[Holy] Patch 5.4 PTR - Changes Discussion

[Kyuuseishu]

The PW:S change is a buff.

Depends on what spirit level the disc priest is running with, for this to be a buff they have to be running with less than 9.2k spirit. The mana cost is already reduced on live, aswell as the removed cooldown. This makes rapture mana neutral rather than mana positive.

[Blash]

The mysterious "Sacred Shield Overridde (Holy)" is a major mechanic change for our SS.

@Ghostcrawler
@Cybnext IIRC it has a 16% mana cost and 10 sec CD for Holy, but no target limit (CD gives it an effective target limit).

Source: https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...40927667421185

[Lumineux]

The mysterious "Sacred Shield Overridde (Holy)" is a major mechanic change for our SS.



Source: https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...40927667421185

I thought they might go this route with being able to cast it on multiple targets. Awesome.

[Absintheminded]

10 Second cooldown? Not too exciting... Honestly I think the attention they're giving to SH is more exciting, as it possibly opens up a new style of game play, whereas SS change kind of just adds to our preexisting style of stacking shields but increases the globals necessary.

Looking forward to haste actually, decreasing cooldowns as well as global cooldown on those spells.

[Maelstrom51]

New PTR build has periodic spells not proccing the mastery shield. RIP eternal flame?

[Freia]

New PTR build has periodic spells not proccing the mastery shield. RIP eternal flame?

It has been change that has been posted for awhile. They just messed up in the last build and put it back in.

[Blash]

Hope this doesn't mean Light Hammer too.

[Freia]

No. It is only meant for EF. They said it was never meant for LH.

[Hand Banana]

Edit: also Disc nerfs

Rapture Removes the cooldown on Power Word: Shield and reduces its mana cost by 25%. In addition, when your Power Word: Shield is completely absorbed or dispelled you are instantly refunded 100% of its mana cost)

Its kinda funny, because in PVP this is actually a buff since disc can't get as much spirit. Might be a pve nerf but its another pvp buff that disc sure as hell doesn't need.

[Deleted]

The mysterious "Sacred Shield Overridde (Holy)" is a major mechanic change for our SS.



Source: https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...40927667421185

With this change SS will most likely be better than EF on 2 tank fights. Its a long time since I used SS but if I remember correctly it would amount to arround 10% of my healing and if we tripple that its quite amazing. Now the only issue I see with it is the mana cost, costing 16% its 44.4% (almost half) the mana cost of a HR which means every ~22 sec we will have to spend the same amount of mana as 1 HR.

[Kyuuseishu]

With this change SS will most likely be better than EF on 2 tank fights. Its a long time since I used SS but if I remember correctly it would amount to arround 10% of my healing and if we tripple that its quite amazing. Now the only issue I see with it is the mana cost, costing 16% its 44.4% (almost half) the mana cost of a HR which means every ~22 sec we will have to spend the same amount of mana as 1 HR.

Well considering the mana cost of one shield is that of one holy shock, since they are the same % wise, I don't have much worry about the it since it is relatively cheap for the amount of absorbing a single one can get off.

[Deleted]

I kind of found the glyph changes the most interesting. Divine plea.. basicly more mana when you really need it on fights if the 1min cd is better timed then 2min. And hand of sac. Now battle healer will obviously be dropped. And that leave us with Divine Protection / Protector of the innocent i believe(20% self heal) and Beacon and Divinity.

As for SH... We do cast an awefull lot of HR. Mana cost/cast time nice.. but also 20% more healing to me is the real bonus. Would have to play with it to see if a stable rotation can be made and the effects of it obviously.

I feel bad.. but it's nice to see some other changes to other classes. And i don't want to take the topic away from holy paladins so lets not

[Bythelights]

Yeah I remember it doing close to 10% of my healing in week 1 of mop. Oh but that was back when i had no gear, no mana, no hps, and no ET!! If I was pushing around 50K hps then (which is most likely an over estimation) and ss is 10% thats 5k hps with no overhealing not impressive really. Yeah I am really excited about a no brain function dumb talent being buffed.

I think all these pally concerns have you off your game pacer. If I have mana to spam holy radiance currently how is using a gcd on a spell that costs half the mana going to cause a mana concern issue???? Maybe I am missing something.

Edit.... Yeah we think holy pallies have to many absorbs. Yeah we also think that pallies using any type of hot turns them instantly into a resto druid. Hey how about we give them the option to talent for 3 absorb over time mechanics. Yeah 3 SS's you need to keep near 100% uptime feels a lot more like a resto druid then EF. That combined with our nerfed IH abosrbs will put us around the same abosrb percentage we currently have.

[Absintheminded]

That combined with our nerfed IH abosrbs will put us around the same abosrb percentage we currently have.

SS in 5.4 will not absorb anywhere near as much as EF in 5.3. It's not even close.

[Dubalicious]

SS in 5.4 will not absorb anywhere near as much as EF in 5.3. It's not even close.

Do you have any numbers on this? From the numbers I have (using the 'old' SS values), a single sacred shield absorbs about as much as the IH generated from 3-4 Eternal Flames over a 30 second period (using 20% haste and 45% mastery @ ~36k spellpower)

[E] this is ignoring ALL the other numerous factors that ultimately go into the "which one is better" decision

[Deleted]

I think all these pally concerns have you off your game pacer. If I have mana to spam holy radiance currently how is using a gcd on a spell that costs half the mana going to cause a mana concern issue???? Maybe I am missing something.
.

Well mostly the issue is that we loose EF and gain WoG which heals for less. And we already lost the mastery shields from the EF HoT which are somewhat big. So the expectation is that a lot of HR spam is in our future to compensate for that loss. Which will cost a lot of mana. With EF you could keep some of that HR healing saved in shields.

[Deleted]

Well mostly the issue is that we loose EF and gain WoG which heals for less. And we already lost the mastery shields from the EF HoT which are somewhat big. So the expectation is that a lot of HR spam is in our future to compensate for that loss. Which will cost a lot of mana. With EF you could keep some of that HR healing saved in shields.

Some of those HR will have a reduced cost and we'll get extra HoPo from judgment. I think SH will be fine mana wise, not sure about the throughput though.

[Smag]

Make Judgement splash smartheal and Im sold!
Seriously, you can build up a very good combo with that. But because it does nothing, but give HoPo and a stack, I think its might be a loss when, for example, you pop HA. Every HoPo generating spell goes for 3, but also they heal. I'd rather spam HR/meta flash proc/DL into a tank than spend a gcd on a non-healing generator even if it buffs them, in 10hm at least. On Ra-Den 2nd phase, you just spam that sh1t. Not worth it, I think, in terms of wasting time of a buff. Plus, the HoPo generating value kinda diminishes with the loss of IH stacks, so no blankets.... May be the LoD buff will mitigate that, dunno.

As for SS, I used that spell like 2-3 times in the begining of MoP, so i'm not even shure about the throughoutput. It scales only with haste, right? May be if they make it scale with Mastery too, we would be on something here.

[Pasture]

As for SS, I used that spell like 2-3 times in the begining of MoP, so i'm not even shure about the throughoutput. It scales only with haste, right? May be if they make it scale with Mastery too, we would be on something here.

Sacred Shield always had decent throughput, looking at around 10% of total healing. I hear it doesn't scale so well, so that might be lower now, but you're able to keep it up on 3 targets now. SS is going to be a great choice for Holy on certain fights now. Two tank fights it will be very strong on, which is how I've always felt it should pull ahead. And then you have a third target to drop it on who is likely to make most damage. It's a great change and absolutely it makes SS compete with EF.

SH also buffing HR is another very positive move (and shows they are reading and applying suggestions). SH is still a bad choice for most fights due to dropping so many globals but maybe on the occasional Horridon style fight it might shine.

Glyph of Sacrifice great again.

Leaning more and more toward a haste build, especially for SS fights.

[Dubalicious]

Leaning more and more toward a haste build, especially for SS fights.

It is kinda sad that SS only scales with 1 of our 3 secondary throughput stats =(