Holy Paladin Nerf
Originally Posted by Nethaera (Blue Tracker)
These hotfixes were intentional and we wanted to share more information about the "why" for you all here:

Mana is supposed to matter for healers, and in the case of Holy paladins, that just wasn’t happening. We were seeing raid groups attempting to learn new bosses where the other healers were out of mana while the paladins were still at 90% of mana. We also thought the experience of paladins healing harder heroic dungeons was inconsistent with that of other healers, or our design intent. We thought it was only a matter of time before groups started going out of their way to stack paladins for raids or recruit them for dungeon runs, which of course is not our intent. For this reason, we thought it was important to address this point now rather than sitting on it until a future patch.

The main culprit for the increased paladin efficiency this was Holy Power from Tower of Radiance. We were seeing a strategy develop where paladins would cast Holy Light on a Beaconed tank, and then cast Light of Dawn on the raid (and use very few other spells). This strategy was remarkably successful considering how simple it is. The Holy Power-based heals are supposed to be an important component of the paladin kit, but because Holy Light is designed to be super efficient, the overall strategy was too efficient. The intent of Tower of Radiance was to make directly healing a Beacon of Light target less punitive, but instead it was becoming the only smart way to play. You can still generate Holy Power by using Flash of Light or Divine Light on a Beaconed target, or through a variety of other ways. Remember, overall it isn’t balanced if paladins are just as mana efficient as other healers and have several mana-free spells.

Light of Dawn was adjusted because it was completely eclipsing Word of Glory. We lowered the healing of Word of Glory late in development, but also redesigned Light of Dawn. They had fallen out of sync, and Light of Dawn was just too good.

PvP Season 9 Has Begun!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
The first PvP season of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is underway! Players are now able to compete in level-85 Rated Arenas for top gear, items, and titles -- and for the first time ever, they can enter level-85 Rated Battlegrounds to fight for the same rewards available through Arenas, along with the original World of Warcraft PvP titles. Players can also participate in unranked War Games, skirmishes that allow Battleground and Arena teams to hone their skills against opponents of their choosing -- even if they're in the same faction. So prepare yourselves, aspiring Grand Marshals and High Warlords, as the struggle between the Horde and the Alliance is about to get bloodier.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Holy Paladin Nerf, Season 9 has begun started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 125 Comments
  1. Dakario's Avatar
    Finally my other characters can have awesome titles too
  1. mmoc5e4d871881's Avatar
    paladin nerf... Woooohhhoooooo
  1. Winfernal's Avatar
    Justice for healers!
  1. Grocery's Avatar
    Great change for pve, retarded change for pvp. As usual they do not look at the unintended effects. Shamans reign king in Arenas and BGs now with RDruids HPalas and DPriests way behind.
  1. XyroN's Avatar
    Nice, paladins nerfed after they all get glory of the cataclysm hero by facerolling. Could've come sooner.

    Now to nerf resto druids and shamans also and we'll see justice of some kind atleast.
  1. Orangetai420's Avatar
    Loving the paladin nerf.
  1. Nomm's Avatar
    someone has to say it... TO THE GROUND!
  1. Nielah's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nomm View Post
    someone has to say it... TO THE GROUND!
    Second that!
  1. fangless's Avatar
    We were able to easily drop to 2 paladin healers for the Omnitron Defense boss in BWD, where as we had to have a third healer when we did holy priest/paladin (adding a shaman). We tried to do just the holy priest & paladin, it was drastically noticeable.






    ... wtb paladins back to OP
  1. Dorleran's Avatar
    retspec inc <.<
  1. Hulrique's Avatar
    Paladin nerf is BS
  1. Tyqar's Avatar
    ...what was the nerf? I'm not holy atm and didn't notice anything.

    Edit:
    nvm, found it!
  1. fierraisgr8's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nielah View Post
    Second that!
    haters. my poor, poor holy paladin. always getting shafted. pretty sure shamans > all atm. nerf those bastards.
  1. Duster505's Avatar
    Everyone knew this was coming -and everyone knew it would be a stealth nerf too. Thats how BLizzard does things when it comes to paladins. Always has - always will. Happy I desided to not play holy paladin at all cause I've seen this all before. It will not change.

    The two AOE healing mecanics from BLizzard were off for most of beta. They didn't listen to ppl that told them again and again that these ablites with long cd and none scaleable would really create increadable unbalance. When they finally realised it... they did it a week from live having no tests whatsoever done on it.

    So.. yet again. Dont blame holy paladins for how things were. It yet again BLizzard that screwed up when it came to the class.
  1. riflemancho's Avatar
    Where is the Retribution buff?
  1. bunnyhat's Avatar
    I don't mind the fact that Holy Paladins needed nerfing. I understand it and I agree that they were too powerful with their ability to keep mana.

    I disagree with how they did it.

    First through a stealth nerf through a hotfix with no notice, even though they just brought the servers up from maintenance and patch.

    But mainly because they took the Holy rotation that they and players have been devolping for the last 3 months in beta, patch 4.0.1 and then through Cataclysm and tossed it out the window.

    Now we're back to WOTLK type healing of just spamming one heal over and over again instead of choosing the heal based on the amount of damage being taken, aoe damage, quick damage, etc.

    Now instead of using holy light on fast quick damage, or for a slow large hits and moving to divine light when it's quicker larger hits or flash of light when it's unexpected large hits, we're going to be using Divine light every time.

    There's simply no reason to waste mana on casting a Holy Light now that it takes no part in Holy Power, a huge system they designed Holy Paladins with.

    Instead of changing the fact that Light of dawn was transferring heals through beacon or simply increasing our mana cost to bring us in line, they throw our healing rotation out the window again.
  1. Luminesce's Avatar
    Initiate nerdrage!

    So, in essence Blizzard, you are trying to make the inefficiency of mana regen equal between all healing classes? Meaning, if these three other healing classes are blowing through mana before a fight even reaches the half way mark but paladins are able to keep up, then I guess we should change how Holy Power works, up the cost just slightly of our base healing spell which has a terrible cast time and in turn, have paladins blow through all their mana. Awesome.

    As a paladin healer myself, gaining Holy Power when casting HoL on my beaconed target was like a god send. I could pump out 3 heals and then use Word of Glory without having to worry about the tank getting too low on health. Now, if a fight goes into the phase where the tank is going to be taking a lot of damage, we'll have to spam FoL during the CD of HS then hit them with WoG, rinse and repeat. Do you realize how much of a mana burn that is? So then you blow all your CDs, gain some mana back and try to catch up while the other healer(s) are blowing through their mana. What's left? No healers. Wipe. That's just how I see it. A big old kick in the face, point and laugh, paladins are once again TERRIBLE.

    THANKS SO MUCH BLIZZTARD.
  1. Mister K's Avatar
    I am so sad, but its not the end of the world... people learn to with it -.- At least we aren't as broken as ret -.-
  1. Svenskpally's Avatar
    LoD is now useless in mostcases as it wont heal for almost anything... about 6k with 3 hp.. And with nerfed holypower gain we will have to use WoG to keep the tank up unless we want to spam DL or FoL on tank and anypaladin know where it would end up. Now a shaman will mostlikly take my raid spot as he got some extra utilty with chain elementals and hex + manatide
  1. Cecil7's Avatar
    Wow this is BS

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