Prayer of Healing

[Neichus]

I'd like to get a bit of discussion going on Prayer of Healing. I don't seek to state any iron-clad conclusions so much as get the issue out in the open and discussed.

I believe that Prayer of Healing is too effective in Ulduar. Prayer of Healing is a niche spell, like most Priest heals. It is super effective in its one area of expertise (high single-party damage) but otherwise not very good. So far this hasn't been an issue, as most content hasn't catered to it. However now we enter Ulduar. Ignis, XT, Kologarn, Auriaya, Hodir, and Mimiron all pour large/predictable amounts of damage across the raid. Iron Council and Freya also will often dump damage that is very favorable to PoH. The number of fights where PoH will not be a dominant heal for a Holy Priest are small.

Is this so bad? Before many Priests didn't bother putting PoH on their bars, and now it gets to shine. For the Priests themselves it's not problematic; anybody who just spams PoH like you could CoH at the end of BC isn't going to heal properly. However I do wonder about its negative interactions with other healers. Group healing is usually a group effort - you have to save those in danger, stabilize them, and then finish topping them off. Most healers are proficient at two out of those three, but Prayer of Healing manages to do all those roles at once (CoH and PoM mopping up the rest). Whenever I'm on my Priest I can just handle massive AoE damage on my own, without having to work with other healers to get maximum benefit; I bring all the tools and I don't have significant enough mana restrictions to require holding back.

So, given this let's ask: should Prayer of Healing be nerfed? And if so, what would be the best manner to approach such a nerf?

We could just concede that T8 content is just PoH friendly, nothing more. The spell isn't at fault, it's that there are just so many fights that its niche shines in. This could very well be a temporary phase. Blizzard could change the nature of AoE damage in T9, or they could follow through with some of their suggestions on making tank healing more interesting and so shifting damage there (a role Holy Priests are not adept at).

If we don't accept this (either we don't want to wait, or we don't think the problem will go away) then there could be a few ways of approaching a PoH nerf.
a) Sustainability. Blizzard has expressed already that they aren't confident the regen nerfs of 3.1 were enough. This could just be a result of that. PoH's major limitation is its mana cost (in theory) and without that it takes over. Even if general regen nerfs aren't incoming we could hit Healing Prayers, although my own Priest doesn't even have that talent and still manages to use/abuse PoH as much as she likes. I would be hesitant to increase the mana cost as this would have a knock-on effect on Disc, which doesn't particularly need its AoE healing nerfed.

b) Throughput. We could just make PoH heal for less. This would also probably help keep it from being overly dominant as a niche heal. The problem here is just that however: if your heal isn't really great in its niche, then why cast it? I can't speak for all Priests, but I like the feeling of going to use PoH and getting a visceral sensation that you're pulling out The Big Guns. If we nerfed it down so that it's just CoH with a cast time, I'd be afraid that you'd lose what made it fun/good to cast in the first place.

c) Cast Time. We could give PoH a longer cast time, then perhaps buff Serendipity a bit. You could make PoH a four second cast rather than three it would make it fairly cast-time prohibitive without having a few stacks of Serendipity, which would moderate spam-casting. My fear here is that you do lose the option to repeat cast. I don't think it's a problem that PoH can be repeatedly cast, it's that you can do so with impunity to the cost. Just making it so that you never want to cast two PoH's back to back seems like it would be a lame solution. Also similar to the above cost-increase issues it would make PoH supremely unattractive to Disc, which given its limited AoE healing options would feel like an unfair casualty.

d) Retooling. We could just change the spell in some fashion other than adjusting the numbers but altering its functionality. A limited example would be to do the following (numbers totally made up):
-Reduce the healing PoH does by approximately 20%
-Change Healing Prayers to increase the crit chance of PoH by 10/20% (like it once did)
-Chance the PoH glyph to reduce the healing PoH does by 15% but increase its bonus critical healing by 100% (so it heals for 200% on a crit)
The aim of these changes wouldn't be to reduce its average power so much as make PoH's healing uneven. You would go to heal a group and it would top off some members with huge heals, but leave gaping holes on others where it didn't crit. This makes it unattractive to cast PoH repeatedly on the same party and would work more intimately with healers like Shamans that deal with uneven damage.

Again, this is just an example I spun out.

As I stated at the beginning I haven't set out to prove much of anything, but instead to generate some thought on the topic. I pray that this thread doesn't fall into flaming, but one can only hope. I would especially appreciate any feedback as I plan to post this on the public forums at some point and would love to refine it further before that point.

[Mamut]

Sorry but after 20 lines I stopped read... This wall of text hurt my eyes...

[Sindershock]

You should sum all of that up in a paragraph or less. Most people aren't interested in opinion-based dissertations.

[Xthform]

I could give you an equally long explanation as to why PoH is fine but then no one would read it.

[Danner]

You make a horribly long post, Neichus. This was the mimiron rocket version of a critting wall of text.
But I'm not in agreement with your sentiment.

YES, PoH is kinda awesome. But it's not really responsible for more than 30% of any random holypriest's healing done. The thing about PoH is that the first PoH you cast, when you have 3x Serendipity stacks, that PoH is very fast, effective and absolutely OP in comparison with a shaman.

But the second and third one is not. They are actually very slow, very much happen in the 2.5 seconds when you cast the second PoH. You may want to cast it anyway, but I dare you to try simply spamming renew instead in a heavy-damage environment (like Mimiron). It's way better. Or spam flash heal. It's not healing as many people, but it's healing the ones who count at a very excellent speed. Also, there are ProM and CoH that need to be used if HPS is your utmost priority, PoH alone is just... subpar.

--

As far as the manacost is concerned, PoH is a very heavy customer. I can - and do - easily run OOM if I spam PoH exclusively. And yet, I don't. Partly because I can't sustain it. Partly because it's unnescessary, no raid healing envirement ever require a priest going all out for prolonged periods. We hold back, always. But mostly I don't use PoH only because priest healing flows a whole lot better by using more than one spell. And that's the best part of the new healing regime in 3.1. Spamming PoH is not the best output a priest can offer. Using multiple spells is. You throw the PoH on the melee group, then keep on hotting up the ranged, throw a shield on the guy being slow at movement, put a renew + ProM on the MT, CoH for mass stability and throw a few flash heals to wind up Serendipity again.

Compared to druids, this healing style is pretty equal to their output in all its awesomeness. Druids still have the edge on MT healing though.
Compared to shammies, PoH is better thanks to serendipity, and pretty equal without. They are currently lowest but not bad in the raidhealing department, and they will get some help in the next patch. I don't worry too much about it though - shammies are awesome healers as it is now.

--

Either way, PoH is just a part of the holypriest burst.
If the entire raid takes damage? Dump out a fast PoH and throw CoH immediately. You just healed 11 targets in 1.5 seconds. That's holypriest bust healing awesomeness for you. In comparison, Divine Hymn's 12 target healing in 8 seconds seems kinda silly (and weaker). And that's the heal on a 10 minute cooldown. But this combo is what you call emergency healing. It's the only thing a holypriest does really really well, and without it, we might as well reroll druids all of us.

For stabilization, renew and CoH are the best customers, not PoH.

For topping off, use flash heal or leave it to the druid/shaman. When not to heal is an important part of the priest job. You have the big expensive gun, using it to shoot flies is not effective.

[Neichus]

Well, thanks for the useful reply Danner. I tried to trim down my post significantly so while it's still a decent amount of text I hope it is more digestible. It's mostly a fault of mine to be overly detailed in an attempt to cover all bases, rather than perhaps just keeping to the core point.

I wasn't arguing that PoH spam was the way to go, so much as I feel that Holy is overly capable of handling AoE situations without help of other classes. I was mostly picking on PoH because it can do just so much of that, while your other spells are limited by cooldown or more picky conditions.

[Izenhart]

Just too long.


Prayer of Healing has already a nerf beneath it, and that's the mana cost.

Someone can claims his epeen how much he wants, about how wonderful his mana regen is and how immense his mana pool is, but if you spam PoH you WILL go oom.

[Danner]

I wasn't arguing that PoH spam was the way to go, so much as I feel that Holy is overly capable of handling AoE situations without help of other classes. I was mostly picking on PoH because it can do just so much of that, while your other spells are limited by cooldown or more picky conditions.

We have to be able to handle some situations. Holy Priests are pretty bad... nay, awful at MT healing. I run OOM in about 2 minutes spamming gheal. I think a paladin is better at raidhealing than a holypriest is at MT healing. Raidhealing is all we have, and burst is our game. Yes, PoH is good. But it's not the new goto-spell (that's still flash heal imo), and it's the not the only spell we one cast. It has its uses, but mostly it's there to counter raidwide damage.

And as you say, Ulduar is built for being healed by a holypriest.

[zsun]

I wasn't arguing that PoH spam was the way to go, so much as I feel that Holy is overly capable of handling AoE situations without help of other classes. I was mostly picking on PoH because it can do just so much of that, while your other spells are limited by cooldown or more picky conditions.

Although immediately after a raid damage spike from bosses such as kologarn, ignis, XT, auriaya etc, I usually only manage to pull off 2 PoH's and 1 CoH before the raid gets fully topped up by the other 2 raid healers (Druid and Shaman), or at least topped up enough where I deemed the third PoH is not worth the mana. Therefore I do agree to a certain extent of your above statement.

Also dont forget stacking up closer is another key to PoH's success. I do recall a few times where not all party members were healed up due to the fact that they are more than 40 yards apart.

Oh yeah to the OP, are you getting bored on topping the heal meter already? I assume you must be topping the heal meter since you bothered to make a post like this. It's priest's turn to shine in 3.1, enjoy it while you can man!

[Tranquil]

If you are using Prayer of Healing enough to justify this post, you're probably doing it wrong.

Yes I registered just to tell you this.

[Greid]

I read the whole thing and thank you for your thoroughness. PoH is a massive spell, and yes, I sometimes audibly say "Boom" when it lands and I have beaten the "whack-a-mole" game that is raid healing. It's throughput is insane and it's cost is too. I think a reworking of the talent could be fun, but it isn't necessary. Going with the crit idea, the tier8 2peice would make that idea insanity. not to mention that giving holy priests more reason to value crit will have adverse effects on the idea of nerfing regen (holy concentration and surge of light).

Prayer of Healing is fine, it isn't really OP because hey, the fights are still challenging, it's not like you can heal a 25man with 2 pallies and 2 priests safely. I think it should be made into a smart heal but only because raid leaders nowadays forgot what it was like when there was a Melee group and a caster group. It could even work with a much smaller radius around the target so targetting melee would work and targetting casters would work. It is one of the last "party" spells in the game, and it will either maintain that niche or get buffed around it.

[Screecher]

Im never going to know wtf you were talkin about to long to read.

[NoHealsForYou]

I'm always amazed when people say 'block of text' and 'too long' or 'after <insert line less than 10> i stopped'.

Seriously, are your attention spans really that piss-poor? God help you in life...If you read it, fantastic. If you didn't read it because reading more lines than your age is challenging, gtfo and don't post.

Neichus, good post with some interesting thoughts. I'm of the opinion that PoH is fine as it is, but very suited to Ulduar fights which perhaps make it seem better than it actually is. There's large negatives with it still...You load up your PoH on group 4 to find that a shammy's CH has nipped in before you and topped off two of them already. Do you let it finish and overheal - wasting mana, or do you stop casting and change to something else risking them dying.

PoH is fine as it is imo, Icecrown may be completely different.

[Neichus]

Well, to be fair to the first few posters the original thing was much longer. I just needed a kick in the head to remind me of that and shorten it significantly.

And I think unfortunately my post's point sort of failed, judging by several of these responses. I wasn't trying to say that PoH was too good with respect to the Priest, but with respect to other AoE heals from other classes. I just got out of doing part of an Ulduar10 with some friends and PoH came in #3 at 13% of my healing done; it'd probably be less on a full run but we ended right after doing Kologarn/Auriaya/Hodir, so that bumped it up on the last few bosses. It's not, as some have implied, that PoH is overwhelming my healing style. It's that I feel like it overwhelms the healing style of my fellow healers. Perhaps this comes from the fact that I also play a Resto Shaman (not as much, she's main-spec Enhance) and while I haven't had quite the complaints that most Shamans do, I do sometimes wish the CH glyph were changed from an extra bounce to less decay per bounce. I think that would make CH a bit more attractive. But that's an aside.

[yummykitkat]

What nerf? who gives a shit casting POH??!!!

[[-Spiritus-]]

It's that I feel like it overwhelms the healing style of my fellow healers. Perhaps this comes from the fact that I also play a Resto Shaman (not as much, she's main-spec Enhance) and while I haven't had quite the complaints that most Shamans do, I do sometimes wish the CH glyph were changed from an extra bounce to less decay per bounce. I think that would make CH a bit more attractive. But that's an aside.

Your original post was a bit convoluted as you've stated. The statement above is more clear as to your purpose of posting. The following question is even more succinct:

Does PoH make other raid healers less desired or even obsolete?

My answer is no. A holy priest is a master of countering burst, raid-wide AoE damage. It only works well when a vast majority of your raid has taken a hit that has dropped them sub-60% health. The standard CoH, PoH(hasted), PoH, FH(SoL), CoH is unsustainable over long periods. It also requires 23 targets to be in range, in the right groups, and remaining injured over a 7ish second period.

Shaman, on the other hand, are masters of sustained raid healing. Properly geared and played, a shaman can counter sporadic raid damage quicker, more efficiently, and for a longer period of time than a holy priest could ever dream of.

Druids are still undisputed kings of HoTs. They are the most efficient at countering unavoidable, steady, low damage effects.

Raid healing has evolved from the days of "whack-a-mole" to now multiple variations of damage that play to the strengths of each healing style. All healers can counter all these damage types, just some better at one of them than others.

[zsun]

Shaman, on the other hand, are masters of sustained raid healing. Properly geared and played, a shaman can counter sporadic raid damage quicker, more efficiently, and for a longer period of time than a holy priest could ever dream of.

Druids are still undisputed kings of HoTs. They are the most efficient at countering unavoidable, steady, low damage effects.

Raid healing has evolved from the days of "whack-a-mole" to now multiple variations of damage that play to the strengths of each healing style. All healers can counter all these damage types, just some better at one of them than others.

Yeah I do agree, to reinforce the point, Prayer of Healing does have weaknesses being it is restricted to party only.

If the healing works like a smart heal such as CoH, THEN I'd consider it to be a bit dominant. However that is not the case. Prayer of Healing is quite useless in some situations such as a time when 5 or more members are down to 50% but they are spread out amongst different groups (Malygos P1, Razorscale P1).

[Kelesti]

Yeah I do agree, to reinforce the point, Prayer of Healing does have weaknesses being it is restricted to party only.

If the healing works like a smart heal such as CoH, THEN I'd consider it to be a bit dominant. However that is not the case. Prayer of Healing is quite useless in some situations such as a time when 5 or more members are down to 50% but they are spread out amongst different groups (Malygos P1, Razorscale P1).

This.

[TwistedPower]

I like prayer of healing in 5 mans a ton.

[derevka]

Spoken like a true Shaman, Neichus.

Healing (successfully) in Many Hard modes, ProH only makes up around 30% of my effective healing, when I am "responsible for raid healing". The other 70% is made up of COH, Prayer of Mending, Flash Heal, and Renew.

If it was 70-80% of my healing... sure i might see a justified nerf.

When I first saw the 2pc bonus on T8 I thought "WTF, ProH? Really?". But clearly it was in Blizzards design to have Priests Be using ProH a lot more than in the past.