Holy Priest 5.4

[Anastacy]

"The team takes more of a long term view of when making changes now. They are thinking about not only the next expansion, but the one after that when they make changes."

Perhaps they're gearing up in an attempt to rework Holy Nova into Disc's AoE rotation? I have a feeling we'll see something interesting done with it in the next few patches.

They were doing that before MoP Beta (during as well?), but that got scrapped.

[TirielWoW]

They were doing that before MoP Beta (during as well?), but that got scrapped.

Yeah, the whole, "We're going to take PoH away and give you Holy Nova! It'll be super expensive, but it'll be instant! And based on where you are standing!" didn't exactly go over well.

[Noradin]

There was a time where the "Healing is divided among the number of targets healed. These effects cause no threat." part in the tooltip of Holy Nova only applied to the base healing and every single target healed got the scaling part on top of that. That was the reason why they introduced a limitation to the number of targets healed in the first place - because they didn't want to make the spell totally useless by dividing all healing but still thought it needed to get nerfed somehow.
Later they forgot about this line of thought and someone "fixed the bug" anyway.

Forgetting about reasons for exceptions like this is actually quite common for Blizzard. I still remember when they suddenly took away Holy Power gains on HotR misses, dodges and parries from (prot) paladins, because it was "a bug and oversight" and "they weren't in the habit of rewarding failure", when they spent the whole ptr assuring them they wouldn't need to ignore all other stats for hit and expertise after the introduction of Holy Power. They spent the rest of the expansion finding bandaid fixes for the problems that "bug fix" created.

[Isheria]

Doesn't look like holy nova has any dr at all, i spammed with 15 ppl around me critting each for 50k (with trinkets and self buffed), quite op right now.

[Mazi]

Doesn't look like holy nova has any dr at all, i spammed with 15 ppl around me critting each for 50k (with trinkets and self buffed), quite op right now.

Called it ;D

[CalamityPM]

They were doing that before MoP Beta (during as well?), but that got scrapped.

Let me rephrase: attempt to rework again.

They've already said that they'd like to take a look at PoH being group-restricted for 6.0, as well as potentially giving Disc another AoE heal. I don't imagine it would be a PoH replacement this time around, but it would interact with PoH in some way. Who knows?

[Darkener]

Right now on the PTR there is also a bug with Jade Spirit, it is proc'ing 2 or 3 times after every spell I cast. It's essentially got a 100% uptime now, and that is also making spells look better than they really are, including Holy Nova (or any other spell for that matter). Also, although it doesn't say in the tooltip, Holy Nova seems to still have its 0.5s reduced GCD.

Edit: And so far Holy Nova is the only heal that doesn't proc "Glyph of Angels" wings.

[Archpriest]

Doesn't look like holy nova has any dr at all, i spammed with 15 ppl around me critting each for 50k (with trinkets and self buffed), quite op right now.

Had the people hit by holy nova taken any damage? Remember that people at full health no longer counts toward the healing cap and thus if you used it in, say SW AH, everyone would be healed for the highest possible amount.

[Isheria]

This change was never implemented in the first place (no dr at full health targets), sanctuary has dr kick in perfectly fine if you use it on 15 ppl stacked at the same spot for example while holy nova doesn't. Right now on a stacked 25-man you do 300-400k hps by just spamming holy nova.

[Deleted]

Wait a minute. Holy nova hits for 25k now? That is actually quite good.

There is no way the DR won't be implemented. But depending the cap it can end up being quite good in a stacked group when you have ppl from different groups.

[Floopa]

It's obviously a bug or an oversight. Will be interesting to see numbers when the DR cap is in place.

[Noradin]

Edit: And so far Holy Nova is the only heal that doesn't proc "Glyph of Angels" wings.

Does Penance proc it (offensive penance, too)?

- - - Updated - - -

This change was never implemented in the first place (no dr at full health targets), sanctuary has dr kick in perfectly fine if you use it on 15 ppl stacked at the same spot for example while holy nova doesn't. Right now on a stacked 25-man you do 300-400k hps by just spamming holy nova.

Full heals at full health wouldn't work well with DA, anyway.
HN does not need a DR when it is divided between (up to 5) targets, so most likely they either forgot to put one in, mistakenly removed the dividing or mistakenly removed the cap of 5 targets.

[Mazi]

This change was never implemented in the first place (no dr at full health targets), sanctuary has dr kick in perfectly fine if you use it on 15 ppl stacked at the same spot for example while holy nova doesn't. Right now on a stacked 25-man you do 300-400k hps by just spamming holy nova.

It might not work with Sanc but it surely works with other spells like Halo, DS & Cascade. The EoL ticks you get from it are just omnomnom

[Darkener]

Wait a minute. Holy nova hits for 25k now? That is actually quite good.

There is no way the DR won't be implemented. But depending the cap it can end up being quite good in a stacked group when you have ppl from different groups.

It hits a single target for around 11.2K, Inner Fire on, 35K spell power, no Chakra bonus. With the 25% bonus from Chakra: Sanctuary it hits for 14.2K. The bigger numbers are on crits, with Jade Spirit proc'd (Jade Spirit is bugged atm and is 100% uptime). It just always heals for that amount no matter how many people are stacked, and you can run through a spread-out massive crowd in Shrine spamming HN and then turn around and see EoL ticking on everyone. It's a pretty spectacular sight, similar to using Halo (which I thought was seriously OP but with a CD, high cost and weird sweet spot I really hardly ever use it).

Holy Nova should get a "sliding" DR based on raid size like DH has, diminishing after 5 targets in 10man and 12 targets in 25man. It still hits for much less damage, 5K out of Chakra and 8K in Chakra: Chastise.

Does Penance proc it (offensive penance, too)?

Defensive and offensive Penance both proc "Glyph of Angels". Which is weird because Solace, Smite, and HF with Atonement DO NOT proc it. The level 90 talents all proc it, even Cascade used solely as a damage spell.

Edit:

I tested T16 out in a LFR. Boy was that a bad experience. Anyway, it was "The Dread Approach" first boss. I used DH on Force and Verve, and then Sanctuary and Holy Nova when DH was on CD. Sanctuary turned-out very strong with the 4-piece:

[Noradin]

Defensive and offensive Penance both proc "Glyph of Angels". Which is weird because Solace, Smite, and HF with Atonement DO NOT proc it. The level 90 talents all proc it, even Cascade used solely as a damage spell.

They were lazy again, then, and just listed all spells that are not utility and not pure damage spells.

[TirielWoW]

I tested T16 out in a LFR. Boy was that a bad experience. Anyway, it was "The Dread Approach" first boss. I used DH on Force and Verve, and then Sanctuary and Holy Nova when DH was on CD. Sanctuary turned-out very strong with the 4-piece:

Unless they've fixed it in the latest build, it's been bugged since the 4pc was changed.

[twilista]

That looks to be about right for bugged numbers. Before the reduced stack numbers we were hit with in the last ptr build (down to 75% per stack, stacking up to 3x) it was hitting for 40k and critting for 80k and that was when it was bugged to include the old stacks plus the new stacks for the next sanctuary.

Would help if blizzard got around to fixing that so holy priests can actually properly test their set bonus in a raid setting cuz no holy priest is gonna say okay I put my sanctuary down now I'm not gonna cast pom or coh for 30 seconds to see what it actually heals for!

[TirielWoW]

That looks to be about right for bugged numbers. Before the reduced stack numbers we were hit with in the last ptr build (down to 75% per stack, stacking up to 3x) it was hitting for 40k and critting for 80k and that was when it was bugged to include the old stacks plus the new stacks for the next sanctuary.

Would help if blizzard got around to fixing that so holy priests can actually properly test their set bonus in a raid setting cuz no holy priest is gonna say okay I put my sanctuary down now I'm not gonna cast pom or coh for 30 seconds to see what it actually heals for!

Actually, the 75% buff was a buff from the build before that...

[twilista]

hmm coulda sworn there was a change in between the ten stacks and the 3 stacks to 75% but I can't find it so my brain is derping on me. But I can test if it is bugging right now.

And it is. I went to the ptr, took off any items that will cause a proc to increase int/crit/w/e (weapon for jade spirit, cloak for tailoring proc, trinkets and helm for LMG) and tried the 4 piece out. With 3 stacks no buffs no procs and all those items off it was around 7k ticks. As soon as I started building up stacks again the ticks got higher by each stack. 1st stack was 12k, second stack was 17k, 3rd stack was 22k.

So now we need to know whether or not this is an intended effect of the 4 piece and our sanctuarys are meant to double dip from the procs, or if it is a bugged effect and blizzard hasn't gotten around to fixing it.

[Isheria]

This is not a bug actually but a side effect of how the game works. The ability affected is updated real time according to the buff which creates the huge numbers you're seeing.
This very same behavior works on a resto druid with glyph of efflorescence and soul of the forest, which causes the efflorescence created from the mushroom to tick for up to 5 times per second for as long as soul of the forest is up because efflorescence updates real time with all your buffs in the same way sanctuary does with 4p.