With the new changes, is Holy priest PvP finally worthy and practical?
The healing itself is fine, but you continue to have no mobility in BGs. Disc mana and damage reduction CDs are simply better compared to holy. It feels good dropping some serenity nukes until you run out of cooldowns. The 3 instant cast heal when you apotheosis is a welcome addition.
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With Restitution I dont even bother healing myself in Arenas anymore til after I die 
Double PoM is amazing … with the amount of passive heals bouncing around, it gives more time to dispel off CD, and spam MC enemy healer
so far, in current gear, it’s middle of the pack in arenas. we’ll see if that remains the case; if damage gets as spiky as it was last season, we’ll most likely be back to the dumpster
wouldn’t recommend playing this unless you enjoy it just because you can resurrect. 1min guardian is pretty crucial especially with the prevalence of MS effects
I posted my thoughts on holy in s2 so far on the arena forums if anyone would like to read them. I’m not the best player in the world but I was one of four hpriests who managed to get glad last season
tl;dr is oracle with every talent that juices up pom and holy words. can also just copy my build; I log out in it
edit: realized that what I log out in can sometimes be bugged, here’s the spec code for what I play now (in shuffle and 3s; in 2s I still play archon):
CEQAmmmbZv0rzNjRHT4p8IjZfDDAAAAAAAGjxsNzMzMDjZGmZZmxMAAAAwsZb2gZmBzCzyMGmhZhFzMzUDAMz2MLbbTmtZmlB0MLDWwMLA
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Healing Holy is awful now. Was Renew really that overpowerd that they wrecked it? Considering just playing Shadow for a while.
It’s not just for entertainment 
… it’s been a game changer in half of my matches in solo shuffle… most often after a lifeswap when they hard-swap to me
The changes to PoM and Divine Hymn allow for so many PoMs to bounce around, it gives more time to Dispel and play aggressively against the enemy healer
We’re getting a nice damage buff too tomorrow , which will make for some good times in 2s
it’s considerably better than it was last season. we were barely playable and now we’re middle of the pack
renew’s healing is nothing to write home about, but that’s not really its purpose (in pvp) anyway; it’s useful for the 6% increased overall healing on affected targets
I get that, but if you’re positioning well (far back/on a pillar, only going in for opportunistic fears that won’t get you CCed), you usually won’t be at much risk post-swap, particularly if you immediately pw: life yourself and desperate prayer/fade (with fade pvp talent).
opening up space for 1min GS allows your team to be so much more stable. it feels disastrous for GS to proc when you are playing it so I can’t imagine it feels great to not have it at all if you’ve played both a good bit
100% true and I’ve been playing way more aggressively this season than I typically do simply because of all the poms bouncing around. the divine hymn buff should also provide us another real defensive CD
yup, should be fun - I’d still play archon and divine word in 2s for max damage into most things
holy feels tanky as always this season. heals are extremely powerful as well. Manna starved and mobility starved as always. This iteration of wow just does not favor burst healing over damage reduction. nothing new there either. Over all It is fun to play holy in rated bgs and stuff but I wouldn’t bother with Arena. You will run out of manna first and are ruined by healing reduction at the end even if you manage to have manna left. On another note holy damage is really good right now. it is just a shame that you can’t heal off of it like disc. But nothing new there either.
Holy is pretty much the same as last season with the exception of more burst heals on tap during apotheosis now.
Try your oracle load out with eternal sanctity over divinity and sustained prophecy. Feels playable. You’re just in holy form forever. Sitting CC ironically feels good because it’s freezing your apoth and letting POM come off cooldown
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seems like a solid choice yeah, I’ll test it out. lose a bit of the aoe/cc security of pom, gain a lot more single target throughput. probably feels a little more mana efficient too yeah?
The main reason would be for better mana yeah and divinity isn’t as much of a hard lock in choice as one would think esp on archon u get more instant flashes to compensate. Extending your answered prayers short apoth feels very impactful on ur overall CDR for the match
yeah definitely not a hardlock; admittedly I hadn’t revisited that node but you’re right about eternal sanctity’s value. I think once again that it’s weighing single target freecasting and passive aoe. will be nice to have some spec variety
I’m about to queue my alt a bit in shuffle from 0 cr - I’ll mess around with this archon build to see how it feels in comparison. good looks 