Can clerics please regain the title of top healers?

Discussion in 'Priests' started by Kialya, Oct 22, 2019.

  1. Mehdisin Mahn Augur

    yeah, my premise was really just for the main tank(s)… I didn't really consider offtanks/kiters.

    after taking some time to test all 3, and considering the various situations the raid would be in... the workings aren't quite what i expected... but they're also not quite what you're implying either.... the specifics of this are interesting with line of sight issues that are different depending on the alliance used...

    so yeah.... i'm thinking at this point that a more complicated strategery would be required to maximize the effectiveness of priest alliances, but there are several instances where cleric alliance is a superior option:


    1) any occasion where the majority of their healers don't have line of sight on the person with alliance on, cleric alliance is *always* better. (no line of sight = no splash for shaman/druid alliance).
    2) the MA would be good to have a cleric alliance on (push some ae heals on the melee)
    3) during any stacking event it's best to have cleric alliance on (center most ae heals on the main target).. but really shaman or cleric alliance will function the same here. the only effective difference being in heal amount since the healers will be stacked with everyone else and with the boss. the little extra range on shaman won't be significant enough to tilt the scales.
    4) during any event with big AE rampage or pbaoe that melee aren't running out to avoid is probably best to have the MT with cleric alliance on (center most ae heals on the main target)…
    5) any kiter would be better to have shaman alliance on, especially if they're not going out of line of sight and your healers are in the bulk of the raidforce. (ae heals would center around the healer, not the kiter and ideally the kiter isn't taking all that much damage)
    6) any offtank/add tank that's NOT kiting would probably be better to have cleric (so the one taking the damage is always getting that little extra splash)…
    Kels and Pano like this.
  2. Pano Augur

    Neat, I wasn't aware of line of sight issues. Thanks for testing that. As for the rest, I pretty much agree, there are situations where cleric alliance is better, but the raids where it's useful are have been very few raids where these situations happen. I can only think of one in ToV so far.
  3. Mehdisin Mahn Augur

    agree. I think it would be a huge difference (and a change for most) though if the MA had cleric alliance kept on them.
  4. Pano Augur

    This is a good idea. I'll test it next raid and see how often MA gets hit by direct heals from his shaman.
  5. Wulfhere Augur

    Lol ... shaman don't cast direct heals ftw
  6. Wulfhere Augur

    The top tier and/or wise raid guilds already know these results ftw these past couple years. It's been posted several times in different threads on these forums. How is this not well known and understood?

    Alliances are not a cleric issue this late in the "game". If anything, druids have a valid complaint about their own priests alliance never ever ever ever being useful.
    Allayna likes this.
  7. Clarisa Augur

    I can't really find anything in the spell information or the spell descriptions to suggest that the priest alliances should be working the way they do:

    [50036/4678] Divine Alliance Rk. III
    Classes: CLR/103
    Skill: Abjuration
    Mana: 5972
    Target: Single
    Range: 100'
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Stacking: Healing Alliance Spells 3
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 4.5s, Recast: 0s, Timer: 18, Rest: 1.5s
    Duration: 2m+ (20 ticks), Dispelable: Yes
    Max Hits: 120 Matching Spells
    1: Cast: Divine Rain III if Hit By Spell
    2: Limit Target: Single
    3: Limit Effect: Current HP
    4: Limit Type: Beneficial
    5: Limit Min Level: 96
    6: Limit Max Level: 110 (lose 100% per level)
    7: Limit Max Duration: 0s
    8: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10
    9: Limit Effect: Current HP greater than 5000
    10: Limit Caster Class: CLR, DRU, SHM
    11: Limit Caster: Exclude Self
    12: Limit Min Recast Delay: 1.5s
    13: Cast: Divine Fulmination III if Max Hits Used
    14: Cast: Divine Rain III
    Forms a divine alliance over your target, placing a healing rain over them that heals *$1#1 hit points to all nearby allies when other Cleric, Druid, or Shaman heals (levels #5 to #6 that heal at least #9 HP) land on that target once every $12 seconds.
    If %L heals are received in that time, it will trigger *#13%N which heals *#13#1 hit points to all nearly allies.

    [50039/4678] Divine Rain III
    Target: Target AE
    Range: 300', AE Range: 50'
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Focusable: No
    Casting: 0s
    AE Waves: 1
    Hate: 1
    1: Increase Current HP by 13641
    Heals allies in a medium radius around your target for #1 points every three seconds for a total of %i seconds.

    [50249/14661] Ancient Alliance Rk. III
    Classes: SHM/103
    Skill: Alteration
    Mana: 6717
    Target: Single
    Range: 100'
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Stacking: Healing Alliance Spells 3
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 4.5s, Recast: 0s, Timer: 15, Rest: 1.5s
    Duration: 2m+ (20 ticks), Dispelable: Yes
    Max Hits: 120 Matching Spells
    1: Cast: Blessing of the Ancients III if Hit By Spell
    2: Limit Target: Single
    3: Limit Effect: Current HP
    4: Limit Type: Beneficial
    5: Limit Min Level: 96
    6: Limit Max Level: 110 (lose 100% per level)
    7: Limit Max Duration: 0s
    8: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10
    9: Limit Effect: Current HP greater than 5000
    10: Limit Caster Class: CLR, DRU, SHM
    11: Limit Caster: Exclude Self
    12: Limit Min Recast Delay: 1.5s
    13: Cast: Blessed Fulmination III if Max Hits Used
    14: Cast: Blessing of the Ancients III
    Forms an ancient alliance over your target, placing a healing rain over them when other Shaman, Cleric, or Druid heals (between levels #5 and #6, with a minimum healing value of #9) land on that target once every $12 seconds.
    If %L heals are received in that time, it will trigger a fulmination consisting of an even larger healing rain.

    [50252] Blessing of the Ancients III
    Target: Target AE
    Range: 300', AE Range: 60'
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Focusable: No
    Casting: 0s
    AE Waves: 1
    Hate: 1
    1: Increase Current HP by 11820
    A healing rain coats you, healing up to @1 hit points every three seconds for %i seconds.


    [50146/5672] Bosquetender's Alliance Rk. III
    Classes: DRU/102
    Skill: Alteration
    Mana: 6291
    Target: Single
    Range: 200'
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Stacking: Healing Alliance Spells 3
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 3s, Recast: 0s, Timer: 18, Rest: 1.5s
    Duration: 2m+ (20 ticks), Dispelable: Yes
    Max Hits: 120 Matching Spells
    1: Cast: Forest Showers III if Hit By Spell
    2: Limit Target: Single
    3: Limit Effect: Current HP
    4: Limit Type: Beneficial
    5: Limit Min Level: 96
    6: Limit Max Level: 110 (lose 100% per level)
    7: Limit Max Duration: 0s
    8: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10
    9: Limit Effect: Current HP greater than 5000
    10: Limit Caster Class: CLR, DRU, SHM
    11: Limit Caster: Exclude Self
    12: Limit Min Recast Delay: 1.5s
    13: Cast: Bosquetender's Fulmination III if Max Hits Used
    14: Cast: Forest Showers III
    Forms a natural alliance over your target, placing a localized healing rain over them that heals *$1#1 hit points to all nearby allies when other Druid, Cleric, or Shaman heals (levels #5 to #6 that heal at least #9 HP) land on that target once every $12 seconds.
    If %L heals are received in that time, it will trigger *#13%N which heals *#13#1 hit points to all nearby allies and blesses them with *50155%N which grants a *50155#13 point damage shield for *50155%z.

    [50149/5672] Forest Showers III
    Mana: 10
    Target: Target AE
    Range: 300', AE Range: 28'
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Focusable: No
    Casting: 0s
    AE Waves: 1
    Hate: 1
    1: Increase Current HP by 14308
    Heals allies in a small radius around your target for #1 points every three seconds for a total of %i seconds.

    All of the language and the targeting information (except for that small bit in blue for the shaman proc that is ambiguous) suggest that the alliance "rain" heals should be centered around the target of the spell (i.e. the tanks) not the caster. So either its a bug or the descriptions are very poorly worded since reading these gives the impression that all of them should work the same way (just with different ranges and fulmination effects).
    Allayna likes this.
  8. Pano Augur

    Ours use Reckless quite a bit on top of their group heals, hence why I want to test.
  9. Mehdisin Mahn Augur

    yeah, don't know where you're getting that idea from, but if your shamans aren't also using their reckless lines they're horribad shamans =).
    Tolzol likes this.
  10. Raccoo Augur

    But how many direct heals go to the MA? Mostly heal group with group heals and splashes, and reckless are directed to people outside of group (mainly tanks). Don't see getting many alliance procs off of the MA unless you are spamming reckless for only that reason.
    Duder, Kamor, Allayna and 1 other person like this.
  11. Wulfhere Augur

  12. Clarisa Augur

    They do, just not in cleric-like quantities. This is from a recent raid with a heal team consisting of 6 clerics, 4 shamans, and 3 druids:

    Cleric: 4451 single-target heals (Remedies)
    Shaman: 570 single-target heals (Reckless)
    Druid: 339 single-target heals (Revitalization, Curavida, Barrage)

    I don't have enough past parses to see whether these are the average amounts but it's generally consistent with what I have seen when glancing at cast counts for priest classes other than cleric. There is also a significant dropoff between cast counts of Reckless Rejuvenation (387 casts) and Reckless Regeneration (165 casts) and an almost insignificant amount of Reckless Restoration (18 casts).

    Since single-target heals are required to proc alliance and the caster of the alliance is excluded from proc'ing it, this means that it's generally a bad idea to exclude a cleric from proc'ing it instead of a shaman unless the target of the alliance is an MA, which a cleric is unlikely to target directly with heals.
  13. Clarisa Augur


    Yeah, I'm just confused on how a spell can act differently than what its spell information and description state. I am pretty sure, though, that the descriptions are written by the designer so he at least did not intend for them to work this way (unless he did and just didn't word the descriptions properly).
  14. Mehdisin Mahn Augur

    this is where not having a single person cast all the alliances comes into play. if clerics aren't casting alliance on the tanks they're about to be main healing (ie group 1 clerics alliance group 2 tanks and vice versa). in that way you don't exclude anyone from procing the rains and the only thing that's important is if you want the rains to center off the tank's target, or off the healer.

    as to if the MA gets a decent number of procs, who knows without testing it. we'll see on sunday-ish =).
    Wulfhere likes this.
  15. Wulfhere Augur

    Yes, it's consistent with "ftw" that clerics cast 8x more single target heals then other priests.
  16. Clarisa Augur


    It's reflective of the different roles each priest plays (according to the tools they have) and the strengths of each class. Clerics can cast a lot of small, fast heals but they can only affect a single target at a time, while shamans excel at casting heals that are even smaller (and crit less due to the 40% crit chance cap) but can affect an entire raid if they are in range. In fact, a shaman is able to cast significantly more heals using Squall because it lands three times (in waves) per cast. Our top parsing shaman ended up landing 3364 heals by themselves using Squall, which is 1087 heals less than all 6 clerics were able to cast (many of which did not even land) using their Remedies. Collectively, our shamans landed 9819 heals using just Squall.

    The disadvantage of shaman aoe healing, though, is that it generally isn't good for healing tanks. It will keep them topped off but if a tank takes a significantly huge blow, there is really no replacement for the large, fast heals and health balancing abilities of a cleric to get them out of danger fast. The kind of healing clerics do is usually dwarfed on "actual heal" parses (unless individual tanks are considered) due to the sheer number of heals shamans can land on multiple targets but it is generally more important to raid survival and event completion because if tanks start dropping, it won't be long before everyone else does.

    So both types of healing have their place and, unfortunately, parsers will never really be able to determine the relative impact of each heal. It sucks because clerics undoubtedly do a lot of impactful healing that just isn't going to be reflected on a parse due to the limitations of the parsing tools. I just tell clerics who worry about it that sometimes a handful of heals or an ability cast at the right moment can mean a lot more to the raid's success than the amount of "actual healing" they do compared to another class and that raid/class leaders who actually understand healing will know the difference.
    Kamor likes this.
  17. Clarisa Augur


    I'm not sure how our shamans handle it exactly, but I think they assign different shamans to each group/target so one person isn't casting all of them. I'm still somewhat against clerics casting alliance because it disrupts the flow of healing to tanks/reactiveness of clerics for a spell that just doesn't have the healing impact it used to since the activation limit effectively capped the healing of the spell and robbed it of its burst healing potential. The shaman alliance might not be ideal for all situations, but it hits most of the targets who might benefit from the good-on-parse but relatively un-impactful healing it does and the shaman usually has more generous windows to cast it since a lot of their healing is duration-based and they aren't typically required to spam heals on tanks like clerics are.
    Szilent likes this.
  18. Wulfhere Augur

    In the case where raid tanks and melee are at a distance from the priests, and you need AE healing at the tank's location, then you have 3 choices:

    1. Use a cleric alliance on the tank
    2. Have the alliance shaman (or druid) stand with the tank/melee
    3. Rely on target AE heals from paladins, shaman, and totems at the tank's location.
  19. Mehdisin Mahn Augur

    #2 doesn't work as written, shaman alliance splashes on the HEALER, not the alliance caster.
    #3 is happening anyways.... so why even include it on the list.
    so either all your clerics need to be chilling with the tanks/melee (which they are a lot of the time anyways) or you need to use cleric alliance.
    Wulfhere likes this.
  20. Wulfhere Augur

    Correct.
    Because the location(s) of splash are a tactical choice that complements or compounds alliance rains.