I play holy priest with a retri. I m about 1780, nothing special but i consider i know the spec. You can check my older post here (some points have changed though with mana essences etc) Why holy priest is so bad in PVP, what should be done but i ll try to summarize here.
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Every healer in the game can defend themselves for extended long periods of time without losing mana. Druids in bear form, shamans in wolf form, monks with mobility, disc priests by doing damage (smite doesnt consume mana) and holy paladins are the most mana efficient class (if talented right). Holy priests must spend mana to defend themselves.
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Healing mechanics. Let aside Greater Heal. How actually holy priest heals? Serenity and then flash heals or heals to have again the serenity thing. But, flash heals or heals heal extremely poorly.Thus, we have casting spells which heal bad and eat lot of mana in order to have an instant big spell every 30 sec or 1 min which also eats a lot of mana. BUT this is totally contradictory to the overall design of the game which seems to reward casting times, while instants seem to be fillers. Holy priest is the utmost contradiction to the whole wherever efficient system of the game mechanics.
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Greater Heal is an abomination, given to correct the rest of the mechanics. It s something isolated from the overall healing rotation and interdependence of holy tools.
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Stats:
- If you play Greater heal, you need haste. Let say 30-32% haste. Then your mastery will not be at 30% or above, but 30% mastery is considered a must for Echo of Lights, a passive heal which heals a lot. So, you cannot PVE efficiently too. If you play Greater Heal you cannot invest in Versatility since it contributes zero to Greater Heal.
- If you play with mastery: let say 30-40% mastery,that means in the next 6 seconds you cast a heal 30-40% of that heal is applied (through Echo of LIghts). BUT this is not applied with GREATER HEAL. If you heal let say 200 K with greater heal then you get about 15-20 K with EoL and not 60-80 K as you should.
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Serenity: you think you may be able to heal 80k - 100k with serenity but this is not the case in pvp environment with heal reduction spells. So your second BIG spell heals sometimes for nothing. AND then you must wait a long cooldown, in the mean time you have only poor flash heal and heal.
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Other spells. In the past when against boomies or affliction locks or unholy DK or shadow priests, choosing Prayer of Mending was a must. Dots made this spell to proc a lot. Now unfortunately this spell is so nerfed it heals below average. Renew is good. Renew gives holy priest a place among resto druids (hots class) and the holy paladin (a direct heal class). But Renew also seems so independent of rest of the spells and tools and its interconnection with (nerfed) prayer of mending is gutted too…
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Good things: cc and avoiding cc. Many times i win in arena with suitably coordinated greater fade, holy ward etc. But now in arena half of the matches are a PVE fest… The value of those spells seem to have been decreased a lot . .
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What must be done:
-Holy priest must be able to defend themselves also for extended periods of time without spending so much mana, as all the other classes do.
-Greater heal must leave or to be connected fluently with the rest of mechanics which also must be altered…
-Other mechanics. It s a madness to heal so little for so much mana… If these mechanics (as explained above) are to be kept then give holy priests mana efficiency as good as holy pala.
-Other mechanics II: Flash heal and heal must heal for more and serenity to stay as it is (70 k is almost nothing) or give mechanics which make those spells to have occasionally faster casting times or crits like holy pala or shaman or make serenity heal for more.
-Other mechanics III: Renew, prayer of mending and other hots must be invented or redesigned and interconnected in a fluent way with rest holy priests tools. -
If one wants to play pvp with holy priest, must know how to heal and survive without Greater Heal and survive especially melee with right use of cooldowns, and only then introduce it in his game play.