New Holy Priest, need help!

[garicos 0]

Hi all, 

 

I recently started raiding last weekend as a holy priest for my guild run. While I have studied and tried (not perfectly, I know) to put into practice the advice on the IV guide and other online resources, I would admit that I was still not familiar with the class.

 

That being said, I was quite disappointed to see that the logs were putting me (for most fights) below the 10th percentile. I really do enjoy playing a priest, and I would be grateful for any pointers on how I can improve.

 

My armory link is as follows:

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/thaurissan/Garizeep/simple

 

The logs for the run are as follows:

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/character/8125898/latest#bracket=3&boss=1696

 

Thank you in advance for any advice.

[Alexis 0]

Hi all, 

 

I recently started raiding last weekend as a holy priest for my guild run. While I have studied and tried (not perfectly, I know) to put into practice the advice on the IV guide and other online resources, I would admit that I was still not familiar with the class.

 

That being said, I was quite disappointed to see that the logs were putting me (for most fights) below the 10th percentile. I really do enjoy playing a priest, and I would be grateful for any pointers on how I can improve.

 

My armory link is as follows:

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/thaurissan/Garizeep/simple

 

The logs for the run are as follows:

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/character/8125898/latest#bracket=3&boss=1696

 

Thank you in advance for any advice.

 

Just a few things from a glance:

 

First of all, your gear is an issue.  You have literally no multistrike, which is the #1 priority stat for Holy.  Try to get some gear with multistrike on it and that will help you lots.

 

Secondly, you use Holy Word: Sanctuary a lot.  This is a mana intensive spell that does very minor healing unless used the best and ideal of situations.  This situations rarely exist in this tier so I'd use it sparingly if at all.

 

Thirdly, you need to be hard casting Prayer of Mending in there sometimes.  This is less important now because you don't have this tier set bonuses yet, but when you do you'll be using this spell on cooldown.  As of now your just relying souling on Words of Mending casts.

 

At your gear level, you should basically be spamming renew on targets to bring down the cooldown of Circle of Healing, and then using that every time its available.  Your Heroic Gruul kill was 4 minutes and 19 seconds long, and you cast renew 12 times the entire fight.  Renew is your bread in butter, you eat it, sleep it, live it.  Ok, just use it.  And use it a lot.

 

Off note, your healing core is 2 holy priests and a holy paladin.  Not good.  One of the priests should play disc to even things out a bit.

 

Just a couple of cents since nobody else replied and i felt bad :)

[garicos 0]

Just a few things from a glance:

 

First of all, your gear is an issue.  You have literally no multistrike, which is the #1 priority stat for Holy.  Try to get some gear with multistrike on it and that will help you lots.

 

Secondly, you use Holy Word: Sanctuary a lot.  This is a mana intensive spell that does very minor healing unless used the best and ideal of situations.  This situations rarely exist in this tier so I'd use it sparingly if at all.

 

Thirdly, you need to be hard casting Prayer of Mending in there sometimes.  This is less important now because you don't have this tier set bonuses yet, but when you do you'll be using this spell on cooldown.  As of now your just relying souling on Words of Mending casts.

 

At your gear level, you should basically be spamming renew on targets to bring down the cooldown of Circle of Healing, and then using that every time its available.  Your Heroic Gruul kill was 4 minutes and 19 seconds long, and you cast renew 12 times the entire fight.  Renew is your bread in butter, you eat it, sleep it, live it.  Ok, just use it.  And use it a lot.

 

Off note, your healing core is 2 holy priests and a holy paladin.  Not good.  One of the priests should play disc to even things out a bit.

 

Just a couple of cents since nobody else replied and i felt bad

Thanks, Alexis! 

 

Will be raiding again tonight and I hope to put into practice these pointers.

[TheRaidBoss 11]

As Alexis pointed out, you really like to cast Renew. It's your go-to spell. It heals a lot, lasts 9 seconds (glyphed) and as you increase in ilvl it ends up being just so lovely. The set bonuses will get you to have your Prayer of Mending to heal 5(+4) people, and such will want to be cast on CD. 

 

Using more renews will lower the CD of your main heal Circle of Healing, if there isn't a disc priest then you will want to keep Power Word shield up on a tank when Weakened soul wears off. 

 

As far as itemization goes and stat priority there are 2 ways to go about it. I've always had a disc priest with us so I opted to focus on the haste over multistrike. Haste will let you get more renews, faster renew ticks, and better GCD, (and the normal faster hardcasts of Flash/Binding/Heal, Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Mending, and the like) but more importantly, it lets your mindbender tear through enemies faster, netting in more manaback. Depending on when you use mindbender (often on cooldown) you want to use it when BloodLust/Heroism is up, or when you have Power Infusion going. Additional haste is additional manaback. 

 

The other, and more common stat is Multistrike, which is best when you don't have a Discipline or Holy Paladin, as their shields are unkind to your healing. There are tons of guides for why this is, so I won't go over it too much. But even as Haste focused, Multistrike is a close 2nd on stat priority. 

 

Cascade is another spell I suggest using as often as you can, but not on CD as it's wasted if no one needs healing.

 

Prayer of Healing is a powerful spell, but it is very mana intensive. Try to only cast it with stacks of Serendipity, for the (-20/40%) cast time and mana cost. This requires casts of Flash Heal or Binding Heal. There are benefits to both as Flash Heal hits hardest, but only on 1 target, while Binding Heal hits 1(+1 glyphed) target and you for about 40% of what Flash Heal does. The benefit is that if you and another need a small patch Binding Heal is the best, otherwise Flash Heal on a tank or someone who needs the larger heal will work. One Binding heal is about half the cost of one Flash heal, so keep that in mind. 

 

Aside from that, the only way to get better is to keep going at it until it feels comfortable. I suggest tracking your buff/debuffs (Renew, PowerWord Shield, Weakened Soul,Holy Word Serenity[+25% crit chance]) and to also learn when the best time for which Chakra is best. I have binds set to go between the 3 chakras as there are times when there is so low damage (beginning) that I will throw out some damage. I did this in phase 1 of highmaul to get it over faster. 

 

How did the raid turn out after the first set of advice?