Advanced Topics in Priest Play

[MongoJerry]

Couple of addendums to throw in here and there.
Ah, but you forget something here.  When dealing with Renew, the reason people say it is the least agro causing is while it is in effect, other members of your party are generating agro as well.  So while you will generate the agro eventually from Renew, by the time you fully generate it your party members will have counter balanced some of that agro, this is part of the reason why people say it is the least agro causing spell.

Thanks for the comments, Lissa. It's interesting that you made this comment, though, since the writer in me says, "Um, didn't I just say that?" But then the editor in me says, "Well, obviously, you didn't." I'll see if there's a way I can make that more clear.

The problem with shield to save someone is if they went from full health to practically no health in less than 2.5 seconds, a shield is not going to save them as it will take you 2.5 seconds to cast a Flash if you cast a Shield first (.5 second cooldown on any spell + .5 second animation that instant spells have).  Some people are going to die when they gain agro and there is nothing that you can do as a Priest, no matter how good you are it's just a fact of the game.  If someone is about to die, you don't think they can last 1.5 seconds, but you do think they could last 2.5 seconds, then Shield works followed by a Flash.

Damage doesn't get dealt in a vacuum. There can be the situation where multiple people are getting hurt and by the time you work your way down to a given person, they're almost dead. Again, this is likely due to some kind of tactical breakdown, but it doesn't necessarily mean that a given person has gone from full health to practically no health in 2.5 seconds. It could have taken 5-8 seconds, but you had to also cast flash heals on other members of the party, too.

One thing to remember about PoH though is that, like you pointed out above, it is very situational.  It also is the one spell that garners the most agro of all the Priest's healing spells (since over heal is still just as much agro as if you underheal, ie, the full 2.5k+ health you heal is still going to come down on you).

It's strange. PoH seems to generate more expressions of jitters about aggro than any other healing spell and yet the only times that I have problems with PoH pulling aggro is when I pull mobs who have not been previously locked down by the tank. That is, I only pull those mobs who would have been pulled if I had used any other healing spell instead . My experience is that aggro only seems to be generated in WoW by the amount you heal the person who is currently being attacked by the mob -- and not, as some people think, by the amount healed on all of the players on a mob's hate list. I think some people are thinking of other games and assuming WoW works the same way, because my experience of WoW tells me a very different story from what some other people say.

This issue seems ripe for a formal Lurker Lounge investigation.

To be honest, the half second savings that Master Healer gives isn't as good as it seems.  If Master Healer dropped the cast time of all Healing spells or gave a higher percentage drop to casting times, it would be a great talent.  As it stands right now, Master Healer is really so-so and you can easily do without it.

I didn't mention Master Healer, since it didn't seem worth mentioning to me, either. I did discuss Improved Healing, however, which is in contrast very significant.