Holy in M+

[Yhcti]

Monk is pretty stupid OP and it's a shock they've mostly avoided the nerf bat so far. Its only real weakness is its mana consumption, which very rarely matters in M+ since you can just drink between pulls.

As far as holy/disc in M+, it basically comes down to this: Holy is a very easy healer but does poor DPS, Disc is a strong DPS (at least for a healer) but harder to heal with. (And yes, you'll be spamming a lot of shadow mend.) If you're doing keys sufficiently high enough* that your damage matters, roll a disc. If not, roll whichever you prefer. They're both perfectly viable as healers in keys, even if Disc is a bit harder.

* For your group. If you're sufficiently low enough or your group just isn't good, any key level could benefit from your DPS.

Much appreciated advice thanks!

[Zka]

That's good to hear. I did a +0 as a 365 disc and it felt rough, I was healing a 378dh that was doing crazy pulls but i felt when everyone took damage I was screwed as atonement dpsing wasnt keepong anyone alive.

Well of course if the tank overpulls noone can heal it properly even if it's just an m0... Or maybe monks can heal these kind of crazy fucked up pulls but then they go OOM fast.

As disc in 5mans should pretty much ALWAYS be on dps talents. That is schism, solace, sins, purge the wicked. Pre-atone tank and maybe melee between pulls, dot 2-4 targets and start schism/solace/penance/smite cycle, keeping up dots as much as you can, preferably constantly switching smite targets when schism is down. Shadow mend if anyone dips too low or keeps taking big hits. Shadowfiend is a great oh shit button, so is barrier and rapture.
You must also be geared propery: mastery as low as you can, haste and crit everywhere. Avoid stupid heal proc traits, pick haste/crit proc traits. Sadly, direct damage procs no longer generate atonement, so also stay away from these if you need the extra healing.

If you go into a 5man with mastery gear (I suppose that's what holy uses in raids) and no dps talents and no dps mindset, I guess it will be painful.

Targeting is another sensitive issue, it's really hard to do it right as you costantly must pingpong between mobs and players. It's hard to set up properly. Also you need to create macros for most of your damage skills: /stopmacro [channeling:Penance] is pretty much mandatory for your damage skills to avoid clipping penance and letting you spam smite/sol during penance casts to minimize time lost between spells. Disc is definitely more complicated to play than other heal specs in this regard.

[Nathasil]

I main Holy for raids and played Holy for M+ in Legion as well, as i felt Disc was really forced to spam Shadowmend there all the time which completely neuters everything it could ever do better than Holy.

I tried to keep doing this in BFA and quickly found out that the tank healing of Holy simply does not cut it for M+ anymore. Combined with Disc being MUCH easier to play in BFA after Plea was removed...i switched Disc for M+. I then tried to switch Disc for raids as well, but that did not work for me. It felt weak and was not fun, but maybe my M+ groups are just better than my raid group at avoiding avoidable damage.

Long story short: I now play Holy for raids and Disc for M+. I just don't like the tank sustain of Holy in M+. Yes, HW can crit really high, but if your tank gets trucked in big pulls shitting out AOE onto you forcing you to move constantly....a single big heal with CD is just not that awesome. Disc offers Shield, high HOT healing, Penance and Rapture+Mindbender on very short CDs for these situations. All of these are on the move. Let alone dealing a little damage while doing it.

I could see myself switching Disc for raids (and enjoying myself far less than as Holy)....but i could not see myself switching Holy for M+.

[Bonkura]

Last but not least I don't see how Heal is a 'meme'. Its one of the most efficient, powerful single target heals in the game. It does make you turrety, but if you're Holy you know what you signed up for. Flash Heal is inefficient and after the buffs to heal noticeably worse.

Heal does considerably lower HPS than Flash Heal if you just stand still and spam it . They also reduce the CD of Serenity by the same amount per cast. With the fewer casts you get less Surge of Light procs. It's just a poor spell in M+ where mana isn't an issue.

[Reivur]

Heal does considerably lower HPS than Flash Heal if you just stand still and spam it . They also reduce the CD of Serenity by the same amount per cast. With the fewer casts you get less Surge of Light procs. It's just a poor spell in M+ where mana isn't an issue.

This is fairly true, but its strong filler that lets you precast to both heal incoming damage in advance and cycle serenity and its almost no net loss on mana. You're definitely 100% right when it comes to using Flash heal specifically to cycle your Serenity back during a crunch time. And Mana being an issue or not is directly proportional to how pants on head your team is and if PoH ends up being the solution to it; it can also be a problem with bad interrupts on tyrannical or compositions that lack cleanses on any hallway that overly punishes with poisons. Both of the rougher ones in mind having mechanics such as raptors or slime lobs that flip off channelled healing more often than not.

You could Flash Heal to cycle serenity in non-dire situations of course, but its net negative. And sure, you won't run out of mana most of the time doing that unless its a really bad pull or low damage vs the key, but you'll still have to fall behind and drink repeatedly and feather to catch up to make up for it unless you have miracle of the gods RNG on your Surge of Lights. It could lead to a problem. And smite damage sucks in an environment where everyone cleaves and it doesn't help cycle serenity at all. I suppose ultimately my main protest here is people pretend Heal is as awful as Effuse or something when it isn't. At least it has the decency to synergize with the kit with a purpose.

[Bonkura]

Ok man if you wanna keep doing low healing and be a liability to your group by clicking the wrong buttons that's not my concern. Just stop pretending like you actually know what you're talking about on a forum where people might take you seriously.

[Deja Thoris]

I dont even have heal on my bars. I don't understand its purpose. If you need to heal then flash heal. Otherwise dps or alt-tab to youtube, but don't cast heal.

[Deleted]

This is fairly true, but its strong filler that lets you precast to both heal incoming damage in advance and cycle serenity and its almost no net loss on mana. You're definitely 100% right when it comes to using Flash heal specifically to cycle your Serenity back during a crunch time. And Mana being an issue or not is directly proportional to how pants on head your team is and if PoH ends up being the solution to it; it can also be a problem with bad interrupts on tyrannical or compositions that lack cleanses on any hallway that overly punishes with poisons. Both of the rougher ones in mind having mechanics such as raptors or slime lobs that flip off channelled healing more often than not.

You could Flash Heal to cycle serenity in non-dire situations of course, but its net negative. And sure, you won't run out of mana most of the time doing that unless its a really bad pull or low damage vs the key, but you'll still have to fall behind and drink repeatedly and feather to catch up to make up for it unless you have miracle of the gods RNG on your Surge of Lights. It could lead to a problem. And smite damage sucks in an environment where everyone cleaves and it doesn't help cycle serenity at all. I suppose ultimately my main protest here is people pretend Heal is as awful as Effuse or something when it isn't. At least it has the decency to synergize with the kit with a purpose.

Heal has too long cast time and it heals less than my flash heal due to traits with flash heal. You can't keep people up with heal.

[Freighter]

Depends on what you're going to do. I mostly do 10s as I see no reason to go beyond that except if you want rio score which doesn't even matter and holy works just fine for 10s.

[WhiteUsedSocks]

1 holy word can crit heal the tank from 10% to 100% lmao.

[silkworm]

with 3 Flash heal azerite traits 380 gear I can heal 13,5k on myself at first flash but then the following ones are around 19 k each without crits. (No buffs whatsoever) Now enter trail of light you can easily spam heal 2 players at around 20k heals each + your mastery afterwards. Cleave healing All you need to do is to stand still. Also there will be surge of light procs in between with instant flash heals. Holy words do help.

Just my experience as running mostly +10 / +15 pug keys as holy. Those 3 flash heal traits help a lot. I can also pull 3k dps in a full timed run mostly with divine star, smiting and holy dots whenever I can. Now if only they could give us non-cd holy fire and spreadable (resto druid sunfire) that would be noticable.

[Franarok]

Indeed some utility beside just heal will be good. Because we don't provide anything interesting, just heals. And holy is not the best M+ healer...

But since blizz doesn't change classes because dungeon, they doesn't care about the state of the class on M+. A sample is the nerf to the cleave flash heal talent (they nerf a dungeon talent of a class that is one of the less used healers on hi M+? Omg)

Also is veeery funny how desesperately blizz try to make us use Heal. The nerfed binding, they added the new trait that increase heal if we have few mana, they buffed a tiny tiny bit heal, they added heal to the first row talent..... And still heal sucks so hard. In dungeons I don't even have it on the bars hahaha. On raid we are forced to spam heal as a filler..... And feels really bad because how sloooooooooow it is since we don't go to haste (I feel getting old while casting it XD)

[Low Hanging Fruit]

If you are looking to be an elite key runner as in like 20+ then sure disc is the for sure way to to. If you are a 10 to 15 runner holy is fine. Below that it doesnt matter.

[Deleted]

Holy becomes a liability at imho ~10+ keys instead of being an asset. There is nothing good about holy at that point in m+. You stop to deal consistent damage at higher keys, with you low tank heals and your big heal on CD. Add to this your immobility, why run holy in m+?

As Discipline you do deliver medium consistent damage, can heal on the move, have cooldowns and spells which reduce incoming damage. Downside, it doesn't work that well in uncoordinated pugs and one affix is worse to deal with.

My opinion, if you want a relaxing holy priest playstyle, with lots of mobility, serious healing, utility and fun gameplay at higher keys, do as I did and reroll monk (after maining priest since vanilla).

I don't think you are right. I am healing up to 13s pretty fine as holy. We do lack healing on the move which is why you should pre plan, have holy words ready and some surge of lights then pop apotheosis. Divine star is also good for moving healing.

In terms of damage, in m+ damage is not really consistent anyway. If I'm not mistaken (don't play disc) aside from when you use cooldowns, disc can't use atonement healing to heal heavy damage and instead needs to shadow mend and penance defensively. Damage comes in bursts (with some exceptions), either you are taking a lot of damage or very little. Holy can deal with burst damage, and in periods of low damage can contribute decent dps. Divine star is great as it's both damage and healing on a short cd. Holy nova is also good with a lot of mobs as the damage is ok and it's a little healing to prepare you for when damage is high again.

On top of this guardian spirit on a 1 min cd is incredibly useful. Don't forget our passive mastery HoT and renew either.

[Fleckens]

I don't think you are right. I am healing up to 13s pretty fine as holy. We do lack healing on the move which is why you should pre plan, have holy words ready and some surge of lights then pop apotheosis. Divine star is also good for moving healing.

In terms of damage, in m+ damage is not really consistent anyway. If I'm not mistaken (don't play disc) aside from when you use cooldowns, disc can't use atonement healing to heal heavy damage and instead needs to shadow mend and penance defensively. Damage comes in bursts (with some exceptions), either you are taking a lot of damage or very little. Holy can deal with burst damage, and in periods of low damage can contribute decent dps. Divine star is great as it's both damage and healing on a short cd. Holy nova is also good with a lot of mobs as the damage is ok and it's a little healing to prepare you for when damage is high again.

On top of this guardian spirit on a 1 min cd is incredibly useful. Don't forget our passive mastery HoT and renew either.

Compared to if you could get a druid or monk, you are a liability unfortunately as you have both less utility, less survivability and less raw healing output. I've been doing 15-17's lately trying to get all dungeons done on +15 on my monk and the difference between the healing output is just night and day. Admittedly I did not have ideal traits for holy(ran blessed sanctuary, promise of deliverance and words of mending) where it feels like you really want promise and 2x flash heal traits instead. However it's not like my monk has ideal traits either as it's mainly just pvp gear but on monk I have no problem pushing 30k+ healing consistantly, even going closer to 35-40k'ish a few times where I had to spam heal the tank in King's rest while priest I sat closer to 20-25k and only occasionally pushing close to 30k.

That said though, I could see the new ring doing good things for us as we can get 3x flash heal along with promise and two other potential traits, not sure which would be ideal there though. I'll definitely be trying out some new stuff though and see how it feels when we get the new gear.

[Faesroll]

Holy has no good tank defensive and does way worse damage than disc. Simple as that.

[Romanticide]

That said though, I could see the new ring doing good things for us as we can get 3x flash heal along with promise and two other potential traits, not sure which would be ideal there though. I'll definitely be trying out some new stuff though and see how it feels when we get the new gear.

Quite frankly, 3x Permeating Glow+ 3x Promise of Deliverance might be the absolute best since PoD also buffs FH (and Heal).

[Franarok]

The problem? you can't get 3x Permeating Glow+ 3x Promise of Deliverance from the new raid equip

Not a single piece of azerite allow you yo have Permeating Glow and Promise of Deliverance at same time.

So at the end we only can have 3 of them (for dungeons 2 permeating glow and 1 promise).



When Blizz nerfed the talent "trial of Light" I was sure was because we would be able to mix 3x Permeating Glow with 3x Promise of Deliverance ..... but nope. That is kinda dirty from Blizz haha

[Romanticide]

The problem? you can't get 3x Permeating Glow+ 3x Promise of Deliverance from the new raid equip

Not a single piece of azerite allow you yo have Permeating Glow and Promise of Deliverance at same time.

So at the end we only can have 3 of them (for dungeons 2 permeating glow and 2 promise).



When Blizz nerfed the talent "trial of Light" I was sure was because we would be able to mix 3x Permeating Glow with 3x Promise of Deliverance ..... but nope. That is kinda dirty from Blizz haha

Now that's really sad news Prob will have to stick with the most Permeating Glow we can, 1x Promise and hope for Swirling Sands then. About Trail of Light... I really think putting Heal in there was a huge buff and that's why it was nerfed a little. With a dg stats setup Heal isn't obnoxiously long to cast and you can mark people with Heal to proc ToL with PG buffed Flash Heals. Also, Heal is a FAT heal.

[Nzete]

I pug mythic+ in the run a weekly 10 or 11 range as holy. I do like the new promise of deliverance (very nice). Holy is, yes, weak in the mobility and survivability and utility areas (in the why do we need to be weak in all of them category).

However, chastise talented as a stun is a ranged stun on a short cooldown (length dependent on number of smites cast and your talents) is really nice in a pug. You have to count that in holy's utility along with the fortitude. We obviously aren't casting fear in a dungeon. You either talent the stun or are using the knockback (perhaps in coordination with the tank for a kiting week).