So I’ve been healing for the first time ever in this expansion, gearing a Holy Priest using Heroic dungeons.
The embarrassing thing to admit is, I’m struggling to keep up with the damage output in some dungeons, like Cinderbrew meadery.
Other dungeons, like Stonevault, seem to be fine.
I’ve looked up healing guides and have my raid frames and mouseover casting set up.
But my actual healing spells feel very weak compared to the damage being output. I’m playing Holy Priest and when I have CDs like Halo or Apotheosis, big pulls are easy enough to manage, but outside of those moments I feel like I am desperately trying to keep every health bar up and the percentage many of my spells heal feels insufficient compared to the damage output.
I’m seeing the current Heroics described as facerolls by most players but I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. I feel like I understand how the Holy kit works - Flash Heal buffs Heal so to heal someone I typically cast Flash Heal > Heal for the buffed heal and cast time. I use the 2 healing Holy Words when they are available for a quick instant heal where needed. Sanctify is an AOE but feels pretty weak if I’m being honest, even if I can hit every melee with it.
Currently ilvl 554 so is it just a case of this feeling better when my ilvl goes up?
I wouldn’t stress too much on this at the moment. It’s likely you’re not doing anything wrong. Possibly it’s just a case of getting gear a little higher to make those heals count more, but I’m betting it’s more likely you’re running groups with edited by moderator tanks that think they can just pull the entire dungeon like they were doing in levelling normal dungeons.
It’s a pretty tough dungeon to heal. I really have to work hard, especially when tanks pull everything, and I’m only at 550. Healing was nerfed in TWW, so it’s even harder now. For some reason, most people think healers were saying there wasn’t enough healing in DF and that it was “boring” to play (probably only a couple of people said that). In reality, it was actually fun to play, with good damage output too. Healing felt like it mattered, but now it just feels like you’re spamming heals that don’t do much.
Tanks play awfully too, they don’t know how to use defensives. Just let them die and don’t be hard on yourself, they should learn to play
But how much you heal will always depend on how well the tank and the group play. Meadery, for example, can be hard to heal if tanks pull the whole hallways (with all the bees) and dps players don’t stun or use stops. I haven’t checked, but my impression was that those bees apply healing debuffs. Priory is another dungeon where the incoming damage depends on how well the tank plays and how many melees you have in the group. Some mobs in Priory also apply a healing debuff.
Hitting a million HPS for a short stretch is not unusual in those scenarios (resto shaman, 580), but usually much less healing is needed. I mostly see an average of 350k hps or so in heroics.
If you’re new to healing, it can be really helpful to befriend a tank (or check if one of your friends play one) and queue with them. Or run a bunch more normals to build confidence to get a good feeling for how and when to use your CDs (and cycle through them).
I appreciate your thoughts. It just feels like team mates and dropping super quick and if I don’t have Halo ready it’s going to be a scramble to try and keep them alive.
My flash heal is hitting for about 280k, heal for about 420k when buffed with Lightweaver and Serenity for about 560k. The impact on health bars versus the outgoing damage feels pretty insubstantial.