Flash Heal vs Renew

[Selinde]

Hello. I'm not new to healing as a holy priest, but I was wondering is renew really much better than flash heal for raid healing?
I still specced into renew talents and use it on tanks and to raid heal. I didn't raid icc yet so can't give examples, but when dps'es get a kobold on beasts I renew them, when they get damaged by toravon/koralon trash (I'm tired and can't think of a better one) I cast FH (when I feel they need to get topped off asap). BUT it seems I cast more FHs overall. Especially on fights without small constant damage or heavy aoe damage (where I use PoH) my top 3 spells are usually PoM CoH and FH - in this order.

I just feel like it saves more lives than renew. I guess I just like burst healing?

I understand priests have a lot of tools for every occasion and that's what I love about them, but seeing other priests swearing their eternal love to renew made me doubt about my healing playstyle.

Am I doing it wrong? Am I gimping myself with all these FHs without Flash Heal improving talents? Should I hold back and just cast renew more often and let other healers heal random spot damage? Or should the priests who spam renew on everything just reroll a druid instead?

Sorry for the grammar errors or if this post makes little sense, it's 7am and I didn't sleep :P

[Saronstrike]

If people aren't dying then as far as I'm concerned you're doing your job. One playstyle someone in a top raiding guild uses may not be a playstyle for you. So if you like Flash heal over renew, then by all means flash heal.
I like my renew personally because usually I'm running with a shaman or holy paladin. Just ProM the tanks, renew the raid, and sit back and pat myself on the back.

Or should the priests who spam renew on everything just reroll a druid instead?

:
I respect druids in any roll (if they earn it that is) but I just don't like the class overall, and that's a personal choice.

[Tezmata]

It all comes down to your individual playstyle. All preferences aside, if I ever found myself relying on Flash Heal more than Renew while I am talented into the "Renew Spec," I'd either reflect upon whether or not I am using Renew properly or just respec into the "Flash Heal Spec."

For the record, I love Renew spec and hate healing as a Druid. Having a HoT doesn't mean the two classes have the same play style. It's like saying Mages and Boomkin are the same because they both have direct-damage spells. :P

[harky]

Fully talented with 4k SP w/ raid buffs:

Renew - Heals for 2,012 instantly, crits for 3,018, then 13,415 over 15 seconds.
Flash Heal - Heals for 7,075 average, crits for 12,112 average.

Flash Heal with no SoL and 35% Holy Crit averages out to 8,837 per cast fully talented. That means 5/5 Emp. Healing, 3/3 Blessed Resil. To get this and proper raiding talent it requires going 59 points into Holy. This means that you will never see 5/5 Emp. Healing and 3/3 Blessed Resil in a solid build. Still, that's the potential output. Renew with the same stats will heal for 15,779 average. This makes Renew just less than twice as much healing per cast at 78% more healing per cast.

In terms of which spell is stronger, Renew wins. The mana cost is close enough that it's a non-issue. Renew specs are not because Priests want to be Druids, it's because Priests want to get use out of their best filler spell.


Anyway, if people aren't dying, it's fine really. Flash Heal is much weaker than Renew when used properly and there's no getting around that, but depending on how many healers you have and what content you're doing it might not matter. Just think about fights sometime and try to really figure out if someone is at risk or not. Does the extra 4-5k heal from Flash Heal right now matter in the long run? More often then not it doesn't. When it really matters you won't be using Renew, or Flash Heal. When things really get bad the filler spells go out the window and we pull out PoH. The issue a lot of people have is they confuse the very needed 'renew' and 'Flash Heal' distinction from builds as meaning that the play-style is very different. The truth is they play almost identically. One uses Flash Heal to fill gaps, one uses Renew. Renew is much stronger for pure raid healing in 25s. Flash Heal has a decent place in 10s (due to needing to tank heal). It doesn't make you a wannabe Druid at all, it just means you use a HoT when CoH, and PoM are on cooldown and PoH isn't needed.

[Selinde]

Thank you for the replies.
Even though I don't have quite 4k sp (but close :P) the scaling is the same.
Atm I'm running with http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbu...ihhcuAo:0Nd0zc
What do you think about the renew glyph? Is it viable? It would bring my renew ticks to 3k from 2400 considering rawr says my FH on average is 5600ish (I really thought it was higher) it doesn't look bad to me. But maybe I'm wrong.

I mostly pug so I don't have a group of healers that I always run with, and sometimes I have to pick up the slack of others, and I often find myself in situations like "heal NOW or he dies!".

Anyway :P The "reroll a druid" part was a joke!

[Lootasisew]

I 100% agree, Renew > Flash heal. Use CoH/PoM on CD, Emp Renew heal raid, Surge of Light on proc to generate serendipity and hold serendipity till incoming raid dmg to Glyphed PoH and win.

**Edit** New 4pc T10 just reinforces this more.

[Selinde]

Hmhmhn. 4pT10 means I have to give up my 20% healing on PoM. Sorry, not gonna replace my hands and legs anytime soon :P It's a pity cause I lose stats upgrades but 20% healing on my most used spell ever is just that good IMO.

[Deleted]

If I had the heroic version of T9 I would have kept 2p for all eternity for just that sexy 20% PoM bonus. However I dont have it since my guild got tired of ToGC25 and moved on to ICC before we could get further than Twin Valkyrs. In my opinion, the stat loss makes it not worth keeping if you dont have the hc version. The new 4p T10 is preeetty lovely! <3

[Zeuq]

Hmhmhn. 4pT10 means I have to give up my 20% healing on PoM. Sorry, not gonna replace my hands and legs anytime soon :P It's a pity cause I lose stats upgrades but 20% healing on my most used spell ever is just that good IMO.

I ran some math in another thread and it basically came out that the new 4pT10 is a very slight upgrade over the 2pT9 for a typical Renew spec. This math, of course, assumed you were using iLevel 245 gloves and shoulders to keep the 2pT9 because they have the lowest item budget and, thus, lose the least stat-wise. Thus, unless you have some 258 pieces of T9, you should consider upgrading to T10. Also, if you're running any pieces of T9 other than the gloves and shoulders, the stat difference starts to skew more in favor of T10.

[hunts0417]

Hmhmhn. 4pT10 means I have to give up my 20% healing on PoM. Sorry, not gonna replace my hands and legs anytime soon :P It's a pity cause I lose stats upgrades but 20% healing on my most used spell ever is just that good IMO.

Don't forget to look at how much overhealing PoM does. After mine hit ~30% I switched to upgrades but still keep 2 pieces of T9.5 for very heavy raid fights likes twins or fester.

[harky]

Thank you for the replies.
Even though I don't have quite 4k sp (but close :P) the scaling is the same.
Atm I'm running with http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbu...ihhcuAo:0Nd0zc
What do you think about the renew glyph? Is it viable? It would bring my renew ticks to 3k from 2400 considering rawr says my FH on average is 5600ish (I really thought it was higher) it doesn't look bad to me. But maybe I'm wrong.

2/2 SoL is bad. No Body and Soul is bad. If you want Inner Focus take 1 point from Blessed Resilience. And 5,600 sounds pretty normal. That 7k+ number is from a spec with maxed Empowered Healing.

[Selinde]

Yeah, I tried taking B&S once maybe I'll respec into it. I usually have Inner Focus macroed to Divine Hymn.
What's the math behind 1/2 SoL? I read something about it on elitist jerks a while ago but I can't find it. I'll respec to B&S, still what do you think about renew glyph?

I ran some math in another thread and it basically came out that the new 4pT10 is a very slight upgrade over the 2pT9 for a typical Renew spec. This math, of course, assumed you were using iLevel 245 gloves and shoulders to keep the 2pT9 because they have the lowest item budget and, thus, lose the least stat-wise. Thus, unless you have some 258 pieces of T9, you should consider upgrading to T10. Also, if you're running any pieces of T9 other than the gloves and shoulders, the stat difference starts to skew more in favor of T10.

I have legs and gloves cause they were the pieces available to me with haste, couldn't make up for the difference anywhere else :P Are you talking about the 264 or the 251 version? I don't see myself getting t10 tokens for the ilvl 264 pieces anytime soon, the PuGs on my realm are not that good.
Do you think the 4p is so good that I should take the t10 ilvl 251?

[fabian]

In a renew spec, 1/2 will keep that instant FH up for when you need to heal, and you need it now. Any point in SoL for a FH spec will decrease through put.

[harky]

2pT9 + 2pT10 is only worthwhile if you use the Shoulders/Gloves to get it and only if you have 245 vs 251, or 258 vs 264. The 4pT10 bonus is better than the 2pT9 bonus for most fights and those that it isn't better on are fights where neither Renew, or PoM will be high on healing (PoH/CoH will be 75%+). (This is after the buff, which is what you should be paying attention to.)

The Renew glyph is pretty crappy though. All it does is increases the single target HPS of the spell, which isn't the point at all. Prayer of Healing is the way to go for 25s.

As far as SoL the reason for 1/2 is this: It's 25% per point per crit to proc and the buff lasts 10 seconds. You'll most likely hae 14-18 chances to proc SoL in 10 seconds. With the normal 30% crit that means the average uptime if you don't cast FH is up around 99.6%. The extra point takes it from 99.6% to 99.99%. So an extra insurance policy of .39% uptime. The issue a lot of people miss is how FH should be used with SoL. FH should only be cast if someone is actually in danger. Otherwise Renew is much better, causes less sniping and less wasted motions since you'd need to FH twice to get the effect of one Renew. SoL is taken so that if it's needed it's there. It is not taken so you can throw instant Flash Heals around all the time.

As Fabian mentioned if you're using a Flash Heal build you shouldn't have SoL at all because it reduces the throughput by removing the crit chance from FH.

[Joarrak]

Fully talented with 4k SP w/ raid buffs:

Renew - Heals for 2,012 instantly, crits for 3,018, then 13,415 over 15 seconds.
Flash Heal - Heals for 7,075 average, crits for 12,112 average.

Flash Heal with no SoL and 35% Holy Crit averages out to 8,837 per cast fully talented. That means 5/5 Emp. Healing, 3/3 Blessed Resil. To get this and proper raiding talent it requires going 59 points into Holy. This means that you will never see 5/5 Emp. Healing and 3/3 Blessed Resil in a solid build. Still, that's the potential output. Renew with the same stats will heal for 15,779 average. This makes Renew just less than twice as much healing per cast at 78% more healing per cast.

In terms of which spell is stronger, Renew wins. The mana cost is close enough that it's a non-issue. Renew specs are not because Priests want to be Druids, it's because Priests want to get use out of their best filler spell.


Anyway, if people aren't dying, it's fine really. Flash Heal is much weaker than Renew when used properly and there's no getting around that, but depending on how many healers you have and what content you're doing it might not matter. Just think about fights sometime and try to really figure out if someone is at risk or not. Does the extra 4-5k heal from Flash Heal right now matter in the long run? More often then not it doesn't. When it really matters you won't be using Renew, or Flash Heal. When things really get bad the filler spells go out the window and we pull out PoH. The issue a lot of people have is they confuse the very needed 'renew' and 'Flash Heal' distinction from builds as meaning that the play-style is very different. The truth is they play almost identically. One uses Flash Heal to fill gaps, one uses Renew. Renew is much stronger for pure raid healing in 25s. Flash Heal has a decent place in 10s (due to needing to tank heal). It doesn't make you a wannabe Druid at all, it just means you use a HoT when CoH, and PoM are on cooldown and PoH isn't needed.

Yes, based on an ideal situation where a person will receive the full healing from either spell, renew will be better. The problem is that both are situational. For example on Toravon/Koralon trash there is no consistent damage, just one hit for 20k. By the time renew will tick more than once, they will probably be healed to full already and the rest of the heal will be wasted. The initial heal + maybe 1 tick is not > flash heal in this case. In a situation with raidwide aoe damage, a dot, a loose add on someone, or anyone in general taking consistent damage, throw a renew on whoever is taking the damage/the whole raid and then flash heal anyone who gets low. You cannot use one or the other for raid healing, you need to combine them based on the situation. Think about how quickly they need to be healed, how consistently they are taking damage, and how fast others will be healing them.

[Nawramsti]

Hmm I've read through this and I need to ask a question I am not a big fan of renew simply because when I cast it
or pre-cast it on multiple people I see them getting topped up almost instantly and I might maybe just get in a tick or two
on the other hand I find PoM and CoH one of the most spells that I am using any advice on how to make renew less...overhealish or something. also renew is up 24/7 on the tanks.

[harky]

So Joarrak , you gave one example of trash that can be single healed on 25 man. Do you have any other arguments? Sorry, but the whole 'you need to use both' thing is silly. We're talking about filler spells. Yes, there are times you need to cast Flash Heal, the debate is about if it's worth speccing into and using as primary filler. The answer in ICC for 25 mans is no. The truth of the matter is those low health people typically don't call from Flash Heal in emergencies. When it is an emergency it will almost always be Prayer of Healing, or another large raid heal that is needed. Using Flash Heal is just putting more people in danger than need to be. Using one example of one trash mob that has a random unpredictable spike of damage just doesn't fly for making a spec worthwhile. Especially when the normal way to deal with it is Greater Heal as Holy since there is no other raid damage so all you'll be doing is yawning and throwing Flash Heal at tanks while keeping Renew on them waiting to toss that hasted Greater Heal when needed.

[Selinde]

Thank you guys for all your replies.
I just respecced to 1/2 FoL and B&S and I'll try it tomorrow.
Last question.
For t10 again, should I go for the 4p bonus from 251 pieces or just forget the set completely and take other available ilvl264 items like haste/crit chest from frost emblems? I also play disc and I cringe at wearing full healing set with orrible itemization for both specs. (WTB more haste please?)

[harky]

It will be worth it in 4.0 as Disc, but not before. 5% additional absorbs on PW:S isn't as large of an impact as you might think, especially when the best fights for PW:S benefit more from having slightly smaller shields instead of large ones.

That said... it's great for Holy and will be great in 4.0. If you go 2/2 then go Gloves/Shoulders of T9 with Legs/Helm from T10. When moving to 4pT10 move to T10 Gloves/Shoulders and take the Spi/Haste or Crit/Haste chest options.

[Kuras]

I 100% agree, Renew > Flash heal. Use CoH/PoM on CD, Emp Renew heal raid, Surge of Light on proc to generate serendipity and hold serendipity till incoming raid dmg to Glyphed PoH and win.

**Edit** New 4pc T10 just reinforces this more.

;D

got to agree