Holy Priest - Prayer of Healing

#1 - March 18, 2017, 11:26 a.m.

I play priest since vanilla, and I'm honestly having a hard time adjusting to the new prayer of healing.

I played in guilds ranging from rank 600-700 to rank 16-22.

Is it just me or is the system too, let's say "weird"?
Why is the prayer of healing only Healing the person and the 4 closest targets? Doesn't that constitute a huge problem when people stack or are constantly moving (e.g.: Elisande Mythic or even Star Augur Mythic)?

From what I understand, blizzard wanted to move away from smart heals, but why not leave it group wide as in the past? Than at least we could prepare for incoming damage while PoH-ing each group once, as opposed to now when you use it 4 times and if people move while you are casting it, you might end up healing almost same people each time.

This is my personal opinion, and of course that's why I ask you, the community, for your opinion, because maybe I am wrong.
Thanks :).

Sigma

Game Designer

#14 - March 28, 2017, 1 a.m.

Prayer of Healing has been a bit of a puzzle to decide the right approach for in recent expansions. We always appreciate feedback on where it currently is, but for a few thoughts on it:

We definitively wanted to get rid of the version based on raid subgroups in Legion. At this point, it was the only spell left in the game that relied on that, and required raid leaders to rearrange groups at the behest of one player to make one of their spells work correctly. Furthermore, with an increasing amount of raiding being done in the "flexible" framework, raid sizes are not even reliably a multiple of 5 anymore.

We also want to be careful with heals that are too smart. A PoH with a large radius, smart targeting, and no cooldown would essentially be a self-working raid healing spell/rotation. As long as 5 people are damaged (which is frequently), you can spam that spell to the get best efficiency from your mana, not overheal, and not have to worry about targeting. That's a direction we don't like for healing gameplay in general and have been paring back on in recent years.

One other thing that felt bad about the 7.0 version (20 yard radius) was that it didn't hit the whole party in 5-player content. That's a role that Prayer of Healing has always had and that it should keep having.

Sigma

Game Designer

#39 - April 1, 2017, 12:36 a.m.

01/04/2017 00:52Posted by Wackywheals
Oh and since we're here to complain, Cosmic Ripple costing 5% base mana is the cherry on top of the cake atm. Way to destroy one's gameplay :/

This is a bug.

Sigma

Game Designer

#42 - April 1, 2017, 3:09 a.m.

01/04/2017 02:01Posted by Skurtburt
Talking about bugs; are you guys aware of discipline priest mastery currently being bugged?
Actual transfer % from Mastery to Atonement is being "locked in" upon log-in, spec swap and zone change.

Yes, a fix for this is incoming as well.