Effective Healing in DPS Gear?Follow

It depends on your spec. From what I've heard, holy and shadow are fairly comparable in terms of stats. Obviously you're going to want more spirit. Holy priests want spirit more than any other healer in the game right now, so you're going to want to get it on as many pieces of gear as possible.

Disc has a different stat priority - I think they favor mastery above all else and then crit, with haste being dead last because disc healing is more about mitigating damage with their shields than with casting spells with actual cast times.

Ok looks like I will try learning the healing stuff when I get some time. Thanks for the info.

It comes down to using what works in a particular situation. Smite healing can make your mana last a long time. It's fun, allows you to add some dps, is smart, and does a decent amount of healing. However, it doesn't push out as much hps as rolling tank shields, renew, PoM, Penance, and Flash Heal if needed, or bouncing between 2 groups with chain PoH (popping Divine Aegis bubbles on everyone). Of course, these things tend to use a lot of mana fast.

On Firelands trash, I've yet to get into a comfortable Smite Healing rotation. So far, its been about pushing out max hps and keeping people from dropping dead. Use what works. We have a lot of spells. Don't forget things like PW:Barrier might make a good spell on an initial pull, while the maximum number of mobs are on the tank, or a nice pain suppression. Our variety adds to the fun factor. I've even been stuck throwing "Heal" when oom and living on regen. That ends up being fun too, if the group survives and the mob goes down.

Embrace our versatility, and good luck.

Edited, Jul 4th 2011 1:10am by dadanox

I think you'd do ok healing in dps gear. Haste is still a good throughput stat for healers, but at the cost of burning through your mana quicker - mastery and crit increase throughput without any extra mana cost. You just need to be conscientious of this if you switch to healing.

I'm not sure exactly how much spirit a shadow priest stacks, but holy is likely to suffer more for not having spirit on absolutely everything than disc is. Secondary stats for holy priests is to some extent a matter of preference. Our mastery is a strong stat (background heal over time) but does a lot of overheal, some like haste - but you need to ensure you have the regen, crit is reasonable now but I think is still considered the weakest throughput stat (not 100% sure?).