Ranks and strategies

Hello. I want to share my view on the priest class.

Right now we are usually raiding with 4-6 priests which feels like a good number.

As horde doesn't have paladins priests are our number 1 tank healer mainly due to the face that we have inspiration (25% more armor to a tank after a crit heal).
You can debate shamans are better tank healers (they have inspiration aswell): Their "Healing wave" is not as efficient as our "Heal" unless they get 3 stacks of it on the tank. However they don't have renew (which actually is a good spell when you have alot of +healing) and their mana regen really sucks (until they have a really good mp5-set), also our panic button on the tank (shield) has a 15 sec cooldown where shamans NS has a 3 min CD. But the main reason I don't believe they should tank heal is becouse of the chain heal which is extremely good on the raid (especially on melees).

Usually we want atleast 1 priest on each tank. On some encounters we have two or more: Onyxia where I like to have 1 priest on each side (to cover distance) and Ragnaros (hard dps on the tank and we want 100% uptime on inspiration). Other then that I feel that druids are a good complement as a healing partner in crime on a MT (usually Reil and Fruitdrops are holding hands on MT).

Priests are also decent raid healers: Downranked renews (need a fair bit of + healing) on encounters where you know of incoming damage (renews arent meant to "heal up" a player as they tend to end up overhealing, but when you know your target wont be be topped any time soon they are great). Typically I use rank 6 (with 450 +healing it heals for about 1k) for heavy damage and rank 4-5 for lesser damage. You can also cast renew while on foot (make it a habit to spam renew whenever you need to move out of fire for instance). Its also a 1,5 cast which is alot more mana efficient then Flash Heal (same cast time) and does more healing per sec then chain casting Heal (as its 2,5 sec with talent) as long as it doesnt overheal to much.
Examples of when renews should be rolled: Melees during Golemagg, melees during Molten Giants, raid healing on Shazzrah (you wont get counterspelled), warlocks during pretty much everything (a smart warlock notices the renew and uses it wisely for smart and safe lifetapping).

Prayer of Healing is also good for topping your own group after heavy damage, mostly used with Inner Focus as its so expensive.

Flash heal is our best way to heal up a raid fast (most healing per sec) but as its very expensive use it with care. I typically use rank 5 on the lava packs to heal the Fire Blossoms and it doesnt make me go oom. A raid healing priest should always be ready to cast a panic flash heal on any tank in range getting low aswell (Dortmunder during Majordomo for example ).

What ranks should I use?!?!

Well, you need to have some experience from encounters first of all. You should use ranks so that: 1. Your assignement(s) stay alive and 2. You are oom when the boss dies and not before. You should juggle alot with different ranks everytime you gain some more +healing from gear. When I got Josilia I had like 140 +healing which is very little. When I then was tank healing I used Heal rank 4 and stopped my casts if the tank was above 90% hp as I would go out of mana to fast otherwise and I couldnt downrank more due to my small + healing. Now with 450 +healing I typically spam Heal rank 2 (heals for about 950) with very few stopcasts.
The last 0,1 sec before landing a heal its time to make up your mind about what rank to cast next. If the tank is at 90% or more I start with another rank 2, if the tanks is lower then that I go to rank 3 and if they tanks is down to like 70% I start a rank 4. This is not always the case depending on if I know some other healer will land a heal or not. If the tank is close to 50% I use a Greater heal rank 2. If the tank is below 50% or taking very much dmg or for some other reason need more healing I cast 1-2 Flash heals max rank.

Be aware of one thing: The higher ranks of heals you cast the less healing per mana they do meaning that it's inefficient mana use to always use high ranks. And the more +healing you get the more efficient the lower ranks gets. Feeling secure about your mana pool is a key to good healing as you then usually are comfortable with panic buttons that costs alot of mana. Flash heals, Shields etc (you know you "can afford" it).

If you know you are pretty alone on a tank it's not usually smart to stop casts since if you fail (tank takes dmg at the same second you cancel your heal and you start another rank 2) your tank might get quite low, and if that happens on a fight where alot of damage happens on the raid (like Majordomo) you will have atleast 2-3 raid healers switching to your tank instead of topping the raid. On Majordomo and Golemagg, for exampel when I solo heal a tank I don't cancel heals. Having tanks getting low is a good way to spread panic amongs the raidhealers making them feel they are loosing control.

Renews on tanks? I don rank 6 when I soloheal a tank taking moderate damage. I (or usually Fruitdrops) use max rank on MT on most encounters. Its a nice buffer to mitigate spikes and constantly topping the tank even if alot of the renew usually goes into overhealing. Works very good together with 1-2 hots from a druid aswell.

Mana pots? Use them on all bosses no matter what. If you are confident about your mana pool less people will die. People dieing usually makes them sad and it slows not only the encounter but the entire raid (ressing and rebuffing). Typically I use 15-20 mana pots during a MC clear. Runes are harder to come by, I dont use them on cooldown but they are always there if I need them (on Ragnaros I use them on cooldown thou).

Last: Don't go out of mana. Its your responsibility. If you do that you need to shout out aswell as start a conversation about it later. Why did you go out of mana? What could you have done differently? What could others have done differently? Going out of mana tells you either dont play your class correctly or you don't thrust fellow healers.
It's better and smarter to downrank a little more and keep the heals rolling then to just stop completely and regen.

Let's continue this discussion:

Read! I'm shocked about 15-20 pots per raid. I'll need to farm a lot more gold to match that.

Balm wrote:Read! I'm shocked about 15-20 pots per raid. I'll need to farm a lot more gold to match that.

Yeah I can explain that:

If I use mana pot on CD during bosses that make me being able to use higher ranks of my heal which makes me do more healing.
The tank is more secure and I need less help from other healers which makes able to focus more on the raid.
I could just ignore potions if I and and only spam Heal rank 1-2 but that will end up with more deaths.
Even if my tank don't die, raid healers will pick up on the fact that the tanks status is somewhat "unsecure" and will automaticlly help out.

It's all a domino effect, really.

Yup, I usually use about 6-10 major mana pots a raid.
they're quuuite important, but sometimes i die right after popping one. makes me sad =(

I try to use as little as possible to get through the fight, I don't have a lot of time to farm. So I only chain pop them if I know I'll need the mana later,
like Rag is on cd, majordomo 2, garr 2 golemagg 1-2 (depending on raid dps)

If you end a fight with at least 50% mana, then you can consider switching to using Superior Mana Potions first; pop it on the first given opportunity to refill back to 100%. Then only use the Major ones when you're dry and the CD is back up again.