5.1 Chastise

[Gamdwelf]

Anybody else notice the changes to Chastise chakra in 5.1? Those are some major buffs to holy's damage output, been checking the priest forums since those changes came out but nobody was talking about it so I made a thread.

Smite spec anyone?

[Danner]

The smite spec works pretty well in dungeons and even some LFR fights right now.

Just pick up FDCL, enter Chakra:Chastise and optionally equip the Holy Fire and/or Smite glyphs... and smite away, using the FDCL procs to heal as necessary. You won't be doing good DPS though, nor will you be doing even acceptable HPS. But it's the way forward if you are in a rush. I'd claim it would be good for Challenge dungeons, but none of my guildies want healers in those so I wouldn't know.

Chakra:Chastise is IMO the only really good chakra stance. It's for priests that want to quest or do offensive damage. The tradeoff of getting DPS for HPS at the push of a button, and the mana efficiency to pull this off without OOMing before most common mobs die, actually works. It's a great stance, and I totally approve of it.

Its main downside is that Holy Word: Chastise (the spell) is utterly useless in most PVE situations.
- It's doing far less damage than all other attack spells, meaning you never want to cast it for the damage
- Every single mob with more than 400k HP is immune to the disorient effect, meaning you can never use it to interrupt anything worth mentioning.
Concluding: the spell is useless outside of PVP.

The other two chakra stances need to die horribly in a fire. Choosing between being a good aoe healer or a barely-adequate tank healer just ain't an interesting choice. The 5.1 buffs just highlight this issue further. Merge them into one stance, and make the third stance related to survival or something. Or just kill it. I like the kill option.

[Mooji]

Yeah I'm going to agree with Danner about chakra. I used to LOVE healing as a holy priest back in BC and WotLK. The priest felt like the jack of all trades and was sufficient at aoe healing but still had enough tank healing to be good in any situation, but then chakra comes along and...not so fun anymore :/ But I've also never been a fan of poh spam. I used to enjoy having the option to use PoH, but renew actually being a viable aoe healing option.

[ultimar235]

Holy does good damage don't let people fool you into thinking it's weaker than Disc.

Can't seem to get addons for PTR but some raw numbers with 22.5k spell power on dummy no other outside buffs:
SW:P = 10,937 instant, 76,559 over 18 secs
Smite = 32,763 raw, 44,730 with 5 stacks evangelism, 47,287 with 5 stacks and holy fire glyph
Holy fire = 39,596 and 9208 over 6 secs raw, 47,515 and 11,250 over 6 secs with 5 stacks.

You don't really need a meter to prove that if you were in a phase where you needed to push the boss or kill adds quick then Chastise Chakra is very viable.

I'm actually looking very forward to the change!

[Darkener]

I'm concerned about the Chastise change in 5.1. It seems like Blizzard is only gearing it toward damage (solo) and not utility in either pvp or pve. Now when you enter Chastise in either pvp or pve you are giving up a 25% buff to heals, not just a 15% buff, something a little harder to swallow. I really enjoyed testing Chastise in pvp with FDCL as it worked well for an offensive healer who put damage pressure out with also some healing. Losing 15% on the healing side didn't really sting that much. Losing 25% may force us to have to switch stances rather than stay in Chastise.

What they really need to do to make Chastise an interesting option is to modify the Holy Word: Chastise spell, either baseline or through a glyph, to add a damage-to-healing component. Maybe when you Chastise a target you get a 20-30sec buff that allows your HF and Smite to heal a nearby target, or for the next 15 seconds all damage is distributed as an aoe heal sort of like VE. I find it funny that Holy is now the only Priest spec that can't turn damage into heals.

[HPLathus]

Of all the things to worry about for priests, you guys are worrying about DPS as holy??


Really...?

[Danner]

Are we worrying about DPS as holy?
It seems to me like an opportunity, not a worry.

As a Hpriest:
- Serious PVP is barred due to heavy squishiness
- Challenge modes is barred due to no healers wanted
- Questing is very limited since smite-spamming though all dailies take 8+ hours.

... except the last point is not true due to Chakra:Chastise.
I'll take the buffs I can, awaiting the utopian future state where all content is open to all specs.
Chakra: Chastise opens a door for me. I'm happy to have it, and happy that it will be buffed.

What I hate is the other Chakra states. That's not worrying about DPS. That's worrying about chakra.

[Izenhart]

Smite spec anyone?

You have atonement? No.

Then you don't DPS.

[Gamdwelf]

You have atonement? No.

Then you don't DPS.

My priest is disc/holy disc is my heal spec, holy is gonna be my dps spec.

[Darkener]

Of all the things to worry about for priests, you guys are worrying about DPS as holy??


Really...?

Actually I don't recall any discussion anywhere by any Holy Priest, here or on the official forums, asking for more dps as a Holy Priest. Yet for some reason, without any Paladin-like QQ campaign, Blizzard decided to significantly increase the dps output of the Holy Priest-specific Chakra Chastise ability in 5.1. From 15% to 50%. That's a pretty significant increase, and what we are discussing here are the implications of that change (and perhaps why they did it).

So far, Danner doesn't think it has anything to do with Challenge modes since healers aren't taken at all in his guild. Gamdwelf thinks this may be a big boost for the Smite spec, which is a Holy Priest taking a talent (FDCL) which has a 15% chance to turn a smite into a free Flash Heal. For a Holy Priest, Smite in our dps stance is very cheap and is getting even cheaper in 5.1.

Essentially, FDCL is the ONLY way a Holy Priest can turn dps into healing, and still it isn't a true damage-to-heal since the smite doesn't actually do any healing by itself, you have to cast a heal that procs from a smite. But it doesn't scale at all with our dps output. It essentially only scales with haste since the faster we smite the faster we get free Flash Heals. So is this Chastise change a boost to this Smite spec? Only on the dps side, not on the healing side. If Blizzard made our Smites 50% faster instead of 50% stronger then yes, the added haste would increase the proc rate of flash heals, though we currently only get 2 stacks so there would be a lot of wasted procs unless we stop dps to heal every time it procs and there may not be any healing needed at that moment.

I think the change is to help with dailies, if God sends Blizzard employees to hell I hope they would be forced to do dailies as a healer. Every single one every single day, that's torture.

[Danner]

In historical fairness, I did QQ about smite back in early cataclysm. My gripe was actually not about damage, but the fact that my mana bar went down faster than the mob HP bar, while smiting. This made it impossible to solo most "boss" quest mobs. But that's ages ago. The Chakra:Chastise change to reduce smite costs sort of eliminated that problem. I really don't mind spending 3x as long killing stuff as a healing spec. I just want it to be possible.

And I expect to be gaining some benefit in return for that loss of efficiency. That means things like being able to outheal one enemy dpser, being able to outheal most quest boss mobs, being able to outheal 3-4 regular mobs and such. It's the tradeoff you get for being a healing spec. It's verifiably less efficient, but that's the tradeoff. I'm not sure I have that full tradeoff anymore, so buffing the DPS seems not totally unfair. Unless you are a disc priest.

I agree with Darkener's analysis here. This change is to buff hpriest questing.