Anaram

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something but I really don't see how that is significant at all.

 

Isin

Because then there would be very little to differentiate the holy priest from the disc priest in this regard. You could argue that the extra intellect, synergy with divine aegis, and haste gains that a disc priest can get outweigh holy reach, healing prayers, and divine providence for PoH spam, and then Discipline Priests really would be the magic bullet "tank and aoe healer" that everyone on the official forum claims we want to be.

Anyway this has been brought up on the official forums several times and blizzard has always shot it down. Let's stop the wishlisting.

 

Plitschplatsch

Assuming that the 6sec cd will come a priest heavy raid will probably have to work around the new CoH limitations.
On all the encounters that will include heavy raid damage (Saph will probably be one, i haven't been in beta myself) a raid that has a lot of priests will probably have to use PoH for raid healing.
Blizzard wants to move away from the group limitations which would actually be an advantage for this, because now you can make group compositions with PoH in mind, eg 4 mages and a priest as one ranged group.

If raids who are low on shamans but have a lot of priests will start to work like that will it be even worth speccing deep holy?
Mental Strength seems like a much better choice than divine providence and GS.
Has anybody else considered working around the new limitations like this?

 

Volbak

Why that? To get PoH raid-wide with this suggestion you need to put 41 talents in Holy; how will that make Discipline priests any different?

 

Isin

These forums have been traditionally a theorycrafting resource for guilds and players that want to experience progression content and want to maximize their raiding potential. If a progression oriented guild is low on shamans and need shamans, they will recruit shamans, not shoehorn priests into an inefficient role.

This is why holy priests are nervous about being labeled the "jack of all trades" healer. When you run a raid for a progression boss you've never taken down before, you're going to analyze the fight, build a strategy, and then put the best person for that role in that spot.

While there are undoubtedly specific fights where a POH group setup like the one you've described will work well, it is not really an established role for a raid healer, and certainly not a role that I'm going to be speccing for in a general case.

Where is this coming from? Is this just a wishlist coming from thin air? I have never seen any blue posts indicating that this is a possibility of any kind. Right now you are talking about a spell that looks nothing like Prayer of Healing in its current form, and talents that don't exist and have never even been hinted at by an official post. There is a fine line between suggesting useful talent/ability tweaks and just fantasy crafting your own class from scratch.

 

Volbak

Ok sorry for the suggestion. There is no blue of any kind indicating that.

 

Majera

The point being that shaman will always have a spot almost as long as they have a decent output be it dps or healing. Priest buffs are not so overwhelming to bring them unless they are very good at their task be it dps or healing. In other words, they (priests) are not as essential as shaman. One priest can provide all the priest-only buffs.

This is pretty much a settled argument since shaman were perferred over priests(in BC) in almost every raid.

 

Anaram

I still don't see how this reflects more on priests than pretty much any class save paladin and even if it does why such arguments should hold more sway in the domain of healing than they do in the domain of DPS or tanking.

Looking at class balance in TBC I'd even argue that with the possible exception of Sunwell, priests were more represented than shamans - they just did it with the shadow spec instead of holy spec. Neither priest holy nor shaman restoration specs have any of the unique raid buffs listed under Blizzard's raid utility consolidation categories (buffs unique to the spec, that is).

Shaman as a class does have more buffs than priest does, but Blizzard's intention is not to punish classes for utility to any significant degree.

 

Majera

I agree in terms of priests being represented more (depending on the guild) by way of Shadow spec, but my point refers to healing.

Getting back to the topic, Holy/Disc priests ability to heal must be outstanding since that is the only reason to bring them. I am not just talking about "cow-bell" chart topping nonsense but good effective ways to heal that make sense and most importantly make the class fun to play.

Putting it on CD is fine, but adding in another AE healing spell to a priests abilities ignores the point of the blue post. Too much AE healing means the have to balance the fights in insane ways. My point is that Priest already are the best healers in raids, PoM + CoH are way better than chain heal. Trust me you don't want to become like a shaman was in BC healing in a straight jacket even if you tried to be creative with your heals since most fights dictated that you use chain heal.

 

Lambi

Wasn't the point of the blue post that we only used one button? As for the whole what spell or class is better I actually only see mana tide being the reason you'll want to bring a resto shaman to Sapphiron type of fights (steady raid wide damage), since PoH combined with renew, CoH and PoM will be better than CH any day. CH isn't necessarily a better raid healing spell than PoH until the fights with the random multi target damage comes in, like Teron Gorefiend or the robots in SWP and to some extent Twins if the RNG hits you that way.

There are many different aoe fights, but the ones where the damage hits the whole raid shamans are actually inferior to priests if you compare numbers. I can definitely see shamans getting picked in many fights for mana spring / mana tide and I think that's a problem for everyone.

 

Majera

Did you read my post? I said that CH was inferior to what Priests have so why make a point that it is and AGREE with what I said. O.D.D. a little?

here is an excerpt from the blue
To make CoH / WG work in their current form, we would have to increase raid damage on the group, and increase the healing on your other spells to compete, and increase the magnitude of other types of damage so you want to use those other spells. Increasing single target damage means we might have to adjust tank health (which generally means gear) so that you feel like you have a chance to heal them before the e.g. 30,000 point Hateful Strikes land. It is easier in this case to nerf CoH / WG and lower raid AE damage.

There are many things said in there, one of which is that you don't just use one spell but the other is that they don't have to balance the encounter around one spell, the analogy was made about legs on a chair.....cut one rather than adjust the three.

 

Starfire

Largely irrelevant since the time of this thread is about to end -- I suspect more discussion will be in the Compendium once we hit 80.

That said, on to more important points. GC mentioned that increasing the mana cost of CoH would just lead to raid stacking of Priests. So more priests can cast the same spell for less net mana.

But here's the thing that is bothering me: wouldn't a cooldown lead to the samething? For example, if there was a 6 CD cooldown, couldn't we just bring 6 priests for 6 CoH's? Instead of say having 1-2 priests right now?

That said, someone pointed it -way- earlier in the thread, if we really wanted to stack, couldn't we just bring 5 Disc priests that PoH'd every single group? (And as pointed out in the last page, using 5% innate haste + 25% Borrowed Time haste).

So I suppose, my core point is: wouldn't a cooldown propogate bringing more priests? (either for PoH or for more CoH's). (Of course, I didn't mention it, but its worth mentioning, increased mana cost on CoH without a cooldown appears to propogate bringing more Druids for Innervates).

 

Anaram

I agree that the "bring more priests" argument was rather weak from GC.

If mages can't afford to cast enough fireballs to pull their weight in the fight, the answer wouldn't be to bring in more mages. You could, however, bring in mana tides and innervates.

CoH is not irreplaceable like Bloodlust was in TBC.

 

Plitschplatsch

If there is a aoe heavy encounter which can be healed by either 4 priests or 3 shamans the raid will always bring the 3 shamans +1 dps if they can.

Encounters have enrage timers and every healer less you bring makes it easier to beat that timer or allows you to farm the instance faster.

This is probably the main reason why many priests are unhappy with the 6 second nerf. I have yet to hear from anyone who likes to spam CoH all night long.

 

Inken

I agree this is all getting a bit messy in this thread..

But while it is here. If we have a world where all healers are equal in healing then, why would you ever bring a holy priest?

Assume Shadow can buff Fort.

Paladins:
Blessings - Imp Wisdom can also get Imp Kings

Shaman:
Totems - Mana Tide/spring (grounding etc are nice as well but agreed non resto can do this for you, but still stacks)
Ank - yes being able to pop does count.

Druid:
Innervate
Combat res

Holy Priest:
Guardian Spirit - maybe I just don’t get it as I don’t even want to spec it.

So for me IF they are all equal in healing, I would get paladins until I have blessings covered, then get shaman to the point I have caster groups mana'd up, then just collect druids for combat resses and innervates.

This doesn’t happen today as each healer has pro's and cons. Remove them and you need to work on the non healing utility each brings. We saw it a bit with shaman stacking in TBC.

As a Holy Priest, yes I am worried about nerfs making us an exact swap for other healers, meaning why use them?

Also if the goal is to make priests use more buttons, then wouldn’t it be fair to have more healing for more effort then chain spam (same for druids)? - So the CoH nerf may be needed (at 70 yes, no idea at 80) - but if it is a CD then 3-4 sec would do.

In reality as the healing leader for my guild, I will more then likely be in the raids, but I am asking my self - why take priests...

Yes it’s all just QQ’s until Blizz works out what they are going to do.

 

gia

With the new raid buff/debuff system every class can use the "why bring me?" argument, the whole point is that everyone is replaceable, it's not really useful to bring this up.

 

Anaram

Agreed. Though of course stacking buffs (such as mana tide and combat res) are something that should affect total healing power in some fashion. The question is just: by how much.

This said my experience has been that in most fights having a diverse healing team generally works out better than investing in any one class. Druids can often top healing meters but there's only so much you can do with rolling lifeblooms and hots - you can't stack them indefinitely and expect the healing to not suffers (though swiftmend actually benefits from druid stacking). Hots are spectacularly bad when it comes to saving someone from an acute damage spike. There is only a finite amount of tank damage being done - beyond a certain point paladins can't do nearly as much. Similarly the "first" priest you bring gives you prom & shield on tank (at brutallus tank swap for example) while the second one will occasionally be suffering from overlapping proms and weakened soul debuffs caused by the first (and vice versa).

To put it another way: in my experience (and some might disagree) adding a healer of any spec will somewhat reduce the benefit of adding further healers of the same spec. This isn't something specific to priest though one could argue that they got the "widest field" (especially if you count both holy and disc) and as such suffer the least from such effects. Either way, this particular discussion really has gone quite far from being a priest discussion but I guess that's fine - this thread will largely be redundant when firsthand live experiences starts arriving in a few weeks and in a few days everyone will be leveling instead of posting.

 

Lambi

Yes because mana tide isn't stackable? Mana management is supposed to play a bigger role than it is today, so getting an innervate+combat res or an additional mana tide+mana spring is going to be pretty huge. I don't think a priest is going to have any problems whatsoever taking a spot as a healer if the player is skilled enough, but claiming that druids and shamans aren't stackable is a joke.

Please can we think abit more further on and stop the whole finger pointing and pie throwing competition? This thread feels like it's derailing.

 

Thorongil

This is a widespread concept in Economics but it can be applied to many fields. 'Diminishing Returns' occur where stacking random things happens. In WoW this applies for every class/role to some extent. Bringing another tank is pointless at some point depending on the encounter or even contraproductive (e.g. a fifth tank will lower your overall dps). Same goes for dps at the point where you can no longer survive the fight due to lack of healers/tanks and, of course, for healers at the point where you are unable to match the enrage timer of the encounter.

However, while I agree that some of the early discussion in here might be redundant especially the later discussion going on won´t be. This is no longer a WotlK preview thread, it is the *Healing Priest Theorycrafting Thread* (don´t be misguided by the name). While it might be more clear to open a new thread you still have to be aware that most of the debate going on right now is about 3.0x and we won´t see dramatic changes (apart from being able to level up) to priest mechanics once WotlK hits. The changes have already been made and what´s elaborated right now in here is what is live at the realms at the moment.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Idril.png

 

Crosshairs

There are more and more sites that have links to gear you can get via dungeons heroic or not. As I am trying to build a ready for Naxx set I am looking to prioritize some stats. I so far like the holy tree better then the disc tree for my healing style.

So far I like Stam, Int, Spirit, Crit, and spellpower. I am not looking for anything haste specific at this point. I am trying to derive some base values so I can compare. I used the Priest Healing spread sheet as my base numbers (Healing 1, Spirit 2, int 1.5, mp/5 2.8) Right now I am thinking (spellpower 1.88, spirit 1.5, int 2, mp/5 2.8) .. I just don't know how to value haste and crit at this point. I haven't found a model yet, and that is most likely b/c we need to spend some time in there before we can get actual numbers. Has anyone else created a starting template for a holy build?

 

Supermerkicus

Everyone does.

But forcing our hand by way of cooldown is not the way to go - especially when CoH is not built with a cooldown in mind.
The potency and number of targets are something to consider when enforcing a 6 second cooldown.
Also, it may not be a big deal in a 10 man raid but in a 25 man raid it's much more significant because you cannot cover as many players.

I still suspect they're just using nerf-psychological tactics and will reduce the cooldown by half, ala the PoM nerf, and then say "see we listened to your feedback!! ".

Plus, look at all the talents that are indirectly affected by this nerf, such as SoL and divine providence...what are the odds that those will be buffed to compensate when a CoH nerf goes live?

 

The Not So Evil

Level 80 Holy/Disc Priest for Rawr should be available in a few days (hours?). Dont expect everything to be perfect to start with, but it should provide you with some of the information you are seeking.

Rawr - Coder of HolyPriest (Healer) and ShadowPriest (DPS) Modules.
Get Your Rawr 2.2.20!

 

Crosshairs

NVM, I found the option. Thanks. I'll keep an eye out for the new Rawr.

 

Isin

OK, just to take this discussion away from CoH for a second, I was trying to think about the Greater Heal vs. Flash Heal spam thing the other day. The conventional wisdom is that GH spam is > FH spam in both HPM and HPS, and the only reason to FH spam is that GH spam is probably massive overhealing, and that FH spam is steadier, reducing the chance of "insta-gibbing" (not as much a factor if you have other healers, but nice).

However, unlike spellpower, there doesn't seem to be any manner in which Surge of Light and Holy Concentration are scaled with cast time. Don't Surge of Light and Holy Concentration have an equal chance to proc based on the crit of any spell?

In a 5 minute fight for example, you can cast 200 flash heals but only 120 Greater Heals and each of them has the same chance to crit, and proc a Surge of Light and/or Holy Concentration. Shouldn't there be some value of crit that for a long enough fight, Flash Heal spam will have better HPM than Greater Heal spam just by virtue of having more spells crit within the same period of time?

The model would have to assume that you optimally use HC procs for GH, and I have no idea how to account for Serendipity returns (which should be more of a factor in GH spam). Has anyone already looked at this, or is the required fight length simply too long for this to ever be a factor in real raid healing?

 

Oldy

(Priest) Discipline & Holy WotLK Talent Preview & Discussion

Penance is a 8 second cool down, and it listed healing of 805-905, my priest is level is 70, and still un-geared for the most part, (just recently made 70 and working on getting geared like my 2 other 70s are). Penance is like magic missile, as there are 3 volleys. With the fist volley of 1200 – 1800 if it crits, happening as soon as the power is activated, with another 1200 -1800 heal 0.95 seconds later, then a 3rd 1200-1800 heal 1.01 seconds after the power was activated. Each volley seems to have the ability to crit; I noticed it seemed to crit more often than not.

In regards to the cool down of 8 seconds, which the cool down starts as soon as the power in activated, and so when the power is completed and 1.91 seconds have past, then the cool down is 6.09 seconds.

As each volley seems to have a 2.5% gain of max mana, (a geared and buffed priest having 18k mana) a 2.5% gain times 3 would be a gain of 7.5% or 1350 mana gained, while the cost of casting Penance is only 419 for my priest.

A discussion of a magical shield absorbing damage, on paladin and if it effects the hate the paladin need to control agro after the WotLK needs to be discussed as the discipline priest since 3.0 has been design around the shield and it absorbing damage. To not use the shield will weaken what Blizzard seems to have tried to do with the discipline priest talent tree.

Power word shield: It draws on the soul of the party member to shield them, absorbing 1455 damage. Last 30 seconds while it holds, spell casting will not be interrupted by damage. Once shielded, the target can not be shielded again for 15 seconds. (As the shield draws on the should of the one being shielded, it should still draw hate for the paladin, as the paladin’s should will feel the absorbing of damage. Possibly drawing more hate than if it was just a physical attacks. As what is felt in a paladin’s soul would be more intense than what is felt physically.

Renewed Hope: Heal, Greater Heal, Penance spells gain a 4% increase that it will crit on those characters which have weaken soul affecting them, ( which only happens after power words shield has been cast on them, which is a shield that absorbs damage)

Divine Aegis: Critical heals create a protective shield on the target, that absorbing 30%
Of the amount healed. Lasts 12 seconds.

After talking with a geared buffed priest, they crit heal for 10K, so the shield would absorb 3,333 damage. As every time a heal crit, a protective shield would absorb 30% amount healed, when Penance crits for 1800 possible a shield absorbing 30% of the amount healed, (540 absorbed), the paladin will more than likely take damage before the 2nd volley of Penance hits, and if it crits, another protective shield would absorbs 30%, and again on the 3rd volley. Add it all up, and there is the penitential of between healing and abortion the paladin could have 7020 damage removed in a space of 1.91 seconds, with a cost of 419 mana, and a gain of 7.5% total manna of a geared and buffed level 70 priest (18K total mana), there by giving the priest back 1350 mana back. Amount healed, verses mana cost and time cast, Penance could make the Discipline Priest stand out as the sought after member of a 25 man raid. If Blizzard did design it so shielding that absorbs damage does not interfere with hate needed by the paladin, or rage need by the warrior, or interfere with druids and the use of their power?