Changes in the Mists

[Venism]

Looking at the new changes coming in mop do you think HPallies are becoming to straight forward with the complete dissapearance of judgments and some of our cd's? Or will "Perfect beacon transfer" become the new goal along with good use of the new healing spells such as sacred shield or eternal flame? It almost seems that Blizzard's goal is focusing a pallies healing completely around holy power and beacon, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. (More than it is now)

[Kerfax]

So looking at the class as becoming more straightforward, we are losing the following:
-Judgements of the Pure
-Beacon Duration
-Divine Favor

There are a quite a few more things that we are gaining though:
-Sacred Shield/Eternal Glory
-Holy Avenger
-Holy Prism/Light's Hammer/Stay of Execution
-Possibly 5 Holy Power

I don't personally feel that we are becoming more straightforward. There's is still quite a bit necessary to look out for, but a lot of it comes down to what choices you make with your talents.
I do believe that they are trying to make Beacon healing much better though. Part of that would be the change to transfer some of the healing from Holy Radiance. Since Holy Radiance has been nerfed, it does also make it so that our healing comes from more spells though.
We have a lot of new abilities that we are gaining access to. Our toolbox looks like it's going to be much larger with certain abilities we can switch to depending on what's wrong. As far as utility and specific situations go, that makes our healing very different depending on what we choose to use. Our basic healing does become more streamlined, but we have choices to make that will change it quite a bit.

[Deleted]

I can't see even higher cast times for flash of ligh in PVP aswell as less infusion of light procs. I love my paladin for both PVE and PVP, I really enjoyed cata but all these changes make no sense. Less haste, less procs, weaker holy radiance, I hope they revert everything. If they don't want us to judge or have more mana regen then atleast give a passive haste increase for palas or even all healers, I hate healing with casts longer then 2.0 secs. About the procs, well get them going again, if not by crit chance (causes imbalance on the shock heal itself) then just change it to chance on use.

Edit: Also a lot of our talents are now glyphs. Like the new nerfed version of protector of the innocent.

[Seyka]

From running dungeons in beta, I can say that LOD is very strong and with the high mana cost of HR a great option for us. The downside to that is waiting for the three holy power if you can afford to. I won't lie I am having a hard time adjusting to not judging at all, rebound that key to HS.

I am feeling the haste pinch. A lot of it is gear, however going back to a 2.4 second cast time across the board for both HL and DL is an adjustment. It feels very very slow regardless, I really hope that the do address this.

Right now there is no mana cost for Lights Hammer, hopefully it stays that way. Seems like a decent spell but might be more useful in a 25 man vs 10 man environment. The only way to know is when they open up raids for testing.

[Zeelot]

With the nerfs i'm tempted to say screw it and roll a mistweaver, I am quite depressed with the holy paladin changes.

[Deleted]

With the nerfs i'm tempted to say screw it and roll a mistweaver, I am quite depressed with the holy paladin changes.

Exactly this. Been playing since tbc, always had a paladin main.For the first time ever I'm close to dropping it and roll something else, we just get way too much stuff cut and the new spells are all but appealing(suffices to say I'm the most excited about sacred shield..which we've had before.)

Also, I actually liked the judging every 8 seconds. I didn't mind the judging every minute. I dislike not having to judge at all, it's one of the few mechanics that were unique to us.

[Kerfax]

I personally think that were in a good place on the Beta. We are more than capable to heal through any situation to be found in Heroics. Our toolbox has been trimmed down a bit because a lot of choices were put into talents, but that just means we can be more specifically prepared for certain bosses.

And as far as wanting any part of our class to rely on babysitting certain buffs, I'd say to be careful what you wish for. Currently on Beta Resto druids are having a lot of trouble with keeping Harmony and LB up while being able to do other things. Their healing priority relies too heavily on minor buffs that make up a large amount of their healing. The mechanic with Judgement was interesting and increased the skill cap for Holy Paladin's to some extent, but once you were skilled with it the mechanic didn't add much to game play.

[Lucyrotten]

New round of buffs up for holy pallies with increased HR healing, increased crit on Holy Shock, extended AW duration with Sanctified Wrath, buff to Sacred Shield, and there's been a change to the cooldowns for all Hands but it looks like it's dependent on Clemency. Overall, looks pretty good for the next build.

That said, I'm sitting at level 89 on beta and I *hate* where haste and regen is right now. It does feel like early Cata where I'm drinking after every trash pack.

For everyone that missing judging, don't forget you can spec Selfless Healer and stack that for free, instant FoL which I'm still bad at but trying to work on improving since that's a pretty nice free heal. Having three single target heals feels sort of clunky to me since it leaves DL in a weird spot if we can pop off cheaper/faster FoL. Not sure how all that will play out later in the beta cycle or on live though.

I've also been playing a Mistweaver and the playstyle is pretty different from a pally but channeled healing feels really good. I'm anything but good but it's been interesting to play around with. I'll probably end up rolling both for MoP but which one is my main will be up to guild needs.

[Snaige]

For everyone that missing judging, don't forget you can spec Selfless Healer and stack that for free, instant FoL

I am doing that as well, the only way I don't oom so fast however currently without addons and power auras it is quite tricky (at least for me) to see the stacks of that, maybe my screen is too small but trying to glance to the buff bar constantly is not really helping my performance >.<

[Lucyrotten]

Same here, Snaige. I think once we get add ons up and can set up power auras or something, this will become a useful tool. For now it's pretty awkward.

[Snaige]

Well, a small change is better than nothing - now the flash of light button sparkles on your action bars when you have 3 stacks of selfless healer. No need to look at the buff bar constantly.

[Zeelot]

I don't know if my character is bugged or what, but testing some heroic dungeons on my holy paladin proved to be quite scary. I often go oom after each pull, and more than once has our group wiped because of me going oom so quickly. My groups don't seem to take excessive avoidable damage, and I'm trying to be as mana conservative as possible, only casting large heals when needed and trying to melee whenever I'm able to.

I also tested heroics on my mistweaver monk and I don't ever seem to go below 80% mana. Although I've only tested healing on these 2 classes, it seems that either mistweavers are extraordinarily overpowered or holy paladins are extremely underpowered. Then they announced that they though numbers were fine and I cried a little.

[Kerfax]

I don't know if my character is bugged or what, but testing some heroic dungeons on my holy paladin proved to be quite scary. I often go oom after each pull, and more than once has our group wiped because of me going oom so quickly. My groups don't seem to take excessive avoidable damage, and I'm trying to be as mana conservative as possible, only casting large heals when needed and trying to melee whenever I'm able to.

I also tested heroics on my mistweaver monk and I don't ever seem to go below 80% mana. Although I've only tested healing on these 2 classes, it seems that either mistweavers are extraordinarily overpowered or holy paladins are extremely underpowered. Then they announced that they though numbers were fine and I cried a little.

May I ask how you were healing?
I personally haven't had any issues with regen on the beta unless the members of my group are taking large amounts of unavoidable damage.

[~Valen~]

I was thinking about the changes and I feel completely disappointed. I used to play a Priest when I really felt like changing to a Paladin during WoTLK. The class was so dynamic, and while yes Paladins were OP and I couldn't care less about the numbers, they had very different mechanics and felt unique! Once they removed Sacred Shield and changed Flash of Light the class lost alot but was still immensely fun to play!

Now, after a few weeks following some streams and videos I feel utterly dismayed... It's like they removed the fun parts and left the class to rot. Having to spam mostly Holy Light and Devine Light with some breaks using Holy Shocks (which lost most of its fun side as well). Flash of Light is really not worth it considering tha mana cost and Holy Radiance, yeah, awful (It was OP, but they massacred it).

So yeah, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the Paladin I so used to love... but now I feel more and more like switching to an other class.

[Zeelot]

May I ask how you were healing?

Holy shock on cooldown, i've recently been using the eternal flame talent(on tank), then i'm either spamming holy light for when only a little damage is going out, divine light for big damage on 1 person and holy radiance for group damage, then wog or lod depending if only 1 person or the whole group's damaged, melees in between for insight procs.

[Snaige]

I don't know if my character is bugged or what, but testing some heroic dungeons on my holy paladin proved to be quite scary. I often go oom after each pull, and more than once has our group wiped because of me going oom so quickly. My groups don't seem to take excessive avoidable damage, and I'm trying to be as mana conservative as possible, only casting large heals when needed and trying to melee whenever I'm able to.

I also tested heroics on my mistweaver monk and I don't ever seem to go below 80% mana. Although I've only tested healing on these 2 classes, it seems that either mistweavers are extraordinarily overpowered or holy paladins are extremely underpowered. Then they announced that they though numbers were fine and I cried a little.

Oh oh this, 100 times this! I've been feeling extremely sad about the mana regen on the beta and after reading the forums it just did not seem that anyone was having that problem. I did not even go as far as to touch holy radiance button, divine light casts are also very rare in my case. Mana just goes poof and every boss fights ends up with everyone half dead, me completely oom and meleeíng the boss for those tiny bits of mana. You just made my day. I am so very relieved that I am not alone with mana problems.

Oh and all my gear has spirit, every spirit enchant possible etc.
but

a big but there

will quote myself from another thread

Well, will put it in my friend's words. Been complaining to him today about ooming constantly and since I'm sitting on a pile of silly achievements, dragonslayer firelord savior, I said to him - don't think it is a l2p issue that I am ooming. He said: Well, it might be a l2p issue, but not from your side. Wise words and could be very true. I pug dungeons with random people, my guild is not on the beta. Half of them could be premades with zero clue how to play their class, the other half could be the stand in fire types.

[Kerfax]

Holy shock on cooldown, i've recently been using the eternal flame talent(on tank), then i'm either spamming holy light for when only a little damage is going out, divine light for big damage on 1 person and holy radiance for group damage, then wog or lod depending if only 1 person or the whole group's damaged, melees in between for insight procs.

I haven't been using Holy Radiance much, but other than that it seems we have the same strategy. It may simply be due to what Snaige has said. I may be getting extremely lucky with groups and encountering players who are more capable of dealing with mechanics and moving out of avoidable damage. I will continue to say that I don't have much of an issue with the mana regen on Beta though. Occasionally I'm forced to play on a very tight pool, but I've always thought that is due to the current gear level. If Blizzard says that they are happy with where our regen is, I honestly think that it will work out on live. If it doesn't, it will be fixed.

[Zeelot]

One example is the first boss (3 mini-bosses) in Mogu'shan Palace. First the one that conflagrates, and then the one with the pet that does the ravage thing. Both do a lot of unavoidable damage(besides killing the dog asap which they do). Healing through those alone leaves me completely oom and we usually die.

[Kerfax]

A big part of any boss fight that you may be forgetting is the tank damage though. If the tanks that you are healing are terrible at using their new mitigation abilities, tank healing is going to be a lot tougher than it should be.