so I could tell you to steer clear.
- What I said about Evangelism.
Shadow Talents
- Extra haste is always good. Personally, I'd max it out, you may want to trim points in here to put them in something else, either way, this talent makes it a lot easier to get that extra tick on your Renew.
- Shortens the cooldown on your shadowfiend, effectively increasing your mana regen. Someone on Elitist Jerks calculated this as 62MP5 per point, however this will increase with your haste, as your shadowfiend will be able to swing more times, as well as your intellect, as your shadowfiend's swings will be returning more mana.
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Post by
donnymurph
Glyphs
Prime
Charred Glyph
- Must-have glyph for raid healing. NB If you cast a PoH while someone is already under the effects of the glyph, it will refresh up to the last tick. Therefore if your PoH hits with one second left on the glyph from the previous PoH, it will refresh it for 7 seconds.
Charred Glyph
- Must-have glyph for raid healing.
Charred Glyph
- Of the 4 optional glyphs listed here, this one is the best increase for both healing done and healing-per-mana.
Charred Glyph
- Significantly nerfed compared to the Wrath version, nevertheless it is shortening the cooldown on a very useful spell.
Charred Glyph
- Tank-healing glyph, useful for helping to get an
proc.
Charred Glyph
- Only take this for 5-mans or if you are raiding without a disc priest.
Major
Charred Glyph
- Must-have glyph for raid healing, less useful in 5-mans though.
Charred Glyph
- Increases PoM's usefulness for tank-healing, and makes you want to make sure your PoM is always
on cooldown. Brand new for 4.0.6. I consider this a new must-have glyph for any healing priest.
Charred Glyph
- Considering current health pools, 3% is fairly significant. Potentially very useful in any dispel-heavy fights.
Charred Glyph
- Again, great for dispel-heavy fights.
Charred Glyph
- Useful in fights where everyone is stacked and taking light damage.
Charred Glyph
- Grab this if your tanks are having threat issues.
Charred Glyph
- Great glyph if you are needed for CC. Mostly useful in 5-mans. Will also find use in the
Cho'gall
fight - glyphed
Psychic Scream
is one of the best ways to break his Mind Control ability.
Charred Glyph
- Not so great for holy, since we don't spec into
or
Atonement
, but it can be nice if you're helping with a bit of DPS on the side.
Charred Glyph
- If the fight contains more frequent fears, go with this.
Minor
Charred Glyph
- You never know when you'll need to levitate yourself or others, and this glyph will save you a lot of hassle, as well as bag space.
Charred Glyph
- Mana saved=good.
Charred Glyph
- Mana saved=good. Means less downtime drinking after buffing people, also useful during an encounter if someone is battle-rezzed.
Charred Glyph
- Not as useful anymore now that our fiend is resistant to AoE, but could still be marginally useful.
Charred Glyph
- Complete waste of time now that the buff duration has been increased to an hour.
Glyph of Shackle Undead
- Not going to find much use in Cataclysm.
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Post by
donnymurph
Stats
Intellect
Intellect increases your Spellpower by 1, Spell Critical Chance by 0.001541, and Mana by 15. The first 18 Intellect will not give mana, and the first 10 Intellect will not give Spellpower, for reasons that are unexplained. Intellect is the most versatile of our stats; it is our main throughput stat, as well as providing longevity and mana regen.
Shadowfiend
,
Symbol of Hope
,
,
Replenishment
and
Arcane Torrent
all scale with our intellect.
Spirit
Spirit increases your mana regen according to the following formula:
Spirit Regen = (0.001 + (Spi x √Int x 0.003345)) x 5
Where 0.003345 is the base regen at level 85.
Normally, none of this mana regen is available during combat. However, our passive ability
, which is gained simply by selecting the holy tree, allows 50% of the total value to be available during combat. 2 points in
increases this to 80% available during combat.
Spirit is our number 1 stat for mana regen at this point in time, however it no longer affects throughput.
Also note: previously regen was affected by whether we were "casting" or not. While casting we only had our "casting regen" available, and after 5 seconds of spending no mana (usually achieved by not casting, but also from other effects such as Surge of Light or Inner Focus), our full regen became available to us again. This was commonly known as the five-second-rule, and it often encouraged players to stand around and do nothing while waiting to get mana back.. For Cataclysm, Blizzard has changed this effect so that our mana regeneration is affected by whether we are in combat or not, regardless of whether we are actually casting.
Haste
Oh God, where do I start? Haste increases the speed at which you cast spells, reduces your GCD (until you reach the soft-cap for haste - more on this in a moment), and increases the amount of ticks from damage-over-time, heal-over-time, and channeled spells.
Haste increases your casting speed according to the following formula:
Base Cast Time / (1 + Haste *.01)
Haste rating decreases the period length between ticks from channeled spells and heal-over-time effects according to the same formula, replacing the Base Cast Time with the channeling time or tick period. Durations are determined from the period times the number of ticks. You get
k
more ticks for a HoT that has
m
ticks at 0% haste if your haste is higher than (2
k
-1)/2
m
.
To calculate the Haste Rating needed to reduce spell cast time from base cast time to any desired cast time you use:
((Base Cast Time / Desired Cast Time) - 1) * Rating Conversion * 100
At level 85, the rating conversion is 128.057 (ie 128.057 haste rating = 1% haste).
Below is a table, ripped shamelessly from Elitist Jerks, indicating the haste rating required for a 5 tick renew, depending upon the presence of absence of the 5% haste raid-buff, as well as how many points you have in
. At current gear levels, it is not feasible to aim for a 6th renew tick (37.5% haste) or the 1.0s GCD cap (50% haste), although it may become more reachable in higher-tier gear as it is released.
Haste Rating Required for a 5-tick
Renew
at Level 85.
......................1602
1/3 ..............1459
2/3 ..............1319
3/3 ..............1182
5% ..............915
5%, 1/3 ..............780
5%, 2/3 ..............646
5%, 3/3 ..............516
Mastery
One point of mastery increases the heal-over-time effect from
Mastery: Echo of Light
by an extra 1.25% of the initial amount healed. At level 85 it takes 179.2799 mastery rating to increase our mastery by one point. This is a good throughput stat which you should build up after you've reached a comfortable amount of haste..
Crit
Critical heals are 150% of the non-critical heal. Crit is not a desirable stat for a holy priest as it is RNG-reliant, gives less of a HPS bonus than any other stat, and doesn't offer us any great utility, other than
, which is small consolation considering how inferior it is to the other stats mentioned above. Crit used to have some value for us, as it procced the old Surge of Light and Holy Concentration, but since those talents have been changed, it has no redeeming factors anymore.
Critical strike rating has the same conversion factor as mastery: at level 85 it takes 179.2799 points of critical strike rating to gain 1% critical strike chance. Despite this, 1 point of crit is generally considered to be about half as valuable as 1 point of mastery in most situations.
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Post by
donnymurph
Gearing
Gear
Overall stat priority is Intellect>Spirit>Haste>Mastery>Crit, unless you are mana-starved, in which case it's Spirit>Intellect>Haste>Mastery>Crit.
Every piece of cloth gear you pick up will have Stamina and Intellect on it, as well as 2 optional stats (weapons have 2 optional stats + spell power). Of the 2 optional stats, wherever possible you want one of them to be spirit. By wherever possible I mean you'll want it in more than half of your gear. So you are left with Stamina+Intellect+Spirit+1.
As already mentioned, you'll want to have at least 12.5% haste while raiding, so the first thing you should do is chase haste up to the amount as taken from the list in the section above. After this, build up your mastery. While mastery is behind haste for burst healing, it is far more useful for sustained healing. And besides this, the value of your stats increases in a synergistic manner as your other stats increase. In laymans terms, this means the more haste you have, the better mastery is, and vice versa. However this doesn't really apply to crit - well technically it does but crit's value is so far behind the other stats that you would need exorbitant and probably unattainable amounts of haste and mastery to make crit valuable.
So basically you want your gear to be an even mix of
Stamina+Intellect+Spirit+Haste
and
Stamina+Intellect+Spirit+Mastery
. This is what you might call "perfectly itemized gear". While perfectly itemized gear in every item slot is ideal, in reality if you have 3-4 pieces that aren't perfectly itemized, it's not the end of the world.
For a full pre-raid gear list, look
here
.
Eventually you will want to get the
T11 4-piece
, as it is a fantastic bonus which, if nothing else, will allow you to aim more heavily towards throughput with your gems and enchants - since you will always be in a Chakra state when it matters.
For a rundown on the gear set, click
here
.
As you can see, 2 of the items in the set have crit: the
helm
and the
chest
, just like the T10 set. Obviously to make up the 4 piece you will need to take one of these lesser-itemized pieces. My recommendation is that you take the helm and use an off-set chest. Why? Simple. The chest has more crit than the helm, meaning you are dumping MORE of the undesirable stat than if you used the chest and an off-set helm :)
Reforging
If you have gear that isn't Stamina+Intellect+Spirit+Haste or Stamina+Intellect+Spirit+Mastery (which is highly probable seeing as it's early in the xpac and you probably haven't had time to get into BiS gear) use the following rules for reforging:
Spirit/Crit - reforge crit to mastery (or haste if you are below 12.5%)
Haste/Crit - reforge crit to spirit
Mastery/Crit - reforge crit to spirit (or haste if you are below 12.5% and desperate)
Haste/Mastery - reforge the higher of the 2 stats to spirit (unless you are still short on haste, in which case, reforge the mastery)
Gems
Best practice at this point seems to be to shoot for socket bonuses all over.
Red Sockets:
Brilliant Inferno Ruby
- Gemming for throughput.
Purified Demonseye
- Gemming for regen.
Blue Sockets:
Purified Demonseye
- Gemming for throughput.
Sparkling Ocean Sapphire
- Gemming for regen.
Yellow Sockets:
Artful Ember Topaz
- Gemming for throughput.
Reckless Ember Topaz
- Gemming for throughput/need moar haste.
Zen Dream Emerald
- Gemming for regen.
Meta:
Ember Shadowspirit Diamond
is the best pick.
Enchants
Head
Arcanum of Hyjal
- Requires Revered with
Guardians of Hyjal
, quite easy to get if you do all the quests in
Hyjal
.
Shoulder
Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone
- Requires Exalted with
Therazane
. Like the Sons of Hodir in Wrath, you will start at hated and will reach honored after a long quest chain in
Deepholm
. You can use
Lesser Inscription of Charged Lodestone
- which only requires honored - as an interim enchant while working your way to exalted through daily quests or dungeon grinding with
Tabard of Therazane
.
Back
Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect
- Tailoring only, regen.
- Tailoring only, throughput.
Chest
Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats
- Throughput.
Enchant Chest - Exceptional Versatility
- Regen.
Wrist
Enchant Bracer - Greater Speed
- Throughput.
Enchant Bracer - Exceptional Versatility
- Regen.
Hands
Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery
- Throughput.
Enchant Gloves - Haste
- Throughput.
Belt
Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
- Gives an extra socket, just like the old
Eternal Belt Buckle
in Wrath.
Legs
Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
- Buy it off a tailor.
Feet
Enchant Boots - Haste
Enchant Boots - Mastery
Enchant Boots - Lavawalker
- My pick.
Enchant Boots - Earthen Vitality
- Budget option.
The movement-speed enchants DON'T stack with
.
Ring
- Enchanters only.
Off-hand
Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect
- New, don't forget to enchant your off-hand! Nerfed from 100 intellect down to 40, to make sure staves still remain viable.
Weapon
Enchant Weapon - Hurricane
- Proc haste when casting or melee.
Enchant Weapon - Heartsong
- Proc spirit when casting.
Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent
- Proc intellect when casting.
Obviously if you need the regen, choose Heartsong. For throughput it's a little trickier. Hurricane will shine more on a short fight, Power Torrent will come out better in a long fight, while still being close behind in a short fight. If you're lucky you can have 2 weapons, one with each enchant. ☺
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Post by
donnymurph
Professions
TL;DR
Go for two crafting profession that will help your guild, since almost all of them give the same bonus.
Don't get leatherworking or any of the gathering professions.
Get archaeology.
Alchemy
Mixology
- Gives a +80 bonus on flasks (choice of int or spirit), as well as saving you money!
better proc chance from
Mysterious Potion
.
Vibrant Alchemist Stone
- Very nice starter epic trinket combining throughput and regen.
Blacksmithing
- You can put any gem you like in these sockets, making blacksmithing the most versatile of all professions, while still matching most crafting professions with a stat bonus of +80.
Enchanting
- Put this on both your rings for a total bonus of 80 intellect.
Inscription
Felfire Inscription
- Use this instead of the rep enchant for a bonus of 80 intellect.
Leatherworking
- Everyone else gets +65 haste or +50 spirit.
Tailoring
Enchant your cloak with either
for spellpower procs or
for spirit procs.
Engineering
OR
- choose between an intellect cooldown or turbocharged potions.
nitro boost (on the belt now!) can be a lifesaver, but now has a chance to fail spectacularly (and kill you).
Energized Bio-Optic Killshades
- Nice starter epic helm, with cogwheel sockets (choose from
Sparkling Cogwheel
,
Quick Cogwheel
or
Fractured Cogwheel
).
Jewelcrafting
Jeweller's gems. Up to 3 may be used, giving a total stat bonus of 81. Jewelcrafting is overpowered!. You can choose from
Brilliant Chimera's Eye
,
Fractured Chimera's Eye
,
Quick Chimera's Eye
, or
Sparkling Chimera's Eye
.
Figurine - Dream Owl
and
Figurine - Jeweled Serpent
- nice starter trinkets.
Herbalism
- Wayyyyyyyyyy underpowered.
Mining
- Pretty pointless.
Skinning
- Crit is crap.
Archaeology
Ring of the Boy Emperor
- No spirit but still quite a nice ring.
Tyrande's Favorite Doll
- VERY nice starter epic trinket.
The 2 archaeology weapons are pretty crap, but
Staff of Ammunae
might do as a placeholder weapon while you're waiting for something better.
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Post by
donnymurph
Races
This is a quick rundown on the racials that will have an effect on min-maxing and/or provide combat utility. This is mostly for the perfectionists - while some racials are very nice buttons to have, overall the race you choose won't have a great effect on your outright level of gameplay.
Alliance
Human
The Human Spirit
: Permanent 3% spirit increase.
Will to Survive
: Same effect as a PvP trinket. Situationally useful in PvE.
Gnome
Expansive Mind
: Permanent 5% increased mana pool. This is no longer 5% intellect, so doesn't carry the added benefits of mana regen, spell power and crit.
Escape Artist
: Not as useable as the human ability. Situationally useful.
Dwarf
Stoneform
: Extremely situational.
Dispel Magic
diminishes the usefulness of this ability for priests in PvE, since it's very rare that we, as healers, will have a bleed effect or need extra armor.
Night Elf
Shadowmeld
: Useable if
Fade
is on cooldown, however you must remain completely inactive to maintain the effect, reducing its usefulness.
Draenei
Gift of the Naaru
: Pretty nice since the 4.0.6 tweaks. Free, instant, doesn't trigger the GCD. Try it with one of these macros:
#showtooltip Guardian Spirit
/cast Gift of the Naaru
/cast Guardian Spirit
#showtooltip Divine Hymn
/cast Gift of the Naaru
/cast Divine Hymn
Worgen
Viciousness
: Permanent 1% crit increase. Crit is crap.
Darkflight
: Helps you get out of the fire.
My recommendation for Alliance: Since the gnome racial has been changed from intellect to just mana, human looks to be the strongest Alliance holy priest race.
Horde
Undead
Will of the Forsaken
: Buffed compared to what it was in 3.3, situationally useful survival move.
Cannibalize
: Can restore up to 35% of your health and mana, if you ride out the entire channel duration. Some people seem to swear by it; personally, I don't rate it. Why? Because while 35% mana sounds nice and all, the limitations of this spell's usability are huge. First off, it only works when you've already killed an undead or humanoid mob and it is still nearby. If you take any damage at all, even AoE or aura damage, the effect breaks. You can't heal for up to 10 seconds and you also can't move, otherwise the effect breaks. So really, it's about as useful as carrying water in your bags, except you can use it in combat; and personally I've never even
wanted
to drink in combat.
Tauren
Endurance
: Health is always nice, but this isn't going to improve your healing in any mathematically discernable manner.
War Stomp
: Useful CC, or as a survival cooldown after a messy pull.
Troll
Berserking
: Fantastic throughput cooldown, one of the best racials in the game.
Da Voodoo Shuffle
: Situationally useful, and even then, it's not massive, although it is nice to have.
Regeneration
: Negligible.
Blood Elf
Arcane Torrent
: 6% mana return and AoE silence on a 2 minute cooldown. Free, instant cast, no GCD. The silence is situational in PvE, the mana return is fantastic. Used every cooldown, it is essentially an extra 50% replenishment. Macro it into one of your most commonly used PvE spells to get the maximum effect from it.
Goblin
Time is Money
: Permanent 1% haste increase. Om nom nom. (No really, 1% will have more effect than you think).
Rocket Jump
: Another button to get you out of the fire.
My recommendation for Horde: Much more to choose from. I call this one a three-way tie between troll, goblin and blood elf.
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Post by
donnymurph
Consumables
Flasks
Flask of Flowing Water
- Regen flask. 300 spirit.
Flask of the Draconic Mind
- Throughput/regen. 300 intellect.
Flask of Battle
- Guild flask. Grants 300 of a useful stat (either spirit or intellect), but I can't find any info on whether it specifically chooses either spirit or intellect, or if the effect is random.
Flasks are quite expensive at the moment. As an alternative you can use
Ghost Elixir
, which is extremely cheap because it is what alchemists use to level their profession efficiently, paired with a
Prismatic Elixir
, which is quite useful considering the majority of dungeon and raid fights have magic damage.
Potions
Mythical Mana Potion
- 9250-10750 mana. This will be your bread and butter potion, carry hundreds of them. Macro it into one of your other mana regen abilities if you like, saves an extra button. ☺
Potion of Concentration
- Up to 22000 mana over 10 seconds. You must remain inactive or the effect stops, but during lull phases this will be better than the Mythical.
Mighty Rejuvenation Potion
- 7200-8800 health and mana. Hybrid potion, the heal won't even come close to offsetting the mana you lose out on by not using the Mythical, so I'd only carry a couple of these to use as an "oh crap" button.
Volcanic Potion
- 1200 spell power. Only use this if you won't be needing the mana.
Molotov Cocktail
- 50% movement speed for 15 seconds. Could be useful to carry a couple of these for survival if you are fine for both throughput and mana.
Food
Basilisk Liverdog
- Haste.
Delicious Sagefish Tail
- Spirit.
Severed Sagefish Head
- Intellect.
Lavascale Minestrone
- Mastery.
Fortune Cookie
- Useful stat (intellect).
Seafood Magnifique Feast
- Useful stat (intellect; group food).
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Post by
donnymurph
User Interface
Addons
To play a healer effectively, you should have:
Boss mods - Only use
Deadly Boss Mods
or Deux Vox Encounter
Latency-measuring cast bar -
Quartz
is the most popular, and probably the best
Customisable unit frames -
Shadowed
or
Stuf
. Steer clear of anything else, they are probably bad.
Action bar addon -
Bartender4
or
Dominos
.
Raid frame/mouseover addon -
Grid
+
Clique
or
VuhDo
.
Buff addon -
Satrina
is the best in the business. You can make it filter anything, or look like anything.
Cooldown tracker of some type - These come in many shapes and forms. The most popular is the simple
OmniCC
, which can be effective with a good action bar setup, and with the addition of OmniCC Pulse.
Optional but awesome mod: proc/short-term buff tracker such as
Power Auras Classic
or
NeedToKnow
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Post by
karlusdavius
Word pad, bah! Try writing a guide on an iPad.
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322034
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Post by
Zerul
You forget Shadow Word: Death, the cheap and controllable way to bounce ProM off of you (it will bounce to tank if he has the lowest health with a lower mana cost than just reapplying ProM).
Very good gear info on the guide though.
Post by
donnymurph
stopped reading after this. with such a high mana cost and bad HPM, i'd never use it except on MTs, LK raid blanketing era is over.
PoH is the raid healing king and by far, no offense.
Read on a bit further and you would have seen that I recommend glyphing
both
spells for raid-healing.
And yeah, spamming it to the point of GCD locking yourself for a whole fight, well, you can't do that with any spell anymore. But until you can spot heal with PoH (which I think Blizzard have slated for the 12th of never) it'll be my favourite raid-healing spell.
Post by
donnymurph
I don't think it jumps to the lowest health target, it just goes to someone within 20 yards (at least the tooltip says that)
Tooltips never tell the whole story
Also, it was hotfixed so that PoM does not trigger Sanctuary anymore.
EDIT: I lied, it does still trigger it, might wana specify that the bounces won't trigger it.
Edited to say that
casting
PoM will trigger it but the bounces won't. Thanks :)
Post by
donnymurph
Formatting is complete. Please provide questions, comments and suggestions for further input. Also report for sticky if you find the guide useful :)
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323257
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