And yet again GC shows knowledge!

[Danner]

Speaking of crying, here is some solid data about the state of the priest post-nerf:

Crusader Coliseum 25-man Normalmode (no hardmode available yet!):
http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/ehps/all/8/0/3

Ulduar 25-man (hardmodes and normalmodes, but algalon is a good pick for hardmode only):
http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/c.../all/7/0/3/320

The links show the top recorded HPS for all wowmeteronline logs.

I see a lot of druids. There is a few shammies in there, and paladins are definitively represented. But priests... Hmm.
I know for a fact that our HPS pre-3.2 was pretty awesome. What happened? O.o

[[-Spiritus-]]

Links aren't working, Danner.

[Danner]

Humm. Working for me, tested on two different computers just to be sure... But sure, here's a screenshot of the algalon statistics.



The other fights have about the same spread in classes :P

[Lady Mormont]

u cant really rate healing based off HPS


best way to measure heals:

does the healer's target die? yes? no?

does healer go oom? how fast does he go oom?

no decent guild measures healing based off HPS, its too inaccurate

[Grizzled]

Druids throw hots, they are always gonna win in fps... What you dummies don't keep in mind is the reasons why tanks lovvvveeee priests.

1-Cooldowns Your class is the only healer that has effective cd's now that they nerfed paladins. OMG, maybe they should nerf priests :P

2-Bubbles What you shield does to a tank is takes my 50k hp and turn it into 55k

3-Biggest variety of heals, I can have a holy priest heal a tank one fight and the raid the next fight. Sure you can say the same for druids and shammys, but you guy are just as effective or more effective in the same spec.

4-One of two classes that bring 10% damage reduction

Not too mention you bring 3 buffs to a raid. Stop the qq, they've nerfed druids twice now and chances are they will probably nerf them again, just because they are a tad OP doesnt mean you aren't viable. Just for example, my guild runs with six healers in 25's 1 druid, 1 shaman, 1 paladin, 3 priests/2 ds holy/disc and one ds holy/shadow. And guess what, I got my Ironbound :P. It's pretty odd i say that we bring 5 of a class that supposedly sucks...My suggestion is L2P.

Edit- 5=3 healers and 2 spriests

[Grizzled]

Humm. Working for me, tested on two different computers just to be sure... But sure, here's a screenshot of the algalon statistics.



The other fights have about the same spread in classes :P

Just to give you some info since you've never been to Algalon and don't know what you're talking about. The reason priests aren't winning the meters on this fight is they are speccing disc. It's an awesome fight for disc healers...Until they come up with a damage absorbed spreadsheet you won't see a priest winning this fight.

[Danner]

Well, all right. Algalon was a bad example. But pick any other boss in that link. You'll see the same relation; priests are hardly on the list at all. That's just not just because priests are respeccing on algalon.

And yes, you can not deem a healer off HPS. That is correct. I'm just saying that after the PoH nerf, priests fell off the charts completely. Discpriests were never on it. But holypriests definitively were. Holypriests are designed around burst aoe. And nowadays, that's not really that awesome. It's decent, I can heal well enough. But it's not awesome. I can no longer heal for two in a pinch. My fellow guildies have started complaining that people actually die a lot these days when not every healer is present at trash pulls.

The reason i'm hung up on this is the fact that i'm actually getting pressure to respeccing shadow these days. My guild has a lot of very good healers. Our discpriest stopped showing, and our shadowpriests rerolled to better classes, so I'm pretty much the only priest in the guild. I always get a spot - that's nice - people do want fortitude after all. But we're always full on healers, awesome healers. And after 3.2, I am no longer able to "kick ass on the meters" compared to the druids and the shammies. I'm usually barely beating our paladin, but that's pretty much it.

Do I care? Not really. I know I can still save lives, healing meters are e-peens without any real relevance. My healing style hasn't changed since pre 3.2, and i'm still doing very good in my opinion.

Do my guildleaders care? You bet.

They may be misinformed - no in fact they are. But the lowest healer(s) on the meter is usually forced to respecc DPS when we aim for hardmodes. Up until now, that used to be the shammies. They did awesome DPS as elemental, and kinda enjoyed dpsing as well, but it does feel very wrong to respecc world class healers into dpsers just because the regular dpsers fail at doing a measly 5k DPS.

And now, I'm usually at the bottom of the healing meters. I refuse to believe I'm terribad at healing - been doing it since TBC now; but the sentiment is still that any other healer can do it better than me because i'm second last on the healing meters. I haven't changed since pre 3.2, when I was stable on top. It's just my specc that has been nerfed and that the other healers are pretty awesome too.

I'm not respeccing shadow. I really dislike shadow as a spec concept. But you know you isn't in a good spot when you are only brought because there are no shadowpriests in the guild. I want to get a spot because I know how to heal, and because I still think i'm pretty good at it. The healing meters - and thus the less informed raid leaders - just don't agree.

And that's me right now. Worth QQ'ing about?

[[-Spiritus-]]

Danner... I can sum up your perspective thusly:

Your guild leaders suck.

(1) They suck because they don't know their players and look at meters for their answers.
(2) They suck because they don't understand how healing works, and how different healers play off each others strengths/weaknesses.
(3) They suck because they don't understand that different damage patterns draw to the strengths of different healers.
(4) They suck because they "make" people respec when they are clearly good at their jobs.
(5) They suck because they cannot have the foresight to realize that healers go through a big circle of nerfing. What happens when 3.3 hits and some minor change happens that makes the healing classes they've been neglecting slightly better? Make all the hybrids change again, get their healing gear up... while making all the other previously top healers switch to DPS, and get them geared up as well?
(6) They suck because I say so.

[Kelesti]

]
Danner... I can sum up your perspective thusly:
(6) They suck because I say so.

Reason. Enough.

[Danner]

<3 #6.

Actually, the top guild guys are very knowledgeable, and know the reason to diversify the healers. But they're not always the ones doing the invites. It's an uphill battle of education amongst all the officers I guess.

But I really hate blizzard for making us cut down on healers. Sure, 7 healers may be a bit much for ulduar. But that's what we have recruited to cover. Then hardmodes hit us. And our dps'ers aren't really world class so we healers have to compensate by eliminating ourselves.

While a 7 healer hardmode hodir is clearly out of the question for every guild out there, I'm constantly having to argue that 3 healers is too few. We still struggle with mustering the DPS required with 20 dpsers on that fight, it's kinda sad. Yoggy is balanced around 5 healers, thorim hardmode as well. Frankly, there aren't a lot of fights that are built for 7 healers anymore. And we have 7 good healers, most of which have useful offspecs for DPS, and two of them are actually enjoying the offspecs a bit as well. But honestly, only to a certain degree. We all rolled healing because we like to heal!

When offspeccing for the 14th week in a row because I dont have an offspec, the paladins don't have a DPS offspec, some other healer isn't really geared... well. It's not good for morals for the poor shammy healers who I know are awesome but whom never get to actually heal. I'd pass them a spot. I don't need a spot on every single fight. We're 7 healers, and rotating us around only makes sense if blizzard won't have us. But I can't. I'm the only one with the fortitude.

Then there is the hardmodes. I like the hardmodes. They are challenging and fun, although I wish some of my guildies could skillup a bit. With 4 healers on Hodir and dps'ers not understanding that stacking 2 debuffs is very bad (tm), the lowest yield healer is the one getting evil looks for not healing enough. Silly, misinformed, but sadly true. It used to be our awesome shammies who were in this position. I'm glad they got a buff. But now it's me.

--

Ultimately, priests need to be good at something.

Discpriests have the bubbles, but the weakened sould debuff lowers its effectiveness badly. Disc HPS is pretty subpar at the moment, and are usually reduced to raidshielding. Major scalability issues with that spec makes it relatively subpar at high-end raiding. Discpriests is slowly turning into a PVP spec these days, and that's a damn shame.

Holypriests have burst raidhealing, which is currently on par with the shammy but overall we're both behind druids. Probbaly just druids being OP, but I can actually live with druids having their forte as a high HPS. But as a holypriest I am balanced by having "awesome raidhealing capabilities" by a extremely hefty mana consumption should I chose to use it. Shammies and druids don't work with those limits in the world of 3.2. My one good ability (GS) is the only real saviour of the spec, but it's ironically quite buggy.

I can live with not being on top. PoH in 3.1 was an oddity in priest history. But I can't be the only priest in the world facing this issue.

So yeah. That's the QQ I was trying to raise earlier. Sorry if it wasn't clear enough :P

Mmmm. priest tears.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Oh... and "HPS" charts are a horrible representation of what healers are doing well.

(1) HPS is inversely proportional to tank gear level and raid awareness. The more mitigation/avoidance the tank has, the less HPS on the tank. The more your raid doesn't stand in the fire, the less HPS on the raid.
(2) HPS is inversely proportional to the number of healers you bring. The more healers you bring, the less your HPS.
(3) HPS is inversely proportional to the amount of absorption your Disco priest is putting out. If your Disco priest is shield spam heavy, all other healers will notice a drop in their HPS.

[Arelameth]

While a 7 healer hardmode hodir is clearly out of the question for every guild out there, I'm constantly having to argue that 3 healers is too few. We still struggle with mustering the DPS required with 20 dpsers on that fight, it's kinda sad. Yoggy is balanced around 5 healers, thorim hardmode as well. Frankly, there aren't a lot of fights that are built for 7 healers anymore. And we have 7 good healers, most of which have useful offspecs for DPS, and two of them are actually enjoying the offspecs a bit as well. But honestly, only to a certain degree. We all rolled healing because we like to heal!

It's clear to me you're a competent healer. I think it's also fair to say that you do understand some of the shortcomings in the Priest class. I think you also have a decent grasp of the raiding situation in Ulduar.

What really drove me to register and post though, was an item you mention in the above. More specifically that Hodir with three healers is too few. That specific item, coupled with some of your larger complaints leads me to a conclusion that you may not have yet seen the breadth of capability within your hands.

Hodir hardmode can be done with three healers + JoL. It can even be done by a composition I suspect you'd find unbelievable. Discipline Priest + Holy Paladin + Holy Priest + JoL.

No Shamans, no Druids.

I'm not saying you are at fault within your guild for not being able to do this with three healers + JoL. Perhaps the issue is driven by your DPS doing truely dumb things. Perhaps the strategy in play is at fault.

Nonetheless the opinion I draw from your post is that you might need to look internally a bit and push yourself to do what you didn't think possible. I think there might be more headroom in the class than you realize.

[nikkita]

HpS dpesn't mean alot. Same with eHpS. Simpley because someone can be extremely high on effective and not really be 'needed'.

Algalon is a encounter where holy paladins and discipline priest shine, they keep the tank up from very high and consistant damage. I havn't veiwed the druids spell usage, but from my knowledge of druids (spaming rejuv on raid and combining WG to be highest on meters) they aren't the ones who are doing anything important, yet on wowmeter, they seem to 'rule' algalon's encounter. We used to go algalon with 2 holy paladins, disci priest, 2 resto druids and a holy priest. To cut the story short, since rejuv spaming isn't "skillz" and resto shamans were buffed in the last 2 weeks, we've been going 2 holy paladins, 1 disci priest, 2 resto shamans and a holy priest. In algalon the raid damage is more "bursty" and less of an aura, giving CH and PoH an advantage over rejuv spaming. In addition we had problems such as druids not hoting the tanks even (again the same story of endless mana, when in tbc they used to go back to the tank to re-do the hots, these days i barely see these druids, if at all they exsist, definetly not in my guild and we tend to throw them off although their high hps. Removing curses and poisons on yogg > high hps).

For most hard modes we tend to go with less healers; on hodir we've been going 3-4 healers usually 2 holy priests and a resto druid or 2 holy priests and a holy paladin. I don't believe in discipline priest there a good holy priest can dispell just as fast, and just because EJ's wrote its needed, doesn't mean they are correct. Infact i find recently, or atleast since wtolk came out alot of things in EJ that are not close to correct.

For Yogg hard mode (zero lights) we use 4 healers, we tend to use less healers not because the lack of dps, or the lack of healers in the guild, but simpley because it becomes boring to arrive to a encounter and being able to afk during it as a healer. Most hard modes we did start with 4-5 healers, but with the gear improvement, everything becomes easier to heal. I myself find it sad that this is the way blizzard designed encounters and hard modes, i was expecting to see 6-7 healers needed for hard modes to keep up with the damage, but for me it just seems like most hard modes if not all are just for tanks and dps to keep up. (mimiron might be the only encounter with "increased" damage on raid, yet its not really "increased" and you still use 5-6 healers, personal from the kill pre-nerf we have been using 5 2 holy priests, 1 resto shaman, 1 resto druid, 1 holy paladin. we just don't have priest that use holy novawhich leads them to heal more then their groups only).

Atleast i hope we get some juicey 6-7 healers where assignments matter, mana matters (and not general style = bring druids and paladins their heals cost 200 mana), but most of all game style matters.

With the talk of all this HpS i would like to share a personal story from my guild from last reset; Going to ToC 25m we had a holy priest and a resto druid being the top of raw healing done. The effective meters looked abit different, though most play with recount and see only raw numbers. When a shaman bothered to link them and point both of them were standing on raw meters way above all. this happened on northrend beasts. Later on that night we decided to split into 3 groups for toc 10m for some gear. We devided our 3 tanks into 3 groups, and now we got to the healers: the MT that saw the 2 healers being topest grabed them fast and said he wants a fast clear since he needs to go. As well one of the healer officers (we have 2 myself and other one) saw that we have 2 healers in each group and decided to join as an offspec DpS to their 10m. All the 10m's went smooth on the beasts, my raid actually cleared up till faction champions in less then 15 mins without no one dying. While finishing the raid i hear there are problems in the MT group. The were still on beasts (1st boss) struggling with losing the tank and more. I knew this would happen since usually a healer that is that much high on raw meters is either spaming randomly, or just using aoe spells for 'meter whoring'. They asked the 3rd healer to spec into healing, and continued struggling, without a good reason. when the tank whispers me the recount showing their insane HpS and saying "whats wrong". Since we use live world of logs, i went to check and all the healers were using random AoE spells, the druid was using rejuv on all the 10 raid members, this without being able to pass phase 1 because the tank died with 3 debuffs (and this is a tank with top notch gear, almost 55K hp buffed), the priest was using a combination of CoH flash heal and prom (none of the above keeps the tanks alive). I tabed back to the game and wrote to the healers that they should heal the tank abit more, that greater heal is not a sinn, and precasting it and landing it when the tank is low will allow you to top the tank, that leaving hots runing at all time on the tank and only one healer swaping to raid when it is needed should get the threw phase 1. Ofc the respond was, what i tend to find alot on these forums "i don't use greater heal" which is rather stupid, i mean yes its too big, yes it costs a tun of mana, yes when your tank has 55k hp, and is on 40% hp you will top him. they ignored my advice, and wiped for 10 more tries. when the MT got upset and told them they must do what i asked them to do. 'unhappily' they decided to let the 3rd healer to heal the raid when needed. They managed. and the conclusion is; top healing does usualy mean not alot. They both were and still are healers that always do a very high HpS on all encounters, they still are considered very weak healers by most that went 10m with them. They still are healers that would rather use CoH over a much needed Greater heal. They are usually not chosen to heal hard things, or things that require proper healers and not just random high hps. Or as i say; sorting the best rotation, for the highest hps is something everyone can do. Spaming from engaging till boss dies with this perfect rotation is something everyone can do. Keeping people alive, understanding the healing is far from a hps race; healing when needed with the correct spell, resting when no one is hurt, does make you lower on healing meters, but doesn't make you a bad healer or a less important one. If everyone would cast and heal when its needed, all this hps race wouldn't exsist. In vanilla it was all about meters, and only for one reason; you actually did have mana problems if you over healed. Now you don't - which means raw numbers or even sometimes effective numbers mean alot less.

[Kelesti]

I use Greater on occasion. I don't like to, most fights, as it's expensive and cumbersome/clunky/downright fekking slow.

But I do use it, with and without 3 stacks of Serendipity.
Although the only fight in 25's I -repeatedly- cast it on is Jaraxxus, for Incinerate Flesh. Doesn't mean I don't have it ready at all times though (It's my number "4" for crying out loud).

[[-Spiritus-]]

To be clear, when I talk about HPS, I mean eHPS. If anyone is counting overheal in their numbers, they're silly.

I agree that GH isn't a complete waste of time. However, our healers are outstanding. If I see the tank get low, I'd rather drop a FH and then assess if a second is needed, rather than lock myself to a 3sec cast. I have the utmost confidence in our tank healers, and we rarely wipe due to a tank death. That is why I've spec'd out of DF and EH. My flash hits harder on a 50% or less tank with 3/3 ToF than 5/5EH would (example: 5kFH+3kSP+5/5EH=5.6kFH[approx]/5kFH+3kSP+3/3ToF= 5.8kFH[approx]). If the tank isn't below 50%, then I'm not worried. If things get really hairy, I pop GS and the tank healers have em up to full in 1sec. I could dump points out of B&S and LW to pick up 3/3BR or 3/5EH, but I enjoy the utility of both these spells.

If you have use for GH, thats awesome, but to effectively use it, even sparingly, requires at least 10points invested (5/5DF,5/5EH). x2FH for me=x1GH with my spec[approx]. GH may be more mana efficient, but I really don't lack in that department. In order to counter burst damage with it, you must precast, which means your sacrificing time you could be healing the raid, the role where a holy priest shines.