I was planning on maining Holy Priest again for TWW, but Oracle really just doesn’t click for me.
I really like the skill bonuses to Power Word: Life and Prayer of Mending, but the capstone skill is just unfun. The bonuses are great - healing increases, damage reduction, cooldown reduction. But I don’t feel like these can be meaningfully applied in critical situations.
The cooldown on the capstone is 1 minute, so it should be used frequently. Holding it to align with specific events is tough because you not only have to ensure it is off cooldown, but would also need to make sure the right buff is active in the rotation.
In my gameplay, this has basically meant that I press it every minute and just consume whatever buff it gives, without much planning.
I’m sure there are other players able to work with this more effectively, but it just doesn’t click with me.
I may give Archon a try, but I don’t like the passive bonuses of Archon as much and am not sure I will like the Halo gameplay.
I just use it anytime I would normally need to use a healing CD, regardless of which one is up. All three of the different buffs will help no matter which one you use.
Sure, there’s probably a smarter way to go about it, but this has been working well for me so far at least.
Agree that making the capstone ability one that you can’t reliably use when you need it is not a fun mechanic.
The only one I really care about is Piety so I can Guardian Spirit and AOE heal. I’d rather have a better AOE heal cooldown than the rest of the premonition stuff.
I’m sorry you don’t like it, but I think its important to note that you shouldn’t feel the need to hold it for the “perfect” moment. Each buff is insanely powerful, useful at any time. Just use them as needed and as they come up.
I’m not sure how well this can be taken as I play Discipline Priest what I usually do is to roll those buffs almost on CD while making sure I always leave a charge for any emergency.
Also I play it as half preplaning and half adapting as each premonition can be used different situations and are powerful tools in their way.
I gave up on Oracle…
Visually archon is just better and I hate that I need WA to track what buff is coming or what do I have active and having to micromanage charges or what buff do I need for certain situations.
All 3 can be used for most situations, tracking which is next is probably the only annoying part.
Just adapt your triage strategy based on what’s available.
Kind of reminds me of when I was healing on druid season 1. Tranq/flourish on cooldown and another heal check is coming? Lifebloom on me, lifebloom on DPS A, cen ward on DPS B, Ironbark(with rejuv beacon talent) on DPS C, ban we covered.
Need strong single HPS:
Overheal premonition can funnel AOE healing into single target
DR bubble is obvious
Cooldown reset (not sure what good combo holy would do exactly, pom spam?)
Need strong aoe HPS:
Overheal and guardian can turn single to AOE
Cooldown reset pom/circle
DR bubble one, guardian another, etc triage strat
I think the worst feeling part is wanting to hold onto the all 3 premo
EDIT: Nvm somehow completely forgot you said holy priest when I went to write this. my b. I am not really sure how it feels as hpriest, I like it as disc a ton tho.
Eh you dont really need to worry this much about it. You typically can use insight for damage/atonement healing via penance spam (if you play weal and woe you can x2 radiance first, insight>penance>smite>penance>penance>smite>penance)
Then you have piety which can be used as a healing CD, its very strong but you cycle back to it relatively quickly and the next premonition being Solace is also basically a healing cd, shield is massive+21% dr so you shouldnt be too worried about holding any of these unless you know something is happening within 20 seconds or so from where you are at in the dungeon.
After those, you get clairvoyance which gives you all 3 buffs. You dont have to hold this either, but you definitely can if you (again) know a big damage event is coming 30 or so seconds from where you are at in the dungeon. You can utilize all 3 buffs at the same time very well by applying solace with renew>instant radiance (unless you play pw:l talent)>penance>penance>smite>penance and this will also trigger piety assuming one or two of your atonement targets are at full hp (likely tank maybe yourself or a dps as well).
Its very fun gameplay imo once you recognize you can kind of just blast through the cycle of premonition, each one has a unique way of being utilized to min max them and again you really do not hold onto any of them unless you know something is coming very soon (which all healers will typically do)
The cooldown reset is good for Holy Fire spam. If you talent for the 40% stronger premonition, it reduces the CD of the next 3 spells by almost 10 secs which basically lets you able to spam Holy Fire 3X plus Holy Word Chastise lets you spam it an additional 2X letting you basically spam Holy Fire 5X which when coupled with Burning Vehemence leads to some insane burst DPS in dungeons.
It’s definitely hard to come to terms with Oracle and the friction of a rotating buff, but unless we want to play with a handicap we have to be prepared for anything Blizz might do to Archon.
Yeah, that means going to Wago and downloading a Premonition tracker, and I wrote my own to track the duration of the Insight buff. Think of the extended pre-season as a good time to become a bit more familiar with the clunkiness - just in case.
Exactly this. I’m terrified Blizz is going to nerf halo/Archon to the ground. So I’ve been forcing myself to learn Oracle and get muscle memory for the playstyle. I want to take an easier path, like Archon. But it makes me think of the history BM hunters have. Every so often BM is amazing but it doesn’t stay that way. Blizz seems to hate it when an “easy spec” is too good…
Disc is a bit of a letdown in dungeons since their HPS/DPS is eclipsed by Holy, despite Disc being harder and less forgiving. Voidweaver Disc is super fun to play though.
Oracle Holy is just so safe and easy to play. Do your mega 5X Holyfire spam burst, spam Holy Nova and profit.
The thing with Disc is that its just so difficult to balance. You have so many gears that need to be addressed and properly tuned. Their damage, healing (both directly, and indirectly via Atonement), party/raid-size scaling, and mana. Blizzard created a spec that needs to be finely tuned because otherwise it will be insanely strong or super weak. But its their game, their class, their spec, they chose to design it that way so its up to them to figure it out and make it work.
I honestly don’t think it’s that complicated to tune.
Healing in raid vs 5 man sure.
But dmg can easily be remedied by just giving more AOE dmg options because those are automatically balanced by only atonement healing off 1 target hit.
I would prefer if Oracle omega-buffed purge the wicked though. It always feels not worth.
It also applies to Prayer of Mending (similar CD to holy fire). Premonition of Piety lets you spam 4 PoMs which gives me more time to DPS since 4 PoMs are bouncing everywhere doing my job for me lol.
I like to use it right before a fight which setups the overhealing for when I need it.
Overall, i really like the new holy priest rework.
