So do you think Holy will get/be better with Legion?

[Djriff]

Well at least with Legion we'll have separate talents for each spec so that will allow balancing on that scale. It wouldn't be to difficult to reduce the healing/damage of certain spells in PvP either as they already do that now.

[MyHunterUsesKalashnikovs]

Over View: I would like to see chakras become more important. Have their effects be much more prominent and specific to a role. Remove renew blanketing, it infringes on druids to much and is counter productive to our mastery.

Changes:
Renew - Now has a 2 second cooldown. This will outright prevent large scale blanketing, and help define it as a single target heal, not an AoE substitute.

Heal - Reduce the cast time to 2 seconds. I don't think this will effect the usefulness of Flash Heal, since Flash Heal will create serendipity procs.

Chakra: Sanctuary - Increase the Healing of Prayer of Healing, Clarity of Purpose, Circle of Healing, Prayer of Mending, and Binding Heal by 10%. Each cast of Prayer of Healing and Clarity of Purpose reduce the cooldown of Circle of Healing. Light Well can heal a target every 0.5 seconds.

Holy Word: Sanctuary - When prayer of mending heals a target inside Holy Word: Sanctuary, they are healed for 15% more.

Chakra: Serenity - Increase the Healing of Renew, Heal, Flash Heal and Power Word: shield by 10%. Light Well prioritizes players in a Tank Specialization over those in a Damage or Healing specialization.

Holy Word: Serenity - Remove current Crit bonus. If the target has Renew on them, it instantly heals them for the full duration's value and is reapplied. If the target has Prayer of Mending on them, it triggers the heal and increases it by 15%. Both effects can be triggered at the same time.

[Kilee25]

I'm inclined to agree with you at least partially when thinking about the holy priest class trinket. Whoever designed that trinket should be barred from ever designing another trinket ever again.

As someone who used to be a holy priest, I actually kind of understand what the point of the trinket was. I have not really healed since BC, and so when I picked up Holy a few weeks ago and went to a few 5-mans, the very first thought I had was that Greater Heal had been removed from the game. Previously, this was a staple spell for me while tank healing or in 5-mans. I realize that the game has changed, but there's not really a decent spell in our toolbook for filling a healthbar that is going down. Basically you just have flash heal, and you have to keep spamming it until your target is full. I'm surprised that there's not really an alternative spell in our toolkit to quickly heal a large pool of health in a relatively short time. No spell is really adequate for what used to exist in expansions past. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I see the class trinket as giving us Greater Heal back. The trick to using it would be to stack a very, very large amount of haste, and then using superior mana regen and the trinket from Socrethar, develop a play style built around spamming "Greater Heal" across the raid. It would be a change in traditional healing tactics, but I'd be curious to see what would happen if it were used in an environment where you were lacking other healer balance (in other words in a group where it were allowed to actually heal instead of overheal). All Holy priests say they do not use Heal at all, this is because it's basically just a slower, cheaper version of flash heal, so it's HPS is quite bad compared to the other spells. The trinket turns heal into a better HPS spell. If it does more healing than Flash Heal, and you can gather enough haste to make it easier to straight cast, I wonder if there would be a point where it would start being useful.

This is of course all theoretical, and I'm not saying it works. I'm only saying that from my perspective, that was the intended goal of the trinket. You can debate over whether or not that was a failure, or whether anyone even wanted it. But at least, imo, there was at least some logic behind it, however flawed or misguided.

[Djriff]

The problem is the gain you get from using "greater heal" isn't offset by the trinket. The increased mana cost/cast time is meh because of serendipity but you can make your normal heal more beefy by just running an int trinket in its spot without the mana/cast time trade off. A holy priest has several ways to get a health bar back up fast, HW: Serenity -> FH -> FH -> Heal works great for that purpose. You can even use PoH instead of heal since your HW and 2 FH's will bring the target up (alternatively us BH x2 if there is AoE damage) and still benefit from it. FH has always been a better heal (it was slightly below Greater Heal in MoP) and will provide more HPS for the trade off of more mana consumption. Again, the fact that I am essentially losing 2 GCD's to cast heal with RoW (without serendipity) doesn't do it for me. There's also the fact that with the bursty style of damage that is still prevalent in raids/dungeons this trinket doesn't shine like it should.

[Myllior]

All Holy priests say they do not use Heal at all, this is because it's basically just a slower, cheaper version of flash heal, so it's HPS is quite bad compared to the other spells. The trinket turns heal into a better HPS spell. If it does more healing than Flash Heal, and you can gather enough haste to make it easier to straight cast, I wonder if there would be a point where it would start being useful.

At 20% Haste and 20% Mastery with Mythic RoW equipped, the raw HPET of Renew and Heal are practically equal. The Heal does consume 20% less mana in a given time period (reduces to ~11.15% with a Mythic Phylactery equipped) and has the (possible) advantage of delivering the majority of its healing sooner than a Renew, however it is a significant mobility loss and, due to the cast time increase, interacts negatively with the passive benefits of both Chakras, if it even worked with Serenity in the first place. Of course, RoW does allow Heal to benefit more from Serendipity, but if you're depending on a large amount of Haste to pump out RoW Heals, there's a lot to be said for Renew refreshing in Chakra: Serenity instead.

Personally, I think a more attractive option for the trinket would have been to not increase the cast time and reduce the healing increase to be equal to the mana increase, rather than double, in addition to removing the restraint of needing to be in Chakra: Sanctuary. This would have moved Heal into a higher throughput and lower efficiency option, more like what I would expect a Greater Heal to be.

[l33t]

I will agree to disagree then. I actually really do think that Blizzard intentionally imbalances the classes a little bit, tuning them up or down based on internal data. Sometimes, an incentive to play one class over another. Sometimes just to give players something to talk about.

Maybe. Although, since Disc is wildly owerpowered since Cata, I think it is finally time to nerf that spec to oblivion and let Holy rock for at least one expansion, again

[Merope]

I think it would be cool if Lightwell was merged with Holy Word: Sanctuary. For the duration it spewed out healing globs and maybe put a HoT on people who have PoM. OR make it like a mage's prismatic crystal.

[Djriff]

OR make it like a mage's prismatic crystal.

This would be awesome, however traditionally Holy Priests excel at spread aoe healing, so this would go against the niche.

[lifegutter]

So do you think Holy will get/be better with Legion?

Perhaps, but what I'm hoping for is better class balance in general, not just for holy priests.

[Latok]

Perhaps, but what I'm hoping for is better class balance in general, not just for holy priests.

I like that too, but I hope class balance does not mean class homogenization and them lost of class identity.

Holy need to be change, but I hope that blizzard don't make all the healers "the same"

[Rici]

Holy need to be change, but I hope that blizzard don't make all the healers "the same"

As some already stated here: I don't want Holy to be changed. The play style is pure fun! The numbers need to be adjusted. And things like this "You (aka players with your spec) have to wear old equipment cause of mandatory set bonus" should go to hell...

[nobodysbaby]

Holy is an excellent spec, they really have spells for every occasions and have a high skill cap. It's just a matter of small tweaking and turning Sanctuary (for example) into something useful, our second CD. Utility they call it That would do it for me. I'm even a fan of PoH, because you need to do active choices and it gives a sense of control instead of CoH/WG/Holy Radiance/CH style.

Now my real problem is absorbs and 2-3 button pusher healing classes...

[dextersmith]

I like that too, but I hope class balance does not mean class homogenization and them lost of class identity.

Holy need to be change, but I hope that blizzard don't make all the healers "the same"

You don't think it's been the same since cata?

[KaPe]

You don't think it's been the same since cata?

You ask this on a priest forum? The class with Discipline spec, which makes every other healer groan in frustration? Including Holy priests, which are annoyed because their spec always ends up inferior, whereas absorbs are too unique for their own good?

Out of 6 healer specs, 4 can be roughly considered "the same", with various levels of balance. Paladins and Disc are the exception.

Edit: Sidenote - there are numerous buffs in new PTR version, but fortunately Holy is untouched. I was a bit worried we'd be grossly overpowered after the patch hits, but Blizzard took care of that.

[Griimes]

Over View: I would like to see chakras become more important. Have their effects be much more prominent and specific to a role. Remove renew blanketing, it infringes on druids to much and is counter productive to our mastery.

Changes:
Renew - Now has a 2 second cooldown. This will outright prevent large scale blanketing, and help define it as a single target heal, not an AoE substitute.

Heal - Reduce the cast time to 2 seconds. I don't think this will effect the usefulness of Flash Heal, since Flash Heal will create serendipity procs.

Chakra: Sanctuary - Increase the Healing of Prayer of Healing, Clarity of Purpose, Circle of Healing, Prayer of Mending, and Binding Heal by 10%. Each cast of Prayer of Healing and Clarity of Purpose reduce the cooldown of Circle of Healing. Light Well can heal a target every 0.5 seconds.

Holy Word: Sanctuary - When prayer of mending heals a target inside Holy Word: Sanctuary, they are healed for 15% more.

Chakra: Serenity - Increase the Healing of Renew, Heal, Flash Heal and Power Word: shield by 10%. Light Well prioritizes players in a Tank Specialization over those in a Damage or Healing specialization.

Holy Word: Serenity - Remove current Crit bonus. If the target has Renew on them, it instantly heals them for the full duration's value and is reapplied. If the target has Prayer of Mending on them, it triggers the heal and increases it by 15%. Both effects can be triggered at the same time.

I dont think Binding Heal should benefit from Sanctuary. That's more of a "I'm single target healing and I need healing too" spell

[dextersmith]

You ask this on a priest forum? The class with Discipline spec, which makes every other healer groan in frustration? Including Holy priests, which are annoyed because their spec always ends up inferior, whereas absorbs are too unique for their own good?

Out of 6 healer specs, 4 can be roughly considered "the same", with various levels of balance. Paladins and Disc are the exception.

Edit: Sidenote - there are numerous buffs in new PTR version, but fortunately Holy is untouched. I was a bit worried we'd be grossly overpowered after the patch hits, but Blizzard took care of that.

I do ask this on a priest forum. Discipline's role may be primarily preventing damage but every healing class has been homogenized with a hot, aoe, oh shit button, small, medium, big heal. Using only spirit to regen outside of an actve regen button, one size mana pool for all. Holy is no exception.

[maizensh]

Edit: Sidenote - there are numerous buffs in new PTR version, but fortunately Holy is untouched. I was a bit worried we'd be grossly overpowered after the patch hits, but Blizzard took care of that.

I blame the class trinket, if not that hpriest wouldn't be so overpowered.

[Latok]

As some already stated here: I don't want Holy to be changed. The play style is pure fun! The numbers need to be adjusted. And things like this "You (aka players with your spec) have to wear old equipment cause of mandatory set bonus" should go to hell...

Agree, but is complicate to not overtune since hour mastery proc so much that if buff will get to much.

Chakra was a fun idea but I don't see how became better without overkill it.

- - - Updated - - -

You don't think it's been the same since cata?

Relative true, but they could be worst. I've little faith in blizz.

- - - Updated - - -

I do ask this on a priest forum. Discipline's role may be primarily preventing damage but every healing class has been homogenized with a hot, aoe, oh shit button, small, medium, big heal. Using only spirit to regen outside of an actve regen button, one size mana pool for all. Holy is no exception.

At least the chakra give us some "identify" in someway, but the numbers still what they are.

[Djriff]

To answer the topic's original question, with a artifact weapon like this:



How can we not suck?

[PhilUK]

@DJriff Personally that staff should have a dark shadow colour instead of the yellow and be given to shadow instead. So that holy can instead have Discs staff. With Disc getting the Fearbreaker mace.