[Priest] Blessed Prayers - 4.0 Holy Discussion

[Lysdexic]

Well we have one for Shadow and Discipline, why not Holy?

What are the biggest topics for discussion about Holy mechanics?


*Chakra
*Lightwell
*Tank Healing
*Holy PvP - A future beyond Spirit of Redemption? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcHhbxpvEOY)

---------- Post added 2010-08-12 at 01:11 PM ----------

@Chakra
I think it's got a huge reputation to live up to now. GC says he wants it to be THE reason to play Holy. I just don't think its anywhere near that.

Connected w/ our terrible tank healing atm, I think most people will agree that 3.1 killed tank healing for holy because of the change to HC and OOFSR regen. However, I think giving us a clearcasting proc, whether it be Holy Concentration or something new would be awesome. It could be connected to "Heal" chakra and maybe only affect single target spells (maybe just Flash Heal, Heal, or Greater Heal).

[zenkai]

Honestly since I am not in beta QQ, I am not keeping up much on the changes until they are finalized, there's a difference between crunching the numbers and how it works in situations. I like how they are trying to bring back mana efficiency in healing but who knows how long that will last as Blizzard likes to scale gear like DBZ scales power levels.

---------- Post added 2010-08-12 at 02:16 PM ----------

Wanted to add, I will do like I do between every expansion and priest changing patch, I will test out what works best for me and adjust, then get pissed off while I have to use my arsenal to be the most efficient of heals while the rest of the healing classes /face roll one or two heals. So yeah if they make it to where healers now have to be efficient, over heal now becomes a factor and you can easily tell now between a good healer and a bad one, I will jump for joy.

[fabian]

I'm pretty sure Kelesti was waiting a bit before creating a Holy one because he wanted to post all of his thoughts and observations into the thread to start it off. The reason why is in another thread, I'll try to find it.

Or maybe I'm seeing stuff? But I do have to say, it Kelesti didn't make a Holy Thread right away, there is a good reason behind it.

[Danner]

@Chakra:
Not there yet, the spell is broken to a level where no tweaking of numbers is going to help it - unless you want to make holypriests blatantly overpowered. It's imo kinda pointless to discuss it until the next patch touch a holypriest near you - if you ask me.
But don't let me stop you, all!

@Lightwell:
Carthago delenda est.
In a recent "what is the worst thing that could realistically happen" thread on the official healer forums, someone proposed that Deathwing can only be healed by clever employment of lightwell. That thought alone made me have nightmares last night. Lightwell is a gimmick spell, one that doesn't work well at all, and one that the devteam has been trying to sell as a main reason to go holypriest for the last 4 and a half years. It's time to kill it. Seriously. I remember hearing arguments about lightwell being awesome in the improved healing environment of TBC. Not much happened in 4 years except lightwell got 50x more powerful, got 2x the amount of charges, reduced to a tenth of the manacost, and cooldown lowered 10x. It's still not used.

Even if all reasons not to use it are mostly gone, it is still easier to replace the holypriest with a druid, and let the dpsers worry about dps.

@Tank healing:
Finally a topic worth a discussion!

If you ask me, the reshuffling of the trees that allows holypriests to pick up both tank healing talents as well as raidhealing / renew-heavy talents. Making a holypriest is no longer a choice between being powerful-ish at tank healing and useless at everything else, or vice versa. Assuming of course that they get this one right in cataclysm. We'll see.

But this change alone is what is keeping me from despairing. No matter what else I will lose in the cataclysm - and the list is long now - I will gain the ability to keep a tank up without having to respecc. And that is a damned great change no matter what. I'll pay for that!

Assuming of course that they will rebalance some numbers and not the least the specc-defining mana issues. I really want to believe that holypriests will be useful at healing before hitting full T12...

@Holy PVP:
It's dead, Jim!

Let's face it, a holypriest will never be any good in the arena. That's the domain of a discpriest, or possibly the odd shadowpriest who wants to feel special. What the holypriest could have been useful for was battlegrounds healing. When your focus is on aoe healing, having more than 1 target to heal really makes a difference. I can easily see a holypriest being useful in a battleground, and I can see a holypriest being in demand in rated premades.

But that assumes that the holypriest is actually able to survive. Nothing whatsoever suggest that the holypriest will be able to survive if an enemy DPSer looks at you in a funny way, larger healthpools or not. The only PVP advantage a holypriest offers is to die in an improved fashion. And... being able to die better has never helped anyone win a war. After all, the main goal is to make that other sod die for his.

So I'm holding off any hopes of Holy PVP until something changes on this front. Meaning I'm not quite going to gather my PVP gear set anytime soon.

---

Other worthy topics of debate:

@Desperate Prayer:
I hear that my new specc-defining ability is to be in desperate trouble every 45 seconds while farming trash. I somewhat wonder if Blizzard didn't give us this skill just to make us cry for getting Lightwell instead, so that when they do give us Lightwell at least they can say that it's what we wanted. But while most priests agree that even lightwell would be better than DP, I think blizzard seriously overestimated the number of priests actually wanting lightwell. Current suggestions with more support than Lightwell include Surge of Light, Confetti Explosion and not the least, Chakra - if they promise to make it a decent talent.

I personally think they are redesigning the holypriest a lot right now. But we'll have to see. If not, I would love confetti explosion.

[zenkai]

[B]@Lightwell:
Carthago delenda est.
In a recent "what is the worst thing that could realistically happen" thread on the official healer forums, someone proposed that Deathwing can only be healed by clever employment of lightwell. That thought alone made me have nightmares last night. Lightwell is a gimmick spell, one that doesn't work well at all, and one that the devteam has been trying to sell as a main reason to go holypriest for the last 4 and a half years. It's time to kill it. Seriously. I remember hearing arguments about lightwell being awesome in the improved healing environment of TBC. Not much happened in 4 years except lightwell got 50x more powerful, got 2x the amount of charges, reduced to a tenth of the manacost, and cooldown lowered 10x. It's still not used.

Even if all reasons not to use it are mostly gone, it is still easier to replace the holypriest with a druid, and let the dpsers worry about dps.

Lightwell is a good spell for 1 talent point, use it for YOURSELF not for the dps. Can you name any other heal you can use while you are mid cast or stunned? IF you're stunned you can click lightwell and you get healed how freaking awesome is that? if you're casting a heal you can click LW and heal yourself. How is that a terrible heal for one talent point?

My guild laughed at me for picking up lightwell (my guild note says lightwell master), a talent I always skipped until WOTLK, until they saw how much it was healing me on the WOL. It's not a bad Talent! On BQ I use up all the charges healing myself, we even healed Heroic BQ with only 4 people before we was decked out in heroic gear. On Sindragosa I can heal myself if I am debuffed without taking ticks.

The only problem I see with lightwell is that that it makes you change your target to it, which is nothing big just an annoyance, this is something they are addressing in cata. The only other thing about it is it is not needed once you out gear the fight, but when CATA comes out and mana management suppose to be back, you're going to love all the free heals you are getting off of it.

[Timberwolfe]

Wanted to add, I will do like I do between every expansion and priest changing patch, I will test out what works best for me and adjust, then get pissed off while I have to use my arsenal to be the most efficient of heals while the rest of the healing classes /face roll one or two heals. So yeah if they make it to where healers now have to be efficient, over heal now becomes a factor and you can easily tell now between a good healer and a bad one, I will jump for joy.

Agreed.

It will be time for the good Holy priest to really shine through as it will not be much of a difference for us in terms of how to do it. (just need to figure out what to do due to new mecanics)

[Tylmarande]

Lightwell is a good spell for 1 talent point, use it for YOURSELF not for the dps. Can you name any other heal you can use while you are mid cast or stunned? IF you're stunned you can click lightwell and you get healed how freaking awesome is that? if you're casting a heal you can click LW and heal yourself. How is that a terrible heal for one talent point?

My guild laughed at me for picking up lightwell (my guild note says lightwell master), a talent I always skipped until WOTLK, until they saw how much it was healing me on the WOL. It's not a bad Talent! On BQ I use up all the charges healing myself, we even healed Heroic BQ with only 4 people before we was decked out in heroic gear. On Sindragosa I can heal myself if I am debuffed without taking ticks.

The only problem I see with lightwell is that that it makes you change your target to it, which is nothing big just an annoyance, this is something they are addressing in cata. The only other thing about it is it is not needed once you out gear the fight, but when CATA comes out and mana management suppose to be back, you're going to love all the free heals you are getting off of it.

Scan your post for words other than "I used it". This is why it is useless - you may be enthusiastic about stopping what you're doing and clicking it, but everyone else isn't so sanguine.

[Deleted]

I like the concept of Lightwell. Yeah it's a situational spell, but a powerful one. I wish I could use it in raids. I wish it would be more than a wasted talent point. But when DPS have trouble moving out of fire, the chances of them taking the few seconds TO TURN AWAY FROM NUKING AND CLICKING A MAGIC GLOWY HEALY THING is beyond low.
We don't need more smart heals, we need smart players.

Chakra could be good, but to my mind, it goes against the idea Blizz keep touting about Priests being the toolbox healer by forcing you to pigeon-hole yourself into a certain roll. On top of that, three PoH casts is no small investment in terms of mana and time, then (unless they're aura's that need to be cancelled), three renew's and you've lost that buff and got one that you don't necessarily want.

[Neichus]

Perhaps I'm biased because my primary class is a Warrior, but I've got pretty high hopes for my Priest after seeing what they've done to my main. It's pretty clear that the amount of work they've done on Priests is minimal; this latest patch was only the slightest adjustment, feeling more like a prelude than a serious effort. I'm not pinning my hopes on the whole tree being completely transformed, but I think Holy Priests have some fun mechanics to work with such as Deliverance, Surge of Light, and Chakra. There's also the over-arching choice between the nuking mix and straight healing specs, which if they do properly could lend to some interesting choices; I'm both curious and skeptical as to whether they'll make this design fly though.

[Squishypants]

I do hope they have a lot of plans for Holy because it just doesn't seem strong enough to be competitive. I'll be on the beta soon and I don't even want to touch Holy spec in it's current form. =/ Chakra seems nice to the types of players who say "to play holy you cast X spell + Y spell" not every spell when it is appropriate on the fly.

[Lysdexic]

Deliverance is a nerfed form of a talent we already have on live, called Serendipity. It is beyond broken for the Cata mindset because casting 3x flash heals to get a quick gheal/poh would be beyond absurd in mana requirements for a haste buff (a haste buff for 1 spell only I might add).

[Neichus]

Deliverance is a nerfed form of a talent we already have on live, called Serendipity. It is beyond broken for the Cata mindset because casting 3x flash heals to get a quick gheal/poh would be beyond absurd in mana requirements for a haste buff (a haste buff for 1 spell only I might add).

I'm aware of this. I didn't say the talent was amazing as it stood. I said that they had some mechanics already in place that they can experiment with.

[zenkai]

Scan your post for words other than "I used it". This is why it is useless - you may be enthusiastic about stopping what you're doing and clicking it, but everyone else isn't so sanguine.

Uh did you read my post, have you even used Lightwell? You don't have to stop doing ANYTHING to use it, Even if I am renew spamming I can easily click it during GCD and not miss a beat. So to sound like a broken record, while you are casting something you can click it DURING your cast and heal yourself without having to stop what you are doing. If you couldn't do this, then I agree it wouldn't be very useful it it used a GCD but being it doesn't it is a very nice self heal. It's basically having a self renew that you never have to cast, that heals 2x stronger and faster, and mana free since you can cast it before the battle even starts. And on flights like BQ I seen people who get feared through it click on it as they go by, which I hate because I want all 10 charges for myself lol.


Anyway I don't want to focus this whole thread on just lightwell, that is not fair to the OP.

[zito]

Deliverance is a nerfed form of a talent we already have on live, called Serendipity. It is beyond broken for the Cata mindset because casting 3x flash heals to get a quick gheal/poh would be beyond absurd in mana requirements for a haste buff (a haste buff for 1 spell only I might add).

Until cataclysm hits live, I don't think anyone has the right to complain about beta. Cause its beta.

That and the fact that your mixing wotlk healing and cataclysm healing which is 2 very different things.

[Ananan]

No, he was actually building his case on the fact that Flash Heal will be discouraged in Cataclysm. Right now that design for Deliverance would work a lot better.

[Zoros]

The holy tree is horrible but I will play it anyways. Chakra sucks, still there are a lot of boring talents, our PvP survivality will be 0 with Surge of Light and PoM cooldown reduction gone, and Deliverance won't work anymore if they not include heal. I'm positive about Lightwell, but the rest of the tree is boring, underpowered and has no chance in PvP.

[Ynna]

Chakra: This is supposed to be our thing, that what makes you a Holy Priest. It's not there yet. The number one problem would be if all your heals are slightly underpowered and only decent in the right Chakra state. It would be cool if Chakra offered huge convenience instead of extra healing. Like how it refreshes the Renew duration in the Heal Chakra. Also: the activation for the is terrible. I don't see how we would use Prayer of Healing 3 times in a row.
I'm also afraid it might reduce our flexibility, which is something I greatly enjoy about my priest.

Lightwell: I like Lightwell, most people don't. Not much to say about it, other than the fact that this would be a better signature ability.

Signature Ability (Desperate Prayer): "Level 10, finally. Oh cool, I have talents now. Great. And I'm supposed to get a new spell now, that really shows my chosen specialization. Okay, I want to heal, so I choose... er... Holy! Holy sounds cool." And then you get a self heal... To be honest, I could have used it while I was fighting those Murlocks, but still. Most classes get some awesome ability that shows what spec you are, a defining ability, showing what your spec is all about. So apparently Holy is about nearly dying every 45 seconds (which, in my leveling experience, is kinda true). And you need an additional 2 talents to make it worth something...

Tank Healing: It would be cool to have this option. It's bit sad when I have to delegate this to people who are unexperienced in healing, just because their single target HPS is higher by default. (Just got a new Holy Pala recruit...) I hope we don't need to be in the Heal Chakra for us to be able to tank heal.

Holy PvP: I would love this. But I'm afraid it won't happen. It would be very fun, but I'm not optimistic about this. We have a few tools that can help us out here, but will it be enough?

Surge of Light: Why was this changed? Was it really too OP to have an occasional free, instant Flash Heal? It would even have synergy with Deliverance.

[Bigslick]

Signature Ability (Desperate Prayer): "Level 10, finally. Oh cool, I have talents now. Great. And I'm supposed to get a new spell now, that really shows my chosen specialization. Okay, I want to heal, so I choose... er... Holy! Holy sounds cool." And then you get a self heal... To be honest, I could have used it while I was fighting those Murlocks, but still. Most classes get some awesome ability that shows what spec you are, a defining ability, showing what your spec is all about. So apparently Holy is about nearly dying every 45 seconds (which, in my leveling experience, is kinda true). And you need an additional 2 talents to make it worth something...

Lackluster doesn't begin to describe this ability's contribution to a new holy priest's ease of leveling. Desperate Prayer would be so much nicer if they did something as simple as having it do something more than an instant self heal. For example,

Desperate Prayer: Instantly heals the caster for xxx to xxx. The last source of damage to the caster suffers from Holy Remorse, incapacitating them for 3 seconds. This effect only applies if used within three seconds of sustaining the damage.

Even at 10, it would give the priest a short reprieve / stun when leveling. Obviously this effect wouldn't apply to bosses.

[_leander]

Surge of Light: Why was this changed? Was it really too OP to have an occasional free, instant Flash Heal? It would even have synergy with Deliverance.

No. It was change because Blizzard realize that it was not good talent. Many new player think that Surge of Light good, so Blizzard change to remove confusion. Surge of Light reduce healing, not increase it. New player like because they think 'free' and 'instant' good, but Surge of Light not free. Cost healing instead of costs mana, but that is not free. Instant dumb too. Spell has same time to cast if instant or not instant, so talent is useless. Reduce healing and no benefit except rare emergency. Only useful one time every once in a long time, not even useful every whole raid.

[Kelesti]

Thread: Well, my thoughts on this are to crit the topic in a grand entrance and apply a Sticky-Over-Time effect. I'm a Mod, that's one of our class features.

Desperate Prayer: What the hell? One of the "awesome" things to draw someone to the spec is "hey look, you can heal yourself every 45 seconds!". Each class gives a playstyle change. Dual Wield, new awesome buttons to push, or hey failguard! No matter what you pick for 29/30 of the specs, it changes something dramatically in what you do.

For Holy Priests? What. The. Frak? And not only that, but they have to waste talent points to try and make it seem "awesome"? You know what's awesome? Binding Heal. It has the same effect, and can be cast repeatedly with no cooldown.

Chakra: Chakra itself is nice in design, and I like the idea behind it. I don't like the implementation, though. I understand it and I would be more than happy to support it if the Prayer one was less clunky, and more importantly if spells not linked to a Chakra effect didn't cancel your stacks. That would have my full support, well, assuming Prayer Chakra was less sucky.

Circle of Healing: The nerf to 10 seconds is good. Its mana cost should be bumped up 15%, and its healing bumped up another 10%. Make it an awesome button to push, when you should push it. But not on cooldown. Make wasting it less trivial, and actually matter.

Prayer of Healing: What the hell are we going to be doing with this spell? Seriously.

Lightwell: Lightwell not detargetting is a step in the right direction, no one can deny that. I still think it needs two things: The first is that it should be clickable via macro's, and/or have a larger clickbox for healing (not for attacking, but keep it killable). The second is a talent (or glyph!) that says targets within 10 yards of Lightwell don't have it break early due to damage.

Radiance: Awesome. I love it! Or at least, I would if it rolled instead of over-writing itself. Also defining what spells do and do not trigger it would be awesome.

Tank Healing: People may be looking at current damage patterns and seeing us far behind, but back in TBC it wasn't uncommon to stick two or three people on a tank if the encounter called for it (two was most common). Sure, we might not be able to keep a MT up on our own, but if the design transitions back like they said they planned on, even a Paladin will need help for 25's. Given this trend of thinking, I look forward to utilising Heal, the Heal Chakra, Mending and Radiance as awesome as the game will let me.

Holy PvP:
Discipline lost two "distinct components" of its effectiveness in PvP.
The first, its unmatched ability to survive. This is now split amongst all clothies, due to the increased HP pools and higher armor.
Secondly, its offensive pressure is not only given to every healer (and it's expected they use it), but the higher health pools means that it's not going to be burst down as quickly. Discipline loses an edge here.

Taking both of these thoughts into consideration, looking at the bigger Picture, Holy's not that bad off now. It's got a couple "oh shit" cooldowns of its own, people aren't going to get globalled like they are now, and with a larger frame of time that people have damage, Holy can get people higher while Discipline tries to keep them higher.

I can see PvP being not completely Discipline's game anymore. I mean, even Shadow does well now, despite everyone saying it wouldn't. Maybe Holy will finally step up to the plate.

Kelesti: Well, my time spent the last two nights were involved in bringing up a "new"-er PC, re-installing and modifying everything, and of course needing to sleep to be sure I can still earn a pay-cheque in the morning. Weak, I know. But that is my life. Kudos to Lysdexic for doing my job for me.