I’ve switched from the role of a Holy priest in ICC-10 to Discipline priest in ICC-25. I’ve also finally had the pleasure, in a rather short span, of seeing all the ICC bosses – heroic Putricide included. Crazy! I intend to continue looking into Holy and Smite specs, but my recent shift in guilds may put those on the wayside until the release of Cataclysm. Or, at the very least, it will put my practice of them on the wayside.

For all you Holy and PvP lovers though, I am keeping my alternate spec Holy PvP, and expect some Holy PvP videos from me in the near future. I’m just dealing with some touch-ups to my PvP gear. I tried Smite spec in PvP the other night, but my druid boyfriend quickly lamented about the lack of healers and I switched back to classic (and yet still not oft used) Holy PvP.

Do not expect Discipline PvP articles on this blog because, quite frankly, it’s not my playstyle – although feel free to discuss it as much as you’d like!

I’m looking forward to the potentiality of Serendipity-like benefits to Smite in Cataclysm and hope this drives my non-raid-healing spec into a Smite direction. I’ll be leveling a Worgen rogue with my boyfriend and his buddy in Cataclysm, and if I understand rogue PvP fun factor right, that will make me abandon priest PvP pretty much altogether. Anyone out there crazy enough to level priest twice just to have a priest Worgen (before race changes include Worgen, of course)?

Update: For kind readers and Kalecgos stalkers, we are currently guildless due to things not working out on a social level in Pirate. (I thought they talked way too little and were way too serious, then they picked a fight with one of the people that joined with me. I didn’t wait for strike three.)

I’m sure they’re a great guild and it just didn’t work out for us. We’re just too far into WotLK, which I’m not a huge fan of, and too close for Cataclysm, for me to waste any mental energy in it.

I’m in Vegas at the moment, but I’ll be doing an update soon on some of the predicted changes on see for Smite in Cataclysm due to its current alpha! (I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting into the beta and then this blog will primarily change to that focus versus WotLK, as an FYI.)

Here are the changes we’re looking at:

• Druids will be able to dispel defensive magic, curses, and poison.
• Paladins will be able to dispel defensive magic, diseases, and poison.
• Priests will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and disease.
• Shaman will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and curses.

What’s this mean for priests? Not a lot, really.

Druids got magic, great. I don’t play paladins, so I’m not sure what occurred there. Shamans got a boost to Purge, woot. Shamans also lost poisons and diseases… that’s a sad panda.

You could say, “But wait!–Holy priests lost the ability to remove poisons on themselves!” but they’ve already reassured that Body and Soul will remain the same. Score. Dispels also cannot be mashed anymore (they’ll go off whether there’s something to dispel or not), and this makes me excited concerning mashing is just a bad mechanic in general. I like smart dispeling.

Shadow priests lost the ability to remove diseases, and while I could complain about that, I interpreted that more as, “So now you have to have a healing paladin or priest on a boss fight with disease.” And that, to me, is just jiffy.

Except wait!

That means we’ll be interchangeable with paladins! Nooooo, don’t make me Discipline!

Priest Winnar

Ghostcrawler is the Blizzard face behind whether they buff you or nerf you; and Ghostcrawler plays a Holy / Discipline priest.

Alright, now that we’re up to speed… here’s something you might not have read before! Ghostcrawler recently replied to a priest thread on the forums about his playstyle when he’s Discing and Holy’ing. It’s a quick and helpful read that healing priests across the Interwebs can benefit from.

Disc: PoM on cooldown. PW:S as much as you can (esp. on the Arcane mage until 3.3.3). Use Penance often when you need burst. Resort to PoH if a lot of people need healing at once, especially in 10-player raids where you don’t have a lot of other healers to pick up the slack. Keep Pain Suppression and Divine Hymn for emergencies. Use Power Infusion on a mage or lock if you don’t need it.

Holy: PoM on cooldown. CoH on cooldown if there is any raid damage. Renew to handle the rest of the raid damage. Flash Heal if someone is still low after all of that. Save GS and Divine Hymn for emergencies or timed boss cooldowns. I tend to use Binding Heal a lot more than most priests because it makes me feel smart, especially when globals are in question.

What I like: Feeling smart when I mix the right tool with the right problem. Saving lives when someone thought they were dead. Sitting there at full mana halfway through a fight because I didn’t heal when I didn’t need to. Penance in general. Body and Soul. Borrowed Time. Serendipity.

What I don’t like: Using CoH so much. Dealing with Weakened Soul (esp. as Holy). Lightwell. Seeing priests die. (In all honesty I don’t die a lot, but I see Spirits of Redemption constantly. I guess as a sweeping generalization, priests have the stare-at-Grid syndrome worse than other healers.) Blowing 3 candles every wipe. Looking like a mage if I pick the wrong gear.

This is obviously meant for PvE; not PvP.

My Discipline playstyle mirrors what Ghostcrawler mentions here rather fluidly; nice parallel there. As far as Holy though, I tend to use Flash Heal over Renew for patching up a raid, just on the grounds that it gets me closer to my precious Serendipity. Renew is something I reserve for tanks. I’m not sure if that’s an inferior decision or a decision based on taste, but it’s fun nonetheless to make the comparison.

Also, he’s darn right about Binding Heal. Most priests forget they even have it, and it really makes me feel smart whenever I hit my 7 key.

Short answer: Do both.

Got duel spec? Okay, good. Now make one spec Holy and the other Discipline. You can get your 50g back doing your random daily later. (Need to have a DPS spec for switching roles because you have too many healers? I’d suggest switching roles per raid instead of per fight; it’ll simplify the dilemma.) Now I’ll go over the details why.

There are several bosses where you can play whatever floats your boat. Some say it’s great to have the damage reduction and bubbles in a raid for all fights, others say the impact Holy priests make on the charts is astronomical. If you want to be a winnar though, you’ll need Discipline for Saurfang and Holy for Festergut (some call him Sporeface.)

For Saurfang: Your bubbles are going to slow down how fast he gets runic power, and therefore how quickly he starts to mark people into a pit of utter doom. You’ll be amazed at the difference you make in this fight when you’re Discipline; no other healer comes close. (They might think they do if they’re chart whores though. )

For Festergut: Raid damage EVERYWHAR. Holy has an advantage here, letting you run around and CoH, not to mention the Serendipity build-up for your huge PoH spells. Plus, I’m a Holy fan, so… of course I’m going to recommend it for something. :p

Of course, if you don’t have dual spec–or you’re just unwilling to spec Holy and Discipline because the concept seems asinine (it used to seem stupid to me, too)–then you can play whatever fits comfortably with your playstyle. I personally stand by my theory that Discipline is more useful and Holy is more fun, but this is an opinion that can be supported or diverted with endless amounts of subjective numbers and theorycraft. In the end, you should do what’s right for you, and what’s right for your raid based on the other healer you’re paired with.

I'm out of a job, but I gots this barrel!

Today is rant day! I’m curious what the perspective of fellow healing priests (and other healers) are on this touchy question:

“Who gets to heal?”

Johannah’s guild, Momentum, is over-flowing with healers. As the only healer that has healed and remained healing for the guild since it’s formation back in the Karahzan days of Burning Crusade, I can safely say that I have seen more drama over who gets to heal than any other kind of drama you can dig up for an inspiring update to Officer Chat.

And how we determine who gets to heal on which day has a stringent set of rules that are adhered to about as often as visitors adhere to the “don’t feed the animals!” signs at zoos.

One of the things that I find causes the most problems is healing yourself out of a job. What I mean by that is, right now, many guilds are using three healers for ICC-10; once ICC-10 has fully released and everyone has geared themselves to the brim, it will likely reduce to two healers. There are fights right now where we are already dwindling to two healers. Healers get better at the fights, get the gear they need, and heal themselves right into an alternate position.

The three healers then enter a knife fight in which the most passive aggressive person is at the top and the most non-confrontational person is at the bottom, with the person in the middle trembling in verbal fear. Never mind when, like this last Friday, four out of the ten people that can go all play a main spec healing role.

How does one expertly handle healing yourself out of job, or having too many healers available?

Through competition?

WoW.com asked the question once, “Is healing competitive?” You better believe it. One of the biggest reasons I heal Holy spec despite my revelation on the benefits of Discipline in 3.3–beyond the fact I think Holy is a more enjoyable experience–is that Holy simply pulls more on the charts. Immature players like to measure themselves through the numbers provided on these charts with no adherence to the Discipline absorption rule, and I got sick of the underhanded opinions derived from this method of thinking. (For the unfamiliar, this rule is that the Discipline priest is generally going to be 10% under the other healers due to bubble love.)

I have also noticed an amazing phenomena about two like-classes healing together. A Restoration druid by itself does not perform nearly as well as, say, two Restoration druid head-to-head for the trophy I-Am-Mother-Earth-Hear-Me-Rawr. A Holy priest in a VoA-25 did me the courtesy of molesting my Discipline heals, as I divulged in my last post, “Playing nice with other priests.” Strutting your muscles next to fellow kin is a popular practice for many players.

The biggest problem with gauging a healer’s effectiveness through competition is that it is not always an accurate ruler for skill. For instance, if you have one healer that does 4k HPS and stands in fire, and another healer that does 3.5k HPS and moves when they are in scary stuff, who do you think is the better player?

Through power?

In Raid Rx, writer Marcie Knox quotes, “This is where I control your raiding life. Those cookies better be in the mail!” Should officers get dibs on healing over the players beneath them? We all want to say “no” because of the conscientious angel inside our minds, but you know the power trip happens. You know people exercise their rank in their favor. My fear of this is so grand that I find myself DPSing more than any other healer (except maybe our recent Restoration shaman) in our guild. I just don’t like the idea of “guild-master’s-girlfriend-always-gets-to-heal” drama.

Sometimes that power needs to be exercised though. There is no justification for not making it through a progression raid simply because healer XYZ refuses to learn how to DPS and thus thinks it is okay to occupy the healing spot when they are breaking a fundamental rule, such as: not healing as much as healer ABC; or playing a class that fills the other healing role and negating the benefits of multiple healing classes/specs working together. Stubborn people weigh everyone down and “you’re exercising your power over me!” is a lame cop out.

Through taking turns?

This method, I thought, sounded the most amicable. If healer XYZ heals one week while healer ABC DPS’s, then the following week, healer XYZ should DPS and ABC should heal. An elitist guild would say “whichever healer is the most effective should heal all the time,” but that might really piss XYZ off and casual guilds aren’t about making members mad. Taking turns is the communal, non-conflict way of handling it.

Provided, of course, both XYZ and ABC can heal through the bosses without getting the raid spanked.

Be kind to your fellow healers and respect some of the critical rules of raiding.

In short, follow some rules of kindness with your healers and the raid:

• Don’t double class. If you are a priest, and there is another priest already healing (especially if that priest is your spec!), maybe you should let the other class heal. Variety is the spice of life. The same applies to two druid combos, two paladin combos, and two shaman combos.
• If you know one of the healers you’re fighting for a healing spot with DPS’s all the time, let them heal. It’s ridiculous to think you’re entitled to making their life hell.
• Get some DPS gear. There really is no excuse with the availability of tier 9 via running random heroics.
• Treat others the way you’d like them to treat you. If you expect your fellow healers to be semi-decent at DPSing, you should also be semi-decent at it. If you expect healers to share the healing role with you, you should share it with them.

Good luck playing your main spec role!

I switched to Discipline almost right away because one of the Holy priests just didn’t play nice.

Then it occurred to me, in my brief belief in the better side of humanity, that the Holy priest might not have known what “playing nice” with his fellow Holymates meant. I continued along my Discipline way, thinking it a mere misunderstand.

And found a bubble on the tank that’d never received a bubble before.

That cinched the deal that he had a vendetta to rub people the wrong way and saw my Penance as an obvious sign of weakness. If this is you, this post isn’t talking to you; you clearly have no intention to play well with others. But let’s assume you’re not this individual for a moment and you’d like to make friends with the other priests in your raid. What are some helpful pointers to make sure you’re not stepping on each others toes?

When there are two Holy priests in a raid, PoM sharing is caring

Remember that your Prayer of Mending can override the Prayer of Mending of other priests. As Holy priests, we get our PoM at lightning Divine Providence speed, so it’s easy to accidentally override a PoM out of knee-jerk reflex. To steer clear of this overlap (which is obviously wasting the mana of one of the priests present), take a backseat and watch what target your priest friend is PoMing. More than likely, it’s the main tank. Now find another target–off tank, I’m guessing–and start PoMing him/her.

When there are two Discipline priests in a raid, Power Word: Shield sharing is caring

Same principle as Holy priests, but watch your Power Word: Shield. Remember that PW:S is going to give Borrowed Time, so while you may want to argue that any bubble is a good bubble (it’s not like someone’s wasting mana when the target cannot be bubbled again), you’re jipping your other priest’s haste by not giving them the opportunity to bubble effectively. The answer? Just let the other Discipline priest do the MT bubbles, or ask him which targets you should each focus on. You can always PW:S a reckless DPS to get your haste if necessary.

When there is a Holy priest and a Discipline priest in a raid, stop ruining each other’s trademarks

Discipline priest, want to PoM? Do it on the OT or the suicidal DPS. Holy priest, don’t bubble. It wastes mana.

Have fun priesting together in harmony!

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?

1. 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
2. It’s an insta-cast every six seconds (and you really shouldn’t need it more than six seconds; more on this later)
3. It usually procs Surge of Light for a quick Flash Heal for Serendipity, thereby fueling its Prayer of Healing cousin
4. 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.

I’m going to go into a huge 3.3 Discipline versus Holy priest healing war again, this time in regards to talent mechanics.

I’m sure if you’re a Wrath of the Lich King priest veteran, you’ve heard of Serendipity; it’s that Holy talent located near the end of the tree. Through its 3-point splendor, priests can lower the casting time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing by up to 36%. This is the equivalent to the Discipline Borrowed Time, which grants 25% spell haste to the next spell cast after Power Word: Shield.

Why Holy is a more enjoyable and strategic experience versus Discipline

I call Serendipity “the fun of Holy” because it requires priests to strategically rotate between Flash Heal/Binding Heal and Greater Heal/Prayer of Healing. It adds an extra dynamic to Holy healing that Discipline priests don’t have. Consider the two haste options:

• In the case of Borrowed Time, the priest can get 25% haste through one casting of one spell (Power Word: Shield) and may then apply the haste to any spell.
• In the case of Serendipity, the priest can get 12% haste through the one casting of two spells (Flash Heal or Binding Heal) and may then apply the haste to two spells (Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing.) Eww compared to the Discipline version! But then, the priest can get 24% haste through two castings of two spells or 36% haste through the three castings of two spells. Sounds cooler.

Discipline priest? No brainer, black-and-white rotation mechanism. Holy priest? Decisions, decisions, decisions, and a whole lot of strategy.

How to effectively execute Serendipity 3

When I try to explain to Holy priests how to use Serendipity, first I go over how to get Serendipity 3, or 36% haste. You’re going to want to get 3 Flash Heals as fast as possible, which is easier than you think thanks to Surge of Light (SoL also drastically helps the mana efficiency of three Flash Heal casts.) This is the rotation I use when raid healing and trying to get Serendipity 3:

1. Prayer of Mending, insta-cast
2. Circle of Healing, insta-cast, usually crits at least one of the five targets (CoH glyph FTW)
3. SoL Flash Heal, insta-cast
4. Another Flash Heal, at regular casting time and mana expenditure
5. Prayer of Mending crits, another insta-cast
6. Serendipity 3!

Of course, it’s not always that ideal, but you’d be surprised how often this magic flows. I call it the “music effect” because you develop a GCD beat, with a longer note / slightly more time spent on that regular casting time Flash Heal. After you reach Serendipity 3, you can choose to Greater Heal the tank or further beef your raid heals with a Prayer of Healing. You can also squat on Serendipity 3 if you think big damage is coming soon and you want to react fast. Keep in mind that Borrowed Time does not let you squat on its effects for nearly as long as Serendipity.

To make this even more complicated (and therefore fun), let’s go back to how Serendipity is proc’d with Binding Heal. I’d venture to say a good 50% of healing priests space on the fact they have Binding Heal; before Serendipity, I hardly cast it. There really is no excuse in wasting mana healing yourself though when you can use it to heal yourself and someone else; so whenever you take splash damage (or PvP ouchies), turn to your Binding Heal to get yourself to full–someone else to full!–and get your Serendipity proc. It’ll make you feel like the l33tsauce.

When to use Serendipity 1 and Serendipity 2

Now that you know how to strategically Flash Heal and/or Binding Heal yourself to Serendipity 3, let’s go back to Serendipity 1 and 2. Remember that Serendipity 1 gets you 12% haste and Serendipity 2 gets you 24% haste.

Serendipity 2 is dangerously close to the same effect as Borrowed Time, except it only applies to two spells. (When I healed Discipline, I strangely found myself Borrowed Timing my way through Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing 90% of the time anyway, so what’s the huge difference?) You can get yourself to Serendipity 1 in a flash simply through the Circle of Healing / crit! / SoL Flash Heal trick. Serendipity 2 doesn’t take much more, at a casting bar Flash Heal or an SoL Flash Heal from your bouncing Prayer of Mending.

And then you got to figure out whether Serendipity 1 or Serendipity 2 is worth casting.

In high-stress battles, the FH / FH / GH / FH / FH / GH rotation works like a charm. It could be because 24% from Serendipity 2 is so similar to 25% from Borrowed Time that I feel cozy with that method. When the raid is taking continuous, mind-throbbing damage, that’s when Serendipity 1 comes in; something as simple as a quick CoH / crit! / SoL Flash Heal on tank / Serendipity 1 PoH can do the trick.

There are situations for all stages of Serendipity and that is part of why the strategy is so much greater than the static Discipline counterpart. GG, Borrowed Time.

I missed the NaBloPoMo post yesterday (whoops!), but hopefully the Serendipity guide was well worth it. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments with your own Serendipity pointers.

How does Empowered Healing work?

Elitist Jerks describes it as:

Empowered Healing reads Your Greater Heal spell gains an additional 40% of your bonus healing effects. This means 40% of your spellpower is applied to the healing of GHeal (and 20% to Flash Heal, as a secondary benefit).

The final formula for computing benefit to a Greater Heal from Empowered Healing with Cast Time coefficients:

[ Base_Healing_Range + HSE * 3.0/3.5 + 0.40 * spellpower]

This means that, at 3000 spellpower raid buffed (which you should be around for ICC), you’re looking at an additional 1200 healed per Greater Heal (and 600 for Flash Heal.) This is a significant amount of healing difference that obviously scales with gear.

Is it better to take Empowered Healing or Blessed Resilience?

To compare the two, we’ll have to look at Empowered Healing at 3 ranks, since Blessed Resilience is only a 3-point talent. Empowered Healing is only giving Greater Heal 24% bonus spellpower at 3 talent points, for a total of 720 additional healing at 3000 spellpower. Blessed Resilience, by contrast, is going to give 3% overall heals; for my 3000 spellpower Holy priest that is walking around 0/5 in Empowered Renew, a crit Greater Heal of 16000 could be getting 480 bonus healing from that Blessed Resilience.

720 > 480, so in terms of raw healing, Empowered Healing wins.

However, Blessed Resilience also has added PvP benefits that sets it apart from Empowered Healing. Since I PvP as a Holy priest, I am attracted to this additional benefit. This means that Blessed Resilience still slips its way into my spec despite Empowered Healing’s obvious benefit.

Looking for some more nitty-gritty math on this subject? Here is the Elitist Jerks theorycrafting on the matter, from frequent poster Sindaga:

“Empowered Healing vs. Blessed Resilience (yes, the PvP talent)

Taking two examples for empowered healing (Flash Heal & Binding Heal); this is due to the very low amount of greater heal casting, personally, done in Ulduar 25 and 10-man. Each heal will be looked at with empowered healing or with blessed resilience. Calculations will be done with 3000 spell power (a very attainable goal with even just a couple ulduar upgrades). The formula used will be as follows:

Spell = [Average + (Spellpower * coefficient)]*(talent modifiers)

i) Calculations with Empowered Healing (w/ spiritual healing modifier)
Flash Heal = [2049.5 + (3000 * 0.9668)]*1.1
Flash Heal = 5445 healing average
Binding Heal = [2237.5 + (3000 *0.9668)]*1.1
Binding Heal = 5652 healing average
Greater Heal = [4300.5 + (3000 * 2.2256)]*1.1
Greater Heal = 12075 healing average

ii) Calculations with Blessed Resilience (w/ spiritual healing modifier)
Flash Heal = [2049.5 + (3000 * 0.8057)]*1.13
Flash Heal = 5047 healing average
Binding Heal = [2237.5 + (3000 *0.8057)]*1.13
Binding Heal = 4969 healing average
Greater Heal = [4300.5 + (3000 * 1.6111)]*1.13
Greater Heal = 10321 healing average

iii) Calculations with Blessed Resilience & Test of Faith (w/ spiritual healing modifier) – I found something interesting testing with Renew. If the spell is cast below 50%, the ticks (even if the health goes higher than 50%) stay with the 12% increased effectiveness.
Flash Heal = [2049.5 + (3000 * 0.8057)]*1.25
Flash Heal = 5583 healing average
Binding Heal = [2237.5 + (3000 *0.8057)]*1.25
Binding Heal = 5818 healing average
Greater Heal = [4300.5 + (3000 * 1.6111)]*1.25
Greater Heal = 11417 healing average

So those are some pretty plain numbers. If you find yourself casting greater heal more than once in a blue moon, perhaps stick with Empowered Healing. If you regularly find yourself not casting it at all during fights then a spec for better output would first put the 5 points from empowered healing to 3/3 blessed resilience and then 2/3 Test of Faith.

Justification for taking test of faith is it provides more healing to those targets who need more health.” — Sindaga

The bottom line here is that putting 3 points in Blessed Resilience along with 2 in Test of Faith increases the amount healed on targets below 50% by a significant amount. If you’re looking to take advantage of Test of Faith in the next layer of the tree, it’s a good idea to pair it with Blessed Resilience – and you can easily take the points from Empowered Healing to make that happen. It’s entirely a play-style dependent call, and I personally prefer the constant levels of healing provided by Empowered Healing to the low-health dependent benefits of Test of Faith.

I take Body and Soul over Test of Faith–again, mostly a PvP decision–and I must say those speed bubbles are saving myself and other raid members from otherwise tragic deaths.

World of Matticus has an excellent post about Holy priest specing that covers this topic as well.

All of this gear linked here is obtainable in 10-mans or in the new ICC dungeons. There are 25-man equivalents if you’re in a larger guild.

Head: Thaumaturge’s Crackling Cowl drops from Saurfang in ICC-10. The Spirit and Haste on this helm is ideal for Holy heals, though it does conflict with your four-piece bonus.

Neck: I hate this slot. You’re either stuck with the Evoker’s Charm, or you need to swindle yourself into a 25-ICC for Bone Sentinel’s Amulet. Since this guide isn’t for 25-mans, you get to keep your i226. Trienish said that the PvP one will be available without a minimum rating in a couple weeks though, so you could also hold your breath for that (or try Iron Council hardmode in Ulduar-10.)

Shoulders: Bloodstained Surgeon’s Shoulderguards. Festergut in ICC-10 is holding your Spirit and Critical Strike shoulders.

Chest: I am saving my 95 painstaking emblems of frost for the Crimson Acolyte Robe tier piece for this gear slot. If that doesn’t sound like a great idea to you though, consider Mord’rethar Robes or the crafted Royal Moonshroud Robe. If you’re on Kalecgos, you can even gather the mats, whisper me and mention my blog and I’ll craft the robe for you for free.

Wrist: Bracers of Dark Blessings. Lady Deathwhisper in ICC-10 has these beautiful Critical Strike and Spirit wrists.

Weapon: Everyone is after the hilt these days, right? Unfortunately, the mace doesn’t give you Spirit, but who can say no?

Off-hand: The best Spirit offhand is still the Antique Cornerstone Grimoire from Onyxia 10. There is, however, another offhand without Spirit, the Shriveled Heart, if you’re looking something to compliment your hilt.

Trinkets: I mentioned the Darkmoon Card earlier, but what about the other slot? If you’re after Spirit, you’re after mana regeneration, so I would suggest the Ephemeral Snowflake I wrote about in a previous post.

Rings: Stick with the triumph emblem ring and a ring from Onyxia’s head for these two slots. They’re both wonderful Spirit rings.

Boots: Prelate’s Snowshoes from heroic Pit of Saron took me weeks to get, but they’re well worth the runs. The Spirit on these boots go nicely with a Spirit enchant.

Belt: The Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner from Marrowgar in ICC-10 comes with ample amounts of Haste and Spirit. The Haste and Critical Strike items sprinkled across Spirit compliment each other nicely in a spec that benefits from the “Haste saves lives” theory and the Critical Strike for Surge of Light.

Gloves: For 60 emblems of frost, you can pick yourself up a beautiful set of Crimson Acolyte Gloves, Spirit gloves that will push you towards your amazing 2-piece and even more amazing 4-piece set bonus. This also applies to all the other tier categories for the aforementioned items, at 95 or 60 emblems of frost a piece. Don’t have the emblems? Consider these Suspiciously Soft Gloves instead.