[Holy] WoD Alpha/Beta Info & Discussion

[Perkunas]

Yes, Radiance probably shouldn't be the go-to ability in most situations. That's a problem of the current Holy Power design and not because Radiance is too strong (LOL) but rather because Divine Light and Flash of Light are pointless. For the SAME mana, Divine Light on Live, heals for 2.3 times Holy Radiance when it's cast on a single target. But it doesn't give Holy Power unless it's on Beacon. At 2 targets, the Holy Power from HR already makes it better (unless you move Beacon), at 3 it's just always better. It's a problem of Divine Light being too weak.

Thankfully, in 6.0 so far, the single target abilities are now costing what they really should in terms of mana: A lot less than the AoE. That's a good change and was made for most classes. That alone will already make ST heals a lot more worth casting.

===

But at the same time, if a clump of raiders are all taking damage, you should use your AoE ability. Not your single target ability. The latter makes no sense, but right now, it's more worth it to use your ST ability. It's just as counter-intuitive and bad as the previous situation, where you used your AoE even when only 1-2 targets were really damaged.

So HR needs a buff to, yes, make it worth using if it won't overheal and will hit at least 4-5 targets (3 was actually the design goal announced in a blog, but I doubt that sentiment is still there).

And yes, if you are healing a raid of 20 players, I'm sorry, but you should expect to use your AoE. Otherwise you don't belong in a raid, and should stick to PvP. This is coming from someone that plays and enjoys playing both.

Other healers don't expect their classes to do the same things in PvP and PvE, and with good reason.

HR should be reserved for OH SHIT moments. It shouldn't be the go to spell in all situations. Spamming it constantly is even more mindless than Holy Light spam ever was even in Wrath because at least we had to manage some damn cooldowns to maintain mana. The playstyle has been so boring since they took HR off of a CD. If they buff HR it should go back on the old cooldown so spells like Holy Light and Flash aren't simply tossed aside. Currently I've been messing around with Holy in the beta and I've found even the 5-man dungeons to be more exciting and fun than any raid I attempted after Dragon Soul was released on a Holy Paladin. Even though my experience with raiding since Dragon Soul on a Holy Paladin has been limited, but I know for damn sure every single log I read HL and FoL are hardly if ever used. Buff LoD for AoE heals, give it a synergy with EF, buff HR to be worth the cast but bring back that damn CD or buff the cost even more so you would never spam it for anything other than a super emergency.

Hell, I'd take the 4.0 Holy Paladin over the spam the HR Pally. With the death of 10-man progression healers no longer have to be jacks of all trades. A return to a semi-niche that Holy Paladins occupied in Cata prior to the HR spamfest would make players like myself quite happy again.

I can't be the only one who feels that this is more compelling


Than this style

[paladative]

I don't have a beta key, so, there is no way for me to say whether Hpally is ok, but, let's just look at the logic here:

For me, as a player, if a talent and/or a glyph is mandatory, that's actually fine. Because my goal is to heal better, if that talent and/or glyph is the to-go choice, it's all ok.
For the dev, they fail on this, because their goal is to give us choices, which they are unable to. They forget why MoP style of talents was introduced, and why primary glyphs were removed.

[Deleted]

It's basically cookiecutter all over again.

[Clarius]

When asked if he is happy with holy paladins awful playstyle Celestalon simply says: https://twitter.com/cknlol/status/501303050917937152

I dont know how he thinks tuning will fix our playstyle. Unless perhaps they plan to nerf EF and/or BoF and make us pick other talents that way.

[Hatexon]

I like holy paladins movement on live. I'm a bit frustrated that they took it away, and let druids/holy priest keep theirs. I loved being able to judge for HP. I understand the HR stuff is dumb (and agree) but I felt selfless healer gave us more to do. Either way, this is just Holy paladin ala cataclysm all over again so far in beta for me. I am not excited, nor unexcited. Been playing it since release and probably won't change.

Especially since how they changed monks. They are SO clunky and unfun to play. If any of you think Holy paladin is badly designed, I recommend trying MW monk. :P

[Freia]

I don't have a beta key, so, there is no way for me to say whether Hpally is ok, but, let's just look at the logic here:

For me, as a player, if a talent and/or a glyph is mandatory, that's actually fine. Because my goal is to heal better, if that talent and/or glyph is the to-go choice, it's all ok.
For the dev, they fail on this, because their goal is to give us choices, which they are unable to. They forget why MoP style of talents was introduced, and why primary glyphs were removed.

Much of the supposed wanting us to have choices doesn't seem to be the same anymore.

An example, Celestalon on glyphs as stated in his posts in the disc priest thread.

"We actually want *more* mandatory glyphs, not fewer. That creates better tension, and makes glyphs feel meaningful. Interesting choices, etc."

Of course shows he doesn't really understand what players mean by "mandatory" which eliminates choice.

[paladative]

Much of the supposed wanting us to have choices doesn't seem to be the same anymore.

An example, Celestalon on glyphs as stated in his posts in the disc priest thread.

"We actually want *more* mandatory glyphs, not fewer. That creates better tension, and makes glyphs feel meaningful. Interesting choices, etc."

That was sad. Glyphs and talents should only have a minor impact on playstyle, as a small addition to the basic toolkit to modify it suiting certain situation better. It is fine for a talent or glyph to be used more than others. Talents and glyphs become meaningful when you often swap for various purpose, in the opposite, if it becomes meaningless if it being mandatory. It's almost a free market vs 5 years plan difference.

[Deleted]

I can't be the only one who feels that this is more compelling

You aren't. But I don't think a CD is the answer to HR spamming in inappropriate situations.
It shouldn't generate a holy power charge but do more healing itself. This would also slow down our holy power generation overall (so less finishers casted) and allow finishers to be instant again.

[Virsta1]

Since wading through this thread is quite time consuming, what are the most agreed upon stat weights, or at least priority?

Mastery > crit > haste.

To be honest I am really unsure what comes after mastery. No one has done any real theory crafting on it as far as I know. I do know for a fact mastery is still king.

[paladative]

Mastery > crit > haste.

To be honest I am really unsure what comes after mastery. No one has done any real theory crafting on it as far as I know. I do know for a fact mastery is still king.

Are multi and versatility completely garbage?

[axelsixtree]

The new PTR build have some interesting elements, apparently healers changes will come next time:

And it seems we've got a change in our 45 talents for sacred shield. If i'm not mistaken sacred shield is changing back to only one shield active at a time, like it was in the beginning of Pandaria. I really hope the spell will be buffed. I really don't want to use eternal flame and the nerfed version of selfless healer is not interesting so i'm looking forward sacred shield now (i'd like to add that i'm not in a competitive guild so i can afford to choose gameplay over performances, and only speaking for myself)

beta.wowdb.com/spells/20925-sacred-shield#18716-18738

It doesn't solve any of the holy paladins problems stated above but i wanted to say that i'm pleased with this revert to original sacred shield (with a sufficient buff to it ofc)

Let's see the healers changes in store for the next build

[btard]

It has 3 charges in the current build. Probably a parser bug.

http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/148039-sacred-shield
This one is our version of ss

[Tonic]

Issues on Glyph of Illumination must be sorted out asap, I can use it on my copied character but there is no such glyph while playing on pvp server.

[axelsixtree]

It has 3 charges in the current build. Probably a parser bug.

beta.wowdb.com/spells/148039-sacred-shield
This one is our version of ss

:'(

My bad didn't read the good one

[Duguai]

Greetings,
Late to the thread but I've been following along for quite a bit. It appears that too many people see Hpally in a bad place, sadly as do I however i did stumble upon someone who did some beta testing with numbers attached.
holybouch.com/
Alas, they must be european maybe? or just unfamiliar with english grammar rules, however, they do make great points. They also give a good stat break down.
As they see it/crunched numbers it goes Crit > Haste > Mastery > Mutli = Versit.
Not sure how i feel about that but he has proof to back it up.

My big point however though is their idea of the lvl 45 talents. They argue that because WoG is THE finisher since LoD is practially useless and only serves a small niche, the 3 talents should reflect a change to WoG. With one that gives small splash damage, one that gives the HoT, and one that adds that SS effect uneffected by mastery. I believe that to be an excellent change from all the reading and live streams that have been saying how rough it is to heal on an Hpally compared to any other healing class. 1

[btard]

Celestalon said that healer balance patch is coming. I think we should avoid any discussions on numbers before that hits beta.

[Jackielope]

Greetings,
Late to the thread but I've been following along for quite a bit. It appears that too many people see Hpally in a bad place, sadly as do I however i did stumble upon someone who did some beta testing with numbers attached.
holybouch.com/
Alas, they must be european maybe? or just unfamiliar with english grammar rules, however, they do make great points. They also give a good stat break down.
As they see it/crunched numbers it goes Crit > Haste > Mastery > Mutli = Versit.
Not sure how i feel about that but he has proof to back it up.

My big point however though is their idea of the lvl 45 talents. They argue that because WoG is THE finisher since LoD is practially useless and only serves a small niche, the 3 talents should reflect a change to WoG. With one that gives small splash damage, one that gives the HoT, and one that adds that SS effect uneffected by mastery. I believe that to be an excellent change from all the reading and live streams that have been saying how rough it is to heal on an Hpally compared to any other healing class. 1

You're late to the party on mentioning Bouch, and Bouch himself has been around in this thread. In fact, he posted his idea for the T45 talents at http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...4#post28501954.


However, his numbers now won't be the same numbers in a couple builds because there will be tuning changes. The good news is he has the tools to analyze the changes in a relatively short time.

[Virsta1]

Are multi and versatility completely garbage?

Not sure about multistrike. Versatility is useless.

[Xs]

Are multi and versatility completely garbage?

Mutli is basically just crit, but we don't have IoL from it, and Vesatility is balanced around all 3 aspects, so for specs like Holy who don't need the damage, and don't really need the toughness, its pretty crappy.

[Perkunas]

You aren't. But I don't think a CD is the answer to HR spamming in inappropriate situations.
It shouldn't generate a holy power charge but do more healing itself. This would also slow down our holy power generation overall (so less finishers casted) and allow finishers to be instant again.

Now this seems like an interesting idea. I don't think that the insta-casts are coming back though. Blizzard hates how mobile healers have become and they want them to go back to actually having to plant and cast more often. If you think EF and LoD feel clunky when you have to stand still to cast them imagine PoM...