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Comment by Rigors

This is the defining priest heal. The paladin 1.5sec heal is much weaker and the fastest heal a druid has is 2 seconds.

First, it's the staple PvP heal because the chances of actually getting a spellcast off decrease exponentially with long cast times. This is a quick 1.5 second heal for about 1000 with even mediocre gear. 1000 healed every 1.5 seconds is enough to keep someone up in all but the direst circumstances.

In PvE, it's slightly less useful as it's slightly less mana efficient than greater heal, but the fact that it's a full second faster makes it still a necessary tool in the priest arsenal.

Comment by Gfaded

whats the % from +healing this spell gets? without empowered healing talents.

Comment by Alcaron

This spell gets 43.8% from your total +healing.

Has anyone got any information on how much healing coefficients that are lost by down-ranking spells? i.e. using a lower rank for mana preservation.

Comment by Cerberus

You don't use this spell at all if you're concerned with conserving mana. Step one of the priest healing school to stop using flash as your main heal. Coefficent, five second rule and healing per mana being keywords

Comment by sexytool

The GH vs FH debate comes down to raw numbers.
FH gets less of your healing added to it, costs more per mana and has less healing per second.

That is all. Only bad priests use Flash Heal. Even if you were full disc and had a spec like this;
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxhbuI0trxoifRtfxzc
with Glyph of Flash Heal http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42400

You'd still go OOM faster than a Greater Heal specced priest because you're constantly ignoring the 5 second rule to actually match Greater Heals' HPS.

FH priests are notoriously known for their ability to go OOM before a priest using Greater Heal, thus the whole idea is to get the priest using GH and if needed, PW: Shield so you can get the GH in.

Ideally if you know your tank is likely to be taking damage in 3 seconds, you should already be casting GH.
Don't wait for them to get as low as even 90% in a raid/heroic to make GH viable, start casting before he takes damage and if he doesn't take any damage, you cancel it and restart the cast.

That's how you prevent wipes with a good healing technique AND save your mana.

Comment by karlusdavius

If you were Full specc'ed Disc then you won't over heal using flash heal. Your point in not valid. Healing with greater Heal and Flash heal depends on the situation and amount that needs to be healed.

Also your comparing Discipline with Holy. Bad idea. they are completely different spec's and have completely different gear mentalities.

Holy,

Raid healers
Stack Spirit
use flash heal for consume SoL procs, IHC procs and hasted cast times.
Gain mana from 5sr regan naps and overheal gains from serendipity from both flash and greater heal.
It is good practice to use both.

Disc,

Single target healers
Rapture - Regen mana back from efficient heals done.
Rapture - formula works off Intellect max value and Spell power, therefor we stack int.
No spirit needs to be stacked in any way.
DO NOT gain mana returns from any sort of over heal.

It is bad practice to heal a 5k HP deficit with a greater heal as discipline.
flash heal is far more effective, will heal the full 5k deficit while getting full rapture returns.
Flash heal is our most efficient spell. not greater heal.

Critical effects

If a greater heal critically hits for over 10,000 HP. it will hit the rapture cap. therefor becoming less mana efficient the more it heals over 10,000 HP.

Flash heal critical will never reach that cap. therefor it is far more efficient in every way than greater heal.

Please understand the spec before posting about one. Discipline does not work with stop casting. Holy does.

Comment by maynards

If you check the comments on Rapture you'll find it's 12,000 that's needed for a full gain of rapture.

Comment by euthanasian

If you're telling people that Disc priests should NOT be ignoring the 5 second rule, you are a terrible Disc priest that doesn't know how to play, or an ignorant Holy priest.

A Disc priest gets so much more out of Flash Heal. And, get this... They rarely oom! Even while spamming their Flash Heals, Penances and bubbles! Shocking!

Comment by euthanasian

It should be noted that with the new revamping of talents, if you choose to be a Discipline priest for PVE, this should be your main heal, as it is the most efficient use of your mana. 'sides, who's ever heard of a Disc priest running out of mana now, eh?

Holy however, should probably stick to healing the same way as they have been before.

Comment by sexytool

Nobody said you should be healing 5k with G-heal.
Even for a disc priest this rotation is far better;
PW:Shield with Borrowed time, then greater heal.
On crits you gain a 3-4k Aegis shield.
All up you spend 55% of your base mana.

You put out 8k+ in effective damage reduction and 12k healing. That's a total effectiveness of 20k in 3 seconds odd.

4 flash heals is 12k healing and max 1.33k aegis shields.
That's 6k or more difference, PLUS it takes 6 seconds to cast AND costs 72% of your base mana instead of 55% with a PW:S Followed by a Greater-Heal.

You're not having a "5 second rest" to do better with greater heal, you're saving 50% of your time by not casting to begin with. That allows you to heal the rest of the raid if you don't need to worry about the 5s rule.

The two don't even compare to each other, greater heal is always better.

The GH vs FH debate comes down to raw numbers.
FH gets less of your healing added to it, costs more per mana and has less healing per second.

That is all. Only bad priests use Flash Heal. Even if you were full disc and had a spec like this;
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxhbuI0trxoifRtfxzc
with Glyph of Flash Heal http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42400

You'd still go OOM faster than a Greater Heal specced priest because you're constantly ignoring the 5 second rule to actually match Greater Heals' HPS.
Notice, i didn't say "Efficiency". Everyone knows Flash Heal is more efficient.
What you need to be a successful Disc priest is not efficiency but HPS.

Holy FH priests are notoriously known for their ability to go OOM before a priest using Greater Heal, thus the whole idea is to get the priest using GH and if needed, PW: Shield so you can get the GH in.

Ideally if you know your tank is likely to be taking damage in 3 seconds, you should already be casting GH.
Don't wait for them to get as low as even 90% in a raid/heroic to make GH viable, start casting before he takes damage and if he doesn't take any damage, you cancel it and restart the cast.

That's how you prevent wipes with a good healing technique AND save your mana.

How's that? better clarified now?

Comment by karlusdavius

Again, not correct.

Flash heal vs Greater heal never comes down to raw numbers. it comes down to opportunity. You state that Discipline Priests should be using PW:S followed by greater Heal, without taking Penance, their 51 point talent, into consideration. Your views are based on the perfect scenario. This will never happen.

You keep mixing Discipline with Holy. Both are completely different in every way. Holy is a raid healer and will very rarely use Greater heal unless high, predictable incoming damage is present (patchwerk). You look at any guilds 25 man Parses from WWS and you will find that the main spells used are CoH, Flash Heal and PoM. Greater heal will be lowest.

Discipline is a Single target Healer. We should not raid heal as we do not have the skills or talents to do so. Main Tank healing is what we do. We Flash heal long enough to use Penance. Greater heal will not be used. even on patchwerk.

The debate of Flash Heal vs Greater Heal based on numbers
Greater Heal Wins

The debate of Flash Heal vs Greater Heal based on

Usefulness
Quickness of casting
HPS depending on deficit
Amount of procs turning (Flash heal into Instant casts).

Flash Heal Wins.

Comment by Tysausrei

Greetings, World of Warcraft players!

Today, I, Tysausrei, will use some basic calculations to figure out the greater efficiency from Heal and Flash Heal.

After multiplying Flash Heal by 2 to get an equivalent casting time, we have:

Heal Rank 1

135 mana 40 yd range

3 sec cast

Heal your target for 295 to 341.

Flash Heal Rank 1

150 mana 40 yd range

3 sec cast

Heals a friendly target for 386 to 474.

The average amount healed from Heal is 318, and the average amount healed from Flash Heal is 430.

For those of you with the following talent point:

Divine Fury Rank 5

Reduces the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Greater Heal spells by
0.5 sec.

Your Heal has a 2.5 sec cast, as Divine Fury does not affect Flash Heal.

Your new heals (once again multiplied to the same casting time) will be as followed:

Heal Rank 1

405 mana 40 yd range

7.5 sec cast

Heal your target for 885 to 1023.

Flash Heal Rank 1

750 mana 40 yd range

7.5 sec cast

Heals a friendly target for 965 to 1185.

Your Flash Heal will begin to lose ratio over time, but still remains to be the best healing spell (without consideration of mana).

Decide for yourself which to use. Also, note the quick cast of Flash Heal in emergency situations.

Have fun healing!

Comment by Saaidh

Flash Heal is the spell that a Discipline Priests should use between Penance.

This is because:

Divine Aegis and Rapture does not benefit from overhealing done.

The only benefit Greater Heal has to Discipline Priests is that the larger heal makes a larger shield. And as point 2 says, over healing does not make much of a benefit.

Comment by sexytool

My views aren't based on relying on the "perfect scenario", it's your job as a healer to CREATE the perfect scenario.
The wider range of scenarios you can cater to, the more successful you and your group are going to be.
You have ALL said that disc priests RARELY go oom and that's because of rapture / FH mechanics.
Well, priests using greater heal NEVER go oom.
Plus they have higher healing per second than a priest using flash heal.

You all seem to be missing the major point and think this is a debate about mana saving.
You cannot have healing per second, fast cast times AND not go OOM.
So you pick two, priest mechanics do not allow you to have all 3. That's reserved (unfortunately) for druids.

If you pick HPS and mana efficiency then you'll be Greater heal spamming so you choose a hybrid or major holy spec.
If you pick mana efficciency and fast cast times, you pick disc, period.

You can't have all 3, priest mechanics dictate it so.
1 greater heal is always equal to 2 or more flash heals in healing amount.
Plus a GH spec is 0.5 seconds or more faster.
Plus in total, 1GH costs less than 2 flashes.

You don't seem to understand, the ONLY advantage flash heal has over greater heal, is the short cast time.
Which even when you really examine it, is NOT an advantage, because it provides an alternative to using power word: Shield. Considering PW:S absorbs more than 2 flashes heals for PLUS costs less mana yet again, PLUS takes half as long to cast, you should be PW:S then using GH.

That's not a "perfect scenario", that's just the basics of priest healing.
If your tank is going to die before you can finish the 2.5s (or faster) greater heal, you're simply a bad priest.
There's not a single boss in the whole game who can do more damage to a tank in 2.5 seconds than even a HOLY priest can mitigate by shielding then greater healing - enrages aside.
Even back in the BC days Gruul at 5 mins hit most tanks for 10k every 3 seconds.
A dreamstate druid could out-heal that in greens and blues, solo.
A priest could too if they focussed their gear and spec accordingly however they weren't using Flash heal, they were using greater heal.

Do some number crunching and it quickly becomes clear, flash heal is simply not powerful enough healing per second to tank heal solo, yet other classes can do it, and yet everybody seems to think disc is this amazing "single target healer".
Get it right, they're not a single target healer.
They are arena healers, exclusively.
That's because in arena, flash heal and instants are the only spells you can use. Why? Interupts like kick. That's why it's focussed around flash heal.
You're not better off using flash heal due to some superiority on flash heals' capability, but because you'll get kicked/silenced/counter-spelled/stunned while casting greater heal in arena.
In PVE, Greater Heal has all the numbers in it's favour. All of them.

Comment by Janitaur

I don't have a high level priest myself, but the stickied Disc priest guide on the Priest Forums says that Flash Heal is much more useful for Disc Priests than Greater Heal in PvE.

Just because Greater Heal is the superior heal for Holy Priests doesn't mean it is the same for Disc Priests.

Edit: Came across harsher than I meant to...

Comment by Blutah

I have to say that ive been a Disc Priest for sometime now, and i almost exclusively use FH over GH, unless i need to really increase my HPS, which is only if other healers have died in the raid.

GH will cause you to go oom much quicker, as you will be overhealing quite a lot more. With the FH glyph, GH costs pretty much 2 FH, and takes just over twice as long to cast. However you are more likely to find your heal doesnt hit in time (due to another healer healing before you), and waste the whole spell.

What it basically comes down to is: I find that most of my heals contain some portion of overhealing, even FH. Therefore i would rather cast 2 FH, that both heal about 80% of their max, than cast one GH that only heals around 40% of its max.

FH may have a slower HPS than GH, but you are more mana efficient, and better at keeping the tank at 100% health using FH.

Obviously they both pale in comparison to Penance. Using 5/5 Rapture and a half decent mp5, its quite easy for penance to actually give you mana back :D

End of Story.

Comment by euthanasian

"Do some number crunching and it quickly becomes clear, flash heal is simply not powerful enough healing per second to tank heal solo, yet other classes can do it, and yet everybody seems to think disc is this amazing "single target healer".
Get it right, they're not a single target healer.
They are arena healers, exclusively."

The simple fact that sexytool states this should clearly indicate to everyone that he is an ignorant Holy Priest that is still in the pre-Wrath state of mind.

I think that everything here already speaks for itself. Please, if you're wondering what spell you should be using as Discipline priest, don't pay any attention to what sexytool is saying. Flash Heal is the way to go if you're Discipline spec. The conversations and ratings above speak for themselves.

Comment by sexytool

No they don't, they just speak of the wow communitys' stupidity.
I've been playing this game 3 years, my dreamstate druid was solo healing tanks in kara, gruuls' and ZA with 600 healing, 125mp/5 and 20% crit (unbuffed) pre-lich patch.
There is quite possibly nobody who has done better, ever.

I'm not a "Ignorant Holy Priest" my main was a dreamstate druid. My mates' a GH using disc priest, plus often does me any favour i ask, like respeccing holy and spamming GH or spamming FH as disc.

He can't heal the main tank solo without using greater heal as his disc spec.
That's just the mechanics + gear, he needs the HPS.
He is a rather good disc priest in that he's actually GEARED for GH spamming.
That means he has in excess of 20k mana and little to no spirit, instead relying on Rapture and Refreshment to return mana more than his regen.
With Improved Healing i think his greater heal is only costing around 300 mana.
He never goes under 75% of full mana in raids PLUS he is constantly spamming GH, totally ignoring the 5 second rule.

Now if he was deep holy, he'd have a much higher capability there in HPS with greater heal but he'd have to re-gear for crit and spirit or mp/5. Like a druids' empowered touch, priests are getting a rediculous bonus to GH from their healing spell power and have talents to benefit them from a GH crit. They're also their most powerful holy talents so a holy tank healer needs to be focussed on crits, they get enough efficiency per GH out of divine providence, empowered healing and spiritual healing.

You all seem to be of the impression that other healers are needed to heal a tank, or should be helping anyway, that attitude is wrong.
Any tank healer that has even the remotest clue about what they're doing will not only be able to keep the tank up,
but also heal the rest of the raid when the tank starts an avoidance trend, like parrying 5 attacks in a row
I can't stress this enough, having other people "beating you to the heal and making me overheal"
is not an indicator of a weak spec, it's an indicator of a retarded raid leader and your other healers are also, stupid, selfish pricks who can't trust you to heal the tank by yourself.

Comment by spawnshank

What's been said doesn't "speak of the wow (edited for correct punctuation) stupidity." What's been said reflects upon those who know what they're talking about when talking about a priest.

You said it yourself, your main isn't even a priest! Your observations and "correct statements" come from you looking at a friend's priest who spams heals. The fact of the matter is, this is possibly the worst way to get information, especially considering you're having them spam heals out of a raiding situation. You continually bring up the dreamstate druid, but never mention anything out of raid settings to back yourself up: "my dreamstate druid was solo healing tanks in kara, gruuls' and ZA" are in raid settings, with raid buffs; thereby increasing your healing abilities.

Now, let's crunch some of your "numbers" shall we?
At level 80, priests have a base mana of 3863. Greater heal (rank 9) is 32% of that, or 1236 mana per heal. Priests, through talents and the 4-piece set bonus can get that cost reduced by 20%. This brings the total down to 989. All other talents that effect Greater Heal effect it's bonus healing given, or the speed at which the spell is cast. This seems like a very far cry from what you said: "With Improved Healing i think his greater heal is only costing around 300 mana."

Flash heal on the other hand is only 18% of our base mana. This puts Flash Heal at 695 mana per cast. Throw in our glyph, that cuts the cost by 10%, putting the heal at 625. So yes, granted; we are spending 1250 mana for two heals that heal for the amount of your one greater heal, but our heals are now effected twice by our crit rating, giving us two chances of proccing Divine Aegis, which absorbs about 2000 damage, give or take exact numbers (my flash heal crits anywhere between 5800 and 6200 depending on what buffs I have), which in turn can be looked at as two heals of 8000 each.

Combine these two heals with our Power Word: Shield which can absorb a ridiculous amount, and still heal for a small portion of what it absorbs, and our "channeled greater heal" in Penance, which has 3 chances to proc Divine Aegis, and you can see that Disc priests are not only mana efficient, but are phenomenal single-target TANK healers.

You seem to try and throw numbers at us left and right, and seeing this statistic, I'm looking at your numbers as now, all, false. So please, do us all a favor next time you try to insult our intelligence about our class; get your facts straight before you come an trash us. Because what you've done to "trash" us has only been rebuked and rebutted a number of times, but you can't get it through your head that Discipline priests are viable tank healers.

We've made the transition out of PvP and have a place in the PvE world.

Comment by Unarmedsharpie

Sexytool, you have no clue what you're talking about. Please stop talking like you can play a priest. It's rather annoying. Look at all your comments on FH and GH. Downrated? Why? Because you're wrong.

Go read Blizz blue posts. They made Disc into AMAZING single target heals in raids. I NEVER go OOM on 25 patchwerk when I'm the main healer on the hateful tank(well, with beacon light on tanks too). I can't even get below 90%-95% mana during that fight which is very heal intensive. GH is not even on my bars.

You tried to start a fight about HPS between disc and holy.....That's a joke. Holy should and will always have more HPS from what I've seen. Holy gets HPS and disc gets HPS/Mitigation. If you could see how much damage we prevent in a fight with our PW:S, DA, Grace, your mind would explode. My bubble took THREE swipe absorptions from 25 Sapphiron. You can't raise an argument saying disc priests suck b/c their HPS. It just doesn't work at all. You can't do it.

It's not a HPS game for disc priests.

Here is a quote from one of your replies...

"You're over-geared? Not everyone has that luxury.

That's why i said you're best off playing with Greater Heal."

Using GH while not geared will make you go OOM so fast. With WOTLK I didn't find enough time for full regen benefits. Which regen would be low anyhow as for being a under geared priest.. That GH would eat your mana alive.

Patch 3.1 disc priests will even be better SINGLE TARGET HEALERS than ever before. With the 15% reduced mana cost and the 10% crit increase(targets under 50%) with FH, we will be unstoppable.

Also, go to any top guilds in the WoW community, you'll see FH is way better.

Pyril - Azshara ( <3 disc, switched over from holy about a month ago)

Comment by Xekna

Is it just me or after patch 3.2.2 Flash Heal has sort of a chime sound in it or i just somehow have never noticed it in the past almost 5 years.

Comment by carnathagia

Cataclysm:

This is a Priests' fast, expensive heal. It has a short cast time, heals for a rather large amount, but the mana cost is very high. You should only use this if your target will die before you can land a Heal or Greater Heal spell.

Comment by Pythagoreant

This is priests' quick, expensive heal.

In Cataclysm (as of 4.0.3a), all healers have the following types of heals:

Quick, expensive heal: 1.5 second cast, very high mana cost, high heal value.
Inexpensive heal: 3 second cast (usually talented to 2.5), very low mana cost, low heal value.
Slow, big heal: 3 second cast (usually talented to 2.5), high mana cost, very high heal value.

The mana costs differ very slightly between classes. Two of them have the quick heal cost more than the big heal.

Priest
Quick - Flash Heal
Cheap - Holy Word: Serenity
Big - Heal

Shaman
Quick - Healing Surge
Cheap -
Big - Healing Wave

Druid
Quick - Regrowth
Cheap -
Big -

Paladin
Quick - Flash of Light
Cheap -
Big - Holy Light

Comment by Bluppie

This was the designed functionality, but I personally think this isn't always the case any more as people gear up. Casting Flash Heal or Binding Heal becomes quite useful for (as holy) Serendipity stacks, and Heal is not used as much because of it's long cast time and negligible amount healed at higher item levels. You might as well cast Greater, since that spell is more like the normal heal now (much lower amount of relative healing compared to previous expansions). Of course this is only from personal experience, but just thought I'd add my 2 cents =)

Comment by sylancer

Priest PvP Healing 2P Bonus Holy Spark cause Prayer of Mending trigger Holy Spark on the initial target, increase healing received from the Priest's next Flash Heal within 10 sec by 50%.
Item - Priest T14 Healer 2P Bonus reduce mana cost of Flash Heal by 20%.

Flash Heal's healing increased by 25% for Holy, Discipline Priest ().

Surge of Light give each Penance (Discipline only), Circle of Healing (Holy only), Prayer of Mending, Prayer of Healing, Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Holy Word: Serenity, Heal, Smite 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 cause Flash Heal:

healing increased by 25%
refresh the duration of the Priest's Renew on the target.

for Discipline Priest, each Flash Heal (modified by Mastery: Shield Discipline):

increase healing the target received from the Priest by 10%, stack up to 3 times ().
reduce the duration of the Weakened Soul debuff on the target by 2 sec ().

cause next Flash Heal:

mana cost reduced by 25%
guaranteed to be critical

enter Spirit Shell cause Flash Heal no longer heal but instead create absorption shields that last 15 sec.

Item - Priest PvP Set Discipline/Holy 4P Bonus cause during Spirit Shell, reduce mana costs of Flash Heal by 50%.

Shadow Priest can cast Flash Heal but can NOT cast without cancel Shadowform.

Comment by Reecow

Flash Heal is a quick, quite expensive heal with a moderate healing output. 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: 332.657% of Spell Power = 3.32657 *
Mana Cost: 4.1% of Base Mana = 0.041 *
Cast Time: 100-% of Base Cast Time = (1-) * 1.5 sec

Mana Efficiency = Healing Output / Mana Cost = 3.32657/0.041 ≈ 81.136 HPM (Healing per Mana)
Time Efficiency = Healing Output / Cast Time = 3.32657/1.5 ≈ 2.217 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 : Updated posts for latest Beta Build and made post relevant to all Discipline Priests by excluding certain variables.

Comment by dumaike4hire

It's worth noting, that for Discipline priests this spell is replaced by Shadowmend at level 28. I don't see that information anywhere in the wowhead interface and spent some time confused about where my Flash Heal was supposed to be.