Are people currently playing priests just bad?

[Alilei32]

Looked over the top WoL healing parses and out of the entire raid, thats every fight on both 10 and 25 man (120 total entries), theres only 3 priests. I have a 461 ilvl and PuGs are starting to raid and have been asking for 460 ilvl. I dont have a guild so I figured perfect. Well no one seems to want priests and even the raid guilds that are recruiting only want resto druids,holy pallys, or monks. Is the reason theres no priests on the WoL charts because the people playing them are just bad or does Blizzard need to do something? Im not spending this expansion doing nothing but LFR because no one wants my class.

Below is the top 40 breakdown in 25 mans for every boss:

The Stone Guard:
Not a single Priest in the top 40

Gara'jal the Spiritbinder
2 priests in the top 40

Elegon
2 priests in the top 40

Feng The Accursed
2 priests in the top 40

The Spirit Kings
1 priest in the top 40

Will of the Emperor
2 priests in the top 40

So out of 240 healers only 9 are priests or less than 4% of all raid healers are priests. Am I the only one that sees a problem with this. Pelase tell me Blizzard looks at stuff like WoL?

[KaPe]

Eh, it's probably the same deal as with Paladins back in 4.0. "You just didn't adjust to your class changes, and that's why your hps is terrible. Has absolutely nothing to do with *my* class being stronger and things getting hotfixed in few days certainly won't prove me wrong".

Also, all the best players clearly went Monk, while all the worst stayed Priests.

E: Also, I was absolutely serious. Certainly.

[Thirteen]

"You just didn't adjust to your class changes, and that's why your hps is terrible. Has absolutely nothing to do with *my* class being stronger and things getting hotfixed in few days certainly won't prove me wrong".

But priests didn't really get any significant changes to their playstyle.

[Adelycia]

It has nothing to do with "adjusting to your class after all the changes." Priests didn't really change at all. To the OP, yes it is a problem. I currently play a priest, am better geared than the monk and pally I raid with. And yet, I can't even touch them on healing for most fights.

There is a thread on the battle.net forums that is at the very least, a good read. It is mostly about discipline. On a few points I really do agree with the guy who wrote it. Now, holy seems to perform a little better, especially on AOE healing fights.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6794479729

[shamozzle]

neither of you play priests, huh

[Ellumina]

Playing a Disc Priest has been incredibly depressing. On Feng (25m), I was consistently the last on the Healing meter (including absorbs) and Overhealing meter, and the first one to go OOM / the healer with the most mana problems. I was able to output more healing back in T13 than I am able to output now in 468 gear (or at least about the same output). I spend maybe half of a fight, if not more, either DPSing the boss doing 8-10k DPS just to TRY and get mana back or just plain OOM. If it's not obvious, it is incredibly inefficient to DPS a boss as a raid healer, not to mention Solace is just awful in terms of mana regen. Disc used to be fun. I was a huge advocate for Disc in my guild, and hated the idea of going Holy. Now, I can't even find Disc as viable for certain fights.

To compare:
Disc Log VS Holy Log
In that Disc log, I casted Solace 50 times (67.5 seconds in a 6:26 minute fight just casting Solace) and got 109k mana back. Over a minute of doing no healing just to gain that little mana.

Disc is in a horrible place to say the least. Our regen went from one of the best to just plain awful. I find Holy to be in a pretty good, strong place right now, with basically no real change in healing style from Cata.

[cuisdy]

There is a problem with priests, and you should voice that concept on the official forums (Constructive posts, not just bitching as those get ignored).

It's extraordinarily depressing to see evidence like these numbers, and even more depressing that Blizzard actually let this go live.

[Lilly32]

On some fights priests arent even in the top 100 and we havent even gotten to HMs yet so obviously if they arent wanted in normals they will definitely be garbage on hardmodes. I cant even find a guild or get into a PuG just because Im a priest. I have a 465 ilvl and have watched all fight videos and I even tell them I have seen the videos so I at least kinda know the fights. But they either straight up tell me priests suck, sometimes I get "LoL priests cant heal" or "we just filled the last spot" then they ask again in trade for a healer 30 seconds later. What the hell happened to Blizzard and their bring the player and not the class thing they stated a few years ago. Did they just trash that concept? Normally I dont join the fotm reroll people but right now Im probably gonna roll a druid or pally because Im not going to just do LFR with all the other mouth breathers for the entire expansion. Hell I bet it wont even give me a healer option in LFR because priests are so bad.

[h3lladvocate]

I definitely feel pretty weak compared to the pally healer I heal with, and I'm 468ish ilvl now. But I don't know what the exact issue is. Mana feels much tighter for me, but I can't really confirm that without playing a pally or something else in the same gear... Our overhealing is near equal, so it's not like I'm spamming the crap out of extra heals. I just don't know, feels like I'm a wet noodle out there right now.

[Dorfie]

Just from personal experience we did the first 4 bosses tonight. The healer I was always equal to or beating in DS was doing about 30-40% more healing than me, ridiculous amounts of over healing (more than his actual healing) and never went OOM as a Monk. Feels bad man.

[Venaliter]

I, and a lot of people (Havoc comes to mind) were beating the drum on how bad priests were in the Beta. We knew it was coming, and what was coming.

[Gsara]

Right now it seems like its all about pally, druid, monks. I would say priests arent just awful, its just those classes are just that much better right now. Our guild just had our last hold out healing priest switch to his druid, the other 2 had already rafed up monks.

[Gande]

A single disc priest is good for cooldowns and pre-emptive mitigation they can give. Its extremely hard to play efficiently while undergeared, we'll see how it does when overgeared, but I have a feeling we'll be getting buffs.

[Lilly32]

I have a feeling we'll be getting buffs.

Knowing Blizzard they will probably nerf us.

[Thelxi]

edit: *I'm not smart*

[Mazi]

As per usual every class has their place. I think with Disc, people aren't willing to accept the "support" role and instead are too used to being top/near top HPS.

I was top/equal healing on Elegon as other healers. It's about the fight, comp, strat, etc. Just because people don't have Priests doesn't mean they are bad or not useful, because every single healing class has value.

[Lilly32]

I was top/equal healing on Elegon as other healers. It's about the fight, comp, strat, etc. Just because people don't have Priests doesn't mean they are bad or not useful, because every single healing class has value.

The first disc priest doesnt show up on Elegon until #125 Id hardly call that having Value.

[KaPe]

The first disc priest doesnt show up on Elegon until #125 Id hardly call that having Value.

Perhaps he was using Hymn of Hope to provide "value" to "real" healers. Fits the "support" role, I guess. 'Course, benching him would probably be better, but hey...

[Deleted]

Huh, I switched to holy priest for MoP so I'm certainly no expert (this alt always used to be disc), but I didn't have more trouble healing than our resto druid and resto shaman last night. Granted, I'm slightly better geared than them and went all out regen, but I doubt ~500 spirit would make such a huge difference if the class was truly underpowered. Or is this only a problem in 25man (as I raid 10)?

[Vashi]

We are bottom at the moment. I dont care much. I two healed spirit kings and Garajal with no problem so I am happy when things die. I am disc. Just get over it, at the moment we will not be topping metters. Did it with iLVL like 455.