From the PTR notes:
Priest
Divine Star (Talent) and Halo (Talent) now deal reduced healing beyond 6 targets.
Developers’ note: These spells previously used a complicated, invisible AoE-capping scheme for healing. This is being replaced with a clearer one where the amount of healing decays on each target after the 6th target is healed.
Divine Star’s heal cap is now independent on the outgoing and return trips.
Halo (Talent) healing reduced by 20%.
Developers’ note: Combined with the above change, this is still a net healing increase on large numbers of targets.
TLDR Is Divine Star & Halo used some convoluted system before that did a radius check around you and if there was 6 or more targets it made the healing do tooltip_amount * 6 / number_of_targets healing per target. This is why you’d notice Divine Star/Halo doing half as much healing in a big raid than the tooltip said.
Unknown about the new formula, but if it works like the AOE cap than it’ll be a big buff.
3 Likes
So technically, it heals the first 6 at full health, followed by reduced healing afterwards?
Yeah, I’m trying to calculate the formula by hand. It doesn’t follow the AOE cap formula.
Can’t wait to test. I greatly prefer Halo to Purge the Wicked in raid. You’ll get more atonement healing with it on prepull ramps or if you’re bad like me and can’t keep a simple dot up.
I think I figured it out with Halo.
- First 6 targets receive full healing amount.
- 7th target has a large drop off (looks like 0.72% of the initial amount)
- 8th + 9th target see a similar drop off.
- 10th target and beyond is relatively consistent.
| Halo Healing Per Target |
Target |
Total Healing |
HPS (40s cd) |
| 2,754 |
1 |
2754 |
69 |
| 2,754 |
2 |
5,508 |
138 |
| 2,754 |
3 |
8,262 |
207 |
| 2,754 |
4 |
11,016 |
275 |
| 2,754 |
5 |
13,770 |
344 |
| 2,754 |
6 |
16,524 |
413 |
| 1,994 |
7 |
18,518 |
463 |
| 1,635 |
8 |
20,153 |
504 |
| 1,341 |
9 |
21,494 |
537 |
| 1,233 |
10 |
22,727 |
568 |
| 1,135 |
11 |
23,862 |
597 |
| 1,044 |
12 |
24,906 |
623 |
| 960 |
13 |
25,866 |
647 |
| 884 |
14 |
26,750 |
669 |
| 813 |
15 |
27,563 |
689 |
| 748 |
16 |
28,311 |
708 |
| 688 |
17 |
28,999 |
725 |
| 633 |
18 |
29,632 |
741 |
| 582 |
19 |
30,214 |
755 |
| 536 |
20 |
30,750 |
769 |
The TLDR is that Halo will do +50% more healing in 9.1.5 compared to retail.
Unknown about Divine Star. Does anyone know where I can find a spot where I can shoot it into like 10 npcs?
Just with Halo though it doesn’t seem a strong enough buff to get any priest to switch off of using Benediction.
4 Likes
Yeah its a big buff to both spells, which is why halo is getting the nerf as well. It’s still going to a sizeable buff and DS also just got a damage buff. I’m glad, as both these spells are far more interesting and fun than Benediction is so I’m happy to see a big buff to them and possible change and most importantly, have spells be more transparent as to how they work without having to go to 3 different discords/websites to find out why your halo isn’t healing like it says. This goes for all the other healing spells not just priests.
Even with the buffs I don’t see really much of a compelling reason to switch from Benediction. Halo has a long cd and has to be timed perfectly and Divine Star requires the group to be stacked in the same spot to maximize its usage.
Benediction is just free HPS and HPM for an ability you already press on cd either way.
1 Like
I switched to DS and it’s been way better for my dps. Have not even noticed anything with healing. I don’t raid just, do M+
Looking forward for the buffs.
For M+ you should be using Divine Star. The +40% buff is about a 200 overall dps increase (10%+).