AG Praetorian Guard

Adso · Joined: 18 Jan 2009 Posts: 264

Since couple weeks I observe an disturbing process. Couple months ago we used to have tones of priests on raids. There were 25 runs where the only healers were priests. However since couple weeks this situation has greatly deteriorated. Since we all know there are three possible verions of priest healer build:

1) Discipline - single target healer, damage prevention, short time buffs, DPS increase

2) Holy build - AoE healing, massive single target heals

3) Holy/Dispell sub-spec - same as the no. 2, lower single target healing abilities, Body and Soul talent, Dispell Magic glyph.

It is obvious that we need all three kinds of priests for the 25 man raids. Depending on the encounters we use verious specs. This is not hard to cover all the buffs, especialy since dual spec is out.

From my personal observation and experience we need the following setups for the bosses in ICC 25 so far:

Lord Marrowgar - 1 Holy/Dispell; rest Discipline priests - Disc healing is more efficient here
Lady Deathwhisper - 1 Discipline priest - rest Holy/Diespell - speed buffs help a lot here
Gunships - 1 Discipline priest for the Sourfang tank, rest Holy
Sourfang - All with the Holy / Dispell for the speed buffs. PW:S + Body and soul is perfect agains beases.
Festergut - Holy everyone. AoE healing FTW here.
Rotface - 1 Holy/Dispell for the ooze kiting person, rest holy
Profesor Putricide - Holy/Dispell everyone, speed is extremly important buff here.

Feel free to post your suggestions about the priest setup if you have any.

Because of that I would like to request my fellow priests to post which spec do the have, and what is their raiding activity. Let us think what can we do to improve our raid efficiency.
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Adso · Joined: 18 Jan 2009 Posts: 264

Adso

1) Holy / Dispell

2) Shadow

I'm often requested to come as DPS, so the second spec is pretty important.
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remedy · Officer Joined: 09 May 2007 Posts: 1689 Location: Norway

Thank you for making this thread Adso, it's long overdue.... I have long been wondering what specs our priests have. It's really hard to delegate healing assignements, when the person you thought had Disc as off spec suddenly shows up with shadow Confused

I don't think it is too much to ask that our priests can post here what specs they have, and that we can count on them to show up with these specs in a raid.
We have recently been pretty low on the healing priest side, and this is certainly something we should look into sooner than later...
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Pirius · Joined: 13 Aug 2009 Posts: 77

My main spec is holy, my offspec is disc. Isn't it nice to have people with two healing specs? :p

I like to be holy and keep it as my main spec. The disc offspec is there in case it is needed or when we lack pallies lol or when holy just isnt effective.

I do not want to have disc as a main spec or be disc in the majority of raids because i dont like playing as disc very much, i'm not geared for it and don't have the dkp to get geared for it and its boring. We aren't really lacking tankhealers in raids and I just end up being an aoe spam shield disc priest wich is stupid!

If you think we need one please recruit one. I see Adso listing some encounters where we should need one, I do not agree that we need one in a raid at all and if we do we need one, we need only one at most and if he is not assigned to tankhealing his contribution is low compared to a holy priest in my opinion.

remedy · Officer Joined: 09 May 2007 Posts: 1689 Location: Norway

Pirius · Joined: 13 Aug 2009 Posts: 77

You are one angry lady

Adso · Joined: 18 Jan 2009 Posts: 264

Please do not go dep into the subject just yet. For now I'd liek to know who are the priests we can count on. We need to regroup. To do it we need to gather information, and mesure the needs. Then we will think of solutions. Maby there will be no need of changes, maby they will be drastic. Thing is that we need to be rational. Hold for a while with judgements guys, and let the other priests to speak.
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Adso · Joined: 18 Jan 2009 Posts: 264

Oh well guys this is a dark time ahead of us. Only two priests replied. Some more to go I hope.

1) Holyraven - what is your spec, and raiding activity ?
2) Horazon, Shenzhou, Telorast, Islime, Cabsy - As far as I'm concerned they are gone for good. If you have any other information, please share.
3) Luminarium - respeced main shadow as I'm cencerned, please write what is your off spec then.
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Pirius · Joined: 13 Aug 2009 Posts: 77

While we are on this maybe some questions. Is there a policy regarding dual spec? Should we have them, should we have them ready before raid and should we notify someone if we make any changes to them?

Please be clear about this. I do not want the be in a situation again where I have to very ?crypticly? state that I "CAN NOT" switch to dual spec because it is "NOT READY" to than be handled like an idiot. I tought being flasked, packed on food, reagents and everything before a raid was enough.

On a related note I like to mention. I do not appreciate the way I am quoted and replied to in this thread. I am the first one to reply here with nothing but good intentions. I joined the guild as holy (and want to remain holy) and since then never let you guys down to my knowladge. I was not aware we could not change our minds, even after "a couple of raids"...

Nkhari · Officer Joined: 21 Feb 2008 Posts: 789

Apologies if you feel slighted Pirius, and you raise an excellent point.

The Management will discuss our policy on 'off-specs' since it does need clearing up and a difinitive statement made.

If you have any suggestions or insights into this please speak up Smile

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Antarn · Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 9:53 am Post subject:

Some thoughts if this might be usefull for our priests?

Ghostcrawler as a Priest in raids
I won’t give you a video, but I’ll explain to you how I do it.

Disc: PoM on cooldown. PW:S as much as you can (esp. on the Arcane mage until 3.3.3). Use Penance often when you need burst. Resort to PoH if a lot of people need healing at once, especially in 10-player raids where you don’t have a lot of other healers to pick up the slack. Keep Pain Suppression and Divine Hymn for emergencies. Use Power Infusion on a mage or lock if you don’t need it.

Holy: PoM on cooldown. CoH on cooldown if there is any raid damage. Renew to handle the rest of the raid damage. Flash Heal if someone is still low after all of that. Save GS and Divine Hymn for emergencies or timed boss cooldowns. I tend to use Binding Heal a lot more than most priests because it makes me feel smart, especially when globals are in question.

What I like: Feeling smart when I mix the right tool with the right problem. Saving lives when someone thought they were dead. Sitting there at full mana halfway through a fight because I didn’t heal when I didn’t need to. Penance in general. Body and Soul. Borrowed Time. Serendipity.

What I don’t like: Using CoH so much. Dealing with Weakened Soul (esp. as Holy). Lightwell. Seeing priests die. (In all honesty I don’t die a lot, but I see Spirits of Redemption constantly. I guess as a sweeping generalization, priests have the stare-at-Grid syndrome worse than other healers.) Blowing 3 candles every wipe. Looking like a mage if I pick the wrong gear.

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See, I like PoM because at least you are making a choice about who to put it on and sometimes you might even recast if it's sitting on someone that won't take damage again. (Story: Once back on Archimonde, a priest and I had both been doomfired or something and he pulled me aside and said "Just let PoM bounce between the two of us just for a sec." I was impressed.)

CoH is good. It's so good in fact, that it's usually a bad choice not to push it when it's on cooldown. This means playing Holy is really about what you use your other 4 casts or whatever when you can't CoH. I'd rather use CoH less often and other spells more often. I think Holy needs the talent and it's really tree defining. I just want to use some of my other cool toys too.
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Holyraven · Joined: 28 Apr 2008 Posts: 175

as most of the raid healers know I have both holy and disc spec, both pure healspec. I raid between 1 and 3 times a week(try to make it two in average but other obligations tends to get in the way)

For the most parts I agree with Adso on the need for diffrent priests and spec on healer, that is with one exsption, on festergut, who I have had the fortune to participate in may of the 25 man kill, it has been obvious that there is need for one Disc healer going only on tanks.

All attempts I have been on that has been a killing one I have been swaped to disk on tanks... (maybe the last one was without)
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