Speccing in Wotlk

While I am about to write this, you and I both know that these talents are going to change in Cataclysm. However,  for the next 6 months-ish this information is still valid.

For priests the two healing specs are Holy and Discipline.  While my initial foray into healing was 100% Discipline, I have recently gotten on the Holy train and ridden that straight to Funky Town.  Funky in a good way.

My Holy spec:

 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuZsEzcb0qihGhuAo:0Nf

The best thing about Holy is that while this spec works, this is not the only spec with which you can heal effectively.  Some priests swear by Serendipity specs.  Personally, I use so few Flash Heals and even fewer Prayer of Healing's (PoH) and Greater Heals (GH) that its basically 3 points down the toilet.  I would rather get Blessed Resilience or Test of Faith with the 3 points spent in Serendipity.  Both of these give passive healing benefits and are not something I have to keep track of like Serendipity.

Any talent that makes me better at what I am already doing is great in my book.  And what I do with this spec is basically use a rotation something like: Prayer of Mending->Circle of Healing->Renew->Flash Heal via Surge of Light.  I only run 10 man raids so we always have a holy paladin spamming the tanks.  Typically I keep a Renew on both tanks (or only one if only one tank takes damage at a time); then use the rotation above for raid healing.  There are a few caveats that make this rotation a little more complicated.

The first is that while ProM (As Prayer of Mending will be referred to from now on) is great healing per mana (HpM), if there is still one active and the raid is taking damage it is not mana efficient to just toss another one out and overwrite the previous. I keep track  of where my ProM is with Grid.  I am not a grid genius, so do not ask me any complicated questions :).  I will have a short grid discussion at the end.

The second is that one has to be careful using CoH (Circle).  While it is VERY mana efficient to use it on 6 people (or 5 without the glyph), you have to be careful on whom you are casting it.  For instance, on Festergut, you should never toss it on one of the ranged people, but you should ALWAYS cast it on the melee.

The third is that yes, this is a renew spam spec.  Empowered Renew + Glyph of Renew lead to some very hard-healing renews.  In ICC with the 25% buff, they can hit for 4500 at times.  Renew is typically 40%+ of my healing on raid damage fights.

The fourth and I believe final note I want to make on this spec is that Body and Soul is quite possibly the most interesting talent in the Holy tree.  As a holy priest in a 10 man guild, I do not have to worry about Weakened Soul being up, so I watch the raid for people who need some help moving. Just a few uses for BaS

• On Sindragosa for instance, I can save one person who is slow moving from the Blistering Cold.  
• On Dreamwalker I can save someone who is running from the exploding Zombie.  
• On Deathwhisper I can save someone who has a ghost chasing them.  

The list goes on and on.  I can understand not taking in a 25 man build because a disc priest is probably shield spamming, but in a 10 man raid, you absolutely need this talent.  It is too fun and too useful.

My Disc spec:

 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhhVRIoffRtcxtc:bAd

Unfortunately, Disc is not as exciting to spec as Holy because there are very few unnecessary talents.  I see some priests get Improved Flash Heal instead of Improved Renew which is definitely a good trade off.  Like I said I am not the tank healer in 10 mans; so as Disc I rarely flash heal.

My rotation depends greatly on the fight, but I am almost always Disc for LK and Holy for the rest.  Basically you keep ProM on cooldown just like Holy, but instead of renewing you put shields on the raid members taking damage.  Since you have no CoH, you can throw renews when people are still taking damage through a shield and have Weakened Soul.

Usually I save Penance for someone who has <50% health then follow it with a flash heal if needed.  Otherwise its shield+prom+renew on the raid for great justice.

For Priest specs that is pretty much all I can think of.  If you have any questions or suggestions please let me know.

As for Grid, I keep a few different buffs/debuffs active on Grid.  I do not have a screenshot so here is a MS Paint picture of what my raid frames look like:

I know I know, my paint skills are the stuff of legend!

Now that you are done making fun of this I will explain what it shows:

•  "Holy" is the first 4 letters of the person's name.
• The red box is a placeholder for the boss's signature debuff.  e.g. Threat debuff on Deathwhisper
• The black circle of the shield indicator
• The green squiggly is the renew indicator
• The brown star on the top left is ProM indicator
• The yellow and brown block below the shield is the Weakened Soul indicator
• The blue bar at the bottom is the mana/rage/energy bar
• The -7.5k is the amount of damage that needs to be healed.  
• What isnt shown is the white background is white because I am a priest.  The area where the 7.5k is located is actually black back ground and white text showing the amount of damage (white for everyone not just priests).

This shows the information I need to make informed decisions about who to heal, what heal to use and what buffs I already have rolling.

Next post: A short primer on Gearing/gemming/enchanting