Starting an 80 Healing Priest - EpicAdvice.com

Starting an 80 Healing Priest

2009-10-30T18:37:46Z

I've recently hit 80 with my Priest, and am interested in what the best approach is to gearing up. My hope, eventually, is to primarily be a disc priest. For the time being, I have a dual shadow/disc spec: if I get sufficiently geared, I may switch the Shadow spec to a holy build instead.

Currently, my gear is very poor. I didn't finish up much in the way of questlines, so I don't have much in the way of high level quest blues, still wearing heirloom items, etc. (My Gear Score is 2400 according to the GearScore addon, which says something.)

I don't have a lot of experience with healing -- I mostly leveled by healing instances from 40-68, but haven't healed since I hit 68, for the most part. Healing is what my end-game goal is.

I've played as shadow primarily for leveling, and on a Boss target dummy, self-buffed, I can do about 1500 DPS for a total of 140k damage before I run out of mana (including Shadowfiend, but not including dispersion).

My priest is an alt, so I only have a small amount of gold I'm willing to really spend on this; I'm trying not to spend much over 500 gold total on the priest. I am willing to spend the 83 Conquest emblems I have on my main for items which make sense.

I've been told that I should go ahead and attack ToC normal (presumably as DPS rather than a healer, to start) to pick up gear. Though I know that ToC normal is a great instance to go to for gear, I'm afraid of what would happen if I ended up in a group of people who are not-so-geared; 1500 DPS is definitely too low for something like Naxx, and Normal ToC is said to be similar to Naxx level difficulty.

Most of the expensive BoE items -- Ulduar, ToC -- are far out of my reach; both crafted and dropped, they tend to go above 1000 gold. There don't appear to be any Naxx BoE drops on the Auction House for me to pick up on my server, unfortunately.

I have a bunch of Frostweave, and would be willing to shell out some dough to get it imbued (4g per infinite dust, so 8g per imbued bolt), if there is frostweave-based tailoring stuff I should pick up.

Am I geared enough for Normal ToC? If a shadow priest in your group is doing 1200-1500 DPS, are you still going to clear the run, or do you boot them after the first boss? Are there items I can pick up for relatively cheap that help me get started?

Are there other heroics that are useful for me to run -- high end purples from the last boss drop -- that I should take into account? Is healing UK or Nexus a good way to start? (Feels like ToC, even on normal, would be a ... somewhat harsh start.)

How should I go about gearing my Priest, learning to heal, and getting into raids eventually?

Thanks to all the advice here, I was able to move into TOC, ICC, and last night, after ~4 nights of attempts, I downed the Lich King with our guild group. Thanks for all the help in making me a Kingslayer :)

Answer by Saarzul for Starting an 80 Healing Priest

2009-10-30T19:21:10Z

I'm in the exact same situation on my priest

Gearing: Run the H-daily every day. Try to pick up purples off the end bosses. Spend EoTs on T9. Spend EoCs on T8 or non-set ilvl 226 gear to supplement your gear until you have the EoTs for the corresponding piece. Focus on intellect early on, once you have a socketable helm put in the Insightful Earthsiege for mana recovery and pick up a mana recovery trinket if you can find one (like Spark of Life)

Learning: I'm a big fan of healbot. Set up mouse buttons/modifiers for PW:S, Flash Heal, Penance, Renew, Prayer of Mending, and Prayer of Healing. If you have some more modifiers available, abolish disease and dispel. When the fight starts, hit the tank with shield, prayer of mending, renew, and penance. The last is a little waste, but stacks Grace on him. For melee, shield, renew. Then just watch for heal bars falling and hit flash heal or renew, or prayer of mending on the tank, or prayer of healing if everyone needs health. Rinse, repeat.

Also, I find it useful to map out the mouse buttons/modifiers on a reference that I can look at during battle, like for my 4 button mouse:

    			(Shift) [Control] {Alt}
__________________________________________________
|   				        |
|   	  LEFT			    |	 RIGHT
|   	Shield			    |	Flash Heal
|   	(Penance)		    |	(Renew)
|   	[Pain Suppression]	|	[Fear Ward]
|   	{Resurrection}		|
|_________________________________________________
|   FWD		           |
|Prayer of Mending    |
|(Dispel)   	       |
|   		           |
|_______________________|
|   BACK		       |
|Prayer of Healing    |
|(Abolish Disease)    |
__________________________________________________

Edit: well, my lines didn't really come out how I wanted but hopefully you get the idea

Answer by Greevil for Starting an 80 Healing Priest

2009-10-30T19:30:17Z

Find a group of friends whom you spend time with on your main that will carry you through heroics. Start with Heroic Violet hold and roll on any cloth drops that come up. If they let you dps then great, once your gearscore gets closer to 3k or above, you can start trying to handle the healing yourself.

The point of the heroics is not to get the gear off of the bosses, but to give you examples of the types of fights and mechanics that come up as a healer. read up on the different attacks that bosses do, and learn to start timing your spells to proactively handle the attacks you know are coming instead of the attacks that have already happened.

Emblems of Conquest, and soon Triumph are where the gear will eventually come from, you need about 250 to get all of the conquest items that will help you.

Use BigWigs(and LittleWigs) or Deadly Boss mods to help you see when bosses are casting things you should know about, and read healing forums and blogs.

First and foremost, get into a Heroic and just try. See how you do, and try to figure what goes wrong and when.

Try to avoid PUGs because they expect everyone to be vastly outgearing any instance they go to, stick with friends and you'll be fine.

It helps a ton to take an alt of a healer with you on these runs, as they can provide advice and sympathy if things go wrong.

Good Luck!

Answer by Wikwocket for Starting an 80 Healing Priest

2009-10-30T20:03:15Z

In response to a few of your specific points:

Overall, since your gear and experience are so limited, I would recommend healing regular 5-mans until you are comfortable with it. As an 80 in normal Nexus or something, there is plenty of room to try new things.
Then I would move on to easier heroics. Preferably ones with bosses that do not AOE too much.
If you can get carried through some VoA's, try it, for gear and experience. Otherwise wait until you have at least all blues and are more comfortable in heroics. Then try a pickup VoA, Naxx, or a ToC with a good group.
For 2 great pieces of gear, get the Titanium Spellshock Ring and Necklace. Both are usable well into Ulduar/ToC, and the mats should be more affordable now.
For gear, if you don't want to buy anything, you should be able to replace those greens with almost any caster drop from an instance or heroic. For example, an easy to get drop for Disc priests is Azure Cloth Bindings from heroic VH.
For general healing strategy as a Disc Priest, check out this answer
ToC is a great instance to gear up in, but it can be harder to heal as an undergeared Disc priest. Lots of AOE damage especially on the Black Knight.

Answer by Gorfmasta for Starting an 80 Healing Priest

2009-10-30T23:18:04Z

now i have a priest at 78, and i have leveled a shaman in hope of end-game resto (which i have done). im going to keep it relatively concise, if you are in a guild, look for guildmates that will run heroics with you. If you are having worries about healing, dont. the hardest part for me was building up the courage to heal. this does sound a little weird but healing isn't too difficult ( i have done it on my priest) you just have to get over the initial hurdle. i personally recommend getting an addon as it help with comfort for many people. as for gearing? do toc reg to get all the cloth gear from there, then i would proceed to running the easy heroics(and healing a few) to grab any specific gear and badge gear. always do the heroic daily if you can, because after 15 days of doing so, you can get your t9 shoulders. Dont let it get to you if anyone says you suck at healing, and persevere. im not great at writing, but thats my 2 cents.

best of luck with gearing!

Answer by raskol for Starting an 80 Healing Priest

2009-11-02T01:20:52Z

First thing to do as a healer is to bind your spells to keys or to your mouse. If you want to bind them to your mousebuttons you will have to use an addon like Clique or Healbot. There are two other options though, using mousekeys might feel a little faster but if you start raiding you might wanna free up your mouse for moving. The other two choices are using traditional mouse bindings or mouseover macros. Traditional bindings should be a bit slower theoretically but as always skill is a bigger factor.

Mouseover macros(wich I use) look something like this.

#show Prayer of Mending
/cast [target=mouseoveover] Prayer of Mending

These lines of "code" will make you a button that shows the cooldown on ProM and casts it on the player that your mousepointer is hovering over. It doesn't matter if you hover it over the character or over their portrait/healthbar. There are more advanced versions of these macros to be found that casts it on your target or targets target when you are running or not targeting anyone. But this one will do you good as a start.

More important than how you cast your spells are your unitframes, healbot, grid, stuf, ag, pitbull and Vuhdoo are some examples. The original ones will work aswell, but I usually find I wanna move them closer to the middle of my screen as a healer.(There is probably an addon for moving the original frames?)

If you are gonna heal as disc I recommend you start with a spec something like http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuhhVRIsffRt0xtc When you feel you have no need for greater heal in ToC HC, remove divine fury. Put ProM and PW:S on tank before pull and try to avoid using Greater Heal unless it's necessary.(This is to getting used playing without it) The only time you might need it is in ToC or if the tank is REALLY undergeared.

About gear:

Je'tze's Bell and the int trinket from ToC normal are the two best trinkets you can get pre raiding. Replace the bell with the egg of mortal essence if you don't have the money for it. Get The tier 8 head for conquest emblems since having the "chance to restore mana on spellcast" metagem will help you regen alot. Get the rings for triumph emblems first since you probably won't replace them even when the next patch comes. Stack intellect until you have enough not to feel hindered by mana in raids. Then stack spellpower and int.

Looking at your spells and check how much healing they do and get an interface addon wich tells you the health deficit of the players in numbers will help you learn how to use your spells.

Answer by Tranquist for Starting an 80 Healing Priest

2009-11-02T15:14:15Z

I also recomend writing yourself some hover over macros - they can be a great help when panic sets in. I have been an 80 for about five days now and find holy a lot of fun. Nobody expectsme to be the top healer and it's been working great as a fill in heals spec. Most of the really goodhealers out there haveall the great gear so when stuff drops in Naxx and Ulduar you get a better shit at it. Decursive isa nice app as well.

Answer by Julanna for Starting an 80 Healing Priest

2009-11-03T21:00:29Z

I would suggest heading over to plusheal.com and worldofmatticus.com

I play a raiding holy priest and when I was gearing up at 80, matticus had a great post on available gear, as does dwarfpriest.com. Those have not been updated past the first tier of available gear (no ulduar/toc drops). But it gives you a place to start. Another idea is to head over to maxdps.com and pull up the holy priest gear lists, filter it for your content level, and you will have a list of heroics to run for certain drops, and while running them you will get great experience in healing as a priest.

These lists will give you a variety of places to get drops and earn experience as a healer, rather than farming the same run repeatedly. Matticus and plusheal are also great places to go to read information on gearing and raiding strats as well. You really cannot beat plusheal as a source of healy information.

Specifically, H Nexus does have good cloth drops.

There is no reason to start as dps rather than heals, just start at your level rather than at too high of a level where you can't perform yet. This is hands down the best way to build the skills you will need to raid on your healy priest. Not to mention, you do not want hit, and if there is another healer in the group they will have priority on healing gear over a shadow priest.

Answer by Rbkskillz for Starting an 80 Healing Priest

2009-11-10T13:11:28Z

You should be able to heal normal TOC if you have over 1400 spell power with inner fire on. I healed it on my disc priest at lvl 76, and HTOC at 78. It is not as hard as naxx, but it does drop naxx level gear.