WoD, Rise of the Holy priest

[Mormolyce]

Funny, GC leaves WoW and suddenly his spec gets buffed.

The irony will be noticed by precisely nobody.

[Danner]

My renew only ticks 3 times for christs sake, you can hardly call it a HoT. I think I'd miss it less than I feel I should.

<joke>
Don't worry, due to Blizzard optimizing server performance, Renew will only tick twice in WoD.
</joke>

(http://wowpedia.org/Echo_of_Light)

[Deleted]

I'm a huge holy fanboi - I love the playstyle outside of chakra and honestly... I could live without renew.

I mean it's really nice to have, it's almost iconic of the spec especially if you played precata. But recently it kind of feels more like a mini buff you put on people than any meaningful healing. My renew only ticks 3 times for christs sake, you can hardly call it a HoT. I think I'd miss it less than I feel I should.

Are you playing 10 or 25 man ? Because in 10 man, the renew refreshing (Spirit, crit, haste) playstyle is very potent and I personnaly find it the most interesting (I mean for MOP). I'd argue that it currently requires a lot more skill than any other healing playstyle.

But then again, its not very useful in 25 man (or stacked fights in 10 also) so renew could indeed be removed in WOD (because 20 man...).
It's still sad because being able to throw hots is part of holy's *niche* (holy's always been the healer with the widest healing toolkit). Well that's my POV anyway.

[Nasirah]

Well the current 10 man sereity style will definitely not be usable in a 20 man environment, but renew refreshing still can be really potent outside that playstyle, especially in a triage environment where we won't necessarily need to react with AoE healing. It really entirely depends on how they choose to design encounters. Currently it's just massive amounts of smart and AoE heals if the need for those is gone, slower more efficient raidwide healing can easily be achieved with a combination of level 90, PoM, CoH, refreshed and unrefreshed renews, and single target heals. In a triage environment I see sanctuary chakra being overkill in most encounters since PoH won't be warranted or at all efficient and just because you can't keep renew rolling on virtually everyone all the time doesn't mean it's useless, it's potentially more interesting actually imo, choosing on whom and when it's refreshed. I see really great potential for renew and I hope Blizzard does too, the cascade refresh we have now probably wasn't intended in the first place and it's stuck around since it was really an ingenious and nongambreaking use of the class mechanic. Holy really has the potential to be the most versatile healer in the game and with some iteration on the current renew and it's interaction with chakras could provide holy the ability to be decently mobile at the expense of single target healing, or something to that effect making holy *almost* function like a resto druid which would be a good thing. Druids could easily become the best mobile healer by a long shot and that would only serve to unbalance them in particular circumstances.

[Deleted]

I really hope we're going to see the situation you just described in WOD. Only thing I could see stopping this playstyle is charkra's current implementation. -25% to L90 talents and aoe spells in serenity seems too restrictive imo. I'm getting eager to hear from devs about chakra's changes.

[Nasirah]

Chakras are... interesting.... I usually avoid discussions about the mechanic, I'm not entirely sure where I stand on the matter. On one hand they are the basis for the potential versatility, on the other, they border on being clunky. I think part of the problem is not necessarily in the mechanic itself but the overall healing dynamic of the game. They act as an intelligent planning mechanic in an environment where there's not really a purpose for that type of healing. The encounters don't really have clear cut situations that last long enough to make swapping midfight viable coupled with the prevalence of quick and efficient smart heals where the benefits that chakra could provide are masked by other healers. Iron Juggernaut is the style of encounter where chakra SHOULD shine, this encounter in specific though fails since you're unable to stack up during the aura phase, but if you could, you could easily and clearly see when to swap chakras, from the random damage on 3-4 people and tanks in P1, to the raidwide heavy pulsing aura damage on the entire raid in P2. But, alas, this is but one type of encounter and it's not feasible to ask that all encounters be designed to facilitate chakra. Again, I really don't know, with holy priests being the only healers with this type of mechanic, encounters with it in mind aren't expected, or else we could end up in a situation like MoPs first tier with spirit shell and disc, virtually every fight seemed to be designed with it in mind.

[Deleted]

Well, I personnaly kinda like chakra. At least, I think there should be a counter mechanism preventing Holy priest from being too strong. I know it's kinda laughable in the current context but the theory beneath chakra is understandable. the only problem I have with it is that it's sometimes counterintuitive. For example, thok 10 man. If you wanna push P1, you'll have to only use instant (or less than 2s cast time spell at least) at some point. sanctuary with renew + binding heal + instant flash heals while pom is rolling seems perfect for that purpose. But the throughput you'll lose when using divine star + CoH seems too important, so I stay in aoe chakra. I didn't bother to do the maths so maybe I'm wrong and sancutuary would actually be better but I just want to illustrate that the fear of losing throughput can keep a holy priest from using interesting mecanics that synergises together extremely well.
I'm not advocating the complete removal of chakra but I think they could tweak it a bit so that actually changing stance will not be considered a burden but a interesting mechanic to play with.

[Nasirah]

Well, I personnaly kinda like chakra. At least, I think there should be a counter mechanism preventing Holy priest from being too strong. I know it's kinda laughable in the current context but the theory beneath chakra is understandable. the only problem I have with it is that it's sometimes counterintuitive. For example, thok 10 man. If you wanna push P1, you'll have to only use instant (or less than 2s cast time spell at least) at some point. sanctuary with renew + binding heal + instant flash heals while pom is rolling seems perfect for that purpose. But the throughput you'll lose when using divine star + CoH seems too important, so I stay in aoe chakra. I didn't bother to do the maths so maybe I'm wrong and sancutuary would actually be better but I just want to illustrate that the fear of losing throughput can keep a holy priest from using interesting mecanics that synergises together extremely well.
I'm not advocating the complete removal of chakra but I think they could tweak it a bit so that actually changing stance will not be considered a burden but a interesting mechanic to play with.

I don't know and I could be wrong since I don't keep up with 10 mans much, but I would assume that for H Thok, Chakra:Sanctuary (this is the AoE chakra, you could have just messed up your terms, I'm terrible with words on the internet as well) would be the better choice since the majority of the time that healing matters using Cascade simply to refresh renews seems dubious, and Cascade is really fundamental to using Chakra:Serenity to AoE heal. I would assume the stronger DS, PoM, and CoH coupled with Sanctuary and non glyphed renews when everything is on CD would better suit the screech damage, never mind if you have a pally or 2 and are able to get a stronger Divine Hymn out and potentially some PoHs. Again, I'm not 100% but I'd assume that using Cascade simply to refresh renews and forgoing the great majority of the healing it does in a spread out atmosphere just couldn't compete with Divine Star.

As for the counterintuitive part, it's only really counterintuitive in that specific example because we're already using Chakra:Serenity counterintuitively in the first place this expansion. We're (not me, but 10 man holy priests) are using Serenity to more efficiently heal AoE situations when the intent behind the chakra is to emphasize our single target healing.

But I agree with your underlying message, I imagine it does seem fairly punishing being locked into a 30 second "stance" in a 10 man atmosphere, especially since serenity is currently so powerful and making the decision to swap to sanctuary can't really be done lightly.

Perhaps I'm the minority, but I preferred chakra in it's earilest incarnations as to what it is now. I preferred the more dynamic changes in chakras via what you casted as opposed to clicking the stance itself. Perhaps if the default was no chakra then casting say, Gheal would swap you into serenity for 10 seconds, if you kept casting maybe renew or single target heals you maintained that buff, if you casted say a PoH or CoH perhaps you reverted to the default non chakra then on casting a second PoH you entered sanctuary, PoM could potentially not have any effect on your chakra at all. Rather than a 30 second CD on Chakras you could more fluidly swap with a small ramp up time. Perhaps if the bonus to being in a chakra wasn't neccesarily +25% healing but something like +25% crit chance to single target heailng and +25% haste to AoE spells respectively it wouldn't feel as punishing with all spells hitting for the same amount all the time. That's just top of my head thoughts and I'm sure there's flaws in it no doubt, but I think it's so punishing atm because its locked behind a 30 second CD and it changes the potency of half of your toolbox.

[Thirteen]

I'm a huge holy fanboi - I love the playstyle outside of chakra and honestly... I could live without renew.

I mean it's really nice to have, it's almost iconic of the spec especially if you played precata. But recently it kind of feels more like a mini buff you put on people than any meaningful healing. My renew only ticks 3 times for christs sake, you can hardly call it a HoT. I think I'd miss it less than I feel I should.

Renew definitely needs a buff. I love having the spell, just as much as Prayer of Mending. But it sucks that it's just hardly worth casting anymore, outside of the proving grounds.

[Adinora]

Renew definitely needs a buff. I love having the spell, just as much as Prayer of Mending. But it sucks that it's just hardly worth casting anymore, outside of the proving grounds.

I think renew is pretty good in 10 man. I mean... as good as holy is capable of right now, anyway.

[Nightstorm]

Chakra is no buff, it is a restriction. Trying only AOE healing in serenity or only single target healing in Sanctuary. Your healing will be really bad, the truth is we have to single target heal and AOE in the same encounter. Even when using the proper Chakra for the heals we mainly use we are par to sub par as far as meters are concerned (Which is also what concerns 90% of the guilds out there).

I love the idea of these new changes but why does it take blizzard years to fix an issue everyone else knows about from the get go?

[Deleted]

<joke>
Don't worry, due to Blizzard optimizing server performance, Renew will only tick twice in WoD.
</joke>

(http://wowpedia.org/Echo_of_Light)

Now I have a sticky keyboard :<


... cos I just spat my drink all over it!


To the other replies; indeed I havn't played holy in 10man; 25hc and 20+flex only.

[Adinora]

I love the idea of these new changes but why does it take blizzard years to fix an issue everyone else knows about from the get go?

Right? I couldn't agree more. Holy has been in the pooper for a while and disc has been dominating (as much as I try to avoid looking at meters and logs, it's like trying to look away from a car crash...) and I just don't see how they could let that go for so long.

[Deleted]

Right? I couldn't agree more. Holy has been in the pooper for a while and disc has been dominating (as much as I try to avoid looking at meters and logs, it's like trying to look away from a car crash...) and I just don't see how they could let that go for so long.

Because fundamentally the specs are ok but the overall healing model in the game is just completely out of whack regarding absorbs. Whilst they probably could have butchered the specs to make them better this xpac, from their PoV they already had WoD in mind and would rather throw resources at that.
Obviously assumptions (and a little hope) on my part.

[Adinora]

Because fundamentally the specs are ok but the overall healing model in the game is just completely out of whack regarding absorbs. Whilst they probably could have butchered the specs to make them better this xpac, from their PoV they already had WoD in mind and would rather throw resources at that.
Obviously assumptions (and a little hope) on my part.

Absorbs aside, holy is under performing compared to most (if not all) other healing classes. It's unfortunate that they seem to have no plans to fix that until WoD, and even then, who knows what will really happen.

[Deleted]

Absorbs aside, holy is under performing compared to most (if not all) other healing classes. It's unfortunate that they seem to have no plans to fix that until WoD, and even then, who knows what will really happen.

I know I'm probably in a minority here, but I disagree holy is underperforming. I think it can hold it's own against the other healers (other than disc). The reasons it appears to underperform I believe to be 2 fold;
1) Sniping. Holy is one of the worst healers at landing heals before other healers in low damage phases. It doesn't 'matter' but it drops it on meters.
2) Population. Most holy priests especially at the competetive level are playing disc, just take a browse through warcraftlogs and you'll notice there are VERY few holy priests logging at the top level (you could probably get a top100 rank on say paragons hc by standing afk the whole fight). If many of the top ranking disc priests were to run holy the average for holy would rise considerably on sites like raidbots etc.

I'm not saying holy does't have problems, but it's really not a bad spec. In the same way that demo locks aren't bad - they're just hugely overshadowed by destruction and affliction

[flyspyro]

Chakra is no buff, it is a restriction. Trying only AOE healing in serenity or only single target healing in Sanctuary. Your healing will be really bad, the truth is we have to single target heal and AOE in the same encounter. Even when using the proper Chakra for the heals we mainly use we are par to sub par as far as meters are concerned (Which is also what concerns 90% of the guilds out there).

I love the idea of these new changes but why does it take blizzard years to fix an issue everyone else knows about from the get go?

I don't think the changes are going to make holy any better.
1. every xpac they have made disc more viable in raids(more bosses work better with a disc)
2. holy is good when there is high damg fights, so if we are not going to have fights where we need to bring people to full health then how is it going to compete with the healers?

since when has holy ever been the top spec for healer priests? there is a reason why everyone goes disc. if you look at raidbots you'll see holy at the bottom just like every other xpac. at this point i'm done hoping. I feel like i've been forced into disc when i love playing holy so much. it's sad.

[Kempix]

Holy for me is the most involved playstyle of healer and it just feels great except as people have mentioned the chakra. But even with it, its still a class i cant wait to re-pick in WOD since my priest is getting dusty...

[Adinora]

Holy for me is the most involved playstyle of healer and it just feels great except as people have mentioned the chakra. But even with it, its still a class i cant wait to re-pick in WOD since my priest is getting dusty...

So you aren't currently playing a priest? Lucky. It's so irritating that if I want to heal well right now I pretty much have to go disc for progression (or at least I feel immense pressure to.)

[Deleted]

I really hope holy is at least at the same level of usefulness as disc in WoD - would be so nice to play it again without feeling like I'm gimping my raids performance by not being discipline. There again I say that every tier/expansion >_>

The only way Holy Priests will be viable is with massive nerfs to disc.

Most bosses that matter in mythic raiding will probably see 4 healers(or less...), there is no way 2 of them are priests(unless 1 priest spec is insanely overpowered in which case you might use 2 of that spec). And Disc>Holy at a mechanic level.