Priest OOM Fast :(

[crowdx]

Hi all,
so I am leveling a new team comprised of a druid tank, holy priest and 3 shammies (really the stereotypical group). My issue is the couple of times I have tried dungeons it seems that the priest jsut runs out of mana so fast. My priest is called Desiresend and is on US Uther and she is dual specced Holy/Disc . My shammies put down mana totems, and she buffs with I think she should be doing a lot better that she is and so I am really confused as to what I am missing with this priest.
I am coming from a druid healing so REALLY a noob with the priest, should I be macroing any spells with my dps spam?
HELP!!! :D
EDIT: Oh btw I use ISBoxer with Click Regions and Vuhdo

[Coltimar]

Can you put an armory link? Also, what spells are you using?

[crowdx]

Here is her armory link:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Uther&cn=Desiresend
I am mainly using flash heal for tank healing and then Prayer of Mending for the tank at the beginning of the pull. I also have Inner Fire and Prayer of Spirit up all the time.Really just the default spells that Vuhdo sets up when I logged into the priest :)

[SideWays]

Flash heal for tank healing? No thx :P Greater Heal is the way to go for tank healing, Flash heal only in special situations.. Why did you go for empowered renew if you never use it? ;)

Btw: Disc is the single target healing spec, so if your group never gets hurt go for disc.

About your holy spec:

Well its not completely wrong but you should change a few things.
- Get rid of Test of Faith and Serendipity
- Go for more points in Divine Providence instead and get Guardian Spirit, its really useful.

Thats it basically for your talents.

Try to aviod overhealing as much as possible and dont forget to bind Dispel Magic in vuhdoo, it helps a lot especially when you hit lvl 80 you will have to dispel..

[crowdx]

Cool. I will check this out in the morning :)
I just downed Prince in UK, so quite pleased about that. But ideally want to be able to clear UK and Nexus within the next level or so, i.e. by level 72 I want those as something I know I can easily clear and maybe get some decent drops along the way :)
EDIT: I just flipped onto her Discipline Offspec if you want to take a look. WIth Discipline, how will it differ for healing, I do not normally take a lot of party damage so far so I am willing to play with either spec :)

[Ualaa]

Disc has some pretty decent AoE heals, but shines at single target healing/mitigation.

I'd definitely go with Disc over Holy, but that is a preference thing.
You're not really going to go wrong with one or the other.

With Disc...
Penance is more mana efficient then anything else you have, even if you lose one of the three ticks from something beating on you.
The first tick of Penance is instant, so you can twitch heal someone more so then any other spec.

When you know you have damage incoming, you can pre-cast PW: Shield on your team.
They still get the Weakened Soul debuff, preventing additional shield casts on them.
But you (talented) basically have no cooldown between each cast of PW: Shield.

The next spell cast after PW: Shield has a massive amount of haste.
Which makes Prayer of Healing a much faster cast.
Holy Nova is still instant, and as Disc instant heals cost very little mana -- use this for topping up or AoE heals on the move.
Prayer of Mending, like Holy, is your other AoE heal.

Flash Heal is likely your 2nd heal, after Penance.
With targets at or below 50%, it heals for a very good amount.
I've gone with /castsequence reset=7 Penance, Flash Heal, Flash Heal, Flash Heal.
Works pretty good for me.

Pain Suppression, on someone who is about to take a lot of damage is half damage outright prevented.
Which can be a massive amount depending on the toon and the attack.

I've worked Power Infusion into my base big heal spell.
So I don't manage it, but it is used whenever available.

I have one Disc priest on one (mixed) team as a healer.
I don't often drag her click (dps) macro (the main "calling other buttons" macro) onto the "1" key, but its an option.
Technically I have another Disc priest as the healer on another team, but they're low so far (1x Disc / 4x Warlocks).

On another team, 5x Disc, have gone in Shadow down to Mind Flay.
Even without shadow form, Mind Flay + SW: Pain + Devouring Plague is pretty decent dps with five of them.

[crowdx]

So as a quick update, I tried discipline and then also holy on the last boss in UK, it was Holy which I was using when I downed him but I do not think the spec was the solution. I feel if I do go with discipline I will need to do some changes on my macros and button to allow for PW:Shield, which I am really not sure how I should be using it other than macroing each of the team and assigning a button to cast on them?
Overall I think it is my druid which spoiled me a little for mana and now it is more of a change in pace until I hit 80 and then see what my priest is really capable of.
Thanks for all the help and insight, much appreciated

[SideWays]

What program are you using? If you are using Innerspace mousebroadcasting is the way to go :P

For 5man instances/heroics disc is definitely enough. I am holy atm but thats mostly because im doing raids and sometimes im the only healer which means a lot of group heal..

[Ualaa]

Holy does have that extra group heal, and it is quite nice.
Disc has better mana efficiency, particularly on instant casts.

They heal or mitigate damage, roughly as well as each other.

[Velassra]

I complained alot about oom alot on my priest. Respeccd slightly and got slightly better geared and it's not so much of a problem now. 226 is my highest item level so, w./ some badge gear coming soon, it'll only get better I'm sure.

Atm, I'm happy w/ Holy healing output. I'm having more troubling w/ survivability if I get hit. I'm told Disc would help more for that. (Sounds like party damage not really your issue, just mana.)

This is mine (just noticed lacking glyphs...):

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Ravenholdt&cn=Laralissa&gn=Running+of+the+Bulls

[thinus]

I switched from Holy to Disc due to mana problems in the 70s and I never looked back. Not sure exactly why but Disc was just way way more mana efficient for me than Holy.

[crowdx]

So I am still wondering how you guys use your shields with Disc? Is it keybound for each target toon or assigned a mouse click in Vuhdo or Healbot using Click regions in ISBoxer?
I have cleared UK 3 times now and the only time mana becomes an issue is with the last boss where I need to use a pot to get through the fight. Does a priest have any spell like a druids Innervate for fast mana regen?
Thanks again

[Coltimar]

VuhDo with ISBoxer is how I shield. I also have my Death Grip on 1 for my tank and on my Priest I shield the tank as he pulls. I slightly disagree with one poster. I use Flash Heal 60% and Greater Heal 40$ when I need a standard heal. With PW: Shield, Renew and Pain Suppression I rarely need much of a heal. On boss fights I might us GH more but I honestly like Penance better. I never have mana problems on my disc priest. My group is at 75.

[crowdx]

So care to shine a light on how you have your vuhdo setup? I normally had only 3 buttons set on my druid and so with my priest, my left click is my main heal, right click is when I need a bigger heal or possibly with disc shield? and then my mouse wheel is for group heal or renew (basically a top of spell).
I am really new with the priest and so I am not really sure what rotation I should be using on the tank after he pulls.
My tank is here :http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Uther&cn=Ruthger and I feel he really should not be dying at the end of the fight on Ingvar the Plunderer.

[genocyde]

Personally i have a fall-through style mouseover setup for my healing. All my spells are individually bound and i just use a macro logic to pick my target. If I need to heal someone else I just mouse over their unit frame on my healers screen. Easy mode for me but i'm a multitasker :)

[Coltimar]

I have my VuhDo bars setup above my action bars. I just switched it up a bit. Left Click is Penance, Right Click is Greater Heal, Mouse Button 3 is Shield, Shift+Left Click is Prayer of Healing, Shift Right Click is Prayer of Mending, Ctrl + Left Click is Flash Heal, Middle Button is Renew.

I put Shield on my tank, he pulls. I put Renew, then PoM on him. I try to keep those up. If he starts getting nailed I will cast Penance or GH, depending on how bad he gets hit. You might want to use the LFG tool to do some instance solo on your priest. It might help with the learning curve. I started healing in Molten Core on a priest and did that for a long time but fell in love with Shaman healing in TBC.

[crowdx]

Funny enough I did a lot of solo healing on my druid last year which did help.
I think I will try some of of the above binds that you have Coltimar and see how Disc works for me.
It might make the spider place a little easier :) , my holy priest got owned on the 3rd pull in there and made me opt out of it but I think with my shamans and their totems I should be able to do that place at least at 73, currently the random dungeon keeps giving it to me :(

[Coltimar]

I dunno if this helps or not, but this is how my setup is laid out.

http://coltimar.com/images/priest_setup.jpg

[crowdx]

So I am seeing 2 healing bars? The one on the left and then the one on the top right? What does each do? :)

[Coltimar]

Oh, I kept Healbot active so I can see debuffs from my tank better. I just forgot to disable it on my slave's windows.

[crowdx]

For my setup I have Vuhdo on the right hand side with some other other buff clicks etc below it using click regions in ISBoxer.
My UI is MUCH messier :) , I love my addons too much :P

[crowdx]

So as an update on this thread, I have been using disc 90% of my leveling and like it for damage prevention. It seems though that in HoL it had a lot of problems keeping my tank up, not sure if the tank was just not geared enough or if I am doing something wrong with the priest :( . I have been pulling using shield and penance and then greater heal spam on the first boss but my tank went down both times and causes a wipe.

[J6mpsikas]

First of all i want to say that i dont use priest on multiboxing team but as my main char (and first) has been priest already like for years i know about their spells and abilitis. I have not raided with her on 3.3 but before this patch i was active raiding holy priest. With 3.3 i started boxing and left raiding alone as it messed my IRL to much.

As for now 3.3 you should hold Renew up on tank all the time. It dont even madder if your holy or Disc. I myself prefer Holy as it is my play stile but time-to-time i switch to Disc. As for priority its the first spell you ned to hold up is PoM (mending), it is the best almost aoe healing spell priest has. You can use it on the move and it will jump to the lowest HP target (must be in range) so it will prevent most likely hes death. Second spell is Renew. Then its flash or greater heal. Why renew? because it can already heal your target when you cast your next flash or greater heal, and with emblem gear you should have like 1,5k ticks incoming.

If you are speced holy i would keep CoH as "Oh Shit" heal, as it takes a lot of mana but is insta cast AoE heal and for priest itself you will have his disc tree insta cast self heal. Shield is always there for you and you can cast it multiple times. And dont wait PoM to use hes all charges, if its up cast it to the most needed player.

If some players dont think gearing holy or disc is not different then i am not one of them. The items may be the same but as for stats its like spirit vs. int. If you like Disc hold for int, if your holy hold spirit. But never overdo it. I am trying to keep its like 1200 int /800 spirit for the moment. As disc i would go more for int and hold that spirit in lower levels. at that level of spirit you should get like 200+ Sp as holy from spirit, but you loos it as disc and it has way less use from it. Disc manaregen uses more int as it is binded with how much you have overall mana. This stat comes from int. So if disc you should keep like around 1200int / 600 spirit. I would not use MP5 gear unless you dont have better on that slot. Haste and crit are nice stats to have on priest but i would get them from gear only and not use stones. If you have shammy or boomkin in party you will already win 5% crit and haste from totem, so it should be ok.

[Fuzzyboy]

My team is decently equipped now, so this may not work in the same way for you as it does for me, but this is the way I currently heal:

My priest is holy specced. The reason behind that is simply that single target healing in heroics is a very light job and holy seems to focus more on AE heals, which for boxers in heroics is the most relevant type of healing (IMHO).

I have PoM linked to my dps button, so my priest will cast PoM on the tank as soon as it goes off CD. When pulling multiple packs of trash I add a greater heal when needed. And that's it. I use renew only for healing while I'm moving and only when CoH is on CD. I have PoH and CoH bound to mousewheel down, which takes care of the AE heals and my priest never ever goes below 80% mana (I should probably set him up so he add's some dps).

Again, it helps a lot to have good gear, but I've been running with this setup for a while and when I was running in blues I used pretty much the same setup, except I used greater heal much more often.

[Deevext]

Heres a great tip. DOWN RANK GREATER HEAL.

(This was hot while TBC Raiding was on - I don't know if they changed it since then)

But using a greater heal 2-3 ranks below your current highest would push out an almost same amount of healing, but at a much lower cost. Also shield is mana burn, flash heal is mana burn..

[Fuzzyboy]

As of 3.0.2 spells cost a percentage of the players base mana - or in other words, greater heal rank 9 costs the same to cast as greater heal rank 1.

[Coltimar]

Heres a great tip. DOWN RANK GREATER HEAL.

(This was hot while TBC Raiding was on - I don't know if they changed it since then)

But using a greater heal 2-3 ranks below your current highest would push out an almost same amount of healing, but at a much lower cost. Also shield is mana burn, flash heal is mana burn..

Yeah, none of this is relevant now. I keep PW:Shield up and I use Flash Heal when Penance or PoM isn't appropriate. This is just for heroics.

Times are a changin' . . .

[Maxion]

For my disc priest, flash heal is actually more healing per second and more healing per mana than greater heal, so I never cast greater heal.
If my tank is taking lots of damage, I make sure to keep up PoM PWshield and renew while spamming flash heal the rest of the time, i look at the tank's PWshield debuff to know when to hit the castsequence for those 3 spells again.

Glyphed Holy Nova keeps me covered for aoe heals if my team is close together, and PoH if they are spread out.

[crowdx]

Thanks all for the info, I am at about 60% through 79 now and so I will probably hold off on any dungeons until I ding the whole team now.
My next big decision will be whether to run some regular dungeons (HoL or UP) before trying to do the heroics or just barrel into some heroics and see how the tank holds up. As per a different thread, I may just drop in my pally tank instead of the druid to gear up the team or even possibly drop in my resto druid to see if he can keep up the heals on the newbie tank.
With the priest I think I could gear her pretty fast from crafted epics but on the other hand I do not want to have to waste gold on epics which I can get from badges!
Looking forward to trying some of the above comments :)

[genocyde]

If your tanks has 520+ defense and ~22k + health buffed you are ready for heroics IMO. Just don't be discouraged if certain bosses give you a hard time. Do the bosses you can do and the gear will roll in. I've yet to see a team that can't clear the first bosses in gundrak for example. Open the looking for dungeon tool when you hit 80. Blizzard gear restricts heroics. If they think your ready I wouldn't argue with them :)

[crowdx]

Well my newbie tank is a druid with 24% dodge and 23k health. Once I hit 80 I have a few epics I bought which should bump him over 25k health and also help with his dodge, so it may be possible to use him. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have dinged and gotten to try Gun or UK with the new team :)

[genocyde]

Druids generally have a little better health pool than most tanks. One thing I'd make sure you have ready is a boss is hitting me too hard macro on your druid. My favorite is

/use 13 (or whatever survival trinket you might have)
/cast barksin
/cast survival instincts
/cast frenzied regen (rage heal)

You can also glyph for survival instincts and frenzied regen for the insane +health and +healing that macro provides.

Also make sure your using guardian spirit or pain suppression depending on priest spec.

With all that available for your tank you can concentrate on AoE healing and tactics and brute force a lot of boss encounters.

[crowdx]

Thank you for those tips :) much appreciated. So far I have just been spamming swipe on my tank and not really sat down with him to get a rotation going, this I will have to revisit before hitting my first heroic :D

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Thank you for those tips :) much appreciated. So far I have just been spamming swipe on my tank and not really sat down with him to get a rotation going, this I will have to revisit before hitting my first heroic :D

Rotation? /lol

Here's a rotation for you:

/cast [stance:1] growl
/castsequence [stance:1] lacerate, Swipe (Bear)(), Maul, Swipe (Bear)()

Has worked fine for me clearing heroics with feral/resto/boomkin*3, though I don't AoE a lot with them as a matter of course.

[crowdx]

Well my team dinged last night, I upgraded my druid with the AH epics which I bought to fill slots that I knew I would most likely take a while to gear with drops (bracers, chest, belt and shoulders) and now he has 29% dodge in bear and 27k health. With that in mind I decided to see how I would fair in an heroic against a boss. Fastest to get to was the first boss in Gun and so I went there. The fight was not bad at all, totems helped with poisions and fire elementals helped with the snake guys that my tank might have missed. So I downed the boss and got the mail spell belt.
Unfortunately my priest did run out of mana by the end of the fight :( , I am now going to get her the same type of upgrades I got the tank and fill the slots where I will not be getting badge gear for. I did swap out the BoA gear for some other blues which have more intellect and so we will see how she fairs in a full dungeon.
I also have to take care of gemming on the tank, should I just go all stamina? or should I be adding in agility/attack power to help with him on other stats? Also need to enchant gear too :D