Recently I've been concerned about my own performance. So much so that I have begun to wonder if my aging fingers and brain are simlpy not up to the demands of HC raiding in Mists of Pandaria. The reason is that I have been getting my backside handed to me by a rookie druid healer who has slightly worse gear than myself. All the podcasts I listen too that mention healing by druids always say that the druid simply cannot compete with the disc priest's imba shield. My experience however, was not backing this up.

I started to do some digging around and could find no real concrete evidence to confirm or deny either belief was the right one. While this didn't please me it gave me some hope. I therefore decided to look around and find out performance enhancing threads around on various forums and blogs regarding the healing output of disc priests to see if I could apply the diagnosis to my own play.

Overall what I discovered was encouraging as it showed that while I wasn't perfect I was far from the mark and, if I'm brutally honest, told me what I should have known just by looking at my combat logs.

The list of a what a perfect combat log should contain is here:

• Six casts of  Penance per minute either damage or healing depending on the fight;
• Six casts of Holy Fire/Solace per minute;
• Six casts of Prayer of Mending per minute;
• Five PW:Shields per minute to ensure Rapture procs on cooldown;
• Using the level 90 talent spell on cooldown (4x Divine Star, 2x Cascade or 1x Halo);
• Three casts of Prayer of Healing, ideally used with Spirit Shell)
• Two casts of Archangel per minute;
• Inner Focus used at least once per minute (again used with Spirit Shell);
• Spirit Shell used at least once per minute (to allow for effective timing);

Over a minute that means your casting 34 spells if you ONLY stick to the above list (I'm assuming you have Divine Star). In my 570ilevel healing gear, have a 1.4 second GCD which means in total I can cast a maximum of 43 spells per minute not allowing for spells like Prayer of Healing and Penance that range between 1.6 and 2.1 seconds and Penance (between  depending on Borrowed Time.

Lets assume the worst and say I never utilise Borrowed Time and not forget that Inner Focus and Spirit Shell are OFF the GCD:

• Six Penances = 6 x 1.9 seconds = 11.4 seconds;
• Six Holy Fires = 6 x 1.4 seconds = 8.4 seconds;
• Six x Prayer of Mending = 6 x 1.4 seconds = 8.4 seconds;
• Five PW: Shields = 5 x 1.4 seconds = 7.0 seconds;
• Four x Divine Star = 4 x 1.4 seconds = 5.6 seconds;
• Three x Prayer of Healing = 3 x 2.1 seconds = 6.3 seconds;

This means my must cast spells consume 47.1 of the available 60 seconds which means I have 12.9 seconds left of my minute which is enough for 9 Smite's or 6 Prayer of Healing's and 0.3 seconds of downtime in my imaginary minute.

Because of the number of instant casts and the fact that I use Glyph of Penance means movement will have minimal impact on the number of spells cast.

What I discovered in my spell list was too many Smite's not enough Holy Fire's, Penances, PW: Shields and possibly a bigger crime of not enough Spirit Shell. So now I know where I need to focus my attention and as long as I am getting close to the 39 spells per minute below I'll be happy that even if I am getting out healed, I'm doing the what is needed of me.

• 9x Smite;
• 6x Penances;
• 6x Holy Fires:
• 6x x Prayer of Mending;
• 5x PW: Shields;
• 4x Divine Star:
• 3x Prayer of Healing;

If you've found this post useful or even if you think it is all wrong, I'd love to hear from you either by leaving a comment below or sending an email to evlyxx at evlyxx dot com.

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Tips:
Instead of the Sunday Screenshot, today I present you with the final installment of my Discipline Priest's Guide to healing 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar (for previous parts see: Pt1, Pt2 and Pt3).

Siegecrafter Blackfuse

This fight I hate, nothing really seems to shine on the fight. Even Spirit Shell is quite weak because people have a tendency to be spread too far apart. That said, the best time to use it is just before the Automated Shredder uses Overload.

For the level 90 talent run with Halo or Cascade they both reach those spread far from you. I prefer Halo, for those times you get bombs.

I use Void Tendrils exclusively when raiding because Psyfiend and Dominate Mind are totally useless and this fight is one of the rare times the level 15 talents are useful because you can root the mines.

Paragons of the Klaxxi

This fight is pretty unremarkable in terms of talents and glyphs as it presents my raid team with very little challenge.

This allows me to spend all the fight healing via Atonement or casting Prayer of Healing on the mêlée group to load them up with Spirit Shell.

Twist of Fate is a must because of the constantly dying bosses and/or adds. As for the level 90 talents I choose Divine Star for mêlée heavy raid compositions and Halo when we're not.

Garrosh Hellscream

Because of the number of adds being killed I run with Twist of Fate it really pays off on the last phase of the fight as when you need the bigger heals and extra DPS you're golden. Because of the neat stack of ranged, my level 90 talent of choice is Divine Star because of the positioning we use I get high damage and high healing output from it.

During the 1st phase damage is light. and the DPS is better used killing Garrosh and the adds, wasting a DPS on the Siege Engineer hurts the raid so I am responsible for killing him.

I can keep the tanks in range for healing while waiting for him to spawn and can shield myself when the opposing Iron Star hits the wall. As I stack crit, if I'm lucky Penance and Holy Fire will kill it and a Smite covers the time when I'm unlucky.

During the intermission phases use Atonement as the damage is negligable until Garrosh and keep Prayer of Mending up, PW: Shield up and  use Divine Star on CD. If you'[re lucky he won't cast Annihlate on you and you can stop and cast heals, Prayer of Healing is best.

In phase 2, I group up with the rest of the ranged and continue to use Atonement and focus on the desecrated weapon or the main kill target if the weapon is down. When mind controls come in help DPS them down, if your raid is lacking interrupts use fear to interrupt if you glyph it. During the Whirling Corruptions, Spirit Shell on both mêlée and ranged groups if he gets empowered Whirling Corruption pick up your add and kill it.

When he enters phase 3 it is really show time. It shouldn't need saying but don't neglect Prayer of Mending and PW: Shield everyone you can, you should have the mana to do this but the phase shouldn't last long if you don't. more »

Tips:

It has been a few months since we hit the streets of Orgrimmar and it is a bit overdue but here is my Discipline Priest's Guide to healing 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar (for previous parts see: Pt1 and Pt2 ).

Malkorok

Halo is awesome here, use it on cooldown and I find alternating my position between the middle and the outer edge provides the best throughput due to it healing for more the further you are from the heal target and if it crits I can easily get 1.5m per cast.

Spirit Shell before the pull and halo on the pull. Spirit Shell again before Blood Rage and use Power Word: Barrier when all are stacked up for Blood Rage.

Power Word: Shield also gets a lot of use here and is especially good for puddle soakers and Penance is very good for fast restoration of the shield to anyone with a red or missing shield.

Atonement is almost worthless on the fight and should only be used when everyone has a green shield and Spirit Shell is on cooldown. Because I run at low spirit levels, I have mana issues on this fight and therefore will use Hymn of Hope early and hope to get a second one in if needed (which usually doesn't happen as my raid has some good DPS.

Talent wise I run with Divine Insight because I am using Power Word: Shield a lot. For the level 90 talent, as I mentioned at the start Halo is the best choice.

Spoils of Pandaria

As with all adds based fights, Twist of Fate is a very good because of Atonement and therefore you should spend most (if not all) of the fight smiting your enemies!

I also love Halo because adds and allies are often spread around the room especially as it will be boosted by Twist of Fate.

Other useful tips are to use Spirit Shell when Massive Mogu appear and to use Power Word: Shield when people get Set to Blow especially if you have Body and Soul.

Thok the Bloodthirsty

As Halo was your awesome level 90 talent on Makorok, Divine Star is the goto option on Thok as the raid is all stacked up often and as long as you stand back from the group it will hit all of the raid twice which not only heals them all for massive amounts AND puts a big fat juicy Divine Aegis on them too!

As an added bonus, if you get spell locked, you can still use Divine Star. 

Eventually you will get to the point where you can only cast instant spells and at that point as a Disco priest that means spamming Power Word: Shield like it was ICC all over again!

Save your Spirit Shell for when your paladin uses Devotion Aura and use Inner Focus just as it fades as you are immune to silence for 5 seconds when using it, this will give you a full 11 seconds of immunity to interrupt/silence and will allow you to get the maximum out of Spirit Shell when your raid needs it most.

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Tips:
It has been a few months since we hit the streets of Orgrimmar and it is a bit overdue but here is part 2 of my Discipline Priest's Guide to healing 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar (see here for Pt1).

Galakras:

I tend to run  Twist of Fate because of the number of adds to smite means a lot of time in the buff zone and Halo because the raid tends to be spread out and as well as healing your raid it will hot the adds and any friendly NPCs that have taken damage which helps pad out the meters and make other healers cry ;p

 My team sends everyone up the first tower to clear it real fast but if your team doesn't as a priest you should be assigned to tower healing as a single mass dispel will cover everyone who goes up on the first tower (slap your raid leader if he refuses to send a priest up) and levitate will help negate the fall damage on the way down (and save your butt if you're foolish enough to get knocked off!.

On the pull use Spirit Shell to mitigate the raid wide damage from the first set of adds that come down the hill.

I also like to use Leap of Faith as when the Demo is incoming I move to the top of the left hill near the tower door, allowing me to heal the raid, smite the demo and save the tank the long rungiving him more of a head start on threat as we move up the tower before the DPS.

The damage after Galakras has landed rises quickly and you'll need as many cooldowns as you can through out. If you use Spirit Shell first, you may get a second one out near the end of the fight.

Iron Juggernaut:

I tend to run with Divine Insight as there are no adds here and I use shields a lot on this fight especially on the bomb soaker. I also run with Halo as my raid often gets spread all over the battlefield on this fight. If your raid is a bit more disciplined Cascade is the best option.

Just before Siege Mode getting out a Spirit Shell gives awesome reults other than that it is a simple Smite/Atonement fight.

Dark Shaman:

My guild uses the 3 tank strategy on this one so my set up depends if I am assigned to the main group (who tank Hadromm and the wolves up the alley to the Drag) or the Kadris 3 man group in the main area infron of Gromash Hold. Regardless of which group I'm in I spend most of the fight using Atonement and as we're hugged up I use Divine Star and as I don't spam PW: Shield I use Power Infusion. 

If I'm in the 3 man Kadris group in the main arena I run with Halo as things are a lot more spread out and it is good for wiping out the Foul Slime and Divine Insight as I tend to spam PW: Shield a bit more on the 3 of us. Also I switch out my Glyph of Holy Fire for the Glyph of Binding Heal as there are times when it can get a bit hairy.

General Nazgrim:

I spend most of the fight Atonement healing and there a re loads of adds so I take Twist of Fate as my level 75 talent as the uptime of the 15% healing buff is very high. 

Because the raid is spread out all over the room and the adds are also randomly placed I always opt for Halo and I position myself in the middle of the room so I never have to move too far to get the max range from most people. 

Also, I aim to be stacking Spirit Shell when the boss hits 65 rage so that when he hits 70 rage and casts War Song maximum damage is mitigated and if you can hit a Halo just after it hits your raid will be in great shape.

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Tips:
It has been a few months since we hit the streets of Orgrimmar and it is a bit overdue but here is part 1 of my four part Discipline Priest's Guide to healing 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar.

Immerseus:

Surprisingly this is a lot more disc friendly than I and many others anticipated. Due to the size of the room we 3 heal this fight which also helps deal with the ever increasing number of friendly adds near the end of the fight.

I tend to run Twist of Fate here because the boss spends a lot of time at low HP and so does them friendly adds that need healing.healing adds and Halo because the room is huge and the adds start a fair distance away which means you can heal for around 200k and also hit the nasties for around that too.

During the boss phase simply atonement heal while avoid the Swirl and the Sha Puddles and build up Evangelism.

During the adds phase stand close to the boss and position yourself near a big stack of adds, early on this will most likely be many unfriendly adds and if you're lucky 3 friendly adds. When the adds become targetable unleash Inner Focus, Archangel and Halo. If you let a friendly one escape, you can void shift one per fight and also Leap of Faith one to you every 2-3 waves.

You can also assist with the DPS by using Void Tendrils and smiting if there are no more healing ones.

Fallen Protectors:

I tend to run  Twist of Fate because of the number of adds to smite means a lot of time in the buff zone and Divine Star because my raid team tends to hug up.

Dispel bane and use mass dispel to clear a few of the raid. PW:Shield Garrote/Sha Sear/Inferno Strike victims and use Spirit Shell when Sun hits 70% and 37% and Power Word: Barrier inside her bubble and as you'll be spending a lot of time atonement healing, you should try to time your Archangel with the Desperate Measure phases of all three bosses as this is the most healing intensive time.

Norushen:

I tend to run  Twist of Fate because of the number of adds to smite means a lot of time in the buff zone and Halo because it makes you super fast in clearing the phased realm out.

I always grab the first orb (along with one of our tanks) allowing me to clear my Corruption as it buffs not only our healing, but your DPS which in turn means Atonement heals for more!

As soon as you enter the phased realm hit halo. This will do a ton of healing to the 3 friendly NPCs as well as a fair chunk to the add. From there I simply smite my way to victory and unless I get the debuff, if the NPCs get the debuff I find my atonement keeps them up anyway and get out in 20-30 seconds.

Once out of the realm you should still kill the adds as these will stack up if you don't help the DPS clear them.As raid damage is high throughout the fight I use Spirit Shell on cooldown.

Sha of  Pride:

I tend to run  Twist of Fate because of the increased damage taken by the raid once the boss hits 30% and Divine Star because we're stacked up and if timed well can also hit the adds from Self Reflection.

Use Spirit Shell after the prison phase as this will reduce the swelling pride damage and also just before the Sha of Pride hits 30% so that when he casts Unleashed to kill Norushen much of the damage is mitigated.

I also like to switch out my Glyph of Holy Fire to Glyph of Purify as I don't need the range and I may potentially have to spend the whole fight dispelling!

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Just spotted a hotfix blog entry from Blizzard made on the day that I published my whinge at the horrors of healing on Horridon post that has nerfed the encounter a bit more for us 10 man raid teams.

Horridon

• Reduced the health of Farraki Wastewalkers, Gurubashi Venom priests, Drakkari Frozen Warlords, and Amani Warbears in the Horridon encounter by 15% in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Drakkari Frozen Warlord now deals less damage with Mortal Strike in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Risen Drakkari Champions and Warriors now deals less damage with Deadly Plague in 10-player Normal difficulty.

Tortos

• Whirl Turtles now have a reduced base movement speed in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Vampiric Cave Bats now deal less damage in 10-player Normal difficulty.

Both bosses where really rough with many raid compositions and it makes me feel less whinney and more justified now.

However I am baffled by a couple of the other hotfixes:

Council of Elders

• Decreased the power gain rate of possessed council members in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Frost King Malakk now deals less damage with each stack of Frostbite in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Sul the Sandcrawler now deals less damage with Sandbolt in 10-player Normal difficulty.

Garalon

• Garalon's enrage timer has been increased to 12 minutes, up from 7 minutes in 10-player and 25-player Normal difficulty.

 Neither of these seem justified to me especially the Garalon fix as if the fight lasts more than 7 minutes you'll be hitting the healers out of mana soft enrage anyway. I'll gladly take the Council nerf though as the power gain rate will allow more nuke time on Sul which means a faster death for him and once you're down to 3 elders the fight becomes a faceroll and probably makes it a 2 healer fight already.
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My raid team is 15 people and we run an odd system of "pods" so we have 3 tanks, 3 pure healers, 3 off healers, 3 melee DPS and 3 ranged DPS and rotate people in these pods based on their availability rather than a strict rotation and I'm actually an "off healer" but as my raid team runs with some good DPS, that enables us to run with 3 healers on most fights and allows me to stick primarily to atonement which makes up some of the slack of the missing 6th DPS and allows us that extra security blanket.

On our kills of Horridon in the past few weeks we had a healing team of priest/paladin/druid and priest/paladin/shaman and everything was great. This past week however, we hit a massive issue and actually failed to kill Horridon until 20 minutes before raid end on our 2nd day of attempts. This meant we didn't get a Council kill this week which meant we missed out on a tier piece for the raid. /boo. Why did we have this issue on a "farm" boss?

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Mana the enemy of all healers?

It is the beginning of the expansion once more and many healers are struggling for mana. Of course the top priority is not to waste your mana with a gazillion over healing or on that pesky rogue who always stands in the crap. But even when you've got these things under control sometimes things are still rough on us healers right? 

The first thing you need to do is, of course get as much spirit as possible, Gem it, enchant it, reforge it anything goes right now because while you can stack all the other stats you like they're are worthless without mana.

You also need to change the way you see your mana pool.  As it is NOT 300,000. Sure it STARTS at that amount but throughout a fight we regen mana and therefore over a long fight we use a heck of a lot more than 300,000. The trick is to use your cooldowns early and then again as soon as the CD is over.

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5.0.4 was now 2 weeks ago and so far I have been incredibly quiet about it. The reason for this has been many but now I'm pleased to say I'm breaking my silence.

My initial reaction was one of sheer horror, as a Disc Priest I felt incredibly weak straight away. My heals were amazing but my mana regen was completely inadequate. The first thing I did was to remove Flash Heal out my arsenal as even out of combat I couldn't chain cast it for more than 30 seconds before I was out of mana. Seems Disc Priests need to stack spirit as a primary stat once more. The cost of PW:Shield is also ridiculously high and that combined with the nerf to Rapture is a major problem too. It does seem that Disc is  meant to rely on Divine Aegis and the Spirit Shell shield for our absorbs rather than PW:Shield.

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Welcome to the third and final guide to the new 5 man dungeons in 4.3. The Hour of Twilight is a 3 boss instance which is also another Thrall escort quest instance just like Old Hillsbrad, will this guy ever do something without me there to help? This time we take Thrall to Dragonblight.

Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

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Welcome to my second guide to the new 5 man dungeons in 4.3, The Well of Eternity a short NPC led dungeon with 4 bosses and 3 encounters and during the instance you'll be transformed into a Night Elf. As you'd expect with it being centred around a major lore event you'll get to meet and assist major lore figures.

Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

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Welcome to the first of my guides to the new 5 man dungeons in 4.3, End Time. a 3 boss dungeon with a twist as the first 2 encounters are selected from a possible 4 scenarios based around heroes/heroine of the Alliance and Horde, namely Jaina Proudmoore, Tyrande Whisperwind, Sylvanas Windrunner and Baine Bloodhoof and each takes place in one of the Drgaonshrines found in Dragonblight.

Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

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Welcome to the second of my guides on healing strategies for the Cataclysm dungeons, yes I KNOW we're many months in and us veterans can do it sleep walk but many alts and new players are coming through now. My viewpoint will be from that of a priest, but much of the information will be generic to help out other healing classes also. Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

Blackrock Caverns is a medium length dungeon with 5 bosses, it is located in Blackrock Mountain and consists of tunnels created by the Twilight Hammer who are using this as a transport hub for reinforcing Ragnaros in Mount Hyjal as well as conducting experiments to turn humanoids into dragonkin.
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Welcome to my Circle of Healing questionnaire answers. This was someting started a few years back by Miss Medicina (source) and seems to be popular among the Warcraft healing community at the moment and being a sheep I thought I'd join in.

Q) What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? 

A) Evlyxx, Discipline Priest with Holy tendencies.

Q) What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

A) 10 man raiding although this has only been since Cataclysm, prior to this I was in 40 and 25 man raid groups.

Q) What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why? 

A) Atonement, because it is such a unique way to heal and extremely efficient. It heals for more than Heal and has less cast time and because Smite/Holy Fire generates Evangelism it is just as mana efficient despite the extra mana cost.

Q) What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?  

A) Until very recently it was Flash Heal it was just too expensive to cast but with new content I always find it harder to heal using Atonement until I am comfortable with positioning and knowing the incoming damage and  Heal just doesn't cut the mustard anymore, its too weak and too slow so I have replaced it with Flash Heal, so right now the least used spell is Heal.

Q) What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why? 

A) Flexibility, 2 healing specs give us all kinds of options and both specs are awesome as either tank healing or raid healing.

Q) What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why? 

A) That we don't have a real specialization in healing. Pallies are great tank healers and shaman and druids are awesome raid healers. Priests do both very well but we are not the go to class for either which is a curse of our strength.

Q) In a 10 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? 

A) To be honest it depends what classes I'm healing with. Normally I heal with a Shaman and a resto druid and there I tend to be one of the tank healers and always choose the tank that has the melee group around him so I can heal with atonement for as much of the fight as the incoming damage allows This is because Cork my resto druid buddy is just a freaking God at raid healing and Jibba tha Shaman just loves to tank heal. When Cork vanishes (he works on a boat at sea for weeks at a time) I often end up with  Phöenix, a pally and then I switch to raid healing.

Q) What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

A) Druids would be my number one class to heal with especially now the shaman totem has been nerfed because they make my job so much easier with all them hots bouncing around.

Q) What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

A) In 10 man the worst class is another priest who has played Discipline, simply because even as Holy spec their instant reaction to seeing someone in trouble is to shield them which really should be left to the disc priest but other than that it is druids, cos they make me look bad on the meters!

Q) What is your worst habit as a healer? 

A) Believe it or not as a Disc Priest it is not shielding enough. I think 25 man raiding in Wrath made me hate the spell so much because I did little more than spam bubbles, especially on P1 of the Lich King I now prefer NOT to use it. Blizzard also didn't help by increasing its mana cost and halving the up-time of it too.

Q) What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? 

A) People either squealing for heals or saying that X person needs heals. If you can't trust your healers judgement then either the healing team is bad or you trust nobody.

Q) Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? 

A) Yes, extremely well balanced, as stated before we are masters of nothing but good enough at the lot.

Q) What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

A) The initial check is raid deaths and could they have been avoided if I had healed them and Skada for helping make that decision mid-fight outside the game World of Logs is priceless.

Q) What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?  

A) That Holy priests can't tank heal and that Disc priests can't raid heal.

Q) What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? 

A) Mana conservation. The game until you hit 85 is a breeze on mana and allows the formation of bad habits with Flash Heal and Binding Heal

Q) If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?  
A) I always worry about my healing output and apart from that the other pattern is that I do not use Prayer of Mending enough.

Q) Haste or Crit or Mastery and why?

A) Haste to soft cap then crit. The haste is purely for the extra renew tick and the crit is good now for the Divine Aegis procs and the extra healing now we got 200% from crits.

Q) What healing class do you feel you understand least?  

A) Shaman, I haven't played the resto spec enough and I'm sure there is more to them now than just Chain Heal. I just can't get the time to devote to learning it at the moment. Maybe I should try harder I know.

Q) What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing? 
A) Most of my main heal bar is mouseover macros and my favorite is the one I use for Healing and Smiting with:

/castsequence reset=combat [@mouseover,harm,nodead]Holy Fire, Smite, Smite, Smite, Smite, Smite;[@mouseover,help,nodead][@player]Heal

I use a lot of addons, but my favorites have to be Clique, Grid (inc many modules) and GTFO. Clique just make healing so much easier and is really something Blizzard should build into the game, why they haven't is beyond me. Grid is great for raid frames, the Blizzard ones are getting close to replacing it but it is not quite there yet. GTFO is great especially when in healer tunnel vision mode, I have blogged about its awesomeness so won't bore you again, just get it and never worry about standing in the fire again!

Q) Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
A) I like to get enough spirit until I'm happy I can heal stuff without panicing about being OOM halfway through a fight then stack Intellect in order to get more mana and bigger heals/shields more »

Welcome to the first of my guides on healing strategies for the Cataclysm dungeons, yes I KNOW its six months in and us veterans can do it sleep walk but many alts and new players will be coming through about now. My viewpoint will be from that of a priest, but much of the information will be generic to help out other healing classes also. Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

The Throne of the Tides is a short dungeon with 4 bosses, it is located in Abyssal Depths and is part of the Abyssal Maw complex. Our enemies here are naga, murlocs, faceless ones and servants of the Old Gods.
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A real quick post to plug my current best friend type addon, GTFO.

Put in the authors own words, GTFO is:

GTFO provides an audible alert when you're standing in something you're not supposed to be standing in. In some cases, you'll be warned before you start taking damage. This mod improves your situational awareness and is recommended for dungeon divers and raiders of all skill levels as even the most seasoned veteran sometimes needs a reminder to GTFO.

Its something that allows you to have your tunnel vision, healing blinkers or whatever is distracting your attention from the fire beneath your feet, a simple "beep" type noise alerts you to potential danger. Its really simple works straight out of the box and really I don't know why anyone should be without it.

If you're certain that you avoid 100% of such damage, I challenge you to download it use it for a month and prove to yourself how awesome you are. If you've managed to not trigger this addon for a month please leave a comment below, uninstall the addon and apply to join Saturday Knight Fever on the Shadowsong EU realm. more »

I consider myself a good healer, I've been round the block a few times and have healed most things in the game with little difficulty. Sure I know healers that are way better than me regardless of class but in general I feel that I can cope with anything thrown at me.

Sure at the beginning of Cataclysm some of the encounters made us all ask the same question I pose in the title here but like you, I powered through, relearned the old style of healing, adjusted to the changes (/mourn Flash Heal) and even embraced the Atonement playstyle and have gone on to complete all heroic 5 man instances pre nerf and progressed reasonably well. I'm currently at 7/13 in T11 and you may well be further in or even in heroic modes, but I have never really doubted my ability as a healer. But just recently there has been 1 encounter that has frustrated me immensely and caused me to really doubt myself.
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Everyone knows that Cataclysm Heroics are not the faceroll that heroics were in Wrath.However, it is still possible to run any dungeon quickly and efficiently. The trouble that most people are having is because the Wrath method of achieving this goal is currently not viable and the method I am about to layout would have slowed down groups in Wrath. There are also some changes people need to make in the way they play and the abilities they use.
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Happy 2011 to you all, a New Year and a new expansion (well it is less than 1 month old) and I'm full of hope for a cracking year in Warcraft and my plan is to bring you my news of what it is like playing a priest in Cataclysm on these very pages. I can't promise much in the way of theorycrafting but when anything noteworthy happens in game to Evlyxx, I'll post it here and my aim is for this to be done regularly each Wednesday and Saturday, there maybe times when I post additional "newsflash" type things in addition to the standard posts and today is one such post. I'd love your feedback so please leave a comment.

During a recent guild Heroic Blackrock Caverns run, I had an epithany moment. I was running with a group that was 2 pallies and 2 warlocks. The crowd control was good and on trash I was being under utilised as a healer and decided to help speed up the trash clearing by actually using my Atonement build (33/6/2) and smiting the main target.
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Cork, our resto druid in Halls of Origination, yes they let me DPS sometimes too

Blizzard seem to have the healing thing rightish but not perfect, The main flaw is my heal size compared to tank health pool and the damage coming in, it simply is not in balance. Lets define a few things here. 

Blizzards goal: Healing should not be a spamfest but rather a triage approach;

Tank HP: 150,000

Stad Boss damage: 25,000 every 2 seconds

Heal = my econo heal: 8,000 every 2.3 seconds

Flash Heal = my fast heal: 17,000 every 1.4 seconds

Greater Heal = my big heal: 22,000 every 2.3 seconds

Renew = my HoT: 3,000 every 3 secondsm

Power Word: Shield: absorbs 10,000 damage every 15 seconds;

Prayer of Mending: a heal in advance approx 5,000 every 6 seconds

To cope with the incoming damage there are 3 choices:

1) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank and pray the tank avoids 2 of every 3 boss attacks and spam my heal;

2) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank and pray the tank avoids 2 of every 3 boss attacks and my hit the tank with a Greater Heal when his HP needs topping up;

3) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank, spam my heal and throw in a Flash Heal or Greater Heal depending on the speed I need to play catch up;

All 3 are viable solutions but they all rely on DPS either not taking damage or applying self heals and either the tank avoiding a lot of damage and applying some self heals and if 3 is applied I end up out of mana real quick and even using potions, the Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend really provide very little returns. Although I did /cheer when the mana regen hotfix got applied on December 15th and it did make a noticeable difference.

The big point for me though is that I am having to throw out a heal every Global Cooldown (GCD) which goes against the Blizzard goal. To add to the frustration any movement I need to make is a huge risk as it is a few GCDs without heals going out to either the tank or the DPS and either the fight mechanics are designed really intelligently or I'm on the end of bad luck as the times I always need to move are those clutch situations where I really need to be casting big heals.

The major plus point for me is that I have become a better healer and begun to blow cooldowns Pain Suppression, Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope much more freely than ever before. Well I was always liberal in my use of pain suppression but never the hymns.

Also, the guys from SKF have begun to realise that I will let them die if it is a choice between them or the tank and have begun to move faster from the fires or using any self heal abilities. 2 weeks ago I was offended when Dixxie, my pally tank (yes he belongs to me not the guild) was healing himself with his Word of Glory as I took it as a failure on my part, now I love it and treat it as an intelligent "oh shit" feature.

All told the new heroics are just that, heroic. They are really like 5 man raids and for that Blizzard must be applauded. The players that want to get better will get better by running these heroics and those that QQ about them being to tough, to long and needing too much strategy will either quit or just get by running normals until their gear is maxed out with 333 loot, rep rewards upto 359 and all the heroic badge gear their class can get from Justice Points that they are able to pug heroics at a reasonable pace. 

Finally a plea to Blizzard, please, please, please do not nerf these heroics not now, not ever. Infact, when the next tier of raiding comes out could you buff them so the mobs hit a little harder and have more HP so we don't start over gearing them.

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