Divine Providence not worthless after all
by Eliah Hecht 
Oct 19th 2008 at 3:00PM
I would like to take this opportunity to disagree with my own post the other day declaring Divine Providence worthless. I was so moved by all your comments that I specced 14/47/0 and took Circle of Healing for a spin through half of Tempest Keep and all of Zul'Aman, and have changed my mind entirely. Circle of Healing is amazing, and I never want to let it go. If Blizzard wants to give me a talent to buff it and other heals by 10%, and lower the cooldown on Prayer of Mending, they can go right ahead.
As you all had predicted out, my estimate of Greater Heal and Flash Heal covering 70% of my healing between them was woefully inaccurate. In fact, in both instances, CoH alone accounted for 70% or more of my healing. The new Divine Providence is +10% to all multi-target heals, and 3 seconds off Prayer of Mending's cooldown (with 5 points in the talent). Even if I ignore the other effects and just look at the boost to CoH, I get (70% * 2%) = 1.4% increase to my healing per talent point, well above the 1%-per-point benchmark.
All that said, I still don't think this talent compares favorably to Spiritual Healing, which is several tiers earlier in the tree. Spiritual Healing simply bumps up all your healing by 2/4/6/8/10%. It's really an amazing talent, and to be fair, it would be hard to match, given that it's far over Blizz's stated budget for a talent point (1%).
If they did want to match it, they could make Divine Providence +3/6/9/12/15% to multi-target heals, which would come out to 2.1% benefit per point (again, focusing on CoH only), but that might honestly be a bit overpowered, especially taking other heals (like Prayer of Mending) into account. My suggestion (borrowed from a commenter on my other post) would be to increase the reduction of PoM's cooldown, bringing it to 5 seconds, but it's not that bad as it is now. I couldn't fit it into my current build at level 70, but I will almost certainly be taking it at 80.
Filed under: Priest, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jcgoodman Oct 19th 2008 3:30PM
I've never understood priests' disgust at Circle of Healing. It's essentially a Chain Heal, and we shamans have known for a long time how great multi-target healing is. Pre-3.0, careful group arrangement can offset its one limitation (only heals inside a group). Post-3.0, that's not an issue.
So many times, I've heard raid leaders grumble that the next fight is going to be a pain in the ass because we're low on resto shamans... when all their priests are specced "Circle of Healing Is For Suckers".
Glad to see we've got a convert.
Nellius Oct 19th 2008 4:11PM
You've hit the nail on the head with CoH pre-3.0. It was great for healing melee & tank groups, and on specific fights where ranged is bunched up, but on a fight where everyone is spread out, it wasn't that brilliant. It required ranged DPS within the same group to stay close, to be of any use to them. Also, it would only heal the target's group, regardless of whether they needed healing, resulting in a fairly large overheal from the spell. Even with that, though, it still accounted for over 50% of my heals in most raids.
However, with patch 3.0, it got turned into a raid-wide smart heal, similar to chain heal. It now heals the person you cast it on, plus the 4 other players within 15/18 yards who need the healing. In WotLK, we'll even get a glyph, increasing it to 6 targets overall.
I agree with this post. Multi-target healing is a huge part of who raiding priests are. Aside from renew and greater heal, multi-target heals make up all the rest of my healing. Especially with the improvements to CoH, and PoM no longer being reserved just for tanks, the talent is actually pretty damned good. But on the other hand, it will always be some of the last points I fill out on a holy build. IHC, Serendipity, Test of Faith and Guardian Spirit will always come before it. Nevertheless, there are enough free points in the holy tree, that I will undoubtedly pick it up at 80.
Jacob Parsons Oct 19th 2008 3:33PM
Thank you for listening to your comments. I don't see any apology for that terrible attempt at a PvE Elemental tree done a few days ago.
Danno Oct 19th 2008 5:26PM
So what is your spec look like now?
shopshopshop Oct 19th 2008 3:43PM
I think some people didn't have a problem with the talent being underpowered, but rather that it wasn't very interesting for a 45-point talent. For other classes, the talent in this spot often adds something new to usual rotations, such as Maelstrom Weapon for enhancement Shamans. This talent is good, but boring.
muffin_of_chaos Oct 19th 2008 4:02PM
I wouldn't say Divine Providence is especially boring compared to the other 45-point talents. Pretty much the only interesting ones are had by Prot Paladins, Elemental/Enhancement Shamans, Prot Warriors and Survival Hunters. Imho.
Tridus Oct 19th 2008 3:55PM
This.
My issue wasn't that the talent is worthless, since its not. If you're CoH spamming (and most Holy Priests at the high end are), its good.
But its symbolic of everything thats wrong with Priests in Wrath: its "blah". There's no "oh wow!" talents like a lot of other classes got. Everything is functional, but dull.
Divine Providence is a weaker version of Spiritual Heaing, which we already had. While its still useful, I'd rather something new then a weaker version of the same thing. Give me some excitement factor like I get on all my other characters.
(Its funny. My Holy Priest is my ONLY character who doesn't have a 51 point talent right now. Everybody else I went to one of them because they're great. I can't get to it on my Priest because Holy Priests don't function without Meditation, and Blizzard doesn't give a damn.)
Dukah Oct 19th 2008 4:53PM
"I can't get to it on my Priest because Holy Priests don't function without Meditation, and Blizzard doesn't give a damn."
Actually, they do. I did Hyjal with almost all my points in holy, you find that CoH since it hits 5 targets has a very high chance of critting and therefore proccing surge of light for a free instant flash heal. Also, I never really went under 80% mana the whole time it was insane :D
Nick S Oct 19th 2008 3:55PM
Circle of Healing is completely insane now. Divine Providence is going to be extremely good for any fight with AoE damage.
Kidsmoke Oct 19th 2008 3:59PM
Wow,
I'm surprised by this post to say the least, but yeah... trying to do Felmyst w/o one or even the ZA timer pre-patch was like punching yourself in the nuts.
Doma Oct 20th 2008 12:28AM
That card reminds me of this:
http://mastersofnothing.ytmnd.com/
Danner Oct 19th 2008 7:40PM
Circle of Healing is making me feel completely overpowered. I can totally understand why blizzard wanted to nerf it with a 6 second cooldown (and no, Blizzard, please dont do that!). I simply love the new CoH. And while healingmeters is a bad metric for healing, I am having some enjoyable healing meter battles with our guild shammies these days; currently we're very equal.
Divine Providence makes a good spell a lot better. I tried it, but a spec without meditation was not yielding remotely enough mana.
So while we wait for hitting lvl 74, here's to a mediocre talent that makes a very great spell just fantastic. And that makes it rather good.
Solitare Oct 20th 2008 4:40AM
I can get through heroics now with just using COH every, hmmm 5sec maybe. And it's rather boring.Since 3.0.2 it's becoming a bit of a snoozefest to heal, and I find myself DPSing just to stop from dropping off, which as a healer, I probably shouldn't.
The more fights become AOE, the more we'll use it, and the more 1-dimensional we'll become. I'm finding playing my pally tank is a lot more fun atm. Shame he's only lvl 50..
Azza Oct 20th 2008 7:02AM
Indeed the new CoH is great, but it kinda ruined the gameplay of raiding holy priests.
I did a BT speed run yesterday, all I did was a mindless CoH spam during the whole run.
And guess what, I was first on the healing meter and my HPM and HPS has never been so efficient.
Yes, the new CoH is a great spell to enhance raid survivability but it turned holy priests into mindless spambots.
Ramzor Oct 20th 2008 11:53AM
If you get Divine Providence, you lose 800 spellpower, because you can't get Improved Divine Spirit.
10% CoH effect at level 80 is lower than, CoH + 19% bonus from 800 spellpower.
Ramzor Oct 20th 2008 12:27PM
CoH is good, Divine Providence fails.
CoH+Improved Divine Spirit = 1600+310 = 1910 Why? cos 19% of 1600 is 310.
CoH+Divine Providence = 1600+160 = 1760. Why? Because 10% Divine Providence on 1600 CoH is 160.
Wowinsider screens confirm that divine providence spec heals max 1750 with CoH.
Eliah Hecht Oct 20th 2008 12:30PM
You are evidently misinformed about how IDS works. IDS does not add 800 spellpower, nor does it boost spells by 19% What IDS does is add spellpower equal to 100% of the spirit DS gives, which is 80, at max rank. 80 spellpower is a far cry from 800, and also nowhere near 19% of CoH.
Vicky Oct 21st 2008 8:29AM
you're still a noob for having to wait for 30+ people to convince you