Lvl 80 Holy Priest PVE Guide.

[[Ban Hammer]]

Hey guys, i was trolling around the forum and didn’t see any guide for what to do as a holy priest when you first reached 80. So i though it was my call to make one

So, it contains of a few parts which will be listed just beneat this text:

1.0: Spec.

1.1: Stats.

1.2: Which spells to use.

1.3: Gear

1.4: Addons

So, lets start it!

1.0 Spec.

There is a lot of specs that you can choose as an holy priest, and I’m gonna link a few examples and talk abit about them.
The 14/57 spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbzhZfxx0f0qihVIst
This spec is about being flexible. If you choose this spec you can both be the “raid healer” due to spells like “Divine Providence” “Circle of Healing” and “Holy Reach”. If you are gonna choose this spec, be aware of that you might loose some goodies in Discipline which I’m gonna talk about later, but you are also gonna get a hell lot of nice things as an AoE healer. On the other side, you still got talents like “Empowered Healing” “Guardian Spirit” and “Improved Healing” to make you a satisfying single maintank healer.
The next spec is gonna be my favorite the 28/43 spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVIbzhhtbZfLxcc0qihVzo
This spec has improved single healing, but still got the necessary spells for AoE healing. By putting 28 points into Discipline you get 174+ spellpower(Improved Inner Fire) AND another 80+ spell power from(Improved Divine Spirit) and 15% more mana from “Mental Strength”
From Holy you get less AoE healing, since you miss talents like “Divine Providence” and “Holy Reach”. But if I could decide I wouldn’t mind missing those talents at all for the goodies in Discipline. And the reason for not putting 3 points into “Serendipity” is that it will get a great nerf next patch so not worth taking.
Those are the 2 most “known” specs and of course you can vary the points a bit.

1.1 Stats.

So, lets talk about stats. The most common caster stats are Intellect, Spirit and Spellpower. Those stats are counting for priests aswell. Your prio should be like this Spirit>SP>Intellect. Due to Intellect being last is that priests do and should have a giant regeneration pool and require less mana than other healers. Together with all this, you should have a bit focus on haste. Haste rating is a stat which is regular and easy to get since it’s a stat that dominates the most items. Haste is a really nice stat because it reduces your cast time (and with a fair amount of time).
Here’s an example. Lets say you have 414 haste rating(I know its a lot, but its just an example. And actually 414 is easily gathered). Those 414 haste rating actually reduces your cast time by 12.94%! It means that if you use Greater Heal which is 2,5 second cast time it will be reduced to 1,9 seconds. Which is a fair amount.
Of course you shouldn’t go crazy with haste rating. Don’t socket haste rating into your sockets and stuff like that. But keep in mind that it aint a bad stat. and cant be used all the time.

1.2 Which spells to use.

Well, this is common sence. Ofcourse you’re gonna use spells like “Greater Heal” “Flash Heal” “Circle of Healing” and stuff like that. But healers actually do have a kind of rotation(Not one that you have to stick to, but like a guide you keep in mind).
My personal “rotation” as a priest in a 10 man raid group is following: Greater heal on maintank, if anyone in party needs a heal that is less than 2k, I will “Renew” them. If they need a heal that is more than 2k, I will do a “Flash Heal”. Every time “Circle of Healing” is off cooldown, use it. Its indeed useful and doesn’t only heal people in your own group. Ofcourse it varies and I also keep the maintank shielded, Renew and Prayer of Mending are ofcourse also on him all the time.

1.3 Gear.

When your priest first hit 80, and are prolly shadow specced and with random questing gear. Nobody is gonna invite you to a raid. So the first thing you are gonna do is take your remaining money, and run down to the nearest AH, grab ALL the good healer gear that you can afford and equip it asap.(Things like the moonshroud set, Sash of Jordan, Bindings of Yearning and nice stuff like that). After that is done, and if your mana is below 15k and healing below 1400 you can start off by doing the easy heroics(AN, Nexus, UK) I would especially farm Nexus hc for the lovely mace in there. If you do not have those stats yet, go run a few HoL, UP, HoS, CoS normal dungeons and grab whatever gear you can get. Once you’re ready to do heroics go do the easy ones as mentioned a few lines up. Now when your last greenie is changed out(or close to) and you have grabbed a few epics from both AH and heroics, its time to progress up and try your first raid.
I would suggest going for VoA(Vault of Archavon) normal, and VoA(Vault of Archavon) hc at first since that is the god damn easiest raid I’ve ever been to.
Tactics are following: Tank/Spank and run from cloud, offtank should taunt the boss whenever the MT gets swallowed.
After that is done, go do Obsidian Sanctum(OS) normal/heroic. It is very easy aswell and the drops are just good.
Tactics are following: Tank/Spank, offtank pick up additional adds spawning and keep an eye on lava walls coming from left and right side.(Don’t get hit by them).
You simply rinse/repeat this until your mana pool is at around 17k, and healing is 1600+(selfbuffed) Now its time to do Naxxramas. A fun and easy instance but just alittle harder than OS and VoA. If you don’t know the tactics you should go youtube them or go to www.tankspot.com and watch them all.
I would suggest going normal first, to try out the tactics in praxis and having the wipe fests needed before progressing to 25 man.
And you simply rinse/repeat this until you feel ready for 25 man naxxramas.

1.4 Addons

My addon bunch contains the following:

Grid(a nice bar that shows your party/raid members and their lifes. Very helpful).

VisualHeal(Shows who in your raid is healing who, and can spare you a bunch of mana because you can see if there’s another healing your target and spare the overhealing).

Quartz (Just because it’s an awesome cast bar. Lol).

If you got anything else to put in please do so, and please keep in mind that this is a guide, I know its common sence and no magic trick to help you get full T7,5 gear. But its an help to people who find healing hard. Just like lvling guides. I would also say thank you for reading it, and please give a respond of what you think or if you got any inputs and not just leech it off. Thank you.

WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU FOR 95.293. YOU DIE.

and btw, wrote it myself ;p

[Nikentic]

Maybe it's just me (31' screen) but the font seems blurry xd

[[Ban Hammer]]

Just edited it, found a few mistakes ;>

[[Ban Hammer]]

Nobody who care reading this it seems lol ,> either that or people are just leeching again ;p

[staberg]

Really nice guide mate, have been looking for somthing like this to my priest. +rep

[Blubben]

Thanks for sharing Perhaps I could start to heal with my priest again in raids ^^"

[[Ban Hammer]]

Thanks for sharing Perhaps I could start to heal with my priest again in raids ^^"

Glad you like it ;>

[ace_012]

Yea dude nice guide, I'm pretty new to healing so this helped a lot +rep cookie

[[Ban Hammer]]

Yea dude nice guide, I'm pretty new to healing so this helped a lot +rep cookie

Hehe thanks ;> and gogo healing! Wow seem to lack healers atm ;<

[whatever87]

1.0: Spec.

1.1: Stats.

1.2: Which spells to use.

1.3: Gear

1.6: Addons

So, lets start it!

1.0 Spec.

1.2 Stats.

Notice anything?

[Smygelito]

well i dont play priest myself but my mate is and now i can shine a bit telling him this. Thanks for contributing and its take a rep cookie from me.

[[Ban Hammer]]

Notice anything?

woops, editing now ,>

[whatever87]

No biggy, but it's still not numbered correctly. :P

[[Ban Hammer]]

Hello my name is Nick and I like cake

Hello Nick - I'm glad you like cake and please gtfo my thread if you have no good/bad to say about it and just want your posts up.

Btw: My name is Federal Bureau of Moo and i like cows.

[[Ban Hammer]]

No biggy, but it's still not numbered correctly. :P

True shit mate oO Got it covered now - thanks alot for yelling up about it xD