Sinndir

Though we currently only have one resto shaman, some guilds run with 2 even 3. You cannot control where chain heal goes, so I feel it is better off to heal what HP you can, rather than renew a few people or start GHealing someone only to have a chain heal bounce them and waste your mana.

Note that those percentages I included were trash as well, on boss healing I Gheal/Binding heal more and flash heal less. The thing I do enjoy about healing is it is all a big game of pick and choose. You see the raid taking damage you need to be fast and make choices on who to heal.

 

crimsonsentinel

I find renew for raid healing to be extremely limited simply because its mana efficiency is horrible unless you can get a couple ticks off. I almost always find it better to simply CoH them. Even if it only hits 2-3 targets it's still more mana efficient and often higher has HPS as well. Both require 1 gcd of time so I rarely find myself using renew other than as a tank health stabilizer.

The only times I use renew on non-tank targets are on very sporadic damage that I know is on low healing priority, the best example being air burst damage in Archimonde. That way I know that the renew can tick closer to its full amount, at which point it becomes better than CoH.

Frankly, predictive raid HOTing is done far better by a druid lifebloom spamming, as the heal will heal faster and far more efficiently.

 

Vihermaali

The debate seems to be whether spell X is useful or not. Priests have grand total of eight useful healing spells. Remove any one of them from me, and I would feel crippled. "Our way" vs "your way" debate is not as simple as comparing math of 2 spells However, there is one thing I hate very much: people saying "this spell is not worth the mana". Does such thing even exist? Ok, Holy Nova maybe. Maybe I'm biased after getting almost all items I need or want, but mana efficiency shouldn't be only criteria for choosing what spells to cast.

Here are 2 last raids, recorded by WWS. 2 raids, and 2 totally different spell usages. Majority of the time I was assigned to heal raid. Both WWS include trash. Shown numbers do not include usage of PW:S & Prayer of Mending.

Full BT clear, except bosses 1&2, where I forgot to enable WWS.
Vihermaali - WWS
Spell - raw healing amount - % of total heals - overheal %
Circle of Healing - 3 491 395 - 42% - 38 %
Greater Heal - 1 850 504 - 22 % - 71 %
Flash Heal - 1 804 680 - 21 % - 39 %
Renew - 436 368 - 5 % - 15 %
Binding Heal - 338 372 - 4 % - 27 %
Prayer of Healing - 247 074 - 2 % - 38 %

Full Mount Hyjal + ZA speedrun, I skipped Hexlord & Zul'jin.
Vihermaali - WWS
Spell - raw healing amount - % of total heals - overheal %
Greater Heal - 1 781 353 - 30 % - 66 %
Flash Heal - 1 510 365 - 25 % - 48 %
Renew - 1 078 705 - 18 % - 26 %
Circle of Healing - 966 381 - 16 % - 46 %
Binding Heal - 410 769 - 6 % - 47 %
Prayer of Healing - 91 705 - 1 % - 52 %

Prayer of healing takes only 1-2% of my total healing done, and yet I think the spell is useful. On last BT clear, on Najetus, I disconnected 10 seconds after pull. When I got back Najetus was on 15%. In addition to that, another healer had disconnected before pull too, so they had basically killed Najetus with 2 less healers than normal. They could have done it without me, or taken a dps instead of me and killed it faster. It's the same thing with CoH. Yes, you can do without but having it makes things oh-so much easier and safer. For the priest at least. Shamans have chain heal, yes. Is that enough for raid? Maybe. But priests are all about thier versatility and CoH is great addition to that.

 

Havoc12

That is why I said most players who have come late to CoH, do not have the trained reflexes to maximise its use. In no way am I advocating the priests should only use CoH. I am saying that a lot of things people believe about CoH are myths. CoH can be used a lot more than it currently is. Using one spell exclusively is simply not the priest way. NOT using an effective and powerfull spell when its the best tool for the job at hand on the other hand is what results in priests feeling "underpowered" and the belief that priests somehow cannot do what shamans can when it comes to raid healing, which is utterly and completely untrue. It is the other way around. There is nothing a shaman can heal, that a priest cant. The converse however is not true.

a) Yes this can be a problem, you cant use CoH exclusively. CoH is just ONE of your tools.
b) PoM/shield are instants and offer high burst HPS. PoM also adds in smart targeting. A single person needing big heals will attract raid healer attn. If you are the only raid healer, then CoH has an even bigger advantage, you can spam CoH immediately after GHeal lands with 0 cooldown.
c) That is a situation that requires a trained eye and the use of mouseover macros. (I use them for all my healing spells). The more your try the better you become. Most priests limit the usefulless of CoH by simply being afraid to use it.
d) Mana efficiency of CoH on 3 ppl is nearly 8:1. That is NOT pissing away your mana. You don't lose much by using CoH when the time is right.

Refer to the calculations above. The situation you describe shows exactly the problems associated with priests in whom use of CoH is not ingrained. CoH is instant. That means that after a chaneled spell you can land it immediately. If someone is in immediate danger of dying fire a rank3-6gheal and finish off with CoH spam. Alternatively you can start with pom or flash heal/pom on the affected person if the need is dire and proceed to CoH spam. Because pom jumps to the lowest health person it will go and heal the lower health member very effectively and quickly race them up. I face the senario you have just mentioned constantly. Also you are mossing the point if you think of 600-700 HPS as measly. That is why I posted the calculations above. 1k DPS will kill your average non tank in under 10 seconds. When CoH is spammed on him that time is prolonged to 30 seconds. You don't need to fully race the damage. You just need to keep people up through the burst. Raid healing is mostly burst healing. Far from letting people die, the fact that CoH heals multiple ppl, is instant and can be used well in conjuction with PoM makes it far superior to single target heals for keeping people up. Just look at the calculations I put up above. 1k HPS on 3 ppl is more effectively raced by CoH/pom than gheal pom. Flash heal/pom in the same senario is simply appauling in its inefficiency. When you up that into 1.5k DPS, which is in fact INSANE damage, CoH pom can keep all 3 ppl up for 10 seconds. All in all as I said above most people's perception of what CoH does and how usefull it is, are horribly inaccurate.

Read up on the previous post. CoH is always used in conjuction with other instants and channeled casts. In fact I did not even bother calculating CoH on its own. Its always Also you don't necessary use PoM every CD, PoM is best used after 4-5 jumps. Even if the fight allows you to use PoM every CD, you have another 8.5 seconds of casting time to fill. In fact CoH is better suited to PoM combinations than single target heals, Single target heals may result in loss of PoM healing, while CoH minimises that. Far from replacing PoM, CoH is perfectly suited to complement PoM, unlike GH/FH.

CoH is a major tool and its very usefull in more boss fights than you listed. In fact some of the comments you made is what led me to post all this. The use of ANY spell exclusively (or nearly exclusively) is nowhere near the strength of the priest class. We are simply not one-trick-horses. If a priest in your raid was doing nothing but spamming CoH they would not be high on the healing meters. Even in encounters where CoH is really powerful, I use nearly all my spells and renew/pom/gheal in all cases makes up a big chunk of my healing. On the other hand its uncommon that I find a situation in high level raids, where CoH is not a great help in maximising my HPS output and saving people from a sticky situation.


I have not been in the fight you have described, but this is nearlly always the case. Damage is rarely uniform, but that i no way limits the usefulness and power of CoH, PoM adds the extra bit of smart targeting and CoH is instant, so it can be used to follow a channelled spellcast for a huge increase in HPS.

This statement is just wrong and this is why I said most priests who have come late to CoH don't realise how to maximise its use. The single target healing reflex acquired from years of single target healing without CoH is very hard to beat, but its holding you back.

When it comes to burst healing. FH is totally useless compared to CoH. If you time it right after a channeled cast, you can heal twice with CoH in 1.5 seconds. 3-5 ppl can receive 85% of what they would with a flash heal in the time it takes to cast one FH. only they receive the first 1k instantly. If you use FH more than CoH in an AoE fight, you do not understand how to maximise CoH use. I use FH only in extremely serious emergencies and always in combination with an instant to increase burst HPS. In any sitaution where you use a PoH for example you can follow with 2x CoH to practically DOUBLE your burst HPS. If your CoH:PoH ratio is less than 3:1 in heavy AoE damage fights, its highly likely that you are underusing CoH at the cost of a great deal of HPS and mana efficiency.

The main problem you have with CoH is in fact a lack of ingrained CoH reflexes and a reliance on old impDS priest reflexes. Priest healing requires split second decisions and most people use their reflexes to help them decide when to use which spell. People who have come to CoH late, simply don't have the reflexes to use the spell effectively and end up underusing it or using it badly. I think you just gave us a very good example of that.

 

Sinndir

Havoc I'd just like to echo part a) that you wrote

Let us compare classes, since there are always multiple healers in raids.

Resto Shaman - Chain Heal, Lesser Healing Wave, Healing Wave, Earth Shield (effectively 4 heals)
Holy Paladin - Holy Light, Flash of Light, Holy Shock (effectively 3 heals)
Resto Druid (Tree) - Lifebloom, Rejuv, Regrowth, Swiftmend (effectively 4 heals)
Holy Priest - Renew, Shield, PoM, PoH, Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Greater Heal, CoH, Lightwell (YES LIGHTWELL) (effectively 9 heals)

That gives us DOUBLE the amount of choices/options or arsenal if you will than other classes. I'd like to quote worldofwarcraft.com's main page about priests. (WoW.com -> Info -> Classes -> Priest)

We are the masters of healing. Plain and simple, but why? Because of what we bring to the table. I have heard it time and time again and to be honest I used to think, priests are not as good as other classes. Then after about a year of ingraining (compared to 3 years before), I have finally put CoH as my priority.

Sure we don't bring the things other classes do. But if we compare we find that though we are the master of none, we are very capable at all.

Druids - Best HoTs hands down, combine that with a couple instant heals, an innervate to throw around and a battle rez... Definitely wanted in the raid, even a couple.
Shamans - Yep chain heal rocks, but you know what so does their totems, reincarnate, heroism/bloodlust, they are awesome.
Paladins - I'd give my left testicle for a divine shield, not to mention fantastic efficiency combined with 8k+ 2 second cast heals.

Now sure, we don't bring awesome benefits to the raid past one priest to divine spirit and to fort, but I tell you what. I will put a good priests healing output against a good anything, anyday, any fight.

With that said, you cannot bring all of one type of healer class, they all work better in conjunction with one another though I do believe a lot of priests need to realize where their place is.

If you feel that CoH is a poor spell or not as good as some of us say it is, then well that is your perogative. But I love it, I use it all the time and will continue to do so. Though I do think it is our best spell there are always times when other spells are a better choice to be used, hence after each raid when I send my combat log to our healing officer so he can combine parses and put up our web stats I look at mine and review how I can better heal.

Each night, I see 9 spells used. No less, and that my fellow priests is what makes us great.

 

Sinndir

Also is it just me or do you all have no problem in chain chugging super mana pots? I do it just so I can continually heal more, I figure since I am a potion master with an alchemist stone that chugging them just adds to my effectiveness of being in the raid.

 

Starfire

What? you mean there are people that don't use mana pots?

 

Ana

Just a note to follow up on Havoc's post (which is a great discussion of coh) my raid often brings 2 to 3 resto shaman. Priests and shaman generally do the majority of the raid healing, leaving tank healing to druids and paladins. I know when I see people low on hp and throw off a coh, that I'm just buying them a bit of time until the chain heal inevitably lands. I have no intention of being their only healer so the point that coh is wasted because it can't take someone from 10% to 100% is moot unless you are the only healer in the raid. I see coh as a great compliment to shaman chain healing with it's 2 second cast time. I have also found that shaman totems have "trained" the groups to stay together more then before which is also a great help to the use of coh.

A side note to the op, you might want to add Clique to your list of helpful mods. I've used it since pre-tbc and I can't imagine healing without it. It's a great mod for using mouse-over healing w/out having to create a ton of macros and use up your macro spaces. Might also want to add some discussion of haste to the gem selection.

 

Irise

What is the correct formula for downranking?

WoWWiki states that it is a multiplicative factor of ([Level at which next higher rank of Spell is Learned] + 5) / [Character Level] = [Downranking Coefficient], however, some of the Priest spreadsheets floating around as well as Dr. Damage have a different formula.

P.S.: Specifically does this mean that the coefficient for Greater Heal Rank 7 is (73/70*(3/3.5) ?
P.P.S: I am looking for the completely untalented and no set bonuses base formula.

 

Starfire

Are you taking into account Set Bonuses and Talents? (I am looking at you 4pt6 & EH).

 

wowgirl

I have been reading about all the benefits of CoH. I'm 23/38 now and just started raiding Mount hyjal (4/5) and black Temple (3/9) with my new guild.

My gear isn't very good yet (some crafted itens) so I want to know if CoH is 'gear dependent'


ty very much

 

Snowglow

I know that the forum contains a lot of pages, but it was already discussed a few back which gear suits you best when being a CoH priest.

pre 2.4 mp5 and + heal.

 

Vihermaali

This is only blizzard post I've found about subject:
WoW-Europe.com Forums -> 24/10 Change to Coefficient Bonuses on Spells

For single target spells with cast time (flash heal, binding heal, prayer of healing, greater heal for example) spell foefficiency is <cast time>/3,5. So for Gheal rank 1, it would be ((45+6)/70)*3/3,5)=0,6244898 ~= 62,45%, untalented of course. With empowere healing, coefficiency is either ((45+6)/70)*3/3,5)+0,2=~82,45% OR (45+6)/70*(3/3,5+0,2)=~77%. I don't know in what order the talent bonus is applied.

However!
This wording makes me believe that this penalty does not increase the coefficiency, and is only meant as penalty!

 

Pontifex

I cannot see your armory since armory seems to never work for me. But with the where you are interms of content your gear should not be an issue for a CoH spec.

Circle of Healing - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of WarcraftIn my experience with both Mount Hyjal and Black Temple, CoH gives a priest a strong role in the raid. Just be mindful of your mana with having this spell, use downranked greater heals to regen mana and to carry your mana pool to the next potion cooldown.

 

Jayde

Going to focus on this part, because I think it's an important debate.

Personally, I can say that my opinions are based on much raiding experience with CoH (I have had it since the start of T5 content) and a lot of personal experimentation. So, the argument that I'm somehow missing some super-secret about CoH is probably not the best one to make.

Although it's true that instants can be appended to the end of longer cast spells, it doesn't change the fact that it uses a GCD. Using a CoH after a single cast still means you can't start casting another spell for the duration, which means you're losing 60% of the casting time of another GH to drop an additional 700 healing on someone. Also, for the sake of speed and efficiency, one should probably be aiming to use the correct rank of GH on the target to top them off--so the supplemental CoH is probably not really needed anyhow. (This is especially true if one is using the T5 2-piece bonus.)

If one is fast about choosing targets and thinking ahead, you should -always- be casting when raid healing. You can always be using every second on something--be it instants, refreshing PoM, putting Renew on the MT, using lower rank heals to top off Warlocks/SPriests, or actually healing someone. The point I'm mostly making is that, on many fights, when danger is high it's better to be chaining 2.3k HP/s on the lowest HP targets in the raid than to be doing 700 HP/s spread across a single group.

Priests are flexible, and CoH is certainly useful on many fights. I would hate doing RoS without it, for instance... and I pretty much spam it non-stop + PoM every CD from the start of P2 all the way to the end of the fight. However, on fights like Teron, Mother, or Illidari Council...even if many people take damage, the best way to keep people alive is to isolate the people at greatest risk of dying and make sure they don't--rather than taking ages to heal people up with CoH. It's all about tailoring toolset usage to the fight and circumstances.

As for the other posts, personally I find Renew to be pretty useless most of the time. If you play with fast healers Renews will almost always end up being overhealing and a waste of mana unless you use them on tanks. I try to keep it up on the MT(s) at all times, but otherwise I don't bother too often. The best use for it, though, is because it's a good heal to be cast while moving from point A to B on movement fights, so you don't waste healing time when you're running around. It's also good on Warlocks, as it generally will tick for over 1k on them and allows them to lifetap very easily without much risk. For tank-and-spank fights, though, I rarely end up using it on anything other thanthe MT.

 

Havoc12

I am taking that as a given, but you cannot react to unpredictable damage and even if the damage is predictable sometimes you have GOT to finish up a heal because your target is in danger. That can easily throw your timing off

You have to use instants. You have to refresh renews and pom. After you use an instant your next gheal will take 4 seconds to land. This is always the case. CoH on the other hand will land 1.5 seconds after an instant or instantly after a channeled heal, come rain or sunshine. That means its easier to combine it with other instants during a burst. In other words you can always get more instant than channelled heals if you have a short window of opportunity. Although you could be doing something else in that GCD, that something may (a) not be urgent, (b) require low HP/sec. That means moving that 1.5 second aftewards can have zero impact but a 2.5 delay in the begining is always a big problem.
More importantly if you actually sit down and do the numbers you will see how wrong what you are saying is. If spike damage is a danger what you are describing is the least effective way to heal it. Lets look at the following senario. You have a group of people taking 5k damage every 10 seconds and each one of them has a big chance of taking another 5k spike within those 10 seconds. The spike is unpredictable.

Lets say they all start at 10k HP.

All 3 DPS take the 5k group damage. What do you do now? If you choose to gheal one, one of the other 3 might take that 5k spike and die. The correct answer is you fire CoH twice. That gives all of them the 2k buffer, they need to survive the spike damage if they take it within that time. Then you have all the time you need to gheal them.

You want another senario? You have a fight where someone can take a debuff that does 6k of damage over 6 seconds and there is periodic 4k group damage spikes. I am talking random numbers here.

You have 3 ppl, one has 2k HP, the other has 4HP and the 3rd person has 4k HP. You naturally start a gheal on the person with the 2k damage. As soon as you start your gheal, the person with the 4k takes the debuff and you have 4 seconds to get a gheal on them or they will die. If you let your gheal cast, you will not have time for another gheal, you will have to flash heal or they will die. So you do that. You end up with one target at 8k, one target at 1.5k, who will take another 1k in another second and one target at 4k HP. If the periodic damage hits them they will both die. You will need 5 seconds to save them on FH and one gheal. That combo takes 5 seconds. To put those 3 DPS out of danger for now you need a total of 10 seconds.
Lets look at a different strat. You CoH the group twice, you pom the person taking a debuff and CoH twice more. This takes 6 seconds. Everyone in the group takes 4k healing and the person with the pom 5.8k. Your 2k HP target now has 6k HP and is safe. Your 4k HP target is now at 8k HP. your 4k HP target is now at 3.8k and you need just 1.5 seconds to save them. In total you can put all three in the safe zone in a total of 7.5 seconds. A full 2.5 seconds faster than you can with gheal. Also look at the final tally. After the periodic damage hits say 10.5 seconds after you started healing the group, with the gheal/FH combo, you will have one person at 3k, one person at 2k, and another person at 2k. Look at the CoH/pom combo. If after the combo you used another CoH + a gheal at 10 seconds before hte period damage hits you will have one person at 7k, one person at 9k and one person at the full 10k. After the periodic damage hits they will have 3k, 5k and 6k. Even in a senario like you described with high risks of spike damage, CoH performs better.

Lets look at a different senario. The 2k person gets the bad debuff instead, just as you begin your gheal. You are in trouble. The 1k damage ticks will kill them before you can land your GH. Lets say you manage to land it. You supply 5.3k healing but they will take 6k damage so, you have to channel another gheal on them. In the meantime you are exposing the other player with the 4k HP to the periodic group damage for those 5 seconds and if that damage spike hits at 4.5 seconds you will lose the debuffed target as well. Horrible results. If you spam CoH twice on the other hand, followed by a pom and FH/shield on the other hand, you will supply a total of 2k+1.8+2.5k+2k = 8.3k damage healing both the debuff and putting them on the safe zone from the periodic group damage. At the same time you will also have healed everyone else in the group for 2k and get a pom running on the raid. This takes just 4.5 seconds. Gheal is the best single target healing spell in the game in my oppinion. Even better than holy light despite the light's grace buff, but its simply not a raid healing tool.

Don't get me wrong GH is great. Even in heavy AoE fights it makes up a lot of my healing output. By on emergencies involving 3+ people, CoH is king. IF only one person is in danger of course you use GH, if you have time to heal 3 people with gheal of couse you use gheal, but if you need to heal 3+ people within a group as fast as possible you do it with CoH. If you don't you are exposing your targets to unecessary risk if 4+ people can use healing and you dont use CoH on them you are not doing your job right and that is the end of it.

CoH does not take ages to heal people. In the 7.5 seconds it takes to gheal 3 ppl, CoH you can CoH 5 times, starting from no GCD and heal 5k damage on of them. About the same as gheal. The 1.5 second GCD comes AFTER the healing has been bestowed, when you have time to recover and other healers have time to pick up the short slack. You have supplied 2k HP/sec instead of 2.3k HPsec, but the difference is that everyone takes healing right here right now, instead of waiting for 7.5 secs to get a heal. In real terms another healer will have to cover for you immediately because you are not using the right tools for the job. Also how much HP do you think people have. What kind of damage are they taking? It takes just 3 seconds to supply 3k healing to 3 ppl with CoH. That is good enough healing for any emegency. After that the other healers can take it from there or you have time to heal them with other spells. Another important factor is that you can CoH on the move. So if you are forced to move out of an AoE or away from an add, you can still heal your guts out.

The DPS does not take constant damage they take burst damage. The best way to raid heal is to get as many heals as possible immediately and channeled spells because they heal at the end rather than at the begining are always at a disadvantage. I have not yet been in a AoE fight where heavy AoE damage is constant. The 1.5 second delay from CoH comes at the END of the sequence, when its all over. The 2.5 delay from GH comes at the BEGINING of the sequence, when you need to heal immediately.

Its not a question of anticipating and pre-casting your GH, its a question of how much healing per given time you squeeze within a short window of opportunity. Instant-group heal has "win" written all over it here. Even if only one person is in danger adding a CoH at the end of a gheal heal sequence, can prevent more people from being in danger soon after. CoH heals someone NOW and you have to wait for 1.5 secs afterwards, but afterwards you may have all the time in the world.

There are very few senarios where simultaneous group damage on 3 ppl in better healed by something other than CoH/PoM. It heals it fast with good mana efficiency and it heals it immediately letting other healers go to different targets. The only reason to not use CoH is because those 3 targets are not in the same group.

Because you got CoH late you don't trust it in 3 man situations or in heavy spike damage situations, thus you have not experimented enough and you don't have the trained eye/reflexes to use it. You have learned to use it only in the situations where its awesome, rather than in the situations where its just useful.



Again I have not been in these fights. Yet in many similar senarios, where lots of people take damage simulataneously and where spike damage is a risk CoH easily outperforms gheal. If there is only one person at risk at any time, then you can use gheal obviously but even in such a case CoH is a very usefull tool. Its just a question of knowing how you can fit it in.

Take any senario of raid wide damage you like and do the numbers or post it and I will do the numbers. Then we can see which heal is better. Just saying on general principle its better to have 2.3k HP/sec on one person than 700 HP/sec on 3, does not constitue proof that its indeed better. Let us have a real example, an emergency senario where GH out performs CoH when it involves simulatneous damage on 3 ppl within a group. You will be surpirsed to find that CoH comes on top in many more senarios than you think. For example I had a good look at the terron gorefiend fight (guides/videos and so on)and its obvious to me that its a fight where CoH can be a very powerfull too if used correctly. It wont be a main heal, but it can be very valuable in keeping people alive.

 

Calya

I think it's a bit odd when people denigrate CoH because it "pads heal meters." That's silly. It produces very high healing output, and places well on the meters accordingly. Every bit of healing that CoH does is healing that does not need to be done by someone else in the raid. Even if you're only using it to top off a group, that doesn't make it "useless," because you're keeping that group at max HP and reducing the chance that they'll be killed by burst damage; if you didn't CoH them, someone would still have to heal the damage, most likely via HoTs or Flash of Light, neither of which will heal them more quickly or efficiently than CoH would have. If you have the mana and time to spare, there's nothing wrong with using CoH in a situation where it will heal 3+ people, whether those people were in critical condition or not. (My assumption here is that "having time to spare" means you aren't neglecting your assignment to CoH another group.)

 

Viv

I doubt it's worth trying to be a one-man band, Jayde.
In a 25-man raid you are likely to have some healing paladins and perhaps an IDS priest for whom CoH isn't an option - so they should be the ones doing most of the single-target direct healing.

CoH is very effective as a raidwide health tide that lifts all boats.
Other healers can do the reactive single-target top-ups just as well or better than us, but CoH is there to make mobs fight a raid where most people are at 100% health most of the time. It's the best tool for that particular job so you may as well abuse it if you have it

 

Jayde

Well, from my perspective looking at end-game stats, that is a little backward nowadays. Priests make the best raid healers whereas Paladins are better off joining the Druids on MT duty. Priests have better mana efficiency and far more tools to cope with different situations, whereas Paladins are limited to a smaller toolset that is more appropriate for helping a Druid with MT healing.

Shaman can easily keep up with CoH in terms of area healing, without any of the limitations of our area healing... therefore it makes sense to use Priests as raid healers, Shaman as Chain Heal spammers, and Paladins/Druids as MT healers. Of course, there can be plenty of cross-over there--and any healer should shift over and use appropriate heals when needed, but based on the current toolset that would be what I view as the optimal raid roles at the moment.

Calya, my point with that statement is simple... just being high on meters doesn't mean you are saving people's lives--which is, after all, the primary job of a healer. You could cast CoH 3-4 times on a single heavily damage group with 3 pets in it and get pretty insane HP/s yet still end up with one or more of those people in that group dying. Doing high group-based HP/s is only useful if you don't allow your assigned targets to get killed by a damage spike 2 seconds later. Therefore it's always important to consider if casting CoH 2-4 times in a row is really the correct choice in terms of actually keeping your raid all alive.

Anyway Havoc, in a perfect world where all the people you wanted to heal were grouped up within a small radius and in the same groups CoH is pretty perfect as well. But the reality is that such scenarios only exist in a handful of fights. Otherwise CoH is very situational and should really only be used when appropriate if you actually want to optimize your effective life-saving as an off-healer--which is the main job of an off-healer. Priests have the toolset to keep a raid alive greater than any other...and CoH is always going to be very narrow in its use due to all of the mechanical limitations on it. Certain fights it is amazing, other fights it is total trash--that's just how it is.

 

Calya

But the implication there is that any healing that isn't "life-saving" is unimportant. Healers don't only exist to bring people back from the brink of death, we also exist to keep them from getting there in the first place, and using CoH to keep people topped off works quite well under the second principle. I think it's important not to discount that type of healing, and CoH is arguably one of the best tools for it. And regarding not letting your assigned targets die, I did address that in my previous post when I said that you should only be using CoH in this pre-emptive manner when you have the time and mana to do so.

In the end people clearly have differing opinions on how versatile CoH really is. It's something we can agree to disagree on, I'm sure, since it's going to vary largely based on your raid makeup in many cases.

 

Liths

This is a common misconception, noone who have actually played a shaman will belive that it isn't without it's own limitations that can make it even less flexible than CoH at times. A bad shaman isn't going to get the full amount of bounces the majority of the time and it can be damn frustrating to try and heal a group of people that scatter after an aoe hits. Instant vs 2.5s casting time on a spell that is dependant on peoples positioning is more signifigant than people think. While the 10-15 yard range on bounces aren't group dependant, there are plenty of situations where CoH will heal for it's full amount but you'll miss bounces on chain heal. Yes, most of the time chain heal will be better. But if you plan ahead some and let people know that you want them to stick within 15 yards of a certain person in their group you can get pretty amazing efficency out of CoH, and it isn't as limiting to the people in the group as you might think and can actually help with spreading people out more evenly.

 

Glasswizard

I play a heal shaman alt and imo chainheal is a little overrated. It's a very good spell, but not vastly superior to CoH. You have to be very aware of where your target is standing. On encounters where the raid spreads out, you'll have the same problems as with CoH and will often find yourself better of using healing wave.

 

Sinndir

This is the biggest problem with healers. Often I see recruits get into a mindset where one way is the right way. Truth is as healers we cannot min/max like a rogue/dps class can. Sure we can have theoretical stats that say X+healing is best, or having Y Mana regen is better. But in my opinion, what makes a healer a great healer is their decision making capacity and how FAST they can make that decision. Enter Priests, who have the most effective heals for different situations, making our decision making even harder.

Why is it hard to find a good priest compared to a good say resto shaman (sorry shaman just as an example). As a shaman you have to chain heal (almost always) and when situations call for it lesser healing wave or healing wave. But as a priest you have way more choices (stating for example): Flash heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, PoM, Renew, Shield, Prayer of Heal, LIGHTWELL (wooo), Circle of Healing

Being high on the meters means you are doing your job. If you heal you are saving lives, always. If everyone waited to heal someone for when they were going to die you would have a few problems. More people would be dying, and most mana would be wasted on people healing the same target. Ideally everyone is assigned a job and only does their job and does it to perfection. But let's be honest, on Illidari Council if I'm healing a tank, I also help heal spike damage, it is second nature. When you need to whack-a-mole, you whack-a-mole.

My job as a CoH priest is to provide constant FAST/HIGH HPS until someone else keeps them alive (usually in our raids a shaman)

I do not know how your guild does it but myself and our healing leader/officer(who is a shaman) talk a lot about positioning and we consistently maximize CoH and Chain Heal mechanics, on ALL fights.

Just take a walk down my last week stats: Not counting PoM's
Najentus - 170k Binding, 161k CoH, 123k Flash
Supremus - High Gheal/Flash/Binding heal (minimal CoH)
Shade - Right... I dps on this fight haha, so easy.
Teron - 100k Binding, 100k CoH, 70k Flash, 51k Gheal
RoS - 100% 675k CoH
Gurtogg - 670K CoH, 95K PoH, 72K Gheal
Mother - 151k CoH, 98k Gheal, 43k Renew, 40k Binding
Council - 490k Flash, 240k Gheal, 115k binding, 63k Renew
Illidan - 593K CoH, 300k Flash, 144k Renew, 77k Binding, 71k Greater, 44k PoH

That means that from Black Temple I use CoH effectively on 6 of 9 bosses, not to mention all the trash that it rocks on. I'm sorry but with the abilities that other healers have, the way we setup our raids, my job is to simply CoH.

 

Havoc12

I disagree. CH is an amazing spell, but it does not have the raw HPS that CoH does. More importantly because its channeled instead of instant it does not have the raw burst the CoH does. In places where that kind of HPS is needed like hex lord malacrass CH cannot compete with CoH. CoH heals everyone in a group for 3k in 3 seconds. Chain heal heals one person for 3.6k, another for 1.8 and a third for 900 in 2.5 seconds. 15k healing in 3 seconds compared to 6.8k healing in 2.5 seconds. Which one would you take?

That is very true, healing meters don't tell the whole story and you always need to consider the situation. All that being said however its a very rare situation where 3+ people in a group can benefit and using CoH is not beneficial, both in improving mana efficiency and in reducing the risk of losing people.

In this particular senario, healing the lowest HP person may result in you losing 4 ppl instead of one. Also if a shaman is chain healing as well, healing the lowest HP person may result in a lot of healing power being lost. Worst of all some of the chain heal might go to pets, which are more expendable. If a group is heavily damaged and has pets in it too then its a no-brainer. You spam CoH on them until they are full health or until there is an emergency elsewhere. At most you might flash heal someone before the CoH spam, but doing so exposes 4 more people to risk. If someone in the group can wait for a gheal, they can wait for a chain heal too.

I honestly cannot think of a situation where 3+ people in a group take damage at the same time and its not beneficial to add some CoH hits.

What need could possibly possess the raid leader to spread a group outside a 21yard diamter [edit: 18 yard radious] circle. Do you realise how big this is? If two people stood at opposing edge of this circle they would be outside gheal range [edit: They won't its 36 yards apart]. More importantly you can heal people up to 61 yards [edit its 58] away from you with CoH. That is nearly the edge of vision! If your raid leader wants to use you for single targeting that is his choice of course, but there is zero reason why he can't fix groups so they are healable by CoH. Its simply personal choice.
CoH is amazing for certain fights and very usefull for many and usefull for most.

 

dbresq

I guess you must just be set in your ways Jayde but I still shudder at how poorly you rate CoH and what that means for your raid. I also feel that you're views on CoH have probably been influenced by extremely poor raid positioning for certain encounters. The few encounters you keep listing as ones where CoH is applicable but not optimal lead me to this conclusion. I'll walk you through how we set our raids up to be CoH friendly for them.

Najentus: Group 1 - tank group, misc healers/dps Group 2 - Melee group Group 3 Ranged DPS/Healers Group 4 -Ranged DPS/Healers Group 5 DPS/Healers.
We position Group 3 on the left side of the room, Group 4 in the middle and Group 5 on the right. The groups spread in a semi linear manner from the front of the room to the back so as to mitigate chained AOE, effectively having three lines amongst the room from front to back. Before the fight, you find the person in the middle of the line. That your CoH base target; if you target them, you'll hit that whole group. The Melee is usually always CoH friendly, no brainer. That's how we have the whole raid accessible in terms of CoH. Mind you, it's not the exclusive heal for that fight, but this positioning makes it possible for CoH to be the main heal if need be as dictated by raid damage. A minutes positioning for a great deal more ease of mind.

Teron: I don't need to go into this one in detail; I fail to see how by the end of the fight when blossoms are spamming hard any heal is better then CoH in terms of raid healing. It doesn't take long for CoH to become the better option either.

Mother: Same group composition as Najentus.
We position the raid in a square formation. Each corner of the square has a ranged group stacked in it. Mother is tanked in the center of the square, tanks in front melee behind. Ranged from tank group takes a corner of the square. Again, all ranged clumped up in neat groups for CoH range, melee also grouped for CoH range. How is CoH not the best raid heal given this positioning?

Echoing an early post, T6 fights allowed CoH to work for me as follows:
Najentus: Main heal.
Supermus: Not applicable unless people are retarded with volcanoes as a group.
Shade: Smite time.
Teron: Main heal.
RoS: Main heal.
Bloodboil: Main heal.
Mother: Main heal.
Council: See Supremus.
Illidan: Main Heal when cross healing to raid.

Rage: See Shade.
Anatheron: Melee only.
Kazrogal: Melee only, still main heal.
Azgalor: Situational, not main heal, not n/a either.
Archimonde: We don't exploit so it's a lot of healing done on the run, sees great use.

So there's 14 bosses there; Two of those I usually just DPS, I'd say CoH is my main heal for 7 of those fights and only sees limited use in the remaining 5. That means more often then not on T6 Boss fights CoH is my heal of choice. Obviously it's great for trash, particularly in BT. I think when you sit down and really look at CoH it's clearly more applicable then you're using it. Sure, it's not going to keep up with massive spike burst, but for steady sustained raid damage (which is 90% of the damage a raid will take regularly aggro issues aside) CoH really is the better heal to use. Even in those spike situations, CoH is usually going to be enough to keep a person up long enough for a CH or PoM to get around to them while at the same time topping off a couple of other people.

Re CH > CoH, I just fail to see how that's true. When you look at the consecutive bounces of CH it's not hitting that much harder then CoH anyway, which I think is a common misconception - CH hits three targets for a lot of HP. It doesn't. It hits the primary target for a decent amount, the secondary target for around a flash heal, and the third target for a small amount. I feel that given a consistent spread of raid damage, which is usually how it comes, CoH can get a group from low to full much quicker then CH.

Example - on our last Illidan kill we had a very suboptimal healer class balance due to poor attendance: 2 holy paladins, 2 holy priests, 1 resto druid and 3 resto shaman. For phase two, the logical assignment to me was 1 pally + priest on each FR tank, druid rolling hots on both and shaman on the raid. After a couple of pulls we observed that not only were the priests healing there tanks, but they were also doing most of the raid healing because CH couldn't keep up but CoH could. From there, we swapped the priests with two of the shaman, leaving one shaman and two priests on the raid. The raid healing didn't get out of hand and the shaman on the tanks didn't need to cross heal like the priests did (they did cry a lot about being under utilised but a quick 'how about playing a priest through T4/T5? Drop totems/BL and STFU it's one fight' fixed that). Our resto shaman are even losing interest in trash healing because they can't land CH effectively due to CoH topping off targets quicker.

To sum up CH vs CoH - I feel if 3-5 people need topping up, CoH will get the job done a lot more quickly and efficiently then CH. There are easily more fights where and equal amount of priests casting CoH will keep up a raid that shamans spamming CH won't be able to. However, I think there are a few situations that exist where neither CoH nor CH are sufficient on their own to keep the raid up and they need to compliment each other.