So I've started a Priest...

[rokku]

Meditation won't become available until lvl 20 though, right? (it needs 10 points in the disc tree?)

I think i'll leave the 4 points I've allocated so far, as I will still be doing quests, but begin focussing on the disc tree to pickup Meditation Thanks very much for that, Cabby!

[Skippyninja]

Yeah, no kidding... No wonder I wasn't seeing the regen. Now I totally feel like a noob!

[mzanker]

Just thought I'd add my 2c worth

I started a priest a couple of weeks ago with the intention of being a healer. I was originally going to level with Cabby's Holy spec from the talents thread but having read a great deal on the net about healing 5-mans I've decided to go with Disc (57/14/0). I've got all the heirloom gear - shoulders, chest, staff and two Discerning Eye of the Beast trinkets. As you can see I've not gone for spirit tap but I'm not having any mana problems when questing - the trinkets give me 4% mana back for each kill that gives XP.

I've been doing a mixture of healing and questing. All my other gear is now blue and I have impressive stats for my level. The levels are absolutely flying by! I can easily go up a couple of levels from healing just 3 instances. SiS has been working perfectly and the guide soon catches up with me.

One thing I will say is that healing can be frustrating. I'm quite lucky in that I've got a great tank in the guild who's at a similar level to me so we go into random dungeons together if we can - I know his tanking style and he trusts my healing and things go really well. Random PUGs can be a nightmare, though. So many people simply do not know the basic strategy of having tank, healer and DPS and run round and aggro everything then whine and blame me when they die. They won't listen to advice (and that's if they even bother to look at the chat log). You need a pretty thick skin to be a healer a lot of the time

Anyway, I'm finding disc is a great spec for tank-healing and it hasn't held me back at all when questing, either (although the heirlooms do help a lot). Even so, I'm going to dual-spec shadow at 40 and switch to that for levelling.

[Skippyninja]

This is a common problem. Many people just play for fun and don't really commit their brains to what is most efficient during a run. I know it's a pain, but try your best to not lose your sanity.

[cabby]

So many people simply do not know the basic strategy of having tank, healer and DPS and run round and aggro everything then whine and blame me when they die.

That's when I use my power as healer to put them in their place. Give them one warning to let the tank pull and do his job or die. If they keep running around and trying to do the stuff they aren't supposed to then I just stop healing them and heal the person I'm supposed to heal, the tank. They normally learn their lesson really fast or quit the group, and either way it's for the best.

Like Skippy says, don't let the stupidity of others ruin your fun. If they're that dumb just laugh at them when they're planted face down on the ground, trust me you'll enjoy that a lot more.

[rokku]

I have to say, I am looking forward to healing a group and having a more challenging role than facerolling dps I'm used to.

[mzanker]

That's when I use my power as healer to put them in their place. Give them one warning to let the tank pull and do his job or die. If they keep running around and trying to do the stuff they aren't supposed to then I just stop healing them and heal the person I'm supposed to heal, the tank. They normally learn their lesson really fast or quit the group, and either way it's for the best.

Like Skippy says, don't let the stupidity of others ruin your fun. If they're that dumb just laugh at them when they're planted face down on the ground, trust me you'll enjoy that a lot more.

That is, in fact, exactly what I do It doesn't really bother me - I was just pointing out that, as a healer, you're often the butt of other players' ignorance so be prepared for it (and I guess the same applies to tanks). People occasionally say nice things, too, like last night when running RFK and the tank accidentally pulled too much, then apologised and thanked me for "great healing"

[Skippyninja]

It's easy to blame things on other people, mainly the tank or healer. Sometimes it can be those people's fault, but most of the time it really isn't.

The one thing I like is my "Drink" macro. Whenever I sit to drink my Priest says: Purified Draenic water: 15s for x5. Your repair bill if you don't wait for me to top off my mana: significabtly more expensive. Waiting for your lovely healer: Priceless.

[rokku]

Ok, I've respecced (all 10 of my talent points :P) to follow the advice from the plusheal.com thread Skip posted after levelling with more of a shadowy build. Now I am lvl 19, and ready to PUG... however, I'm scared I'll be shouted at lol

What addons can I use to make it easier for me to watch who to heal, or should i just be focussing on the tank?

[cabby]

VuhDo or HealBot Continued.

HealBot is a bit easier to get setup and understand but VuhDo seems to be a bit more powerful in customization and being able to use target of target to cast offensive spells that HealBot doesn't do.

[Kamchak]

Ill tell you from my experience as a healer (53 druid atm), healing with healbot is so much easier, and makes me a much more efficient healer. I did like Vudoo, but I have to say that when I go into a dungeon, pug or not, Im the healer. Ill do random damage if Im boared at the moment, but that is not what Im supposed to be spending my mana on. Im the healer.
As far as who to heal..... that is where it gets down to what do you want to be doing in a run.
In a fresh pug, I will try to keep everyone topped off with a HoT if they take incidental damage, but my focus is on the tank. Honestly, in a 5 man dungeon, no one else should be taking regular damage than the tank.
If there are players that continue to pull and not loose aggro, I will place in party chat; "Guys, I cant keep up with more than one tank. So, I will heal 1 tank. I dont care who decides to be the tank, but there can only be one."
I have yet to have anyone upset with me, even if I have to allow a DPS to die to keep the tank alive. As long as I state what I am willing to do, there has never been a "God you suck" problem.
In fact, and not just to toot my own horn here, I have been called by many the best 5 man healer for my level since lvl 30. WHY! Because I force the players to keep within the bounds of DPS and tank roles. Automatically I come off as a great healer, cause I have the mana to get the group out of the "oh crap" situations.

As for your priest and healing... my advise is try this and see how it fits your play style;
Set up Healbot so your have easy access on your mouse to hit the tank with shield and your HoT. Pop these two on the tank as he/she is going in for the pull, and keep them on him/her. for more sustained damage while you wait for your shield to proc, hit with the flash heal, or use Heal, depending on the damage being delivered.
You can also set up healbot to let you give out your buffs. Set it up so you are sending out Fortitude on the 'raid' and the others as you see fit. You can set up healbot to do a lot of things for you, and it tells you who has what % of aggro.
Anyway, I could go on and on...
Best advise to give, healer to healer... dont let the group run wild expecting you to chase after them and heal them on their whim. You are there to get a group through the dungeon alive, not be a babysitter. They have responsibilities the same as you do.
Hope that helped you out a bit.
Cheers

[rokku]

Thanks guys!

I went to DM last night with a PUG, and found it immensely hard work (compared to DPS, but that's not saying much eh?). I thought it went well, and at the last group before the boss the tank and one DPS (paladin I think) were getting hammered, and I managed to top them both off with heals at the crucial moment. As such, the party complimented me on my healing. So that was pretty darn cool

I had vuhdo installed but couldn't get it to work, so will try with Healbot tonight. Decursive (as suggested by a guildie) was interesting, but I was hoping I could just click the icons as they popped up and they'd be actioned, so a little more work for me there No biggy.

Thanks again, I can see myself enjoying this healing lark!

(and a PS: I started DM just below lvl 20, and finished over halfway to 21. Love those heirlooms )

[cabby]

VuhDo takes a lot of work to get it set up and working how you want it due to the power of the customization. HealBot will take a lot less work to get set up. After that they both work almost identically in operation, but the VuhDo framework makes it very easy to determine and watch the tank. As for Decursive, you click on the small squares (think it's called the mini menu or something like that) for the curing of stuff.

If you'd like you can try out my setup I use on my priest for VuhDo. Just download it from here and put it into your characters WTF folder.

[rokku]

Nice one, cabby -- I will try that later tonight

I did a run tonight with Healbot and it worked fine; love the easy alerts etc. Mind you, the group ended up wiping on the boss thanks to them all running off and leaving me while I'm drinking (after telling them to wait), but that wasn't too surprising since they did it the whole run. I gave them a mouthful at the end Fun times

[mzanker]

I went to DM last night with a PUG, and found it immensely hard work (compared to DPS, but that's not saying much eh?). I thought it went well, and at the last group before the boss the tank and one DPS (paladin I think) were getting hammered, and I managed to top them both off with heals at the crucial moment. As such, the party complimented me on my healing. So that was pretty darn cool

That's great - well done The first one I healed my hands were shaking but it went fine. I've specced disc and have just got Soul Warding which reduces the cooldown and mana cost of PW:S making it pretty much all you need with just the occasional renew thrown in for good measure.

I also use HealBot and it makes things *very* easy - you can buff, remove curses/poisons, and heal with single clicks. It's so efficient that I find myself DoT-ing and wanding a lot of the time, often doing more DPS than some of the actual DPS themselves I always make sure I have enough mana left for my primary job, though...