As an 85 Forsaken DISC Priestess, let me state the most obvious: I do not have a racial that I use in my rotation. I emphasis this, and I hope that if you have a good racial such as a Troll's that you use it, if you don't as of now, let me give you a pro tip: any great CD should never not be on CD.
Cata 5 Man Dungeons... OH THAT SOUNDS EAZY PEAZY LET ME GO IN AND Ooo bubble ooO all these chumps, throw Renew, refresh the Ooo bubble ooO, drop some Flash Heals and WIN! Oh snap, I am OOM, the tank is at 10% health, the entire mob is still up and the DPS are all < half health. WHAT DID I DO WRONG? BLIZZARD YOU BROKE MY CLASS, I H8 YOU!!
Okay, news flash, WOTLK was far too easy to Blizzard and many other gamer's liking. And, as we are used to being extremely over-geared for raids and dungeons, we are now fresh 85s in the lowest available tier of gear (if any) experiencing current content for our gear. Our spells cost more but our mana pools have not grown to supply infinite 4k mana costing casts. All this means we must use our heads now, ZOMG NOO!! We must time our spells to be efficient with our mana surplus and use better judgment in accordance with boss and trash abilities.
This is my opening rotation for your typical dungeon pull: With "Inner Will" active I buff the Stam Boost and Shadow Resistance, I then buff myself with Inner Fire, cast Prayer of Mending, Renew, and Power Word: Shield on the tank.(I then quickly grab a drink because that just cost me a lot of mana). Now, at first pull we see what the tank can handle, how the DPS do, and how healing intensive this group will really be for the healer.
Obviously melee heavy groups will require more healing, unless you also have a caster who does not watch their threat :P.
In groups where the entire party is taking loads of damage it will be kind of ridiculous for you to spam Power Word: Shield on all party members, as it costs 3520 mana when you can cast Prayer of Healing, heal all party member for 10k plus and grant them the absorb effect of Divine Aegis for only 5353 mana, and only casting in about 2.5 or less seconds, still promising the tank a heal and absorb effect. This may seem like common sense but I have been in plenty of groups on my lock where this scenario did not happen.
Keeping Power Word: Shield, Renew, Prayer of Mending, and the Divine Aegis effect on the tank at all times is really important. You want to watch your HoT and the Power Word: Shield debuff and make sure both are always on. Keep an eye on Prayer of Mending, it nearly always jumps back to the tank and there is no point in wasting 3.4 k mana spamming the same spell that is already active.
ZOMG THIS GUY IS GOING DOWN WHAT DO I DO???
So, your tank is getting hit mildly hard without Power Word: Shield but you have a dps who cant FF on the tank's target so they get agro; their hp is going down quickly but the tank is going down too and Weakened Soul is on them, you have about 30k mana, two out of the four trash is still up and there is an AoE attack soon...
DON'T PANIC NAO!
Instantly Power Word: Shield them, depending on your stats that will absorb roughly 10k plus dmg, that is enough time for your tank to figure out they need to grab that add and respectively hold agro against their threat. I know it is tempting to Flash Heal or Penance them but but firstly Flash Heal is fast, big, and costly spell that will give them 20k+ health but also take 5.7k mana and possibly give them the Divine Aegis effect , where as shielding them will instantly protect them from damage giving you the time to Power Word: Shield the tank if available (which it should, the tank should rarely be without a shield and suffering a full duration of Weakened Soul, your tank should always be protected by some kind of mitigating effect and minimally not be for only a second or two). Around now your mana is around 13k, the AoE attack is coming and your dps is still around 20% health, you see your tank's focus is nearly dead, about 20% health itself so it is safe to say mads amount of damage will not continue to happen. I personally never want my tank to have less than 75% of it's health, meaning I will spam Heal until their health is at a safe level, of course using Penance when not off CD to replenish their HP quickly and pretty inexpensively imo :P. Lay a Prayer of Healing off, instantly giving everyone a damage mitigation effect and toping them off, meaning your tank and that damaged dps have at minimal 5k more health than they did and 9K damage they can take. Prayer of Mending should have bounced between the two giving an extra heal to each and the fight has ended withe everyone alive! Keep in mind your HoT was on them, they probably got Divine Aegis from Glyph of Power Word: Shield crit/heal and your tank was revamped the entire time between casting Power Word: Shield to Prayer of Healing.
RAWR, keep HoTs up! Keep bubbles thrown and don't do anything unnecessary until you know your groups' ability. Always keep CDs off CD, i.e. give your Caster Power Infusion at the beginning of fights, the CD timer starts once they have it, use your Power Word: Barrier, w/e it is still 5man dungeons and those two spells can greatly increase your group's survivability and speed. :)
