At my wits end with Holy already this season

Classes Priest
1

hard bricked at 2700. calling it now. Currently 2600.

This is complete garbage. I am so sick of this crap. Priest now has lowest HP in the game. Down from having the most. This is further amplified by Holy being complete dog crap with 0 defensives and absolutely no damage reduction.

Just put together a good team. Walked into priory 12. Currently 661 ilvl.

This is just pathetic. Literally everything in that dungeon can 1 shot me. Even if I pop fade with 10% dr and desperate prayer (fully talent spec into it) Instant death.

That garbage channel ability inside the church. DPS gets hit with it, didn’t need anything more than a flash heal to help them soak it. I get targetted, pop fade + desperate prayer + gift of naru race ability. instant death. Even when I doubled down spamming lightweaving on myself.

This is complete garbage. Holy has 0 defensive capability. It is easier to heal everyone around you than it is to heal yourself. Weakest link by far. Dead 5 times before first boss. meanwhile while I am dead and running back, not a single dps died because they all have REAL defensives.

Holy is just so screwed. endlessly. Now lowest rank in raid and can’t keep pace in M+ with 0 defensives.

Why do they always do this? Why can’t they just unscrew holy. Like it isn’t bad enough all your hps is gated behind 3x 1-3 minute long cooldowns and is one of the most mana starved healers in the game.

I don’t really care anymore. This game just keeps going to crap. First that complete train wreck they called season 1 followed by this.

I shouldn’t be forced to play disc. I am honestly just sick of the complete lack of balancing.

Here we are 1 month into the season and I am already about to switch back to monk like I was forced to do last season.

Desperate prayer should be 15 sec cooldown like expel harm is for monk.

Fade should give 20-30% damage reduction

Priest HP should be comparable to EVERY OTHER CLASS IN THE GAME!

heal output should not be gated entirely into apotheosis, hymn, and whatever garbage hero class ability you get from Archon/oracle

Whoever is in charge of priest balancing should be fired.

2 Likes
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Priory is a particularly rough dungeon, especially if PuGing. The Sharpshooters and the Paladins and the Purify channel are particularly punishing. I’ve noticed , on occasion, that a Sharpshooter or two may get left out if there aren’t utilities to get them into the cleave. In those situations, perhaps Dominate Mind on a Sharpshooter to have them contribute a bit of DPS and keep them out of the way… but making sure the group is aware that they need to take care of it.

It sounds a bit like there are large pulls going on but perhaps some mobs aren’t being controlled. Holy Priest is something (a lot) of a Passenger Princess, but we can get out of the car and dole out bandaids better than a lot of healers—as long as they can survive. Power Word: Life works as long as there’s 1 HP.

Our defensives are somewhat disorganized, but if there’s an issue with survivability, try Oracle (if you’re not already). Oracle has an option to increase the duration of Desperate Prayer (and Angelic Bulwark, for all of the good that is). Fade can be 10% DR, Binding Heals makes keeping up 10% DR on yourself easy. The Focused Will DR is harder to maintain, since it requires being hit to activate (wish they’d do something about that for M+).

Am definitely of the opinion that we still really need help with AoE healing, and Prayer of Healing isn’t there , yet. But if you’re being targeted, outside of the pounces, the group might need to assist, or interrupt, more.

1 Like
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The group did fine. DPS output was great and crowd control wasn’t an issue. The problem is unavoidable damage and single target focused attacks on myself. HP is just too low and no defensive means you are going to get wrecked.

Take the first room of the chapel for example. that AOE attack goes off. It hit everyone. the entire team dropped to 50% HP yet I drop to less than 1/4 my hp. Then instantly die to any aoe damage that goes out. That is with both fade and desperate prayer up. Forced to have to waste large cooldowns on myself just to die in vane regardless.

Restitution triggered. I pump out heals as an angel, The moment it ends, There is crap underneath me when angel form ends. Instant death even though I healed myself to full during restitution. 1 death is now 2, Not a single team mate took any damage that wasn’t easily healed other than myself. running around on cooldown with under 20% HP at almost all times. Wasting large cooldowns to keep myself alive just to die at the next scripted burst event while no one else even drops below 50% hp.

There is literally 0 survivability. no damage mitigation, no mobility, no “OH CRAP!” button.

monk rolls and dodges everything. monk full heals itself every 15 sec, monk has massive passive healing keeping everyone alive (including self) all times without needing to endlessly depend on long cooldowns that do nothing but over heal because too much power is gated into them.

Flash heal cast time too long
Heal cast time (even lightweaving) too long
Prayer of healing useless and cast time too long
Sanctify healing too weak and cooldown too long.
Serenity cooldown too long and does nothing but over heal.

almost 0 reactive healing, gated over healing large cooldowns, 0 survivability. It is just stupid.

2 Likes
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That’s the problem when people advocate for nifty interactions. Our healing will be balanced to the maximum theoretical output. If you could heal 10% better than any other healer but you had to eat three feasts, spin in a circle between each Heal, and run in perfect triangle twice before casting Halo then you best believe that we are going to get nerfed by 10%

2 Likes
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Yes indeed

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Priory is tough but a 12 is definitely doable for 661 ilvl holy. Here’s a 15 from 664 holy.

https://raider.io/mythic-plus-runs/season-tww-2/7203858-15-priory-of-the-sacred-flame

It can be frustrating at times when you struggle in a dungeon, trust I feel that on the regular, especially when knowing others are crushing with same spec.

We can throw in the towel and blame Blizz or whoever is there, or we can try to learn from others to up our game, if possible.

A couple things stood out looking at that priest’s setup. First, they took PW Life. Most builds I’ve seen take Benevolence. Second, both trinkets are defensive trinkets, one I haven’t seen anyone using, Bomb suit. All of that was probably with them in mind to survive.

Just food for thought when the frustration of your 12 dies down a bit.

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That is great feedback and I seen that also. The 3000+ Hpriest using defensive trinkets. But you got to be able to get them…

So in other words, You won’t be able to progress unless you get a nitch item not even designed for your class .

As far as power word life, I don’t understand why they even bother. You are so hard gated by GCD and cast times with holy as it is. Power word life rarely heals for more than a flash heal and is single target only while eating a GCD. it isn’t efficient and it isn’t large enough a heal to even waste your time with it honestly. It performs better in PVP than it does in PVE. It isn’t like Holy has a lack of instant cast single target heals that you would be so dependent on another. I almost always have a free flash heal available so theoretically it numerically doesn’t make much sense. Maybe if it wasn’t on GCD.

The problem with Holy in general is AOE heals are so bad and most single target (beefed up light weave heals and serenity) do nothing but over heal most the time. Making all that power wasted.

If they want to focus so hard on huge single target over healing abilities then dispersing light talent needs to spread more than 5% of the healing to other party members. It should be double what it is right now.

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The whole second half of that dungeon is a mess. What I tend to is stand off to the side so that I can stay planted since there’s not really any time to adjust your position with the heavy AoE that’s going on. If the tank is bringing the pack back outside, I’m off to the side. If the tank is moving from one side of the room to the other, I’m near the door. I also take Phantom Reach. Maybe not optimal, but it works for me.

All of that being said, that dungeon is rough. I like it, perhaps , because our tools have improved (they’re not _there yet, but honestly, even the instant cast heals from Divinity and PoM spam in Divine Hymn are helpful). Do I want more? Yes, absolutely, a whole lot more. Is it better than struggling through the third boss of City of Threads as Oracle, absolutely. The bar is so low. :upside_down_face:

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We need an interrupt firstly……

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LOL Yea compared to last season the bar is so low. I was honestly so excited for the changes we got and then I realized at best it would only scale maybe 1-2 key levels higher than what we could do last season. And that is pretty pathetic. There is just no coordination to our kit at all. It’s just rotate super powerful cooldowns that just over heal and do little to keep 5 people alive or plant your feat and spam cast while being brutalized by mechanics. all because they refuse to balance healers individually and just use " what a monk can do" as a baseline for output not taking into consideration the shear insane mobility monk has to address mechanics in the process.

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I definitely agree that it seems like things lack a level of cohesion and it’s particularly frustrating that we’ve had two ““reworks”” that are just dropped in without soliciting feedback. Perhaps there’s something coming with the class tree rework Hopium, since they reworked Druid’s recently.

Controversial take, maybe, but I don’t think we need to be mobile, BUT that has to have an upside, and that’s one of my frustrations with Prayer of Healing. A good portion of addressing massive AoE damage—if you’re not Archon, and maybe even if it is, dunno–is playing whack-a-mole, and throwing CDs at low bars until you’re out of those. If we’re going to be the least mobile healer, then that should mean while standing still we can react to those damage patterns in a timely manner so that bars are stable when it’s time to move. And then, when we have to move, have use of the spells that give is time to get to a new spot to stand. There’s literally a spell for that, but it’s locked behind PvP.

2 Likes
12

Simply solution is bring back circle of healing and just make it useful. Easy instant cast on a relative short timer that can be used while moving. Even as Archon, Halo is 5x less potent this season as last and a 1 min CD is just too long for the amount of aoe going out. Making halo instant cast would help to some extent.

I think the biggest elephant in the room here is how taxing GCD and cast times are on Holy specifically. Add in the fact that Apotheosis hogs a GCD on activation, It doesn’t make it a good reactive means of AOE healing even if you are spec to get the 3 free instant cast heals. Whoever decided Apotheosis needs to be on GCD is a clown.

4 Likes
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:clap: GCD is definitely not Friend right now.

As for Apotheosis, it really would be nice if it were off the GCD but maybe that’s because of Cosmic Ripple, which might have 2 procs?

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They could keep cosmic ripple on GCD without affecting Apotheosis being off of it. It’s no different than if you cast Apotheosis normally while Serenity and Sanctify are both on cooldowns. Refreshing both of them still only releases one ripple.

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I’m struggling a lot with 8s and 9s this season. Yes, I pug. But compared to the last few seasons, I just feel weaker overall, even with a 661 ilevel. I feel like PoH could use a little more buff. Blizz is on the right track with the most recent buffs, just a bit more please. Give us AoE that feels like it moves health bars a bit.

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I wouldn’t even bother taking POH as a talent honestly. I have managed to push to 2600 io at 661 and I still have room to clear all keys on 11 before 12s brick me.

Just lean on dispersing light for cleave healing. It is way more effective than spam casting prayer of healing.

Just don’t go mastery build if you do that. It will have no affect on DL output. Vers and crit are your friends.

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I’ve played PoH and think it easily has potential till 14s. Dispersing light, however, is pretty much useless IMO and I’d never take it :man_shrugging:. The issue is you’re not going to get invited above 12 unless you’re doing your own keys/playing with friends - which is classic off meta spec stuff, but it’s gotten particularly bad over time since late DF, people just generally start gatekeeping and inspecting earlier.

I think the realistic answer is if you’re playing a heavy flash heal/LW build trail of light will always be better in dungeon (and you should be on archon). If you’re not doing that, Oracle has some room to play a PoH build based around Resonant. You have pretty good moments off your premonitions granting you an instant, so you can burst heal alongside two holy words (and I mean Apoth you get 3 of em to rotate). You rarely if ever cast PoH on its own, but weave it with the Resonant Words boost.

Honestly it’s all classic Holy problems. Terrible survivability, mana sucks in long fights because we seem to have high mana cost across the board (not just a PoH problem - but a FHeal problem too) I THINK because they expect apoth holy words to make it up?

A couple top holy priests are running it, especially in certain dungeons. Some bosses/packs this season can just randomly blow up a player, so having double defensive feels more important than ever on Holy because it dies to most things. lol

I’ve been playing without them and there’s definitely times where a pull happens, I fade and DP in anticipation, survive a volley, then they wear off and I have no chance on the next one and just wish I had candle. Basically dependent on really good CC chains which pugs just don’t have.

Anyway, just started playing Holy this season so having fun for now :stuck_out_tongue:

My current build is PoH heavy, but I really use it weaving it with Sanctify/Serenity, and for the most part when I have instant casts. But I’m leaving dungeons with it healing about as much as Sanctify does, (My latest Priory 10 it did 172m and Sanc did 184m with both at 70 casts and sanc only ~7% more overheal) so I don’t think it needs much of a bump TBH. A small buff would put it in a pretty viable spot I think. It’s the rest of holy that still needs changes.

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POH is ok for a mastery build but for haste vers Dispersing light feels more impactful and less mana strain.

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I’m late to the party, but you’re running From Darkness Comes Light in the class tree instead of Protective Light which is a 10% DR.

When it comes to Priory, LoS is your friend. During the second half of the instance with the paladins casting Sacred Toll, you can Line of Sight those casts. In terms of everything else, preemptive healing is key and rounding those cooldowns before you may actually need them is a boon. Try to anticipate the damage since most of the big hits have cast bars.

Desperate Prayer isn’t bad, but it’s more or less the fact that it cannot immune for us that makes it feel less useful than other classes. It gives us max HP and heals us for the same amount, but mechanically it just means we have to heal more to get to full HP. For instance, if it instead granted us a shield for 50% of our max hp, it’d already be a better CD. That can be used preemptively, it can be used later in emergency, and other benefits.

If you feel cast times are long, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m running barely any haste and everything feels ok since I’m playing around maximizing instant casts. Then again, I’m maximizing Mastery/crit which allows that. I’m definitely running into the incoming damage walls that make me want more versatility though.

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It… Kind of does this.

Since the health doesn’t go away when DP ends, it’s just free health. It’d functionally be the same cooldown, basically. It just would FEEL safer because your health bar is full.