Renew vs POH -debate-

[lifebloomz]

Lately I have started renew spamming having been assigned 2 groups to heal, I dont believe there is enough damage going out to warrant using POH

I'm at 1248 haste (20 from cap)

Am I doing it wrong Do I need this much haste if renew spamming, as I believe i should only be using POH when its required otherwise its pure overheal

I was at 10.5K hps @ bloodqueen with renew at like 40% of my healing, poh was barely required at all

Happy debating!

Hinaki (stormscale eu)

[Deleted]

i'm going to say it largely depends on your other healers.

eg, my guild often runs double disc priest blanketing the raid in shields. in this situation renew just doesn't cut it. you cast renew, they cast shield, the first 3 ticks are over heal
being able to cast PoH when the shields break in this situation is better.

also depends on how your druids play, how many. do your resto shamans usually concentrate their heals on specific groups/melee? etc


i don't think there's 1 right answer here. just do what suits the encounter

[lifebloomz]

For this encounter we had

Myself and a druid heal 1 melee 1 ranged group

Druid & shaman healing 1 melee 1 ranged group

1 Paladin tank healing

1 Disc shielding

[Somedudeknownaschris]

You mention overheal but since when did that matter in wotlk? Are you seriously still having mana issues to the point where you have to worry about it? In all honesty, those that I've seen that renew spam are the same people who think "higher healing meters spot = higher skill". Yeah ok, if someone takes a tiny bit of damage (eg aura type damage) your renew will tick it up but that's what wild growth is for. Personally, POH all the way keeping up a renew on the people who actually need it rather than just everyone possible.

But yeah situational question is situational.


--- edit:

I was at 10.5K hps @ bloodqueen with renew at like 40% of my healing, poh was barely required at all

heh didn't even notice this when I wrote about meters. Seriously, hps means near enough fuck all. It's a good indicator when you're first learning to play a healer, but when you're into it, it can be forgotten about near enough.

[lifebloomz]

its not about whether the damage is tiny or not

There is hardly any reason to POH in most boss fights only when the raid starts taking lots and lots of damage

Simple aura healing doesnt require you to use POH in my opinion

COH / pom

Blanket raid

[Jimmyw]

im spamming Renew with circle everytime its off cd same with prayer of mending.. tahts my prio based rotation with circle first prayer 2nd renew 3rd.. I do very very good HPS im up there with our druids.. its very rare that I use PoH the only situation I can think of is on Sindra when hiding behind IB to get stacks off, I can heal a party member of the tanks grp and still heal the tank even though im LoS.. else I dont use it..

I dont have much haste even though im sitting on 6.2k gs. got like 500 haste... haste is not really needed when renew spamming... atm im playing disc though since our disc priest stopped playing ^^..

on a side note, I was 3rd priest worldwide on marrowgar HC recently ^^...

Tadaah - Frostmane EU

[Oixi]

i found PoH quite unusefull in my guild druids or shamans are toping others much faster which means if i keep casting PoH i dont have to be there
tbh im using renew PoM CoH and FH on proc and dropped serendipity because im not really using the benefit of it... if once per raid.

for HPS issue its shit, but still more u have less healing work for others which is good and it really doesnt matter when job is done

[lifebloomz]

heh didn't even notice this when I wrote about meters. Seriously, hps means near enough fuck all. It's a good indicator when you're first learning to play a healer, but when you're into it, it can be forgotten about near enough.

HPS does matter but whether I was doing 8k on that fight or 10k wouldnt matter aslong as we downed bloodqueen & next to no one died.

It's not like im playing for the meters

I'm countering the damage aura how I best see fit, any linked player I'll renew / binding heal and use my SOL proces when necessary

[Mosaes]

In AE-based damage like Bloodqueen I personally prefer the Mending > CoH > renew priority system.

They might not geht you the nr1 spot in the Drool-tool but those smart heals will save someones life.

PoH is too random in terms of " get the lowest taget the first heal". Sure, its more Hp/sec, but whats better? Bringing grp 5 from 80 to 100% or saving the rangedcamp in grps 3,4,5 that just stood to close to [insert random splash dmg]. It's situational at best.

Renew on the other hand is a nice tool as a filler for many reasons. If fully gyphed, skilled and decently equipped it can tick for 4k+ (havent tried 20% buff yet ), proc surge of light and the reg buff. It works great with ranged, meele, single, groups or tanks. The only sad part being that the initial crit does not proc inspiration

thats my story and im sticking to it !

[Talhooo]

Seriously depends on your healing setup, but mostly if your in a good healing team, renew is definitely the way to go. And only use PoH when like 3,4 people have a -5k health deficit.

On normal burst i mostly use PoM, and not flash heal like someone said here to stack up serendipity, that would seriously lower your hps lol

I do feel im not always CoH'ing on cd anymore like i used 2. Mostly in our situation the raid is constantly topped and CoH barely does healing (unless you time it on the aura dmg tick ... which imo is also hps loss). I mostly do it random when I see it can do enough healing.

oh and glyphing renew at this point is a very bad idea imo ... my renew ticks already top off people (4.1k ticks lol ....) why would you want stronger ticks ... no you want it to tick longer not harder ...

on a side note, I was 3rd priest worldwide on marrowgar HC recently ^^...

Tadaah - Frostmane EU

dont like meters to much sometimes.
I solo healed lord marro hc and only got 10th place (only 6-7k hps or something) while first priest was on 7.5k AND 2healing with a hpala who did 6k ...

[Somedudeknownaschris]

renew vs poh debate is the same debate as meters: being shit and topping meters or being good and not giving a fuck

"I was 3rd best on meters on marrowgar ehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehheehheheheheehh"...

really?

[Jimmyw]

renew vs poh debate is the same debate as meters: being shit and topping meters or being good and not giving a fuck

"I was 3rd best on meters on marrowgar ehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehheehheheheheehh"...

really?

yes really ^^.. 34th of all healers world wide... I know it depends on how many times u get bonespiked and how fast dps is to get you out etc and guess I was lucky with spikes, but still ^^.. not a bad feat imo

[Danner]

Both spells are useful. Don't stick to one of them unless the mechanics of the fights require it.

PoH costs a crapton of mana, and doesn't do a lot on aura fights.
Renew also costs a lot of mana, but notably less than PoH, and doesn't do a lot of burst.

Use both. But I personally think that PoH is what makes priests unique these days, and thus this is the spell I am mainly focusing on.

[Oixi]

dont like meters to much sometimes.
I solo healed lord marro hc and only got 10th place (only 6-7k hps or something) while first priest was on 7.5k AND 2healing with a hpala who did 6k ...

Really? u solohealed marrowgar hc with 6k hps? show me the log

[Deleted]

i prefer poh over renew. i used to renew spam, but it just isnt enough when i have 2 resto druids already hotting the shit out of my raid.

[Somedudeknownaschris]

yes really ^^.. 34th of all healers world wide... I know it depends on how many times u get bonespiked and how fast dps is to get you out etc and guess I was lucky with spikes, but still ^^.. not a bad feat imo

Sorry but if you're too bad to understand how such a simple game works then I have no reason to try to explain poh and renew to you. Have a nice day.

[harky]

To the OP: In your specific example no, you should not be using PoH. However, you should never think of Renew vs PoH as an absolute. This is because of over-heal margins. PoH is substantially higher HPS than Renew when used properly.

With 20% buff, haste capped (you're close enough) and 4k SP buffed:
Renew - ~19k per cast = max ~19k HPS
Glyphed PoH - ~36.5k per cast = max ~18.25k HPS

Yes, this means that Renew is in fact higher HPS than PoH. But that is only at 0% over-healing. If you can land PoH at nearly any over-heal margin lower than your average over-heal on Renew, then PoH is superior. Also if you happen to have Serendipity for whatever reason (Festergut at 3 inhales etc), then PoH surpasses the HPS of Renew. But in general use what you're looking for is to understand your over-heal margin with Renew (often 35-40%) and then keep an eye out for a chance to land PoH with a lower over-heal rate.

Remember that Renew's over-heal amount over the course of a fight is pretty static. It's averaged over a ton of ticks on a ton of people so you can count on that. PoH on the other hand is a different style entirely and in particular lines up positively with damage auras at haste cap. That is the cast time is equal to the damage aura tick rate and the glyph's tick rate also allows for aura ticks in between its own ticks. So with proper rhythm you can achieve some very low over-healing with PoH. There's also the Bloodlust factor. When lust is cast in damage aura fights, assuming you have the mana, you can just go nuts with PoH. Just make sure to never PoH the same group more than once every 6 seconds or you'll eat HoT ticks from your glyph.

All in all though, don't think like scrubby Druids. Scrubby Druids will blanket Rejuv and think they're maximizing HPS. Good ones you'll see things like Nourish, or Swiftmend, or WG, or Regrowth all being tossed around. It's the same reason Holy should use a nice blend of spells; Yes, your primary cheap filler is extremely efficient and extremely strong, but if you can land other spells with very low over-healing, or properly time other cooldowns you'll increase your HPS more than mindless spam.

That said... ICC now has a 20% healing buff. It's now joke content that relies purely on coordination. There's very little need for specific healing strategies, or even proper DPS rotations to beat enrage timers. Even clothies now walk around at near 30k health and are still only getting hit for 4-8k by most things that hit them. So... don't worry about it too much.

[Auraye]

Just a couple things that I wanted to throw in there to stir the pot a little.

Five global cooldowns to cast five Renews or ~2 second cast (without Serendipity or Borrowed Time) for PoH. I seem to recall in another thread where someone argued that PoH is more important because it can be cast faster, completely disregarding the mana efficiency of one versus the other, and other points of contention. It's up to you to decide if you want to blow through mana with PoH instead of using some of the most mana efficient spells in the priest arsenal.

On the other hand, whether a healer uses Grid, Healbot, Vuhdo, etc. nearly every healer has the ability to see incoming heals from others. For example, I have Vuhdo set to view incoming heals that will land/occur over the following 3 seconds (plenty of time for any cast to land and for me to react, but doesn't cover entire HoT durations). Because most addons are configured in such a manner to where you don't see the entire HoT value, just the short-term value (3 seconds) of it incoming, HoTs are easily sniped or missed altogether, therefore stacked, often too much resulting in massive overheals for both HoTters. I wouldn't say that's a messed up mechanic, because looking too far into the future is with the assumption that the person being healed isn't going to take even more damage, but I digress...By comparison, it easy to see the relative incoming heal and value of PoH before it lands on the party. Because of this, the other healers are given greater opportunity to make more efficient decisions of who is a higher priority to HoT/heal next: the group with a PoH about to land them back at max health, or people that don't appear to have any incoming heals.

I'm not saying one is better than the other at keeping people alive, or gives the best, most reliable heal, but think about how more efficient the other healers can be selecting targets when they can see the incoming heals for their full value? That can translate into increased efficiency in time and mana management.

And....go!

[Bigslick]

yes really ^^.. 34th of all healers world wide... I know it depends on how many times u get bonespiked and how fast dps is to get you out etc and guess I was lucky with spikes, but still ^^.. not a bad feat imo

You should definitely thank your dps for their contribution towards this feat. If it weren't for their selflessly standing in coldflame and embracing Marrowgar's bonestorm like a sweater there wouldn't have been as much AOE healing to be done.

Nice that you pushed a lot of the HPS in restoring them, but note that HPS isn't just a meter of 'good' performance. It can be a meter of how poorly a raid performs in an encounter, too.

[Auraye]

@ Harky
To the OP: In your specific example no, you should not be using PoH. However, you should never think of Renew vs PoH as an absolute. This is because of over-heal margins. PoH is substantially higher HPS than Renew when used properly.
...
Yes, this means that Renew is in fact higher HPS than PoH. But that is only at 0% over-healing. If you can land PoH at nearly any over-heal margin lower than your average over-heal on Renew, then PoH is superior.

That's with the assumption that all five people in the party are at the same health deficit. What if you're healing a party that has only 4 people at a deficit? Since when is overhealing a bad thing anyway? As long as your mana pool is fine, poring over overhealing values is moot. At the very heart of healing, it doesn't matter how you get or keep the people at full health, as long as you do your job in keeping them alive and healthy. You also cannot assume what the overheal values are going to be of your spells for any fight unless 1) you have the same raid makeup and performance, 2) the healers' casts are predictable in terms of target, which heal, by whom, etc., and 3) the raid takes the same damage. Unlike DPS, HPS is unpredictable because there are far more factors that can affect a healer's eHPS, and as I've said before, that is not a measure of a healer's worth. Keeping people alive is.

Also if you happen to have Serendipity for whatever reason (Festergut at 3 inhales etc), then PoH surpasses the HPS of Renew.

Example of unpredictability. The sun, moon, and stars don't always line up.

But in general use what you're looking for is to understand your over-heal margin with Renew (often 35-40%) and then keep an eye out for a chance to land PoH with a lower over-heal rate.

Maybe for you, but I'm looking at one night's run where our main holy priest overhealed ~60% on both PoH and Renew.

Remember that Renew's over-heal amount over the course of a fight is pretty static. It's averaged over a ton of ticks on a ton of people so you can count on that.

No it's not. It's dependent upon incoming damage values, and heals coming from other casters, both of which are unpredictable. The overheal produced could be quite low for any given fight if you have two healers dead and the phase 3 crap hit the fan.

I've said enough to make my point. You oversimplify game mechanics to support what you believe to be true, and insist it's the gospel. Not everything is black or white. It's not like we're playing Tetris or something.

Since you're so confident that your way is the best way, I'd love to see some evidence that your methodology is better. Make me a convert. Post up some raid logs so we can see this with our own eyes.

@Bigslick -
...note that HPS isn't just a meter of 'good' performance. It can be a meter of how poorly a raid performs in an encounter, too.

I couldn't have said it any better myself.