Yeah we get it, Disc is the star of the show this season start.
But some of us don’t want to heal with it and don’t like the playstyle.
After playing Holy for the 1600 token, I can definitely say the numbers feel weak. The 2 set is basically useless without the 4 set, but even with the 4 set, the numbers don’t feel like they can keep a person alive for long enough.
For reference, the 2 set of Holy is tied to putting Renew on targets. Renew is arguably the most useless Holy Priest spell. It ticks for like 10-14k as a HoT, and the ticks are on a few second intervals too. This 2 set would’ve even been a lot better on Disc, cause at least it would apply atonement.
Based on current Holy Priest numbers, I think the main spells each need at least a 10% healing buff. Flash heal literally heals less than a Nourish from Rdruid brocolli npcs and you have to cast it, get kicked, alt+f4, and go to the forums.
And they will nerf Disc because everybody complained about its overtuned outputs.
Which will expose how thoroughly that spec’s utility actually got gutted in the rework.
Well, last season people who prefer Disc didn’t want to heal with it and didn’t like the playstyle. And they dealt with it.
Priests are in a very unique position because it is the only class with two healing specs. While the way to play each spec is very different, they both share a core toolkit. Historically (wow-like speaking) it has almost never been the case that both specs were good at the same time. And the main reason for it is that if one of the two specs outperforms the other, then the other is almost instantly bad (even if it still performs good) because it gets farmed by the better spec. Since they share quite a few tools, if you want these tools in your team, you are naturally going to favor the better spec of the two, regardless of the level of power of the second spec.
It is very rare that both specs are ‘meta’ because most of the time they prevent each other from being good. So, some seasons Holy players will be unhappy, some seasons Disc players will be unhappy. And that’s it.
what exactly are they preventing? right now all 3 rogue specs are good and none of them is cannibalizing the other’s playerbase. and it was like this for mages for like 2 seasons as well. all specs viable, all bringing different things, preference playstyle, reference to the period where arms and fury were also equal etc etc
last season there was also no “prevention” between MM and Survival hunters. both specs good, play what u enjoy, push with what u enjoy etc
so there is no such thing. disc and holy can be good at the same time, because they do different things, they’re different specs.
Renew is great but the way the tier set works is trash. You want renew before serenity due to the talent that improves your heals on targets with renew on it. So when you use serenity the target should already be renewed, and not vice versa. The question is whether if the target has no renew, with this setbus will the renew apply before or after serenity for healing bonus purposes?
Thanks, good to know. Then the setbonus is bad but at least not completely useless.
I am more concerned about the 4 piece proc rate. If it gives a lot of serenity resets then it’s pretty huge
It doesn’t, they nerfed it on the PTR already. It also requires you to have a charge ready to use it, if it procs when you just used serenity you need to recharge serenity to use it, which makes it pretty bad - that is if they didn’t change it from how it worked on the PTR.
You should re read everything, but I’ll try to be more clear. Second and last attempt, if you still don’t get what I am explaining then feel free to look at the history of Priest healing specs in high rated PvP since rated PvP became a thing, and you will see that besides rare, exceptional moments what I am saying is actually what happened (and we won’t need to talk more about it).
Both Priest healing specs are very rarely good together because they are very similar in what they bring to a team (playstyle isn’t what I am talking about here, it is what you talk about the most, but please undestand, it is irrelevant in what they do bring to their team) and thus as soon as one is better than the other then there is no reason at all to play the other one. That automatically makes the other “bad”. More explanation below, probably!
That is because they fulfill different roles. The core elements, Kidney Blind Sap and so on, are the same, but one spec brings powerful DoTs and strong sustained pressure, another brings a completely different form of sustained pressure and can brawl way more, and the last brings more CC, and more burst. They are different enough that they can each be the best in a specific archetype (Assa + Affli, Sub + Mage, Outlaw + Elemental).
But still, the same way as Holy and Disc rarely coexist, Assa and Outlaw almost never do. As soon as Outlaw is good enough almost no one plays Assa. And that is because since both specs are designed around good sustained damage (even though the way to deal the damage is not the same), if you can play Outlaw (which is immortal) and deal the same damage as Assa and Assa doesn’t have way more burst then all of a sudden there is no reason at all to play Assa because you just are a worse version of Outlaw (because basically the only noticeable difference between both specs just becomes “Assa dies more”), you lose mirrors to Outlaw AND you don’t bring your team anything that Outlaw doesn’t bring against the rest except for a defensive weakness.
It’s the idea I was conveying with Disc and Holy. Of course both specs have their unique things, but they aren’t different enough so that there is an actual reason to play the weaker one, because the stronger one just beats it on everything overall.
And again, that’s not about playstyle, but what they bring. Yes, they have different playstyles, cool, but playstyle does not have anything to do with what the spec brings to a team. No spec in the game could match the snap burst potential of Fire, so it made it better for setup comps, where a spec like Frost that relies on hard casts and ramp-up much more cannot be as effective in fast paced setups. But Frost worked way better at supporting another caster in a very dampening oriented strategy, so it could ne used there even at times when Fire was objectively better overall.
There is no one with the ambition to push serious rating who was like “ah, I like RMP, I am a Mage, but I like Frost more so I’ll push my R1 as Frost RMP!”. Nah. Fire was better at that, so you played Fire RMP, and if playing Frost was more important than playing RMP you played MLD and that was it.
Aaaand again, completely different roles in an arena match. I won’t go in as much detail as I just did for Rogue and Mage, because it’s getting tiresome and redundant. And I don’t like that.
You see, the difference in the way of getting health bars up is irrelevant. What you want as a comp is a healer that has a good toolkit synergy with its DPS duo, and keeps them alive. You want the healer to keep your health high FIRST AND FOREMOST, and use the rest of his kit to assist. It isn’t important that it’s healing over time, damage reduction combined to low/moderate healing, or only immense raw healing. No one cares how the healing is done. What matters is that the healing is good enough to give enough time to the healer to also use the support kit to assist its DPS (be it damage, CC, disruption for the enemy, etc) and not just spam heals until someone inevitably dies.
In the end Disc and Holy aren’t different enough in the way the other specs we talked about are different. They are both here PRIMARILY to heal, and beyond that they have roughly the same support toolkit. Whichever one does the best job at keeping people alive is the best, because that’s the spec that has the most time to use the rest of the kit (Psychic Scream, Mind Control, Purge Magic, and damage spells as both specs have equally good offensive buttons) to support the comp they fit in.
For DPS the way the damage is dealt is important, because some comps want to kill in 6s windows (so they need high and frequent burst), some comps want to dampen (so they need good sustained damage, tankiness and map control), some comps want to rot & burst (so they need DoTs, with some direct single target damage cooldowns). And so DPS specs of a same class that work differently just play the comps that favors their way best, and each spec usually has its own comps in which they shine. Case in point, you can fit the Rogue specs, and the Mage specs you talked about in the categories I just described. But all of those will pick the Priest healer class that keeps them alive the most (if they have to pick a Priest), because that’s in turn the one that will have the most globals to help them with offensive plays. RMP is actually an excellent example. Holy works very well in it because Chastise makes setups very easy, not to say automatic. But in a scenario where Disc heals more you prefer to play with Disc (yes, even after all the SL years of Holy Fire Sub/Outlaw domination and last season) because Rogue and Mage can enable fear easily enough even if there is no Chastise, and because Disc heals more in that scenario then Disc has more time getting the extra 25% damage the Rogue Mage duo needs to finish someone, because since he has better healing he’s not busy catching up during kill windows, where the Holy might.
I can’t really be more clear. I hope that did it.
In the end my words are just words, and looking at the “Priest history” may be interpreted in different ways, but one big way to get this is experience. You seem to be somewhat green on yourself, if I may, but I assure you if you actually had played Priest 200 to 400 cr above your peak for the last couple expansions (like BfA onwards) you would just understand everything I mean. As soon as one Priest spec gets buffed, playing the other feels like a terrible punishment even if your spec is untouched and was good before the other one was buffed. And similarly, having your spec buffed or the other nerfed feels like you get free wins everytime you face the other spec. Maybe you’ll do it in the future, who knows.
not even close. Holy has no way of preventing damage, basically just has healing. Disc has less healing, but more damage and primarily damage prevention.
This does not justify anything, it only correlates to bad historical balancing e.g balancing always being in favor of one spec, which is something that can be addressed and fixed rather easily
Which is also what Holy and Disc do. If your opinion is based solely off healer priests playing RMP/Jungle/PHP which are the 3 core priest comps, i would understand why you’re saying this, but theres more things and places that can be played
Yes they are. They literally share Grip, Fear, MC, Fade and SWD as spells. The similarities end there. Disc brings you PvE dmg, burst dmg protection with it’s cds and overall dmg prevention with lower-end actual healing. Holy brings you a stun/incap for better setups and a lot of pve healing with ocassional burst dmg with the new holy fire spam talent.
Literally ice lance spam simulator with the occasional built up ray of frost but ok
Not necessarily. This is where variations come into play. Frost / Assa / Disc RMP plays completely different than Sub/Fire/Holy RMP yet if all 3 specs can perform what their classes are supposed to do the success rate can be equal based on preference and skill
makes 0 sense to combine these 2 sentences. how does it not matter? once again you’re speaking from a completely biased rmp / jungle / php standpoint where it’s always the better priest spec. remember that not everybody plays those comps
theres literally DPS classes who are more robust and require mostly healing (e.g being better with Holy) while theres DPS classes who are squishier and feel the presence of a Disc priest much better
for example if I’m playing 2s with a DH and both specs are good, I will always grab a Disc priest, because I have both stuns and an incap therefore Holy’s utility is useless to me. But I can also easily die in stuns so Disc’s CDs are more useful to me as well.
but if im playing 2s with my Warlock or MM hunter, I’ll want a Holy priest because it provides me with more setup potential, and I don’t tank dmg permanently so I need more burst key moment healing than overall dmg reduction and prevention
As a final comment on your reply, every single spec in the game deserves to be good and playable. It’s okay for something to be “slightly” better than the other spec, but then it comes down to preference. I don’t mind if Disc is better than Holy by some margin, but all I care about is Holy being able to win against a Disc. Or a Resto Druid / Mistweaver etc. E.g it can be harder to win, but at least having a chance and winning because you played good is what matters.
Right now Holy just doesn’t have the numbers for the updated HP bars of the season. So if healing gets boosted, Disc won’t get scrapped. It will just give people more choice.
Please read everything before just answering line by line. This just shows you haven’t and answer on the fly.
Healers are here to keep your health bar above 0. The way their healing works is inconsequential. Holy has already been way better than Disc despite no damage reduction in a meta with high spikes of damage. It’s not what makes it worse now. Holy has also already done more damage than Disc, for instance. It’s really all about tuning.
No, they are not. Holy sometimes has more PvE damage than Disc (like last season, and not talking about 2s right) because sometimes it has such better healing that it has more time to spend globals on damage, resulting in more damage done. That’s literally what happened last season which is the most recent one. Just have a look at your own replays or w.e last season, or use your memory. It can’t be that short spanned that you don’t remember how Holy worked. Your arguments are also so bad… Holy had Chastise for a very long time. Why was it actually rarely picked over Disc in setup comps over the years ? 'cause Disc was a better healer, so it ends up beating Holy despite Holy having what looks like an amazing setup tool. Why has Holy sometimes been picked over Disc in metas where damage reduction was seen as the golden tool ? 'cause it had better healing. And so on. Again, just look it up.
But you can’t spam with high damage without procs, and Ray is something that can be interrupted. Don’t even try to argue that Frost is close to a match for Fire in terms of on demand guaranteed snap burst damage at the moment. It would just be a stupid thing to do.
This shows that you have never played RMP any seriously, if at all. If a variation of RMP is better than another, there is no reason to play the other. Sure, Assa Frost Druid may be viable, but from a competitive standpoint if Sub Holy Fire is better, or Outlaw Frost Disc is better, then you don’t play Assa Frost RDruid because it is worse and the goal is to win. There is simply no reason to play a weaker variation of a comp if you want to perform competitively.
Because yeah, to have fun on low to mid rating, you can indeed play anything. Even current Holy Priest. So if that sort of gaming is what this entire discusion is about, it is a fairly useless discussion. Everything is viable then. The end.
Simple. If health remains above 0, you don’t die. How doesn’t matter. Do you actually believe that DPS players are thinking mid game “god I’m so happy I was healed by a 300k Serenity rather than a 150k PW:S and a 150k PW:R” ? It is literally irrelevant. As long as you do not die, the way the Priest keeps you alive does not matter. You don’t stop thinking about your DPS job mid game to wonder about the spells that gave you a full health bar.
Yet everytime Holy is better every single spec in the game that plays with Priest goes with Holy and the same goes with Disc when it is better. So… no, not really no.
And again in 2s, the leaderboards clearly show that whatever Priest spec is the best becomes the only one played once you go beyond the rating people mess around at, and try to climb seriously. Because when they face off against each other the best one wins almost always, regardless of the comp, if the player skill level is the same on both sides.
Oh, definitely. Only, these two specs suffer from an additional difficulty for that to happen. That’s all.
Someone hasn’t looked at Disc representation the last 3 years everytime Holy healing has been buffed. Yet, argument over agument. Sigh.
we arent talking about balancing for AWC finals here
not every mage can play all 3 specs equally good and not every rogue can do that either
different RMP variations exist because of that. Viable doesn’t mean being the best. Viable means viable. not everybody plays for R1 to spam face whazz and lontar on 3k+ or rather not everybody can
Yes, it does. Because you can face different things and based on your healer you may or may not survive that. E.g a Holy priest will keep his team up against a Rot-oriented comp better than a Disc because of the pve healing. In comparison, a Disc will keep the team alive much better vs 1shot comps. Disc has historically struggled against PvE dmg comps and longer games. What exactly does a PS do to a guy who just permanently has dots on him? and What does a serenity do for a guy that is getting hit for 70% of his healthbar every global by a high burst comp? Heals him up once, goes back down, no damage reduction.
not really. obviously disc is a lot better right now hence why it is played a lot more. that was the point of this post. to provide some healing buffs for holy. the player skill level dictating the win applies only if a given spec has a chance against another given spec. when there is a massive gap between 2 healer specs in terms of viability, oftentimes skill doesn’t compensate that gap. A prime example is watching Zenlyn play Holy for hours on end, oftentimes playing perfectly, yet losing to other healer specs where the players oftentimes play bad but win anyway because of their spec.
I have. Im not talking about history. What im trying to tell you is that both specs can be good without cannibalizing eachother forcefully and rather giving the priest playerbase an option to play what they want. Just because it hasn’t been done well in the past doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Thats why I gave DPS specs as examples. When Fury and Arms were equally as good for a short period of time, people could just play whatever they wanted. Arms brings this, Fury brings that, etc. That’s literally the golden spot for class balance, having a choice between your specs. Which is why I think Holy should get healing buffs.
The same used to apply to Disc last season. A very seasoned Disc could lose to a random Holy despite playing a very solid game, just because Holy was a better spec. And so when you build your comp, aside from niche scenarios that rely mostly on a Disc/Holy specific, you picked Holy last season and pick Disc now.
If what you are worried about is playability, then to just have fun healing people without pushing rating anything is viable. Holy is, just like a weaker Disc was last season.
There really is no need to argue about anything if that’s all.
Well. So far they have rarely been able to accomplish that. That’s really all I was initially saying. I’m not saying it that they shouldn’t both be good (I’m very much a person who believes every single spec should have its place in PvP), just that it doesn’t happen usually. Then you’re just here saying “no no no, look me up I know everything about it”. Duh. Very boring.
Or maybe it is that people were playing one spec, started to realize that the other was better because X or Y streamer played it for fun and actually rampaged everybody, and what you describe is commonly described as a transition period. Because competitively, Arms and Fury are actually two specs that have “cannibalised each other”, as you put it. Arms usually wins because it brings more, and Fury goes beyond Arms when its offensive pressure is superior enough. And then Arms utility isn’t worth being played over Fury because you don’t need extra utiliy if you can simply kill the enemy.
But from a purely casual standpoint you can of course play both.
Whatever you guys say: here is my ultimate subjective and totally unbiased opinion:
Holy priest : GOOD
needs more love, buffs, and viable comps
Disc priest : BAD
needs to be disabled from pvp so only m+ parsers will be allowed to play this stupid spec.
Here I said it. And you are not allowed to refute this.
Thanks for taking your time reading this.
I always knew that deep down you had chosen the wrong path on the way to healing with the white class, thus forever dooming your perception over which spec of the white class is noble and pure, and which isn’t !
There is a reason why the wow deities slew a certain classic Priest in an unfortunate way…