EU+US Question for priests

[Dubeez]

So everyday I try and improve more and more after being gone from the game since Wotlk and never playing a priest, but I find the two things I run into trouble the most with are positioning/damage spreading.

Positioning: I seem to have a problem with knowing when is the right time or the time at all to join our FC and go D; which I know has a lot to do with your team's comp/enemy team's comp. If anyone could give a scenario or just general guideline tips on this it would be appreciated.

Another positioning problem I have is trying to stay behind everyone so that I don't overextend and get slowed and then wrecked. But I often find people on my team extending out a little bit and taking serious damage which I then push up a little bit to top them off, and then find myself in between the frontline and the ranged making me more susceptible to being 1.charged by a warrior 2. hit by BM slow 3. focusing by ranged. Any tips to avoid this would be appreciated as well.

Damage Spreading: A lot of the time at the end of the games I see that another priest on the team has done a ridiculous amount of dmg and roughly the same amount of healing done as me; and I find myself going wtf! I was healing my ass off idk how the managed to do all that dmg and still the same amount of healing as me. I tend to try and toss around SWP's (through mouseover macro) and holy fire's/offensive penances whenever I get the chance, but I like to try and stay focused on keeping everyone up around me. Is there something that I am doing wrong here or something that I can change in order to get the spread damage that other priests are able to pull while still keeping my team up.

I like to think that I am progressively getting better as the days go on; asking advice from people but I don't want to annoy them with my questions if they are busy or just don't feel like typing out in depth answers. So if anyone could shed some light on these things, it would be greatly appreciated. And if you notice anything that I do or should be doing when I play, please feel free to let me know; I'll take all the constructive criticism I can get.

 

[Bestworld]

Not sure if there are any priest guides out there, but it would be a good place to look. There are a lot of different class guides tied to this website. Even when I'm not playing a healer myself, I can try give u an idea through what I have been experiencing so far in the Gulch.

Positioning:

So basically, when you think about positioning, it's all situational. There's no "real" recipe to it. In theory, You'd want to put yourself in a situation where you are hard to reach. By doing so, enemies that are trying to reach you should be heavily punished by doing so. That is achieved by playing near teammates that can easily peel off people that jumps you, or basically people that can just kill them.
Another thing you'd want to realize, is that the better your team as a whole position themselves, the better situation you can put yourself in. Sometimes if the warrior / BM monk dies, it's not always your fault. They can overextend as well. And that's on them. You now have to look at the pros and cons of letting them die, or try to save them. So if you put yourself in a bad spot, trying to save them, and you become a target, and the damage is too much, it's obviously not going to be worth it. You'd rather stay safe, heal what you can heal, extend the match, so that your frontline can eventually come back into the fight.

The way it works when you work with an FC, is that you want to keep mid-control. You don't want to go in and pick with the FC etc. Unless the situation calls for it, I.E when your team is deathballing, or you're playing o & d for whatever reason, and you find yourself being on o for whatever reason, etc. But in most situations, you'd want to help your team secure mid. The way you break off to the FC, is that he comes to you, unless again, the situation calls for something else, and you don't sacrifice too much by doing so. If you get to your FC, but you lose mid, and thus allowing the enemy team to collapse on you, well, then what good did it do? Your FC is now "safe", but your team is dead, and you are most likely the next to follow. So the way it works, is that if the FC needs help, he gets another class to help him. I.E a rogue, hunter, druid etc.
The way FC'ing works, is that the FC would like to sit mid with you guys, so he can play with the entire team. This allows for classes who would otherwise go D (like hunters) to do offensive plays on EFC, or help in mid. This also allows all of the healers in your team to sit around in mid. However, when it gets close to getting 6 stacks, and the enemy team has balance druids, rogues etc. that could potentially go for a stealth play at 6+ stacks, the FC would usually want a small gauntlet set up in some position that gives them an advantage, which is not mid. An example would be roof. In this situation, you'd like a healer on D. along with the gauntlet. So when it comes to that, you'd want too look around and see what's happening. What stacks are the FC's at, which healer is moving with FC etc. If no healer is moving with your FC at high stacks, and it's a bad idea for him to stay mid, well, then it might be an idea for you to go D with him.

Damage Spreading:

You want to do damage when you have time. Basically, Discipline Priests are very strong at buying time with their Power Word: Shield. It is important to note, that you shouldn't always pre-shield someone. Especially in a mid-fight. Exceptions would be rogues, which would like a pre-shield before they stealth and go in etc. You'd want to shield anyone dropping from heavy damage, and heal them back up. Now, you can start multi-dotting with Shadow Word: Pain and Holy Fire. And if noone needs emergency healing, you can do offensive penances as well. It becomes a lot more obvious when to do what etc. when you play more. It's the same with anything.

Hope this helped. Again, I don't play a healer myself, but this is the general idea from what I've seen in the Gulch so far.