Heya.
While I donāt have a huge wealth of experience just yet, Iāve found certain spells are quite nice, and others not so much. Among the spells I tend not to cast unless in niche situations are:
Renew
Prayer of Healing
PW:S
Renew is incredibly weak, and I only really cast that and PW:S while unconcerned with mana, and on the move.
I use the Flash Concentration legendary for PvE, which makes Heal into a more powerful Flash Heal. Itās so quick that I mostly manage to sustain decent AoE healing through Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing and Power Word: Sanctify, and cycling Heal casts in between.
Iād say Prayer of Mending is definitely worth casting. It bounces 5 times, which gives it pretty okay value for its mana cost imo, and I just really like watching it go. If youāre running the Benediction talents, it will also leave occasional renews in its wake, which is nice since itās free.
I only cast Prayer of Healing if Iām either incredibly desperate for some really, REALLY fast and inefficient AoE healing. I initially specced Prayer Circle, but found that it was just so mana inefficient that I donāt bother anymore.
Instead I go Surge of Light for instant Flash Heal procs to keep the Flash Concentration buff up, and AoE healing is mostly handled by my instant cast AoEs and by individually healing people up with Heal.
Iāve yet to progress through very high keys though, so do take my advice with a grain of salt, this is what I found works for me, and it may not suit everyone. :>
PW:shield is to help save ppl on low hp, you dump instant CDās on them. Renew is for the 10% to healing on a single target. This requires the correct talent but some tanks need it. Prayer of Healing is for healing the group, 4 targets. Its used to reduce the CD on the powerful holy word Circle of Healing. You should be casting to reset the holy word spells as fast as you can. Then use the holy word spells for maximum hps. Ignoring Prayer of Healing means you are not doing this and thus need to L2P. Also Dainty mastery is very low and should be in the 30ās at that ilvl. Spamming flash heal is low skill.
Basically you should be using ALL your spells to protect everyone. You can basically drink between mob packs so mana efficiency is completely a none requirement. In lower keys you can heal boss fights with near to no mana.
Basically when I go full output I hit 10k hps, can hit 6k or below normally if needed. This is at ilvl 200.
You should only be casting healing spells when needed not to just force faster CD on holy words. Writing this kind of thing is going to be misunderstood by some players and they will overheal a lot and waste opportunity to dps.
Also POH is not 4 targets, read the tooltip.
You should also consider trail of light over the renew talent. You can easily get the 30% cleave on the tank or be directly healing the tank. Spamming flash heal is sometimes needed, how is it low skill??
Iāll explain my reasoning and experiences, maybe itāll shed some light on why I do things the way I do:
Firstly, not spamming Flash Heal. I cast 5 flash heals back to back at the very beginning of the dungeon, then cast a flash heal near the end of the buff duration of my Flash Concentration Legendary. 5 stacks gives Heal a cast time of 1.5 seconds, and 15% increased healing. This results in an incredibly big, fast, efficient heal that also reduces the cooldown of HW: Serenity.
Coupled with Trail of Light, it becomes a very strong cleave heal that can be spammed for a very long time without running out of mana.
So for AoE healing I have:
Trail of Light heal from buffed Heal spam.
Mending bouncing back and forth (and also leaving renews because I chose to be lazy on that one talent row).
Circle of Healing on cooldown.
2X PW: Sanctify (if popping Apotheosis).
Divine Hymn in case of sustained, heavy damage.
The fact that Heal is such a big, fast heal with FC leggo that it can basically do Prayer of Healingās job in most situations Iāve faced.
If the above kit canāt save my party from dying, then something other than healing has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Long story short: While Prayer of Healing still has its place in my playstyle, itās very rarely used.
Iāve tried a āmaximum AoE heal outputā way of playing, where Iād spec Prayer Circle and pump out big prayers and play it very āvanillaā, but after trying both, I found FC healspam to be more fun and engaging, being roughly as good at keeping people alive, and having the added benefit of letting me retain much more of my mana so that I donāt have to drink more than once or twice in a dungeon.
Have you tried the Flash Concentration legendary? Because without it, the build obviously doesnāt work. I can clearly see why youād object to this playstyle if you thought I was literally spamming Flash Heals in AoE situations.
I should however, make it clear that I havenāt healed any very high keys yet. What works fine for +3 or +6 might not work out in +10 and above, though I have no way of knowing yet, and certain affixes might be working against this getup.
So far though: Smooth sailing.
Please donāt tell me to āL2Pā if Iāve found a build that works just fine, doesnāt make me struggle, and lets me play in a way I find interesting without any detriment to myself and my party.
Flash heal spam is L2P. As holy priest its the mastery echo you want to do the healing. PoH and the echo. Ignoring casting PoH means you increase the CD of the CoH which is a very powerful holy word heal. This reduces hps and mana efficency. With holy priest to be mana efficent, you need to maximise the use of echo and holy word spells.
Healing my way will send you to the top of the healing meters and solve mana issues in raid.
You use all the spells as needed. PW:S is an instand that you can use when you dump instants on someone that is about to die. If all the group has DoTs you can put a shield on the guy with lower hp so you dont have to single target thus boosting hps by maintaining AoE healing. Every spell has its uses at the right moment.
Also your gear is not good for PvE. My full PvP gear has 6% more mastery and 2% more vers. This is at the same ilvl and I got my gear at the PvP vendor.
Iād reply to the rest of your post here.
But instead I just have to ask:
Did you read what I wrote?
EDIT:
Actually, I will address the rest of your post, even though the downright condescending manner in which you choose to reply doesnāt really merit it. Iāll even reply to the completely unrelated things youāve brought up.
I. Am. Not. Talking. About. Flash. Heal.
If this is the truth, why do I have less mana issues with Flash Concentration? Continually spamming Prayer of Healing to reset the CD reduction on a spell thatās readily available quite often with Apotheosis and spamming it on cooldown only strikes me as wasteful.
With my gear, 5x FC Heal has the following stats:
1200 mana
1.4 sec cast
5931 healing
+30% from echo of light = 7710 total healing
Prayer of Healing has the following stats:
2500 mana
1.8 sec cast
1529 healing x 5 = 7645 total healing
By these stats we actually see that Heal costs less than half of PoHās mana, takes roughly half a second less to cast, heals for MORE total healing than PoH with Trail of Light, and has the added benefit of not overhealing as much because you land your heals on those who actually need it.
The benefit of PoH over FC Heal is that it heals everyone at the exact same time, so if Divine Hymn is on cooldown and you know big, consistent damage is incoming on the entire party, it becomes the superior option in that situation, even with the FC legendary up and running.
HPS and total healing done donāt show whether youāre a good healer or not. Your job is to keep people alive, and contribute to the run going smoother, faster, and better. This does not only include spamming heals to pad the meters and overflow with overhealing, but healing when necessary, DPSing when necessary, and more importantly, healing the people that are necessary to heal.
With that said, your playstyle is valid. Itās not a āone person is right, the other is wrongā situation when it comes to whether to make use of FC to largely replace PoH or not. Theyāre simply two different ways to play, where one prefers to use the standard holy priest rotation, and the other changes things up.
And you donāt have to take my word for it, look up Niphyās holy guide on Icyveins and the FC build is specifically mentioned and explained, complete with a recommendation to mostly replace Flash Heal AND PoH with Heal.
We are not talking about raids, we are talking about M+.
Iām not trying to gear for PvE. Iām gearing for PvP.
Your āfull PvP gearā includes a 225 ilvl legendary on a slot otherwise only available with crit from the PvP vendor, a PvE staff, a PvE belt, and a PvE ring. Except for the ring, I am literally unable to get those stats for those slots through PvP.
Youāre throwing shade on me for not having more mastery than you when the reason that you have more of it is because youāve padded your gear with PvE items that I havenāt done enough PvE to do.
If you read the above youāll find that this is just not true. You have a blend of PvP items where you can get mastery/vers, and youāve supplemented this with PvE gear where you canāt.
To top it all off, this āadviceā youāre giving me was completely unasked for, for content Iām not gearing for, on a thread that has nothing to do with the topic.
Lol I hardly ever post but this hillariously stuck up Aellas dude and his terribly bad āadviceā does deserve an exception.
@OP: Iād say you are on the right track, at least from my limited experience FC leggo was the only thing that made Holy tick.
PoH felt like absolute trash and wasted mana, I relegated it to emergency out of LOS healing (stairs of doom), and anyone telling you that mana efficiency is irrelevant is trolling given how we are all chasing these jumping tanks from pack to pack in M+ or licking shamie totems during raidsā¦
Anyway, just dont ever take seriously someone telling you to āL2Pā
Dude what are you on about mastery. In m+ ppl getting chunked arenāt going to survive with trying to rely on mastery. Mastery is also the LEAST desirable stat for m+.
Vers is super for m+ so pvp gear is really nice in m+, it buffs healing, damage and its damage reduction. Crit and haste also buff healing and damage. Mastery does nothing for damage.
You talk about l2p but I think you need to do some learning of your own.
Holy priest damage lol. You stack mastery. I have been stacking mastery and then vers for the last few expansions in m+. You can tune mastery to reduce overheal using your logs. Move the stat point to vers or crit if that is i your thing. Even balance the points between haste and crit.
Got banned from warcraft priests for trying to tell them that.
I bet I know why you got banned from Warcraft Priests @ Aellas.
I can just imagine the conversation in a Mythic+:
āYeah, Iām sorry you died, if you could have just held on a bit longer that Echo of Light tick might have saved you. I know, I could have cast a direct heal but that would have been WASTEFUL of all my lovely Mastery. Sorry about it.ā
Mastery for m+ has pretty low value, itās far more important for raiding. M+ has a lot of big and fast burst damage that needs to healed as quickly as possible. You canāt really afford to cast a single heal and then wait for the echo to do the job over its 6 second duration - people can easily die during that time.
You want Crit, Vers and Haste in keystones. Also mana is definitely an issue in higher keys because you will very rarely have time to ever sit down and actually drink before the group if 5 miles ahead of you and pulling new mobs. Not to mention on certain affixes like Spiteful, getting to ever sit and drink becomes practically impossible because you will never not be in combat with something.
No offense, Aellas, but your highest key is a +6, so your perspective is not exactly well-rounded. A lot of what you say is not wrong and does for the most part apply to low keys, but it changes a lot once you start going into +10 keys and up.
Also you are not pulling 10k+ hps at 200 ilvl on a low key, thatās hyperboly and you know it
This thread made me both cry and laugh, the end gave me a good few chuckles.
Maybe our fellow follower of the light here should get off his high horse and try to listen to what other people with much more experience and better performance are telling him.
Dunning-Kruger Personified
Well okay I will give my take on it, as someone who is comfortably healing +12 +13ās fairly regularly. Not claiming to be an expert, but Iām mostly stuck around that tier due to community perception. People just decline me for higher keys due to being a priest, Iām sure I can heal 15+ keys if I would ever get invited, but there you go.
If it matters Iām also 4/10 mythic castle nathria and often at the top of the meters, surpassing druids and shamans that are better geared than me. I have logs to back it up, itās not just empty words (wink wink Aellas)
I stack Vers/Crit > Haste > Mastery in that order for m+. I could care less about Mastery, it does virtually nothing in a high key mythic environment. Thatās not an opinion, itās literal fact.
I run the Flash Concentration legendary and I would claim it is mandatory for Holy if you want to push higher keys. You will not be able to push out enough healing fast enough without it.
Renew I hard cast but only on the tank, and only when Iām comfortable on mana and donāt need the GCD on something more important.
PW: Shield I never cast except in emergency cases where I am forced to move and someone is critical on health. The exception is on Necrotic weeks where PW:S actually has more value than many heal spells, I use it almost off CD and often prio it over other spells.
Prayer of Mending I use off CD as long as I can space the GCD. Itās a really efficient heal, even in m+ and even without Benediction. Always use it if you can.
Prayer of Healing is not even on my bars. I canāt think of any instance where it is worth casting over single target healing each player in turn with a 5-stack Heal or CoH/Sanc. That includes raids, if running FC.
Flash heal should only be cast to build/maintain FC stacks. If I get a double proc of Surge of Light and my FC stacks are good on time then obviously I will cast FH to not let the proc go to waste.
PW: Serenity, Circle of Healing and PW: Sanc are cast off cd almost always, except obviously if everybody is healthy. With the amount of Heals that gets cast, Serenity is off cd almost always, especially if running Light of the Naaru (which I do 9/10 times, I donāt need Apotheosis and often donāt use it when I have it. Itās not a bad talent at all, I just personally have little use for it even in 12s and 13s)
For every other moment that none of the above applies, I cast some sort of damage spell to help dps as much as possible. Unlike in lower keys where healer dps doesnāt matter much, in higher keys it becomes so crucial that groups will literally decline you over another healer that can more reliably contribute DPS. So yeah, dealing damage as a healer is absolutely something you need to take very serious and should aim to do at any given time you possibly can. Throw out Holy Fires and SW:P and Smite and Chastise in between.
Donāt forget Symbol of Hope; you will eventually struggle to get mana drinks in and if you are low, that spell can give you a nice little boost to hopefully keep up with the non-stop chain-pulling that you will have to deal with in higher keys. Also mana pots. Use them, often.
Just looked at your logs and top logs. You are about half the output you should have. Check a top log and what do you know hes healing like me. Also hes not doing 50% overheal. Or spamming heal on two tank and two other people.
In his top logs hes using prayer of healing as top below echo of light or third below prayer of mending. His overheal is 19.9%. Hell heās outhealing you at ilvl 208 that way.
