Do HOLY priests suck ?

[Lightwysh]

At this point in the game, Absorbs > Echo of light

[Nzete]

Chakra doesn't play well with healing in the current design of encounters, and holy "buffs" have been increasing the buff/penalty of Chakra. You can't effectively change between blue and yellow without changing gear (yellow=haste, blue=mastery), and the difference between proper and improper spells is large enough that you feel you can only use half of you spells at any one time. It feels like you got the short end of the stick.

Furthermore, in a world of very high damage relative to health, damage not taken beats healing done by a lot.

[Deleted]

We are not talking about LFR.

Can we just stop saying that a holy priest is hard to play ? xD

Only holy lovers play holy. If you like both, you will play the spec that performs better which is disc because of all the absorbs, not because it is easier.

And grass is not blue. Now it is your turn to state the obvious.

I can safely use the aforementioned macro on Paragons of the Klaxxi - true heroic, meaning 25m.

[Post]

I always find it funny how everyone likes to say holy is sooo much more complicated than disc is and that disc is just faceroll. I don't know where this comes from, disc is much more difficult to play at a top level than holy is. I'm not saying holy is faceroll, but there's just more little fight specific precise things you do as a top level disc (this coming from someone who loves holy).

[Steehl]

Neither spec is hard to play, but in the current healing model, Holy is harder to play effectively. Disc is just a matter of knowing what to do when in a more strict sense of the fight. Holy is a lot more reactionary and isn't as effective if there are absorb specs healing with you.

That being said, Holy has probably the highest raw healing potential. Here's what I mean. Take Malkorok. Here's the highest HPS priest parse. Now once you click "include raw healing", you see just how much HPS a Holy priest can do. Now this fight may be bias as it's fairly awful for disc. So let's look at Thok!

The highest parse for disc vs raw healing. The highest parse for holy vs raw healing. And that Holy parse is with a disc in raid as well, so he could have been even higher!

Holy isn't a bad spec. It's just a spec that has a better option in the same class for overall raid utility. I definitely see this changing in WoD, as health pulls will go up, people will supposedly not be at full all the time, so a shield will still be useful, but actual healing will likely be more ideal. This will probably mean a drop in Disc priests and Holy paladins, and a rise in the other four healers.

[Post]

Neither spec is hard to play, but in the current healing model, Holy is harder to play effectively. Disc is just a matter of knowing what to do when in a more strict sense of the fight. Holy is a lot more reactionary and isn't as effective if there are absorb specs healing with you.

As holy you have just as much of a routine to healing fights as you do with disc. You go in knowing what you're going to do and when. Holy is not tougher to play effectively than disc.

[Deleted]

This will probably mean a drop in Disc priests and Holy paladins, and a rise in the other four healers.

Woohoo, more Resto Shamans. Smart heals are go.

Seriously, not sure all 4. Will depend on FOTM, level you play at etc. I hope it will be Holy, because one it makes my Priest utility more viable as Shadow (since Holy competes for spot with other throughput healers) and two I like having that as OS. I find absorb healing dull, and atonement is like more brainless than tanking pre active mitigation.

[Adinora]

I always find it funny how everyone likes to say holy is sooo much more complicated than disc is and that disc is just faceroll. I don't know where this comes from, disc is much more difficult to play at a top level than holy is. I'm not saying holy is faceroll, but there's just more little fight specific precise things you do as a top level disc (this coming from someone who loves holy).

I don't think people are saying it's more complicated or that disc is faceroll. I believe what's been said is that you have to really understand what you are doing in order to be decent as holy, whereas with disc you can get by without doing more more than atonement healing (not that you should.) And I'd like to see the evidence that disc is much more difficult to play at top level than holy is, because I have found the opposite.

[Deleted]

Holy in 10man is difficult to get used to because of the renew refreshing playstyle that demands a lot of micro management in order to keep those renew rolling. That and you have to change stance during certain encouters.
In 25 man, it's different : most of the time you stay in blue and press CoH on CD, keep PoM bouncing and cast PoH (and L90 talent obv).

Maybe people have different views on holy because they don't play in the same format.

Not going to add anything regarding disc vs holy. "My spec is harder than yours so I must be a better player than you are" is a childish argument, especially when considering how easy healing overall is this xpac.

[Shockeye]

Anyone accustomed to their spec of choice will disagree with "it's hard!" claims, unless they are in a discussion measuring their "e-peen skill", in which case they play the hardest spec in the game.

If you are accustomed to Discipline than Holy will be challenging and vice-versa, to play with equal performance indicators and measurements. In any case, both specs are looking to reach more parity in WoD with terms of performance and easy-to-hard range of difficulty.

Traditionally, from my perspective, Disc was the one that was harder as it was the pro-active spec, not reactive of Holy and all other healers, so it took familiarity with the fights and skilled CD use to help protect the raid from damage in preference of responding to damage taken.

In any case, it's largely all moot right now.

[Deleted]

It depends at what level you play. Disc will always out perform Holy, if you can play Disc at the same level you can play Holy.

Absorbs > Raw healing, this has been known, hence Disc is getting nerfed hard with WoD.

Personally.. I much prefer Holy over Disc, because it's more about reactions than just having a 'Rotation'. Yes.. Disc does have a rotation, especially on Garrosh HC, I use like 7 spells at most.

[l33t]

No, Holy priests don't suck. Watch 1st kill of Garrosh hm (10), it was healed by a single holy priest. Problem is, absorbs are too powerful, and, giving the nature of absorbs being the most effective heal-sniping culprit ever, Holy usually just have nothing to heal. Hopefully that'll be fixed in WoD, and then, when both healing priests would be competable, people will choose what healing style they prefer - reactive holy or proactive disc - instead of having to play disc 24/7 just because absorbs are too powerful.

[Army Dreamer]

I do see them in raid. They rock!

[nobodysbaby]

No. The raiddesign suck

With Chakra changes and redesign in dmg patterns, and absorbs toned down, Holy will be great.

[Post]

I don't think people are saying it's more complicated or that disc is faceroll. I believe what's been said is that you have to really understand what you are doing in order to be decent as holy, whereas with disc you can get by without doing more more than atonement healing (not that you should.) And I'd like to see the evidence that disc is much more difficult to play at top level than holy is, because I have found the opposite.

My "evidence" is that there are more small things that you do in fights to min/max your performance (not really much evidence but in a general sense like this what do you want?) whereas holy has fewer little fight tricks to make you stand out at the top level. They just have less to do in 25m, I understand in 10m it is different because you want to use renew blanketing etc. This coming from a disc who loves holy, and REALLY wants blizz to make it at least equal to disc again so I have a reason to play it.

[TirielWoW]

I never see Holy priest in raids. Not in normal, not in heroic, neither 10 nor 25 men.

Every priest healer is Disc spec.

Why is that? Do Holy priests suck at healing?

No. They don't suck.

[Allatar]

I see a holy priest in every single raid I attend with my guild and in my opinion they do not suck as a class, but suck when played by people who expect an easy ride with a simple and predetermined rotation.

But I am very, very, very biased (holy and proud since 2006!).

[Adinora]

I honestly feel as though, at least in 10 man, I under perform compared to the shaman, and I'm assuming to other healing classes as well, I just have a shaman to compare to. Our mistweaver also beats me from time to time, and I'm not entirely sure why. I am pretty content in our raid but am switching to disc for progression because it's just... better.

So do they suck? No... they're just not super.

[Noradin]

Dont know if they do, the spec however does not regardless of how much some moan about it on the forums.

[Deleted]

Considering the world first 10 man heroic Garrosh was solo healed by a holy priest (99% sure). No they don't.