Holy Priest - The traditional healer that is unviable in both PvP and M+

[MiiiMiii]

"Hey, I want to play WoW. What class should I play?"
"Well, what do you want to do?"
"I enjoy healing."
"You should definatly go Priest then. They not only have 1`, but 2 healing specs! It's meant for you!"

Fast forward to today. We have 1 spec called Disc. It's literally the least traditional healer ever existing outside Fistweaver monk (they have traditional healing a viable option though). OK, Fine. Seems like several people enjoy this DPS for healing style. Fine.

Then where does that leave the people that just want to be a traditional healer? Of course, Holy Priest. It's fairly straight forward, outside the Holy Word mechanic, and fits the traditional healing role fine. However...

Holy is just completely unviable in anything outside raiding. Want to Quest? They are the slowest. Want to do BGs? They are the weakest. Want to do 3v3? They are unviable, why the heck are you not Disc??? Want to do M+? No, you are not invited.

Honestly, if you want to play a traditional healer these days, you better reroll a Resto Shaman..

How come the Holy Priest, the traditional healer, is unviable for healing in most scenarios?

There is absolutly nothing changing about Holy Priest in Shadowlands.

If you reply Holy is fine, do you play Holy? And what content do you do?

[chakrila]

I don't play Holy (Priest) but I don't think the BG blanket statement is necessarily fair. Maybe RBGs they're not viable, but I haven't seen any. In random BGs almost everything is viable and if you know how to position yourself and use mana efficiently I've seen Holy Priests destroy healing scoreboards in BGs. That's all I can speak to on the subject.

[Stormgnoef]

No clue where you get this info from. I just quested on my holy Priest from 10-80 and did 3 times more dmg than disc or shadow.And. Holy in m+ is amazing for these grevious weeks and other stuff. They got amazing burst healing. Sure in pvp they suck but in pve where you need alot of burst healing they are still good.

[A Chozo]

Holy isn't unviable in M+ and PvP. Other specs may be stronger or better suited, but that doesn't mean unlivable.

[Sinte]

No clue where you get this info from. I just quested on my holy Priest from 10-80 and did 3 times more dmg than disc or shadow.And. Holy in m+ is amazing for these grevious weeks and other stuff. They got amazing burst healing. Sure in pvp they suck but in pve where you need alot of burst healing they are still good.

Are you actually dumb or just pretending to be? He is obviously talking about max level content,and he is correct. I would never take a hpriest to a high mplus key. Why would I? A disc and (especially) druid keeps the group alive just fine,while outputting ten times the damage a hpriest can.

That is the sole reason they're not viable in competitive pve and pvp (outside raids). Everyone can heal. But you need damage on top of healing to be viable. If a druid or a disc can keep his team alive but contribute to burst windows on priority targets,why would you ever consider a hpriest? That's right,you wouldn't. The only holy priests that have good ratings in pvp and mplus are there because of friends. And they probably know if they were a different healing spec,they would go further.

[Spacewalrus2010]

"Hey, I want to play WoW. What class should I play?"
"Well, what do you want to do?"
"I enjoy healing."
"You should definatly go Priest then. They not only have 1`, but 2 healing specs! It's meant for you!"

If ANYONE is asking these questions, then they are mostly certainly not the ones min-maxing. Any content they are doing can be done with a holy priest.

The problem is the PUG community just takes raider.io and world first raiders as gospel. If they aren't using a spec, neither will the pug world. Despite repeated attempts from the world first players that most specs are perfectly fine for regular content.

[Charge me Doctor]

I wonder where this meme about holy leveling being shit and them not being viable in m+ comes from. So many players believe that, but i haven't seen any decent priest player complain about this and can't come to this conclusion myself

[Stormgnoef]

[QUOTE=Sinte;52270813]Are you actually dumb or just pretending to be? He is obviously talking about max level content,and he is correct. I would never take a hpriest to a high mplus key. Why would I? A disc and (especially) druid keeps the group alive just fine,while outputting ten times the damage a hpriest can.

That is the sole reason they're not viable in competitive pve and pvp (outside raids). Everyone can heal. But you need damage on top of healing to be viable. If a druid or a disc can keep his team alive but contribute to burst windows on priority targets,why would you ever consider a hpriest? That's right,you wouldn't. The only holy priests that have good ratings in pvp and mplus are there because of friends. And they probably know if they were a different healing spec,they would go further.[/QUOTE

If we talking about min max high m+ it is still fine. There is always gonna be one spec weaker than the other. You cna still do it as holy up to + 18

[Omedon]

Discipline has two settings in my experience:

1) Someone FOTM'ing it because someone else told them to do it... and are terrible due to unreasonable skill floor.

2) Superheroes that actually belong healing with discipline

Option 2 is extremely rare in the PUG space. For a new player I would always, ALWAYS recommend holy. We breathe a sigh of relief when doing something like timewalking and learn that our healer is holy and not discipline.

I can't speak to PVP or higher end PVE, but as someone else here said: if someone is asking from scratch what class to do if they like healing, then they're not aiming any time soon at upper end stuff, they're in my realm, and in my realm, I will kiss you as soon as I see renew!

The biggest problem with discipline is it is an advanced spec for a high responsibility role, and is offered to everyone.

[RomanceDawn]

Healer damage is only half of the problem holy has, second is DR, holy has none. Its also extremely immobile and has a shit personal CD and tank CD. At the very least Serenity should have 2 charges, maybe renew should heal more while its only on one target, or better yet, provide some small DR while its only on one target. An equivalent to spiritwalkers grace would also help

[meekus]

Holy is actually quite great with destro warlocks and fire mages in 2v2. But other than that I kind of agree.

[Krekal]

Holy priest is hilarious in random bgs, you dont even need gear to use greater heal. Shining force, mind control, life grip, all of these are life saving & fun
Holy priest is cancer op in 2v2
Holy priest is good in nyalotha

They're bad in 3v3 and m+

[ceall]

Why would I? A disc and (especially) druid keeps the group alive just fine,while outputting ten times the damage a hpriest can.

Well last time I had a disc in my m+ group, he continuously kept me (as tank) at 4 stacks of grevious, even during boss fights (where they can pump out their healing non-stop), while not even healing me up with shadowmend during downtime, which has lead to some non-counterable deaths. This leads me to believe that disc is the ONLY unviable heal spec for m+.

[meekus]

Well last time I had a disc in my m+ group, he continuously kept me (as tank) at 4 stacks of grevious, even during boss fights (where they can pump out their healing non-stop), while not even healing me up with shadowmend during downtime, which has lead to some non-counterable deaths. This leads me to believe that disc is the ONLY unviable heal spec for m+.

Grievous and bursting are terrible affixes for disc generally, other than that they are all right i m+.

[MiiiMiii]

Holy priest is hilarious in random bgs, you dont even need gear to use greater heal. Shining force, mind control, life grip, all of these are life saving & fun
Holy priest is cancer op in 2v2
Holy priest is good in nyalotha

They're bad in 3v3 and m+

I completely agree, Greater Heal and crew is really fun in casual random BGs, but if you get competetive in real RBGs it's not gonna happen. 2v2, maybe, I have no experience. I also mentioned Holy is good in raids, but bad in everything outside raids.

Maybe I should appreciate the fun in Random BGs more. Thanks for the reminder.

[Yvaelle]

Are you actually dumb or just pretending to be?

This is an unnecessary personal attack.

You can easily run M15 keys or mythic raids without expecting your healers to do top tier healer DPS - or even any DPS at all really.

If you are pushing mythic raid progression at the start of a tier, or you are doing like M20 keys, only then holy DPS being bad is a real and serious problem, but that only applies to the top ~0.1% of the playerbase.

So you shouldn't expect people to know that at the very highest echelon Holy falls off, especcially when they are talking about the 1-80 leveling experience of Holy.

[Deja Thoris]

Are you actually dumb or just pretending to be? He is obviously talking about max level content,and he is correct. I would never take a hpriest to a high mplus key. Why would I? A disc and (especially) druid keeps the group alive just fine,while outputting ten times the damage a hpriest can.

That is the sole reason they're not viable in competitive pve and pvp (outside raids). Everyone can heal. But you need damage on top of healing to be viable. If a druid or a disc can keep his team alive but contribute to burst windows on priority targets,why would you ever consider a hpriest? That's right,you wouldn't. The only holy priests that have good ratings in pvp and mplus are there because of friends. And they probably know if they were a different healing spec,they would go further.

Hpriests have timed 23's at a quick glance. Is this not "viable"? Yes, they could possibly go further as the fotm, but this is a far cry from not being viable.

[Gestopft]

Grievous and bursting are terrible affixes for disc generally, other than that they are all right i m+.

Bursting on Disc is like trying to fill a glass using an eyedropper.

[Ragnarohk]

This is an unnecessary personal attack.

You can easily run M15 keys or mythic raids without expecting your healers to do top tier healer DPS - or even any DPS at all really.

If you are pushing mythic raid progression at the start of a tier, or you are doing like M20 keys, only then holy DPS being bad is a real and serious problem, but that only applies to the top ~0.1% of the playerbase.

So you shouldn't expect people to know that at the very highest echelon Holy falls off, especcially when they are talking about the 1-80 leveling experience of Holy.

This.

All classes/specs are viable for mythic raiding and sub Mythic+15. Sometimes people look at MDI or Race to World First rosters and extrapolate from there. That doesn't work.

Now, if you're pushing +20 it's different. But most people here aren't and won't be doing that.

[RomanceDawn]

The “any healer can do +15s so everything is fine” argument doesnt really work because it leaves out the entire point of what ppl are usually discussing, the fact that even if u technically can progress mythic with any healer, at the same skill and effort (with a class), you’d have a much easier time with, say, a paladin than a Hpriest, and ofc you can time 15s with a Hpriest but that doesn’t change the fact it would be easier to do it with, say, a Resto dudu

Its about the huge discrepancy between how effective healers are in various content, ie its about balance, and no matter how many times u say “any healer can do whatever” the fact remains healer balance is not that good atm