Priest Tips
From Game Theory
Tips are arranged listing the more obvious first. For a good time, /join GTPriests.
Healy Tips and Tricks
Pre-cast
Start casting your GH's BEFORE the tanks takes damage, and cancel 2/3 of the way through if the tank ends up not needing the hp. Rinse and repeat. You will regen mana at a non-casting rate so long as the spell doesn't complete, and the tank will get their heals much sooner. Because a priest's main heals take 2.5 seconds without haste, we have to cast proactively.
Smoothing spike damage
Shield + PoM are both great at preventing massive hits. Shield will prevent 3-5k damage and PoM will heal about 2k as soon as the target takes damage - taking a big chunk off large hits.
Inner Focus
Using this on Prayer of Healing will give you 5 chances to crit, making the most of your Inner Focus +crit.
Face a Wall
Healing has no facing issues. If for some reason you're having slow computer issues, face a wall and rely solely on your mods. If your heals suddenly stop landing, however, you may have to face the raid again and check line of sight and/or distance (40 yards).
Use a good healy mod
Use a mod which places the whole raid's health bars in a small area of your screen, so you can see at a glance who's taking damage and you don't have to move your mouse far to select the next victim. Make sure your mod factors in range, and greys out etc. the hp bars of people who are too distant to heal.
Aggro enhancement
Prayer of Mending now credits all healing threat to the caster, not the target. We can't use it to boost tank threat anymore. However tank threat has been enhanced across the board now so you can cast it shortly after the pull without worrying too much.
Threat reduction talents are nearly worthless for healers now. Don't take them unless you plan to run lots of 5-mans with pug tanks. Fade should work plenty well. If it doesn't, repeatedly, find a new tank.
Keeping PoM moving
In most combats the healers are much less likely to take damage. If you have PoM on yourself and you want it to keep bouncing, SW:Death something.
Add debuffs to your healing mod
Add a few damage-heavy debuffs to your healing mod, so you can see when a player is afflicted with them and heal proactively. Whirlwind in Leo and conflag during Kael are great candidates.
Mana Management
Downranking is dead. Don't do it.
Every Priest has Shadowfiend, Symbol of Hope, and Mana Potions. Every healing Priest also has Inner Focus, Meditation, and Inspiration. Holy and Discipline both have mana discount/refund talents in various places. If you know your talents and you know your tool box, you can find some hints on how to do your job with the greatest mana efficiency/discounts/refunds. But there will be times when you just have to spam those huge heals anyway.
Shadow Tips and Tricks
Use Caution with Holy Spells
Cure/Abolish Disease or any healing spell will pop you from Shadowform, costing you significant mana should you want to return. But remember you are still a Priest, so there may be times when you are asked to heal intentionally.
Shadow Word: Pain
Probably not worth it on trash anymore, due to its high cost. Try to wait until Shadow Weaving is fully stacked before casting it, and let your Mind Flay shtick refresh its duration to amortize the mana cost down to minimal on boss fights.
Inner Focus
Not all Shadow Priests will have this anymore.
Using Inner Focus on Mind Blast will save you the most mana, has less chance of killing you and will do the most damage. If you are in a boss fight where you know you will have to cast Shadow Word: Pain more than once, consider using Inner Focus for effectively infinite DPM on that target.
Fade
Remember Fade is a temporary reduction, not an aggro dump - the threat will return in a few seconds. You can't drop below 0 threat with it.
Stat Ranking on Gear
After you've reached the hit cap (290 with talents, well over 400 without, so take the talents) the ranking is Spell Power >> Crit > Haste. Intellect and Stamina will take care of themselves, as they are present on all caster gear. Since your Replenishment buff returns mana based on the size of your mana pool, larger pools benefit more. Increasing your crit rate increases Improved Spirit Tap uptime, and that's a benefit to you based on your Spirit. MP5 isn't bad, but Spirit also increases your Spell Power, and scales with Blessing of Kings. (Improved) Vampiric Embrace health returns are still based on damage output.
Spell Priority
Do not seek to memorize a spell rotation, as it will not help you in raids - instead know which ones are most desirable. At the start of a fight, consider VE, VT, MB, DP, MF, MF, SW:P. After that, replacing DoTs > using nukes > MF. Remember that with talents MF refreshes SW:P.
Shadow Word: Death
SW:D is an important tool, don't gimp yourself by ignoring it. However it is very inefficient. Consider using SW:D only when your VE is up.
Let your dots expire before replacing them
VT and SW:Pain tick at the end. If you replace them before they disappear, you're reducing your damage and wasting mana. Remember that VT has a cast time. Recast SW:P and DP only after your timer mod says they have expired, no earlier unless you have a very good reason for doing so (e.g. upcoming aggro reset).
Mind Flay is 20 - 24 yards range
There are some combats where you can't use it. You can get a glyph to increase the range, but it removes the slowing effect.
PVP Tips and Tricks
De-Sheep
SW:Death right before the sheep cast finishes, and the damage you take will unsheep you.
Sheep Protection
When the stealth cubes spawn, pick one up. The damage you take will be minimal, and it'll break sheep regularly.
Enemy Paladins
You may not be able to out-damage their heals, but you can Mass Dispel their infamous bubbles.
