Is my Holy Priest my Resto Druid?

[Helicon]

I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice this, after all healers have become increasingly similar each expansion and patch. It's hard not to notice. But 4.0.1 really has made my Resto druid and Holy priest nearly indistinguishable from each other. Most of my keybindings are the same from my druid and priest, which makes the transition from playing the classes very seamless.

Spells that share the same key bindings (and are essentially the same spell with a different name attached):

• Heal(3s, 9% base mana)=Nourish(3s 10% base mana)
• Flash Heal(1.5s, 28% base mana)=Regrowth(1.5s 35% base mana)
• Greater Heal(3s, 27% base mana)=Healing Touch(3s 38% base mana)
• Renew(12s duration, 21% base mana)=Rejuv(12s duration, 20% base mana)
• Circle of Healing (10s CD, 21% base mana)=Wild Growth(10s CD, 27% base mana)
• Devine Hymn(8min CD, 36% base mana)=Tranquility(8min CD, 32% base mana)
• SW:P/DP/Smite=Moonfire/IS/Wrath

The differences:
Priest:
PoM
Prayer of Healing
Chakra/Revelations
Guardian Spirit
Cure Diseases

Tier 2:
lolwell
PW:S
Binding heal
Holy nova

Druid:
Lifebloom
Living Seed
Swiftmend
Cure curses
Effloresence
Tree of Life

Priests do have a slightly larger toolchest in terms of total heals but in regards to revalent heals (ie not nearly useless spells like Holy Nova) they have a near identical number. For bread and butter spells the only big differences are PoM and PoH for priests and Lifebloom and Swiftmend for druids (commence QQ on how unfair it is that Priests get PoH and on the other side QQ about druids swiftmend). Tree is the big druid CD while Chakra/Guardian is the priest equivalent.

Certainly in PVP a druid and holy priest are VERY different but a lot of those differences go out the window in PvE (honestly how often do you go bear or travel form in PvE?.. not that much).

I'm not trying to say they're the same class but the differences are increasingly narrowing. And yes I understand that this 'revelation' of mine won't catch anyone by surprise since people have been saying this for months if not years, but I guess I'm just dissapointed. I miss the days where my priest was not only different from other classes but was different from other priests. I fear there will be a day when I wake up and see my two healers with only 1 ability each called "heal" that you just mindlessly press an entire fight (although even this probably won't stop the QQ on class forums).

[Mr.Winkle]

Agreed, the homogenization of the healing classes adds nothing to the game.

Great we can now complete a 10man raid with 3 Holy Priests and not feel gimped because we don't have a resto shammy or Holy pala. Pity to accomplish this all the 4 classes are now the same.

You wouldn't take 5 rogues to a 10man so why do we have to placate people who stack 3 of the same healer.

The poor holy pala has suffered worse through this. They've lost their niche and are now basically crap as a subsequence.

[Chamenas]

Not crap. I feel like we may have lost some balance in the process, as a lot of the other healers seem to be faring slightly better, but I'm not bothered by it, we'll see what happens at 85. Right now I'm holding my own and the healing is more engaging than it used to be.

On-topic: The homogenization of classes is undesirable. However, it is difficult to balance classes and make them different. If Blizzard wants to keep things distinct, as they always seem to say they want to, then they have to work through the difficulties of making it work.

[Maèl]

4.0.1 just called and wanted to remind you of Chakra.
While I haven't followed the Druid changes as much as the Priest changes I motion that there is a HUGE difference in playstyle if not even in the mechanics.

The only thing I find is that many Druids haven't realized yet that the days of mindlessly hoting everything are propably gone or at least dying.

On Friday I had to talk to two druids that simply hoting stuff isn't going to cut it when we lost 3(!!!!) raid members to Infest on Lk10/normal after phase 1. Additionally to healing the tanks(one of which had two Shambling Horrors on him, propably one or even both of them enraged, I had to put Pain Suppression on him), I had to FH single raid members who didn't get hoted to 100% losing my Grace stacks in the process.
Granted, we lost those 3 to Infest after we lost the Shambling Horrors tank due to an Enrage/insta gib I've never seen before on normal mode. But still, non-hot heals have become an important part of the druid repertoire again. Yes, spamming Regrowth/HT propably sucks, but sometimes you have to do it. Losing one DPS to Infest is ok if the sh!t has just hit the fan. Two isn't nice but these things happen. But losing 3 simply is unacceptable. It would have been worse if I hadn't fired up Divine Hymn.

My point being, it's a good thing the healing classes moved closer to each other when it comes to their bread&butter toolset. Gone are the days when lazy paladins only healed the tanks and druids/priests were on raid duty spamming the same spells over and over again without actually paying attention what the general situation was. By Recount standards our best druid was a guy who only kept all his hots rolling on all targets all of the time. No situational anything. Just keep the green ticks going. And don't get me started on paladins that only spammed heals on both tanks. They did well on Recount, too. I hated being teamed up with both types.

Same basic toolset, different healing mechanics. I'd say Blizz has got that one right.
The numbers are possibly a bit off and I haven't yet spoken to a healing Shaman(which in my opinion was one of the most powerful healers in WotLK) but for pally, druid and both priests things are looking much more interesting than before.

[zuke8675309]

Same basic toolset, different healing mechanics. I'd say Blizz has got that one right.
The numbers are possibly a bit off and I haven't yet spoken to a healing Shaman(which in my opinion was one of the most powerful healers in WotLK) but for pally, druid and both priests things are looking much more interesting than before.

I took my 264 geared resto shammy to icc25 yesterday and I'd have to agree that things are more interesting. In a 25man especially, it used to be lolchainheal every time all the time. There really wasn't a bad time to use it ever because the initial heal was large enough that it was an awesome raid heal and a decent single target heal. Now (especially if you glyph it) the initial heal is lower and you think about it a bit different.

In the 3.3.5 world if player A was at 50% and 3 other players close by were at 90-95% you chainhealed off the one at 50% and healed them for 10-13k and topped off the others. In the 4.0.1 world if I did that the initial person would get healed for 6-8k and the chain would bounce to the others. It makes you think - should I hit the 50% health person with a large single target heal and let the 90% people go for another 2 seconds.

Don't get me wrong Chain Heal is still an awesome spell especially on a fights like Blood Queen, Sindragosa, Lich King and Professor phase 3. But because the initial heal is lower, I'm not sure shamans will use it quite as much. On fights like Rotface, Princes, and LDW I found myself using single target heals more often then I would in the past.

My overall point is that I agree with you, healers are being given more choices to make as they heal. Good healers will recognize this and make smart spell choices. Bad healers will just continue to spam one spell over and over.

[Mr.Winkle]

My point being, it's a good thing the healing classes moved closer to each other when it comes to their bread&butter toolset. Gone are the days when lazy paladins only healed the tanks and druids/priests were on raid duty spamming the same spells over and over again without actually paying attention what the general situation was. By Recount standards our best druid was a guy who only kept all his hots rolling on all targets all of the time. No situational anything. Just keep the green ticks going. And don't get me started on paladins that only spammed heals on both tanks. They did well on Recount, too. I hated being teamed up with both types.

Were they really lazy though? Or did the raid style just ahppen to perfectly match healer ncihes or vicea versa. A holy paladin who just beacons 1 tank and heals the other might not be maximizing his healing poterntial, but heøs certianly using his skills to match the encounters demands.

A lot of people said "Palas are op" or "Palas just spam 1 button" in WotLK, but that was as much due to raid design as it was due to class design.

Whilst i agree with you Lulia that we'll have to wait until 85 to see how we really fair i do feel in the past the end of an expansions has usually been considered "fun", usually becuase all i new abilities are a bit OP. Unfortunately its swung the other direction this time and i find myself struggling a little to clear the same content.

[Maèl]

Mr. Winkle, no, I've met Holy Pallies who were good on recount but rubbish otherwise. One guy in particular he would only heal the tanks no matter what while it was my job to keep the raid alive AND throwing the odd shield, renew or god forbid Penance to the tanks. No decurse, no quick heal for people who would have been goners. And after the encounter he'd post his recount healing done.

WotLK has bred this mindset when DPS learned about the HPS bs metric and switched over to Holy Pally. A well played Holy pally is amazing. But they are were not what you'd usually get. Frankly, they were the FOTM healing class for the last year and a half and most of them didn't remember what heroic Loken was like when we were still wearing blues.

Shaman OTOH were AMAZING tank healers. Somehow they didn't make it to the FOTM status. I can't fathom why.
Now it seems like every priest I meet in pugged 5 mans is Disc. Played badly.

I feel a bit silly for complaining about FOTM in an MMO. But the pally fad lasted for too long.

[BruisedOoze]

I would be careful looking at things as simply a mana cost/ casting time comparison. The Heal and Nourish comparison does not extend much farther than the mana cost and casting time, as Nourish is better when there are HoTs already on the target but it also refreshes Lifebloom (talented). Letting the lifebloom bloom is a very large heal, so if you wanted the bloom heal and needed to through in an additional heal using Nourish would be a bad choice.

[Skaterjoec55]

Mr. Winkle, no, I've met Holy Pallies who were good on recount but rubbish otherwise. One guy in particular he would only heal the tanks no matter what while it was my job to keep the raid alive AND throwing the odd shield, renew or god forbid Penance to the tanks. No decurse, no quick heal for people who would have been goners. And after the encounter he'd post his recount healing done.

WotLK has bred this mindset when DPS learned about the HPS bs metric and switched over to Holy Pally. A well played Holy pally is amazing. But they are were not what you'd usually get. Frankly, they were the FOTM healing class for the last year and a half and most of them didn't remember what heroic Loken was like when we were still wearing blues.

Shaman OTOH were AMAZING tank healers. Somehow they didn't make it to the FOTM status. I can't fathom why.
Now it seems like every priest I meet in pugged 5 mans is Disc. Played badly.

I feel a bit silly for complaining about FOTM in an MMO. But the pally fad lasted for too long.

Bull crap. If they are healing everyone and not holding the raid down then they are doing there job. You don't have the right to say if the healers know what they are doing or if they don't know what they are doing. In my personal opinion you had no right saying to the druids that they couldn't simply hot everything. Well what else are they going to do. Druids are pretty much restricted to only hots atm, Nourish is to long of a cast now, so we are now casting our rejuvs, wild growths, regrowths, and swiftmends. And the pally healers should be healing both tanks since they aren't very efficient at raid healing (depending how you spent your Talent Points in your designated tree). And druids should not be using Healing Touch what so ever imo. Druids usually don't spam Regrowth/HT they usually spam Regrowth/Rejuv and pop WG when avaliable and use swiftmend on tanks and MDPS when they fall to 70% or lower. In my opinion right now, HoTing days are AMAZING, but yes it will probably change once the expac is avaliable. But I do doubt that druids who know there class will be affected by the xpac and won't have much trouble spamming HoTs.

[Worthun]

i think, tho it does look like that now, the classes will grow different from each other at lvl 85, i havent done druids researsh either but take a look at the evangelism/archangel priest discipline talet, will be avaliable to holy priests lvl 85... getting 1 min cd to chakra and 30 cd to archangel (smite) ull se some priest doing chakra:smite to cause some damage, get 5 stacks, maintaing thouse untill chakra cd wears off, an than combo: archangel + healing chakra (any one of em), thats the simples combo for that build, and there are many others, getting some serplendity stacks before the procs is a good idea too.... priest has got, more than before, being all about variability to change ure healing stile in the midle of the fights XD
for now, ure totally right, but lets wait a couple mounths to see how to improve our playskill with 5 more talents XD

[Maèl]

What makes Smite/Archangel so attractive is in fact Atonement. I had already considered this for my Holy spec. If this stacks with Chakra we are in for some awesome smitage.
...if hardly anybody takes damage.
But Holy can't use Smite as a cheap, cheap way to heal whatever happens to stroll into range with reduced CD for Penance to boot.

@Skater
Pardon me but healing is a team effort. Sticking to your assignment and not keeping an eye on the rest of the raid is a sure fire thing to fail. As long as I have a say in things this kind of behaviour will get anybody benched. Healing exactly two targets, no decurses = fail. Forgetting you have direct healing when getting all raid members up to 100% life is essential = fail.
This may sound harsh but raid awareness, being able to perform as a team and quick reactions are essential to healing.

[Goldwing]

Glad I am not the only one to think this. I played a holy priest since day one of WoW. We really needed another Resto Druid in the guild and were heavy on Priests so I decided to change my main going into Cata.

I hit 80 the day before 4.0.1 hit and now I can go back and forth between the 2 toons and heal with the same buttons and almost the same method. Now with the new priest mastery giving them a second HoT like a little rejuv there isn't much left but the shield.

I'm not complaining, I love them both, but your post was right on!

[fengosa]

Drood healing on LK has never been about mindlessly hotting things. Obviously rejuv is still used a fair bit but well timed wildgrowth are the best thing you have to counter infest. From there swiftmind or regrowth anyone who still has the debuff then help on the tanks until the next infest. The diversity of spells you need to use makes that fight a lot more enjoyable even if you're not blowing up the meters like you do on festergut or blood queen.

As far as using 3 holy priests for a raid, it may be possible but it's far from optimal. A druid will still bring motw, rebirth, soothe and the new version of thorns which helps tank aggro if used properly. A shaman still has lust/ankh/totems for support as well. Not to mention this setup will avoid gear disputes much easier as well

[Bovinity]

I will say that the new Resto druid style does annoy me a bit. There are no more "long" HoT's, so it seems a lot harder to really spread my efforts around effectively. Rejuv going from 18 sec to 12 sec and Regrowth HoT being a whopping 5 sec down from 21 is just a bummer.

Maybe it just takes some getting used to, but it feels like I'm doing more busywork babysitting my Rejuvs and such.