Updated for 4.3
Note: Some aspects of this guide may not apply to your character until higher level. If are interested in getting your character to max level quickly, take a look at this leveling guide.
Glyphs come in three varieties, Prime, Major and Minor. Prime glyphs enhance core aspects of your class and generally provide the greatest benefit of the three types.
Major Glyphs, while not quite as powerful as Prime Glyphs, are still useful and continue to provide a myriad of benefits.
Minor Glyphs often times provide small quality of life improvements or visual changes, such as the Glyph of Shadow Form for priests which makes the character more visible through Shadow Form. However, a few are known to provide more significant benefits such as the warrior glyph of Berserker Rage.
Prime Glyphs:
Major Glyphs:
Minor Glyphs:
Healing is about situational priority as opposed to a rotation. Maximize your effectiveness by anticipating necessary healing and reacting quickly to situations with the proper healing spells to keep players alive while also considering mana efficiency so as to remain effective throughout the encounter.
3.1 – AoE Rotation
When healing for a group or raid, try to apply Power Word: Sanctuary and Prayer of Mending in advance of incoming damage if it can be easily anticipated. The Glyph of Prayer of Mending makes it a good choice to place first on the tank, as the first target is healed for 60% more.
Lightwell should be placed down and used by the raid for an additional HoT effect, and Renew can be individually placed on targets for extra healing. Circle of Healing should be used as often as possible.
3.2 – Cooldowns
As a healer your number one priority is keeping people alive throughout all phases of an encounter, and proper use of cooldowns goes a long way towards accomplishing this. Using your abilities when they’re going to be most effective will generally take some experience with the encounter, such as knowing when a damage spike is going to occur for example.
Another aspect of healing is coordination with other healers when in a raid situation. Boss fights, especially on heroic mode, can and will at times require the chaining of healing cooldowns back to back to survive a particularly damaging phase of an encounter.
Try to use your healing cooldowns only when they’re absolutely necessary, rather than using them at the first sign of a real threat and then lacking them later in a fight when you really need it. At the same time, don’t be afraid to blow your cooldowns if you’re fairly certain that the group won’t survive without them, it really all comes down to personal judgement and experience.
Intellect > Spirit > Haste = Mastery > Critical
Intellect:
Intellect enhances the effectiveness of your spells and increases your maximum mana, which improves mana regeneration.
Spirit:
Spirit increases mana regeneration.
Haste:
Haste lowers the cast time of spells and reduces the global Cooldown, as well as increasing the speed of HoT effects.
Mastery – Echo of Light:
Holy Priest Mastery adds a HoT effect to all direct heals, increasing in effectiveness with more mastery.
Critical:
Critical Rating increases the chance for your spells to critically heal.
5.0 – Reforging
When reforging gear, it’s important that you look to reforge from your least effective stat into the most effective for whatever gear goal you are currently aiming for. See our stat priority list for more information.
Spirit > Mastery = Haste
Spirit is your primary concern when reforging, and you should always look to reforge your weakest stat into Spirit whenever possible. If a piece of gear already has Spirit on it, look to reforge into Haste up to a minimum of 12.5% for the extra tick on renew, even if you’re emphasizing mastery in general.
Gems
- Red – Brilliant Inferno Ruby
- Blue – Purified Demonseye
- Yellow – Zen Dream Emerald – Reckless Ember Topaz – Artful Ember Topaz
- Meta – Ember Shadowspirit Diamond
Unless a socket bonus offers intellect, it’s more effective to gem for pure intellect and ignore the bonus.
Enchantments
- Main Hand: Heartsong – Power Torrent
- Off-Hand: Superior Intellect
- Helm: Arcanum of Hyjal
- Shoulders: Greater Inscription of Charged lodestone
- Cloak: Enchant Cloak – Greater Intellect
- Chest: Enchant Chest – Peerless Stats
- Bracers: Enchant Bracer – Speed – Enchant Bracer – Exceptional Spirit
- Gloves: Enchant Gloves – Greater Mastery – Enchant Gloves – Haste
- Belt: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
- Leggings: Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
- Boots: Enchant Boots – Mastery
Our class guides for whichever class you’re playing:
Death Knights – Druid – Hunter – Mage – Paladin
Priest – Rogue – Shaman – Warlock – Warrior
The GotWarcraft Gold Guide
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