[HOLY] Holy Sh*t!: Legion Edition

[Deleted]

The commentary from some of the alpha testers on the class forums occasionally boggles the mind. Pacer, Aladya, Alorp, Clouds, a few other names I recognize, all giving very good feedback, then someone says this:

"Why do we need downsides to our spells? I get paladins are "selfless" but Sacrifice or Light of the Martyr? Still the only class with major "downsides" like dying? And if you try to tweak it so its more "don't worry you shouldn't die if you use it to save someone else" why bother with the downside?"

That is an exceptional comment, and entirely true. It covers several of our spells / auras, which will probably just see very little use as a result of their terrible design. That comment got down-voted, so now I cannot help but wonder what idiot out there has alpha access and is enjoying stupid things like the BoSac transfer headache, or thinks this sacrifice nonsense is actually good gameplay and design.

That's because people like Floopa and Tiberria always take their time to downvote paladin posts. Either of my posts in that thread reached -2 before going positive.

[Deleted]

I really don't get the complaints about holy that I've seen. Maybe it's because I'm not at all concerned about mythic (in a small guild, we struggled constantly to keep 20 people interested enough despite recruitment) but... Battle healer role is optional. And fascinating. The original playstyle is largely intact, only we lose the constraint of holy power, and we have some... Optional abilities that damage us on use but seem quite powerful used correctly. How's that terrible? If your hp is low, refrain from damaging yourself. You still have stuff that doesn't damage you that you can press. Doesn't seem that hard to me. I genuinely can't see how Legion design is worse than WoD. I mean, no holy power... Maybe it's just me, I fucking hated holy power as a healer?

[EzG]

I really don't get the complaints about holy that I've seen. Maybe it's because I'm not at all concerned about mythic (in a small guild, we struggled constantly to keep 20 people interested enough despite recruitment) but... Battle healer role is optional. And fascinating. The original playstyle is largely intact, only we lose the constraint of holy power, and we have some... Optional abilities that damage us on use but seem quite powerful used correctly. How's that terrible? If your hp is low, refrain from damaging yourself. You still have stuff that doesn't damage you that you can press. Doesn't seem that hard to me. I genuinely can't see how Legion design is worse than WoD. I mean, no holy power... Maybe it's just me, I fucking hated holy power as a healer?

Agreed, no more holy power party to be held in my garrison. Honestly I think there is way to much emphasis being put on the "battle healer" component to legion holy pallies. I know it is the point of testing to test things, but I haven't heard anything game breaking about it, therefor I'm ok with saying I have not tried being a "battle healer" a single time since this alpha began. I don't know why people are dead on calling holy pallies battle healers and saying they didn't want it or what have you, but if I can get by not using it a single time while testing the various new bosses, then it really isn't something to be concerned over. I'm sure after every boss is farm content and you want a challenge or a new playstyle you can go ahead and just use Savior, but beyond that, current numbers don't dictate it will be slightly useful.

[Deleted]

Agreed, no more holy power party to be held in my garrison. Honestly I think there is way to much emphasis being put on the "battle healer" component to legion holy pallies. I know it is the point of testing to test things, but I haven't heard anything game breaking about it, therefor I'm ok with saying I have not tried being a "battle healer" a single time since this alpha began. I don't know why people are dead on calling holy pallies battle healers and saying they didn't want it or what have you, but if I can get by not using it a single time while testing the various new bosses, then it really isn't something to be concerned over. I'm sure after every boss is farm content and you want a challenge or a new playstyle you can go ahead and just use Savior, but beyond that, current numbers don't dictate it will be slightly useful.

While i somewhat agree with you. I have done the raid tests on my paladin. And i have also used this "optional" style. In my opinion it's not optional at all. We do not pre-cast to generate shields anymore. We also do not have any HoTs to precast. So that leaves us with doing dps during downtime. And we have to be in melee for that. Still want to cast your LoD well you are fucked and forced to 180 cast 180 that. I don't know about other people but i can't think of a more annoying and frustrating combination of class mechanics then crusader strike and light of dawn.

Yes you can also just do nothing or cast hl into the tank. But it doesn't feel right for me to do so during progression.

[EzG]

While i somewhat agree with you. I have done the raid tests on my paladin. And i have also used this "optional" style. In my opinion it's not optional at all. We do not pre-cast to generate shields anymore. We also do not have any HoTs to precast. So that leaves us with doing dps during downtime. And we have to be in melee for that. Still want to cast your LoD well you are fucked and forced to 180 cast 180 that. I don't know about other people but i can't think of a more annoying and frustrating combination of class mechanics then crusader strike and light of dawn.

Yes you can also just do nothing or cast hl into the tank. But it doesn't feel right for me to do so during progression.

I'm not sure you can say all there is to do is HL the tank at this point. Almost all of the bosses have some sort of aoe damage ability that will keep you at work from start to finish. Hell even the eyeball bosses burn phase has a damaging ability. Even now I don't need to pre-cast for shields and I don't have any hots (sh) so what is the difference. I do not ever see myself having a "downtime" where I can turn into what most monks have been doing since mop. The LoD issue isn't incredibly bad if you position yourself in a good spot before hand, and if you decide to not use faith you don't even have to linger in melee, or at least using a rule of law. Unless you actually want to be a battle healer, then more power to you, but I'm saying it doesn't seem to be mandatory at current numbers. Instead it seems to be for fun if you choose the talent. If you don't choose it there is almost no reason for you to attack anything.

[Deleted]

While i somewhat agree with you. I have done the raid tests on my paladin. And i have also used this "optional" style. In my opinion it's not optional at all. We do not pre-cast to generate shields anymore. We also do not have any HoTs to precast. So that leaves us with doing dps during downtime. And we have to be in melee for that. Still want to cast your LoD well you are fucked and forced to 180 cast 180 that. I don't know about other people but i can't think of a more annoying and frustrating combination of class mechanics then crusader strike and light of dawn.

Yes you can also just do nothing or cast hl into the tank. But it doesn't feel right for me to do so during progression.

People threw around the same claims when holy power first came into play, that during downtime you MUST be using CS to build that all important HP. In practice, it was never really that beneficial. I know healer DPS is being tuned up a bit, but I can't really see fights being tuned so finely that Holy Palas who don't throw a few GCDs on CS get sat out - you can still HS and judge from range if you like.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure you can say all there is to do is HL the tank at this point. Almost all of the bosses have some sort of aoe damage ability that will keep you at work from start to finish. Hell even the eyeball bosses burn phase has a damaging ability. Even now I don't need to pre-cast for shields and I don't have any hots (sh) so what is the difference. I do not ever see myself having a "downtime" where I can turn into what most monks have been doing since mop. The LoD issue isn't incredibly bad if you position yourself in a good spot before hand, and if you decide to not use faith you don't even have to linger in melee, or at least using a rule of law. Unless you actually want to be a battle healer, then more power to you, but I'm saying it doesn't seem to be mandatory at current numbers. Instead it seems to be for fun if you choose the talent. If you don't choose it there is almost no reason for you to attack anything.

Sure right now with balancing issues and specs not being final it can be like a lot to heal. But there are definitely moments where you can just straight up dps as a healer. And when doing so LoD becomes frustrating as hell. If i want to contribute to the raid by doing some damage it makes the healing part of the spec frustrating. Even if you have the entire group stacked on the boss you need to be on the edge of melee range or turn around to use the ability. Even without choosing the "battle healer" talents this will apply to holy paladins wanting to contribute to the fight. And if raids are not valid enough we can always shift it over to dungeons where the same issues appear. At least there tend to be less cleaves and strict placement in dungeons.

People threw around the same claims when holy power first came into play, that during downtime you MUST be using CS to build that all important HP. In practice, it was never really that beneficial. I know healer DPS is being tuned up a bit, but I can't really see fights being tuned so finely that Holy Palas who don't throw a few GCDs on CS get sat out - you can still HS and judge from range if you like.

You can do quite some damage as a healer now. Not doing so during progression seems like a bad idea. Even before when we had HoPo i would use CS when i could get an extra HoPo from it or even denounce spam if there was nothing going on.

[Deleted]

Did a bit some testing on the new legendaries, here's some info/ideas for the ones that work for holy :

Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus

1. Actually effectively has a 35s cooldown, you get the 30s shield and then a 5s buff that creates a new shield if you don't take damage.
2. Aura of sac/LotM (and presumable Bosac) do consume the shield, meaning if no damage is going on you, casting LotM a few times every 35s to consume the shield is worth it.
3. Aura of sac/LotM (and presumable Bosac) do not prevent the shield from proccing if you use them in the 5s window where you shouldn't take damage.
4. The size of the shield scales with vers, but not crit/mastery/AW etc.

Obsidian Stone Spaulders

1. Seems to transfer healing in exactly the same way as beacon, but always at a 50% ratio.
2. Only heals your beacon of light, ie. if you talent into beacon of faith it still heals beacon of light for 50%, and beacon of faith for 0%.
3. With this item when you're at full hp you heal your beacon for 90% of your healing, this means that if you're far from your tank, healing yourself instead of the tank could mean more overall healing due to mastery. Of course you lose out on the mana cost reduction and this is useless if you're running lightbringer.
4. Healing done by this item doesn't transfer to beacon of faith if you have both up.
5. Didn't test anything with other healers healing me.

Uther's Guard

1. Couldn't find anything special, works as expected

Tyr's Hand of Faith

1. A decent healing increase at 0 mana cost.
2. For reference, the cooldown of LoH with this and 3/3 Focused healing is 2.1 minutes, add unbreakable spirit and it's 1.47 minutes.

Chain of Thrayn

1. Doesn't scale with mastery, vers, AW, can't crit, doesn't transfer to beacons.
2. Actually heals for 20% of max health, I tested this for all 3 specs so I don't think it's any weird artifact scaling or something.
3. Potentially very strong where you can use freedom to both dispell and heal (eg. roots on cenarius)

Aggramar's Stride

1. Seems to give movement speed based off haste rating, not percentage. I was running at the same speed with and without holy avenger up.

Heathcliff's Immortality

1. Decreases damage taken from aura of sac/ LotM (and presumably Bosac).
2. Of course this item is aimed at prot, but the effect does work for holy.

Ilterendi, Crown Jewel of Silvermoon

1. Haven't had a chance to test this yet, will update when I do some dungeons with it, but it is potentially strong.

Sephuz's Secret

1. Procs off HoJ, I don't believe that it procs off Blinding Light/Repentance.
2. As the tooltip suggests, does not proc if the target is immune.

Some final notes:

1. Legendaries have a fairly high itemlevel (895, mythic Nighthold is 900), which means that slots that have a baseline high amount of stats will have an advantage over worse pieces.
2. Only 1 legendary can be equipped at a time, this can be increased to 2 with the final class hall upgrade, taking a total of 47,250 order hall resources and 47 days.
3. Tier sets have been increased to 6 pieces (a cloak has been added), without a 6piece bonus. This means you don't have to worry about locking yourself out of 4pc by using 2 legendaries in set piece slots.

8/8- Legendaries available again, changes not included in tooltips:
Aggramar's Stride now gives movespeed off haste% (HA now gives movespeed)
Chain of Thrayn now heals for 15%
Heathcliff's Immortality no longer reduces self inflicted damage

[Dorkman]

I don't know why people are dead on calling holy pallies battle healers and saying they didn't want it or what have you, but if I can get by not using it a single time while testing the various new bosses

For me it seems like wasted talent points where we could have other options is why I have said it multiple times, over and over. Granted half the talents on live are wasted talent points, so maybe I'm just being naïve when I think that if we didn't have these battle-healer talents, we'd have something useful instead.

[EzG]

For me it seems like wasted talent points where we could have other options is why I have said it multiple times, over and over. Granted half the talents on live are wasted talent points, so maybe I'm just being naïve when I think that if we didn't have these battle-healer talents, we'd have something useful instead.

Yeah there are a few worthless talent choices. I think, if anything, those battle healer talents might be useful when the content is on farm and you want to have a little fun with some change. In the same kind of way it was with EF and SH healing, a change after awhile of the same stuff is welcome.

[Deleted]

For me it seems like wasted talent points where we could have other options is why I have said it multiple times, over and over. Granted half the talents on live are wasted talent points, so maybe I'm just being naïve when I think that if we didn't have these battle-healer talents, we'd have something useful instead.

I get that raiding seems like the be-all and end-all of the game, I do really. But calling talents worthless because they're not optimal in a raid environment is a little much, don't you think? Talent choices that promote a different style of play rather than just giving raiders yet more options to choose from isn't a bad thing. Especially when you consider that, no matter WHAT they throw in there, the community is going to decide on that is the best in any given situation. When they do, very few people will go against that decision. When you take that into account, something will always be judged worthless anyway.

[Dorkman]

I get that raiding seems like the be-all and end-all of the game, I do really. But calling talents worthless because they're not optimal in a raid environment is a little much, don't you think? Talent choices that promote a different style of play rather than just giving raiders yet more options to choose from isn't a bad thing. Especially when you consider that, no matter WHAT they throw in there, the community is going to decide on that is the best in any given situation. When they do, very few people will go against that decision. When you take that into account, something will always be judged worthless anyway.

Again, it's probably me being naïve, but I like the current dichotomy between EF and SH and would hope for every row to have meaningful choices like this, while both remaining still relevant. Some will perform better on certain encounters, but as a whole they could be interchangeable on the majority of fights. I don't want to get into a SH vs EF fight here because it's simply one that doesn't have a definitive answer despite the loud shouting of many holy paladins I have encountered on the subject, but I just want to see meaningful tradeoffs similar to the one that tier provides.

That is likely an idealist dreamworld, which probably has no place in reality, but it won't stop me from trying to push for that.

[EzG]

Again, it's probably me being naïve, but I like the current dichotomy between EF and SH and would hope for every row to have meaningful choices like this, while both remaining still relevant. Some will perform better on certain encounters, but as a whole they could be interchangeable on the majority of fights. I don't want to get into a SH vs EF fight here because it's simply one that doesn't have a definitive answer despite the loud shouting of many holy paladins I have encountered on the subject, but I just want to see meaningful tradeoffs similar to the one that tier provides.

That is likely an idealist dreamworld, which probably has no place in reality, but it won't stop me from trying to push for that.

I could be missing your point, but you say you want every row to have as meaningful effect as SH and EF? SH and EF are two entirely different styles of holy pally healing. If you choose one, you will be healing entirely different than if you chose the other. So you want a mix and match of incredibly different healing styles mashed into the talent tree. Currently the final row of talents, in legion, encompasses just that. In one way you are faith healing, the other you are utilizing mastery while focusing one tank, and the last you are a fistweaving pally. Just like SH and EF are on the same row, the last row in legion should remain the same. The other bars serve to benefit certain spells, survivability, movement, etc. You shouldn't have game changer talents on each row to contest against which will just add to the confusion by creating numerous different outcomes a holy pally might be.

[Dorkman]

I could be missing your point, but you say you want every row to have as meaningful effect as SH and EF? SH and EF are two entirely different styles of holy pally healing. If you choose one, you will be healing entirely different than if you chose the other. So you want a mix and match of incredibly different healing styles mashed into the talent tree. Currently the final row of talents, in legion, encompasses just that. In one way you are faith healing, the other you are utilizing mastery while focusing one tank, and the last you are a fistweaving pally. Just like SH and EF are on the same row, the last row in legion should remain the same. The other bars serve to benefit certain spells, survivability, movement, etc. You shouldn't have game changer talents on each row to contest against which will just add to the confusion by creating numerous different outcomes a holy pally might be.

I don't mean changing playstyles, more just comparable and competitive talents, as in the difference in output between SH and EF aren't even that noticeable in similar scenarios (barring fights like Velhari, obviously).

[EzG]

I don't mean changing playstyles, more just comparable and competitive talents, as in the difference in output between SH and EF aren't even that noticeable in similar scenarios (barring fights like Velhari, obviously).

I could certainly argue with you the difference between SH and EF although as you have already pointed out, it has been discussed at length already so it is redundant for me to speak from opinion. Competetive talents are to some extent already present. Holy prism as a currently default ability has a chance to challenge other worthy talents in the tree and in some fights might even be preferable over the other two. Light's hammer even is a selectable talent for fights where you might be able to create more output because the raid is stacked during X amount of time during some hypothetical mechanic. There are a "couple" stats that seem to beat all at any point in time, but some talents seem to be situational to how the boss is and how your raid decides to tackle the mechanics. Honestly, so far at least, I think holy paladins are in a particularly alright spot in terms of ability and talents. Although tuning is yet to be set in stone, but we are apparently in for a couple buffs for builds to come so stay tuned.

[toolsv]

Does anyone have a link to a video of someone healing a dungeon in the melee healer style? I've been been looking but I can't seem to find anything.

[Emojuice]

Apply a Beacon of Light to your target and 4 injured allies within 30 yards for 8 sec;]. Holy Paladin - Level 100 Talent.15% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. Instant. 12 sec cooldown.

Hmmmm. Replaced beacon of the savior.

So I'm guessing this works as you have your normal beacon the the tank and this adds 5 new beacons for the duration? Can anyone confirm how this works once beta is back up? <3

[Taeldorian]

So on the subject of melee holy-ing. As someone who hates being at range, is the new melee healing thing viable? I miss my Warhammer Warrior Priest.

It's viable, yeah. It's fun as well but that's subjective I guess. I personally find holy (keep in mind I main ret and OS prot, so I have no prior experience with holy) on alpha to be extremely fun. It feels right being a melee holy paladin, just like the holy paladins were back in the day of the warcraft games.

Should watch Sparty Smallwood, he's been a holy paladin as long as I can remember and he's really good PvE wise. If you want to see holy in action with a decent/good player behind it then he's a good streamer to check out.

[Tiberria]

So I'm guessing this works as you have your normal beacon the the tank and this adds 5 new beacons for the duration? Can anyone confirm how this works once beta is back up? <3

The Beacon of Virtue talent outright replaces Beacon of Light and removes it entirely from your spell book. You only get Beacon of Virtue with the talent. I guess it's an attempt to give you the option to give up tank healing altogether for stronger AoE healing.

[Emojuice]

The Beacon of Virtue talent outright replaces Beacon of Light and removes it entirely from your spell book. You only get Beacon of Virtue with the talent. I guess it's an attempt to give you the option to give up tank healing altogether for stronger AoE healing.

I was afraid it might be like that. :/ I wonder if it's still worth it though with an 8 sec duration 12 sec cd? Sounds sorta neat at least.