Hello fellow holy priests. I love the class and spec so much! I typically run light weaver and miracle worker in m+, but I see a lot of talk about how good Divine Image is so I’d like to learn more.
How do you typically play around the talent in m+/raid?
For example, do you anticipate big burst coming, dump a bunch of holy words for a juiced up naaru and then spam heals for the increased effect from extra stacks? Do you just make sure you try to keep 1 stack up at all times? What spells do you prioritize when the naaru is up, like most bang for the buck.
Yes, Divine Image is a great talent, and it’s basically equivalent to a 10-15% hps/dps increase. I run a Divine Image + Miracle Worker build w/ Answered Prayers for both M+/raid though which is built around basically printing out Holy Words like candy so you maintain a high uptime on Divine Image (60%+).
You can see in my post here what exactly Divine Image does here so you get a better understanding of how it functions:
The short version is that you use your Naaru as a dps/hps boost on demand. If I’m in a key and there’s a bunch of bursty damage coming out I can use Chastise and then dump a Sanctuary on the group after the damage goes out. Or I can use Serenity + Chastise + Sanctuary and then use 3 Naaru’s to empower my Flash Heal, CoH, PoM, etc. to top people off fast.
The most bang for your buck would be Flash Heal and Sanctuary, but really every spell you use gets juiced up.
In raid I’m less focused on how often I’m keeping my Naaru’s out because I usually fire off Holy Words on cd if I’m trying to reset Holy Word Sanctuary, but in M+ I prefer to stagger them.
The build I use in M+ is basically to print out as many Holy Words as possible to cover group damage and to keep a high uptime on Naaru’s, because if I have a consistent 1-2 Naaru’s out 75%+ of the time then it makes my healing a lot stronger.
Since Divine Image just mimics whatever spells you’re casting anyway, there’s no particular reason to change your playstyle. You can think of it as a straight HPS/DPS boost to whatever you were going to do anyway. The only thing to keep in mind is to actually do something after casting a holy word, but that goes with the general rule of thumb to always be casting anyway.
Really the only slightly unintuitive thing about Divine Image is that it also procs off of Holy Word: Chastise, which is of course a DPS spell. So this is one of the rare instances where holy has actual synergy with part of its DPS toolkit: you can Chastise and then use the 9 seconds of T’uure proc to heal afterwards.
There’s definitely no reason to dump all your holy words at once just to empower T’uure. For one, you’d just be grossly overhealing, but then you’d also be limiting yourself to the non-holy word part of the toolkit which is less powerful and you’d leave yourself less able to adapt if a kick is missed or a DPS stands in the fire, etc.
Basically it’s a free, relatively passive throughput increase requiring very little thought or adjustment. Its simplicity and flexibility along with its power make it so popular, and it’s one of the few options to boost hpriest’s meager DPS.
Awesome, thanks for the replies! Sounds like I was overthinking it and I’ll just play how I usually do and let the talent work its magic.
One last question - I’ve become kinda accustomed to the light weaver playstyle, so if I drop it, do you guys still use heal without the faster cast? Maybe just to top someone in low dmg or between pulls and use flash heal otherwise for single target healing?
I don’t use Heal at all during raid. I play with an Empowered Renew talent playstyle though so I hardcast Renews instead of using Heal or Prayer of Healing. The other benefit is if you run Orison + Healing Chorus, each time your Renew ticks it makes your next CoH cast more powerful. CoH’s overall healing ends up getting buffed by 50% and Empowered Renew does more healing per cast than PoH at 1/3rd the mana cost anyway.
In M+ I only use Flash Heal, PWL, and Serenity for single target heals because with all the Naaru’s it makes my Flash Heal casts do more than Lightweaver Heal does anyway. Each time you activate a Naaru you’re getting 9s of +33% replicated healing/damage to all your abilities instead of it just being 1 Flash Heal = 1 Buffed Heal which is only really a +25% increased healing to Flash Heal if you add it up.
I also rely a bit on hard casted Renews as well in M+ on rot heavy boss fights because it helps keep consistent healing out, triggers Healing Chorus, and gives you +6% increased healing on everyone in the group.
Just need to watch your mana, but if you get the Rashok trinket you basically print out mana, and shouldn’t go oom that often.