No but priest AoE got nerfed, and will continue to be nerfed or Chain Heal will get buffed more, until Shamans are AoE healing kings. That is Blizzards stated intent. And as Priests are not kings of direct healing, enjoy seeing top guilds take maybe one for the much vaunted "utility".

Prayer of healing was the only spell that was nerfed. It healed 5 people in a party within 36 yards for what amounted to a greater heal each before (thats before crit). It was overpowered. Now it heals 5 people in a party within 36 yards for about the amount of a flash heal and a nice large chance to crit for the amount of a greater heal.

Blizzard's intent is to NEVER again make shamans what they were in BC; chain healing bots. The intent in the future has been stated in blue posts to make their single target healing better (and give them that niche along with paladins) and balance chain heal so that its useful without being op'ed to the point of being spammed.

You're wrong Diogenes. Prayer of Healing is now the most ineffecient AoE heal in the game, and one of the worst HPS as well. CoH beats it. CH beats it (and lol at yet another Shaman buff incoming). Rejuv spam beats it. Hell, HOLY LIGHT beats it thanks to beacon & glyph!

They nerfed it so hard that nobody in their right mind would ever cast it as Disc, shield spamming is better. Even as Holy you only use it in situations when there's nothing better off cooldown.

I had a flash of inspiration the other day, and think that I came up with the reason why Prayer got the stuffing nerfed out of it and why Chain Heal keeps getting buffed. (I play both a Disc Priest and Resto Shammy at eighty, so I'm not talking out of my ass here).

Blizz stated in the past that they wanted healing to be more..."fun". I think they want each healing class to have more of a thought process than "If one person is taking damage, Flash Heal. If multiple, Prayer of Healing", and Prayer went against that, I think. Prayer healed everyone in a party regardless of where they are (provided they were in range, of course). There could be a tank and a melee by the boss, you twenty feet away, and the other two DPS twenty feet in the other direction, and Prayer will still get them all. Chain Heal is a very powerful AoE heal, but much more situational. Given the amount of health deficit in that situation, it may be more worthwhile to just drop Lesser Healing Waves on everyone. They want healers to be more situationally aware rather than just playing whack-a-mole with Grid/Healbot/whatever.

1) Prayer of healign was always inefficient. It costs around 1500 mana. In terms of HPS it is still insane HPS. It hits 5 people for about 4000-5000 (barring crit). Thats 25000 possible healing when hasted with serendipity stacks in almost one global cooldown. I'm sorry, COH does not beat it. COH heals for about 2500 (without crit) in tier 8 for 6 people. That is about 15000 max healing. CH does not beat it. CH heals for about 7k the first hit and decreases by 40% for each jump and is ranged for the jumps. It will heal for about the amount of circle of healing after all is said done. CH is only reliable when healing melee. Rejeuv is a little under 400 mana and heals for about 15k over 18 seconds. Not only will it not tick until the third second, it is also the slowest healing hot as a tradeoff for its extreme mana efficiency.

You can cast prayer of healing in about 1.8 seconds properly hasted with serendipity stacks.

CH casts in about 1.8 seconds with 4 pc tier 8 and raid hasted and gemmed for haste. Rejeuv you can get 2 off with a maxed out druid with a 1 second gcd. COH is from the same class.

Do the math, POH outheals each of these spells and does so immediately. Its hpm is the worse but who cares. It has the farthest range of any aoe heal and in a raid setting with gear the mana doesnt matter.

POH is not so op'ed that you want to stack holy priests anymore, but it is still a solid spell with a good niche. It is also superior (in terms of versatility, range and amount healed if not hpm) to chain heal along with circle of healing.

Try and provide numbers before you say things that are patently false. You'll save us all some time.

Chain Heal shouldn't be on this list at all.

Another classes strength (particularly a specific spell) shouldn't be listed as a weakness/reason to not play a priest.

And even if you do think is should, why not be consistent and list strengths of other aspects that fair comparably better for other classes than for priests (Innervate vs. Shadow Fiend, S. Priest dmg vs. other hybrid casters, and raid benefits of having multiple priests vs. having multiple paladins and shaman are some discrepancies that immediately come to mind)? Why single out Chain Heal of all the possibilities?