Priest Strategy or gear?

[celyse1]

I'm leveling a priest on K2, only level 18 at the moment. I healed my first Deadmines and while I guess it went okay, there were a couple deaths and it certainly wasn't very easy for me. In order to even begin to keep up when the tank had multiple mobs on him, I had to use my highest ranking spells, so I was having to drink often. My shield would only seem to hold up to one hit (I hadn't trained rank 3 yet). I guess what I'm wondering is if this moderate struggle is to be expected as you level up due to crappy gear, or is there a strategy/talent build/something else that makes it easier? At my level I only have points in wand spec and spirit tap so far.

I've never been super confident in my ability as a healer even on retail so maybe I'm overthinking it, but any insight is appreciated.

 

[Lharts]

Its just lvls. If you go as 20-22 priest to DM its dead easy.

 

[SeeQ]

Cc more and tell him to pull less, if you want it to go smoother. Also dont use shield, very inefficient, became ok only with wotlk

 

[JeZuZz]

Use no shield, Warriors shouldn't even get rage then, iirc.
If you can manage your mana, use renew on grp (no overheal!) and only your biggest single target heal on the tank (again, no overheal!). If it's too critical/efficient, like it would heal 70% of the tank, then downrank. Would suggest 30/40% health.

To get better at that, i'd get damage meters, watch and try to get no overheal, gives you some challenge as well.

 

[frederik]

I think that downranking spells is not efficient at all at low levels. The higher the rank of a healing spell the more mana efficient it gets usually. Compare Heal rank 1 and 2 for instance:

Heal rank 1
Avg. heal: 318.5
Mana cost: 155
HP per MP: 2.05

Heal rank 2
Avg. heal: 460.5
Mana cost: 205
HP per MP: 2.24

Besides 5 seconds after your last cast you generate mana through your spirit. Casting lower rank heals means you are casting more often than using higher rank heals. And that means that you don't profit as much from that because you don't have as much casting breaks between your heals that are lasting longer than 5 seconds.

If the tank does not drop too fast you should try to cast your most mana efficient spell (usually highest rank heal) and try to get the tank to almost 100% with it. Avoid overhealing. After a few minutes you should usually get a feeling when to start casting. This depends on how much damage the tank takes on average and how high max health is. You can also start casting and hit escape if the tank did not take as much damage as you expected and would probably overheal and restart your cast again afterwards.

Avoid using Power Word: Shield or Renew because those don't heal/absorb as much damage for each mana point you spend as by just casting your most mana efficient healing spell. Only use those if the tank is dropping really fast and you need to keep the health of the tank up while you cast your big heal. In instances like that you can also cast Flash Heal to get a heal through quickly. Only to buy you some time or if you have to cross heal a lot. Those spells are mana inefficient though, so only use them when you really have to.

Downranking is important later on when you stacked enough +heal on your gear.

 

[JeZuZz]

If that post was directed at me, that's exactly what i said.

I just wanted to make a point that you probably should downrank if your greater heal, heals ~70% of your tank.
In that case i'd rather downrank then overheal, so i can heal ~30/40% with one.

But yes, you'll get a feeling for it, for me it'd just be too risky to let the tank drop that much. But that's up to you.

 

[celyse1]

Thanks so much for the responses. I noticed Renew was a pretty big mana drain so I try to use it sparingly. And I'm sure it wasn't entirely my fault...for instance, the tank didn't necessarily need to keep letting the mage pull for him. But I have a better idea of what to do now!

 

[suhail1200]

Up until 60 what i do is dot mobs with SW so if mob dies then i can get spirit tap.
Use flash heal if person has 60% life
Below 35/40% i use Heal/greater heal if needed which get them to 100% hp
Try to not cast any spells other than dot at first sight or wand so u are mana regenerating.
Dont use shields if tank is warr, if its druid/pala then u probably could if u want if it is gonna be a big pull
I hardly drink when i have spirit tap on anyways.At level 30 i have close to 300 spirit with that buff which is amazing.
I tend to wait 10 sec before the next heal so i get mana regen and when mob dies and u are out of combat u get more mana regen so literally 100% without drinking

This method is good until u raid or get gear with healing.Hope it helps