I am starting BRD (level 53), my spec is currently 26/18/0. I find myself either Ooming, or running low on mana on almost every pull. I am dowranking my spells
Heal - 3/4
Prayer of Healing - 2
Greater Heal - 1/3
Renew - 8
Flash Heal - 4/6 ( I sometimes forget to use this)
Power Word Shield - 8 (I don’t use this much)
I try to mostly use Heal 3 or 4, but lately in these groups I have to use Greater Heal on the tank.
Am I doing something horribly wrong?
Downranking is only good when you have a lot of +healing gear to justify the lower ranks. Max rank spells will be your friend. Renew is OP in 5mans, so definitely rely on renew as much as you can. You also want to be abusing the 5 second rule where if you don’t cast for 5 seconds, you get extra regen even in combat. Stay away from Flash Heal until you get into Molten Core, where it quickly becomes your best heal. In 5mans however, the Greater Heal and Renew are king.
Also with your gear, a holy spec would do you a lot better. Spiritual Guidance is an absolute must. After that, you can choose between Mental Strength in Discipline (if you want a meatier mana pool) or Spiritual Healing if you want the throughput. I found that as a fresh 60 getting into MC, going for the extra mana is nice especially since every guide says to get +healing gear so you don’t need that extra Throughput from Spiritual Healing.
Thanks =) I’m sitting at 253 spirit right now.
As far as my spec, I’ll swap it over and grab Spiritual Guidance . I thought the more mana would be better.
I always though downranking was better too 0_0, i’ll need to redo my keybinds!
Each time you downrank, the spell gets less efficient pound for pound. The power of downranking comes when you’ve got all this gear that buffs your healing spells by X, making those lower mana costs all the sudden very worth it to cast.
You got the right idea w/ the spec, you just got to level up a bit more! Eventually you will have both Spiritual Guidance AND Mental Strength, but for now, I would say that Spiritual Guidance is most important to get. The deep Holy talent Spiritual Healing is nice for 5 mans, and definitely adds a punch to your heals, but my opinion on this talent is: 15-30% of your healing is probably going to go to overheals in a raid situation and we already prioritize +healing way more than we did back in Vanilla… so I would rather have that extra 10% mana.
It makes you a a monster at all instant cast spells whether its dispel, renew, or even buffs. It also allows you to solo farm lashers in Dire Maul East. The larger mana pool also compliments the eventual downranking you will do once you are slotted with full +healing gear.
You can look up Ozgar’s Downranking Calculator to plug in your talents and stats and decipher which ranks are most efficient for you. For me, the most efficient Greater Heal changes between rank 1 and rank 4 depending on if I am wearing my PvP set or PvE set. So that tool will be of big help to you. You may want to get an addon such as DejaClassicStats to track your +healing easier.
Thank you so much =D
Also! Should I grab Improved Renew?
You basically have to choose between renew and dps talents. Imp renew pairs very well with Mental Agility in the Discipline tree. It is also a very strong spell for battlegrounds and 5 mans. HOWEVER, my current build ditches improved renew and I have taken up a more DPS focused build with Holy Nova, 5/5 Force of Will, 1/2 Improved Smite. Thankfully guild has other priests with imp renew and the majority of my healing in MC currently is Flash Heal and PW:S. About 75% Flash, 25% PW:S. But that is me, not you. I don’t like my renews getting sniped by druids and shamans in raids.
Healing a 5 man is just different. You are mostly just at max distance Greater Healing and Imp Renewing and AFK wanding, with the occasional preshield.
Thank you!!
Could be the tanks gear too.
If they are trying to 2H tank it at like level 55 you’re gonna have a bad time, especially if they don’t have dungeon gear from ST/ZF.
On my priest I had the most success pre-raid stacking as much int/spirit as possible, along with being discipline spec for mental strength. You don’t really get any good +healing gear until BRD/DM. It’s also beneficial to spec enough into disc to get inner focus, so you can wait and pop a huge heal with it instead of smaller ones. This allows your MP5 to start so you can get enough mana back for another cast(this is where the spirit comes in). You also want to carry a few pots, just in case it goes bad. You don’t need expensive ones. The greater/superior ones give enough mana for a few casts without costing an arm and a leg.
If the entire group is around the 55 or below range, drinking between every pull is probably pretty normal, especially when you have to fight a firelord, they hit pretty hard.
There are many ways to approach dungeon healing.
I would say having more mana is important in 5 mans vs + healing. You will undoubtedly have a warlock/hunter/mage that pulls aggro and usually a rank 4 heal will bring them up enough. If you had +healing in that scenario then your heal would have been better yes, but at the cost of eating more % of your mana to keep the DPS alive.
Are you eating nightfin?
not a fix all of course, but it does help a lot.