[Holy] Patch 5.4 PTR - Changes Discussion

[nightfalls]

Bring back Judgement of the Light. Then maybe I'll take the shitty SH

Am I the only paladin here who does not want Judgment, least of all required (i.e. not just a talent but a spec passive) Judgment?

[Pasture]

Am I the only paladin here who does not want Judgment, least of all required (i.e. not just a talent but a spec passive) Judgment?

Nope, judgment for mana was always daft. When you had the most time to judge was when you needed the mana least. It never made sense to me. In heavy healing phases when you needed the mana you couldn't afford to judge.

That's not to say I don't want to use judgment at all. They could make SH more like HP for Holy, ie a burst heal. Increase the cooldown to 10 seconds and allow you to judge friendly targets for spleash heal that generates HP.That could make it competitive? As for SS have it also increase healing done by the paladin by 30% or something? Would make it strong on targeted dot targets / tanks etc?

I'll be more than happy to move away from EF spam on every fight but they need to give us alternatives for different fight types.

[nightfalls]

Nope, judgment for mana was always daft. When you had the most time to judge was when you needed the mana least. It never made sense to me. In heavy healing phases when you needed the mana you couldn't afford to judge.

That's not to say I don't want to use judgment at all. They could make SH more like HP for Holy, ie a burst heal. Increase the cooldown to 10 seconds and allow you to judge friendly targets for spleash heal that generates HP.That could make it competitive? As for SS have it also increase healing done by the paladin by 30% or something? Would make it strong on targeted dot targets / tanks etc?

I'll be more than happy to move away from EF spam on every fight but they need to give us alternatives for different fight types.

Couple of things:

1) I still think Eternal Flame needs to just be made baseline for Holy whether the HoT procs mastery or not (my US forum post suggested 15% IH, 15% beacon transfer from the HoT portion). Right now we have absolutely no way to spend HP on proactive healing, and frankly, I think that a) being able to both proactively and reactively heal makes for a good toolkit and challenging playstyle, and b) all healing seems to be moving toward proactive healing, even including shamans to an extent.

I don't agree that all healing should be proactive (read: disc priest needs nerfs), but there should definitely be a component of both.

2) I'm actually more and more open to a melee DPS-weaving playstyle (I know, I hated it before), but only so long as it is completely optional (unlike "optional" but really mandatory for disc or pre-5.2/5.3 monk). I actually found weaving crusader strikes with Holy Avenger up and barely casting anything to be sort of fun.

[Cairhiin]

Our single target heals are not strong, both shamans and disc priests have far stronger single target heals. The only thing that makes us some kind of tank healer is because we have beacon of light. I honestly have no idea how we compare to monks and druids but I would not be surpised if they also had stronger single target heals than us.

We are good for tank healing on fights where you use 2 or more tanks, we are garbage for tank healing when there is just one tank.

Exactly this. The whole Holy Paladin have strong single target heals is a myth. This was true in WotLK and TBC but it is no longer the case in MoP. At heroic Ji-Kun I had to let our resto Druid heal the tank while I did nests because he was much better at keeping the tank alive than I was, without running out of mana. This whole tank healer stigma needs to go, it's no longer true in the first place. When there's two tanks sure, your beacon will be an asset, but when there's one tank: forget it. Other healers are better at it.

All those holy paladins in this threat that seem to think that non EF healing is viable, please don't be absurd. Single target slow heals are a thing of the past, even in 10 man, your heals will get sniped by all the smart and instant heals. Nerfing EF will just lead to LoD spam, which takes no skill at all, and is an incredibly boring play style.

Holy Paladins are in dire need of massive fixes if this EF nerf goes live as there'll be very little reason to take one to raids, even in 10. Our utility is brought by protection paladins as well, protection paladins who are incredibly overpowered in 10s.

Read carefully what Freia has been posting, he hits the nail on the head in almost every post.

[Pasture]

All those holy paladins in this threat that seem to think that non EF healing is viable, please don't be absurd. Single target slow heals are a thing of the past, even in 10 man, your heals will get sniped by all the smart and instant heals. Nerfing EF will just lead to LoD spam, which takes no skill at all, and is an incredibly boring play style.

I don't think any of us are suggesting non EF healing is viable right now. Me personally, I'd like it to be viable. I don't particularly like EF spam for shields but we're forced into it because it's the only way we compete. If they make non EF healing viable outside of constant AoE raid damage then great. It's good for the class.

[nightfalls]

Exactly this. The whole Holy Paladin have strong single target heals is a myth. This was true in WotLK and TBC but it is no longer the case in MoP. At heroic Ji-Kun I had to let our resto Druid heal the tank while I did nests because he was much better at keeping the tank alive than I was, without running out of mana. This whole tank healer stigma needs to go, it's no longer true in the first place. When there's two tanks sure, your beacon will be an asset, but when there's one tank: forget it. Other healers are better at it.

Agree, the TBC/WotLK mentalities need to fucking disappear. It is ironic that in late Cataclysm/early MOP druids were in fact almost better tank healers than raid healers, something you wouldn't expect.

[Simulacrum]

Taking the mastery shield out of EF's hot seems to me like it makes EF pretty crap? Without the shield it's a relatively weak, long cooldown, unspammable hot that heals very slowly. Unless you're in a situation without any overheals for huge periods of time, it's a pretty shitty ability. It's not like we can anticipate high damage in the next 10-20 seconds and roll out a dozen short-duration EFs for it, except maybe once every 2 minutes with cooldowns; the rolling mastery shields is what makes it good.

Without the rolling mastery shield all of its healing is going to go to complete waste, much more so than any other hot. Maybe if we could save up like 30 charges of holy power or something, but somehow I don't see that happening.

[Lumineux]

Am I the only paladin here who does not want Judgment, least of all required (i.e. not just a talent but a spec passive) Judgment?

I would not mind judging if it came with a heal component like in Wrath, or even an atonement like heal as others have suggested. But I definitely don't want my mana regen depending on it.

[Freia]

I would not mind judging if it came with a heal component like in Wrath, or even an atonement like heal as others have suggested. But I definitely don't want my mana regen depending on it.

An atonement heal would not be worth it because judgment does shit for damage. They would have to make it do it would have to do 200-300% of the damage as healing.

[Lumineux]

An atonement heal would not be worth it because judgment does shit for damage.

It doesn't have to be for the damage done. I just meant an atonement heal as in, I judge and someone gets healed for x amount. Since it's on a CD (unlike disc priests) I expect the heal could be a decent amount.

But I would be more excited for something wrath style to be attached to it, that seems like it would fit into the HoT healing idea devs have such a thing for right now.

[Bijin]

for PvP the EF nerf is big, why, the Holy Pally's don't have a cast in move spell and only holy shock, so easy to interrupt and easy to cc, for stay in one place and cast...

EF is a great heal to cast in move right now...

[Pasture]

for PvP the EF nerf is big, why, the Holy Pally's don't have a cast in move spell and only holy shock, so easy to interrupt and easy to cc, for stay in one place and cast...

EF is a great heal to cast in move right now...

The initial nerf to EF heal is being reverted. The loss of the mastery from the hot isn't going to make much difference in PvP.

[nightfalls]

The initial nerf to EF heal is being reverted. The loss of the mastery from the hot isn't going to make much difference in PvP.

A net loss on an already crappy spec.

[Pasture]

A net loss on an already crappy spec.

If it's weak in PvP and PvE just give us 4sec Holy Shock back. The arguments against it were all PvP ones. And just buff Daybreak to do that healing without a 2 stack.

[Cairhiin]

If it's weak in PvP and PvE just give us 4sec Holy Shock back. The arguments against it were all PvP ones. And just buff Daybreak to do that healing without a 2 stack.

While 4 second Holy Shock would be nice, and really should be baseline to make us a whole lot less clunky, it will not fix the loss of mastery shields on EF; not by a long shot. EF propagates any mastery shield on the target, which leads to a much higher percentage of shields that get used even during low damage periods. Without the ability to propagate the mastery shield (and building onto that shield) our healing will take a huge hit. We will also become much worse at keeping the raid alive, when everyone is spread out.

Holy Paladins already aren't in the best place right now, and pretty much only Resto Shamans are worse than us but at least they bring utility. Selfless healer is no option, once again I can't even begin to understand the design behind it, why on earth would we go back to judging on cooldown (something that was deemed to not be fun by Ghostcrawler himself) just to get a buff on a heal you never use (FoL) and a heal you almost never use (DL). Maybe if Selfless Healer would proc off of Holy Shock until then I see no reason to take it.

[Deleted]

I usually post under my account (Ishau) but have decided to use my girlfriends account on this occasion as I am on her computer.

I have always been a fan of Holy Paladin and this has always been my main character, through the bad and the good. Recently it seems that the devs are nerfing Holy Paladins without any justifications or seeing the ramifications afterwords. I will agree that we were strong, and so many other healers jumped on the Mastery bandwagon saying it was a massive problem without realising it had nothing to do with Mastery itself and was mostly due to the increase Holy Power gains from the 4 set (first it was the PvP 4 set and then it was the PvE 4 set). They should not have nerfed mastery because it was clear that as soon as the old 4 set was nerfed or replaced the effect it provides would have been less.

I fail to see Illuminated Healing being 35% of our healing being a problem as it is our raid buffer/stabiliser. The same as Resto Druid have Rejev (which is easily just as mindless) being up to 50% of there healing. In the same way people count absorbs as 'sniping' it is no worse than when a Resto Druid gets 2 20k+ ticks of Rejev off before any cast can land on a target.

I have always disliked absorbs that aren't proactive (ie imo Power Word: Shield should stay, but Illuminated Healing and Divine Aegis should go) but as long as it is here and tied to a class it needs to actually work for us. Nerfing the mastery and then spells that effect it will only result in Holy Paladins being taken less to 2 healing heroic 10 man content. It needs to be brought back up to par, and so long as Holy Shock remains at 6 seconds it will be fine.

Divine Plea needs tweaking slightly. Since the innervate change it'll now become the only regen mechanic that doesn't scale with gear. Divine Plea needs to be based off spirit, and should allow for Paladins to gain more from it if they are able to time it with any spirit procs they so happen to have.

The Battle Healer glyph heal should be based off of our spell power for Holy Paladins and should make it so that our spells always hit (other healers with hit to heal mechanics don't have problems with misses or dodges, but spirit for us does nothing for our melee hit cap or expertise)

Selfless Healer in addition to current affects should make Judgment grant a charge of Holy Power. This coupled with Battle Healer glyph will make the talent more viable.

Sacred Shield just needs to be placed on a target and after 6 seconds will grant an absorb for X amount for 30 seconds based on Holy Power Spent. It can be placed on any number of targets as Holy Power allows, but does not stack and will overwrite any existing absorb placed (even if smaller amount). I feel this could be quite a good change as instead of using Holy Power to heal damage now, you have to be smarter and see what is happening in 6 seconds time.

Finally to poster above - Whilst you may never use them now, because you don't have Selfless Healer talent, you will use them now if you did have said talent because the talent makes those spells more viable to be used in a raid situation. Even just 1 stack is a boost to tank healing or raid healing, assuming that EF didn't exist and wasn't used.

[Mortal Strike]

Holy Paladins already aren't in the best place right now, and pretty much only Resto Shamans are worse than us but at least they bring utility.

You're crazy if you don't think Holy Paladins bring utility. It might not be the exact utility YOU want, but it's good and useful utility despite your jaded opinion. The grass isn't always greener on the other side.

[Freia]

Finally to poster above - Whilst you may never use them now, because you don't have Selfless Healer talent, you will use them now if you did have said talent because the talent makes those spells more viable to be used in a raid situation. Even just 1 stack is a boost to tank healing or raid healing, assuming that EF didn't exist and wasn't used.

Not really. As said many times, on 25m our single target healing is lackluster because they are usually snipped by splash healing from other classes. You will find yourself having to sit on full stacked selfless healer or using it when it really isn't needed. As long as the talent requires you to waste globals on judgment and is locked on two single target heals, it really will be a weak and for the most part useless talent.

You're crazy if you don't think Holy Paladins bring utility. It might not be the exact utility YOU want, but it's good and useful utility despite your jaded opinion. The grass isn't always greener on the other side.

Please explain what unique utility do holy paladins bring that isn't brought by a. another spec of paladin or b. another class.

Because right now all paladin utility is brought by every spec of paladin and then the absorbs can be covered by disc priests.

[Mortal Strike]

Please explain what unique utility do holy paladins bring that isn't brought by a. another spec of paladin or b. another class.

Utility doesn't necessarily require uniqueness. Your error is that you believe it does.

[Freia]

Utility doesn't necessarily require uniqueness. Your error is that you believe it does.

And your error is you think raids will bring a holy paladin if they lack throughput and unique utility.