I think coh is, right now, more in line with Blizzard’s plans of homogenization.

Now, a raid leader putting together a healing team can say…

“I need tank healers, find me a good player with a pally, druid, or disc priest”
“I need raid healers, find me a good player with a Shammy, or holy priest”

Instead of saying

“I need raid healers, find me a shammy, any shammy that can faceroll on his/her keyboard and push CH, doesn’t matter how good they are”

So, yes, that leaves two different specs of priests as able to fill either healer role. THat is the point of a priest. Yes, we can dps as shadow, and now even slightly as holy when needed with the change to spellpower. Yes, there are not two different specs for other healers to choose their role. But that seems intended. Priests are as close to a pure healing class as you can get, and they always have been. They have fewer options for anything other than healing, and other classes have more options for things other than healing, and fewer healing roles. Every class has a few roles it can choose from,
Pally, druid can tank, dps, or single target heal. Shammy can raid heal, dps, or enhance everyone else. Priest can dps, single target heal or raid heal. All classes still have 3 options, it is just that priests have two separate healing choices.

I suppose that is why I don’t see it. I am fairly new to the end-game. I have only been raiding for about 3 months. I have routinely been passed over for healers with more hp and armor. I have routinely been held as not able to heal certain encounters because I am a priest, and not the “best” at anything. I have been seeing raids that bring one ids priest for buffs, and then stack other healers. I am only now, post-patch being invited to raid heal as a holy priest.

I guess, to me, it seems as thought a holy priest IS a raid healer, and a dics priest IS a single target healer, neither one should be trying to be both, as neither one is suited to both. Yes, as a priest you can “fill-in” for both, but to be the “best” you have to pick one. I think it’s great priests can pick something and be “the best” at it, instead of being a fill-in because you cannot find the healer class that is best at it.

I lost some of my utility as a single-target healer in the patch, or at least it feels like I did. The only way I have been hitting the numbers I could hit pre-patch, is by using CoH, where previously I might have cast it twice a run, now I use it quite a bit more, or I look like I am doing nothing.

People do look at healing meters. True. But, if they know anything about healing, then they know how to read them. A coh priest and a resto shammy should be at the top. Single target healers should have less, the way to look at a healing meter to see how the healers are relative to each other. The raid healers should be top of the chart, regardless of who it is. I guess what I am saying, is that I don’t care what people who don’t understand healing thinka botu healing meters. If they dont understand healing they shouldne be putting together a raid, and I probably dont want to be in it.

ALL of my heals now land for less then they use to. ALL OF THEM. With the loss of greater heal rank 1. And the INSANE and I do mean INSANE heals per secound pally healers now seem to be pumping out — COH so far is the only thing that lets me even hit in the same ball park with him for healing any more. When we use to be neck and neck.

And I dont know *any* priest that *only* uses COH. A smart priest … KNOWS better. In fact, as priest class lead if I find *any* priest I raid with regularly COH spamming when renew, POM or Greater Heals are more appropriate, I certianly HAVE A TALK WITH THEM.

What’s more .. many of us are *Still raiding* content with large AOE splash damage. At 80 .. maybe boss fights wont require COH ’spam’ or whatever you want to call it and the cool down wont matter. But currently .. it does still.

Half the priests I know have already gone shadow, because they dont enjoy healing in the days post-patch because they can’t really do what they use to effectively in the gear they have. I’m just worried this might drive more priests from the holy flock. Or worse .. make everyone go Disp, since holy will have such a weak 41 point talent.

Julanna: I guess I don’t really understand how it isn’t “fair”.

The concern that arises may go a bit beyond fair. Remember how difficult it was to get into a raid post-release of the Burning Crusade when every was stacking paladins for their auras and buffs, shamans for their totems and Chain Heals, while each progressive raid typically took a single priest that served as a buff bearer because stacking multiple priests was silly? That didn’t change until Circle of Healing got a nice boost, though Chain Heal was still the preferred way of group healing because it was a smart heal and because of the unique totems each shaman was capable of bringing.

With how incredibly powerful Circle of Healing currently is, there’s almost little need to bring other types of healers when you can just stack multiple Holy priests. Classes and specs that don’t bring a lot of utility to the raid may be pushed aside for Holy priests, just as we used to be for shamans and paladins when we examined our viability in raiding a year or so ago.

Even though we shouldn’t be looking at the meters competitively, keep in mind that people do look at the meters to gauge effectiveness in raids. In a competitive raiding environment trying to down bosses and get world or server firsts, the players who appear to not be excelling will be replaced in favor of the more effective classes. At the moment, due to the overwhelming power of Circle of Healing that class and spec looks like Holy priests.

Alindra: A good priest healer, such as one who learned to heal without having CoH to spam, will NOT spam it unless the situation calls for it.

However, with how effective Circle of Healing is and how little problems people are currently having with mana regeneration, regardless of the potion sickness debuff, the most effective way of healing currently — which doesn’t necessarily mean the most efficient — is to spam Circle of Healing. We may run out of mana within a minute in solo testing, but with the effectiveness of the various Replenishment buffs that occur from Shadow priests and Retribution shamans, in addition to the new Holy tree talents that make overhealing not so much of a faux pas, it’s absolutely possible to spam the button.

So, when you can’t run out of mana without really trying and have at your disposal an instant cast heal capable of automatically reaching the people who need it most within a certain amount of distance, what — beyond pre-Patch 3.0.2 prejudices — keeps you from spamming that spell? At the moment, it seems like a good Holy priest will spam that button at every opportunity in order to take advantage of the power of the spell. Anything less wouldn’t compete with how effective it is.

….I don’t believe it