Hi there, been trying a holy spec on my Pally at 38 but i’ve also got a priest at 19. I know there’s a difference but I find it really difficult to keep up with healing with the Pally at times whereas the Priest is a breeze right now.
Is the Pally just better at higher levels because I’ve heard good things about Pallys in dungeons or is it my lack of skill that must be causing it?
Nah. It’s just that being low level sucks. Spell scaling is weird and isn’t as linear as you’d expect. You’re missing your mastery, traits and talents that make the spec shine. No matter what healer you level you’ll find yourself at certain points with the lack of healing or tools necessary to smoothly keep groups up.
Just power through and things will get better.
Tough though. Don’t want to let my group down if you know what I mean. Makes me just about want to use my 110 boost on the Pally but then I’m worried I’m miss the learning experience. Haven’t played since Vanilla except for a couple dps characters up to 75 so far.
I wouldn’t worry about healing experience at low levels. Level up as prot or ret doing quests; it will go much more quickly. Holy doesn’t really shine until max level, and you can easily pick it back up then by doing normal dungeons and/or random BGs until you get comfortable with the spec.
Im with krickvick here. I main holy but my entire lvling from 80 to cap (stopped after wotlk) was done on prot. Once you hit 110 you can start healing dungeons again. By the time you cap you have all the holy experience you need.
Can you do the same with Protection? Learning to tank at high level? I’ve done like two levels but I’m afraid of messing up or not knowing where to go in a dungeon(of course I’d do a dps through dungeons first so I’m not a total newb in them). Eventually I want to tank but that’s even more intimidating than healing to me. Maybe I should just re-roll another pally and start tanking at 15 in the dungeons to get used to it from the start.
Sorry, this has turned from a small question to a lot of them due to my interest in the class and what it can do.
Last question… do people switch between specs or are you pretty much set on a spec at 120 and stay that way due to gear.
No. Dungeon knowledge tends to be dungeon specific. Knowing deadmines at 120 is useless so dont bother.
Tanking basics are simple. Mind how much you pull. Keep an eye on your healers mana. Dont be shy about popping cds.
Turn mobs and bosses away from party. The only thing ill say is really important until you cap is keep your taunt handy.
At higher lvls its starts to get a bit trickier but assuming you progrees naturally from normal to heroic to mythic dif. You should be fine. Frankly normal dungeons at 120 is pretty much a face roll fest.
For mythic knowledge is key since mechanics are unforgiving. But you should be fine if you pay attention whem doing lower dif.
I run all three specs. Currently im at 416 holy 412 prit and 403 ret.
I keep 3 sets of azerite gear, one for each spec and mostly share the rest amongst all three except for rings and trinkets. Mind you my main focus is holy so my gear tends to favor crit and haste. Luckilly haste is great for prot and ret. This is mostly personnal and depends how much bag space you are wiling to sacrifice on gear. I think my approach is a good middle ground between stat optimization and bag space.
Collecting the loot came organically. I focus holy (remember that left clickimg your portrait you can select which spec you are looting for) if i get something that isnt good for holy i check to see if prot will take it then ret.
Dont fool yourself though. You will end up dealing with toxic players. Dont mind them but dont take any crap from them either. Dont be afraid to boot them or leave the dungeon yourself if it comes to that. That goes for holy too.
Tanks and healers are a rare commodity while dps are dime a dozen. Gl and most importantly have fun 
Welcome to healing! Time to share my favorite video again:
This game is balanced around max level characters who have access to whatever mechanic the current expansion is utilizing. In this case we are talking about azerite gear. Stupidly, since legion alot of our utility is based around having an artifact or azerite gear.
That means, like other people here have said, that healing at low levels is nonsense for most of the classes for a couple reasons:
Your best bet is to power through and make it to higher level content. tbh holy isn’t that different at max level than it is at lower levels, you just have a couple more tools to utilize and better gear to give you the stats yoiu actually need.