Healing this phase as a non pally/priest feels horrible. Tanks take almost no real hp damage with all the absorb shields going out on them. The raid is being covered in priest PW:S. Being a non shield healer feels very low impact and is a huge downgrade from previous phases/version of classic.
I do think shields should have their place in healing, but not as a spammable primary healing method. A good PW:S going out on a low health person so it gives time for a healer to heal them up is great utility! That shield should be low efficiency, but it comes in clutch in the right circumstances. Right now, spamming PW:S on everyone at full health as the most effective way to heal is really bad design. Now when that player is low health, but has weakened sould because they were spammed at full HP the decision to shield is gone.
Bliz learned their lesson all the way back in Warth that disc priest shield spam was bad design and removed that playstyle. Why has this been brought into SOD and then amplified by giving Pally a massive shielding as well?
Ok, so how could this be fixed?
For priest PW:S I think it is pretty easy. Make the shield weak when the target is at high health and get stronger based on how low their HP is. This makes using PW:S a decision again. The player gets rewarded for making the right decision to shield only low health allies, increasing the chances of saving them from death. This should remove the just spam PW:S on everyone brainded gameplay and make the ability highly impactful when used correctly.
For pally, Instead of making their overhealing a shield for 50% of the targets HP, make it 100% of overhealing goes to a HOT on the target for 15 seconds. You can tune these numbers to whatever works to make ths ability strong enough to make it a decision to press.
These changes will bring raid damage back into the healthbars of players and bring back the typical wow healing experience we expect. I hope bliz considers this.
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Personally I was a lil happy I like true disc priest I can see why it’d be unfun for other healers though
maybe nerf bubbles the higher hp someone is and make it go hard on lower hp
Priests have always been the best healing class in classic wow and will probably stay that way.
My guild has 2 healed most of MC and only occasionally need a 3rd healer.
One resto druid and myself with my wonderful shields.
If you are feeling like your heals are not needed and you are adding little value to your raid, it probably means its time to build a solid DPS off spec and just help kill bosses instead of healing.
If the resto druid was doing the shields and you were only able to just HP heal how would you feel?
Its a non issue. Plenty of raid healing needs to be done and the druid’s wild growth is the best heal for this.
Shields are strong but also, weakened soul is a thing and its single target. Not so great for raid healing.
Nope you live in a pally world now 
Anyways I dont think he is complaining about the strength of the heals rather the mitigation bubbles that make it unfun for other healers
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Exactly. I could care less if they buffed the priest in other ways, just move the healing out of bubbles please.
You’re completely missing the point.
The point is not “priest is strong”, the point is “absorb shields make the game not fun for other healers”.
Yeah, this shield meta is extremely boring👎🏻
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Alliance problem
Horde’s top healing parses are Druids
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Hit 60 last night on the horde druid 
big W’s soon HAHAHAH!
Considering they just massively buffed it in P4 I doubt they will.
I knew going into this phase bubble/absorb meta was going to be a problem. I don’t know how Blizzard doesn’t realize that it is the most unfun mechanic for other healers, especially with how little damage goes out in MC. Pally absorb absolutely needs to be nerfed. I liked the idea of their overheal turning into a hot, that is more balanced and doesn’t totally ruin other healers chance at even having damage to heal.
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Mage heals here.
MAN people complain over the most insignificant stuff.
Keep your complaints for actual problems.
We have found the holy pally posing as a mage to try and avoid nerfs. So you are saying that absorbs and bubbles in MC where there is already not a lot of damage going out is healthy for other healers? Divine light also promotes terrible play. “oops I mega overhealed, guess I have a 3k absorb now” Yes that sounds like great design and fun for others.
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Heres an idea to shut everyone up. Half the amount of dispelling we need to do and turn that into raid damage. Dispelling/decusing is already a PITA if noone else is doing it because everyone is trying to parse. e.g. sulfuron on my priest last week i had 76 dispells. Its not fun to just sit there dispelling.
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Thats what ur other priest heal/dps is for.
Bah! Pally shields are fine. If anything, it’s good there’s another class with shields that makes 5 man dungeons quite doable with just a Pally as the single healer. You don’t NEED to have a priest or Resto druid only for those runs. Hell, Resto HoTs are essentially another form of shield.
Also, I take it a lot of people in here complaining haven’t done MC Heat 2 or 3 yet. Well let me tell yas. That sh!t is NO laughing matter. You’ll be glad for Pally shields when you’re fudgin around in that mess!
If anything, our Restoration Shaman brothers should get their own form of Shields they can apply on multiple people. Or does Earth Shield do that already in SoD? I am no expert on P4 Resto Shammys so I don’t know if that’s how Earth Shield now works for them.
Looks like bliz just nerfed pally shielding but in a strange way. Adding a cooldown to a 2.5 second cast is clunky. I would have prefered the hot instead of the shield…
They still need to address preist gameplay having almost no reason to press anything other than PW:S. makes for dull gamplay and makes healing unfun for others.
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yup, the original classic devs knew shielding was a big deal and gave it significant drawbacks accordingly 
of course the SoD devs came and messed this up.
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