Heal (Rank 3) vs every other rank?

Classes Priest
1

Just wondering why Heal (Rank 3) seems like the most recommended spell rank for that ability in a lot of guides (once you have enough +healing gear)? Is there a drawback to using Heal (Rank 1) that I’m missing?

2

At a stab health pool size at 60. I cant imagine rank 1 doing much. Looking at some logs i see a lot of flash heals

3

Yea it’s below level 20. All skills below level 20 lose some of the benefit from spell power. So Heal rank 1 has a spellpower coefficient of 0.729, while every rank of Heal and Greater Heal at level 20 and above get the full 0.857.

So when you downrank keep that in mind. Personally I use Rank 2 Heal more than Rank 3 because it’s the perfect small, efficient heal for when people aren’t taking tons of damage.

Yea and I’m not sure why because it’s so inefficient. I’ve heard a few excuses -

  1. People going with less healers so damage comes out faster and it’s needed
  2. Because fights are short and they can get away with a less efficient heal. Doing this makes heal sniping from other people less of an issue and also puts out plenty of HPS.
  3. Personally I’ve started to pepper some in because I can avoid overhealing easier with a low rank of Flash heal like r4, which still heals less than my Heal rank 2, so when we have a lot of healers I can still be useful instead of wasting mana on lots of overhealing.
4

I use lots Flash Heals for the reason that with Heal and Greater Heal I am almost always too late otherwise. The result is my heal being wasted as over healing.

I use rank 5 Flash Heal as my go to in raids as I try to keep my basic heal landing for about 1k non-crit. If damage is slower or I am just topping people off at the end of a pull, then I use Heal rank 3.

Someone else posted a video from Vanilla of a 4 man team killing Ony in full Naxx gear. Video was from Holy Priest POV. He was just spamming Heal rank 1. His heal was doing about 1k healing. Spamming non-stop his mana rarely went below 90%.

If there is plenty of healers all trying to snipe though, then I will stop healing entirely and just save my mana until it is truly needed. Do some shields instead or focus on dispelling.