Healing as a Holy Priest in WoW is awesome. There, I said it. While I personally believe healing in WoW to be easy and a lot of fun, I frequently meet players that are hesitant to take on the responsibility of playing a healer. This article includes a few scenarios, my preferred key bindings, some tips and tricks I’ve picked up, and a little advice for anyone considering healing as a Holy Priest.
This article is current as of Patch 4.3.
Know what to cast and when.
The first and most important thing to realize is that there is a spell for (almost) every situation and that sometimes there simply isn’t anything you can do to save everyone’s lives. Here are a few examples of the situations I typically run into and how I would respond:
DPS love to stand in stuff.
Yank them out of the fire (or other nasty stuff on the ground) with Leap of Faith because they probably don’t even realize what they’re doing. While this isn’t really your responsibility, it may help avoid a wipe. I like to call this process “yoinking” someone and even wrote a macro to /yell “Yoink!” whenever I do it. This spell is also good for killing AFK players and fooling the enemy team in Capture the Flag.
The tank is about to die.
Blizzard gave us this really cool “oh shit” spell called Guardian Spirit, and since Priests don’t get a battle rez, this is the next best thing. If you see that the tank – or even your best DPS if you already have a solid tank – is about to die, cast Guardian Spirit on them right before they die and they’ll be brought back to life with a substantial amount of health. Don’t rely too heavily on this spell, but know that you have it when shit starts to hit the fan.
You’re about to die.
Next to Guardian Spirit, Desperate Prayer is by far my favorite “oh shit” spell. This spell is instant-cast, has a very low mana cost, and lets you heal yourself for 30% of your maximum health. Again, when shit starts to hit the fan, try casting this spell rather than trying to cast one or two Greater Heal on yourself and then use the time you saved to heal someone else.
Someone is getting hit like a truck.
Chances are each hit is big enough that you can’t take a lot of time to cast a Greater Heal because they might die before you have a chance to finish casting. What I like to do in this situation is utilize Serendipity, which can be done one of three ways: 1) If I’m at about 60-70% health, cast Prayer of Mending twice, then Greater Heal on the other player. 2) If I’m at about 80% health, cast Prayer of Mending once, Flash Heal on the other player, then Greater Heal on the other player. 3) If I’m above about 80%, cast Flash Heal once or twice, but usually no more than twice, on the other player, then Greater Heal on that player. Rinse and repeat, but keep in mind that Flash Heal is a very mana-expensive spell and should only be used in emergencies unless you’re very comfortable with your mana pool.
You’re just standing there don’t nothing.
At a certain point in the game your party will be taking minimal damage and Regular Heal will become basically free to cast because your mana regeneration will be equal to, if not faster than, the mana cost of Regular Heal. This spell should be cast as often as possible if you have nothing else to do and the party isn’t already at full health. If your party is already at full health, go ahead and cast some damaging spells to help out with trash or an easymode boss.
Don’t get discouraged!
The healer is frequently the first person to get blamed for a wipe. The last thing people look at when they die is their health bars and the funny thing about health bars is that they’re usually empty when you die. Here is what I’ve typically seen in groups: 1) DPS stands in stuff without realizing it. 2) DPS tab-targets and unintentionally pulls an entire group of mobs. 3) The DPS, tank or healer is simply under-geared for the fight. While this doesn’t absolve the healer of any blame if the group wipes, it should help you realize that it’s not always your fault and that some wipes are simply unavoidable.
Talents & Glyphs
Here’s a link to my WoW Armory Talent Calculator page. It’s primarily Holy (obviously), with 6 points in Discipline and three points in Shadow for the 3% haste increase. I would suggest staying away from Blessed Resilience and Surge of Light, but that’s just my play style. Be sure to read each talent and pick the one that fits your own playing style best.
Spell Bar Setup & Rotation
Listed below is my current spell bar. It utilizes macros, so be sure to check out Making a Macro from WoWWiki for some useful tips.
1Chakra; Alt Key: Cure Disease
2Divine Hymn; Alt Key: Dispel Magic
3Power Word: Shield
4Guardian Spirit; Alt Key: Desperate Prayer (both “oh shit” spells)
5Regular Heal
6Greater Heal
7Flash Heal
8Renew (Heal-over-Time)
9Binding Heal
0Prayer of Mending (best when used with Chakra)
-Fade
=Mass Dispel
I click the raid frames with my mouse and keep my fingers on 5, 6, 7, and 8, starting with my pinky on the 5 key. You can change this layout to whatever is most comfortable for you, but this should give you an idea of how to get started.
As far as rotations go, there really isn’t one for healing. There are things you should do before each fight to get prepared, but after that I usually just wing it.
5-man, single tank fight.
Lightwell -> Chakra -> Prayer of Mending (on the tank) -> Renew (on the tank) -> Heal / Greater Heal -> Healing as required. Use Prayer of Mending whenever the stacks are consumed to help with heals.
10-man, single tank healing.
Exactly the same as above. You will probably be casting Greater Heal more often than Regular Heal during these fights.
10/25-man, raid healing.
Lightwell -> Chakra -> Prayer of Mending (on anyone you think will take damage first, probably melee or highest dps) -> Heal / Greater Heal -> Healing as required. For raid-wide damage, try to use Prayer of Healing or Divine Hymn whenever it makes sense. Be careful though as these spells are slightly mana-expensive.
Proactive vs. Reactive Healing
There are basically two types of healing: Proactive and Reactive. Reactive (boring) healing is seeing someone’s health going down and reacting to it by casting a spell. Proactive (my favorite) healing is knowing when someone’s health is about to go down and starting your cast before it happens. Knowing when and how to proactively heal can help counter low haste and slow reflexes.
Some advice…
Use Lightwell as often as you can if mana permits. Lightwell is your friend and is easily the most efficient heal you have. Consider making a macro that lets the party know that your Lightwell is out and that they should click it.
Use Prayer of Mending as often as you can if mana permits. This heal starts with five stacks, heals the person it’s on when they get hit, and then jumps to another person. If PoM lands on someone that never takes damage, go ahead and recast it on the tank. No sense wasting it! If you cast Chakra before PoM, you get access to a nice AoE heal called Holy Word: Sanctuary that you can place on the ground. This is helpful if there are a lot of melee grouped up around the boss.
Don’t ever use Power Word: Shield unless you’re specced into Body and Soul. Unless you’re a Discipline Priest, this spell doesn’t really do much for damage mitigation, but it does give a nice speed boost to help get away from things that would kill a player if it reaches them.
Use Leap of Faith (aka “Life Grip”, “Yoink!”) whenever it makes sense. Don’t overuse it because players will quickly become annoyed. Only use it when you feel it’s in the best interest of the raid. I’ve accidentally killed a few people by Life Gripping them at the wrong time. One day you may be skilled enough to snatch people out of the air. /flex
Adjust your raid frames to display only dispellable debuffs. (Talk about a tongue twister!) This will hide all the crap that you don’t really need to pay attention to. Curable diseases are represented by an orange skull, and dispellable magic is represented by a blue circle. This can be done by going to Interface > Raid Profiles > Display Only Dispellable Debuffs.
In conclusion!
Healing isn’t very hard at all and can actually be a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. My suggestion to anyone wanting to get started is to queue up for some low-level dungeons and just dive in. If you find yourself /dancing during fights then move on to higher-level dungeons, but most importantly… Have fun!
Tags: Awesome, Raid, WoW, WoWWiki
