Instants given cast times - how does it affect playstyle?

[Luxeley]

Blizzard's made a lot of dumb moves since mid-Cata - this is most definitely one of them. Every other MMO and Rpg is leaning towards a run and gun style of play and Blizzard is moving in the opposite direction. Makes no sense, I am pretty much shocked they are sticking by their guns on this mechanic.

[Freia]

So are yours, but you don't see me complaining about it.



And yet to some degree you agree with me.


Good, then maybe Paladins can get a mobility gap closer.


P.S. Battle Fatigue exists for a lot of reasons. Mainly because healers are too good. Instant cast spells maybe just a minor part of the problem, but it was a problem.

Until open beta, you won't know how things will play out until then. Obviously the developers believe that Holy Paladins are going to be so strong that giving them cast time in abilities was the best way to nerf them. It's not like Blizzard hasn't done that throughout MoP.

Your posts are pointless because the thread has nothing to do with what you came here to complain about. This thread is not about casters/healers vs melee in pvp. You just seem to have this vendetta to qq about ret pvp in every thread. The top healer in pvp with the most instants(druids) had 1 spell given a cast time, one that was not used very often in pvp.

Now will you let the thread go back to the discussion the OP actually wanted talked about? The effect of the casttime on EF/WoG and LoD on holy paladins.

[Malthanis]

Guys, let's chill. It's totally cool to have other spec/class opinions on a topic (and it arguably makes things better, since a spec isn't designed in a vacuum).

However, let's keep the topic focused on the general removal of instant cast abilities from Holy Paladins, okay?

[Xs]

Battle Fatigue is new to MoP and was introduced due to out of control healer scaling. That and matches that lasted forever. The introduction to casting in spells is meant to nerf healing in PvP and mobility in PvE. It was too stinking good. Get over it.

It was added when they made "Resilience" baseline, because MS was already healer's version of resilience.

[Vash The Stampede]

This thread is not about casters/healers vs melee in pvp.

If you looked around all the casters are getting less instant cast spells. Some more then others. For what purpose? To make you angry? Casters have too many instant cast spells in a game where this wasn't originally designed for.

The top healer in pvp with the most instants(druids) had 1 spell given a cast time, one that was not used very often in pvp.

This isn't just about PvP. A lot of raid boss mechanics are built around this.

Now will you let the thread go back to the discussion the OP actually wanted talked about? The effect of the casttime on EF/WoG and LoD on holy paladins.

I will quote the OP.

I heard the Devs Furor and Tigole have a special hate for the Class stemming from EQ or some stupid thing. Because I don't want to play something that radically changes on a whim, some thoughts and input will tell me whether to try the class out or whether to stick to my rogue.

Tigole and Furor are like a running joke for Paladins. Probably have no effect on Paladins today what so ever. Especially Holy Paladins. Remember these guys hated tanking Paladins. Paladins were taking Warriors jobs in EQ. But the discussion is oh so serious when we blame these guys for anything wrong with Paladins.

The changes weren't done on a whim, and are only radical cause Blizzard realized they'd been moving in a direction they couldn't balance. Do I melee? Yes, but I'm telling you from the other sides perspective. The changes are warranted. If you think Paladins need better mobility then try asking for a gap closer, which the entire class could use. Something like Intervene but heals the target instead of redirects damage. Any gap closer would be better then having more instant cast heals.

[Freia]

If you looked around all the casters are getting less instant cast spells. Some more then others. For what purpose? To make you angry? Casters have too many instant cast spells in a game where this wasn't originally designed for.


This isn't just about PvP. A lot of raid boss mechanics are built around this.


I will quote the OP.



Tigole and Furor are like a running joke for Paladins. Probably have no effect on Paladins today what so ever. Especially Holy Paladins. Remember these guys hated tanking Paladins. Paladins were taking Warriors jobs in EQ. But the discussion is oh so serious when we blame these guys for anything wrong with Paladins.

The changes weren't done on a whim, and are only radical cause Blizzard realized they'd been moving in a direction they couldn't balance. Do I melee? Yes, but I'm telling you from the other sides perspective. The changes are warranted. If you think Paladins need better mobility then try asking for a gap closer, which the entire class could use. Something like Intervene but heals the target instead of redirects damage. Any gap closer would be better then having more instant cast heals.

Have you tested holy paladins on beta? Are you even on beta to test boss mechanics? Paladins need better mobility for the current boss mechanics. No we don't need a gap closer, we need more abilities that allow us to heal on the move or the other healers need to be nerfed down to our level. And nothing in your posts have even hinted the topic of the thread at all. It is just you as diggy beautifully put it "repeating blizzard's wishful thinking" and trying to further your agenda, rather than discussing how the changes actually affect holy paladins and healer balance in general on current beta(Not MoP, WoD beta!).

'let's keep the topic focused on the general removal of instant cast abilities from Holy Paladins, okay'

[nightfalls]

It's clear when "gap closer" comes out that the poster is obviously still only talking melee with a 100% melee mindset which doesn't belong in this healer thread. You don't talk about "gap closers" for healers unless you are talking about countering them.

It's also clear that the only opinions that are worth anything are those coming from healers, not from Ret Paladins who obviously don't play healers very much if at all. There's some opinions (from healers, not ret posters that are infamous for QQ even more than a stereotypical ret player) saying that the cast times "aren't that bad" on the official forums earlier; however, it seems recently with additional testing most people are swinging in the opposite opinion.

Finally the only valid comparison is to other healer classes. If all of them have similar level mobility, then obviously paladins will be fine. If they have substantially more mobility, then paladins will not be fine unless melee have significantly less mobility/gap closers AND encounters require less movement. The last two things don't seem to be happening.

[Malthanis]

The changes weren't done on a whim, and are only radical cause Blizzard realized they'd been moving in a direction they couldn't balance. Do I melee? Yes, but I'm telling you from the other sides perspective. The changes are warranted. If you think Paladins need better mobility then try asking for a gap closer, which the entire class could use. Something like Intervene but heals the target instead of redirects damage. Any gap closer would be better then having more instant cast heals.

I'm going to agree with nightfalls on this one. The only reason a healing spec should ever consider the words 'gap closer' is when they're trying to deal with the warrior charging at their face (or whatever other spec/class that might be jumping on them). A gap closer is the last thing Holy needs, and I would actually consider that as much an insult to Holy paladins as referring to a Retribution paladin's healing as utility.

Personally, I'd like to see the ability to cast while moving be given to players as a whole, but that's probably coming from playing too much GW2 lately. Removing a lot of instant casts means more thought is required (since there's a delay between the button press and the actual result), but I really don't like the collateral damage of "you stand there and decide to A) let someone die or B) heal them and die to something that landed on you".

[Kaeth]

From looking at beta raid streams for just a few minutes (not counting that epic Blue Bar Boss), it's pretty clear that this "caster movement reduction" paradigm doesn't have the support of the encounter design team. But that should be no surprise.

Thankfully, half of all healers can still heal just fine -- though not at 100% throughput -- on the move. Paladins are not among them.

As long as Rejuvenation and Renew (just to give two examples) remain instant cast and spammable, the class with only one instant-cast heal (Holy Shock) on a 6-second cooldown, with much of its real throughput gated behind "combo points" (Holy Power), can't compete without being obscenely overpowered when standing still (which it isn't).

Devs need to get a clue. They half-assed this new healer movement philosophy and only applied it to half of the healing specs in the game. There will be no way to balance it with a mere numbers pass.

[nightfalls]

@Kaeth,

Let's not forget that our druid counterparts received one cast only (Wild Growth) which is only 1 cast per 8 seconds (that's a world of difference from 1 instant per 8 seconds), is not really used in PvP (arena, where casting matters most) anyway, and frankly, is also a semi-overall buff since now Clearcasting affects WG making it free.

[Kaeth]

Let's not forget that our druid counterparts received one cast only (Wild Growth) which is only 1 cast per 8 seconds (that's a world of difference from 1 instant per 8 seconds), is not really used in PvP (arena, where casting matters most) anyway, and frankly, is also a semi-overall buff since now Clearcasting affects WG making it free.

Meanwhile, the Efflorescence HoT from Wild Mushroom ticks on multiple people in its area of effect for greather throughput (on each) than Eternal Flame with no ramp-up time (and instant cast) at a cost of one global and slightly more mana than a single Flash of Light. And this is after they nerfed its duration from 5 minutes to 30 seconds.

A cast-time on LoD is debateable (I'm personally against it); EF simply should not have one. Paladins already have less mobility in live than druids do in 6.0, and if anyone thinks we'll be tuned to greatly out-heal them while standing still, I think you're delusional. Especially not area healing.

(Struck out the portion of your post that is no longer true to avoid confusion -- though it was correct at the time of your posting.)

[nightfalls]

Paladins already have less mobility in live than druids do in 6.0, and if anyone thinks we'll be tuned to greatly out-heal them while standing still, I think you're delusional. Especially not area healing.

Even if we were tuned as such, I don't call that a victory for either us or the druids. But that's a moot point, because I agree, that thinking is delusional.

(Struck out the portion of your post that is no longer true to avoid confusion -- though it was correct at the time of your posting.)

Yup, that was changed. I'm not editing all my posts to cover beta changes though, if people still think any post made during a Beta is necessarily currently 100% accurate...

[auswa100]

On point: It feels like butts....

Our only instant cast is something with a baseline 6s cooldown that needs to be hit on c/d due to IoL procs and HP generation.

One thing they could do is make HP generation more accessible, or take it off of HS, to remove part of the opportunity cost and actually allow us to save it for high movement.

Another radical idea that I've thought about is to let EF be castable while moving. While this kind of goes against what they were going for in terms of caster movement in PvE, it preserves their intention from a PvP standpoint, which is taking away instant-cast throughput.

[Kaeth]

Our only instant cast is something with a baseline 6s cooldown that needs to be hit on c/d due to IoL procs and HP generation.

And that's a huge problem. It doesn't make movement a "skill" think for healadins; we can't delay Holy Shock by more than a second without sacrificing Holy Power, mana (glyphed), and throughput. Casting it on cooldown is almost an imperative.

That leaves us with ZERO dedicated tools for dealing with movement outside of our level-90 talent tier.

Those Infusion procs also awkwardly make EF and LoD frequently slower than our traditional cast-time heals.