I’m going to make this as brief as I can. Holy priest has a baseline throughput problem. I recently got out of a +17 SD and I had opted to use the Sphere’s Harmony legendary instead of the usual Flash Concentration. Although the run was actually successful, there were numerous problems associated with the Holy Priest that were quickly made apparent.
We lack baseline throughput. Flash Heal is insignificant healing at any endgame activity. This is made apparent by Blizzard’s buffing the output of it by 20% in pvp. As I ran with warmode on, my perception was tainted that I could use the Kyrian legendary in m+.
There were about 4 deaths, 1 on each boss, all due to a lack of available healing. Even Apotheosis wasn’t enough to save as Flash Heal just didn’t have any impact on the damage taken. Especially Castigate from the second boss, you can flat out spam flash heal on whoever it is, but if they do not have a defensive (i.e they’re being targeted again) they will die even through you spamming flash heal.
In fact, the only reason why this run was successful, I think, is because we had a druid tank that has several means of self healing that allowed him to remain stable as I spent several seconds Flash Healing somebody up.
This is something that will really need addressing upon the removal of all current legendaries. Our baseline healing is too weak.
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Yes, FC legendary is too mandatory for the spec, other legendaries are weaker.
The base line is really weak just like Disc.
The only reason FC feels mandatory is it actually makes a fast casted heal hit for nearly as hard as Shadowmend. And the reason this feels mandatory is we need to cast 10 heals baseline to get the full minute cd reduction for HW:Serenity at baseline.
Either flash heal at the base needs scaling up or baseline CD’s for holy words need to come down.
I think we are fine, as long as they balance the contents around our baseline power. 10.0 I mean.
9.2…not sure.
This expansion Holy Priest is balanced around the FC lego which is just the unfortunate reality. FC Heal is literally = +60% more healing than FH at a lower mana cost.
Without this Lego we’d be really struggling in raids and they’d probably buff Prayer of Healing a lot to compensate.
For M+ the whole strength of Holy right now is that it’s a HPS pumper that can push through tough situations without much of a hassle. Holy is twice as popular than Disc this patch in M+ compared to last where the numbers were flipped.
I could probably do keys without FC and play like I did in BFA if really needed, but it would be a lot rougher.
U mean one of the actual source the problem. Fix it Blizzard… XD
In BFA you could run three azerite traits that juiced Prayer of Healing, and you could run the neck thing of your choice depending on the affixes. And it made Holy a potent healer that could at times actually crank out a lot of damage with Holy Nova on packs of mobs. The playstyle was fantastic and made it super fun.
Now Disc Shadow Mend is a super potent heal in the average pug and you don’t have to bother with keeping any buff up as with Flash Concentration, and you can cast a host of other spells, plus almost guarantee pretty good damage. Mind Sear is also a great spell, and it makes me wonder why Holy does not have it.
Any time I have played Holy in SL the healing output was only good with FC, but in the average Pug kicks are often missed, avoidable damage is taken, tanks are sometimes squishy–which can mean you can do very little damage vs Disc–where damage is pretty much guaranteed, the healing is good or, if you spam Shadow Mend–great. The only problem with Disc is that you can go oom on boss fights if the dps are trash–even if you are chasing around mana orbs. But in my experience, the difference in damage in the typical pug makes Disc a better choice.
It’s for this reason that this problem needs to be known now and addressed going forward before FC is removed (potentially for good).
There’s actually a viable renew build that works as a raid healer, but it’s heavily dependent on haste stacking and benediction. I’ve seen it work, and while it doesn’t have the single target potential of FC, it can still parse reasonably well.
without FC and play like I did in BFA if really needed
In BFA, we had Spirit of Preservation that boosted 2 flash heals considerably and azerite armor traits that boosted prayer of healing single target to viable ends. We don’t really have those right now.