So last night I made the plunge and switch into a 23/38/0 holy / discipline build. All I can say is wow, my healing rocked. Whether it has been the wealth of experience I have acquired over the past few weeks of adventuring in Outlands instances, or just sheer luck, all I can say is healing Steamvaults using this build was fantastic.
To start things off, I noticed my renews were ticking for a bit over 500 a tick. As a new 70, I felt pretty great about that. My Greater Heals were landing between 3.6k to 3.9k with crits exceeding 5.1k plus providing inspiration J We had a Druid main tank(MT) and a MS warrior off-tank (OT) so I found that dropping a prayer of mending and then a renew on the MT was oftentimes all the healing I needed to do for the first 15-20 seconds of fight. I would then generally follow up with another renew on the MT and spot heal / renew the other group members, or if the MT or OT had taken a pounding start with a Greater Heal and then renew. The wild thing about the run was I never was even close to running out of mana, even on the boss fights, and seldom had to drink between pulls.
I got several caster DPS drops out of Steamvaults, but the neat thing was that I also hit revered with Cenarian Expedition so I was able to purchase a great healing helm. After all was said and done, I logged out last night (self-buffed) with around +915 healing and 109 mp5 while casting. Looking back at my gear progression since dinging 60 2.5 weeks ago, I have to say I am very please and looking forward to improving it as well as my healing skill as I begin to take on every Outlands instance I can group for.
What I'd also like to share was my Alterac Valley (AV) experience that happened just before I went to Steamvaults. It is wild how they have taken out all the NPCs that they first nerfed a few times and now have made it a truly PvP centric battleground. It actually feels a great deal like Eye of the Storm (EotS) now. Anyhow, after having tried for countless days on my other toons, I can say there is nothing quite like healing in AV. I love it! It is awesome to heal people to full health while they unskillfully take down an opponent! I was originally going to eschew PvPing with Less, but now I think I will try to get in a match or two a night just to experience healing in a different and crazy environment.
Looking ahead and behind, I can say that I can't remember having so much fun in instances and battlegrounds with a character as I am having with Lessanna. As I posted the other night, I am planning on doing a 1 to 70 wrap-up sometime soon and just not yet as I hope to write a leveling / gearing guide to benefit the Priest community. Also, I want to cement my feelings into one epic post about the journey, both personal and virtual , with my leveling adventure.
