Why are people hating on Holy in PvE and PvP?!

[Pottsy710]

the more i think about it, the more i think it is generally the encounter design that has made disc so much more desirable by raid leaders... almost every fight in FL has some sort of infrequent raid wide damage that has to be healed through/mitigated... which basically SCREAMS barrier... (rag: seeds, domo: scorp, beth: p2, rhyolith: p2, alys: burnout, etc, hell, even baleroc makes disc a no brainer due to the stacks you can generate with penance)...

priests generally spec'd holy because of the superior throughput when compared to disc, especially in raidwide damage fights, however, with the buffs to resto druids mastery/tranq/wild growth, they can do the throughput job better than a holy priests, gear and skill being equal...

i'm not sure holy NEEDS a raidwide cooldown to be useful/desirable in raids, more of a throughput bonus and/or make prayer of healing a smart heal instead of group based?

[Deleted]

hmm, from what Im seeing the only reason they are hating on holy is because they are not top of the logs anymore,lol, we raid FL fine with a holy priest,though some people have a validity about holy having a raid saving cooldown, but I really don't see it that much as a disc's barrier, maybe its because some groups have pain in the ass dps? or maybe most of the priests are really not that good healers? i dunno, honestly i really dont understand the hate ( if there is any ) really, though in our realm, I haven't had much negativity about holy priests

That depends what you are raiding as well. If you are doing 10 man FL the raid damage is often manageable without big raid CDs, while on a lot of the 25 man encounters you will need to work out a raid CD rotation. For instance, the damage component to the raid on Majordomo's Scythes is a mechanic where you will use a lot of big raid CDs like Rallying Cry, Paladin raid wall, Aura mastery and PW:Barrier in 25 man, while you can get by and take the same numbers of scythes or more without, or at least with fewer long CDs on 10 man (I have downed MDS in both raid sizes). In this type of scenario, although Holy priests have higher throughput, the utility of Disc and its higher mana efficiency win.

For me it's not a huge issue as I rather like playing Disc, but for all the dedicated Holy priests out there, it's not a lot of fun.

[ocping]

For PVE, at the rate the heroic encounters are scaling, holy is not the spec of choice simply due to the fact that they OOM faster and have lower potential HPS than disc. And like so many people here, I just love the option of having PW:B for encounters.

[Deleted]

We run double disc in 10 man at times. It works great - double barriers is pretty awesome. I can't see double holy being anywhere near as good really. :/

[gwyd]

I personally prefer holy and find it is perfectly acceptable to use in any firelands fight and I have healed as it in every normal firelands boss and some of the hc ones, I switch to disc on a few specific fights. I find holy has better movement, is less tied down hardcasting spells, has utility outside of raid cooldowns, heavy raid healing which can be stepped up a notch where needed and is very adaptable. It can heal tanks perfectly fine without burning silly amounts of mana, it is just a different playstyle of healing. I feel on some fights as well that holys' mastery is also better than discs since often I find divine aegis can be wasted if it is not consistent damage. However on cd heavy fights like majorhomo hc (if you take stacks) if you have no heavy aoe class like a drood, holy is excellent to keep outside to keep up healing buff. However if you do, being disc is more optimal due to how the fight mechanics are.

Simply put if you are a main healer for your guild i suggest you pick up both disc and holy as specs and decide for yourself and your own playstyle which spec you are for each fight.

[Felade]

One problem with Holy is that Disc, and other healers, can do their job better. Yes, Holy is fine. It just so happens that Disc Priests, Holy Paladins, Resto Druids, and even Resto Shamans sometimes, can do what Holy does, only better. So, if you are not having healing struggles on progression, you can afford to bring a Holy Priest. But if you are having a hard time on a fight, especially with healing a fight, you will have a better time using a healer other than a Holy Priest.

Disc has all that Priest stuff, minus Body and Soul, and plus PW:Barrier.

Resto Druids do better AE healing than Holy. Holy Paladins are better at tank healing, especially when you consider beacon, and Disc is also better, thanks to the 40k plus instant heal you can cast every 10-15 seconds called PW:S. Resto Druids are probably equivalent or slightly better at AE healing than Holy, but they also have Spirit Link Totem, and Mana Tide Totem (which isn't so great for the Shaman, but great for the rest of the raid's healers).

To boot, Disc is no slouch at AE healing, especially if you can work in a bout of Inner Will-->PW:S spam before the damage goes out. It is like another cooldown - you can't do it the whole fight, but when you really need the group to not take damage, you can use it. Holy has nothing comparable.

---------- Post added 2011-08-23 at 07:53 AM ----------

Oh, and PVP as Holy is fine too - but then again, anything is fine against scrubs in blues in random BGs. Arenas? RBGs? no, not so much. Not when Disc has so many uninterruptable heals and big cooldowns. The name of the game in PVP is lots of damage at the right time - so being able to use a CD at the right time to counter that damage is paramount. Also, Focused Will > Blessed Resilience, and even PS > GS. Damage reduction is just better than increased healing. Disc can do everything Holy does in PVP, only better, especially since the 4pc PVP bonus >>> Body and Soul.