Holy Nova - my bubble has been burst

[Owltoid]

After getting my lock team to 60, I quickly leveled my priest group. I have an interesting build planned out (44/27/0) that relies on holy nova to proc Surge of Light for instant smites. The hope was that between priests always bubbling themselves, prayer of mending on selves (I realize many will be wasted but when the sh*t hits the fan who cares), and a hope of ultimate survivability with sub par damage woud lead to a good BG team.

While the concept isn't dead (in my mind), it did take a huge hit.

Holy nova only heals those in your party I'm sure that's obvious to those who have played a priest recently, or took the time to read the spell description, but I wrongly assumed it was raid wide. I understand why Blizzard didn't make it raid wide as then you could get a bunch of priests spamming it non stop for tons of damage and tons of healing. However, I do wish they made the spell somewhat useful in a raid or PvP environment by making it raid wide but a maximum of 5 players.

All is not lost on this project that was probably doomed to fail from the start. Now I just have to spam the BG leader in hopes of him putting my priests in the same group or making me leader. Unfortunately that's impossible in AV as you can't move around people from different servers. I think it's still possible in the other BGs since there are empty slots I can move my team in to.

WTB Blizzard petition to make holy nova raid wide but limit the number of players healed by the AoE.

[Svpernova09]

Holy nova *does* have usefulness in PvE raids. I use it fairly often as an ohshit mechanism when PoM, Penance is on CD and the raid members have the bubble either already on them, or on CD, so instead of a flash heal I'll throw a Holy Nova, with my crit it's a very good chance it'll proc the smaller bubble on them.

It's usefulness 100% depends on you being aware of who is around you.

[Redbeard]

This doesnt pertain to your raid-wise issue but just wanted to throw out that if they go in the direction it looks like theyre going with talents, holy nova is slated to get even more badasser (badasserer? =P).

Cant wait.

[Owltoid]

Holy nova *does* have usefulness in PvE raids. I use it fairly often as an ohshit mechanism when PoM, Penance is on CD and the raid members have the bubble either already on them, or on CD, so instead of a flash heal I'll throw a Holy Nova, with my crit it's a very good chance it'll proc the smaller bubble on them.

It's usefulness 100% depends on you being aware of who is around you.

In 25 man or 10 man? Just curious because you'd have to be in the same group as the ones you want to give an ohshit heal to. I thought they were making most things raid wide so you didn't have to spent a good amount of time optimzing raid structure like you did in vanilla/BC, so I was surprised holy nova was party only. I'm sure there are many more examples of party only buffs, but I haven't hardcore raided since BC so I'm a bit out of the loop regarding party wide/raid wide.

Also Sver, the mini bubbles are one of the things I love about the 44/27/0 build. I get my mini bubbles plus instant smites from holy novas. If the priests are all in a group and I cast a couple holy novas, chances are a few of them are going to have instant smites and most will have at least one stacking of mini bubble (apparently they do stack up to 10k damage... that's pretty sweet).

I'm not abandoning the team, but it is going to make AV much less fun and make it stressful to somehow get leader in BGs (I figure telling them if they want 5 players on their side to be effective I need to be able to be in the same group). I know shaman groups deal with a similar problem, I just haven't ran into it before with my 5 lvl 80 moonkins.

Also, I'm still looking forward to 5x mana burns. 50% of mana gone in 2 seconds, 100% gone in 4 (if actually given the time to cast) plus the damage that it did. It may not be the strongest team, but it would be fun to burn some serious mana.

Three posts in a row... maybe I can go for four

[Svpernova09]

In 25 man or 10 man? Just curious because you'd have to be in the same group as the ones you want to give an ohshit heal to. I thought they were making most things raid wide so you didn't have to spent a good amount of time optimzing raid structure like you did in vanilla/BC, so I was surprised holy nova was party only. I'm sure there are many more examples of party only buffs, but I haven't hardcore raided since BC so I'm a bit out of the loop regarding party wide/raid wide.

In 25s, I am usually in a pug, so I don't often get control over what group I'm in, so I make sure I hang around as many of my own group as I can.

In 10s, where I can move people where ever I want, I stack tanks and healers in my group since I'm normally healing with a resto druid that already has hots rolling on everyone, my holy nova oshit save is purely for our group. The DPS is stacked in their own group mainly since our DPS runs shy of hit rating so they can stack more offensive stats and get back to hit cap via Heroic Presence.

I'm not saying you *should* base your entire build / playstyle around holy nova, I sure don't. But I do try to put myself in positions where it definitely has it's uses. Instant AoE group heal + extra bubble as Disc = I'll take whatever I can get.

[Owltoid]

PC = PC - 2

oh well, now PC = PC + 1

[Multibocks]

What?

[Owltoid]

Svernova combined three of my posts into one, thereby reducing my post count (PC).

[Multibocks]

Ah ok wasn't sure what PC meant.