Holy Priest as Healer...?

Solotude — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:49:39 GMT

my point exactly...

Server: Rivendare

Class: Priest

Name: Naturalice

wizdumm — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:09:48 GMT

I did some reading on the replenishment thing. Sprite is right about a lot of things. Spirit still outweighs intellect for 5 mans imo but for raids the replenishment buff is far superior so intellect would outweigh spirit. Spirit of Redemption is absolutely a must for a Holy priest and is awesome. The whole party takes massive aoe damage and you think to yourself "self you can heal the tank back up and risk losing some dps while doing it or you can try casting a big aoe heal and maybe lose the tank before it hits OR! you can use Spirit of Redemption on the tank so you know he's safe and start the big aoe heal for everyone sooner!" It is definately a life saver in a pinch. Or the tank decides to pull a Jenkins and is running around grabbing a ton of adds and everytime you stop to put a big heal on him he gets out of range. Put SoR on him and keep following til he stops then hit him with a big heal. If he didn't get a killing blow and proc the SoR then you probably still have time to gheal him and a chance at a bigtime heal. I've critted over 29k on a greater heal on a tank with SoR on him. It's very powerful..take it.

wizdumm — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:45:03 GMT

Ok I guess the link didn't work.. www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml

wizdumm — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:43:47 GMT

I don't know about anyone else but as for the spirit/intellect debate I came up with this. I am an 80 holy priest so this is only for holy priest. I took two scrolls one of spirit the other of intellect each of equal amount and did the math. This is what I came up with...

1 Intellect = 15.46875 mana

.375 mp5 (out of 5 second rule)

.125 mp5 (inside 5 second rule)

.00625 crit

1 Spirit = .90625 mp5 (out of 5 second rule)

.25 mp5 (inside 5 second rule)

.28125 spell power

I'm saying spirit far outweighs intellect with the mana regen both I5SR and O5SR and you get decent spell power out of it. Crit is always nice and a larger mana pool but I'm still going spirit over intellect. With spirit I'm able to heal for more and for longer. My personal stat priority is Spirit > Intellect > Crit > Haste. Here is a link to my character sheet if you want to check out talents and gear etc. <a href="www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml

spritepixie — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:10:58 GMT

"that is possible only when there's decent group formation and you have a good tank not some 'all-rounded-and-oh-so-cool-dumbass' doing it XD;"

tanks like that don't deserve to be grouped with in the first place. they need to learn their class and then try again.

I heal heroics and raids quite well as my spec but then, i have pretty good gear. currently i don't need anything until we start in 25s on tuesday.

and the last point in holy? it's truly one of the best talent points in the entire game. tank in trouble? 50% of their health back from what would have been a killing blow and increased healing on them to boot? not great? are you friggen kidding me? try reading up on elitist jerks or even just the regular wow forums.

thaviel: since you said you aren't 80 yet, then yes, spirit is still an awesome stat for you. the regen mechanics of spirit were nerfed by 40% at 80. that's an insane amount. at 80, however, you should be stacking spirit and intellect equally as a Holy priest and spirit far less as a disc priest. Disc priest regen from heals is based on your mana pool and the shadow fiend has also been changed to regen due to the size of your mana pool, not by his damage.

intellect's usefullness at 80 has grown exponentially. the larger your mana pool the larger your chance of having replinishment on you the entire fight. crit is a very needed stat for both specs now, and intellect helps that.

just, trust me... go read the healing threads on Elitist Jerks if you want hard numbers and more opinions. Priest healing itemization has changed dramatically at 80. hell, healing methods are far different these days. no CoH spam anymore, renew isn't any good (no regen from it nor a chance to crit), and g-heal isn't all that godly without downranking. flash heal gives more chance for crits/procs at a pretty minimal heal-per-mana change.

thaviel — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:07:55 GMT

i'm a holy/disc/shadow (i re spec everyday just for fun, cuz now all my gear is the same lol >.<). i con honestly say it's the player i can outdps anyone else in 5mans right now (lvl75) as shadow and i can heal any 5man as disc/holy or disc or holy (^.^) and keep my mana full. the biggest problem i see is priests who stack the wrong types of stat. i am a huge !#@%*& for spirit i love spirit i don't care what spec i am i want more spirit (spirit tap or twisted faith for shadow, spiritual healing for holy, meditation and imp divine spirit for disc) and alot of priests will disagree. thats ok with me but if you work your int and spirit togeather you can come out with 900mp5 outside of the 5s rule and thats 300 in and i'm sitting around 11k mana in shadow. so if greater heal is 2.4k mana(i forget the new one but rank 7 was 2.4k) and it's a 3 second heal so i'll go out in 13.7 seconds of spam without Regen and then i get back 825 mana in the time it took to cast that so i have less then half 1 back. this is the simple math that stops SO many pepole from from using spirit.

but if i use my normal rotation of Gheal+renew(or any other instant for the situation I.e. prayer of mending) then use stopcasts (i have a /stopcast button set to ~) just the 3seconds it takes to cast the gheal and the 1.5seconds of globle cooldown on the renew puts you to 4.5seconds since you used any mana (the 5second rule is from when you used mana so by putting your instant on the back of your cast your really just using 1 tap of mana meaning you have a better chance out of 5) and this means that allmost ANY time the tank doesn't need another heal is Huge mana for you i get about 180 per second outside of 5

Hope you don't mind the spam

shenden — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:13:57 GMT

@ spritepixie

that is possible only when there's decent group formation and you have a good tank not some 'all-rounded-and-oh-so-cool-dumbass' doing it XD;

Spirit tap is good if you're put more to fighting while lvling, but seeing as i've mostly been a raiding priest while lvling, then spirit tap in my case would have been just a waste of points.

but disc is less painful and more rewarding i'd say. but in all honesty i think i haven't seen any 80 priest having Holy till the very end, including last ability... can't speak about it, seeing i haven't even tried it out myself, but taking from description it seems fairly useless all in all...

julesanno41 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:02:42 GMT

Of course a holy priest is the best healer, the game was designed that way. Currently I am a shadow priest with 1200+ bonus spell and healing (with trinkets). I am pretty effective either way I go. I had to trade the mana pool for the increase to spell. It made leveling easier than all my other toons, but I'm sure when i get to end game, I'll have to make a decision to go one way or the other.

spritepixie — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:46:35 GMT

except what we're talking about is nearly a full Disc spec. Currently i'm in holy down to getting reduced mana cost on heals but the rest is in disc. I went from drinking nearly every pull to almost never drinking.

leveling as holy can be painful if you don't do it right. while going to 80 I personally picked up spirit tap in shadow, down to surge of light in holy (getting +damage talents available) and then the rest in disc and it was fun times.

anyway, you can easily level as a disc build. what we're talking about wasn't really leveling though, it's for raiding at 80. initially, disc is going to be less painful.

shenden — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:38:51 GMT

@ spritepixie & tuangd

Only one quick point across - instead of respecing at 80, i'd suggest going holy till about lvl 50 and then start putting Talent Points in Disc. That's what i did, and haven't really seen a problem so far. About that how much you put in disc...well...i personally went for putting till improved Divine Spirit, but it's everyone's personal choice what they want out of the Disc tree, but 'Meditation' is a must.

tuangd — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:44:03 GMT

after hit 80 I have hard time keep up the mana regen because of the new rating. Then after a week of healing 5 man 10 man and 25 man, I think I got the problem solve (not just be gears upgrade) I read around forums about holy priest and the thing is right now I'm gearing towards more crits and those proc that helps you cheat your 5SR, such as Surge or Light, Imp Holy Concentration, and use appropriately with the Inner Focus. I can now sometimes in 5 man that after a fight that my mana still full coz of those proc back to back. in 25 man all the raid buffs can up your regen back to almost the same as in TBC and spam CoH still viable. May be we can't outheal Druid but still we're in top5 heal meter :)

I do agree with spritepixie that spec into Disc right after you hit 80 helps coz it easier for disc to heal 5man and keep tank up. Disc working more toward preventing damage than pushing healing out. But I didn't do that and was suffer for a while till my gears getting better and change my play style.(watch your proc closely is a plus)

I set up elk buff bar specially for those procs (surge of light, imp holy conc, healing trance bla bla.) and place it over my Grid with big thick bars, so I can plan ahead which spell to use next so I can conserve my mana to the max and push out most heal.

spritepixie — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:16:34 GMT

As a Holy Priest who killed up to Illidan in BC and all of Naxx 10 + Sarth in Wrath so far... I can say we're still pretty good healers.

ANYone who comments that a priest isn't a good healer because of their Armor Count is just an idiot and shouldn't be grouped with anyway. The only class armor matters on is a tank. Otherwise, if a Dps Warrior (for instance) refuses to take a leather dps piece simply because the AC is lower even though the stats own his current item, then he's stupid. I've been working on this fact with my boyfriend lately. It's tough for some people to understand that their AC does not matter in PvE unless you're a tank.

However, when you get into actual healing and staying power, a Holy priest does struggle a lot when they first hit 80. A Holy Priest who is used to spamming CoH and nothing else is going to struggle greatly. I recommend to all priests just hitting 80 to spec Disc. It's what I am currently until i get the gear to sustain Holy. It has much better staying power than Holy because of the regen on heals. You can actually stand up to a Pally healer as far as longevity.

...and sorry, but Druids are nearly the top healers. Hots rolling on the raid is absurdly nice with as much splash damage as there is now. Hots rolling on the tank is also absurdly nice during spike damage fights. While other healers need to spend time casting a heal (yes good healers pre-cast, but still), with Hots rolling constantly on a tank, their health goes up quickly. They can also hit Swiftmend after a spike damage to use up a hot to heal quicker.

shenden — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:10:38 GMT

@ xtoq

can't exactly comment about the moment 3.0 came out, as it happened in the period, to say the least, wasn't active, so i simply jumped back into game after it had got going already, can't agree or disagree with it, because through the first 3.0 "joy" i didn't had a chance to play around in, only hear rumors afterward.

As for Druid healers, I personally usually see them going with not so good healing over time spells, that are no real use at the end, seeing as they don't provide enough amount healed compared to dmg taken.

"Damage and Heal"? oh my...haven't seen those ones much, but it's amusing to watch them from side. But within each class are people that simply destroy the class's reputation, for an example i myself am not too fond of taking Hunters in the instance, as i've had to deal with way too many who have no clue what they have to do and think that just because their pet looks pretty (wtf?) it as well will do some enormous dmg and tank.......

xtoq — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:07:02 GMT

@IRID1UM

At the last boss I die because after the herald died no one took care of the dragon, it charged up and more or less one shot me.

Of course it was my fault because if I had worn Mail armor that wouldn't have happened.

__________

It's not your fault at all this happened, and you shouldn't be telling yourself or others this. It is the fault of the tank and DPS who should have kept the aggro off the healer in the first place. Besides, you probably would have died in one shot or two even with mail armor; that guy hits pretty hard and you don't have a lot of defense.

It's exactly this kind of thinking that's making people push Holy Priests out of the healing spot, because lazy tanks and damage meter focused DPS don't want to work as a group and protect their healer.

Don't ever think that a tank not holding aggro and you dying as a direct result of it is your fault. Your job is to heal the party, not tank the boss.

xtoq — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:01:01 GMT

I agree with you shenden, Holy Priests get a bad rap.

As far as I'm concerned, it's all about the player. I've seen t6 Holy Priests that couldn't "outheal" a t4 Holy Pally, and I've seen fresh 70 Holy Priests "outheal" t6 Holy Pallys, and just about every other combination of bad/good gear and classes "outheal" another. The common thread, in my opinion, is the player and their knowledge of class mechanics. Yes, Holy Priests have the least armor, but as you said, that shouldn't be an issue in PvE because your tank(s) should be good enough to hold aggro.

The mana problem with Holy Priests is the biggest issue and something that I believe Blizzard needs to address. I think the "percent of base mana" change that came with 3.0 was one of the worst decisions for PvE players that Blizzard could have come up with. And to what affect? Did it stop the hardcore raiding guilds from completing Wrath content in less than a week? No. All it seems to do (from my point of view) is make classes that use a lot of mana (Mages, Holy Priests, etc) even more vulnerable to the "drink after every pull" problem. Granted, it's nice they added some mechanics to restore mana to party members (Ret Pally's Replenishment comes to mind) but for regular 5 man instances, you shouldn't have to have a specific group just to be able to make it to the end, or to have enough mana to last.

Druids (not restro of course) and Shammys have nice off-heals, but I do not think that they are a viable main healing class unless they are too overgeared for the instance they are in. And when it comes to that, an overgeared Ret Pally can be a healer for some instances. Restro druids do have some nice heals, but in my opinion, they are third in line for main heals. Perhaps it's because I haven't seen that many good ones. XD

All in all, I like Holy Priests as healers, and I also like Holy Pallys as healers, provided they know how to play. Too many pallys think "I can do damage AND heal" and then end up either forgetting to heal DPS (sigh) or pulling aggro because their DPS/HPS threat just got to be too much. If I were a tank, I would kick these idiots in their face and toss them out on their asses for doing this.