My tank healing spec

Thought I'd pop this up here, as a few people have been asking about it. Please note that this is what I use, but there are many decent tank heal specs out there.

Hope it helps - it is a little different than most, as it's 34 Sent/32 Puri. I currently have the 3rd soul as warden for waterjet (for those occasional "oh gosh, I just tank healed a drr, then wandered off, forgot to change specs, now something is trying to eat me" moments, or those "tank is fine, and raid leader is screaming "burn boss NAO" moments, but realistically, having templar in the 3rd soul for break free is probably better for HK.)

[ulrhttp://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10Gje.ExoVctz0z.E0E00stco[/url]

Tank "oh crap" macro:

#show Touch the Light
suppressmacrofailures
cast Flashover
cast Touch the Light
cast Healing Invocation

cleansing mouseover:

stopcasting
cast @mouseover cauterize

Why/how I use this build:

- Good single target with a HoT after effect - Healing Invocation/Lasting Invocation
- Good shielding
- Group oh crap buttons to help raid heals if needed - Divine Call and Healing Communion if needed
- 3 cleanses - normal single target, a cleanse everything (sterilize) and the AoE cleanse which is NOT a smart cleanse but still worth it (Empowering Light)
- battle rez
- wisdom buff when a bard isn't around
- Serendipity and Enflamed Rejuvenation are both great
- Healer's haste for scary moments

Like I said, I like Healing Invocation better than Restorative Flame. I do not like the clickiness and HoT maintenance of warden builds, and this combination of single target with shields with a couple AoEs to help out works well. It is also not very mana intensive. I have NO problems tank healing fights that put a healing debuff on the tank, such as Lord Greenscale, with this build.

I keep Surging Flames on the tank at all times so overheals trickle into the rest of the raid. Latent blaze is also kept up on the tank at all times, and I try to keep it on anyone else who may take a fair bit of damage, like the person doing the crystals in Plutonus, for example. Casting it on yourself as the healer is a really good plan too, but I generally forget. I do try and maintain Shield of the Ancestors on myself when the raid is taking a lot of damage.

I use Ward of the Ancestors pretty regularly on the tank and anyone who may get into trouble. I tend to keep Healer's Covenant and Caregiver's Blessings for those big damage moments - and I use Healing Transfusion fairly liberally. If Latent Blaze is on it's 2 min CD because it was used, I use those shields more often, so rotating the shields if/when needed, and I always try and have at least one shield available at all times in case something starts to go wrong.

Believe it or not, Healing Flare isn't a bad little heal when on the move, which is why I spec for it.

And, for those asking, the only greater that I use currently is Ancestral Soulstone to up my shields. I use lessers for everything else, but I haven't tested a whole lot, so my opinions aren't that strong on them. However, I like having that extra death resist right now, and will probably like the extra water resist soon.

A few tips to add (plus some numbers to hopefully convince you to change to healing tanks with fire). With respect to Latent Blaze, something that didn't really gel until I read it in the Rift forums, and I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, is that Latent Blaze is a heal spell. Seems obvious, so why is it important? It remembers and is modified by any heal buffs you have at the time of casting. The most obvious pair within the Purifier tree is Flashover. If you Flashover - Latent Blaze someone, if Latent Blaze triggers it will be a crit due to the Flashover buff. These have the same cooldown, and if someone gets below 30% a guaranteed crit heal (especially if you are running +20% from crit heals) is exactly what you want them to get. Similarly you can make it instant cast with the Sentinel spell or empower it with the Warden one. If you really want to optimise (out of combat only), cast Healing Flare until you get an Enflamed Rejuvenation proc, then cast Flashover - Latent Blaze for a crit heal at +30%. Caregiver's Blessing is a nice little bonus, but unless you are at 51 Purifier (who will get 50% bonus to the - from memory - 540 shield) it isn't 9 talent points nice. If you are planning on spending the points to reduce blessing cooldowns by 30s, grab Fiery Blessing as well, it is a nice bonus to have in your arsenal. Both blessings work really well in a period of movement where you still need to heal providing some respectability to Healing Flare (yes it isn't bad, but adding a 540 point shield, or improving the crit chance actually makes it somewhat respectable :-)). Most builds forgo the 3 extra shields at one talent point each and put a point in Fiery Blessing. Another important issue that shields help with is pushback. Pushback is what happens when you take damage while casting a spell - pushing the cast bar back so casts take longer. If there is constant small raid damage, it is still worthwhile keeping a shield on yourself (and if you can, other healers - but you and the tank are your priorities) to minimise pushback and maximise your healing. The damage would be cured by raid healer passive heals, it's true, but it really is a noticable affect on your cast speed. I'm able to help a bit by casting In periods of heavy raid damage, I usually find my shields won't do much for me, and casting heals feels sooo slow. Usually in these situations, people are clumped fairly well, and the tank isn't taking any more damage than the rest of the raid (in fact less due to mitigation. This is another time I find Healing Breath/Flare helpful. With the tanks usually topped up, they are pure overheal for Surging Flames to distribute some needed heals to those close to the tank. A cast Healing Communion feels like it will never get off in these situations (although I don't have the benefits of Serendipity in my 51 Purifier build which may solve that problem). Finally what to use Resto Flame or Healing Invocation? If all you examine are parses or numbers at a dummy, Healing Invocation looks the better option. I run Resto Flame and in a dungeon run now a tank will outheal me, as shields are credited to the person they are on. Each spell has an option for 5 points to buff the base heal with an aftereffect (a HoT for Invocation and an absorption shield for Resto Flame). In both these cases there the aftereffect buff will overwrite any existing buff on the target (so you will have at most one HI HoT and one RF absorption Shield on a target at any time - you may have other shields or HoTs but only one as a result of HI/RF). This affects the HoT, which is 8s long, a lot more than the shield, which has a chance to be consumed in full before the next RF. Also the HoT will overwrite even if it is smaller (so if you have a HoT from a 4.5K Crit, you may overwrite it with a much smaller HoT from a non-crit cast). Also, in general, tanks prefer having shields up over a HoT - a 700 point shield is like 700 more health always on them. To further explain the point the numbers for the heals are as follows (these numbers are base and do not include the bonus healing from talents): Healing Invocation: average 601 point base, plus 1.38 points of healing per point of spell power. Restorative Flame: average 541 point base, plus 1.2 points of healing per point of spell power. For the 5 talent points: HI: 30% of the heal as a HoT. This will be (0.414 x SP + 180) x 1 + (0.7 x (Crit% over 100)) if allowed to run the full 8s. RF: 60% of SP as a shield. Lasts 8s (but can be consumed quite quickly). Now in a situation where shields aren't getting consumed, HoTs are going to go to overheal - it's why shields are generally regarded as better. Even with a solid raid buffed crit of 40%, the HoT in total will be (0.53 * SP + 230) if it runs it's full course. Replace it every 3s (or less) and it's much worse than the 0.6 * SP of RF - well under a 0.2 * SP contribution. If you take both bonuses, you can cast a HI, followed by 2-3 RF, then repeat in order to keep the HoT up. Some tank healers just use RF even with a hybrid build. To change your build, I'd probably drop 2 points in Light Concentration (as tank heals mana is never an issue) to put them over in Purifier. I'd drop Life's Blessing and Caregiver's grace for 8 more points giving me 10 total points for 5 in Ancestral Flame and 5 in Intense Flames (once you start using RF as a stock heal, 5% in it makes sense). I'd try to find one point for Fiery Blessing. Like you I like Healing Flare as a fallback (otherwise I'd need Warden ocasionally for another instant heal), so I'd probably switch one point off Flame Speaker and accept 1% less crit for a blessing that gives a lot more. Lumen (loves Purifier and wants to see as many healers out their burning their tanks up with fire as possible :-))

ty all for these great tips and taking the time to write them up. now that i'm on semester break from grad school (yay!) i look forward to looking at a playing w/ a puri healz spec. :)