Thread: T10 healing bonus (both specs) / state of Holy

First of all, I am happy to make my first post here... Long time reader, first time poster inc!

I am currently QQing about my 4-piece set bonus to my guildies (and the current state of Holy as raid healers compared with shamans and druids) and the general state of Holy priests, but am I correct or just an old grumpy whiner?

To maximize the chance of proc for it, you need to do a strict spellrotation: CoH -> 5xFH -> CoH... Of course you will never want to do that, since in a fight with alot of raid damage you will want to use PoM (1 sec) once in every rotation and PoH (~1.5 sec) when you got 3xSerindipity... This leaves you with only 3 Flash Heals (without proc) before you can cast CoH again. On other fights you may even want to throw some Renew out as well! If you are chaincasting FH, it may also be hard to notice the proc of the x'th cast before you have started cast x+1... This tells me that for this set bonus to be worth anything, you need to cast FH after every CoH and it has to proc on this first FH. This sounds incredibly weak to me, compared to other sets?

I dont have any experience playing disc, but it seems slightly stronger for those (allthough not something to go crazy over still)... This reminds me of the 4xT8 bonus for Holy by the way, where I felt we were totally neglected...

In 3.3 I've seen my hps on raid healing drop, and number-wise (in our guild) Holy seem to be the weakest raid healer spec (where I am 3.1 and 3.2 used to be the strongest)... I cannot keep up with a tree mass bombing the raid with Rejuventation (Oh my! What a braindead playstyle><), and the shamans are way ahead of me as well (especially with their strong 4xT10, which apparently increases their total output with ~20%)... I can in some fights reach close to 8k hps if I am pretty much the only raid healer, but with "competition" from druids and shamans I suddenly drop to often less than 4k hps. I've seen my class' previous strength, which was a huge arenal of different spells for different situations, now become my weakness. I don't find too much about this on the forums, and dont know how the end guilds value Holy priests these days (personally I feel I only contribute with a nice healer cooldown in GS only these days, other abilities are netter covered by any other class). Sometimes I feel that I dont pull my own weight, and that it would be better for the guild to bring a much worse geared druid than me, which is a bit sad in the WLK final tier!

Is this just QQ from me, did my healing skills suddenly disappear with patch 3.3? Or did Holy become a rather weak healer class again? Are prests the victim of our tier bonuses being tailored for 2 specs, while other healer classes has it made for just one spec? Are Holy priests worth taking in a raid over shamans and druids? Do I suck?

I love you. I thought I was going CRAZY. I went from being in the top 3 to being at the very bottom like every raid.
Our 25s man have 2 resto druids, and lately it's been 3. I'll sit there bored out of my mind because there's nothing to heal. I feel your pain!

Now for the 4 set, it is one CoH cast that has a 20% chance to give you a 6-second buff that will cause one flash heal to reset the CD. So it goes CoH->FH -> whatever you like to use. So it isn't THAT weak. Now you have to consider global CDs and such.
One CoH = 1.5s GCD. So CoH CD of 6-seconds - 1.5 seconds = 4.5 seconds. Casting one FH ~ 1.5ish.(GCD for instant, or just a cast time). 4.5s - 1.5 = 3s left of CoH to reset. this is VERSUS.
One Penance CD = 8 seconds. (glyphed) -1.5s FH cast = 6.5 to reset. Bigger benefit!

Now, the 2 set is a benefit to both specs. Yes, you can argue its tailored to disc. However, that depends on your holy heal style. I prefer all the instants, renews, using FH for only Serendipity. I know a priest in my guild who favors Flash heals in place of renew, but he is also holy.

Anyway, to cheer you up. According to World of Logs, Holy priests are topping the meters in the Lich King fight! >D We also do fairly well on the Putricide fight.

Yes we are getting beaten on meters by shammies and trees but not by much and only by very good players. And yes the 4pc is very very underwhelming for holy.

IMO, Holy Priests are doing just fine. Yes, the tier bonuses are kind of weak and especially the 4-piece bonus probably needs a little bit of reworking to be on par with some of the other 4-piece bonuses out there; however, there is no reason you should not be able to compete with other healers. The key thing to keep in mind is that the strength of the Holy Priest is our flexibility and the way to maximize that isn't trying to find some maximum HPS spell rotation and stick to it, like most other healers do, but to figure out where the gaps are and to use our flexibility to fill that niche. I've found that between the changes in damage patterns and the 2-piece bonus that Flash Heal has become a more important part of my healing arsenal and, as such, I can fill the burst damage gaps left by Druid HoTs.

Either way, the question shouldn't be "how can I top the healing meters?", it should be "how can I best fill the gaps left by Shamans and Druids?" For example, in a fight where I am consistently outdone by Druids, like Festergut, I can still make an important contribution because Holy Priest burst healing is exceptional for mitigating Exhale Damage, allowing the Druids the time they need to switch from spamming the tank to blanketing the raid again. I also tend to watch the vomits with Renew/FH allowing the Druids to, more or less ignore them and focus on maximum raid coverage. So, sure, I might be doing 2k less HPS than them on that fight, but without me there, they wouldn't be able to pushing that much HPS and we'd be more likely to lose people to the Exhales. That all said, in most encounters, I'm still at the top or very close behind, so I think it's hard to justify saying that Priests are in a bad spot.

So, to answer your questions, I wouldn't say that being at the bottom of the meters means you suck because meters mean nothing without context. I think it's probably just some small adjustments in your style. Like I mentioned above, Flash Heal has become a larger part of my healing. In ToGC, I could pretty much ignore it except on Jaraxxus (which doesn't really count since it was such an easy encounter), but I think ignoring it in ICC isn't really an option on most fights. Evaluate your healing team and see where those gaps are and figure out how you can best fill it. If you're stuck in a place where you feel like there's nothing to heal or you can't get above 4k HPS, maybe your raid is bringing too many healers?

Raid damage is limited and generally unspiked, meaning if you're running ith 3 resto druids, you're not going to have anything to do, the group would do better to dump one, or even two of those druids for dps, kill bosses faster and let holys rediculous maximum throughput shine.

paladins had the same problem through T7 content, lifebloom rolling was so effective that there was little healing to do, especially with old beacon, but back then, with druids concentrating mostly on rolling bloom on tanks, holy priests were rocking.

so there it is, if you want to heal and feel useful, bring less druids, they make other healers pointless.

Originally Posted by Kanpii

I love you. I thought I was going CRAZY. I went from being in the top 3 to being at the very bottom like every raid.
Our 25s man have 2 resto druids, and lately it's been 3. I'll sit there bored out of my mind because there's nothing to heal. I feel your pain!

Now for the 4 set, it is one CoH cast that has a 20% chance to give you a 6-second buff that will cause one flash heal to reset the CD. So it goes CoH->FH -> whatever you like to use. So it isn't THAT weak. Now you have to consider global CDs and such.
One CoH = 1.5s GCD. So CoH CD of 6-seconds - 1.5 seconds = 4.5 seconds. Casting one FH ~ 1.5ish.(GCD for instant, or just a cast time). 4.5s - 1.5 = 3s left of CoH to reset. this is VERSUS.
One Penance CD = 8 seconds. (glyphed) -1.5s FH cast = 6.5 to reset. Bigger benefit!

Now, the 2 set is a benefit to both specs. Yes, you can argue its tailored to disc. However, that depends on your holy heal style. I prefer all the instants, renews, using FH for only Serendipity. I know a priest in my guild who favors Flash heals in place of renew, but he is also holy.

Anyway, to cheer you up. According to World of Logs, Holy priests are topping the meters in the Lich King fight! >D We also do fairly well on the Putricide fight.

Having 0 haste on your gear no ret boomkin or shammie in raid must suck.

I'm not going to go into the meters but general feasability wise, scaling wise and set bonuswise we (i.e. holy priests) pretty much got the short end of the stick. I suspect its probably due to a combination of poor scaling, most fights pretty much requiring flash heal as a primary, and just downright being the least versatile healer of all. We shouldn't have to play like a tree (renew) just to feel more useful.

Go disc and mitigate the druid. all of their overheal spam wont mean shit when you keep it from happening, and when your holy priest sees that the shield is off via grid, and starts with COH SOL COH spam.

This was not a thread advocating speccing Disc to solve the problem that both T10 set bonuses are bad for Holy priests. Go away with your respec Disc crap.

pst the set is good for holy, bad for disc, just don't renew spam. you aint a fecking tree dont be one. We have better tools at our disposal than a hot.

Disc gets great use out of the two piece. The shadow set has better itemization since 3/5 of the pieces are haste/crit/SP instead of spirit plus one of the other stat. Renew is an amazing spell, esp. with the glyph. Emp. Renew plus one tick is ~4.5k healing for me (buffed). Flash Heal hits for 5kish, and heals once. Should the target take damage again within 9 (assuming first tick hits and you have the glyph), Renew greatly surpasses Flash Heal in efficiency.

I pretty much wreck shammys, even in their overpowered T10 gear. while i'm in my half disc gear and offspec gear, so in that regard holy is fine.
you probably are bad.

Based on what you're saying here, I honestly doubt you're wrecking anyone.

sometimes outside of using PoH(and it doesnt get the same use it did in Uld/ToC even) i feel like as holy we're always immitating other healers; but our weakness is also our stregth of versatility - being able to do the job of other healers and compliment your raids healing team through this.

Take all the renew talents
Spam Renew
Ignore your fheal button (aside from surge of light procs) and ignore your stupid set bonuses
Spam Renew more
Keep CoH and PoM on CD
Spam Renew
??????
Profit


Seriously though, try a deep renew spec/play style and see if you still feel as lacking in power
I don't really like it, but its the only thing holy has going for it right now
Drop FHeal and Gheal Talents (Emp Healing, Imp healing, Divine Fury)
Instead pick up Blessed Resilience, Test of Faith etc instead
Don't tank heal with this spec, ever. Raid heal like a druid. You will be much more useful to your raid this way.
Otherwise go Disc.

Originally Posted by Syrrah

Disc gets great use out of the two piece.

Excuse me but how often do you spamm flash heals in raid enviroment? The only benefit flash heal recieves from disc talents is Improved Flash Heal which requires someone to be below 50%hp to work. Comparing to Holy, Discipline FHs are really weak.

In 25-mans main disc role is to shield on every GCD keeping PoM on CD. In 10 mans when there's no holy Paladin around you will still get better output from penance/greater heal. When there's a Holy Paladin you snipe penances and come back to shield spam.

In my opinion this is the biggest weakness of our T10. Flash heal is being used very very rarely. Both Disc and Holy have much better spells to use. Set bonuses suck because they require FH abuse to "activate" and I'm sorry flash heal is a medicore spell in whole arsenal of Priest's healing tools.

I totally agree with OP.

Also, if you want to stand a chance on meters - simulate druid, sad but true.

And to everyone saying meters don't matter, tell it to the other 99% of the wow population that measure healers by meters.

Originally Posted by smeegoan

Go disc and mitigate the druid. all of their overheal spam wont mean shit when you keep it from happening, and when your holy priest sees that the shield is off via grid, and starts with COH SOL COH spam.




pst the set is good for holy, bad for disc, just don't renew spam. you aint a fecking tree dont be one. We have better tools at our disposal than a hot.


btw. above poster, holy priests are not topping the meters in the LK fight, check double check, read WOL., oh yeah its a disc priest.

I pretty much wreck shammys, even in their overpowered T10 gear. while i'm in my half disc gear and offspec gear, so in that regard holy is fine.

you probably are bad.

and you probably are lying

Originally Posted by majaharet

And to everyone saying meters don't matter, tell it to the other 99% of the wow population that measure healers by meters.

No one said healing meters don't matter; in fact, in other threads, I've argued that meters are an important tool for healers. The point isn't to ignore meters, but to realize how they don't necessarily tell the whole story because different rolls will perform differently in different situations. Take a fight like Blood-Queen for example, it's trivial for any raid healer to top the meters by simply spamming their top raid-healing spell; hell, all a Holy Priest has to do there to top meters is keep PoM/CoH on CD and spam Renew and PoH, but if that's all you do, people will start dying. A good Holy Priest should be keeping PoM/CoH on CD, but he should keep his eyes on where burst damage may be coming in where the HoTs from the Druids won't be enough, like Pact and flame, and be ready to top those targets up quickly, he should be precasting Mass Dispel for the fear in the air phase and preparing for all of that burst damage, and he should especially be keeping an eye on prioritizing heals to bite targets to maximize DPS. Doing all of that I still was very close to the Druids (last week I was second, above one and about 0.2% behind the other), yet I made numerous contributions to the success of the encounter that don't show on the meter. In fact, every time I used a Flash Heal instead of a Renew on a low health bite target to ensure he wouldn't die or I prioritized heals to a Pact target, I hurt my performance on the meters, but I filled in those holes that Druid HoTs leave and it's quite possible that had I not done that and just focused on my max HPS rotation, we would not have succeeded.

Originally Posted by smeegoan

Go disc and mitigate the druid. all of their overheal spam wont mean shit when you keep it from happening, and when your holy priest sees that the shield is off via grid, and starts with COH SOL COH spam.

pst the set is good for holy, bad for disc, just don't renew spam. you aint a fecking tree dont be one. We have better tools at our disposal than a hot.

btw. above poster, holy priests are not topping the meters in the LK fight, check double check, read WOL., oh yeah its a disc priest.

I pretty much wreck shammys, even in their overpowered T10 gear. while i'm in my half disc gear and offspec gear, so in that regard holy is fine.

you probably are bad.

I'm generally very open to differing opinions but this is one of the worst posts I have ever seen on this forum. To any new or inexperienced healers (priests or otherwise) please do not adopt Smeegoan's mentality and attitude. First off, the topic is on the state of holy, not disc. Secondly, how is the set good for holy? Elaborate? Thirdly, I feel sad for your raidmates and fellow healers if you're having this "competition with other healers for meters" mindset.

TBH what spells you use as a holy priest depends on you raid comp and the encounter. If you run with two tree druids renew spamming is a waste. COH,POM, FH on targets needing some spike heals will be a better way to go about it. The 2 piece and 4 pc bonus obviously have more use if you FH instead of renew. In fact if you choose to use only one or the other you are defeating the purpose of being a priest which is to offer versatility. Use the spells that are needed instead of worrying about topping meters. Keep the raid alive use what you have to to do so.

Keep renew on tanks, renew when your moving and can't flash. POM and COH every CD is a no brainer, unless no healing is needed atm then you can hold off on COH. POH/gh with serendipity stacks when party is low or tank might be in trouble. The point of all i have said is that there is a situation for all of our heals.

I couldn't even begin typing all the different scenarios and situations in which you would want to favor using one spell over another. I look at the holy tree and i see that it benefits me (and my raid) the most if i use FH as often as possible. SOL procs, HC, Serendipity, and now both of the tier 10 bonuses looks like to me that if i play holy the right way I can do my job and not be scraping the bottom of the meters people care so dearly about. Of course to pull it off you would have to know what your doing and not want to play easy mode priest. Renew spam is easy so most people prefer it, in some situations and raid scenarios it may be better but a priest should be able to adapt to the situation and use what is best. There is no end all be all to holy priest healing, your going to have to go with what is needed at the time.

As with dps some fights are better for one class over another, don't read too much into meters as long as your keeping your targets alive within reasonable circumstances.

I didn't add the hps meter concerns just because I like to flash my e-peen. But of course as a raid healer I like to feel I contribute to the raid success). It also clearly shows how the numbers (and thus the relative strength) of holy priest vs shaman vs druid has changed through WLK. I am still a little bit proud of my class when I see that no single spell did more than 30% of my total healing, compared to a shaman with 65%+ CH or a druid with 85% Rejuv. I know for a fact that in certain phases on some boss fights in ICC, the raid would die unless there was a healer that managed to deal with the spike damage not covered by a steady hot ticking on the entire raid.

I assume some of the number trends can be blamed the nature of the fights as well... There are few to little encounters where you can pre-cast PoH and almost use a strict rotation, like we did on Ignis in Ulduar.

I've been suspecting my raid UI being too slow to update hp bars, and have gone from XPerl to VuhDo as a part of trying to make my healer feel better again. As I suspected, I could not see any results of that on the numbers, but at least I made myself configure a new UI! I guess that's worth something...