Why use downgrades spells as healer?

[munzwurf]

Hi everyone,

I started playing priest and am trying to get behind some of the healing mechanics. One advice I often hear is that as healer you would want to use downgraded spells. I tried to do some analysis to better understand this. Right now, I am level 20 and get these values from my spellbook:



(HpM = Average Heal per Mana)

My thoughts:

- The most manaefficient spells are Lesser Heal (Rank 3) and Heal
- As a result I would use Heal for when I have enough time for a big heal, Lesser Heal (Rank 3) for a mid-sized heal over average duration and Flash Heal for when I need to heal someone quickly
- My understanding is that after you cast a spell it takes ~5s before you regenerate mana, so the most manaefficient strategy would seem: cast a few spells quickly in a row, get everyone topped off and then wait as long as possible to regenerate mana
- And with these numbers, I would not use downgraded spells, since these are mana-inefficient

Am I missing something? Or why might it make sense to use downgraded spells?

Thanks!

[Mimma]

One word: Overhealing

[vathdaar]

you are missing something, when you add up +healiing bonuses, it makes low rank amazingly overpowered and mana efficient, until then they re just "meh".

[cofko]

Lets say you have a type of tank who thinks of itself so imbah it can "stance dance" putting rend on mobs and using nothing but thunder clap to tank packs, while doing it all as a "fast run"...

If such a tank has 1700 health (fully buffed), then u can expect it to "forget" using things such as block and its health goes down from 1700 to lets say 900 rather fast. By the time it gets to 900 the renew should have already been on it.

Then you do heal-rank3, heal-rank1, lesser heal-rank3

Get major part of its health back with rank3, filing the "medium" gap with same type rank1 and then "fine tune" the final gap and some more inc hits with lesser-rank3.

If it gets hit a lot you might want to do heal-rank3 two times in a row and then fade as such a tank will have "problems with aggro".

[Kjepp]

Being level 20 with no +healing this might not make very much sense. When you have 2-300 +healing it will make alot more sense.

[skitszo]

Downranking is for when you have +heal on your gear. and i only use a down ranked flash heal. Otherwise i use greater heal let the tanks sweat going under 50%. I can maby get a few more MP5 ticks this way with spirit regen. But ya if a tanks a true tank with tanking spec and tanking gear renew actually should do quite well most of the time.

[stimz]

Downranking only makes sense if you have a decent chunk of +healing. Efficiency goes down with downranking if you don't have +heal. That said you should still hotkey downranked stuff while leveling just to have a few heals to use when running on empty, or in case you're healing a 400 hp mage or something. Once you have +healing gear(which you can get at low levels, it's just too expensive for most) all heal ranks that you get AFTER level 20 receive full scaling, so as an example the only difference between a rank 1 flash of light and max rank flash of light is the base healing, while rank 1 FoL has a 35 mana cost.

[Rafale]

Do u know what is the bonus sp of heal class spells?

[Undertanker]

Its not just for +healing gear but is best when looking at that.

At your level, what is a dps has a small amount hp gone. Use a lower ranking, faster casting heal. Tank starts a pull, a big heal will over heal and cause aggro. Do a few weak heals precasted and keep tank high on hp with min mana use. I use 3 ranks of each heal. Rank 1, a rank 3 or 4, then max rank. Practice this while leveling, you will be pro raid ready/5 man carry when you actually get + healing. Your muscle memory would have devoloped by then.

[Undertanker]

Also what if you only have max rank up. You have 200 mana, but wouls need 220 for a heal. Wait 5+ seconds for a heal or with lower ranks up, you can still cast a bit more.