[Holy]:How do I heal?

Hey

I'm not a very good healer, have never been a good healer...but I want to be better... (the joke in my old guild in tbc was that my HL does damage instead of heals, lol)

I'm not lacking in theoretical knowledge, I don't need a spec or glyph suggestion...

What I need is a few collected "words of wisdom" from holy pallys more experienced than me!

In raids, sure, I get by ok, but I don't want to be dragged along by the others, I want to do my share! I am absolutely HORRIBLE as a healer in heroics! I know my horribleness in heroics will come back and stab me in the back one of these days, so I need to get better on that as well...

(man I wish we didn't have sooooo many tanks in the guild already...)

thanx in advance

Holy is like playing an arcane specced mage in wraith.

Don't run out of mana untill the end of the fight.

If you end up with mana at the end of the fight you can put reforge some of that spirit back to haste/crit/etc

Heroics tower of radience is a nice talent, not thinking much of it within raids. since i beacon one tank and heal everyone else.

Popping holy radiance often, or any time you have to move for the speedboost. For example of twin dragons if your in the range group with void circles spawning under you and everyone taking damage. holy radiance is awesome.

Also it can crit, so 10 seconds of holy radiance will give you a full 3 stack of the buff that boosts all healing by 9%. This buff lasts 15 seconds and refreshes if you crit. If you get unlucky. the next time you press holy radiance it should get back up to full unless really unlucky.

This is the first expansion i have done any proper healing in and really enjoying it, but since i am our ten mans main tank expect my experience as a whole will be limited. Plus my current spec is bad as didn't realise the self heals we do when we heal a differrent target also transfer on beacon so only specced 2/3. Assumed it was just over healing and therefore not so usefull. Must change that tonight.

So yeah in raids, beacon one tank, and drop light bombs on everyone else, then profit and high five people.

Arjuna,

It is hard to work like this, please give us a few more pointers...
What is the issue?
Do you get OoM often?
I usually get OoM on trash and never on bosses. stack up on the waters... run forward and drink before pulls, it's best to get the nickname of slacker or drinker that wiping because of no mana.
Are you losing constantly DPS's to AOE?
Use the beacon, keep spamimg HS+HL, even when the damage is low... Use holy radiance on cooldown.
Understand why they died... sometimes when you get that type of reputation, people blame you for not healing the one shoted dps... starting pointing out the mouth breathing dps's
TAnk is constantly dying?
Know the fights... understand when should you spam directly the tank... don't save mana, if the boss is at 10% why is you mana at 80%, etc?
And... Remember that you know better that anyone your reality...
Give us a better idea of where are you struggling...

I understand the question totally. In the however many years my paladin has been my main, I've never once specced Holy. Until a couple of days ago, that is, when I realised that without trying to I'd amassed a Holy set which was equal to or stronger than my Ret set, and since my guild is a little healer light but very melee DPS heavy I thought I'd change my off-set to Holy and try it out.

While I'm new to Holy, my main alt is a Resto shaman, so I'm not completely at sea when it comes to healing. Although this is my first healing toon to 85.

Holy seemed slightly overwhelming to me at first - the standard 3 fast/inefficient, slow/large/inefficient and slow/small/efficient toolset is perfectly manageable, but adding in Holy Power (when do I use WoG? LoD?), Holy Shock, Holy Radiance and three (three?!) throughput-enhancing cooldowns... I was a little lost at first, but a few heroic runs in the past few days and I'm seeing myself improving now. Still plenty to learn, though.

So here follows my experience. If someone who knows better says something contrary to me, they're probably right, and I in no way claim that anything below is true, accurate or anything other than objectively false horseshit.

I've been keeping Holy Shock on cooldown, and treating Holy Light as the "autoattack" of healing since it's almost mana neutral. Holy Shock doesn't heal for a ton, but if it crits then you're well on the way to generating 3 Holy Power, and Word of Glory is a very nice heal for Holy. Don't underestimate the Beacon; I was (am) guilty of panicking when everyone needs some healing and so think "must heal tank!", but funneling healing into the tank through Beacon keeps everyone off the floor. Also, Light of Dawn works with Beacon too, so while it can feel a little bit weedy sometimes, it's still valuable in getting heals to the tank while sorting out the rest of the group.

My regen sucked until I stopped panic healing, started judging on cooldown and got 1700-1800 Spirit. That might be too high, but honestly right now I need it to compensate for my shitty playing while I'm still learning the spec. Divine Light healing kills my mana, so I'd rather pop a cooldown and only use one or two then spam it for 10 seconds without them. I try to only use Flash of Light to stabilise someone until I can get back to standard procedure. I'm actually enjoying the mana management just now, but I've not been called on to heal in a raid yet and I do not envy raid healers from what I've seen of the content so far.

Other stuff is just generic healing tips... if you're targeting people manually then clicking or even pressing a keybind to cast a heal, you're slow. I don't care what player x in top whatever guild does, the vast majority of people will heal faster and more efficiently with mouseover macros or a click-casting add-on such as Clique. If you think you're the exception, you're probably not. This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but every single bad healer I've had to deal with when raid leading or whatever had a godawful UI and didn't click-cast/mouseover macro and it was at least half the problem.

EDIT: oh god I'm about to heal on Valiona and Theralion and I've no idea wtf to do.
FURTHER EDIT: meh, that was easy enough; the other two healers had two-healed that fight before and are basically superheros, so that was no problem at all.

I've healed through most of the heroics now, but for raids only the TB boss (which was pretty laughable the one time I tried - Radiance cooldown lines up exactly with the cleave timer on the boss).

My top tips (many agreeing with things said above):

* Holy Shock a lot. It's your tree specialization for a reason. It generates HoPo, and crits cause IoL procs. I really need to get Power Auras and set up something to show me my HS cooldown front-and-center.

* For sure use Holy Light as an "auto attack" filler. You might get a crit to refresh Conviction, or a Daybreak proc, but don't forget to judge if you find yourself a short lull like this.

* Keep your eye on procs and HoPo level for some fun combos. A Daybreak proc at 1 HoPo gives you HS, HS, WoG/LoD combo, which is some serious instant-cast loving. Even at zero HoPo, Daybreak, HS, HS (crit), IoL hasted DL on beacon, WoG is some serious burst throughput. Giggle like crazy when you pull this one off at a crunch moment.

* I like Eternal Glory. Especially when gearing up the extra efficiency is nice. Be aware that it's a refund of HoPo, so it sometimes takes a little while to show up. I've found that the sound effect often comes before the visual, so keep an ear out.

* Know the fights, and be a little pro-active. If you know you're going to want LoD for a boss special (e.g. after Asphyxiate in SFK), position yourself appropriately and make sure you have some HoPo before it hits. Time you DP in a lull (e.g. running for the ropes on VvC, or right after Ripsnarl vanishes). Don't use FoL if you know there isn't more damage incoming soon (e.g. dps got hit by a special but the boss has no AoE).

ryan4nayr wrote:

wut?

As a main healer, Cata heals in general and Pally specifically is all about managing mana. The best way to do that is to take advantage of every cheap or free heal you can. As holy you will have a 30% to not consume HP with WoG. Take advantage of this until all HP is consumed. So generate Holy Power, use Word of Glory, generate more Holy Power.

Holy Shock is a cheap spell that ALWAYS adds holy power, even when its not cast on your Beacon target. If you have the choice, cast Holy Shock on the raid or other tank and allow your tank to get it through the beacon. Once Holy Power is at 3 stacks, look for a target. hit WoG until stacks are gone.

I have also talented into getting Holy Power every 8 sec bsaed on taking dmg, as that can help build Holy Power faster during Boss AOE periods.

Target timed spells (HL, DL, FoL) primarily on your beacon target for free Holy Power. Of course help out elsewhere if you need to.

Holy Radiance is best used when raid is reasonably close in, and is amazing in that capacity. On Magmaw, even with a 30 sec CD, we were using the entire group at range, and that was the top healing spell of 3 healers (me + 6 others in a tight grp for 10 seconds is a massive AOE heal). For Magmaw, I also used Flashlight on the grp, and it was also quite effective to hit 6 ppl with it if the tank did not need WoG instead.

Of course, you are glyphed so Lay on Hands returned some mana. Use it partway through or later in the fight, sometimes on a target other than the beacon if you can manage it, as beacon transfers overheals too and you get the mana either way.

Personally, I despize what they did to HL, and now use DL as my base heal, and FoL for emergencies. I realize I am in the minority in that. To make up for it, I like to melee a target (whatever my tank is tanking, boss or add) to get recovery through Seal of Insight. Seal of Insight usually gives me more mana recovery than DP and MP5 combined, although usually less than other healers if I have to spam a lot.

Basically, the 2min CD on Divine Plea almost devastates that as a mana recovery method. Even at 3K MP% while casting, 4.3K not casting, DL will eat my mana if I spam it too long. But getting a melee swing in now and again makes up for it. I do also carry mana pots, and use them towards the end if needed.

Finally, you also have cheap raid mitigation you can use in lieu of expensive heal spells. If the tank gets low on health, and you are low on mana, use your Guardian of Kings (5min CD) to double your heals. Also, you can put Hand of Sacrifice on the tank (2min CD), as your heals on him will give you a healing kickback to keep you up while continuing to focus heal the tank. Finally, Spam Aura Mastery (2min CD) every time it comes off CD for any fight that there is a lot of raid wide (often fire) magic damage. I used to do this all the time for Festergut pukes.

Get off Flash of Light, except for emergencies and get back on cheaper heals quick. Spam DP as your mana dips below 85%-90%, and every CD after.

Hrobertgar wrote:Spam DP as your mana dips below 85%-90%, and every CD after.

I am guessing you mean Divine Plea, and if this is true I completely disagree with it. The only time you should use Divine Plea is when you are completely OOM or when there is a period of low or no damage in the fight. Using it at any other point is a mana loss, as 50% healing reduction means your heals are effectively twice as expensive in those 15 second.

Sagedin wrote:

Hrobertgar wrote:Spam DP as your mana dips below 85%-90%, and every CD after.

I am guessing you mean Divine Plea, and if this is true I completely disagree with it. The only time you should use Divine Plea is when you are completely OOM or when there is a period of low or no damage in the fight. Using it at any other point is a mana loss, as 50% healing reduction means your heals are effectively twice as expensive in those 15 second.

Yeah, I usually only DP in the lulls, or if OOM (when I pair it with a throughput cooldown like AW).

The shorter duration on DP in 4.0.6 will make it more useful - easier to squeeze in between damage phases. If you have fights with lulls in them, you can also use Potion of Concentration. Restores more mana than the mythic potion and costs a lot less too.

A couple of points. This comes from comparing the logs of my last raid; 10-man Halfus and 10-man Conclave of Wind kills.

2 Holy Paladins in the raid. A few discoveries:

- One used Hand of Sacrifice 19 times during the raid while the other only used it 2 times. The one who used it more also had 71 more Holy Light casts than the one that did not use it. Using Hand of Sacrifice allows for the use of more Holy Light/Holy Shock instead of Divine Light because it lowers the damage on the tank and the 20% funneled damage to yourself is taken care of by PotI.

- One Healadin used Avenging Wrath and Divine Favor 3x as much as the other Healadin. These, again, are your throughput CDs that allow you to either take care of AoE damage much more effectively (when combined with Holy Radiance) or allow you to cast more Holy Light in place of more expensive Divine Light. [NOTE: the Healadin that used it more was specced into the talent that lowers AW CD by 60 sec so it was more available at the sacrifice of Eternal Glory]

- One Healadin used Aura Mastery 5x more often; this one was running Resist aura and was probably used during the "BIG" attack phase on the Conclave fight to lower frost damage from the frost boss. He used it poorly on the Halfus fight to lower fire damage from the flying bus so he needs to work on using it better there.

- One Healadin's GanK healed for 3x as much as the other one did. Probably meaning it was used more often and was perhaps only used with Divine Light instead of lesser healing spells.

- One Healadin cast Hand of Protection 4x as much as the other. Hopefully, preventing DPS from getting munched.

- One Healadin cast Lay on Hands 2x as often as the other one. A 7 min CD on that spells is SO much cooler than a 60 min CD in days of old.

- One Healadin cast Judgement 5x as often as the other one. Lots of mana saved there.

- One Healadin had 6x the mana return from Seal of Insight as the other one. Granted, his damage taken was also much higher than the Healadin who did not melee so there is a trade off...

Notice, all the above points (with the exception of Lay on Hands) had nothing to do with the casting of a spell that actually, you know, healed someone. They all had to do with abilities that augumented how those primary healing spells were used.

That, in a nut shell, is what Paladin healing is all about. Learn to get comfortable with all those "other" abilities and they will, in turn, allow you to cast those pesky healing spells much, much more effectively.

Cheers,

sherck wrote:- One Healadin had 6x the mana return from Seal of Insight as the other one. Granted, his damage taken was also much higher than the Healadin who did not melee so there is a trade off...

Wouldn't the hp gains from SoI and PotI mostly counteract the higher damage intake, thereby making the mana gains from SoI worth more? The only downside I could see is if they are affected by pushback from getting hit more, but with talents/conc aura, this shouldn't be a concern (unless the talent was removed and people don't use conc aura... I haven't really checked the holy specs since cata.)

Skye1013 wrote:

sherck wrote:- One Healadin had 6x the mana return from Seal of Insight as the other one. Granted, his damage taken was also much higher than the Healadin who did not melee so there is a trade off...

Wouldn't the hp gains from SoI and PotI mostly counteract the higher damage intake, thereby making the mana gains from SoI worth more? The only downside I could see is if they are affected by pushback from getting hit more, but with talents/conc aura, this shouldn't be a concern (unless the talent was removed and people don't use conc aura... I haven't really checked the holy specs since cata.)

No, we had 4 Pallies in the raid (2 tanks, 2 healers) so we had every aura.

Also had 2 plate DPS...the other armor types were loving it!

However, I think the key is timing of the damage. Sure, it would appear on paper that getting more Seal returns and CS combo points would be more than worth it but the timing of the increased damage may end up having a healer decide to do a big, expensive heal instead of their less expensive middle heal in order to bring me back up.

I was raid healing on the Halfus kill (the Druid had been on the first few attempts but then requested to tank heal since they felt their ability to react to damage quickly was not very good) and was not really watching my health assuming that AoE heals and PotI would keep me up. However, I know at least once looking back that I dropped a Divine Light on myself (and received one Healing Touch) which might have been different spells if I had not been taking that much damage.

Anyway, I still think being in to melee is worth it unless there is a mechanic that says you should not but there is a potential downside.

Cheers,

As far as DP usage. Yes, there is a 50% healing debuff applied to it. BUT, it can be partially offset with Avenging wrath and other CDs. Also, you don't always need to be healing at full power, but you never want to go OOM.

Hopefully, generating Holy Power, and using those free heals will help your pools last longer, but recount tracks mana abilities, and Holy Pallies can take advantage of their abilities: base MP5, DP, and melee on a boss or add target.

For instance, during the Magmaw encounter, between hitting Holy Radiance at the start of every add phase (helps top off the raid, and the run speed bonus is nice right then) and keeping the tank up during Mangle, practically makes me go OOM, everytime, by the time the tank is released.

However, running up and melee-ing the exposed head and using DP if available, I can recover almost all my mana during this phase. Of course you still have to back away before his head comes up and smacks you.

I also employ a few other tricks when I heal.

Firstly, I pre-heal the tank with a Divine Light. This generates 1 holy Poewr, and adds a shield = 20% (based on Mastery) of total, or potentially around 7k-8k at my gear level. Then I maintain this shield using Holy Shock on CD, until pull. Thus at pull, tank has a 7k+ bubble, and I already have 3 Holy Power at the start of the fight.

I have tested this on myself, and hitting Holy Shock shortly after a bigger heal, maintains that shield. Also, hitting Holy Shock on CD, will build Holy Power even out of combat, whereas waiting much beyond the 6sec CD, will cause Holy Power to decay at about 1 per 8 sec or something. Note, that Holy Shock is cheap enough that base MP5 will keep me topped off on mana while I await the pull.

I am sortof curious if as my gear level improves, the mastery/spell power balance, will lead me to change my spell mix any. Right now however, the Mastery shield is nice, but not yet special when facing raid boss dmg.

I am also watching DBM carefully, and preparing for abilities. Sometimes, I will hold off on WoG, and wait or dump a Diving Light (based on my mana level), to save WoG for a boss ability as it is instant cast. Having Holy Shock and a full power WoG available for an anticipated boss ability can really be nice.

Hrobertgar wrote:Firstly, I pre-heal the tank with a Divine Light. This generates 1 holy Poewr, and adds a shield = 20% (based on Mastery) of total, or potentially around 7k-8k at my gear level. Then I maintain this shield using Holy Shock on CD, until pull. Thus at pull, tank has a 7k+ bubble, and I already have 3 Holy Power at the start of the fight.

This sounds like a good tip. I'll have to remember it for when I get my holy Pally going.

I do something a little similar on my holy priest. I put renew up on the tank and then I hit chakra and toss a heal on the tank to trigger Chakra:Serenity or whatever it's called. I then pop heal on the tank often enough to keep the chakra state up and the renew refreshing until they finally decide to pull. The normal heal is efficient enough that regen fills it back up.

This alows me to immediately start the greather heal spam on the tank. It's a bit strange that greater heal will refresh the renew but won't trigger the chakra state. I think this is being changed in 4.0.6 though.

Thanx for the nice answers and posts!

I haven't raided in a bit so I forgot all about this little post I made!

Mannstein wrote:Arjuna,

It is hard to work like this, please give us a few more pointers...
What is the issue?
Do you get OoM often?
I usually get OoM on trash and never on bosses. stack up on the waters... run forward and drink before pulls, it's best to get the nickname of slacker or drinker that wiping because of no mana.
Are you losing constantly DPS's to AOE?
Use the beacon, keep spamimg HS+HL, even when the damage is low... Use holy radiance on cooldown.
Understand why they died... sometimes when you get that type of reputation, people blame you for not healing the one shoted dps... starting pointing out the mouth breathing dps's
TAnk is constantly dying?
Know the fights... understand when should you spam directly the tank... don't save mana, if the boss is at 10% why is you mana at 80%, etc?
And... Remember that you know better that anyone your reality...
Give us a better idea of where are you struggling...

The issue is, yes, I go oom fairly often(especially at halfus, damn that guy!), even though I'm trying to use the most mana efficient spells I got, and 2,7k combat regen...yes, I'm loosing dps to random stuff(they can't get out of those fires it seems, but when I tank the healers always seem to be able to keep the idiots alive!), I'm aware of the mechanics and have/will study all heroics/bosses beforehand...

It's just that...it all seems so damn annoying all the time since I have no experience, and experience is king! Have been tanking all through TBC/WOTLK, but I'm fairly fresh to healing (well, not that healing in wotlk was hard, just spam stuff), so I just want to soak up as much experience as I can from as many people I can!

Arjuna wrote:Thanx for the nice answers and posts!

I haven't raided in a bit so I forgot all about this little post I made!

Mannstein wrote:Arjuna,

It is hard to work like this, please give us a few more pointers...Give us a better idea of where are you struggling...

The issue is, yes, I go oom fairly often(especially at halfus, damn that guy!), even though I'm trying to use the most mana efficient spells I got, and 2,7k combat regen...yes, I'm loosing dps to random stuff(they can't get out of those fires it seems, but when I tank the healers always seem to be able to keep the idiots alive!), I'm aware of the mechanics and have/will study all heroics/bosses beforehand...

It's just that...it all seems so damn annoying all the time since I have no experience, and experience is king! Have been tanking all through TBC/WOTLK, but I'm fairly fresh to healing (well, not that healing in wotlk was hard, just spam stuff), so I just want to soak up as much experience as I can from as many people I can!

Hum, Pointers? It's hard,i'm not a full time Holy paladin, but there is a few ideas i can throw around.... (don't take this as a Divine Wisdom)
Use all your abilities... honestly, sometimes they are underrated...
Some guys are happy on using HS+HL+FL -> WoG on 3holy power, and looking to their recount. But look at your bars and use it.
Heavy damage/stacks on the tank?
Instead of HS+DL spam, why not a hand of sacrifice on the tank?
-30% damage (especialy when the tank has -%healing) can mean you can continuo spamming a larger number of HL instead of DL. (remember you are constantly healing yourself.
OR/AND how many times are you using the AW+Divine Favor*? This can replace the DL and just keep the tank up with HL's
Judgment - Are you judging on CD? That is a buttload of mana, if used during all the fight.
Melle - Are you in melle? (Disclamer -> each boss is diferent... don't come complaining here if you followed this advice and get yourself cleaved/pounced/whatever) when possible this allows for a huge return in mana and huge efficency in AOE heal.
BoP - Doesn't work "much" on magic damage, but when you put it on a "stand on the fire, melle" it generally gets his attention to "get out of the fire"

Good input. Now is there a Mainhealadin website where I can find what gear to farm? Does one of you have a link for good heal talents?

Knievel wrote:Good input. Now is there a Mainhealadin website where I can find what gear to farm? Does one of you have a link for good heal talents?

Mainhealadin i don't know (banana shoulders had a good reputation) but i can send give you a link to the best forum i know it terms of discussion:

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?f=29&t=30331&rb_v=viewtopic

http://www.plusheal.com/

Good discussion forums for healing for all 4 classes and those that are nosy.

I tried healing and now have a pretty good setup for gear, with about a 345 item level plus enchants. One of the things I noticed was when I heal for other tanks I pick up a lot of different tips.

Another thing I noticed is that there are a lot of sucky tanks out there. I haven't run into any bad paladins yet, and warriors are pretty solid, but DKs and Druids? Very low mitigation. How does somebody take a 100k hit like that? It's unreal.

BTW, gearing is easy when you are already maxed on JP and rep.