[Holy] Patch 5.4 PTR - Changes Discussion

[nightfalls]

While I do think DP is fine, we could have all the mana in the world and still we would be crap with our current (on PTR) healing toolkit.

Finishers need to be buffed and potentially reworked (both WoG/EF and LOD). HR needs a lower mana cost and Flash/Divine need to be not so anemic. I mentioned making IoL interact more than the current 2pc is.

[Deleted]

While I do think DP is fine, we could have all the mana in the world and still we would be crap with our current (on PTR) healing toolkit.

Finishers need to be buffed and potentially reworked (both WoG/EF and LOD). HR needs a lower mana cost and Flash/Divine need to be not so anemic. I mentioned making IoL interact more than the current 2pc is.

Honestly with a slight buff to reactive healing (LoD,HR,WoG,EF) and these changes (hopefully with guardian 3 minute too), especially if the spirit trinket functionality is grandfathered to DP as it works with Innervate, paladins aren't going to be bad at all, best of all they won't be able to completely nullify certain mechanics either and completely ruin the game for other healers.

[Kyuuseishu]

best of all they won't be able to completely nullify certain mechanics either and completely ruin the game for other healers.

How did HoP on Horridon, Durumuu, Iron Qon and so forth ruin the game for other healers o.O

[Deleted]

Also, with regards to the numerous posts I just read about the cooldown trinket being incredibly overpowered for monks... you're incredibly misinformed considering TFT is timed around mechanics and not used on cooldown which makes it equally as bad. It'll be much more beneficial to use the strength 14% stat trinket for most fights and shoot for the 100% haste mark.

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How did HoP on Horridon, Durumuu, Iron Qon and so forth ruin the game for other healers o.O

I'm more talking about things which do damage that I spend 14 seconds in advance setting up to get some decent healing in only for a combination of IH & Spirit Shell to completely absorb it all, incredibly frustrating...

[Kyuuseishu]

I'm more talking about things which do damage that I spend 14 seconds in advance setting up to get some decent healing in only for a combination of IH & Spirit Shell to completely absorb it all, incredibly frustrating...

I suspect priests will still say hi and ruin your day, even as a paladin our disc priest does this to me except without the 14 second setup ^^

EDIT: https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...85697664237571 He is atleast considering it, albeit treading lightly

[Simulacrum]

I'm more talking about things which do damage that I spend 14 seconds in advance setting up to get some decent healing in only for a combination of IH & Spirit Shell to completely absorb it all, incredibly frustrating...

I don't think that's really a hpaladin problem (outside of farm content, or the pull itself, anyway) as much as it is a disc priest problem.

Though personally I would like to see absorbs either completely removed from the game, or made very weak, limited, or unreliable (like non-rolling illumination shields, or unspammably expensive PW:S, or life coccoon on a long cooldown, etc), but that doesn't look to be the way that they're going.

[Endule]

not to sway from the dp/goak changes but why do some people keep referring to SoI procs as standing still melee'ing the boss? seriously, who with 14-15k+ spirit is afk melee'ing for mana?
any healer with mouse over macro's or clique like style would normally have the boss targeted the whole fight with auto attack on. so aside from crusader strikes that extra mana should typically be from things like having to move while no instants up (which penalizes movement more by taking it away), a split second downtime from HS being 1/4 second left on cd, or other random stuff like that while your healing.
taking this away sounds about as bogus as "judging every 10-12 sec is too hard" in ds except in this case we don't get the full compensation part unless they figure compensation is us just getting even more spirit next tier while every other class floats under 12-13k

[Simulacrum]

I kind of don't understand what their intended design goal behind SoI was ever meant to be (for prot paladins as well, but that's a different topic). Fights, from day one, were never designed to allow hpaladins to stand in melee, and we wouldn't get any benefit (out of SoI) from doing so back then anyway thanks to the bug with EF/beacon that prevented most auto-attacks. That bug was something they didn't appear to have a problem with, as it took them forever to finally fix, and it never came up as a real concern - which it would have had to be if we were intended to regenerate mana with SoI, considering the immense amounts of regen it can provide... unless they just decided not to fix it because we were fine without it, but then why were fights designed so that ranged attacks hit us?

It seems pretty obvious to me that paladins were never intended to be in melee range of stuff in raids.

On the other hand, Lore, while embellishing upon the explanation for the battle healer nerf, writes that the glyph "was something we had originally intended to allow Holy to adopt a “melee healer” playstyle" - which implies that the intent was at least at one point for holy paladins to stand in melee and attack the boss, and Lore again writes that hpaladins meleeing may be "something we may explore more fully in the future", even though the raid encounters themselves never supported this (beyond incidentally).

So I'm a little confused at this point. Nothing indicates to me that they want paladins in melee, but Lore makes it sound like they kind of do...

Anyway, assuming my assertion is correct, I expect them not wanting paladins in melee is the real reason behind the nerf to SoI. If their intent wasn't to get us out of there, then they could simply make it no longer be an "unreliable" form of regeneration by letting us stand in melee safely.

[Absintheminded]

FYI:

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...85697664237571

"@Absnthminded Might try Selfless Healer gives Judgment Holy Power for Holy, but nervous about that one."

In response to my question regarding SoI/Battle Healer + Judgment scaling

[Lumineux]

FYI:

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...85697664237571

"@Absnthminded Might try Selfless Healer gives Judgment Holy Power for Holy, but nervous about that one."

In response to my question regarding SoI/Battle Healer + Judgment scaling

Would be very cool. I don't really get why blizz is so hesitant about giving us another way to generate holy power. As it is, it's incredibly expensive and slow to generate Holy Power - would be nice to have another cheaper option (besides HS) to generate holy power. We'll see how it goes, I just don't think it would be terribly OP like blizz seems to think.

[Absintheminded]

I think Blizzard has been very afraid of Paladin since the pre-Wrath talent fiasco... But I'm not giving them excuses. Either way I think this is another small step towards balancing level 45 talents and an overall positive playstyle adjustment.

[Dubalicious]

Guessing they're afraid of PvP implications? I don't see much to be concerned with PvE other than it maybe becoming a viable choice in certain situations.

[Diatenium]

Would be very cool. I don't really get why blizz is so hesitant about giving us another way to generate holy power. As it is, it's incredibly expensive and slow to generate Holy Power - would be nice to have another cheaper option (besides HS) to generate holy power. We'll see how it goes, I just don't think it would be terribly OP like blizz seems to think.

It doesn't work in a number of ways.

First off, it allows holy paladins to churn out more instant-healing, which is the core contention for holy paladins in PvP.

Secondly, it makes the talent inconsistent with other specs. You'll notice that almost all talents are identical regardless of spec--in the case of the paladin talent tree, only Sanctified Wrath breaks this rule, and in that case the differences are inherent to its design. They are occasionally prone to bending this rule for talents where its spec-difference isn't central, but only after they've exhausted all other options.

[Cairhiin]

Personally find the DP change okay; some of the other healers regen is simply too high. Mana was supposed to matter, it currently doesn't for half the healers.

I'm more talking about things which do damage that I spend 14 seconds in advance setting up to get some decent healing in only for a combination of IH & Spirit Shell to completely absorb it all, incredibly frustrating...

Yeah and you know what we find incredibly frustrating? Monks running around with near enough no spirit because their regen is way out there, and also being able to do 80k DPS while still healing. Please if you are going to talk about balance, I think your class is way out there, not Holy Paladins.

Besides our Mastery is currently hardly OP, you should probably go complain on the Disc forums instead.

[Simulacrum]

It doesn't work in a number of ways.

First off, it allows holy paladins to churn out more instant-healing, which is the core contention for holy paladins in PvP.

Secondly, it makes the talent inconsistent with other specs. You'll notice that almost all talents are identical regardless of spec--in the case of the paladin talent tree, only Sanctified Wrath breaks this rule, and in that case the differences are inherent to its design. They are occasionally prone to bending this rule for talents where its spec-difference isn't central, but only after they've exhausted all other options.

"It doesn't work" is pretty hyperbolic with reasons like that. The first one is illogical, being directly contradicted by a pvp bonus that explicitly exists to give hpaladins more instant casts in pvp, and the second one is purely aesthetic.

[IxilaFA]

A solution for the Judgment issue: Give Eternal Flame to all Pallies, baseline. Make it slightly less powerful, whatever, I don't care. In replacement of Eternal Flame for the lv45 talent tier, make a talent that lets us use Judgment only on allies (it will heal for an insignificant amount, but will put IH on the target) and Judgment generates a charge of holy power. It'd be like a much less powerful version of Holy Shock. We'd then have 2 six second cool down HP generators plus Holy Radiance for when we need to get some Holy Power out in a hurry.

The primary issue I see for Holy Paladins is that Blizzard is so worried about making us competitive in PvE without breaking us in PvP. Blizzard needs to go back to their PvE first balancing mentality. Much of the WoW population doesn't PvP, and there's no reason to make a class clunky and worthless in raids because it might be OP in PvP.

[Deleted]

Honestly with a slight buff to reactive healing (LoD,HR,WoG,EF) and these changes (hopefully with guardian 3 minute too), especially if the spirit trinket functionality is grandfathered to DP as it works with Innervate, paladins aren't going to be bad at all, best of all they won't be able to completely nullify certain mechanics either and completely ruin the game for other healers.

Not gonna spend time digging up your posts directly, but you've said on various and multiple occasions:

- Healers should care if the raid is alive, palas should stop qq about output because they keep people alive. (aura mastery etc)
- Paladins have strong sustained healing
- Paladins should be nowhere near the top due to AM.
- Druids and shamans are now ridiculous and are going to snipe all your healing now
- Absorbs and smartheals/snipes both need nerfs, as well as shamans cd's because they have too many.
- Monks are bad; you only do anything because others are more shit
- tldr - every healer class but monk is now ridiculous in some way or another.

And now you think a light buff to LoD/HR/WoG,EF will keep us viable.... Please roll a paladin alt or something, it's nowhere near that simple. We need MAJOR burst throughput buffs and probably mechanics changes, because in the current state guess what? We'll still be spamming for mastery shields, just with HR not EF. Nothing will have changed in terms of us 'ruining the game for you' - we'll still be held up by, and playing for the mastery crutch.

I'm not sure how you plan to contribute positively to the discussion when you clearly don't understand the class?

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A The primary issue I see for Holy Paladins is that Blizzard is so worried about making us competitive in PvE without breaking us in PvP. Blizzard needs to go back to their PvE first balancing mentality. Much of the WoW population doesn't PvP, and there's no reason to make a class clunky and worthless in raids because it might be OP in PvP.

We're horribly bad in PVP on 5.4 lol. So bad holy won't be viable anywhere near decent ratings. Doubt you'll see them at all in arena tbh.

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Besides our Mastery is currently hardly OP, you should probably go complain on the Disc forums instead.

Our mastery is OP as shit, which becomes more obvious with every passing day as the rest of our toolkit becomes more and more obsolete.

[Pasture]

@Absnthminded Might try Selfless Healer gives Judgment Holy Power for Holy, but nervous about that one.
I don't think anyone would take it still.

Paladins are already using HR to generate HP, which also heals and stacks shields. Why would a Paladin choose to judge rather than HR? The free DL/FoL is pretty worthless. I think they need to have judgment atonement heal in addition to generate HP.

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@Galedric Considered lowering the CD, but we'd have to nerf the HPS and it would also get macro'd with Divine Favor a lot.

Looks like we won't be getting Guardian on a 3 min cooldown.

They'd have to nerf the HPS. What HPS?

[Deleted]

@Absnthminded Might try Selfless Healer gives Judgment Holy Power for Holy, but nervous about that one.
I don't think anyone would take it still.

Paladins are already using HR to generate HP, which also heals and stacks shields. Why would a Paladin choose to judge rather than HR? The free DL/FoL is pretty worthless. I think they need to have judgment atonement heal in addition to generate HP.

Agree, though worried as this indicates the EF mastery nerf is set in stone.

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@Galedric Considered lowering the CD, but we'd have to nerf the HPS and it would also get macro'd with Divine Favor a lot.

Looks like we won't be getting Guardian on a 3 min cooldown.

They'd have to nerf the HPS. What HPS?

This is pretty significant to my mind. If they are worried about it on a 3 min cd, it means it's likely more powerful than other healers 3 minute cds, unless of course they are planning to add output to AM.

[Endule]

Absnthminded Might try Selfless Healer gives Judgment Holy Power for Holy, but nervous about that one.
I don't think anyone would take it still.

Paladins are already using HR to generate HP, which also heals and stacks shields. Why would a Paladin choose to judge rather than HR? The free DL/FoL is pretty worthless. I think they need to have judgment atonement heal in addition to generate HP.

if they did that i'd have to try it to see how good it actually works in comparison to sacred shield style but two big reasons would be its a 1.5 sec gcd vs 2.5 sec cast and costs 3k mana vs 21.6k.
overall this would lead to faster and cheaper holy power generation (much like CS here or there does now). the faster part would result in more hp dumps which is part of what made the t14 4pc and original pvp 4pc bonus so good. yes its not as much healing (cough overhealing for shields) as a radiance but neither is crusader strike yet that ability still has decent use on some fights and you could still double HR on parts of fights you want too. a free and instant DL every 3 judges isn't amazing but not useless for the hp and mana conserving (tanks will take some damage next tier especially hc progression).
lastly the cheaper rotation and free DL would also help out with mana a lot and we could gem heavier into mastery for more throughput.