[Holy] WoD Alpha/Beta Info & Discussion

[IxilaFA]

EF should be baseline, SS should be removed from the game and SH is like playing an old shitty FPS.

This has been said since Patch 5.4 and yet Blizzard refuses to listen. For some reason, they don't want to try and make new talents that are interesting to play with but would rather leave one of the talents ridiculously favored and try miserably to buff the others to a competitive level. Give us EF baseline and replace it with something that will alter our healing strategy on a fight-by-fight basis (ie, something to complement SH for fights where SH isn't any good). IMO there's absolutely no reason not to give us EF baseline, yet it still hasn't happened.

Holy doesn't need 'slowing down' in the first place. Slowing it down in any way is going to make it feel less fun. The more HP you can generate the more fun the spec is. Trying to throttle HP generation in any way is a horrible idea. They might as well drop HP as a resource entirely if they intend to make it slow to generate.

Exactly. As it stands on Live right now, Holy Paladin response to unexpected burst damage is pretty non-existent. It's getting pretty boring to spam the same rotation over and over regardless of whether the raid is taking a lot of damage or not. (With the exception of more Holy Lights during very low damage phases). They need to work on giving us some faster options to deal with unexpected damage and something to make our rotation stand out and, especially, make healing as a Pally take some sort of thought and effort at some point.

[Miskat0nic]

To be clear I'm not saying I want it slow, I'm saying that is what the devs seem to want. I don't mind a more slow healing style though, as long as the rotation is still tight and I have something to do, I don't like just standing around wondering what to do, but I don't want to randomly drown in holy power and spam finishers either. There is also nothing that say that with a slow rotation you still can't have tools for that unexpected burst damage. Honestly I just feel the class is not getting the changes it needs to make it compelling for me to play in warlords.

[Lithiyum]

No, since Alpha only those 3 dungeons were ever opened(and the Arakoa one for like 20 mins).
The numbers @ 90 mythic will be off since the 4 set bonus works on Avenging Wrath and you have like 70% mastery in BIS.
Only killed Ner'zul in SBG by cheesing him.

We managed to kill him after a bunch of attempts without cheesing him, although we did bring 2 dps and 1 tank with good passive self healing. You can clearly see that in the logs that I posted. That fight is quite overturned. I'm waiting for them to open up skyreach for testing.

[mcbubble]

Because no one plays Holy Paladins... Go look at how many views and replies Ret and Prot paladins have on their forums. DPS classes are always the most vocal because that is what people do the most.

Simply untrue.
We're the 3rd most played healing class. In June 2013 we used to be the most played healing class.
I can back that up from:
http://healiocentric.wordpress.com/2...review-part-1/
and
http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...0-0-0-0-0.html

After they made disc OP, you'll see that they overtook us as the top played healing spec.
Then the shammy #s skyrocketed.

This graph alone (from the link above) shows the progression of healing representation in 25-player Heroic raids over the course of the expansion.


We still have a huge population, but for some reason - we're not vocal.

[PinkSquare]

Edits: Went through Mythic again today. With the added enchants and gear scaling the bosses were a lot smoother and we got to Malkorok before we called it. Only problems we had mechanically were Sha of Pride and the prisons not allowing us to save 2/4 people.

Here's the log. (Apologies, my rotation still isn't perfect especially under SW or HA.)
warcraftlogs.com/reports/FZK1bCk4fYhwX8Dv#fight=41&type=healing

Like I thought, while running EF the fights we do well on are ones with high damage to a few specific people. Sha of Pride, Iron Jugg and General Naz are good examples. I predict this will carry well over to Paragons as well (at least for parasite phase).

I'll post more as we kill more, as we're saving the lockout and going back next week : ).

--paese

[Juicyjonny]

Simply untrue.
We're the 3rd most played healing class. In June 2013 we used to be the most played healing class.
I can back that up from:
http://healiocentric.wordpress.com/2...review-part-1/
and
http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...0-0-0-0-0.html

After they made disc OP, you'll see that they overtook us as the top played healing spec.
Then the shammy #s skyrocketed.

This graph alone (from the link above) shows the progression of healing representation in 25-player Heroic raids over the course of the expansion.


We still have a huge population, but for some reason - we're not vocal.

According to Warcraftlogs there are

4840 active Discipline Priests -- (too difficult to determine between who is Holy and who is Disc)
4482 active Restoration Shamans
4228 active Restoration Druids
3487 active Holy Paladins
1645 active Mistweaver monks -- (The newest class to the game so this low number is expected)

These are characters that are actively RAIDING in HEROIC MODES.

[mcbubble]

According to Warcraftlogs there are

4840 active Discipline Priests -- (too difficult to determine between who is Holy and who is Disc)
4482 active Restoration Shamans
4228 active Restoration Druids
3487 active Holy Paladins
1645 active Mistweaver monks -- (The newest class to the game so this low number is expected)

These are characters that are actively RAIDING in HEROIC MODES.

I think we are getting a little off topic here.
there are still a lot of holy paladins that play and then there are those who have taken a break. Regardless:

if you think that we have issues in beta - please please please - post them on the WOW forums so they get developer attention!

[nightfalls]

In general that mastery was dogshit tho. I'm all in for lowering mastery %, but that should be done by making other stats better.

Exactly. I didn't like the idea of removing mastery scaling on abilities (read: 5.4) because that just made us scale worse with gear, more than anything else, and our stats sucked in general. It wasn't so bad for progress, but eventually it was revealed when item upgrades appeared. So if it's done now, it will be revealed when the next raid tiers come out.

- - - Updated - - -

if you think that we have issues in beta - please please please - post them on the WOW forums so they get developer attention!

Basically second this. It doesn't matter if the class is least played, it matters that we have a community of players who do play it that care about it. Post, post, post.

[btard]

i've managed to post on the US forums with US starter edition. i guess you could also use this trick and add a bit of whine there and hope that blizzard notices us.

[Deleted]

Holy doesn't need 'slowing down' in the first place. Slowing it down in any way is going to make it feel less fun. The more HP you can generate the more fun the spec is. Trying to throttle HP generation in any way is a horrible idea. They might as well drop HP as a resource entirely if they intend to make it slow to generate.

I posted this before, but why would anyone pay attention to what the little guy has to say? The more HP we generate, the more fun it is to play imo, so, with the fact that Blizz wants to make crit more appealing to us, why not create a new passive that gives us 1HP for every critical heal we do(obviously not 100% chance, maybe different for every heal).

Also, for mobility. As long as we don't have to move, I don't think cast time on finishers are a problem, as long as we have an alternative while we move. So give us a new seal that makes all our cast heals instant cast, but reduces their effectiveness by x%. That way at least we can do something while running.

[btard]

this is a problem if you spec into DP. with instant casts you had about a second to react that DP had procced and you could use it again. same holds true for our new set bonus, you cast finisher, cast HL, notice that finisher has procced and use the proc 2.5 seconds later.

[Gumboy]

this is a problem if you spec into DP. with instant casts you had about a second to react that DP had procced and you could use it again. same holds true for our new set bonus, you cast finisher, cast HL, notice that finisher has procced and use the proc 2.5 seconds later.

This is a massive problem for me and taking DP on beta, with it not being instant it seems to be a lot shittier then it was.

[nightfalls]

this is a problem if you spec into DP. with instant casts you had about a second to react that DP had procced and you could use it again. same holds true for our new set bonus, you cast finisher, cast HL, notice that finisher has procced and use the proc 2.5 seconds later.

This is a massive problem for me and taking DP on beta, with it not being instant it seems to be a lot shittier then it was.

I pointed this out pages and weeks ago.

[Gumboy]

I pointed this out pages and weeks ago.

I'm thinking Holy Avenger might be the best on that tier, especially on any aoe fights..but even then, it runs into the "have to cast Light of dawn" problem, which sucks completely. If they just made either wog/EF OR LoD instant it owuld be a million times better QoL.
Even making infusion of light (As other people have stated) effect LoD/WoG/EF would help a ton, right now its just awful, it feels like getting three holy power is a hindrance half the time :P

[paladative]

What about hand of purity here? Or even hand of sacrifice? If we don't have the raw healing, maybe Holy paladin's mitigation can help

If this ability's cooldown is more than 30 sec, hand of purity destroys this boss

[Bloodorem]

Has anyone tested how strong Spirit scales with gear?

I fear that there are 2 options:

option1: The scaling is really low and we won't get to a point like in MoP where we can use high manacost spells.(no feeling of improvement after you got a piece)

option2: The scaling is good and you really feel a difference... but because there are less armor pieces with spirit its becomes a game of rnd in progression who gets the loot.
People who have no luck at all could be lackluster because 1-2 pieces don't drop.

i think Blizzard will find a way to make the pieces rewarding but not broken if you don't have them... but it would be interesting to know how things are right now

as for changes has there be actually something that is positive about this expansion?
lvl100 talents: passive talents that actually drop our healing spells heal value because we get additional healing of off them(balancing)
Casttimes on Finishers....
Increased manacost for HR
IF on EF again but prevention from spamming it with 1HP because reduced runtime
Lower heal/HP values so healing takes longer - which is not bad but it will feel bad at the beginnning

Overall they did nothing that would want me to play a holy Paladin

[mcbubble]

I'm thinking Holy Avenger might be the best on that tier, especially on any aoe fights..but even then, it runs into the "have to cast Light of dawn" problem, which sucks completely. If they just made either wog/EF OR LoD instant it owuld be a million times better QoL.
Even making infusion of light (As other people have stated) effect LoD/WoG/EF would help a ton, right now its just awful, it feels like getting three holy power is a hindrance half the time :P

I disagree with HA being the best. I have a feeling sanctified wrath will be our go to.
Generating that much holy power has a downside with the cast-time of our HP finishers.

I posted earlier, but in the best circumstances - you lose 16.6% of it's efficiency due to the cast time.

[Bloodorem]

I disagree with HA being the best. I have a feeling sanctified wrath will be our go to.
Generating that much holy power has a downside with the cast-time of our HP finishers.

I posted earlier, but in the best circumstances - you lose 16.6% of it's efficiency due to the cast time.

why? it may feel bad but you don't loose anything.

The downside is you can't move. But you don't lose any time. The only effect of the casttimes are if you can have a proc of off those casts... because then its impossible to react. but even then you dont really loose something it just feels bad...

lets say every cast generates 1hp and every EF procs:
5hp start -> ef (2hp) -> cast(3hp) -> ef(3hp) -> cast(4hp) -> ef(4hp) ->cast(5hp) -> ef(5hp) -> ef(5hp, because you know you have 5hp)->ef(because you still know you have 5hp left)-> till you actually loose hp(you have 1,5sec castime to see if you have the buff and not gonna loose your hp)

so even if you never interrupt your cast you still can't loose HP or a proc, you just stretch it out.

[luc54]

If this ability's cooldown is more than 30 sec, hand of purity destroys this boss

Don't worr, they are probably going to make sure hand of purity turns near useless on the boss, since it says "reduces peridoc damage by 80% expect for some creature attacks". It would be pretty overpowered for that anyway.

[nightfalls]

I posted earlier, but in the best circumstances - you lose 16.6% of it's efficiency due to the cast time.

Your post is flawed, because if you had the haste to make HS a 1 second GCD, then EF/LoD along with all other 1.5 second casts will be 1.0 second casts.

The loss is with the movement, realistically HA is just unusable if you have burst raid damage while having to move.

- - - Updated - - -

If this ability's cooldown is more than 30 sec, hand of purity destroys this boss

It has to be periodic damage, because even if ability CD is 30 seconds, the 10% regular reduction is just not worth it.