Originally Posted by sordee

Short answer: Yes, CoH +full points in Empowered healing move you much further up on healing meters than being the IDS buff-bot.


Long Answer: As everyone has pointed out above Healing Meters are subjective and can really hide the true value of a healer spot. I.e. you provided a buff to every caster in the raid (with a decent regen buff for the Priests/Druids)
But second you have to break down how different heals work and in different situations.


Long Analysis to follow of how meters representation occurs in typcal raids with probably a few errors:

Situation 1: Four healers MT Healing.
Tree: Stacking Lifebloom, and keeping Rejuv up while hitting the tank with regrowths if necessary. Now since Lifebloom ticks every second, it has first chance to also apply healing to a tank, and thus gets always counted on a meter. Lifeblooms is also the most efficient druid spell in the book. Plus, every 20seconds, the tree has a mini-NS by swiftmending a HOT for full heal whenever a spike hits.


Paladin: A Paladin will be chain casting FoL or in large damage situation (and well Geared) low rank Holy Light to keep Light's Grace up. Since these spells with either a 1.5s or 2.0s period, they have next highest chance of healing and showing up on a meter

Priest: Keeping renew going on MT. Occasional PoM. Then chain cast GH2-4 or Cancel-Cast GH7. Since this spell is 2.5s (like the Shaman's Healing Wave) it is tied for the slowest period main use spell. Thus for small amounts of damage, most of its value never gets used, since HOTs will tick on random pattern(3s), then Lifebloom every second, followed by Paladin Spell of choice. Once the damage is greater like 6-7k+, then part of the Greater Heal will count, since not all the spells will fill up the full deficit.

Shaman: While not the perfect ideal for MT healing (CH owns all but more later), there are still more than adequate for the job. Earth Shield is one of there best MT healing spells, but don't get counted, since it shows up as self heal for the MT. For direct heal spells, they are using Lesser Healing Wave (1.5) or Healing Wave(2.5). Yes, Lesser isn't that great and doesn't stack Healing Way, but it is slightly more efficient than a comparable Priest's Flash Heal. So either they are on the same Paladin frequency of healing or on the Priest's frequency of healing. Either way for healing meters, they don't really do well on a single MT healing fight.

From this timeline and spell usage, in general, on a single MT healing fight, the Tree and the Paladin should win a meter race, purely based on frequency there spells hit the most often.


Situation 2: Various Healers in Raid Healing (In order of descending meter exploitation)

Shaman: (people in relative close vicinity) Chain Heal. Chain Heal became the best damn spell in the game the day for multi target healing the day Blizzard fixed it so it the next lowest health person in range.

Tree: Random raid member takes damage. Every healers clicks target and places heal. The tree has two options: 1) place a lifebloom, that will guarantee to tick once before the avalanche of FoL,LHW or any other spells hits, and may overheal the target. 2) Rejuv, and then swiftmend it at 1.5s and come in tied with the FoL/LHW/FH category. Truly good stuff in meter exploitation.

CoH Priest: When multiple people in a group get hit by damage, this spell is better than anything listed above. This is truly how a priest can "compete" on a meter for a consistent basis. It loses some of its efficiency as less people need it, but it still can be used. (Other spells fall under the IDS Priest category below)

Paladin: Fast,Efficient 1.5s heal that can hit a single damage target for a good amount, and they can chain cast this from here till the cows come home.

IDS Priest: Hmm, what are the options. Shield, renew, FH or GH. Shield good in cases, but no meter exploitation. Renew: very good since it will eventually fill the target, but since its 3 seconds before first tick, other heals might come in first. FH: Now you're trying to compete with a Paladin with a spell that has 1/3 of the mana efficiency. And then the normal GH which is solid, but as mentioned before, on smaller damage amounts, you end up canceling or overhealing the complete amount many times.


Now in typical SSC/TK fights/trash, you end up with a mix of both situations. I.e. most of the time, you are healing tanks, and then every 20-60s and AOE/cleave with multiple raid members. In this situation, healing becomes slightly a free-for-all, because the expectation is to keep the tanks up and then bring raid members back to full on interleaving spells or such. So on the Tank portion, the priest is doing okay, but slightly behind the Druids and Paladin's. But when an AOE hits, its now time for Meter Exploitation/Catchup. The Shaman get in a few CHs that throw them up meters some. And in 2-3 instant casts, a CoH Priest can account for a quick 10k-15k healing. That 10k-15k might be more healing than you will generally do in 20-30second period while simply MT healing with Renew and GH.

This last part is where the COH Priest will just absolutely push past the IDS Priest on healing meters.