Holy or Disc?

Classes Priest
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People who list keys in the group finder often don’t know what spec you are when you queue up on a priest as heals. It is the same for other classes too. You can get a druid in the queue and invite them only to discover they are feral and not boomy.

In the case of priests, you can get a disc priest who actually earned a high score as a holy priest, but they have no idea what they are doing as a disc priest. This I know because when I was learning disc, this was me (I am still learning 800 keys later–disc is like that). Albeit I was kind of doing a bad thing, but I wanted to learn disc, and could not erase my score. I had horrible skills as a disc priest but got invites no problem, and early on, before I had a real handle on disc, I literally bricked keys. Not to say I am happy about this, because I simply went other routes after that to learn disc, not happy bricking others’ keys.

My first point? I wish disc and holy had different shades of white or something. And I wish only your score on the spec you are listing as was shown. When you have your own key and you list it in the group finder, you can get tanks with scores that are high but earned their scores as healers and dps vs tanking. You can get priest healers that do not know what they are doing. You can get boomies who have never played boomy before because they earned their scores playing Feral.

My second point? Disc and holy are different healers. Boomies and feral druids are incredibly different styles of dps. These are only a few examples of players on different specs bringing differences in damage, healing styles, utility. They can mean people having even vastly different skill levels on the class specs. Getting lumped in with another type of healer is not always a good thing for you or your group.

Key point: I think this works against ALL priest healers. You get people healing on specs they dont understand and people notice. Then, and sure debatably, but maybe they dont want to invite any more priest healers in the future–especially when we are but a few white in a sea of blue and pink.

Why the priest forum? I play priest. I am not sure how other priests feel about the good and the bad in regards to the two different healers being lumped together in one color, one score and so on, but I find it is a problem from multiple angles.

Do you agree or disagree? Do think every group should spend time researching every player in the group finder? Do you think the solution is to only play with friends? Do you like being lumped together with a different healer spec? What do you suggest be done, if anything?

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Takes seconds to copy raider io url and msg the person asking which they are if you have a preference… So no binkle, still not a huge problem…

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Mountains out of mole hills is definitely a thing for you.

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For high keys, I think it’s reasonable for PuG leaders to quickly search their healers IO page to see what they’re experienced with. While there are many priests out there who are perfectly competent playing all specs at a competitive level, there are also many priests out there who only perform well doing one. That’s just the nature of having two different healing specs on the same class.

If I were a Holy Priest main looking to practice my hand at Disc Priest healing, I would probably form my own groups, do keys with friends who aren’t trying to push, or join some lower key PuGs.

I don’t think it’s necessary to have a separate IO score for each different spec. It will probably just be more interface clutter.

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Fair, certainly wouldn’t knowingly brick a key.

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Certainly not necessary but it could be done without a lot of clutter. And also a different color or shade would suffice.

I know this is anecdotal. But in my case I once joined a group for a 19 NW. The guy needed one more for the group and I recommended he get a boomy because they can do innervates and pump a lot of damage with PI. Well, he did.

In my case do not look up everyone in the groups I join, and simply did not have time as I was setting up macros for PI and so forth. Well, it was a 19 NW or something and the boomy did 4k dps and I did 3.6k dps as a disc priest, and on top of that I PIed him a few times (not after I recognized something was up).

First, why was a boomy doing 4k dps on a 19 NW? That was because he had done only a few keys as boomy, including a 2 and an 11. He played resto druid as his main and also 95% of his dps runs were as a feral druid.

My takeaway? Who has the time to look everyone else up? If Blizzard and the guys at Raider io simply made some changes, looking up everyone in the group would not be necessary. All the info you needed would be right there in front of you.

If it’s broke, don’t fix it? I dunno, but in my case I rarely have time to look up anyone unless I am doing the invites. And I have seen people join and simply leave the group because I took too long looking up 12 people in the queue. And I have a fast computer.

Something else anecdotal? When I played holy a few times this expansion I literally had guys in the group in discord saying how great having a disc priest in the group was. You know what else? Friends of mine whom I ran this idea by said it was an excellent idea. Why? Because 95% of the time nobody looks up anybody.

That is not to discount your point of view. But personally I would like to instantly see the one and only score of the person who cues up on a boomy on that spec and that spec only. And I would like to do it with all five members in the group, and the potential invites as well. If the guy has a 2300 score as a feral druid and a 900 score as a boomy, I would like to be able to eyeball it and only see the 900. What a guy can do on a feral druid to me is utterly irrelevant if he is playing a boomy and vice versa. Let him earn a spot in the group based on the spec he is playing, not a different one. You might say bring the player and not the class, but that argument has only so much validity. I could queue up on my priest as shadow right now, of which I have not played once and do so little damage while doing my best that you would be shocked. I would probably get an invite to a key I would brick within five minutes based on the score I got playing as a disc priest. And yeah, I care enough that I wouldnt do that. But you have all kinds of people in this game who do not care much about other’s keys.

And yeah, play with your friends and friends only. But tell me why a lot of people pug then. Also tell me why if everyone has friends, why they pug. My friends list has 200 people on it, and I pug 95% of the keys I do. And tell me why everyone who does pug would not benefit from such simple changes.

One more thing. When you list your own key, it takes about fifteen seconds to look one person up. And if you have to whisper people as well? Add in that some people are afk, chatting or getting a drink and will not even answer you. And if you have ten people in the queue, it takes two or three minutes to look everyone up, never mind whispering each and every one of them. In that time two more can join the queue and two can leave. Maybe you like musical chairs but I am not a fan. And simply cannot be bothered. Hence, I dont even list my 20 keys anymore because it is simply too much of a hassle.

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Didn’t you say it was because you were a crusty old man and didn’t want to be in discord or something? :sweat_smile:

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I ran with friends today and we were in discord and it was fun, thank you.

Sorry if you misunderstood or I did. I dont see what relevance that has to this discussion anyway. My point is that lots of people pug. In my case 99% of the people on my list do not do 20s, let alone 15s. I can join friends for 10s or 12s no problem here and there but most do not run 20-30 keys a week, and most one if any. And besides, while it is fun to a point, it is kind of dull because there is no challenge. On the other hand, people like me do have a number of options. That includes joining pugs, where raider io is of value.

The point? Lots of people pug and find raider io and Blizzard’s scoring system to be helpful, but the score as a raw number can be very misleading. Why not fix it? Fixing it is totally doable, and would be relatively easy.

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When I apply to a group I put my Spec and Covenant in my note. So previously “Night Fae Holy Priest” but now something like “Night Fae Holy Priest (or [Dungeon-preferred Covenant or whichever is requested in the PuG note], or any other covenant”.

Would be nice if there was an indication of spec, but I do that to prevent the “oh, you’re not [X], kick,” not that that’s occurred recently.

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Honestly, I am an [insert here] for saying this but priest healers? We are both the easiest and hardest of healers. And to be lumped together? Like hello!?!