3 Raid healing Priest specs at a glance
by Matt Low 
Oct 18th 2008 at 5:00PM
Now that the patch has been out for several days, players are slowly getting accustomed to various specs and talents. They're trialing them now in raid situations to get a future handle for them when they hit raiding at 80. How well did they hold up?
Here's a brief summary of the 3 raid specs I suggested:
14/47/0 (Traditional with CoH): Here's the spec many Holy Priests are used to. Key talents include Meditation, Improved Power Word Fortitude, Surge of Light, Circle of Healing, Serendipity, and Improved Holy Concentration (up to 2 ranks). The emphasis is on trying to maximize your mana return as much as possible.
4/57/0 (Guardian Spirit): Only 4 points invested into Discipline for this spec. You're nabbing all the upper tier ones including Guardian Spirit. Even though the cheat death effect isn't as useful right now, raiding with this spec will serve as good practice for those that do want to master it. At level 80, the 10 additional talent points can be used to snag Meditation and Inner Focus. Right now, the one thing going against this spec is the mana regeneration. I get a nice healthy 800+ mana regen out of combat. But if I'm in combat I only get about 125 mp5. So experiment with this spec if your raid DPS is insanely overwhelming. The race is between the damage your raid dishes out and the mana resources your healers have.
56/5/0 (Penance): Key talents include Focused Power, Rapture, Divine Aegis, Pain Suppression, Grace, Borrowed Time, and Penance. A reader brought up a great point in comments last week. There's no realistic reason to grab Reflective Shield. That was a mistake on my end and has been taken into consideration. As a result, I've adjusted the Disc tree spec accordingly. I get to jump into Black Temple again tonight and I'm going to switch to this and give it a shot.
Note that none of the specs above have any points invested in Silent Resolve. Especially with the latest patch and the way threat is, there is no reason to grab any right now. The tanks I play with generate an insane amount of threat. However, please keep in mind that these are suggested specs. Your actual mileage may vary. If you're encountering threat problems, then by all means feel free to pick up Silent Resolve.
For the Shadow Priests, take a look at Alex's Shadow Priest talent build.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ObiChad Oct 18th 2008 5:05PM
With the changes to lightwell, I believe it's worth placing a point in. Plus, you can take the time now to train you groups to use them. Also, was wondering what people thought about Healing Focus? Not needed with the pushback changes?
Spoonman Oct 18th 2008 5:17PM
How come most people don't opt for the "Divine Spirit" buff? I remember that being fairly useful for regen, I know that imp version isn't good anymore, but isn't the 1-point version any good?
elmolech Oct 18th 2008 5:46PM
Good builds - i'm looking at trying the discipline one too (got a disc pvp build going on at the mo) - is there a decent guide as to what stats i need for kara / heorics? I'm normally shadow, but looking to expand my repetoir ^^
skalgrim Oct 18th 2008 6:02PM
As a raid healer the DS buff is excellent, that this post missed out that kinda shows the lack of experience the writer has.
aethena Oct 18th 2008 6:31PM
If your raid's DPS sucks then yes, it might be worth going picking up IDS in the Discipline build. But after the patch it seems that *everyone's* DPS is absolutely mad and that IDS isn't going to make the difference now that it might have a week or two ago (or might again come Wrath). Both our healing priests are currently CoH and the guildies who grumbled a bit about not having a spirit buff never even thought about it again after we raced through 'Loot Temple' because it was all so insanely easy.
I don't think that leaving out IDS is a sign of the writer's lack of experience – if you'd read his blog or participated in the PlusHeal forum, you'd know that's not the case. Perhaps it's just that his view of the game and what raid specs Priests might want to try out is different than yours.
sharkeater75 Oct 18th 2008 6:50PM
as a healer in an average guild *clearing hyjal* working most of bt and sunwell...
14/47 works ducky.
guardian spirit is nice if you have retard healers letting your MT tank, or if he does huntards who don't know to MD to your OT. fuggetabout it. waste.
Lightwell = would be nice but most dps aren't going to heal themselves with that thing and not fuck it up.
Just heal them. its your job ... do it.
a discipline spec I find very situational. and yes I tried it.
and tanks don't want shields. they want fuckin heals....
so in closing....
I top the meters... besides a MT healing pally who out gears me. A shammy who outgears me spamming chain heals... and I whip ass on a resto druid and the class leader whom outgear me but specs different.
COH spam = win.
14/47
Arien Oct 18th 2008 7:10PM
You don't need Imp. Divine Spirit because it doesn't stack with the Flametongue buff. But Divine Spirit by itself is good to have for Disc Priests. I picked that instead of Inner Focus, which I haven't missed at all.
sharkeater75 Oct 18th 2008 7:16PM
as matt said prior to this, which I didn't know at the time...
if you don't have a shammy with flametounge totem, or a properly specced warlock with fel intelligence grab IDS...
my opinion and obviously his...
but if that is the case.. maybe later in five mans or sumt.. but not going to 25's in that situation.. you dont' need IDS. and I was an IDS priest. hey ya buff enough man, be happy to be rid of it. I did like it for soloing but life goes on.
IDS = gone.
Shott Oct 19th 2008 12:02AM
Why are you telling people to get inner fire? We don't get any spell power benifit from it until level 71.
Christhepriest Oct 18th 2008 10:06PM
I was a CoH build before the the patch hit, but with the talent refund i've been trying out the disc. raid spec for the past few days, and i love it. penance is an amazing spell and i feel that it might even be a little over powered. I ran kara last night with a group of that was a green behind the ears. I was able to solo heal up to shade without breaking a sweat, and the mana regen is insane, i think i had to drink once the entire time. At first i was worried about shielding our tank as much as possible, but with the new shield glyph, it helped to keep him healed and i think the reflect dmg ability helped with aggro. Tossing pain suppression on a trigger happy/over geared mage was clutch when he would start a fight by pyroblasting the hell out of a mob and pulling aggro. All in all i am very impressed with the new disc tree. i think that it changes the old proverb:
Tank dies=healers fault
Healer dies= Its not a Disc Priest
Dps dies = pain suppression was on cooldown, but still their fault.
Spoonman Oct 19th 2008 12:27PM
The damage reflect from PW:Shield causes no threat
Andelorn Oct 18th 2008 10:48PM
I've personally got Imp DS, Imp Inner Fire and Reflective Shields because I use the same spec to raid as I do to quest and grind and such and I like the extra 50 spellpower and my Reflective Shield kicks ass. And so far my 51/10 spec has been amazing for healing in PvP/5/10/25 mans without seeming gimped in any.
I love to PW:S/PoM/Penance whenever the cooldowns are up and require doing little else but throw a GH every now and then.
And this is real experience, rather than just theorycrafting specs and guessing.
tarheelblue24 Oct 18th 2008 11:43PM
Ive tried both new disc and holy specs for raiding since the patch. Really it feels like it just depends on what your raiding at the moment. CoH is incredibly overpowering right now if you run with a cpl of more coh priests and a shammy or two. From what ive tried ill spec coh holy traditional in BT where raid wide damage is high and im doing mostly raid heals. In hyjal i run the disc spec because I pretty much mt heal the main trash mob tank and boss tank. Penance does seem really op at times especially on crits. But improved bubbles and the abilty to drop to .7sec flash heal cast times is really hard to pass up. Was quite a bit tougher on Archi though cause i'm used to having coh for those quick heals needed through the raid on that fight, but that might be because im not quite as proficient with when and where to use spells yet.
Draumha Oct 19th 2008 12:34AM
I haven't messed around with the new specs much, but I'm a little surprised. Deep disc for raiding but not grabbing the 5 points in divine fury (holy)? Is the playstyle so very different that this becomes too much of a sacrifice. Or even unnecessary?
Tridus Oct 19th 2008 6:53AM
This nicely shows the problems with healing Priests that Blizzard likes to ignore. I've seen people try to raid with a Guardian Spirit build, and their mana just doesn't last. OOM healers = useless. So, nobody who wants to be useful can get Guardian Spirit due to Meditation now being the game's most obnoxiously placed required talent.
At the same time, IDS is a complete joke since a 25 person raid with no Shaman is pretty rare. You'd think they would at least keep the effects comparable since one of them is a base skill and one takes 23 talent points.
someguy Oct 21st 2008 11:25AM
The only full holy priests who go OOM are the cheecky ones who stack up on pvp gear which has no spirit.
Now blizzard have penalised use of lower ranks of spells, they cant spam flash rank 2,3,4,5...and the rest
OOM isnt a problem for my healer.
HoH isnt very useful though;p
PvP gear was meant for short fights but ppl used it as a stepping stone to gear up Pve and that wasnt fair on the ppl who Pve'd and lost places to pvp geared healers so I'm very happy.
Rusty Oct 20th 2008 12:22AM
I am one of those respecing addicted priests with no alts, so i've had a play around with every combination.
I agree that inner focus is worthless for raid. To get to meditation i would rather put a few points in Silent resolve or unbreakable will, which are much more useful than extra armour.
Personally you can't beat CoH spec for Raiding. Yes Disc is really tasty and it enables you to get some trendy new spells and some fancy bubbles but really you have just become a support class where you are forced to spam flash heal and shields, and leave the actual healing to others. Someone said pain supression is good for over confident mages... if you have dps that pulls agro then kick him, pain supression is a pvp talent not a threat reduction tool. What you will end up noticing after raiding disc for a while is that you are frustrated that your heals aren't popping fast enough, your mana is being burnt and that you're overpowered shiny new bubble is actually pretty much worthless.
A raiding priest is all about mana regen, your ability to cast those big life saving heals, and to do that as quick as possible. Holy covers this a lot better than the disc tree. So if you are looking around for a perfect raiding spec then for now try to ignore the tempting disc specs and stick with holy.
Divine Spirit - Its always handy to have but doesn't let you have deep holy or CoH so you are left with a comprimised spec. If the raid insists on having it, then get the biggest noob priest in the raid group to spec into it. As long as its not you!
D.O.T. Oct 20th 2008 11:21AM
I find this funny. My priest is discipline and she ends up healing better on raids then the resto shammy and holy priests we have. And I was in a run where all we had was a Shadow Priest who bloody well kept everyone topped up. It really depends on player skill over stupidity. If you know how to play a class, it won’t matter whose specced what.
Tribble Oct 20th 2008 9:56AM
Hey all,
I was looking these builds over and I had a bit of confusion.
My best understanding in patch 2.4 was that Holy Specialization affects Holy spells crit (obviously).
The way the game worked, Healing Spells from a priests Holy school were actually HEALING spells (a separate school), and did not get this bonus. Has this been changed with Spellpower? (Now, are healing spells resto, holy, etc?) Am I totally of my rocker? Hopefully someone knows for sure.
This whole argument broke out among me and friends as we tried to figure out whether that cloak in KZ that gives +holy adds to heals or not.
Todd Oct 21st 2008 8:49PM
Can someone explain what to do with Hymn of Hope?
I tried it a couple of times and dont realy see the use other than a very weak mana regen.