is it a good spell?

its devastatingly mana inneficient. so no

I agreed

Holy Nova has two great uses in Battlegrounds:

1) Holy Novaing in a tight group of fighters will heal allies for a small amount and damage enemies for a tiny amount.  This sets your heal/damage timer (for honor) on all those targets. For instance, when you are running in/through a pack down a corridor in WSG, in a tower in AV, or near where the flag spawns/in a tower in EotS.  Use your full rank spell for this to give your buddies an extra bit of quick health (and as mentioned, to set your heal/damage counter).  Then shield (if you haven't already) and spam renew/sw:p.  Instant cast is your friend when you have to stay moving.   

2) Holy Nova(Rank 1) is a terrific stealth detector to place rogues/cat druids into combat (thus making them visible and taking away their abilities that require stealth).  It also has the benefit of really ticking them off and the consequence of inspiring their personal wrath.  Of course, the enemy always goes after priests first anyway, so it is nice when we get the first shot in.  :)

But no, you are not going to use it much as a healing spell in instances.  As mentioned it is mana inefficient.

Hope that helps!

i actually find it so useless that i don't even bother spending the talent.

I think spending that 1 pt IS useful... AND fun. In pvp, how many times is ur percept on CD (if ur human ofc) and wanna prep up for rogues? Rank 1 holy nova ftw. How about when u see a bunch of melee takin hits by the flag? go in n heal them all while dps'ing the opposition, holy nova ftw!

As for PVE, how many times are u in need of an instacast spell to heal? Well not often, but sometimes. And that quick heal to everyone = a "saved ur ass" spell. Also, how many times have u seen a mage take all the fun on AOE pulls? With this, you can join them, holy nova ftw! =D

Sure its 1 pt, but if ur willing to lower 1 other talent, you can get the benefits of this great spell... And for fun, get this spell n head over to deadmines... LOL

But yea, for raiding, u prolly wont use this spell much.

This spell is a must in PvP (mainly BG) to my opinion.

Indeed if you mostly do healing in instances or quest groups, it is pretty useless. But in BG you will need it. And - as said - in BGs they first jump on the priests, the mana inefficiency isn't that important. Just hit and heal the same time in crowded BG areas. Tick those annoying rogues :D.

Saved our lives in Stratholme, when the gates came down and the 50, 60 70 rats showed up, our priest was the only one with an AoE spell. Sure, it is a very situational move, but for one point? Worth it.

It is the only AoE priests have, and it produces zero threat. I love it.

If you are shadow, it probably isn't your cup of tea since you can't even use it. If you are a healer, it probably will be too inefficient to cast frequently (although some instances, such as Strat and the pyramid encounter in ZF, have places where it can be used to great effect).

If you are a true hybrid (a support healer and dps, the most rare kind of priest), this spell rocks! As a disc/holy dps hybrid, you amass considerable spell crit. When your zero-threat rank 1 of holy nova crits on just a few of the 10 enemies that a pally is tanking, each one of those has a 50% chance to proc surge of light. Even the crits from holy nova heals can proc surge of light. Used in this manner, holy nova is more efficient than smite spam.

You can't ever spam this spell, but my point above is that a hybrid build doesn't need to spam it since it procs surge of light constantly. Give it a try in a hybrid build and mess around with it for a week or so before you decide that you love it or hate it.

As already mentioned, this spell has some uses like de-stealthing a rogue or druid.  It is also useful when you have low AOE in an AOE useful instance.  For instance, I can use it to kill the skeleton pulls in SL, even on heroic, before I go OOM.

Another use not mentioned, is against the snake trap that a hunter may drop on you in PVP.  One click of Holy Nova will kill them all when you otherwise don't really have an alternative.

I don't use it a whole lot, but considering it's only one talent point and it's early in the tree where it's often hard to find good ways to spend the points, I think it's a very reasonable use of a talent point.

i think it just might be the worst skill in the game. i got it for like an hour while i was honor farming AV because i thought it wold heal all raid members instead of just party members. CoH is better than Holy Nova by far. this takes way too much mana, bad healing, bad range, and pathetic damage. i wasted 40g+ because of respecing to try out this skill...(don't try and say its useful for killing shit either since holy priests should never be doing damage)

Read the posts pls xer2000.
The use of holy nova is very situational. In every case: it is not intended to do much dmg, nor is it a healing miracle (btw: PoM also heals raid members...).
When you know what it is and how to use it (in both PvE and PvE) many priests like it. Give it a try.

LOLz

A guildie needed deadmines run this weekend and I told him that so long as he wasn't in a hurry, I'd run him on my priest.

Holy Nova easily pulled and (after a few hits) killed the mobs as I went running, mage-like, through the tunnels. :)  The problem with it was the 'causes no threat' part, as my little friend could easily pull aggro from me. hahahaha!  TBH I had not even considered that, so was shocked that they bothered with him at all...

The damage, btw, seems to be a percentage of the healing done (or perhaps it is just that spell damage is increased by 1/3 of your +heal), because it one shotted most of the non-elites, and took two-three for the normal trash elites.  They managed to break through my shield once, so I feared them all off ;)  It was madness and chaos, and the most fun I've had on my priest in a while.

My little friend never died (I was spam healing him, after all, with the holy nova) but he did spend some time kiting mobs in a circle around me (safe inside a bubble) any time he managed to aggro someone. <3

So yeah, as mentioned, it is highly situational and mana inefficient and it doesn't do much damage or healing and so you aren't gonna save the world with it.  But everytime I have to do Heroic Arc without a mage or a boomkin, I'm grateful for that talent point, even as I totally respect the arguments against it.  Still, it is just one point - a point I need someplace in order to get deeper into the holy tree.  Even just that it makes my holy priest a viable deadmines runner makes it worth that point :D  Why should the mages and pallies have ALL the fun?!?!  ROFLMAO!

Another use: Instant cast aoe that interrupts flag capping in BGs.  Also kills off hunter snakes from snake traps.  If you pvp get it.

awesome for getting honorable kills in bg as mentioned. makes it so easy to stack honor!a must for any pvp priest.troll priest FTW XD

Bottom Line:  Essential for a Holy or Disc priest for PVP.  Situationally useful in 5-mans.  IMO, it's worth taking 1 point out of Holy Specialization for this talent, even if you only PVP occassionally.

i tried giving it a chance but it disappointed me. the only use i can see is stealth detection. for quick healing party members CoH gives much more health, much further range, much less mana cost, and still instant cast. i just cant find any situations where CoH wouldnt do a much better job than holy nova except for breaking stealth.

[quote]
i tried giving it a chance but it disappointed me. the only use i can see is stealth detection. for quick healing party members CoH gives much more health, much further range, much less mana cost, and still instant cast. i just cant find any situations where CoH wouldnt do a much better job than holy nova except for breaking stealth.[/quote]

Moron, comparing it to CoH is not valid.  You don't use Holy Nova to heal, you use it as the ONLY AoE damage spell a priest can get.  Not to mention, CoH requires 41 points in Holy, where Holy Nova requires only 11.  Besides the obvious PVP benefits that have been mentioned, it is useful in certain 5-mans.  Have you ever done a heroic Shadow Labs, Arcatraz, Mana Tombs, etc. without a Mage or Warlock?  Sure, it took almost all of my mana, but it is doable.  That's not to say it can replace a true AoE class in an instance that necessitates it, but it can fill in where there's some minor AoE pulls.

It is VERY useful for Dic/Holy Priests when combined with Power Infusion and Pain Supression if ya getit that also.

It's not a power house, but can be fun. Not as serious damage as mage, but you can run Guildies in instances, still run high lv instances as healer and the BG moves as above.

Maybe not a high power talent, but I loved it for fun and versitility. Will give to my Dic/Holy priest to test the PI/Hnova thing for the fun facter.

Its good for a quick heal, but if had some kind of stuff effect on it it would probly be my favorit spell :).

As a once-holy priest who converted to shadow, Holy Nova is the one spell I miss the most :(  It's a lot of fun, helpful on AoE pulls - if you dont spec into it (or are shadow) you are close to useless in AoE situations.

awesome to kill snakes!!!!

As has been said this is highly situational in use.  I've used Holy Nova a few times to great effect; after killing Herod and not having a mage to AOE spam, this works effectively at taking down the Scarlet Trainee's but they're fluff anyhow. 

I've used rank one numerous times in BGs for added stealth detection, but it is certainly not useful or mana efficient for healing.  CoH is so much more useful in that respect.

I just wanted to put my 2 cents into the discussion regarding Holy Nova. Though a complete waste for higher level instances I did find it useful on some PvE quests in Nagrand. The main quest that comes to mind is the Sunscale (sp?) village west of Halaa. You have to take out 10 raiders and 20 regular scavengers. The scavengers in and of themselves have very low hp for lvl 64 baddies. The nice thing was that a single SW:P spell takes them out but you have to click each and every scavenger as they attack you (usually three - four in a group). Holy Nova was very effective in taking them out. 3 spams of Holy Nova and they all died without taking any damage. So being completely useless in instances I did find it helpful on a few quests in Nagrand and also quite effective when I had some Boulderfist Mages and such down to about 10% hp (the point they try to heal themselves). With zero threat and instant cast a few spams of that were very effective in killing them long before they had a chance to heal themselves

Fuumanchew
68 Disc/Holy Priest
Silvermoon server

Actually, it is entirely possibile to spam this spell and to good effect. Dragging out the BF Aurelese Light Chamber trinket for a 215 mana cost reduction, dropping power infusion for further mana cost reduction and spell haste with your shadowfiend on the target most likely to live the longest, then spamming Holy Nova works an unbelievable treat. I did precisely that to kill 23 targets in the AH at Orgrimmar the other day in a guild old-world PVP raid, and have used the above strategy to wipe to the last man up to 20+ horde players at Balinda in AV countless times, with just myself and one lock defending.

Why? Because limitless targets are effected, as it is based on range rather than only effecting a limited number of enemies, as with Mass Dispell.

For PVP be it BG or arena, it is IMPERATIVE to have this as you can:

a) bring rogues and druids out of stealth, annoying them and dramatically decreasing their ability to damage you
b) instantly sizzle to death snakes from hunter snake traps or top off trees from a balance druid that you've already dotted
c) stack AOE's with mages and druids to wipe groups of horde simultaneously as 1 AOE may be limited in effect but multiple simultaneous AOE's is DEADLY

At circa +1300 bonus healing and +650 damage I do a standard +750 heal +500 damage on each target effected by my holy nova, with inner focus of when my holy nova crits this is as high as +1k heal to each target and +700 damage.

I can only imagine what it will be when I have finished gearing!!! Holy Nova ftw.

I've played my priest as all three specs solely, and as a multiple hybrid trying things out for pvp and pve.  PVP wise my favorite is a straight shadow or straight holy.  This little spell is often overlooked for many of the tasks already mentioned in this thread.  Killing snake traps is worth it alone.  Add in the stealth break and last second aoe damage and I love it.  Plus, farming for low level twink items is soooo easy.  BFD holds nothing but easily earned blue BOEs.

i've used it mostly to quick heal after i PW:F my party. it is also fun when farming low lvl mobs

i use it in emergency's like when 3 or 4 ppl in your group are going low health from mobs i go in there and do that like once or twice, then i go back and heal the 1 who is being argo(tank usually) but i also use it when im questing like when i go kill someone then a monster pops out of nowhere and i attack me i bobble and do that like once or twice and put shawd pain to the 1 that attack me out of nowhere and kill the 1 i started with.... but suit yourself, i think its one of the most uselly things for a prist if stuff go wrong... but rember at lvl 50 if your stile holy u can always do circle of healing... thats a good spell..

gl 

lol. Gonna try that out soon.

Other uses include popping a Lightwell, Levitating, dancing in the well and spamming this spell (rank 1 to save mana)

Oh and telling newbies that you are a Mage that uses holy magic.