GC on Selfless Healer buff

[Talen]

What if Selfless Healer worked like a pseudo Beacon? You supercharge a heal on a partner, and get like 20/40% of the heal back to yourself? Doesn't help solo, but it still plays into the "You're a team-player" mantra of Paladins?

You can't make SH a balanced tool for a Ret. The class lacks any of the balancing mechanisms necessary for that vision to work. Theres nothing wrong with healign others...Paladins have healing tools...but for a DPS spec, the healing should never be seen as a viable. An option, with using occasionally....but not something the spec should seriously consider using on a regular basis. You cannot have that option being viable AND have the class remain a balanced DPS spec at the same time.

IF appropriate balancing systems were put into place, then maybe this vision could be revisited. But what this strikes me as is Blizzard wants the spec to heal with some degree of viability and is paying attention to those players who agree with them, and ignoring those who don't.

im not sure about top players, but i know in 4.1 when they nerfed rets healing TONS of people cried for weeks.

Yes...because they got rid of the support /off healing role the top players depended upon to justify their role in their teams, and put nothing in its place.

That doesn't change the fact getting rid of that role was the right thing to do. The error was not in giving Rets mechanics suited to a DPS role.

As it is, it look like in 4.1 the team that didn't like offhealing was in ascendency and got ITS way, while now they team that likes Ret offhealing is back in charge. Its yet another mess.

That's because you clearly don't do arena, Captain Morgan.

It doesn't matter whether he does or not. Blizzards decision to encourage a support/offhealer role for Ret is, quite simply, a mistake. The role literally cannot be balanced and as such, it should not exist. The class/spec lacks the toolkit and balance mechanisms needed to make this vision work and what we are seeing is that after six years of trying, Blizzard still hasn't given up on trying to make it work without that toolkit and balance mechanisms.

Blizzard will nerf support healing at some points, and boost it at others...but what it needs to do is get rid of it, build the spec up to be a viable DPS spec, forget SH ever existed and then, and only then, look at ways the class can engage in offhealing within a balanced framework.

Ret, as it is now, SHOULD NEVER EVER engage in healing as a viable role. Not even support or offhealing. The class has the Holy role for that job, so its not needed and the balance issues that the role causes simply cause too many issues with the game. Spot healing? Yes...but that isn't what Blizzard is designing.

1. Then how will the spec care about haste? Even if it's pathetic "worst stat ever" the spec still improves from it. Terrible design, but 3-seconds by default won't be better

The class doesn't, in many ways, care about haste now. And won't until a 3s CD is reasonable. And then it won't care about more haste. SOB is a poorly implemented, designed and thought through talent designed to make haste useful to the class. Nothing wrong with that except it relies on the class having a deliberately designed poor DPS rotation so that the players can see some benefit from it. It creates a problem to solve it.

You shouldn't force players to have a stunted rotation for a year simply so the last 6 months show hwo things have imrpoved.

The class needs some mechanic to get a benefit from haste...Blizzard simply didn't implement a decent one.

2. Lowering Judgement cooldown... potentially. I thought making Judgement give Holy Power would be a better solution

Too overloaded as is. Judgement needs to be stripped down. Of course, part of the problem is the lack of tools to actually hang these secondary effects from in the first place.

5. Death's Advance was all kinds of broken. Realistically, if Seal of Justice did decent (80% of Truth/Righteousness) and could be applied via Judgement, Ret could "snare" from ranged.

The existing "snare" mechanics the class ahs are different (which is good) but weak and seen as non-viable (which is bad). Better to make them viable than try to copy existing mechanics.

6. No. Just... just no.

IMO, Paladin survivability should be based upon active heals, shields and SoI. TV doesn't need a healing component. It coudl perhgasp do with a secondary effect of some sort. But not healing.

EJL

[Vuagnon]

Then you'd have Energy or Focus, not mana. And to make a dynamic mana pool for one spec like that, it'd take a lot of work. Refining Holy Power to actually be worth something would be better.

How will Holy Power be refined to actually be worth something then? Would it not turn into something just like Energy or Focus if it was refined? Refining Holy Power at this stage would take a lot more work than making a dynamic system where mana is continuously consumed and replenished. And I can't see why a dynamic mana pool would be considered impossible for a spec that suffers from the lack of depth in resource management and procs that end up being the actual fillers in its rotation because there is nothing else to use for too long a period, especially in a PVP environment where haste matters less and because Sanctity of Battle is a horrendously subpar design to maintain the requirement for haste.

When it comes to unique things like Blessing of Kings, which was touted as too powerful and something that prevented from bringing the player instead of the class, it's okay to have it nerfed down to be the carbon copy of MotW, right? But when it comes to something underachieving and performing 0.00000x % dps (not even going to bother calculating how much dps increase running Ret aura is), you say that we need something unique? Some unique things like DI, remember? Which were actually useful. Both Eye for an Eye and Retribution Aura are junk to be fair. The 1% dps increase could be provided from something else quite easily, by upping up the base damage of an ability or something else. They don't provide any utility, nothing substantial but a pathetic amount of damage and as if RNG wasn't enough for Paladins, Eye for an Eye is yet another talent that provides damage reflection by chance.. Which pretty well describes the lack of vision and understanding of philosophy behind the class design of the people those who have been in charge for so long time, while Retribution suffered mainly from lack of utility, survivability and high dependance on other classes to fulfill jobs that are must in any PVP environment.

Selfless Healer is a talent that modifies off healing and now forces the Retribution spec (post 4.2) to rely on this purpose, which doesn't make much sense in a game that presents yet another Paladin spec that is named as Holy and whose goal is actually the quite same.

[Deleted]

first time in about 5 months that i post in the paladin forums.

personally, i stopped playing or even caring about my paladin somewhere in the 4.1 PTR. back then, they made that 30 second selfless healer change. for me, that proved that they had ABSOLUTELY no idea how paladins work. that change:
1) changes our PVE rotation drastically.
2) gives us another cooldown to juggle.
3) forces us to be more raidaware so we cast our heal on a target that needs it.
4) completely passed by the idea of what a DPS class is (frankly, the original selfless healer already did that).
5) was a bandaid fix for what already was basically a quadruple amputation.

at that time, i knew that i wouldn't play paladin anymore. i stopped caring for paladins, started playing my frost DK, and i never looked back since. for now, i only log onto my paladin for professions work (i.e. when i need a heirloom enchanted).

but now, i see that they are having no idea WTF to do with deathknights as well. i mean: cast time on a 10 second CC for a melee? dark succor redesign? i think it's time for me to switch again, maybe to the priest i'm leveling.

[Talen]

Then you'd have Energy or Focus, not mana. And to make a dynamic mana pool for one spec like that, it'd take a lot of work. Refining Holy Power to actually be worth something would be better.

There are ways to improve Holy Power. But it would still benefit from, if not outright need, some extra system or resource that is, yes....equivalent to energy. Blizzards tried to implement this via the SoB talent....but thats very clunky, partially because of the scale of HP -a mere 3 HPs. Energy also serves other functions...it limits burst by preventing too many actions within a certain time frame, something mana doesn't currently do. This is a problem....it wasn't that logn ago that certain parties were complaining about the ability to spam WoG for example, but that was an issue that arose only because Blizzrad didn't put limiters onto the paladin combat system. And such a resource system would provide the built in need for haste that the class needs.

And besides, you think Sanctity of Battle is bad now? How about "You can't actually afford to attack until you meet this haste minimum". Take it a step further, and capping it so you don't run dry, haste would have less effect than it does now. That's an ugly system. If you want to play Rogues, I suggest you roll one.

Paladins ARE Rogues in plate. They use a 3 point HP system instead of a 5 point CP system, and use % base mana instead of energy and make use of 2H weapons instead of DW. Theres nothing wrong with making use of similar mechanics if its needed and beneficial to do so and there are enough differences that the analogy can't be taken too far anyway. But having decided to develop a Paladin combat system based upon combo points, then there is a clear benefit to actually finish the job and deliver a secondary resource for that system to work off of.

Retribution Aura has one thing that no other does in the game. Damage. Pitiful damage, but damage nonetheless. If your Prot Warrior getting beat on showed Ret Aura as your own damage in Recount/World of Logs, no Ret Paladin would ever use anything but. Add this into Eye For an Eye: When your Retribution Aura does damage, you gain 1 Holy Power. This effect cannot occur more than once every 20 seconds.

Ret Aura is a pitiful aura that relies on passive reflective damage. Its a poor mechanic that should be reserved for a self only tankign ability if it isn';t to be remoevd entirely.

Melee has holes. That's part of the design.

And the way its designed for rets is pretty awful. Unlike other specs you aren't making a decision about bursting or being punished for mishandling that resource. You're simply given a rotation that has gaps simply because the rotation needs to be bad so haste can improve it.

They did give Warriors a bit of it, but the Warriors' passive healing is also proc based, without controlled uptime or any cover for overwriting itself. It looks like a lot, but it's really not.

Maybe so, but I certainly notice when its not available.

But my point earlier that it's one of the things that's actually unique left in this game should be bumped up a little. And if it was on people's Recount, it'd be getting used.

Unique isn't, by itself, worth keeping. Passive reflective damage has issues which is why Blizzard got rid of most such mechanics. For Ret aura....the trouble with is, most of the damage it does simply inflates the overkill amount. It may as well not exist. PvP wise, it has the potential to cause balance problems which limits how far it can be buffed.

EJL