Post by Admin / HolyHealsxx on Jan 16, 2015 17:28:20 GMT
Raid Healing in Large Groups
______________________________________________________________________
While Chakra: Sanctuary is active, each heal you cast reduces the cooldown of Circle of Healing by 1 second. Additionally, Chakra: Sanctuary grants you the Holy Word: Sanctuary ability. Typically, you should use this Chakra when raid healing in large groups.
Depending on what types of damage you are trying to heal, you should use the following guidelines. Note that within a category of damage, the spells are not necessarily listed in order of importance.
______________________________________________________________________
Low damage or no damage
Cast, Circle of Healing on cooldown, as long as it will heal at least 3 players.
Cast Heal on players who need topping off.
Place Renew on players who have sustained some damage or may sustain damage in the near future.
Cast Prayer of Healing, assuming that it heals at least 3 players in the group you are casting it on (with minimal or no overhealing).
______________________________________________________________________
Low to moderate damage
Circle of Healing on cooldown, as long as it will heal at least 3 players.
Keep up Prayer of Mending, if the damage is at all sustained.
Keep Renew up on several targets, pre-casting it shortly before they take damage, if possible.
Cast Prayer of Healing, assuming that it heals at least 3 players in the group you are casting it on (with minimal or no overhealing).
Place Holy Word: Sanctuary on the ground, in an area where there are a lot of raid members. Ideally, cast this a few seconds before the damage begins.
_______________________________________________________________________
Moderate to high damage
Holy Word: Sanctuary on the ground, in an area where there are a lot of raid members. Ideally cast this a few seconds before the damage begins.
Pre-HoT some players with Renew.
Cast Circle of Healing on cooldown.
Keep up Prayer of Mending.
Cast Prayer of Healing (if the previous actions are not enough to cover the damage).
________________________________________________________________________
High sustained damage
Holy Word: Sanctuary on the ground before the damage begins.
Pre-HoT players with Renew before the damage begins.
Cast Circle of Healing on cooldown.
Keep up Prayer of Mending.
Spam Prayer of Healing.
________________________________________________________________________
Emergency situations
Cast Flash Heal on a player that is really low on health and in imminent danger of dying.
Cast Binding Heal(with Glyph of Binding Heal) on a player that is really low on health and in imminent danger of dying, if you yourself are also in need of healing.
If you have stacks of Serendipity (from having cast Flash Heal or Binding Heal), then you can use the hastened Heal or Prayer of Healing for emergencies as well.
________________________________________________________________________
Healing in Small Raids
When healing in a small raid environment, you have to be able to switch seamlessly between healing the raid and healing single targets. You should use Chakra: Serenity, because it offers more versatility.
Depending on the types of damage you are facing, you should use the following guidelines. Note that within a category of damage, the spells are not necessarily listed in order of importance. Note also that when we refer to the tank, we always also mean "or the other single target you are healing".
______________________________________________________________________
Low damage or no damage
Keep Renew up on the tank, and refresh it through Holy Word: Serenity.
Cast Heal if additional healing is needed.
________________________________________________________________________
Low to moderate damage
Keep Renew up on the tank, and refresh it through Holy Word: Serenity.
Cast Prayer of Mending on the tank.
Cast Heal if additional healing is needed.
______________________________________________________________________
Moderate to high damage
Keep Renew up on the tank, and refresh it through Holy Word: Serenity (which you should now cast on cooldown).
Cast Prayer of Mending on the tank on cooldown.
Cast Heal if additional healing is needed.
______________________________________________________________________
High sustained damage
Keep Renew up on the tank, and refresh it through Holy Word: Serenity (which you should now cast on cooldown).
Cast Prayer of Mending on the tank on cooldown.
Cast Heal.
______________________________________________________________________
Emergency situations
Cast Flash Heal on the tank if they are in danger of dying.
Cast Binding Heal (with Glyph of Glyph of Binding Heal) on the tank if they are in danger of dying and you can also benefit from the healing.
Cast Guardian Spirit on the tank if they are in imminent danger of dying. Note that you should not do this if you are assigned to use Guardian Spirit at another, specific time of the fight.
You should use Holy Word: Serenity on cooldown, and you should make sure that Prayer of Mending is always active.
_______________________________________________________________________
Cooldown Usage
As a Holy Priest, you have several cooldowns. Here is how you should use them:
Divine Hymn should be used during periods of very intense raid damage. Keep in mind, however, that your raid leader may instruct you to use it a very specific time.
Lightwell should be active whenever a period of high and sustained occurs. Excluding such situations, you should try to cast it as often as possible.
Guardian Spirit should be used depending on many factors, including on your raid leader's instructions. If you do not have to save Guardian Spirit for a specific event, then just use it as a "life-saver" on the tank or another raid member who needs it.
________________________________________________________________________
Mastering Your Holy Priest
Playing a Holy Priest, and, indeed, any healer, cannot be easily boiled down into a "rotation" or "priority". There exists a multitude of factors that will affect how you use your spells. You can use the guidelines we listed above to great success, but in order to truly feel comfortable, there are other aspects you need to fully understand.
In order to allow you to make the best possible choices with some of the spells you use, you need to better understand their advantages and drawbacks.
______________________________________________________________________
Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing
Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing are your only reliable means of AoE healing, and they are both fantastic for that purpose. There are a few things to keep in mind regarding their continued usage:
They heal players who are within 30 yards or less of the player you have targeted (and, in the case of Prayer of Healing, only in the same party as that player). This means you need to make sure that you do not cast them on players who are separated from the rest of the raid.
They should only be used when 3 or more players will benefit from their healing in order to be a Mana efficient means of healing.
During periods of low damage, you will generally not need to resort to them, although you can (keep in mind their rather high Mana cost). During periods of higher damage, these spells are absolutely essential and you will often find yourself spamming them. Indeed, just to reiterate, during heavy, sustained raid-damage, spamming these two spells is what you should be doing.
______________________________________________________________________
Holy Word: Sanctuary
Holy Word: Sanctuary places a healing zone on the ground, which heals the 6 most injured players inside it for 30 seconds.
This spell is lackluster, not doing sufficient healing to justify any relevant usage throughout most encounters. It might be of some benefit if you can safely pre-place it before any damage begins on a group of players, so that you can cast other heals while it is active, but this will hardly be useful in practice.
______________________________________________________________________
Renew
Even though Renew is an overall good spell for Holy Priests, you will not often find many uses for it in encounters where there is a lot of heavy raid damage. In these cases, you will only use Renew when the opportunity exists to apply it to several players before the actual damage begins, as this will essentially be "free healing" for you during the damage, while you cast other spells.
Renew is mostly useful in the following situations:
for using while moving (note that in addition to the HoT, it also heals for a small amount when it is applied);
for using on mildly damaged raid members whom you wish to heal up without great urgency;
for keeping active on one or both tanks (since refreshing it on one or two targets should not be too difficult) while you are raid healing and assisting on tanks, thus adding to the healing they receive and helping the other healers.
If you are tank or single-target healing, then keeping Renew up is both easy and important.
____________________________________________________________________
Power Word: Shield
Power Word: Shield is a problematic spell to use as a Holy Priest. In general, your specialisation is not at all tailored to the use of this spell, so it is certainly not part of your main arsenal.
Discipline Priests will always have better and more potent shields than you. Because casting Power Word: Shield on a player applies the Weakened Soul debuff on them, preventing another shield from being applied for a short while, you should not use this spell if you have a Discipline Priest in your raid, since it will interfere negatively with their own healing.
That said, if the Discipline Priest will not or can not cast Power Word: Shield on a player (or if there is no Discipline Priest in your raid), there are a few situations where you can use it:
if the target (generally a tank) requires "extra health" to survive an incoming large attack (since the shield essentially increases their maximum health for a short time);
if someone is in imminent danger of dying and only an instant cast spell can save them;
if you are moving and someone is in danger of dying.
________________________________________________________________
Heal
Heal is your go-to single target heal.
________________________________________________________________
Holy Word: Serenity
Holy Word: Serenity is primarily used for single-target (tank) healing. It is a cheap, powerful, and fast heal. Additionally, the fact that the target has a 25% increased chance to be critically healed by you for 6 seconds makes this spell ideal for burst healing.
For example, the following combination performs a huge amount of burst healing.
1.Holy Word: Serenity.
2.Flash Heal.
3.Flash Heal.
4.Heal.
________________________________________________________________
Chakra Switching
Normally, if you are assigned a role in your raid's set-up, you will not be required to change between your two Chakras. There are two exceptions to this. Firstly, if you are healing in an LFR group, or in a pug group where healing assignments are not fixed (or where you feel that some of the other healers are not doing their jobs), you can switch between the two Chakras as needed to fill a different role.
Secondly, during periods of heavy movement you will sometimes find it beneficial to switch to Chakra: Sanctuary.
Mana Regeneration
Aside from tier 3 talents, Holy Priests do not have any means of regenerating Mana, but due to the balance of the specialisation, this is not needed.
_________________________________________________________________
Divine Hymn
Divine Hymn will heal all raid members within 40 yards over 8 seconds, and also increase the healing they receive during that time by 10%.
Keep in mind that the spell is channeled, so you cannot perform other actions while casting it.
Generally, your raid leader will assign you to use this spell at a certain time in the fight, in order to counter a heavy burst of damage. If this is the case, make sure your spell is available at that time.
Otherwise, you should simply try to find a moment when using this spell is beneficial. Most often, this will happen during a period of very intense raid damage.
__________________________________________________________________
Lightwell
You should think of the Lightwell as "free healing" during periods of heavy raid damage (in much the same way as when you have pre-cast Renew or Holy Word: Sanctuary). You should try to have the Lightwell up shortly before the raid damage begins, so that you can use your global cooldowns on other spells during that time.
__________________________________________________________________
Guardian Spirit
Guardian Spirit is one of the most useful tools you can bring to a raid. Using it places a buff on the target, which lasts for 10 seconds and increases all healing received by the target by 60%. If the target receives a killing blow during this time, they will not die and instead be healed for 40% of their maximum health, consuming the Guardian Spirit effect.
While you can use this on any raid member who is about to die and whom you have no other means of saving, it is by far better used on a tank who is about to take a large amount of damage. You should make sure to communicate with the tank and other healers, in order to ensure that you do not use multiple powerful cooldowns at the same time.
You can also use this spell to allow tanks (or other players) to survive an ability that should have otherwise been avoided, either as part of your raid's strategy or to recover from a mistake.
Keep in mind that your raid leader may assign you to use this spell for a specific event in the encounter.
__________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
While Chakra: Sanctuary is active, each heal you cast reduces the cooldown of Circle of Healing by 1 second. Additionally, Chakra: Sanctuary grants you the Holy Word: Sanctuary ability. Typically, you should use this Chakra when raid healing in large groups.
Depending on what types of damage you are trying to heal, you should use the following guidelines. Note that within a category of damage, the spells are not necessarily listed in order of importance.
______________________________________________________________________
Low damage or no damage
Cast, Circle of Healing on cooldown, as long as it will heal at least 3 players.
Cast Heal on players who need topping off.
Place Renew on players who have sustained some damage or may sustain damage in the near future.
Cast Prayer of Healing, assuming that it heals at least 3 players in the group you are casting it on (with minimal or no overhealing).
______________________________________________________________________
Low to moderate damage
Circle of Healing on cooldown, as long as it will heal at least 3 players.
Keep up Prayer of Mending, if the damage is at all sustained.
Keep Renew up on several targets, pre-casting it shortly before they take damage, if possible.
Cast Prayer of Healing, assuming that it heals at least 3 players in the group you are casting it on (with minimal or no overhealing).
Place Holy Word: Sanctuary on the ground, in an area where there are a lot of raid members. Ideally, cast this a few seconds before the damage begins.
_______________________________________________________________________
Moderate to high damage
Holy Word: Sanctuary on the ground, in an area where there are a lot of raid members. Ideally cast this a few seconds before the damage begins.
Pre-HoT some players with Renew.
Cast Circle of Healing on cooldown.
Keep up Prayer of Mending.
Cast Prayer of Healing (if the previous actions are not enough to cover the damage).
________________________________________________________________________
High sustained damage
Holy Word: Sanctuary on the ground before the damage begins.
Pre-HoT players with Renew before the damage begins.
Cast Circle of Healing on cooldown.
Keep up Prayer of Mending.
Spam Prayer of Healing.
________________________________________________________________________
Emergency situations
Cast Flash Heal on a player that is really low on health and in imminent danger of dying.
Cast Binding Heal(with Glyph of Binding Heal) on a player that is really low on health and in imminent danger of dying, if you yourself are also in need of healing.
If you have stacks of Serendipity (from having cast Flash Heal or Binding Heal), then you can use the hastened Heal or Prayer of Healing for emergencies as well.
________________________________________________________________________
Healing in Small Raids
When healing in a small raid environment, you have to be able to switch seamlessly between healing the raid and healing single targets. You should use Chakra: Serenity, because it offers more versatility.
Depending on the types of damage you are facing, you should use the following guidelines. Note that within a category of damage, the spells are not necessarily listed in order of importance. Note also that when we refer to the tank, we always also mean "or the other single target you are healing".
______________________________________________________________________
Low damage or no damage
Keep Renew up on the tank, and refresh it through Holy Word: Serenity.
Cast Heal if additional healing is needed.
________________________________________________________________________
Low to moderate damage
Keep Renew up on the tank, and refresh it through Holy Word: Serenity.
Cast Prayer of Mending on the tank.
Cast Heal if additional healing is needed.
______________________________________________________________________
Moderate to high damage
Keep Renew up on the tank, and refresh it through Holy Word: Serenity (which you should now cast on cooldown).
Cast Prayer of Mending on the tank on cooldown.
Cast Heal if additional healing is needed.
______________________________________________________________________
High sustained damage
Keep Renew up on the tank, and refresh it through Holy Word: Serenity (which you should now cast on cooldown).
Cast Prayer of Mending on the tank on cooldown.
Cast Heal.
______________________________________________________________________
Emergency situations
Cast Flash Heal on the tank if they are in danger of dying.
Cast Binding Heal (with Glyph of Glyph of Binding Heal) on the tank if they are in danger of dying and you can also benefit from the healing.
Cast Guardian Spirit on the tank if they are in imminent danger of dying. Note that you should not do this if you are assigned to use Guardian Spirit at another, specific time of the fight.
You should use Holy Word: Serenity on cooldown, and you should make sure that Prayer of Mending is always active.
_______________________________________________________________________
Cooldown Usage
As a Holy Priest, you have several cooldowns. Here is how you should use them:
Divine Hymn should be used during periods of very intense raid damage. Keep in mind, however, that your raid leader may instruct you to use it a very specific time.
Lightwell should be active whenever a period of high and sustained occurs. Excluding such situations, you should try to cast it as often as possible.
Guardian Spirit should be used depending on many factors, including on your raid leader's instructions. If you do not have to save Guardian Spirit for a specific event, then just use it as a "life-saver" on the tank or another raid member who needs it.
________________________________________________________________________
Mastering Your Holy Priest
Playing a Holy Priest, and, indeed, any healer, cannot be easily boiled down into a "rotation" or "priority". There exists a multitude of factors that will affect how you use your spells. You can use the guidelines we listed above to great success, but in order to truly feel comfortable, there are other aspects you need to fully understand.
In order to allow you to make the best possible choices with some of the spells you use, you need to better understand their advantages and drawbacks.
______________________________________________________________________
Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing
Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing are your only reliable means of AoE healing, and they are both fantastic for that purpose. There are a few things to keep in mind regarding their continued usage:
They heal players who are within 30 yards or less of the player you have targeted (and, in the case of Prayer of Healing, only in the same party as that player). This means you need to make sure that you do not cast them on players who are separated from the rest of the raid.
They should only be used when 3 or more players will benefit from their healing in order to be a Mana efficient means of healing.
During periods of low damage, you will generally not need to resort to them, although you can (keep in mind their rather high Mana cost). During periods of higher damage, these spells are absolutely essential and you will often find yourself spamming them. Indeed, just to reiterate, during heavy, sustained raid-damage, spamming these two spells is what you should be doing.
______________________________________________________________________
Holy Word: Sanctuary
Holy Word: Sanctuary places a healing zone on the ground, which heals the 6 most injured players inside it for 30 seconds.
This spell is lackluster, not doing sufficient healing to justify any relevant usage throughout most encounters. It might be of some benefit if you can safely pre-place it before any damage begins on a group of players, so that you can cast other heals while it is active, but this will hardly be useful in practice.
______________________________________________________________________
Renew
Even though Renew is an overall good spell for Holy Priests, you will not often find many uses for it in encounters where there is a lot of heavy raid damage. In these cases, you will only use Renew when the opportunity exists to apply it to several players before the actual damage begins, as this will essentially be "free healing" for you during the damage, while you cast other spells.
Renew is mostly useful in the following situations:
for using while moving (note that in addition to the HoT, it also heals for a small amount when it is applied);
for using on mildly damaged raid members whom you wish to heal up without great urgency;
for keeping active on one or both tanks (since refreshing it on one or two targets should not be too difficult) while you are raid healing and assisting on tanks, thus adding to the healing they receive and helping the other healers.
If you are tank or single-target healing, then keeping Renew up is both easy and important.
____________________________________________________________________
Power Word: Shield
Power Word: Shield is a problematic spell to use as a Holy Priest. In general, your specialisation is not at all tailored to the use of this spell, so it is certainly not part of your main arsenal.
Discipline Priests will always have better and more potent shields than you. Because casting Power Word: Shield on a player applies the Weakened Soul debuff on them, preventing another shield from being applied for a short while, you should not use this spell if you have a Discipline Priest in your raid, since it will interfere negatively with their own healing.
That said, if the Discipline Priest will not or can not cast Power Word: Shield on a player (or if there is no Discipline Priest in your raid), there are a few situations where you can use it:
if the target (generally a tank) requires "extra health" to survive an incoming large attack (since the shield essentially increases their maximum health for a short time);
if someone is in imminent danger of dying and only an instant cast spell can save them;
if you are moving and someone is in danger of dying.
________________________________________________________________
Heal
Heal is your go-to single target heal.
________________________________________________________________
Holy Word: Serenity
Holy Word: Serenity is primarily used for single-target (tank) healing. It is a cheap, powerful, and fast heal. Additionally, the fact that the target has a 25% increased chance to be critically healed by you for 6 seconds makes this spell ideal for burst healing.
For example, the following combination performs a huge amount of burst healing.
1.Holy Word: Serenity.
2.Flash Heal.
3.Flash Heal.
4.Heal.
________________________________________________________________
Chakra Switching
Normally, if you are assigned a role in your raid's set-up, you will not be required to change between your two Chakras. There are two exceptions to this. Firstly, if you are healing in an LFR group, or in a pug group where healing assignments are not fixed (or where you feel that some of the other healers are not doing their jobs), you can switch between the two Chakras as needed to fill a different role.
Secondly, during periods of heavy movement you will sometimes find it beneficial to switch to Chakra: Sanctuary.
Mana Regeneration
Aside from tier 3 talents, Holy Priests do not have any means of regenerating Mana, but due to the balance of the specialisation, this is not needed.
_________________________________________________________________
Divine Hymn
Divine Hymn will heal all raid members within 40 yards over 8 seconds, and also increase the healing they receive during that time by 10%.
Keep in mind that the spell is channeled, so you cannot perform other actions while casting it.
Generally, your raid leader will assign you to use this spell at a certain time in the fight, in order to counter a heavy burst of damage. If this is the case, make sure your spell is available at that time.
Otherwise, you should simply try to find a moment when using this spell is beneficial. Most often, this will happen during a period of very intense raid damage.
__________________________________________________________________
Lightwell
You should think of the Lightwell as "free healing" during periods of heavy raid damage (in much the same way as when you have pre-cast Renew or Holy Word: Sanctuary). You should try to have the Lightwell up shortly before the raid damage begins, so that you can use your global cooldowns on other spells during that time.
__________________________________________________________________
Guardian Spirit
Guardian Spirit is one of the most useful tools you can bring to a raid. Using it places a buff on the target, which lasts for 10 seconds and increases all healing received by the target by 60%. If the target receives a killing blow during this time, they will not die and instead be healed for 40% of their maximum health, consuming the Guardian Spirit effect.
While you can use this on any raid member who is about to die and whom you have no other means of saving, it is by far better used on a tank who is about to take a large amount of damage. You should make sure to communicate with the tank and other healers, in order to ensure that you do not use multiple powerful cooldowns at the same time.
You can also use this spell to allow tanks (or other players) to survive an ability that should have otherwise been avoided, either as part of your raid's strategy or to recover from a mistake.
Keep in mind that your raid leader may assign you to use this spell for a specific event in the encounter.
__________________________________________________________________