Holy

Something of a early-expansion phenomenon seems to be that holy (meaning priests, paladins are usually rather useful) are actually rather decent at times and sometimes even preferred over discipline, meaning I actually get the opportunity to use the spec at times again which has been somewhat fun.

The spec itself, actually does play rather decently again since Shadowlands prepatch, far away from the boring slog it was in Battle for Azeroth but still a lot slower than Legion unfortunately. Salvation is still something of an annoying spell to have, since while it is very powerful actually getting to use it at reasonable intervals means a somewhat decandent playstyle which isn’t all that fun to execute on. Luckily, no fight so far has called for that so it’s mostly just been used as a once-or-twice per fight kind of thing, where it slots in perfectly—probably even more the design-intent behind the spell.

Beyond Salvation though, holy’s niche is in this strange place where its strength really lies in making the other healers shine, which while it does luckily work excellently in fights like Sun King’s Salvation, doesn’t really make a lot of sense in most other encounters especially when the alternative is to just bring a discipline priest since it’s the same class. Oh, also, bigger raids do favor holy over discipline to a certain degree, since discipline is rather limited in the amount of targets it can heal and that is another area where I have found use for the spec, specifically in our boostraids since we tend to go over the 20 player mark.

What I’m really enjoying about the situation though, is the versatility in gameplay it brings having the opportunity to actually play both specs on a regular basis and have it make sense, since no matter how fun either spec is getting to switch it up with both of them actually being enjoyable is much better. I’m also curious to see what some of the later bosses bring to the table in this regard, I’ve heard some rumblings that there is something later on that can be cheesed a bit with the Redemption-legendary that became available this week, and I’m looking forward to seeing what exactly that ends up entailing. Getting there might take a bit though, we’re slowly starting to get to the difficult bosses in the raid so progress is slowing down somewhat, hopefully we’re not too many weeks away from me getting to actually test it all out.

I have been feeling a bit of a nostalgia hit recently, having seen some gameplay from Shadowlands where a holy priest was played and really wanting to give the spec a shot again. So far I’ve ended up deciding against it, since I’m still somewhat familiar with the state the spec is in and there isn’t really any content that I do where changing specs would make sense along with my last impression of the spec in this expansion being somewhat negative with it just feeling so powerless in comparison to Legion.

It feels a bit strange how something so innocuous has managed to trigger so much desire in me for something I know I won’t actually enjoy all that much in the end, and perhaps consequently the most sensible approach would be to give it a short shot so that I have it over with so to speak and then not have to think about it again. The problem there becomes, the recent thinking about wanting to play my old spec has also rekindled feelings of wanting to play my old race, night elf, which of course isn’t something quite as easily manageable.

I still find the connection I feel there to be somewhat remarkable, especially now that I have over two years of quite active—probably more active than at any point prior to Legion—play on Horde. To be fair, at the same time it still somehow feels that I’m finding my feet a bit here, not when it comes to the community or the guild I am in as I quite like those but my character. Her latest iteration is, as mentioned here before, vulpera and while the race does feel quite nice to play and having the roll back is really cool, I still find myself somehow missing both being a blood elf but even more being a night elf. Now the former is of course still an option though I think toys or consumables for swapping appearance are the more sensible alternative there rather than a race change again, the latter is sadly still quite definitely off the table unless we get to start raiding cross-faction.

In the end these will probably be feelings I end up not acting upon since while they are valid they conflict with other desires I have that take priority, and I do also really quite enjoy both playing vulpera and discipline as well. Though to be fair, as far as specs go, I do have a bit more freedom to experiment so maybe a raid here or there as holy isn’t such a terrible idea, especially one of the boostraids since the spec might even be slightly better suited for that environment; more easily allowing for healing such large groups. In addition, I was also considering trying shadow again for at least an instance or two which does mean I need to look into the gear needed for that as well. I guess I have more things to consider than I thought…