As a follow up to my levelling as Holy guide, I figured I'd write a small guide to healing as a holy priest, to help those of you out there who are new to this whole priest thing.
Now as I always say, I don't claim to be an expert at priesting, in fact, I prefer not to be considered as one, but I want to share my own experiences with you to help you towards becoming a better healer.

The keyword in this is "Beginners", meaning that this guide is not directed towards those of you with tons of healing experience and lots of knowledge, but rather towards those that has just recently started healing and/or raiding, and wants a few tips on how to do it.

I have also written a guide to Healbot, which is my choice of Healing addon, which I will post after this guide.

I don't know anything about PVP healing or Shadow Priests, so I'll leave that up to people who actually do that kind of stuff. :)


1. Overhealing

First of all, overhealing is a waste of mana, and should be avoided as much as possible.
Some overhealing is impossible to avoid, but in general, you should try to keep your numbers as low as possible.
Using Recount as a tracker, you can see both how much total overhealing you have done, how many % of all overhealing done that comes from you, and most importantly, how much of your total healing that is overhealing.

Of course, for safety reasons, you would rather risk overhealing someone, in a case where they are taking constant damage, instead of risking their death by a crushing blow, crit etc..
If you combine the knowledge about overhealing, with a good healing addon and knowledge about your spells, you should be able to keep your overhealing to a minimum.

For a priest, I consider typical acceptable overhealing, to be between 15 and 25% +/-.
That means that 15-25% of your total heals in one measured period, is overhealing, which in turn means that only 15-25% of the mana you spent, was wasted.

A lot of my overhealing comes from Renew, and this can't be avoided, and counts for about 10% of all my overhealing, when measured over a whole raid. I don't count the mana spent casting renew as wasted, seeing as renew is such a helpful spell.

2. HpM (Heal per Mana)/HpS (Heal per Second)

Next to overhealing, this is an equally important point of thought, as this counts towards your total mana consumption. The more Healing you can do per point of mana, the better.
The "Heal per Second" part is almost as important, but is only something that's important to think about in emergencies, as your aim is to heal as long as possible, not keep everyone topped up all the time.

For a priest, your most mana efficient spell is Greater Heal, This because it heals for a lot, even though it costs quite a lot and has very long casting time.
Next to Greater Heal, your two most mana efficient spells, are Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing, but with conditions.
Circle of Healing is ONLY mana efficient if you can heal 3 out of 5 targets, without overhealing them
Prayer of Mending is ONLY mana efficient if it jumps more than 3 times, but causes no real threat towards you, so it is very helpful anyway.

After that comes Renew, which is also extremely mana efficient, but as it is a HoT, I don't use it like I do a direct healing spell, and as such, mana efficiency doesn't come into account that much.
In addition to use it to top people off that are not taking any more damage, I also use Renew as a damage mitigation spell. What this means, is that if I have renew up on the main tank at all times, he will be healed a little by the renew spell every time it ticks, allowing me time to cast larger healing spells with less risk to the tank.

3. Knowing your spells

Knowing your spells, what they do and how they work, is incredibly important when you want to heal in general, but with the amount of spells and options you have as a priest, you need some extra attention to this.

Points to think about are HpM/HpS, Casting time, what amount of healing will be done, and what amount of damage the "heal'ee" will take in the near future.

For example, when healing main tank, I will keep renew on him all the time. Not for the amount of healing it does, but for the amount of damage it reduces.
As Renew is a HoT spell, it can be used to reduce the amount of damage the tank takes by X pr 5 seconds, allowing you more time to cast larger spells.
To conserve as much mana as possible, I would try to cast Greater Heal as often as I can, and by using renew as damage mitigation, I give myself time to do that.

Another example would be when I'm on raid healing, and more than one person takes damage at the same time. Now I have to think about CoH is a viable option, or if I should use renews and flash heals (Baaad spell) instead.
The way I do this, Is to see how many people in the same party that have taken damage, how much damage they have taken, and consider the risk of them taking even more similar damage.

If more than 3 people in the same party have taken damage, I can use CoH to instantly heal them for about 1k, and then top them up by using renew, but if there's a risk of more damage of the same kind, I would be more likely to use Flash Heal and top it off with renew.

4. Downranking

Downranking of spells is also an important point to look at, as it helps you conserve mana for later. If you have lots of +healing, it's even more beneficial.

The way you use it, is if your addon shows you in numbers how much health your target has lost (Like healbot does), you can choose a spell that costs less mana (downranked spell) to heal your target to full, without overhealing too much.
Example: Your off tank has taken 3k damage, and is not taking any more at the moment. You don't need to cast a max rank greater heal, because it heals for 5k. Instead you use a downranked greater heal that heals for 3-3.5k. This results in your offtank being healed to full health, and you save 400 mana from choosing a lower rank. This 400 mana can then be used to cast on another target, letting you go on for longer.

Personally I use only 2 healing spells downranked, which are Greater Heal and Flash Heal.

When choosing what rank to use, try out the different ranks to see how much they heal for on average, and choose the one that suits your purpose.
For Flash Heal, I use a rank that heals for about 2k on average, and for Greater Heal, I choose one that heals for about 3-3.5k.
As this depends on how much +healing you have, I can't really tell you which one to use, but try it out for yourself.

5. The 5 Second Rule

This section is short, and is all about mana regeneration. When you look at your mana regenerations, on the spell tab of your character screen, you can see that there's 2 different types of mana regeneration.
While casting, and while not casting.

What the 5 second rule means, is that from the moment you finish casting a spell that costs mana, it takes 5 seconds before you are considered not casting, and regenerate mana at the higher rate.
As mentioned in one of the later posts, if you have triggered clearcasting, or if you use inner focus, you can still cast spells and still be within the 5 second rule for the duration of those spells, because the spells you cast will cost no mana.
This is something I assume is correct, but I have not tried it myself.

The way I use this while I play, is to start wanding towards the main target, as soon as I can see that there's no imminent danger of people taking damage. Using your wand is not considered casting, and allows the 5 second rule to come into effect. (keywords: "no imminent danger" )
As some people have commented throughout this thread, wanding is a bit dangerous, as it triggers your global cooldown, making you not be able to cast instantly, but having to wait for up to 1.5 seconds.
To practice using the 5 second rule, I recommend that you just simply stop casting and wait at first, before you move on to the next level, wanding.
Spend the "waiting" time on observing what happens to the raid during the fights, allowing yourself to predict when and when not to wand the next time you do the same encounter.

I have used this successfully throughout karazhan, and all the way up to MH, without as far as I know risking anyone's life.

Next post: Addons.

Edit: Added the 5 second rule
Edit2: Did some updates based on the discussion that follows my post.

For healing, I use the addon Healbot, and first, I will discuss why I use it, before I will post a little guide on how to use it.

The addon is a very easy to use, easy to configure and nice looking healing addon.

I have been using it for a long time now, and I am definitely very satisfied with it. I actually consider it to be one of the best healing addons available.

Especially in a raid where all the other healers use the same addon, and there's only one simple reason for that.
Healbot communicates..

Healbot shows you how much your current heal will heal the target for (non-crit), by adding some health to the health bar of your target with high opacity. This allows you to plan your next cast in advance, giving you an advantage over using no addon, or some of the other addons available.
However.. When other healers in your raid also use healbot, your interface will also display the heals they are preparing to cast, allowing you to change your mind and cast something else.

Very often I see other healers cast spells, at the same time as myself, not knowing what targets they are casting on, thus wasting mana healing the same target.

As healers, our job is not only to keep people alive, but to conserve mana so we can keep the raid alive over a prolonged period of time.

As some of the other healers apparently just heal everything that takes damage, I have starting to hang back a lot, waiting until my heals are really needed, and this allows me to keep going for longer without problems.

Healbot has all the information a priest needs. It will tell you (if set up correctly, which isn't difficult) among other things this:
- Who in your raid takes damage, and how much
- Who in your raid has aggro
- Who in your raid is within range of your heals
- Who in your raid is getting healed by someone else (Doesn't mean you shouldn't heal that person, but you would normally know if that person is likely to take more damage or not)
- Who in your raid has a debuff that you can dispell
- Who in your raid is missing a buff that you can apply
- Who in your raid has your HOT's and how long until they expire.
It is also fully configurable and supports macros, allowing you to set up to 20 casts (With a 5 button mouse) only by clicking on a persons bar with a particular button combination. For instance: My right click casts Greater Heal, and my Alt+Right Click casts a 3k Greater Heal rank.
No need to switch targets, no need to think about which spell to cast, as you get that into your hand quickly enough.
In addition, it allows me to keep my shackle target in view at all times, knowing when the shackle is about to run out etc.

I'm flying a CoH spec, so my HB is set up for that, and since I'm a priest, it's set up using my own spells, but can easily be modified for other classes.
I am also using a Logitech mouse with 5 available buttons (2 on the side), but for those of you who don't have that, you can use the Shift/CTRL/Alt modifiers that I haven't used yet.

the main interface is set up using the "Raid" skin on the skins page, with 1 header per column and headers on. Make sure you set the scale so you can have 6 columns next to eachother when raiding, as this gives you 5 party columns and one for all pets.
Also set "disabled opacity" to 10%. If people are out of range or not taking damage, this will make their bar disappear, so you don't waste time clicking on people..

I also use an addon to give me an on screen cast bar, so I can time my casts better.

On the "Cure" tab, click your "magic" bar and give it a bright red colour
Click the "disease" tab and give it a bright blue colour. (These colours can be replaced, but avoid green, as this is the standard colour of the bar)
This will make the player bars glow brightly red and brighly green when there's a magic effect or a disease that needs dispelling (see spell setup below)

On the "Spells" screen, you can type in the spells you want to use. You can just type in the name of the spell you want to cast, to cast max rank. If you want to downrank, you type it in the same way you do in a macro: "Spell Name(Rank x)"
Remember that the spell names are case sensitive, so if you are uncertain, check your spell book for the correct typing.
A quick tip if you have problems with that, is to open your macro screen, create a new macro, and shift click in your spellbook, to have that spell name (with rank if necessary) pasted into the macro window.
You can then copy and paste this data into healbot with ctrl+C and ctrl+V

Spell setup:

No modifier:
Left click: Flash Heal (Rank X) (My "Oh @!@#" button)
Middle Click: Renew
Right Click: Greater Heal
Button 4 (Side forward): Prayer of Mending
Button 5 (Side backward): Circle of Healing

Shift Modifier: (I use shift modifier for these because shift for me is a button that requires "effort" to press)
Left Click: Dispel Magic
Middle Click: Power Word: Shield
Right Click: Abolish Disease

Alt Modifier:
Left Click: Flash Heal
Middle Click: Binding Heal
Right Click: Greather Heal (Rank X) (Downranking with +2100 healing gives a cheap spell that heals well)
Button 4 (Side forward): Binding Heal
Button 5 (Side backward): Prayer of Healing

Ctrl Modifier:
I use my Ctrl modifier for my buffs, Prayer of Fortitude etc, but I'll leave this open for those of you without a 5 button mouse.

The option "Use Fluid Bars" looks very cool, but makes healing very difficult because you don't really know what happens as fast as you should.


Add:

You can set up Healbot to Monitor buffs, which is very helpful for raids, and if you have the "use smartcast while out of combat" option activated, you can left click on any member of your raid to cast your main buff on him.
I have prayer of fortitude as my main buff, and if anyone shows up as grey on healbot when ooc, I can click on them and I cast PoF on his/her group.

This looks like a nice bunch of useful info :) Kudos to you

Wow.. :) I was feeling a little confused with this whole priest thing, but I really like your post.

It's informative and helpful.. Thanks..

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Q u o t e:

I'm not a beginner, but i had difficulties configuring it. So i gave up Healbot and using Grid+Clique instead :)

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I'm using healbot and grid together.. Grid instead of the raidframes, and healbot for healing.
As soon as you grasp the concept, healbot is amazingly easy to configure.

As far as I understand, clique works the same way, but on top of whatever frames you use instead, however, I prefer the all-in-one concept of Healbot, and I could even use it as raid frames as well, but I like the way I have it set up now, and I'm happy with the way it works. :)

Here's a screenshot of my current UI, with exception of Recount, which is usually either hidden or tucked away. This screen is from after prince when I solo healed together with a pally solo tank. :)

http://img81.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wowscrnshot052808231331vp5.jpg

A few important pointers:

1) Overhealing is not a bad thing, in fact its mandatory. If your overheal is too low you are endangering your targets. If the damage you are healing is active then your heal should be aimed at healing not only the damage you see, but the damage your target will take during the heal duration. If my target has a 3k deficit and I fire a 3k heal, then in the meantime he takes another 3k hit I have left him with a 3k deficit. This can prove lethal. If overheal is below 25% on gheal and 15% on flash heal you are playing a dangerous game.

2) Incoming heal indicators are not that valuable and can in fact result in confusion. If two healers start on the same target within 0.5 seconds and both cancel because of the incoming heal indicator, the target is left unhealed. You must never cancel a heal because the incoming indicator says another heal is coming. A heal is cancelled only if the target *receives* a heal before your heal resolves.

3) Downranking. Multiple ranks of gheal are necessary for best results. I generally use rank 1, rank3, rank6 and rank 7.


I personally do not like healbot or clique, the reason being that they do not support macros and I need to use my left mouse button to select people. I also do not like grid, because it does not do a good enough job of showing buffs and debuffs, which is essential for predicting damage. It also lacks support for additional frames, like focus frame and main tank frame.

My personal preference is using mouse-over macros for click casting along with pitbull.

Well.. first of all.. If you consider it like this, you have a good point, but still, every point of overhealing is a waste of mana, so I'm not saying it should be avoided at all cost (if you actually read what I write) but I'm saying it should be avoided.

For incoming heals, I don't stop casting even though someone else is, but it shows me that my intended next target is recieving heals, avoiding me having to cast a heal on that target, thus wasting my mana.

For downranking, you don't really need that many ranks, and I actually believe that using too many ranks just causes confusion.

When it comes to healbot, my choice was simple.. I'm a clicker.. I don't use keybindings much, I cba remembering where on the keyboard I put what spell. With healbot, you don't need to select your target, because it casts the chosen spell directly on the target you click on.
It works much like keybindings, but you have 3-5 buttons to choose from, instead of 102. :) And nobody needs to cast more than 20-25 different healing and/or beneficial spells during combat anyway.

As to healbot in 25mans, it's much the same, just wider. I've set it up to allow the "pets" group to grow even larger than the other groups. For 40 mans, well.. I haven't tried that yet, but I can reduce the size of the bars even more, without loosing vital information, but I just like them as big as they are. :)

well less then 25% overheal is possible in MH/BT and earlier content... try to get less then 40% overheal at brut.
you can have maybe 90% overheal if your target doesn't die and you don't go oom it's okay.

downranking is really good to "spam" heal on a target that gets burst damage so you can be sure to have it constantly healed and don't be oom after 2 mins of fight.

overall nice guide for beginners thanks for the work =)

Yea, Really nice info right here for new priests in the healing carrer

Thanks man i was just about to start raiding dinged 70 yesterday <3

Thanks for all the good feedback. :) My intention with this was to give some pointers that I never had when I started raiding a little over a year ago. If nothing else, I hope I have given someone something that they can take with them and become a better healer. :)

And look me up on Nagrand if you ever need me for something. :) I'm there to help

I dont guite get that spell rank thing...
So its totally wrong if i use max rank?

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Q u o t e:
I dont guite get that spell rank thing...
So its totally wrong if i use max rank?

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Nono... :) It's a technique used to save mana most of all..

If you want to heal someone for say.. 3k, and your greater heal heals for 5k, then you will be wasting 2k of heals. So you use a lower rank of greater heal that heals for 3.5k instead, saving yourself mana, and making you last a lot longer. :)

That's at least the basic concept of it..

Personally I use 2 downranked spells, and I don't see the need to divide it more..
I use a downranked GH and a Downranked FHm as well as max rank GH and Max rank FH of course.

I am not saying there's anything wrong with overhealing, but I'm saying it should be kept to a minimum. (If you read my original post properly)
I wasn't originally going to gratify your unnecessary post with a reply, but after reporting you, and feeling a lot better about myself, here you go. :)

The point of mentioning overhealing, is to say that it should be kept to a minimum. Simply because even though you don't go oom, you don't really need to risk it.
It's better to end combat with half your mana left to save the day if someone makes the next pull by accident.

In addition, minimizing overhealing, also maximises your uptime, and in a lot of cases, ensures that the raid can move along more efficiently, because you don't have to sit and drink for a long time.

I always try to keep my overhealing around about 20-25%, which isn't too much of a waste of mana, but at the same time, if you do your job right, don't risk the lives of anyone in the raid by not keeping them topped off.

Nice write up:

My personal toughts on that:

1) Overhealing:
No problem with it as long as u can sustain it but no point of overhealing if it can be avoided

2) Healing Adon
Atm I use Grid (For the possable costumisation) + mouse over macros
I found clique to be hard to configure for my type of playing I use a total of 30 keybindings atm ( bartender3 ftw ) Witch dont include consumables/buffs. And I was struggling get all this to work with clique

3) Efficiency: Here u have to consider 2 things.
A) Tend to use the most eficent rank of GH [ heal/mana ]( with my courent gear that is GH r3)
B) Think about it that way What is the best healing rotation that would get me out of 5sr as much as possable. U can force 5sr to a certain degree.
U can trick a bit like use inerfocus after a clearcasting proc or if a trinket procs that reduces ur mana cost for x try to use a spell that dosent cost X mana
On bosses that have a phase that have increased dmg either general or shadow use shadowfined then and so on...

Stopcast macro or Jumping does wonders :)

This are just exaples partialy depands on the fight ur gear/spec