There were many discussions and many patches, somehow, with no changes to Holy Priests. So I thought it’s time for a 2nd round of feedback.
Let’s start with some AoE healing number comparisons to Discipline Priest (Values are based on my character with 620 ilvl):
IS THIS A JOKE?
And Radiance isn’t even primarily used for its healing but to apply Attonement.
So Radiance does higher baseline healing, heals further more through Attonement, adds 2 bolts to Penance and has a 9 sec. Cooldown.
Meanwhile Sanctify does 120k less healing, adds 40% healing to a single spell and has a 30 sec. Cooldown.
How is this considered acceptable by anyone?
Sanctify needs a deep 100-200% increase in healing to be comparable to Radiance. (If that happens, Serenity will need a buff too, to keep them somewhat comparable as Holy Words)
In M+, we can’t even reduce its cooldown. But even if we picked Prayer of Healing, it takes seven casts to recharge it:
And that is assuming, that we wouldn’t cast any other spell than PoH. Again, how is this considered ok?
Prayer of Healing is another spell in need of a giga buff. It heals less than a 100k per person in an expansion where we have 5,3+ Million HP. How is this ok?
Moving on to Divine Hymn, I have to update what I said about it last time. I hadn’t touched it since early DF when I wrote it off as useless, but I have tried the new version recently in the current dungeon pool, so:
Divine Hymn - The healing itself is incredibly low, it is only padding levels of healing while requiring us to stand still and channel it.
Imagine if Disc Priests had to channel their Barrier, or if Healing Tide Totem silenced and rooted the Shaman - that is Divine Hymn right now.
I like the idea of having a group padding ability, but we must be able to move and cast while it’s active. I can think of two options to improve it:
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Make it passive - Call down a projection of a Naaru who will sing Divine Hymn, healing your allies
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Tie it to spellcasts - It last 8 seconds by default, so let’s say: The next 8 sucessful healing casts will emit a Divine Cord - One tick of Divine Hymn.
This way we can move, spot heal and have some padding healing going on.
Gales of Song - The 30% healing bonus after the channel is the saving grace of the spell. However, I think it would be best to remove it. It’s making Divine Hymn be two abilities at once - a group-wide heal and a group-wide healing taken increase - both effects are powerful, need to be balanced and the result is awkward.
In my opinion, it would be best to cut the healing boost off and increase the healing of the spell itself - make it do one thing and be good at it.
Symbol of Hope could be split into a Dungeon/Raid version, like Divine Hymn and Attonement. In raids, it could stay the same (reduce 30 sec of def CDs). In M+, it could be buffed to 60 sec reduction like it used to before it was nerfed.
The problem with Premonition of Piety is that in high keys, you take so much damage that you can never overheal yourself enough to sufficiently heal others.
If you try to heal Dark Pulse or Shadowy Decay this way, your group will drop dead. So at this level, you use the Premonition just for the 21% healing increase and spot heal with it anyway, any overhealing you do is accidental. Which turns this ability from interesting to boring.
If Blizzard’s idea with Piety is to give us AoE healing than Jaypriest’s solution is the way to go, in my opinion.
This would be a nice replacement for the Afterlife talent. Having a, let’s say, 10 sec. immunity to damage and CC would be a great tool for us since we have to stand and hard cast everything.
Imagine how much easier the big Nerub with Venom Spray in CoT would be if you could ignore the first Spray just like a Paladin with their Bubble or a Shaman with Spiritwalker’s Grace, in our own way.
If priests are to get an interrupt, I think Psychic Scream is the right ability for it - it would be an AoE interrupt and both Holy and Disc have access to it.
But, as I said in Hearties post, I think it should be baseline, not a talent.
Prayer of Mending - An annyoing issue in M+ is the erasure of its stacks when a person with 11 stacks recieves a 6 stack PoM going up to 14 (maximum), erasing 3 stacks of the spell. Or 10 stacks merging with another 10 stacks etc. This happens quite often because PoMs target is random and there are only 5 people in the dungeon.
It could be made smarter by making PoM not target people who have more than 7 stacks of another PoM.
Lastly, Power Word: Shield should be stronger - It should be at least as powerful as Flash Heal, to make it seem like somewhat of a shield.
Now for Talents
This is a dead talent because there is no build that actively casts Renew. At best, it can be used as a boost to Holy Word: Salvation which isn’t worth it.
It should be a baseline ability, its use is too niche to be worth a talent.
It should be changed, a random slow simply isn’t useful.
Currently, there is no scenario where this talent can provide any benefit because Power Word: Shield is too weak, it gets destroyed by one hit from anything therefore it cannot be refilled.