As we Priests leveled up to 85 we got two really interesting new spells. We got “Inner Will” at level 83 and “Leap of Faith” at level 85. “Leap of Faith”, aka “Life Grip” is very situational but is worth keeping on your bars and/or key bound. I can think of a few times I have used to move the tank/DPS out of bad things. It’s certainly fun to use but it does have the draw back of being LOS and you have to be facing the person you life grip. I wish they would change the facing the person aspect of it. Maybe I want to flee a boss to reset the encounter and I want to save another class that can rez. Well I can’t because I would have to turn around and try to angle myself in their direction. It’s just a minor complaint but one nonetheless.
“Inner Will” is an awesome spell all around. I have seen threads upon threads of Priests debating on its use compared to “Inner Fire”. I put on my “Inner Will” and never looked back. I have a few reasons for doing this. I have always had Tuskarr’s Vitality on my boots for increased speed so having IW on has freed up another slot to enchant with haste. (Haste is always delicious!) And IW gives a flat 15% decrease on the cost of all instant spells. The instant ones are the ones I use the most because I’m Disc. Power Word: Shield, Power Word: Barrier, Pain Suppression, Power Infusion, Renew, Penance and Prayer of Mending are all instant cast. With Mana being tight, 15% off all my most used spells is too valuable to give up. Maybe for Holy Priests IF is better but I prefer IW.
I’ve also seen threads with Priests trying to macro IW with instant cast spells to switch back and forth between IF and IW. Why the hell would you do that? That’s 3 GCDs before you could use another spell and that makes no sense to me at all. Pick one buff and stick with it. Switching between the two is making a mountain out of molehill and overcomplicating something very simple. Do you want your spells to cost less and give you more longevity or do you want your heals to be slightly larger? It’s a no brainer to me. I shouldn’t be getting hit by anything other than AOE effects so the extra armor doesn’t really do much mitigation.
Anyways… here are some specific tips and tricks that I can pass on to people trying to heal Cata heroics and normals. I run with the Smite Disc Spec in dungeons because I think DPSing to heal can be a lot of fun and I feel like I can be more useful to the group.
Blackrock Caverns:
When chained on the first boss help out the DPS by Smiting the chains and then book it out of there. Don’t get caught inside that AOE because it’s instant death.
Vortex Pinnacle:
Treston has discovered the “safe spot” on Altairus’s platform. If you are on the floor looking up the stairs at him there is a column on the right, farthest away from you. Stick your back on this spot and you shouldn’t get blown out. Mostly a tank tip but healers can stay there if they are geared enough to be able to withstand the extra frost breath.
Mind Control is very useful in the latter half of the dungeon after Altarius. The Tol’vir caster Adepts can be mind controlled giving you access to their healing and Holy Fire for DPS. I was getting anywhere from 35-50K hits off their Holy Fire.
Stonecore:
Corborus does a healing debuff that can be cleansed. Only dispel it if it is on the tank. The debuff only lasts a few seconds and it should be ok to leave on yourself and the DPS. Don’t blow all of your mana on cleansing it from the party if you absolutely don’t have to.
On the Slabhide encounter, stick with the tank. Stand right next to him during the air phases and the transitions when the dragon lands. You want to be behind the same rock so that you can keep him in LOS for heals. The DPS are on their own for this one for most of the fight. They should be able to get their butts out of the fire. If you have the chance, Life Grip them but really they should be moving out the bad stuff. During the AOE air phase remember that Prayer of Healing is unaffected by LOS so as long as people are in range they should be getting those heals and DA procs.
Hit up Ozruk with your Shadow Word: Pain when his Elementium Bulwark is active to avoid a long paralysis. Make sure the DOT has been reflected back at you and is ticking. It will do minimal damage to you so healing yourself shouldn’t be an issue. Remember NOT to dispel DPS who are using the same tactic.
Kite the adds on High Priestess Azil into the purple void zones. Healers will almost always have aggro on those adds so keep a void zone between you and them if at all possible. If you kite them correctly, they shouldn’t be much of an issue.
Halls of Origination:
It is possible to Life Grip a party member back up on Anhuur’s platform if you time it right and the person is in your LOS.
Don’t forget you can Shackle the undead trash leading up to Ptah (if your group lets you).
You can pop your PW:B right as Anraphet does his AOE to kill the Troggs.
You can dispel the magic buffs off of Isiset.
Smite and Holy Fire your little heart out on Setesh while the DPS are handling the adds he summons. Just make sure the tank is range of the boss before doing this so he will still get healed.
Lost City of the Tol’vir:
As a healer you will probably getting a lot of aggro on the little croc adds on Lockmaw – stand in the tank’s AOE and hope for the best. Keep Fade on CD. This is a good time for PW:B since everyone should be more or less stacked up.
If you see someone in the Augh’s Bladestorm, Life Grip them away.
Keep Renew rolling on the tank right before the transition phases on Barim so they can get a little bit healed up before the shadow AOE phase.
Grim Batol:
Stage when you get on the dragon for the “bombing run”. Everyone shouldn’t mount up at the exact same time to maximize the amount of time to bomb the trash below.
The bosses in here are awful on healers so you just have to do the best you can to brute force it and go for broke.
Go back to Smiting on Erudax when he does Shadow Gale because there’s a buff that gives you a DPS bonus during this time.
The Nonchalant Priest 
Jan 01, 2011 @ 11:55:41
Great tips!
One thing to note, is that on the Croc fight in lost city, aggro has nothing to do with who the baby crocs go after. They spawn with 500k threat on whoever has the scent of blood (the little arrow). The aggro goes to who had the arrow when they were spawned, and doesn’t change if the arrow gets re-placed while they’re en route. If you’re getting hit by em it’s just from having the arrow.
The fact that they only SPAWN with the threat (not do some sort of fixate effect like other mobs with this type of mechanic means they can be taunted off and will generally stay taunted off (500k threat + 10% or so boost that taunt adds to the tank means you’d have to do approx 105k more threat to pull back off, 600k+ from ranged). A pally tank is living on easy street being able to righteous defense three of them and single taunt the fourth. Other tanks are at the mercy of their 8 second taunt cooldown. The aoe taunts that bears and warriors have, while they will cause the crocs to focus on them for about 5 seconds, aren’t true taunts and so no threat is transferred. It’s really the dps’s job to be switching to those ASAP anyway, but we have some lazy dps’ers sometimes hehe!
Jan 11, 2011 @ 08:33:05
thanks for the information of your