How is Holy looking for wotlk?

[Einzweidrei]

we're STILL the most easily locked down class in the game.

I'm afraid you're going to have to back that up with specifics, because looking at paladin abilities and talents compared to those of, say, warlocks and shamans, I'm just really not seeing how a pally is the most easily locked down class in the game.

Unyielding faith, improved concentration aura, stoicism, hand of freedom, bubble, cleanse, an instant heal on a mere 6 second cooldown... those just KINDA make a paladin more challenging to lock down than a lock who has absolutely no way to get out of stuns, snares, roots, and who is fully vulnerable to long silences and interrupts, or a shaman who has a talent to deal with interrupt/silence but who is still totally screwed over by stuns, roots, snares, polymorph, etc.

[tjanson]

Sorry, I should have stated "most easily locked down healing class in the game." I wasn't really talking about warlocks. :

I would have thought that was obvious because I was talking about healing in a thread about holy, but never mind.

As to shamans, they also have an instant 6 second heal. Shamans have very powerful offensive abilities with interrupts, purge, and eventually hex. We have... a one minute CD stun? They have silence/interrupt resistance, as well as tremor totem. Heroism/bloodlust. Sorry, but even with all the abilities you threw out there, we're still very easily locked down. The only thing that's changed in PvP from TBC is the lower cooldown, more powerful instant heal.

[tjanson]

Also, I'd like to point out that snaring or rooting a healer isn't going to wreck his day. Roots don't stop me from casting spells. Interrupts, silences, fears, stuns and polymorphs do.

Let's see. I can either trinket or bubble those. That gives me exactly one more option than the standard trinket, on a 5 minute cooldown! Yay!

[Einzweidrei]

Also, I'd like to point out that snaring or rooting a healer isn't going to wreck his day. Roots don't stop me from casting spells. Interrupts, silences, fears, stuns and polymorphs do.

Ok, so let's consider just interrupts, silences, fears, stuns, and polymorphs.


First off, we need to look at the different heals each class has. Druids and priests are pretty damn well off, of course - they have instant cast heals all over the place; I won't talk about them any more. Shamans have 1 instant heal on a 6 second cooldown; half of its healing is a HoT. Riptide casts give shamans a couple of quick healing wave/lesser healing wave casts after it. They also have earthshield. Paladins have 1 instant heal on a 6 second cooldown; all of its healing is up front. And, of course, it crits about 1 in 3 times and then gives an instant FoL or a very quick HL.

Let's call paladins and shamans equal (perhaps there is a slight leaning towards shamans now that riptide is being buffed and tidal waves works off of riptide) in terms of how well they can heal when in situations where it is exceedingly difficult to get off cast-time spells.


So we have to consider the abilities/talents that these classes have that help them deal with the lockdown abilities mentioned above, if we want to decide which is a healing class that is more easily locked down.


Shamans are silenced/interrupted for 30% less thanks to a talent. They can sometimes negate a fear with a tremor totem or any spell-cast with a grounding totem, though they have no protection at all from stuns, and no way to get out of polymorph/hex if it does land on them. And, of course, grounding and tremor totems are incredibly vulnerable to classes like warlocks (pet macro to kill the totem as a fear/spelllock is being used), quite vulnerable to mages (icelance the totem, counterspell/poly), etc., hence the "sometimes" above.

Paladins will have the same silence/interrupt duration reduction that shamans have via improved concentration aura. It is a minor perk, but the holy paladin also has 100% pushback resistance thanks to concentration aura, whereas a shaman can only get this by using earth shield on himself, which cripples his mana regen. And, while paladins have no self-contained way to deal with lockdown like a shaman does with tremor or grounding totem, they can have 30% shorter duration on fears AND stuns, and have bubble.

(And still... root/snare aren't as crippling as silence/interrupt/hard CC, but they still play a factor. When you get rooted out of LoS of your arena partner or something, it can get ugly in a hurry. A paladin can quickly cleanse magical roots/snares and HoF/bubble out of all of them... but a shaman can only get out of poison and disease snares, not magical or physical ones.)


When it comes to healer lockdown (aka being a healer class but not being able to do any healing because of CC), I think that paladins and shamans are probably about equal.


Now, you mentioned offensive abilities like hex, earthshock, etc. While a shaman does have these advantages over a paladin, we're talking about being locked down as a healer right? Not about what other utility a shaman brings to a fight vs. a paladin.



After typing all of this out, I still think that in terms of healing alone, paladins are no more vulnerable to lockdown than shamans are. However, I will admit that shamans bring much more to the party besides just healing (totems > aura, heroism > ____, shocks > hammer of justice, elementals > _____), although the paladin does have a few tricks up his sleeve to help his teamates with that a shaman does not (blessing of protection, hand of freedom).

[Uthad]

Short Answers, Issues Raised (since a year ago) and How they were Addressed by blizzard:

Interrupt/Lockdown vulnerability in PvP:
*You have bubble

Manaburn and empty pool regeneration vulnerability in PvP:
*Divine Plea
Otherwise *You have bubble

Multi target healing in PvE
*Glyph
*Beacon

Cleanse, the state of:
*You can remove 3 things at once already
*You have bubble

Holy DPS:
*HS CD reduced to 6 sec

Holy levelling:
*You have bubble

Had to reply to this real quick:

The Holy Light glyph has a 5 yard range. If the melee is standing behind the boss to avoid cleaves, heals on the tank won't even reach them with this 5 yard radius. It's a bit useless :-\
Holy DPS: Yes, the cooldown on Holy Shock has been reduced, but most holy paladins have still seen a drop in overall dps since Seal of Righteousness was nerfed so hard... and now today (3.0.3) SoR and SoV are getting it again.

I am going to continue to be a holy paladin all the same.

-Uthad

[Vantro]

And as to the holy leveling... don't level as holy. Priests don't run around leveling as discipline, shamans don't level as resto, druids don't level as resto, mages don't level as arcane, etc. etc.

Yeah, the difference is, if the disc priest specs shadow, he still does decent damage. The resto shaman can go ele. With my healing gear, what am I going to do? spec ret? Not everyone has collected a decent set of offspec gear.

[AariKanes]

Despite all the holy paladin hate from jaded paladins who have probably been playing one spec too often and for too long, I love my holy paladin, I have since I made an alliance one in 05, and since I rerolled horde the day TBC came out. I do think there's a few issues to work out still, mainly AoE healing, I don't think Beacon is very well suited for that. It's a decent spell, but you still have to heal 4+ other people one at a time, which can get out of control very easily and very quickly. Our mobility is a bit of and issue too but, anyway... I seriously doubt paladins will -ever- really get a new spell. Paladins will always be the way they are, single target healing gods. Yes discipline and druids are closing in on us, but I don't believe they're anywhere near as good as we have been or will be.

The only thing, really, is that holy paladins don't bring anything to a raid that other paladins of a different spec do, except, possibly, kings. Shaman have mana tide, Resto druids give +6% more healing done ( I think, with talents), disc priests bring pain suppression, power infusion, divine spirit. Holy priests bring CoH which is amazing now. Holy paladins just don't seem to bring enough of something at the moment, but I don't think that will keep us from getting in raids.

[zarondd]

Had to reply to this real quick:

The Holy Light glyph has a 5 yard range. If the melee is standing behind the boss to avoid cleaves, heals on the tank won't even reach them with this 5 yard radius. It's a bit useless :-\
Holy DPS: Yes, the cooldown on Holy Shock has been reduced, but most holy paladins have still seen a drop in overall dps since Seal of Righteousness was nerfed so hard... and now today (3.0.3) SoR and SoV are getting it again.

I am going to continue to be a holy paladin all the same.

-Uthad

5yrd range was just fixed this patch, 100yrds seemed odd to me. Seriously though, 5 yrds?
Just goes to show the sarcasm in my original response isnt far from the reality of the dev team.

NB Holy DPS response was partially sarcastic. They did something, or tried to, but its still a bad joke.

[AariKanes]

To the poster above, it was always a 5yard range, the 100 yard was a typo and was never actually implemented in the game.

[Chumpp]

Attention:


PALADINS ARE FINE. LEARN TO PLAY.


I haven't found anyone lately who can come within 10% of me on the healing meters. I never go oom. I can burst things down easily as holy, dailies are not a problem and I'm sure leveling would be easy as well. PvP is a LOT better and it wasn't even that bad in TBC. It takes a VERY long time for someone to kill me in PvP and I only use ~300 resil. I can easily stay alive against most 2 dps teams, this includes ret paladins/rogues. 1 dps teams are a joke. Loljudgementofwisdom lolholyshock. Never oom, never miss heals. SHKKKK round the corner.


Also....@ people who think 5 yards isn't enough of a range on holy light glyph...it wasn't meant so that you can heal people randomly without trying. You will be able to heal very well when people are grouped up. Don't forget you can use seal of light which heals the entire raid...

[Majokin]

sry but if ANYBODY thinks holypala is fine coz of his raid or pvp exp, i can say only one thing : you have NOT seen a GOOD pries doing his job , guy !
we are cool healer no doubt, but raid and pvp is dominated by other healing classes! so pls shut up and leave your small cave and look on other classes.

so long*majo

@Chumpp: i kill you in some seconds retspecced and i kill you with my mage alt in some seconds....(perhaps you survive 12sec ;> )

[Chumpp]

Lol....ret should be killed by a mage, sure. I'll give you that much. If you can kill my paladin as holy in 12 seconds I'll cancel my account.

[ArmageddonX]

My Wife played a Holy Paladin for all of TBC. She has rerolled a Resto Druid because of JotP.

She thinks it's absurd she didn’t get HoT or AoE heal.... but she was ok with that until she saw to top it off she had to continually Judge the boss in order to remain competitive.

[MortuariusBC]

My Wife played a Holy Paladin for all of TBC. She has rerolled a Resto Druid because of JotP.

She thinks it's absurd she didn’t get HoT or AoE heal.... but she was ok with that until she saw to top it off she had to continually Judge the boss in order to remain competitive.

I think its another "ohh they got shinies!" and "the grass is greener" i play a resto shaman and a resto druid and im kinda jealous of holy priests.... Holy paladins, as boring as some ppl think they are, are and will be the best tank healers in wotlk. They are ridiculous.

Unfortunately the forums are so full of crap and ppl crying about how they didnt get something they wanted or how another class looks better.

[ArmageddonX]

I think its another "ohh they got shinies!" and "the grass is greener" i play a resto shaman and a resto druid and im kinda jealous of holy priests.... Holy paladins, as boring as some ppl think they are, are and will be the best tank healers in wotlk. They are ridiculous.

Unfortunately the forums are so full of crap and ppl crying about how they didnt get something they wanted or how another class looks better.

Ohh no she believes Her Paladin is still a great healer. She just hates JotP.

She's one of those "Sit in the back and heal heal heal heal" type of healers... she doesn't want to have to attack anything. (IE. Judgeing the boss). She may continue with her Paladin if I can figure her out a Talent build that doesn't incorporate JotP because Paladin are very easy to heal with and she likes that.

She honestly doesnt even want to take Beacon of Light. She loves her 3 little simple heals.

In-Fact... this is her level 80 build:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...00000000000000

She likes it because she has... and I'm quoting her "My big heal, my little heal, and my instant heal. It simple and makes it easier for me."

[Majokin]

the point is holy pala stays in his role as MTHEALER on BC-level. holypalas dont get something NEW (addon = new things: content,talents,points,items) to do THEIR job.
we get some haste, alrdy on gear, nothing new.
we get beacon, nothing for tankheal.
we get better shock, necessary coz downranking is not possible anymore.
we get new healspell.....oh no, was other heal class...sry.
we got new judgement system, nothing for tankheal AND risky at some bosses!

so tell me whats new as a TANKHEALER ??? nothing. did we got something new in other directions as healer? yeah nice...some funny gimmicks but nothing effective you could rely on

[ArmageddonX]

Beacon of Light really needs to work differently.... it needs to work like a Targeted Circle of Light. So for instance you can target a Warlock whose standing over by the Ranged group and cast it on him. Then it does a AOE Periodic Heal around him. He become the Beacon of Light.

Needs something.... Beacon of Light and JotP are just terribad.

I really don't understand the JotP thing. Paladins have all direct heals and JotP required you to de-target the Tank, Judge the boss, and then start healing again. Meanwhile while your Judging the boss your Tank has just been hit for 12k and your team wipes.

[modrn]

Yah dude.. I play a BE Holy pally on beta and there literally OP as shit.. for PvP and PvE.. i play a paladin on live and normally am 2100+ except the last season since pallies sucked so bad =[ =[.. BUT ne ways.. With divine plea there shield abilities and now theres plenty of glyphs to provide multiple target healing and applying hots.. People say the FoL Glyph is pointless but i find the reason i top Healing charts in raids is because of it. Ive played with many comps on Beta and me and a mutilate rogue went 31 - 0 beating every comp u can think of.. pallies are the next OP healing class.. and if u havnt played one on beta dont get sad !!! THERE AWESOME.