Raid Rx: Priest thoughts and the 100k mana club
by Matt Low 
Apr 3rd 2012 at 1:00PM
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast.
Welcome to the 100k mana club! As you may have heard, healer mana is being normalized across the board so that everyone has 100,000 mana. We heard about this change way back around November. After getting into the second wave of beta invites for Mists of Pandaria, one of the first things I did after setting my keybinds and messing around with my spec was to head straight for dungeon queues.
Waiting 18 minutes as a healer? C'mon, guys! Throw me a bone here!
I'm going to write about two vastly different experiences. Like many other healing priests, I decided to run two different healing specs, discipline and holy. Leveling as a healer isn't going to be that bad when your Holy Fires and Smites are hitting for 40,000 crits.
My eyes were slowly getting crossed between looking at my mana bar on the top left to the center of my screen where I place my party frames. That's before I realized I could poke around in the settings and get mana bars to show up within the frames.
Way to go, default UI!
Anyway, the 100k mana pool does take a little getting used to. At this stage of the beta, I suspect the coefficients are going to be slightly off and not finalized yet anyway.
The first class I started healing with on the beta was my priest. I spent a good half an hour reassigning keys and modifying UI elements to get it to a point that I felt comfortable playing him. Configuring glyphs took some time. There are many choices at our disposal. It's like being a kid in an ice cream parlor. Do I go for the rocky road? The cookies 'n' cream? Mint chocolate? Durian-flavored? So many potential decisions!
Decided to use those for leveling: In my alternate healing spec, I opted to use these:
Beta healing as discipline
Spirit shell is the name of the mana-neutral workhorse spell that discipline priests have. Think of it as a counterpart to the holy priest version of Heal or a paladin's Holy Light. I'm not really satisfied with the way it functions right now. I think that might be due to the fact that I don't really see any healing done. If the shield effect wears off, the target gets healed for 80% of the amount. But if your healing target is sustaining constant and consistent damage, that heal never really gets done. Mind tricks are at work here.
Combat healing (5-man healing) felt anxious and stressful. Despite raid gear, I still struggled a little in some areas as discipline. I'm not sure if that was due to the party not properly executing mechanics or if it was just me. (Those of you who took on that second boss in the Temple of the Jade Serpent with that Anger boss will understand.) It was either that or because some spell I was using only healed for 1. Haven't been able to identify which one it was yet.
Atonement healing feels really powerful. We're talking 40,000 Smite crits. With damage like that, your party won't be dying that much when heals from Atonement reach your party. Be really diligent when it comes to mana management, since Smite spamming will drain your mana quickly. I found I had to be extremely aggressive with Shadowfiend and other mana regen cooldowns when healing my way through the Temple of the Jade Serpent.
Beta healing as holy
Holy feels amazing. I'm actually worried that it might almost be too good, before I realized that I was wearing a mix of Dragon Soul normal and heroic quality gear. No big change in the way healing plays out for holy. Make sure you put Heal back on your bars. Mana management's going to be a big deal at the start of the expansion. On the other hand, that might actually be the product of my trying to push and overextend my healing abilities.
Either way, it looks like holy is in a good spot from a mechanical perspective. Holy priests will need to adjust to having separate binds for Chakra now. For example, you don't have to cast Prayer of Mending after activating Chakra to activate Chakra: Sanctuary.
Since I know many of you are going to ask, spells like Halo and Cascade aren't available yet. We need to be level 90 to learn them, and right now, we're capped at level 86. We'll know more as we progress further into the beta.
Wielding wands
The other big change for me to get used to is the fact that I should be using wands in my main hand slot now. I didn't think it wold be that significant of a change, but to see myself holding a wand instead of a dagger or something is going to take some getting used to. Hoping we'll get some really awesome-looking wands now. Bonus: We actually get to see wand models being used more often.
Throughout the rest of the beta period, I'll continue to play with the rest of the other healing classes and their spells. I'm in the middle of leveling a monk right now (Erryday' I'm pandaren). I'm just rolling around all over the place and after hitting level 10, I'll be going into Mistweaver. Haven't had a chance to really check out their healing capabilities yet.
Need advice on working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered. Send your questions about raid healing to mattl@wowinsider.com. For less healer-centric raiding advice, visit Ready Check for advanced tactics and advice for the endgame raider.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Necromann Apr 3rd 2012 1:12PM
"Erryday I'm pandaren" Win.
cromahr Apr 3rd 2012 1:22PM
I am glad to hear at least holy seems to be ok regarding mana, even though you had raid gear on. =)
I have no problems at all with a challenge regarding healing, but I frankly did not enjoy the early-Cata healing at all, and I still am not sure whether it was that I wasnt using my heals strategically enough, or simply a bit too much pressure on the healers.
I know it always evens out eventually, with better gear, but I hope that there will be a balance between "challenge" and "fun", not "OMG a pug with confident people, I will need a mana break after every little trashpull" =)
Caz Apr 3rd 2012 1:23PM
Is Atonement going to be mandatory in Discipline spec, come MoP? I don't like it and don't use it. I don't want to DPS in order to heal.
Am I going to have to respec to Holy in order to keep healing on my priest? Or -horror of horrors- go Shadow? Or give up this class alltogether?
PonTelon Apr 3rd 2012 2:46PM
Atonement is a glyph now. If you dont want to use it, don't glyph it. Neither specs are assumed to have it, since it's no longer spec-bound.
Caz Apr 3rd 2012 2:56PM
Thank god - although disc is shaping up to be undisirable to me overall. It's the only priest spec I've played (since 2008) and I'm thoroughly annoyed at the changes so far.
I know beta is beta....but still.
karatesmashunhurt Apr 3rd 2012 3:30PM
No, you won't be forced to use atonement. It's a glyph, you can take the glyph or not, and you can change between having it on a fight-by-fight basis. Also since it's a glyph you can use Atonement as Holy.
You should totally try Atonement if you haven't, it's takes a bit of getting used to but I found it really fun. If you haven't tried it then fair enough.
Caz Apr 3rd 2012 3:44PM
I used Atonement healing for a bit back when my guild was running ICC. It was novel, but I quickly found it to be be a distraction.
Nadia Apr 3rd 2012 3:49PM
I love Atonement! Been using it since the end of Wrath. It's simple, easy to time, and a smart heal. Allowing Penance to be used is going to be really fun, since each tick will produce a counterpart heal. I hope it works like a channeled Prayer of Mending, only you also damage the boss a little.
Since it's a glyph and available to Holy as well, I might actually try Holy instead of sticking to Disc only. I never use my poor old Shadow spec... Then again, I never liked stances.
What the heck, it's Beta. If I try something I don't like in there, at least I can leave feedback before it goes live.
AltairAntares Apr 3rd 2012 4:07PM
I loved atonement while leveling my priest in dungeons. Always hilarious being top dps as a healer...
Krsnik Apr 3rd 2012 1:25PM
"As you may have heard, healer mana is being normalized across the board so that everyone has 100,000 mana."
100k mana!? Wait, what?
Fuzzl Apr 3rd 2012 1:36PM
Isn't the 100k only for level 85? I could have sworn I had 120k mana when I hit 86 on the Beta.
Sidfish Apr 3rd 2012 2:45PM
The beginning of the article is a bit misleading.
Base mana should still be going up as you level. So we'll probably have around 200k mana at level 90.
Jordan Apr 3rd 2012 4:32PM
I was gonna say... atm my wife has 120k mana @ 85... so I'm wondering why they are flat lining it at set levels o.o
Revynn Apr 3rd 2012 1:37PM
- "The other big change for me to get used to is the fact that I should be using wands in my main hand slot now."
-Should- be? I thought they were just going to be another option like the difference between using a mace or dagger. Did I miss something? Is there a benefit to preferring wands over traditional weapons now?
Sunaseni Apr 3rd 2012 5:18PM
I believe it should be something like:
"Should I want to use a wand, I'll put it in my main hand now."
And not
"In my main hand, I should be using wands."
palurien.alleria Apr 3rd 2012 1:39PM
I've only gotten the Anger boss (as opposed to the 5 suns) once, but that was the first time I went in there, and it was brutal on healing. I was oom well before the end of the fight, had to use a potion, fiend, and most of a hymn of hope (wait, wasn't that getting removed from Holy at some point? I'm only realizing that now...). Holy spec, mix of LFR and some normal gear. Also, Void Shift is incredibly good.
Also, how do you get the party/raid frames to be movable? I found the option to show mana, but haven't managed to make it movable yet...
John Apr 3rd 2012 2:14PM
You can move raid frames by pulling out the raid menu from the left side of your screen and pressing the unlock/lock raid frames toggle. When they're unlocked they get a border you can drag them around with. You can adjust the width/height of frames and whether they get borders etc. from the Raid UI menu in the interface options.
Default raid ui on live servers is about where xPerl was 3 years ago. It's perfectly useable for raiding with just a mouseover mod (like Clique) or macros.
Saltypoison Apr 3rd 2012 1:40PM
One question I had with the wand as a main hand is, how does Val'anyr work now? Has the item been converted to a wand, does it go in a different slot? Are you still able to equip daggers/maces but the wand is better? Just wasn't very clear on that when it was explained.
Caz Apr 3rd 2012 1:54PM
Your ranged slot is going bye-bye.
Your options will be:
Mace plus offhand
Wand plus offhand
Dagger plus offhand (not certain of this)
Staff
Saltypoison Apr 3rd 2012 1:57PM
Ahh, ok. Thanks for the clarification.