Narugh

One problem with that is the massive advantage a raid with shadow priests have. If the raid would profit stacking holy priests the same way as stacking paladins then you would suddenly raid with 6 priests in a 25 man raid. Druid are almost similar, but not as extreme. You can raid without feral OT but few raid without shadow priests. On the other hand, paladins and shamans have offspecs that can be nice but not to the same extent as the other two.

So using one feral druid and one resto druid, 2 shadow priests and one holy seems to fit nicely in how popular those two classes are. I would rather see that the tables were turned and shamans/paladins had those roles and you had advantage stacking priests and druids instead, but that would require some massive changes.

 

syeren

In my opinion, and judging from a lot of people noticing that pretty much ever healer class has become specialized in a healing style, the whole ideology behind a Priest's healing methods (Jack of All Trades, Master of none) is currently flawed within the encounter designs (for the most part,) and the ability of the players behind the other classes in your raids.

We don't bring anything to to the combat of the raid, we bring two buffs of which only one is useful for everything, where as every other class brings some amazing utility (you could argue that Paladins don't bring combat utility, but Blessings are amazing, and yes BoP and the like can be used mid-combat,) while being able to do whatever they specialize in better. So if you have very capable players on your Resto Shamans, Resto Druids, and Holy Paladins, you have no real need for anymore than 1 priest.

As for the poster who pointed out that priests make for amazing 'reactive' healers, I would have to agree, but if you're in a situation where your being forced to use all your reactive heals, then there is something wrong (for the most part / most encounters,) with your other healers.

I do think it would be a nice to give Holy Priests some stronger raid synergy, as we don't really bring anything to justify bringing more than one.

As for my raiding guild, we tend to bring 2 raiding Holy Priests, and that isn't my choice, as I would rather take another druid over the second Holy Priest, but I can't really offer my criticism and back it up without any form of morality check on myself by the other officers, as I am one of those Holy Priests.

 

Oren

Thats actually a decent idea, although I can see some negative pvp implications etc. That being said, I don't think 41 holy is necessarily the place for it. That issue is twofold. Foremost, is that it would conflict with IDS, which is actually a fairly substantial dps boost even though it is largely unnoticed, and trading one boost for another like that is counterproductive(even though your idea would most likely be more overall dps). The second issue, is that with a lot of the raid encounters out right now, and the re tuned mana cost, CoH is finally useful. Tons of encounters in SSC and even more so in The Eye provide the opportunity to get great usage out of it. Ideally in regard to the suggestion, and with respect to numbers of class per raid and min/maxing, you would have one priest up all the way through holy, and the other being up into disc for IDS anyway being able to pick up mega-super-PI-whatever-thing.

Additionally, to respond to what you said. Nerfing other classes is NOT a working alternative. Then no one wins. I for one, have no interest in gimping my raid force for my sole benefit, even if not doing so leaves me on the bench. There are two real, clear solutions. One, is to find some way to add a damage buff to the priest class. The other, and my suggestion to anyone feeling the knife prick, is to play your freaking heart out, so that YOUR presence is felt, and YOUR addition to the raid is clear.

 

Idefix

And what about survivalability? With Oomcloth set and the lack of +stamina generally priests die like flies...

 

Dawme

I know that priests can heal tanks, or can heal raids, or whatever, I've been a holy priest for 2 years and i damn know the class can do it. However, paladins beats us in single target healing, shaman beats us in aoe healing, druids beat us in raid healing with hots, that's just facts ! And at the end of the day, what makes the priest a distinct healer are these wonderfull skills : pom, shield, flash. Because they are unique and this is something that others healers can't do.
But like somebody said, the real ennemies of holy priests are shadow priests indeed. We, in fact, bring more priests than shamans or druids in a raid, it's just that 2 are shadow and 1 holy.

 

Bokchoy

Suppose a 25-man raid group is aiming for the optimal raid group, and has a choice between which healing classes they want to bring.

-The first Paladin they bring provides one set of blessings. The second Paladin allows each raid member to have two blessings. The third Paladin allows a third blessing.
-The first Shaman provides totems and Bloodlust for one group. Each additional Shaman provides totems and Bloodlust for one additional group.
-The first Druid provides the raid group with a Rebirth and an Innervate. Each additional Druid gives yet another Rebirth and Innervate.
-The first Priest provides the raid group with (Improved) Divine Spirit. However, unlike the three other healing classes, having additional Holy Priests provides no cumulative non-healing benefits whatsoever.

Thus, there is no incentive to bring more than one Holy Priest, when you can stack the raid with other healing classes who have cumulative benefits. THAT is why the role of Holy Priests has diminished in raids.


For the record:

Yes, each healing class has their advantages and disadvantages. Paladins excel at single-target healing. Shamans excel at multi-target healing. Overall, I think Priest is the strongest healer out of the four healing classes. Unfortunately, it's not always enough to warrant losing the benefits of multiple Paladin/Shaman/Druid. It's still viable to bring a second Holy Priest. Circle of Healing is still great. However, in the end, I think an optimally-designed raid prioritizes three Blessings, multiple sets of totems/lusts, and multiple CR's over a second Priest.

 

Towneh

We use 2 holy priests for the majority of raids, one has imp divine spirit and the other circle of healing, along with 2 shadow priests to make up 4 priest spots. I'ld encourage all holy priests to take a serious look at their survivability from stamina in raids as taking part in encounters with primal mooncloth just isn't viable at end game raiding in Hyjal and Black Temple.

 

Bokchoy

Primal Mooncloth Set is great, IMO. It's not great in a fight like High Warlord Naj'entus, because that fight requires many classes to equip gear that they would not normally equip in other fights. Primal Mooncloth will severely hinder your survivability for the Naj'entus fight, but that doesn't make it a bad set. Main Tanking Hydross in Full Tier 5 isn't optimal for a Warrior either, but it's still a great tanking set.

 

Towneh

Yeah, that's a bad example, which is why I edited my post quickly before anyone had noticed!

My point was is that since we gave our holy priests some stamina-focused healing gear, we have drastically cut down on the amount of spirit of redemption we usually see in raids

 

Tallens

The problem as some of you have stated is not the priest as a healing monster, the problem is, that people are measured in "what they bring a raid".

Healing Priests Brings very few buffs.
+ xx SPI
+ 10%/SPI = damage/healing
+ 102 STA
+ 25% Armor bonus on Heal crits

Beyond that they offer AoE, single healing and much more.
Priest drawbacks is that "all" of this versatility comes at the cost of survivability.

I have with +1900 something healing no problem keeping things alive, I dont die out on mana pool unless I spam healing like a madman, I do the job of MT healer and Raid Healer equally well, but I just dont bring the utility to keep up with say a paladin, who brings alot more to the raid, i case of survivability(1), Staying Power(2) and powerful at healing, what they dont have is what is not much needed cus that's where the Shamans come ind.

I wont make this into a rant, about what the priest lacks in the raids of today, but fact is... that it makes more sense to bring fewer healing priests than before - being a horde myself paladin was unheard of, and now we have them I can understand why the alliance had more progress in PvE than horde had, I dont know what the alliance did about the paladin <> priest standoff but I find that with the 25 man limit this has just enchanced the fact that paladins work better in raids than priest in case of Utility and healing power, and survivability of a paladin is so much more "over teh top" than a priest could ever hope for. (ie. a paladin rare dies from a mob cleave, can bobble out of bad tides, and such, where as the priest often just dies)

Like "Bokchoy" said one priest who can buff both SPI and STA, is fine, but there's no bonus in taking more...

... and I'd like to agree with "Towneh" on the subject that we dont have the survivability with primal mooncloth as we might have had had we some better STA gear, but facts show us that we need the extra healing/mana regen to do our job, if we dont have it, we might as well just stand outside instances waiting to buff parties, and their paladin/shaman/druids before _they_ go raiding... that would be a sad'n sorry story to tell the kids and grand kids. Then again I havn't been to BT so I cant say if the lack of STA is a hinderence there, but so far in SSc Its the only reason one can ever be considered in the eyes of the hybrids.

To top off, the main question, the topic, "holy Priests usage in raids" the SPI buff is awesome, but the STA buff even a shadow priest can bring, so we are worse off than before TBC, though still viable, but not in the same degree as before. - most guilds would bring 1 Healing priest, but the guilds that bring more than 2 Priests are according to my knowledge, among the few.

----------
Clarifying what I mean by:
- Survivability(1) = by this I mean the ability to stay in the fight and alive even though things pile up.
- Staying Power(2) = By this i mean the ability to stay active, doing your job, ie. Healing and buffing doing long fights.

 

Idefix

So, to sum up, I see that most of the people agree that 1 holy priest per raid is the usual and it should be... That makes me feel rather uncomfortable and unsure about my raiding future =\.

 

Mercy

I'm in a guild that often brings a large number of priests. I think our first and thus far only Hydross kill included 6 priests->3 Holy, 3 Shadow.

But, like a number of other guilds, this is mostly due to a lack of choice. We currently have one shaman, who is situationally willing to spec resto, one resto druid and 2-4 paladins, only 2 of whom are really geared for the task. However, we have 4+ Holy priests, 3 of whom are dedicated, geared to the teeth and have shown good gameplay.

Our GM rerolled from his priest to a paladin for many of the aforementioned reasons in the earlier posts. The blessings just can't be beaten and the raid does not benefit as much from another holy as it does from a paladin.

I also agree that priests are a healing machine. I and several other of our priests have been known to top our extremely skilled paladins on a number of fights, but their raid utility combined with their healing power and regeneration is superior to mine in a way that I don't even want to adress.

All in all...only thing I can really suggest for a healing priest main is to start collecting a damage gear on the side and dust off the old shadow skills. Might come in handy sooner rather than later.

 

healmuth

Being a priest myself, i agree with the general tenor here. Regarding healing power, we do not have a problem at all. I'm probably the best equipped healer in my raid and i out heal well equipped paladins, shamans or druids on any given day. So raw healing power is definately not the problem. As many said before its the utility of our buffs thats creating the "usage" issue.

In my mind, the easiest way to solve this would be if blizzard would just make secondary Fortitude and Spirit buffs - like stackable buffs. Obviously the second buff wouldn't give you 79stam and another 50 spirit buff - but something like an added 40 stam and 25 spirit. This is of course a very, very basic solution but at least it would mean that there is at least some raid-technical sense to bring more than one holy priest to a raid because he's contributing directly to the entire raid.

 

Linnet

Nah, the easiest solution is for Blizzard to buff up the non-healing specs for hybrids. Until that happens, we're basically stuffed.

Although in practice, most guilds/servers are starved of healers and would be happy to have a keen holy priest on board, so I wouldn't let it get to you.

 

Heartwarden

I think Deris nailed it down perfectly. Those are my exact thoughts. It is not that priest healing is weak. Actually, in a general sense, priest healing is very strong, as you can perform any healing role. The issue i see right now is, as pointed out by most people, priest don't bring anything else to the table. Meanwhile paladins have awesome blessings (and to a lesser extent auras), druids have innervate and battle ress and shaman provides totems.

Making priest healing stronger is NOT the way to go, in my opinion. I think assisting on a specific healing role, depending on what the encounter requires of you is the way to go, as the class stands, because you can pretty much do anything.

We need something that makes it worth it to bring a 2nd or 3rd priest, just like you can with paladins or shaman, for instance.

Balance is about hard choices, it is about picking between two things that are equally good. If bringing a 3rd paladin against bringing a 2nd holy priest is a no-brainer, as it is right now, it means there is no choice, and thus there is no balance.

 

Arnive

Who wants to start the lobby group "Holy Priests for Ret Paladin raid viability"?

Barring completely new spells or skills, which I don't see happening before another expansion, that's really our best bet if we're looking to get more raid spots. But then again, if you only need 2 holy paladins, just bring another shaman =P

 

Jo_

Yes, I didn't think that one through, not That far down then.

 

Mirai

I love my Holy Priest just the it is.

In raids up to Kael'thas I can outheal any other healerclass with ease, if I want to.

As stated before a priest can easily fullfil any task without a problem. A priest brings Spirit, PoM, PwF, renew, shield and shadow prot.

These buffs might seem minor to pala blessings at all, but they are as necessary as everything else.

The strength of a Holy Priest is the mana reg outside the 5 second rule. My (human :P) priest has got 930 Spirit (raidbuffed) and regs an incredibly amount of mana not casting.

Paladin single target spamming is very strong, I have to agree on this one, but their raid heal withoug blessing of light is just not good.

I don't know, I doesn't make much sense saying "this class heals better than this class" etc.

Druids, Palas, Shaman and Priests put together are just perfect and won't make the raid lack any healing. Healing still is teamwork.

 

Zeblök

Imagin if priest imp spi buff gave xx% melee haste aswell that would be realy nice :P

 

Whitemane

But like said a million times, there's no reason to take a priest beyond the first one for the secondary utility. Paladins have blessings, shamans have totems, druids have innervate/combat rez and the priest has nothing.

 

Whitemane

Nice, but still not going to solve anything. There's even a problem with adding anything secondary to a priest, a new preference will be set and another class gets relegated to the 0 or 1 per raid spot.

 

dukes

I highlighted that because it's almost the entire problem. All the buffs priests bring, except for renew stacking, can be done by one priest. Shields can be used by shadowpriests, and the rest is covered by one priest. We bring 2 holy priests (as Towneh said earlier) because they're very versatile healers, but we've run raids with only one in (shaman/druid instead normally as we stick to a "base" of 3 paladins for blessings) and it's not as though you suddenly see a massive difference in healing output or raid deaths, apart from less spirit of redemptions in raids.

I think the main issue is not how good a healer they are, but raid survivability. As horde, druid's automatically get the Tauren bonus (5% more HP), shamans have mail armour and generally more health (most of ours are tauren too) and paladins have probably the best survivability of any class, let alone healers. Too often we see spirit of redemptions while raiding, and the priests in guild have taken the hint and are starting to stack up on more stamina gear, and it's helped a lot.

 

Mearis

I was ready to call BS on your 960 spirit claim, but your armory profile shows over 740 spirit unbuffed - how do you get the last 220 spirit?

740 is still insanely high, you do have some really wierd socketing choices, and your decision to not use a bangle with 960 spirit strikes me as really odd, but I wonder how your build plays out.

 

Narugh

5% hp is nothing, that and leather is easily countered by shield. However more importantly, druids lack fade if they get aggro.

 

dukes

You'd be surprised how many times something hits someone and they're left on 100hp. Then two seconds later, the mob next to it does the same thing on a priest and suddenly they're a spirit.

5% hp at 10000 health is 500 hp extra. That's significant in my eyes (most of our healers have ~8-9k health raid buffed iirc). Druids may lack fade, but generally it's not agro, it's random target abilities or raid-wide abilities that cause people to die.

740 spirit unbuffed -> +50 (divine spirit) + 18 (motw) + 20 (food) = 828 spirit. Add kings on (83 extra) and you're ~910. Maybe add mistletoe on to that? Or elixir of draenic wisdom or whatever it is.