Should holy have a talent to make PoH smart?

[Pottsy710]

there has been a lot of discussion lately about holy's lack of raid saving cds and it being the reason that holy priests are an endangered species when it comes to heroic progression in FL... a valid point that is often brought up is that holy was generally brought for their superior group healing and great throughput, but have since been eclipsed by druids with their recent buffs...

in order to level the playing field without breaking pvp or causing holy to be TOO op, what does anyone think about adjusting or adding a talent deep in the holy tree that causes PoH to be a smart heal instead of being group based... i.e. only active when chakra: sanctuary is up...

PoH is one of the few spells/abilities left in the game that is limited to the group is cast on and as such is a bit clunkier than other abilities in our toolbox...

i'm open to discussion on whether its healing needs reduced or altered in some way to prevent it from becoming too powerful, but i feel this would help level the playing field and also fit in well with the current holy priest toolbox....

[Arlee]

I said no.. but just because I think it ought to be smart on it's own already.

[Brusalk]

there has been a lot of discussion lately about holy's lack of raid saving cds and it being the reason that holy priests are an endangered species when it comes to heroic progression in FL... a valid point that is often brought up is that holy was generally brought for their superior group healing and great throughput, but have since been eclipsed by druids with their recent buffs...

in order to level the playing field without breaking pvp or causing holy to be TOO op, what does anyone think about adjusting or adding a talent deep in the holy tree that causes PoH to be a smart heal instead of being group based... i.e. only active when chakra: sanctuary is up...

PoH is one of the few spells/abilities left in the game that is limited to the group is cast on and as such is a bit clunkier than other abilities in our toolbox...

i'm open to discussion on whether its healing needs reduced or altered in some way to prevent it from becoming too powerful, but i feel this would help level the playing field and also fit in well with the current holy priest toolbox....

I'm all for trying to buff holy's AoE throughput, however I don't think PoH is the way to do it. Basically the talent would make PoH work like CoH only it would be spammable, which would be massively overpowered, especially if it can cast on the whole raid. Now, you could just directly buff PoH's thoroughput by making it heal for more, or you could have PoH leave a short duration buff on it's heal targets that increases healing received by the priests HoTs by a fairly significant margin, (maybe so between Glyph of PoH and Echo of Light that the hots heal for about the same as the initial heal, or whatever % PoH needs to be buffed by to make holy a competitive raid healer to druids)


On a completely separate topic but still somewhat related: I think it'd be kind of a cool tier set bonus to have the priests PoH leave a short-duration renew on the targets, like 6-8ish seconds. It'd buff holy's throughput and would still also benefit disc a fair amount. (Though admittedly more for holy)

[Pottsy710]

heh... so you're saying the spell design itself is flawed, and would prefer if it was a smart heal regardless of spec?

---------- Post added 2011-08-23 at 04:48 PM ----------

I'm all for trying to buff holy's AoE throughput, however I don't think PoH is the way to do it. Basically the talent would make PoH work like CoH only it would be spammable, which would be massively overpowered, especially if it can cast on the whole raid. Now, you could just directly buff PoH's thoroughput by making it heal for more, or you could have PoH leave a short duration buff on it's heal targets that increases healing received by the priests HoTs by a fairly significant margin, (maybe so between Glyph of PoH and Echo of Light that the hots heal for about the same as the initial heal, or whatever % PoH needs to be buffed by to make holy a competitive raid healer to druids)


On a completely separate topic but still somewhat related: I think it'd be kind of a cool tier set bonus to have the priests PoH leave a short-duration renew on the targets, like 6-8ish seconds. It'd buff holy's throughput and would still also benefit disc a fair amount. (Though admittedly more for holy)

i like the idea on paper, but i don't think we'd see the desired results much for the same reason that a holy priest's mastery doesn't generally yield the desired results...

a lot of times when we're healing a target, another healer is also healing said target, so our echo of light is generally overheal... the only time it seems that mastery really gets 100% of it's use is if you're tank healing (then why aren't you disc?) or on encounters like major domo where constant aoe spam healing is needed...

[UunaPriest]

I agree Holy needs some improvements but as others I don't think PoH becomming a spammable CoH is the solution, PoH's heal/mana and heal/time is just too powerful to make it a smart heal as well (why would you ever cast anything else in most of the firelands raids?)
The root of the problem imo is the poor design of Echos of Light, it simply can't keep up with druid HoTs (and wasn't intended to). In 5 mans it works great, but in a raid with more healers most of the time(as you said) it does almost nothing but overhealing. I don't really have a good idea how to address Holy, but I don't think it is PoH.

[Weerra]

Smart POH? Everybody would just spam it and COH on CD.

[Pottsy710]

i see a lot of priests here arguing that all you would do is spam PoH... however, look at your logs over the course of a raid night if you're holy... where is a large percentage if not the largest percentage of your healing coming from... PoH remains the only aoe heal that isn't smart and is a group based spell... every other "group based" ability has been changed or reworked in order to be raid wide (auras, coh, etc)...

and i'm not sure i agree with the "ridiculously overpowered" claims, as it has a base cast time of 2.5 seconds talented (this is embarrassing, at least i think it's a 2.5 second cast talented)... it wouldn't be like BC days when all you did was spam CoH on the melee group...

[Brusalk]

i see a lot of priests here arguing that all you would do is spam PoH... however, look at your logs over the course of a raid night if you're holy... where is a large percentage if not the largest percentage of your healing coming from... PoH remains the only aoe heal that isn't smart and is a group based spell... every other "group based" ability has been changed or reworked in order to be raid wide (auras, coh, etc)...

and i'm not sure i agree with the "ridiculously overpowered" claims, as it has a base cast time of 2.5 seconds talented (this is embarrassing, at least i think it's a 2.5 second cast talented)... it wouldn't be like BC days when all you did was spam CoH on the melee group...

What I meant by spammable is simply that it has no CD, so you can spam it. It is already a really powerful heal, but making it smart would require it to have a drawback somewhere else, such as increased mana cost or a CD, like they did with CoH.

[Ynna]

No. Doing this would make PoH the best spell for pretty much every situation in which AoE damage comes in.

[Deleted]

They should just increase the range on it a bit. Making it a spammable smartheal is just too powerful.

[Arlee]

Hrm I guess I didn't think that one through all the way. It would make it like CoH before they added the CD to it...

[Madam]

PoH can be a pain at times in raid, but can really be used to the Priests advantage in many fights. Have the RL give assist to the Priest(s) allowing quick group changes just for PoH. I know on fights I have forgotten to switch up groups before pulling my throughput goes down. If PoH was changed it may even weaken the spell as I am sure we would lose the healing range it currently has, or maybe I just enjoy the challenge of working with PoH the way it is today.

On a side note: What if Renew could "stack" in some way, making Renew heal for more each stack, up to 3 stacks, each additional Renew on a target would cost a bit more mana. *shrug* (Just don't know if something like that would be more of a Resto Druid spell..)

[yurano]

I thought you couldn't change group composition during combat.

[Pottsy710]

No. Doing this would make PoH the best spell for pretty much every situation in which AoE damage comes in.

it already is... at least for priests... sure, you may PoM if it's staggered smaller hits and CoH on cd, however anytime there's raidwide AOE damage, you're without fail using PoH as filler...

[Xtyz]

PoH doesn't need to be made into a smart heal. The only thing i think that needs changing is DH. Tranq can easily heal top the raid off with a very short CD ( Compared to DH ) which makes it very helpful for fights like Domo and Beth Heroic. Id love it if DH was the have the desired 3min CD.

Also. Don't think Paragon's own Jhazrun has a problem with PoH. Seeing as he can keep a full 25 man alive along with a druid on what they say is the hardest fight in World of Warcraft; Ragnaros heroic.

[Deleted]

I'd like to see it become a smart heal. I feel 'group' healing is a very clunky design and would be much nicer to just be in a 'raid' instead of different groups within a raid.
It would however make it stupidly overpowered. It would have to be nerfed to be proportionate to other raid heals. A nerf along the lines of... reduced healing done to players the further they are from your target. Or something like that. Yes, it would be insanely powerful when everyone is stacked on top of each other, but still situational enough not to be the only thing you cast ever. Ofc tweaking numbers would also be important. Making it heal for more and increasing the mana cost is another option, so it's not spammable, much like Flash Heal, it's useful sometimes.

[Tihr]

Smart POH? Everybody would just spam it and COH on CD.

This. Holy Priest would basically revert to it's TBC/early WotLK model, where instead of intelligently thinking ahead, and choosing the right spell for the job, PoH and CoH would be the best choice every time.

[Holytoast]

IMHO this wouldn't give holy the raid cooldown it needs.

I really think that they should change the ever so useless State Of Mind talent under chakra to something along the lines of.. "While in your AoE Chakra state, your Divine Hymn's cooldown is reduced to 3 minutes and heals for an extra 15%" or something.

[Kelesti]

Going back to Kara Thrace, just to say "Frak no" and toss in a random comment about automated stupid toasters.

Or something.

3.0 was the worst time to be a Priest, and turning Prayer of Healing into a Circle-with-a-Cast-Time really isn't a good idea for the game. Plus, it having a 70 yard range is kind of a way to balance its group composition. We wouldn't be able to pull off near what we would, if it ever was implemented as "smart" (smart healing's usually dumb anyways)

[Madam]

I thought you couldn't change group composition during combat.

Correct. Damage patterns change as with raid placement, switching players around before each encounter really helps.