Are there just too many priest healers are are we just the worst healer spec atm?

[demapples22]

Lately I've been trying to find a guild to join for raiding and have been PuG'ing in the meantime. It seems that I'm getting declined a lot more than I expected considering that I'm 856 Holy. Its especially bad when I'm trying to do Mythic or Mythic+ dungeons. Everyone seems to be looking for Resto Shamans or Druids for those. And as far as raiding and guild recruitment goes it seems that Holy Paladins and Mistweavers are always in high demand. I've been camping trade chat all this week and last and I don't think I've once seen a guild recruiting Holy Priests specifically. But I'm seeing them looking for every other healer class. Its a bit worrying because i've leveled my Holy artifact to 25..

[Deleted]

I already posted about this in the Holy thread, but I'm experiencing the exact same thing at 853 ilvl. It's getting really hard to find a group for something higher than Mythic +0 and I also haven't seen a single guild looking for Priests on my server.
Looking at logs in raids there seem to be a few Priests up there but for every Priest there are about 5 Paladins in the top rankings.

In mythics I feel like we just suck at time runs. There's absolutely no way to heal why moving except for a one-minute-cooldown (and no, I'm not counting Renew) and we're basically just spamming Flash Heal most of the time and have to stand on the spot for that.
Compared to Shaman and Druid it's pretty inefficient to take a Priest with you, so people just don't. It's very discouraging, but I don't think anything will change to be honest.

[Ozoi]

No utility, useless on the move. Really all we've got is flash heal and serenity. Those are the only two things keeping from the bottom of the barrel on parses. Sadly those are a huge mana drainers and require us to be stationary. Renew is a joke but yet has a bunch of artifact traits and talents centered around it. To reach our full potential we have to die (Spirit of Redemption) which in my experience only serves to prolong a wipe and waste time. Our tank CD is similar in that its only useful when its probably a wipe anyway.

And disc is just..yeah. So I'd say that Priests are definitely the worst right now.

[K4sk]

There's just no real reason to bring a holy priest over, say a resto shaman. Very limited utility if any at all. It's rare the damage is so spiky on a single target that the priest CD makes a difference. It's a lot more often that it's spread damage, so link is amazing. Heroism too, since most of the fotm dps don't bring this.

[Deleted]

... as far as raiding and guild recruitment goes ...

Recruitment is usually a very tricky topic though that cannot be narrowed down to just a class/spec being bad (which IMO Holy isn't, of course I am biased because I am playing Holy and pulling quite strong numbers in our raids). Looking at our guild e.g., we are recruiting healers and would take -any- healer really, but preferably something that we don't have yet (HPally, Mistweaver - see the pattern...), and after that how many people we already have sitting on a certain tier token (which is why we'd actually prefer a Priest over a Druid or Shaman due to having 10+ people on both Vanq and Prot, and only 7 on Conq). Last point is the amount of people we already have who are able/willing to offspec (in our case, hell no we don't need a Resto Shaman, we have 2 DPS Shaman players who can reliably offspec).

Maybe it's just me being a bit weirdo there, but (Holy) Priest recruitment has always been tricky. It is the "classic" healer archetype and pulls a certain kind of people to it, and in the past there tended to be a large group of people playing Holy who were just not very good for various reasons. Even though the spec is quite complete now and can perform well, I feel like a lot of people still have the bad memories of worthless failangels stuck in the back of their heads.

[Mil3High]

I don't think either priest spec is really worth taking to mythic+ or raid groups over any other healing spec. My guild has two permanent priests and a recently acquired resto druid for a roughly 25 man raid group. We have to pug like 3 healers every raid night, and even some of the bad ones are outperforming the priests. Our toolkit is too limited based on mechanics. I have decided not to even try to PuG mythic+ as a disc priest. Our guild group desperately needs a holy pally because of the toolkit they have, and resto shamans and druids are just simply better in all content. They are extremely flexible, and their healing is much much less likely to be gimped because of certain mechanics or group mistakes.

[Jaconbacon1567]

I think it's also that there's no benefit to bringing more than one holy priest compared to resto druids and shamans. Double Iron Bark and SLT make fights significantly easier for progression compared to what 2 holy priests could offer.

[Djriff]

Personally I haven't encountered this. My suggestion is just make your own group for mythic+

As to raids, I haven't had a problem pugging that either since I like to practice my off spec (holy) in pugs since the mechanics are slightly different to shadow.

[anon5123]

I haven't encountered this either. No problem getting into Mythic+ even as Disc.

[Volo]

I don't think either priest spec is really worth taking to mythic+ or raid groups over any other healing spec. My guild has two permanent priests and a recently acquired resto druid for a roughly 25 man raid group. We have to pug like 3 healers every raid night, and even some of the bad ones are outperforming the priests. Our toolkit is too limited based on mechanics. I have decided not to even try to PuG mythic+ as a disc priest. Our guild group desperately needs a holy pally because of the toolkit they have, and resto shamans and druids are just simply better in all content. They are extremely flexible, and their healing is much much less likely to be gimped because of certain mechanics or group mistakes.

Honestly, get some better holy priests. Holy is actually very strong in raids right now. I ranked above 90% for ALL healers on the first 5 bosses in Heroic EN this week @ ilvl 856. If you're complaining about not having enough utility or mobility, you aren't playing your class right or your raid's boss strategies are bad. Virtually every boss fight (except for maybe the Eye in the Tree) require the raid to be stacked for the majority of the fight. Holy priests excel in these situations if you are talented correctly.

Holy feels good this expansion. They are in a good place.

So to answer the OP's original question, I would say it's just that Holy Priests are so common and most guilds probably already have 1-2 of them. I can't speak for your Mythic+ problem though, I haven't had any problems finding groups.

[Jueles]

I am in a slightly more casual raiding guild, and pulling my weight in raid with the shammy really out healing me. However, I have noted when trying to pug for mythics, I'm getting a lot of declined (at this point I'm only 847). I even got a decline on the world boss the other day!! I laughed at that one. It has become a standing joke that this priest gets no love anymore.

[Segus1992]

Good idea to ask this on the class forums to create a circlejerk. If you have to ask "is our class bad" on a class forum, you already know the answer you're going to get (and are probably looking to get it).

[Ozoi]

Also a good idea to respond to legitimate concerns and critisisms with things like "Just make your own group bro" and "hurr, we're fine you just want to be OP"

This is the kind delusional attitude that leads to a class being dookie for an entire expansion. You guys can enjoy that though, I will be rerolling to Holy Paladin because I like doing meaningful content.

[Djriff]

Also a good idea to respond to legitimate concerns and critisisms with things like "Just make your own group bro" and "hurr, we're fine you just want to be OP"

This is the kind delusional attitude that leads to a class being dookie for an entire expansion. You guys can enjoy that though, I will be rerolling to Holy Paladin because I like doing meaningful content.

I'm sure it happens to other classes too, or maybe people just read into the forums too much.

I've had zero problems pugging as holy/disc for mythic + or for raids. Priests definitely aren't an issue.

[Deja Thoris]

Also a good idea to respond to legitimate concerns and critisisms with things like "Just make your own group bro" and "hurr, we're fine you just want to be OP"

This is the kind delusional attitude that leads to a class being dookie for an entire expansion. You guys can enjoy that though, I will be rerolling to Holy Paladin because I like doing meaningful content.

Theres nothing at all wrong with holy priests. I healed my first mythic dungeon at 813 and have healed +6 atm with no problems. (I'm ms dps). Holy also shines on fights like ursoc where our holy priest pulls about 400k hps. Since all classes have weaknesses it sucks a bit on the eye boss etc.

So hurr durr reroll. Theres nothing at all wrong with the class.

[dapperedodo]

Also a good idea to respond to legitimate concerns and critisisms with things like "Just make your own group bro" and "hurr, we're fine you just want to be OP"

This is the kind delusional attitude that leads to a class being dookie for an entire expansion. You guys can enjoy that though, I will be rerolling to Holy Paladin because I like doing meaningful content.

Sure dont try to achieve the best possible with a priest spec and reroll to an eassier class. Meanwhile the top guilds are showing both disc and holy and viable for mythic content. Sure priests have their flaws but they are not close to being shit as some people say they are.

The priest market is a bit full right now with a lot of priest who where disc the last few expansions and get used to the new disc or new holy. And those people are performing bad in 5 mans/raids giving priest a bad image overall. Yes I got a few declines here and there cause of this but I still have no problems finding groups for mythic+

[Puupi]

Holy priest has the best healing toolkit, but the worst utility. Enduring Renewal+Benediction+Binding Heal is sickly OP for mythic+'s. What the priest lacks are 1) personal defensive cooldowns 2) cc, like aoe stun

[Deleted]

Holy priest has the best healing toolkit, but the worst utility. Enduring Renewal+Benediction+Binding Heal is sickly OP for mythic+'s. What the priest lacks are 1) personal defensive cooldowns 2) cc, like aoe stun

Problem is that most of our toolkit is useless, as right now damage is spiky and needs immediate attention and we cannot sustain the spam as some other specs can. But yes, BH is good.

[Deleted]

Yes, holy priest is lacking good raid cd's and personal cd's, but when it comes to heal output they are definitly very strong.

So far i never had any problems to outdeal hpallys or restoshamans in hc EN. Also healed +9 mythic wich wasn't an issue neither.

[Deleted]

Holy priest has the best healing toolkit, but the worst utility. Enduring Renewal+Benediction+Binding Heal is sickly OP for mythic+'s. What the priest lacks are 1) personal defensive cooldowns 2) cc, like aoe stun

That's OP? I feel more like I wasted two talents for a skill that does nothing.