Mmmm, that's a big nerf....Follow

So I started looking into the CoH nerf. Oh my.
So I decided to vote to, that way if I lose then I can really complain!!! I posted this on the Worldofwarcraft.com forums hoping to see a blue respond. Or just to get my 2copper in.

Thread Link

It's odd. I just started using this spell and am, yes even as a holy priest, finding that it's op. But a SIX second cd? Just as Holy Priests are starting to be rediscovered as THE healers of the game. I'm ready to go respec again and ditch CoH. Shamans don't like it? Holy Pallys are being pass up? So sorry guys, but we were THE healers of the game from the start, and we should be now. You guys bring other things to the table with your heals, we bring heals.

Why? Mmmm. Maybe because Holy Nova is better. Yes, a mana drain (by a meer 4% more), BUT it's instant and NO CD, hits ALL (not just 5) members within 10yrd (more if you spec) and, if you Glyph HN heals for 401 more than CoH (#'s taken from high end heals at lvl 80 with no talent adds and just the glyph difference). Now, the range is 5 yrds less.... I understand that. I also understand that it takes me 2 sec (if that, as I can run and spam it at the same time) to move 5 yrds!!!

Wait! Prayer of Healing is 3 sec cast!!! HALF THE CoH CD! Soaks up more mana for sure, but I can get 2 off of PoH and heal for almost 4x the amount than one CoH! Do I like that? Not really, but if I have to, it's an ingame option.

My point? I really believe that Blizz is shoving CoH back into the closet where it came from. Yes it had it's problem before you thought about adding the CD. Yes I know you are not doing this because of the QQ coming from the other healing classes. But I do not believe that a six second cd is the answer. I don't think a cd is the answer at all, but if that is the end result surly not the magic number being six... maybe three. It is truly is a slap in the face for a class that should stand out in heals to start with. The end result being that many many priests are going to see deep holy to be pointless.

My suggestion, as it would be rude to just rant and not have some ideas for a solution, would be lower the bonus that it recieves from spell power making it weaker (but keeping it above HN and lowering HN if you have to to keep that balance). A three sec cd, so that in a bind you can CoH, PoH, CoH. or even a one point five cd would bring the spell down a notch. But NERFING ('cause this is not a light change), CoH for one instance is just not the answer. As in chess, I believe we need to look farther ahead in the game for a better answer. For now, my responce if we do move to a six second cd is to respec and forget CoH all together. Put it back in the closet again to gather dust...

Nope, CoH heals up to 5 party or raid members within 15 yards of the target. Holy nova heals only those within 10 yards of the healer.

That's a huge difference. In a raid, people may be spread out. You can target different raid members and have CoH cover different geographic areas. Holy nova is only around you. You really cant be running around trying to cover different areas with Holy Nova.

Add to that the fact that Holy Nova takes more mana and covers less area in diameter. Holy nova may have a use if everyone is all bunched up. Other than that, as a healing spell, CoH wins.

As far as the nerf goes, I'm not happy about it. Casting it once (weak) then following with a bunch of single target heals significantly decreases its usefulness. Cast CoH a couple times in a row and you had something. With a cooldown, I'd rather just cast a PoH. Since I can only cast PoH on my own group, I guess the other priest will have to take care of his group. We're back to Pre-CoH style healing. Oh, we can use it once in a while to top people off, woohoo.

I recently went full discipline (with the exception of improved renew and Holy Specialization). After the CoH nerf, I wouldn't be surprised to see more people head in that direction.

Edited, Dec 10th 2008 11:48pm by dadanox

Besides that, holy nova is party only, there isn't really a comparison to be made.

Basically they're trying to up the emphasis on flash heal and pom and poh as raid healing tools.

I'd love to add something to this thread, but basically I find everything that has been said to be true. Holy Nova is pretty much solely a 5-man spell; you'll use it as quick AOE heal when disced specced, and if unglyphed you can use it to AOE damage. But that's about as far as it goes.

CoH was nice when I tried it, but I can't really say a 6 sec CD will ruin the day. Holy priests still have very nice AOE healing and like Teacake said, if all you did was CoH then get out of your lazy armchair.

I... suppose the nerf was needed, and a CD is not horrible; it's still a great spell as it. No reason to cry here.

I've healed heroics with my druid long before Wild Growth was available, with the only AOE-heal available being a channeled Tranquility (talking about a looong cooldown). I honestly don't see the need for drama, especially since we're talking about only six seconds.

Priests aren't THE healers, and if you look at how ALL classes have been changed here and there, it is quite obvious that Blizzard wants to avoid one class being given preference over another - and that is good.

Too often people were left out because they just didn't bring crowd-control or decent AoE to the group, and that's luckily becoming a thing of the past.

So what? Paladins now do a little more than just spamming Flash of Light, and priests won't get away with just cancel-casting GH and spamming CoH.

I'm looking forward to this patch. I'd be upset maybe had they messed with the bonus healing coefficients, but they've left things alone there.

The truly POSITIVE and AMAZING changes (and long overdue as well) seem to be completely overlooked with all the CoH whining.

Abolish Disease - rather important after the introduction of the DKs - no longer pops you out of Shadowform.
Mana Burn destroys a PERCENTAGE of mana
Vampiric Embrace won't cost mana anymore.

So I'd say priests did rather well, and the only thing truly missing is being able to use Pain Suppression even when stunned or incapacitated (similar to Barkskin)

Well, now that the top talent is at 51 points, I honestly don't see the old 41 point talent as defining for the class.

Lifebloom is a spell, not a talent, and through that available to all druids. At the same time though, Wild Growth IS the 51 point talent for resto druids, and if you'd want to put things into proportion, you'd have to accept like a 5 minute CD on Guardian Spirit instead of the 3 right now. THAT is your defining talent as a Holy priest.

You just need to look at all the other options you have available while you have to wait those insanely long 6 seconds... Holy Nova? Binding Heal? Prayer of Healing? Prayer of Mending? Do druids or shamans have all those? How about a Lightwell?

Maybe you need to experience for yourself how it is to be left out or only taken when there is nobody else available to understand why the changes to those group heals are needed.

If a 6 second cooldown is enough for you to think it breaks your class, you probably need to (re)learn how to properly play it. I'm seriosly wondering how I can manage to heal as a disc priest, with CoH on an infinite cooldown...

Is dispersion the defining talent in Shadow? No Shadow Form is. Just because it's the final point doesn't mean it's the defining talent of the tree. Look back at BC, was Endless Rage the defining talent for Arms warriors? Hell no, that talent was garbage, Mortal Strikes was the defining talent, no one even touched Endless Rage. Look at Rogues, what is the defining talent in Assassination? Mutilation, not Hunger For Blood. Subtlety? It's not Shadow Dance, it's Hemorrhage for PvE(probably could be argued that HAT is the defining ability, but since you spam Hemo I'm saying that is, and probably ShS for PvP, still holds the point since none of these are the 51 point talent).

What makes a defining talent isn't that it's last talent in the tree. It's the talent that defines how that tree is played or portrayed. For holy it was Circle of Healing. This talent defined holy priests as being the AoE healing tree. The same way all shadow talents culminate with Shadow Form, or how all the resto druid HoTs culminate with Tree of Life. Those are defining talents.



Emphasis: This just makes it look like you are saying "Too bad for you, my class doesn't have it so why should yours" That's not a good way to look at anything in game, be it buff or nerf. I mean, can priests cast a couple HoTs on everyone in the raid and go eat a sandwhich like a druid can? Can priests drop totems that give a wide variety of buffs that everyone loves? You can't look at things like, well druids do it this way, so priests should to. You have to look at what defines a class spec, otherwise there would be no point in having all these different classes, there would be 3 classes a tank a healer and a damage dealer. That would make for a mundane game.

I've played as a hunter who never got invited to anything because of the Huntard stigma, oh and the fact that hunters sucked at arena I could never get into an arena team. I play as a rogue, who, in case you didn't know, is the laughing stock of the DPS world right now. I played as an Lolret back when they were called lolret. Hell I can even go into other games and say I played as a dragoon in FFXI back when "dragoons suck - penta nerf" where I would sit for weeks looking for a group for things. I know what it's like to not get invited to groups/raids/arena because of the class I've chosen to play. So maybe you shouldn't assume things about people you don't know.



I never said it breaks the class, in fact I am pretty sure I've repeated a couple of times that it isn't the end of the world. What I said was that it is a major change in the playstyle. The point of my original post was because you couldn't understand what the big deal was about the change. I was trying to help you understand that when they change a defining characteristic of a class tree it is a major change.

I'm also pretty sure I never complained about the nerf either. Actually I'll take the hit, adjust accordingly and move on with the game.


Edited, Dec 12th 2008 2:19pm by SynnTastic

I don't, no worries there. Some reason my posts come of as being personal when I never take these things personally.

Maybe it's my typing style I don't know. It tends to be kind of matter of fact, which I guess gives the impression that I get upset or something. I should take some writing courses or something to learn to sound more pleasant and less like a stuck up ***, but what the hell, people tend to get the message.

But I did get the impression that comment was directed towards me, rather than a general statement, if that's the case I was wrong. But I never took it as an attack on me, just directed towards me. And I never wanted to sound like I was attacking him either, I actually had to edit my post a couple of times because it sounded like I was, lol, just my post was in response to his.

A lot of good points have been brought out in this thread.
All I'm saying as a Holy Priest who has actually got CoH out of the closet, I do find it OP, and just feel that a six sec cd is too much. I've been playtesting it and it's not THAT bad, but I still feel it's too much.

YES, I'm a big believer in Vanilla. You (other classes) should not be able to do what I can. IF they could why have 2 seperate classes? Duh.

On the bright side, check these out!!!

Priests

Abolish Disease and Cure Disease can now be cast while in Shadowform. (very cool!!!)
Levitate is now castable on others. (I like this one)
Mana Burn: Now burns a percentage of maximum mana. (this I feel is going to bring Mana Burn off the back burnner)
Shadow
Shadowform: You can now shift into Shadowform while mounted or sitting.
Vampiric Embrace- Mana cost of this spell has been removed. (This is also HOT!!!)

Source

Hmm.. I think we're going to struggle at first when this change comes in, but we'll find a way. Due to general lack of healers we've been running raids light on healers (5/6 in 25-mans, 3 holy priests), its our op circle of healing thats seen us through those few fights with alot of raid damage to heal through. I'll be sticking with a holy for now, but really looking forward to duel specs when I'll pick both a holy and a disc spec.

The change to circle of healing (party only heal to smart raid heal) when 3.0 came was always too good to be true. Its funny, I think the idea Blizz had was to change buffs and spells so theres less need to set up groups in a raid in a certain way. Now I wonder if we'll find ourselves spreading the holy priests between 5-man groups and sorting out positioning to make optimal use of prayer of healing - which is what we did for a couple of fights in BT.

Thing I've always loved about playing a priest healer is our variety of heals, that we have to think about whats best to cast next. I admit for those fights where all we seem to do is mash the CoH key and put in the odd free flash heal its a bit dull. Though at the moment while we're all still gearing up, there is plenty of thinking about how to not go oom!

It'll be fine, but its going to take some getting used to.

I'm having a lot of fun with disc. I've gone so far as to put all my points in disc, with the exception of 3 for improved renew. It's fun to experiment with different strategies with regard to spell rotation and utilization of PW:Shield.

Just trade out silent resolve for imp inner fire. Tanks generate insane amounts of threat. You should have no problems with threat. But even so, your link has level 77 and Renewed hope is only 2/2 so you could leave 1 point in silent resolve and that's still a 7% reduction in threat.

In the future, I think they should change that to make healing or DPS more challenging. I've healed UK, AN and others as Shadow, with no healing threat reduction, and Fade worked well enough without any modifications.
Fade could even replace all the threat-reducing talents, if it actually dumped threat or lasted longer.