[Holy] Patch 5.4 PTR - Changes Discussion

[Pasture]

The new SH is still bad, I don't understand why people fail to see the severity of loosing EF and get excited about this SH + haste build.

Well we've already lost a lot of what makes EF so important to our toolkit. It's just a hot now, and that's never really why we used it in the first place.

Of course, since they are making SoO all hot encounters we'll probably be stuck with it.

[Virsta1]

1)SH isn't viable in high end raiding.It might be for PvP. The problem is, your Holy Power generation rate doesn't actually increase and the 3 Holy Power abilities at your disposal are flat out bad. The only thing that changes is the mana efficiency of obtaining said Holy Power.

This actually is not right. HS, Judge, FoL Beacon and you get 3 holy power in 3 seconds. May or may not be viable but you def generate holy power alot faster then HS, HR, HR.

[Gilthresa]

This actually is not right. HS, Judge, FoL Beacon and you get 3 holy power in 3 seconds. May or may not be viable but you def generate holy power alot faster then HS, HR, HR.

Please tell me what using FoL on beacon achieves?

[Pasture]

Please tell me what using FoL on beacon achieves?

1HP generation I assume is what they're pointing out.

[Kyuuseishu]

This actually is not right. HS, Judge, FoL Beacon and you get 3 holy power in 3 seconds. May or may not be viable but you def generate holy power alot faster then HS, HR, HR.

So you've shown over a short space of time that "rotation" generates holy power quicker than the other one you mentioned. What about beyond this 3 second window, HS and Judgment have a CD which is atleast 5.5 seconds for each of them (using the new SoB). Overall your holy power generation rate will remain roughly similar to what it is, except as Aladya said it will be more mana efficient.

[Dubalicious]

Please tell me what using FoL on beacon achieves?

He's just refuting the point, and he is correct, but I'm pretty sure it won't be viable or even close to optimal.

[Pasture]

HS and Judgment have a CD which is atleast 5.5 seconds for each of them (using the new SoB)

Well that's ignoring haste.

Not sure how much use a selfless healer build would have for mastery.

Despite me going on I'm not that convinced by selfless healer myself. Could be good on certain fights like Horridon where there is decent downtime but outside of that I doubt it. I'm willing to give haste build a shot in 10 man just for the 4.5 second Holy shock. I've never felt the same since that was taken away. Losing EF mastery pushes mastery way down, as does the new Guardian, and unlike 25s I can't roll mastery on the melee using HR. I suspect shorter cooldown HS and fast casts in general will make the spec feel less crap as well.

See how the ptr goes but I'd like to give haste a go come SoO. I think 10s can probably get more mileage out of the HS reduction.

[Deleted]

He's just refuting the point, and he is correct, but I'm pretty sure it won't be viable or even close to optimal.

No he's not even doing that.

First of all doing HS(1.5 sec gcd)+Judge(1.5 sec gcd)+FoL(1.5 sec) is actually 4.5 seconds instead of 3 seconds.
2nd you can do HS(1.5 sec cd)+CS(1.5 sec cd)+HR(50% chance its gcd,50% chance its 2.5 secs) that's also 4.5 secs or at most 5.5 seconds. Per total in a fight(that you can melee on), the difference in Holy Power gained is insignificant. Both are reduced by haste equally( 2nd actually a little more since HR has a bigger castime then FoL) so don't bring haste in the equation.

Also doing the 2nd option
1)You will do an extra melee attack that heals for ~9k on the lowest target in the raid
2)You will do a heal(HR) that actually might heal something
3)You still have EF speced

[Dubalicious]

Eh, those are just different arguments honestly, since Virsta did qualify his post with "faster then HS, HR, HR." You're both right when you add certain details/qualifications.

But it's arguing insignificant details, since it seems we mostly all agree that SH won't be a viable choice for high/er end raiding.

[Deleted]

I remember leaving my holy paladin simply because the EF spamfest was dreadfully boring and i was always thinking that i was abusing a feature that was not even intended for me to use to that efectiveness anyway, blanketing a raid with an absorb/hot ? using an AOE spell for the HP generation? wtf doesnt make any sense and always made me think it was a bandaid and not a proper gameplay.

Granted, it was the only way my holy paladin could compete with other healers but i was always sad to use EF as my main weapon and the gameplay didnt make sense to me at all.

I'm realy glad blizzard is finaly breaking this EF spam/abuse gameplay nonsense. Now that we will be extremely weak witout it they will have to finaly come up with a solution that is in paladin style to bring us up. They HAVE to bring us up, holy paladin is one of the most popular healers around, they just can't have the game witout them.

[Deleted]

You want it to hit 6 targets for the same as WoG hits 1 target?

Interesting idea... let us see how it does on the open stage.

Exactly the point. WOG doesn't fit our toolkit. Make LoD the powerful finisher, have EF as optional, and we're in a slightly better situation.

- - - Updated - - -

Eh, those are just different arguments honestly, since Virsta did qualify his post with "faster then HS, HR, HR." You're both right when you add certain details/qualifications.

But it's arguing insignificant details, since it seems we mostly all agree that SH won't be a viable choice for high/er end raiding.

All depends just how powerful the finishers are. In current state, definitely not. HP isn't even worth much.

[Panoramic]

Make guardian permanent, mimic your heals at x% power and leave an x% damage reduction for x seconds on the targets it directly heals. Hell next expac it's power and damage reduction could become the new mastery, take away some of those pesky absorbs clotting the game.

[Freia]

I'm realy glad blizzard is finaly breaking this EF spam/abuse gameplay nonsense. Now that we will be extremely weak witout it they will have to finaly come up with a solution that is in paladin style to bring us up. They HAVE to bring us up, holy paladin is one of the most popular healers around, they just can't have the game witout them.

They don't have to do anything. They can do what they have been doing with most classes release them live to see how bad they are and then wait a patch to fix(or sometimes overbuff) them or even wait until next expansion to rework them.

[Lumineux]

No he's not even doing that.

First of all doing HS(1.5 sec gcd)+Judge(1.5 sec gcd)+FoL(1.5 sec) is actually 4.5 seconds instead of 3 seconds.
2nd you can do HS(1.5 sec cd)+CS(1.5 sec cd)+HR(50% chance its gcd,50% chance its 2.5 secs) that's also 4.5 secs or at most 5.5 seconds. Per total in a fight(that you can melee on), the difference in Holy Power gained is insignificant. Both are reduced by haste equally( 2nd actually a little more since HR has a bigger castime then FoL) so don't bring haste in the equation.

Also doing the 2nd option
1)You will do an extra melee attack that heals for ~9k on the lowest target in the raid
2)You will do a heal(HR) that actually might heal something
3)You still have EF speced

Except 1) we're still not considered melee and it's very possible we'll be unable to stand in melee range on certain fights due to being targeted by ranged abilities and 2) Crusader Strike is not guaranteed to generate holy power - there is a small chance of missing and it's 3x the cost of Judgment. Oh and 3) you don't have to cast FoL on the beacon to generate holy power, you can still cast HR with the same chance of having infusion, I'm pretty sure FoL was just an example because it would essentially be free or reduced mana cost, so that's kind of a bonus. So basically if there is a fight where we can't stand in melee, we can neither crusader strike nor can we use battle healer.

It's just not the case all the time that we can be in melee since blizzard refuses time and time again to classify us as melee. Especially if you're in a guild that has a lot of melee, people get whiny about anyone "extra" standing in melee with them since it starts getting really crowded. The day we're classified as melee, your argument will have a lot more validity. I just really dislike the idea of basing all our healing strategies around being in melee, and then we get to a fight where we can't do that and we're screwed.

I see how SH has it's failings - GCD usage that doesn't do a direct heal - but crusader strike is the same thing except it has a chance to miss, costs 3x the mana, and requires you to be in melee range. Using Judgment to generate that extra HP we're 1) not relying on being able to stand in melee 2) it's 1/3 the cost and 3) it doesn't have a chance to miss. Yes we do lose out on battle healer and if we take SH then EF too, but haven't we already concluded EF is pretty shit in it's current state? And I'm pretty sure we have yet to test this new SH in a raid? It's mostly people standing next to a target dummy and coming to conclusions based on that.

Maybe I'm biased, I've never been a fan of EF spam and I just want something new to change up the HR spam we're currently subjected too. I've played with SH in the proving grounds and it was a lot more fun than HR and EF spamming. Number wise is it the best? Maybe not, I don't know until we can test it in a raid environment.

[Dubalicious]

I remember leaving my holy paladin simply because the EF spamfest was dreadfully boring and i was always thinking that i was abusing a feature that was not even intended for me to use to that efectiveness anyway, blanketing a raid with an absorb/hot ? using an AOE spell for the HP generation? wtf doesnt make any sense and always made me think it was a bandaid and not a proper gameplay.

What I find interesting is that this pretty much *IS* how our toolkit is supposed to work with holy power. EF wasn't the culprit outright, if EF was weaker it would have been the same exact gameplay but with LoD spam, which is arguably more dreadfully boring than EF blanketing.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe I'm biased, I've never been a fan of EF spam and I just want something new to change up the HR spam we're currently subjected too. I've played with SH in the proving grounds and it was a lot more fun than HR and EF spamming. Number wise is it the best? Maybe not, I don't know until we can test it in a raid environment.

While I'm one who's still very skeptical of SH's viability in progression, I definitely won't argue that it doesn't sound "fun". It's definitely a nice "change of pace" option for the spec. Who knows maybe instead of making Sacred Shield competitive, they'll just make SH the 'mandatory' talent for the tier! O.O

[Freia]

I don't think it sounds fun. It looks like it does nothing but make a clunky rotation in our playstyle. It is also looks like you are going to be wasting to many globals on none/single-target healing spells to actually do much effective healing.

[nightfalls]

I don't think it sounds fun. It looks like it does nothing but make a clunky rotation in our playstyle. It is also looks like you are going to be wasting to many globals on none/single-target healing spells to actually do much effective healing.

This. /10char

Please refrain from making 'this' posts. They add nothing to the conversation in the thread. - Malthanis

[Dubalicious]

I don't think it sounds fun. It looks like it does nothing but make a clunky rotation in our playstyle. It is also looks like you are going to be wasting to many globals on none/single-target healing spells to actually do much effective healing.

Dailies, Heroic scenarios, and dungeons have plenty of available globals, which is more what I was getting at.

[Deleted]

I don't think it sounds fun. It looks like it does nothing but make a clunky rotation in our playstyle. It is also looks like you are going to be wasting to many globals on none/single-target healing spells to actually do much effective healing.

Yep. You may as well just waste an FoL too for an extra IH on the tank.

[Freia]

Dailies, Heroic scenarios, and dungeons have plenty of available globals, which is more what I was getting at.

You mean the content I go ret for?

I'd rather have something raid viable.