Hybrid 38/33/0 healing spec

[Freshymccool]

I play a disc priest and I love the spec. I realize the role of a disc priest is to MT heal, but quite frankly that isn't my playing style. I enjoy raid healing and love seeing the big numbers of holy, but holy spec is so broken with many mana issues, I can't say no to disc.

I thought of this new spec today and was wondering if I could get some feedback on it. Has anyone tried something similar with positive results?

The spec gets down to Rapture for the mana regen, though limited since the 3.1 rapture nerf, its still something that holy can't offer. I will miss things like Penance, Renewed Hope and BT'd PoH, but I feel the addition of Spiritual Guidance, Spiritual Healing and Holy Concentration might be just the thing I was looking for in a viable hybrid healing spec.

Constructive feedback only please.

Thanks all.

Armory - http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...n=Freshymccool

Spec in question - http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbu...Zcxtcc0qVb:mfd

[rellex]

you'll have awesome mana regen!


and fairly shitty throughput.

being a healer is more than just never going OOM and using CD's properly to prevent OOM. It's also about actually tossing out large heals

from your spec:
-You have talents to reduce the cast time/mana cost of Gheal, but don't have Empowered healing (holy) so your Gheal won't be giving you 'big' numbers.
-you're specced for imp Fheal, but if you plan to use this primarily it has better mana efficiency with that spec/glyph than gheal so there's less of a reason to spec for Divine Fury/Gheal
-you waste 3 talent points each on reducing the mana cost of Gheal and Fheal
-you have no healing prayers and no CoH, so you're AoE healing is basically Fheal spam, with a few PoH's thrown in (though this is limited due to the fact that PoH is a huge mana drain)


all and all, i think going deeper and actually getting either CoH or Penance would be better spec wise, and picking Fheal or Gheal to spec into.

Lastly: Holy is a mana hog, but that just means you actually need to move away from the 'every time i can cast i need to cast'-mentality and into the 'less over healing means less mana wasted' mentality.

spirit isn't as amazing as it was, there really is little to no OO5SR anymore, but by not casting you are still effectively saving mana. assuming you can still the people you need to alive

[Freshymccool]

you'll have awesome mana regen!


and fairly shitty throughput.

being a healer is more than just never going OOM and using CD's properly to prevent OOM. It's also about actually tossing out large heals

Well I realize this, which is why I'm looking for a new spec. Disc has practically no throughput because of the lack of large heals. Yeah the amount of mitigation makes up for it, but that's besides the point.

from your spec:
-You have talents to reduce the cast time/mana cost of Gheal, but don't have Empowered healing (holy) so your Gheal won't be giving you 'big' numbers.
-you're specced for imp Fheal, but if you plan to use this primarily it has better mana efficiency with that spec/glyph than gheal so there's less of a reason to spec for Divine Fury/Gheal
-you waste 3 talent points each on reducing the mana cost of Gheal and Fheal
-you have no healing prayers and no CoH, so you're AoE healing is basically Fheal spam, with a few PoH's thrown in (though this is limited due to the fact that PoH is a huge mana drain)

I see your point in wasting points for Improved Healing, but if you walk through the specing process for holy while trying to avoid Divine Fury / Improved Healing, its like this...
1) Holy Concentration (5)
2) Improved Renew (3)
3) Healing Focus (2)
4) Desperate Prayer (1)
5) Inspiration (3)
6) Divine Fury (1)

Then you are at a standstill because you aren't going to waste talents in things like Blessed Recovery, Spell Warding, and possibly Holy Reach. So you would have to spec into something to do with GHeal in order to continue up the tree.


Also, as far as healing goes, I would plan on using the same spells I do as disc, just minus Penance. So it would be PW:S, PoM, FHeal and the occasional Renew.

Something like this would be more throughput, but would also be more mana intense with the loss of Rapture, PI and Imp FHeal.
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...6&version=9806

[syanid]

Mind giving us link to your armory? I'm really wondering, how far have you gotten with the game and what's up with all this useless hybrid specs. Healing isn't about big numbers.

Want big numbers? Spec holy with Healing Focus, get a paladin with Conc. aura, regem for spellpower and off you go with gheal spam, enjoy the numbers.

Also, disc priest isn't just about tank healing, disc is an awesome healing spec and has a lot of utility. We used two disc priests at Mimiron (killed it last week) instead of 2 holy ones. Now, one might argue my guild sucks, but the point is that after we switched priests from holy to disc - the encounter became a joke healing-wise. Cast pws - PoH a party while your PoM bounces, aegis procs everywhere, Penance the guy who's low.

I honestly have no idea why would one go so desperate to spec an useless hybrid spec without Penance or Guardian Spirit. It just makes no sense for end game raiding. In naxx / 5 mans you shouldn't have any problems healing with that spec, but for Ulduar I'd just see a player specced like that a dead weight that needs to be carried.

[Serengir]

Hi. Used to tinker around something simmilar but ever since rapture got nerfed its just not worth it anymore imo.

[rellex]

Mind giving us link to your armory? I'm really wondering, how far have you gotten with the game and what's up with all this useless hybrid specs. Healing isn't about big numbers.

Want big numbers? Spec holy with Healing Focus, get a paladin with Conc. aura, regem for spellpower and off you go with gheal spam, enjoy the numbers.

Also, disc priest isn't just about tank healing, disc is an awesome healing spec and has a lot of utility. We used two disc priests at Mimiron (killed it last week) instead of 2 holy ones. Now, one might argue my guild sucks, but the point is that after we switched priests from holy to disc - the encounter became a joke healing-wise. Cast pws - PoH a party while your PoM bounces, aegis procs everywhere, Penance the guy who's low.

I honestly have no idea why would one go so desperate to spec an useless hybrid spec without Penance or Guardian Spirit. It just makes no sense for end game raiding. In naxx / 5 mans you shouldn't have any problems healing with that spec, but for Ulduar I'd just see a player specced like that a dead weight that needs to be carried.

they did link their armory in the first post, and i'll be honest and say i stopped reading your post after that sentence. Not everyone likes having the cookie-cutter spec, some people like to try out different specs and find their own niche with healing and their own rotation.

I'm never going to say that hybrid builds suck, some of them can get thier job done quite well and that's all that's important in the end.

there's no reason to bash a poster for asking for suggestions/help, it's just uncalled for

[fjols]

Tbh. as holy the fight has to last really long for me to go oom without having any cd's left.
I think the problem is your playstyle. I bet you're one of those who just spam heal when the bar moves just a little in your grid. Try to wait till you see something like -10k and throw a gheal by then.

[Izenhart]

but holy spec is so broken with many mana issues

Constructive feedback only please.

Asking for constructive feedbacks and stating Holy spec has broken with mana regen issues is just...speechless.

Anyways, I struggle in finding the role of this spec in a raid, since you can't MT healing, because you have no Penance, no Grace, no Divine Aegis, no Renewed Hope, no Borrowed Time, and you neither can AoE healing, no CoE, no SoL for sniping the raid, no Serendipity, Empowered Renew...

I mean, what is this spec supposed to work for?

[syanid]

there's no reason to bash a poster for asking for suggestions/help, it's just uncalled for

Incredible as it may sound to the likes of you, but I really haven't bashed him. Thumbs up to the OP for trying something new but it's really useless if one wants to achieve more than naxx. I'm sorry if you're emo and take everything as bashing, some people are born with penis.

[dkffiv]

I've been playing around with priest healing mechanics since the patch and they feel drastically different to me. Here's my take of the new builds:

Disc is no longer an MT healing spec. Because of the Rapture change, you cannot spam Penance / Flash Heal without going OOM (well, at least I wasn't able to). What I've discovered as the specs niche is very fast "theoretical" heals. Fights like Razorscale, Hodir, and Thorim are great for this spec. Basically as soon as someone takes damage, throw a PW:S on them to prevent them from getting 2 shot. With Glyph of PW:S, you're basically doing a 7k instant heal with no CD. If someone doesn't heal them by the time you're done shielding everyone, you can throw a pretty fast PoH or Flash Heal because of Borrowed Time. I'd recommend Glyph of Penance, Flash Heal, and PW:S for this spec.
*note* you will be incredibly low on healing meters with the spec. With Mending and Divine Aegis, a lot of your "healing" will be absorbs. You are still providing a lot to the raid, just hope your officer realizes this.

Holy can be a very effective MT healer or raid healer. I haven't tried it out, but one of the priests in my guild went all out Renew which ticks for 2k each with his gear. 3/3 Imp Renew, 3/3 Empowered Renew, Glyph of CoH, Flash Heal, Renew.

My current Holy build (which I absolutely love) has 2/2 Healing Prayers, 3/3 Improved Healing, and 3/3 Test of Faith (and skipping basically all the renew talents). With Glyph of Flash Heal, CoH, and PoH, I can spam heal pretty easily (I use Majestic Dragon Figurine + Soul of the Dead) and AoE heal very effectively. I almost never use Renew (unless I need to cast something to keep my Dragon buff up), PW:S only when necessary, and spam mending every CD. I was pulling off pretty big numbers on Hodir (around 4k hps when I was only really healing during frozen blows, other healers in the raid were topping off the tank fast in the other phases so I just shot mendings + renews off) and did not have mana issues (shadow fiend / inner focus / hymn of hope, never had to use mana pots); very fun spec.

[Zeuq]

I really don't understand how people are saying Discipline had it's mana gutted and go OOM. Yes, Rapture isn't OP anymore, but Discipline still specializes in quick inexpensive heals, and even moreso with talents like Improved Flash Heal. They don't end fights with 95% mana anymore, but all it takes is throwing out a Shadowfiend, or a little bit of downtime to use Hymn of Hope, and Discipline is pretty much right back to full. So sure, mana isn't the complete non-issue that it was before, but it's only really an issue now if you're completely ignoring it or very poorly geared.

I also don't see how Holy is really a very effective MT healer. Sure, we can throw out a lot of single target HPS with Empowered Renew and Serendipity, but with the way mana regen was was changed, especially with the change to Serendipity and the OOFSR, I just cannot see maintaining steady HPS on a single target. Really, if you want to single target heal, you should generally use Discipline. Holy, however, is an amazing raid healing spec because of the sheer amount of burst and AOE healing available. Hell, I can almost single handedly keep up the raid during some heavy burst AOE, I just can't maintain it for long periods of time.

[Deleted]

Very interesting thread though I doubt any hybrid spec ever will be better for healing than pure disc or holy played well.

I'd say sure go spec into whatever you feel like as long as you have fun and enjoy playing. But, you know, if your guild is trying to progress and you want to play serious PvE as good as possible then you should better go either disc or holy and really get the hang of that.

[fibre]

I rolled with a slightly different Hybrid build.

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc...00000000000000

Taking the instant Flash from SoL, and Renewed Hope's 3% reduction in damage to the raid, and PoH mana-reduction since it's a great spell now. That said, I'm currently rolling full Discipline right now, and can throw out enough heal + mitigation to pull 2 groups at a time in heroics, and not sweat, or go OOM.

[G l o w y r m]

Well I realize this, which is why I'm looking for a new spec. Disc has practically no throughput because of the lack of large heals. Yeah the amount of mitigation makes up for it, but that's besides the point.

How is that besides the point? Shielding is still a type of throughput. Putting the PW:S and DA aside, I can still give other holy priests a run for their money with penance and flash heal. Actually I have been out healing most priests I go to Ulduar with.

But yeah, this spec is all over the place. You need to choose if you're going with GHeal or Flashheal. You're missing some key talents that make GHeal the "big heal" you're looking for. Also, if you're getting Rapture, shielding is still a part of your regimen then, and with holy it normally wouldn't be, so you're better off just picking 1 way to go and maximize flash/shield or GHeal. While doing that you pick up either Penance or CoH as a bonus.

And to dkffiv...

I can spam Penance and shields and flashes all day and barely lose mana. My raids actually think I'm "not healing" sometimes because of how much more mana I have than some other healers.