Is Holy Priest not viable?

I've been doing pretty good playing holy priest in heroics, but I'm also a veteran holy priest player. On the chance that I **** up in a heroic because I'm being a dick looking at my Spotify instead of healing a DPS that is being targeted, I've been accosted for being holy instead of disc. I know disc is pretty good this expansion, but I've only enjoyed doing it in pvp, not pve.

14 years ago during OG WoTLK, I played holy priest into heroic ICC. I remember having disc priests in our team, but I don't remember how well I did compared to them. So going into Warmane, I assumed that holy priest was still viable.

Ultimately I just want to ask; does holy priest hold a candle to disc? Some people in these random heroics seem to think I'm an ***** for choosing holy priest, as if it's the obvious choice is disc.

Holy Priest depends on the proper use of 'Surge of Light' which is bugged on Warmane, as it is not triggered by prayer of mending here.

Even on blizz disc shield spam was just broken OP. But it's so boring, I prefered holy anyway, because it was still viable at least. Not on Warmane though.

The holy priests kit is nearly identical to rdruid, and people love rdruids.
Wild growth = CoH
Rejuv = Renew
Nourish = Flashheal
Tranq = Divine Hymn
This is already like 70-90% of what you're casting while raiding .

But it goes on:
Healing Touch = Greater Heal
NS = GA (big emergency heal)
Inspiration = Healing received (One doesn't stack with Rshamans, one doesn't stack with Protpallys, you should have both in the raid anyways)
Hymn of Hope = Innervate (I'd give this to innervate because of the shorter cooldown, but priest also has shadow fiend for himself so it's equal)

Now where they go apart:
Lifebloom, Regrowth vs PoH, PoM - so Rdruids lean more towards tank healing while Hpriests have yet more AoE spells.
Priest can also Preshield and Speedshield (completely broken on some encounters).
Kitwise Hpriests wins just because of my all-time-favorite, the Well of Light.
Have a tank of at least 80 IQ, place it next to him every 3 minutes, teach him to click it and enjoy insane value per mana/gcd.

HPS meter:
Hpriests performance will vary the most depending on the encounter and the grade of AoE damage smacking the raid.
On a low-heal encounter they have the worst toolkit - but doesn't matter, it's a low heal encounter. Who cares.
They have the highest potential in their kit on raiddamage heavy fights - a good Hpriest can compete for #1 every time.
Also to fck em over a bit more: Their pinnacle 51 talent, GS, doesn't get accounted to the priests heal for some reason. They would look a good bit better if that 40% extra heal and/or the procc would go into their own heal. But it's there and it absolutely has wipesaving value.

Why are Hpriest underrated by the majority of the server:
1. Rdruids don't like them because they more or less do the same job and CoHs instant nature easily pushes Wild growth into overheal.
2. Hpriest is the most timing-reliant healer there is and most Hpriests can't do it. PoH alone yields insane value if you can foresee damage and precast, 0.5 seconds late and it's all into overheal.
3. Discpriests switching spec may underperform terribly, because the playstyle is VASTLY different. A good Dpriest doesn't make a good Hpriest (and vice versa)
4. - and this is probably the biggest reason:
Priest is the only class that actually has two heal speccs competing with each other. So even among the priests, half of them are sworn Dpriests ****talking down to Hpriests. No other class has this issue. There would be some Rdruid hate around if there was a Discdruid.

Are they viable? As viable as any other healer.
Is it easier to do bad on them compared to other healers? I guess so.

Way the other heals work and knowledge of raids just make hpriest obsolete.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angrylol

Way the other heals work and knowledge of raids just make hpriest obsolete.

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What kind of statement is that? Any healer makes any other healer obsolete. If you got the buffs you need and can keep your raid alive, your healer setup doesn't even matter.

You pick hpala for tank heal spam
You pick rsham for burst of AOE smart-heal and ability to switch to tank heal spam
You pick disc for shields
You pick rdruid for raid blanket(but actually to regen resources)
You pick hpriest for ???

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angrylol

You pick hpriest for ???

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Versatility. Nuke AOE heals that have greater range than Chain Heal. Speed bubbles for prog with noobs. Valithria.
You did forget PI and Rapture giving resources in a similar fashion to RDruid too.

Not sure why this convo matters though? You can easily clear all the raid content with an hpriest in the comp.

Ye it's viable, just that pretty much no one is looking for them. OP can pick it and play, np, play the game on "hardcore mode".

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Originally Posted by Mercy

Not sure why this convo matters though? You can easily clear all the raid content with an hpriest in the comp.

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You can, but you can do it also without it. Moot point I know, as same can be said regarding other heals, depending on encounter(s). Thus people tend to look over Holy Priests in favor of other heals. Hpala, Rsham and Disc gets chosen 1st, and the last spot or two depends on encounter and setup. So it's kinda situational, so I guess people prefer to tell others to play less situational Discipline or Shadow Priest.