Consequences of Coh Nerf/whats next?

[jgnoel86]

Wait. Shaman Triage?

All through BC the only thing a resto shaman did was spam Chain on the tank (guaranteed heal) and let it auto-target who needed the others. At least Circle in TBC required us to pick a group (I liked it before it was smart, but hey, that's just me.)

I agree at least when CoH wasn't a smart heal it wasn't EVER accused of being overpowered, it required thought before casting, maybe thats the proper fix just go back to it being a non-smart heal.

Although I think at present I prefer it just being a 6 second CD.

[Victarion]

Problem is, Mstone2005, blizzard don't want you to have high raidwide HPS anymore. That's the shammy job, and you're doing it better than them.
So that's why the debuff system, while an excellent idea, won't happen. Reason is apparently that they can't spend the time to program it. Frankly, CoH isn't allowed to be good. Besides, it was healing for 70% of our healing done now, and that's not acceptable.

But hey, we have more limbs to walk with, we can easily live without CoH. While we're not better than any other healer anymore, we can still play with the big guys. I'm a bit more worried about the next patch big patch, when blizzard might find that priests have 70% healing done through flash heal. I can only wait until the same logic is applied.

What i find funny is that priests arent allowed to have 70% of thier heals on one spell but other classes like shammies are?
Yes tbh coh nerf is a good thing ive raided 25 mans in disc and holy and i find disc far less boring than holy.
Disc is very underrated I was MT healing last night on malygos and i didnt even need to pot. The mana retension is awesome and u find yourself throwing out out heals to the party while healing the MT just for fun. As far as vortexes go whats the big deal renew,pom,pwd should be plenty to keep everyone alive(I even went desperate prayer for those o @#$% situations for myself its instant...). Penance for me is by far the best healing spell in the game its a greater heal with nearly half the cost and its instant sure it has a long cd but if u have a well worked rotation it shouldnt really bother you.


My worry for holy is the same as most of the priests who have posted here and that is with this 6 sec cd whats the point in going deep into holy just for this spell. the healing it will do for the talent points you spend on getting to it will not equate. Sure we will adapt and find ways to work around this obviously powerful aoe heal but should we really bother... Shammies will do a better job. Which begs the question should we really bring more than 1 healing priest to a raid? and should that priest be holy? if we are bringing a priest for buffs then disc is the better choice imp spirit and a well placed power infusion can do really well.

[mutantboy]

What i find funny is that priests arent allowed to have 70% of thier heals on one spell but other classes like shammies are?



Which begs the question should we really bring more than 1 healing priest to a raid? and should that priest be holy? if we are bringing a priest for buffs then disc is the better choice imp spirit and a well placed power infusion can do really well.

The only reason for bringing a priest is the lack of healers
There is no reason to spec holy - with a nerfed CoH it will be a pretty sub par set up.

I don't care about current content - it will be do-able. When new content comes Shaman/Pally combos will be what every 10 man wants. They will get geared up. Your raid will be gimping itself if they use Priests. So I hope you are an exceptional player...

[Tail_Windrunner]

You seem to think topping meters while healing means the same thing as a dps class topping dps meters. Healing isn't as simple as maintaining a dps rotation.

This is the wisest bit of information I have seen in this entire thread.

A good healer keeps his or her assignment up when things are tough. Try dodging waves on 3-drake Sartharion and heal a tank, while watching your threat and positioning for add pickup. What COUNTS is doing your assigned job.

As far as circle of healing goes, it is OP. Bad priests are getting raid spots because it is too easy to spam that button and jump around like a maniac.

[Danner]

A good healer keeps his or her assignment up when things are tough. Try dodging waves on 3-drake Sartharion and heal a tank, while watching your threat and positioning for add pickup. What COUNTS is doing your assigned job.

I disagree on this a bit.

A great healer is also capable of looking beyond his own assign, assessing the battle, predicting big damage, call out to sleeping raiders who may need waking up, be the first to notice additional trouble, and have the capacity to help the other healers out when they are in trouble - while still pulling off what he is supposed to do without requiring the same service in return.

While this is not a class skill, having the proper class will help a lot. Holy priests are currently fantastic at this (as are druids), I'd almost claim that being the healer scout is our main objective in a raid. We can easily heal the raid, or a tank or whatever, covering a "standard" healing assign is not a problem for a holy priest. But when the MT goes low, a ninjapull happens, a healer dies or whatever - if you are solely looking at your own assign, you will wipe.

Looking beyond your own assign is the best way to judge where things are going wrong. You may not have any GCDs to spare to be able to patch it up on Sartharian 3 drakes, but simply mentally sticking to my own assign is not something I would do if I could help it. Sure, cover your own base first. But being able to look at the bigger picture is what really counts.

Toungue in cheek, GC called us gap fillers. I think we are really well suited for that role. But a gap filler who can't cover his own base is not going to get raidspots. Can we cover the raidhealing spot with the CoH nerf? Ah, that's the base of the issue. We can, but we can't as well as we want to, used to, or as the competition, and we will have way less time to be gap fillers after this. Can we cover tankhealing spots in general? Yes, but not unless we are overgeared - spamfights kill priests, and MT healing is all about spamming. Can we cover stability healing spots? Yes, but at most one healer get that job, and that healer will be a druid.

[Kelesti]

Can we cover tankhealing spots in general? Yes, but not unless we are overgeared - spamfights kill priests and MT healing is all about spamming.

That's where stopcasting is supposed to come in. People use it to try and boost their HPS, but what about always having a heal in the tube and only landing when it's necessary? It's how we did it before we had Test of Faith, Serendipity, Improved Holy Concentration, or Surge of Light. Circle did a great job raid healing, but in TBC, Holy was still more than one button.

Can we cover stability healing spots? Yes, but at most one healer get that job, and that healer will be a druid or a disc priest.

Fixed.

[Danner]

On Patchwerk, the pinnacle of spamfights, I usually survive through stopcasting and being a bastard. Putting myself as a healer on the second offtank. This is the only offtank that you can actually stopcast on; everyone else will take periodic damage. I call this being a bastard, because I haven't told our shammies that I do this on purpose. And they struggle a lot with mana as well!

To answer your question, Kelesti, we did not do it before we had test of faith, serendipity, improved holy concentration etc. In Classic, healers were rotated around because we could not sustain spam healing. No healer could. This led to healers being /idle or wanding for prolonged periods. Boring!

In early TBC, priests were horrible healers. After casting 5-7x Max GHeals, we were oom, and it took us a minute to get enough mana back to cast another one. We compensated by downranking, but even this was painfully strenous on our manapools. Blizzard doubled our manaregen twice, and priests started to do well at spamfights around T6 content, when we were completely outgeared for everything.

But I still remember running horribly OOM on virtually every Najentus fight until they nerfed BT. And that wasn't because I was casting CoH, because I wasn't.

[Kelesti]

To answer your question, Kelesti, we did not do it before we had test of faith, serendipity, improved holy concentration etc. In Classic, healers were rotated around because we could not sustain spam healing. No healer could. This led to healers being /idle or wanding for prolonged periods. Boring!

In early TBC, priests were horrible healers. After casting 5-7x Max GHeals, we were oom, and it took us a minute to get enough mana back to cast another one. We compensated by downranking, but even this was painfully strenous on our manapools. Blizzard doubled our manaregen twice, and priests started to do well at spamfights around T6 content, when we were completely outgeared for everything.

Honestly? I was enough of a bastard to stopcast even my downranking to make it work. But hey! That's just me. >.>

[Dokoran]

Learn to play your damn class. I'm amazed at how many fucking priests just spam CoH. It's such a joke.

The priests that run in my guild tops the healing meters and is usually in the bottom 2 on over-healing and CoH is only 15-20% of his overall healing.

Plain and simple, WoW has become easy mode and now people are confused as to how to play their classes, so instead of figuring out ways around the issue, they start crying. Thank god CoH is getting nerfed, time to weed out all the shitty priests in this game. Christ, people act is if a 6 second cooldown is the end of the damn world.

[AetherMcLoud]

COH should not be the #1 spell you cast for the evening. /faceroll isn't the name of the game here. With the current regen mechanics, many preists are able to spam the heck out of COH and have 60-70% of their healing for the night be from COH. Really? Is that what you want from the game? I didn't think so.

Shaman healing (when on raid duty) consists of 80-90% Chain Heal. I know CoH was quite overpowered with it being instant and healing 5 people for the same about and all that, but still, shamans don't do much more than CH when they heal the raid, but that is accepted by Blizzard it seems.

[Kelesti]

Shaman healing (when on raid duty) consists of 80-90% Chain Heal. I know CoH was quite overpowered with it being instant and healing 5 people for the same about and all that, but still, shamans don't do much more than CH when they heal the raid, but that is accepted by Blizzard it seems.

Not just acceptable, but given their talents and all else, it's encouraged even.

[SoulPoetry]

Shaman healing (when on raid duty) consists of 80-90% Chain Heal. I know CoH was quite overpowered with it being instant and healing 5 people for the same about and all that, but still, shamans don't do much more than CH when they heal the raid, but that is accepted by Blizzard it seems.

...because Chain Heal is a unique spell that Blizzard are obviously very proud of. The only thing that comes close to it (in terms of behaviour) is PRoM and nerfing it would probably feel like they were putting their kids up for adoption. Besides, without it Shamans would be reduced to a 1.5 second heal, a 2.5 second heal and a hot, how original...

I have no qualms with Chain Heal, or even CoH, they keep the raid (and me) up and I couldn't care less about healing meters. What gets me as a Druid is that some Priests don't know how to spec, what stats to get or what to do for raid healing with CoH having a 6 second CD. IMO, it's a good move if it's going to remove the wool from these peoples' eyes and make them use more of their class abilities.

I can understand why WG is getting it as well (even if it is to stop all Priests rolling Druids) but someone mentioned earlier about "bursty" usage of CoH which is exactly what I do with WG. For trash I HoT up the tanks and if the raid takes a few k AE damage, throw 2/3 WGs out there but then it's back to LB rolling again. Certainly in 10 man and heroics it's more inefficient (both mana and healing wise) to "spam" WG as it's a HoT that lasts for 7 seconds and if it hasn't made a difference in say 2-3 seconds, we can't press it again without wasting 300 mana. On the contrary, if CoH hasn't made a difference in 2-3 seconds, you can just press it again without fear of wasted mana or healing.

[Danner]

Learn to play your damn class. I'm amazed at how many fucking priests just spam CoH. It's such a joke.

The priests that run in my guild tops the healing meters and is usually in the bottom 2 on over-healing and CoH is only 15-20% of his overall healing.

I use my plucking darned CoH because it's the sodding best raidwise heal in the golly whole game.
Let's drop the abuse shall we?

CoH is overpowered. We all agree to the fact. Why berate priests who have learned to use and abuse the best heal in the game to its fullest potential?

Either your priest is not playing to his fullest potential, or your raid is exceedingly skilled in not standing in AoE. Mine certainly is not, and the rule of mediocrity is speaking against yours being much better. I may be wrong.

Plain and simple, WoW has become easy mode and now people are confused as to how to play their classes, so instead of figuring out ways around the issue, they start crying. Thank god CoH is getting nerfed, time to weed out all the shitty priests in this game. Christ, people act is if a 6 second cooldown is the end of the damn world.

This we agree on in principle but not in words. In the long term, the nerf and even removal of CoH is a very good thing. That one button deal, while powerful, is ultimately boring, turning priests into TBC paladins.

But holy priest have been balanced around having an instant spammable CoH for a very long time. We're the healers that run oom first, but can heal exceedingly well in short burts. We're the healers with big heals, but low stability. We're the healers that are excellent at mobile fights, but we bring little utility.

Take the good away, and we're left with the bad. Sure, I can raid heal perfectly fine with flash heal and renew. Did so in most of TBC, and can easily go back. Not a problem. But so can a paladin, at a better speed, without the serious mana issues, while bringing better buffs, and while capable of eating two hits. Am I saying that paladins are better raidhealers than priests? No. Our flash heal is bigger. We got ProM.

But the difference is not that big, and I'm wondering about the upsides of taking that priest. Besides being rockingly good at almost healing up that health deficiency after buffing Prayer of Fortitude on the raid, over the course of 30 seconds.

Over time, the bad will be redeemed. But for the next half year, we will be in the dumps. Again. That is my complaint. The nerf comes with no redemption in any foreseeable future. We will lose priest healers over this. Maybe not as bad as the paladin illumination fallout (6 paladins in my guild quit or rerolled the day that happened), but it's a comparable change.

[beho]

Re: Lotheb and lack of CoH

I'm a pally heal, and I know this is a priest thread, but we've done Lotheb 10/25 almost every single time without a CoH (or any priest at all for that matter), the strategy is pretty simple: Mark your healers with symbols and get them to stack directly behind Lotheb with the Melee and make your ranged stand there as well, just keep the tank out front. We beacon the tank(s) and just Chain Heal and Holy Light /w Glyph ourselves and it manages to keep the entire raid up. The key is to make sure your dps isn't out chasing a spore when the healing window is open.

As a priest (please forgive me I know next to nothing about your class), I'd try to get a few flash heals or that bouncy heal you have off on as many people as possible (lowest first), as the renews probably stop ticking after the healing window closes. If the raid is co-ordinated properly like we have to be, it's easily doable.

[moremana]

On Loatheb, I never use CoH, 2.5 sec before healing is renewed I start PoH in my group and pop PoM right after on tank, so my PoH hits just as the heal window opens and pom bounces as well, we have a druid healer and pally and have no issues on the 10 man flavor as all healers have assignments, if all the healers have assignments and do the job they are asked of correctly its a cake walk on healing with no mana issues at all, CoH is never used in the fight, dont need it, and I sure dont like to overheal just because I can! If you have good dps and they know how to get the spore buff, that fight is so easy and fast!

[Danner]

Heya, beho!

The priest way of healing Loatheb is to start casting a Prayer of Healing when there is 2 seconds left of the debuff. This will heal every single member of your own group to full, including the main tank should he be in it. Then it varies. I personally cram off 2x CoH to heal 6 people to full, or 12 people to almost full. Then spend the next 17 seconds regaining mana (wanding), because you just blew a quarter of your manabar

For 10 man raids, this strategy allows me to solo heal the raid. For 25 man raids, two priests can almost heal it all alone. This fight is seriously tweaked in favor of priests, as it allows us to use heavy burst healing, a thing we're excelling at. With only 1x CoH due to the cooldown, I can probably still soloheal the 10 man version if I use renew and shields (shields work while the debuff is up), but this will cost me my manapool very quickly as I won't get that 17 second break window regenerating mana.

Renew is not a good spell for this fight. It ticks for very little (800-100 depending on glyph), and only every 3 seconds, which means it will tick once during the 4 second window of healing. Still, if someone is falling behind, throwing a renew on them a few seconds before the debuff lift will delay their demise slightly.

Flash heal isn't too bad, but CoH is about 3 times better as it targets 6 people. While CoH won't heal enough alone, casting it twice very often do, as the raidwide damage on loatheb isn't that high and a flash heal will usually just overdo it. If the main tank is taking heavy damage, I may end up substituting one of the CoH's with a surge of light Flash Heal on him, but that's about it.

The "bouncy spell" (Prayer of Mending) is actually useless on this fight. You cannot control where it bounces, and it will bounce every time its holder takes damage. But as that will almost never happen when the debuff is down, it won't really heal anything.

[jgnoel86]

The priest way of healing Loatheb is to start casting a Prayer of Healing when there is 2 seconds left of the debuff. This will heal every single member of your own group to full, including the main tank should he be in it. Then it varies. I personally cram off 2x CoH to heal 6 people to full, or 12 people to almost full.

This is the same strat I use, except mine doesnt heal 6 people never bothered with the glyph as I've never been a huge fan of CoH I simply see its use, also agree there isn't much use for PoM in this case however inbetween I switch over to DPS I know my measily 900dps isn't much but with the spore buff i usually get about 1.5k dps and that while not a ton does help, as for mana regen, if I'm really hurting I can use my pet reliably on lotheb as well as hymn, and if I'm still lacking I can always just stand there, cause raid buffed I'm usually sitting at 1200-1300 mana regen.

[beho]

Heya, beho!

The priest way of healing Loatheb is to start casting a Prayer of Healing when there is 2 seconds left of the debuff. This will heal every single member of your own group to full, including the main tank should he be in it. Then it varies. I personally cram off 2x CoH to heal 6 people to full, or 12 people to almost full. Then spend the next 17 seconds regaining mana (wanding), because you just blew a quarter of your manabar

For 10 man raids, this strategy allows me to solo heal the raid. For 25 man raids, two priests can almost heal it all alone. This fight is seriously tweaked in favor of priests, as it allows us to use heavy burst healing, a thing we're excelling at. With only 1x CoH due to the cooldown, I can probably still soloheal the 10 man version if I use renew and shields (shields work while the debuff is up), but this will cost me my manapool very quickly as I won't get that 17 second break window regenerating mana.

Renew is not a good spell for this fight. It ticks for very little (800-100 depending on glyph), and only every 3 seconds, which means it will tick once during the 4 second window of healing. Still, if someone is falling behind, throwing a renew on them a few seconds before the debuff lift will delay their demise slightly.

Flash heal isn't too bad, but CoH is about 3 times better as it targets 6 people. While CoH won't heal enough alone, casting it twice very often do, as the raidwide damage on loatheb isn't that high and a flash heal will usually just overdo it. If the main tank is taking heavy damage, I may end up substituting one of the CoH's with a surge of light Flash Heal on him, but that's about it.

The "bouncy spell" (Prayer of Mending) is actually useless on this fight. You cannot control where it bounces, and it will bounce every time its holder takes damage. But as that will almost never happen when the debuff is down, it won't really heal anything.

Ahh, thanks for explaining it, if you have 2 priests splitting them up to heal each group with PoH seems appropriate (10 man). We normally run the fight with pallies and shammies, so no priest to observe (and no WG spam either). PoM should bounce as long as people are below HP, seems silly it only bounces when the damage occurs

You mentioned shielding, pallies will do that as well with our new shield, but I find it's only appropriate to the tanks, as ours only procs once damage has been done. It's really meant to mitigate burst damage against the tank, so it's not nearly as useful as the priest soak shield in this situation.

I think the major thing I've learned from this thread, is that we desperately need more priests to run with

[MortuariusBC]

Shaman healing (when on raid duty) consists of 80-90% Chain Heal. I know CoH was quite overpowered with it being instant and healing 5 people for the same about and all that, but still, shamans don't do much more than CH when they heal the raid, but that is accepted by Blizzard it seems.

Chain heal is 80-90% of raid healing?

Wonder why.... oh yea because its our only AoE heal and pally are better single target healers...

Chain heal also has a cast time and diminished per jump... Ill spare you the comparisons because there are 1000000000 topics on the official forums

If blizzard gave shaman other tools to heal the raid id use them. At least priests have other tools even if they arent as great as CoH. PoH for example... priests have been QQing about 6sec cooldown on CoH and use Loetheb as an example. Our guild priest ran 25man naxx this week never using CoH more than once every 6secs on any fight. On loetheb he timed a PoH for his group as the debuff lifted and then cast 1 CoH.... worked fine

[moremana]

also agree there isn't much use for PoM in this

Wrong! His abilities are continuously inflicting damage while the healing window is open and PoM does bounce.