Holy Priest 4-set bonus

[Rorschachs]

I think that everyone here has a clue on how holy priests are performing right now.. They are even considered below resto druids for some reason; but the difference between resto druids and holy priests are maybe the set bonuses? 4 sec cd reduction on circle of healing seems really really good, and on top of that they have buffed healing chakras by %10. So, what are your opinions on holy priests post 5.1 and 4-set bonus?

[DailyBB]

The only reason holy priests are considered below resto druids is because most of the good holy priests are playing disc(many fights this tier favor disc and with the recent buffs it's hps is higher than holy) or rerolled for this expansion. However with some smart play holy priests can outperform every healer (except monks pre 5.1 and good disc priests). It's all about using the right spells and managing your mana. Holy priest can't just overheal all the time and expect to top meters and have full mana at the end of the fight.

Concerning the 4p i have it and find it very nice on most fights where the damage is spread throughout the raid rather than on certain groups (where PoH would become stronger).

[Deleted]

holy priests are very dependent on your other healers leaving something for you to heal. Holy feels very bad at sniping heals, if you run too many healers holy will often fall behind. I think the 5.1 chakra changes will push holy throughput back in line with disc. As it stands now disc just does 'more' throughput and gets on the meters first with shields leaving holy with very few situations to make it's toolkit worth bringing over a disc priest (having more than 1 priest healer is the only real place I see for it right now).

edit;
the 4set is very strong for holy. Circle of healing (for me) is the reason to be playing holy. It does significant throughput now, reducing the CD of it by such a significant amount should see a large increase in HPS, especially in a 25man raid, I imagine the setbonus won't be quite as obviously powerful in a 10man.

[Dorfie]

4-set combined with the +25% Chakras will keep Holy the solid raid healer it's always been. However I find it hard to hit that respec button for any fight except Tsulong when I could instead be absorbing entire boss mechanics and having much much better mana as Disc. Holy is probably the easiest of the healing specs to play as well and it gets really boring after a while...PoM, CoH and Cascade on cooldown and you can't really go wrong.

Anyway, yeah Holy will be fine, but Disc is better.

[nobodysbaby]

I was going to make this topic aswell; The CoH 4s CD in Sanctuary do really sound like a huge boost to healing, but I feel in most fights it is not, since PoH+DI proccs is as effective as CoH nowadays in terms of HPM and HPS (if not better). I did just as well without the 4pc bonus. CoH is just not as strong as it used to be.

The only thing that changes is the playstyle, CoH, PoH, CoH, PoH, PoM, CoH, you get the idea... Perhaps it has a slight advantage if you look at effective healing & "smartness" that CoH brings, but don't get your hopes up for better HPS rly. Besides, if you push CoH every 4s it will be a slightly higher mana usage, and it feels tight to play that way.

I would prefer some other bonus tbh, it feels so spammy on top of it all.

//My disappointing experience from the first week with 4pc (and yeah, I went Disc for many fights, like many other Hpriests, so not very, very experienced with he 4pc).

[Danner]

Indeed. Disc is currently simply the better spec right now, and that's the eternal bane of Holy. It's hard to justify playing the spec you like when you can play the spec that is OP.
Life of a healing priest really, and why you need to master both specs.

I don't really think Holy is bad though. Holy can hold their ground. But as a spec mostly focused on offering raw burst HPS, when someone else does your job better (pre-casted absorbtion > burst), with less downsides (no chakra, no mana issues) - that's the death knell. We'll see if the 5.1 changes will change much of this. But if not anything else, I'm quite sure that the 5.1 buffs will put holypriests above restodruids.

But yeah, -4sec cd on CoH may also flip the tables. Don't know anyone with a 4set yet though, so if any of you have one, let me know how it plays!

edit: Thanks nobodysbaby/Drena

[HPLathus]

They are even considered below resto druids for some reason; but the difference between resto druids and holy priests are maybe the set bonuses?

I stopped reading at that.


Sir, I DESTROY resto druids in my raid as holy.

Holy is ABSOLUTLEY amazing if you know how to play, mastery stacking ALL THE WAY.

Divine Insight + CoH + PoM + PoH + mastery = A WHOLE LOT OF SMART HEALING that you really don't need to think about happening, it just happens on its own as long as you are capable of using the abilities.

Let's not even forget cascade and the amazingness that it is..


People who are saying "OMG HOLY PRIESTS I DONT KNOW HOW 2 PLAY 4 ANYMORE???"

Are the people who can't handle the amazing changes blizz made to holy priests to make them more diverse and have THE LARGETS TOOLBOX out of any of the healers.

---------- Post added 2012-11-27 at 03:07 PM ----------

Holy priests have ALWAYS, and will ALWAYS be the single best aoe healers in the game.


Holy priests have always been AOE healers since the beginning of time, you can thank holy priests for making blizzard give other classes compitent aoe healing abilties son.


SIT DOWN!

[Ellumina]

The Holy 4set bonus is the only reason I'd willingly want to go Holy for a fight again. I've always mained Disc or Shadow, but after the very first week of raid this expansion, Disc was simply not cutting it for me, as I went OOM the fastest, had the worst throughput, etc. I was the weakest link until I went Holy, which I actually had less mana problems with. Now, since the Disc buffs to Rapture and Divine Aegis, I'm happy and in love with Disc again. Mana is actually more of a concern in Holy than in Disc now. The 4set, to me, is Holy's saving grace, but Holy is not in an awful spot to be considered too weak.

Because I'm bored, some ideas for Holy:
- PoH mana cost is based on number of players it hits, which would be at most 5 at the current mana cost. Or, PoH mana cost is based on number of players it directly heals (if someone's at 100% and get hit by initial PoH, mana cost wouldn't count for that person)
- The less targets PoH hits, the more healing it does to those who do get hit by it.
- Guardian Spirit also has a 100% healing crit buff only on the priest who casted it. Or even 50%.
- Holy Word: Serenity gives 1 stack of Serendipity (having Borrowed Time and tank healing in mind)
- Give us Archangel. Not really a huge deal, but it's weird to have Evangelism but not AA.
- With Resto Druids in mind, perhaps a haste buff when Renew is on a certain number of targets.
- Lightwell/Lightspring returns X amount of mana per charge not used (ideally unrelated to mana cost of the Lightwell/Lightspring). Or, some amount of mana returned per charge used. Although if the second were the case, I'd love to have a Lightwell sitting around and just click it for mana back. I'm loving the idea for some sort of mana well...
- Hymn of Graces - Okay, totally random name. Just an idea where you cast BOTH hymns simultaneously in one spell (with DH and HoH still separate as needed, and going on CD accordingly). With 8 second per full channel, it could potentially save another 8 seconds of downtime.
- HoH CD reduced by 30 sec - 1 min when Guardian Spirit or Divine Hymn is casted. I admit a lot of my ideas are mana based, but hey if we had loads of mana, we can heal way more =D
- DH CD reduced by 30 sec when GS is casted.
- Each Lightwell/Lightspring charge used reduces CoH CD by1 second (or maybe some other spell, Serenity/Sanctuary?)

Yup I'm bored.

[Danner]

It's comparing apples and oranges.

Holypriests can do two point five million healing done in a 15 second interval. *
Restodruids cannot.

Restodruids can pump out a stable 40k HPS for the full duration of a 10 minute fight. **
Holypriests cannot.

Which is better?
( Answer: The discpriest, monk and sometimes a paladin. )

Also: "always" is a bit delusional. Best AOE healer in the dragon soul was a paladin, remember? Doesn't mean hpriests were bad though

--
*) Some liberal interpretation of reality may apply, and it's a trick you don't do twice.
**) See the previous annotation. Also, extreme mastery makes hpriest quite druid-like. Don't sweat the details.

[Deleted]

Neither holy nor disc is below druid at the moment, that healer is probably bottom of the barrel right now even before 5.1. I would place the healers like so:

Resto druid - HolyP - Resto Sham - HPally - Disc Priest - Monk. I think after 5.1, depending on how severe the monk nerfs are it may become:

Resto druid - Resto Sham - HolyP - HPally - Disc Priest = Monk. Over time disc priest & holy pally will overtake monks as the healing requirements reduce.

[HPLathus]

It's comparing apples and oranges.

Holypriests can do two point five million healing done in a 15 second interval. *
Restodruids cannot.

Restodruids can pump out a stable 40k HPS for the full duration of a 10 minute fight. **
Holypriests cannot.

Which is better?
( Answer: The discpriest, monk and sometimes a paladin. )

Also: "always" is a bit delusional. Best AOE healer in the dragon soul was a paladin, remember? Doesn't mean hpriests were bad though

--
*) Some liberal interpretation of reality may apply, and it's a trick you don't do twice.
**) See the previous annotation. Also, extreme mastery makes hpriest quite druid-like. Don't sweat the details.

Actually holy with mastery stacking can pump out far more consistant numbers throughout a fight then a resto druid can at the cost of less mana as well and global cooldowns.[COLOR="red"]

---------- Post added 2012-11-27 at 03:58 PM ----------



Stating "always" was more targeted at the fact of the toolbox of a holy priest having the most smart AOE heals in the game. Now that they have cascade + divine insight, their toolbox is even greater then it was.

Holy priests have always been known as "THE" aoe healer, and it IS because of holy priests being known as such that blizzard decided to give more classes AOE abilities after burning crusade (Specifically sunwell andhow OP CoH was back then) and halfway through WoTLK.

---------- Post added 2012-11-27 at 03:58 PM ----------

Ive never heard people say "Oh this raid needs more AOE healing lets invite a resto druid" or "lets invite the holy paladin"

People hear AOE healing and think "holy priest"

[Deleted]

Disc is like 100 times better healers than holy atm! Both aoe wise, and singletarget! HolyLathusDisc , you must be drunk or far behind

[Deleted]

this week in lfr i was playing my 479ilvl holy and there was also smth like 470 disci..... i stood no chance to beat him, he was simply spamming poh and thats all, in all fights poh + da was like 80% of his healing done.... its rubbish, one button bot, me as holy had nothing to heal, just topping few ppl here and there and hard aoe from time to time, i felt so useless that i wanted to go off-shadow..

but even if holy is not the best around there, im not ditching him, i simply love holy and if they nerf it to the ground i will be playing it.


also got 4p this week, its pretty nice to have coh on 6sec cd, but mana wise ... cant rly say, i think its a bit worse, more spamming, more mana usage and coh is not so awesome anymore, its good, smart instant heal, but numbers are not great

[nobodysbaby]

also got 4p this week, its pretty nice to have coh on 6sec cd, but mana wise ... cant rly say, i think its a bit worse, more spamming, more mana usage and coh is not so awesome anymore, its good, smart instant heal, but numbers are not great

I am relieved to see I am not the only one who had high hopes for this tier, but got very disappointed in the 4pc. Thought it was all in my head, but it wasn't as great as you could think. It would be interesting to see the 5.1 HPM comparisons, I was never good with cold numbers.