Is a priest more mana efficient than a shaman---for healing?

[kandrewfelson]

just leveled a priest to 80, have a shaman main

[Melonberry]

N/A?

Umm, Yes, I think, technically priests get more healing per mp on several spells.

[TwistedPower]

If you have enough intelect, in the end, it doesn't realy matter does it? Since niether classes will run out of mana unless they spam overheals.

I belive that melonberry is right that priest get more healing per Mp most of the time.

[Kelesti]

Well, considering the playstyle of the two is completely different, it's not really comparable on a set level.

Sure, Priests get more HP/MP, out of some spells. But Shaman get more out of others. The buffed Chain Heal is better for uneven bursty healing required, whereas Prayer shines when it's raid-wide all across and you just heal it up group-by-group.

Mana Efficiency, I would kill for Improved Water Shield as Holy. Really. Not getting Holy Concentration because we're using the spells we've been balanced around using ("balanced" repeatedly, I should say) sucks. Hard. Improved Water Shield was buffed to compensate for this, albeit at a lower rate. That's fine. A 10/20/30% chance on Circle, Mending, and Prayer crits should activate it, in my opinion. Less uptime than surge of light, but helping to level out the blue playing field.

Afterall, "keeping pace" with everyone else when it comes to all out spam, the Holy Priest is worse off than the Paladin, the Shaman, and the Druid easily. And the Disc priest is completely different as well. Unlike them, though, we still have a blue bar, and using cooldowns won't last us until it's ready again. Playing more conservative (less thoroughput and more regen) helps with this. But then of course you fall under the ire of everyone else saying you're not pulling your weight.

Personally? I'd say stick with the shaman.

[Worshaka]

Well, considering the playstyle of the two is completely different, it's not really comparable on a set level.

Sure, Priests get more HP/MP, out of some spells. But Shaman get more out of others. The buffed Chain Heal is better for uneven bursty healing required, whereas Prayer shines when it's raid-wide all across and you just heal it up group-by-group.

Mana Efficiency, I would kill for Improved Water Shield as Holy. Really. Not getting Holy Concentration because we're using the spells we've been balanced around using ("balanced" repeatedly, I should say) sucks. Hard. Improved Water Shield was buffed to compensate for this, albeit at a lower rate. That's fine. A 10/20/30% chance on Circle, Mending, and Prayer crits should activate it, in my opinion. Less uptime than surge of light, but helping to level out the blue playing field.

Afterall, "keeping pace" with everyone else when it comes to all out spam, the Holy Priest is worse off than the Paladin, the Shaman, and the Druid easily. And the Disc priest is completely different as well. Unlike them, though, we still have a blue bar, and using cooldowns won't last us until it's ready again. Playing more conservative (less thoroughput and more regen) helps with this. But then of course you fall under the ire of everyone else saying you're not pulling your weight.

Personally? I'd say stick with the shaman.

Can't say I've experienced mana issues as holy... and when I say that I mean beyond the bounds of being able to manage mana which is the design goal. Expanding a bit further on that, they want healers to think about their mana, they don't want them to be able to spam any heal they wish without there being repercussions. With that in mind I do think Holy Priest regen is in a good place because it's certainly possible to heal fights and maintain 5K hps without major mana concerns.

I think my holy gear is about a 4800 gear score, I think raid buffed im about 2700sp with 27% crit, 25500 mana, 650/1100 mp/5 rates... i've yet to feel there was an encounter where my regen was so poor I couldn't do it. In fact i've almost considered dropping regen stats, however I think you adopt my same strategy in that it's best to keep something in reserve for unplanned events.

I also admit that I only really heal for 10man hard mode instances and I unfortunetly missed out on our 10man tribute to insanity run which I would have healed... but I do 10man Algalon every week (still) and we obviously have some decent success in HToC. My point being is I'm doing reasonably difficult content that is supposed to test my mana pool and I don't exactly nuke that content with massive amounts of gear (My shadow gear is far more advanced).

Perhaps it comes back to the fact that I do value spirit a lot higher than most holy priests and have a decent spirit bias... I dunno, but in my experience our regen certainly isn't poor and i'd value it higher than a resto shammy (although they did get a buff to regen last patch as I understand things).

[Zeuq]

I actually disagree slightly with you there Worshaka in that, I agree that Holy regen is in a good spot, but it seems to me as though Shamans have more regen. Thus, it seems to me as though I generally have more HPM than a Shaman, their regen makes up for it and they can get off more casts. Personally, I really enjoy the mana management game, to the point where I'd recently decided to drop a fair amount of extra regen in favor of more throughput and it makes the game that much more interesting for me because I have to plan out cooldowns more carefully, and even coordinate with the other healers like knowing when Mana Tide is going to be dropped or when another Priest is going to use Hymn of Hope.

Then again, like Worshaka, I also value Spirit higher than many other Priests do and I can milk some of that OOFSR regen in burst healing encounters, phase transitions, and during my HoH and DH channels.

[Sellest]

Play what you like more if you play alone or pug stuff.
Play what will bring more to your group/raid if you play with friends.
There is no number 3 :P

With good gear mana efficiency is not an issue. All depends on setup/other healers

[Fenixdown]

More important question. Are you playing as discipline or as holy?

Holy is more in line with a comparison to a resto shaman (though, as already stated, still not exactly apples to apples). Then it just comes down to spell use and playstyle. I've seen holy priests oom before 5 minutes and I've seen holy priests that never once need an Innervate.

If you are playing as discipline, there is NO comparisons. Discipline will hardly ever oom, unless you're just spamming GH and PoH nonstop (which is not what disc should be doing).

Hope that kind of helps!

[Ushra]

More important question. Are you playing as discipline or as holy?

Holy is more in line with a comparison to a resto shaman (though, as already stated, still not exactly apples to apples). Then it just comes down to spell use and playstyle. I've seen holy priests oom before 5 minutes and I've seen holy priests that never once need an Innervate.

If you are playing as discipline, there is NO comparisons. Discipline will hardly ever oom, unless you're just spamming GH and PoH nonstop (which is not what disc should be doing).

Hope that kind of helps!

In terms of mana, yeah. In terms of actually more Healing / HPS Priests win.

And as stated, a Disc Priest never runs oom.

[Casualty]

me has high gear score

me good

[Mithip]

About the oo5sr, does throwing renew count as a "casting spells", or you totally need to do nothing for 5 seconds for that rule to apply?

[harky]

Holy Priest's actually have a mix of some of the worst heals in the game, despite what most Priest's might claim. Druid is the superior raid healer (Wild Growth and Lifebloom/Rejuv are flat better than Circle of Healing and Renew), Shaman/Disc/Pally all have substantially better single target heals. Etc, etc. Holy Priests really do well because they have more options overall, rather than better healing. They're pro at sniping heals with Emp. Renes, CoH and instant Flash Heals, so they come out above a lot of classes that they really shouldn't.

They do have more mana issues than any other healer as well since most of their spells are more expensive than their competition and they don't have as many consistent regen options. Shadowfiend is great, but not compared to Innervate and Watershield and Disc just... yeah, they should never go OOM. Paladins just get so much out of Int that they stack it to the moon and back. Then you get to comparing things like Divine Plea vs Hymn and realize that well, they have better cooldowns too.

That said, Holy Priests are pretty good regardless of the fight you put them in. They have something useful to do as long as they don't have to tank heal too much. They also shouldn't go OOM. They may have the worst regen and poor HPM compared to most classes (PoM being the key exception), but with decent gear and playing right no healer should be going OOM in any fight in the game right now except Vezax and they really shouldn't be going OOM in that either if their guild isn't horribad.

Anyway, Shaman brings more raid utility and is much better at tank healing than Holy, while being a good raid healer on top of that. They're much worse tank healers than Disc, but they're better raid healers for almost all fights. Shaman has better regen than Holy, but worse regen than Disc. Again though, none of them have problems with going OOM once you're geared and playing well. So uh... do you like mail better than cloth? :P

Edit: @Bbk -- anything that costs mana counts as casting a spell. You have to do nothing. That said if you do nothing for 4 seconds, then cast a 2 second spell you'll get 1 second out of 5 seconds. The 'cast' counts when the spell activates. It's pointless to play with the 5 second rule in WotLK like we did in BC and vanilla, though... so... don't worry about it.

[Kelesti]

@Harky:
3.0 Regen = R
3.0 Meditation =.3 R

3.1 Regen = .6 R
3.1 Meditation = .3R

3.1 Meditation with HC = .45R
3.1 Regen with HC = .9R

Stopping to cast after a Renew/Flash (or multi-stack Serendipity-Greater combo) crits, and just "letting the cards fall into play" means that we still get 3 seconds of regen that was at pre-nerf capabilities. Considering HoTs, Mendings, and other things in play, it's not that far off from an ideal. And considering you may not need your Divine Hymn in the next three minutes, it is possible to chain it with Inner Focus to get 11 seconds of sexy regen. Done so at the end of a phase, or lull in raid healing (quite frequently) when the others "have it" can restore as much mana as a potion. Manipulating the 5SR at will, or even by accident like in 3.0, may be broken. But it's far from dead, and can still be used quite effectively if you know what you're doing.

[Mithip]

Edit: @Bbk -- anything that costs mana counts as casting a spell. You have to do nothing. That said if you do nothing for 4 seconds, then cast a 2 second spell you'll get 1 second out of 5 seconds. The 'cast' counts when the spell activates. It's pointless to play with the 5 second rule in WotLK like we did in BC and vanilla, though... so... don't worry about it.

I know that but just not casting gives mana back in some way so... But thanks for the clarification.

EDIT: And like Kelesti said. You still have good mana return with the oo5sr only if you have good mana regen from start, and use it while HC is up and trinkets/whatever.

[RevvRevv]

I'd have to say Shamans are probably more mana efficent, when i was gearing up my alt shammy i was very nervous and worried about my mana conservation... So i stacked intel, i am now on 28.5k mana unbuffed which really is overkill, but i'm just to cheap to switch to haste gems, granted i only heal normal toc10 and ulduar10 with some hard modes... But i can pretty much spam my way through any boss

Where as i see priests in the same gear kinda sturggleing on 2k mana, waiting a while to cast

Just through personal experiance though

[Zeuq]

Druid is the superior raid healer (Wild Growth and Lifebloom/Rejuv are flat better than Circle of Healing and Renew), Shaman/Disc/Pally all have substantially better single target heals. Etc, etc. Holy Priests really do well because they have more options overall, rather than better healing. They're pro at sniping heals with Emp. Renes, CoH and instant Flash Heals, so they come out above a lot of classes that they really shouldn't.

If you're going to directly compare two pairs of arbitrary spells, you can make any class look better than any other class. What makes Priests perhaps still the best raid healers precisely IS the options. Yes, CoH and Renew may be slightly weaker options when compared to WG, LB, and Rejuv, but that's pretty much the extent of the Druid raid healing aresenal. Priests still have PoM, BH, FH, and PoH as other options. Druids excel at that sort of steady raid damage that favors WG and Rejuv, but a good CoH/PoM filled with Renews will hold it's own. And there's situations where that won't work all that well; look at situations with raidwide burst like Ignis, Kologarn, XT's tantrum, Hodir's frozen blows, etc. and tell me that Druids are still the superior raid healers.

[harky]

You just repeated what you quoted from me. Cool?

"Holy Priests really do well because they have more options overall, rather than better healing."

[Kelesti]

And as far as raid damage is concerned, it comes in one of a few patterns.

The first? Steady incoming damage from all sides, in small pulses. Example: Twin Valkyrs
The second? Heavy raid damage, in burst, with lulls between them. Example: Hodir's Frozen Blows or lolKoralon
The third? Raid damage split between a few members, but exceptionally bursty and usually random. Example: Anub'arak phase 1-2.

Best healer for the first one? Obviously a druid.
Best healer for the third? Obviously a Shaman. Discipline's shields help here a LOT.

The second one? Heavily favoring priest. Sure, any healer can step on any grounds, but as raid healing, it's the massive "OMG" moments that the holy priest brings back entire groups at a time.

If you're comparing spells, Prayer of healing vs MultiHoT/WG vs Chain Heal (vs Shield?) is not a direct comparison because they work differently in different strengths and weaknesses.

[harky]

Remember the first situations impact on PoM. That's actually very favorable to Holy as well.

[Zeuq]

You just repeated what you quoted from me. Cool?

"Holy Priests really do well because they have more options overall, rather than better healing."

Not at all. I was disputing your "Druid is the superior healer" because you were arbitrarily comparing two pairs of spells without context. Different situations favor different types of raid healing, and I think Kelesti probably did a better job explaining that than I did. Calling any one raid healer superior without context doesn't really mean anything.

I also don't even understand what you mean by "Holy Priests really do well because they have more options overall, rather than better healing." What are you trying to say? If PoH is the ideal spell for a situation, how is that not "better healing" than a Shaman's Chain Heal or a Druid's Wild Growth in the same situation? What more options means is that Priests have finer control where other healers with coarser tools.