Havoc12

Lack of imagination is all I can say. You just dont understand in just how many different ways lightwell can be used and what you can do with it.

lightwell is not gheal or coh. You dont need to heal every single point of damage you see with it and its a healbot. You dont care about consistent healing from it. You stick it down at a good spot and some of the DPS use it when some pre-arranged condition is met. When used correctly lightwell causes no DPS or healing time loss. In fact its a clear healing time gain.

Whatever task it is you are concerned with healing, lighwell saves you casting time and mana to devote to it.

The old lightwell had limitations that prevented its use in raids. The new lightwell works however and should be viable in a raid setting.

I like lightwell because it offers a lot of tactical alternatives to many battles. Its a talent that requires imagination instead of reflexes and forward thinking instead of playing "top up the green bars".

@Liriel: Sorry but the current lightwell is a waste of a talent in any fight longer than 3 minutes and it cannot be used to heal any sort of active damage. The new lightwell addresses these two important issues, making the talent perfectly useable in any senario of raid damage you can imagine.

Its debatable whether that is the best build.

 

Zorath

About Lightwell.

I think you are wasting your breath arguing about Lightwell. We have bigger problems.
Not only is Lightwell lackluster, but the entire tree. We get nothing but multipliers here, multipliers there and long cooldowns.

Also if we read the beta forum we are totally falling behind all the other healers (druids in perticular). We can even see comments like: if you specc 51/51 disc/holy you would still fall behind a resto druid. Anyone got some insight?

Just looking at our CoH compared to Flourish though: It would take us something 5 or 6 casts of CoH to do the same amount healing a flourish does, yet flourish costs what 50% more mana?

Please tell me im wrong.

 

Lambi

I haven't been able to compare myself to other healers yet, but from what I've seen so far doing 5-man instances the holy tree was incredibly powerful, almost bordering to ridiculous. I fully understand why they nerfed imp holy conc... I was a monster.

 

Paracelsus

Well, "best Disc build" in context. What would you suggest instead - assuming a PvE raiding build carrying Disc as the heaviest tree? I think Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft makes a reasonable argument with the caveat that an awful lot of the choices are arbitrary - more because of lacking any good alternatives than fighting between equally good ones. The bottom of the Disc tree feels like a points sink, especially.

It seems like ultimately you're going to need a mana return mechanism and that's going to mean either IHC/Serendipity or Rapture. In a perfect world, the two options would be fairly well balanced with the real choice being between CoH and Divine Aegis. The real question is... what do you do with the rest of the points?

 

Tattersail

If Rapture really returns ~300 mana on a ~900 mana gheal, it's overpowered and will be nerfed. That's a freaking -35% mana cost for 5 talent points.

Did anyone notice Divine Providence doesn't compare favourably to Spiritual Healing? It does the exact same thing, but for fewer spells.

Sidenote: how unimaginative can you be when you copy/paste a 3 year old talent for a 45-point new talent? Now that I'm on the subject: doesn't the Holy tree strike as the most boring tree ever invented? And it's only getting worse with every expansion (CoH being the exception)! Even Guardian Spirit is lame: another improved shield: something to use in case of an "uhoh, oops". I could almost make a macro for it.

*shrug*

Nothing new I still love Priest and will never play anything but healing

 

Tattersail

Paracelsus shows us there are big problems with disc/holy right now: the best he can come up with is some holy/disc combo. Not because he really wants those talents (except the overpowered, soon to be nerfed Rapture), but because the stuff deeper down is just, *yawn*.

 

Shan

Come up with more than your typical "you're just not smart enough for it" type of responses. Or try to disprove the points that I've made regarding the useability. If you can do that I'll admit that my criticism is unwarranted, if you can't then you must admit that the criticism is well deserved.

 

Mideci

No, it appears you are completely right. Flourish absolutely destroys CoH and it does it in one GCD. And since you need those multi-casts on CoH to do the work, Flourish's "disadvantage" of being a HoT is not a problem at all. Resto druids are going to absolutely dominate priests on raid healing unless we are missing something dramatic.

 

gia

Penance is a great spell in its current 2 second version, it has great hps and hpm and I would never give it up for Spirit of Redemption. The only issue is that Spiritual Guidance is much better than Borrowed Time, if they somehow address that then the cookie cutter build is clearly 53/18. With PvP builds probably skipping Improved Healing and Divine Fury for something like 60+ points in disc.

 

Shan

How can you say bringing Lightwell up is bad and then go on talking how our holy tree is lackluster? Lightwell is one of the reasons why it's lackluster. I don't mean to offend here, just point it out.

Even the new lightwell is lightyears behind, say Tree Form or Earth Shield.

 

Tattersail

Lightwell is boring for the priest and annoying to use for DPS, but it's definitely not unimaginative or lackluster, or even bad. Yes of course DPS has to run to it and click on it, those are very valid points Shan.

Even so, it's basically free healing, and every once in a while one of your DPS will be standing close to it with some -2k HP. They should never run for it when the situation is risky. Only when they are just standing about waiting for something else, or happening to be in the neighbourhood should they use it.

Clicking on it makes it a bit more difficult to use, but a good player should be able to find some free 300ms to click on it.

Conclusion: good imaginative spell that is boring for priest and annoying for DPS, so lots of people hate it

 

Havoc12

I have already asnwered every single one of your arguments. I did it in a quick and circumspect because its not the right forum for it. If you really want me to spell it out for you fine:

1) "The DPS need to run to the lightwell". Absoludely not true. Example Karathress healing caribdis. Assume a ranged interupt a melee interupt a tank and a healer. You place it next to the ranged interupt. Only the ranged interupt uses it and only after a water bolt or chaos bolt. ==> Massive gain of casting time and mana for you at 0 loss of DPS from the ranged interupt. Verdict your argument comes purely from lack of imagination. No one needs to run to the lightwell. If they are near it they can use it.

2) "Lighwell cant be hotkeyd and its a hot, so its useless for countering spike damage". The fact that it cant be hotkeyed or that even a /use lightwell macro can't be hotkeyed is indeed an issue. I would very much like to see LW be usable via a /use macro and have its usable range trippled. The rest is meaningless. Lighwell is a gain of casting time, hence it can greatly aid you in dealing with spike damage. The above example applies again.

3) "lightwell is not the answer to the raid taking heavy damage because it has charges so u have to be able to provide the needed healing without it". Lightwell increases your sustainable HPS. Enough said. You seem to think that not being able to cope with the incoming damage means that ppl will start dropping like flies. If that is the case you need another healer and if a single talent could prevent that it would be massively overpowered. In reality it either means gradual damage accretion or unstainable mana drain or a requirement for unsustainable bursts of healing. In every case the new lightwell can be of great value.

If you had actually used lightwell intelligently in heroics you would understand what I am talking about. The 1st boss in SV, the last boss in shattered halls and serpenthea in TK, are places where the current lightwell actually works really well and makes a real difference, by improving both your HPS and your longevity and your ability to keep people alive (assumign they are skilled). All are fights which according to your arguments should be useless for lightwell, but they are not. Even the current lightwell makes a visible difference.

There is one and only one argument against the current lightwell. A lot of ppl especially the DPS cannot be arsed to click it. Most of the DPS are too busy and too blinkered with their DPS cycle that they don't want (or can't) keep lightwell in mind too. They simply get distracted and forget. They tell you I did not roll a DPS to heal. Many of them don't even use their healthstones or healthpotions. That is indeed an issue, but it nothing a little forward planning and imagination can't solve.

All in all the new lightwell is perfectly usable. I don't see what is wrong with people who have the will, skill and presence of mind to use it being rewarded with a powerful talent. If you can't dance well don't blame the music or the dance floor.

Earthshield and tree form are 41 pointer talents and LW can provide a fairly comparable output.

===================

I think that this 53 disc is better than yours.

You get 10% better renew, I get 1.3k more absorption on my pws which is a big win. You get 2% healing I get 4% more crit also a win due to divine aegis. You get 5% more spi and 20% of spirit into spell power I get 1 more point in imp inner fire and penance, which is a very slight loss for disc, but well worth it for penance. Overall disc comes on top I would say. Not my much though.

====================

Concerning that complaints that we were too far below other healers. If that is indeed the case then why did priests get hit so hard with the nerf bat.

Does anyone have numbers on flourish?

 

Zorath

I assume that was for me. I more worried about that fact that all of the talk is about Lightwell ... only ... Its been dominating the discussion for pages. To some it may seem that is our only problem, which we all know is not try.

Im sorry if i in some way offended you. I ofc agree with you about how bad Lightwell is

 

• Playered

It's heavy, 8500~ per cast per person with appropriate talents to enhance it, over 10 seconds at max rank.
You're needing to compare 3 (average) Flourish ticks to 2 CoH heals for a HPS perspective which should be about 3k vs <CoHx2>.

I think it is slightly too strong (less base, more scaling) but that is mostly because in situations where you would use AoE healing it tends to be periodic which results in much less overhealing in general - which is somewhat already covered by the fact the spell is frontloaded to counter the assumed overheal by other spells eventually.

 

Basmurding

Using a bandage is the same thing. But you don't have to run to it. Lightwell is a waste of a talent point

 

Shan

Well I suppose there's nothing to discuss about Holy Nova and Spirit of Redemption isn't there?

Or does anyone think these talents are fun and interesting in PvE?

 

Liriel

@Havoc12:
With Karatress you can use old lightwell in multiple ways with a very good outcome and little problems. (While you dont have real issues healing it without lightwell, too. But take another fight with a tank, a melee interrupt, a ranged interrupt and a healer: Illidan Council. (And there comes my argument against lightwell.) Yes, you can place it at the ranged position. But if the interrupts are good the most dmg the ranged interrupt will get will force him to move _immediately_ away from his position. He should not spend the time clicking to a well. And if he moves as fast as he can he even would not need to click the well, because he could prevent the occuring dmg with his movement. But sometimes he will not be fast enough. Then it would be nice to have the well - but you cannot predict where he will stand than. (And I dont like the idea that he grabs the well everytime and waits with his running until got the buff.) It will not help you if the ranged waits until the well is clear of the aoe and takes it then - because he should have got some healing which way ever long before the aoe has vanished. Even if that would be a good idea he has to move back to the well for the next time he need it.

You can try to solve the problem with placing the well _away_ from the position of the ranged interrupt - but you cannot prevent another aoe-effect on that position (f.e. when the ranged runs for the well) and even if you could that would force the ranged to move away from the well after he takes it - a move he normaly would not have to do.

You may try to use the well in a totaly different way in this encounter. But wherever you try it - there is no position where it can be instantly used when needed and not forcing people to run for it (or away from it) to let it work. Some way they would only do because of the well.


You may say - well that is only one encounter. My answer is, that Council is the more advanced encounter - the more complex encounter. And encounters will become more complex, more dynamic with advancing in the content. A only once and static placed well will be come of less use with every step on the ladder. Yes there will be encounters where you can bring it to excelent use - but most times that are not the encounters where healing is the problem anyway. Shamans have addressed likewise problems with their totems long ago and got may improvements because blizz understood their problems (drastically shorter totem-CDs, shorter GCD for totems, longer totem range, totemic recall,...).


@Shan:
And yes I think we have some other big problems, too. But I see Shans argument that if blizz thinks that lightwell is such a good talent that they have to nerf us in some other places, that there is a very big problem with having such a talent. And since lightwell should be one of the things a holy priest should stand for - this clearly could be a problem.

Spirit of Redemption is not quite fun, but the spritit-part of the talent is quite good and being able to heal without manaproblems after your death can be quite nice even in PVE. (I lately nearly caused a wipe because our tank could not stop laghing after I said "A priest is not dead when he dies." or something - it was in german.) I would like my computer not be lagging when I dy and shortening my healig time. And I would like to be able to cast dispells and shields and stuff, too. But that may be overpowerd in PVP.

Holy Nova could be better (or simply cheaper). I love it even in BC - but am forced out of it because our healing officer thinks it is too stupid to have - even if he lets somebody else run around in raids with more points in pvp-only talents...

Holy Nova is nice if you are clearly thread-starved (f.e. morogrim) or where there are some little mobs hurting you and no dd there to kill them (snakes in pvp, some parasites in some heroics,...). It seldom has it uses in raids. But sinc it is on a very high tier that may be ok. Not every starting-talent has to be good in raids. - There are many which are not.

 

Liriel

No, lightwell can be much better than bandages: They dont need you standing still and doing nothing else while they tick. And they dont give you a debuff so can be used shortly again after that (even if that sometimes may be a good thing...).

 

Tattersail

Shan your 53 disc build assumes a different play style: you have to keep that weakened soul effect on your MT to get the +crit from Renewed Hope. You also have only 1 point in Grace, so you end up using flash, gheal, penance and shield almost exclusively.

Paracelsus's 45/26 is much more free in the choice of spells.

Silent Resolve vs Imp. Shield is a personal choice.

 

Shan

Spirit of Redemption's 5% spirit bonus seals the deal so to speak. Without it I'm not sure if I'd want to spend a point on it (purely from a PvE perspective).

There is one fight where it can be pretty useful though, and that's M'uru. RoS is similar. Other than these two cases I've never felt like being able to cast for 15 more seconds after dying helped me in raids. The reason is that in the end it's up to the remaining healers to keep people alive, and they either manage that or don't. If they don't, Spirit of Redemption just delays their failure by a little, but it still happens.

Also, dying isn't fun, improved death isn't either. It was originally given to us because we died too fast in PvP. I suppose it still helps with that but it's simply overshadowed by Pain Suppression. If I'm not mistaken there isn't really a reason to play holy priests in arenas anymore, so the overall impression is that the talent is outdated. Then again, a 5% spirit bonus is okay, many classes have a passive key talent.

Holy Nova does actually have a practical application in PvE and that's at Felmyst. At least in theory it should help with threat during the air phase to avoid aggroing skeletons, but I've never felt the need to respec just for that.. and frankly, Holy Nova comes with its own problems in that situation, lack of range, only affects my group and mana inefficiency which are in my opinion bigger issues than the threat problem with other spells.
I'm still wondering what the point of it was supposed to be, but as Liriel is saying many 11 pters are bad. Less so in WotlK where some of the bad ones have been replaced but even Koraa agrees that Holy Nova could use a change. So I guess it's just a matter of waiting.


So yes, I'm one of those people that played holy priest without holy nova, lightwell, and before it became good, even without coh. I would like to have some 11, 31 and hopefully 21 pt talents some day where I don't have to pretend that they are good. If you notice a pattern, all of these "problem talents" are weak to useless for their intended purpose in PvE. I don't think this is a coincidence but just a result of priests being so much stronger healers before TBC hit.

As I said my fear is that Blizzard takes the easy route and doesn't redesign them from scratch. Unfortunately not everything can be fixed by simply increasing its power (hunters and arena is a good example).

 

Liriel

I dont think that it is wasted to heal 15s more. Think about Shieldwall from a tank. I never used talent points to get the extended version with my tanking-alt, but I have seen many times where Shieldwall made the difference between wipe and win. There even were guilds who did not let other classes try specific bosses simply because the warrior has something like that. So the 15s of Spirit of Redemtion may as well make the difference - you simply can hold up the life of the tank (or whoever you were healing) for another 15s. (And be it the time for a druid to find your body to BR you or somebody else to move to your healing position or whatever.) Its a long time ago, but I have seen priests who were oom intentionaly dying near the end of a fight to get those 15s.

Its seldom a fun talent, there you are right, since when you pick it, you know you can only use the spirit if you die - and that that will be the case often enough... Yes the spirit bonus changed that. But to be fair - it is much more fun to have additional 15s to do something worth doing than doing nothing at all (given the case that you can reach anybody). And iin PVP those 15s may be the only time where you can do anything at all. Even if that is not the most interresting fact for most holy-priests, that can justify its present in the tree (as there are some other ones as well). Even if not - 5% spritit-increase for 1 point with ANY additional effect should be worth the point and "fun" enough.

And the spirit IS a creative thing - even if not realy fun - that CAN help you and your group/raid with the healing where EVERY other talent and spell does not help (maybe with the exception of SS and BR which are not your talents and spells). So I do see no problem with that. It was much much worse before and I see it working quite well at the moment.



Holy Nova IS fun. Period. But that fun-side nearly never is usefull while raiding. I would love to have it cheaper but I dont see it as the biggest of our problems.



Most of our problems is the boring kind of the holy-tree. (The other trees are not boring, but not beeing boring does not meen "good" or "working".) Nearly every other class had some or even many improvements done to their mostly used trees. There are many places where blizz told us that they did not want too many talents to be mandatory. There was one other tree that had so many mandatory thinks like holy priest - prot warrior. And even if I dont thinkt that there are so many less mandatory thinks in that tree at the moment, blizz combinde many of the old stuff, made many thinks availyble for every warrior and added some (means more than one) talents that are intended to be "fun" talents. They even changed stuff in other trees so it became better reachable for the prot-warrior.

That did that to so many classes - why dont they do that to our holy-tree as well? I think most holy/disc priest-trees before and after the patch will be much different to what they are now. With the latest changes they even went more to the BC-cookie-cut-trees. Every talent that was concidered worth taking got nerfed while the one that one thought one may be dropping was buffed. THERE is the problem. (Ok ONE of our problems.)

And even IF they did make only new fun-talents - we NEED the stuff from the disc-tree to heal through a fight. We cannot simply go deep-holy and try everything that you can get. (Every other healer can do so or can do so for only 5 points somewhere else.) Even if we would have got only fun-talents - we could not use them until we would become 80. Our points in disc are fixed. And even then we _cannot_ buff the raid with even the normal spirit-buff. Nearly every other buff got available for nearly every build (kings was moved to t1 f.e.) The sarcastic thing is that this does only hurt the casuals or the guilds who dont use an alt to give that buff. They made spirit being a good stat for much more classes - but did not help us buffing it.

Than they gave us some new talents. Maybe one of it in the holy-tree was fun. (That was NOT the ultimate!) Well they gave us a fast raid-ress (which is nice but not needed and not realy fun). And they gave us a hymn that may sometimes help us to safe our ass. That may be fun - but that is not a talent and if you compare it to things other classes get it cannot compete. Additionaly they gave us the possibility to TRY another healing tree in PVE. Then they nerved everythin new they gave us. Not some or in a small way - but drasticaly.

So: We got no help with all problems we had in BC - one of our core-talents (CoH) got well changed to something that may or may not be usefull. And we are stuck with 2 broken and 1 boring tree that does not contain a new fun talent anymore and only mandatory or "not-usefull-at-all-in-PVE" talents. While every other healer gets very interesting new spells to play around with, that made their class more complete - and that with only one tree to put talents into so that they can reach everything they want from that tree.

 

Shan