Project Lore

Haha :D i know how you must feel, i used to be a hunter (still is technically...) but decided to make a kick ass druid that would heal when it became 70. So i did hit 70 one day and went resto, it was the greatest feeling i ever had lol. First i was playing around with all the heals, how much mana it costs and how much it heals then came up with the best ways to get in lots of healing in a short amount of time. As a druid healer its really HoT and run around i don't really use addons for specific classes so i can't really say i know which add-ons are good to use but i know this much... Spec yourself based on what you like to do and try to look at the big picture before you click those valuable talent points! For example i would do something like increase the healing done by "x" rather then reduce the amount of threat caused by your healing spells by "x". you see where i'm going with this, right? I am a student of WoW as well nobody really can be perfect, everyone has their style of playing you know. Well thanks for listening to this useless elf and go out there and try everything and anyways you possibly can! Good luck :)

Kudo's for you man, too many people rave about DPS in a group & very few take up the less stardom like roles.

I roled a SP for my first alt, well to be honest he was a healer...... but 30 odd painful lvl's levelling soon had me jump to SP when someone piped up and called me a "nub!" lvl shadow, respec holly they said, and for lvling purposes stack spirit if you can (if you roll SP for lvl'ing that is) as its soo painful having to drink n eat after every time something farts your way

Why no Inner Focus? You could move the point from inspiration maybe? I could be way off base here.

There is going to be a lot of number crunching going on here...The "cookie cutter" spec is still up in the air. Being a priest from a T6 guild, I still don't know exactly what I am going to like. Personally I am upset with the patch.

Downranking was a HUGE part of being a priest...now that's gone. As for your spec, its not bad...

I personally think that Silent Resolve is useless...If you pull aggro, that's not a good sign, and we have Fade for a reason.

You're spec'd into COH but no Holy Reach. I personally want the biggest range I can get.

Lightwell has been buffed, but I still don't know if it truely has a spot in raids. We'll see about that.

In my opinion, Guardian Spirit is pretty much useless right now...It has a cool concept, but you almost have to expect a tank to die...and see it coming within 10 seconds...sounds like some luck to me...Yeah it gives a healing buff for you, but still is pretty useless...

In my last spec, I loved Inspiration...but I can see how you left some points off...

Not a bad spec though...I might even go Disc to raid...its got some cool stuff in that tree as well. We'll see though..gots to get them math wiz's outa the closet and crunch some numbers for us!

LOL i like the starfox comment i have never healed either but would like to try but just to let you know you actually learn a lot while browsing the forums and asking questions

Because we lost downranking, you may find yourself overhealing more than you realize; and serendipity would be a benefit. Of course, it comes down to your own healing style. If you watch the Holy Concentration and Surge of Light procs you can utilize them to the upmost and conserve your mana. I will admit that I’m lousy at watching for procs – I’m too caught up in the frenetic pace of a boss kill and have my eyes clued to xperl watching my fellow raiders’ health. I spent the points in Surge of Light and one point in Holy Concentration because I wanted the points in Meditation. I know it would suit my own playing style. At this point in time, it will be a step at a time as we learn how the changes will affect us. I know that no matter what, I will always be a healer. I love it. DPS? heh . . . Good luck to you.

The Star Fox reference gave me a good laugh! I decided to try out healing for the first time in a MMO a few months back and I'm loving it. I feel good knowing I'm a main reason the group is alive and survives situations which, without a healer would be near impossible. I have played DPS classes so much that moving on to a class that is actually a requirement for a group feels good. I'm almost always welcomed in to groups (when your DPS finding a group that will take you is a bit harder due to the plain fact more DPS exist over Healers normally).

I think it is funny you started the post writing about know it alls. I just left my guild leader because she thought she was a know it all about priest. Your right about not knowing every litte detail, but you can learn to play YOUR priest. You have to find what fits your play style the best. It may take a few respecs sad to say. My main is a priest. I knew from the begining levels she would be holy (yes it was hard to level :). I have never found a use for lightwell except to cast it for myself. The tank is to busy to remeber it. Also just like Avonmore said I spend to much time looking at health bars to see I have procs active. If you over heal that is where you get the aggro. That is where silent resolve comes in handy but you really what to not over heal. I have found that putting more points in Power word: Shield really helps out a lot. The build you have really makes sence. Just remeber to have fun with it :)
Sorry this is a long post.

Over heals really don't generate threat...Its effective healing that is the real threat generator...

I don't have much raid healing experience, most of mine is from BGs and Arena's.

You asked about MODs, well I was looking around for one and found Healbot. I'm not sure if it's updated for the new patch yet or not, but it doubled my healing during BGs. I'm sure there are other ways to monitor peoples health but Healbot helps me keep everyone buffed at all times and heal everyone that needs it, while never changing my target. I even bought myself a 5 button mouse to make it even more effective.

Now I just hover over a name and with the click of a particular mouse button I can renew them, then another button I can shield them, then another button I can greater heal them etc.... and just move the moust over an inch to the next guy needing healing and repeat.

The reduced mouse movement and smaller area that my eyes need to jerk around to monitor health, and much less clicks for targeting etc... have saved me tons of time in the healing process.

tis is interesting...
mayb i should lvl my priest up to the max lvl then re-spec to holy for healin...
i'm still a shadow,...

First off I have to say that I have not played a priest for that long, (70 without much raid experience), but to me your build looks o.k. For the 70 level cap thought I think this ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priest/talents.html?tal=000000000000000000000000000023305103232015253005331351000000000000000000000000000 ) would be a bit better, and for the 80 level cap I say this ( http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVI0zZfotcfbqihVIst ).

The main reason I took out the threat reduction for the 70 level cap build is that now tanks generate so much threat that it is really hard to pull it off of them, I can see blizzard fixing this after wrath or it just changing when we hit 80 so that's the reason why i put it into the 80 build.

Might I suggest moving the two points from searing light to max inspiration?

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priest/talents.html?tal=053020000000000000000000000003505103030015253005031051000000000000000000000000000

It's a minor change but it makes a big difference. I tend to take away any and all dmg increase spells.

i did make my own talent tree for my priest she is now lvl 60 and holy spec did all the way from lvl 1.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priest/talents.html?tal=053010000000000000000000000003505103030215053005331301000000000000000000000000000

this is the spec my priest will have at 70 its builded for pure healing and not for dps (i have not been on my priest since patch 3.0.2 so i dont now all the new stuff for priests).

yea ive tried a resto druid, and that was probably the most fun ive had playing a class that can heal. i just enjoyed it so much and the fact that i had to heal and didnt have a heal bot, so it was just click their names and heal. that was tons of fun, kept me so busy. felt like i was playing an action game lol. but i really liked the starfox reference. id play that game and the would say that even if there was a fly in the cock pit....

Every RPG and MMO I've played has seen me playing a healer of some sort. I like to think it has to do with having the lives of others at my fingertips. Mwahaha! Anyhow, welcome to the world of healing. I'm not an expert by any means, but I can gladly offer some advice.

First, your talent spec. Even with the patch and new talent tree layout, any builds pre-WotLK that utilize the 51 point talent is going to short you the staple Inner Focus talent that healing priests (at least this one) can't live without. The Guardian Spirit talent, as another poster pointed out, isn't all that useful at the present time. What I would recommend for the time being is to drop the point in GS and put it in IF. And, as was also pointed out, Searing Light isn't really needed. I would move those points into Holy Reach instead. Inspiration, while nice, isn't necessary, but if its something you'd like to have, use the points from Surge of Light (a talent I've never found that useful). You can either keep or lose Silent Resolve. I've never had issues with threat, and even when I managed to pull, Fade made it all better. If you drop it, go with Imp. Inner Fire. A boost to armor never hurts, especially outside of a raid. Don't worry too much about Serendipity until after WotLK is released.

Playstyle. Once you get the feel for healing, you'll be able to decide the best spell rotation for you. Personally, I've never relied on a set spell rotation other than opening up with Prayer of Mending and Renew on the tank. After that, its mostly situational. I've never had the need for macros, though I'm sure they'd make healing tons easier for the both of us. So I can't offer you any advice on them. As for addons, I've had to disable all of mine since the patch, as they tend to foul up WoW now. Healbot is good. Grid and Clique (as Goggins suggested in a previous episode) are a good combination. Check a reliable addon site and look for addons that may suit your playstyle the best.

Overall, it'll take a little playtime to adjust from dishing out damage to serving up heals. WoW has the unique feature of accomodating any number of unique playstyles. The skills you learned to help better deal damage work just the same for healing. To beat a dead horse, 'only you know how to best play your toon'. Unless you're Goggins; In which case he knows how to best play your toon too. =P

You're going to want to take meditation in the disc tree. If not you'll run out of mana a lot more frequently.

For raiding, go far enough in discipline to get inner focus and all of meditation......trust me. I made the mistake of "playing" with the new guardian spirit and it is not that great, I'm respeccing so I can continue raiding and not be full of fail! :)

GL with your priest!

I would def recommend Healbot and decursive. I use bongos to keep all my bubbles and healing spells in a nice box which is sitting right on top of my healbot bars, which in turn is sitting right on top of my decursive boxes.

Using healbot and decursive makes healing super easy. I have a paladin so its easy for me to spam flash heals and not worry about overhealing.

Add on Grid. You probably already have this but I thought I would add my 2c.

I saw the raid video for SK gaming and the healer was using the Grid addon to heal the group

It show each team member as a box and the bar represents their health. There are different colors for each class and highly customized.

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/grid-pastamancer.aspx

Remember that when the expansion hits stores and people start leveling again, we get an extra 10 talent points to put into finishing off holy talents and the rest for putting into disc.

I went shadow so I could lvl up to 80, then i'll go holy again for raids. We ARE the best healers in the game, and dont let anybody tell you otherwise my fellow holies. But in case Jerry is reading this, shamans come in a close second :) .

Deside which healing niche you want to fill: single target or aoe. This will let you know which spec to choose. Personally, I love Disc spec for healing single targets. Penance and shields are amazing, and you don't have to worry about tank rage anymore, because their DPS is their threat (for the most part). just don't pre-shield/prayer of mending anymore and you'll be fine.

My suggestion for a talent spec is:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priest/talents.html?tal=053020000000000000000000000003505101032015253005031051000000000000000000000000000#none

A couple things: You should always have inner fire up. It was good before for the armor, but now it's required for the +spellpower. I always pick up imp IF now, too.

Meditation is still amazing for mana regen. Not neccessary in anything below ssc as things are dying too fast, but it's great for regen.

I like providing the Spi buff, especially now that all prayers now go raid wide (1 cast per buff, instead of 1*groups) .

This build is built around shields and penance. With 800 spellpower, penance can do 3 ticks of ~1800 in 2 seconds and can CRIT. It's on a 10 second cooldown, but between that, shields, renew and a faster flash/greater, it's amazing. It lacks CoH for AoE healing, but let the druids play with their aoe heal.

Mods:

Get Grid. Tell your guild healers to get Grid. If your healers get grid, it will share info and it will tell you if someone else has a heal incoming on a raid member and for how much (estimate). It's invaluable to be able to cancel a heal because you know one is already incoming. It will also replace the need for raid UIs because if there is a debuff on the target, it has a big color coded button on the player's square.

Get quartz to know when your cast will land (adds lag to the bar) and begin the next heal even if the previous heal isn't finished animating. Get DMB if you don't already have it.

That's really all you need. the rest is just style. I love grid+mouseover macros. Just make sure you pay attention to the fires, and move when you have to. Healer tunnel vision is vicious.

Meditation is mandatory and in my opinion so is Serendipity. Drop GS and DP and put the points in Meditation and Serendipity instead. Then you're good to go.

@my previous post:

it's Decide. and the link was wrong, so I'm using wowhead, because I understand it better.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbuhxtbx0VcMt0xx