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  1. #21
    Herald of the Titans Ynna's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Opheliac666 View Post
    You spend too much time caring about a video-game... -_- sigh.
    Seriously, we're pulling this card. You're lucky I'm not a mod, because I'd ban you for comments like that. That way you can't spend too much time caring about a video-game.
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  2. #22
    The Patient Madam's Avatar
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    @ Ynna, even though you aren't currently playing, you are still one of my all time favorite Priests, the bees knees so to say!

    OT: After thinking about Heal, gotta say I have used it in DS when DSP doesn't kill the mana void fast enough, but I run in an AA spec, if playing SoS spec, Heal would only be used if healing wasn't needed to maintain Grace. Is it a worthless heal? For the most part, yes, but still used more than Holy Nova currently.

  3. #23
    Madam:
    I'm certainly not the first to claim that Heal is useless. But I never quite understood why until I did this exercise. Thought I'd share

    Themos:
    I don't think we disagree.

    Heal is redundant in DS due to low HPS. Mana is more than lenient enough that replacing it with GHeal is never a problem.
    Took me until 4.3 to get enough gear to outgrow my mana concerns, but they are largely gone indeed.
    Heal is useless in DS as it do not fill any useful niche, even theoretical ones, since GHeal has replaced it for all purposes.

    The only place Heal was useful was at the beginning of Cata, as it is provably 12% more efficient than GHeal, and healing efficiently did matter a whole lot in the beginning. There is no denying that if you have a single target that is in need of healing, Heal will give you an edge as long as the low HPS isn't an instant killer.

    Presumably this will also hold true at the beginning of MoP, for the same reasons. I cannot conclude that Heal is useless (for Holy). I can however claim the efficiency difference between Heal and GHeal is so small that it is well within standard overhealing safety margins. I will claim that I don't see the point in keeping a separate button for this reason alone. I think the spell is boring, I find it really inefficient when comparing it to the rest of the Holy toolbox (GHeal, FHeal and PWS aside), ad I think it has been falsely marketted from blizzard as a more efficient heal than it actually is. In short, I find the spell wanting in many ways, and if we ever needed a candidate to remove from Holy, this is the spell. Reduce the cost of GHeal by 12%, and you have saved yourself from needing this spell completely.

    In MoP, all priests will have access to atonement, and if the cata relations will persist, then Atonement will completely replace Heal there as well. Once the mana levels have been somewhat settled on the Beta server, I'll re-do this experiment and we'll find out!

    As for Binding Heal, I agree completely. I didn't bother adding it to the list as I took it for a undisputed fact that BHeal was pretty darned great in every way. Guess I should have added it for completeness though. Ah well.

    Halaberiel:

    Assuming:
    - Penance is on cooldown
    - The target is already affected by weakened soul
    - Holy Fire is on cooldown
    - Renew is already applied.
    - Tank is marginally hurt, but certainly not enough to warrant a GHeal

    Then sure, Heal is your spell. But.. why not just drop a smite? Sure, it may be slightly less efficient, but you do get to do some (minor) damage which is probably far more worth than the loss of efficiency. We already concluded that the tank is not in any dangerous position, so you're basically free to do whatever you want.

    If we take Blizzards promise that tanks won't be twoshot in any raids or heroics, you will have ample time to use a GHeal in 2-3 seconds, and heal that damage way more efficiently than using two heals right now. Heal will in its defence refresh Grace, while Smite will not. That's the only difference.

    That said, I would strongly argue that Heal-Heal-Heal-Heal-Penance-PWS-Heal-Heal-Heal-Heal is the definition of boring. You can do that with one hand, while watching television. At most you need to look at the screen every 4 seconds to see that you're still doing something worthwhile.

    I do notice that I did forget the Smite managains from AA, as well as the smite glyph in my spreadsheet... that's certainly not helping Heal's case versus Atonement at all!

    zakaluka:
    Heal wasn't redundant in BoT/BWD .. for Holy (Disc used atonement). For holy, we used Heal just because mana sucked so bad that we squeezed out what efficiency we could. Heal is more efficient thatn GHeal, that's not something I will disagree with. My argument is that it's not making enough of a upside considering the spell's massive downside. The tradeoff of cutting your HPS by 3 just isn't worth the gains you get for doing so.

    Spotnick:

    For disc, this is true. For holy, it's still there, a fact I would love to change.
    Also, note this thread's big [cata] tag

    Opheliac666:
    OCD

    Vorend:
    Just like SoL, inspiration can proc more often by 3x Heal than 1x GHeal. I must admit I don't believe it will make much of a difference though, but at this point the inspiration proc is hard to model reliably.
    Last edited by Danner; 2012-04-09 at 10:36 PM.
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  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Halaberiel View Post
    You would now, but as above & also bear in mind a lot of disc priests don't even have atonement.
    Actually, I have used Smite ever since day one of Cataclysm. I usually pre-shielded, drank some mana and started to Smite as the tank pulled in my first heroics on day one. Archangel added some nice boost to healing. I did use Heal for like the first three heroics I did since I had some green gear and my mana couldn't handle anything else.

    And regarding Atonement, you mentioned you had Holy Fire on CD so I assumed you had Atonement. I am also a firm believer that anyone that hasn't used Atonement spec since T11 is playing sub optimally. Naturally, there were/are some encounters where SoS spec is better.
    Last edited by mmoc9f3c8526e6; 2012-04-09 at 11:03 PM.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Danner View Post
    Themos:
    I don't think we disagree.

    Heal is redundant in DS due to low HPS. Mana is more than lenient enough that replacing it with GHeal is never a problem.
    Took me until 4.3 to get enough gear to outgrow my mana concerns, but they are largely gone indeed.
    Heal is useless in DS as it do not fill any useful niche, even theoretical ones, since GHeal has replaced it for all purposes.

    The only place Heal was useful was at the beginning of Cata, as it is provably 12% more efficient than GHeal, and healing efficiently did matter a whole lot in the beginning. There is no denying that if you have a single target that is in need of healing, Heal will give you an edge as long as the low HPS isn't an instant killer.
    Pfft, I stopped using Heal in tier 11. It had its place in heroics when regen was ouchy.
    If I recall, I took it off my binds around 2 months after Cataclysm hit. But in those first two months, the mana efficiency between Gheal and Heal was definitely noticeable, it's a over 10% difference in efficiency. Not only that, but you're very much less likely to overheal.

    The fact of the matter was that it took a combination of both to heal in heroics back then. Little heals here and there and big heals to catch up HPS. Fheal was the devil back then, and despite Binding Heal being great HPS/HPM, it was too expensive to use with any frequency either.


    Presumably this will also hold true at the beginning of MoP, for the same reasons. I cannot conclude that Heal is useless (for Holy). I can however claim the efficiency difference between Heal and GHeal is so small that it is well within standard overhealing safety margins. I will claim that I don't see the point in keeping a separate button for this reason alone. I think the spell is boring, I find it really inefficient when comparing it to the rest of the Holy toolbox (GHeal, FHeal and PWS aside), ad I think it has been falsely marketted from blizzard as a more efficient heal than it actually is. In short, I find the spell wanting in many ways, and if we ever needed a candidate to remove from Holy, this is the spell. Reduce the cost of GHeal by 12%, and you have saved yourself from needing this spell completely.
    While I can get on the bandwagon that Holy needs to lose a few spells, MoP is adding quite bunch of new binds -- too many for my liking, cutting out Heal is a bad idea. It has its uses, especially early on in an expac it is actual vital to the healing model. Overhealing matters a ton more early expac and going to Gheal instead will just increase the likelyhood of somoene getting gibbed b/c their effective health is too low.

    It would overall make things more difficult. No thanks.

    So it's boring, who cares? We have enough fun stuff, why cant the tiny/cheap heal be just what it is?

    In MoP, all priests will have access to atonement, and if the cata relations will persist, then Atonement will completely replace Heal there as well. Once the mana levels have been somewhat settled on the Beta server, I'll re-do this experiment and we'll find out!
    I wouldn't go that far, Smite atonement healing is a random heal. If you want to top off somoene specifically tank or otherwise with a small heal, atonement is not the spell to do it. Not only that, but you're requiring using a DPS ability for an efficient tiny heal. We're not always able to DPS something.

    What happens when the only thing in range dies mid cast?
    What about PvP when you don't have LoS on a hostile target?

    It's loss of functionality, the wrong kind - imo.


    I completely agree that Holy's number of binds needs to be culled, but Heal is not the spell to do it with.

  6. #26
    Deleted
    Will admit I skipped a lot of this thread

    My main problem with heal this xpac hasn't so much been it's throughput or it's mana cost but rather how long it takes to cast...
    Had it healed half as much and had half the cast time I think I may have been more inclined to use it. It does have it's uses now and then and it's often my go-to 'spam overheal the tank because I'm on full mana and there's no damage' just on the offchance that it lands as he takes a hit and I mitigate some of that burst, it's also mildly useful for refreshing renew as holy in a 5man /shrug.
    Overall I've not really used it for 'healing' had someone actually taken damage I was more inclined to gheal as disc or fheal (for serendipity) as holy, even from cata release. Pretty much exclusively used 'heal' in 5mans and waiting around in raids.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Danner View Post
    Base problem with Heal

    Heal heals for roughly a third of GHeal, and cost roughly a third of the mana. Using these ballmarks, Heal is indeed pointless, as instead of casting 3 Heals, you can cast 1 GHeal and idle around for 5 seconds, achieving the exact same result. The only reason Heal is worthwhile is when you are hovering around 0 mana, and Heal allows you to cast that heal sooner than GHeal allows. But at that point, you're royally screwed anyway.
    This assertion is basically nonsense, for two obvious reasons --

    1) It ignores the existence of procs, stacking buffs on cast, and other such mechanics;
    2) It ignores the fact that there is a fundamental gameplay benefit to spreading throughput among multiple casts in the face of potentially less-predictable incoming damage.

    The bottom line is that if you feel for whatever reason that Heal should not be in the game, you can make it disappear all by yourself by not using it.

  8. #28
    It's not only about Priest's Heal. it is also about Druid's Nourish and Paladin's Holy Light.

    Terrible heals with bad gear when overhealing mattered a lot, was just easier to wait when tank dropped low enough to use slow and big heal. WIth better gear small heals are even more useless because in later content small heals just don't catch up with damage raining on party/raid.

    Best change would be to make Heal/Nourish/Holy Light being 1.5 sec cast heals with possibility to cast while moving. Or to make them cost 0 mana, as those heals are extremely inefficient due to inadequately long cast time, way beyond pathetic healing amount and yet greatly eating mana if you are on gearing stage.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Ferocity View Post
    Best change would be to make Heal/Nourish/Holy Light being 1.5 sec cast heals with possibility to cast while moving. Or to make them cost 0 mana, as those heals are extremely inefficient due to inadequately long cast time, way beyond pathetic healing amount and yet greatly eating mana if you are on gearing stage.
    As weak and pathetic as you think that is, the changes you suggest would be disgustingly broken in PvP.

  10. #30

  11. #31
    Mechagnome
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    Um, wait. Remove Heal from the game? Why, because it is taking up space in your sock drawer?

    I have been doing research on Heroic Spine and this Holy Priest got a server first courtesy of Heal. Not too shabby for a spell you think is useless.

    As a Disc tank healer for most of Cata I used Heal in certain situations to clear weakened soul without wasting mana to re-shield before a big damage spike. It's a utility heal, not a go-to HPS heal. I pretty much geared my Holy Priest as a fresh 85 by casting heal in 5-mans. What's a leveling Holy Priest to do if you chuck it out with your dirty socks with the holes and no match? Not level? Not get geared?

    If you want to talk useless heals remember "Lesser Heal?" It cost a shit-ton of mana and healed for, 634? Ah, memories.

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Ferocity View Post
    Terrible heals with bad gear when overhealing mattered a lot, was just easier to wait when tank dropped low enough to use slow and big heal. WIth better gear small heals are even more useless because in later content small heals just don't catch up with damage raining on party/raid.
    What sucks is Heal is just as slow as Greater Heal. I wouldn't mind Heal being only marginally better hpm than GHeal if it was at least 2.0-2.25 second base casting time, putting it between our "fast" Flash Heal and our "slow but heavy" Greater Heal.

  13. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Halaberiel View Post
    Not if you ignore AA mana gains I think?



    When did you last check? It's been there since day 1 & has never been removed... Disc don't have it, but holy still do.
    It explains it then. What the hell is the filler for disc now then? Assuming you don't glyph atonement that is.
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  14. #34
    Themos:

    I actually like my holy arsenal as it is. The only spells I really never use is ... Heal and Critter Nova. A minor mana change is all that stands between me not needing to use Heal ever again. That alone is not enough of a reason to keep it around. I still claim it needs to be more notable from GHeal. Had Heal been 50% more efficient, sure. But 12%?

    As for PVP, I haven't really considered it much. If you claim that my math is fundamentally wrong in PVP, then I would like to know why.

    Underdogba:

    The procs boils down to grace, inspiration, serenity-stance-refreshing-renew and surge of light. And the only one of these that really matter is grace. Which would have been a major deal, had not Penance already been designed to re-stack grace completely.

    I will agree that the buff got a whole lot more important ever since we gained the ability to keep it on multiple targets. I also see people vouching for the PVP-benefits from this buff. And I will have to agree - Heal has a use for maintaining grace. But honestly, if the side effect is the primary reason for keeping a spell around, then something is wrong.

    Your second [sic] argument is slightly better. A small heal has its use in a world where everyone has to be topped off immediately.
    But half the point of the Cataclysm healing model was that this wasn't supposed to be necessary. Either this model failed (and Heal along with it), or Heal is redundant. Either way, Heal has a problem.

    Darkener:
    Heal is not useless for Holy, as it is 12% more efficient that GHeal. When mana is horribly tight, like on a world first spine HC kill, or when running a green priest through a heroic for the first time, then it's going to make a difference. For Holy.
    I'm just saying the difference is very very small, and too small for my liking. If anyone managed to abuse it to a kill, more power to them. But that doesn't mean the spell itself is brilliant.

    I'm advocating for a 12% mana cost reduction on GHeal, which would allow us all for Heal to be forgotten along with Lesser Heal. Or any change to Heal making it stand out more to validate its existance. As it is right now, it's not the efficient heal it was made out to be. It's actually the fourth least efficient heal in the Holy toolbox, and always outdone in the disc toolbox.

    Spotnick:

    Greater Heal + Inner Focus combos. It's more efficient and leaves open lots of GCDs you can do other stuff.
    Last edited by Danner; 2012-04-10 at 07:27 AM.
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  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Ferocity View Post
    It's not only about Priest's Heal. it is also about Druid's Nourish and Paladin's Holy Light.

    Terrible heals with bad gear when overhealing mattered a lot, was just easier to wait when tank dropped low enough to use slow and big heal. WIth better gear small heals are even more useless because in later content small heals just don't catch up with damage raining on party/raid.

    Best change would be to make Heal/Nourish/Holy Light being 1.5 sec cast heals with possibility to cast while moving. Or to make them cost 0 mana, as those heals are extremely inefficient due to inadequately long cast time, way beyond pathetic healing amount and yet greatly eating mana if you are on gearing stage.
    Nourish and Holy Light are better as fillers, since they do other things besides heal (I can use Nourish to keep up Harmony and refresh Lifebloom during a lull, for instance).

  16. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by Danner View Post
    The procs boils down to grace, inspiration, serenity-stance-refreshing-renew and surge of light. And the only one of these that really matter is grace. Which would have been a major deal, had not Penance already been designed to re-stack grace completely.

    I will agree that the buff got a whole lot more important ever since we gained the ability to keep it on multiple targets. I also see people vouching for the PVP-benefits from this buff. And I will have to agree - Heal has a use for maintaining grace. But honestly, if the side effect is the primary reason for keeping a spell around, then something is wrong.

    Your second [sic] argument is slightly better. A small heal has its use in a world where everyone has to be topped off immediately.
    But half the point of the Cataclysm healing model was that this wasn't supposed to be necessary. Either this model failed (and Heal along with it), or Heal is redundant. Either way, Heal has a problem.
    Your response to the first point basically concedes the point, because your original presentation literally equated three small heals to one large heal with no nuance whatsoever. Regardless of whether or not you specifically believe certain mechanics related to this point are more or less important, the mere fact that you're recognizing the existence of the nuance to begin with is a vast improvement on the original presentation.

    With respect to the second point, your response could not possibly be further from the truth with regards to practical play. We've already seen the spammy healing model in parts of BC and in Wrath, and in those situations, the scenario you're describing where small efficient heals were useful did not happen whatsoever. For example, the mainstream holy pally practice was HL spam (which back then was large, slow, and expensive), and FoL spam (which was fast, small, and cheap) was a non-mainstream fringe idea. Secondly, the notion that burst damage that sometimes necessitates a quick top-off does not exist in Cata is laughable from practical experience actually healing these fights. Furthermore, the notion that the existence of these healing scenarios represents a failure of the healing model is just unreasonable, as there is nothing inconsistent with the overall Cata design if sometimes you happen to need to heal for more and quicker than usual. In fact, the existence of burst damage is central to the idea of making healing spell choices meaningful in the first place.

    What is the point of suggesting that Heal needs to be removed to begin with? If you feel that Heal is not useful and you simply don't use it, how would removing it make the gameplay better off unless there is some serious problem with the rest of the priest toolkit in either or both specs? In that case, what is that specific problem? If no such problem actually exists, then isn't this really just anal retentive and nitpicky to simply demand that Blizz remove a spell that doesn't hurt anything by simply existing?
    Last edited by underdogba; 2012-04-10 at 07:53 AM.

  17. #37
    Stood in the Fire Vashi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Halaberiel View Post
    Do you do nothing then cast greater heal when the tank finally takes damage? No you don't, you cast heal which is your lowest HPS spell with highest HPM. If you know the damage is only going to be low, you carry on casting heal, or switch to greater heal if the tank is taking enough damage for it not to overheal. The "sitting & waiting" kind of healing is a terrible way to play, I've bared the brunt of that myself as a tank & it feels horrible to feel your health slipping away when the healer could keep you topped off. It just cries laziness & I wish no one would do it, there is no excuse.
    Pretty much supporting this answer and reporting the same way I do it. I simply could not stand just shield and wait 5 seconds to tank get some damage to be ready to be healed with greater heal. I simply must do something all the times, stand and wait is as it was said laziness.
    Retired... but for how long? WAS DRAGGED TO THE LEGION HYPETRAIN!!!

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  18. #38
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    Why are you going into such detail of what is nothing more then a filler spell? It's fine and can be used when you have nothing better to do.
    Overcomplicating things is bad.

  19. #39
    Stood in the Fire Vashi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rfx View Post
    Why are you going into such detail of what is nothing more then a filler spell? It's fine and can be used when you have nothing better to do.
    Overcomplicating things is bad.
    OT: Love your avatar
    Retired... but for how long? WAS DRAGGED TO THE LEGION HYPETRAIN!!!

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  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Vashi View Post
    Pretty much supporting this answer and reporting the same way I do it. I simply could not stand just shield and wait 5 seconds to tank get some damage to be ready to be healed with greater heal. I simply must do something all the times, stand and wait is as it was said laziness.
    Or you could be precasting that Gheal?

    Maybe it's just an old habbit I retained from back when the 5 second rule was still in effect (yea.. been playing for a while) but I don't see the downside of this vs spamming heal 'just because you don't want to stand around idle'. If you're standing there doing nothing, in my book, you're doing it wrong.

    Just to clarify, this is not me advocating letting tanks drop to 50% hp before letting go of that gheal. I know from my own tanking experience that this is horrible to experience as a tank, if a healer lets you drop all the time. But my main problem with casting heal because there's nothing else to do, is that if there's a big spike of damage that you weren't expecting, you're pretty much forced to drop a FHeal after you finish casting your heal, while if you were precasting Gheal in most cases the problem is already solved by the end of your cast.

    Edit: On topic; I barely use heal at all and as others indicated, I have barely used the spell beyond the start of Cata/Tier 11. While I don't see a reason to remove it, I agree with the lack of usefulness.

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