Trying a holy priest- its the worst healer i ever played- Good playstyle, Very Bad numbers

Classes Priest
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so im pretty experienced with healers (minus monks) up to one or two HC raid bosses , 12/12 N and m+ 9 dungeons. I also play since TBC maining healers with some xpacs / tier pushing progression on more casual guilds.

I decided to try holy priest and i like the healing playstyle, ofc in damage it sucks but it gets better in SL i guess.

The thing is that the heals are very low, my Priest is 449 ilvl and i barely see the bars moving in m+. I cast like 3 or 4 aoe heals and it feels like 1 chain heal on my 430 ilvl shamy that have damage traits and a shoulder without traits (i have other shamys higher ilvl) , and becouse it takes more time to cast those 3 or 4 heals ( even if they are instant), it feels much worse then a chain heal.

Its a pain to do m+, sure the people were failing tatics cuz i pug, but they also fail on my druid or shaman.

I usualy can play a healer for months but holy priest for yesterday night and today mornign and i dont want to touch it again, not becouse of playstyle, but becouse of numbers . Sure i will try in shadowlands also becouse i like the current and SL shadow spec but its sad to see the classic healer spec doing minor amounts of heal with any heal spell.

Im not even comparing to resto druid in m+, im comparing to disci / resto shaman.

ps: Oh and the fact that cant play halo becouse it pushes all dungeon its also a joke.

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The problems with holy imo are:

  • it is not the best even in their niche (raw hps).

  • their abilty to triage is horrible, especially if Holy Word is on CD.

  • They are too reliant on Holy Words, while imo they should be able to pump out insane hps costantly, and use Holy Words for triaging.

  • Ridiculos personals.(Xanshi effect need to be baseline).

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Hpriest does not suck at all for keys 20 and below, its actually super fun and SUPER easy to play.

Before you deep dive with Hpriest in M+ you need 3x Permeating Glow and 3x Promise of Deliverance.

At your ilvl you should be easily healing M+ 10++ unless ppl run like headless chicken…
Get your stat prio to Haste/Crit if you dont wanna push high keys.

Apotheosis, never flash heal the same target again because Trail of light will cause your heals to AoE, some use prayer of healing i never did. Usually only Flash heals, Holy word sanctify and holy word serenity are always enough.

Wings on tank and flash heal, if things get tough Use apotheosis as well.
Dont forget the new essence as minor from uldum/rajani that buffs your flash heal. You can use major the EP essence if things are really tough.

Did plenty of runs @ almost 40k overall dps and around 30+k overall HPS, it is the easiest spec to play but it can do alot more from what you think even with its low skill cap.

Hpriest is by far better in PUGS from shaman + disc, when people are taking avoidable damage.

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And they are the only spec that got absolutely no love in shadowlands so far… even worse after being unpruned they got pruned again.

What was Blizzard thinking?

So far i find them only usefull when healing pugs…

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Ehm, survival hunters?

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And the entire monk class. And demo locks.

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I think he meant “ the only healing spec” :slightly_smiling_face:

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The most major issues in my opinion with holy priest, is the fact they’re supposed to be the “Traditional Healer” spec. We’re not supposed to be taken for our lackluster utility, our lackluster defenses, or our lackluster mobility, we’re supposed to be there for our raw healing… And truth of the matter is, at least in BFA, we not only suck in terms of surviving, providing utility and moving, our healing is also just so far down…

We can’t make up for it in any real capacity, like other healers who has stuff like; Sustained damage while healing (Druid, pala, disc), single (Paladin, druid, disc) and AoE DRs (Pala, disc), decent casting on the move (Pala, druid), decent CC / Utility (Druid, pala), good survivability (Paladin, druid, monk, shaman.)

Holy priests simply don’t excel at Anything while multiple healing specs excels at several.

Either you give us the means to DPS while healing, I personally suggest going the opposite route of Paladin / Disc, who does DPS to heal, and allow us to Heal to do DPS - Maybe by building up a resource while we heal, which will allow us to do ludicrous burst damage - Or give us some actual utility / survivability, or at least make us excel at the one thing we’re supposed to; Healing, and make our healing so powerful, we can straight up replace another healer with a DPS, i don’t know… Do something please.

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While I agree that something must be done, I’d rather not see them going the route of buffing raw healing to ludicrous levels.
A designed built around simply healing more than everyone else is fine if the game plays out like classic, where nearly every single mechanic is simply “you’ll take lots of damage”.
However, this won’t work in current WoW. People will take damage faster than you can spam flash heals. People will die because they take very large hits that mitigation is supposed to deal with.

And to top it off, it would give certain knuckleheads that holy priest is actually OP because they’re far ahead on the healing meters through raw throughput, while what they’re actually seeing is just Blizzard turning the knob to 11.
I am of the opinion that what holy needs is tools, not throughput.

They should make spells synergize better. Holy’s base kit seems to be based around spells interacting with each other, but this doesn’t happen at all outside of the basic CD reduction.

Dealing damage through healing would be hecking awesome. Imagine if Flash Heal/heal also made the target deal bonus holy damage on their next damage dealing ability. And for the meter slaves, the damage would of course have to be shown as coming from the priest.

And as for personal utility, the fix is so damn easy:
Desperate prayer also gets a DR component. Done deal. Spell fixed.

It’s mind-boggling that nothing is being done at all tbh. Hopefully fixing holy priests is on the long to-do list that caused the expansion delay.

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Interesting…

Lets try this…

Everytime you heal a player, it leaves a buff on the player that reflects the damage they receive for 20% of the health healed back to the attacker. Multiple heals stack in this buff. As long as the buff is not depleted the healed player does 10% more dps. The buff lasts for 15 seconds after the last heal received.

Add to that a buff on the enemy player, (after) an offensive skill is used on the Enemy for 10 seconds that makes 10% of the damage they do reflect to themselves, with a maximum of 20% of the damage done by the holy priest…

The damage numbers of the buffs are added to the holy priests dps… i think this would make holy priest an interesting pick…

But i also think they should bring the shadowspells back from the unpruning… espescially for PvP… as it gives you options to use when locked out of holy …

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the idea of our healing leaving behind damage utility on our targets would be a great way for us to deal our damage, without breaking the general style of our current healing. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be on par with Pala / Disc, but it would be somehting, but yes I agree, it is horrendous that nothing is being done at all.

Shadowlands is the last real chance I’m willing to give Blizzard, so I’d at least hope to have fun with my main and favorite spec, alas… My raid leader has warned me, if holy continues being garbage tier, they’ll have to substitute me with something else on the worse fights, feels bad.

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This would be a very interesting way to do it yes. The idea of Blizzard just throwing shadow damage abilities in our faces really irked me the wrong way… It works for Disc because it represents both holy and shadow, but Holy priest should be doing their offense through The Light.

Thinking about it however, I don’t know if the idea of a “Holy Thorns” fits the holy priest that well, it sounds more like something paladins would do, with their whole “Retribution” and “Protective” theme etc.

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You obviously never played pvp?

Priests are all about the ballance between light and shadow in my experience…

My Holy priest during Vanilla also had some shadow abilities?

Its called the unpruning… so moving back more to vanilla… and if that means shadow abilities for holy priest, so be it.

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Yes, priests are all about the balance between Light and Shadow, but the spectrum goes like this. Holy (Light) Disc (Light/shadow) And Shadow (Shadow.) The “Holy priest” does not affiliate with Shadow at all. Holy priests condemn shadow and the reason why they have (Have had) shadow spells, was purely due to game mechanics.

Discipline priests are the ones that balance between the two, that’s why it’s call discipline, becaues the very act of utilizing both Light and Shadow requires a tremendous amount of disciplin and self control, while shadow completely neglects the light and have turned fully to Shadow.

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I think your view on things is to black and white… there are allways hundreds of shades of grey between this…

If forced to use shadow powers to survive and fight evil, things suddenly aren’t this black and white anymore…

Azeroth hasn’t been a perfect place in ages… so why would it suddenly be perfect now?

Its a choice holy priests should have, staying true to the ethos is a choice… if you refrain from using shadow spells thats your choice… if you don’t, well thats your choice too. Being pigeonlocked into something leaves no room for roleplaying…

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I am giving it the black and white treatment because that’s literally what Priest has been about for ages. Holy is one side of the coin, shadow is the other, discipline is the grey zone. A devoted holy priest would never turn to using shadow, they’re two completely opposite cosmic forces.

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This isn’t true. Holy priests do have shadow spells (psychic scream and mind control come to mind, which are baseline).

Holy priests are more invested healers drawing power from their faith.

Faith seems to be the key factor for priests with light/shadow being the power they channel.

I think paladins are more fitting for your description (except the part about having shadow spells) they are dogmatic in their belief in the light and are empowered by it, denouncing the void/shadow/evil.

You can look at the class hall as an example of holy priests not entirely minding shadow as they work/worship/are present in the class hall.

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You are mixing game mechanical elements with lore / flavor though. Back in TBC, when Blood Elves were introduced with Paladins, they had access to Seal of Blood, which wasn’t given to any Alliance paladins. This was a racial thing, but the principle remains the same. Blizzard did not want to differentiate too much between other specs / races because it’s a hassle to balance.

Psychic scream and Mind control being baseline for priests is kinda the same thing, just like Forsaken priests uses holy magic to heal, even though lorewise, it’s torment (Unless that’s been retconned, I dunno.)

Shadow, void and fel have always been “officially” shunned by the Horde and the Alliance, that’s why the warlock trainers in Stormwind are basement dwellers, and not a single shadow priest can be found in most major cities.

Holy Priests and Paladins are almost identical in terms of flavor, Paladins simply chose to pick up arms and move to the frontlines, instead of staying behind as medics.

Let’s also take a look at the Class hall indeed. When first introduced to the Class hall, it’s in shambles, and you have to cleanse a voidturned Naaru. If Void / shadow wasn’t minded by holy priests, why would they need to “Cleanse” the Naaru?

And if the Order hall wasn’t made the way it was, it would alianate all the shadow priest players. It would be like taking the Mage order hall and completely remove both the frost and fire aesthetics, since Mages don’t actually summon frost or fire, they channel the Arcane and turn it into reach respective element.

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Thats where you go wrong, it used to be different, and this expansion is all about the unpruning, or bringing things back from the past…

As i said, 100 shades of grey…

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You are confusing and putting game mechanics ahead of lore. Any shadow themed ability Holy Priest has is due to In-game mechanics, but does not make any sense from a lore / world building perspective. Remember when Blood Elf paladins had a unique Seal called “Seal of Blood”? While Alliance had something else? They scrapped that because it was impossible to balance, and they didn’t want to split class power. That’s a game mechanic, just like how Taurens in game can be Paladins, while lorewise they’re just a part of Tauren culture that worships the sun, like the Druids worship the moon.

Holy and Shadow (Void) are two opposite cosmic forces. Shadowpriests do not wield the light, and holy priests do not wield Shadow. Discipline is the grey zone, because they use both (Hint: Look at penance spell animation.) The reason why Discipline is called Discipline, is because in order to stay balanced between the two, the priest must be extremely disciplined, otherwise they might succumb to the whispers of insanity.

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