Holy Pvp Healing 3.2.2. Team effort to improve Holy Tree.

[gobgob34]

As everyone allready knows, Prot/Holy is getting nerfed. Some people might still use this spec, for more utility. Some people might switch. As everyone also knows, holy is completly horrible in pvp. This thread's purpose is to come up with small or large changes to the holy tree, to make it more viable (plz nothing drastic, only do things that you can actually see implemented).

For example, turn the 5 point talent "Holy guidance" into this: Increases your spell power by 4/8/12/16/20 percent of your total intellect", PLUS, your Holy Shock ability has a 20/40/60/80/100 percent chance to renew your sacred shield duration for no additional mana, and reduces damage taken by 6%? (give or take a few percent) for 10 seconds.

Post with intelligence with any other ideas that you can come up with, that will improve opon the situation of Holy in PVP.


Edit: Im going to be gathering the more reasonable ideas on this thread, then going to make a giant post on the official forums, to give blizzard some ideas, or possibly get a blue post.

[Soulfirezz]

Holy PvP is not really bad to be honest, Protecion was just very OP and needed a nerf.
I switched to holy in PvP already, and yes it is harder because they can burst you down, but I think with a minor buff we could do fine.
If you just hug the pillars and comunicate propperly with your team mate it should be doable. It might be more difficult above 1.8k, I don't know since I always played protection healing.
I would suggest something with the crit of Holy Shock, the FoL is nice however the HL one is horrible in PvP.
And a little more dmg reduction wouldn't harm either. But the talent you posted is not going to happen.

[gobgob34]

Holy PvP is not really bad to be honest, Protecion was just very OP and needed a nerf.
I switched to holy in PvP already, and yes it is harder because they can burst you down, but I think with a minor buff we could do fine.
If you just hug the pillars and comunicate propperly with your team mate it should be doable. It might be more difficult above 1.8k, I don't know since I always played protection healing.
I would suggest something with the crit of Holy Shock, the FoL is nice however the HL one is horrible in PvP.
And a little more dmg reduction wouldn't harm either. But the talent you posted is not going to happen.

Yes that's what we need, small changes to the holy tree that will improve our survival.

[balatro]

I don't get all of this "arena for holy is bad!"

I've done arena every season as holy (actually specced holy) and gotten duelist every season without so much as breaking a sweat.

Qualify what makes holy bad to you, please. Is it b/c you won't get Furious Glad or b/c you can't seem to get high enough to get the precious mount?

You can't take just any partner into an arena with you and expect to win every game. Find out what you're weak at, what you're strong at and then get a partner that you balance out with.

The beacon changes have made healing in arena a lot of fun. I've personally found the most synergy with a dk (i know, go figure), a warr (prot or arms, huge success with both), or a surv hunter.

Here's my team setup for s6:

2s: Unholy dk or prot warrior w/ me healing as holy pally
3s: enhance shaman/spriest, Unholy dk (same from 2s), w/ me healing again
5s: Unholy dk (same from 2s), prot warr (same from 2s), spriest (same from 3s), surv hunter, w/ me healing ... again

The 5s team happened by chance really. All of us were waiting to zone into AN (additional instances can't be launched crap) with no luck. I go ahead and flag (pve realm) to kill some time, there's also another group of 5 horde waiting to get in. Low and behold the orc dk goes at me, my teammates jump in, then his teammates jump in.

That's how our 5s team got started, just hit 2650 the week before arena ended.

[gobgob34]

That's how our 5s team got started, just hit 2650 the week before arena ended.

Link your armory or i dont believe you....

[zcks]

Well to be honest there are several talents they could change to increase the survivability of the holy spec. They could change the blessed life talent, currently it is "Attacks have a 4-7-10% chance to do half damage to you" if they were to change it to "attacks have a 8-16-25% chance to 25% less damage to you" it would be much better. They could also change the sacred cleansing talent to be active more but less powerful. Me i just wish they would change the bonus on Infusion of light back to the old version where it decreased the cast time on flash of light & holy light by 1.5 seconds, if they were to do that and change holy light so it does half its healing immediately then the other half spread over 6-9 seconds that would make it a much better spell for pvp & pve.

[zcks]

Another thing they could do is change divine plea to a 2-3 min cool down but reduce the healing penalty to 25%, Ive noticed that in arena if I ever pop it & the enemy notices they suddenly jump on me or there top value target because they know my healing is gona be much lower then normal.

They could also change judgments of the pure, I mean no one lvls as holy so no one needs the extra judgment damage. Why not take the bonus judgment damage off and add an effect like your judgment of light heals for an additional 5-10-15-20-25% or lasts an additional 8-16-24-32-40 seconds.

[nwo]

Link your armory or i dont believe you....

musta been a typo... probably meant to say 1650.

Anyways, holy definitely needs buffs in PVP. I think that the OP's suggestion is a little bit too much for a single talent. Instead, they should changed blessed life to something more reliable and useful. Such as, every time you crit with holy shock, you take 10% less damage for the next 8 seconds or something along those lines.

[gams]

holy needs no buffs, its fine as it is atm... Gotten duelist, arena master and so on, all with holy specc, its doable, just req more gear and practise to master than prot, cause lets face it. Prot is piss easy to play...
Just practise, thats all.
Gotten to 2.2k with surv hunter, dk and war. beating prot palas in the way, holy is equal to prot if not beter if you just know how to play it.

[Raiss]

Holy Doesn't need a buff. You can play holy and win. But holy needs a change.

As someone already said, your job as a holy is to heal your partner and pray that he will manage to kill someone by himself. Your job is to let no-one die and to not go OOM.

As a prot, your job is to keep everyone alive, to not go OOM, and to be offensive. It's just... better. I can't see how it can be easier than running around a pillar, either.

[Gunjniir]

I think this is a constructive thing you've got going here, and quite personally I have hated arenas from their inception. Why? Because the only games that feel valid in a player versus player environment using line of sight mechanics and use of terrain/geometry to your advantage should be shooters. Using said mechanic in WoW just feels retarded and sloppy. And since we have to hump and cling to pillars ravenously (which is boring, aggrivating, feels VERY un-paladin, and quite frankly is just stupid) to avoid things paladins are highly susceptible to, it seems bloody obvious change is needed. The healing throughput from beacon and a high resil rating/sta seems to be the only thing between us and the all mighty. That being said, holy needs a change.

There are too many talnets in the holy tree which I don't know a single person who uses. Need I remind you that Sacred Cleansing has been bad forever and never adjusted, but Seal of Command was broken for a few weeks before it got 'fixed' to a cleave? I think it's worth looking at all the crappy, archaic talents which most folks don't even consider when building for pvp.

Seals of the Pure - Why is this even in holy? It might hold the propensity to give holy more offense, but you need other seals glyphed to have enough throughput or mana conservation (ala light/wisdom seal glyph). And who in their right mind isn't humping a pillar or spamming heals to try to desperately heal through mortal strikes? Perhaps if you could glyph Seal of Vengeance to have a % mana return from the dot tick (so more dot/stack damage means more mana back) this might be worth a piss to a healer (and ret, since you woldn't have stupid glyphs like the SoCom mana glyph and could perhaps be better designed to actually do damage which would make Command remotely attractive for non-cleave team pvpers)

Pure of Heart/Unyielding faith - Both of these reduce Curse, Disease, Poisons and Fears/Disorientate effects by 33/30% respectively. But 4 talent points for, to be honest, a negligible gain feels like a complete waste of 4 points. Rarely it seems will anyone choose one or the other, let alone both. And in choosing one or the other, one would obviously prefer Unyielding faith alone. However, the talent itself is lackluster compared to the other talents in the prot tree like, say, imp devo aura or DG. Why not roll these both into a 2 or 3 point talent which reduces it all by 30% so we don't feel like we're giving up something that's worth a damn, unlike these two talents. Furthermore, throw us a bone and make it reduce mana burn effects, so we can actually melee with SoV as suggested in the above talent change.

Blessed Life - more and more I find myself avoiding this simply to obtain much more needed talents for pvp (imp devo, DG, again) This talent, you would assume, would save you from being burst to death. In the month I used this talent (forced myself to), while closely watching, there wasn't a single time it saved me from burst situations, which seems to have been it's only real purpose. The chance is simply too small. As simple and boring as the talent is, why not add a % chance to increase your SP or make you un-interruptable for 2-3 seconds for a short duration with a small proc cooldown?

Sacred Cleansing - It's been said 1000 times before. it's a chance-of-a-chance. In otherwords, a complete and utter waste of not one or two but THREE talent points. I'd choose this over imp devo, if your cleanses refreshed sacred shield and/or increased healing to that target for a short duration in addition to the resist bonus.

Perhaps there are others that find certain other talents useless too.. I don't know. But those are talents, after forcing myself to use for some time just to hope to justify them in pvp, I have found to now simply avoid entirely. If all the above fixes were to be added, it might solve the big problem of why prot was so popular over holy... mana loss/regen, interruptability, offensive ability (via a SoV dot as suggested above) and simple lack of interesting talents in the holy tree. Sure, there's no comparing the offensive power of Avengers Shield, but in light of the inc changes to prot healing, something, imo, needs to be done.

Oh, and here's me (may or may not be holy spec at time of link click).

Is a redesign/revamp of the holy tree likely in the next year before Cataclysm is released and everything is changed, anyways? Unlikely. Which really blows, and who knows who might throw in the towel out of sheer boredom/annoyance before then

edit: meant to say Pure of Heart/Unyielding Faith not purifying power/unyielding faith, oops

[Gunjniir]

Seals of the Pure - Why is this even in holy? It might hold the propensity to give holy more offense, but you need other seals glyphed to have enough throughput or mana conservation (ala light/wisdom seal glyph). And who in their right mind isn't humping a pillar or spamming heals to try to desperately heal through mortal strikes? Perhaps if you could glyph Seal of Vengeance to have a % mana return from the dot tick (so more dot/stack damage means more mana back) this might be worth a piss to a healer

But I suppose that'd just be a clumsier form of JoTW. :/ Or not..?

[Tullkas]

Blessed Life - this is a middle-deep talent that should increase our survivability in PvP. Cant imagine that someone will take this for PvE. The question is why is nobody taking it? Plain and simple it sucks and it wont help you to survive the burst.

Suggestion 1 - keep the same + add "reduces the damage taken while stunned by 5/10/15 %."
Suggestion 2 - keep the same + add "reduces all damage taken while sacred shield is active on you by 3/6/9 %."
Suggestion 3 - Gives you 30/60/100% change after being hit by critical strike to place a Blessed Life on you to reduce all damage taken by 5%. This effect stacks 3 times and last 3/6/10 second.

not perfect but at least PvPers will take it instead going to prot tree and taking that pasive tanking RF talent which is dispellable and costs too much mana to recast.

Purifying power - as we have no offensive utility I would suggest here to remove cooldown completely or make it instant cast + lower the mana cost. With this we would have some chance to make a pressure or help to finish of someone.

Sacred Cleansing - this is a big lol of the tree and cant understand how this chance to chance 3 point waste can be that deep.

Suggestion1 - 2 points - Have a 30/60% chance to remove 2 negative effects
Suggestion2 - as someone mentioned, 30/60/90% chance on cleanse to refresh Sacred Shield effect
Subbestion3 - 30/60/90% chance on cleanse to renew Flash of Light healing over time effect

Not a gamebreaking changes and holy would actually be more then pillar jumping coward, always LoSing enemies to prevent being dispelled. Like this I would be actually able to survive roque better then non plate healers.

[gobgob34]

I think this is a constructive thing you've got going here, and quite personally I have hated arenas from their inception. Why? Because the only games that feel valid in a player versus player environment using line of sight mechanics and use of terrain/geometry to your advantage should be shooters. Using said mechanic in WoW just feels retarded and sloppy. And since we have to hump and cling to pillars ravenously (which is boring, aggrivating, feels VERY un-paladin, and quite frankly is just stupid) to avoid things paladins are highly susceptible to, it seems bloody obvious change is needed. The healing throughput from beacon and a high resil rating/sta seems to be the only thing between us and the all mighty. That being said, holy needs a change.

There are too many talnets in the holy tree which I don't know a single person who uses. Need I remind you that Sacred Cleansing has been bad forever and never adjusted, but Seal of Command was broken for a few weeks before it got 'fixed' to a cleave? I think it's worth looking at all the crappy, archaic talents which most folks don't even consider when building for pvp.

Seals of the Pure - Why is this even in holy? It might hold the propensity to give holy more offense, but you need other seals glyphed to have enough throughput or mana conservation (ala light/wisdom seal glyph). And who in their right mind isn't humping a pillar or spamming heals to try to desperately heal through mortal strikes? Perhaps if you could glyph Seal of Vengeance to have a % mana return from the dot tick (so more dot/stack damage means more mana back) this might be worth a piss to a healer (and ret, since you woldn't have stupid glyphs like the SoCom mana glyph and could perhaps be better designed to actually do damage which would make Command remotely attractive for non-cleave team pvpers)

Purifying power/Unyielding faith - Both of these reduce Curse, Disease, Poisons and Fears/Disorientate effects by 33/30% respectively. But 4 talent points for, to be honest, a negligible gain feels like a complete waste of 4 points. Rarely it seems will anyone choose one or the other, let alone both. And in choosing one or the other, one would obviously prefer Unyielding faith alone. However, the talent itself is lackluster compared to the other talents in the prot tree like, say, imp devo aura or DG. Why not roll these both into a 2 or 3 point talent which reduces it all by 30% so we don't feel like we're giving up something that's worth a damn, unlike these two talents. Furthermore, throw us a bone and make it reduce mana burn effects, so we can actually melee with SoV as suggested in the above talent change.

Blessed Life - more and more I find myself avoiding this simply to obtain much more needed talents for pvp (imp devo, DG, again) This talent, you would assume, would save you from being burst to death. In the month I used this talent (forced myself to), while closely watching, there wasn't a single time it saved me from burst situations, which seems to have been it's only real purpose. The chance is simply too small. As simple and boring as the talent is, why not add a % chance to increase your SP or make you un-interruptable for 2-3 seconds for a short duration with a small proc cooldown?

Sacred Cleansing - It's been said 1000 times before. it's a chance-of-a-chance. In otherwords, a complete and utter waste of not one or two but THREE talent points. I'd choose this over imp devo, if your cleanses refreshed sacred shield and/or increased healing to that target for a short duration in addition to the resist bonus.

Perhaps there are others that find certain other talents useless too.. I don't know. But those are talents, after forcing myself to use for some time just to hope to justify them in pvp, I have found to now simply avoid entirely. If all the above fixes were to be added, it might solve the big problem of why prot was so popular over holy... mana loss/regen, interruptability, offensive ability (via a SoV dot as suggested above) and simple lack of interesting talents in the holy tree. Sure, there's no comparing the offensive power of Avengers Shield, but in light of the inc changes to prot healing, something, imo, needs to be done.

Oh, and here's me (may or may not be holy spec at time of link click).

Is a redesign/revamp of the holy tree likely in the next year before Cataclysm is released and everything is changed, anyways? Unlikely. Which really blows, and who knows who might throw in the towel out of sheer boredom/annoyance before then, eh?

Mind if I use some of your quotes for the official forums?

[TheMediator]

I've done arena every season as holy (actually specced holy) and gotten duelist every season without so much as breaking a sweat.

I hate people who say "I've done X as Y, so Y is fine" when X is a joke of an achievement. Duelist is scrub, you shouldn't have even said anything because now I think the rest of your text is coming from a scrub.

Also, you brag about killing people in world PvP as that is somehow relevant to holy in PvP.

If Holy was fine, then you would have seen high rated Holy pallies and not just prot/holy because of its alternate playing style. But you don't really, because it wasn't fine. Truth be told, Prot may still be better than Holy, even with the spellpower nerf and the HoJ nerf.

[Raiss]

I hate people who say "I've done X as Y, so Y is fine" when X is a joke of an achievement. Duelist is scrub, you shouldn't have even said anything because now I think the rest of your text is coming from a scrub.

Also, you brag about killing people in world PvP as that is somehow relevant to holy in PvP.

If Holy was fine, then you would have seen high rated Holy pallies and not just prot/holy because of its alternate playing style. But you don't really, because it wasn't fine. Truth be told, Prot may still be better than Holy, even with the spellpower nerf and the HoJ nerf.

Did you see eMg yesterday? They were playing Holy Paladin, Enhance Shamman and Beast Master Hunter. And it was just fucking great.
The reason it worked? Because there was no need for a ofensive healer, actually, they needed a immune healer (aura mastery, bubble). So, Holy can work. But they played the same comp, but with a disc priest, and it worked well too. Actually, they were trading defensive (unstopable heals) for offensive (holy fire, mass dispells and fire). Priest worked better, IMO.
But the point is: why do we have to be the ONLY healing class that doesn't have any offensive power? Why do we have to be so unbalanced just because we have divine shield, a skill the is dispelled in seconds on a good arena match?

[lookia]

You are saying that prot is a more offensive spec, bullshit. Holy palas can do tons of dmg if you ever tried affli lock holy pala, you would understand that all dmg is important. Holy shock every 5 sek, thats sick dmg you can crit 4k easy mode with holy shock on ppl with 700 res... A skilled deep holy pala can do a lot more than a prot pala....you just need some kind of skill..

[Raiss]

You are saying that prot is a more offensive spec, bullshit. Holy palas can do tons of dmg if you ever tried affli lock holy pala, you would understand that all dmg is important. Holy shock every 5 sek, thats sick dmg you can crit 4k easy mode with holy shock on ppl with 700 res... A skilled deep holy pala can do a lot more than a prot pala....you just need some kind of skill..

Using holy shock for dmg on cooldown = you are dead if the other team is any decent.
As a prot, I can do more dmg and controll without using healing cooldowns.

You are relying on a not skilled enemy team, not in yours.

[lookia]

Using holy shock for dmg on cooldown = you are dead if the other team is any decent.
As a prot, I can do more dmg and controll without using healing cooldowns.

You are relying on a not skilled enemy team, not in yours.

You help out with dmg when you go for a kill, not when your teamates are dieing.. fool

[Raiss]

You help out with dmg when you go for a kill, not when your teamates are dieing.. fool

If you are using Holy Shock only when you are going for a kill, you are doing less dmg than a prot. So your point is wrong anyway. Av shield + silence + stun > 3k shock.