How difficult/complicated is priest healing?

[Danko 1]

Hi! So i randomly got the urge to play a healer this time around, and im gonna roll an undead priest, problem is i dont know anything about healing or priests in general. Also i have no clue how to level them

 

Any help, even the most basic ones would be appreciated.

[`Xdembe` 47]

something like this

[euron 1]

It's pretty straight forward. Vanilla isn't rocket science.

 

As a priest you'll have the most options from all the healers. You'll have big, slow heals that are mana efficient or you can spam expensive flash heals in emergencies. Priests also have acces to shields and some of the best AoE healing in the game. On top of that they also get a HoT in renew. 

 

It's up to you what ability you'll use in what situation to keep your friends alive.

[cryofsorrow 5]

something like this

There's some truth in this one.

@OP, once you get used to the fights and know where the most incomming damage is, it becomes not that complicated. Playing around with different spells and different ranks combined with constant stopped pre-casts should be all you need.

And you level a healer the same way you level other classes, the only difference is you're less likely to die playing a healer. Go to the Priest section for leveling tips if you're rolling a priest.

Edited December 11, 2016 by cryofsorrow

[Hangkiw 0]

something like this

Haha Love it! i'm kinda little bit of both tho xD

[Ellipsea 36]

Most people level priests as shadow, for obvious reasons.  I leveled both my Nost Priests as healer and did a hella lot of wanding : P I'm just stubborn that way.

 

It took me awhile to get comfortable playing priest in vanilla.  Yeah read some guides, but it really boils down to lots of experience with your priest.  Downranking in the right spots, building your talents to your own needs, understanding how important party positioning is, managing mana, etc.  Once you're comfortable it's a beautifully involving class to play.

 

Definitely read up on each tank you'll be healing.  You approach them slightly differently.

[windslav 2]

1) Type /who and strike up random conversations with warriors of same level. Casually joke about how lonely you feel in the game.

2) Keep the warrior thinking it's their own decision to help you.

3) Spam heals and jokes. Never cast any damaging spells, you want to appear useful and fun but absolutely helpless. Make them feel responsible for you.

4) Shower with compliments every tank you come across, even if they're really bad. It's easier to unfriend them later than level alone.

5) When everyone inevitably blames you for everything from 5 hp left pull to the lego piece they stepped on 11 years ago, apologize.

[Ellipsea 36]

ha.  nice.

[gotmilk0112 10]

The hardest part of Priest healing is just knowing which rank of spell to use.

 

After that, you pretty much just spam single target heals all raid, maybe hit a dispel once in a while. It's really not hard at all.

[Res 0]

Hardest part while levelling is all the warlocks saying "you don't have to heal me I have life drain" so you just stand there at full mana and let them die because you have social anxiety and problems confronting people so you're too afraid of healing them. Then you have to spend all that mana resurrecting them anyway.

Once you hit level 60 the opposite happens, all the warlocks want you to heal them but your gear is crap so you have to focus on the tank, which means the warlock will life tap to death and die and you have to spend all that mana resurrecting them anyway.
 

TL;DR:
Just have the warlocks soul stone themselves

[Faith 5]

Hi! So i randomly got the urge to play a healer this time around, and im gonna roll an undead priest, problem is i dont know anything about healing or priests in general. Also i have no clue how to level them

 

Any help, even the most basic ones would be appreciated.

 

 

Actually the hardest part is just managing your mana / overheal. I was a main Healer in MC and I did a good job of managing mana. I didn't use addons like healbot or anything like that. I just had good keybinds and (uberMicro Skills FTW) and knew which healing spells I needed to cast and when to keep people up.

 

Just do a lot of healing as you level. Make sure you read the tooltips on each rank of your healing spells and understand how much healing you get with each rank. Compare them (Flash Heal vs. Heal Rank 1 or 2 vs Greater Heal). 

 

Actually this video does a good job of explaining it:

 

 

Good Luck!!

 

  ~ Faith AKA Faithdriven ~

[Ellipsea 36]

What faith said...in raid is super important.  The problem is you can't account for other healers actions if they aren't set up to monitor incoming heals.  On Ally side, the problems I can have with Pallys spam underhealing me because the only thing they're looking at is meters, is freaking irritating as all hell.

[Konuvis 0]

I was a Priest in vanilla on a PVP server and soloing in Un'Goro still gives me chills....

 

Get Decursive

[Faith 5]

I was a Priest in vanilla on a PVP server and soloing in Un'Goro still gives me chills....

 

Get Decursive

Yah decursive is definitely a must.

[Duality 4]

As every other healer in vanilla you will find yourself downranking spells a lot. There should be a ton of guides with info about what rank to use according to your gear. As you upgrade your gear, hence bonus healing, you will find that a R2 spell will do as much healing as your R3 spell did earlier. Some ranks are more mana sufficient (raw heal vs mana required) while others other are more heal sufficient (raw heal vs cast time = HPS). You will also find yourself up and downranking spells for certain encounters depending on the dmg output of the boss or the lenght of the encounter. Encounter knowledge is also a key aspect to concider. Neffy for example has a breath ability that deals large amounts of dmg to the tank - this should affect your playstyle by precasting a high rank spell so that it lands shortly after the breath. As a priest you also wish to pre-shield and pre-hot raid members in situations where you are expecting them to take damage. A good healer can immitigate a lot of raid dmg by doing this.

I'd also reccomend using a good RaidFrames addon, like Luna. This addon has features that let you keep track of incomming heals on raid members. By utilizing this feature, you can minimize overhealing and in turn save mana. A good buff-watch addon is also a must - else you'll find yourself getting yelled at by raid members. 

 

[Av_vA 3044]

Step 1: make a good macro/addon for healing in raid/party with priority and depending on curent mana

Step 2: get/make any autoclick programm

Step 3: put your macro/addon hotkey on autoclick

 

This will save 95% of boring routine healing in raids on trash/easy boss fights, also when you don't focus on frames it's allows you focusing more on you spot to avoid staying in AoE for example and at all raids will be not soo boooring

[stif 1]

just like the rest of the healers you will start to see the idiotic side of all players

[Asherdoom 5]

by my experience i can tell you 2 things concerning priest heals:

1)staple raid healer due to high amount of healing spells+magic dispel (especially horde side the priest is the only magic dispeller available) which can dispel 2 together with one cast.

2) Dispel disease is meh, yet you compensate with your dispel being offensive aswell (like shammy purge) unlike paladins which cannot dispel for example enemy dispels.

3)you got shaman+druid arsenal in one class! renew+flash  heal+ greater heal+binding heal will make sure you got the right heal spell for the right time!

4)spirit of redemption is a CHEAT! Healing while dead as last resort ? yes please!

5)Shields: you are the only class that shield your main tank in case of a bursty attack (example patchwerk hateful strike) and also in 5 man dungeon PWS is lifesaver for group aswell, yet costly

 

difficulty? From a scale of 0 to 10 i would say 7: you must get used to have tons of heal spells for tons of situation (for example a druid resto spam mostly HT to heal and goodbye, using regrowth and SM only in emergency while you must choose carefully your picks)

mana is a issue aswell when you are low gearreed, unlike shammy you dont have the totem to replenish your mana so be thoughtful of spamcasting

[Elviss 5]

just like the rest of the healers you will start to see the idiotic side of all players

so true

[Dispril 0]

by my experience i can tell you 2 things concerning priest heals:

5)Shields: you are the only class that shield your main tank in case of a bursty attack (example patchwerk hateful strike) and also in 5 man dungeon PWS is lifesaver for group aswell, yet costly

As far as I can remember, pw:s on patchwerk fight was a really bad idea on retail vanilla. (Was perfectly ok to do it on wotlk version though).

To the op:

1. Learn that everyone do not need to be at 100% health all the time. If ppl will not take future damage, they will regain health naturally

2. Learn how mana regen works, and learn to cancel spells

3. Learn to chose the appropriate rank of spell and which kind of spell to use to be most effective.

4. Learn to prioritize, it is perfectly fine to let some dps die if you are unsure if you will have enough mana to keep the tank and yourself alive. Better to rez a dps than for it to be a wipe.

5. Put good hunters on your friend list (they are rare, but very nice)

[Chill 0]

Pick Dwarf or Undead.

Edit: Nvm. You're going UD.

 

For leveling Go 5/5 Spirit Tap then 5/5 Wand Spec until 40 then respec Shadow Form until 50 then respec Disc/Holy.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Chill

[Maxvla 0]

10 of the longest levels as disc/holy? Gross. Maybe 58 or so if you really have to.

[Xaelum 0]

something like this

 

Heh, its funny cuz its true