Our Priest column is back! Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus, and this week he's written different "If" statements to follow.

Yeah, I'm late this week, I know. Technical issues were the problem for me on Sunday. But alas! The other night I had the pleasure of participating in a pickup Serpentshrine Cavern raid consisting of members from several prominent guilds on my server. It was one of the most costliest runs I've ever been in on. I did learn a lot about Priests by observing the other ones in my party.

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."
-Maya Angelou

If you're a programmer, then you are familiar with what the If statement represents. It symbolizes a condition that has to occur and the effect that results from it. As a Priest, I frequently have my own set of rules that I internalize and follow whether I'm raiding, questing, or PvPing.

Here's my list:

1. If you don't understand your role in a boss fight, ask until you do. It's better to learn as much as you can before going into a fight. On the other hand, wiping and experience does go a long way.
2. If you don't get a buff, ask once if it's on trash pulls before carrying on anyway. You don't need Blessing of Wisdom or a Mark of the Wild to do trash pulls. It's just trash. Wasting 1 minute translates to wasting 25 minutes.
3. If you don't get a buff at a boss, do ask , kick, plead, beg, threaten or do whatever you need to do until you get your cocktail of buffs. It's always the encounters where your Priest need to be maxed out.
4. If you hate your class or role, then find a new guild that will accept the role that you want to play.
5. If you're late to a raid, expect your spot to be taken. Stick around as you never know when someone might disconnect for the evening.
6. If you have no confidence to heal a boss fight, you will be replaced for someone who does have confidence. How would you feel if your doctor wasn't sure if he was giving you the right treatment? Your guild wants to know that you'll heal them to the best of your ability and that is all anyone can ever ask for.
7. If you threaten to leave your guild over an important issue, you better be ready to get kicked.
8. If you're making the same mistakes more than once, then you're not learning.
9. If you screw up, it's okay. At the end of the day, you'll look back at it and laugh.
10. If you're sleepy, drink coffee. Tea helps, too. This also goes for food. No one can raid on an empty stomach. It's virtually impossible! I recommend Wheaties.
11. If you're out of potions, ask for some but be sure to offer to compensate.
12. If you're rude, expect the same treatment from other players.
13. If you can't handle the raiding environment, then you have two choices: change the environment or change your expectations.
14. If you're not willing to help other players, expect the favour to be returned.
15. If you're too fired up, get away from the game for a while.
16. If you're not enchanting your gear, you're not being the best player you can be. Pre-patch 2.4, it used to be pricey and expensive. The plethora of daily quests nullifies that argument.
17. If you're not gemming your gear, you're not being the best player you can be.
    
18. If you're not being the best player you can be, raiding and PvPing might not be for you.
19. If you're entire party is taking damage, use your AoE heals.
20. If you can't trust your tanks, who can you trust?
21. If you don't have activated trinkets on your bars and bound, you might want to consider going it. Looking for Tears of the Goddess among your inventory is not fun.
22. If you're down 3000 mana, light up a potion.
23. If you give your account information out, don't act surprise if you get hustled in the future.
24. If an enemy Paladin bubbles, Mass Dispel should be your first reaction.
25. If you feel something is not right with what you're healing, speak up about it.
26. If you don't need to use expensive consumables, save it for the fights that you do need them on.
27. If something is working, don't try to change it. The inverse also applies.
28. If your target is low on health, drop a Power Word: Shield on them.
29. If all else fails, Psychic Scream. But don't do it in Leotheras' room.
30. If you don't agree with any of the above, good on you. Critical thinking helps in raids to fix problems. Disagreements, when constructive, can help troubleshoot the healing in your raid. But once a strategy is decided upon, the objections should stop until the next wipe.

Want to find more great tips for carrying out your Priestly duties? Spiritual Guidance has you covered -- before the long hiatus, we talked about class concerns and an overview of grouping with Priests. And don't forget to check the WoW Insider Directory for more priestly info -- there's lots of guides, writeups and discussions over there as well.