In a raid setup where we lack tank healing is holy priest>disc for tank healing spec?

[Deleted]

To summarise: the playstyle of our 5 healers (1 of each class) is allergic to tank healing. I say play style and not setup for a reason. Our pala is instructed on most encounters to "heal tanks only" - as in directly heal them, not just through the beacons as designed because "palas are strong tank healers". True but I feel there is a little bit of misunderstanding here... I can't press the issue though. Our healing team possibly are rank hungry and want those big numbers. I'd rather our tanks not die so much. I LOVE LOVE disc and have gotten very effective at timing my setups. I have nearly 100% uptime on atonement/pos where applicable. I realise everyone should be chipping in on tank heals but when AOE hits the fan you can see via the raid bars that they basically get ignored.

My question: because I'm a nice person I have considered switching to holy. But I've not played the spec in years. Can anyone here qualified say if holy priest is the stronger spec to assist with tank healing? I would prefer to go druid but it's not even max level so that's out of the question for now.


Appreciated.

[Yavi Dawnsong]

I can't really speak for how effective they are by comparrison, but I've played alot of holy, and I'd say that they're single target healing is a really underapprieciated strength of the class, with Light of T'uure (Artifact Ability) and Holy Word Serenity they have the biggest single target heal in the game, combined with flash heal and specific legendaries such as Muze's, Holy's single target hps can be staggeringly high.

[Dropakeg]

Agreed. Only issue I run into is we have a phenomenal hpally, so I have to snipe with serenity when tanks are low to make it worthwhile. Disc is more fun, but lacks the OH CRAP protection of holy, as it's a proactive spec but tank heals are largely reactive.

[Yavi Dawnsong]

I realise everyone should be chipping in on tank heals but when AOE hits the fan you can see via the raid bars that they basically get ignored.

Appreciated.

To your original question, this honestly just sounds like the Paladin isn't doing what he was asked to do. Maybe he's under the assumption that during heavy aoe you need his help? Which is fine obviously if you do (not to the neglect of the tanks mind you) but if you don't, there's nothing more annoying than someone sniping heals from you when you've got everything handled.

[Shiny212]

Like he said, holy will put up competitive numbers through their single target healing due to the massive and frequent holy word: serenity casts, just be quick on the trigger and that'll be your top healing on certain fights. No other class or specc can compare tbh.

[Nurasu]

To summarise: the playstyle of our 5 healers (1 of each class) is allergic to tank healing. I say play style and not setup for a reason. Our pala is instructed on most encounters to "heal tanks only" - as in directly heal them, not just through the beacons as designed because "palas are strong tank healers". True but I feel there is a little bit of misunderstanding here... I can't press the issue though. Our healing team possibly are rank hungry and want those big numbers. I'd rather our tanks not die so much. I LOVE LOVE disc and have gotten very effective at timing my setups. I have nearly 100% uptime on atonement/pos where applicable. I realise everyone should be chipping in on tank heals but when AOE hits the fan you can see via the raid bars that they basically get ignored.

My question: because I'm a nice person I have considered switching to holy. But I've not played the spec in years. Can anyone here qualified say if holy priest is the stronger spec to assist with tank healing? I would prefer to go druid but it's not even max level so that's out of the question for now.


Appreciated.

Switching your spec isn't going to solve your issue. While it might be true that Holy is better at tank healing, it still looks something like this:

H Pala>>>>>>>>>Holy>Disc. You need your paladin to do their job.

[worcester]

To summarise: the playstyle of our 5 healers (1 of each class) is allergic to tank healing. I say play style and not setup for a reason. Our pala is instructed on most encounters to "heal tanks only" - as in directly heal them, not just through the beacons as designed because "palas are strong tank healers". True but I feel there is a little bit of misunderstanding here... I can't press the issue though. Our healing team possibly are rank hungry and want those big numbers. I'd rather our tanks not die so much. I LOVE LOVE disc and have gotten very effective at timing my setups. I have nearly 100% uptime on atonement/pos where applicable. I realise everyone should be chipping in on tank heals but when AOE hits the fan you can see via the raid bars that they basically get ignored.

My question: because I'm a nice person I have considered switching to holy. But I've not played the spec in years. Can anyone here qualified say if holy priest is the stronger spec to assist with tank healing? I would prefer to go druid but it's not even max level so that's out of the question for now.


Appreciated.

Paladins are strong tank healers and strong spot healers. They are not strong tank healers simply because they are strong spot healers, this is a misconception as it's only partly true. The other key part of the equation is beacon, which is mostly passive. Beacon tells us why paladins are always top on tank healing meters. But understanding how it works is more difficult.

The best way I can explain this intricacy is through spec cross-synergy. Suppose we have a holy paladin and a resto druid in a small raid. The general consensus is that the paladin is the tank healer and druid is the raid healer. This is based on the fact that druids % contribution is raid heavy while most of the paladin healing is on the tanks.
Upon closer examination, let's suppose the druid spend more or equal gcd on the tank compared to the paladin; while the paladin spend more or equal gcd on the raid compared to the druid. How can this be?

It is because of how the key spells of specs work. It's inefficient for the paladin to holy shock a beacon target when he can HS a third target and get double transfers. It's also more efficient to hit every target except the beacons with light of dawn. In contrast, a druid would like to stack hots on singular targets that take consistent damage while using wild growth and efflo which happens to be their most efficient spells which are also coincidentally aoe and dislike using regrowth on the random raid member with 0 hots.

What we have is a paladin that wants to only heal the raid and a druid that only wants to heal the tanks. This maximises their efficiency and as a consequence of their toolkit happen to the other thing better too - heal the tank more (paladin) or the raid more (druid). This is an exaggerated hypothetical scenario but serves to point out that: the "tank" healer is not so because they only heal the tanks and likewise the "raid" healer doesn't only heal the raid. Each healer should try to maximise their efficiency and use their toolkit to gain synergies and cover each others weaknesses.


So I have to respectfully disagree with your raid healer that the pally should "heal tanks only" and your other healers (all healers) should contribute to tank healing. Your raid is losing out on free synergies that makes it much harder on everyone if you assign a strict role (this isn't wrath anymore). It's not going to be perfect and everyone will need to adjust towards more tank healing if required but that's just how it is.
The other thing is to look at the tanks, some damage is not reasonably healable no matter how many healers and must be handled by the tanks. In an aoe situation they should be able to get by with incidental aoe healing + beacon + contributed hots - which in most cases is equivalent to the ST healing they receive anyway due to how ridiculous the raid damage has become.

My advice: stick with disc, talk with your other healers and tanks. Druids are good tank healers, MW and Shaman love to bounce their aoe spells off tanks as primary (ReM/Viv/CH targets), ground aoe in melee camp. And your paladin needs to be allowed to play more efficiently which in turn helps everyone else. I really doubt changing from disc to holy priest will change much.

[Heathy]

the idea of tank healers and raid healers sorta died with classic, I used to be a class leader during tbc and would tell ppl who to heal for each boss, although ppl just heal whoever is taking damage anyway, but because we have so much utility these days the line between tank and raid healers is gone, there is no, one person dedicated to just healing the tank. I would say holy works fine for single target because of serenity which is basically lay on hands with a 1minute cooldown that takes 6-7 flash heals to recast. you can do the same with poh and sanctify, holy works for the moment when you need it. disc has great burst but relies entirely on you being pre-emptive with your atonements. lets face it all healers with equal gear perform reasonably well, there are fights that favour holy way more than disc, and fights where disc's barrier is better than hymn. so time/place/fight itself all play a part in determining which spec is better for that particular encounter.

you could compare disc to a holy palas beacons in that, you will most likely atonement both tanks and try to keep atonement up on both tanks as your first two constant targets for atonement. pala beacon just lets palas aoe heal with single target heals i wouldn't say it makes them way better tank healers, its just that they usually heal tanks no matter who they heal.

[Mazzeric]

Basically, there's no replacement for a Paladin. Beacon has no equal, and it's been that way since Wrath. Worcester explained it well; the Paladin should be spot-healing on the raid to maximize Beacon healing. You will actually lose "tank heals" by gimping your Paladin telling him/her to only cast spells on the tanks...

Swapping to Holy just downgrades your healing core, especially if you are playing well as Disc. You don't gain anything. The raid just loses your Disc damage, raid cds, raid damage reduction, and massive tank cooldown.

You should post some logs of your raids, because having issues with tank healing in 2017 could be just as much on your tanks as it is on your healers. Could be lack of communication between tanks (mis-taunting), the tanks not calling for externals, or the tanks simply not playing well/mitigating damage at key moments.

Re-rolling and re-grinding legendaries because your raid leader is ignorant or ill-informed of "tank healing" is probably not the right call.

there are fights that favour holy way more than disc

Which fights favor Holy over Disc?

[Heathy]

Which fights favor Holy over Disc?

fights with consistent ticking damage, like elisandre, scorpyron, any fight where the whole raid is constantly getting smashed, not fun to play as disc.. this is assuming ofc your like most ppl and don't have pocket innervates, maybe you have BoW and thats it. holy = better at handling constant aoe. its mainly down to atonement stacking its probably a lot better with t21, i've levelled shadow as my offspec this tier so i haven't tried it since tomb. I just remember fights with lots of aoe being horrible to play as disc. but fights with predictable burst damage are great because you can prepare for it, then catch it as soon as it lands. fights with lots of aoe you spend most of your time applying atonement and its just a mess. perhaps i should have said, there are fights where playing holy is a hell of a lot more smoother and less hair pulling than playing disc.

disc has a specific niche that i do like and its that atonement, breaks the range limit on healing, if someone has atonement they will get healed from your damage regardless of them being within 40yrds of you when you cast smite or penance. that is a unique niche where by if someone runs out of range, and they have atonement you don't have to chase after them to top them off. its a niche but i think its actually quite noticeable on fights where the raid is split in half or its just a massive room and ppl are spread.

[Mazzeric]

fights with lots of aoe you spend most of your time applying atonement and its just a mess.

It's a common misconception that Disc is bad at those fights though, because you are assuming (1) that there aren't other healers in the raid and (2) that everyone needs Atonement all the time outside of your burst windows. Disc has never really been been so far behind Holy in HPS that PW:Barrier's effective HPS didn't put Disc at least on par with Holy HPS while also bringing DPS, raid damage reduction for everyone with Atonement, Pain Suppression, and better personal survivability.

Maiden of Vigilance https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...=hps&boss=2052
Portal Keeper Hasabel https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...064&metric=hps

Two fights most people think Disc would be bad at, but is/was actually amazing for.

(Innervates and BoW make every healer that gets them better btw)

[Heathy]

It's a common misconception that Disc is bad at those fights though, because you are assuming (1) that there aren't other healers in the raid and (2) that everyone needs Atonement all the time outside of your burst windows. Disc has never really been been so far behind Holy in HPS that PW:Barrier's effective HPS didn't put Disc at least on par with Holy HPS while also bringing DPS, raid damage reduction for everyone with Atonement, Pain Suppression, and better personal survivability.

Maiden of Vigilance https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...=hps&boss=2052
Portal Keeper Hasabel https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...064&metric=hps

Two fights most people think Disc would be bad at, but is/was actually amazing for.

(Innervates and BoW make every healer that gets them better btw)

I just didn't like those types of fights, spent most of my time casting plea and radiance, my hps is always much much better as holy because of echo, pom and sanctify, you can just heal, without needing to do something first, there is no gcds wasted on 'preparing to heal' you press button = you heal. echo of light ticks heal damage missed by the initial cast. pom is effortless. honestly disc is fun but its just not fun for those types of encounters, at least not for me and i did actually enjoy playing the spec. disc doesn't have anything at all like poh spam and sanctify, you get one big raid topper with 2x radiance and lights wrath, t21 4pt makes penance 30% bigger, dunno if that'll match 2x poh + sanc + echo, probably not.

in the end play style is a lot of the battle, i've always preferred spot healing when i can, and disc is shit for that. I like the timing = payoff burst heals and the cds, but when you have a boss that is doing damage to the whole raid for the whole encounter, its holy all the way for me. the size of the raid matters aswell i feel, disc in a 10 man raid vs disc in a 25 man raid. I'd probably enjoy disc in the 10 man, but in the 25 man i would feel like i'm just fighting with atonement application still able to heal but not able to heal the whole raid as well as i could if i were 1)holy or 2) in a smaller raid where 2x radiance covers everyone..

[toychristopher]

There isn't really any spec that is a dedicated tank healer any longer. Every healer in a raid should be keeping certain spells on the tanks. Obviously every single healer is capable of single target healing and tank heals because of 5 mans.

If your healers are "rank-hungry" they should obviously be keeping the tanks up, because sniping heals on the tanks can be a huge boost to healing done over the course of a fight. Honestly most tanks can keep themselves up for prolonged periods without any heals if they are paying attention and know what they are doing, so I think your real problem is probably the tanks.

[High Priestess Tyrande]

tanks kinda just heal themselves nowadays, most meters on healing taken i will show that the person who healed the tank the most is *surprise!* themselves

beyond a few mechanics tanks dont really need to be focused anymore, they are that good.

[HottyLGW]

tanks kinda just heal themselves nowadays, most meters on healing taken i will show that the person who healed the tank the most is *surprise!* themselves

beyond a few mechanics tanks dont really need to be focused anymore, they are that good.

going to have to agree here, if tank healing is an issue in your raid, I would say you have a tanking issue
if you can't fix that find a holy pally. both a holy and disc priest are going to be very sad if they have to give more attention to tanks

[Deleted]

Sry if i am a bit late, there were many interesting insights in this thread. Thought I could add a few points.

going to have to agree here, if tank healing is an issue in your raid, I would say you have a tanking issue
if you can't fix that find a holy pally. both a holy and disc priest are going to be very sad if they have to give more attention to tanks

But me as a blood dk (who also plays disc sometimes and likes it as well) would be happy if a disc coud give me *some* attention now and then. For one thing, I wonder whether PWS is viewed so inferior nowadays, it's really rare that I see it cast on me when reviewing logs. Also asking for PS is pointless, always spent on some other priority.

You are all right saying a tank must sustain himself to a degree (cca. 60-70% for me), but if we could cover all incomings 100% consistently and reliably even on mythic felhounds or higher, that would be just plain godmode. Some exceptional tanks may have the gear and skill for it ofc, my pow is more casual. *Some* attention is required, and i cannot see how beacon could cover all that in itself on any fight where raid dmg comes in bursts now and then, and not overlapping with tank requirements. And i would prefer a disc's regular shields and atonemented dots+stuff any time to a rare and big tuure+serenity wasted as overheal.

[Spicymemer]

Holy is probably a stronger healer overall when having to focus on tank healing.
Disc has stronger cooldowns and bursty raid healing but may struggle with high tank damage.