The "1%" Argument

Classes Priest
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They nerfed M+ AP rewards for everyone multiple times in BFA because a few players were doing more than everyone and getting more AP than anyone else. They lower M+ iLvl reward on the first few weeks of every patch because a tiny fraction of the playerbase farms high end keys all day and would get too much loot, so they just make everyone’s loot worse. A few players farmed what they thought was too much AP in Islands, so they nerfed Islands…for everyone.

You seeing the pattern yet? This happens Constantly. What those few players do affects you, you can choose to ignore it, but that doesn’t make it go away.

Also in Torghast in the Shadowlands Alpha, Blizzard was afraid that a few players might wait around for Cooldowns for every pull to be able to push higher floor levels, So they added Torments*, basically stacking debuffs if you took “too long” on a floor. Another example of a couple players making the game worse for everyone because Blizz balances around them.

*Note: Torments got reverted after nearly every Alpha tester gave very very negative feedback, though this kind of reversal rarely happens and everyone was really surprised they actually did remove them.

It the same difference between a +2 and a +7, the same difference between a +5 and a +10. It’s how M+ scaling works. If this only affects a fraction of a fraction, then why are 50% of ALL M+ Healers either Druids or Paladins when there are 6 healing specs? This affects everyone.

An equally geared Druid can do 5+ levels higher than a Holy Priest, because an equally geared Druid does at least 50% more healing than a Holy Priest in 5 man content and +5 level increase is ALWAYS 50% damage difference.

You keep saying it doesn’t make a difference because a Holy Priest “can” heal keys lower than 15s, but you are completely ignoring how easy it is for them to do so. I “Can” lift 100 pound box, it’s freaking hard and I can barely do it once, but I “Can”, a 300 Lbs weightlifter can do it much much easier. And when it’s Blizzard who arbitrarily choose 1 or 2 healers to be the weight lifters, you can’t sit there and say it’s all the same for everyone.

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55

That’s not a good analogy. The issue of competitiveness has to do with whats focused on. Go back to WoD, there was definitely some big gaps in performance in classes for dungeons, but overall, no one really cared. As long as you could get the gold challenge mode complete, that’s all that mattered. Nowdays you have streamers making a leveling off how much they push dungeons.

A better analogy would be socks. You could get some plain old cotton socks and go on a 1-2 mile run and have no problem. You wouldn’t even care about the sock’s ability to keep your foot dry and prevent blisters. You just want a comfortable sock for running that looks and feels nice. Now if you were to instead run a longer distance, say 8 miles in those same socks, they made become a problem. You may start getting blisters and make the whole process unenjoyable. You can still run, but its just not as fun or good for your feet.

Or you can just go out and buy running socks and never have that problem.

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Love that quote. true too

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57

This is a very good post. I am tired of seeing different classes or specs being declined for Mythic Plus keys that are levels +20 or under because of the 1% that do MDI (or stream on Twitch) and then fans that watch and think that it correlates with lower lvl keys. When I am tanking on my alt and running my own keys, I never discriminate any healer or dps based on the class that they enjoy playing.

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58

The class discrimination for keys on Mythic Plus that range from 0 to 20 needs to stop! The 1%'ers are doing very high 20+ keys!

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I disagree. Blizzard specifically stated the following:

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-torghast-tower-of-the-damned/498548/129?u=odinreborn-area-52

Highlighting some points:

“Imagine a perfectly-efficient Torghast group. They are willing to do whatever it takes to climb the tower. At the highest difficulty they can manage, that means waiting for all cooldowns on every pull – unless there’s some reason not to do so. This is our problem: that’s not fun to play, but it’s the right way to play if you want to win.”

This is not “a few” players. The path of least resistance always has a cascading effect on the playerbase. As soon as one person figures out the ‘best’ path forward, it spreads until everyone is doing it. It’s certainly not WoW-specific, as it affects virtually every multiplayer game.

It would start with a few players, but then it starts becoming mandatory, both solo and in groups. PuGs will demand you wait, and your pre-mades will demand you wait. Blizzard wasn’t catering to a few players, they were afraid of what inevitably was going to happen.

I think you mis-read here. “A fraction of a fraction” is referencing the amount of total players that have done >= +20.

I highly disagree with this unless there are expansion-specific traits/features that are enabling this. Putting a Holy Priest and a Restoration Druid next to each other in the same gear and comparing raw throughput and nothing more, they are virtually on equal ground. Restoration has a flat line of throughput that grows in stairs-like steps whenever another HoT is added, while Holy has larger, and sharper spikes of throughput.

Since spells are based on % of attack power, you can compare spells and easily see that Restoration Druid’s individual spells aren’t somehow 50% stronger than Holy’s, regardless of the content.

As a Holy Priest, I can anecdotally say that I’ve never had trouble healing < +15 keys myself. Not avoiding mechanics or understanding affixes is going to trash a run regardless of what healer you’re playing, but on its own, the incoming damage has never been an issue for me.

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Hpriests are currently in a spot where their kit doesn’t really synergize with itself in a mythic+ environment. For raiding it works because raiding often requires a lot of spammed healing, which obviously synergizes very well Power Word Heals and the heals that reduce their cooldowns. But in Mythic+ you probably won’t be spamming heals. And so their synergies fall apart. At a low level (2 mile run) this doesn’t matter, and isn’t even noticeable. At a higher level (8 mile run) the flaws and shortcomings of the spec in that specific environment begin to become very noticeable.

Also… I almost feel like discrediting my analogy in place of an analogy that said the exact same thing is maybe you just looking for argument. But it is what it is. I’m happy to use your analogy too. I’m flexible

Edit: As many other posts here state. Holy Priests can keep their team alive no problem. Their healing throughput has never been in question. The problem is that choosing to DPS is oftentimes actively gimping you being able to keep your power word heals off cd. So more than any other healing spec in the game, holy priests struggle with finding that downtime to dps. And as much as some people would like to argue that healers shouldnt have to dps… In a timed environment, two healers that can both keep their team alive need other tools to help speed the run up if they want to set themselves apart. All that said, creating synergies between holy priest dps and healing will absolutely improve the spec overall. Competitive content is just helping us see more clearly that that needs to be done.

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I don’t think you need to be talking about the top 1%, or +23 vs +28, or bringing utility or damage to the group to make your point. High keys, low keys… I think anyone who plays multiple healers sees the problem no matter what level they play at.

I have a similarly geared monk and priest, and on bad bursts or grievous in general I feel like I’m doing work on the priest. And I mean hard work, like busting up concrete in July. The monk effortlessly makes it all go away while still doing dps. Like holding down a desk in an air-conditioned office in July. Sure both classes can do it, and I still run holy over disc on burst weeks… but I’m not having fun. I’m at work. On my monk I’m having fun.

Played time on the priest is about 5x played time on the monk, too. It’s not like I don’t know what buttons to push. Some classes are just more equal than others

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At least in my own personal experience having played them both at a relatively high level, no they aren’t. Not by a huge a amount but Druid is a bit ahead in raw throughput for M+, enough to be noticeable. This is even without needing to move (and way ahead when movement is involved).

That’s on top of everything else: utility, mobility, survivablity, DPS contribution also heavily favoring Druids.

** Just took a quick look at Jdot’s video and he seems to agree with Druids throughput being higher in M+.

Comparing spell-power coefficients for individual spells is not a reliable way to gauge how much throughput they end up having, they have very different mechanics.

Elaborated Question:
Seems like all of us who play multiple healers at various levels agree that there’s in fact a very large gap between Resto Druid and Holy Priest for what they are able to do in M+, this is also consistent to what content creators and high level players are saying.

All of this is also supported by hard data from RaiderIO that show a 5-level difference from what the best Holy Priests are able to complete vs what the more meta healers can do, which is massive even if at lower keys that gets reduced a little bit.

I see you being very adamant at arguing that there isn’t a big gap. Now, if I recall correctly from other threads you have explicitly admitted that you don’t play other healers, so what are you basing that argument on?.

And please don’t go on the tangent that there’s always a meta and someone has to be at the bottom, we all understand that, what we are arguing is that the gap is way too large.

Edit: Wanted to note, I’m not trying to be mean or dismiss your arguments, in fact I think you seem like a smart person who uses arguments to debate, but in this case I just don’t see much to back-up what you are claiming. Have you considered that maybe in this situation your evaluation might be off?

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64

I feel it is reliable because those coefficients directly determine the power of the class, with those class/spec-specific mechanics supplementing.

I’ve written a program that can read out from my generated combat logs to determine my healing/damage on a given timeframe for my Priest (I wanted to see the statistical difference in damage on a rotation between Castigation and Schism).

If you applied the same concept for raw healing on a healing dummy and graphed out the results for the timeframe you’re looking for, I’m confident that you would find a good parity between Holy Priest and Restoration Druid.

We’re going to have to be perpetually at odds on this. I consider the key difference to only be relevant when looking at playerbase completion, not in a vaccuum.

There isn’t a big gap between the amount of players that have completed a +23 key and a +28 key. The amount of players that have completed a +23 is extremely small compared to the total amount of players that have done M+.

To try to put it another way: At +20 and above, you’re already in top 1% of players (Or close to it). You’re essentially arguing viability at an extreme and disregarding everything beneath.

See prior responses. I can argue points revolving around healing/M+, etc, without having specifically played those classes, e.g: “I don’t have to be a movie critic to critique moves/I don’t have to be a chef to critique food”, etc.

I only consider it to be off if a substantial argument can be made, preferably with solid data to back it up (I don’t question the Raiderio data, but I feel that we’re seeing two different things from it). I can see other points of views, but as of now, I think there’s too deep a dichotomy to come to a conclusive consensus. Additionally, when it comes to discussions in general, I couldn’t care less about group-think and echo chambers.

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The class/spec mechanics not only “complement” but entirely define how the SP coefficients are translated into healing so it’s not a reliable way, the error margin is immense, you can be off by easily 100% or more due to only class mechanics.

It’s like if I were to tell you that two vehicles are comparably fast because they both have a 200HP engine, no the dynamics of the vehicle completely define how that number translates into movement… One can be a motorcycle while the one is a truck.

That wasn’t the argument, the argument is about the relative power gap between a Resto Druid healer and a Holy Priest healer, at any level of play.

Those analogies are pretty disingenuous because they don’t properly relate with the situation at hand, a more accurate one would be trying to compare two different dishes but you have only tasted one of them. Or two different movies but you have only watched one of them.

What the examples you provided relate to is like saying “I don’t have to be a game designer to have an opinion about the classes/specs” and sure you don’t, but you do have to at least play and test those specs.

Lot’s of substantial arguments have been made.

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66

You’re going to have to give examples, because I’m not seeing how capturing data on casting against a healing dummy on a standard rotation can be thrown off that wildly. I’m also presuming you’re looking at the class outside of any expansion-specific features. If you’re referring to procs, all you have to do is extend the length of time you’re capturing data in order for it to smooth out.

The power gap between any two classes is relative to the difficulty of the content in which you’re comparing. The more difficult the content, the wider the differences become.

I would see your point more if Holy had difficulties in content that the majority of the playerbase has completed. At the point Holy currently struggles however, is far beyond the scope of the average player.

I’ve said this in earlier posts, but there seems to be a difference in looking at viability with regards to M+: What has been completed vs how many have completed which key. I look at the latter, not the former.

It should also be noted that class representation at X key isn’t more indicative of balance until you’re pushing bleeding-edge.

I still have to disagree. I wouldn’t make the claim that I know how to play X class better than someone that plays that class, but I can still make arguments revolving around that class.

If I was arguing rotations or what to do against X mechanic as Y class without having played that class, then you could more readily call me out on it.

Otherwise, most of these forums would be much quieter with the amount of arguments made against X class even if the poster doesn’t play that class.

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That’s not what you were talking about though, you were talking about comparing Spellpower coefficients for spells for given specs directly.

If you compare head to head healing using the full toolkit and all spell interactions of both classes on a 5 person group, then sure that one is more accurate. If you have that data then I’ll believe you, otherwise I believe the feedback from those who have tested both specs widely in real scenarios is likely to be more accurate.

Ok I see, what you say is that Holy is perfectly fine for what the majority of players do and thus it doesn’t matter how far behind the meta healers. That’s a perfectly valid opinion even if I disagree.

But that’s not an argument to say it’s not far behind the meta healers, those are two different things. To accurately gauge how close/far specs are from each other you need to look at the highest levels where players are optimizing the potential of the spec and we do have data there showing a very big difference… Again if that matters or not is a different discussion, but the gap is there.

For example, the classic forum question: “Hey I’m new to healing and I’m really enjoying Holy Priest but people say it’s terrible, should I play it?” My answer would be: Yes of course, play Holy Priest, all specs are viable. But if the question is “Hey how strong is Holy Priest compared to Resto Druid in a M+ setting” then that’s a totally different thing.

Damn, if only… I will have to disagree on this part though…

Sure you can make many arguments about a class even if you don’t play it, but if the specific argument being made is about how strong/week it is or how well it performs compared to other class then you need to say that based on something don’t you think? If it’s not hard data or personal experience then what? (or even sims)

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68

What Blizz say and mean are 2 different things. Torments were almost instantly reverted because the idea that groups waiting for cooldowns to be perfectly optimal is a flawed basis, since there are Anima powers for every class that give 100% uptime on cooldowns. It’s a stupid argument that got refuted immediately. But this shows Blizz’s mentality, balance around the edge cases, that quote just proves my point further. And changing mechanics based on edge cases affects everyone.

It becomes Mandatory because they balance around that possibility, that’s the whole point. The game is ALWAYS balanced around the few who push mechanics to the extreme.

It’s Druids base Kit that makes them so much better, not expansion specific stuff like Azerite Powers or Corruptions. So they will always be better in 5-man content in their current state no matter what expansion specific content there is.

I think this is where you are misunderstanding the most, and probably why you can’t fully grasp why the difference is so large. Druid 5-man throughout is always higher because of how their mastery works.
  • A Holy Priest with 30% Mastery does 30% more Healing (Echo of Light adds it as a Hot after every direct heal).
  • A Druid with 30% mastery does 30% more healing per HoT on the target, and they normally have 3-4 on every target and 6-8 on the tank. So they do 120-210% more healing

This isn’t an issue in Raids since Druid HoTs are spread out and Haste gives far more returns. But in 5-man content you can have almost every HoT on everyone all the time. This extra boost from Mastery averages to over 50% more healing overall because our Healing coefficients from spell power are very similar, yet their Mastery is 4-5x as potent.

Just comparing spell power coefficients is not reliable at all, because it ignores all the mechanics of the Class

They also have damage reduction and much better CC options, which stop mobs from DPSing, neither of which show up on meters.

I can say the same thing, and I can also anecdotally say that it is 5 times easier to heal a 15 on my far less geared Druid. Seriously, go play a druid in M+ and you’ll understand the gap is far larger than you think.

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69

except no one gets to stand there just throwing heals out. ITs one reason druids are high up, their ability to heal on the move, swap to kitty, swap back, wheras hpriest lacks that mobility. So, maybe on a dummy throwing out spells with nothing going on, then sure maybe holy can match a druid. But thats not the reality

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You’ve healed a grand total of 1 <+15, which puts the lie to you using the plural of key.

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Do you mean greater than 15 or less than 15? This season, I’ve healed 1 key greater than 15 and multiple keys less than 15.

For greater than 15, I intend on doing >= +15 more, but I’m purposefully spacing my WoW time out so I don’t burn myself out before Shadowlands.

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what Kev is trying to say, and he isnt denigrating anyone who doesnt do 15’s but he is inferring (my opinion) that unless you are doing content sufficiently hard to tax the toolkit and take her for a spin then your commentary can be taken as a grain of salt.

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73

I don’t know if this has already been said but why don’t they just make it so smite also lowers serenity and sanctify cooldown? Its a small thing but it might be good who knows.

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What you don’t seem to understand is that it’s not a matter of

The question is finding out why it struggles in the first place at that level. Because if your definition of struggling=failing keys. Then I believe you are missing the point. So if “not struggling”=timing keys. Then you could probably get a group with 4 ret paladins and a prot paladin with hand of the protector and get through a 15 timed. Does that make ret paladins good healers? 5 Demon hunters could probably solo a 15 some weeks and time it… does that make them good healers?

If you tried to do that strategy in a +23 or +24 obviously it would start failing. And if we looked into why… it would be obvious… they werent meant to be healers. But holy priests are different. They definitely are meant to be healers. So if we look at why they struggle much earlier in progression in comparison to other healers we notice glaring flaws in their kit in accordance to mythic+. These flaws apply in all level keys, but become more noticeable in higher level keys. But I guess if your only indicator of success is timing a key regardless of the ease in which it is done. Then this entire discussion is likely null and void to you anyways.

But if you are in any way interested in progress, then its pretty clear hpriests are not in a healthy spot in relation to M+. The nature of timed challenges will always encourage optimization. This is, and will always be true. So when you run that +3 with your friends and your healer switches to dps… they are doing it because the key will go faster, and people should still be staying alive with off heals. Essentially every dungeon becomes a dps race when you attach a timer to it.

What makes hpallys and rdruids so good is not necessarily just their throughput… it is a mixture of burst healing on short cooldowns as well as the ability to pump out serious dps without sacrificing group survivability. And in paladins case, dpsing directly increases their healing throughput by reducing the cooldown of their most important burst heal, as well as encouraging them to share their aura with the tank. Disc priest has damage but their burst healing is super lacking, requiring extremely proactive, and oftentimes preemptive play. So this is more a matter of “more work for the similar result.” But when we talk about holy priests… especially with “Promise of Deliverance” being basically a requirement right now. Let’s say you use Holy Word Serenity… casting smite, holy fire, holy word: Chastise, holy nova, or anything that isn’t heal/flash heal is actively gimping your ability to get your most important burst healing back off cd. The only downtime you get to dps as holy is when all your holy words are up. But while they are down, you are highly discouraged from dpsing… which is so counter-intuitive, because generally after using a big heal is exactly when you usually should have time to be dpsing… These problems apply at all levels of play, making the hpriest feel clunky in anything besides a raid environment where the group is taking consistent damage and you are encouraged to keep healing to cycle through your holy word: heals.

Are these issues going to make you fail your +10 or +15?? Probably not… but that doesnt mean they aren’t still issues with the spec. And it doesnt help that the issues have literally the easiest fix in the world. Simply make chastise/holy fire reduce cd of holy word heals, this way holy fire procs feel impactful, and you are encouraged to also drain the cd of your chastise with smites while not gimping your potential to heal.

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