Light of Yawn : Holy Paladin Idea

[Xalick]

I enjoy the increased complexity in our play, but in the current state of things even if I perform to 100% of my (and my classes) capability, I will still be destroyed (in terms of throughput or HPS) by equally competent druids, shamans, and priests on just about every ICC fight. The reason for this is primarily due to our current lack of consistent AoE healing a la Chain Heal or Circle of Healing variety.

Recently Blizzard buffed our single target heals on Beta in an attempt to close this gap in throughput (as well as to compensate for the Holy Radiance nerf). Blizzard wanted to move some of our healing out of Holy Radiance and into our single target healing. Fine, I’ll take the buffs to those heals I guess, whether they were needed or not I will forfeit judgement. But honestly, what I believe Blizzard needs to do is shift some of the healing out of Holy Radiance and into “Light of Dawn”. That said I also believe Light of Dawn, as it exists now, needs a serious overhaul.

We have our heal everything (unlimited targets) in “this area” spell on a long CD with Holy Radiance. Holy Radiance is a great spell. It’s fresh/interesting, powerful (albeit too powerful, nerf away so long as our overall throughput is on par with the other healers), and fairly simplistic and fun to use. So then, why in the world do we have a second AoE heal that does essentially the same job (unlimited targets in a specific area - with a different shape) that is much less powerful, more difficult to use, significantly more situational, and on the same long CD? Not to mention Light of Dawn’s efficiency and throughput scaling problems between 5, 10, and 25 mans. The mechanic just doesn’t work well and has absolutely no synergy with the rest of our tools.

What we are lacking to stay competitive with the other healers in most cases is a targeted smart heal with limited (4-6) targets and a short CD (5-15 secs), much like the abilities that every other healing class in the game has. If I remember correctly Blizzard has explicitly stated that they do not want to add any more smart heals to the game, so I am not confident we will ever see such a change, but I do hope they will reconsider.

How Blizzard would implement this type of heal for our class would obviously be up to them. I certainly understand the need to not homogenize classes too much so I would never expect an exact clone of CoH, for example. But as Blizzard has stated themselves, different classes in the same role often do the exact same thing, but the way the class or spec works as a whole simply makes doing that same thing feel different from the other classes or specs. Here is a summary of what I would like to see happen...

Light of Dawn (or whatever you want to call it) is now on a short CD (8-12 secs). It is a targeted AoE smart heal that hits a maximum of 4 or 5 targets for a respectable amount of healing on each (I’ll leave the numbers to Blizzard). The spell could either function similar to Circle of Healing where it just hits those 5 targets at once; or a la Chain Heal where it jumps from one target to the next, reducing in potency as “the light” travels; or even function as something completely new and unique in the way that it heals or protects the affected targets (think a holy shield or bubble that protects the affected targets from all other schools of magic until broken – through either damage cap and/or duration limit). This is also now a “finishing move” that scales with Holy Power (exponentially, of course).

This solves a number of issues mentioned above, but also provides our spec with more interesting options (or options, period) for Holy Power use (something that many holy paladins have been begging for). Do I use this full stack of Holy Power to Word of Glory the tank at 50% health or should I toss “Light of Dawn” on the ranged group that just got hit with a slime puddle? Now for there to be a real choice in the matter, Word of Glory and Light of Dawn would need to be somewhat similar in potency, which would probably require a significant buff to Word of Glory (something else that many Holy Paladins have been asking for since it is so very similar to Holy Shock in every way, shape, and form and seems fairly underpowered for a “finisher”). As far as ideas go to make Word of Glory more interesting or desirable, I don’t really have any. All I can think of at present is to simply make it heal for more for Holy Paladins, while still keeping it in line for Protection and Retribution. In the end, changing Light of Dawn to something along these lines is like killing 5 birds with 1 stone.

tldr; we need a smart heal on a shorter CD, and Light of Dawn should be it.

Sorry for the wall of text, thoughts?

[Simca]

This is why they won't do it:

I think the LoD CD is fine. But I thought GC said that it would have the most throughput of any healing spell in the game. From accounts I read so far, it seems like it does very little healing compared with the mana cost and CD.

It is target sensitive. If you heal one person, it's not going to do impressive numbers. In situations where it hits 10 people, it will perform really well. You will need to look out for situations where it will be the most optimal. Part of why it can heal so much is it is far from being a smart heal.

What people want is this:
Light of Dawn
No Cooldown, Requires Holy Power
Heals players for 1000/2000/3000, consuming all holy power in the cast.

The reason we didn't do that is because the times you need AE heals are usually because several folks took damage all at once. That is why so many AE heals are instant. Even those with a cast time aren't as long as something that requires 3 Holy Power. Nor do we want you to have to neglect Word of Glory on fights with periodic AE damage. To have a long ramp up - high throughput AE heal be useful, there would have to be a lot of encounters like Loatheb or something where the damage is fairly constant but folks aren't often in immediate danger of dying.

I could see (someday) giving paladins a heal that hit 3-5 targets but otherwise worked exactly like Word of Glory. But since we gave paladins 4 new heals already, as well as reasons to use both Flash and Holy Light, let's see if we can get the current model feeling good first. I think we're close.

Emphasis added.

Basically, expect a real group heal next expansion (assuming that is when "someday" is).

[belfpala]

You made a good post, and the Blue quote the person above posted me doesn't address the real issue that LoD is essentially the same thing as Holy Radiance, just with a different shape.

Post what you wrote on the Officials, but make sure to highlight that you're not asking for another new heal; you'd prefer that LoD has a different mechanic from Radiance. You already do this, but make it more explicit from the start.

Edit: Add something like this, maybe. There are essentially three archetypical styles of fights. In the first type, the Patchwerk style, you won't use either LoD or radiance. In the second type, the Sapphiron style, you'll be able to use both on CD assuming you find a good place to stand. In the third type, the Kel'thuzad style, you'll be able to use Radiance but LoD won't be worth it. (Some fights will mix styles, of course).

In other words, on the type of fight where LoD is useful, Radiance is already doing the same job. Why keep both a phillips and slotted screwdriver in my toolkit when all my screws are phillips?

[Killora]

You made a good post, and the Blue quote the person above posted me doesn't address the real issue that LoD is essentially the same thing as Holy Radiance, just with a different shape.

Light of Dawn is completely different from Holy radiance. There arent even any real simularities unless you include " It heals people ".

[belfpala]

Light of Dawn is completely different from Holy radiance. There arent even any real simularities unless you include " It heals people ".

1. It heals people
2. In an area
3. Instantly rather than over time
4. But with a different shaped area.

If we need an instant screwdriver and an over time screwdriver, cool.

[Killora]

1. It heals people
2. In an area
3. Instantly rather than over time
4. But with a different shaped area.

If we need an instant screwdriver and an over time screwdriver, cool.

1. Are you honestly going to compare the two because it heals? it's like comparing tranquility and Fel armor because they both heal.
2. Light of dawn is conal, Holy radiance is all around. Ones a specific area ones not.
3. That's a difference.
4. >.>

It's like comparing apples with Oranges ( cliche ) and saying they're similar because they're both a fruit.

[Erroneous]

Judging from youtube beta raid kills, they both work well. I think an added use for holy power would be awesome but in my own opinion, I like using LoD on a cooldown

[belfpala]

Maybe try reply to the OP rather than to me.

[Phosey]

This game is not balanced around level 80, this has been stated by Blizzard many times. At 80, things will even out with Holy Radiance and Mastery shields, just concentrate on pressing that Divine Light button harder on the tanks and LoDing on specific fight mechanics.

Just look at the Holy Paladin from Paragon destroy meters on their raid boss kills.

[Deleted]

This game is not balanced around level 80, this has been stated by Blizzard many times. At 80, things will even out with Holy Radiance and Mastery shields, just concentrate on pressing that Divine Light button harder on the tanks and LoDing on specific fight mechanics.

Just look at the Holy Paladin from Paragon destroy meters on their raid boss kills.

LOD is fine, i want glyph of long word god please!

[Aphsara]

Judging from youtube beta raid kills, they both work well. I think an added use for holy power would be awesome but in my own opinion, I like using LoD on a cooldown

Ehhhhhh.... To make Paladins more viable tank healers, holy power should only be used for Word of Glory, otherwise we'll run into the same problem as ret paladins do, with having to use Holy Power for Divine Storm OR Templar's Verdict.

Say, the raid starts taking a LOT of damage, you start gaining stacks of Holy Power... Even though pallies are good raid healers, druids and priests are still far superior (don't forget, shamans have chain heal, too) but paladins are still the best single-target healers. Using holy Power for Word of Glory, keeping the tank alive, is still more useful than doing mediocre healing to melee. Make sense?

[Tatsu]

The current problem with comparing healing at level 80 is that most meters are not tracking our mastery. This reduces our healing and adsorbs a ton.

[Deleted]

The current problem with comparing healing at level 80 is that most meters are not tracking our mastery. This reduces our healing and adsorbs a ton.

Indeed, and Subjecktive made an excellent post on WOW EU forums about the guessed absorbs not actually recording our mastery correctly:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....42107182&sid=1

Until this is fixed it will be hard to really measure anything.

[Deleted]

not to mention theres not realy enough damage output from bosses to warrent hitting spells.

[Ciah]

not to mention theres not realy enough damage output from bosses to warrent hitting spells.

Not sure what Heroic LK you're fighting, but in my experience he still gives plenty of reasons to press buttons.

[tjanson]

Light of Dawn is completely different from Holy radiance. There arent even any real simularities unless you include " It heals people ".

I really have no idea how you can actually say this. Light of Dawn and Holy Radiance do the exact same thing. Light of Dawn does it instantly, and in a cone in front of you, and Holy Radiance does it over time in a circle around you. Both are unlimited target heals that are position based from the caster. So... the OP has a really good point, I guess?

As to Word of Glory, I'd just like it to be a full-fledged heal over time spell, that benefits from crit and haste. Glyph of the Long Word doesn't really do that, but I'll probably end up taking it in Cataclysm anyway. To separate it from Ret and Prot, the HoT could be an optional deep Holy talent - which would give us a little more depth in our rather strange talent tree.

[Xalick]

I understand that the game is not balanced around level 80 right now and that Paladins are (or were) destroying meters on Beta. Neither of those facts really have any bearing on what my point is. In fact, I even briefly addressed the later point in mentioning that Holy Radiance was overpowered and that some of its throughput should be transferred into Light of Dawn, instead of single target heals (which mostly serves to push us back into the same niche Blizzard wanted to move us away from in the first place). Holy Radiance was apparently accounting for upwards of 75% of Holy Paladin healing on Beta raids, although I would bet this is at least a slight exaggeration.

Yes, we buffed the 5 paladin direct heals (FoL, HL, DL, HS, WoG). This is a change for both level 80 and 85. We are going to tone down Holy Radiance as I described in the other thread. It can be powerful without being 75% of paladin healing.

I am primarily saying that there is too much redundancy between Light of Dawn and Holy Radiance and that Light of Dawn would better serve us as a shorter CD, limited target, heal that does not rely so much on position and situation and is not balanced around a long CD. As it stands right now, when we require AoE healing, we use Light of Dawn and Holy Radiance, and then have nothing but single target heals to use for the next 30 seconds. I feel our class would be more well rounded if we could use Holy Radiance to cover the larger chunks of AoE healing (Tympanic Tantrum, Pungent Blight, etc), and then have Light of Dawn to use for more precise and frequent group heals between Holy Radiance CDs.

Edit: I would even go so far as to say that the Holy Radiance effect could remain unchanged. Increase its cooldown to 1-3 minutes, and fix Light of Dawn to be more in line with other healers smart heals.

[Sagittaron]

you guys are just pissed you can't heal the raid with JOL and holy light glyph anymore, and look like you are doing shit.

L2 Play.

Actually the healing from JOL (padding) in my raids always went to our ret pally, I only needed to judge once per minute.

The only fight I can honestly say I miss that glyph of holy light was dreamwalker. The splash heal from the glyph accounted for 18% of my heals on valithria.

[Xalick]

You were doing it wrong.
worldoflogs.com/reports/tu95mnx08a89zgu0/sum/healingDone/?s=3143&e=3417#Xstunna

just saying, i've seen lots of holy pallys that perform just fine even as of 4.01 launch. and tons more that couldnt adapt at all and wanted to play a different class.

but meh, they'll just buff you anyway.

I don't understand what your point is.

You linked a 10 man normal mode log from pre-4.01, in which Glyph of Holy Light and Judgement of Light did a relatively small percentage of the healing. What is your point? How is Sagittaron wrong?

Edit: I see you got yourself banned and can only conclude that you had no point, aside from trying to troll.

[DaGhostDS]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-paladin-ideas
^
post your idea in there