Four years later, worried again :(

Hi everyone, my name is Babe Bridou, I'm a priest, and I think I broke
the game again.

I have been lurking for a looooong time after a period when I was a
crazily active poster in here, and of course after various obligatory
breaks from the game. It's a good feeling to post again here after so
long, many familiar names around here

Alright, on to the point.

Around 4 years ago, maybe 6 months after the european release, I had
been worried for the first time about the holy priest healing design,
in particular on the "downranking" mechanism. I had healed through the
whole content using 99% of the time only one spell which I had
acquired at level 22 I think, that was the rank 2 of the "Heal" spell.
I had even released a movie called "Fix it" of me in a casual 5-men in
Dire Maul North, then one of the most difficult instances, depicting
how that single spell allowed me to just forget about everything else
in the fight. Just concentrate on stopcasting that spell and I could
keep going forever. It was the most mana efficient and the fastest way
to run an instance. People said "come on, it won't work in raids", and
then Zul'Gurub was released, and then I joined Molten Core raids, then
Blackwing's lair raids, and then Ahn Qiraj raids... and still Heal
rank 2 was better than ranks 3, ranks 4, and greater heals ranks 1->3.
Scaling better, faster and more mana efficient than any other spell in
the game.

Then they fixed it, thank god.

I'm writing this post because I found another flaw that I believe
needs some fixing. The power of the Holy Nova spell has gone through
the roof, to the point that the fastest, best, most mana efficient and
safest way to run any heroic 5-men, including Tournament of the
Champions, is to use a priest that mindlessly spams Holy Nova with an
appropriate set of talents and glyphs. Mine isn't even "optimized" for
healing nor endurance nor damage - it's actually designed to solo AoE
grind, but it's good enough to beat all hard modes that don't require
you to specifically spare some mobs, such as the "watch him die" hard
mode in Azjol Nerub.

The problem is, once you can do it, there's no reason not to just spam
holy nova as a priest. At the end of a typical heroic run, the priest
will be rivaling the tank in total damage done, or in instances such
as culling of stratholme heroic speed run for the drake mount, the
holy nova priest will be the definitive first in all of both dps,
total damage done, in healing done and in overhealing done. and your
group will hit the "speed cap" on this instance, where you actually
have to wait for all internal timers to complete before proceeding to
the next part.

More on that; fights with heavy AE damage requiring other players to
"move out" or "move in" are a thing of the past. Loken's nova will be
noticed only for a split second. The black knight's death and decay
and ghoul explosion will simply be ignored in phase 2, and his deadly
abilities in phase 3 will feel like an annoying tickle. Did I mention
that holy nova simply causes no threat whatsoever? Done. Did I mention
that holy nova frees up webbed and emprisonned party members in
Utgarde Keep and Azjol Nerub? Done. Did I mention that holy nova makes
quick work of the 4 other party members on the last boss in Old
Kingdom? Done.

What happens next is that you get gear, fast, as a priest specializing
in holy nova, and you start thinking about pushing it to the next
level. Either you go deep discipline for PVPing, or a variation of
that build for PVE, or go Shadow, or go deep Holy and enjoy Ulduar...
whatever, mate. But the thing is, I feel I'm going to break the priest
class into one stupid holy nova macro with this post. But then again
the design challenge for me is to keep pushing that spell to its
limits. Optimize even more the build, make it work where it doesn't
work yet: make it work for MT healing in Ulduar 10 hard modes. Make it
work in battlegrounds. Make it work in high-end arenas. I think I'll
be going this way, I already have a few "upgrades" in mind for the
build.

I feel bad about it, but I've pugged enough with holy nova as my only
spell to not keep that "a secret". What's done is done. They'll nerf
holy nova anyway. Actually I wish they will. If they don't, I'm afraid
no one will ever gain tanking skills, and no one will ever get
situational awareness skills... People will mindlessly request a holy
nova spammer or two, get gear, and never learn any fight/class
mechanics. To be honest, it's a very boring playstyle. Too bad it's by
far the most effective way to heal in the game.

Anyway, how have you all been doing?

On 18 août, 11:59, Lancelet <lancelet.nos... DeleteThis @merci.invalid> wrote:
> Babe Bridou <babebri... DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote in news:0648698b-93ab-48f5-9a7c-
> c2b6872de... DeleteThis @e27g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Hi everyone, my name is Babe Bridou, I'm a priest, and I think I broke
> > the game again.
>
> Hi Babe.
>
> Interesting post. I don't know what holy nova does (my new priest is only
> 19). Will 5 holy nova priest be a valid group for dongeon crawling?

Unfortunately, nope. Holy Nova is not strong enough to make up for the
lack of plate armor, avoidance, and stamina on the priest class. I
can't survive a single hit from a heroic boss.

For the record, Holy Nova heals every party member around and deals
damage to all enemies around, is instant, has no cooldown, and these
effects cause no threat.