helpful hints

[Narcine]

I am having quite a bit of problems with staying alive in instances.  One of the big problem I'm having is drawing aggro.  For example today ind MgT.  In the boss fight with the priestess that has four adds i would cast a heal on the tank and aggro the boss or an add or both.  We prolly wiped 5 times.  On the last group  before the last boss we wiped at least 10 times because I was aggroing one or two of the mobs and between being knocked down and stunned I couldn't keep the heals up.  In SV I ran into the same kind of problems.  On the first boss I would get four or five heals off and die.  Most of the time not because I aggroed anything.  I would start of giving the tank a greater heal, then do 3-4 prayer of healings to deal with the two different kinds of attacks that hit multiple people.  The tank by this time would need a higher grade of healing spell so I would give him another greater heal.  Before I could get back to healing myself, I'm dead.  To me this is just stupid.  It's not that hard but for the life of me I can't seem to figure it out.  The guild members Hester and Grimreaper were very nice and tried to be helpful.  But I still came away feeling like I let them down.  We are, after all, going into these instances for a reason.  If your in them with a healer that can't keep himself alive it just ends up being a waste of time and gold.   Any help in this department would be greatly appreciated.

Narcine 

[Prilosec]

The third boss in MrT is unique because there is little to no aggro table.  It is supposed to be more of a 5v5 pvp style fight.  The adds will usually go for the healer regardless of how much threat anyone else has on them, which is why cc is so important in that instance.

Keeping Prayer of Mending up can help with the raid taking damage.  I don't really know of any specific things that you can do to make you instantly better-it just takes practice.  As a priest, one of your main strengths as a healer is that you've got a lot of different options for healing spells.  Knowing the right one to use on the right target is something that you will learn running, and wiping in, heroics.

A big thing when you're the only healer is knowing what is going on around you, who is taking damage, and who should take priority.  Usually I go Tank>Healer>DPS.  There are addons that can show you who is being targeted by enemy units.  That can usually give you a second or so warning as to who will be taking some damage, and let you get a heal started ahead of time.

Its tough to know exactly whats happening without being there.  I'd be more than happy to respec to balance and run some heroics with you.  This way I'll be able to see what is going on, offer any suggestions, and backup heal if things get sticky during boss fights.

Here's a link to the build that I like using for 5-mans:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxgh0hZfxtcfMqV0Vo

You're fine the way you are though.  I just like having a bit bigger heals, as well as Circle of Healing, in exchange for the increased spirit.

[Galinda / Baneswife]

Hopefully Arne will  see this post and respond as well as everything I learned about being a better healer I learned from him. Anyway, one of the biggest tools I use if pulling aggro is fade of course. It works most of the time and can be a lifesaver. Flash Heals are aggro magnets. I used to use those ALL the time and kept pulling aggro on stuff. Arne (Bucktweeter) enlightened me and said to try something different. He suggested a lil bit lower rank of Greater Heal (start out with 2 levels lower than the max and work from there). Those work fine and will conserve on manna. Additionally I use renew on the MT with Prayer of Mending. I also use the group heal (Prayer of Healing?) when I see that everyone is taking dmg at the same time.

Anyway, I would also be happy to run some stuff with you on Galinda and give you what advice I can. It's reallly a learning process and just figuring out what works best for you.

Keep your chin up 

[Nick (Morgosh)]

Once i get back Buck is gonna start playing WoW again or im gonna kick him in the nuts when i go to flordia. (then drink a Beer to help him feel better)

[jeydax]

well what i noticed about your gear is you have very little stam on parts of your gear. What could be helpful is to change up some of your gear which has no stam to get more stam. Stam is very useful in 5 man. if a mob does aggro to you the extra health will give the tank more time to come pull the mob off and you to heal yourself. If you got pvp gear the stam is great with that. If you find you are aggro mobs and taking hits try putting the pvp gear on. Also a new spell rotation helps but idk much about priests spell rotation.

just my 2 cents.

[Giller]

Once i get back Buck is gonna start playing WoW again or im gonna kick him in the nuts when i go to flordia. (then drink a Beer to help him feel better)

I don't think you drinking a beer will help him feel any better.

Narcine, you definitely need more stamina.  Your current health won't hold up under aoe damage in 25-mans.  Try to get a couple pieces of epic arena/honor gear that have good healing stats and stamina.

Read this guide: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17086-priest_holy_raiding_compendium_2_3_x/ for how to heal well.  Also, Prayer of Mending adds threat to the person getting healed not you.  So it's good for your situation.  And Flash Heal is crap, use it very rarely - though I think you already know that from what I've seen.

[Narcine]

Thanks for the help guys.  Especially the link to elitestjerks.  There is alot of information I can use in there.

[Donnie (Arne)]

Just caught wind of this post.  I have a paper due today so I will look at it a bit more when I get back from the paper turn in.  Someone post a link to the armory page for me plz!

[Donnie (Arne)]

I looked through the elitist jerks forum.  A lot of good info.  I am not mega impressed, but its definately a start!  Praise Spirit....Spirit is your friend!!!!!

[Donnie (Arne)]

for the content you will be doing in the present or near future I would strive for at least 7500 health buffed and try to increase that every tier of instance so that by the time you hit BT you are around 10k!  Don't be afraid to remove some of your plus healing gear for stam gear if you need to because once you start getting pieces of t5 and t6 everything will naturally fall into place. And in 2.4 downranking heals below gh rank 2 is almost worthless.  Also keep your primal mooncloth set handy...it will be useful to you for a very long time.  Until you hit Mt Hyjal i would not recommmend circle of healing spec unless you just want to try and show off on healing charts...I would advice against this but many seem to disagree.   STACK SPIRIT AS MUCH AS YOU CAN...EVEN OVER MP5.  SPIRIT is your bastard lover.  As far as healing goes....It all depends on your role.  Healing a regular tank and healing a mage or warlock tank are completely different styles for a priest.  I don't think we need to get into that yet so I will leave it at that.  If your raid healing your kinda stuck in a rock and hard place.  I would downrank renews and toss them on people and use gh rank 2 a lot.  If people other than tanks are taking more damage than a gh rank 2 and rank 6 renew can handle then they are doing something wrong. Or your in mt hyjal and its time to whip out circle of healing with that badass tier 5 and primal mooncloth combo!  5man healing is tricky...just make sure you have fade ready to pop at all times. and yes you might have to fear!!!  just be smart about it.  That and learn what happens in fights.  I am running out of time but I will say I have found binding heal (which is considered a very useless spell) very useful in certain raid fights!  Just make sure you down rank it too!