How about we talk about how Rshaman has been bad for the past 3 xpacs and we have way more buttons than any other class. Most of them being dead bs totems that need a keybind for when you press them once a week.
Biggest question of Shadowlands Alpha: will there be a Wowhead "state of class/role" article *without* the words "lackluster GCDs" in the title? :p
+1 for finding the "lackluster GCDs" phrase to be tiresome. If they're all lackluster, then none are lackluster.
Give us the ability of legendary cloak back. High tyrannical keys are limiting to hpriest simply because they do not have the damage reduction needed to survive. Having cloak in Legion I was able to die/res and then GS when needed in a single boss encounter. Maybe buff the damage of holy nova as well. Give us an option to aoe damage while healing. Or any sort of damage while healing. Nice to have all these damage spells but when it comes down to it, you have to stop healing to use them? While other healers can just press that win more button and do both.
I skipped Draenor, but it seems to me that Holy was decent once in MoP and very early Cata, but pretty much the rest of the time it was just bad next to Disc. Holy could really use a little love to make it more viable as an all-around healer, and not just a strong backup raid healer. If they can't damage while healing effectively, at least give them enough output or mitigation to let the be the best dedicated healer for most situations - so when you need just the healing, they are the best pick, and not just a bad pick for most content.I might be misremembering, but I could have sworn there was an old talent that let crits for specific spells grant temporary flat damage reduction - I'm not saying drop that back in unchanged, but what about adding that effect to one of our cooldowns? 20% on Serenity doesn't sound too ridiculous, giving us some single target power. It wouldn't be able to stack with itself (unless you had multiple priests, and I would assume it would have diminishing returns) and gives priests a solid secondary option for saving tanks.How about giving back lightwell, but changing it to be (slightly) similar to the Druids Efflorescence (I think that's the right spell?), but with slow AoE pulses that heal a set amount divided by the number of players affected? (So a tank, alone, would get the full effect, while a stacked raid would gain a greatly diminished effect.) Takes out the issues the original lightwell faced, and gives a lasting AoE heal option (beyond relying on Divine Hymn, or Sanctuary with Echo of Light.) Lightwell could even be an interesting damage option (imagine an effect somewhat similar to Halo - would give priests a damage option without having to stop healing.)I could think of a lot of ways to help Holy, but mitigation and damage seem to be the big issues mentioned, beyond the cooldowns being a little iffy at times. And there are definitely ways to make it work.
I think it's worth noting that Venthyr is actually 800% spellpower. The damage was converted to healing, so it's like a 400% absorb + 400% healing. Seems like it's pretty clearly meant to be a tank CD, as opposed to a raidwide one.
You missed something important in your Fae Blessings breakdown: you said that PW:S competes with Renew and isn't as good due to the mana costs (3.4% vs. 1.8%). With Fae Blessings, PW:S now only costs 'effectively' 1.4% meaning it will always be more efficient than Renew if you target any user with mana.
what a disappointment. shadow is &*!@.... holy is half %^&*..... idk hows disco but even if its good like... class has 3 specs. why only one is viable and relevant?like what did we do? i think it was a mistake when i bought pre-purchase ^_^ really, really, really disappointed....
I think giving Holy absorption and not having it on Disc would boost it's viability. Disc would still have mitigation and passive damage while holy would get better healing throughput and absorption making it more likely to see play in higher end content. Maybe.
Looks like we are on track to continue to be the jack of all trades, master of none. I've been playing the same holy priest since TBC. Throughout BFA, I have struggled with mythic+ content (the only thing relevant that I do) with my highest key being a meager +16, and most dungeons completed at +15. The struggle is real, but I have enjoyed the challenge... which I think just makes me a masochist at this point. Oh well. I'll always be a holy priest.
Priest has been my main since I started playing WoW and Holy Priest has been my favorite spec, but the lack of any really meaningful changes leading into Shadowlands has drained my excitement for the expansion. I don't want to spend another expansion feeling like I'm letting everyone down unless I'm making myself miserable by playing Discipline.
I agree with most of the comments mentioned before, but my biggest complaints are 1) the covenant abilities are not so promising for holy priest and 2) even if I find the best covenant to join with my HP, my SP will suffer, doing world quests with holy is just not optimal, so i prefer using SP for that. So far I am disappointed with the covenant system in terms of priest abilities at least. Also, as much as I love healing in raid environments, mythic+ is a pain with holy priest, and in Shadowlands, we won't even have essences (e.g. well of existence), which help a bit in single target healing, they really need to do something.
I don't understand why holy priest is seen as the "new to healing-spec". All the people I've known throughout the years of playing WoW that wanted to try out healing, went with holy paladin because it's a spec that is a lot more straightforward and easy to understand and use if you're new to healing.
Btwn the soulbinds and covenant abilities, Kyrian is looking the best to me. It doesn't look like hpriest will be metahealers but I expect to do fine in heroic raid healing, so I'm fine with what I see so far. Really, I'm just stinking happy we're getting our rez cloak back.
So the "holy trio" - Rdruid, Hpala and D priest are getting some love and significant change that makes them valiable for m+ and raids, while holy get a minor change that brings nothing new and do not fix main issues that we have.. Im holy main and its impossible for mé to get into 20or 19 mythic key because im holy or even if im taken into group im immidietly kicked out because of my spec.. :( blizz do not give a %^&* about balance and these change are proof that they do not care about balance class.P. S Increasing mana cost of our basic healing spells? This is total cluster*!@#.. Without necklece and cloak we are so mana hungry... Blizz you basically force mé to change my class!
As an average Hpriest player, I will give my opinion.During BFA I only used Hpriest and Monk as healers and some of the observations that I will do aim to improve the quality of life and game of compared to the other classes of heals.First: I feel that the leveling in the healers should be a priority, since from the insertion of M + particularly the healers (due to the numbers - while in raids you need 2 tanks, at least you must have 3-4 healers -) at the time of looking for groups there is greater competition, and naturally the best option will always be chosen. Unfortunately the unevenness in utility, damage, healing and toughness leaves the Hpriest at the bottom of the list, below Rshamy.Second: Although the priest has two specializations to heal, blizzard has done an excellent job differentiating each one in the styles and gameplay, so saying that just changing the spec means leaving your style of play.Third: I doubt very much that Hpriestcan stand out more than the Dpriest in raids, since its utility and CD as the difficulty increases exceed those of the Hpriest (it is not the same to mitigate 25% of 1000 than of 4000). So many of these changes are intended for M +.With that said, here are some wishes or enhancements I'd like to see in shadowland.