Holy priest

[Deleted]

Looking at world of wargraphs this spec is terrible in PvP. I played a little in legion, it was good in bgs, I also did some 2v2 with it and had decent success when playing with a caster. It was harder than playing druid but I liked the challenge and it was more fun.

Now it is consistently on the BOTTOM at certain ratings, in 2v2 it is bottom, in 3v3 it is near the bottom at all ratings.In rbgs it is doing so bad at 2200+ it's not even represented.

Why is a spec allowed to be this unviable? I love my holy priest and don't want to play disc, if I wanted to be something fotm I would just play my resto druid. I want to be able to compete and to compete as holy. I remember a time in Legion we were pretty strong but we were nerfed to the ground to be only good in bgs, now we suck in bgs too. It's like we are nerfed as soon as we are at a state where we are not target dummies. Please buff this spec, it's super cool. A main problem is probably the fact apotheosis and light of the naaru are on the same row, which were both major talents.

WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED:

-4 pvp talents slots for ALL specs and classes, this wouldn't be game changing for most but I think holy is hit especially hard by reduced honor talent options than Legion, since we relied on some crucial talents like greater fade/holy ward/ray of hope more than other classes. Nerf any outliers eg that let classes one shot people.
-Make guardian spirit heal unaffected by dampening, too many of our cooldowns are dampened and we need some cooldown we can rely on. Good players could still bait the guardian then target swap or burst after and bad players would be punished for it.
-Buff our healing a bit in Pvp scenarios.

Beyond this I don't know as I haven't dared to touch holy in BfA it looks so bad. Would welcome suggestions from people who have actually tried out the spec. I just feel people too often equate 'healer priest' with 'disc priest' and holy is completely ignored.

[Rucati]

I haven't really messed with Holy much to be honest, but I actually don't think it's that terrible. There are some really strong points about it, but it's still objectively worse than Disc. And if one spec is good and one is mediocre and they both fill the same role then obviously the mediocre one will never be played.

If they buffed Holy and it became better than Disc then the representation would just swap, every decent Priest would play Holy and nobody would touch Disc. Priest is the only class with two healing specs, so it makes sense one of the two has horrible representation because it makes no sense for anyone to play it.

I actually think Holy Priest would be competitive as is, it just so happens that Disc is even stronger so everyone plays that.

[Lulbalance]

I haven't really messed with Holy much to be honest, but I actually don't think it's that terrible. There are some really strong points about it, but it's still objectively worse than Disc. And if one spec is good and one is mediocre and they both fill the same role then obviously the mediocre one will never be played.

If they buffed Holy and it became better than Disc then the representation would just swap, every decent Priest would play Holy and nobody would touch Disc. Priest is the only class with two healing specs, so it makes sense one of the two has horrible representation because it makes no sense for anyone to play it.

I actually think Holy Priest would be competitive as is, it just so happens that Disc is even stronger so everyone plays that.

Pretty much all true but in addition, disc has 2 useful schools for kick bait and with the amount you have to hard cast in holy + no death,could be a pain in the was in 3s. i havent played holy in 3s yet only disc so i'm going off the general feel of the spec and guessing here.

Holy has been good at times over the last couple xpacs though..3 strong specs in arena isn't promised anyone.

[lobocito]

You know, I think Holy mostly just has a really bad reputation, and compared to how OP everyone claims DISC is, I just don't think anyone out there is even trying to make Holy work.

I ran into a holy priest in a 2s match a few weeks ago and he honestly put out more dps pressure than most DISCO's do.

Really, the defining factor that makes holy priest a little weak is that if you can kick them and have some follow-up cc you can basically just take them out of the fight for a lot longer than most classes. Way, way less mobility than any other class excluding disc, and disc has shadow mend to fall back on if kicked.

[Deleted]

You know, I think Holy mostly just has a really bad reputation, and compared to how OP everyone claims DISC is, I just don't think anyone out there is even trying to make Holy work.

I ran into a holy priest in a 2s match a few weeks ago and he honestly put out more dps pressure than most DISCO's do.

Really, the defining factor that makes holy priest a little weak is that if you can kick them and have some follow-up cc you can basically just take them out of the fight for a lot longer than most classes. Way, way less mobility than any other class excluding disc, and disc has shadow mend to fall back on if kicked.

The problem is disc heals from its damage, whereas we have to stop healing to dps.

[Eliessa]

legion holy was the first time holy was good and fun. then in bfa the holy lost some key talents because of the restructuring of the talents and now things are just missing and thus lacking. and no one will every play holy over disc because of shadowmend