Think Blizzard will rebalance Holy against Disc? Making Holy viable again?

[Rilas13]

I can't speak to PvP so I will concede my lack on knowledge there, and in MoP on the PvE side I was Disc most of the time because I enjoyed atonement healing. That being said I was never told I couldn't come as a Holy Priest, I have however been told many times they wouldn't take another Disc Priest. I'll also concede that bringing up vanilla was silly, I wrote that post while drinking

Anyway low representation doesn't mean it was bad. It was because we were being compared to a healing that broke the game. Holy largely wasn't broken(At least for PvE), Disc was.

You are a Priest, you see other Priests healing for more and being pretty powerful. They can do things no other healer could and it wasn't particularly hard to learn to play it. Most people will make the switch to Disc after people on the sidewalk tell you its better. And from there most people don't want to have their duel spec as another healing spec so you don't play Holy at all.

In that past two years when I have been active on my Priest I haven't found an occasion where Holy was making me look terrible in the game. Most of my argument here came from you saying Holy isn't viable, which I disagree with.

I'm not saying disc vs Holy doesn't have a mountain of issues. But I bet if you have some gear right now you can log on, get in a raid group on normal/heroic and do just fine on the meters as a Holy Priest. If your concern is that their aren't enough, I think there will be more Holy in Legion when people decide they don't want to heal with atonement.

- - - Updated - - -

I have a better example here, at least as far as your complaint on representation. Priest has always been cursed with the only class to have two healing specs. No other class does, no other class has two tank specs. So Holy and Disc are often unfairly judged against each other.

Now lots of classes have multiple damage specs, nothing new there. So what do you do when you decide you want to do damage and your going to PvE? You go online and you see what spec has the best damage. 12% play marks Hunter(Ty for the link). That is insane, when you compare Bm(0.7%), Surv(0.1%). That is even worse! Hunter is obviously the worst case scenario but still that is crazy. Hunters all level up and they see Marks is best so they all do it. More power to them, but the point is people do that with Priest to, and unless they make Holy and Disc not serve the same function that it will always be one or the other way out in front representation wise. People will always find the balance between easiest to play/best results. DPS rankings show Arcane well ahead of Frost Mages, but there are 30% more Frost Mages then Arcane(because Arcane is a bit of a bitch to maximize). So it isn't always even the best performing. And it just so happens Disc is kinda easy to be decent with.

This was a bit of a wall of text and I apologize, but Holy can heal in PvE. PvP I completely agree Holy is and has been in a bad spot(after so quick googling) this game has always been... iffy with PvP balance and I will leave it at that. But in a totally different topic I have very high hopes for their new pvp system in Legion so keep your fingers crossed!

[Nightstorm]

I can't speak to PvP so I will concede my lack on knowledge there, and in MoP on the PvE side I was Disc most of the time because I enjoyed atonement healing. That being said I was never told I couldn't come as a Holy Priest, I have however been told many times they wouldn't take another Disc Priest. I'll also concede that bringing up vanilla was silly, I wrote that post while drinking

Anyway low representation doesn't mean it was bad. It was because we were being compared to a healing that broke the game. Holy largely wasn't broken(At least for PvE), Disc was.

You are a Priest, you see other Priests healing for more and being pretty powerful. They can do things no other healer could and it wasn't particularly hard to learn to play it. Most people will make the switch to Disc after people on the sidewalk tell you its better. And from there most people don't want to have their duel spec as another healing spec so you don't play Holy at all.

In that past two years when I have been active on my Priest I haven't found an occasion where Holy was making me look terrible in the game. Most of my argument here came from you saying Holy isn't viable, which I disagree with.

I'm not saying disc vs Holy doesn't have a mountain of issues. But I bet if you have some gear right now you can log on, get in a raid group on normal/heroic and do just fine on the meters as a Holy Priest. If your concern is that their aren't enough, I think there will be more Holy in Legion when people decide they don't want to heal with atonement.

- - - Updated - - -

I have a better example here, at least as far as your complaint on representation. Priest has always been cursed with the only class to have two healing specs. No other class does, no other class has two tank specs. So Holy and Disc are often unfairly judged against each other.

Now lots of classes have multiple damage specs, nothing new there. So what do you do when you decide you want to do damage and your going to PvE? You go online and you see what spec has the best damage. 12% play marks Hunter(Ty for the link). That is insane, when you compare Bm(0.7%), Surv(0.1%). That is even worse! Hunter is obviously the worst case scenario but still that is crazy. Hunters all level up and they see Marks is best so they all do it. More power to them, but the point is people do that with Priest to, and unless they make Holy and Disc not serve the same function that it will always be one or the other way out in front representation wise. People will always find the balance between easiest to play/best results. DPS rankings show Arcane well ahead of Frost Mages, but there are 30% more Frost Mages then Arcane(because Arcane is a bit of a bitch to maximize). So it isn't always even the best performing. And it just so happens Disc is kinda easy to be decent with.

This was a bit of a wall of text and I apologize, but Holy can heal in PvE. PvP I completely agree Holy is and has been in a bad spot(after so quick googling) this game has always been... iffy with PvP balance and I will leave it at that. But in a totally different topic I have very high hopes for their new pvp system in Legion so keep your fingers crossed!

Why is it every other comment anyone ever posts about Holy has the words "Holy" and "Viable" in the same sentence. If everyone always has to keep saying holy is viable something is wrong.

It doesn't matter if Holy is viable, it has broken spells/talents and is not wanted in pve or pvp end game. (casual aside, I can't speak to that.) I will give it Holy is more wanted this expansion than last but still in a terrable spot.

You know Holy is bad when Jahzrun plays disc. If you think Holy is so viable I want you to apply to every top 100 guild as holy only and see how many replies you get.

[Rilas13]

Why is it every other comment anyone ever posts about Holy has the words "Holy" and "Viable" in the same sentence. If everyone always has to keep saying holy is viable something is wrong.

I can't speak for most people but in this case it is because that is the topic of discussion.

It doesn't matter if Holy is viable, it has broken spells/talents and is not wanted in pve or pvp end game. (casual aside, I can't speak to that.) I will give it Holy is more wanted this expansion than last but still in a terrable spot.

I thought it did matter that it is viable. What spells/talents are broken?

You know Holy is bad when Jahzrun plays disc. If you think Holy is so viable I want you to apply to every top 100 guild as holy only and see how many replies you get.

So is it just that they aren't popular in Mythic content? Or like Disc and everyone considers 1 Disc required for that content. I'm okay, I'll just look at what Priests they have in those guilds. Better use of my time I think, probably with more accurate results.

So lets say you are making a mythic group. You need your 20 dedicated folks who know what they are doing. There is some strategizing. You probably want 4 healers right? 3 if you can get away with it on certain fights. You can bring a paladin, Priest, Shaman, Monk, or Druid. Now you want a Disc Priest, just one as they conflict with each other. So you have 2-3 spots left. Do you want to bring another of the same class? Or do you want to diversify? Holy is similar to the other healing classes compared to Disc's niche. So why would you want a second Priest unless they were overpowered above the rest?

It doesn't mean Holy is bad, it just means it doesn't bring something different enough to be worth filling those competitive spots.

[VigilantRose]

So lets say you are making a mythic group. You need your 20 dedicated folks who know what they are doing. There is some strategizing. You probably want 4 healers right? 3 if you can get away with it on certain fights. You can bring a paladin, Priest, Shaman, Monk, or Druid. Now you want a Disc Priest, just one as they conflict with each other. So you have 2-3 spots left. Do you want to bring another of the same class? Or do you want to diversify? Holy is similar to the other healing classes compared to Disc's niche. So why would you want a second Priest unless they were overpowered above the rest

This argument might have been valid back in BC. But in modern WoW, you really don't need 'class diversity' in this sense. You need to somehow bring all of the various raid buffs/debuffs - but 95% of that is simply "did you bring a few hunters?". You need someone with Heroism, someone with Battle Rez - both of which are now so common that you'll accidentally trip over those features even if you ignore them.

Moreover, it's not like Holy and Discipline are remotely similar specs. If you look at a Holy parse and a Disc parse for the same fight, you'll rarely ever see them casting the same spells (to a meaningful extent).

Another way to consider your argument is to ask yourself whether people stop bringing Shadow Priests, Elemental/Enhancement Shaman, Retribution/Protection Paladins, Balance/Feral Druids or Windwalker/Brewmaster Monks based on the presence of their healing counterparts. It should be clear the answer is 'no' - despite the fact that the raid already has a Holy Paladin healing, it isn't going to influence their selection of tanks and dps. The raid will just take whichever specs are deemed best without regard for whether the class itself has sufficient or insufficient representation.

[Nightstorm]

What spells/talents are broken?

Divine insight is the major offender. Now that most of what you do is spam renew. Renew was a filler spell in MoP, divine insight was about par with twist of fate. Since we used a lot of PoH. Now that renew is center stage not only did this devalue mastery but divine insight should have been reworked.

So is it just that they aren't popular in Mythic content?

Most guilds do not want a holy priest in top guilds. I would tell you why but you already have your mind made up about it.

[Rilas13]

@VigilantRose-I agree to a point, it used to be more aggressive for sure. But I still think those guilds setting up for mythic content have their pick of the litter for what to run content with and personally I think having a Disc Priest, Druid, Shaman, and paladin is a better combination than a Disc, holy Priest, and two shamans.

And I agree, I don't think they cast the same spells for the most part. But they have a lot of the same spells. Holy brings Holy word, Renew, Lightwell, Binding Heal, CoH, Guardian Spirit, and Divine Hymn I think. So 2 oh emergency spells or poss raid CD's, a HoT, some strong raid healing But as far as availability I would think Resto druid brings a lot more options if you don't already have one in the group.

I see the different specs but same class thing, and that has been further differentiated in the past couple years for sure. But it is a bit further of a stretch to have a DPS use a healing spell which is what I meant. You wouldn't have or want your Shadow Priest to cast PoM, or Prayer of Healing. I'm not asking the Enhancement Shaman to heal the raid, I'm asking him to kick the boss back to oblivion. Switching the role changes that argument a bit as it also changes the spells you get and use. Both Disc and Holy got a number of the same healing spells which makes sense for both of them to use.

@Nightstorm- That makes sense, I probably don't use renew enough right now though so I haven't noticed. Though I did stop using Divine insight after MoP so I think your right.

I mean you have my curiosity if you don't mind explaining, but I am confident in my thought process right now.
I think its because Holy doesn't bring anything different or exciting enough compared to other classes. In that theoretical mythic group you have a Disc Priest(assuming) then I always think Resto Druid, HoTs are powerful. Then Shamans have been big in WoD. After that Pallys are pretty strong single target. Monks are fantastic substitutes for a Holy Priest and they have the advantage of doing some things differently.

I don't disagree that top guilds don't shun Holy Priests, but I don't think its that they can't do it. I think its that Shaman or Monk can do some things better and setting up those max difficulty runs you want a perfect makeup.

Totally irrelevant but looking though I was surprised how many of those High level Priests actually had Holy and Disc as spec, off spec. I have done it too and there are fights I prefer Holy. Iron Reaver and Kormrok off the top of my head, same ilvl with Disc though Heroic I hold my own if not beat them out.

[Smight]

I feel like people who haven't really played holy are commenting about holy. It's simply not a great spec right now. For that matter, I don't believe healing gameplay is generally that enjoyable at the moment either. But, to the point of holy being viable, of course it is. It's humorous to see people rehash the same points as if it hasn't been discussed 100 other places. 'Holy isn't viable' 'holy is fine' hasn't this already been settled that holy is the last healer you'd want in a raid comp?

[TofuBandita]

People muddle up two different ideas of what it is to be viable. Being able to put out effective healing is one way of being viable. Being in demand for a spot on raid teams is the other way. But in practice, it's the latter that only counts right? Sure, you might be able to do effective healing, but the other healers do too, plus they bring other tools.

As long as there are 2 healing specs in the one class, I don't think this Holy/Disc tussle will ever go away. I think you just gotta play both specs, grow a thick skin, and make your peace with it. Maybe (hopefully) Legion will change things a bit. But I doubt it.

I think there's inherent problems in the healing meta, that affect Holy Priests' 'viability', that aren't going to change.

It shares a class with another healing spec. So one or other is usually going to be better. I also think that the more different a toolkit Disc has from Holy, the more likely Disc will get picked over Holy. Unless Holy really brings something new to the table, (or your team is desperate for heals, and you can't play Disc) other healers will get picked because they can do everything Holy does and bring other abilities too. The new mana free raid cd is a start, but is that enough? It feels a bit shallow and gimmicky to have a raid cd tacked on to any spec, and have it play a significant part in determining whether it's brought to the raid or not.

There are just too many healers I think. With better or different toolkits. Plus there's not enough to heal, and more so the more geared they all are. At least in my experiences as an average raider, raid leaders seem to lean more towards being 'safe' and taking more healers than necessary. Holy Priest (and Resto Shaman) only seem to really shine when there is a lot of damage to heal - so what with too many healers, tanks that do a tonne of self-healing, and not enough damage to heal, it doesn't leave room for Holy to shine.

Another problem is healing meters. It seems like the general masses tend to base their perceptions of a healing spec by how well it appears on the meters. Absorbs by nature are always going to look better (unless undergeared or underhealing). And the other healers heals are just better at sniping than Holy. Thus we are faced with the never-ending bleating of 'holy sucks'.

[Aggrophobic]

They will never be able to balance disc, they way they are designing it in Legion. It'll either do way too much damage while healing like any other spec and everyone will be forced to play disc again or it'll not heal enough and the healer DPS hybrid is just a waste of a spot.
If anything it'll be even more unbalanced in Legion.

[Nega]

It would be interesting to have overhealing for all classes to have some compensating effect. HoTs could be auto-extended. Direct heals might auto-shield the target for the remaining amount. Etc. etc.. perhaps a mana return for overhealing could take effect. Basically I think there needs to be some kind of benefit to healing a target that doesn't take all of your healing. Rather than removing or "fixing" absorbs, perhaps it's the other classes that need fixing instead. Just a thought.

Yeah.. interesting? Or did you mean boring as watching grass grow? Your idea is basically a dystopian nightmare from a shaman perspective.

[PosPosPos]

Yeah.. interesting? Or did you mean boring as watching grass grow? Your idea is basically a dystopian nightmare from a shaman perspective.

And why? Shamans are historically bad at healing close to full health targets(at least worse than other healers), and have better capabilities at healing low health targets than every other healer as a result - it's their unique point and a big part of what makes them shamans.

If you find that everyone is sitting at full health or close to full health all the time, then the problem lies with blizzard's encounter design or raid leaders bringing in too many healers in the lineup, not the problem with the design of the healers themselves.

[Danner]

I think the Holy stuff we have seen so far looks super strong. New Holy isn't remotely resembling old Holy. With the appropriate talents and artifact talents, you can spam flash heal and serenity virtually non-stop in a very short rotation, and keep two 20% healing buffs up half the time while doing so. And if you replace flash heal with binding heal, it looks even better. Holy also got some genuine raid utility in Hymn of Hope, if mana is tight for other healers. If anything, I believe Holy will be significantly nerfed before release.

The question really is how Disc will fare vs Holy. And the realist in me says nothing will really change here after the numbers are tuned. Absorbs are still going to be better than healing, so any situation where disc is on par with Holy means Disc is going to win out. And with no more weakened soul, the moment disc is perceivably better than Holy, there will be two disc priests in every raid. Which is way worse than on live.

I'd like to be wrong on this. I don't think I will be. That said, Holy still looks like it will be super strong if nothing changes, and there will be no shortage of people injecting that just because holy sits at <1% raid healing spots doesn't mean it's bad or anything. Business as usual.

[Deleted]

Imo they should change discipline from being about healing/absorbs to be more like a Bard. Channelled spells that cancel only upon moving that provide buffs to the raid. They fits more with the discipline theme too.

[Deleted]

Im pretty sure holy will get some love in legion. Would make sense to add more flavor- like a big heal with long cd ? The "I just saved you a** against all odds" heal

[Nightstorm]

I think "Against all odds" is Holy's theme since Wotlk. I will be happy to see Holy be good in Legion, but it was amazing in WoD alpha also.

[Moistie]

As others have said, holy needs something that differentiates it from other throughput healers. From the preview and data mining it seems they have received that.

I can see some people having a disc player and not wanting another healing priest for 10 player progression, but as long as the priest can switch back and forth between disc and holy while still progressing I'm fine with that.

[Caliph]

As someone's who's followed the legion disc changes closely...

At the current time with regard to PvE raid healing in Legion, Disc is a double-HoT spec with a big multi-target heal (Atoned Penance) on a 9-second cooldown. The double HoTs will be running continuously on usually around 4 players, but it could be up to 15 or so (temporarily) with a large mana expenditure.

Disc is almost certainly going to be the most complex healing spec to play in Legion - it's power is yet to be determined but should be easily tweakable and therefore balanced. Because the spec has such a high skill ceiling it's going to push away many of the current easy-mode PWS spam-bots out there, and because absorbs are vastly reduced Disc is no longer going to be a necessary spec to have in a serious raid group.

Disc is largely a HoT spec with a big multi-player heal on short cooldown, making it very similar to Resto Druids and Holy Priests. However, the application of this HoT is complicated, since Discs will be applying atonements on specific players IN ADVANCE of predicted damage and casting both DoTs and direct damage spells on enemies to heal them.

As far as whether a typical healing priest will select Holy or Disc as their main spec, I think many current Discs will switch to Holy in Legion. I doubt any spec in the game is having it's degree of complexity raised more than Disc, and if Disc is balanced in power against the other specs, including Holy, there's little reason a regular player would want to suffer a big learning curve just to get the same results he can get more easily with Holy.

Because absorbs are mostly going away and there's no more Weakened Soul, there's no longer a big drawback to having multiple disc priests in a raid.

I would certainly welcome this. I found disc mindnumbingly boring in MoP and now it's more so imo. clarity plus shield plus penance on a tank, shield everyone else, barrier for cd. plus I don't feel like that's actually healing per se.

I started in vanilla and was downgrading spells, conserving mana, using PoH when necessary, shielding, renewing and it just kept going like that. I felt like a healer.

I hope what you're saying makes it into the game as I wouldn't mind feeling like a healer once again. I might even try disc if it's not as boring and more difficult as you say.

Was never interested in healing with any other class. I have a shaman at lvl 82 but just didn't feel the same.

[Yunzi]

I would certainly welcome this. I found disc mindnumbingly boring in MoP and now it's more so imo. clarity plus shield plus penance on a tank, shield everyone else, barrier for cd. plus I don't feel like that's actually healing per se.

I started in vanilla and was downgrading spells, conserving mana, using PoH when necessary, shielding, renewing and it just kept going like that. I felt like a healer.

I hope what you're saying makes it into the game as I wouldn't mind feeling like a healer once again. I might even try disc if it's not as boring and more difficult as you say.

Was never interested in healing with any other class. I have a shaman at lvl 82 but just didn't feel the same.

I mained a Holy Priest in vanilla, but I took a different approach to the class. I found Renew and Power Word: Shield to be weak and not worth casting (just as now PWS was strong for Disc, weak for Holy) so what I did was a mixture of damage to the boss, Renew on the active tank only, Rank 3 and Rank 4 flash heals, occasional Prayer of Healings, and very rare Rank 7 flash heals in an emergency. My guild's raid leader never appreciated my approach despite it's effectiveness, but I was vindicated years later when Atonement healing became viable. I quit the game near the end of Vanilla, returned for a few months in Wrath and switched to Disc, then quit at the end of Wrath and returned for some of MoP and all (so far) of WoD.

Even now I find Disc much more interesting to play than vanilla Holy, where I predominantly used Smite, Renew on one player, R3 FHeal, R4 FHeal, sneaking in Shadow Word: Pains occasionally, and only rarely casting any other spell. The Priest healing toolkits were anemic in vanilla - there were no prayer of mendings, no penances, no circle of healings, no building evangelism.

Disc is boring now in the modern game, but the toolkit even discounting the rarely used heal and flash heal is vastly more diverse than vanilla Disc or Holy. Back in vanilla there didn't need to be a diverse toolkit because damage patterns were basic and mostly predictable. What happened over time was a large increase in developer understanding of how to create interesting raid encounters, including more diverse, frequent, and enjoyable damage patterns for healers to deal with, and the need for a more diverse toolkit to deal with that damage.

There's never been a healing style (in any game as far as I know) like Blizzard is trying to accomplish for Disc in Legion. The closest is the twin Paladin beacons, but those don't expire during a raid encounter. The concept of short-term healing targets selected by the healer with varying durations (depending if applied with Plea/Shadow Mend/PWS or Power Word: Radiance, whether or not Contrition is selected, and whether or not Pontifex with Renewal of Faith is used) combined with Atonement used to heal them could possibly be brilliant, and at the very least is an exciting and complex healing style never attempted before in a video game.

What's drawn me to Disc over the years is not only that it fit with my original vision for how to raid with a Holy Priest in vanilla WoW, but that it's always been a truly *different* healing spec to all of the others. It's always stood alone, it's always been strange, different, and unique. And it's changed greatly from Wrath to MoP to WoD to Legion - Blizzard has never sat on it's laurels and been satisfied with the state of Discipline.

[Nyoken]

Still feel disc should have that absorbtion that they do atm, well atm it's kinda insane but...maybe make shields into a short cooldown and make them stronger or something? It's kinda a unique spec if u think about it, you spend some time healing... and some time throwing up shields, kinda fun imo. Would be kinda sad to see it turning into a pure healing spec like all the others.

[Moistie]

Still feel disc should have that absorbtion that they do atm, well atm it's kinda insane but...maybe make shields into a short cooldown and make them stronger or something? It's kinda a unique spec if u think about it, you spend some time healing... and some time throwing up shields, kinda fun imo. Would be kinda sad to see it turning into a pure healing spec like all the others.

PWS has a 6 sec cooldown and there was a cooldown ability that temporarily removes the PWS cooldown. That and the talented absorb are the only two left for disc as far as I know. Are there any others?