Did I Read Divine Hymn Wrong?

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Here’s the updated PTR wording on Divine Hymn:

You recite a Holy hymn, summoning the power of the Divine to assist you in your time of need. Heals 3 nearby lowest health friendly party or raid targets for 4320 to 4774 every 2 sec for 8 sec, and increases healing done to them by 15% for 8 sec. Maximum of 12 heals. The Priest must channel to maintain the spell.

At first I was under the impression that it would only heal the three lowest nearby targets, period. After staring at it a little more, I realized that Divine Hymn is a smart heal similar in kind to Circle of Healing. My guess is that every time it ticks, it will constantly scan your group for lowest health players and heal them up accordingly.

So 3 players per tick every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. That’s potentially 12 different targets or the ability to save nearly half the raid from one of Kel’Thuzad’s nasty Ice Blocks. Of course, that’s assuming you have 12 players all standing on top of each other. Actually, no that isn’t the case. Only 6 can be saved.

I can see why the cooldown on it was increased to ten minutes. Yeah, it’s a channeling spell. I think if you cast a Shield on yourself while channeling, the chances of being interrupted go down (since the damage is prevented). A lot of players indicated that because it is a channeling cost, it’s underpowered and not worth using. But what are the alternatives?

  • Instant cast: A fire and forget spell allowing the Priest to cast it and forget about it. Priest would be able to move around and let the spell run the course throughout the raid.
  • X second cast time: Heals 12 different people at the conclusion of the spell? Too overpowered also.

The intent of Blizzard here is to create a potentially raid saving spell usable once every two or so attempts at a raid boss. This fits the bill just fine. Because it’s a channel, it will force the casting Priest to use discretion and time it in such a way that it won’t get interrupted. Yeah it’s a slight handicap. But it’s no different in the way we’ve been using Hymn of Hope over the past half a year. Let’s stop trying to hope for the things that may not change and start planning on adapting this spell to our needs on our terms.

18 thoughts on “Did I Read Divine Hymn Wrong?”

  1. I didn’t notice that either until you point it out, but I think this interpretation of the spell sounds more in line with the way it’s worded. This makes the spell about 10 times more useful than it was before and will help to anchor the priest as a solid member of any raid’s healing team. Not a bad upgrade for this spell considering the current version is pretty craptastic.

    Holy Duegs last blog post..A Sense of Entitlement

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  2. I’m not sold on its usefulness or any of the channeled spells for that matter. How often do we get to stop and channel in a raid for eight seconds?

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  3. @radiophonic: There are some fights where I don’t have to do as much. There are some fights where I’m standing on my head. It’s not like you’re standing still and doing nothing. You’re standing still and healing, only the healing is done automatically and intelligently.

    I agree. I’m not quite sold there yet. But it is another spell. Ulduar’s encounters are serious business. This could be the red button that can help save raids.

    In the minds of the student, there are many possibilities. In the minds of an expert, there are few.

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  6. The other thing to remember is that the +15% healing received buff is also per target/tick. That means you’re also giving up to half the raid at least 9% more healing received which firmly gives it the “Big Red Button” factor in my eyes.

    Now to hope that it actually comes to live sans bugs.

    Cals last blog post..Where did this thing come from?

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  8. Congratulations, you’ve received what Tranquillity should have always been, and never has… useful. Even if its not target switching between each tick, its still better as its useful within the raid not just the group.

    Oh and its cheaper, and its more powerful, and has an extra ability. Yep druids aren’t going to be bitter.

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  11. Considering this is way more useful then spells like Prayer of Healing I love the direction they are taking this and our other Hymn. Both are on long CDs, extremely potent and extremely smart, PLUS add benefits along side their basic functions one being plus to healing on those targets and the other extending the max mana pool aka increasing mana gains from everything dependent on mana pool such as… the largest mana giving buff in raids today… replenishment. A lot of people are put off by the fact that this isn’t their ‘replace the button I spam’ ability or an inclusion onto your main healing ‘rotation’ or thought, but you have to step back and realize what kind of healer the priest is. Situational spells up the wazoo, and we all should be grateful we are looking to get our Hymns turned into an extremely powerful variant of the healing spells priests are founded on.

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  12. I do agree that this puts tranquillity in a rather bad light.

    That being said, I don’t recall a time on my druid where a spell like tranquillity was something I considered to be an incredible asset to my abilities.

    While this makes it just another tool in our huge array of tools for pve, I will miss the aoe incapacitate for pvp. I’m neither impressed or depressed by this change. /shrug

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  13. Hmm, I also thought it would be a smart heal that would jump targets once the others are healed. But the moment I said that guildies started calling it a stupid thought saying it’s not true and it’ll keep healing those 3… Which I found strange… Because, why would we want 5k heals on the same targets with a 10min CD… Glad to see someone thinks the same as me. I think it’s fine atm, ok the CD is a bit long… *mock* but deserved, I should see this in action.

    SuicidalPriests last blog post..Dual spec update

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  14. I disagree that this puts Tranquility in a bad light. With a bit of luck and some forethought, a druid can hit many more than 12 (max) people with Tranq, whereas just as much if not more preparation is required to get the same benefit out of this HoH.

    I think they’re complementing skills with reasonably different mechanics. Also notice how HoH doesn’t list a range, so until someone checks this out on the PTR it may end up being a much smaller definition of “nearby” than the 30 yards range of Tranq. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the range was restricted quite a bit by the time 3.1 goes live.

    AShadowPriests last blog post..New alt

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