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Comment by Chandrialla

Although having an AOE heal seems appealing, its long casting time makes it very situational. One place where this can really come in handy is the temple event in Zul'Farrak. Since it can be difficult to keep track of your party members with all the mobs around, an AOE heal is a pretty good idea.

Comment by 7224

This spell is pretty useful in emergencies when your party is getting pretty low on health. An issue with this spell however is the amount of aggro you may generate with it, so only use it when you have fade available just in case, or if most of your party's health is about 50% or below.

Comment by 9250

This is a great spell for healing steady, environmental or aoe damage to all members of your group. The fight where this heal is really invaluable is the vael encounter in BWL, because of the consistent aoe to everyone in the raid. In this fight, the priest usually just has to spam it and the infinite mana takes care of the rest.

Comment by Glow

Compare the Priest AOE heal to the Druid AOE heal and then /boggle

Barkskin: http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=22812
Improved Tranquility: http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=17124
Tranquility: http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=26983

= OSHIT Button Extraordinaire

Comment by frmorrison

Druids have a better Oh Crap! AoE heal, but it has a 10 minute cooldown.

PoH is great if you are healing a melee group (since they take so much damage).

Comment by Garby

This spell works very nicely if you pop Inner Focus just before it. ^.^

Comment by anvill

Rule of thumb for PoH: if it heals three targets, it was about as mana efficient as flash heals to those three targets. If it heals four or five, it's your most mana efficient heal outside of PoM.

Comment by 52836

"...with all the mobs around, an AOE heal is a pretty good idea."

This is wrong! An AoE heal would be a terrible idea, as it would most likely just pull mobs onto the healer! I would suggest flash heals all round if it is really necessary!

Comment by Deadlius

It is NOT required for your intended healing target(s) to be in your line of sight when casting Prayer of Healing on them. This can make it especially useful in certain situations where being in line of sight of a mob can cause unwanted damage on yourself, or simply in situations where an obstacle stands in the way of one or more of your healing targets.

To give just one example. On Talon King Ikiss the most common tactic to avoid his Arcane Explosion is to hide behind one of the pillars (that being our obstacle for healing effectively). After casting his Arcane Explosion he usually continues by casting an Arcane Volley (dealing 1500-3000 damage, depending on what difficulty you're playing on). Now, healing up every single target individually would require a lot of efffort, one reason being that the pillar makes it hard to stand in line of sight of everyone. Therefore, casting a Prayer of Healing in that situation would not only heal your group up, but you would also avoid a major "Target is not in line of sight"-problem. In addition you would avoid standing in Ikiss' line of sight, making you less vulnerable for his Polymorph.

Comment by 120198

A very simplistic approach to comparing Flash Heals and Prayer of Healing.
Both Empowered Healing ( http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=33162 ) and also Healing Prayers ( http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=15018 ) will significantly change the mana efficiency of both spells.

The mana efficiency of Prayer of Healing scales better against Flash Heals as your +healing increases too.

There's also the difference of casting time of multiple Flash Heals vs Prayer of Healing (potentially more if you're being interrupted).

Prayer of Mending is incredibly mana efficient and also is affected by Mental Agility but can give unpredictable results as may not jump to the raid/party members who need the healing.

Comment by Phish

This spell is very useful is your a higher lvl,and you are running lower lvls through low lvl dungeons.You no longer need the book to recieve this skill either.You can now learn it from your local Priest trainer!

Comment by 35804

Didn't use this spell much until recently in TK/SSC. While the LoS creeps up from time to time (ramps and all). This spell is actually GOD like in the Void Reaver fight. I am in the melee group (tanks or dps), cue this up and keep it in the pipe. Make healing the fight trivial imho.

Comment by 156993

Just a note, it also heals any pets in the group.

Comment by 226027

This spell is extremely useful in some situation. It's 3 second cast makes it quite annoying in situations where everyone is a split second from doom but it fixes a few problems faced by your other AoE heals.

Circle of Healing is instant cast, but the cool down is twice as long as PoH's cast time.

For raid AoE the changes of 3.1 will allow a raid healing rotation with Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing!

Comment by Umega

Although it has a slow cast time, I do find it pretty useful when Loken (in HoL) is casting his Lightning Nova. Cast PoH when he starts casting it, that should soften up the large amount of damage your group takes straight after his nova.

Comment by 2OfDiamonds

Combined with Glyph of Prayer of Healing after patch 3.1 (this spell used to be the casters party only, it is now the target's party = any raid member) this will make prayer of healing a wonderfully powerful aoe- and raidhealing tool.

I am currently experimenting with the glyph, i like it alot for when there was alot of aoe and people might need abit extra before they have my attention again (for example: keeping the tank alive) and this will now be extended to other parties too.

A very decent spell now, beware of the manacost, best used when 4-5 people have taken about 4k damage, it crit for about 6-7 with my 2k spellpower-gear, think of it as flash heals, if you need to cast 3 or more, its worth it, and a full party is awesomely mana-efficient.

Comment by 318094

I like Prayer of Healing. It's one of my top three favorite heals to use (not to be confused with my top three most frequent heals), in addition to Prayer of Mending and Renew.

The more people you have in your group without full green bars, the more mana-efficient this spell becomes. That goes without saying of course. It gets to a point where it's actually the most mana-efficient spell in situations where everyone has taken a nasty hit. But really, those situations are few and far between if you're a designated healer that doesn't want to get cursed out.

This is my favorite and almost-always first choice to use with Inner Focus. It's one of my best choices for proccing Surge of Light (aside from Holy Nova, but I suspect PoH has a considerably higher base crit chance). And I do believe this skill is worth both talent points in Healing Prayers, a talent I'm surprised no one else has commented on.

Its casting speed and the fact that it only affects party members greatly hinder its uses; otherwise it would be receiving all sorts of praise and be deemed broken in raids. But, when I can get one in, I'm very happy. To be frank, this should be included as one of the spells that procs Holy Concentration (even if it doesn't get to benefit from the Clearcasting effect). But that's just me.

I'm a little on the fence about the glyph for it though, particularly because I might be compelled to swap it out for Glyph of Dispel Magic. If only PoH was raid-wide, I wouldn't even hesitate over using the glyph.

Comment by clangclangboom

An exceptional use for Prayer of Healing is on the Loatheb encounter in Naxxramas.
In the 10 man version, every timing window you get can be used to cast Prayer of Healing on the Tank and his party, then Circle of Healing the DPS. Begin casting PoH at 2 seconds remaining and follow up with CoH, chances are you will also now have a Surge of Light proc, giving you an instant Flash Heal for a Warlock who has been Life Tapping or anyone else who may be low on health.

Comment by 64626

As of 3.2, the percentage of spell power this spell gains in healing (per target) has been reduced from 80.7% to 52.6%.

Random coefficient is random.

Comment by 318094

It's such a huge nerf to bonus healing. :(

I guess the glyph + making it raid-useable + increasing its crit by 10% in Tier 8 gear was too much for 3.1? ;_;

Comment by 204878

This may be useful to some, I made it so I could figure out which was best to use in what situation.

Glyph of Flash Heal reduces the base mana cost of Flash Heal to 16.2% from 18% so:

Note: 'Quicker' calculations include the GCD of 1.5 seconds in between spells, but not after the final spell is cast and also ignores Surge of Light procs for obvious reasons.
Obviously if you're one of the 2 people that needs healing, Binding Heal is the quickest with 1.5 seconds and most mana conservative.

You could also think of it as base mana cost per person healed which may be simpler, the results are as follows:

Number of targets healed | Base mana per person
1 | 48%
2 | 24%
3 | 16%
4 | 12%
5 | 9.6%

However there is also the talent Healing Prayers which reduces the base mana cost of Prayer of Healing to 38.4%, based upon the same calculations it does not affect the point at which Prayer of Healing is more effective than Flash Healing all the damaged targets.

So regardless of if you have Glyph of Flash Heal or Healing Prayers or not, it is still more mana efficient to cast PoH if it hits 3 targets minimum.

Comment by lovechia

does this only heal the targets party members or the target itself too?

Comment by 111889

I can understand the nerf, but, why must they nerf the priests?

Odd sentence.

Comment by 45199

Yeah, it continues the tradition of giving Priests effective tools, then ripping them away and making the Glyph mandatory. F'ing aggravating as hell.

Comment by Parknight

Not to be a noob, and PLEASE don't downrank, but isnt this an awful amount of mana to use, even AFTER buffs, and intel?

Once again, please don't downrank, and answer my question nicely please =P

Comment by skribs

Flash heal is 18% base mana, and heals 1 person.
This is 48% base mana, and heals 5.
18*5 = 90. In order to heal 5 people, you need 90% of your base mana.

It's not as simple as that (I dont play a priest, but I assume flash heal will heal for more) but for a 5-person spell with an actually fairly large radius, the mana cost isn't surprisingly high.

Comment by 167046

And there's a 20% mana cost reduction through Healing Prayers.

Comment by Happyfisherman

Base Mana. This means it uses 48% of your mana without gear and buffs. With buffs and gear, this shouldn't be too big.

Comment by iMathias

This spel doesnt seem to be affected by Line of Sight.
However your target must be in Line of sight, other party members who are out of sight but still in range will also get healed.

Comment by 469068

Actually, base mana is mana without gear, buffs OR base intellect. To get your base mana you get nekkid and mouse over your intellect in the character sheet, then subtract that from your current mana. 48% of that is this spell's base cost.

Comment by Rfvcool

Don't get confused by it's tooltip : the range is 40 yd, not 30.

Comment by kgurnhill

A little misleading...
The spell has a 40yard range to the Target but only those within 30 yards of the spells target get healed (make sense?)

Person 1 (Tank) - Point of Origin
Person 2 - 10 yards from tank
Person 3 - 25 yards from tank
Person 4 - 31 yards from tank
Person 5 - 35 yards from tank

Healer casts on Tank, person1, 2 and 3 recieve heals, 5 and 4 dont due to them being out of the 30 yard circle...

Think of it kinda like Mind Sear (tho not channeled, and is a healing spell with greater range)
40 yard range to the target, but the heal "bubble" if you will, emenates 30 yards from the target...

This make sense? :P
Tried to word it best i can :)

Edit: Tested myself and some guildies: I stood at max range, 2 people next to the target and 1 next to me...
The person next to me recieved no healing tho the other 3 did
Edit 2: Typo at start - Fixed

Comment by Flagg

you can use it to test if your target is groupped with someone near him (don't known what could the use of this information) :S

Comment by 669091

However, where this spell shines is raid healing, using Inner Focus ability, making it free and of course, quicker to cast when you have the Borrowed Time talent procced.

Comment by Kuroari

This spell has changed a lot since WOTLK and before, and because no one has commented on it, I thought I'd just add what I've noticed. I used to never use it, but after the Cataclysm changes it has become one of my favorite priest spells.

There are 2 major changes:

Firstly, its casting time has been reduced to 2.5 seconds. The .5 second reduction is nice, but doesn't make a big difference. It's enough of a difference that it doesn't feel really slow, though.

Secondly, and more importantly, however, is its mana cost. People used to complain a lot about how expensive this spell is, but now at 26% base mana, it actually costs less than Flash Heal (28%) and Greater Heal (27%).

This has become a very useful spell in raid healing, especially in 25 mans. It's not needed in every fight, but when theres a situation where you're expecting damage to the entire raid, like Chimaeron, you can just go down the line, healing group 1, group 2, etc. until everyone is back up. Situations like this are a bit rarer though, so its usually more useful to have a smart heal, but since nearly every smart heal I can think of also comes with at least a short cooldown (Circle of Healing, Wild Growth come to mind first), this is a nice backup.

From what I've seen, it heals for about as much as doing the priest's regular Heal spell on each of the people in the party. Not a lot, but if at least 3 people need heals in a party, then it is more efficient than Heal (and much faster). Important side note, from what I can tell it does proc Echo of Light on all the people it heals adding some nice extra healing for Holy Priests. In a recent patch, can't remember which, it was also made so it procs Divine Aegis on all of its targets regardless if it crits or not.

Still not the greatest AoE heal in the game, but it's pretty efficient now, and the recent buffs to it make it one of my personal favorties.

Comment by Arxae

In a recent patch, can't remember which, it was also made so it procs Divine Aegis on all of its targets regardless if it crits or not.

That happend in 4.0.6 :)

Comment by Arxae

Remember that 2 stacks of Holy Words pulls the casting time down to flash heal levels :)

Comment by Gabbers

does Charred Glyph stack with ? So instead of a 30% shield we get 36% (30%*1,20) shield?

Comment by futbolaholic

Does anyone know if this will heal party members if they're in range and out of line of sight?

Comment by laxu

This spell is gonna cost only 5% of base mana with MoP? Seems really OP

Comment by Bogdanov89

Very awesome spell, easily one of the best AoE healing spells in the game.

Both Holy and Discipline have talents/mechanics (or masteries) that greatly benefit this spell, and it's Glyph is superb!

It is a bit expensive, so use it when at least 3~4 allies (or more) are missing 30~40% HP (or more).

Comment by sylancer

Why Priest is the ONLY healer which no-cd raid heal Prayer of Healing is limited to party?
(since Shaman, Paladin, Mo nk are not)

Comment by BroncoBlonco

I can't seem to find anywhere else on the interwebs about my concern. Does anyone else think that this spell, at 90 is very underpowered? I am a holy priest with mostly heroic blues, and my casts heal non-crit for a meagre 20k, useless on any given normal situation that you would usually need to use this spell. please tell me there are more people than just me who agree...

Comment by Clebane

Hotfixed (buffed by 25%): Now does 8,688 + 83.8% of Spellpower
Expect about 33k per person while raid buffed, holy spec, and in Chakra: Sanctuary.

Comment by sylancer

From Darkness, Comes Light give each Prayer of Healing a 15% chance to trigger Surge of Light, make next Flash Heal within 20 sec:

free
instant

limit 2 charges.

Holy Words can be considered as the resources for Holy Priest; one can have 2 stacks of Holy Words max.
it generate by (they all modified by Mastery: Echo of Light):

Flash Heal (+1)
Binding Heal (+1)

when Priest have stacks of Holy Words, these spells can be cast to consume all stacks of Holy Words (cast time & mana cost reduced by 20% for each stacks of Holy Words consumed):

enter increase healing of Prayer of Healing by 25%.

give each Prayer of Healing a 40% chance to trigger Divine Insight, make next Prayer of Mending within 10 sec:

jump to each target instantly
NOT trigger its CD

for Discipline Priest, cause next Prayer of Healing (modified by Mastery: Shield Discipline):

mana cost reduced by 25%
guaranteed to be critical

enter Spirit Shell cause Prayer of Healing no longer heal but instead create absorption shields that last 15 sec.

Comment by tarthur1

Prayer of Healing does not proc Divine Aegis under the effects of Spirit Shell. It makes sense when you read DA's tooltip closely ("...of the amount HEALED"), since SS turns healing into shielding, while under its effects, PoH doesn't technically heal.

Comment by Mikemcnik

I was just in a 5man and was using PoH and i noticed my Echo of Light from mastery on the hunter and warlock's pets. Since they are "In my party" it seems that the total of heals goes up from 5 to 7. Haven't been able to check whether it heals the same or if they get a reduced heal than normal players. If it's "free" heals, then it might be good to be in a pet heavy group for heals in raids.

If anyone has more info on this please reply, I'm very curious about this.

Comment by Reecow

Prayer of Healing is a slow, expensive AoE heal with a large healing output spread equally over 5 group members. In this post, you'll be able to see and compare a few priest spells' mana efficiency and time efficiency. In order to make these post relevant to priests of all Levels, Item Levels and with different amounts of Spell Power, Haste & Base Mana, I've decided to exclude Spell Power, Base Mana & Haste of my calculations. By doing this, you can't view any correct amounts in neither Healing Ouput, Mana Cost, Cast Time, Healing Per Mana nor Healing Per Second but you can however compare the different values between different spells.

Healing Output: 221.664% of Spell Power * 5 = 221.664 * * 5 = 11.0832 *
Mana Cost: 7.1% of Base Mana = 0.071 *
Cast/Channel Time: 100-% of Base Cast Time = (1-) * 2.5 sec

Mana Efficiency = Healing Output / Mana Cost = 11.0832/0.071 ≈ 156.101 HPM (Healing per Mana)
Time Efficiency = Healing Output / Cast Time = 11.0832/2.5 ≈ 4.433 HPS (Healing per Second)

Below you can find the comparable values of some priest spells. Assumptions: Penance is completely channeled and Prayer of Healing heals 5 targets.

Categories	Heal	Flash Heal	Penance	Prayer of Healing
Healing Output	3.3264	3.32657	3.024	11.0832
Mana Cost	0.02	0.041	0.012	0.071
Base Cast Time	2.5	1.5	2.0 (Channeled)	2.5
HPM	166.320	81.136	252	156.101
HPS	1.331	2.217	1.512	4.433

EDIT : Corrected silly mistake. (Thanks a lot @Caras for pointing it out!)

Comment by Skullhawk13

Has been changed now to PREFER but not REQUIRE party or raid members. It used to only heal party members at all even if there were additional viable targets in range, much more useful nowadays.

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Prayer of Healing

Prayer of Healing

5% of base mana	40 yd range

2 sec cast

A powerful prayer that heals the target and the 4 nearest allies within 40 yards for (87.5% of Spell power).

Spell Details

Duration

n/a

School

Holy

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

5% of base mana

Range

40 yards (Long)

Cast time

2 seconds

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

1.5 seconds

Effect #1

Trigger Spell

	Prayer of Healing

Effect #2

Heal ({term('spmod_colon')}0.875)
Radius: 40 yards

Effect #3

Dummy
Value: 5
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