With iteration of Holy/Disc you liked best?

[Comfort]

Cata disc was my favorite by far.

For holy its really whatever, its felt meh since I first played it. Probably legion honestly as the healing meta/balance allows it to do really well.

[Rilas13]

Wotlk holy. Legion disc

^Took the words outa my keyboard
/cosigned

[Danner]

As a holypriest, legion is amazing because they no longer has a retarded version of Chakra.

[Ynna]

I liked Holy during Cataclysm (especially near the start) the most, but that has as much to do with how tight mana was as with the spec design. I did love the flexibility Holy had with the different Chakras and how they allowed Holy to do well at anything while still not being too powerful overall.

I remember Chakras fondly, especially red one for leveling in MoP. What was wrong with them, so they had to be removed?

If I'm not mistaken, the devs thought Chakras were just one thing too many to keep track off while also being too punishing when you made a mistake or a judgment error. Like, they were fun when you nailed them and timed them correctly, but could be frustrating if you went into the AoE Chakra just as a fight transitions into heavy single-target damage.

[deviantcultist]

For both Holy and Disc, Legion is my favorite iteration.

[Danner]

Chakras? Basic Healing Circle spam? Renew blanketing/PW shield spam?

Holy Words are cool, but personally, I dislike conflict of using them immediately for efficiency/saving them for an emergency.

I remember Chakras fondly, especially red one for leveling in MoP. What was wrong with them, so they had to be removed?

Holy:
Legion is by far the best iteration.
I have to go back to TBC to have something close to it.

I wish I remember much about WoTLK. Apaprently I don't. I kicked ass on Sartharion 3 Drakes doing single target healing, spot raidhealing and raidleading at the same time after our raidleader ragequit after 2 weeks of wipe. I kicked ass in Ulduar, doing group healing. I remember complaining about mana a lot, no longer having downranking and my UBRS trinket being nerfed to death (was still OP). I missed FSR dancing abuse that I could do in TBC. I hated Trial of the Grand Crusader due to its repeativeness. Icecrown Citadel was awesome, but lasted like a year. Dungeons were piss easy. But all in all, I had fun I guess. And I remember druids outhealing me like crazy in all stages of play, while bringing a combat ress. Whatever. Their time to shine after Vanilla it seems, surely it will change around in the next expansion I naively thought. I would rank WoTLK below TBC for a holypriest mechanic, but above in terms of everything else.

Cataclysm broke a lot. First it introduced chakra. It gave holypriests the "stance problem" that warriors faced at the same time, a problem blizzard was trying to fix for warriors, yet introduce for holypriests. Namely that warriors did no damage in defensive stance, and had paper armor outside of it. Made them very unusable in much content. The holypriest spec got the same problems with chakra. It was allowed to be on par as long as you cast spells in the right stance; and subpar on everything else - you were balanced against perfect play. Yet the entire point of the holy spec was to be (as ghostcrawler called it) "Grout", it was supposed to be the healer that was all over the place saving people with spothealing in one second, countering a major AOE hit the next. Chakra prevented that being effective; it didn't add 25% healing to spells in the right stance. It removed 25% healing from spells not in the right stance! Effectively, Chakra was a healing tax, limiting an amazing spec to be something far less amazing.

Cata also introduced the holy trinity. Heal was added to the game as a first class spell. With it, the emphasis healers should utilize the right heals for the right time to get the most out of their mana. I was initially very positive to the idea. It is how I want to play the game after all. The problem was, holypriests had already been doing that in TBC (and it was awesome). It was Cataclysm that broke that design by forcing us into chakra stances. Chakra effectively opposed the stated healing goal of using the right spell for the right situation. It didn't help one bit that both druids, discpriests and paladins were running on virtually unlimited mana, and the druid still brought a combat ress. Only poor shammies and holypriests were forced to play the mana game, and shammies at least had some awesome cooldowns. Basically, the mana game felt like a tax. It was a tax. It prevented me from both doing my job, as well as doing it as preventing me from competing with the other healers. No wonder holypriest was the dead last healer in Cataclysm. In short, I find Cataclysm to be by far the worst thing to happen to holypriests ever. It was a miserable expansion throughout.

Mists of Pandaria was a major upgrade. The biggest part was downsizing the benefits from Chakra, making us way more flexible. The flawed mana game was fixed with the removal of spirit; every healer now had an endgame-level of mana regen from the start. Holypriest mana was still tight, but not cataclysm levels of unreasonably so, despite other healers still forgetting they had a manabar, at least it wasn't a problem to avoid OOming if you played well. The new T90 spells were OP as heck, and carried an otherwise way underperforming spec. The only thing that held holypriests back in MoP was the stigma added by cataclysm, and the fact that disc was way superior in any way imaginable. You wanted that second disc priest before you wanted the first holypriest, for any content. But despite that - Holy wasn't a bad spec at all at that point, and had it been live in Cataclysm it would have done very well. Unfortunately, it still lacked the utility. No combat ress, no spirit link - and both druids and shammies were bringing the throughput like a holypriest. Why really would you use holy? The really really good players like AutomaticJak managed very well. Everyone else... went disc.

I liked Warlords of Draenor. I didn't like the mobile waiting game aspects of the spec, but as far as the holypriest went, it was on the mark. The devs finally had managed to balance Chakra better, by removing almost all of its benefits. Chakra kinda didn't do much anymore, and that made it perfect as we now could throw spells around as the spec was designed to do. The only benefit worth talking about was the red chakra, which was and always has been a really good idea. On the downside, the T90 spells from MoP were nerfed to the ground, hardly worth casting anymore. But Disc also being nerfed to the ground and back helped Holy significantly (and made Disc actually seem like a balanced spec). I also think Mana was extremely relaxed in this expansion, which I must admit I enjoyed after several expansions worth of stress-related ulcers. In short - I still remember WoD with positive impressions as far as class mechanics go - but I have to admit that is because of several years of being in a very abusive relationship with the blizzard class devs suddenly taking a turn for a off-hands one. Chakra was still fundamentally broken, and the fix of making it do nothing was not really a selling point was it? "The core mechanic of Holypriest does nothing, enjoy!". But for me, that was bliss.

Come Legion, Chakra went away. Good riddance. The replacement cooldowns are OP as heck, and will surely be nerfed to death in BfA like the T90 spells of MoP. But IMO, the big cooldowns is what made Holy playable and enjoyable in Legion. The spec still has no real utility, but Serenity is worth as much as a combat ress in the right hands. I know I have thoroughly enjoyed being Holy in the entire expansion. And if I am to actively compare Legion to The Burning Cursade - I think Legion was better. TBC had a tight mana game, but it was a game you could (and had to) master through spell downranking and FSR dancing. Once I did, TBC healing was amazing. In Legion, there is no such aspect of healing. It makes the game lesser - but - if the alternative is Cataclysm style mana management where only I was crippled and everyone else /shrug'ed - I would take Legion every single day of the week, and love it while doing so. Outside of healing content, Holy has been extremely capable in Legion - I can do world quests (unlike Cataclysm where questing as holy was literally impossible), I can even smite down Argus worldmap bosses, even though it takes me 4.5 minutes to do so. Compare that to TBC, where the same wasn't true. I spent hours just farming gold back then; in legion I actually get to kick ass. As Holy.

And that is why Legion is the best expansion.

[Ynna]

Good post, Danner. I don't agree with everything (and didn't play during Pandaria and Warlords), but good post. Minor nitpick: Chakra was introduced with Cataclysm, only being in WotLK right at the very end, in the patch preparing for Cataclysm. During Wrath, Holy Priests either spammed Renew or Flash Heal in between Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing.

I'm not too down on healing in Legion, but I don't get the feeling of kicking ass as Holy. The closest I get is pushing Apotheosis, which allows my to cast my (mostly boring) signature spells more often, and that just doesn't scratch my healing itch. Mana management and triage are relatively unimportant in Legion and those are what I love about the healing role (on top of just performing a support role).

Cataclysm healing for Holy Priests was a recipe for healer burnout at the start. There was no room for mistakes and any mistake was slowly and brutally punished, including mistakes made by other people. By the first patch, this was alleviated a bit and healing become more fun again. Other players learning the mechanics and the limitations of healers also helped. It was still a problem that other healers didn't have the same limitations (in terms of mana), but I've always seen that as other healers being too powerful, rather than Holy Priests being too weak during Cataclysm.

I must say that actually being able to do world quests as Holy is pretty great, even though I think it's less of an issue with being able to rapidly change specs at no cost.During Cataclysm this was a lot more painful, as you didn't just have a DPS option most of the time.

[Teto]

Holy - Legion
Disc - Mop


For me that is I know a lot of people love the new disc so I;m happy for them but its meh for me

[Danner]

Good post, Danner. I don't agree with everything (and didn't play during Pandaria and Warlords), but good post. Minor nitpick: Chakra was introduced with Cataclysm, only being in WotLK right at the very end, in the patch preparing for Cataclysm. During Wrath, Holy Priests either spammed Renew or Flash Heal in between Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing.

Wow. You are completely right, Chakra came in with Cataclysm, not WoTLK. I seem to have been mixing these up. So my timeline is all off. I'm gonna have to update the post!
Another sign of early senility creeping in. I would be worried, if I won't forget all about it in 5 minutes.

[Brighter]

/coughWoD Disc

[Swalload]

Chakras? Basic Healing Circle spam? Renew blanketing/PW shield spam?

Holy Words are cool, but personally, I dislike conflict of using them immediately for efficiency/saving them for an emergency.

I remember Chakras fondly, especially red one for leveling in MoP. What was wrong with them, so they had to be removed?

Nothing was wrong with chakras and this is specifically why they got removed. If it's working well it gets shit on, if it's shit it stays.
jk... kinda


I wanna go back to shield spamming, because turning my brain off and doing less than others for bigger reward is the way to go.

[Deleted]

For me it was WotLK holy and disc. But MoP disc was fine too. Personaly i hate legion disc and it's one thing that's making me think about switching mains in BfA. It's just not fun for me and one thing i loved most about priest were 2 healing specs, which i could swap as i wanted and felt

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Mists of Pandaria was a major upgrade. The biggest part was downsizing the benefits from Chakra, making us way more flexible. The flawed mana game was fixed with the removal of spirit; every healer now had an endgame-level of mana regen from the start.

Spirit was removed in Legion, not in MoP. MoP had classic spirit gearing for every healer like in Cata (and like Druids/Priests had since Classic). WoD relegated spirit to jewelry only, and Legion finally removed it for good.

[Nurasu]

Spirit was removed in Legion, not in MoP. MoP had classic spirit gearing for every healer like in Cata (and like Druids/Priests had since Classic). WoD relegated spirit to jewelry only, and Legion finally removed it for good.

Yep. What they're probably remembering is scaling mana pools from Intellect.