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Q u o t e:
Priests can still heal the raid better than a Shaman.

Here are the average numbers at 80 for a Shaman.
Chain Heal * 2
Total Time = 5.0 seconds
Mana = 793 * 2 = 1,586
Total Healed = 18,750
Targets Healed = 8
5000 + 2500 + 1250 + 625 = 9375
5000 + 2500 + 1250 + 625 = 9375

Here are the average numbers at 80 for a Priest.
Circle of Heal & Flash Heal *2
Total Time = 4.5 seconds
Mana = 730 + 626 = 1,356 {*}
Total Healed = 20,000
Targets Healed = 8
2000 * 6 = 12,000
4000 + 4000 = 8,000

So still, a Priest can heal the raid more for less mana in a quicker timeframe than a Shaman.

{*} With Surge of Light, Holy Concentration, and Serendipity, I am estimating the mana usage by assuming one free FH.

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I don't like the Priest numbers because it assumes maximum returns from FH and it isn't a full rotation. Assume PoH + 3xFH, with one free FH per rotation (virtually guaranteed to happen). Also below the figure PPS is players per second: how many targets can you hit on average. Not all targets get strong healing with either class so we have to prioritize our hits: Priests with FH, Shamans with the primary hit of CH. Remember that either class can heal the targets already hit, again so it is just a number to look at.

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Q u o t e:
80 Resto Shaman w/ Glyph of CH:
HPS: 3750
HPM: 11.82
PPS: 1.6
Time to hit 8 Targets: 5 seconds

80 Holy Priest w/ Glyph of CoH:
HPS: 4000
HPM: 12.11
PPS: 1.5
Time to hit 8 targets: 4.5 seconds

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I am going to have to say this looks tight enough to say 'Bring the player, not the class'. Balanced. I can no longer support a buff to priests to make up for the six second cool down being added.

Also for reference:

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Q u o t e:
80 Holy Priest with Glyph of CoH, no CoH cool down:
HPS: 8000
HPM: 16.44
PPS: 4
Time to heal 12 targets: 3 seconds

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Q u o t e:
I feel like a lot of people are starting new threads without actually reading my comments, which means we keep having the same circular conversations.

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Pick a thread! Don't worry we will follow!

There's no point arguing at this point, we just need to accept that they're nerfing our 41-point talent that was our reason for getting into raids at Sunwell.

4 Resto Shamans will be the norm for AOE fights just like it was back when I started Sunwell.

CoH is a 41-pt talent

why shouldn't my 41-pt talent be better than your free base spell?

CoH should remain as it is - insta-cast, AoE, no CD. the smart heal factor was more of a bonus b/c i was quite fine with the old CoH

that being said maybe we should stop thinking of shammys in relation to priests b/c it seems a constant argument for AoE healing - seems like a narrow base to argue. i think we've already established that shammy is just CH spamming but why not make them less priest and more pally? by this i mean cut the mana cost of lesser healing wave by maybe 35%-40% and give it a FoL flavour this could add variety to the shammy role. it could scale as well as priest flash heals but cost less mana without totally trumping FoL as the most mana efficient single target heal in the game.

i realize this could bring about an argument that shammys are just mediocre potpourri of everyone else but add in heroism/bloodlust and totems and their utility could as well make up for their shortcomings.

pallys may feel they are being imposed upon but they are still very capable and efficient single target healers, plate wearers and provide lots of useful blessings and auras which stack on top of totems. so in that respect they are not immediately ousted by shammys in a change like the above.

thoughts? flaws in the design?

The problem is Blizzard has made an untalented Priest such a good healer that our talents will always be flavor and never the main course. We are probably the class best suited to always be able to fill our role regardless of where our points are spent.

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Q u o t e:




Making spells very expensive generally isn't received well. Players tend to blame their gear for not providing enough regen in order for them to "Spam CoH in order to remain competitive." We still do it sometimes, but it always requires a lot of explanation in order for players to understand how all their tools are intended to work.

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Agreed, so why do paladins have a spell that costs 35% of base mana(Beacon) while priests coh sits at 21%?

Beacon should be 3 - 400 mana, or even work in the way a focus target does, we're supposed to go deep into our talent tree to get an ability we cannot spare the mana to use?

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Q u o t e:
CoH is a 41-pt talent

why shouldn't my 41-pt talent be better than your free base spell?

CoH should remain as it is - insta-cast, AoE, no CD. the smart heal factor was more of a bonus b/c i was quite fine with the old CoH

that being said maybe we should stop thinking of shammys in relation to priests b/c it seems a constant argument for AoE healing - seems like a narrow base to argue. i think we've already established that shammy is just CH spamming but why not make them less priest and more pally? by this i mean cut the mana cost of lesser healing wave by maybe 35%-40% and give it a FoL flavour this could add variety to the shammy role. it could scale as well as priest flash heals but cost less mana without totally trumping FoL as the most mana efficient single target heal in the game.

i realize this could bring about an argument that shammys are just mediocre potpourri of everyone else but add in heroism/bloodlust and totems and their utility could as well make up for their shortcomings.

pallys may feel they are being imposed upon but they are still very capable and efficient single target healers, plate wearers and provide lots of useful blessings and auras which stack on top of totems. so in that respect they are not immediately ousted by shammys in a change like the above.

thoughts? flaws in the design?

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than why is my 51 point talent not better than ANYONES 41 point talent?

CoH is too good, it's amazingly op, and this is why:

for arguments sake lets say I'm a crappy player that was given good gear just because I am a priest and they needed priests for an AoE fight.

now, the raid dmg starts coming in... me not being very good, or very smart was told to just stand on a flare that the hunter shot into the middle of the raid and target myself, so I am. then my raid lead yells "munkee, push CoH like it's an orgasm button" so I do, and when my mana gets low my raid lead sees it and has a druid cast innervate on me... the whole time I do NOTHING but push the #1 button.

end result, I'm #1 in healing done for the encounter.

does that serve the goal of bringing the best player over the best class?

much as you deride a shaman for having CH at least we have to target someone.

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Q u o t e:
I feel like a lot of people are starting new threads without actually reading my comments, which means we keep having the same circular conversations.



You are correct that Holy is supposed to be the versatile healer. CoH is preventing that because Holy priests are using it for a gigantic percentage of their healing. A priest who used only that spell and a priest who used their whole arsenal probably would not have a significantly different effect on group survival. That's a problem.



I doubt that would be the case. If it's worth casting 10 times, it's worth casting once. Some may opt for other talents as well, but I think plenty will stick with CoH.



Making spells very expensive generally isn't received well. Players tend to blame their gear for not providing enough regen in order for them to "Spam CoH in order to remain competitive." We still do it sometimes, but it always requires a lot of explanation in order for players to understand how all their tools are intended to work.



Holy priests are designed around versatility. A Holy priest can be assigned to a tank, or to a melee group, or to general raid healing. While it's possible for a spec in that niche to become the jack of all trades, master of none, we think Holy priests have actually been strongly desired healers throughout most of the history of WoW.

You have fast single-target heals, slower ones, hots, group heals, shields and smart heals. Currently we believe a lot of those other heals look like poo because, to quote myself from another thread, Circle of Healing looks like the solution to every encounter challenge.

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Circle of Healing looks like the solution because you (not you but the collective Blizzard) designed encounters with such a high splash or raid damage component that until COH was buffed raid stacking shammies was the way to go. Priests didnt put themselves in this spot Blizzard created encounters with super high raid spash damage and tanks with HP pools that would evaporate in 2-3 boss hits that would occur on an incredibley short time increment.

Raids will always tend towards min/max regardless of what Blizzard wants its the nature of the human condition. Until COH was buffed priests were a vastly inferior healer when you could just raid stack shammies and few pallys.

I don't get why everyone is whining! A lot of people were like "waaah now non-aoe healing specs won't have a good aoe heal". Personally, I specced disc for Felmyst and popped on a Holy Nova glyph, specced into Twin Disciplines and reduced mana cost on instants, and bam, had a pretty low-cost, high-output heal. Who needs CoH.

Now, don't nerf my resto druid. Kthx.

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Q u o t e:
I feel like a lot of people are starting new threads without actually reading my comments, which means we keep having the same circular conversations.



You are correct that Holy is supposed to be the versatile healer. CoH is preventing that because Holy priests are using it for a gigantic percentage of their healing. A priest who used only that spell and a priest who used their whole arsenal probably would not have a significantly different effect on group survival. That's a problem.



I doubt that would be the case. If it's worth casting 10 times, it's worth casting once. Some may opt for other talents as well, but I think plenty will stick with CoH.



Making spells very expensive generally isn't received well. Players tend to blame their gear for not providing enough regen in order for them to "Spam CoH in order to remain competitive." We still do it sometimes, but it always requires a lot of explanation in order for players to understand how all their tools are intended to work.



Holy priests are designed around versatility. A Holy priest can be assigned to a tank, or to a melee group, or to general raid healing. While it's possible for a spec in that niche to become the jack of all trades, master of none, we think Holy priests have actually been strongly desired healers throughout most of the history of WoW.

You have fast single-target heals, slower ones, hots, group heals, shields and smart heals. Currently we believe a lot of those other heals look like poo because, to quote myself from another thread, Circle of Healing looks like the solution to every encounter challenge.

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Shouldn't the question be, why is circle of healing the answer to every encounter instead of what can we do to make it not be as attractive? The reason that circle of healing works, is because you made the game around ae healing. Now circle of healing is a very good, very fun spell. To be honest, I loved it when I was allowed to not be the spirit $%#%$ BC.

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Q u o t e:
CoH is a 41-pt talent

why shouldn't my 41-pt talent be better than your free base spell?

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Slippery slope my friend, why should a resto shaman 51 point talent be worse than your free base spell (renew) as well?

I'd abandon that argument and stick with either increasing the mana cost or introducing a cast timer.

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Q u o t e:

Circle of Healing looks like the solution because you (not you but the collective Blizzard) designed encounters with such a high splash or raid damage component that until COH was buffed raid stacking shammies was the way to go. Priests didnt put themselves in this spot Blizzard created encounters with super high raid spash damage and tanks with HP pools that would evaporate in 2-3 boss hits that would occur on an incredibley short time increment.

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QFT. In the end it all comes down to how Blizzard designs the encounters. Hopefully these discussions will be an eye opener and when they concept new encounters they add the question: "Is this fun to heal?"

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Q u o t e:
Also for reference:
80 Holy Priest with Glyph of CoH, no CoH cool down:
HPS: 8000
HPM: 16.44
PPS: 4
Time to heal 12 targets: 3 seconds

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Dude, I don't get it, shammans in order to top the healing metters REALLY want a 6 second cooldown to CoH? The healing community is this bad? I can't believe it.
Many priests stated that CoH needed a nerf, because we holy priest are spaming it all the time and beating shamys in healing done. With 6 seconds cooldown, Priests will go down in healing done under CH shamans and WG druids, and THEN priest will come to the forums to protests and with a good reason.
When CoH wasn't smart we were in par with other healing classes, why don't you go back to that, also requires more skill, and you can still increase the mana cost, which will make us decide when to cast it and when to spam it, and it won't be a op spell, we would heal like we used to (not topping healing meters, that's what the shammans really want).
With 6'' cooldown we'll go down in healing done, really fast, and we will protests. But since blizzard hasn't done much for priests it's going to keep this way.
If holy isn't the best AE healing with other 2 classes, we'll move back to single target healing, something pallys can do great, and if that happens at least fix Disc, or take a minute to answer the questions we are asking in many disc threads. If Disc is broken please say so, or if you are going to fix it or change it in any way.
We are giving TONS of feedback, and you aren't giving back anything.

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Q u o t e:


than why is my 51 point talent not better than ANYONES 41 point talent?

CoH is too good, it's amazingly op, and this is why:

for arguments sake lets say I'm a crappy player that was given good gear just because I am a priest and they needed priests for an AoE fight.

now, the raid dmg starts coming in... me not being very good, or very smart was told to just stand on a flare that the hunter shot into the middle of the raid and target myself, so I am. then my raid lead yells "munkee, push CoH like it's an orgasm button" so I do, and when my mana gets low my raid lead sees it and has a druid cast innervate on me... the whole time I do NOTHING but push the #1 button.

end result, I'm #1 in healing done for the encounter.

does that serve the goal of bringing the best player over the best class?

much as you deride a shaman for having CH at least we have to target someone.

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i don't really agree that riptide is as horrible as you may make it out to be. it just needs to be tweaked to take effect on the next CH casted and not the next CH casted on a particular primary target that it was originally casted on.

in response to spamming 1 button. what else do priests have going for them? the fact is that without CoH and the raw output of it nobody would bring a priest to a raid. they provided nothing in return. they could as well have someone's alt priest stand outside and buff fort and call it a day b/c that's about as good as it gets for stackability.

there has to be a trade-off for our massive healing and that opportunity cost is utility. until Blizz gives raids a reason to bring priests other than pure healing then CoH is fine as it is.

rogues have no real usefulness in a raid other than one of the highest DPS classes -they don't give any raid wide buff that's beneficial to everyone, they don't bring anything real abilities that another class doesn't have other than raw DPS. it's the same problem - you bring a class designed for pure output at a loss of other usefulness but you also have to bring other diverse classes to complement those one trick pony classes.

in any case why is being #1 on the healing meters a measure of how good a player someone is? good raiding guilds know how to read WWS parses and i don't forsee alot of raids where i'm going to be able to stand in 1 place and spam 1 button for 10 mins. there is always some fire, poison, spout, breath etc to run out of, run into, click and so on and so forth

furthermore shammys are the last class to complain about pressing 1 button and topping meters. pre-3.02 chain heal plateau was like shammy heaven, now the tables have turned and they are criticizing the very same mechanics that made their class so desirable.

I agree that CoH is kind of stupid the way it is now. I hardly see any spell casted other than this, even in encounters where the tank is taking heavy dmg. Regarding mana, although this is a mana intensive spell, even with replenishment from other members I see people readily accepting that druids should be innervating priests due to the CoH spam drain, and since priests tend to have high spirit. That is just silly and shameful. Priests should not be needing innervates, they should know how to control their mana.

But this is current content, where bosses are nerfed, and aoe dmg is the defining factor for most of the difficult fights, and to be honest, it is not the priests' faults that the encounters and this spell meshes so well now. Someone has to pick up the aoe dmg department and that used to belong to shamans, and no one else...and that's how you initially designed it. The way this spell is designed, a CD this long will simply gut its intentioned function. If it is not for spamming, then what is it for? Are you still designing encounters around heavy aoe dmg in the expansion?

Adding a CD is just nerfing it to the ground. I believe there needs to be a more creative solution to this than a quick nerfbat fix that doesn't even make sense and will make this 41pt talent another worthless talent for priests. You mentioned that not enough priests are using their versatility and their other healing arsenals which is why this change is proposed, yet I don't see how making both the 31pt and 41 pt talents useless will make this better. If priests abused Guardian Spirit, and didn't use anything else, would you also consider nerfing our 51pt ability to worthlessness as well?

With the vast improvement of PoM and CoH I would be 'ok' with a small cooldown added to the spell. I have always been annoyed at truly horrible priests topping meters by spamming this.

However, it seems like you guys just want to nerf it based on feedback of current NERFED content. I don't think this is really a fair way to judge the spell and how it will be used in the newer, more mana-aware environment we will be playing in soon.

If you guys want to nerf it, fine. But at least wait until you see how it is used in LK. I hate to think we are getting nerfed because people are over using it in current EASY content when talents and spells have been balanced for level 80.

I think there would be a lot less QQ had Blizz just rolled out the new "smart heal" version of Circle of Healing with the 6 second cooldown.

Whether or not these two changes to the talent/spell were determined at the same time or not - I think it's safe to say that some of the grumbling would have been quelled by establishing that there was a tradeoff.

Anyway, for people to cry so hard about changes to a talent, without having had the opportunity to ACTUALLY USE IT in the level 80 raiding milieu that it will ultimately be used within for 18-24 months is just....

... stupid.