Priest Swinger

[Skygoneblue]

This is just a thread intended to have some fun with a less-than optimal spec. If you don't have anything to contribute, please don't post.

Disclaimer: I'm well aware of the fact that Blizzard doesn't intend to make Holy DPS a competitive spec.

Hey guys, I was just pondering a potential fun spec that might be an option now that most guilds are clearing DS pretty regularly.*

In my experience, most guilds have 1-2 characters that swing specs mid-raid to accommodate a fight needing 1 or 2 tanks, or 2 or 3 healers. This got me thinking - Could a priest be an effective DPS/Healing hybrid in the same spec, effectively eliminating the need to swap specs entirely?

This is what I was thinking:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bcGoZfhrMRzrksdoV0adm

It's easy enough to grab all the necessary Holy talents with 32 points, and that gives you two important talents for Holy Fire/Smite DPS: Divine Fury and Chakra.

With Disc subspec, you can 20% boost to Holy Fire and Smite, with greatly reduced mana cost. Combined with Chakra, you're looking at a 35% overall boost to damage.

Mostly I was thinking... This spec could use Chakra: Chastise to provide some supplemental DPS when extreme healing isn't needed. And with the flip of a switch, you could switch to another healing Chakra, pop Evangelism, help out during phases of intense healing, and then revert to DPS once things stabilize.*

Has anyone tried anything like this and had any amount of success with it?*

[Deleted]

I'll gladly trade the 10% chakra for attonement heals tbh. May aswell roll attonement disc.

[Skygoneblue]

Chakra is 15%, but yea, I really hate Disc spec. That's why I was wondering about this.*

[luciano]

Why would you do this? It's free and easy to swap. Are you trying to heal half the fight and DPS the other half?

If not, you're hurting the raid to do something trivial.
If so, why?

[Skygoneblue]

Why would you do this? It's free and easy to swap. Are you trying to heal half the fight and DPS the other half?

If not, you're hurting the raid to do something trivial.
If so, why?

Did you even read the whole post before responding?

[Solia]

Trying force a gimped spec to work means you probably out geared the content already.

And like anyone will already tell you - Atonement healing is already optimized for what you propose here, it doesn't matter that you hate the spec.

[Yoshimiko]

Interesting idea. I kinda like it, I might mess around with it.

[Skygoneblue]

Trying force a gimped spec to work means you probably out geared the content already.

Or I'm simply trying to think outside the box of being strictly Healing or DPS 100% of the time.*

And like anyone will already tell you - Atonement healing is already optimized for what you propose here, it doesn't matter that you hate the spec.

Yea, I'm noticing a pattern of people not really being able to consider anything outside of the norm here. It would be nice to have someone show an objective assessment for once rather than some snarky, half-assed post shooting something down without ever having contributed in any way.

---------- Post added 2012-03-13 at 01:51 PM ----------

Interesting idea. I kinda like it, I might mess around with it.

Glad to hear it Yoshi. Let me know if you have any luck with it, or find some ways to make it better!

[Solia]

Sorry but Blizz pretty much destroyed any true Hybrid specs when they forced the 31 point talent trees with the Cata patch.

Or I'm simply trying to think outside the box of being strictly Healing or DPS 100% of the time.*

So is Smite/Holy Firing with Atonement 100% Healing or DPS?

[Yoshimiko]

Sorry but Blizz pretty much destroyed any true Hybrid specs when they forced the 31 point talent trees with the Cata patch.

How is this not a true hybrid spec...? it can heal efficiently, and dish out some damage.

[Solia]

How is this not a true hybrid spec...? it can heal efficiently, and dish out some damage.

Did you ever play WoW when we were able to dip halfway into each tree? Effectively taking most Shadow abilities (-Shadowform) with Holy Talents? There were so many ways people had to play around with the trees back then.

[Skygoneblue]

Did you ever play WoW when we were able to dip halfway into each tree? Effectively taking most Shadow abilities (-Shadowform) with Holy Talents? There were so many ways people had to play around with the trees back then.

His question still stands though, regardless of current talent structure or when he started playing. The talents I'm suggesting are still completely capable of healing, and dealing damage [at least] on par with LFR trash.*

[Ambereldus]

I've thought about trying something like this for a while now. The idea intrigued me when I saw how many damage modifiers you could get for smite and holy fire, and I would love to see how much dps holy can pull in certain situations. I'd also like to test whether holy nova (glyphed) in Chastise will be higher dps than Mind Sear.

Yes, its sub-optimal, but thats what hybrid specs have always been about. Besides, its an interesting concept to explore.

I would probably switch two points in Inspiration into Divine Touch, or one in DT and Desperate Prayer, since this spec will likely spend most of its time dpsing rather than tank/raid healing. This would be especially true if your group has a resto shaman also capable of covering the buff.

[Solia]

Well we do have LFR now to test out how effective that spec is in a raid setting, so have a go at it.

His question still stands though, regardless of current talent structure or when he started playing. The talents I'm suggesting are still completely capable of healing, and dealing damage [at least] on par with LFR trash.*

I guess when I say 'true' hybrid I'm thinking something close to 50/50 split between DPS and Healing talents, shifting 3-4 Talents around hardly qualifies.

[Yvaelle]

Aristari our priest officer frequently plays disc atonement spec on all fights because our rdruid/hpal can mostly handle heroic 10m's now solo except for the big healing phases - at which point she swaps to healing temporarily. Overall it's given our raid like 10-15k more dps on most fights without sacrificing the safety of bringing 2 or 3 healers. She does it as disc though, not holy.

[Themos]

For our first Ultraxion heroic kill, I DPS'd in Chastise Chakra until blue buff showed up and then switched to Sanctuary and spammed heals.
I used the same exact spec I use to heal, all I did was swap in the two smite glyphs. If I did it again, I wouldnt use your linked spec. Archangel is too hard to use as Holy, imo b/c of the lack of Atonement and I'd rather have the points elsewhere -- like Darkness!! Mana is definitely not an issue while Smiting, it's dirt cheap to cast.


What I couldn't figure out was whether it was worth weaving in MS/MBs when the Holy Fire DoT falls off and HF is still on CD. It makes DPSing a lot more dynamic and interesting, I got the hang of it after a couple mins but I wasn't sure it was doing more DMG?

[Deleted]

It's just a shame you can't get atonement really, with that this spec could become viable. That being said Sky, while it's not optimal, some holy priests do spec into Archangel for the boost to healing. That's more about healing though, rather than DPS, and you'll only cast smite to get evangelism stacks.

Regarding DPS-Heal hybrids, I feel from your posts that you're actually looking to DPS more than heal. I think a shadow priest would be more effective, as you can DPS & a surprising amount of healing too. It not like you lose any crucial spells when you go shadow.

[tyry]

I've tested out holy dps before, just out of curiosity. The best dps rotation I came up with was to use holy fire, mind blast and shadowfiend on CD, SWD for execute, and otherwise spamming mind spike. Mind spike was a stronger option than using smite/dots, even with the glyphs of smite and SW:P. It's a faster cast, hits harder, makes MB crit, and don't forget that chakra: chastise also gives a 15% bonus to shadow dmg. Also, the damage of holy word:chastise is terrible, don't use it.

I reforged out of mastery to get spell hit capped and was able to sustain about 13k dps as holy without raid buffs. Errr...maybe I shouldn't say "sustain", the big problem with this is that it's very mana intensive, you'll go oom after a minute or two.

[Deleted]

In theory it's quite good.

PROS versus disc:
Should be a small DPS increase due to Chakra - smite (a little less spellpower though, but the 15 % should still be more)
Big very useful cooldown on most of the AoE-phases (Divine Hymn)

CONS versus disc:
No healing through atonement
Spend more time actually healing due to no atonement healing
No raidwide cooldowns (Barrier, PS ~=~ GS)
No PI, could be given to a DPS for slightly increased DPS
Bigger strain on other healers due to no atonement

I would say the CONS heavily outweights the PROS, I'd say you would deal far less damage in total due to having to switch out earlier. And the 20 % extra damage for 1/8 of the time that PI gives probably would be more than the actual DPS increase for smite-chakra, especially if you include the added spellpower of discs due to specialization.

CONCLUSION (highly personal)
If you are going to do this either spec disc or just swap glyphs in normal holy specc.

[Skygoneblue]

Thanks for the feedback Carnivorous. You're right that Disc has a fair share of benefits that I may have overlooked before. But let us not forget the often neglected Lightwell - the loneliest healing spell in the game!

---------- Post added 2012-03-14 at 11:01 AM ----------

Another thing I'm pondering is what gear would be necessary for this...

- You wouldn't really need to have Spirit on everything if it were primarily for DPS, but unless you actually pop Archangel, you won't have much else for mana regen.*

- Glyph of Divine Accuracy gets you enough Hit for Smite and Holy Fire, but what about SW:P, SW <-lol, or Mind Blast? Is it better to get Twisted Faith or Hit rating gear to be able to use Shadow spells, or do you give up too much in secondary stats to justify using them at all?*