How fun is healing as Holy in Cata? (PvP and PvE)

[clickerflipper]

Hey, I made a similar thread in the druid forums. Just wondering how fun it is to heal in Cata as a pally. I have an 80 pally and I remember using a few spells in wrath and it was kinda fun.

What is your take on pally healing atm?

[Asmodejjj]

From what I've seen, Paladins are extremely good at PVE, and the weakest healer in PVP due to lack of control. Ofc, you can just check worldoflogs to compare all the healers, but Pallies are generally an easy healer class to play.

[Theleklol]

I've been switching my healing mains back and forth between Disc Priest and Holy Paladin, depending on our healer comp (HPal tends to do very well on progression content, where Disc Priest makes farm content much smoother).
I think they're both a lot of fun to play, but my Holy Paladin's raw output is 2-3 times higher than what I can do on my priest (Haste-PoH build, probably not optimal, but I'm still almost always top on raw and effective healing/absorbs).

I find it really fun, personally, it's very easy (not really difficult to master, either, to be perfectly honest), and the paladin class is extremely versatile in PvE. I have issues in PvP because, like Asmodejjj has said, and many other will say, Paladins lack player CC, aside from an interrupt and a long-CD stun (40 seconds minimum).

My guild isn't on heroic modes yet (we got 7/12 last night, shamefully), but here's a log of Friday's Magmaw kill. It's my third highest healing parse so far. Managed to hit rank 64 at the time of the kill.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=7491&e=7817

And here's another from a night of wipes on Chimaeron and Atramedes.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/z...m/healingDone/

Too lazy to link my armory:
Thelek@ShadowsongUS

[trulofy]

pallies are awesome in pvp or pve i raid in a progression guild and we 2 heal cho'gall but i dont think they could 2 heal without having a pally as one of the healers. I usually put out 15k+ hps in any given encounter and my over healing aside from beacon/protector of the innocent/HR but you cant really control those heals my real heals like DL/HL/FL account for less than 5% overhealing in most cases. I find pally healing very enjoyable and all of thier talents are useful so you dont have that 1 talent you like never use.

[Deleted]

pallies are awesome in pvp or pve i raid in a progression guild and we 2 heal cho'gall but i dont think they could 2 heal without having a pally as one of the healers. I usually put out 15k+ hps in any given encounter and my over healing aside from beacon/protector of the innocent/HR but you cant really control those heals my real heals like DL/HL/FL account for less than 5% overhealing in most cases. I find pally healing very enjoyable and all of thier talents are useful so you dont have that 1 talent you like never use.

in pvp were not so awesome

[SegenThePally]

in pvp were not so awesome

You can get to 1500 or higher if you're carried...... but they have to be good AND willing to carry... (Good luck)
I enjoy healing PvE on my holy pally though, usually top the meters (Which doesn't really matter). It takes a bit to get used to pre-healing and casting just before the damage gets off, but I really enjoy it.

[robzombay]

I switched my paladin from ret and prot to prot and holy and so far I really like it even though they are weak pvp healers.

[Deleted]

For PvE, its certainly alot more fun than at 80 or 70 before that. Holy Power is actually a realy good mechanic for healing they way it has been implemented.

PvP is just meh, i still do it for points each week but its not enjoyable realy.

[Ciah]

From a strictly PvE perspective...
On fights where the group is stacked for a long time (Cho'gall comes to mind) pallies are a lot of fun. Outside of that, it all depends on how much reward you get out of aiming Light of Dawns and positioning yourself for Holy Radiance, as those are the spells that really make us unique to the other 4 healing specs.
Holy Pallies have a lot of cooldowns, and they're a central part of the healing style. A lot of your effectiveness as a pally healer comes from how you juggle our three throughput cooldowns, divine plea, lay on hands, and the myriad of Hand spells and such.



tl;dr - positioning-based healing and cooldowns

[Rivenda]

I enjoy playing my Hpala. I love Divine Plea. O¨really? I just enjoy the paladin. I could come up with so many reason, but Beacon of Light, and our CDs are extremly awesome. HoP, HoS, AM and so on. I think they are great fun playing them and in pvp ha. You don't kill a Hpala you CC him.

[MrKnubbles]

To say the least, it's ok. At first healing was pretty hard because everyone was undergeared. Then, it felt about right and now it feels too easy mostly because Word of Glory is free.

[Lethus]

Ehh, from what I've seen paladin healing is not as strong as Druid or Priest healing. And depending on the fight, Shaman healing. However, there are certainly fights where having a holy paladin is more than ideal.

[Gravitor]

Holy Pallies have a lot of cooldowns, and they're a central part of the healing style. A lot of your effectiveness as a pally healer comes from how you juggle our three throughput cooldowns, divine plea, lay on hands, and the myriad of Hand spells and such.



tl;dr - positioning-based healing and cooldowns

I agree, being able to use your cooldowns effectively is something that not everyone is able to do well.

[Prod]

Currently, my Holy Pally is at ilvl 343 and I'm doing better at healing 5 man heroics than I expected (my main is disc/holy priest, so I have healing experience to compare with). I see Divine Plea as a sort of self-innervate with a drawback, and Judgement as a weaker Rapture effect. So with both combined, there's enough mana tools to keep you going.

I also love how holy paladins passively self heals, so I can ignore my own hp for the most part. I even frequently put Hand of Sacrifice on the tank so as to not waste my passive self heals.

One thing I'm having issues with, however, is the lack of a spammable and reliable AoE heal spell. Dawn of Light requires Holy Power build up and Holy Radiance is on a 30 second cooldown. Furthermore, Dawn of Light has that annoying frontal cone AoE which doesn't work when people aren't grouped up or in a straight line (I stand behind the rdps whenever I can to hit them and the melee), and Holy Radiance doesn't work when people are spread out.

Lastly, I know that this isn't the fault of Holy Paladins, but the high overhealing thing just bothers me (from Protector of the Innocent, Beacon of Light and Light of Dawn*).
*I use LoD to heal the Beacon target when LoD will hit the entire group since it looks like it's stronger that way than using WoG on the Beacon guy.

[wbeck85]

My experience is a bit more humble than many of these reports seem to be. I have yet to raid on my Holy Pally, this expansion. I have really not raided at all this expansion. However, having just hit 85 on my holy pally, who by the way, has never not been holy since 2008, I thought I would share a bit about leveling a holy pally via 5 mans.

It's awesome. So fun. I have a 85 resto druid, 85 holy/disc priest, and an 80 resto shaman as well. In 5 mans, I have the most fun, by far on my pally.

I really enjoy the snappy feeling of healing. Love the instant spells. Holy Shock to 0.7 second divine light to Daybreak proc followed by double shock to Light of Dawn. Everything is fast and the spell sfx give the spells added :Punch:

As a paladin, you're never just on the defensive either. A core mechanic of your mana regen is to judge! Not to mention you get instant and free exorcism procs all the time and Holy Shock is offensive too. And for kicks, I have Crusader Strike on my bar for extra HP gen since standing in the back of the pack makes no sense when you're the most heavily armored guy in the group! (Again, we're talking 5 mans....)

Regular dungeons are rarely eventful and so I try to see if I can beat the DPS at their own game.

What I loved most about my Paladin in Wrath was how much healing felt like being a massive FoL machine gun. I used to have competitions with a guildmate of mine, and fellow healadin to see who could get higher on the healing meters (yeah yeah... not a measure of success for healers, etc....) by sniping everyone else; I swear we could have 2 healed some 25 mans (and we occasionally did).
I'm very happy that Blizz has only enhanced the fast and hard approach to healing that has been the Pally way for years.

The healing style is very active, far more so than priesting and especially druids (incredibly boring to heal with: hot...hot...hot...wait.... wait....repeat), though I haven't touched my shaman since Cata released.

For 5 mans, healing doesn't get more fun than when you're a holy paladin, imho.

[Sunseeker]

I love healing as holy. We are still certainly MT heals, but we've been given a lot of sweet tools for group/raid healing.

[Dayn9]

From what I've seen, Paladins are extremely good at PVE, and the weakest healer in PVP due to lack of control. Ofc, you can just check worldoflogs to compare all the healers, but Pallies are generally an easy healer class to play.

We actually suck balls in PvP due to the lack of burst healing (which is worse than disc's / shaman's outside of GoAK). It would be an easy way to give us some shit cc to compensate and make us some weaker version of shamans, but it wouldn't fit the spirit of our beloved class, defensive play.

They're probably going to overbuff holy in future seasons (s10 or s11), just like they did with Disc priests in 4.0.6. Also, they buffed resto shamans in pvp, while attempting to nerf them (hi 15% more healing through hotfix ))), just lol.

On a side note : healing as paladin is actually painful in PvP, and will stay that way at least till 4.2, due to PvE (hey guys let's fight scripted mobs lololololol), fortunately I got a shaman which's already 72.

[rettypally]

Holy pally suck in pvp because FoL make you go OOM fast, and its easy as hell to get inttrupted/locked out on Divine Light and Holy Light.
Holy Shock and Word of Glory are not nearly enough.

[blazto]

We actually suck balls in PvP due to the lack of burst healing (which is worse than disc's / shaman's outside of GoAK). It would be an easy way to give us some shit cc to compensate and make us some weaker version of shamans, but it wouldn't fit the spirit of our beloved class, defensive play.

They're probably going to overbuff holy in future seasons (s10 or s11), just like they did with Disc priests in 4.0.6. Also, they buffed resto shamans in pvp, while attempting to nerf them (hi 15% more healing through hotfix ))), just lol.

On a side note : healing as paladin is actually painful in PvP, and will stay that way at least till 4.2, due to PvE (hey guys let's fight scripted mobs lololololol), fortunately I got a shaman which's already 72.

Pvp isn't scripted? It's not like hard to learn how to counter another class, just like PVE mechanics.

[Rust in Peace]

PVE: great, lots of fun, versatile, lots of utility, easily the best implemented holy power mechanics of all 3 specs. it's easy to pickup but hard to master.

PVP: in arenas they are the weakest of the healing specs. it's not so much their throughput that is the problem but the lack of CC or offensive dispels, even rebuke is pretty worthless because standing right on somebody goes against everything holy pals are supposed to do in area.

in rated bgs though they tend to do ok, you have more people able to peel off you and handle the CC. you can easily top healer charts in a battleground as holy.