Circle of Healing: a 3.3 Holy priest’s superstar
Yesterday, I talked about how Serendipity brought the fun to Holy heals. The game’s fun isn’t just derived from strategic healing though; it’s also taken from pegging your role. And your role as a Holy priest is to raid heal, backed by your good ol’ pals Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing.
“But wait! Holy priests tank heal just fine,” you say. If this is you, I recommend checking out iPud: Discipline versus Holy in 3.3. 
Discipline priests fit the tank heal mold and are arguably stronger in 3.3, so there’s no need to stress yourself with Holy tank heals.
Back to raid healing… Serendipity gives you a 36% hasted Prayer of Healing to save a group in a pinch, but Circle of Healing is your smart heal. What makes it worthy of your 41-point talent?
- It gives healing to the people that need it, rather than being group dependent like Prayer of Healing; think Chain Heal, but free of the range issue
- It’s an insta-cast every six seconds (and you really shouldn’t need it more than six seconds; more on this later)
- It usually procs Surge of Light for a quick Flash Heal for Serendipity, thereby fueling its Prayer of Healing cousin
- It glyphs up nicely
Despite these merits, most non-priest players have never heard of CoH. Shadow and Discipline priests even give it a head cock now and again. Let’s get a quick history lesson on this spell so we’re all on the same page, then look at when to cast Circle of Healing and when to cast its Prayer of Healing friend.
The history behind Circle of Healing
Back in the cobwebs of 2008, patch 3.0.8, Circle of Healing got the nerf bat. Prior to that, Holy priests were treated like mana pits that spammed the insta-cast CoH relentlessly and received every Innervate known to man (remember Zul’aman days?). Holy priests were so enraged by the supposed nerf of CoH that the Discipline priest population skyrocketed; I played my Restoration shaman in those days and literally couldn’t find a Holy priest in all of Kalecgos.
Eventually the QQs died down though and priests accepted the 6-second cooldown on CoH as a way of life. Strategy and intelligence set in where the 1-button spam once sat. And the glyphed, 6-target smart heal that occupied Holy priest’s 41-point talent slot integrated itself cleanly into the strategy of Holy priest raid heals serverwide.
When to cast Circle of Healing
First and foremost, I use CoH as my stepping stone to Serendipity 3. I can rely on the fact that CoH will proc Surge of Light (and if it doesn’t, I writhe about like I have ants in my pants), which means I get an insta-cast, mana-free Flash Heal right after it goes off.
That doesn’t mean to cast Circle of Healing just to get SoL, though! Splash/raid damage in most of these Icecrown raid fights is inevitable. (And other WotLK raids, for that matter.) Use Circle of Healing the moment 3-6 people are hurt and the smart heal will find them over however many XYZ groups your raid has and allot the healing accordingly. It will then give you that quick FH that you can use for whatever leftover damage there is, even if that’s just a tank.
What if your raid is taking damage constantly?–should you use CoH every time it’s off cooldown? The short answer is yes, but the strategic answer is “consider if Prayer of Healing is better.”
Let’s look at when to use Prayer of Healing and hold your breath on that next CoH.
When to cast Prayer of Healing
While the knee-jerk response to when to cast PoH is, “Whenever Circle of Healing is on cooldown,” that isn’t the mentality I always follow. PoH has a bigger oomph to it than CoH, so a raid that has sustained considerable damage should receive the PoH if you have a lingering Serendipity 3 (regardless of if the six second cooldown’s over). Also, if CoH is on cooldown and the raid hasn’t taken enough damage to warrant the PoH, consider dropping some Renews or the FH needed to get to Serendipity 3 instead. You can even use Binding Heal to get yourself and another target and gain a Serendipity boost.
If the raid damage is slow and steady and you have Serendipity 3, it’s a good idea to hold out until PoH won’t overheal [considerably]. That way, you can immediately follow with CoH to get another SoL/Serendipity 1 and save some mana with the free Flash Heal.
When to NOT cast Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing
A Discipline priest said once, “I can’t raid heal.” I made the mistake of saying, “You have Prayer of Healing, don’t you?”
Suddenly this priest did raid heal; unfortunately, she also clocked 75% of the raid’s overheals and had over 60% of her heals dedicated exclusively to PoH.
Trigger-happy healing priests are easy to identify. Your CoH or PoH is taking the overheal charts by storm, and you show a 40%+ use of just one spell on the healing meters. Now, I’m not saying to turn into a meter whore; I’m suggesting that everyone download a meter to watch the percentages of spells they use, and to make sure that Circle of Healing and/or Prayer of Healing is not vastly different from Flash Heal and Renew.
If any spell is doing more than 30% of your heals as a Holy priest, you’re doing it wrong. The purpose behind priests, especially Holy, is versatility. Circle of Healing is amazing, but it should not be used on every cooldown without hesitation; and Prayer of Healing rocks, but if there are only two (or even three, depending on the speed of the damage in the fight) people injured, a Renew or FH would’ve sufficed. Healing Prayers won’t save you either, only slow down the PoH mana-piss problem by 20%.
Heal as little as you need to, as full as the bar can go. This is the best way to enjoy your awe-inspiring, Chain-Heal-crushing Circle of Healing spell.
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By Carey, January 22, 2010 @ 2:37 pm
What kind of healing meter would you suggest downloading, if any?
By Kourtnie McKenzie, January 22, 2010 @ 3:27 pm
I use recount, but another one you could use (according to shadow priest friend ^.^) is skada, which takes less memory.
I would love to find one that tracks absorption.
By Jacob, January 27, 2010 @ 11:16 am
recount has guessed absorbs/heals and absorbs plugins, just google/curse it
By Kourtnie McKenzie, February 24, 2010 @ 11:43 am
Oh, nice! Thanks for the tip!
By Andy, March 4, 2010 @ 4:37 pm
Well, Skada has a heals+absorption category
By Pix, April 7, 2010 @ 9:04 am
Based on your explanation of your fantastic group heals… what would you say about the following? I was recently “informed” that resto druids are “Dead Last” in effectiveness of tank healing. I realize our raid heals are kick ass (not nearly as much as holy priests though), but to have someone tell me we suck as tank healers, or that we should be last priority when assigning a healer to a tank, struck a nerve. I’m curious as to what your thoughts are!
By Kourtnie McKenzie, April 7, 2010 @ 9:20 am
Hmm. I have two perspectives on this: the druids I heal with when I’m playing my 80 priest, and my horde druid that’s only level 76 atm.
Short answer: Yes, druids are the worst tank heals. Paladins do it better, shamans do it better (I used to play resto shaman until ToC came around), and Discipline priests do it better.
Long answer:
Coming from my endgame 10-man raiding perspective, I think druids heal tanks fine. They’re not the best; when I’m in a paladin/priest [myself] combo, I can use my Holy spec without a sweat, knowing the paladin has the tank’s back and I can focus exclusively on the raid. When I’m in a druid/priest combo, however, which happens much more frequently in my current guild, it’s more like, “Oh, you’re Holy? Well, okay. Druid, can you tank heal, and Johannah can just keep an eye on the tank?” My druid buddy and I play a 50/50 role almost, where she’s in charge of the long term heals and I handle any kind of strange spiking. Because my Grid is also set up for my horde (I know, I should use unique Grids for each toon, but I don’t), I see her Rejuvenations popping up everywhere all the time, and I know those people don’t need a Renew.
I guess it helps if you’re tank healing with a raid healer that is aware of your weaknesses! And strengths, of course. Your Swiftmend and Nature’s Swiftness obviously are awesome tank healing tools.
Coming from my level 76 horde perspective, I about had a seizure when I started doing instances. It’s not that I couldn’t do it, but I’ve grown a crutch to priest tank heal abilities that are, well, faster. I’ve got to tell you, us priests have it made in comparison. I’ve been told Nourish transforms the class, but I still have to pay attention when I heal on my druid and I can read a book when I heal on my priest.