Holy Priest: What do we bring to a raid?

[Hendrixstorm]

Did you even read the rest of the thread? =/

What other class gives:

214 Stamina buff
80 Spirit buff
Tank-saving CD that works 100% of the time
SPEED BUBBLES!
Instant 6k heal to 6 people
Nice +max mana cooldown to help other healers' mana
"ZOMGWTF" healing cooldown to save raid from huge damage

http://www.wowhead.com/item=49632
http://www.wowhead.com/item=37098
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48788
http://www.wowhead.com/item=46017
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48447
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16190
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=64205

KK. Your move big guy.

[PriestLuna]

Have you ever done icc? i top the meters on my holy priest and i have the least overhealing done. and its been said thanks to me many times it wouldnt have been possible without me to down that boss.

Your other healers are doing it wrong then. And nobody cares about topping meters.

/agree with link in OP's post. Disc > all, unfortunately it takes a bit of thought and brainpower to do well opposed to facerolling. But less Disc in the community means more opportunity for me.

[Hendrixstorm]

Your other healers are doing it wrong then. And nobody cares about topping meters.

[fabian]

http://www.wowhead.com/item=49632
http://www.wowhead.com/item=37098
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48788
http://www.wowhead.com/item=46017
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48447
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16190
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=64205

KK. Your move big guy.

214 =/ 165
Who is going to waste time getting enough for a raid, and bother using them on the raid?
GS > LoH, 100% change of not dying + increase in healing > a longed CD high healing spell
Has an ICD
Party, so not 6 people. Also, longer CD
Did you read it? We give +max mana, mana tide does nothing of the sort
Yes, you are right DS > DH

Yes, 1 thing out of 7 makes us completely useless...

[Hendrixstorm]

I diddn't say you were useless, they weren't supposed to be clones of priest spells. It was me telling you that you're not special.

[Sidonis]

Holy isn't supposed to be a unique snowflake, sorry to burst your bubble (pun intended).

Holy is the jack of all trades healer, something that is being made all the more clear by the now previewed Chakra talent where casting a type of heal 3 times in a row gives you a buff to that kind of healing. For us, Holy is the 6th Healer, the go to guy when we need a little bit extra of this, but on the next fight we need a little bit extra of that, and we don't want to have 4 different healers benched to rotate in when instead we could be using the same guy each fight but in a different capacity.

Really, look at Chakra as an expansion of Serendipity, where you cast a few Flash Heals / Binding Heal, and it reduces the cast time of your next Greater Heal by a large amount, or your next Prayer of Healing.

Our Holy priest is the floater, he does whatever we need the most each fight, and if we don't need a 6th healer for the fight, he's perfectly happy going shadow and melting faces for that fight. In return, he gets a raid spot every night, he's considered for loot with as much credibility as our other types of healers, and he's first in line for offspec dps loot since he's the first person we turn to for an extra dps when we don't need that 6th healer.

[Deleted]

..we bring our Disc offspec?


Seriously though, Holy is one of the most versatile healers there is.
Sustained AoE damage? Renew
Burst AoE damage? PoH
Shallow cleaves? CoH
Any damage whatsoever? PoM
Single target? Gheal is good output

Holy has no specific strength, its strength is that it has no strength (if you get what I mean) but can do everything.

[Screwtape]

Retitled: How can I guarantee my raid spot through the raid calculator rather than good play?

[Conquestaxe]

Blizzard stated they are moving even more towards Bring the player not the class. This is a good thing. Whining before the changes go live is pointless.

[Hendrixstorm]

Retitled: How can I guarantee my raid spot through the raid calculator rather than good play?

You're just not a class that's going to be brought for buffs, especially with how great shadow priest DPS is right now. If you're not being brought because there are better healers, you're just not going to raid. If you can't heal better, either date your GM, or look for a new guild.

[Danner]

Guardian Spirit bugs a bit too often (~70% of the time) for my liking. Still, it is truly the best and only reason to want to bring a holypriest over any other healer. But if choosing between a holypriest and a druid, the choice is almost always the druid. And that is a problem. Even if you play masterfully, and the competing druid doesn't, you just can't beat a combat ress.

My guild currently employs 1 discpriest, 1 holypriest (me) and 2 restodruids. We're desperately looking for a third druid. Our discpriest is 100% stable and an excellent player. We're generally not accepting more priests, but recently made two exceptions for two old members returning to the game. I'm giving my spot to one of the two recruits for fights where he need gear and we don't really need maximized healing setups - there has yet to be a raid where we are both present at the same time. The other recruit, a damned fine healer, was forced to go shadow.

That's the state of holy: despite desperately wanting a new druid healer, he didn't get the job. It's a perception thing more than anything else, and I can't convince my guild leaders of otherwise. Holy is percieved as weak healers these days, and as a result, recruitment is low. You either have a guild, or you roll something else. Should I quit the game tomorrow, I doubt my guild will advertise for a new holypriest. But they will still advertise for that restodruid.

The big problem these days seems to be paladins though. We have like 10 holypaladins in the guild, but almost all of them are very inactive. We're forced to respecc our paladin tanks to healing to get an optimal group setup. Often while placing one of our two really good restoshammies outside since the healer spots are taken. And believe me, we all know that shammies make great MT healers. They just can't replace a paladin.

At the bottom line: what do I bring?
I'm a RAID-healer with a 100% attendance, and I know how to not stand in a fire. That's what. That's that.

[Ultima]

10 Holy Paladins? Christ, can I have a couple?

We've got one.

[Danner]

Problem is, we've got one too. On a good day.

[harky]

At the bottom line: what do I bring?
I'm a RAID-healer with a 100% attendance, and I know how to not stand in a fire. That's what. That's that.

If someone has decent gear and this is all their app says, I'd give them an interview. Attendance and awareness are many, many times more important than class imbalances in WoW.

And I swear every guild has Paladin attendance problems. We have 3 with 100% attendance and one always has to sit. :-\

[k3nn]

I view the role of priests as being between druids and shaman. You can pre-hot with only a little less efficacy than druids, and CoH allows you to reactively heal similarly to shaman with the difference of hitting more people but for a bit less than CH. PoH is also powerful tool that acts similarly to a CH and can outheal it depending on circumstances. PoM does an incredible job of helping those most in need of healing. We also have the capacity to throw flashes and hasted GHeals when spike healing is necessary; I'd argue better than a druid but weaker than a shaman.

So basically I think we're a half-druid-half-shaman. What makes us special over those classes is having GS and Divine Hymn - both of which are incredible cooldowns that absolutely justify our place in a raid.

Meters-wise: Paladins beat us because their job is to deal with tanks and tanks take lots of damage. That's cool; I have no desire to tank heal and paladins will never threaten us for raid healing. Shaman beat us because their CH specifically delivers a big chunk of healing to those who benefit from it most, and their pre-emptive healing is typically cast on tanks where it's almost guaranteed to be effective. Druids beat us because they can indiscriminately pre-hot people and get 'effective healing' on almost everyone; a druid whose rejuv moves 5 people from 26k life to 28k has just done 10k effective healing, but those people weren't going to die anyway so healing them "doesnt matter".

Healing is about stopping people from dying. When damage is taken we have pre-hotted a number of people to reduce its effects, we have a PoM bouncing around that actively chooses the lowest-HP targets in order to help those who most need it, we can react to a spike by instantly (okay, within ~.15s) moving the 6 most-hurt people further from death. Our ability to spike-heal is `okay' and we can handle it in a pinch, but our job is to prevent deaths with a mixture of pre-emptive and reactive healing and I think we do a good job of it.

[fizikz]

214 =/ 165
Who is going to waste time getting enough for a raid, and bother using them on the raid?
GS > LoH, 100% change of not dying + increase in healing > a longed CD high healing spell
Has an ICD
Party, so not 6 people. Also, longer CD
Did you read it? We give +max mana, mana tide does nothing of the sort
Yes, you are right DS > DH

Yes, 1 thing out of 7 makes us completely useless...

did you not see what he did there? he compared priest utility to ALL the other healers combined, wth? he clearly came here to QQ, bitch, and moan, let him be he's just trolling and wont be convinced no matter what you say.

[Xelaeno]

Red bull priest gives you wings!