Gemming as a Holy Priest in 3.3

[harky]

Haha. True enough. Though I did get a FoL spamming app over the weekend. Old guild leader is a friend of mine and burst into laughter when I asked him about it. :-X

[Vellaunus]

First off, you're confusing Paladins with Priests. Congrats, get out of my forums. Okay, now that you're still here...

I can't believe you are allowed to mod if you are to speak in a disrespectful tone. YOU should be a model to all other posters by keeping useless flaming comments out of your posts. Let's stay on track now shall we...

At no time should any Priest be "abusing" Flash Heal. Period. Unless it's spot healing a last stop Infest that missed shields/smart heals (and your own Prayer, of course), or hitting up a single person in one of your two split up ranged groups and a single melee off of a Dark Pact on Blood Queen, etc...

Wrong! If you get a flash of light proc, you should never waste a free instant flash heal. If you cast flash heal every time you get a flash of light proc, you will be surprised how much it can contribute to your healing if you crit is high.

There are times to use Flash Heal, yes. There are not times to use it excessively. And I've said it before, I'll say it again: Surge of Light is not an excuse to cast a sub-par heal, "just because it's up". Increasing your crit to increase your Surge of Light output is actually negative thoroughput, in that your SoL can't crit on its own, in which case a normal Flash Heal would have potentially higher output (RNG willing, of course, but it certainly can't be less).

A regular flash heal has a cast time and costs mana. Sure the flash heal you cast as a result of flash of light can't crit, but that is not the point of it. The point is that it was free and instant (How much better output can you get than that?) I rarely cast flash heal except when flash of light is up.

None of this actually relates to any actual relevance with Crit. PoM jumps to whoever has a health deficit in range.

Wrong again, it DOES matter for two reasons. One, every time the PoM bounces, it can crit. That means I get a flash of light proc which leads to a free instant flash heal even when I am not casting other spells. Secondly, since PoM is both reactive and not very strong, the extra healing from PoM critting is not usually wasted in the form of overhealing. Haste on the other hand gives virtually no benifit to PoM in any way.

Circle of Healing criticals aren't strong enough to actually make a difference in output. Empowered Renew hitting harder is nice, but don't forget you're actually using it for its HoT component, which a crit can reduce the need for it.

The best part about critting on any of the CoH targets is that since it hits 6 members with low health (if possible) and CoH is a weak heal, any extra healing from the crit is not wasted in overhealing.

Instant Flash Heals are also instant, okay, that sort of makes sense...?Which you usually should, if there's not a better spell to be using at the time.What. The fuck? Really. What. The fuck? Are you that bad? Really? Read the talent again. Please. Or stop playing a Priest if you're unable to. Surge of Light. See that last part down there? "but be incapable of a critical hit."

Never once did I say that a flash heal cast off a flash of light proc can crit. Once again, how is a moderator allowed to post something so immiture as "What. The fuck? Really. What. The fuck? Are you that bad? Really? Read the talent again. Please. Or stop playing a Priest if you're unable to." Getting back on track, I think you misunderstood when I said "Instant Flash Heals are also instant". My point there was that since a flash heal cast after a flash of light proc is instant cast (just like PoM, CoH and Renew) it once again benefits little from Haste.

If all you're casting is instants, and the GCD isn't your problem, you are bringing too many healers or you're Bloodlusting on a pull and wiping before it wears off. Faster Global's means faster heals going out at all times, means overall better weight on your heals going out if they crit or not. You might be in one of those guilds that thinks 7-8 healers is optimum and barely making berserk timers is totally your DPS' fault.

Don't get me wrong, I would like the GCD to go down (Haste is not useless). Faster Globals does mean faster heals going out all the time; but more powerful heals from crit means I need to heal less ofter (for the same mana) and no amount of haste will bring flash heal casting time down to the instant cast time I get from Flash of Light procs. Yes, crit is not as realiable as haste, but it becomes more reliable as it gets higher (My crit is high enough that I can almost always rely on a free instant Flash heal if it looks like someone is about to die.)

Also, don't forget, casting spells 20% faster also means you are burning through mana 20% faster. I am currently casting fast enough without haste to do my job well (mostly because almost nothing I cast has a cast time). During the GCD time is usually where I am evaluating who would best benefit from my next heal anyways (but as I said, I would still like haste to lower GCD a bit).

Again, how can you actually USE a Surge of Light Proc that crits?

I never said surge of light or the flash of light cast after it crits.

How can you use Empowered Renew crits? You don't get the foreknowledge of "If I cast this spell on that mage, it will crit so it'll be used better there". You cast it, it either does or it doesn't. Period. Yes, crit is a mana tool. Crit is not a reliable thoroughput, it either happens or it doesn't. Most of the time when it does, it is active overhealing, or your other healers aren't pulling their weight because things can (and do) kill people fast. Fast enough, infact, that if you're waiting for people's health to drop low enough to take advantage of a crit, they can flat out die instantly.

My target of the empowered renew is often the player with the least health. The player with the least health usually is not fully healed from the instant heal of improved renew, thus, if empowered renew does crit, that healing from the crit is not wasted in the form of overhealing. Also, by critting at all with the improved renew, I have a 50% chance to immediately get a free instant cast of Flash Heal through Flash of Light.

Crit/Haste doesn't matter in 5 mans. Really.

True enough, but I need reliable fast heals when dealing with under-geared and under-skilled pugs so I do like haste there.

When being any healer, you rely on your heals to recover raid members who are at any stages of health, including nearly topped off to nearly dead. Crits either happen, or they don't, and either way you can't be relying on them.

The fastest heal to cast when someone is about to die is an instant cast spell. Using anything with a casting time (even one that is shortened by haste) can result in the player dying before receiving the next heal. When multiple targets are in eminent danger of death, yes haste will allow you to get to that next target faster, but other healers in a compitant raid will be working on those others while you are working on healing your current target. There are times where so much healing has to be done so fast however that Haste wins outright, this is (like I said before) times where Haste and PoH would be great.

In WoW, there may not be universally best ways, but there are certainly universally bad ways. This is one of them. If you're waiting to cover people off of low health, you're not doing your job. You should always be active in healing people, topping them off, and getting them ready for the next wave (even if that wave is 15 seconds from now, or it already is happening as your current effects go out). People are severely injured, chances are cross-healing happens in two or three people reach over to cover them just so they don't die. Counting yourself. Your crit there is pointless because you have the added support.

I see it very differently. Many classes need to cast to heal. My instant heals are instantly visible thus other healers are less likely to heal over my heal (you don't have two players with casting times find out they are healing the same target only after both of their heals go off at the end of the cast). With my build, I am never waiting, I am using any time between my regular CoH, PoH and improved renews with instant free Flash Heals. A haste caster is filling in the time between cooldowns usually with more renews (often on target that do not need the heals as much as the melee for example, but it is a waste to cast renew again on a target you just cast it on). I am filling in the time between cooldowns with a reliable source of free instant flash heals (I cannot rely on almost always having a free instant flash heal unless my crit is very high). My GCD may be longer than a haste caster, but less of my healing is wasted in over-healing, I am using far less mana and I am using a more realiable heal (instant free Flash Heal instead of improved renew or hasted flash heal) for spot heals.

One thing I did not mention before as well is that I love to stack serendipity with my flash healing for especially a faster casting PoH. Flash Heal is not a spell I like to cast much except when it is under the effect of flash of light. Crit ultimately hugely hastes my PoH *and rarely GH* through instant free casts of Flash Heal without using the haste stat.

Say that you didn't have the added support of a 25 man raid healers actually doing their job (despite you saying this is where you mainly perform). What happens when you don't have a Surge of Light proc, and your Empowered Renew (which only crits for 2700 by the way) DOESN'T crit? What happens when that ~1800 heal just sits there, and your "low health" target that your amazing crit was going to save just dies?

This is indeed a bad situation, which is exactly why I need my crit to be high enough for it to be relied on. The big "oh crap" button is the fact that Flash of Light is almost always up. On the rare occasions it is not the case, I need to rely on my other healers which is why this is not as good in 5 or 10 man. In 25 man though, my heals heal for more and cost far less mana than a haste priest which lowers the healing burden of the other healers. A hasted priest can heal as much as me through sheer speed of casts, but it will cost them a heck of a lot more mana to do it.

It's not only not acceptable, it's a flat out waste of a slot for people that play like this.
And again, dear gods, read the talent off of Surge of Light. Read it again.

Be respectful. You understand the priest class well so express it and discuss it like an adult. Just like I am not always correct, nor are you. That is why this should remain a civil discussion free of "Oh my god, learn to play your class. You are wrong, I am right, so we will not discuss anything". Haste is not a bad stat, but nor is crit used the way that I use it. As for "Read Surge of Ligh again", both of us understand how it works, I think you may have not understood some of my points which I hope to have clarified.

[Powerlamer]

Hello, first of all I'd like to apologize if such thread already somewhere exist on these forums, but I just couldn't find a proper answer.

I'd like to gear up my alt, that is a Holy Priest. I had quite long benchtime on my priest, so right not I try to get back on the track and upgrade my gear.
What stat should I actually pick up in order to heal effectively? Is intellect is cool (I don't see people stacking fully in intellect) or should I swap between sp+haste and sp+spirit?

Armory
I've got 3 new items, I hope the armory updates itself really soon.
Big thanks for the answers.

Well i havent read all the other answers, but what i have understand about holy priest, is that you need to balance all the stats.

So i would say:
green - blu / 10 int + 10 spir
yellow - red / 12 sp + 10 int

When your equip gets better you can change to:
green - blu / 12 sp + 10 spir
yellow - red / 12 sp + 10 haste

IMHO

[Lysdexic]

@Vellaunus

I think you're really shooting yourself in the foot by trying to lock yourself into just using this one magical tool of yours.

You're relying on probability. I don't care if you have 50% crit chance (probably impossibly high for a priest). Surge of light isn't even guaranteed on a crit.. It's exactly like our old 4pc t10. A proc... off of a proc.... that has a chance to proc....

Let's say your flash heals heal for 6k and crit for 11k. I haven't looked at your spec or gear if you posted them, but assuming a flash healing build that's probably about right.
You revolve around these instant flash heals as an emergency button to prevent people from dying. Why would you rely on something that is inherently unreliable to save lives when it can't even crit, which is what you're gearing for.
I'd much rather bubble them. I'm holy, but so what. In ICC yesterday I tested my bubbles and they came out to about 7.5k (I bubbled myself and then got hit by something, forget what, but big enough to pop the bubble in one attack). Bubbles can't crit either, but they heal for more than SoL flashes, which means I'm not "wasting" itemization on crit. I have so much nice haste that I'm casting more spells (even instants) than you per unit time.

Rotface is a great example I think of why bubble for spot emergency healing is > your flash heals (which you even admitted might not always be up when you need them most). A person with the injection who is running through the green slime to reach the big add is taking a lot of dmg.
Your flash heal hit them for 3k due to the disease.
My bubble which also can't crit (but also isn't affected by MS) still heals for 7.5k AND makes them run faster, allowing them to get out of danger faster.

If you needed any more convincing, when it comes to cross healing, a bubble will always be better than an instant flash heal, because even though your argument about instant heals contributing to less overhealing between the healers etc etc.
My bubble will never cause somebody else to overheal. Furthermore since all healers use this HealCommLib or something like that nowadays, you can see what other healers are targetting to heal. What you CANNOT see are what their instants are about to do. If somebody is in real danger, incoming Holy Shock, Riptide, and/or Swiftmend, which makes your argument sort of silly imo.

Edit: I'm also not advocating using bubble on cooldown, I'm just saying it's a much more effective tool at what you're trying to make SoL do. I take 1/2 SoL because it CAN be useful at times, and since it has a 10s or so duration I can usually have a proc available to me most of the time and just use it when I see fit.

[Lysdexic]

Edit: I'm not advocating spamming bubbles as holy. It is however a tool in our box which is better then what you want SoL to be.
I don't think you can say that haste is crappy because it makes you oom either. I just gained something like 300 haste and finally dropped my Spark of Life for the Abacus which I finally managed to get. That just means I actually have to use my cooldowns and I end the fights with less then 50% mana. That's how it should be.

Really fucking buggy forum atm. It wouldn't let me edit the post. I also kept having this annoying issue of the text box where I'm typing kept scrolling around as I was writing.

[kelevandros]

The main problem with bubbles is that although they are something that can definitely save someone if he's about to die, you can't always depend on them (similarly to how you can't depend on crits). The person might have been bubbled recently, by you or someone else. And if you are running with a disc priest, they most probably have.
I'm not advocating Surge of Light either though. Recently I abolished it from my build completely, to see how it goes. I haven't seen much change in my throughput, while the playing experience has become much smoother and I think I'll keep it for a little while.
Regarding the main topic, so far I'm going for SP or SP/haste on reds, haste on yellows and spirit/haste on blues mostly because I have the same thinking as harky (my gear is in the 251/264 range - no heroic 25 yet, and most probably it's gonna be that way for a long time).

[Deleted]

So, someone (Vellaunus) posts an intelligent, well-written, thoughtful post, dodging flame baits and avoiding abusiveness and instead posting valuable information that for a moment makes you think you are on EJ forums, not MMO-Champions normally troll infested flamefest.

Next thing to happen, a MODERATOR starts trolling him and throwing abusive language around. Great.

Something has gotten wrong somewhere. Let me quote (yes I realize that while critizing a moderator I will be banned, but as Kelesti already said "get out of my forums", so what the heck), what this Kelesti person wrote:

First off, you're confusing Paladins with Priests. Congrats, get out of my forums. Okay, now that you're still here...

If you cannot read from the context that he is NOT confusing paladins with priests, but merely made a wording error in calling "Flash Heal from surge of Light procs" for "Flash of Light", then you aren't actually trying to read and understand what he is saying. Trolling.

What. The fuck? Really. What. The fuck? Are you that bad? Really? Read the talent again. Please. Or stop playing a Priest if you're unable to.

I can't believe such language and content is not moderated. Let alone comes from a moderator. This is trolling of the worst kind.

You might be in one of those guilds that thinks 7-8 healers is optimum and barely making berserk timers is totally your DPS' fault.

Again, Kelesti is focusing on attacking the poster, not the content of the post. Kelesti is doing so by random accusations of something he/she knows nothing about (the number of healers in Vellaunus guild's raids, nor the success or reasoning of that number even if it by coincidence would turn out correct).

Again, how can you actually USE a Surge of Light Proc that crits? How can you use Empowered Renew crits?

Vellaunus explains that. Didn't you read his posts? He can use them because the are instant, and (in the case of ER) relatively small heals that will not overheal if crit.

It's a very sad day for a forum when moderators sets the tone and level as low as Kelesti just did.

[Timberwolfe]

Wow, so much wrong in this post... where do I begin? Haste is more throughput period. Crit is a mixed throughput + regen stat. Haste "only" reducing the GCD on instant casts still makes you cast those instants the EXACT SAME AMOUNT FASTER when compared to cast-time spells, unless you are at the GCD cap which is pretty damn high for holy iirc. So mentioning instant casts like you did is completely irrelevant and misleading. Also, running OOM because you are spamming instants is poor mana cooldown management. Honestly, you'd probably go OOM FASTER from spamming flash heal than renew.

Thank you. I saw that post too and started to cry.

1 other thing completely ommited from the other post is that Spirit gives crit too. Use it, mana regen at around 900is a very good thing provided your getting the majority of it from spi = more crit. Haste is a god send due to PoH and now flash heal putting a HoT on the target after getting 2xT10.

Oddly many fights that involve a lot of raid damage I very highly recomend using the ilvl200 haste proc trink if your haste is quite low.

[Deleted]

I wouldn't call it flaming. He is posting information which pretty much every priest here knows is wrong.

IF you ever read these forums AT ALL over the last few months, the consensus has always been stack haste/int and spellpower, depending on your gear level.
Crit is NEVER good for healers, ever. There is too much depending on your reliability to heal consistantly to rely on crit RNG. Two of our most used spells, Imp Renew and CoH, heal for so little anyways that crit is useless. PoM and PoH crits are useful, but thats is barely half of your spells, as the SoL procs he is so proud of cannot crit anyway.

Flash heal builds as holy have not been needed since naxx. Ulduar, the damage was bursty and PoH was needed. In ToC and ICC, more renew-favourable builds are coming out to compete on effective healing done. Sure, sniping someone about to die with an instant Flash is nice, but in NO WAY WHATSOEVER should you be relying on it. Say you manage to get 50% crit raid buffed, probably impossibly high. SoL has a 50% chance to proc (with 2 points, which most healers do not take). That means, it only has a 25% chance to proc on every spell you cast. Not great odds to have it up for me.

SoL is a sub-par heal, largely because it cannot crit. Sure, if you have it up and someone is about to die, use it. But, using it for the sake of utilising a proc is bad play. With all of the other healers in your raid, I would bet that at elast 2 others have noticed the player going to half health or whatever, and slam a heal on him. An Imp Renew, combined with the other heals thrown at him, such as rejuvs, will bring him back up quickly. It is not all about you as an individual healer, work as a team.

Regen should not be an issue unless you are new to heavy aoe or long fights, such as BQL, Sindragosa or LK. Therefore, tsacking crit for regen is a moot point. If you need more, gem int, simple.

Persisting with a point about crit after 3 (yes, 3) long and detailed posts explaining why you are wrong by two of these forums' best contributors seems like flogging a dead horse to me.

Also, @bregtann, you are flaming the moderator directly as well, and not contributing to this thread. Well done on being a hypocrite.

[Vellaunus]

What can I say? I have a haste gear set and a crit gear set. I use them in different situations but tend to get more actual healing (not including overhealing) done in my crit set for many fights (Oh my god, I finally understand the paladin reference, I mixed up the terms 'Surge of Light' and 'Flash of Light', but that is an honest mistake. Thanks for pointing that out in a civil way bregtann). I am usually the top in healing in a guild ranked 4th for progression on the server (Sind 25 and LK 10 normal complete during 5% buff) so something is working out fine for me. Regardless of if my SoL, FH, Serendipity, CoH heal tactic is standard practice or not, it does work for me (not because of the extra healing of the crit, but because of the synergy of those abilities when used properly). I am not saying crit is better than haste, just that crit works for me and I have been trying to explain how and why it has worked. Ultimately, I look for as much SP as possible. Perhaps things will be different once I get out of my 251 gear and more into the 260+ gear (I have a bit, but not there yet). Just because everyone says the world is flat does not mean it is truth.

[Danner]

My 5 copper pieces on the subject of crit for holy:

Crit isn't a bad stat for a holypriest. Bigger heals are very often overheal, but sometimes they make a major difference, and it does add up over a fight. And part from Renew, PW:Shield and SoL-fheals, all priest heals can crit, so the stat does an above-average impact on priest heals (unless you are solely spamming renew). Most importantly, this include Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing which I count as the "main" holypriest heals.

Holypriests are so weak in the single target heal department that frankly - FHeal crits doesn't matter much. It's a heal you need to cast at times to keep things alive, but the moment you fall back to it, you are not playing to your optimal as a priest. A fheal spambot is best done by rerolling a paladin, shaman or nourish-heavy druid.

"You should not rely on critical heals" - this is a natural conclusion from healers wanting control of their own situation. Relying on crit is dangerous. Increasing haste and spellpower grants potentially lower gains than increasing crit - but - it's more stable, and something you can rely on and plan for. But ultimately, crit is not a bad stat.

--

I just happen to prefer haste myself. The reason is simply:

As a holypriest, it's not really about how hard you can hit. You basically can't hit hard as a holypriest: our single target healing output officially sucks, our aoe heals have very low coefficients, and the only spells that scale well for the endgame are ProM and renew. ProM does hit hard, but have a long cooldown and is largely uncontrollable. Renew by definition does not hit hard as it is a HoT. What is left is Guardian Spirit, which is an extremely heavy hitter (if not in HPS, at least in triage) , but at a minute cooldown, it's very limited.

Since we lack the heavy hitting heal, a holypriest should instead focus on healing fast. Raidwide burst healing, triage and rapidly changing priorities is what the holypriest can offer in a world where we're otherwise at the bottom of the caste system. We have a good toolbox for doing just that. A priest's measure is thus mostly based on how fast he can get to a situation. Haste is the primary stat for achieving this.

--

But if you want to go crit-based, I don't see anything wrong with it. Priests do scale with crit. It's an option. As is going heavy spellpower. Or heavy single target healing. Or heavy intellect. Or heavy Prayer of Healing. The holypriest is flexible.

[harky]

What it comes down to is the goals of a raid healer. There are four main goals: Consistency, Stability, Throughput and Longevity.

What are your most consistent stats? Haste > Spellpower > Spirit > MP5. The benefit of these stats is always there.

What stats allow you to be more stable? Intellect > Haste > Spirit. Haste allows faster reaction time, Spirit offers a blend of stats and Intellect gives a larger window to burn mana stabilizing the raid.

What stats offer the highest throughput? Haste > Spellpower > Spirit > Crit. At lower levels this becomes Spellpower > Haste > Crit > Spirit, but as you reach high crit ratings Crit is devalued and as you gain SP Haste scales better.

What stats offer the highest longevity? Intellect > Spirit > MP5 > Crit. Crit offers tiny amounts of regen to Holy, but it does offer regen. Crit's value as regen is roughly one fifth of MP5, while spirit and MP5 are roughly equal and Intellect is nearly twice as good as either.


Crit never shows up as being a good stat for any of the things you need as a raid healer. It is not a good source of regen. It is not a good source of throughput. It is not a stat you can count on always helping. Stacking Crit is blatantly a bad stat. You only get a 1.5x scaling on crit and one of your primary casts only gets a .225x scaling on it. On top of that, if you know how crit works, you'd realize that each additional percent of crit you gain is worth less than the one before it. Crit is bad. It's really only useful up to 30%, which you will get by default in 264 gear without even trying to get crit.

[Revitalize]

Wrong! If you get a flash of light proc, you should never waste a free instant flash heal. If you cast flash heal every time you get a flash of light proc, you will be surprised how much it can contribute to your healing if you crit is high.

Wrong. If someone is about to die, I deem it worthy to use my surge of light to top them off, however, if group wide damage is occuring and no one is extremely low, its better to skip a surge of light for better priority spells such as renew, PoM, CoH, and PoH

A regular flash heal has a cast time and costs mana. Sure the flash heal you cast as a result of flash of light can't crit, but that is not the point of it. The point is that it was free and instant (How much better output can you get than that?) I rarely cast flash heal except when flash of light is up.

Just because its free and instant doesn't mean it's effective.
Most raiders now don't have mana issues so the idea behind a free and instant sub-par single target heal is pretty worthless in most cases.

Wrong again, it DOES matter for two reasons. One, every time the PoM bounces, it can crit. That means I get a flash of light proc which leads to a free instant flash heal even when I am not casting other spells. Secondly, since PoM is both reactive and not very strong, the extra healing from PoM critting is not usually wasted in the form of overhealing. Haste on the other hand gives virtually no benifit to PoM in any way.

Most of the healing from PoM gets overhealed these days with the various high levels of spellpower people have.
Making it crit more sounds just like just a ton more overhealing that I'd prefer not having.
Haste does give you benefit from PoM in a way.
You can cast GCDs faster, thus, if you just casted Renew, or CoH, you can get the PoM out faster because you had a faster GCD return.

The best part about critting on any of the CoH targets is that since it hits 6 members with low health (if possible) and CoH is a weak heal, any extra healing from the crit is not wasted in overhealing.

Circle of healing isn't a weak spell. It's the fact its affecting six different people in the raid. Next time you cast circle of healing, see how much it heals someone for. Then multiply that by six. Circle of Healing is a smart heal, but by having 25% crit raid buffed, more is generally wasted as you reach a level where crit devalues and loses it use. Youd see more benefit getting haste at that point to throw out more spells.

Never once did I say that a flash heal cast off a flash of light proc can crit. Once again, how is a moderator allowed to post something so immiture as "What. The fuck? Really. What. The fuck? Are you that bad? Really? Read the talent again. Please. Or stop playing a Priest if you're unable to." Getting back on track, I think you misunderstood when I said "Instant Flash Heals are also instant". My point there was that since a flash heal cast after a flash of light proc is instant cast (just like PoM, CoH and Renew) it once again benefits little from Haste.

You did mention flash heal being able to crit with Surge of Light. Just admite it.
You also just made another paladin reference in the priest forum.
Perhaps you're in the wrong forum?

Don't get me wrong, I would like the GCD to go down (Haste is not useless). Faster Globals does mean faster heals going out all the time; but more powerful heals from crit means I need to heal less ofter (for the same mana) and no amount of haste will bring flash heal casting time down to the instant cast time I get from Flash of Light procs. Yes, crit is not as realiable as haste, but it becomes more reliable as it gets higher (My crit is high enough that I can almost always rely on a free instant Flash heal if it looks like someone is about to die.)

After reading the bolded part of this, you gave me the biggest facepalm in a long while.
Your problem is you're using flash heal too much and not worrying about balancing the raids health through renews and prayer of healing.
GCD renews spread the raid is more helpful then a single target sub-par heal on one person.
It's reliable when needed, but its not on every given surge of light proc.

Also, don't forget, casting spells 20% faster also means you are burning through mana 20% faster. I am currently casting fast enough without haste to do my job well (mostly because almost nothing I cast has a cast time). During the GCD time is usually where I am evaluating who would best benefit from my next heal anyways (but as I said, I would still like haste to lower GCD a bit).

No, it doesn't mean you burn 20% mana faster, where do you get your god awful logic?
And when do people care about their mana pool these days?

I never said surge of light or the flash of light cast after it crits.

Sup paladin.

My target of the empowered renew is often the player with the least health. The player with the least health usually is not fully healed from the instant heal of improved renew, thus, if empowered renew does crit, that healing from the crit is not wasted in the form of overhealing. Also, by critting at all with the improved renew, I have a 50% chance to immediately get a free instant cast of Flash Heal through Flash of Light.

That's because you're not the only other healer in the raid, you have to account that other people are going to be other too. How are you going to argue that overhealing on a person is not wasted?
That's like saying he has more health than you actually healed him for.

True enough, but I need reliable fast heals when dealing with under-geared and under-skilled pugs so I do like haste there.

Overusing flash heal based off my assumption.

The fastest heal to cast when someone is about to die is an instant cast spell. Using anything with a casting time (even one that is shortened by haste) can result in the player dying before receiving the next heal. When multiple targets are in eminent danger of death, yes haste will allow you to get to that next target faster, but other healers in a compitant raid will be working on those others while you are working on healing your current target. There are times where so much healing has to be done so fast however that Haste wins outright, this is (like I said before) times where Haste and PoH would be great.

FYI, and read carefully...
Haste affects instant cast spells too.
For god's sakes, the faster your gcd, the more spells you will dish out in a given set time.
This isn't rocket surgery.

I see it very differently. Many classes need to cast to heal. My instant heals are instantly visible thus other healers are less likely to heal over my heal (you don't have two players with casting times find out they are healing the same target only after both of their heals go off at the end of the cast). With my build, I am never waiting, I am using any time between my regular CoH, PoH and improved renews with instant free Flash Heals. A haste caster is filling in the time between cooldowns usually with more renews (often on target that do not need the heals as much as the melee for example, but it is a waste to cast renew again on a target you just cast it on). I am filling in the time between cooldowns with a reliable source of free instant flash heals (I cannot rely on almost always having a free instant flash heal unless my crit is very high). My GCD may be longer than a haste caster, but less of my healing is wasted in over-healing, I am using far less mana and I am using a more realiable heal (instant free Flash Heal instead of improved renew or hasted flash heal) for spot heals.

If your heal is overhealed through the crit, wouldn't it make sense to get more haste so you can heal more of the raid over a given time instead of one person.

One thing I did not mention before as well is that I love to stack serendipity with my flash healing for especially a faster casting PoH. Flash Heal is not a spell I like to cast much except when it is under the effect of flash of light. Crit ultimately hugely hastes my PoH *and rarely GH* through instant free casts of Flash Heal without using the haste stat.

Stacking serendipity isn't a huge concern anymore in 3.3, its more about raid stability through HoTs.

This is indeed a bad situation, which is exactly why I need my crit to be high enough for it to be relied on. The big "oh crap" button is the fact that Flash of Light is almost always up. On the rare occasions it is not the case, I need to rely on my other healers which is why this is not as good in 5 or 10 man. In 25 man though, my heals heal for more and cost far less mana than a haste priest which lowers the healing burden of the other healers. A hasted priest can heal as much as me through sheer speed of casts, but it will cost them a heck of a lot more mana to do it.

<Assuming mana matters in 25 mans.
Who cares how much mana they're going through, they're healing more effectively and more of the raid than someone who isn't.
Mana doesnt matter, thus people focus on increasing their EFFECTIVE HPS, not shitty overhealing.
Also, can you PLEASE stop saying flash of light?
It's giving me a case of the facepalm.

Be respectful. You understand the priest class well so express it and discuss it like an adult. Just like I am not always correct, nor are you. That is why this should remain a civil discussion free of "Oh my god, learn to play your class. You are wrong, I am right, so we will not discuss anything". Haste is not a bad stat, but nor is crit used the way that I use it. As for "Read Surge of Ligh again", both of us understand how it works, I think you may have not understood some of my points which I hope to have clarified.

The reason Kelesti got so god awfully mad is because your ignorance and non-common sense arguments on getting more crit instead of haste.

[Lucablight]

a mod still shouldn't react like that.

[harky]

Expecting mod's to not be human is almost as logical as expecting people to understand sarcasm on forums, I guess. :

I honestly don't see anything out of line. Dealing with trolls harshly is a positive trait for a mod, not a negative.

[Vellaunus]

[quote=Revitalize ]
You did mention flash heal being able to crit with Surge of Light. Just admite it.
You also just made another paladin reference in the priest forum.
Perhaps you're in the wrong forum?After reading the bolded part of this, you gave me the biggest facepalm in a long while.

[quote=Revitalize ]Quote me saying "Surge of Light causes my flash heal to proc". You can't because I never said it, you are just trying to make me look bad for no reason instead of having a conversation. As for mixing up the terms Surge of Light and Flash of Light, anyone with half a brain cell knows I mixed up the terms. Sorry for not being perfect.

Your problem is you're using flash heal too much and not worrying about balancing the raids health through renews and prayer of healing.

Flash heal is not a priority spell, I just use it a lot in between CoH, PoM and renews... which I already said. It also speeds up PoH and GH a lot through serendipity for free. The people on these boards seem to like putting words in my mouth that I did not say and conviniently leave out quotes everytime this is the case.

GCD renews spread the raid is more helpful then a single target sub-par heal on one person.
It's reliable when needed, but its not on every given surge of light proc.No, it doesn't mean you burn 20% mana faster, where do you get your god awful logic?

If you are casting twice as many spells due to haste, you are using twice the mana. This is a VERY simple fact. If you are casting 20% more spells due to haste, you are using 20% more mana.

And when do people care about their mana pool these days?Sup paladin.
That's because you're not the only other healer in the raid, you have to account that other people are going to be other too. How are you going to argue that overhealing on a person is not wasted?
That's like saying he has more health than you actually healed him for.
Overusing flash heal based off my assumption.FYI, and read carefully...
Haste affects instant cast spells too.
For god's sakes, the faster your gcd, the more spells you will dish out in a given set time.
This isn't rocket surgery.If your heal is overhealed through the crit, wouldn't it make sense to get more haste so you can heal more of the raid over a given time instead of one person.Stacking serendipity isn't a huge concern anymore in 3.3, its more about raid stability through HoTs.

Now I know I am talking to a brick wall, you are arguing points I agree with, so you are neither reading nor comprehending what I wrote. This part is all troll. Present some new ideas man. I said I like the GCD cooldown from haste on my instants. I even admitted to using haste for certain fights (I just used my haste set for the dogs in ICC25 today). How am I am supposed to argue that haste is ALWAYS better when my crit set gives me better healing on more than half my fights though. I tested it. It is the case. I may have to do with the synergy of the other healers and the way I play holy, but it is undeniable that crit is working just fine for me on many 25 man content.

I outpreform all the other healers I know because I am flexible. I do not go (Haste is always better than crit), I adapt to my situation and use tools I have to the best of my ability. Why do I want haste over crit on a fight where I really don't need to cast 20% faster?

<Assuming mana matters in 25 mans.
Who cares how much mana they're going through, they're healing more effectively and more of the raid than someone who isn't.
Mana doesnt matter, thus people focus on increasing their EFFECTIVE HPS, not shitty overhealing.
Also, can you PLEASE stop saying flash of light?
It's giving me a case of the facepalm.
The reason Kelesti got so god awfully mad is because your ignorance and non-common sense arguments on getting more crit instead of haste.

I am not overhealing and I already explained why (I sit at about 20-30% overheal which is not bad). The short version being that when you cast an instant spell, you know that a small heal like CoH (it IS a small heal to each of the 6 targets individually, but the overall healing is big) will not waste crits as long as you know that CoH without a crit hit will not fully heal the 6 targets it hits. As for saying flash of light, I am embarrased about that, but it would not have happened again if someone would have civilly mentioned my terminology mistake like one of the previous posters did. Although Kelesti's conduct was not at all appropriate as a forum mod (human or not, her job is to prevent the very comments she made), she at least made good arguments when she was not misunderstanding my point of view.

I am out of steam for this subject. Perhaps I will post a parse of ICC 25 this weekend and show you fights where I did more with crit gear and others where I was better off with my haste set, but for now this post has become a flamefest full of hateful people who want to look smarter by being yesmen to the norm instead of having an interesting conversation about the possible benifits of crit.

[harky]

Honestly, Vellanous, the mistake your making is really simple: You think over-healing matters, so you're intentionally making an effort to reduce over-healing.

The truth is that over-healing is a fact of life in Wrath. Most good healers are at 40%+ over-healing and in many cases they'll be at 60%+ over-healing. The issue is that no one cares. You are not running out of mana, so over-healing is a non-issue. If you have low over-healing it's almost always because you are not healing as actively as you should be.

We're stacking haste because it scales better than crit. It does for all healers until you GCD cap and for many it's still better well beyond that... We're avoiding crit because when being aggressive on healing crit translates into over-healing and while over-healing doesn't actually matter, it also doesn't increase effective healing, which is the only thing we care about.

That's where it stands: Good healers in Wrath are extremely aggressive. It's not about sniping, it's about making the most of every second of every fight. They have numbers in their mind of how much they know they will heal and as soon as someone hits that amount they start healing. It's all about non-stop very fast paced healing using numbers we can rely on. Crit is just not reliable for that type of healing in the least. Crit is only reliable when doing rapid repeated heals on single targets with very small heals. It was absolutely amazing in TBC for Paladins and it hasn't been a worthwhile healing stat since.

[Kelesti]

Well, harky, that last line is almost true. I mean, in Naxxramas for 3.0.2, running crit for non stop Holy Concentration/Surge of Light procs (with the old school Serendipity) and you'd gain mana off the old model, instead of losing it while spamming Flash Heal. :P

It was semi-useful there, but yeah...

[Manhands]

I think Vell's comment about 20-30% overheal might explain why he feels so right. What if you played with so-so healers, improperly geared tanks, and your players failed to fight mechanics consistently? Then, everyone's health would be generally lower than with a decent group, and that crit would not be as wasted on overheal. However, if you play with a group who has a proper strat, gears correctly for their role, and has a seasoned healing core with good healing assignments, *any* healer's job would best be served with haste.

[harky]

Well, harky, that last line is almost true. I mean, in Naxxramas for 3.0.2, running crit for non stop Holy Concentration/Surge of Light procs (with the old school Serendipity) and you'd gain mana off the old model, instead of losing it while spamming Flash Heal. :P

It was semi-useful there, but yeah...

Pfft. I stacked Int 100% in Naxx. I was straight +20 Int gems except for Int/Spi and one SP/Int to activated IED. :P