Talents
Your big talent choices:
From Darkness Comes Light vs Mindbender
FDCL is great for fights where you are in Serenity chakra - you'll often have an instant Flash Heal to refresh someone's Renew. Mindbender is pretty good all-around for consistent mana regen, and it's getting buffed further in 5.1.
Divine Insight vs Power Infusion
Divine Insight is great as long as you are using GHeal or PoH. If you're in Sanctuary chakra, you probably aren't using either, so Power Infusion is a good choice all-around.
Angelic Bulwark over Desperate Prayer because you don't have to remember to use it.
Cascade is pretty cool in 25 man raids (like Raid Finder), because it will always hit 15 players. It also counts as a direct heal for proccing enchants and trinkets, and refreshing Renew in Serenity chakra.
Glyphs
Lightspring is the only really good glyph.
Renew is pretty good for healing in Serenity, since it gets the full 12s duration when a direct heal refreshes it.
Inner Fire and Inner Sanctum can help you take a bit less damage.
Gear
Spirit > Intellect > Haste (to 3039) > Mastery ~> Haste (after 3039) > Crit
If you use the Renew glyph don't bother with haste - you'll need over 4700 to get an extra tick. Just stack spirit and mastery.
An easy way to start your gearing at 90 is to get a tailor to make you a Contender's Satin set item for any slot below ilvl 450. This will get you quickly into heroics.
Reforging/Gems
Spirit is your most valuable statistic followed by Intellect, then Haste and/or Mastery, then Crit.
- Red Slot: int/spi
- Yellow Slot: spi/mas or spi/has
- Blue Slot: spi
- Meta: Revitalizing Primal Diamond
Tank Healing
Holy priests have a Chakra for tank healing and a Chakra for raid healing. Serenity is for tank healing. Your Renew will refresh from any direct heal in this Chakra, making it easy to keep going. Do make sure you cast it again whenever it falls off. Always use Inner Fire when tank healing.
Your best heal-per-second sequence on a tank is Holy Word: Serenity -> Flash Heal -> Flash Heal -> Greater Heal. With Serendipity and 12.5% haste you can fit the whole sequence into 6 seconds.
Your highest heal-per-mana is to spam Heal. Generally this is efficient enough that you can do it even when the tank is topped off.
Generally while tank healing you will spam Heal to keep Renew rolling and have a constant healing stream on the tank. Use Holy Word: Serenity whenever you can - it's very efficient. When the tank takes any significant amount of damage, you hit him with a Flash/Flash/GHeal sequence.
Of course you want to change things up according to the circumstance. If you're taking damage too, substitute Binding Heal for Flash Heal. If the tank is topped off after a Flash Heal, just go back to Heal and save your Serendipity buff for later. If you already have a Serendipity buff, just cast GHeal when the tank takes damage. You can always start another chain if one GHeal isn't enough.
Be sure to throw out Prayer of Mending when it cools down. This will never be overheal on a tank, and it contributes to raid healing too.
Note that much 5man content essentially boils down to tank healing, so Serenity chakra is a good choice for those.
Always make sure you have a Lightspring up in a central location!
Raid Healing
Sanctuary is your raid heal chakra. Inner Will can be viable during raid healing but I generally stick with Inner Fire.
PoM is easy to keep rolling, just hit a tank with it every time you think about it and let it bounce. It's a good death-prevention tool when you're on the move, too, since it's instant.
As a smart heal Circle is one of your best tools. Try to hit someone in a central location so that it has the maximum decision-making capacity. Tanks and melee are usually prime targets. You can also position yourself in a central location and self-target to great effect.
Prayer of Healing is great if all 5 targets need the healing. It's a little tricky to pick the right times to use it, especially if you're not sure that everyone in the group is 30yds from your target. Like with Circle, your best bet is to target a tank, melee, or yourself. Other healers often position themselves centrally, too, for their own purposes.
If you see that your health is low along with someone else in the raid, it's an ideal time for Binding Heal. Binding Heal also triggers Serendipity, which you can spend on triage GHeals.
Renew is your go-to spell for evening out health discrepancies in the raid, particularly when you're moving a lot or your target is at the edge of your cast range. It's a very quick cast and at least as efficient as a Greater Heal. If your target isn't about to die, it's a great way to bring someone with low-ish health up to everyone else's level.
Your Holy Word: Sanctuary is targeted at the ground and makes a healing circle for people to stand in. It's generally fairly weak but it's worth doing when people are all stacked in one place. As a rule of thumb, you want 6-7 people standing in your circle for the full duration before it's worth casting.
Remember to use your Divine Hymn often, hopefully twice per boss fight. It's fantastic group healing. Even on a 3 minute cooldown, it will frequently be one of your top healing spells on the parse.
Always make sure you have a Lightspring up in a central location!
Tools / Plugins
- Healbot is a great mod for any healer, allowing you to use modified clicks to cast a wide variety of spells directly on a health bar.
- Clique does the same thing but allows you to use the standard blizzard raid frames, or any other raid frame addon.
- Grid is a popular raid frame addon for use with Clique.