Hey lads
I've been asked by some of the officers to do a post about how the Priest should be played in raids, some people have been lacking in the healing department and have also hit me up with a few questions about whats best to do, so i may as well do a post to cover all those questions and answers.

First of all - The priest on horde side is the Main Tank healer, without a pally we are the best for this job, leave the raid healing up to the shamans and druids, but this also depends on the fight obviously, if the tank dies, its on us.

*please note* this is mainly for MC and not for later tiers, i will write a new one come BWL with how things will change in longer fights ect

Stat priory
Disc -  Healing power
             Crit
             Intellect = Crit
             Mp5
             Spirit

Holy - Healing power
            Crit
            Spirit = Healing power
            Intellect = Crit
            Mp5

The reason you choose intellect over MP5 as disc, the fights are not long at all, so the mp5 wont have the full effect so thats why its better to go for more intellect ( 10% bonus with disc ) if you have the gear option rather than the little bit of mana regen.

How the priest should be played -

Being the Tank healer, you always want to be casting which will counter out the ability to tank dying, theres never a point in a fight unless movement is required that you should not be casting, This will cause over healing but thats fine, its 2019 not 2005

Greater Heal rank 1 & 4 - obviously this is your MT tank spell. usually ill start the fight off with a rank 1 or 4 depending on the fight as the tank is running in, this will counter the big burst of damage the tank will get since he will not have a shield block active.

Heal rank 2 - Your most mana efficient spell, this should be your filler spell inbetween your greater heals on the tank - Generally this should be your most over healed spell


Flash heal - THIS IS YOUR EMERGENCY BUTTON!! I only really use flash heal if someone is close to death, but also depending on the fight, Fights like Gehennas, Shazzrah and Sulfuron Harbringer where they are short fights but have a lot of bursty damage is usually where i camp flash heal over the other spells.

Renew - You should be using rank 9 & rank 5, rank 9 on the melee as they tend to take more damage, then i usually pop out a few rank 5's on the range on trash pulls, warlock's especially with them life tapping between pulls

Prayer of Healing - During a raid encounter, you should't have to use this spell, but usually i have rank 1 on my bars and rank 4, the only time i use rank 4 is when i have innerfocus up which makes it a free cast, i usually pop out a rank 1 on the corehounds as they do a raid wide aoe breath, its cheaper to use a rank 1 prayer of healing than heal 5 people with heal or greater ( please note that this spell is only party wide and not raid wide )

Power word: Shield - This spell shouldn't be used too much in raids as it requires a lot of mana, shields will save a life so use it when its necessary ( Baron for example with living bomb ) * please dont shield the tank, they wont get rage and will probably yeet you out of the raid.

Power infusion - If you have been assigned to power infusion a mage who has arcane power, you want to cast power infusion on him first, as both of the buff's do not stack, its better to PI him first rather than later, as he can pop arcane power as soon as PI has finished. I usually cast PI on the mage as the tank is running in, that way i can still get the first heal off when the tank takes the first hit, and you don't need to waste the global during the fight.

Inner Focus - Save it for a rank 4 Greater or rank 4 Prayer of Healing when needed

DISPELS!!!!! - I can't say this enough, every priest in the raid needs to dispel, if only 2-3 people are dispelling on trash while the other 1-2 are healing, its going to cause more downtime as 2 priests are going to need to drink to full while the others are healing when the shamans and druids can do that, we have to work as a team to get those dispel's out ASAP

Talents - 31/20/0
https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/priest/500231130505141-2350310303

A lot of websites have the talents wrong for disc, this is what im currently rolling with, ill go over the talents what wowhead have chosen over the ones i have and why you shouldn't play the generic *priest guide* builds
Disc Tree -
Silent resolve - 20% less threat ( waste of 5 talents, you're a priest and have fade ) i would much rather go Force of Will and gain 4% more offensive spell crit which is more viable for world content & pvp

Macro's and addons -
Having the legion client macro system, the macro system is a lot more useful than the old 1.12.1, if you haven't tried healing with mouse over macro's i 110% recommend it
All you have to do is hover your mouse over the raid frame and press the button, that way you can always target the boss and see what his casting ect

Any spell that is a dispel / heal /  buff, this macro will work for a mouse over.

( this will only do max raak spells )

#showtooltip Spell name here
/use [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Spell name here

For down ranking mouse over spells, your macro should look like this

#showtooltip Heal
/use [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Heal(rank 2)

The addons i use to help my healing are

Quartz - Cast bar
BigDebuffs - more visible icons on the raid frames which makes it easier to dispel

Any further questions, please hit me up, always happy to help!