I would be interested in seeing the math comparison
ASP>H>H>H
v
REN>ASP>HH
Well that's a bit of a silly comparison, but sure, if you want...
assuming all relevant skills maxed.
ASP>H>H>H:
takes about 7 seconds and puts out 258%
REN>ASP>HH:
takes 12 seconds if you want to count the full HH HoT and does 192 (asped HH) + 110 (5 ticks of reno) = 302%
But as I said, it's a silly comparison (since ignoring reno is stupid). What you should be looking at is how much can you put out in 20 seconds, which is the amount of time before you get another asp...
So, keeping reno up on your tank costs about 2 seconds, 1 second to cast asp, and you can cast HH twice. Since you don't want to cast heal and your other skills could be on cooldown, you'll be doing-_- all besides this as far as the tank is concerned (you could be keeping reno up on everyone else in the party, but we're talking about your tank being hammered and you need to heal him as much as possible).
So, you're healing your tank for 10 ticks of Reno (220%) 1 asped HH including DoT (192%) and 1 regular HH (64%). That's a total of 476%.
If you ignore HH and use reno and heal, then that comes out to 2 seconds used to cast reno twice, 1 second for asp, leaving room to cast 8 heals or 9 heals if you count in the fact that you'll probably have some haste. That's again 10 ticks of Reno (220%), 3 asped heals (258%) and 5 or 6 regular heals (215-258%). Total 693-736%
Ok, so what about using HH as well and not shutting out any healing skills? Keeping reno up, cast HH when it's available and heal for the rest. We can either use asp for HH or Heal.
That's 2 seconds spent on casting reno, 1 second on asp, 2 seconds on 2 HH's, leaving room for 7 or 8 heals.
Asping HH: 10 ticks Reno (220%), 1 asped HH (192%), 1 regular HH (64%), 7 or 8 heals (301-344%), totals 777-820%
Asping Heal: Reno (220%), 2 regular HHs (2x64%), 7 or 8 heals with 3 forced crits which is basically 10-11 heals (430-473%), totals 778-821%
So, which one you asp doesn't matter much as far as total amount healed on a single target is concerned. That means you should just pick which one is better for the situation. Do you have 2 or 3 party members sitting close together all being damaged? Asp HH them. One target getting hammered and it might be better to burst
damage heal or be able to save a few crit heals a little while? Go for asp heal.
All in all, if you get by without level 5 heal, then sure, enjoy your hybrid. But if you want to be the best healer you can possibly be then removing heal seems to me to be limiting yourself (and thus NOT being the best healer you can be).
Also, I get what you're saying that you can use colu and sanc for your emergencies, but what I mean is that being the best healer you can be also means that you shouldn't be caught with your pants down if you've already blown both of those and your tank is still being hammered.
Also note that I do in fact play a hybrid, so I sort of agree with you that it is worth it to sacrifice something to be able to do solo some. However, you are posting in a full support guide topic and are claiming that heal 5 has no added value in your opinion, that's what we're all arguing against. I actually started a second priest myself however that is going full DPS (as in, optimizing skills for solo play, with lots of DPS skills and enough healing to keep myself alive... solo'd IC at lvl 31 earlier today so think it's going pretty well) and might respec my first priest to full support at some point (though probably not before hitting lvl 50).
Edited by Finraziel, 18 June 2013 - 02:15 PM.