Originally was gonna put this at the bottom of my post, but personally think it’s more important than just responding:
Personally what I’d like to see for Oracle is PW:S reflective shield damage put into Atonement. This basically makes every PW:S cast also 2x Smite, and makes Rapture actually work to heal people up.
I’d also like to see PoM buffed to proc when an attack hits a shield on a target not full health. TBH I’d also like to see PoM’s healing buffed for Oracle, too.
I’d also like to see a talent that charges your next Nova or Penance based off the damage your PW:S is absorbing (or something of the like).
I’m gonna be honest, it really doesn’t much for healers. It hasn’t in literally any season I’ve played even when I’m being insanely casual on an alt. People need to stop being in their own heads with this stuff. When you’re a DPS? OH YEAH sure. But healers still come out of it with healer privilege. If you do a decent chunk of your own keys near the start to establish some score, people will invite you and they really don’t pay much attention to spec.
For some reason, there’s this idea that it always does. That it trickles down, it’s completely unavoidable and you will always get told to play X or play nothing. But reality is nobody gives any care whatsoever to what you’re playing outside:
A.) Applying to their keys with low IO (hence the mantra of make your own keys, I’m sure you’re well aware).
B.) You majorly screw up and blow up someone’s key
C.) Someone else majorly screws up and blows up their own key, but they want to blame someone else.
Majority of the time, if you’re playing well, and people aren’t dying constantly? You’re gold. Nobody’s gonna say anything. Hell, in the lower/mid level keys a lot of people don’t even know what the hero specs do, or what’s even meta for that class if we’re being honest.
My first post says there should be buffs - I was responding to the sentiment that it was completely unplayable which happens one post in your thread. And the followups of ‘it’s a cosmetic spec’ along with several doomsaying sentiments.
The spec is performing a bit worse than VW in extended healing scenarios. It’s getting completely blown out of the water in raid.
BUT If I’m being completely real about the state of Oracle in PvE dungeons, it needs a couple tweaks to have its healing be completely competitive with VW. Because its HPS is nowhere near as far behind as you’re selling it. Voidweaver wins the battle, sure, but it’s not like MASSIVE in 5 mans when it comes to healing, because Oracle has ways to play around with radiance resets, it can talent for stronger raptures, etc.
If we want to talk actual data here when it comes to burst healing, Voidweaver wins on just regular insight, but Oracle comes close in Clairvoyance windows (I’m just removing mastery from this equation for raw SP and talent modifiers like Schism/Scov/Preventative):
Insight and Clairvoyance’s best rotations are Instant Radiance>Penance>Radiance>Blast>Penance, which leaves a banked Radiance.
That’s 450% SP > 311% SP > 450% SP > 54% SP > 467% SP
with Clairv getting the extra 25% and overheal protection.
Total 1732% SP to each member of the group in Insight. 2165% under Clairvoyance.
Voidweaver Healing in the same 5 globals is going to be:
Radiance > Bender > Blast > Reprimand > Smite (void) or SW:D.
450% SP > (Not sure the SP on this one, but I’ll just say it’s 100 per global, assuming it outdpses Void Blast/Smite) > 43% (Assuming 4 ticks of Entropic +147% SP) > 484% SP > 121% SP + Inescapable torment for 579%. (assumes 3 hits regardless of Smite/SW:D since lol).
Total
2124% SP to each member of the group.
Now, you might call that comparison unfair because VW will continue to Smite, it gets collapsing void later which is another whole 223, and the actual rift + Smites will obviously outdo the burst eventually. And you can get it back up.
This also just straight up won’t work in raid because Radiance is a target capped heal, so VW burst on 20 target just blows it out of the water.
But what I’m illustrating is that Oracle DOES actually have burst healing in a 5 man that can be competitive with VW besides just rapture. Rapture, by the way, assuming you grabbed AoW is a 1320% sp shield on each target. Can obviously get higher and our tier set stacks multiplicative on it if you don’t need the full group shielded. But the main point is, our initial burst can be very strong as well, so Oracle CAN push health bars back up even after some major damage.
Also aside rapture there’s also Uppies, which for Oracle does 140% SP bolts, so 2352% SP healing through atonement.
Again, for what it’s worth, I think Voidweaver outpaces Oracle in long-term scenarios. But Oracle has a ton of CDs it can rotate through about as often as VW, they’re all very strong and you just overall feel less weak between them. Solace is an obvious weak point, though.
