So I have had a wild and crazy bug up my butt the past couple days and finally did it. I switched Colanai's offspec from prot to holy (I am soooo not comfortable tanking). I've got a full set of greens except for relic and trinkets. I plan on running a bunch of heroics as retadin, rolling for holy gear.
And now I need help. I played around with cooldowns and stuff via partying with my second account, but I still don't really get the rotation. I have no idea what addons I should be using (and whether or not they play nicely with my UI addon, nuiaddon.com ). I have no idea when I should be using what heal.
Also. This is the talent tree I'm building towards, based on examples at elitistjerks.com (which doesn't really have any solid recent commentary). Any comments/suggestions?
http://wowtal.com/#k=te4EijxCX.a7t.paladin.
So I still haven't learned how to play this game, and I want to introduce MORE complexity to it. Yay!
Help me. I have no idea what's going on. ;-;
Holydin GET!
Moderator:Lamas
Re: Holydin GET!
Wintergrasp is an interesting place to practice healing raids and groups. It'll give you an idea for what your spells can do, etc. I haven't done it since 4.01, so they changed a few spells. That spec is pretty close to what I'd use for Allern if he was healing.
Some thoughts of mine:
Beacon early.
Holy shock on cooldown if you can to generate Holy Power. You can also cast direct heals on your Beacon target.
Light of Dawn is the only AoE we get right now and it runs on Holy Power.
Use Seal of Insight (and have Glyph of Seal of Insight)
Holy Shock is awesome.
Flash of Light is the fast, inefficient heal.
Divine Light is the slow, big heal.
Holy Light is just right.
Light of Dawn is a cone that heals up to 5 (or 6, if glyphed, and it will be). It can be a little difficult to aim.
That's... all I know.
Some thoughts of mine:
Beacon early.
Holy shock on cooldown if you can to generate Holy Power. You can also cast direct heals on your Beacon target.
Light of Dawn is the only AoE we get right now and it runs on Holy Power.
Use Seal of Insight (and have Glyph of Seal of Insight)
Holy Shock is awesome.
Flash of Light is the fast, inefficient heal.
Divine Light is the slow, big heal.
Holy Light is just right.
Light of Dawn is a cone that heals up to 5 (or 6, if glyphed, and it will be). It can be a little difficult to aim.
That's... all I know.
TEAM CLERIC: Allern, Dranei Paladin; Lothlondor, Night Elf Druid; Lelian, Human Mage; Lesasia, Human Death Knight; Lagervolk, Dwarf Hunter; Sylerissar, Night Elf Rogue; Langston, Worgen Warrior; Leanora, Gnome Priest
WE SPLIT THE PARTY: Renethal, Blood Elf Paladin
WE SPLIT THE PARTY: Renethal, Blood Elf Paladin
Re: Holydin GET!
I wouldn't really say there's a rotation for healing. It's more like playing whack-a-mole.
I know people who've healed with the standard unit frames, and I've done it. I hate it. Some sort of unit-frame replacement addon is really useful-- Myed and I think Aro use Healbot, I use VuhDo, and other folks use Grid and Clique together. All of them let you just click on someone's frame to cast a spell, which I find far easier than clicking on their portrait or model and then hitting one of my number keys, and Healbot and VuhDo have libHealComm, which lets them show heals cast by other people. I don't know if Grid has that or not.
Healbot is by far the easiest to setup, since it comes with a lot of presets and auto-detects your class. Unzip it, stick it in the addon folder, go. VuhDo took me a while to figure out, but I like it because it shows me lots of additional info like other people's hots and bubbles. That (and libHealComm) are far more useful in raids than in 5-mans, though. Grid is a core addon with a bunch of optional modules, and setting it up is an adventure in fiddlybits. I've never gotten it working. My recommendation for starting out would be Healbot.
Healbot will offer you a tooltip that tells you what spells are on what buttons, and highlight the one it recommends. I turned that off, because reading it took too long.
What I did when I was learning to discpriest was turn on the option in Healbot that displays the deficit as a number, and then mentally assign each of my spells to number ranges. So if Greater Heal (longer, larger, more efficient) could heal for 4000, I didn't want to use it if the deficit was only 2k. In that case, I might use Flash Heal (smaller, fast, expensive) for 2k. But if the deficit was greater than 4k or on a tank, I'd use Penance instead (healbomb, but on a cooldown) to get them back up to the non-danger zone quickly.
I think Allern's Wintergrasp suggestion is good. You don't have to worry about prioritizing tanks vs dps and no one's going to bitch about their repair bill, so you can concentrate on figuring out how each of your heals work in relation to the others. Be aware, though, that any healing class in a BG is a priority target, and prepare to die as soon as they figure it out. Also know that the most frustrating thing (for me) to kill in a BG is a holydin, but it can also be really funny to watch one just stand there and let the Horde beat on them.
If you don't feel like doing srs pvp to familiarize yourself with the spells, dueling might work too.
I know people who've healed with the standard unit frames, and I've done it. I hate it. Some sort of unit-frame replacement addon is really useful-- Myed and I think Aro use Healbot, I use VuhDo, and other folks use Grid and Clique together. All of them let you just click on someone's frame to cast a spell, which I find far easier than clicking on their portrait or model and then hitting one of my number keys, and Healbot and VuhDo have libHealComm, which lets them show heals cast by other people. I don't know if Grid has that or not.
Healbot is by far the easiest to setup, since it comes with a lot of presets and auto-detects your class. Unzip it, stick it in the addon folder, go. VuhDo took me a while to figure out, but I like it because it shows me lots of additional info like other people's hots and bubbles. That (and libHealComm) are far more useful in raids than in 5-mans, though. Grid is a core addon with a bunch of optional modules, and setting it up is an adventure in fiddlybits. I've never gotten it working. My recommendation for starting out would be Healbot.
Healbot will offer you a tooltip that tells you what spells are on what buttons, and highlight the one it recommends. I turned that off, because reading it took too long.
What I did when I was learning to discpriest was turn on the option in Healbot that displays the deficit as a number, and then mentally assign each of my spells to number ranges. So if Greater Heal (longer, larger, more efficient) could heal for 4000, I didn't want to use it if the deficit was only 2k. In that case, I might use Flash Heal (smaller, fast, expensive) for 2k. But if the deficit was greater than 4k or on a tank, I'd use Penance instead (healbomb, but on a cooldown) to get them back up to the non-danger zone quickly.I think Allern's Wintergrasp suggestion is good. You don't have to worry about prioritizing tanks vs dps and no one's going to bitch about their repair bill, so you can concentrate on figuring out how each of your heals work in relation to the others. Be aware, though, that any healing class in a BG is a priority target, and prepare to die as soon as they figure it out. Also know that the most frustrating thing (for me) to kill in a BG is a holydin, but it can also be really funny to watch one just stand there and let the Horde beat on them.
If you don't feel like doing srs pvp to familiarize yourself with the spells, dueling might work too.
Re: Holydin GET!
Addons: I use a combination of Healbot and mouseover macros for healing (mousing over the name in the healbot frame counts as mousing over the character), because I could never keep track of the whole shift+alt+x+insert+end+right click casting through healbot. I put my two spammiest spells (holy shock and holy light for my pally) on the left and right mouse buttons, cleanse on all the shift+clicks so I don't have to remember which one is which, and the rest of my spells are on mouseover macros. People smarter than me can certainly do things differently. 
I also I found that an addon for tracking Beacon was pretty useful (I like BOLT, there's a 4.0.1-compatible version here: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/i ... 4.0.1.html), or you could set up a DBM spelltimer to monitor it and tell you when to cast it again. You get a lot of temporary buffs and procs, so you might want to use Power Auras to track those.
I wouldn't sweat all the theorycrafting and stuff yet, since Things Will Be Different At 85 (tm) and Blizz is likely to make changes soon after Cata starts anyway. Take whatever talents seem useful and hit WG or AV and practice using your base heals, since those probably won't change a ton, at least not when it comes to which spell is slow-efficient vs fast-inefficient vs medium-medium. Beacon yourself (everyone will want to kill you ded) and then heal other people.
Check the AH for gear... I found a lot of good stuff for my pally pretty cheap because nobody wants sp plate except pallies.
I also I found that an addon for tracking Beacon was pretty useful (I like BOLT, there's a 4.0.1-compatible version here: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/i ... 4.0.1.html), or you could set up a DBM spelltimer to monitor it and tell you when to cast it again. You get a lot of temporary buffs and procs, so you might want to use Power Auras to track those.I wouldn't sweat all the theorycrafting and stuff yet, since Things Will Be Different At 85 (tm) and Blizz is likely to make changes soon after Cata starts anyway. Take whatever talents seem useful and hit WG or AV and practice using your base heals, since those probably won't change a ton, at least not when it comes to which spell is slow-efficient vs fast-inefficient vs medium-medium. Beacon yourself (everyone will want to kill you ded) and then heal other people.
Check the AH for gear... I found a lot of good stuff for my pally pretty cheap because nobody wants sp plate except pallies.
Re: Holydin GET!
I healed my first run today, nobody died, and I only lost control a couple times and got scary close. I don't think I'm ready for pug healing at the top end (too much unpredictability), but I'm certainly OK with healing alt runs on normal. If I'm around, poke me.
Re: Holydin GET!
Yay! more healers!
TEAM CLERIC: Allern, Dranei Paladin; Lothlondor, Night Elf Druid; Lelian, Human Mage; Lesasia, Human Death Knight; Lagervolk, Dwarf Hunter; Sylerissar, Night Elf Rogue; Langston, Worgen Warrior; Leanora, Gnome Priest
WE SPLIT THE PARTY: Renethal, Blood Elf Paladin
WE SPLIT THE PARTY: Renethal, Blood Elf Paladin
Re: Holydin GET!
Healed my first heroic (VP) and we only group wiped a few times! Got a hat which was called "Somethignorother Halo" and wasn't a halo at all, dammit. (Was so excited. Followed by so disappointed.)
Need to figure out how I'm going to get the mats for all the damn enchants/gems/other bits I need. Sigh.
Need to figure out how I'm going to get the mats for all the damn enchants/gems/other bits I need. Sigh.