[Holy] Patch 5.4 PTR - Changes Discussion Pt. 2

[Freia]

If Daybreak is the only thing that has no target cap then you'll probably want to be hitting large clumps/melee almost exclusively to refresh IH rather than now where Daybreak is kind of an afterthought. In fact combined with the HR target cap it will probably increase the "skill cap" of holy pallies?

I don't really think a target cap on HR increases the skill cap at all. Its a 6 target smart heal. We will still likely spam it on clusters for holy power. It does lower the value of mastery a bit though since we just lost more control we had stacking it.

[xiloclipse]

Was there any other compensation for lowering the target cap on HR? For instance is it the same amount per target, just hitting fewer people? Is there more tuning to come I assume? As others have said, this wasn't a surprise, but it does represent a significant nerf, especially in 25m, and when stacked. Even in 10m, that's 40% fewer people when stacked...

[Dubalicious]

HR will still do comparable overall healing. You will lose some throughput due to additional overhealing in a lot of situations, as well as losing potential throughput from more chances at critical heals, but I don't see that being a "huge" nerf by any means (haven't tested anything yet, so we'll see).

I do think the 6 target cap potentially gives us reason to actually monitor mastery shields more closely (which I personally haven't found necessary in 25 man raids up until this point), which is maybe part of the "increased skill cap" that another poster mentioned. The only additional change that would be nice is an increased range on HR to 12-15 yards, but I think that's unlikely and it's certainly not a necessity.

[nightfalls]

Was there any other compensation for lowering the target cap on HR? For instance is it the same amount per target, just hitting fewer people? Is there more tuning to come I assume? As others have said, this wasn't a surprise, but it does represent a significant nerf, especially in 25m, and when stacked. Even in 10m, that's 40% fewer people when stacked...

The total amount it heals for will be the same as it always was, capped out at 6 players and decreasing if it hits 1-5 players. Only instead of hitting all players for the total healing that it would do to 6 (divided equally between all players hit with the initial target taking a double share of the healing), it instead just hits the 6 most injured players for the 6 player amount (again with the initial target taking a double share I assume). So think of it as a Holy Prism only its off (another) friendly target instead of an enemy target.

It just won't blanket (and hence extend) shields on everyone but if Daybreak does the same thing to a degree little is lost for that for the most part (other than shields potentially being distributed to targets who don't need them, but it's just as likely that shields will be distributed to those who need it most as well).

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I recommend VuhDo for cluster tracking. As an aside, while my guildmates complain about lag, crashes, and other similar issues with Grid on the PTR, I am having (relatively) little trouble despite playing on an old laptop.

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I agree that a slight range increase on Holy Radiance and Daybreak would be nice especially since most ground effects have been buffed to have a bigger range, and it's my opinion that clusters are harder (even with addons) to reliably find and target to maximize healing range for "targeted" HR effects, compared to ground effects which can be placed on obvious groups of players.

For our throughput I would rather have seen HR remain a blanket and Daybreak become a smart heal, but I guess the "problem" is input lag. /sigh oh well.

[Deleted]

I guess we will se tonight how it goes in 25m testing, pretty sad about those changes, GOAK was pretty fun on the PTR, at this point i just hope they buff the mastery a bit so we can a least be competitive in progress

[Pasture]

I do think the 6 target cap potentially gives us reason to actually monitor mastery shields more closely.

Maybe, but it also becomes a lot harder to actually get IH up in the first place.

I'm thinking haste will be viable now. HR as a smart heal means its value as a spam for shields mechanic is much more limited but it's value as an actual heal is increased - using it reactively ala LoD will be more effective now it smart heals. You could argue in 10s it is still possible to roll shields since it hits 6 but still. This change, plus the mana buff, and haste is looking far more attractive as an option.

Haste scales better with SS / EF, Guardian, Beacon and the legendary cloak. Arguable it works better with a capped HR now it is a smart heal. Faster HP generation and the mana to sustain it now. I'll certainly be giving it a go on live and comparing logs.

[Deleted]

Whilst I have no idea about 25 man healing as I haven't played it outside of LFR since ICC I'm personally rubbing my hands at the thought of ten man healing now. LoD has received a huge buff and the SH playstyle is quite appealing to me especially since in 10 man all 10 people are very rarely stacked up to plant a HR on top of. Whilst I can see the benefits of 25 man taking EF it just seems to me that 10 man holy pally healing should be in quite a good place come next tier when using SH to allow for mastery stacking on over half the raid with more powerful shields. (just to invalidate everything I have said I havent done any PTR testing so I can't base my guesses on anything other than checking logs and theory)

[Freia]

HR will still do comparable overall healing. You will lose some throughput due to additional overhealing in a lot of situations, as well as losing potential throughput from more chances at critical heals, but I don't see that being a "huge" nerf by any means (haven't tested anything yet, so we'll see).

I do think the 6 target cap potentially gives us reason to actually monitor mastery shields more closely (which I personally haven't found necessary in 25 man raids up until this point), which is maybe part of the "increased skill cap" that another poster mentioned. The only additional change that would be nice is an increased range on HR to 12-15 yards, but I think that's unlikely and it's certainly not a necessity.

Why? You can't count on HR to refresh IH unless you use it on a group with only 6 people in the 10 yard radius. Daybreak will be able to refresh it, thats about it. You also can't count on HR stacking the shields on who you want to stack it on either in stacked situations. I was watching the shields most of the time before this change, afterwards with the loss of real control I'll watch but we will more likely see shields drop that we really couldn't do much about.

Right now it seems mastery will be something that works for sustained damage but not something to count on stacking for bursts as we could before.

[Corrupt]

Is "Light's Hammer" also affected by this target limit of 6?

[Kyuuseishu]

Is "Light's Hammer" also affected by this target limit of 6?

Yarp, it was changed at the same time as Healing Rain and the others.

[Dubalicious]

Why? You can't count on HR to refresh IH unless you use it on a group with only 6 people in the 10 yard radius. Daybreak will be able to refresh it, thats about it. You also can't count on HR stacking the shields on who you want to stack it on either in stacked situations. I was watching the shields most of the time before this change, afterwards with the loss of real control I'll watch but we will more likely see shields drop that we really couldn't do much about.

Right now it seems mastery will be something that works for sustained damage but not something to count on stacking for bursts as we could before.

Yeah I'm rethinking my original post on that. I don't currently track shields because it would just be information overload in a 25m raid, and really wouldn't provide any useful information when each time you refresh the shield it adds a very small amount. My original thinking was that with the change those would now be more significant shields, which would make them worth tracking. . . but again, I'm backpeddling on that one after rethinking it. What I *do* think would be useful is tracking shields that are greater than a certain amount, say 25k for example, to try and reduce more sizable shields from falling.

[pallyopness]

I have not done much testing at all on the ptr with the diff specs but I am unsure why people feel SH for 10 man with a haste mastery build wouldn't give adequate throughput. I feel it would give more than the perceived amount and beat out EF in most cases. I could be entirely wrong but would someone who raids 10 mans exclusively chime in that has done research. Maybe bouchbagette?

[bouchbagfett]

I have not done much testing at all on the ptr with the diff specs but I am unsure why people feel SH for 10 man with a haste mastery build wouldn't give adequate throughput. I feel it would give more than the perceived amount and beat out EF in most cases. I could be entirely wrong but would someone who raids 10 mans exclusively chime in that has done research. Maybe bouchbagette?

I need to redo the number after all the number changes, was waiting to see if there were any more output changes to come (crosses fingers for more LoD and HR buffs). I think the concern is how good is SF going to be at maintaining a LoD spam rotation while doing mechanics and not letting targets die when IH buffs are going to be much harder to refresh with a 6 target cap on LoD/HR while also managing a higher cost judgment that does no healing (they really should make judgment heal 1 target). But having up to date numbers will help make the decision better.

From the Flex testing I did I really didn't enjoy the new EF, I felt like the prophylactic benefits to rolling them were dismal while SS was a GCD shit storm.

[Pasture]

From the Flex testing I did I really didn't enjoy the new EF, I felt like the prophylactic benefits to rolling them were dismal while SS was a GCD shit storm.

I don't get all this SS is clunky, SS is too many globals, SS murdered my baby etc.

People don't complain about SH which uses twice the globals. I don't understand why it's clunky. It's a button you can press every 10 seconds. We're not the first class to have a cooldown like that. In terms of button pressing it's not that different to Prism.

[Deleted]

I guess we will se tonight how it goes in 25m testing, pretty sad about those changes, GOAK was pretty fun on the PTR, at this point i just hope they buff the mastery a bit so we can a least be competitive in progress

At least by watching Slootbag's stream on Dark Shaman paladin seemed doing just fine.

Didn't see Fallen Protectors so not sure about that one.

[Dubalicious]

I don't get all this SS is clunky, SS is too many globals, SS murdered my baby etc.

People don't complain about SH which uses twice the globals. I don't understand why it's clunky. It's a button you can press every 10 seconds. We're not the first class to have a cooldown like that. In terms of button pressing it's not that different to Prism.

- SS has no interaction with holy power - currently nearly everything we cast either generates or consumes holy power, with the obvious exceptions being T90 talents.

- Weaving a 10 second cooldown into a rotation that has revolved around a <6 second cooldown feels awkward, perhaps it won't with a bit more familiarity/experience. It has felt better each time I've tested it, so I expect this is a part of the "clunky" feel. The current incarnation is still pretty new, it's only been on the PTR for a few weeks I believe.

- Somehow managing to have 5 Sacred Shields up at once feels odd, and can mess with what should feel like fluid "refreshes". Not sure if this is a bug or what was going on, but had this happen several times during our last flex testing. Obviously this shouldn't persist to live, but it does make it feel a bit more clunky on the PTR.

Overall, it's just an adjustment to a spec that has revolved around the same spell for the better part of a year now. I don't think there's any issue with SS and I think they've actually done a good job making it competitive, but it IS a significant change to the playstyle and there will always be some resistance to something that has been made into a habit.

[Pasture]

- Somehow managing to have 5 Sacred Shields up at once feels odd, and can mess with what should feel like fluid "refreshes". Not sure if this is a bug or what was going on, but had this happen several times during our last flex testing. Obviously this shouldn't persist to live, but it does make it feel a bit more clunky on the PTR.

It's not a bug. It's just the way the charges work.

1. You put SS on three targets in a row. (3 targets)
2. 10 seconds later the first comes off charge (4 targets)
3. 10 seconds later the second comes off charge (5 targets).
4. 10 seconds later the third comes off charge but the first 3 SS drop off. (3 targets) From herein it's always 3 targets.

If you have all 3 charges waiting you can temporarily have 5 SS up at once. If you continue to use it on cooldown this drops to 3 SS at once. It does mean there may be some tactics in banking charges for key moments rather than rolling them out on cooldown whether they are needed or not.

[PosPosPos]

Since mastery is getting devalued, I think I am going to start prepping my haste set for 5.4 in addition to a mastery set. Seems like the prudent thing to do while mastery just seems to keep getting hit for whatever reasons.

[Dubalicious]

It does mean there may be some tactics in banking charges for key moments rather than rolling them out on cooldown whether they are needed or not.

Very good point, and I was obviously just being brain dead about the mechanic =(

[Deleted]

Ok guys I just wanna check the changes about guardian, it says it now heals targets of paladins heals for 100% of the healing done by paladin, does it mean it heals for both HR & LoD ? Since it ain't doing so atm on live (5.3)