Holy Priest "Serendipity" Mechanic broken

[Oathanvil]

I have put this post off for to long and I am of the personnel opinion that someone needs to at least bring the issue forward so people can discuss it.

I play a Holy Priest not under my forum name on Elune. I have an item lv now of 347 so just on the lever point to T11 gear. I have managed to make most of the soft caps for Intel, Spirit, Haste the primary required ability's.

My issue with the build is a hidden flaw in the Talent tree an ability that seems relatively harmless for the Holy Spec build until you bother to really take a look at it.

The Talent is called "Serendipity" A state of mind the Priest will enter in order to take advantage of two other cast ability's that borrow a little time, IE increase spell casting haste and reduce the cost of the spells themselves.

The talent tree ability for "serendipity" says quote!

When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell cast time is reduced by 20% and mana cost reduced by 10%. Stacks up to 2 times. Last 20 seconds or until Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing is cast.

This sounds great right! Wrong! Binding Heal with a 1.31 cast time or Flash Heal also a 1.31 cast time both have a mana cost of 5767 to cast, if you cast either twice to reach a "serendipity state" level 2 that will cost you 11534 total mana.

The cost to cast "greater Heal" is only 5559 and a normal cast time of 2.18 and it heals for 19088.

The cost to cast "Prayer of Healing" is only 5353 and a normal cast time of 2.18 seconds and heals your party that are within 30 yards for an undisclosed tool tip value?

Why would I spend 208-416 extra mana or 414-828 extra mana to get a .2% cast time increase on "greater heal" or Prayer of Mending"?

This brings up another obvious issue the development team has again over looked! They have nerfed the Priests ability to re generate mana in combat to next to nothing even with very high Spirit and Intel the regen process is none existent. If that process was working and its not it might make sense to use Serendipity in an emergency even to keep a direct heal on a tank or party but under the current total loss of mana regeneration the ability is again broken and useless.

I have a Haste value on my priest of +14.70 = 1455, +11.36. The recommended soft cap in T11 gear for haste is 12.5% It makes no sense at all why Blizzard would take the only Ability in the Holy spec tree mechanic and make it next to worthless to use and it is also the only ability by casting "Flash Heal" or " Binding Heal" that enables an Action Bar PROC of ANY ability's for Holy Spec priest.

I have to say this is not acceptable and I do not think a developer at Blizzard had his cup of coffee before he missed this all so obvious waste of the Holy Priests only real Talent Tree casting Mechanic.

I have dropped "Serendipity" as a Talent out of the talent tree and placed 1 point in "Blessed Resilience" in order to achieve 31 points in "holy" spec so I can move 1 point over to Discipline tree and Boost "Improved Power Word: Shield. That just had it's 30 second duration timer reduced to 10 seconds on yet another Blizzard Nerf.
I also have as a carry over 3 points spent in Twin Disciplines and 3 points spent in "Mental Agility" and "Darkness"

However those are not part of the original issue in regards to the failure of Blizzard to realize they have BOKEN the Holy priests "Serendipity" ability and Mechanic.

These little hidden Nerfs behind the Up front patch notes are starting to wear thin with many people not just myself.

Warhammer online lost 25% of their fan base and eventually the game has all but closed when they removed a Bright Wizard Mechanic of "Scorched Earth" this was the ability to build combustion in order to use just about any ability they had. Not only did they remove its ability to generate Combustion it then cost combustion to then use the spell.

Many of the players that rolled that class on Wars live release date of sept 18 2007 walked away from the game at that point. More or less dooming the MMO to final destruction in 2010

I guess what I am trying to say without making it look like a Vineyard full of wine is why are the developers back dooring the ability's of classes in broad daylight with no regard to the players that are supposed to enjoy playing them.

If they make it none enjoyable to play people move on. I know in Warcraft that means less then little in grounds of player count, but just the same it would be nice to have a little TRUST in the people that are part of the development team, and not feel complete disgust for them.

[Devotions]

First of all, the "doom and gloom" attitude at the end of your post is tiresome. I understand you're mad as hell and not going to take it any more, but save the "This will KILL WOW" nonsense. No, it won't.

As far as the usefulness of Serendipity - in heroic dungeons where things are easy, sure perhaps there are better places to spend your talent points.

When you step into a raid, you'll see that there are times where Binding Heal (and to a lesser extent in normal modes Flash Heal) is the BEST tool for the job; you take damage, someone else takes damage, Binding Heal will efficiently deal with the problem. As an added bonus, for casting Binding Heal, your next Prayer of Healing (your bread and butter spell as a raid healer) will be a bit quicker.

Sometimes you can even keep Serendipity stacked with judicious use of Binding Heal to make your next Prayer of Healing - cast after a predictable damage burst (which are extremely common in this raiding tier) - VERY fast.

Serendipity's an added bonus; in a heavy damage phase, it's somewhat laughable to think you can make EVERY PoH hasted with it - you just can't.

[PlatedPriest]

if you are unhappy with priest healing mechanics why don't you try one of the other 4 healing specs in the game.
and btw serendipity has saved my ass many times.

when either the tank is dying VERY fast 2 FH -> GH will get him back up to the safe zone very quickly

everyone is taking an aoe beating. i get knocked low so i throw in some BH followed by a PoH

but like i said before. if you are unhappy with how holy priest work try making a paladin or something.

[ELYPOP]

Moved to the Priest Forums.

[Hydrochlorik]

I personally have been shadow for most of Cataclysm, but I have had to heal for some of our raids. So for those who are healing full time, feel free to correct me!

Greater Heal and PoH should only be used when necessary, and not spammed, that is why Serendipity has a 20 second timer so you have the chance to wait and use it when necessary.Now, combine that with the Surge of Light talent: 6% chance when casting heal/flash heal/greater heal to cause your next flash heal to be instant *and* cost no mana. So if you are using Renew, CoH and PoM as you should and using Heal as a filler you should be getting procs from SoL to cast your free flash heal to gain the mana and cast time reduction of Greater Heal/PoH

[Deleted]

You are completely missing the point of the talent, you don't cast Flash Heal to get into Serendipity state, you cast Flash Heal if you get a SoL proc or if the tank is taking damage that calls for Flash Heal. Serendipity is just a bonus, a interesting and fun bonus too IMO.

Also, if you're complaining about Holy and Disc nerfs then I don't think you have done much raiding in Cata, Priests have been OP at points of the expansion and we got nerfed for it, we are now in an extremely nice place with a fun class that has a huge variety of tools.

[Oathanvil]

You are completely missing the point of the talent, you don't cast Flash Heal to get into Serendipity state, you cast Flash Heal if you get a SoL proc or if the tank is taking damage that calls for Flash Heal. Serendipity is just a bonus, a interesting and fun bonus too IMO.

Also, if you're complaining about Holy and Disc nerfs then I don't think you have done much raiding in Cata, Priests have been OP at points of the expansion and we got nerfed for it, we are now in an extremely nice place with a fun class that has a huge variety of tools.

I think you need to read my whole post not skim it because you missed the quote on how to enter Serendipity state and yes its done by using flash heal or Binding Heal.

With the class not able to replace combat mana the use of Serendipity that would consume all of your top end mana in 2 casts in order to gain a little haste .2% that is no longer present at any Priest haste rating over 12.5%.

None of the responses by any of the posters to date is valid they all understand that numbers don't lie and human emotion on their part is neither scientific or useful.
You can have all the emotion about something you want like the heat tiles falling off the space shuttle! To an Engineer by the numbers this means 6 Astronauts will die and feeling bad about it wont change that fact!

[Skarrd]

Sup. Binding heal is really god damn efficient. How are you?

[ruzhy6]

Actually every reply has been correct. You are the one, OP, who is showing their raiding inexperience. If you and another person have taken damage, Binding Heal is as efficient as Heal and has the bonus of buffing the HPM and HPS of Greater Heal and POH. You don't HAVE to cast Binding Heal before using Greater Heal or POH. You also shouldn't cast Binding Heal if you yourself have not taken damage. SoL procs off your regularly casted heals, so when it is free instant Flash Heal, that will also proc Serendipity as a bonus.

That was my response if you are serious.

You however definately smell of troll. Especially considering the mentioning of 12.5% so you aren't completely clueless, but adding it in as if haste wouldnt help a Greater Heal cast time.


Hydro: In low damage situations, yea that is how it is. However in most encounters Greater Heal (which btw is pretty good HPM) and POH (which is actually great HPM if everyone is damage) are your main heals.

[Deleted]

I think you need to read my whole post not skim it because you missed the quote on how to enter Serendipity state and yes its done by using flash heal or Binding Heal.

With the class not able to replace combat mana the use of Serendipity that would consume all of your top end mana in 2 casts in order to gain a little haste .2% that is no longer present at any Priest haste rating over 12.5%.

None of the responses by any of the posters to date is valid they all understand that numbers don't lie and human emotion on their part is neither scientific or useful.
You can have all the emotion about something you want like the heat tiles falling off the space shuttle! To an Engineer by the numbers this means 6 Astronauts will die and feeling bad about it wont change that fact!

I'm not sure what you are trying to say say, your metaphors are very confusing.

You don't "use" Serendipity, it's not made to regen mana, we have plenty of other things for that. It's a bonus when you do get it.

You however definately smell of troll. Especially considering the mentioning of 12.5% so you aren't completely clueless, but adding it in as if haste wouldnt help a Greater Heal cast time.

I was thinking of this as a possibility, but writing out something so long just to troll goes so far beyond sad that I think he would just be trolling himself.

[Deleted]

I think you need to read my whole post not skim it because you missed the quote on how to enter Serendipity state and yes its done by using flash heal or Binding Heal.

With the class not able to replace combat mana the use of Serendipity that would consume all of your top end mana in 2 casts in order to gain a little haste .2% that is no longer present at any Priest haste rating over 12.5%.

None of the responses by any of the posters to date is valid they all understand that numbers don't lie and human emotion on their part is neither scientific or useful.
You can have all the emotion about something you want like the heat tiles falling off the space shuttle! To an Engineer by the numbers this means 6 Astronauts will die and feeling bad about wont change facts!

I think you missed his point. He said "you cast Flash Heal if you get a SoL proc". That means your FH is Freeand you get 1/2 Serendipity stacks as a bonus.
Serendipity is a bonus talent that gives you options should you need them. It's not designed to have you spam FH or BH until the cows come home so you can get off a faster GH or PoH every second cast. As you say, it simply isn't sustainable under current mana conditions. So instead of trying to force serendipity to be a core of your casting 'rotation', just view it as a nice bonus that comes along by RNG (SoLd FH) or when you need it most (when FH or BH are situationally superior) due to large amounts of incoming single target or raid wide damage.

[Oathanvil]

I think you missed his point. He said "you cast Flash Heal if you get a SoL proc". That means your FH is Freeand you get 1/2 Serendipity stacks as a bonus.
Serendipity is a bonus talent that gives you options should you need them. It's not designed to have you spam FH or BH until the cows come home so you can get off a faster GH or PoH every second cast. As you say, it simply isn't sustainable under current mana conditions. So instead of trying to force serendipity to be a core of your casting 'rotation', just view it as a nice bonus that comes along by RNG (SoLd FH) or when you need it most (when FH or BH are situationally superior) due to large amounts of incoming single target or raid wide damage.

Thank you for taking the time to read the post, it's unfortunate that most of the replies are from players that cant read more then one paragraph and miss the whole posts intent. If it was made any less clear they would walk off a 5th floor parking garage thinking it was an entrance to starbucks.

And of course you are right it would be nice to have Serendipity from time to time and use it and you can load it any time you wish by casting Flash heal once or twice to obtain Serendipity lv1 or 2.

I don't think these reply posters even know how to play their own class or they would know this! and from every post they made they missed it.

So as I said in the original post I removed the 2 points spent worthlessly in the talent tree that enables the Serendipity ability! and used them in more useful places like the bubble for the tank and a little self love healing from Blessed resilience.

Still the fact remains with the mana pool removed and Serendipity costing more to cast then it gives in returns Blizzard has broken the Mechanic of the ability and let it hang out there like a giant Wart!

[Maxpowr]

Out of all the talents to complain about, you pick serendipity? With the new SoL, it actually has a much better use than in 4.0.3. I feel he is trolling also but I would need to see his tusks to be sure.

I can tell you are a newbie when it comes to hpriest healing. 12.5% haste is the RENEW softcap for an extra tick. Many raiding Hpriests do in fact have more haste than that when buffed. I sit around 16% haste in raids. I don't get how serendipity plays any affect on that.

Holy priests have so much passive regen it isn't even funny. Throw in a manatide and it should be next to impossible to go OoM if you are playing correctly. Spamming FH or BH for serendipity procs is not proper play.

[Deleted]

Thank you for taking the time to read the post, it's unfortunate that most of the replies are from players that cant read more then one paragraph and miss the whole posts intent. If it was made any less clear they would walk off a 5th floor parking garage thinking it was an entrance to starbucks.

And of course you are right it would be nice to have Serendipity from time to time and use it and you can load it any time you wish by casting Flash heal once or twice to obtain Serendipity lv1 or 2.

I don't think these reply posters even know how to play their own class or they would know this! and from every post they made they missed it.

So as I said in the original post I removed the 2 points spent worthlessly in the talent tree that enables the Serendipity ability! and used them in more useful places like the bubble for the tank and a little self love healing from Blessed resilience.

Still the fact remains with the mana pool removed and Serendipity costing more to cast then it gives in returns Blizzard has broken the Mechanic of the ability and let it hang out there like a giant Wart!

I'm outta here, normally I would say well done but that much typing just for 2 people?

[Desminn]

Still the fact remains with the mana pool removed and Serendipity costing more to cast then it gives in returns Blizzard has broken the Mechanic of the ability and let it hang out there like a giant Wart!

...i dont think the talent is ment to RETURN anything. its just a bonus for when ever you do need to use FH or BH. sort of like how surge of light gives a proc'd bonus to use FH, which will work in conjunction with serendipity.

[openair]

You are completely missing the point of the talent, you don't cast Flash Heal to get into Serendipity state, you cast Flash Heal if you get a SoL proc or if the tank is taking damage that calls for Flash Heal. Serendipity is just a bonus, a interesting and fun bonus too IMO.

Also, if you're complaining about Holy and Disc nerfs then I don't think you have done much raiding in Cata, Priests have been OP at points of the expansion and we got nerfed for it, we are now in an extremely nice place with a fun class that has a huge variety of tools.

This. Serendipity is a throughput buff that you either receive for free from SoL procs, or when you need it most (flash heals needed). Those are the only times you should be casting flash heal anyway. Either way even 1 point in serendipity is still a better pve choice then 1 point in blessed resil! lol But if you are still playing like wotlk, casting flash heal JUST TO STACK serendipity, its time to wake up and realise this is not wotlk anymore. If you need a greater heal, throw a greater heal, if you happen to have serendipity up already, BONUS, if not, 2/10ths of a second makes little difference in cata.

[Vook]

You are completely missing the point of the talent, you don't cast Flash Heal to get into Serendipity state, you cast Flash Heal if you get a SoL proc or if the tank is taking damage that calls for Flash Heal. Serendipity is just a bonus, a interesting and fun bonus too IMO.

^This. Serendipity is not meant to be some super-duper-ultra efficient mechanic, it's a little boost for when you use your emergency heals. Now, what was that you were saying about everyone here not knowing how to play a Priest...?

/thread

[Deleted]

News just in, Situational talent is situational, forums are in uproar about a talent thats very useful some of the time and not so useful others.
Other than the fact that was blizzards design plan from the start so you can customise talent trees to how you want to heal(not the time to debate whether or not they succeeded) this is them getting it right, the fact that you look at it and think its useless and others loves it, its kinda the point.(yes i know it was around long before new talent trees but im glad it stayed) there are plenty of times this is useful,most obviously being on chimeron when your assigned to healing slimes, binding and to a lesser extent flash are your friend here. Then you have a hasted PoH for massacre. Nice very nice.

To me personally it feels like a little back because most times your forced into flash you've made a mistake or there's heavy healing and you need to flash your next PoH is hasted, or GH ofc, but yea the mechanic is far from broken

[Deleted]

I'm honestly lost in what this is all about. Serendipty is not a "State" it's a Buff you gain from using Flash Heal. Yes, I would spend that extra mana in order for those "OMG WTF MOMENTS" just because you maybe wouldn't have landed that heal the tank could have died. Hard Modes tend to offer those moment alot, Halfus HC comes to mind when I play Holy since the tank damage at the start is huge or if someone needs to be topped up fast after Roar.

Your point of Serendipty seems like it is intended to be a mana save

"Still the fact remains with the mana pool removed and Serendipity costing more to cast then it gives in returns Blizzard has broken the Mechanic of the ability and let it hang out there like a giant Wart!"

Serendipity doesn't cost more to cast, it's just that we might find Flash Heal x2 + a Hasted Greater Heal more situational depending on what situation you're in. It's not a broken Mechanic of Ability, I find it's use and you probably need to. If your raid dies, it's your fault if your heal didn't land in time.

Serendipity is a BUFF we gain from the use of Flash Heal/Binding Heal. I'm explaining once again that it's not increased cost. ( Our quick "OHSHIT OMFG moment" heals were intended to be expensive) the thing is that Priests get more of a bonus than what the other healers do. ( Well let's say paladin's FoL on Beacon targets etc).

I'm sorry if I lost your point of view but I don't really see the actual issue even if you've stated several examples.

[Deleted]

its not like there is a better place to spend those points...

its a utility talent, the only thing is that its like the best utility talent we have, its really a nice quick burst healing ( FH - FH - GH or even FH - GH )