Divine Hymn Buffed

[Danner]

Milky:
What is this strong utilty that holypriests have, that all druids are so incredibly afraid of?
Inspiration? Mass Dispel? Speed bubble? Lightwell? Improved death?
The druids can have it all. I care not. Nor should any druid. It's all equally worthless in the hands of druids and holypriests alike.

This "strong utility" basically boils down to Guardian Spirit. While it is sexy, it's not actually allowed to make any difference. Hard hitting damage will deal more damage than the GS can outheal anyway. it does squat against deadly damage, which is becoming more and more common. It is incredibly prone to failing, often running at a 60% failure rate. Fun? absolutely. But I have yet to see any raidleader request it be used in Cata content.

[Afflictid]

I don't get it. Resto Druids have Battle Rez, Replenishment, bear stun for rag adds, aoe speed boost, and treeform (aka godmode).

I see nothing lacking in the utility department.

[kombucha]

Smart heal Lightwell would be the worst idea ever.

Derpwell: Tank, Ranged DPS, and Melee DPS all at 35% health?
Derwell heals Ranged DPS for 8764 health.

If your raid members have trouble clicking the thing, maybe it's time for a special kind of talk.

And I agree, Resto druids do not need any more utility.

[Abe]

Dayum s0n.

[Milky]

Well, I'll try to reply to some of the counter-arguments my post received. For starters, I admit that bringing up the idea of a smart Lightwell again wasn't a good move on my part. Anyway, I'll assume we're talking about high-end progression and heroic encounters.

Afflicted, everything you (and others) mentioned can be provided by other specs or classes, bar Tree of Life, which is basically a raw hps boost or a mana-saving cooldown, with no drastic mechanic changes, and I certainly wouldn't call it golike or godmode. As for stunning adds on Rag, I really don't think the druid will have the time to stun. Also, you can stun as holy if you wanted to, and it would even be less global cooldowns for you.

Vook, considering this buff to Divine Hymn and the (huge) Wild Growth nerf, the changes would certainly push holy up to par with resto, if not further when you speak about numbers and mere hps. However, druids lack desperately when it comes to burst healing, and have zero damage reduction abilities (apart from Barkskin which is self-only), and no tank-saving cooldown. Resto is all about hps and raw throughput. The way I personally see druids is that they're an OP version of Healing Stream Totem. This statement might be exaggerated, but it's almost true. Druids stabilize a raid and provide a very good buffer for other healers to do the healing that actually matters. In addition, holy has a much, much, much wider variety of healing abilities than a resto druid does. This vast arsenal of spells can be used for almost any situation, while a druid's weaknesses can be highlighted quite obviously in some situations.

Danner, I think you really underestimate the value of things such as Inspiration, Mass Dispel, Body and Soul, Lightwell, and Spirit of Redemption. Add to those Leap of Faith, Guardian Spirit, Power Word: Shield, and Hymn of Hope (which gives mana to multiple people, in contrast to Innervate which is no longer worth casting on anyone but yourself in most situations)... A resto druid has none of this. A holy priest has similar spells to almost all resto druid ones, and add to that all the things you've mentioned, and you have a holy priest. However, like I said about resto druid utility abilities, a good chunk of the holy priest ones can be provided by others as well, but not all.

Just an example: Let's look back into the not-so-distant past, in 4.1. Resto druids were benched for several fights, while paladins and priests received the loving end when it came to raid spots. Come 4.2, however, druids get a 3 min Tranquility, while holy receives that other side of the stick and becomes an undesired spec, not because the spec is weak, though; but only because Firelands encounter design pretty much REQUIRES that you have one of those fancy "3 min cd's", and it seems this is the direction Blizzard wants to continue in for 4.3. I personally see resto druids being benched again, and that is just my opinion.

My point is: holy is a much more well-rounded and accomplished spec than resto, and only seemed weak due to the encounter design. I just hope this buff doesn't mean we get anything else nerfed in order to compensate the massive hps boost. I'm glad that holy gets some overdue attention.

[Anastacy]

I'm not the number-crunching sort of guy, won't ever be, won't ever pretend to be...buuuut, could some of the "Druid OP healing" have been inflated, possibly, due to...idk...Dark Intent?

Purely anecdotal, but I've done a few 25man raids on my Druid (main char is Priest), and I could *feel* the difference when I had DI and when I didn't (not to mention see it on the lolmeter).

For a class that is "only raw HPS," would seem to skew things, especially when you include the fact that not every Resto Druid will get a DI.

[Afflictid]

You can NOT stun as holy. Incapacitates do not work, and that is what it is.

So because another class has the same utility, it isn't utility? Fail logic is fail.

Who else can aoe speed boost the entire raid? (which is required on rag)

Tree of Life effects healing mechanics drastically. Lifebloom can be applied to as many people as you want. Instant cast Regrowths. Wild Growth hits more targets.

Resto is the only healing spec with replenishment.

Battle rez is battle rez.

[Benea]

I've always wondered why tranquility healed for so much and costs less than divine hymn, not to mention the CD difference. It's not like druids really need a cheaper tranq and holy priests need more high mana spells. =P

Milky, holy priests has all those nice abilities but we're throttled by mana. We have to stack spirit while you can just have some spirit and stack output stats up to your eyeballs.

I'm hoping one day the regen mechanics of every healer becomes either all spirit or all int based.

[Irisel]

This is a buff to all priests, mind you. Just, holy gets the bigger version.

[Danner]

Danner, I think you really underestimate the value of things such as Inspiration, Mass Dispel, Body and Soul, Lightwell, and Spirit of Redemption. Add to those Leap of Faith, Guardian Spirit, Power Word: Shield, and Hymn of Hope (which gives mana to multiple people, in contrast to Innervate which is no longer worth casting on anyone but yourself in most situations)... A resto druid has none of this. A holy priest has similar spells to almost all resto druid ones, and add to that all the things you've mentioned, and you have a holy priest. However, like I said about resto druid utility abilities, a good chunk of the holy priest ones can be provided by others as well, but not all.

Let's see:
You are worried that a Holy priest will take your raidspot. But you are not worried that a discpriest will do so. Why?
The discpriest brings more utility. And more HPS than a holypriest. And arguably the better cooldown, even come 4.3.

Neither druids nor Holypriests find much use in Inspiration. This is a disc talent, tucked into the holy tree. A druid isn't tank healing unless he has to, because his direct healing spells are rather meh. A holypriest isn't tank healing much, because he cannot sustain it for more than 4-5 minutes. This means inspiration is very much underused. I won't say it's a bad utility, but it is in no way a deciding factor when choosing a healer. It's great for disc though, who can actually afford to tankheal!

Mass dispel is a huge waste of mana, and never ever needed right now. Even if it was needed, it's currently incredibly broken since it is now hitting whatever targets it feels like, not just the ones with debuffs on them. I've removed it from my hotbars as it does nothing. Noone cares that this spell is broken. That is the state of Mass Dispel. If you are seriously thinking this is worth drooling over, I would happily give it to Druids if I could.

Lightwell is awesome. If used. This never ever happens. Ever. I am not kidding. I am currently planning to make an addon giving +10% rep with my character every time someone clicks the ligthwell. Just to get people in my guild to use it. But they probably wont anyway. So then what is the point? The talent is safe to specc out of. Noone ever uses it.

Body and Soul is the best utility of a holypriest if you ask me. I love it. It's also utterly useless on all Cataclysm content except the pre-nerf Atramedes fight. Fast movement is just never a factor. It may be in 4.3. We will see. But the Holy version of Power Word Shield is very very bad. Compare it to a rejuv from a boomkin. Yes, that bad. No holypriest would ever cast this spell for the shield effect alone. Instead we cast Flash Heal, which heals for 3x the amount, and for two-thirds of the manacost. The only reason to ever cast PWS is due to Body and Soul.

Just like Body & Soul, Leap of Faith is pretty epic on the two fights where it makes sense to use. But you are not worried about a 4.2 disc priest taking your spot, why worried about 4.3 Holy doing so? Disc priest have this spell too.

And as for Hymn of Hope... it is basically an innervate divided amongst an entire raid. It is used solely to boost the returns of the shadowfiend by 10%. Other than that, it virtually does nothing because the returns are so incredibly low. A surefire sign of desperation in the raid is when the priests start casting this spell due to needing mana. You are officially in trouble if they do, and will wipe very soon.

An ideal situation is would be that both Holypriests, Shammies and Druids can fill the raidhealing role. Right now, one of these three classes are far ahead. Come next patch, druid will still be ahead, but not by 30%. As long as the difference is small enough that any of the three dedicated raidhealers can get the spot.... then balance is fine.

Because honestly, I have yet to kill a firelands boss more than 3 times. And I have been attending every single raid since 4.2 was released. That is the state of the holypriests. We are sat outside. And honestly, if you think that is the better class balance design, then you are incredibly wrong.

[Afflictid]

Hymn of hope is borderline useless unless you have multiple priests popping it at the same time.

[Benea]

And as for Hymn of Hope... it is basically an innervate divided amongst an entire raid. It is used solely to boost the returns of the shadowfiend by 10%. Other than that, it virtually does nothing because the returns are so incredibly low. A surefire sign of desperation in the raid is when the priests start casting this spell due to needing mana. You are officially in trouble if they do, and will wipe very soon.

This is so true, haha.

[jifjosh]

And as for Hymn of Hope... it is basically an innervate divided amongst an entire raid. It is used solely to boost the returns of the shadowfiend by 10%. Other than that, it virtually does nothing because the returns are so incredibly low. A surefire sign of desperation in the raid is when the priests start casting this spell due to needing mana. You are officially in trouble if they do, and will wipe very soon.

That's a L2Play issue in most cases. The spell is a luxury at times, true. It relies on people actually letting you take advantage of the natural breaks in damage that Blizzard intends for there to be in just about every encounter. But if you know the encounter, know what just happened, and what will be coming, all while also knowing your mana level (I know, difficult multitasking is difficult), it will be a big benefit to you and the whole raid. You just have to know how to use it smartly.

If you are waiting until you are OOM and people are dying to use it, it's YOUR malfunction, stop blaming it on the spell.

Edit: For example:
~after the aoe-raiddmg ends when your web team go back up for Beth
~after the spark dies on Rhyo and you aren't having to heal dummies who hugged its aoe.
~after the first pounce when switching to cat on Domo
~during a phase transition on rag (while watching the sons to see if people aren't being dumb)

[Danner]

I am using Hymn of Hope, along with the shadowfiend. Always. I am a holypriest after all, and that means even the manapot is a welcomed mana regen utility that will delay the inevitable OOM by 5-6 seconds.

But the manapot is much better than a hymn of hope. And that's saying a lot!

[Maelstrom51]

That's a L2Play issue in most cases. The spell is a luxury at times, true. It relies on people actually letting you take advantage of the natural breaks in damage that Blizzard intends for there to be in just about every encounter. But if you know the encounter, know what just happened, and what will be coming, all while also knowing your mana level (I know, difficult multitasking is difficult), it will be a big benefit to you and the whole raid. You just have to know how to use it smartly.

If you are waiting until you are OOM and people are dying to use it, it's YOUR malfunction, stop blaming it on the spell.

Edit: For example:
~after the aoe-raiddmg ends when your web team go back up for Beth
~after the spark dies on Rhyo and you aren't having to heal dummies who hugged its aoe.
~after the first pounce when switching to cat on Domo
~during a phase transition on rag (while watching the sons to see if people aren't being dumb)

This exactly. Saving Hymm of Hope for when you're ooming is like saving Innervate for when you're ooming - its absolutely stupid.

[jifjosh]

But the manapot is much better than a hymn of hope. And that's saying a lot!

I think your raid begs to differ when they also get mana from you properly utilizing the spell. Stop being selfish please.

[Afflictid]

This exactly. Saving Hymm of Hope for when you're ooming is like saving Innervate for when you're ooming - its absolutely stupid.

You both seem to be forgetting that you HAVE to be close to oom in order to get any benefit from the spell at all. Innervate gives you the same amount of mana no matter what percentage of mana you are missing. Hymn of hope does not.

[jifjosh]

You both seem to be forgetting that you HAVE to be close to oom in order to get any benefit from the spell at all. Innervate gives you the same amount of mana no matter what percentage of mana you are missing. Hymn of hope does not.

If moves that didn't necessarily benefit the user are somehow useless, then I'll have to tell that to the prot pallies using Divine Guardian, I'm sure they'd like that point elsewhere.

Oh wait, I was ignoring the 9/24 other people in the group, sorry about that. Raiding is a group effort. More mana for others isn't a bad thing, just as dmg reduction for others and not yourself is a good thing.

[Afflictid]

If you aren't low mana as a holy priest compared to other healers, then the other healers won't have low enough mana for the buff to hit them either. You save it for when all the healers are low mana. That arcane mage getting mana isn't going to keep the raid alive.

You can only use it once a fight. So, you use it when it will effect the most important people will be guaranteed to get the buff.

[jifjosh]

If you aren't low mana as a holy priest compared to other healers, then the other healers won't have low enough mana for the buff to hit them either. You save it for when all the healers are low mana. That arcane mage getting mana isn't going to keep the raid alive.

You can only use it once a fight. So, you use it when it will effect the most important people will be guaranteed to get the buff.

If that arcane mage can go apeshit for just that little bit longer and receive the benefit of the improved mana pool from HOH (which affects replenishment? and also their mage armor???) then yes, it benefits the raid because they can do more damage. When used at 80% of the encounter it's like you dropped a couple mana pots on the mana users and took them back to 85% or 90% of the boss' health. If you can't see why this is useful when used properly then you really should stop now.