Prettyrad

Thanks for your reply. I understand that you are busy with Fresh Server planning. I will maybe edit my guide to focus more on getting into the raiding game, even though as you say there will always be overlap. Currently its just a bunch of random google docs living on the hope that Blizz will make legacy servers one day. But who knows, maybe I'll be struck by divine inspiration one of these days and mash into something proper and postable. I thought about what I meant and I do think you get it, but just for anyone out there, I think the best way to go about a guide is to 1. Explain the basic mechanic. 2. Explain how you optimize the фекал out of the mechanic.

OK I PROMISE TO STOP SPAMING AFTER THIS ONE. As I think of it, maybe the best way to go about it would be to make The Ultimate Priest Guide a 2-part thing. Part one covers mechanics, leveling up and getting into the raiding game. Part two would cover the bleeding edge optimization, I guess good treshold could be preAQ40 bis (not just gear, but teamsetup and all). Not to get totally carried away here, but if you ever cba making a revision again I'd be happy to help out / bounce ideas.

Actually I'm gonna be lazy and just copy paste paragraphs in here :) Some of this talks about Shamans, try to live with it. What I mean is I think that the guide as a whole would probably be better understood by players who are not bleeding edge if you explain the advanced basics first (and yes you touch on these points, but its somewhat scattered). --- Advanced basics for healing + Healing and Downranking You’ll probably hear that this is your most important stat and there is some truth to that. The thing that makes +healing so powerful is that it allows you to downrank spells. What this means is that once you get enough +healing rank 1 of Greater Heal will heal for as much as rank 4 of Greater heal without +healing. So you get the same effect, but for a lower cost. The more +healing you get the more you can afford to downrank. This increase of efficiency means that +healing is not just a throughput stat, it is also a longevity-stat. With this is mind I still dont think that the statement “+healing is your best stat” is the entire truth, especially not while gearing up. You also need some actual pure regen stats in the form of mp5 and spirit. Its hard to completely avoid spirit and mp5, but if you manage to do it your mana will sink like a stone and just not come back. What you should aim for is a sweetspot where you can consistently cast efficient heals without seeing your mana drop drastically. This sweetspothealing is what you’ll use as long as the incoming damage is normal and consistent. A great example would be a Shaman that uses a lower rank of chainheal to keep the raid alive while moving though trash clears. Sometimes you will have to break this sweetspot style and employ cooldowns, maxranks and consumables to keep up during the more intese periods of incoming damage. Catching a break to drink, even if íts not to full mana, also makes a huge difference in the long run. Annother important aspect of +healing is that spells with a longer casttime benefits more from +healing then spells with a short casttime. So if you are looking for maximum efficiency you should aim to use spells with a longer casttime + ie Greater Heal rather then Flash Heal. Renew is something of an exception to this rule since its ridiculously effective whichever way you look at it. --- Manaregeneration and the five second rule When you cast a spell that consumes mana your regen from spirit will cease for 5 seconds. This is yet annother reason to use spells with a long casttime. If you use a spell with a 3 second casttime you can wait for two seconds before you start your next cast and by doing so snag a tick of full spirit regen. This is a very common way to tankheal, especially for Priests. You start casting a Greater Heal and as its about to finish you cancel it if its not needed. With this method you get the best of both worlds: a lot of regen from spirit but still always a big heal lined up and ready to hit the tank. Furthermore this can be combined with Inner Focus since it makes your next cast consume no mana. This is especially useful during tough times when all healers a low on mana. You fire up your Inner Focus and keep casting max rank Greater Heal. When you actually release it the tank will get a huge heal with a high crit chance and you still wont break the 5 second rule until you finish your next cast. OK HOLD ON JUST A SECOND YOU JUST DECRIBED TWO DIFFERENT WAYS OF PLAYING I WANT TO KNOW WHICH ONE IS BIS???!!??! Yes thats correct, I decribed: 1. “Sweetspot-healing” where you chaincast heals that doesnt run you oom immideatly. 2. “Stop-casting” where you cancel heals to manipulate the 5 second rule. Which one is the best may depend on your gear, your assignment and the boss you are fighting. For example dualwielding bosses usually provide a “stream” of smaller hits and these may be more optimally countered by Sweetspothealing since its predictable and proccing Insipration (or the shaman version) on the tank gives a good reduction of these consistent smaller hits. A boss that has big spiky attacks might be better contered by stop-casting since its very important to get him topped off before the next big spike. To be fair such a boss may be tough to soloheal, you may want one healer chaincasting and one healer stopcasting just to be sure - in such a case, sort out which role you’ll perform. If your gear is oriented around mp5 you will get less benefit from gaming the 5 second rule, that doesnt mean you should never go for it. Usually when you progressraid (or the фекал just hits the fan) resources are scarce and every little bit helps. Also keep in mind that its not just you, if 10 out of 10 healers each manage to get 5-15 spirit ticks it makes a huge difference in the grand scheme of things. --- Spirit vs mp5 Short Version: Priest go for spirit Shaman go for mp5 Long version: If only it where that simple… at least for Priests its not quite that simple, with Shaman its difficult to build a maxed out spirit set with the availiable gear which makes it a bit easier to decide (aka you have no choice). When you ding 60 and start gearing the normal case is that you come across various random gear with both spirit and mp5. This needs to balanced with some regard to your +healing as well. The thing with Spirit is that it gets remarkably more valuable the more you stack. Your ticks outside of the 5 second rule become better and better as you stack more spirit. However, until you start getting that massive spirit pool you may be better of with some powerful mp5 parts - besides mp5 is always on and you may not always have the opporunity to dodge out of the 5 second rule. Furthermore for Holy Priests they get +healing from talents (25% of spirit). So the long term plan for all Priests should be to go for a heavy spiritgear. This point is further enhanced by certain items: the 3-part T2 which doubles your spirit regen wile casting (from 15% to 30%) and the Darkmoon Trinket that allows 100% spiritregen when it procs. HOWEVER, before you have these items, be wary of just blindly stacking spirit. Your random blues from 5man instances just might have so little spirit that a few powerful mp5 parts give you more bang for your buck. Annother big caveat with spirit is dispellfights. Some fight your will spam dispells which makes it impossible to get outside the 5 second rule. Especially wile progressing Molten Core this is relevant, a big part of MC involves spam dispelling and you are simply better off with mp5 during this time. You may even want to sacrifice +healing for mp5 if you cant find the time to heal anyway. Your +500 healing will do NOTHING for you if all you cast is dispell. I’m not saying you all need to go out and get a full set of mp5 gear, but keep an eye out for good mp5 parts. Dont vendor or disenchant them, they will come in handy.

Hello Jindo I'm very glad to come across such a well thought through and well edited guide. I've been reading just about every Priest guide out there I could find since I've been working on my own guide. The guide I'm writing has a slightly different take; I named it "From zero to hero" and the idea is to guide players how to go from leveling up to becoming solid raiding priests. Your guide is way more focused on the very end of content, nothing wrong with that just different ways to approach it. All said and done, this is by far the best guide I have come across. Just for reference I dont have quite as much endgame experience as you, I played Vanilla and TBC quite hardcore, but that was a long time ago and the game (how players play) has changed as we both know, I only raided on Kronos 2 as far as private servers go. We where in at least one Azuregos raid together! Anyway, feedback: * I think you left out spirit of zanza? * Maybe it should be emphasiezed that Major Mana Potion and Demonic Rune does not share cooldown since the doubleuse is so powerful. * I think the guide could use a part that adresses basic mechanics such as downranking and 5-second rule. Maybe you feel its to much spoonfeeding, but its a guide after all :) * I kinda think you could take out the detailed listing of racials... god I am so sick of reading these. Most guides 80% of the text is the racials and a BiS list. Just keep the discussion / conclusions. I'm on call at work, but if time permits I'll post some concrete examples of what I mean about basic mechanics text.