Priest Guide - Healing Efficiency

I see a lot of questions here for priests about +healing gear, talents,
and general healing questions. I wrote a guide for my guild's priest
message board, I will post it here and hopefully it will be helpful to some
of you. If you have any questions or suggestions please let me know.
-Zabandazar (Frostwolf server)

Priests and Raid Efficiency

The end-game role of priests is very important, and the success of a raid
can often be determined by the ability of its healers. While priests are
healers in raid settings, how each priest heals can be quite different, and
there are many different paths to being an effective priest. Each priest may
have a different role in healing as well, which can further spread the class
from being simply "healers".

While some classes can go for the highest DPS, the biggest numbers, or the
most devastating critical hits, priests need to focus on a different aspect
to be truly successful in raid settings. The key here is efficiency.
Efficient, according to Webster's Dictionary, is "Productive without waste."
That is the end goal: a productive healer without waste; "waste" can be
mana, time, or resources (potions, innervates, totems, aid from other
classes, etc.)

The other side to being efficient is working with longer encounters and
stretching your ability over time. In a 5-man group it may be effective to
spam flash heals on the main tank throughout the boss fight, until the boss
is dead. As long as your mana pool can outlast the encounter you will be
fine. However, moving into encounters that take a longer period of time,
this method will become less and less effective, as a static mana pool will
not stretch far enough to cover encounters 5+ minutes in length.

Methods of mana conservation

Getting the most out of your mana is very important to a raiding priest, and
three stats found on items that make all the difference: Mana/5, Spirit, and
+Healing gear. +Intellect is also important, but does not have the same
impact.

+Healing - More Efficient Heals:
Getting more healing out of each point of mana spent can make a significant
difference. A rank 7 Flash Heal (without talents) will heal a target for 812
to 958 health at a cost of 380 mana. That averages to 885 per cast, or 2.3
health healed per point of mana spent. The same spell, without talents but
with +400 to healing through equipment, will heal for an average of 1057, or
2.7 health per point of mana spent. The more health you can heal per point
of mana spent, the less heals you will have to cast, and the more efficient
your healing will be.

The next step is ranking down your spells and using +healing equipment to
make up for the lower rank. With +421 healing from equipment, a rank 6 flash
heal will average the same amount as rank 7 (885 per cast) but at a mana
cost of 315, or 2.8 health per point of mana spent. Going even further, with
+500 healing from items, a Rank 2 Heal will heal that same 885 health
average, but for only 205 mana. That is 4.3 health per mana spent!

This lets you stretch your mana pool farther and heal for much longer
without running out of mana. Each heal will be much more efficient, and you
can also fine tune your heals by casting different ranks depending on how
much health the target needs to recover.

Mana/5 - Constant Mana Regeneration:
Items that regenerate X mana per 5 seconds offer a very reliable form of
mana regeneration. The biggest benefit to Mana/5 gear is the ability to cast
when you need without worrying about the 5-second rule stunting your
regeneration. Dispelling, spamming flash heals, or spot healing all leave
little time to pause and regen outside of the 5-second rule, and Mana/5 gear
is ideal for these situations.

While the numbers may seem small at first glance, Mana/5 equipment can add
up to a lot of mana. +100 mana per 5 seconds is achievable, and would give
1,200 mana each minute, on top of your other forms of regeneration.

Mana/5 becomes better in longer battles, making it ideal for raid
situations. In a short encounter, say 1-minute in length, the effects of
this regeneration may only allow a few extra heals to be cast before running
out of mana. However, +100 mana per 5 seconds, over the course of a 5-minute
encounter will return 6,000 mana, or allow you to cast over 15 extra flash
heals, over 5 minutes, before running out of mana.

+Spirit - Efficient Mana Regeneration:
Spirit offers priests the most powerful and efficient form of mana
regeneration, but unlike +Healing or +Mana/5, which both have passive
effects, Spirit requires you to be conscious of its effects and active in
taking advantage of its benefits.

Spirit regeneration is calculated as: 13 + (Spirit / 4) per tick (one tick =
2 seconds). This only occurs outside of the 5-second rule, though the
Meditation talent and the Transcendence set can offer a percentage of this
benefit to continue within the 5-second rule.

A priest with 300 spirit will get 88 mana per tick when outside the 5-second
rule. The same priest would need +220 Mana/5 to match that! However, this
high rate of regeneration only works well when spacing out your heals to
allow for regeneration between casts. This works very well when placed in a
healing rotation, where multiple priests can take turns healing and allow
each other to spend significant time outside of the 5-second rule. In this
setting there is no other form of mana regeneration that can match high
spirit. If you are spending the majority of their time within the 5-second
rule then the benefit of high spirit is diminished.

Spirit has two other secondary benefits to be considered. One is the talent
Spiritual Guidance, allowing up to 25% of the spirit stat in +Healing. This
allows for a high spirit to nicely compliment +Healing gear. The second
benefit is the Druid's Innervate spell. This spell is directly related to
your spirit rating, and the higher the spirit, the more mana Innervate will
return.

+Intellect - The Mana Pool:
Many priests will initially see having a large mana pool is the ideal
setting. However, in long fights a large, static mana pool will not allow
nearly as many heals as a smaller mana pool consistently refilling itself.
It is important not to neglect intellect and to make sure that your base
mana pool is acceptable, but in the long run the other methods will allow
much more longevity.

+50 intellect will give you 750 more mana, enough for almost 2 flash heals
regardless of the length of the fight. By comparison, +50 Mana/5 will give
600 mana in a 1-minute fight (1.5 flash heal) and 1800 mana in a 3-minute
fight (over 4.5 flash heals). Assuming you spend 50% of your time outside of
the 5-second rule, +50 Spirit (added to a level 60 priest's base spirit of
130) will give 870 mana in a 1-minute fight (over 2 flash heals) and 2610
mana in a 3-minute fight (over 6.5 flash heals).


All priests have a combination of these aspects and use them together to be
effective. Even a priest with 400 spirit still needs some Mana/5 equipment
for encounters where there is little time to spend outside of the 5-second
rule. Even without enough +Healing to rank down your spells, casting more
efficient heals will allow you to cast less heals overall. It is important
to understand all of these issues, balance them, and construct your
equipment to match your play style.

Talents and Specs

There are many opinions on talents and there is no single "perfect" spec. A
guild needs may different kinds of priests and different skills, and a raid
will benefit by having priests of many styles working together. There are
some talents that you should look at and weigh against each other, and some
talents lend themselves better to the idea of efficiency than others.

Discipline Tree:
Full Discipline tree has some very nice things to offer and each raid needs
at least one or two priests to know the Divine Spirit spell. There are a few
talents that stand out:

Improved Power Word: Shield - At first glance this looks like a great talent
and before patch 1.10 this was a must have. A base shield absorbs 942 HP,
with 3 talent points it will absorb 1083 HP. Those 3 talent points are
giving you 141 more absorption. In most situations 141 HP is negligible and
will have no noticeable impact.

Meditation - One of our best talents for improving longevity in long
encounters. Even if you go heavy into the Holy tree you should seriously
consider this talent. If you have a decent amount of spirit this is a must
and can give you hundreds or even thousands of mana in a single encounter.

Mental Agility - This talent applies to instants in a similar fashion to
+Healing effecting your healing spells. Lowering the cost will make your
casts more efficient and allow you to last longer. This is very useful if
you are dispelling or casting many renews and shields. On the other hand, it
is only reducing the mana cost of Renew (rank 9) by 36 and Shield by 50.
Those numbers are not great, but for many priests, every little bit helps.

Divine Spirit - This is an incredible spell for priests and makes quite an
impact for healers in raids. Every priest does not need to know it, but each
raid should have one or two priests that do.

Mental Strength - This talent looks incredible; we can always use more mana
and a flat 10% increase could be a lot of mana when combined with good
equipment. This talent, however, has the same issues that +Intellect gear
does, when compared to other stats. A flat boost of +10% mana will offer an
extra flash heal or two during a fight, but that's it. More mana is nice but
is casting 2 more flash heals before running out of mana really worth 5
talent points? This talent is good if you are speccing high into the
Discipline tree, but it is not as efficient for raiding as it may appear to
be.

Holy Tree:

Improved Renew - As discussed above, the more efficient your healing spells
are, the better. Not every priest needs Improved Renew but for priests
striving for the best Healing to Mana ratio, Improved Renew works out to be
quite good.

Inspiration - While neglected by some priests, this talent is very useful in
raid settings, primarily on boss fights. If the majority of priests healing
the main tank all have this talent it can provide consistent damage
mitigation for the tank. If the tank takes less damage, the healers don't
have to heal as hard and can be work more efficiently.

Divine Fury / Improved Healing - Both of these talents improve your Heal and
Greater Heal spells, and are wonderful if you are going heavily into the
Holy tree or focusing on acquiring a lot of +Healing gear. These talents,
combined with +Healing gear, can let you cast heals with a better mana to
health ratio than any other talent or equipment setup.

Holy Nova - This spells mana to health ratio is terrible, and while it does
have its uses, it is far from necessary. It is nice to have, though, if you
are going far into the Holy Tree, and there are times when an instant-cast
heal does make a difference.

Spiritual Guidance / Spiritual Healing - Again, improving your mana to
health ratio is very important. Spiritual Healing can provide a huge amount
of effective +Healing to Flash Heal, given the spells short cast time.

Lightwell - This spell has been debated heavily and loathed by many people,
both priests and non-priests. However, this spell does have two important
factors to consider for raiding. First, it allows you to heal secondary
targets such as rogues or warlocks, without diverting your attention from
the main tank or your primary healing target. This can make a difference in
many fights where those people need healing but you don't have time to throw
a flash heal on each one of them. Secondly this is the most efficient
healing spell there is. A total of 8,000 healing for a mana cost of 365,
that's almost 22 health per mana spent, or 9.5 times more efficient than
flash heal. This spell is not for everyone and every priest does not need
it, but it can be a very useful tool for raid settings.


Holy/Disc, Disc/Holy, or an even balance between the two are all viable
options with plenty to offer a raid. Your own preference and play style will
determine what is the right spec for you. Talk with other priests and
remember that the most effective raid will have priests of all styles, both
in talents and in equipment focus.

Remember to look at your stats and abilities not as flat numbers but as
formulae that change with time and from one encounter to the next. Each
encounter suits itself to a different style and a different kind of priest
and every spec has its chance to shine in different settings. The most
important thing as a raiding priest is adjusting to function better in
longer encounters, and in finding ways to make yourself a more efficient
healer. "Productive without waste" is the key, and as a raiding priest your
abilities need to stretch to last the full length of any encounter, whether
it be one minute long or ten.

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 02:48:13 -0700, "Jonathan"
<jonathan DeleteThis @kelloggcreek.comNOSPAM> wrote:

> I see a lot of questions here for priests about +healing gear, talents,
>and general healing questions. I wrote a guide for my guild's priest
>message board, I will post it here and hopefully it will be helpful to some
>of you. If you have any questions or suggestions please let me know.

Overall a very good post.

>A priest with 300 spirit will get 88 mana per tick when outside the 5-second
>rule. The same priest would need +220 Mana/5 to match that! However, this
>high rate of regeneration only works well when spacing out your heals to
>allow for regeneration between casts.

Here I would add a small mention of the effects of 3/3 Meditation:
300 spirit = 88 mana/tick.
88*0.15 = 13.2 mana/tick which is equal to 33 mana/5seconds.

Double that if you also got the 3 set Transcendence bonus (single best
set bonus in the game for priests! I forsee priests in tier 4-5 still
running around with 3 pieces of Trans since the thing scales).

>Improved Renew - As discussed above, the more efficient your healing spells
>are, the better. Not every priest needs Improved Renew but for priests
>striving for the best Healing to Mana ratio, Improved Renew works out to be
>quite good.

Here I would note that Imp Renew only affect the base spell, and does
not benefit from extra +healing. Rank 10 Renew gains 970*0.15 = 145.5
healing from 3/3 Imp Renew, no matter how much +healing gear you have.
Of course, it is (to my knowledge) pretty rare to downrank Renew, so
it doesn't suffer from that - and +145 healing is not bad.

>Spiritual Guidance / Spiritual Healing - Again, improving your mana to
>health ratio is very important. Spiritual Healing can provide a huge amount
>of effective +Healing to Flash Heal, given the spells short cast time.

These should not really be lumped together like this.

Spiritual Guidance gives a +heal/dmg bonus equal to 1/4 of your spirit
- this is generic +heal/dmg which scaled to every spell like normal.


On the other hand, Spiritual Healing gives a flat +10% bonus to the
_base_ healing of all your spells. That means that it is very good for
a max rank Flash Heal spammer - FHeal 7 averages at 885 healing, 10%
is 88.5 and as FHeal gets 42.9% bonus from +healing, then the 10% to
FHeal 7 is equal to 206.5 +healing from gear.

However, if you start going the ever popular route of spamming Heal 2,
then you are going to get a bonus equal to:
((429+491)/2 * 0.1) / (3/3.5) = 53.67 +healing.

In other words, depending on the spell you use Spiritual Healing may
lose 3/4 of it's effeciency.

>Lightwell

Here you neglect to mention the objections against it: The healing
breaks on damage, and it is only 5 charges every 10 minutes.
(yes, I belong in the not-very-impressed-by-Lightwell group :p)

--
Regards
Simon Nejmann