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

[keelr]

"
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.

Holy priest is far from the weakest on BGs. It is playable in 3s, ofc its not the best (why does everbody want to be fotm in 2020), i play it and its rly fun, but the greater heal build is abit boring. Holy is sadly not available for pushing 20+ key because its low dmg output, if that is your case, otherswise its exactly as good as all the other healer on lower keys.

[Deja Thoris]

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

When they've 2 chested 23's kinda blows your statement out of the water though.

[Recovery]

Reminds me of how I felt about playing warrior in late Wrath/Cata. I was like, what’s the traditional tank spec, and ended up warrior.

I was able to do pretty much everything but the toolkit was vanilla and just not up to par with the newer specs like dk. Class was built around blocking and avoiding a lot of physical damage, which, who cares? - and was notably weak against magic damage and really suffered against paladin bubble and dk ams.

In late Cata I leveled a dk and mostly left my warrior for dead, and other than a couple brief bursts of viability, Warrior tanks have at best been “meh” over the many years since.

I think holy priest suffers the same problem on the healing side. Even in raids, the class is just kinda “meh” at everything without any obvious strengths (like shammies have with totems, Druids with mobility, pallies with single target). I’m not familiar with post WoD holy, but back then, divine hymn was certainly the weakest of the big raid CDs (compared to totems, revival, and tranq).

Both warrior tank and holy priest just haven’t found a niche over a long time.

You think warriors have been bad since the end of wrath? Did i read that correctly? You think prot warrior specifically has been bad? Did i read that correctly?

Umm... have we been playing the same game for the last 10 years? Im thinking maybe you just needed some practice on warrior. lol. Especially in late wrath. Grab a Shadowmourne, roll arms and poop all over everyone.. it was definitely that simple.

- - - Updated - - -

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

Healers shouldnt be what you consider "balanced". Your mindset is part of the reason everything in the game was homogenized to begin with. Its good that all healers arent the same. Its good that some have strengths where others have weaknesses.

It's not the state of the classes that you should be questioning. Its the state of how to progress through the game. Holy priests take more effort in high keys than other healers... Well, you shouldnt necessarily buff holy priests.. Keys shouldnt be the most efficient way to gear for any subject in the game. Blizzard took a competitive, skill challenging aspect of the game and literally made it the sole best way to gear. To me that is a bigger issue than any class balance in an area of the game that shouldnt be MANDATORY.

Imagine if the best / most efficient way to gear in the game was to get above 2400 in 3v3 arena.. MYTHIC+ is the same thing.

[Recovery]

You must not have read beyond my first sentence when I specified that I was playing a tank.

Again have we been playing the same game? Prot warr is amazing currently. It has been for most of BFA.. It was great in cata. It was great in mop. Dont really remember wod or legion, but im sure it was great then, too.

[Recovery]

everything is dependent on "externals". Im not sure what your argument is here.

- - - Updated - - -

Define what you mean by great. Sure there were brief periods (ignore pain) where they were awesome, but generally kinda “meh”.

Are you thinking about damage? Because I tend the think about survivability, and for a while warriors were more dependent on externals than any other tank.

I’m looking at mythic Nyalotha right now and DK + Monk are far and away the top two with warrior in 4th. I don’t remember a time when warrior was 1.

Why do you want everything to be the same and have the same viability. Difference is good man. Dont you wish to bring something different to a group than someone else can? What boring gameplay when every spec brings the same thing to a group and has the same strengths and weaknesses. To be quite honest, it erks me that Prot warriors have the highest IO scores period right now, regardless of affix, regardless of anything. Thats stale and quite boring.

- - - Updated - - -

Define what you mean by great. Sure there were brief periods (ignore pain) where they were awesome, but generally kinda “meh”.

Are you thinking about damage? Because I tend the think about survivability, and for a while warriors were more dependent on externals than any other tank.

I’m looking at mythic Nyalotha right now and DK + Monk are far and away the top two with warrior in 4th. I don’t remember a time when warrior was 1.

In Cataclysm there were numerous bosses warriors couldn’t tank as well as paladins and dks because of bubble/ams.

Bro, thats a good thing.. There are things that some specs should just be better at than others.. I dont see the problem. I mean to be fair, the entirety of vanilla, BC and most of wrath was owned by warriors. No other spec even came close. lol. So if you coutn shadowlands, that makes 9 expansions. Warriors were the front runner 33% of the time. lol. Thats a pretty high number seeing as how there are 6 tank specs.

it kind of sounds to me like you want the spec you main to be the best at anything / everything no matter what. lol

[RomanceDawn]

When they've 2 chested 23's kinda blows your statement out of the water though.

No it doesn't, my point was it would have been easier to do that same feat on a resto druid of equal skill, not that a holy priest can't do it

[Steelangel]

1) Someone FOTM'ing it because someone else told them to do it... and are terrible due to unreasonable skill floor.
The biggest problem with discipline is it is an advanced spec for a high responsibility role, and is offered to everyone.

Disc used to be fun to play (I mained Disc throughout MoP and very early Draenor) but someone at Blizz decided that it would be more interesting to make the entire spec revolve around dumping 10-second atonement buffs individually on 5 people with a GCD spell, trying to stay mobile while using a strange long-cast heal-then-damage, shields that are meh and two DPS abilities that should be doing most of the atonement healing, but you can hardly cast them because you have to keep atonement up on everyone, and god forbid some fucking hunter stand in the fire and your burst heal isn't going to happen because the big mechanic is coming and you need to save penance.

I love Disc, but the top 2% Disc megaplayers really screwed over everyone else by being -too- good.

[Deja Thoris]

No it doesn't, my point was it would have been easier to do that same feat on a resto druid of equal skill, not that a holy priest can't do it

How do you know? Done 23's on both classes to compare?

Naaaaw, didn't think so...

[united]

Priest having the worst two healing specs for mythic+ is disgusting. Shadow is not much better off either. Why do I even play this class?

- - - Updated - - -

How do you know? Done 23's on both classes to compare?

Naaaaw, didn't think so...

Resto druids have way more mobility, utitlity, personal survivability, better tank cooldowns, their mastery is perfect for 5 mans, better damage, etc etc. It's a fact, not a matter of opinion.

[RomanceDawn]

How do you know? Done 23's on both classes to compare?

Naaaaw, didn't think so...

no but ive done 16s on both and i can easily say Resto has a much easier time, but if you're gonna just complain about everything i say im not gonna waste my time with someone who doesn't know what they are talking about, have a nice day

[dcc626]

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.

but if you arent FOTM you are obviously unviable. thats how the game works, duh /s

[Deja Thoris]

no but ive done 16s on both and i can easily say Resto has a much easier time, but if you're gonna just complain about everything i say im not gonna waste my time with someone who doesn't know what they are talking about, have a nice day

I've done higher than that, by your logic I'm correct.

And lul y u play unviable characters?

[Omedon]

Disc used to be fun to play (I mained Disc throughout MoP and very early Draenor) but someone at Blizz decided that it would be more interesting to make the entire spec revolve around dumping 10-second atonement buffs individually on 5 people with a GCD spell, trying to stay mobile while using a strange long-cast heal-then-damage, shields that are meh and two DPS abilities that should be doing most of the atonement healing, but you can hardly cast them because you have to keep atonement up on everyone, and god forbid some fucking hunter stand in the fire and your burst heal isn't going to happen because the big mechanic is coming and you need to save penance.

I love Disc, but the top 2% Disc megaplayers really screwed over everyone else by being -too- good.

I agree with you 100%, and...

it’s far too easy a job.

THIS very statement is the problem, right here!

Look, I'm going to speak some unwritten truth here, and a core of this whole issue.

Old school trinity MMO mindset was largely built around "it is everyone's job to make the healer's life as easy as possible, because bless those altruistic players for taking the role no one else wants." It's a core RPG thing, the tabletop game and the video game both have a hard time "finding healers" because it is an altruistic role filled by kind souls that don't mind "being support."

The problem arises in a highly competitive environment like WoW where competitve players eventually try these roles and maddeningly (here is the important part) WANT A CHALLENGE. AS A HEALER.

That is where your healer shortage comes from. 10000%.

Now a vast swath of the simply altruistic players aren't having fun. They have to be bleeding edge "better than you" thrillseeking meter readers to fit in. That creates a slimmer overlap in the venn diagram of "altruistic enough to heal" and "up to the task." Especially with discipline, the "advanced" healing class that, once again, anyone can try, but isn't designed for just anyone to do well.

Of course someone will say "holy is there for you," but that's not the point. It's a spec with a concept, and concepts attract characters, and characters can belong to players that... don't necessarily meet that skill floor. Then the random group is indeed stuck with someone that is "more enthusiast than expert" and as a disc priest that's a death sentence. That's ridiculous, and there needs to be a design shift to fit the fact that anyone is allowed to use disc, but not just anyone can use it, not just well, but "good enough."

Ok I'm done ranting, but these two comments display 1000% of the problem with disc. Some like the spec, and others are cRavIng ChaLLengE. As a healer.

The healer is supposed to be the PVE "free ride." I'll just say it. That's how you get healers in queue. But noooo WoW's too serious to have that!

I post this as a tank and ranged DPS: I want, I WANT every healer to have an idiot proof ride through PVE content. I need healing to be idiot proof because some people are idiots, and I may get stuck with them in queued content.

Ok now I'm done!

[Sarkli83]

How high of M+ are we talking here is the question because I know some who prefer holy for M+ and heal up through 15s and higher with no issue and I personally have done 10s with no issue and it's my backup spec.

In regards pvp.. theyve had their ups and downs over the years so it's just a down year.

[Boo Radley]

Whether it's a problem is a different discussion. We're talking about whether warrior tanks actually good in late wrath and cata, the eras I mentioned in my earlier post. And the answer is pretty obviously no. ICC was all about effective health and warriors had the least. I remember people in Ensidia talking about how hard a time they had with Kungen because he would get one shot by the Lich King when other tanks just had more health and could survive. In Cataclysm, warriors probably by consensus the worst tank. In Dragon Soul, 2 of the last 4 bosses were usually soloed by a paladin or a death knight so you didn't even have warriors (who could not solo those fights). On Al'Akir, warriors had a similar problem then meant they would take about 3-4X the damage of a paladin or death knight. Can't speak as much to Firelands, I didn't play that patch.

I still stick by my first comment - this was largely a result of warriors being an old school design that focused on mitigating consistent physical damage, and that just wasn't too important in Cataclysm. The other tanks weren't as good at blocking physical damage but they were good enough, and they were much better at blocking burst (especially magic burst). And it does remind me of the problem that holy has typically had - it's a vanilla design that's kinda decent at a lot of things but no real obvious strength, so they don't often shine in pve content.

Its been fun to watch your conversation with recovery. How many times will the goalposts move, will we even be tangentially related to the original topic? Its a thrill ride.

FWIW you were not at all unclear or wrong at any point Scrod.

[Omedon]

So you don't think healing should be challenging? I'm concerned that it typically isn't - I think it's fun to be a healer facing challenging content, to be smart about when to use your burst and to help keep the raid alive, and unless you're in mythic, m+, or on a few limited progression fights, healing is really quite easy right now. I don't think there's a high population of people who just want to get carried through heroic raiding, so I don't think that you solve the problem by making it even easier.

Everyone's jobs get harder once you move into higher, optional difficulties. I'm 100% talking about the foundation of disc spec built as "more difficult" to use and thus unnecessarily challenging in the difficulties that more belong to the main access vein of the game. This just amplifies when you turn the knobs intended to make the game as a whole harder and willfully seek challenge in higher difficulties, but the disc priest goes into these already handicapped by a convoluted base design.

Of course there are people rocking disc spec, but it is objectively harder to do so. That is wrong when someone interested in the concept of disc and is new to it disproportionately burdens a random group with an exaggerated and unnecessary learning curve.

A good disc priest is a superhero, a new disc priest is a nightmare where every other healing class is not with the same amount of effort, gear and skill.

[Yvaelle]

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.

I'm not sure I'd agree with this actually.

Classism in group finding is very real, and rooted in fact - not just community perspective.

So for example, for every 475 Shadowpriest who gets invited to an M15+, 17 Outlaw Rogues and 14 Havoc DH's will get invited: based on WCL log info.
Additionally, Havoc and Shadow are two of the most popular specs in the game - about tied. But Outlaw is actually 4 times rarer than Shadow, but again 17 times more popular in M15+, so finding a high key M+ PUG as an Outlaw rogue is like 68 times easier than doing so as Shadow.

That same issue also applies to biases against Holy Priests. Because people know to expect that a Resto Druid will not only have an easier time healing an M+, but will also put out like 30k single target DPS when they don't need to heal, people rightfully prefer Resto Druids, etc - over Holy Priests. That's also a real problem, and I don't like how Blizzard handwaves those problems away as being simply a community perspective issue.

Utility imbalance is a very real problem. What I was meaning to say was that bringing a Holy Priest isn't a make-or-break issue for running an M15 key. It's entirely doable, you aren't reliant on healer DPS to beat keys, even high keys, or Mythic raid bosses - except in the undergeared start-of-tier race for world first runs.

[mostvp71]

Hpriest/Destro is an amazing 2s comp, 3s yeah I can see where they’re lacking. Legion hpriest was fun ngl I l loved my priest.

[Freighter]

How do you know? Done 23's on both classes to compare?

Naaaaw, didn't think so...

I've done 20s, holy priest flat out sucks compared to holy paladin or resto druid. You put in more effort for worse results. They seriously need to buff holy priests, both healing damage in 5-mans.

[Biomega]

I'm not sure I'd agree with this actually.

Classism in group finding is very real, and rooted in fact - not just community perspective.

So for example, for every 475 Shadowpriest who gets invited to an M15+, 17 Outlaw Rogues and 14 Havoc DH's will get invited: based on WCL log info.
Additionally, Havoc and Shadow are two of the most popular specs in the game - about tied. But Outlaw is actually 4 times rarer than Shadow, but again 17 times more popular in M15+, so finding a high key M+ PUG as an Outlaw rogue is like 68 times easier than doing so as Shadow.

That same issue also applies to biases against Holy Priests. Because people know to expect that a Resto Druid will not only have an easier time healing an M+, but will also put out like 30k single target DPS when they don't need to heal, people rightfully prefer Resto Druids, etc - over Holy Priests. That's also a real problem, and I don't like how Blizzard handwaves those problems away as being simply a community perspective issue.

Utility imbalance is a very real problem. What I was meaning to say was that bringing a Holy Priest isn't a make-or-break issue for running an M15 key. It's entirely doable, you aren't reliant on healer DPS to beat keys, even high keys, or Mythic raid bosses - except in the undergeared start-of-tier race for world first runs.

Can't be stressed enough.

The problem isn't just an on-paper difference, because it actually becomes quite pronounced in practice due to selection biases. I.e., when you are putting together an M+ group, why would you NOT pick the best tool for the job if it's available. If a Shadow Priest and an Outlaw Rogue both apply to a group, why would I NOT pick the Outlaw? That doesn't mean I think a Shadow Priest can't do it, or is "unviable" - it just means that an Outlaw Rogue will on average do better. And for that it doesn't even matter what the margin is.

It's like saying you want to go buy a $1 chewing gum, and 2 people come and offer you money to buy them one, too: one person is offering you $1.10, and the other is offering you $1.15. Both are above the $1 threshold needed to perform the task - but if given the choice between an extra $0.10 and an extra $0.15, why would you NOT take more money? (all other things being equal, of course) THAT is the real problem. Nobody is saying one person doesn't have the $1.00 it takes to buy gum, it's purely a matter of having the luxury to choose.

In other words, the real solution is NOT to go and tell people "come on now, they both got the $1.00 they need, stop being so biased!". It's to either a) reduce the difference between the two (e.g. better spec balance); or b) curb the overabundance of choice (e.g. more tanks). It's not easy to achieve either. But it's still important to recognize the problem instead of pretending it's "just a community thing".