This is a quick guide I've been writing on. It is far from done, but as my interest in wow at the moment is limited, then I decided to post what I have written so far, and hope it at least can help someone.

Please mind, and I will repeat this, that is is just a pointer guide, it is not the ultimate way or the right way at all ;) It is based over what I have experienced works for me.

Firstly I'll post a holy blood elf guide. It is mainly based on blood elves, but it also holds pointers that can help other classes. :)


Hello fellow Blood Elf holy priests.
(and other priests, there might be tips for you to gain here as well)

This is a quick tips and tricks guide to belf priests, if you got things I haven’t written down, please feel free to let me know, so I can add them to an updated version. This means it isn’t the ultimate guide, it is what works for me, what I have experienced will work, meaning it might not be the ultimate solution for everybody.
Enjoy, and hope you can use it.

There are a few things you will want to check, when you encounter new mobs/enemies in this game as a belf, hence I will go over your racials as a priest. As a belf priest you get two very useful things, when it comes to keeping your mana going for a longer while;

- Mana Tap/Arcane Torrent. This ability stacks 3 times (Mana Tap) and at 70 when consumed it will refund you 161 mana pr mana tap. Meaning 3 stacking taps will grant you 483 mana. The CD on Arcane Torrent is 2 minutes. Each Mana Tap will be active for 10 minutes, and they will be renewed, all of them, if you tap a new target. Also note that Arcane Torrent is a short range (8 yards) aoe silence effect. (I am aware of that all belfs get this)

- Consume Magic; This is your special priest racial. It is a very useful ability in longer fights, it is an instant cast spell, costs no mana. It consumes one of your priest buffs, and please note that is has to be a priest buff, meaning that things like mana tap doesn’t count, as they are a belf spell, and not a priest spell. Doing this will refund you 660-694 mana. It has a 2 minutes CD. On the bad side is that you cant choose which buff it will consume, this is random.

Now, when we have this clear, we can move on.
When you encounter something new, or just in general want to keep your mana on the good side, there are some things you will want to take into your planning, to achieve this goal easier. Mp5 is all good, but there are many other ways, besides pure regen, to make sure your mana won’t go too low, if administered correct.

Let us assume you are to prepare for a really long fight. The first thing to be aware of is your CD’s. After all, everybody wants you to keep your mana, including you, wants you to keep your mana going. You will approach this logically and calculate them, but firstly, let us go over what CD’s a blood elf has to use;

- The above mentioned Mana Tap/Arcane Torrent. 30 seconds CD on taps, and 2 minutes CD on torrent.
- Consume Magic, 2 minutes CD.
- Mana potion, 2 minutes CD
- Inner Focus (Disc talent), 3 minutes CD. Grants you a spell free of mana charge.
- Shadowfiend, 5 minutes CD.

The first thing you will do is check if the mob you are fighting is mana tap-able. If it is, tap it, and make sure to stack 3, before using Torrent, unless your tap is running out. Next is to use your Inner Focus, if you are talented for this one. This initiates your 3 minutes CD and will make sure you can use it twice in this fight.

When these things are put to work, we can talk about potting and your shadowfiend. When it comes to mana pots, then it is a very bad idea to wait with potting till you are almost dry, this can technically cause a wipe, due to you running out of mana too fast. Instead pot when you have used the first 3 or tops 4k of your mana. At this time the mana pot will return you almost to full.
As for your Shadowfiend, then use it when you are at 50-60 % of your total mana. At this point it should easily return you to full mana again. However, remember to calculate it with your other CD’s. It will be a bad idea to tricker the fiend just before your mana pot CD ticks in, as an example. We don’t need to abuse our CD’s, just use them correctly. Potting, and then using your fiend will cause you to go to full very fast, and hence your fiend will regen mana you wont benefit from, due to you already being at max mana.
Do however be vary of that in some fights you will use your mana faster, due to spamhealing or the likes, and in these situations you will need to calculate your fiend individually. This means the 50-60% mana rule, technically is just a pointer, and not really something you can rely on. Use your knowledge, and learn to time it right.

Always remember that you keeping your head cool and keeping the situation under control is very important. One screw up can mean a wipe, so when you are in 5 man instances, test it out, learn how to use your CD’s for the optimal mana usage and regain.

Now, I didn’t mention Consume Magic in the above, because it is a dangerous spell in some fights. In most fights, it wont matter if you lack one of your buffs, or for that matter all of them, but if your health buff is what drags you above the required amount of hitpoints you need for an encounter, then logically enough, you can not afford to take the risk of consuming this buff. Therefore, get to know the mob you are facing, then you will know when this ability is welcomed and when it is not.

In some fights it is all about CD timing after all. This is what makes it challenging.

So, let us assume we are having a very long fight, you have consumed all your buffs by now, and think; what do I do now? I have nothing more to consume.
It is quite simple; you go into your spellbook and find Touch of Weakness R1. This spell costs you 25 mana to cast, and one Consume Magic will return 660-694 mana. Now that’s a fair trade if you ask me. Personally I’ve got ToW on my cast bar all the time.

Also keep in mind, that if you want your mana to last, then do not go into flash heal spamming. This you can get away with in 5 man groups, most heroics and even Karazhan. It will not work later on. Firstly, let us look at the differences between Flash heal and our normal Heal spell. To do this I will make an example.

Let’s assume we deal with this priest who obviously will be holy, meaning you get healing boosts and cheaper mana spells from your holy tree. In this situation we can put it up like this;

Heal;
2.5 seconds cast
259 mana
Avg. heal around 2000

Flash Heal
1.5 seconds cast
470 mana
Avg. heal around 2200.

As we can see, we trade around 200 mana, for 1 seconds longer cast time. This is a lot if you do a lot of lesser healing. This is one of the bad sides of Flash Heal, it is a good heal in some situations, but it will drain you dry very, very fast, it is extremely mana consuming, so don’t pick up the bad habit of Flash Heal being something you are relying on. Instead make it your last resort, when things screw up. Use your other heal spells, as a priest you can have up to 11 different kinds of heal spells, not counting down ranking. (Some of these are talented though) This means you will want to train yourself into a decent routine, to make sure you use all your abilities. For normal basic healing use Greater Heal and normal Heal. Only Flash heal in encounters where you are either 110 % sure it won’t be a long fight, or if it is the last call to save someone from dying.

Should someone be close to dying, you will need to do some calculation. How much damage is this person taking, and how fast? This needs to be calculated up with your heal timers, so you can be sure the person is saved. To do this you have certain tools at your disposal, such as Power Word: Shield. A lot of priests tend to forget their shield, but it is actually quite a powerful tool if used right. But to return to the situation, then you can do one of several things, to pull this person out of danger;

Bubble – Flash Heal – Renew (Eventually a PoM, but read the PoM guide for more info about this specific spell)

Flash Heal – Greater Heal

Or simply go for a straight Greater Heal, if the target doesn’t take damage anymore. The options are many, and it is up to you, to make sure your calculations will suffice, to make this person survive. Therefore always calculate casting time versus damage taken. And this needs to be done in very short time, often less than a second, so do pressure train yourself. This will make sure you can adapt, optimize and get faster reflexes. It also ensures that you will keep your head cool under pressure.

I will also recommend keeping an eye on if people are continuing to take damage, or if they are just low on health. If they don’t take any more damage, then make sure they have more than 50 % health, and then use Renew. It is a powerful tool, and also an instant spell, meaning this won’t take time out of your casting schedule. You can renew, then go back to healing whoever needs it.

Now aggro. Boring topic, but needs to be talked about. Make it a nice habit to fade on CD, instead of fading when you get aggro, unless otherwise is clearly stated. This should suffice in keeping your aggro wonderfully low, meaning some nasty mob won’t come running to eat you. You dying can, in worst case, wipe the raid.

From here I will move very shortly to priorities on gear. This is very much an individual choice, it depends on play style and talents, but for myself this will be my priority list;

mp5
mp5
mp5
+healing
Stamina
Intellect
Spirit
+Crit rating

No I'm not kidding. I love mp5. In normal groups it lets me run a full run without running out of mana, nor spending downtime drinking, and in long fights it allows me to regen massively. I mean, in the long run, then it’s free mana, what’s to complain about?

Please do mind though, that until you have around 1300-1500 +healing, I’d rate +healing higher in most cases, and then start to compromise. Meaning that you can get upgrades where you will trade +healing for mp5, and can do it with good conscience, since you still have enough +healing to heal heroics without suffering. For the basic pointer then around 800-900 +healing will be enough for most normal instances.

Why do I rate +crit so low then? Because I can not calculate with a crit, like I can with a normal standard heal. If I know my heal will heal the target for 4.5k, then I can calculate with 4.5k damage taken on the target. Sure it’s cool to get high crits, but being a crit priest isn’t my thing, since you rely a lot on crits to keep people alive. Inspiration is a nice talent, but you can have it without going crit priest, and it is, after all just a bonus. Relying so totally on crits is a little bit unstable, and in high end raiding you will need stability, you will need to be reliable.

Stamina/Intellect gives itself. Stamina is survivability, intellect is more heals for the party.

Now spirit. Spirit is a funny thing, since a lot of priests are spirit minded these days.
Cant blame them since Blizzard put insane amounts of spirit on our high end gear, and after all hybrid specs are popular these days, and as a such your spirit will give you regen and +healing. And sure that is nice, but, and a big but; spirit is affected by the infamous 5 seconds rule, which so many priest doesn’t seem to know of these days.
This rule is why mp5 is so much better than spirit is when it comes to long fights and being able to hold mana. While spirit boosts your out of combat regen a lot, then it is close to useless when spam healing. I’ll explain why with this example;

Yas casts gheal rank whatever.
5 seconds rule kicks in. For the next 5 seconds I don’t regen anything but my pure mp5. Spirit regen doesn’t kick in before AFTER these 5 seconds. Which means if you’re spam healing to keep the main tank up, your amount of spirit is close to useless. You don’t benefit from the regen it would normally give you.

However, for BT content and the likes, you will want around 250 mp5, to keep you ticking while being in the 5 seconds rule. You will be granted large amounts of spirit on your gear, and this is the basic reason why I'll recommend going for mp5, untill you've got the set amount for the raiding/instance step youre on. If you are a raiding priest, you'll want a balanced amount of spirit and mp5, personally, I work on the mp5 first, due to spirit already being given on a lot of my gear. Initially I wanted to get into this in a talent breakup, but I'll probably never get to write it, and seeing as people are eager to have me add this, I will :) So hereby added; Meditation. This is a talent in your Discipline tree, and Pericles have written an excellent explanation of how it works a bit further on. Saves me the trouble ;) (Cheers mate)

A short look at our competition;

We will have to compete with paladins.
Give them a shadow priest and they never oom.
They’re a steady healer, very reliable, however they lack HoTs and aoe heals.
They bring blessings to the raid. Individual buffs.
Plate users, high armor, higher hit points.

We compete with druids.
They’ve got higher heals than us with lower +healing, they get tree bonus and have very high HoTs. However, their casting time is longer than priests on heals, and their aoe heals have CD's. They also bring MotW to the raids.
Leather users, again more hit points, and a tad more armor.

Then we have shamans. They've got an extremely good way of keeping the melee party up, due to chain heal, they don’t have HoT, but they bring totems, which buffs in many different ways, and again: We have a mail user, more armor and usually also higher hit points. From what I have noticed though, the shaman often will have a lower mana pool than us, and often their mp5 isn’t that good either.

This is not a complete list over other healing classes’ abilities, there’s many left out, or not thought about, but anyone who scout the forums will notice that priests have to be very careful with their choice of gear, since other classes often get picked ahead of them these days. There has been a lot of talks about priests losing spots to other heal classes, and when I look at the general quality of priests, then I can’t really blame the raid leaders and recruitment officers.

As a conclusion to all of this, the best advice I can give to any one priest would be;
Love your class, it is an awesome class, as I mentioned above we can have up to 11 different heal spells, of all types, ranging from aoe heals, massive heals and HoTs to something like PoM that will jump randomly upon damage infliction and heal targets.
Challenge yourself, push yourself to the limit, so that you may become better, and above all, know your class, know its abilities, skills and use them. A good priest will easily get new groups, because god knows they’re hard to find, and when you do find one, they do an impressive job.

This section will feature a few different talent specs you can try out. Please bear in mind that these are only suggestions and pointers, which means you will have to adjust them to your own playstyle, for them to work perfect for you. It will feature some very normal specs, but also some untraditional ones.


23/38/00 - http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxg0zhLzbZfxxcc0qVhc

A mixed disc/holy talent build, that will supply you with a little bit of everything. I wont be listing all the chosen talents, but I will explain some of them, to give you an idea of what is chosen and why.

This build is based over having a large viability to different situations. It’s a steady build that allows you to heal most situations without trouble, but it lacks the powerful healing affects a pure holy build would have. It is build up over the idea of the priest using all of his abilities as the talents are used on mana regen, spirit, dispelling, buffing, and cheaper/faster healing effects. It will feature things like this;

- Imp. Spirit; Increases your own and your buffed party’s damage and healing with an amount equal to 10 % of their spirit.
- Imp. Fort, which increases Power Word; Fort and Prayer of Fort with 30 %.
- Silent Resolve; Holy and disc threat reduction by 20 %. Also reduces chance your spells will get dispelled with 20 %
- Inner Focus; Free spell of your choice. 3 mins CD.
- Inspiration; Increases the targets armor with 25 % for 15 secs after getting a critical heal effect on him. This will often be linked to Holy Specialization, that increases your holy crit chance with 5 %. These talents will often be chosen by crit specced priests. If you wish to know more of these, then check the section about Gear, where there will be an explanation of what a crit priest actually is.
- Sprit of Redemption; A talent that many priests choose to skip these days. It increases your spirit with 5 %, and allows you to take the form of a Spirit of Redemption upon death. This state lasts 15 seconds, in which you are invulnerable. You are not allowed to attack anything, but you can cast all the heals you want, free of mana charge. This means that one priest can with his/her death save a wipe by dying.

It is a hybrid build, that allows you to have some of the good things from both holy and discipline, but you will loose some of the strong massive healing that a full holy build holds, and the extremely viable survivability a full disc build holds.



16/45/00 - http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxg0zhZfxtcf0qVuVo

Mainly being a holy build this build will offer you the strong healing from the holy tree, and only few things from discipline. It varies from the build listed above due to the fact that this build is less minded over spirit, viability and instead supply you with massive +healing effects and some other abilities to play with.

To build grants you some of these things;

- Inner Focus; Free spell of your choice. 3 mins CD.
- Sprit of Redemption; A talent that many priests choose to skip these days. It increases your spirit with 5 %, and allows you to take the form of a Spirit of Redemption upon death. This state lasts 15 seconds, in which you are invulnerable. You are not allowed to attack anything, but you can cast all the heals you want, free of mana charge. This means that one priest can with his/her death save a wipe by dying.
- Holy Concentration; 6 % chance to enter a clearcasting state, after casting any Flash, Greater or Binding heal spell. It will reduce the mana cost of your next Flash, Greater or Binding heal with 100 %.
- Lightwell; Creates a lightwell with 5 charges. Any raid or party member can click on it to receive a certain amount of healing over the next 6 seconds. Any damage taken will cancel the effect. This talent is nice for allowing your party to take care of their own health, and get ready for more action without it demanding you to heal them up.
- Circle of Healing; Heals your targeted party member and all other party members within 15 yards for a specific amount. This spell is both cheaper and stronger than holy nova.

This build forces you to loose some of the cheaper mana costs on dispelling, instant spells and the mana increase talents in discipline, along with the spirit buff, but if you are a raid priest chances are that there will be another priest in the raid with imp. spirit.



33/28/00 - http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVghzhxtbzZfhtcc0qM

Another hybrid build, however this one has its root mainly in the discipline build. This will mainly be a support healing build, and not often seen in raids. It holds some things that can buff yourself and your party, but also holds some of the easy healing solutions and heal boosts from the holy tree.

This will grant you things like this;

- Inner Focus; Free spell of your choice. 3 mins CD.
- Mental Strength; Increases your maximum mana with 10 %. More mana is more spells, what’s not to like? ;)
- Mental Agility; Reduces mana cost of all your instant spells by 10 %. Cheaper spells is, again, more mana to use on other things.
- Power Infusion; Infuses your target with power for 15 seconds. This increases the targets spell damage and healing by 20 % during these 15 seconds. 3 min CD.
- Holy Nova; A holy aoe spell that causes no aggro, while damaging all enemies and healing all friendly targets within 10 yards. This is Circle of Healings little sister. It is more expensive to use, but also far further down in the talents, hence easier to gain. It is also an instant cast, which means Mental Agility will make it cheaper.
- Sprit of Redemption; A talent that many priests choose to skip these days. It increases your spirit with 5 %, and allows you to take the form of a Spirit of Redemption upon death. This state lasts 15 seconds, in which you are invulnerable. You are not allowed to attack anything, but you can cast all the heals you want, free of mana charge. This means that one priest can with his/her death save a wipe by dying.
- Inspiration; Increases the targets armor with 25 % for 15 secs after getting a critical heal effect on him.

On the bad side, there is that not many raids will accept this as a viable raid build, since it is more of a support build, than a main healing build.



42/19/00 - http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxghuhxtbzVofxt0c

This build is a heavy discipline build. It is based over survivability, cheap spells, support abilities and while it can be a hard build to use for healing for a badly kitted priest, it will be a decent challenge and hold many possibilities if you have the kit to support it. Also it will become more raid/group viable in 2.3 when they chance Pain Suppression, so that it can be cast on other targets than the priest himself.

This specc holds some of these things;

- Power Infusion; Infuses your target with power for 15 seconds. This increases the targets spell damage and healing by 20 % during these 15 seconds. 3 min CD.
- Inner Focus; Free spell of your choice. 3 mins CD.
- Imp. Spirit; Increases your own and your buffed party’s damage and healing with an amount equal to 10 % of their spirit.
- Imp. Fort, which increases Power Word; Fort and Prayer of Fort with 30 %.
- Enlightenment; Increases your total Sta, Int and Spi with 5 %.
- Pain Suppression; Reduces all damage taken with 65 % and increases resistance to dispel mechanics by 65 %.
- Holy Nova; A holy aoe spell that causes no aggro, while damaging all enemies and healing all friendly targets within 10 yards. This is Circle of Healings little sister. It is more expensive to use, but also far further down in the talents, hence easier to gain. It is also an instant cast, which means Mental Agility will make it cheaper.

It is a build that takes all the good things in discipline, but by doing so it takes out all the talents to boost your healing from the holy tree. This build is for the independent priest, that likes to experiment and play with different playstyles.

This section will be about some of the typical professions a lot of healers choose, minded on holy priests. It is by no means a “you must choose this” guide, it’s only pointers and ideas to what could prove useful. Please mind that these are suggestions.


Something very typical for healers will be Herbalism. It allows them to collect their pot materials for mana pots, elixirs and flasks themselves, and thereby spare big money on buying herbs/pots on ah. Some take Alchemism as well, just for the practical purpose of having both professions, but if you know an alchemist or don’t mind tipping someone to make you a bunch of pots, then it is far from necessary.


Enchanting will offer you all the basic enchants, and make you save the tips for making someone else enchant your kit, plus it supplies you with the option to disenchant things yourself, to make an endless supply of enchanting mats. It also benefits you with the +20 healing enchants for rings, that you only can make on your own rings. Some enchanters will, if they can’t craft things themselves, supply a Leatherworker or Tailor with materials to craft them things to disenchant.


Engineering will supply you with a handy pot injector for mana pots and a very nice healing helmet which you can see in the crafted gear section :)


Also a lot of holy priests these days will choose tailoring, because tailoring offers some very nice crafted items for clothies. This profession also goes very well along with enchanting, as you can craft things to disenchant for more materials. Please check into the kit section for more ideas and links for this :)


You can also go Jewelcrafter, which means you can supply yourself with the gems you need, hence you don’t need to buy them at AH, or tip someone to cut them for you.


Besides this we got the “money” professions, collectors professions, which basically has little relevance unless you select mining for Jewelcrafting or Engineering for example. This is the typical mining, skinning and herbalism (Which I’d still say is quite useful)
These professions are typically chosen to make easy money, or for skilling up another profession.


Blacksmithing and Leatherworking are quite useless to clothies though, so these I’d recommend staying away from.

Tailoring;

As a Primal Mooncloth Tailor you can make this set at 70;
They’re all BOP and unique, so they’re for you only, also they require you to be and stay a Mooncloth Tailor to use. So if you respecc shadow and figure you want the shadow kit, you wont be able to use your Mooncloth kit while specced shadowweave tailor and vice versa :) This set is vendor bought at the Primal Mooncloth specialist in Shattrath.

Primal Mooncloth Robe
+20 Intellect
+20 Spirit
Yellow and blue socket.
Socket bonus; +3 intellect
+121 healing
+10 mp5
http://thottbot.com/i21875

Primal Mooncloth Shoulders
+16 Intellect
+15 Spirit
+92 healing
+7 mp5
http://thottbot.com/i21874

Primal Mooncloth Belt
+12 Intellect
+11 Spirit
Yellow and blue socket.
Socket bonus; +3 intellect
+81 healing
+8 mp5
http://thottbot.com/i21873

3 set bonus will allow 5 % of your mana regeneration to continue while casting :)


Then we’ve got Whitemend; This set is a good add for your Primal Mooncloth set, since it supplies pants and hood, which Primal Mooncloth doesn’t. It drops in Arca (Pants) and Bota (Hood) if you want to collect it, however you technically don’t need to, as the craftings are BOE, meaning you just have to find a tailor with nethers, supply mats and the money for the nether (on my server the nethers typically goes for 50-70g a piece) and voila. This means non tailors can use this kit as well, however you need to be a tailor to get the 2 set bonus; It will increase your +healing with up to 10 % of your total intellect.

Whitemend Pants
+21 Stamina
+21 Intellect
Blue, yellow and red socket.
Socket bonus; +4 intellect
+62 healing
+11 mp5
http://thottbot.com/i24261

Whitemend Hood
+15 Stamina
+15 Intellect
Blue, yellow and red socket.
Socket bonus; +4 intellect
+79 healing
+11 mp5
http://thottbot.com/i24264


A world drop on a cloak; (Quite common though, shouldn’t be hard to find a tailor for this)

White Remedy Cape
+59 healing
+7 mp5
http://thottbot.com/i24254


After this we’ll pretty much move to SSC, the patterns I’m gonna link here are BOE, meaning you can find them on ah, however the items are BOP when crafted, so you do need to have this pattern yourself to have these.


Belt of the Long Road
+13 Stamina
+18 Intellect
+33 Spirit
Blue and yellow socket.
Socket bonus; +7 healing
+73 healing
http://thottbot.com/i30036

Boots of the Long Road
+25 Stamina
+26 Intellect
+22 Spirit
+73 healing
+9 mp5
http://thottbot.com/i30035


Now its Black Temple pretty much, however this set is BOP recipes, which are BOE when crafted, so if you really love your character you can get these crafted without even having been to Black Temple or close. However it will be quite expensive ;)

Swiftheal Wraps
+24 Stamina
+22 Intellect
Equip; Improves spell haste rating with 28 (1.8%)
+64 healing
http://thottbot.com/i32584

Swiftheal Mantle
+21 Stamina
+16 Intellect
+28 Spirit
Equip; Improves spell haste rating with 27 (1.3%)
+84 healing
http://thottbot.com/i32585


Also tailors who are Aldor can craft these;

Golden Spellthread
+66 healing and +20 stamina
http://thottbot.com/i24276

Silver Spellthread
+46 healing and +15 stamina
http://thottbot.com/i24275



Engineering;

Powerheal 4000 Lens
+14 Stamina
+38 Intellect
+28 Spirit
Meta socket, blue socket.
+9 healing socket bonus.
Equip; +101 healing
And a few other fancy abilities ;)
http://thottbot.com/i32495



Jewelcrafting;

Figurine - Talasite Owl;

This trinket is BOP, hence you need to be a Jewelcrafter for this item to work.
It gives an equip bonus, that will grant you 14 mp5 and a use effect that will return 900 mana to you when used. It is unique.
http://thottbot.com/i24127

Figurine - Living Ruby Serpent
+33 Stamina
+23 Intellect
Use; increases dmg/healing with 150 for 20 seconds.
It is a trinket, its unique and BOP, so again, gotta be a Jewelcrafter for this.
http://thottbot.com/i24126

Embrace of the Dawn
Neck
+27 Stamina
+19 Intellect
Equip; 7 mp5
Use; increases stats of all party members by 10 for 30 minutes.
BOE.
http://thottbot.com/i24117

Living Ruby Pendant
Neck
+24 Stamina
+15 Intellect
Equip; +35 healing
Equip; +6 mp5
Use; Restores 6 health pr second to nearby party members for 30 mins.
http://thottbot.com/i24110

Pots and buff-food worth considering for different encounters, tips to where to use what and why, links so you know mats and what else will be nice to know about buff food and pots.

For a raid I always bring an entire bag of food, pots etc.
In it I will be keeping;

Super Mana Potion x 15 or 20.
http://thottbot.com/i22832

Get an engi to make you one of these (mana potion injector);
http://thottbot.com/i33093

Flask of Mighty Restoration x5 or 10.
http://thottbot.com/test/i22853

Elixir of Draenic Wisdom x20
http://thottbot.com/i32067

Elixir of Healing Power x20
http://thottbot.com/i22825

Adept's Elixir x20 (this one isn’t necessary, I just like to be prepared for all kinds of situations I like being able to switch fast if we need dps instead of healing.)
http://thottbot.com/i28103

Elixir of Major Fortitude x10 (might seem a strange choice, but at Aran a fireball can one shot you, if you got very low hps. Anything less than 7k hps will usually be too low for this fight. Ofc you can get lucky and still survive with less, but if you really do have low hps, you wanna do anything you can to boost them some.)
http://thottbot.com/i32062

Elixir of Major Mageblood x20 (Do I even have to explain?)
http://thottbot.com/i22840

Additional things I got sometimes;

Flask of Distilled Wisdom x5 or 10
http://thottbot.com/i13511

Super Rejuvenation Potion x5 or 10 (usefull for mana consuming fights where you tend to take dmg)
http://thottbot.com/i22850

Elixir of Mastery x20 (I'm a wannabe San :/ Gimme kings! but again, far from neccesary I just like having them for certain encounters, again its more int, more sta, more spirit, more, more, more!...)
http://thottbot.com/i28104


Thatll be it for the pots. Buff food then!

Golden Fish Sticks x20 (for healing)
http://thottbot.com/i27666

Blackened Sporefish x20 (For mp5 encounters, ei. looong encounters Also works at Aran since it also gives you more hps, which is survivability.)
http://thottbot.com/i27663

Other sta food I'd recommend for really tricky encounters;

Spicy Crawdad x10
http://thottbot.com/i27667

or

Fisherman's Feast x10
http://thottbot.com/i33052



And please have an eye out for which ones are flasks and which ones are normal elixirs etc

Flasks are good for progressive raiding, if you die often, since they persist through death, hence its not wasted mats. Normal pots/elixirs are better if you die less, as theyll get to stay the duration out then.

A fast section on a few addons I personally would recommend checking out.


Ress monitor. Ora supplies one. CT Raidassist does too, i think. If you use CT you can use this for extra information
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info5073-EkCTRA_ResMonitor.html

PoM Tracker. - Tells you where your PoM is, how much it heals for, and how many charges theres left on it http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6877-PrayerofMendingTracker.html
I've used this one myself, and I loved it

Dispel mod or macro. - Isnt it logic? Fast dispelling is people alive!
Personally I use Decursive;
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info4039-Decursive.html
Smart debuff should do too;
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6588-SmartDebuff.html
Theres half a dousin others, so feel free to browse around

Shackle timer addon - Comes in a lot of larger timer packages too though. Pick one after your choice.
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6425-ShackleWatch.html
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info4022-ShackCaddy.html
and again.. a dousin others The one I use is a part of a bigger timer package though.

Fiend watch of sorts - additional info about your fiend.
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6906-ShadowFiendWatch.html

Enchants for a holy priest depends a lot on your playstyle, on what priorities you have.
There’s a few different types to choose from, depending on what you want enchanted ofc.

Here ill list a few enchants as pointers to what you can get as a holy priest. In this section I’ll go shortly over the different enchants for some of your kit, I’ve probably missed enchants, as this only were to be pointers and not a full guide down to every detail. If there’s lacking an enchant here, you feel is essential, then please let me know, so I can adjust.



Chest;

Enchant Chest - Exceptional Stats;
+6 to all stats.
http://thottbot.com/s27960


Enchant Chest - Restore Mana Prime;
+6mp5
http://thottbot.com/s33991

Enchant Chest - Exceptional Mana;
+150 mana.
http://thottbot.com/s27958


Enchant Chest - Major Spirit;
+15 spirit
http://thottbot.com/s33990



Boots;

Your feet then! Well, actually its your boots and not your feet we’re interested in. Here there’s a little variety, depending, again, on your play style and the encounters you plan on using the boots for.


Enchant Boots – Vitality;
+4 mp5/hp5
http://thottbot.com/s27948


Enchant Boots – Fortitude;
+12 stamina
http://thottbot.com/s27950


Weapon;

Enchant Weapon - Major Healing;
+81 healing
http://thottbot.com/s34010

Enchant Weapon - Major Intellect
+30 intellect
http://thottbot.com/s27968

Enchant Weapon - Spellsurge
3% chance on spellcast to restore 100
mana to all party members over 10 seconds
http://thottbot.com/s28003


Rings;

Enchant Ring - Healing Power
+20 healing, on your own rings only.
http://thottbot.com/s27926

Enchant Ring – Stats
+4 stats. This do require you to be
revered with Scale of the Sands though. ;)
http://thottbot.com/i22538


Gloves;

Enchant Gloves - Spell Strike
+15 spell hit rating.
http://thottbot.com/s33994

Enchant Gloves - Major Healing
+35 healing on gloves
http://thottbot.com/s33999


Cloak;

Enchant Cloak - Spell Penetration
+20 Spell Penetration
http://thottbot.com/s34003

Enchant Cloak – Subtlety
-2% threat.
http://thottbot.com/s25084


Bracers;
Enchant Bracer – Fortitude
+12 stamina
http://thottbot.com/s27914


Enchant Bracer - Restore Mana Prime
+6 mp5
http://thottbot.com/s27913

Enchant Bracer - Superior Healing
+30 healing.
http://thottbot.com/s27911

Enchant Bracer - Major Intellect
+12 intellect
http://thottbot.com/s34001

Enchant Bracer – Stats
+4 stats
http://thottbot.com/s27905




For your head slot items, I’d recommend this;

Glyph of Renewal;
+35 healing and 7 mp5.
Reg. Thrallmar/Honor Hold; Revered.
http://thottbot.com/i29190



As for shoulder enchants they will differ depending on weather your Scryer or Aldor;


Greater Inscription of the Oracle;
+22 healing and 6 mp5
Reg. Scryer; Exalted.
http://thottbot.com/i28912

Inscription of the Oracle;
+5 mp5
Reg. Scryer; Honored.
http://thottbot.com/i28904

Greater Inscription of Faith;
+33 healing and 4 mp5
Req. Aldor; Exalted
http://thottbot.com/i28887

Inscription of Faith;
+ 29 healing.
Req. Aldor; Honored.
http://thottbot.com/i28878



As for sockets, again there’s a few choices here and there ;)

As for epic healing gems you’ll want to farm heroic instances like Ramparts, Sethekk Halls, Durnholde, Botanica, Shattered Halls, Slave Pens and the likes. All of them drops different gems that can be of use for you. Do however note that theyre unique-equipped meaning that you can only have one of them socketed in your gear at the time. However you can have as many you want stacked away in your bank. No need to get greedy though ;)

The gems you can get these places would be stuff like:

Royal Tanzanite; +11 healing, +2 mp5.
Matches red or blue socket.
http://thottbot.com/i30603

Luminous Fire Opal; +11 healing, +4 int
Matches red or yellow socket.
http://thottbot.com/i30547

Iridescent Fire Opal; +11 healing, +4 Spell Critical Rating
Matches a red or yellow socket.
http://thottbot.com/i30593

Dazzling Chrysoprase; +5 int, +2 mp5
Matches a yellow or blue socket.
http://thottbot.com/i30589

Blessed Tanzanite; +11 healing, +6 sta
Matches a red or blue socket.
http://thottbot.com/i30552

As for the basic gems, it would be stuff like +healing, mp5 etc. They sell for around 2-5g at your local ah, so go browse and enjoy ;) Here’s a few examples;

Teardrop Blood Garnet
+13 healing
Matches a red socket.
http://thottbot.com/i23094

Purified Jaggal Pearl
+7 healing and +3 spirit
Matches a red or a blue socket.
http://thottbot.com/i32833

Lustrous Azure Moonstone
+2 mp5
Matches a blue socket.
http://thottbot.com/i23121


If you’re interested in more gems, then you should go check out either thottbots Jewelcraft list, or go to http://www.wow-loot.com/priest.htm And scroll aaaaaaall the way down to the bottom ;) There’s a small lookup for gems, that will be decent for priests :)

There’s another thing you would want to consider when browsing sockets though.
That’s socket bonuses versus gemming for pure stats. As in example you get this chest piece [Imaginary chest piece of pure imbaness] where you’ll get 3 sockets; 2 red ones and a blue one. The socket bonus could be +7 healing.

If this is the case I’d socket for the socket bonus, as it’s easy sockets to achieve and still get good stats from your gems. I’d for example some of consider these sockets;

Teardrop Living Ruby
It gives +18 healing.
Matches a red socket.
http://thottbot.com/i24029

Royal Nightseye
+9 healing spells and 2 mp5
Matches a red or blue socket.
http://thottbot.com/i24057

Luminous Noble Topaz
+9 healing and +4 intellect
Matches a red or yellow socket.
http://thottbot.com/i24060



Now lets change the sockets to having 2 yellow and a blue socket on our chest. Socket bonus is still +7 healing.
Above we can see we’d have choices like Royal Nightseye and Luminous Noble Topaz, but for this case we could also consider this one;

Brilliant Dawnstone
+ 8 intellect
Matches a yellow socket.
http://thottbot.com/i24047

Now, it would still be somewhat easy to gain an alright amount of pure stats from this, depending on what you prefer, so here it’s pretty individual. You can socket all healing, and forget the bonus (But don’t forget to calculate what you get and loose. 18x3 would give +54 healing, but no socket bonus. 9x3 gives 27, then you can add the socket bonus of +7 healing and get 34 +healing. Besides this you’d get base stats like int or mp5 depending on your choice. Its really up to what you lack and prefer here)

If we however change the chest again, same sockets (2 yellow and a blue) but redo the socket bonus to +3 spirit or likewise, then I’d simply skip the socket bonus and socket for pure stats, as I’d get much more out of my socket stats, than the little I’ll get from the socket bonus. Its not worth it sacrificing the pure stats for that little bit I’d get from the spirit :)

And while we’re at these tricky socket things, I’d like to go into meta sockets too ;) These are rather expensive, so you’ll want to choose your meta gem carefully. Before you choose it, you should consider your gear, as you’ll get some requirements you need to match, for it to become active. (You can still socket it, it just wont kick in before you fulfill the requirements)

As an example a requirement could be that you need to have more blue gems than yellow gems. It could also be having 2 red gems, 2 blue gems, 2 yellow gems. Hence you’ll want to study your meta closely, so you don’t pick one that will demand you to resocket all your carefully socketed gear.

On a sidenote for this, to make it easier, you’ll want to know that a gem (as an example) that matches a red and a blue socket (Like the Royal Nighteye) will count for both a red and a blue gem when socketed. Same goes for all other types too. Meaning if you socket clever it won’t be too hard to achieve what your meta requires.

Here’s a few meta examples to look at;

Insightful Earthstorm Diamond
+12 intellect and chance to restore mana on spellcast.
Requires at least 2 Red gems
Requires at least 2 Yellow gems
Requires at least 2 Blue gems
http://thottbot.com/i25901

Powerful Earthstorm Diamond
+18 Stamina and 5 % stunresist.
Requires at least 3 Blue gems
http://thottbot.com/i25896

Mystical Skyfire Diamond
5 % on spellcast – next spell cast in half time
Requires more Blue gems than Yellow gems
http://thottbot.com/i25893

Bracing Earthstorm Diamond
+26 healing spells and 2 % reduced threat
Requires more Yellow gems than Blue gems
Requires more Red gems than Blue gems
http://thottbot.com/i25897


This would be it about enchants and sockets for healing priests :) Hope you could use it.

This section is about understanding and managing your threat, so you can avoid getting aggro, instead of wondering how to get rid of the aggro when you have it. I will post some facts and tips here, which I hope you can use.


- Threat is applied the second your heal lands, not before. This means if you got a renew going on the target and you’re high on the aggro list already, then you’ll need to time your heals carefully.

- Your heals will usually cause 1 point of threat for each 2 point you’ve healed. This only applies to the actual amount of healing healed, hence overhealing doesn’t count. If your tank tanks several mobs, and you heal him for 2000, your aggro will get spread over all the mobs, and not just stack on one. Meaning 2000 would split to 200 threat on 5 mobs for example.

- If you got serious problems with threat you’ll want to pick up Silent Resolve in Disc. 5/5 talents will give you a 20 % threat reduce on your holy and discipline spells. It also reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 20 %.

- Buffing people in combat will give you threat. Buffing a single target shouldn’t harm a fly, but mass buffing in combat will cause you to gain some threat, and it is also very manadraining. Therefore be sure to inform your group that you want to buff before combat starts.

- Keep an eye on your tanks aggro, so you can make sure you stay below him. This is best done with one of the typical raid addons such as KTM threatmeter or Omen.

- When you enter combat, give your tank a few seconds to gain aggro on all the mobs. This is to avoid your first greater heal pulling aggro on one of the mobs he hasn’t build aggro on. You can cast renew on him before he goes in, but save your massive heals for a little while, if you do that make sure to stay out of combat though. This will save you from some threat. PoM works awesome also, as it grants him threat, when hit. Him, not you. Also, if your tank is going to pull the mobs back, around a corner or anything like it, then spare the renew, cause it will pull aggro from him to you.

I usually PoM him before going in, this gives me time to regen the mana from the PoM, before even entering combat, then PoM him again after it has bounced first time, and then renew. This is something you'll have to adjust though, depending on the type of mobs, and your aggro management.

- Use your fade button. It’s a gift. Many priests won’t use it before they get hit, but it can be used in many other ways. When you enter combat at first, it will allow you to be able to cast a few heals and hence keep the tank alive, without fear of overaggroing. When it ticks out, he should have established a decent amount of threat.

- You will be more likely to draw aggro if you stand close to your tank, than further away. This is because when you stand within melee range you need 110 % of the aggro (10 % over the tanks aggro) while if you stand at max range you will need 130 % (30 % over the tanks aggro)



Now you might wonder; What do I do if I already did gain aggro, and I cant get rid of the mob? Quite simple. You keep your head cool, figure out where your tank is, and run towards him. I know your instincts will tell you to run away, when you get hit, but your tank don’t have longer legs than you do, so he wont ever be able to pick the mob off you, if you run away. Keep a cool head, and run to your tank. Don't forget your good friend fade here either. Fade can in best case cause the mob to leave you alone, and run back to your tank, and in the worst case, it'll give the tank a bit easier time picking up the mob. He might not have noticed the mob running off, so in some cases he would appreciate it, if you find time, to tell him you get hit. This will allow him to use intervene, or the likes, so be aware of what he will chose to do. Intervene demands a certain distance, whereas if he keeps running towards you, then he'll try to pick it up the oldfashioned way.

How to stay alive until the tank pick up the mob?
Personally I use PoM, when I’m close to the tank, as it will jump to him next then, and it heals me, then him when he takes dmg, then back to me, if I’m closest to him. Next I’ve got my bubble, which gives me time to heal freely. Third I’ve got binding heal, that will heal both me and my target. These 3 things combined with your normal heals work wonderfully, in these few stressful seconds it should take the tank to get the mob off you. The routine you will need to work out on instinct in the specific situation, as it will depend on how much damage you take, and how long it will take the tank to get the mob off you.

Please note, that PoM won't work if there's only this one mob left, since then the tank won't take hits. If he do however take several hits, then it will work perfectly. And again, remember to fade, if/when you can.

Also notice that we deal with 3 different types of tanks;
Warriors.
Paladins.
Feral druids.

Each of these have their own ways of gaining and keeping aggro, so get to know all 3 types, get familiar with them, so you know what to expect from your tank.
Here’s some brief info about them;

Warriors; Warriors can safely be considered the slowest to establish a healthy amount of aggro, but eventually end up being more persistant and reliable than any other thank class. The better their kit is however, the lesser dmg they take. Warriors are therefor also the worst tank class to scale with gear. A fully equipped endgame tank will have trouble tanking in a (non) heroic, since he will barely take any damage, and hence not create any threat. Right now it’s unavoidable concluding that the better the gear gets; the more cautious a healer needs to be during the first few seconds. They are, however, in their right environment a massive threat machine. They will have a high amount of parry, block and dodge.

Paladins; They build up very high at the beginning of the fight. This makes them very bad offtanks, but in 5 man grps they’re really awesome to group with. Basically he builds up an insanely stupid amount of threat in the first 15-20 seconds, and then he has to manage his mana, to continue generating an average amount of aggro for the rest of the fight. This means for fast speed runs a paladin will be awesome, but for long fights he will often go out of mana, which will cause him to loose aggro. Also paladins aint allergic to your shield, as a warrior would be, as he doesn’t generate rage.

Feral druids; These friendly fuzzy ones will need you to give them a few seconds to build up some aggro. Druids will often take burst dmg in spikes, so be sure to keep an eye on them. They got a high amount of armor and dodge, which means they’ll most likely stack mobs to build up more aggro.

This is a short section about how to use your Prayer of Mending, also known as PoM.
I will be writing down some of my personal tips and tricks for this awesome spell, and how to use it for the best possible value and healing effect.

Firstly, I’ll recommend checking out the section about priest addons, as I’ll strongly recommend getting a PoM tracker. This is an addon that tells you where your PoM is at the very moment, how much it heals for and where it jumps to. This way you always know where it is. Some PoM trackers even supply information about other priests PoM’s as well.

Next I’ll have to make you aware of the way heal aggro and PoM works together. PoM isn’t like most of your other heal spells that will cause you to gain additional aggro, upon healing done. You will cast PoM on a target, then as you know, when the target takes damage, the PoM will bounce. The threat gained from this amount healed will go to the target the PoM healed, not you. Meaning casting a PoM on the tank before he goes into combat is doing him a favor, since he gains additional threat when it heals it.

Now there are 2 situations where your PoM will suit you very well. One of them is a typical melee party that includes your tank, which for example can be some Kara mobs where the dps tend to be very trigger-happy or you’ll deal with aoe mobs. The other will be a party that does NOT include your tank. Here the Curator fight is a good example, as the dps don’t have to worry about the aggro they’ll gain from it bouncing. The sparks the Curator spawns will hit the melee dps when they stand close, and make it jump very happily around, causing you to get full benefit from the mana used.

However, be aware of that in some higher end content, the aggro the dps will gain from the PoM, can easily result in them gaining aggro, when they shouldn’t. This can mean a wipe, so bear in mind how and where you use it. In fights where the dps doesn’t have to worry about aggro, it’s a huge bonus, in others it will be a completely wipe.

Also you’ll want to be aware of that you PoM do not stack. I’ll give you an example;

Say we've got 3 priests in the party, that all cast PoM on the tank.
1 priest casts, then nr 2 cast it too. This will overwrite the PoM nr. 1 cast. When nr 3 cast, this will overwrite nr 2's PoM. Hence priest 1 and 2 wasted their mana.
This means when nr 1 cast his/her PoM. Then nr 2 should wait till the PoM has bounced the first time, and THEN cast his/her PoM on the tank. It's either that, or have one priest PoM the tank, and the others the dps, if everybody takes a lot of damage.

Also, you can end up in a situation where your PoM lands on yourself, and you aren’t taking any dmg, so what do you do? Simple;
PoM lands on you, so you find your SW:D, which will cause it to jump to a nearby target. This will also heal you of the dmg taken from SW:D. If you’ve been taken dmg before, which you’d like to heal up, then find SW:D rank 1, instead of rank 2. This will make you take less dmg, and hence heal more, since your PoM still heals for the same.

If you do it like this, you’ll easily get full benefit for your mana used, and also know when to use it, and when you shouldn’t.

Nice guide :)

I'll add a linky in my FAQ :)

Cheers :) Its far from done though :/

Ok for the amount of effort you are putting in you deserve a sticky, but I could not support one.

You have made erroneous conclusions on several things.

First let us begin with the spirit vrs Mp5 debate.

While gearing up at your level and certainly prior to the meditation buff spirit is inferior to Mp5 due to the sole reason that the gear you have access to does not have enough of it to rival the Mp5 of the primal mooncloth set, however becoming a Mp5 priest and loosing the ability to time your heals to correspond with the 5 second rule is a very very bad thing.

When you are able to stack a significant amount of spirit it becomes far far superior to Mp5 regen the reasons are thus..

Firstly while Mp5 will regen your mana non-stop, you will gain almost equivalent in casting regen due to meditation with additional Mp5 from items that have both spirit and Mp5.

Secondly you will not cast for 100% of the time, any time you do not cast will work towards outside the 5 second rule, if you have stacked Mp5 this value will be low, if you have stacked spirit it will be huge.

Thirdly, our holy tree + inner focus is built to allow you to get outside the 5 second rule, even if you are non-stop spamming a tank you are able to get outside the 5 second rule using a Holy Concentration proc followed by a inner focus.

Fourth the only job that requires you to non-stop cast is tank healing if you are doing this you should be casting big heals and interrupting them just before the end of the cast if the tank is high, this allows allot of time outside the 5 second rule if used wisely in combination with the above.

Five there are several trinkets that support a spirit build where the user is making wise choices about his mana regen - re botanica trinket, earing of soulful meditation.

Six - there is only one class in the game capable of providing non stop effective group healing outside a mana regen group on all five members of the group that is a spirit priest, a spirit priest is able to do so because of the huge benefit he or she gain when innervated.

But primerily see the first one by learning Mp5 regen early on you are effectively teaching yourself a way of regen that does not work in high end content because of the lack of support for it.

Secondly let us discuss your disc/holy heavy build

It is wrong and your conclusions re talents are also wrong.

The best heavy holy build is as follows...

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxG0khxZcLxcfzqVhVo

The reason you do not need healing focus is quite obvious - start getting push back in a raid and you are already dead.

Holy nova is crap.

Light well is worse.

Mental agility is a must, it turns Circle of Healing in to the most mana efficient group healing spell in the game.

5/5 silent resolve isn't needed, you planning to pull agro from a raid tank? Ever?

Feel free to move the points in absolution or healing prayers about as you want.. they are merely there to access higher talents although this is where I find them most useful.

You forget that this is a guide with pointers to newbees.

Silent Resolve isnt needed, no, but it is recommended untill you know how to handle your aggro. I skip it personally, but a lot of priests like having it. Secondly if you cant argument with other than "this is crap" then do not post at all :) People cant use that for anything. As for talent speccs, then again, they are pointers, they are there to be looked at and then adjusted to match your specific playstyle, nothing else.

Playstyle is exactly why no guide can be perfect, as every guide is written based on what works for them, hence it doesnt mean it works for everybody else.

Most of this guide is minded on new priests, that needs some ideas and pointers to how to handle their class, and that is what I am giving them. I am not anywhere saying that this is the one and only solution. This means that at first they just have to learn to administer, they arent going straight for highend content. But I will return to that anyways.

As for spirit vs. mp5, then I've tested both, and I value my mp5 higher, since it allows me to regen very massively, and to back this up I spoke to several priests and looked over their gear, that did end game content like BT, and they say the same. The spirit you get is granted, since you get it automatically from your gear, so go for the mp5 to allow yourself to regen. Nothing lower than 250 mp5 casting was recommended for hyjal/BT

As for inner focus, then yes, ill recommend taking it, but I know many priests who doesnt do this. They go full holy for circle of healing, which is very useful in some end game content for trash healing, or fights where a lot of general raid healing is needed. Ofc you can have both, but none the less some people skip it, and there need to be room for them to allow to do what they think is best for their playstyle. That means they wont have that option to escape the five seconds rule, not to mention inner focus cant be up all the time, as it is a CD. That means they have to know how to deal with this without getting into trouble with their regen.

And as for healing non stop, then some raid encounters do again, require heavy trashhealing, and ofc the mainhealer wont be put to heal the mainraid. He/she will heal the maintank. and if you go oom due to not being able to keep mana, then its too bad. Such situations will also require spamhealing.

And there is a reason I have highlightened the things I did, and not put weight on things like Silent Resolve. Thats because its talents you can move very easily around.

---

Q u o t e:
5/5 silent resolve isn't needed, you planning to pull agro from a raid tank? Ever?

---

A lot of you wrote is very close to truth but not truth really ....
I'll comment only the thing above.

Yes you shouldn't plan to pull aggro off raid tank but it's perfectly doable especially as CoH priest spamming group heals. Although this is quite pathetic situation and easily avoidable but the real need for SR is somewhere else - it's trash pulls. Tanks gets their targets, CCers manage theirs and then one breaks and goes straight for non SR priest, pwns him and then gets resheeped/rebanished/tanked.

Hmm, seems like a good guide though I didn't read it all through, reminds me that I really have to update my crap Priest Guide sticky D8 (It kind of sucks).

Nice Guide Tho Sticky tho
Ty for this guide verry good !

Keep on making Guides

---

Q u o t e:
You forget that this is a guide with pointers to newbees.

---

No I didn't thats one of the main reasons I said what I said - learning to rely on Mp5 is bad becasue you then don't know how to use spirit.

---

Q u o t e:
"this is crap" then do not post at all :) People cant use that for anything.

---

Acctualy I think "this is crap" is a pretty fair description of Holy Nova and Lightwell, the first is a gimmic that isn't useful in any meaningful sense for either damage or healing its only real use if knocking rogues and druids out of stealth in PvP for which ok it is great, the second is possibly the worst spell available to priests ever and always has been

---

Q u o t e:
As for spirit vs. mp5, then I've tested both, and I value my mp5 higher, since it allows me to regen very massively, and to back this up I spoke to several priests and looked over their gear, that did end game content like BT, and they say the same. The spirit you get is granted, since you get it automatically from your gear, so go for the mp5 to allow yourself to regen. Nothing lower than 250 mp5 casting was recommended for hyjal/BT

---

Your speaking to one right now and I agree high regen is required for BT and Hyjal, what I don't agree with is the supposition that Mp5 is the best way to get high regen, though it depends largely on what you are doing. If you are asked to MT heal then likely you will be casting almost constantly with very little time outside the FSR, in this case then a Mp5 based set of gear is indeed preferable for regen. However this is not the optimum use of a priest as a healer in any raid - our strength lies in the massive variety of ways we have to heal which means we lend ourselves best to support tank healer or raid healer, both situation where I have yet to find a boss in the game where spirit would not be a preferable choice to Mp5.

In either case whichever you are stacking you will end up with some of the other, but I would as I say much rather have spirit because while my Mp5 may be somewhat smaller my mana regen outside the FSR is so insanely high that I will regenerate huge amounts of mana for even a small time outside the FSR.

---

Q u o t e:
As for inner focus, then yes, ill recommend taking it, but I know many priests who doesnt do this. They go full holy for circle of healing, which is very useful in some end game content for trash healing, or fights where a lot of general raid healing is needed. Ofc you can have both, but none the less some people skip it, and there need to be room for them to allow to do what they think is best for their playstyle. That means they wont have that option to escape the five seconds rule, not to mention inner focus cant be up all the time, as it is a CD. That means they have to know how to deal with this without getting into trouble with their regen.

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Im not sure why your on about Inner Focus, everyone should take it tbh to enable more time outside FSR, but that besides the point.

The talent I was talking about and said your full holy build lacked was "Mental Agility", Circle of Healing is a instant cast spell and mental agility reduces the cost of instant casts.. max mental agility makes Circle of Healing the most efficient spell in the game for group healing.