I am a holy paladin player since early Wrath of the Lich King. I’ve seen countless reworks and iterations of this healing spec. From the new Holy Power system introduced in Cataclysm up until now. And I have a feeling this is the worst one yet.
The Holy Power System - If I’m being honest, I was never a big fan of this system. But when it was introduced in Cataclysm and MoP it made way more sense than it does now. Since this is literally an iteration of the rogues Combo Point stats, the spells should be usable from 1 to 3/4/5 each for minimum to maximum benefit. Otherwise when they all cost 3 flat holy power it feels really depriving to play since the only holy power generator is Holy Shock and direct heals on beacons.
Infusion of Light - Holy Pallies kit has always revolved around the Holy Shock crits that give us the infusion buff. That buff had always had its benefits, from instant casts to reduced cast times. Now is a disaster. A reduced mana cost for Flash of Light proves no benefit what so ever, neither does the Holy Light healing increase in most scenarios.
PvP - Back to the previous two points,
the Holy Power system is very underwhelming when all spells cost flat 3 holy power with only 1 holy power generator (excluding direct healing spells on beacons). In order to pull off any kind of big heals you would need to stack holy power with flat heals. Which are another problem. Flash of Light isn’t really worth using in most situations since it’s heals are very poor. Holy Light however has substantial heal on it, the big problem is its cast time. Outside of “Divine Favor” there is absolutely minimal chances to land a full cast of Holy Light in any PvP pressure situation because of its ridiculously Large cast time ( back to the Infusion of Light where it used to reduce holy light’s cast time by an amount).
All in all, the spec that used to be the most Versatile Healer in the game now feels so slow and underwhelming it feels like an absolute disaster. Sure, it has good burst healing like every other healer does. But outside of the burst, what do we really have? a 2.3 sec cast heal versus rogues that delete people in 2 globals.
Even the infusion of light rework alone would make this way more playable than it is right now.
9 Likes
Have to agree with you…
The infusion of light is laughable.
the playstyle tho i think its unique and fun!
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Agree 100%
Infusion is a disaster and our mastery is garbage
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I was never a fan of the Glimmer/melee playstyle of Paladin which Blizzard forced us into since mid BfA.
In its current state it gets better as you gain more haste/better gear but it still scales from feeling immortal to almost useless depending on the holy power/CD’s available and if you can crusader strike something or not - which is very bad game design imo.
The focus should be to bring us back to a competitive ranged healer which we used to be for the last 14 years where smart healing and rotating cooldowns payed more off istead of spamming glimmer on every party/raid member like a brainless maniac.
To balance the damage we would be missing it would be easy to give us a talent choice that gives you the option to be melee or ranged, whatever playstyle you prefer. Making for examples Crusader Strike ranged, maybe with a short cast to keep it balanced or making consecration something you can drop at a location like Mages do with Blizzard and fix our stupid Mastery!
3 Likes
TBH I don’t mind us being a melee healer but if done right, I agree this current iteration is trash, I’d like to see Holy Radiance back and maybe some way to generate healing via direct attacks akin to what Priest can do as Disc.
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I agree, but if they’re going to force this slow holy power style, it should be like in Cataclysm. Stack crit for more procs, and you can heal smoothly. This is ridiculous.
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I have a druid and a pala and at 60 and my god does druid feel so smooth compared to pala, like I said I like what they are trying to do but this is not the way, they’re on the right train but on the wrong track.
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I think you forgot about crusader strike. It’s fast and fun holy power generator.
Agree, holy paladin feels complete garbage now, specially in pve raiding
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Except you are at an instant disadvantage when you can’t CS for whatever reason (mob being moved, swirly on floor etc) compared to other healers.
Being melee alone puts as at an instant disadvantage compared to other healers
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Yes it’s true but then u can use holy shock or healing on beacon to get hp. But I like to be melee and it’s why I play paladin. HP may be a little clunky at first but now I love this fast paced gameplay with dps and heal madness. I don’t want to back to stay and heal.
I already use HS on cooldown, if I can’t generate more HP from CS then I can’t get more HS out quickly and thus my healing is nerfed
Ok. It’s true. That’s why divine toll should be in our standard toolkit. And maybe some chance for hp on judgement.
Agree with OP. HP since vanilla really, until I rerolled into a BE from a human and to summarize, IMHO, yes holy paladín really sucks nowadays. At least for my prefered playstyle.
The IoL rework is probably what annoys me the most, It doesn’t make any sense at all. That’s something that was even discussed during the beta phase. Also the NEED of DT in order to be able to properly heal due to its synergy with glimmer doesn’t help.
At least for my all the fun is gone about healing this exp. Lost any hope blizz taking back old IoL le reworking mastery so rerolled into ret.
First time not healing in 15 years… Hope at least the guys enjoying full melee + kyrian enjoy It.
Im going to take the controversial view of disagreeing. the shock barrier build plays almost identically to the old glimmer of light build, i really dont notice much difference, i think the through put feels slow and underpowered because we are very heavily crit reliant for our sustain epically in 5 man environments, as i have been gearing the paladin has become more fluid and much more useable than it was even an hour ago let alone comparing it to the utter disaster of the first week
the IOL re work makes no difference to me, they are spells we dont cast that often if you are useing LOTM properly.
this has been the case since BODA its not a new problem
Hp on judgement would be an awesome idea, and would help increase the prio of judgement in our rotation, at the moment it is high prio for its dps. slapping through put onto that through HP generation and with jol talented would make it an awesome 1 button combo.
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I don’t know what BODA is, last time I played HPala was Legion.
Yea I agree a HP for Judgement would be really good and might alleviate some of the clunkiness.
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Ah that explains it. We have changed a lot since legion. Boda was the second raid tier in BFA