Flash Heal vs Renew

[Darquain]

Flash Heal is superior. It heals for more (more as in it heals the full amount immediately and doesn't require any time after the fact), is quicker (to apply the full amount of healing to a target), and is perfect to use in between your CoH/PoM rotation. A lot of the damage in raids requires immediate attention, leaving people low is going to get them killed. HoTs are of minimal use in this scenario, when you have a fast nuke heal that will heal them now. Combine this with the heals from your other healers, and the person is full again.

Also because any renew is going to be made useless by the stupid amounts of immediate healing going around from other classes ... which can be mitigated by using mods that allow you to see incoming heals to targets, but still. Flash heal mate, all the way.

Until they change the healing in WoW to not require so many spammy heals, this will be the case.

[Scrubsz]

I heared some guy saying a single flash heal healing more than the initial heal and one tick on koralon / toravon.

Im currently at about 4.8k sp ( with ring proc ) with raid buffs and my inital heals for 2.2/2.3k normal and ~3.5k crit, with the renew glyph it heals for 4k every 3 sec for 12 sec and my flash heals hit for 6k ( not talented in empowered healing ). That due the fact that you need to stand still with FH and you can move while casting renew ( this is without 4pc tier10 ).
Next to this, if he isnt healed up in 3 seconds you get another tick and its renew > flash heal all the way. PoH glyph is bad aswell, most of the healing i do with poh since the high heal it does is overhealing. Usually hits 5 targets for 40-50k total. And i raid with 2 restodruids and me as raid healers, CoH + PoM and renew should be the main rotation.

[Selinde]

I dislike thinking healing as a "rotation" like a dps could have. It's not always renew > flash heal. If you see someone low and he's probably going to take more damage in the next seconds you shouldn't renew him - just cast the damn fast heal (be it FH or hasted GH).
Like the trash in voa, sometimes tanks pull 2 of them at the same time or whatever and if you don't heal up quickly who gets damaged he can die from a new random hit. I saw someone casting renew in that scenario and just thought "why?" not like it's gonna save him if he gets hit again in the next 1-2 seconds. And it's probably going to overheal in this case anyway.
But I hope this is common sense :-\

Edit: I understand you're probably talking about fillers but still healers shouldn't be strict in their "rotation" and cast other heals when it's needed. That's what I wanted to say.

[Zeuq]

The point isn't that Flash Heal is useless, and anyone who says so is an idiot. The point is that it's going to be inferior to Flash Heal in the overwhelming majority of the encounters. Hence, if you have to choose between maximizing one or the other, which you generally do, it only makes sense to favor Renew. And to make the point, let's look at the encounters.

Marrowgar: Renew wins. Renew the tanks, Renew bone spikes, spam Renew during bone storm. Flash Heal is maybe useful for tank spikes or idiots standing in fire, but that's about it.
Deathwhisper: Flash Heal has a slight edge with the spike damage, but Renew is still significant keeping it on tanks and such.
Gunship: Does this fight even count?
Saurfang: Renew wins, hands down.
Festergut: Renew is great for vile gas, great during 0-1 inhales, and its kept on the tank at all times. Flash Heal is really only useful when you're forced to spam on the tank with 3 Inhales.
Rotface: Renew is great for the disease targets and kiting tank. Flash Heal is only useful for topping up people that get barfed on, get hit by the explosion, run through goo or something else silly.
Putricide: Renew is awesome for slime/cloud targets and raid healing in P3. Flash Heal is only useful for people that get hit by maleable goo and helping with tank spikes in P3.
Princes: Renew is fantastic because of the heavy movement. All the spike damage is on multiple targets, so Flash Heal is a poor tool for that.
Blood-Queen: Renew wins, hands down. Flash Heal is only useful for the rare random spike and maybe a little during air-phase.
Dreamwalker: Flash Heal wins if you're doing portals. If you're outside, you'll have to do more tank healing than usual so it's useful for that. However, as Holy you really should be outside, and most of what you're doing should be raid healing with Renew, so I guess it mostly depends on what your healing officer has you doing.
Sindragosa: Again, Renew wins hands down. Flash Heal is nice for covering the random moron who gets 12 stacks of instability or fails at LOS, but that's it.
Lich King: I haven't seen the whole fight yet, so it's hard to say which wins, but from what I saw, Renew still had the edge.

Renew is clearly the superior heal in most of the fights, and even in the fights where it isn't best, it's still very useful. Meanwhile, Flash Heal is seldom the top heal, and otherwise really only useful for the occassional spike or people messing up.

[Selinde]

Ugh. 4pT10 got changed again. So this whole debate about renew and 4pT10 vs 2pT9/2pT10 is pointless. Now it's CoH the new kid on the block!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=1

It's more interesting now IMO.
But I'll just wait for the patch to go live before buying anything.

[harky]

Good rundown. Constant damage makes Renew stronger. Renew with 4k SP ticks for 2.7k unglyphed with a ~2.4k average initial instant heal. Flash Heal is an average of 8.8k fully talented. That means that if Renew ticks more than twice it will always average more than Flash Heal. That means that you can waste half of Renew on average and Renew still wins.

Now, why is this unglyphed? It's pretty simple really, the following fights in ICC have constant raid damage: Deathwhisper, Saurfang, Festergut, Putricide, Princes, Blood Queen, Sindragosa and Lich King. That's 8/12 while depending on strategy Rotface has a good deal of AOE damage and Marrowgar's Bonestorm has plenty of AOE damage and always 3-6 targets to Renew. Dreamwalker towards the end also has constant damage taken by the raid. That leaves Gunship as not having reliable damage to blanket Renews on.

What does that mean? People in ICC who are 'topped off' do not stay topped off. Their health on most fights is going to go back down. This is another reason why the Renew glyph itself is bad. By spreading it out more you have more chances for less of the heal to be wasted. It's why Druids are so good as well and why people make the comparison. The point is to spread out that healing and create a net of HoTs that keeps people healthy. ICC healing really isn't about quick emergency reactions, it's about keeping the whole raid healthy. There are spikes on some fights, but nothing like Ulduar, or even ToC. With the massive difference in power between the two spells all you need is for Renew to over-heal for at most 55% more than Flash Heal. So if Flash Heal is over-healing 50% as long as Renew is over-healing 77.5% or less it's the better spell.

Of course, this again assume FH is fully talented. Something that isn't possible in a proper raiding build. It also assumes you do not have Surge of Light at all, which would make Renew pull ahead even more.



As far as the CoH change, it won't matter much. It's also completely unconfirmed as being final. It also won't change Renew being dominant at all. 5% to Renew was a good, solid bonus. 10% to CoH is off balance. Who knows if they'll keep it that way, but I'd prefer 5% to Renew as it would give me more healing in more fights.

[lethargik]

what i would do is expect that kobold to be on the target for a little while, so renew and if they drop below 66% or so, then maybe a flash heal.

[Selinde]

Yeah I just started healing icc with my reeeeeaaally casual guild (as disc even), so don't have an opinion on FH vs Renew there yet, but with your examples I can see that renew wins

As far as the CoH change, it won't matter much. It's also completely unconfirmed as being final. It also won't change Renew being dominant at all. 5% to Renew was a good, solid bonus. 10% to CoH is off balance. Who knows if they'll keep it that way, but I'd prefer 5% to Renew as it would give me more healing in more fights.

I know it's not final that's why I'll just wait and see.

[Izenhart]

Flash Heal is superior. It heals for more (more as in it heals the full amount immediately and doesn't require any time after the fact)

Problem: You won't find many cases where ther's just one person in the whole raid at -8k HP where your FH would be optimal, plus consider HoTs already on him, and possible incoming heals, plus add that he might take damage right after you healed with FH for 80% OH, making your Renew be optimal.

is quicker (to apply the full amount of healing to a target)

And heals for LESS TIME, a.k.a instantly, while Renew heals over 12/15 seconds and, as I said before, if you miss a FH because of OH you have wasted one heal, if you use Renew you'll have the heals from the Emp. Renew and for the sucessive ticks, way more useful than just one single Heal.

and is perfect to use in between your CoH/PoM rotation.

HPriests doesn't have a rotation, CoH MUSTN'T BE used at every CD, it's a perfect filler spell between AoE damage, not just to be brainlessly cast at every CD just because you want more heals. Same goes for PoH. PoM is the only mandatory spell to be used at every CD.

A lot of the damage in raids requires immediate attention, leaving people low is going to get them killed. HoTs are of minimal use in this scenario, when you have a fast nuke heal that will heal them now. Combine this with the heals from your other healers, and the person is full again.

This is probably the most dumb reason I've heard so far.
HoTs are useless on "a lot" of the raid damage because they won't heal the player. Wich is bullshit.
It's Renew that, combined with other healer's heals, will full again the player, the FH is just going to OH either you or who landed the cast for last, PLUS, most of the encounters have continued damage, see Putricide, Festergut after the first stack, Lana'Thel, Sindragosa, Lich King, wich makes the Renew heal for almost its full amount.

Also because any renew is going to be made useless by the stupid amounts of immediate healing going around from other classes ... which can be mitigated by using mods that allow you to see incoming heals to targets, but still. Flash heal mate, all the way.

So a shaman and a resto druid should make the same reasoning about CoH/Renew spam by a priest and stop healing, because anyways priest are gonna heal them, so is useless for us to heal, right?

[Greid]

this is an annoying thread, relish the fact that you have situational difference and have the option to vary your heals.

This is the main reason why healing as holy is fun in my opinion. You can really fill any situation, between serendipity GH's and glyphed renews, you really do almost count as two healers with enough haste and regen. if you like to renew the raid, argue that it would be stupid not to, if you like to flash heal the raid, then flash heal the raid and renew tanks, the argument over which is better in which situation is really futile and has been going on for a long time. If you know how to use hots very well, then renew to your heart's content, if you are getting Overhealing AND are running out of mana, then you need to be mor eefficient, but short of that there really isnt a huge penalty to overhealing as of now.

[Maxpowr]

Problem: You won't find many cases where ther's just one person in the whole raid at -8k HP where your FH would be optimal, plus consider HoTs already on him, and possible incoming heals, plus add that he might take damage right after you healed with FH for 80% OH, making your Renew be optimal.

This right here is why renew > FH in ICC. Combine that with the fact that it is instant cast and there is little discussion which is the better spell.

[prettycute]

the way i do it is only 1 point in emp renew just so i can have a chance for surge of light proc, i use renew as i know your gonna take dmg but your life isnt in danger, so here take this, another reason why i do this is more fh i get off the faster serendipity stacks then i can poh, its just how i play, i do find that i am better than average healers but thats just my two cents

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...&cn=Prettycute

disc right now but i can check the holy spec

[Ultima]

It seems pretty simple to me and it's been answered a few times to what I know to be the "correct at optimal level/situation" answer.

However I will be the first to admit I tend to deviate from that and toward something more suitable to my healing style. The way I currently think of it, Flash Heal has a...a...cast time. Between keeping Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing (yes) on cooldown, I renew spam and use Surge of Light procs if I feel a Flash Heal is required (a "burst" 6-7k heal rather than a ticking heal). Obviously I cast Prayer of Healing when required but not in a rotation-like fashion.

I think I can squeeze more healing through more GCDs than a Flash Heal casting Priest, that is my reasoning.

[Forumone]

I raid heal with another holy priest (25 man) he CoH/PoM's and relies on his proc's of Surge of Light off CoH to speed up his HPS. I do the reverse and use Renew/PoM (fully spec'd) to proc' Surge of Light and save that to reset CoH cool down off the 4 parts T10 bonus. It's totally up to the person how to use it. Either way we both sit at around the same HPS when the fight allows full healing.

Interesting that the same class can function totally differently.

[G l o w y r m]

There's a lot of good responses in this thread. I'll reiterate that Renew will end up healing for a lot more than your Flash Heal would have.

And if the damage incoming is continuous in some way, Renew will continuously keep that person healed. There's a time and place for both spells. It depends on the type of damage. For instance...

If a person took 7k damage and he's not taking anymore, then Flash Heal is probably the best choice...but say there's a few other people that are hurt (imagine CoH is on CD), a perk of Renew is that it's "set it and forget it", so technically you could "cover more bases" by rolling Renews since Flash Heal has a cast time. There are definitely times where Renew makes more sense, even though Flash Heal would "work" in that situation, and vice versa.

[iLive]

I 100% agree, Renew > Flash heal. Use CoH/PoM on CD, Emp Renew heal raid, Surge of Light on proc to generate serendipity and hold serendipity till incoming raid dmg to Glyphed PoH and win.

**Edit** New 4pc T10 just reinforces this more.

How would talents look like for this?