Let's talk healer!

[Roar-Powah]

It's really early to say definitively, but I'd say you'd start with Resto Shaman (Ancestral Vigor) and Holy Paladin (Devotion Aura)

I stopped reading after Holy Pally and Devo aura, no Hpally would take Devo since it's pretty crap and it's a 20% spread over all allies within the aura.

[VigilantRose]

I stopped reading after Holy Pally and Devo aura, no Hpally would take Devo since it's pretty crap and it's a 20% spread over all allies within the aura.

Devotion Aura is the standard talent selection on that row for raids. This is largely because of Aura Mastery, since it creates the best raid cooldown Paladins have.

However, that's not the whole story. Think about where you're standing - and where you should be standing.

Chances are you're either standing at range or with the melee dps. In the first case, you'll make one Warlock very happy with a massive damage reduction buff they don't need. In the second case, you'll spread your Devotion Aura over a large number of targets (none of whom have any special need for it).

What you might try instead is standing behind the tank. Due to the size of hitboxes on raid bosses, this puts you out of range of the melee (and, of course, the ranged). So the tank is the only target within your Devotion Aura (and you're incidentally in the perfect position for Light of Dawn). Yes, this means your melee dps is crippled by frontal attacks. Yes, this means you risk cleaves. But the fact is that simply by standing in the right place, you have a no-cooldown Ironskin that lasts as long as you like.

This isn't a tactic that can be used for 100% of raids 100% of the time. But it is absolutely a tool you should be exploiting whenever possible - and it's far more potent than anything else on that talent row.

[lifebinderx]

Let's start with "what is healing in a raid environment?" first. Healing is compansating the tactical failure of your raiders during progress. Out of progress healing is just a button spam just not to get bored if your group is already good with the mechanics. So comparing holy priest with resto druid and mw monk just shows u have no idea about progress healing. Holy priest has 2 holy words so that your raiders' mistakes can be forgiven and they can be topped instantly. That is more valuable than any other thicking raid heal cd's. I wouldn't care of anyone's comments about more output and more healing done cause they are just show off guys who does not understand the logic behind healing.

Ppl can claim dps should not do mistakes but it is not valid cause they do even in top raiding guilds.

[theburned]

Let's start with "what is healing in a raid environment?" first. Healing is compansating the tactical failure of your raiders during progress. Out of progress healing is just a button spam just not to get bored if your group is already good with the mechanics. So comparing holy priest with resto druid and mw monk just shows u have no idea about progress healing. Holy priest has 2 holy words so that your raiders' mistakes can be forgiven and they can be topped instantly. That is more valuable than any other thicking raid heal cd's. I wouldn't care of anyone's comments about more output and more healing done cause they are just show off guys who does not understand the logic behind healing.

Ppl can claim dps should not do mistakes but it is not valid cause they do even in top raiding guilds.

You have never healed before have you?
First of all healing is all about keeping your raid alive and not have people die, once you get gear, both hp and more healing can be used to compensate for players not playing well enough.
For top guilds, yes they make mistakes, its mostly limited to smaller personal mistakes, while any heavier mistakes involving bigger groups to be punished, it will result in a wipe, the try is already out the window, or its prepared for by assigning a good raid cd(s).
Holy word: sanctify won't be used for this, because its a part of your rotation, and if you are sitting on it your hps will suffer and most likely be more of a risk to your group than being able to heal them quickly AFTER the mistake was made. After is a keyword here, because after the mistake is done there is a good chance that the player who got punished by the mistake is already dead. holy word:serenity is a 1 minute cooldown, a strong heal, but it most likely won't be a lot better at saving someone than the other speccs similar spells which are a bit weaker, but on a shorter cooldown.

The healing pattern in legion is quite a lot different than it has been earlier and more so allow for medium mistakes (as long as you have a decent chunk of hp.) Keeping your hp high at times where these mistakes can be made, ofc to an extent, if there is further outgoing damage you will have to get some quick spot healing onto these people, in most cases a paladin will bring the single target spot healing, while shamans have very effective healing against low health targets, and resto druids' aoe heal (WG) targets the lowest hp targets, correct me if I am wrong, but HW:sanctify targets people at random, which has no guarantee in keeping the low health targets alive.
I don't think there is any particular room to say hpriests are any better than the other classes at making up for these mistakes, unless ofc they bring more hps than similar healers.

- - - Updated - - -

Devotion Aura is the standard talent selection on that row for raids. This is largely because of Aura Mastery, since it creates the best raid cooldown Paladins have.

However, that's not the whole story. Think about where you're standing - and where you should be standing.

Chances are you're either standing at range or with the melee dps. In the first case, you'll make one Warlock very happy with a massive damage reduction buff they don't need. In the second case, you'll spread your Devotion Aura over a large number of targets (none of whom have any special need for it).

What you might try instead is standing behind the tank. Due to the size of hitboxes on raid bosses, this puts you out of range of the melee (and, of course, the ranged). So the tank is the only target within your Devotion Aura (and you're incidentally in the perfect position for Light of Dawn). Yes, this means your melee dps is crippled by frontal attacks. Yes, this means you risk cleaves. But the fact is that simply by standing in the right place, you have a no-cooldown Ironskin that lasts as long as you like.

This isn't a tactic that can be used for 100% of raids 100% of the time. But it is absolutely a tool you should be exploiting whenever possible - and it's far more potent than anything else on that talent row.

Saying any talent in that row is standard seems very weird to me, all of them have their merits, as far as a raid cd I believe Aura of Sacrifice is by far the strongest, especially if paired with DP on yourself, 10% DR + 15% healing increase + everyone affected by the aura takes 10% of the paladins healing (200% increase to your spells in a mythic raid.) while also able to do the same as you explained about devo aura, by standing close to the tank and sharing his damage. Aura of mercy looks weak to me, but I believe its the best for HPS, but feels like its the weakest raid cd, but better for overall hps, but then again pretty insignificant.
Aura of devotion though, an ok raid cd, but what makes this talent really shiny is if you are standing alone or with the tank for most of the time. The 20% DR can help out by reducing damage you take both from light of the martyr and other choices, in a group its fairly insignificant, but when focused on 1-3 players it has some good merit, even if not shown on any meters.

I'd say aura of sacrifice can definitely be one of the strongest raid cds between healers if utilized correctly, if combined with cds it can rival tranqs on sheer throughput, while still allowing you to spot heal and the extra 10% DR and 15% healing increase, it ofc has some drawbacks, and using it with other cds means you are putting all your eggs in the same basket.

[Stambot]

holy word:serenity is a 1 minute cooldown, a strong heal, but it most likely won't be a lot better at saving someone than the other speccs similar spells which are a bit weaker, but on a shorter cooldown.

I'm not here to comment on anything else you said, but Holy Word:Serenity is at worst a 1 minute cooldown. The Holy Priest Serendipity mechanic reduces the cooldown based on casting other spells (Flash Heal or Binding Heal in the case of Serenity). With some talent choices it is possible to push this spell out on every 4th or 5th cast. Holy Word:Sancitfy is similar for AoE healing (Prayer of Healing or Binding Heal reduce the cooldown here). Between these two spells, Holy Priests have a strong ability to convert mana into HPS on demand, and the cooldown reduction is a central part of the Holy Priest play style.

Just wanted to clear up how those cooldowns work, because the tooltip alone would be misleading.

[theburned]

I'm not here to comment on anything else you said, but Holy Word:Serenity is at worst a 1 minute cooldown. The Holy Priest Serendipity mechanic reduces the cooldown based on casting other spells (Flash Heal or Binding Heal in the case of Serenity). With some talent choices it is possible to push this spell out on every 4th or 5th cast. Holy Word:Sancitfy is similar for AoE healing (Prayer of Healing or Binding Heal reduce the cooldown here). Between these two spells, Holy Priests have a strong ability to convert mana into HPS on demand, and the cooldown reduction is a central part of the Holy Priest play style.

Just wanted to clear up how those cooldowns work, because the tooltip alone would be misleading.

While I do not believe it is largely relevant for my main point though, I am very grateful for this information on HW:serenity, as it means with some talent choices our holy priest can push out some good spot healing (which we might need, considering that we have no hpala.) As for sanctify, my understanding is that this would be incredibly mana intensive, so this would very often mean that they are oom a bit further into the fight.

[lifebinderx]

You have never healed before have you?

Waste of time to reply this attitude but just to make sure other ppl are not affected by your opinions, I repeat "healing is not keeping your raid alive" during progress. I mean while you try to down a mythic boss first time. Cause any healer can keep a raid alive. I am talking about the mechanics which allow you to keep ppl alive when they do crucial mistakes. Criterias are as below

Cast time of the spell : Instant is prefered cause half a second can be crucial
Amount of healing done: Bigger ones are preferred cause more healing means the guys can stay alive longer after the mistake.

Just show me any instant cast spells which do more healing than holy priest holy words and I will go dumb to discuss MW monk and resto druid are alternates for a holy priest.

Resto druid has great output in total and I dont say anything negative. Tranq is the best output CD. Both dudu and MW have talents to specificly heal tanks which holy priest does not have and yeah that is a negative point. I am just against the idea of "bring this or that healer instead of a holy priest" statement is just an indication of "I comment about things that I dont know". I insist that holy priest is the best healer in terms of forgiving individual mistakes of your raid members.

[Unir]

This may be one of the most bizarre healing conversations I have ever read - so much misinformation and very strange opinions.

I can only wonder if a lot of the people commenting here either a) do not raid at the mythic level (which is perfectly fine, but it skews perspective a lot), and/or b) have never played most of the classes they are commenting about.

Aura of sacrifice is the best paladin aura? Devotion aura is good not because of the 20% raid-wide 8-second DR, but because you can safely stand within 10 yards of and behind your tank to share the aura with them?

The strength of a healer is to be measured by their ability to clean up after a player's major mistake, and not by their ability to keep the raid alive? Holy priests are going to be sitting on their holy words to wait for such a mistake, and this makes them strong?

It's like the twilight zone in here.

Edit: To stay on topic, what I am seeing most discussions contemplate as a comp is RDruid, RShaman, HPaly + HPriest or MW, season with Disc Priest to taste.

[ItsTiddles]

Plot twist: everyone is right and wrong.

Is it a healer's job to keep the raid alive? Yes. Is it a healer's duty to clean up someone else's mistake? For the most part, yes. The good thing about healers is the fact that there are a variety of options. Some healer specs may be weak in one, but excel in another. Luckily in raid environments, you have more than one healer so you have options. Different healers heal different and different people play those healers differently.

[Kristoffersin]

This may be one of the most bizarre healing conversations I have ever read

Nailed it.

RDruid, RShaman, HPaly + HPriest or MW, season with Disc Priest to taste.

But everyone should really just be a Resto Druid in the end. #MasterRace




-Hux


P.S.- Somethingsomething bring the player, not the class somethingsomething...

[theburned]

Aura of sacrifice is the best paladin aura? Devotion aura is good not because of the 20% raid-wide 8-second DR, but because you can safely stand within 10 yards of and behind your tank to share the aura with them?

The strength of a healer is to be measured by their ability to clean up after a player's major mistake, and not by their ability to keep the raid alive? Holy priests are going to be sitting on their holy words to wait for such a mistake, and this makes them strong?

I dont think anyone states aura of sacrifice is the best paladin aura, I was pretty clear to say that all have their merits, but I said it was possibly the strongest raid cd, but comes with quite a few drawbacks if you want to use it to max potential. Devotion aura is good both because its a solid raid cd, but the talent itself needs to take advantage of the passive DR, because a well used aura of sacrifice can easily be more useful.

Sitting on spells to wait for mistakes is beyond me, but to me it really looks like what lifebinder wants to do.

Waste of time to reply this attitude but just to make sure other ppl are not affected by your opinions, I repeat "healing is not keeping your raid alive" during progress. I mean while you try to down a mythic boss first time. Cause any healer can keep a raid alive. I am talking about the mechanics which allow you to keep ppl alive when they do crucial mistakes. Criterias are as below

Cast time of the spell : Instant is prefered cause half a second can be crucial
Amount of healing done: Bigger ones are preferred cause more healing means the guys can stay alive longer after the mistake.

Just show me any instant cast spells which do more healing than holy priest holy words and I will go dumb to discuss MW monk and resto druid are alternates for a holy priest.

Resto druid has great output in total and I dont say anything negative. Tranq is the best output CD. Both dudu and MW have talents to specificly heal tanks which holy priest does not have and yeah that is a negative point. I am just against the idea of "bring this or that healer instead of a holy priest" statement is just an indication of "I comment about things that I dont know". I insist that holy priest is the best healer in terms of forgiving individual mistakes of your raid members.

Tell us then, who's job is it to keep the raid alive? the tanks? or do you expect all raiders to have 30% leech to keep themself alive? Your statement that healers "only fix mistakes of other people" is a pretty heavy indicator that you are not a healer.

Being instant cast and doing good healing is good and all, but it does not make the all that much better at saving people after mistakes if the targetting is random, a fairly long cooldown (even if reduced by spells.) When you compete with either class or spell mechanics which have an easier time dealing with low health targets, smart heals are way better because it gets healing out to the ones who need them, shamans are good because of the nature of their mastery buffing up healing towards low health targets by a heavy amount and paladins have both their holy shock and light of the martyr to save low health targets.
Then we also have the availability of the spell, Holy word: sanctify should always be on cooldown, or ofc if there is not enough damage to warrant a use saved for the next damage spike, this is something very other few healers.

And to be clear I am not saying holy priests are really bad, but if their HPS doesn't keep up with other healers their utility and raid cd is not all that much better than what a resto druid can bring to the table, then taking a good resto druid over a mediocre holy priest is easily preferable.

More ontopic: In the end we are not guaranteed that the numbers are final either so the utility classes bring becomes a lot more important, something which MW lacks, but if they make up for what they lack in utility by having stronger throughput that is okay, but if they aren't why would you bring them.

[Kharizzma]

This entire thread got off track and into how holy priest are bad and about a video that is uselessly full of personal views with no real data to back it up. It seems no one cares about facts or taking the time to look at the vast amount of information available if they did they will see each class will bring something to the raid.Blizzard has vastly evened the playing field in legion you are not as penalized for having one class over another in a raid.

Will some classes be stronger? Yes just like every expansion from day one, but to the questions is there one master healing comp? No guilds from the start of the game have had a mix and killed bosses and they will keep doing so.

Any progression guild understands that making someone change to a class that is the “BEST” is going to backfire, because ultimately it is not the class that is going to be the finale winning factor in a boss fight, it is the person playing it, if they do not know what they are doing they are going to be useless regardless of what is believed to be the best Aura to use ( I agree with Unir but I do not play a pally so honestly what do I know),or how they use their Holy:Words and if they listen to most of this thread they will be useless. ( Side note I hope no Holy Priest are holding on to their Holy:Words until someone is at 20%. this is going to vastly dimish your healing and they are a part of the Holy rotation)

Out healing comp will be Hpriest, Hpally Rdruid and Rshaman and a MW who will rotate healing and dps. Will we make one change to be what is suppose to be best? Nope and we will still kill every boss on each difficulty just like we have ever expansion because we bring good players who enjoy what they play and make the most out of their class.