[WoD] Holy Paladin Megathread

[Deleted]

What it does seem like is that they are trying to think of a magical way that actually would make T45 talents similar in power. Whether or not will they succeed is a different question.

[bouchbagfett]

Here is selfless healer in action now:



They made SH cost more mana to heal slightly less than no talent at all.

I would really like to see judge act as an atonement heal + do decent damage. They need to make using judge worth it, and basically equal the gain of casting SS or EF.

[Lucyrotten]

I just had a vision... of days gone by... specifically everything before Dragon Soul. We're going back to JoP and Judgement returning mana. They're also going to fix the spelling back to Judgement.

[Deleted]

They made SH cost more mana to heal slightly less than no talent at all.

I would really like to see judge act as an atonement heal + do decent damage. They need to make using judge worth it, and basically equal the gain of casting SS or EF.

SH needs to die. Painfully. Such a talent should never be viable and it was always a mistake+ going against the express point of "holy paladins aren't meant to judge x nr of seconds". Hell, the entire tier 45 of talents is a mistake, as its far more elegant to just give SH to ret, SS to prot, EF to holy.

Moving forward I disagree with your charts completely. For starters, you are not going to heal the beacon. The Beacon of Faith talent+tank healing focus makes us forced into multiple tank healing. If u think you're ever aoe healing(at least in the current alpha build), do the math for druid rejuvenation/shaman high tide chain heal instead.

[flyingtoastr]

I'm going to ignore numbers because they still mean nothing.

But in terms of design, the new SH is pretty bad for Holy. Reducing the cast time of FoL is an exercise in futility, as it already nearly GCD caps with just basic raid buffs and a single stack. Getting to three stacks lets you use FoL on the move, but still requires a large amount of setup. Moreover, the mana savings are generally negated by the actual cost of Judgement itself. So you're left with a talent that requires you to give up a good number of GCD's for low mana savings and a low increase in casting speed on our shortest cast spell. For Ret and Prot it may be okay since they use Judgement as a normal part of their rotation, but for Holy it's a pretty big loss for little gain.

The biggest issue, though, is when it's compared to the talents in its row. SH is the only one that has a major downside to its use. In order to benefit from the mana savings and reduced cast time of SH, the healer spends time using a spell that they otherwise wouldn't have on their bars and spending time without healing. Neither EF nor SS has this downside: EF would already see use as a replacement for WoG, and SS provides direct absorption from the GCD it requires to be spent.

The outlier is still EF, which is still just too powerful in relation to the other two. It really needs to either have its duration cut down or lose some potency in the frontload heal. Having SH remove the cost for Judgement wouldn't be amiss either.

[bouchbagfett]

The only goal for the charts are to see what our options are. I don't know if healing the beacon with HL/FL will increase total healing or not. I don't know if SS, EF, SH will be more healing or not. The best I can do come up with a best guess output to see what are the best choices. There are tons of unknowns with the most glaring ones being how the increase in health pools and mana regen effect our spell choices and how raid damage and over-healing look. Those changes could totally make my charts even more useless but as of now it is the only way I have to visualize the changes.

As for the AoE/Healing beacon. I have LoD in the rotation because LoD vs WoG is so skewed. Perhaps the direct healing to the tank+shield will be more valuable, but if AoE heals are sparse for us and too expensive, LoD might be the only way to "aoe" heal. It just puts credence in the fact WoG vs LoD is a boring decision. I agree, EF should be baseline for the simple fact LoD vs EF is a more fun mechanic.

[Lucyrotten]

I'm going to ignore numbers because they still mean nothing.

---stops ignoring numbers---

The outlier is still EF, which is still just too powerful in relation to the other two. It really needs to either have its duration cut down or lose some potency in the frontload heal.

If you're going to ignore numbers, ignore them. If you're not, address the whole issue.

[flyingtoastr]

If you're going to ignore numbers, ignore them. If you're not, address the whole issue.

How so? Duration and the nature of the spell are design decisions, not numbers.

EF is too powerful because the talent costs you nothing in downsides and the HoT has an extremely long duration. You're not trading anything off by choosing the talent - you're still getting a large frontloaded free heal (just like WoG) to use for bursts and an incredibly potent HoT that lasts long enough to allow for group blanketing (along with transfers through Beacon for even more tank coverage). Everything about it, even if the HoT is nerfed, is a flat out net benefit over choosing no talent in the tier.

SH isn't like this at all. It has a harsh downside - it requires you to spend GCD's and mana on a spell that you otherwise wouldn't use, doing negligible damage and no healing in exchange for buffing a future cast. As long as that design persists - EF being a net gain with no loss while SH has a negative cost for the gain - the devs either have to make SH's bonus much more powerful than the healing gain by EF (like it is currently), or EF will always be a better choice.

So the better option from a design perspective is to nerf EF down. They can do this by either reducing or removing the frontload heal (making the talent a choice; is it worth losing a burst heal spell in exchange for steadier overall healing through a HoT?) or reducing the duration of the HoT dramatically (to reduce the ability to blanket it and therefore reduce the relative power SH needs to have to be a competitive choice).

These are design decisions, not numbers.

Just to be clear: when I say ignore numbers I mean things like mana costs and healing done. Those numbers are completely independent of spell design. So posting things like "well Shamans do 150% more single-target healing!" is utterly worthless at this point - the devs can and will adjust the amount of healing done by spells when they do an actual numbers pass so that the classes can output similar HPS. But something like this, talking about how the design of SH reducing only the cast time of an already short spell at a cost while another option has no cost and a large net gain, is all design. The two are very different.

[Deleted]

How so? Duration and the nature of the spell are design decisions, not numbers.

EF is too powerful because the talent costs you nothing in downsides and the HoT has an extremely long duration. You're not trading anything off by choosing the talent - you're still getting a large frontloaded free heal (just like WoG) to use for bursts and an incredibly potent HoT that lasts long enough to allow for group blanketing (along with transfers through Beacon for even more tank coverage). Everything about it, even if the HoT is nerfed, is a flat out net benefit over choosing no talent in the tier.

So the better option from a design perspective is to nerf EF down. They can do this by either reducing or removing the frontload heal (making the talent a choice; is it worth losing a burst heal spell in exchange for steadier overall healing through a HoT?) or reducing the duration of the HoT dramatically (to reduce the ability to blanket it and therefore reduce the relative power SH needs to have to be a competitive choice).

In the current Alpha build EF actually had to get buffed because it was unusable(ie EF lost to LoD in every single situation). Even the current Eternal Flame loses to Light of Dawn(414 relative power compared to 519 of LoD) so I'm a bit amazed that Blizzard needs to nerf EF down

Realistically SH is stupid and needs to die.

[Hatexon]

In the current Alpha build EF actually had to get buffed because it was unusable(ie EF lost to LoD in every single situation). Even the current Eternal Flame loses to Light of Dawn(414 relative power compared to 519 of LoD) so I'm a bit amazed that Blizzard needs to nerf EF down

Realistically SH is stupid and needs to die.

Why does SH need to die? It is a fun talent. It made paladin more active, and allowed us to use HP more. I don't get this mentality at all.

[Deleted]

Why does SH need to die? It is a fun talent. It made paladin more active, and allowed us to use HP more. I don't get this mentality at all.

Its not a fun talent. None used it as a Holy Paladin before they tuned it to be overpowered in 5.4 by nerfing EF to stop scaling with mastery and giving SH Judgement Holy Power+Radiance bonus. And now since they took those insane buffs of ,none will use it again.

Back in 4.2 Holy Paladins had to judge every 8 seconds for mana, Blizzard changed this and promised Paladins would never be forced to do so again. SH as a talent option is ok for people who really love to judge as a H Pala. SH as the best talent is not ok.

[Floopa]

Its not a fun talent. None used it as a Holy Paladin before they tuned it to be overpowered in 5.4 by nerfing EF to stop scaling with mastery and giving SH Judgement Holy Power+Radiance bonus. And now since they took those insane buffs of ,none will use it again.

Back in 4.2 Holy Paladins had to judge every 8 seconds for mana, Blizzard changed this and promised Paladins would never be forced to do so again. SH as a talent option is ok for people who really love to judge as a H Pala. SH as the best talent is not ok.

= EF is OP
= EF gets nerfed
= SH becomes OP too
= in WoD EF/SH get nerfed to reasonable levels
= Paladins complain something OP is nerfed

logical changes from blizzard imo

maybe SH needs to affect all ST spells rather than just flash though? feels a bit weak if it only affects that 1.

[Deleted]

maybe SH needs to affect all ST spells rather than just flash though? feels a bit weak if it only affects that 1.

That would actually be an even bigger nerf since then a Holy Light/Holy Shock would just randomly consume the SH proc.

To realize how bad this would be imagine this situation. You cast Judgement, and then you Holy Shock.

Judgement costs 1 gcd and 12% of base mana
Holy Shock is instant/1 gcd and is 15% of base mana(reduced to 10.25%)
Holy Shock now heals for 20% more.

So you just took 1 extra gcd(double time), used 22.25% of base mana instead of 15%(48% more!) and healed for 20% more(maybe in case you didn't overheal at all).

[btard]

judgement cost should be made pre-5.4 as well

[Bionix]

Aladya, we are all painfully aware how much you hate the SH build. I remember how vehemently you opposed the Seal of Faith talent before it was scrapped, no doubt because it reenforced the SH build. Still, wouldn't you agree that in the healing throughput talent tier, it would be better to have some options and not be forced into a cookie cutter build? I agree that for example a SH build outperforming EF on every fight in the next tier is not optimal but isn't that what you're asking to happen with EF? Idk, maybe I'm wrong but isn't it better when we get to switch talents around based on the encounters? Why not let them build the talents around being superior or inferior for certain niche encounters?

[nightfalls]

Aladya, we are all painfully aware how much you hate the SH build. I remember how vehemently you opposed the Seal of Faith talent before it was scrapped, no doubt because it reenforced the SH build.

Most of us dislike the SH build because it's bad play. I play SH on almost every fight in SoO and still think the talent design is fucking terrible. Not necessarily "bad" in terms of power (though it gets its power from sniping) but terrible design. Seal of Faith would have been worse design.

Still, wouldn't you agree that in the healing throughput talent tier, it would be better to have some options and not be forced into a cookie cutter build? I agree that for example a SH build outperforming EF on every fight in the next tier is not optimal but isn't that what you're asking to happen with EF? Idk, maybe I'm wrong but isn't it better when we get to switch talents around based on the encounters? Why not let them build the talents around being superior or inferior for certain niche encounters?

Most of us with brains realize that 1 standout talent that lets us play well is better than 3 equally bad talents that let us play equally poorly. Personally I think the entire talent row needs to be dumped and replaced with EF becoming baseline, the other two talents for Holy are pretty much unsalvageable design-wise.

[flyingtoastr]

Most of us dislike the SH build because it's bad play. I play SH on almost every fight in SoO and still think the talent design is fucking terrible. Not necessarily "bad" in terms of power (though it gets its power from sniping) but terrible design. Seal of Faith would have been worse design.

I think SH has the potential for interesting play. It's a higher risk/reward playstyle, where you have to spend time not healing but in exchange get the potential for the huge numbers.

It's a lot more compelling than EF blanketing, which is the epitome of what Paladin healing was not for the entirety of the game preceding MoP.

[Deleted]

I think SH has the potential for interesting play. It's a higher risk/reward playstyle, where you have to spend time not healing but in exchange get the potential for the huge numbers.

EF is a much more risk/reward playstyle because its a single target heal and a hot over 30 seconds.

SH is mechanical. Right now for example, its Judgment+HR+HS+LoD on repeat. Its also lacking those huge numbers as its rotational rather then explosive in nature.

SS actually has potential for interesting playstyle with the multiple shields and charges( ie save 3 shield charges for mechanic in 20 seconds). I could see some fun with it.

[btard]

they should make EF baseline and redesign t45 for holy. 1.5s WoG is a dead spell. either we will take EF if hot numbers are good or will never use WoG.

[nightfalls]

EF is a much more risk/reward playstyle because its a single target heal and a hot over 30 seconds. SH is mechanical. Right now for example, its Judgment+HR+HS+LoD on repeat. Its also lacking those huge numbers as its rotational rather then explosive in nature.

Basically quoted this for truth. EF required far, far more skill than SH did, and pre-5.4 you could see from the various people coming in to the "Fix My Heals" thread that it could be unforgiving (sometimes brutally unforgiving) for people who weren't aware of how to use it well.

Granted a lot of this skill fell apart in 5.4 thanks to the Mastery nerf making it really "not worth it" to use EF very proactively then double hit by this legendary cloak (another abomination design-wise) making it not really matter who you had EF on at all.

SH has almost no skill, floor or cap, and it's simply spam the same 4 abilities over and over. It hardly even matters what you cast on, you could probably do fine with a macro just to hit the same target each time.