[Holy] Patch 5.4 PTR - Changes Discussion

[Deleted]

Dear Lore / GC / Santa Claus,

COMON ALREADY and just make DL, FOL give holy power on any target.

NOBODY uses either spell in 25m as it doesn't give holy power (unless some1 really is in deep sh$t and needs a quick FoL spam)

- do the other stuff to GoAK and LoD and whatever else, but here are 2 spells that NEVER GET USED IN 25MAN RAIDING.

thanks very much

[Simulacrum]

It's the fact its a 5 minute CD that feels more like a 2-3 minute CD (2 is probably pushing it, but a 3 more likely), it is still something to be fixed since on most fights it does a small amount of healing if any at all and when its supposed to be a big CD, its kind of...disappointing.

"Feels more like a 2-3 min CD"? In its current state it would, without considering the context of the rest of our cooldowns, have to be reduced to something like 30-45 seconds to compare to cooldowns like revival or tranquility. I feel really good about myself when I'm able to pull out more than 800k from that thing, while other 3 min cooldowns reliably push 7.5 million (in 25m, obviously).

[Kyuuseishu]

"Feels more like a 2-3 min CD"? In its current state it would, without considering the context of the rest of our cooldowns, have to be reduced to something like 30-45 seconds to compare to cooldowns like revival or tranquility. I feel really good about myself when I'm able to pull out more than 800k from that thing, while other 3 min cooldowns reliably push 7.5 million (in 25m, obviously).

I think comparing it to the likes of Tranquility and Revival is the wrong way to go about it, since DA is what is supposed to be compared against them as our raid wide cooldown.

[Freia]

Dear Lore / GC / Santa Claus,

COMON ALREADY and just make DL, FOL give holy power on any target.

NOBODY uses either spell in 25m as it doesn't give holy power (unless some1 really is in deep sh$t and needs a quick FoL spam)

- do the other stuff to GoAK and LoD and whatever else, but here are 2 spells that NEVER GET USED IN 25MAN RAIDING.

thanks very much

That is not the only reason people do not use those spells in 25m. Single target heals as a whole hardly get used 25m. For them to get more use game mechanics need to be changed.

[Simulacrum]

I think comparing it to the likes of Tranquility and Revival is the wrong way to go about it, since DA is what is supposed to be compared against them as our raid wide cooldown.

"Supposed to be"? What makes you say that?

First of all, it mitigates damage, rather than heals it, so it's a different class of cooldown by that fact alone. And if you look at the numbers, then you'll see that for DA be able to mitigate as much damage as an ability like tranquility or revival heals, then every raid member would have to take something like 1.5 million magic damage each, over its 6 second duration, which means that you'd need for it to basically grant complete damage immunity for its duration in order for them to be comparable, or for its duration to be massively extended.

Also it only works on magic damage, not all damage the way that heals do.

So I argue that comparing them is "the wrong way to go about it".

[Deleted]

"Supposed to be"? What makes you say that?

First of all, it mitigates damage, rather than heals it, so it's a different class of cooldown by that fact alone. And if you look at the numbers, then you'll see that for DA be able to mitigate as much damage as an ability like tranquility or revival heals, then every raid member would have to take something like 1.5 million magic damage each, over its 6 second duration, which means that you'd need for it to basically grant complete damage immunity for its duration in order for them to be comparable, or for its duration to be massively extended.

Also it only works on magic damage, not all damage the way that heals do.

So I argue that comparing them is "the wrong way to go about it".

That would be an epic buff worth bringing us for. (still boring to play tho ;p)

Holy Only - 'Devotion Aura' - Now makes all party and raid members immune to magical damage for 6 seconds. Any individual taking more than 1.5m damage cancels this effect.

[Deleted]

What i also don't understand is people talking about crit builds.

If you'd have 100% chance to crit with Holy Shock, you would still have at most 1/3(because of the cast time reduction but lets say 1 in 2 as I'm extremely generous) Holy Radiances affected by the (now)25% buff.
In total about 15-20% of our healing is Holy Radiance(counted with Illuminated Healing, which would be heavily lowered because of crit). You buff half of that in this example(7.5% to 10%) by 25% so you reach 9.35% to 12.5% as new healing values. Aka If you'd have 100% chance to crit with Holy Shock the 2p would be a ~2% increase.

Why would you consider sacrificing mastery to ever do this? Remember that I've been extremely generous giving 100% crit(even gemming full crit means u'll reach ~65% crit with Holy Shock at most) and saying 1/2 Radiances get buffed(when in reality far less would).

The 2p is still horribly underpowered. Maybe if Holy Radiance got the Healing Rain treatment...

[Sparda Strife]

Holy Only - 'Devotion Aura' - Now makes all party and raid members immune to magical damage for 6 seconds. Any individual taking more than 1.5m damage cancels this effect.

That would be a nice addition, right now, the Holy paladin toolset feels lacking compared with the other healers, things like this should be the way to buff GoAK, adding utility rather than number buffing ST heals and LoD.

[Freia]

"Supposed to be"? What makes you say that?

First of all, it mitigates damage, rather than heals it, so it's a different class of cooldown by that fact alone. And if you look at the numbers, then you'll see that for DA be able to mitigate as much damage as an ability like tranquility or revival heals, then every raid member would have to take something like 1.5 million magic damage each, over its 6 second duration, which means that you'd need for it to basically grant complete damage immunity for its duration in order for them to be comparable, or for its duration to be massively extended.

Also it only works on magic damage, not all damage the way that heals do.

So I argue that comparing them is "the wrong way to go about it".

Devo is our raid cooldown, just like tranq, revival, hymn, barrier, htt are for their respective classes/specs.

[Kyuuseishu]

"Supposed to be"? What makes you say that?

First of all, it mitigates damage, rather than heals it, so it's a different class of cooldown by that fact alone. And if you look at the numbers, then you'll see that for DA be able to mitigate as much damage as an ability like tranquility or revival heals, then every raid member would have to take something like 1.5 million magic damage each, over its 6 second duration, which means that you'd need for it to basically grant complete damage immunity for its duration in order for them to be comparable, or for its duration to be massively extended.

Also it only works on magic damage, not all damage the way that heals do.

So I argue that comparing them is "the wrong way to go about it".

Your whole post was kind of pointless really since I did in no way imply that DA was actually comparable in value to Tranq or Revival I merely stated that GoAK is not meant to be our raid wide CD, DA is. I already know that DA is weak compared to tranq and the likes, I'm not completely uninformed but comparing GoAK to Tranq and the likes is just silly. I have advocated for a buff to DA along with many people in this thread already since the damage output required is incredibly high to even get close to the numbers output by the healing raid cooldowns. Giving us a healing raid cooldown along with a DR cooldown is too powerful, you don't get both, its one or the other, and we happen to have the latter. Be it the same thing brought by all specs and is in dire need of something to make it unique to holy but either way your post serves no purpose than to reiterate whats been said in this thread before.

EDIT: I did forget that now with HTT baseline shamans now have a DR (be it small) and a healing raid CD

[Deleted]

I wish they would give us a definitive *direction* that they want to go with the spec.

I really dislike the last line of Lore's post because it's pretty obvious what the flaws in the spec are and there are infinite amount of ways to fix them. Here's my best summary of our current issues:


- Slow holy power generation, and very restricted means of holy power generation

- Delegated to overhealing as our only (competitive) form of proactive healing

- Tier 45 talents - One is considered "mandatory" based on power and effectiveness, one is a non-option for holy, and the other *still needs* to be made competitive (preferably would fill a similar, but slightly different niche than Eternal Flame). We have lost so much strength from this tier of talents.

- Lacking a competitive raid cooldown - Devotion aura is not powerful or unique compared to what other classes bring.

- Spread Healing - LoD needs to be more effective/powerful for spread and raid healing. Obviously EF is already being heavily considered and looked at.

- GoAK is not effective enough for a 5 minute cooldown.

- Long cast times, expensive spells - I put these together because some would argue that we avoid haste, but haste is extremely inefficient with our mana costs and, imo, our holy power mechanics

- Holy Power finishers need to be more diverse and rewarding in some way.


*I'm working on some propositions for these issues, but if I'd love to hear any other MAJOR ISSUES you have with the spec (I tried to include the ones I hear mentioned most often, but probably missed a couple)

This is what i feel as well, i totally hate this kind of play style that encourage us to overheal just to get shields. It feels like holy pala playstyle felt behind compared with so much smartheal and efficient absorbs and cooldowns other healing classes have.

[Deleted]

I think what most people are overlooking here, most are saying "buff devo aura its our raid cd equivalent" getting mad at people who talk about GoAk vs tranq/revival. They stated they had buffs for guardian and LoD planned, not devo aura. Since this is said it seems they'v got it set in their minds that devo won't change, so people are assuming guardian will be our new raid cd equivalent. I think it would be a good idea to do, since yknow some classes do have more than one (discs have SS and barrier for example) while its not along the same exact lines, i think if they changed guardian in a certain way this could work out as a start to compensation for the nerfs we got

[Pasture]

GoAK: I feel like everyone is getting a little overexcited by this. I would be great if it functioned as a big raid cooldown. Yes we already technically have one but resto shamans have two raid cooldowns. No reason why the also weak Paladins shouldn't. I particularly liked the idea someone posted earlier, that each of the 5 heals duplicate on 4/5 other players, making it like a Tranq or a Hymn that we can actually stagger a little over the 15 duration of Guardian.

But all said and done I think they will just reduce the cooldown to 3 minutes. I'd love to be proven wrong but I think we're getting overexcited.

Hand of Sacrifice I know it doesn't compare to the healing buffs we need but this is a great little change. Glyph choice for Holy is weak and this will easily slot in there. Losing 10% is well worth it and it opens up using bubble for other mechanics rather than saving yourself during Sac. This and the Divine Plea losing the healing reduction are both great changes.

[Deleted]

Devo is our raid cooldown, just like tranq, revival, hymn, barrier, htt are for their respective classes/specs.

Yes devotion aura is our only raid cooldown at the moment but who says it has to be our only raid cooldown in the future? While I agree both are lackluster GoAK is by far the weakest one.

[Freia]

Yes devotion aura is our only raid cooldown at the moment but who says it has to be our only raid cooldown in the future? While I agree both are lackluster GoAK is by far the weakest one.

I am aware of all the issues with devo and GoAK. My post was in response mostly to ""Supposed to be"? What makes you say that?" in regards to Devo being our raid cooldown because it is our raid cooldown and has been referred to that by developers and players alike.

[Deleted]

Been going over this in my mind a bit and what we need to change is HoPo. I only see a very small chance of that happening during this PTR phase.

Right now we are following a rotation like we are playing a fucking rogue simply to get the maximum amount of HoPo. This needs to be changed. HoPo needs to be a result of using multiple heals and not just HR spam.

So here is some ramblings and thoughts on how to improve certain spells/talents in our toolkit. Perhaps somebody can flesh it out in a more usefull way. Because i realize this kind of is a big list of derp.

HS. all good.
HR. all good.
FoL. No HoPo. But perhaps a lower manacost is what could make it more usable as an emergency cast and in high burst phases. Might need to add the HoPo generation to it but that kind of kills the lowered mana cost probably.
DL. 1 HoPo on any target.
HL. 1 HoPo on any target. Good alternative to spamming HR during downtime in a fight. It still heals target + beacon target.
LoD. Increase in healing or targets. I find it really hard to balance this ability.
WoG. Good but at the moment EF is just better no matter what.

SH/SS/EF should all have been an HoPo Finisher. 1 gives an absorb shield spell. 1 Passive Chance to not use HoPo(divine Purpose). 1. gives an HoT spell(1 HoPo = 10s 2=20s 3=30s. Not! replacing WoG but as an alternative. This way we have talents to choose based on the fight. Which is what was the intention of the new talent system. And this hopefully would make all abilities a bit more equal if done right.
This is what should replace the level 75 talents. I'm obviously talking from a holy Point of View first. I would prefer to keep the level 45 as a self heal/defensive tree. But it needs new options then. We can keep a personal SS and SH but EF needs a new thing. Perphaps the new/old SS that saves lives. But on live and on PTR right now there is no downside to not using EF over WoG for holy. Prots just take SS and ret go for SH. Both those options have a minimal impact on Ret/Prot where SH changes a lot of shit for holy and so does SS because we can only use it on 1 target and it turns us into hard casters with some instant heals.
Make Holy avenger a level 90 spell and dump wrath/Purpose(Ret's don't "need" Wrath as far as i know. The problem of course will then be Ret/Prot. They don't want to waste HoPo on anything other then dps/shield. But holy's really need the choices because EF is just to good compared to WoG. So this is where i'm stuck.... We need 2-3 choices of a HoPo finisher(EF or WoG / Shield / LoD). This = single / absorb / aoe option.

At the very top end we would probably still see a lot of HR spam simply due to the fact of how strong it is and getting stronger every patch compared to DL. And we can't really make DL much stronger because it's already a high % of overhealing and a slow hard cast. The only other option for DL is like a smart heal part going to another target or a faster cast time which would put it closer to Flash of Light.

I haven't given much thought into a raid wide Cooldown or what should happen to GoAK.

[Arayaa]

This is something I've been tossing around my head all expansion. I would be happy if blizzard could answer this question.

What is the holy paladin niche supposed to be?

It has changed pretty consistently every patch since we got holy power. Holy radiance has been changed repeatedly, the usefulness of holy power has fluctuated pretty heavily and it seems that we are consistently working with one over the top new mechanic every tier (holy light on tank at the start of cata, HR gaming in firelands, spamming holy radiance in DS, using pvp set to fish for 3hp EFs at start of MoP, mastery stacking/shield refreshing in 5.2 etc).

I used to think that we were supposed to have strong single target heals (read: effective, not large) without the traditional AOE approach that most other healers have. But all expansion our single target heals (FOL/DL/WOG) have been extremely weak compared to what each of the other healers bring as "extras" to their toolkit. You aren't going to convince me to cast divine light when it costs more, heals less and has a longer cast than it's alternatives (HT, GHW, GH) without serious incentives.

I would feel better if I knew what their end goal for us would be.

[Rathimis]

The new Hand of Sac glyph should be the baseline, with the current baseline going to a glyph. The only time you want sac to hurt you is in PvP

[Deleted]

The new Hand of Sac glyph should be the baseline, with the current baseline going to a glyph. The only time you want sac to hurt you is in PvP

The new Hand of Sac is also a worse Ironbark(only 1 min cd) in its 20% form.

[Freia]

HR. all good..

I don't agree. I think it needs the healing rain treatment.