12-01-2004, 07:11 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-05-2005, 05:39 AM by MongoJerry.)
I made a small addition to this guide by adding in first aid bandages to the list of healing spells and abilities at a priest's disposal. The change was too small to make a new thread about it, so I edited this post.
ADVANCED TOPICS IN PRIEST PLAY: GROUP HEALING TACTICS
Most priest guides will describe what the priests spells and talents do. This is not one of those guides. Anyone can regurgitate the manual, but only a player who has played a level capped World of Warcraft priest for months can tell you which spells are the best to use in different situations. The assumption in this guide is that at any moment, there is a specific "best" action one should take. One could use the second or third best action available and survive just fine, but if one desires to be the best possible priest player, then one should always be looking to improve one's play and should always be willing to consider if an alternative tactic would have been better.
For today, we will consider only the healing tactics used by priests in PvE group play. Basically, we're focusing on 5-player and larger groups, where a priest's role is primarily, but not exclusively, one of healing.
HEALING SPELLS
There are five primary healing spells at a high level priest's disposal: Renew, Shield, Prayer of Healing, Flash Heal, and Greater Heal. In addition, there is the often overlooked First Aid option. Learning when to use which of the healing spells/skills should be of primary concern to all priests. The advantages and disadvantages of each kind of healing spell/skill become clear in the following table.
NOTE: The following table will make the assumption of a minimum 10 talent point investment in the Holy tree -- 5 points spent in Improved Renew and 5 points spent in Spiritual Healing. It's a rare high level priest who enters an instance dungeon who doesn't have points spent in those two talents.
Renew: Renew heals over the span of 15 seconds and is by far the most mana efficient and most convenient healing spell in a priest's healing arsenal. It's the most mana efficient not only because of the raw numbers you see in the table above but also because one is unlikely to over heal with Renew. It's convenient because of its short cast time. It's the first healing spell I cast on a person when they get hit, and it's also the spell I cast on people who have been hurt but are safe for the moment. For example, if a rogue in the party pulls aggro onto himself but flashes to get out of trouble, I'll cast renew on him and then go back to healing the party's tank.
The main disadvantage to Renew is the fact that it takes 15 seconds for all of its healing to take effect, making it wholly ineffective in saving someone who is in immediate danger of dying.
Note: Sometimes people will say that Renew is a good healing spell, because it causes the least amount of aggro. This is not true. It only appears that way, because its aggro is generated slowly over time while it slowly heals over time. The aggro generated per point of health healed is the same for all healing spells, however. So, after Renew's 15 seconds are up, it will have generated as much aggro on the target as a similar strength Flash Heal. It is true, however, that Renew is an effective way to gently heal one's tank during the crucial few moments while the tank is still building up aggro.
Shield: The yin to Renew's yang, Shield goes into full effect immediately but is by far the most mana inefficient healing spell. There are two primary purposes for Shield. The first is to preshield a character who you know is about to take a pounding. For example, one might preshield the tank right before he or shield charges toward a boss. (You can drink or use your spirit mana regeneration to retrieve the lost mana before the fight commences). Or, one can preshield a mage or warlock right before they start casting area-of-effect spells to kill off a swarm of small mobs.
The second purpose for Shield is to protect someone who is in immediate danger of dying. That is, you're not sure if the person could survive waiting the 1.5 seconds it would take to cast a Flash Heal. If you are forced to cast a Shield for this reason, it means that something in the group broke down that should get fixed. If you are finding yourself casting emergency Shields often while playing with different parties, then you should examine your own play and see if there are things you could be doing differently. Emergency Shields are for emergencies only and should not be considered a normal part of a priest's healing regimen.
Prayer of Healing: The priest's group heal, Prayer of Healing is the most mana efficient and fastest way to heal when three or more party members need healing. Basically, if you look at the health bars of your party and find that you want to provide Flash Heals to three or more people, and yet no one is in danger of dying immediately, then use Prayer of Healing. I use it most often when fighting a boss who has a powerful area-of-effect attack. Generally in such situations, I alternate casts of PoH on the group and Flash Heals on the tank. By the way, PoH also heals warlock and hunter pets, so PoH becomes even more effective when the party has warlocks and hunters in it.
First Aid Bandages: The use of bandages is often overlooked by priest players (including the author of this guide who forgot to include it in his first writeup). However, in a long boss fight where every ounce of mana needs to be conserved, bandages can play an important role. The limitations on bandages are that the bandager (the priest) must stand still and that the bandaging will stop if either the bandager or the target get damaged. After an person has been bandaged even a little, they cannot be bandaged again for a minute. These limitations give many people the mistaken impression that first aide is useless in a battle. That impression couldn't be more wrong.
For one thing, often someone will get hit but then manage to get away from whatever hurt them. A rogue might Vanish, a mage might Frost Nova, a warlock might fear a mob, or the tank might taunt a mob off a person. In these cases, the person was hurt but isn't being hurt now, so a priest can use a bandage to heal that person without using mana. In fact, the priest will gain mana during the bandaging process through spirit regeneration. I find it particularly useful to bandage myself in a battle, because I know when I am or am not going to be in danger for several seconds.
Second, bandaging can even be useful as an emergency measure to heal partymembers who are actively taking damage. It's true that a party's tank or a partymember who's taking periodic aoe damage isn't going to be able to go eight seconds without taking damage. However, bandaging heals over time, and even a partial brief bandage heal in an emergency can sometimes keep a target partymember alive long enough for the priest to regen enough mana to get another Flash Heal off.
Flash Heal vs Greater Heal: I've come across many priests who say that Greater Heal's four second cast time makes it worthless and also many other priests who say that Greater Heal's mana efficiency makes it the only healing spell a priest should ever use. The zealotry in the arguments surrounding the Flash Heal vs Greater Heal debate astonish me, considering the fact that the only real conclusion one can make after studying the topic are that both extremes are wrong.
Falacy of the "Flash Heal Only" argument: I use Flash Heal a lot, too, but come on, guys, the numbers don't lie. Greater Heal is naturally 13% more mana efficient than Flash Heal and a whopping 33% more mana efficient than Flash Heal if one spends the talent points in Improved Healing. One can develop a sense for knowing when one can safely cast a 4-second heal and take advantage of that extra mana efficiency. This doesn't mean that one should dump Flash Heal altogether. It simply means that if one wants to be the best priest possible that one should work Greater Heal into one's repertoire.
Falacy of the "Greater Heal Only" argument: It's the arguments of the "Greater Heal Only" crowd that astound me the most, however. The gist of their arguments tend to be that in a "good" group, all of the damage will strike the tank and that a "good" priest can always perfectly time his or her Greater Heals to provide maximum effectiveness. GHO crowd members tend to live in ivory towers where all plans work perfectly. They are like a baseball player who says that he "owns" a certain pitcher. When you point out that he has hit .250 off the pitcher, excuses come out about how the wind wasn't right on this or that day, how the umpire called balls and strikes wrong, or how some fielder got a lucky break. Look, I don't care what the excuses are. The end result is that it's not effective to have a tactic that only works in the cases when everything works according to plan.
Advantages of Greater Heal: Raw numberswise, Greater Heal is more mana efficient.
Advantages of Flash Heal: Flash Heal allows for greater flexibility. If one starts a heal on the party's tank and then the situation suddenly shifts -- a rogue or mage pulls aggro, an add comes in, a mob wakes up from sap or sheep early, whatever -- one has more options available. With Flash Heal, one can choose to cancel the heal, let the Flash Heal finish and then move on, or continue to focus on the tank and let the rest of the party handle the new situation. With Greater Heal, there are only two options: Cancel the heal or let the full four-second cast run its course. There is no option to "half heal" someone.
In addition, Greater Heal isn't as mana efficient in the real world as the "Greater Heal Only" crowd thinks. It is easy to over heal with Greater Heal, and any portion of the healing above a player's maximum health is wasted. This waste is particularly harsh when one gets a critical heal, which occur 10-15% of the time at high levels, depending on the priest's intelligence. The critical portions of Greater Heals are almost always wasted, while priests who cast Flash Heal can often take advantage of critical heals. This is why I often call Holy Specialization, the talent that increases the chance to get critical heals, the "Real Improved Flash Heal."
Conclusion: Through most of the beta, I was firmly entrenched in the 90%-to-10% Flash Heal-to-Greater Heal ratio crowd. That is, Flash Heal was my primary healing spell, and I only switched to Greater Heal in special cases like during a long boss fight where eking out every ounce of mana efficiency was required. A theoretical 13% boost to mana efficiency wasn't enough to convince me to give up the flexibility Flash Heal provided, especially when I knew that in the real world the increased mana efficiency was far less than 13%.
However, late changes to the priest Holy Talent tree have made me take a longer look at Greater Heal. Maxing Improved Healing now only requires a 20 talent point investment in the Holy tree, and doing so makes Greater Heal have a whopping 33% higher mana efficiency over Flash Heal. Even the staunchest members of the "Flash Heal Only" crowd have to admit that that is significant. Once my new priestess gets to a high enough level to get Improved Healing, I predict a shift in my own healing tactics to a more 50%-50% Flash Heal-to-Greater Heal ratio. That is, I predict using Greater Heal as my primary spell for healing tanks and Flash Heal as my primary spell for healing other members of my parties as needed.
ADVANCED TOPICS IN PRIEST PLAY: GROUP HEALING TACTICS
Most priest guides will describe what the priests spells and talents do. This is not one of those guides. Anyone can regurgitate the manual, but only a player who has played a level capped World of Warcraft priest for months can tell you which spells are the best to use in different situations. The assumption in this guide is that at any moment, there is a specific "best" action one should take. One could use the second or third best action available and survive just fine, but if one desires to be the best possible priest player, then one should always be looking to improve one's play and should always be willing to consider if an alternative tactic would have been better.
For today, we will consider only the healing tactics used by priests in PvE group play. Basically, we're focusing on 5-player and larger groups, where a priest's role is primarily, but not exclusively, one of healing.
HEALING SPELLS
There are five primary healing spells at a high level priest's disposal: Renew, Shield, Prayer of Healing, Flash Heal, and Greater Heal. In addition, there is the often overlooked First Aid option. Learning when to use which of the healing spells/skills should be of primary concern to all priests. The advantages and disadvantages of each kind of healing spell/skill become clear in the following table.
NOTE: The following table will make the assumption of a minimum 10 talent point investment in the Holy tree -- 5 points spent in Improved Renew and 5 points spent in Spiritual Healing. It's a rare high level priest who enters an instance dungeon who doesn't have points spent in those two talents.
Code:
             Level 60 Priest Healing Spells
 (Assuming a 5 point talent investment in each of Improved Renew and Spiritual Healing)
              CT  |  ME     | Heal/sec   | Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Renew            1.0 | 3.00     | 72.9     | ME= 3.33 with maxed Mental Agility
Shield           1.0 | 1.88     |        | ME= 2.08 with maxed Mental Agility
Prayer of Healing      3.0 | 1.03/player | 353.8/player | ME= 1.22/player with Improved PoH
Flash Heal         1.5 | 2.56     | 649      |
Greater Heal        4.0 | 2.90     | 697      | ME= 3.41 with Improved Healing
Heavy Runecloth Bandage   1.0 | Infinite   | 250/sec    |
CT= Cast Time in seconds. Â Renew and Shield are "instant cast," but they each have been assigned a cast time of 1 second, since it takes one second after each is cast before the priest can cast another spell.
ME= Mana Efficiency -- Health healed / Mana points spent
Heal/sec= How much health is healed per second if one were to spam cast the spell.Renew: Renew heals over the span of 15 seconds and is by far the most mana efficient and most convenient healing spell in a priest's healing arsenal. It's the most mana efficient not only because of the raw numbers you see in the table above but also because one is unlikely to over heal with Renew. It's convenient because of its short cast time. It's the first healing spell I cast on a person when they get hit, and it's also the spell I cast on people who have been hurt but are safe for the moment. For example, if a rogue in the party pulls aggro onto himself but flashes to get out of trouble, I'll cast renew on him and then go back to healing the party's tank.
The main disadvantage to Renew is the fact that it takes 15 seconds for all of its healing to take effect, making it wholly ineffective in saving someone who is in immediate danger of dying.
Note: Sometimes people will say that Renew is a good healing spell, because it causes the least amount of aggro. This is not true. It only appears that way, because its aggro is generated slowly over time while it slowly heals over time. The aggro generated per point of health healed is the same for all healing spells, however. So, after Renew's 15 seconds are up, it will have generated as much aggro on the target as a similar strength Flash Heal. It is true, however, that Renew is an effective way to gently heal one's tank during the crucial few moments while the tank is still building up aggro.
Shield: The yin to Renew's yang, Shield goes into full effect immediately but is by far the most mana inefficient healing spell. There are two primary purposes for Shield. The first is to preshield a character who you know is about to take a pounding. For example, one might preshield the tank right before he or shield charges toward a boss. (You can drink or use your spirit mana regeneration to retrieve the lost mana before the fight commences). Or, one can preshield a mage or warlock right before they start casting area-of-effect spells to kill off a swarm of small mobs.
The second purpose for Shield is to protect someone who is in immediate danger of dying. That is, you're not sure if the person could survive waiting the 1.5 seconds it would take to cast a Flash Heal. If you are forced to cast a Shield for this reason, it means that something in the group broke down that should get fixed. If you are finding yourself casting emergency Shields often while playing with different parties, then you should examine your own play and see if there are things you could be doing differently. Emergency Shields are for emergencies only and should not be considered a normal part of a priest's healing regimen.
Prayer of Healing: The priest's group heal, Prayer of Healing is the most mana efficient and fastest way to heal when three or more party members need healing. Basically, if you look at the health bars of your party and find that you want to provide Flash Heals to three or more people, and yet no one is in danger of dying immediately, then use Prayer of Healing. I use it most often when fighting a boss who has a powerful area-of-effect attack. Generally in such situations, I alternate casts of PoH on the group and Flash Heals on the tank. By the way, PoH also heals warlock and hunter pets, so PoH becomes even more effective when the party has warlocks and hunters in it.
First Aid Bandages: The use of bandages is often overlooked by priest players (including the author of this guide who forgot to include it in his first writeup). However, in a long boss fight where every ounce of mana needs to be conserved, bandages can play an important role. The limitations on bandages are that the bandager (the priest) must stand still and that the bandaging will stop if either the bandager or the target get damaged. After an person has been bandaged even a little, they cannot be bandaged again for a minute. These limitations give many people the mistaken impression that first aide is useless in a battle. That impression couldn't be more wrong.
For one thing, often someone will get hit but then manage to get away from whatever hurt them. A rogue might Vanish, a mage might Frost Nova, a warlock might fear a mob, or the tank might taunt a mob off a person. In these cases, the person was hurt but isn't being hurt now, so a priest can use a bandage to heal that person without using mana. In fact, the priest will gain mana during the bandaging process through spirit regeneration. I find it particularly useful to bandage myself in a battle, because I know when I am or am not going to be in danger for several seconds.
Second, bandaging can even be useful as an emergency measure to heal partymembers who are actively taking damage. It's true that a party's tank or a partymember who's taking periodic aoe damage isn't going to be able to go eight seconds without taking damage. However, bandaging heals over time, and even a partial brief bandage heal in an emergency can sometimes keep a target partymember alive long enough for the priest to regen enough mana to get another Flash Heal off.
Flash Heal vs Greater Heal: I've come across many priests who say that Greater Heal's four second cast time makes it worthless and also many other priests who say that Greater Heal's mana efficiency makes it the only healing spell a priest should ever use. The zealotry in the arguments surrounding the Flash Heal vs Greater Heal debate astonish me, considering the fact that the only real conclusion one can make after studying the topic are that both extremes are wrong.
Falacy of the "Flash Heal Only" argument: I use Flash Heal a lot, too, but come on, guys, the numbers don't lie. Greater Heal is naturally 13% more mana efficient than Flash Heal and a whopping 33% more mana efficient than Flash Heal if one spends the talent points in Improved Healing. One can develop a sense for knowing when one can safely cast a 4-second heal and take advantage of that extra mana efficiency. This doesn't mean that one should dump Flash Heal altogether. It simply means that if one wants to be the best priest possible that one should work Greater Heal into one's repertoire.
Falacy of the "Greater Heal Only" argument: It's the arguments of the "Greater Heal Only" crowd that astound me the most, however. The gist of their arguments tend to be that in a "good" group, all of the damage will strike the tank and that a "good" priest can always perfectly time his or her Greater Heals to provide maximum effectiveness. GHO crowd members tend to live in ivory towers where all plans work perfectly. They are like a baseball player who says that he "owns" a certain pitcher. When you point out that he has hit .250 off the pitcher, excuses come out about how the wind wasn't right on this or that day, how the umpire called balls and strikes wrong, or how some fielder got a lucky break. Look, I don't care what the excuses are. The end result is that it's not effective to have a tactic that only works in the cases when everything works according to plan.
Advantages of Greater Heal: Raw numberswise, Greater Heal is more mana efficient.
Advantages of Flash Heal: Flash Heal allows for greater flexibility. If one starts a heal on the party's tank and then the situation suddenly shifts -- a rogue or mage pulls aggro, an add comes in, a mob wakes up from sap or sheep early, whatever -- one has more options available. With Flash Heal, one can choose to cancel the heal, let the Flash Heal finish and then move on, or continue to focus on the tank and let the rest of the party handle the new situation. With Greater Heal, there are only two options: Cancel the heal or let the full four-second cast run its course. There is no option to "half heal" someone.
In addition, Greater Heal isn't as mana efficient in the real world as the "Greater Heal Only" crowd thinks. It is easy to over heal with Greater Heal, and any portion of the healing above a player's maximum health is wasted. This waste is particularly harsh when one gets a critical heal, which occur 10-15% of the time at high levels, depending on the priest's intelligence. The critical portions of Greater Heals are almost always wasted, while priests who cast Flash Heal can often take advantage of critical heals. This is why I often call Holy Specialization, the talent that increases the chance to get critical heals, the "Real Improved Flash Heal."
Conclusion: Through most of the beta, I was firmly entrenched in the 90%-to-10% Flash Heal-to-Greater Heal ratio crowd. That is, Flash Heal was my primary healing spell, and I only switched to Greater Heal in special cases like during a long boss fight where eking out every ounce of mana efficiency was required. A theoretical 13% boost to mana efficiency wasn't enough to convince me to give up the flexibility Flash Heal provided, especially when I knew that in the real world the increased mana efficiency was far less than 13%.
However, late changes to the priest Holy Talent tree have made me take a longer look at Greater Heal. Maxing Improved Healing now only requires a 20 talent point investment in the Holy tree, and doing so makes Greater Heal have a whopping 33% higher mana efficiency over Flash Heal. Even the staunchest members of the "Flash Heal Only" crowd have to admit that that is significant. Once my new priestess gets to a high enough level to get Improved Healing, I predict a shift in my own healing tactics to a more 50%-50% Flash Heal-to-Greater Heal ratio. That is, I predict using Greater Heal as my primary spell for healing tanks and Flash Heal as my primary spell for healing other members of my parties as needed.