Cheers. Straight to the point. As a veteran healer who has done the whole vanilla content on all healer classes (on some - full content Hardcore). I’ve noticed certain disbalance.
As we all know, healers in WOWF got some unique tools and powerful capstone spells.
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Priest, the strongest overall healer, has become even stronger:
-PoM;
-Finely tuned Disc tree;
-Stacking and critting (!!!) Renews, shields do not block rage concentration;
-extra sustain with Litany of Light;
-PoH now works on the other group including pets, etc.
-
Shaman, godly group healer:
-got powerful capstone Riptide;
-massive utility spells;
-extra indoor mobility, that can be used in PvE/PvP.
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Druid:
-powerful capstone Wild Growth;
-Regrowth cost reduction;
-Swiftmend do not consume existing hots.
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Paladin, so called “best solo target healer” (actually WAS called so ONLY because of his sustain - priest and sham can do that even better with Inspiration/Ancestral healing (+25% armor buff, that paladin doesn’t have). So, the paladin changes bottom line:
- Illumination nerfed (and the lack of Worldbuffs in raids will cut Holy paladin even more, as all his sustain is based on spellcrits);
- Literally zero (!!!) any new healing spells;
- Vague 31 Holy capstone that costs ungodly 1340 mana, but let us look at it. Light’s Vigil works ONLY on IT’S target and this target’s group. Imagine targeting this guy with a Holy Shock to heal his group, in an intense encounter like Four Horsemen, Sapphiron, or say, Twin Emperors, when groups are somehow split.
All in all, paladin got:
- Reduced CD on Holy Shock;
- Infusion of Light (a slim chance to cast 1,5 sec Holy Light, that is now too expensive because the sustain is cut, and lower spellcrit in raids);
- BADLY designed 31 Holy capstone, that tries to make a wheelchair group healer out of a single target specialist.
So, do we have any reason to keep this poor creature in a raid?! Especially a small new raid for 10-20 ppl! Isn’t it better to replace him with any other healer or at least Retri pala, on whom the designers are focused. It is weird that no other people are worried about such poor state of Holy Paladin. And my beta experience only proves it.
All classes should be balanced somehow, healers including. Palas do not need to be OP, let them be the best sustainable solotarget healers, just change that useless 31 Holy capstone.
10 Likes
Is it useless or does it cost too much mana ?
I cannot begin to explain how happy I am that someone else has noticed this, Ive thought ive been going insane over the past week, looking into the state of every other healer, also a long time healing vet here and things its absurd that hpal has been forgotten, im a priest heal main at heart, but also hpal as my go to second, was going to send hpal first this time but after the state of them I dont even know If i can be bothered, this post needs more like so blizz actually sees it, and puts some effort into the spec, theyve put all their effort into prot and ret and therefore forgotten about hpal and gave us a crap wheelchair capstone, that is wonky and will not work, theyve gutted it purely and its such a shame.
2 Likes
I would argue for prot they have copy pasted a few turtle talents and half baked the rest.
I’m pretty interested to see if shockadin is a thing.
People are obsessed with Ret, Prot, etc.
These specs are ok. Viable. And it is good, as these specs were underdogs for 20 years.
As for shockadin - it is sort of a meme/pvp/s’hits n’giggles spec, not a raid spec tbh.
And because of Ret and Prot shine, the weakness of Holy is purely neglected!
People even say - ye, holy is also cool, we got groupheal now.
But try to compare that “group heal” with PoM, Riptide and Wild Growth.
The throughput of Hpala will be even weaker with smaller raids, as there won’t be enough palas to give BOL blessing. Because it’s the last blessing that paladins buff (salv, kings, bow, bom are prio), and w/o it their heals will be even weaker.
They nerfed the dmg and healing from Holy Shock in the vanilla by 50%, but made the CD shorter, I know they must have done it because Light Vigil, but the mana cost on LV is so insane so you wont spam LV + Holy Shock for dps.
Join the Prot Paladin club without a real taunt, a Righteous Fury that was cut by 30%, no ranged pull and absolutely no gearing options other than.. Would you like some more strength for that auto attack?
They have nerfed all spells by 50% post lvl 20, because gear now packs far higher healing and spell damage values, I don’t think we can predict whether Hpals will be terrible sustain and healing, it really comes down to how itemization ends up being.
What I will say is that, that talent.. Is such a joke talent. I’m not saying Paladins should be AoE healers, far from it.. But maaaan.. Having to plan your AoE around a buff and hope you don’t miss a big AoE window.. just no. It’s terrible, give them something useful like Beacon or a cooldown which triggers crits to spread heals (it doesn’t have to be a lot), remove BoL and bake that straight into the heals instead. 20man raids do not have space for 4 paladins when you need at least 3 shamans, 3 druid and 3 paladins unless you want to skip a resto druid for an extra Hpal, but why lose HoTs.
3 Likes
That’s a shame, Shockadin was so much fun in SOD, most fun I’ve had in WOW since Wotlk, it got a bit crazy in the end, but so did every other spec.
1 Like
Actually Rdru is not in a top shape too, as their hots do not stack yet. Currently the only hot that stack in Forever is priest’s Renew. Yes, their new throughput is wild, but still there is no point to take more than one Dru to a raid.
As for shameful paladun group heal, let us do a simple calculation:
Light’s Vigil (Max Rank 3) = 1340 mana, NOT instant, 1,5 s cast.
Holy Shock (Max Rank 4) = 325 mana (292 with Benediction talent)
To make ONE splash of that awkward group heal you use ---- 1665/1632 ---- mana.
It heals the party for: 691 - 732 (Max Rank 3 - tooltip).
Meanwhile Priest’s max rank Prayer of Healing (R5) costs 1030 mana and heals for: 581 - 612.
So is it just me who thinks that something is wrong?^^
1 Like
Just trying to understand here; doesn’t Light’s Vigil give a HPala an insane amount of burst heal to reactively top one (or multiple) groups after incoming damage?
sure, the mana cost seems way out of whack currently, but if it were costed less aggressively, would it not be incredibly strong?
That feels a bit disingenuous. You can put up Light’s Vigil during downtime long before the damage comes in and heal reactively via an instant.
A Priest must cast for 3 seconds. Especially when the damage is not telegraphed to an exact timer (so the priest cant pre-cast his PoH), Light’s Vigil should be way stronger. The paladin can top 2-3 groups by the time the HPriest has cast 1 PoH reactively
Imagine your manabar if this 1665 mana heal is performed on multiple groups and the fight lasts for 1 minute or longer.
I’m not a fan of theorycrafts and predictions, but ppl in aoe phases will be topped by other classes while palas will still spam Flash of Light and ocasional HL (with Infusion of Light procs). With much worse sustain, ofc.
Sure, we’re just having a discussion. But as it looks now - Hpalas are in danger, and i’m not alone who tries to point it. Ofc there is always an option to roll priest, but all healers should be balanced, like it is done with Priests (Penance, lel)-Shamas-Druids.
1 Like
100% agreed on the mana side of things.
But from the pure mechanics, the skill seems super strong
1 Like
Heck no man, I’m on your side, but I do wonder if that tooltip isn’t just a bit misleading. Are we absolutely sure that it’s not refunding 75% when used to heal? It is still clunky, I would still rather advertise for a 15s buff on a 1-3min cooldown that simply spreads your heals. You’re not an AoE healer, but you have AoE capabilities without going through hoops.
I mean the Protection Paladin One Handed Specialization is also misleading, it says increases all damage dealt with melee one handed weapons so one would expect auto attacks and Holy Strike as that’s the only thing classified as melee, but it does, in fact, increase Judgement, Seals and Holy Shield too which are categorized as Spells and not melee. It does not increase Consecration and Retribution aura which are also categorized as Spells.