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  1. #1

    Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Let me start off by saying our guilds holy priest has been one of our 2 ten man healers for over 2 years now. They are very successful when paired with our resto shammy and I don't want to knit pick, but as a raid leader I have to look more closely into problems like what I saw in our raids tonight.

    Our priests general stats (unbuffed):
    2300 spell power
    17750 mana
    800 spirit
    crit: 18%
    haste: 5.52%

    Spec: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=150512000000

    Now in our 25 man VoA raid and in our 10 man Naxx raid, she was very handily out healed by almost every other healer. 2 of them more than doubling her Healing per second with less over healing. Mind you, these people do not out gear her, if anything she has a slight advantage in gear. I realize that there was a nerf to CoH, but she has never experienced this issue before when we did content in BC(didn't have COH in BC), and she generally didn't rely on CoH in WotlK either.

    At first I thought it might be an issue of activity, but I looked at the raid data and this wasn't the case. Nor did she die.

    From what I can tell she is down about 1000 Healing per second in general, and what I hope to find here are some suggestions on:

    -Stats that need adjusted
    -talents/build adjustments
    -a possible "priority list" or "cycle" (I can't imagine this ever being something healing does, but what do I know)
    -and if holy priests are really viable at the moment or if she needs to consider other options.

    She won't be leaving my raids, but I would like to be able to give her some feedback other than mash the button harder.

    Thanks in advance.

  2. #2

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    She doesn't have 5/5 Divine Fury as a raid holy priest? And you are saying she didn't spam CoH? What does she do spam just flash heal?

  3. #3

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuggle
    She doesn't have 5/5 Divine Fury as a raid holy priest? And you are saying she didn't spam CoH?
    Actually you are correct in saying that she didn't just spam CoH. From what I can discern she used/uses flash heal,renew, bubble and ProM under the premise that if she takes the time to cast a gheal another healer will have the target healed to the point that the majority of the heal is over healing.

    She uses gheal on patchwork and other similar single target fights, but as a general rule she isn't spamming Gheal.

    Perhaps someone else might have some more insightful and detailed information that they could lend to the discussion.

    Thanks


  4. #4

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Healers that actively worry about over healing as a rule are reactionary and suck. Casting a greater heal and having 50% of it be over heal doesn't matter at all if you have the mana to back it up. Most of the time small heals just leave room for bigger heals to come along. Casting large heals or small heals often means the difference between the tank living and dieing.

    Priests really don't have a decent group heal now that coh was nerfed. That means they will drop on the charts compared to shamans (chain heal) and druids (rejuvenation on everyone that takes damage). Paladins also heal faster for higher crits and more mana efficiency. CoH was really hiding the issues related to priest healing so don't be surprised if priest heals are now much lower than they once were.
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  5. #5

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    As others have said her spec really should change. As Daez said the change to coh uncovered a lot of issues that priests have as healers now, we don't have the single target efficiency of a paladin through talents like Light's Grace and Judgment of the pure, we don't have an active aoe like shamans or a niche like druids through hots. Some of the recent post by Ghostcrawler and Vaneras are alluding to some nice changes though.

  6. #6

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Spec: lacking Divine Fury and Imp Holy Concentration is...weird. Like really weird. I'd consider both of those must-takes for any serious Holy priest. I'm a huge fan of the 14/57/0 build, but it looks like she's gone for Divine Spirit. Divine Spirit is nice but if I'd seriously question how much it impacts her as a healer to spend points on it. This is a rough build sample:

    http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=010512020304

    The 2 points in Holy Concentration and 2 points in Holy Reach are optional and can be shifted around anywhere in the upper 4 levels. Some people like Imp Renew/Desperate Prayer for instance. Lightwell, despite being in a "key" talent location, is generally skipped because whatever it's theoretical benefits the reality is that it's unwieldy to use and most players forget it exists anyway.

    I disagree heavily with Daez that there is something wrong with Holy priest healing. I think Holy priests are exceptional healers, however the problem is that they're the worst healers when there isn't enough threatening damage going around because they're bad at whack-a-mole-ing their way through a night. So I need to ask: how hard were the runs for your raid? Given the stats you gave of the healer I'd guess your guild is well more than geared for Naxx10. In that kind of a situation Holy priests are weak due to the nature of their healing; as was mentioned classes like paladins are just better at sniping heals off at anybody who needs them. That is a phase that will hopefully pass in future content when there's actually enough damage to go around.

    Anyway, on her technique it honestly sounds a bit off for a Holy priest. Here's perhaps a few things to toss her way:
    -Gheal should be a major tool of a Holy priest for tank healing alongside Prayer of Mending and perhaps Renew (there is some debate right now of its value). Spamming Flash Heal massacres Holy priest mana because that's really a Paladin healing style. However as your priest pointed out other people get there first. The key here is to always have a Gheal in-cast on the tank; as the heal nears its completion (a really good mod for this is Quartz) you watch the state of the tank. If they're topped off you cancel the heal and start casting another one, if they aren't then you let the heal land.
    -Raid healing all depends on the style of damage taken. Archavon's AoE damage is a nightmare for priests because everybody's spread out, nobody's in your party, and they all take damage at the same time. If the damage is periodic, such as Sapphiron's aura or the Sartharion shadow world then they are absolutely amazing with a combination of PoM, CoH, and maybe some Binding Heals. If people can be grouped up for you, such as on Gluth when you know Decimate is coming, you can pre-cast Prayer of Healing for amazing effect; however this requires them to be grouped with those people, and so is somewhat limited.
    -If she is going to spot heal Flash Heal (glyphed) is a good option if it will top somebody off for Serendipity. What's often better is for her to be taking care of another job and then tossing Surge of Light procs at people who need extra healing. Again, the problem is that if there isn't enough healing for her to use her AoE heals much or to land many Gheals on the tank then there are less heals, less free Flashes of Light, and so inferior spot healing.

    To be honest the playstyle you described sounds like she's playing more like a Discipline healer. If you said that you reliably run with a Resto shaman then that may be a very good choice for her because Discipline priests are more single-target focused, which allows the shaman to handle more of the AoE aspects of healing.
    Edit: wanted to say I somewhat disagree with the Discipline priest builds posted above. Skipping Inner Focus and Pain Suppression seems...silly. And unlike Holy Divine Fury isn't a requisite talent for the build to be quite successful. But I don't want to stray into that, I'd just have her do research on build options out there and see what she likes.

  7. #7

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Hi there,

    Let's see where is room for improvement...

    Spec: As everyone has pointed out, her spec is a bit strange. It lacks must have talents such as Improved Holy Concentration and Divine Fury, some other useful ones as Guardian Spirit, Test of Faith or 5/5 Divine Providence, and has some others with little utility such as Healing Focus. In the disc tree there's no reason whatsoever to take Improved Divine Spirit, as the spellpower benefit gets overwritten by the chammy's totem.

    Healing style: I disagree with Neichus about Greater Heal (GH) being a major tool of the holy priest. It was that way in BC if you were tank healing. Right now, with the Flash Heal (FH) glyph, and taking into account more casts = more chances to proc Holy Concentration, Surge of Light and Inspiration, it is no longer that way. There are still a number of situations in which GH is a major tool, of course limited to tank healing (thinking of patchwerk, for example), but the smaller reaction time of FH, that amounts to more effective healing instead of full overhealing, and its comparable Hpm (though GH still trumps in Hps) make FH the major tool instead of GH in most situations.

    Regarding renew, it has little use in a raid environment. You should only use it as a throughput complement in situations where direct heals alone won't do the job or when the target is taking periodic predicable damage. Using it in most other situations normally means almost all its ticks are lost because someone else heals the target to full life. Even if all the ticks are not lost to overheal, it's throughput is comparable to a flash heal.

    Shields are not very efficient for holy priests and as a rule have to be avoided. They should be used in some encounters where damage prevention > healing (Loatheb during necrotic aura) or as a emergency saver.

    The key to increasing throughput in my opinion is:

    - Remember to use PoM and CoH as soon as they come off cooldown if the situation warrants their use.
    - Always use Binding Heal (BH) if you are damaged.
    - Never use a FH when you have a Holy Concentration proc. Use GH if you need the throughput or BH otherwise. BH has the same casting time as FH, better throughput and has two chances of being crit and thus proc Surge of Light or another Holy Concentration.
    - Remember you can use your party heals situationally. Prayer of Healing has a fantastic HpS and HpM. And Holy nova has its uses due to being instant and not gerating aggro.

    Glyphs: Flash Heal and Circle of Healing are mandatory for holy. The third one comes down to personal taste.

    Interface: Really important. Either use Healbot, Grid + Clique or Grid + Mouseover macros. My personal preference is Grid + mouseover macros, but it depends on the playstyle and taste. If she is still using the mouse to click the button in the casting bar, you've already found why she heals so little ;-)

  8. #8
    Where is my chicken! moremana's Avatar
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    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    if she was topping the healing meters pre nerf (healing meters are useless) then I would venture to say you answered your own question, just because she didint use coh pre wrath doesnt mean she didnt spam it in wrath, it was there, people used it alot on aoe damage, I also would like to know how the raid went that you mention, use wws reports, it will help you see where shes lacking

  9. #9

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Quote Originally Posted by moremana
    I also would like to know how the raid went that you mention, use wws reports, it will help you see where shes lacking
    The raid went very well, to the point that there were a total of 3 deaths between the 2 raids. Not wipes, just player deaths. So it might be a matter of there just not being that much to heal, but that hadn't occurred to me until this morning.

    In regard to some of the other posters above--Thank you for the information on specs. I realize that this must be the problem now, or at least part of it. I know she played Disc for a time and found the improved spirit useful, but I'm positive she was unaware that our shammy's totem overwrote it.

    Thanks again, and if anyone has anything else they'd like to add I'd be happy to read it.

  10. #10
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    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Holy priests are still viable. You should really get her to change her spec asap:

    http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbzhZcxtcc0qihVIst
    This one should do nicely. It's a common "cookie cutter" spec for holy priests.

    As for stats you should really provide an armory link!
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  11. #11

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    See, I find the argument that Holy Reach and Healing Concentration to be worthless talents...well...wrong. Naxx is level 60 content and not representative at all of the most difficult content or future content. If you take a look at the real level 80 content you'll notice there is quite a significant amount of random-target raid damage going on. A half or one second delay on a heal is a rather big deal. Similarly I view the purpose of Holy Priest healing to do as much healing in as short a period of time to go back to regenerating. There have been several times where I know that if I just had that 20% more range my CoH would reach some people it didn't; maybe every raid you've ever been in has 6 people all conveniently staying within range of each other, but in a practical experience mine have not. I've rarely lamented the loss of Desperate Prayer in PvE (seeing as I view self-damage as an opportunity to Binding Heal) and Renew is a spell of variable use (great while alone, but loses value up toward 25-man raids). I really do feel those 4 points are up to personal taste and I know I've gotten a lot of mileage out of those talents.

    Syal, the reason I still view Gheal as a major tool even over the Flash Heal benefits you list is all tied to the 5sr. Chain casting Flash Heal will murder your mana not because it costs more than other heals but because it means you never get to regenerate. For the regen game Gheal is much better. The problem as I stated before is that there isn't enough damage to go around for healers in most situations, which means there isn't enough damage for Gheal to fix. I'm not saying I view Flash Heal as bad at all, and I've certainly used it plenty of times. What it really comes down to I think is that we're purposefully designed as crappy spot healers. We're good if we're healing ourselves + somebody else, if we're healing a lot of people, if we're counteracting periodic damage, or if we have a free Surge of Light to toss at whoever we want. But just healing a lone person of damage is something we're bad at and I leave to other healers. Other than that though I think your post is spot-on; GRID + mouseover ftw.

  12. #12

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Aside from the slightly OP Glpyh pallies have right now which allowed our pally to HEAVILY dominate the healing charts, Holy Priests are still a viable healing class for raids. I've never been a big fan of bashing on people in a forum, but I can't see the persons spec right now (caluclator isn't coming up for me) but I'll trust it isn't great, so assuming that lets look at some of the things that are currently more likely to be happening with her.

    If your really relying on healing charts to determine her worth in a raid then her first problem is spirit as a holy priest is far to low, given her current spell power. Raid buffed I can get up to 2600 spell power, and have no problem mainting a mana pool anymore but when I was down around 800 spirit i had probably 1800 spell power and it felt like mana was always in a reverse crawl instead of a gain. So start having her switch her gear to more spirit based then spell power based. You can be a viable healer with 1900 unbuffed spell power as long as your mana regen can sustain you, at least with current content because there is nothing requiring such overly massive healing that it matters. even with 1900 unbuffed assuming 2400 spellpower raid buffed I could crit for 15-16k greater heals which is more then enough on Patchwerk.

    As for UI all the clique style addons are cool, to some degree but thats play style preference. I've never struggled to heal a heroic or raid using standard target and heal, however I don't click the person then click the heal to use, I click the target then use a hotkey to cast the spell I need. IE pretty much blizzards standard UI, I use pitbull just so I can have a different visual look then standard UI.


  13. #13

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Is it just me or are the stats a bit off?

    My priest has the following stats unbuffed:
    1983 Spellpower
    17848 Mana
    954 Spirit
    15% Crit
    7% Haste

    Am I missing something?

  14. #14

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    http://www.wowwiki.com/Priest_builds has a good mix of builds, with a little bit of advice on each one. I use wowwiki for advice on good starting points for builds

    "Penance Raiding" build is the deep Disc build. I would suggest that IF the priest wants to use shields. Using shields outside of deep disc is a waste honestly. The problem with Deep Disc is that it tends to shine better with Crit, Haste and M5 instead of high spirit.

    "High Spirit Holy" or "Crit Heavy Holy" builds are probably what your priest wants. As others have mentioned, they are pretty straight forward.

    "Imp Divine Spirit" build on their is kinda what your priest has. Alot of priests, myself included, did a hyrbrid healing build to get Divine Spirit. The trade off for Divine Spirit (Raid buff that lead to M5 and SP basically) was giving the raid a slight buff in exchange for less power heals.

    Me: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...efiend&n=Kriis

    I'm a Holy priest. I started Wrath disc... kept my spirit mentality and got the gear to match. Not long ago, I did more research and realized my gear/play style fits Holy instead of Disc and went to my current spec. I went from bottom of the charts (shields, and 3% damage reduction don't show up on charts = disc priest could be be the best and never be on the charts)

    There is a ton of advice worth taking here... and alot of it, while conflicting (One person says Guardian Spirit is awesome... another says it's not, for example) should give you a good amount of information to think about, and possibly discuss with your priest. Alot of it boils down to play style.

    I would tend to be of the thought that Imp Divin Spirit 23/48 is going to be lackluster compared to 14/57 deep holy. The extra heals and perks for crits go a LOOOOONG way towards 'meters'.

    And... I'd like to add... that healing is not like DPS. It shouldn't be seen as a race where the meter determines the winners. Healing should be a team effort. Because as long as people live, and bosses die, it doesn't matter who wins meters.

    I'd like to see an armory of your priest to see what his gear/gems/enchants are personally.
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  15. #15

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mavrick165610
    Our priests general stats (unbuffed):
    2300 spell power
    17750 mana
    800 spirit
    crit: 18%
    haste: 5.52%
    *cough*bullcrap*cough*

  16. #16

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    I could very easily see those stats if they were more caster based gear instead of holy spirit gear. At one point I was almost teetering that direction and I was in nothing but heroic gear and a couple piece of 10 man naxx/os. Its just a matter of stacking spellpower and not spirit. Doesn't make it a smart choice though.

    Something else I forgot to mention was that Imp divine spirit builds are ok if only 1 priest out of a couple has it in a raid, due to the fact that the spellpower from Imp divine spirit does in fact stack with shammy totems, otherwise im positive I wouldn't break 2600 spell power raid buffed like i do, cause im really not that high in spell power right now. However, if you have a warlock who enjoys using the fel hunter buff with felt int then its not entirely neccesary to have Imp Divine Spirit, as they dont stack and it would be more useful for the priest to go deeper holy or pure disc in that case.

  17. #17

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    Quote Originally Posted by jgnoel86
    I could very easily see those stats if they were more caster based gear instead of holy spirit gear. At one point I was almost teetering that direction and I was in nothing but heroic gear and a couple piece of 10 man naxx/os. Its just a matter of stacking spellpower and not spirit. Doesn't make it a smart choice though.

    Something else I forgot to mention was that Imp divine spirit builds are ok if only 1 priest out of a couple has it in a raid, due to the fact that the spellpower from Imp divine spirit does in fact stack with shammy totems, otherwise im positive I wouldn't break 2600 spell power raid buffed like i do, cause im really not that high in spell power right now. However, if you have a warlock who enjoys using the fel hunter buff with felt int then its not entirely neccesary to have Imp Divine Spirit, as they dont stack and it would be more useful for the priest to go deeper holy or pure disc in that case.
    You missed the "Unbuffed" part, which made me lawl.

    Sure, it's possible, if the caster single-mindedly gemmed for heavy Spellpower, ignored everything else but spellpower.

    Buuuut we can see this magical 18% unbuffed crit, which suggests this dude favors it over haste, and is gearing appropriately. Speaks to me. Says to me "bs". Mmmmhmmmm.

    Look at my sig- see my spellpower? Ok, That's unbuffed my sons. Now self buffed you add 125 from flask, and 46 from food. by the time I'm fully 25 man raid buffed I'm in the mid-2800s, usually peaking over 3K spellpower.

    2300 unbuffed with that mana, that spirit, that crit?

    I wanna see an armory.

  18. #18

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    I still wouldn't say its really that far out, perhaps a small bit in regards to spirit but assuming she gets the correct talent (as again I can't see her talent build) she only needs 13% crit from gear which is fairly easy to come by, or it could have been rounding which meant even if she had 12.5% crit someone might have fudge the number slightly the same could be said for spellpower 2300 could have acctually been 2200 in which case she really isn't all that far off of yourself svët, perhaps she has been stacking Mp5 which would be a bit of a mistake in her case.

    But I would agree lets see an armory, that would certainly be interesting.

    Very likely she just had her inner fire up when she reported her stats and didn't remember.

  19. #19

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    tell her to go read the elitist jerks healin compendium, clears up most problems as long as the person can read

  20. #20

    Re: Holy priest worth taking to a raid?

    "If your priest is curing diseases, dispelling magic, bubbling someone, pain suppresioning them, stam buffing the battle res'd, this stuff doesnt show up on healing meters."

    Yes it does.

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