Druids have an incredibly bloated resto tree and there is no synergy at all in the early talents of the other trees. Only options is putting everything in the resto tree, even on talents that are pretty worthless or going for lunar guidance and moonglow (think few go for dreamstate). If one goes for those two talents in balance then you have put 20 talents in a tree already that you have no use at all for.

Guilds like nihilum does not raid with a single resto druid anymore, mainly because their style of healing is quite a lot much worse than priests, paladins and shamans. So when more and more guilds start to realise that I'd assume most min/max guilds force druids into a feral spec only.


[EDIT] And if some poster tried to say that druids can actually grind with 61 resto, I'm just going to say...no.

That's an incorrect assumption. The *only* reason I would ever take CoH is leftover points. Even if another priest (or two) in the raid group had DS, I would most likely still take it. At the end of the night I want to run heroics, or 5 mans, and specing one way because someone else takes overin those areas just doesn't cut it.

CoH is of marginal value; I'd still rather take Imp DS over it for those off raid times rather than have it when I'm around other priests.

Also as I've mentioned, there's one priest in our raid group. If I went holy/disc taking Imp DS would be much more useful to the raid in general than COH; CH seems to cover clump healing well enough and that's a reason we take resto shamans.

I'd disagree with you about druids, having at least one well-geared resto druid in a raid is VERY beneficial simply because of lifebloom. Using lifebloom effectively, I feel that druids are one of the best MT healers.

Consider this: Lifebloom puts out a constant 700+ HPS by itself, with a large heal at the end whenever you feel it's necessary to let it run out. You can keep this up while keeping up rejuv and regrowth on the tank, and cast-cancelling large healing touches (or regrowths if you're a tree). This gives you potentially 3 heals within a couple seconds to deal with tank spikes (lifebloom direct heal, finish your HT/regrowth, swiftmend), as well as an NS 1.5 seconds after that if he's still in dire need. That is incredibly powerful, and I don't see why guilds wouldn't want at least a single resto druid to increase their tank's survivability.

It sounds like you're asking for Meditation and Mental Agility to get moved to the first or second tier of Discipline. Divine spirit is a great buff, and I still content it should be trainable (and maybe bundle the improved spirit talent with improved fort, putting them both at tier 3). But it's the extra mana regen and decreased mana cost that are an absolute requirement for holy priests. Shadow priests would like it too, although the extra talent points would probably get filtered to PvP oriented stuff at that point.

Honestly, I think this change would help the diversity issue a LOT. Yes, you'd still need the 11,31,41 point talents in holy to be worthwhile, and deep discipline has issues as well. But at least you wouldn't feel like you need 23 in discipline and 40 in holy to be an effective healer.

As a note, the primary reason druids can spec 61 resto is that stuff like meditation is in the resto tree. Since they only have one tree for healing, all the stuff they need is in that same tree. Ironically because priests were designed to be the "primary healer", they have 1.5 trees focused on healing, meaning the crucial talents are spread out more, giving them almost no flexibility in their talent selection. I think this is the true reason hybrid classes are more desirable healers these days. They can put all their points in the same tree.

While no class can match the HoT power of a druid, other classes can emergency heal just as well. Priest Flash Heal and Shaman Lesser Healing Wave are .5 faster than Regrowth. Paladin's can Lay on Hand or use there Divine Favor (I think) and Holy Light in the same time as a Regrowth. Priests could have a 2.0 Greater Heal, or even faster.

One thing though, I believe druids are the most nimble of healers. Even if its on 15 seconds, one thing the rest of us can't do is constantly move while throwing heals, not counting Prayer of Mending/Power Word: Shield.

I think people overlook this, but honestly, for fights like Tidewalker, I think a druid is really effective at raid healing. The earthquake damage is far enough part for HoTs to work and besides the Watery Graves, the raid shouldn't be taking much damage. But alas, people probably will tout chain heal over hots.

It boggles me that Power Infusion is Discipline. Holy is the thoroughput tree, per Eyonix. Power Infusion is a thoroughput boosting ability.

Honestly though, I think Power Infusion should be a base ability in the holy tree (though, my only reasoning for putting a base ability version in the holy tree would be to stop shadow priests from using it).

If tank spikes are an issue then you will have people spamming heals on the tank and thus almost all hots will be overheals. Juggling 3 hots and cancelling direct spells is also freaking hard and compare that to having a paladin instead as the MT healer, a paladin that also brings another blessing. Priests have one spot due to spirit buff and can also do the job as well as the other two classes. A resto druid brings nothing that a feral druid cannot bring buff wise and is also not suited for most of the raid encounters when compared to the other healing classes.

My main concern with buffing utility of healing priests at this point in time, is then you'll have your 1-2 shadow priests and 2-3 holy priests, then you'll likely have 4 priests. It's definitely not balanced to have 4/25 as 1 class. If you buff the healing priests you'll have to nerf the shadow priests.

2 paladin buffs would create some imbalance in pvp, where paladins are already considered above average. Buffing our off specs would probably create more room for holy priests as well, and there's at least 2 threads packed with the main issues those specs face.

Edit: Sorry didn't get all of what I was saying in, read #171 as well.

I know where you're coming from. But if you nerf shadow priests, you're not making more spots for healers. What actually happens is that raids replace them with dps classes/specs. ie. if shadow priests got nerfed a lot tomorrow, it wouldn't magically make more spots for holy priests.

I wish they'd just give all the hybrid nuking specs the exact equivalent of VT. So it wouldn't matter which one you put in a group.

Resto druids bring perhaps one of the most useful raid buffs on any fight where the MT takes large amounts of spike damage - the +25% healing aura.

Any guild that "forces" one class into a certain spec should "force" every class into optimal specs. Else I wouldn't play in that guild. Perhaps your standards are too low.

Wrong... Please get your facts straight. It's rather frustrating when people tell me what my optimal spec is based on hearsay. I'm not going to sit here and say priests need to spec x for raids because honestly that's not my place to do.

Wrong... 3 blessings and after that point they become worthless or much less useful to me than imp ds. Actually personally I'd rather have imp ds over any paladin buff as a mage. Maybe sans salv.

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This thread is going nowhere other than the shitheap. The blatant refusal of most priests in this thread to acknowledge that many other classes have basically every single "issue" that priests have (and more) and then citing false data like "mages have 3 raid viable specs" is rather amusing and frustrating at the same time.

I'm not saying dicipline couldn't use some work or that you don't have issues. However, this thread is basically a big whine fest with no real theme other than oh look the grass is greener over there.

The fourth blessing is generally light and if you have four holy paladins in the raid, it'll get utilized quite often. Its already assumed that the first healing priest will be coming in with Imp DS. The comparison is the Xth paladin and the 2nd healing priest.

Inspiration doesn't require being in the same group.

Anyone who doesn't have COH right now is silly. Surge of Light+Inner Focus+COH!

He didn't say it did. Although I think he was implying that the resto druid was healing the MT. Neither has to be the case actually. Just having the ToL druid in the MT group gives him the buff, regardless of who is healing the MT.

P.S Jimb0v I didn't know you could use numbers in your character name (hint, hint).

Lifebloom (the final heal), as well as PoM and earth shield, attribute healing and thus threat to the person that is healed by the spell. The only disadvantage between the three is that PoM and ES are both reactive abilities so the heal will always land, while lifebloom is timed so if it runs out when the tank is full, the overheal wouldn't add to the tank's threat.

If I came and posted a "I want to be a frost mage. No raid groups want frost mages but they are taking fire mages"
The thread would get:
a) laughed at
b) locked

The only difference is perception.

----------------------

Since my "look at the bigger picture" comments are falling on deaf ears I will kindly leave you to your own devices.

Sorry for the incomplete post, I was pretty tired at the time.

There would need to nerf shadow priests some as well as boost paladin off-specs, most likely ret. This would basically turn a shadow priest into a healer, and a holy paladin into a ret paladin. No net change in healers or dps, and from a healing stand point makes the most sense to me to put the priest in the role the paladin had.

I suggest the paladin because currently I think the enhancement shaman has a leg up on retadin. I suggest ret because we currently run a prot paladin, which I think they could give a tweak to either the damage output when not tanking, or healing (while in tank gear) and design fights that would work well that way.

If they played with JoW with something in the ret tree, it could be a "near equivalent" to mages and/or hunters, and have the shadow priest funneling into the healer group which isn't taking advantage of JoW.

The difference between the two is very vast.

Different specs as a mage is just a different type of dps. Better or best, changing specs doesn't change your role.

Specs as a priest does, so when our dps spec overshadows (hehe pun) our heal spec, which is supposed to be our main function, it needs looking at.

The problem lies in the fact that holy just has nothing much to offer for people want holy priests by their own merit. If they have them, sure, but the days of actively recruiting holy priests is over.

The difference in mage specs is not enough that people will cease to recruit frost mages and some such. Disc is worthless in most cases, and holy has no vital uses, whether pvp, raiding or instancing.

You have other reasons to take every type of healer except a priest, since they bring little utility to a group. This is the big difference.

There is no other class that directly replicates what a mage does that pigeonholes you into specing a certain way.

It's the case of shadow being so good, and holy being so...well it's not bad but it's not distinctive. They are not the same at all, and I can honestly say that having raided as both a dps class and a priest.

Here's the difference between mages (and their quite valid complains that frost, and to a lesser extent Arcane, need serious looks if Blizzard wants raiders to be able to spec that way) and priests : at least when you spec 41 points in a tree other than Fire, you can still kill stuff.

Reasonably effectively, too. Deep frost isn't as competitive as deep fire, but are you seriously trying to tell a thread full of smart people that deep frost is completely useless, and that you'd do less damage than a <insert poorly geared poorly spec'd class here -- the old example used to be ret paladin >?

Or are you trying to tell us that if you spec'd 41/20/0, you'd do some insanely small amount of dps, and that the spec is quite simply impossible in a raid, simply because you think so?

I read the mage theorycrafting thread, up to the 95th page. I was looking for ways to help our guild mages respec to be more effective. And the conclusions reached there, time and again, was that 41/20/0 and 41/0/20 *were* effective. Not optimal. Effective. They worked. And until you reached a magic cutoff of +dmg where fire became the stronger spec, both for dps and for longevity, 3x/2y/0 was stronger. And all our mages switched to that spec, and pushed their dps up a significant notch. Once they got gear, they switched to deep fire, and pushed their numbers even higher.

You seem to have no clue what the priest complaint is about if you think it has any relation to a class that has three full viable trees, that upon spec'ing deep in them, still LET YOU DO YOUR JOB.

We want a guaranteed raid spot for a holy priest (probably with Imp DS), a guaranteed spot for a shadow priest, and then a spec that's competitive enough to let us compete for raid slots based on our talents and unique abilities, instead of raid leaders saying "I'll take another resto shaman or holy paladin, sorry - they're more useful".

The closest comparison is a raid leader saying "sorry, not taking mages - they just don't compete with properly geared warlocks. We'll bring one for water and AI, the rest of you can ride the pine".

Constantius has it.

The other case of holy is that when you spec it, what you gain does not outweigh what you lose. That is, the ability to farm/solo efficiently, or have enough survivability in pvp (A pure raid holy spec, that is) or bring enough tricks/utility to the table that they at least want one holy priest.

The spec isn't bad because it's not good, it's bad because it's not particularly good in any one area, apparently per design.

The two biggest things priests bring to a raid or instance is shackle and fort, both of which can obviously be done by a shadow priest.

The fear that making holy an atypical spec would force it to be the only required raid spec has halted any change in the tree, but has let that tree be quickly overshadowed by the priest's own dps tree, and other healing trees.

Simply put, if the raid wants a priest, they will most likely heavily pressure that one priest to be shadow and take a dps slot, saving the pure healers for resto shaman and holy paladins. Having raided on my resto shaman, I'd pick these classes based on sheer survivability alone. There is nothing like being able to effectively take hits and survive on the same npc that would have two shotted a clothie priest.

While it's quite true that there's nothing really wrong with having all the guilds priests shadow-spec I don't think there's much evidence to see that Blizzard had that in mind, given that there are still large numbers of cloth healing drops. In fact judging by the lack of item objects for non-healing specs, I'd expect they'd expect most classes that can heal to do so.

In the end choosing which talents you need for a role are a pretty minor concern, which is why most dps would fine with switching talent trees if it got them more dps. I'm pretty sure mos healing priests would switch to a disc/holy build rather than the reverse if it made them better healers (or even better buffers).

Changes in play-style and required gear a far more of an issue, and they affect hybrids far more than pure dps classes. Most hybrids will collect off-role gear, but as a raiding feral druid my feral gear is completely different (and much better) than my healing gear, and on the rare occaisons that I just have to heal, it always takes a while to get back in the swing of things.

Recently my guild have had several mages and hunters switch spec, and it really doesn't require much effort. After a fair bit persuasion, we've finally convinced a few of our excess holy priests to switch to shadow, and that requires far more of a commitment on an individual and guild level, to get them back to the same sort of state they were in before-hand. Futhermore on the tanking side, our main warrior and our pally tank have decided to take a step back from raiding, so it looks like we'll have to gear others in their place.

Sure, that sort of stuff happens quite a lot, and the guild has to be prepared to deal with it. Still it strikes me that there is something a bit wrong when almost every raiding guild starts to realise that most of their healing priests are quite possibly surplus to requirements for the progression raid, and I can see why the individual priests are a bit irate.