I can't do my jobFollow

It's good for priests to be familiar with both of their healing specs. You will probably get relief from the mana issue if you give discipline a try, and work on getting Archangel into your healing rotation. At level 40, I'd do something like this, with glyphs Penance, Divine Accuracy, and Levitate. Check out the Smite is Awesome thread here on the priest forum. I've been loving my smite spec. Although I am dual spec holy, I'd rather smite heal (when you smite and have Atonement, you automatically heal the lowest nearby target for the same amount).

I find using Power Auras to tell me my stack count on Evangelism (stack 5 before Archangel if possible), and when ArchAngel is off cooldown helps. Personally I have it show Holy Fire cooldown also, which is useful if later on you decide to use the smite glyph.

You want to be able to smite the tank's target and your own easily. I show the tank's and my target and use Vuhdo to bind my hostile spells to my mouse. You could also use Clique or another healing addon that lets you bind to hostile targets. Focus is also good for setting the boss in a frame you can click on anytime. Another option would be to show targets and keybind smite and archangel.

I'd also macro inner focus and PoH together to conserve mana (one free PoH ready every 45 sec), and increase crit chance for procing divine aegis bubbles (when you are higher level) on multiple targets.

If you decide to give it a go, spend a little quality time with the training dummy to get comfortable with your rotation and elements of your ui.

Edited, Oct 24th 2010 7:39am by dadanox

... What are you talking about?

You've got Heal, USE IT!

And I'm talking about using the 'Heal' spell. Granted, I haven't played a level 40 priest since the patch, but I do know that Heal is on average three to five times as cheap as any other spell you have, and with the talents in holy and pre-WOTLK-raid healing, it's a spell that's worth casting. If you're actually running OOM at level 40 by using Heal as your main heal (aka about 6-7 heals for 3 different spells), then you're either WAY undergeared or your tank is pulling too quickly/your DPS are too slow in killing everything.

I find this a big problem as well. I know the spell's whole point is mana efficiency and as such it cannot be either too short a cast or too big a heal, and that's fine, but I think the balance is a bit off. It's just too long a cast for how little it heals. It could cost zero mana and I'd still have a hard time with it. It needs to be in a middle ground between Flash Heal and Greater Heal, IMO.

This just goes to the point that with two different healing trees, and multiple strategies for managing them (to spec smite or not, to stopcast or not, disc or holy). We have many paths we can take to successful healing. At the end of the day, did you perform up to your potential, and did the party live. Find what suits you.

Edited, Oct 24th 2010 5:03pm by dadanox

At level 80. Which is exactly my point. Before 80, and definitely before Outlands, the damage isn't as heavy as it is in IcC, ToGC or Ulduar, and Heal should be perfectly viable. Just because we've not used it since Vanilla and it doesn't work at max level right now doesn't mean it's not ideal for lowbie dungeons.

If the topic is about a.) playing a priest, or b.) food, it is on topic. Last I checked, PVP was part of a, and sometimes, in the case of gnomes, b.


Edit: Yeah, I get that North meant the OP and that the original topic was healing lower level dungeons. I'm just being a wiseass because derailing threads is kind of, like, my job.


Edited, Oct 25th 2010 7:41am by teacake

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to say thank you for the comments and also give you an update. I got to 51 and tried a Holy spec again, this time with the Chakra and Revelations talents. It's these two abilities that so clearly make healing as holy viable. What suprises me is this 'machanic' is so much higher in the tree than the corresponding evangelism and archangel for disc. It's a very different style, mana is more of an issue still but you also put out a lot of healing so don't need to heal as often and have more time to get mana back. All very interesting - now I need to decide! :)

Glad you are having fun with it. As your gear gets better, you will have more mana regen also.