I got a question on my ToR build post about the change of LoD and the best use of Holy Power considering it. Just quoting a part of the question "I am getting mixed input with WoG vs LoD and which to use".
Light of Dawn has changed recently from being a fixed strength heal on a 30s CD to being cast with Holy Power and without CD. One important fact to keep in consideration is that is still activate Holy Beacon (though it is not sure this will continue).
This change has two important consequences.
First LoD is not as bad as before, with a 3 HP stack and reasonable spellpower it becomes a strong aoe (cone) heal, not far from 10K / target affected. The position issue remains, and it is still a bit situational, but if you can manage to get two or more people in your cone (plus you) it is now a strong healing output ability.
Secondly, Holy Power now has two uses, Word of Glory or Light of Dawn. Obviously the uses are very different, one is a single target strong heal that can benefit from 2 talents (Eternal Glory and Rule of Law), the other is a raid healing ability that only benefits from its own glyph.
From my point of view LoD has always been very situational, but this change makes it strong enough to be valuable in situations like infest heals in a Hard Mode Lich King fight, it wasn't strong/reliable enough before. I am still using an Eternal Glory / Crusade talent template at lvl80 for the reason that I find WoG invaluable when a quick strong heal is needed, which happens to be what I'm the most useful for at the moment (I raid with resto druids and damage spikes are the only thing they can't deal with much better than me).
But I wanted to get inputs for the future, so I went to look at some parsing for good raiding guilds in the last days of the beta (when this change was pushed and before beta was turned off). Here are the results.
There seem to be two "templates" for Holy Paladins now.
The first template is a tank healer based on the TOR build & rotation for mana efficiency and spike management. You will do a little bit or raid healing with Holy Shock and Word of Glory from time to time, but most of your heal will be on your tank. LoD will only used in very specific occasions, when the raid groups up or on the melee group nearby the tank, if you use it properly with Beacon it will also be a spike heal on your tank.
The second is based on LoD "spam" for raid healing, this will require you to move often to position as efficiently as you can, your Beacon should be on the tank at all times to use LoD Beacon proc. You will use a Divinity template as you'll nearly never use Word of Glory.
Both of these templates have been used in lvl 85 raids and are efficient enough for me to mention them, the first one seem to be the most efficient, close to the output of resto druids (which are still very strong despite the various nerfs they got lately). But I think this is due to the fact that a LoD build is harder to master and requires getting used to. You'll need to move a lot and depending on your position the number of persons you will affect with a LoD will strongly change your hps. Moving speed boot enchants are advised, and don't forget you'll main HP source will still be Holy Shock on a 6s cooldown, keep crusade for that.
We'll have to wait until raids are live for more inputs, but at least this give us a choice of spec and not only one direction and gameplay to focus on, which is always good.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Where did my Insight go ?
During the Lich King era mana regeneration became more and more a non issue for healers. And even since the 4.0 patch heal spam and overhealing still reign supreme in raids. The healer metagem of choice still sticks to Insightful Earthsiege Diamond though, I would dare to say more by habit and having used it for now two years.
An interesting point to not though is that there is no upgrade to this meta gem in Cataclysm. The insightful gem disappears from the scope entirely. There is a reason for that, and it is very simple. With the increase of healing spell cost from 80 to 85 and the amount of raid damage of most Cataclysm raid fights, an upgraded Insightful gem would be very very overpowered compared to the other meta for healers.
We do not have final studies at lvl 85 for metagems, because the value of each stat (int/crit/haste/...) has not yet been set for every healer class. But some people have already given it a first look and it seems even at lvl 85 the old Insightful Earthsiege Diamond could still be the best healer metagem. I find it a little silly to use an outdated metagem and usually blizzard corrects the values when something like that happens. But ask to shield using tanks, they would tell you they used a BC enchant for their shield during all the LK period.
So don't sell/drop your Insight yet, you could still use them in Cataclysm.
An interesting point to not though is that there is no upgrade to this meta gem in Cataclysm. The insightful gem disappears from the scope entirely. There is a reason for that, and it is very simple. With the increase of healing spell cost from 80 to 85 and the amount of raid damage of most Cataclysm raid fights, an upgraded Insightful gem would be very very overpowered compared to the other meta for healers.
We do not have final studies at lvl 85 for metagems, because the value of each stat (int/crit/haste/...) has not yet been set for every healer class. But some people have already given it a first look and it seems even at lvl 85 the old Insightful Earthsiege Diamond could still be the best healer metagem. I find it a little silly to use an outdated metagem and usually blizzard corrects the values when something like that happens. But ask to shield using tanks, they would tell you they used a BC enchant for their shield during all the LK period.
So don't sell/drop your Insight yet, you could still use them in Cataclysm.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Nothing that great nowadays ...
but I must concede I'm still quite happy of it.
It is the first time I'm able to finish the content of an extension before the next one. A big thanks to all the members of my guild, Skyre Hordalis on Dalaran EU. You all deserve a big big hug for all the nights together in the frozen halls of Icecrown Citadel.
It is the first time I'm able to finish the content of an extension before the next one. A big thanks to all the members of my guild, Skyre Hordalis on Dalaran EU. You all deserve a big big hug for all the nights together in the frozen halls of Icecrown Citadel.
Friday, November 05, 2010
Light of Dawn with more flashy flashy light ?
Two new builds hit the beta servers this week, I'm not going to detail everything but I want to notify you a change for one of the new spells we got with 4.0.1.
For detailed infos you can look at the build 13241 on MMO Champion.
No more cooldown is a buff, even if dependent on Holy Power, getting 3 stacks of HP is usually much faster than waiting 30s.
It can now only heal 5 targets, whatever the positioning of your raid. This is clearly intended as a 25-Man raid healing nerf, you will never get more than 5 people in your "aoe cone" in a 10-Man. Blizzard is nerfing most aoe healing recently, especially the paladins which seemed to do too much of their raid healing via aoes (that's a change ...) no surprise LoD finally got the shaft too.
All in all I think that it's an interesting change, at least for 10-Man raiders which will not suffer from the nerf.
Now ... Light of Dawn is a crappy situational heal as it is right now on live. Will it be strong enough with a 3 Holy Power stack to justify its use is to be verified once these changes are live.
Up to now, most paladins are just playing with their "disco ball" and getting silly giggles on vent for using it, it's pimp, it's flashy, it's also near from useless in 10-Man where you will rarely heal even only 3 people with it (but for Festergut perhaps, if you're a lucky healer and sticking to the melee range, usually not the case of a paladin in hard mode).
We'll see what it will be.
For detailed infos you can look at the build 13241 on MMO Champion.
Light of Dawn now uses Holy Power instead of Mana. Now heals up to 5 targets. No longer has a cooldown - Consumes all Holy Power to send a wave of healing energy before you, healing up to 5 of the most injured targets in your party or raid within a 30 yard frontal cone for 1008.96 to 1124.15 per charge of Holy Power.What does that changes do? Both a buff and a nerf.
No more cooldown is a buff, even if dependent on Holy Power, getting 3 stacks of HP is usually much faster than waiting 30s.
It can now only heal 5 targets, whatever the positioning of your raid. This is clearly intended as a 25-Man raid healing nerf, you will never get more than 5 people in your "aoe cone" in a 10-Man. Blizzard is nerfing most aoe healing recently, especially the paladins which seemed to do too much of their raid healing via aoes (that's a change ...) no surprise LoD finally got the shaft too.
All in all I think that it's an interesting change, at least for 10-Man raiders which will not suffer from the nerf.
Now ... Light of Dawn is a crappy situational heal as it is right now on live. Will it be strong enough with a 3 Holy Power stack to justify its use is to be verified once these changes are live.
Up to now, most paladins are just playing with their "disco ball" and getting silly giggles on vent for using it, it's pimp, it's flashy, it's also near from useless in 10-Man where you will rarely heal even only 3 people with it (but for Festergut perhaps, if you're a lucky healer and sticking to the melee range, usually not the case of a paladin in hard mode).
We'll see what it will be.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Word of Glory and Holy Power stacking
Busy weekend, Halloween and all, not much sleep, not much wow time, but I found enough to do a Word of Glory testing regarding Holy Power.
The Question:
It has been said on very serious sources (like elitist jerks) that Word of Glory healing power is exponential regarding the number of stack of Holy Power you have, hence asking us to only use it with 3 stacks if you don't want to lose serious hps.
So I did two batches of tests, one with a nooby lvl 13 Holy Paladin created for the occasion, and one with my lvl 80 ilevel 264 main. Each character used WoG 5 times with each 1, 2 and 3 HP stack, and I compared the results between each other, and between character to see the influence of the spellpower coefficient part of WoG.
The Result:
WoG healing of mostly linear in the number of HP stack. Which means that a one HP stack WoG is roughly 1/3 of the healing of a 3 HP stack WoG. It seems that with more than 3K spellpower stacking is slightly more interesting, but at low level you really see WoG being linear in the number of HP stacks.
The Conclusion:
So you can use WoG with 1 or 2 Holy Power, the healing is not exponential. Though remember using WoG is a use of a global cooldown too, so a slight loss of hps in the end. But considering it is not exponential, you should not refrain from using it in emergencies when moving, even if not at full Holy Power.
The Question:
It has been said on very serious sources (like elitist jerks) that Word of Glory healing power is exponential regarding the number of stack of Holy Power you have, hence asking us to only use it with 3 stacks if you don't want to lose serious hps.
So I did two batches of tests, one with a nooby lvl 13 Holy Paladin created for the occasion, and one with my lvl 80 ilevel 264 main. Each character used WoG 5 times with each 1, 2 and 3 HP stack, and I compared the results between each other, and between character to see the influence of the spellpower coefficient part of WoG.
The Result:
WoG healing of mostly linear in the number of HP stack. Which means that a one HP stack WoG is roughly 1/3 of the healing of a 3 HP stack WoG. It seems that with more than 3K spellpower stacking is slightly more interesting, but at low level you really see WoG being linear in the number of HP stacks.
The Conclusion:
So you can use WoG with 1 or 2 Holy Power, the healing is not exponential. Though remember using WoG is a use of a global cooldown too, so a slight loss of hps in the end. But considering it is not exponential, you should not refrain from using it in emergencies when moving, even if not at full Holy Power.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Healing Balance Discussion - Part 1
A new build hit the beta servers yesterday: Cataclysm Beta - Build 13221. You can read the details on MMO Champion, as always thx Boubouille.
I'm here going to discuss the major healing balance changes for all classes:
Druids - not affected yet, but GC already announced that they think druids use too much Rejuvenation and will probably see their mana regen nerfed to limit this.
Priests - mostly small buffs, priests are a little lower on raid recounts (even if Blizzard say you should look at them, they obviously do :p)
Shaman - Chain Heal now costs 20% of base mana, up from 17% of base mana. This is a mana nerf supposed limiting the use of chain heal by shamans.
Paladin - ok here comes the big stuff:
A Global View on the Changes
If you look at all the changes on a global scale, most aoe healing is nerfed, either directly or by mana limitation (as for chain heal). Analyzing the first raid logs clearly shows that there are some massive raid damage and that aoe heals were very strong, if not dominant, because of that.
Balance seems to be the issue though as Holy Priests still are getting buffs when they already have strong group/raid healing abilities.
What about Holy Paladins ?
In our specific case, our big aoe heal Holy Radiance is nerfed, probably strongly enough for it to get more in par with other classes aoe heals, the priests being what is considered the "good balanced" reference right now.
My concern is that, looking at logs Holy Paladins healing is crap but for Holy Radiance. Our Beacon isn't strong enough, or our direct heals aren't, but clearly we're not on line with other healers on the direct heals side.
Now I'm complaining about something which as already been addressed, as you can read before all our direct heals are getting a 30% base healing buff. My question is: is this enough? My second question is: will it still be enough in tier 13 gear?
A Little Bit of Healing Theorycrafting
I'm going to explain these two questions here, and will probably do a dedicated post about healing theorycrafting later.
A heal strength can only be compared by using HPS: healing per second, which means the healing output a spell gives you per second if you're spamming it. If I take a regular direct heal, it's healing can be obtained by this formula:
We got a buff to the base healing, which means a 30% buff to the first part of the equation. Now, if your gear improves, the only thing that makes your heals stronger is that your spellpower increases. What that means is that with better gear what you consider to decide of the strength of a heal is the spell coefficient and not the base healing.
Now you see where I want to go. Buffing the base healing is perhaps enough to get us in line with the other healers at 85 in blues, even with the nerf to Holy Radiance. But if the spell coefficients are not changed, we will again be lower when gear improves. On the other hand, the Holy Radiance nerf will affect it as strongly at high gear level than in blues, because it affects the global hps and not only the base coefficient.
Conclusion
I can understand that aoe healing could looks mindless and unskilled. And I can understand that Blizzard wants to see more dedicated healers having to target people to heal them. I have nothing against that.
My fear is that the nerf to Holy Radiance will put the paladins back down where they are right now in ICC at lvl 80. And even if I don't really like the idea that most of our hps is a single spell on a 30s cooldown, it's never fun to always be the lowest on the charts.
My second concern is that the direct heal buffs that are supposed to balance that aoe nerf are probably not right. Increasing only the base spell healing could be enough right now, but it won't last as I explained.
I understand that some could not be familiar with theorycrafting, and I'm not posting too often about it, most of the time only giving you my conclusions.
But an educated healer can better understand the problems of spell balance, and how nerfs/buffs affect it, so I will try to write a complete and more detailed / easy to understand post about spell balance later.
On a side note, my resto shaman is close to 70 now :P
I'm here going to discuss the major healing balance changes for all classes:
Druids - not affected yet, but GC already announced that they think druids use too much Rejuvenation and will probably see their mana regen nerfed to limit this.
Priests - mostly small buffs, priests are a little lower on raid recounts (even if Blizzard say you should look at them, they obviously do :p)
Shaman - Chain Heal now costs 20% of base mana, up from 17% of base mana. This is a mana nerf supposed limiting the use of chain heal by shamans.
Paladin - ok here comes the big stuff:
- Holy Radiance's effectiveness now diminish on targets farther than x yards away.
- Lay on Hands no longer restores mana.
- Beacon of Light now lasts 5 min, up from 1 min.
- Divine Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 8538-9512 to 11100-12366
- Flash of Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 5313-5961 to 6907-7750.
- Holy Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3202-3567 to 4162-4637.
- Holy Shock base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3033-3285 to 3943-4271.
- Mastery: Illuminated Healing now absorbs 10% of the amount healed, up from 8%. Now lasts 8 sec, up from 6 sec. Each point of mastery increases the absorb amount by an additional 1.25%, up from 1%.
A Global View on the Changes
If you look at all the changes on a global scale, most aoe healing is nerfed, either directly or by mana limitation (as for chain heal). Analyzing the first raid logs clearly shows that there are some massive raid damage and that aoe heals were very strong, if not dominant, because of that.
Balance seems to be the issue though as Holy Priests still are getting buffs when they already have strong group/raid healing abilities.
What about Holy Paladins ?
In our specific case, our big aoe heal Holy Radiance is nerfed, probably strongly enough for it to get more in par with other classes aoe heals, the priests being what is considered the "good balanced" reference right now.
My concern is that, looking at logs Holy Paladins healing is crap but for Holy Radiance. Our Beacon isn't strong enough, or our direct heals aren't, but clearly we're not on line with other healers on the direct heals side.
Now I'm complaining about something which as already been addressed, as you can read before all our direct heals are getting a 30% base healing buff. My question is: is this enough? My second question is: will it still be enough in tier 13 gear?
A Little Bit of Healing Theorycrafting
I'm going to explain these two questions here, and will probably do a dedicated post about healing theorycrafting later.
A heal strength can only be compared by using HPS: healing per second, which means the healing output a spell gives you per second if you're spamming it. If I take a regular direct heal, it's healing can be obtained by this formula:
base healing + (spell coefficient * spellpower) = global spell healing
You then divide that by its casting time and you get the spell HPS.We got a buff to the base healing, which means a 30% buff to the first part of the equation. Now, if your gear improves, the only thing that makes your heals stronger is that your spellpower increases. What that means is that with better gear what you consider to decide of the strength of a heal is the spell coefficient and not the base healing.
Now you see where I want to go. Buffing the base healing is perhaps enough to get us in line with the other healers at 85 in blues, even with the nerf to Holy Radiance. But if the spell coefficients are not changed, we will again be lower when gear improves. On the other hand, the Holy Radiance nerf will affect it as strongly at high gear level than in blues, because it affects the global hps and not only the base coefficient.
Conclusion
I can understand that aoe healing could looks mindless and unskilled. And I can understand that Blizzard wants to see more dedicated healers having to target people to heal them. I have nothing against that.
My fear is that the nerf to Holy Radiance will put the paladins back down where they are right now in ICC at lvl 80. And even if I don't really like the idea that most of our hps is a single spell on a 30s cooldown, it's never fun to always be the lowest on the charts.
My second concern is that the direct heal buffs that are supposed to balance that aoe nerf are probably not right. Increasing only the base spell healing could be enough right now, but it won't last as I explained.
I understand that some could not be familiar with theorycrafting, and I'm not posting too often about it, most of the time only giving you my conclusions.
But an educated healer can better understand the problems of spell balance, and how nerfs/buffs affect it, so I will try to write a complete and more detailed / easy to understand post about spell balance later.
On a side note, my resto shaman is close to 70 now :P
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Bugs & Blogs & Misc
Just an update slash news post today.
As you all know we had a bug patch on live today (or yesterday if you're a US player). The description is on MMO champion (as all other sorts of goodness about Cataclysm that I won't cover), I'm just putting the bug fixes here:
On another note you have perhaps read my ranty post about the state of pally healing at the moment. Also a bit ranty but very interesting and informative is a post from Tarinae on her blog: A Healadin's Tear. You should go check out that blog, good things to read there.
That's all for today, short post, I'm still working on number analysis about holy at 85 using raid logs and videos from the beta (a bit postponed by Blizzcon), and on Word of Glory healing per stack of holy power at low level / high level / high gear level. I'll post that probably later this week.
As always, have fun, and if healing as a paladin isn't fun right now well, try leveling a rogue, they just destroy everything in bgs right now :P
As you all know we had a bug patch on live today (or yesterday if you're a US player). The description is on MMO champion (as all other sorts of goodness about Cataclysm that I won't cover), I'm just putting the bug fixes here:
- Using a "/cast!" command no longer disconnects players.
- Mousing over objects that generate a cogwheel should no longer cause the client to freeze or disconnect.
- Guild Tabards should no longer display on characters not actually wearing the Guild Tabard.
- Floating combat text should always appear.
- NPC Health Bars/Nameplates are now appearing correctly.
On another note you have perhaps read my ranty post about the state of pally healing at the moment. Also a bit ranty but very interesting and informative is a post from Tarinae on her blog: A Healadin's Tear. You should go check out that blog, good things to read there.
That's all for today, short post, I'm still working on number analysis about holy at 85 using raid logs and videos from the beta (a bit postponed by Blizzcon), and on Word of Glory healing per stack of holy power at low level / high level / high gear level. I'll post that probably later this week.
As always, have fun, and if healing as a paladin isn't fun right now well, try leveling a rogue, they just destroy everything in bgs right now :P
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Healing 5-Man after patch 4.0.1.
I have already commented enough of my views about Holy in raids since patch, but I've not said much about 5-Man. And as it seems some are struggling with them, I'll try to give a few hints about how to handle a rushing instance group. And trust me, my guildies are not stopping for more than bosses ... and most of our dpsers seem to be completely suicidal to me lately, so healing 5-Man can be intense :P
First, you should have the right spec. I advise you to read my earlier posts:
Patch 4.0.1 is going live. You are not prepared!
First impressions on 4.0.1
You should have a 31/2/3 spec with an emphasis on Holy Shock and Word of Glory. The reason for that is that they will be your main tools for any 5-Man.
The ToR style is perfect for instances, it is very rare that your tank will need more than the Beacon influx added to the occasional direct heal used to get Holy Power. Perhaps more will be need if your tank is slightly low geared or if you're into heroic HoR, but on a regular basis you'll be perfectly fine with a regular ToR build.
That means that you will be doing that, with that rough priority order:
1. Beacon of Light on your tank;
2. Use Word of Glory when you have 3 Holy Power stacks (and only 3 !), repeat if you get an Eternal Glory proc;
3. Use Holy Shock on cooldown, if only your tank is hurt, use it on him, if anyone in the group is hit, and unless your tank is in critical, heal the group member (+1 Holy Power);
4. Direct heal your tank with a Holy Light if you're not in a hurry, with a Flash of Light if you're in a hurry, with a Divine Light if he's very badly hurt (+1 Holy Power);
5. Direct heal one of the group members if your HS is on cooldown and you don't have 3 stacks of Holy Power and it's urgent.
Now if you have enough crit/haste your HS/WoG + Beacon will handle 75% of your healing. I don't think you should have any mana issues with this "rotation" as WoG is free, can sometimes be used like 3 times in a row thx to Eternal Glory, and because HS is our most efficient heal per mana skill.
If your mana is going down, use Divine Plea while running between pulls, but that should really not be an issue. Don't forget to judge for speed and a bit of mana too.
If you are still not at ease, I suggest that you test this "rotation" on yourself for a little while, it's easy to maintain once you get used to it, as any dps "rotation" (yes several paladins are saying we are now pew pew dpsers ;p).
Have fun and if you ever encounter issues, don't hesitate to comment here :)
First, you should have the right spec. I advise you to read my earlier posts:
Patch 4.0.1 is going live. You are not prepared!
First impressions on 4.0.1
You should have a 31/2/3 spec with an emphasis on Holy Shock and Word of Glory. The reason for that is that they will be your main tools for any 5-Man.
The ToR style is perfect for instances, it is very rare that your tank will need more than the Beacon influx added to the occasional direct heal used to get Holy Power. Perhaps more will be need if your tank is slightly low geared or if you're into heroic HoR, but on a regular basis you'll be perfectly fine with a regular ToR build.
That means that you will be doing that, with that rough priority order:
1. Beacon of Light on your tank;
2. Use Word of Glory when you have 3 Holy Power stacks (and only 3 !), repeat if you get an Eternal Glory proc;
3. Use Holy Shock on cooldown, if only your tank is hurt, use it on him, if anyone in the group is hit, and unless your tank is in critical, heal the group member (+1 Holy Power);
4. Direct heal your tank with a Holy Light if you're not in a hurry, with a Flash of Light if you're in a hurry, with a Divine Light if he's very badly hurt (+1 Holy Power);
5. Direct heal one of the group members if your HS is on cooldown and you don't have 3 stacks of Holy Power and it's urgent.
Now if you have enough crit/haste your HS/WoG + Beacon will handle 75% of your healing. I don't think you should have any mana issues with this "rotation" as WoG is free, can sometimes be used like 3 times in a row thx to Eternal Glory, and because HS is our most efficient heal per mana skill.
If your mana is going down, use Divine Plea while running between pulls, but that should really not be an issue. Don't forget to judge for speed and a bit of mana too.
If you are still not at ease, I suggest that you test this "rotation" on yourself for a little while, it's easy to maintain once you get used to it, as any dps "rotation" (yes several paladins are saying we are now pew pew dpsers ;p).
Have fun and if you ever encounter issues, don't hesitate to comment here :)
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Feedback about Holy at 80, and beyond.
I won't hide it, Holy right now is crap. Perhaps I'm a bit strong with this word, but that's what I feel when I look at a recount after a raiding night. Sure most of the time we're doing fine, but I'm raiding with 2 very good druids and they're doing like 85% of the healing (call me a bad healer if you want, I know what I'm doing).
Before 4.0.1 I was confident in my healing, even when I wasn't pushing the numbers. I knew that I could do it and that if it was needed I could jump into power healing mode and start keeping all our 10-Man raid up for one minute or two just spamming Holy Light like crazy with my Beacon on our tank. None would die as long as I got enough mana, and I was playing conservatively. That saved us on Lich King, and I was proud of that.
Now I'm crap on numbers, but the sad part is that I'm not better than other healers on the mana side, unless I'm just using ToR, which seriously can't keep a tank/raid up by itself. If I need to start spamming Divine Light ... well things start to go wrong. My DL cost more than a holy priest Greater Heal and heals for seriously less at equal spellpower. We don't have any raid healing tool at 80, no more Sacred Shield & hot, no more judgement healing. Light of Dawn is cute but crap and way too situational.
That can sound like whining, and it probably is. But I'm dead serious on it, I can't support my raid anymore, or at least not enough to justify a healer spot on hard modes.
What about the future for Holy Paladins?
So I'm considering going ret until Cataclsym, at least I can perhaps do enough dps to be useful. But what about the future of pally healing?
Some perhaps remember how prot paladins were during most of TBC, and how holy paladins were during half of it, after being op at start. The answer for me is simple, balance is hard to achieve and when a class get shafted it often last for several months. Be it bad design, or a producer choice to balance the number of players on that specific class, it's not a fun spot to be in.
And I don't want to be playing a useless class/spec when we rush for 85 and raiding during Cataclysm, I don't have the time needed to rush two characters, so I need to pick-up the right healing class before Cataclysm goes live.
To answer that question I looked into how holy paladins are doing during the first raids that started this weekend on the Beta test realms. You can find very good videos on MMO Champion, I'm going to advise you two of them, that are being casted by holy paladins. You can watch them on Youtube following these links:
Paragon vs Halfus Wyrmbreaker
Paragon vs Chimaeron
I also read the elitist jerks holy paladin forum (always a good source of up-to-date information).
The answer is: Holy Paladins are doing great at lvl 85. Most 25-Man raids seem to be using something like 5-6 healers, 2 of them being Holy Paladins which are most of the time topping the meters. So what? Let's rejoice?
Not so fast my friends. If you look at the recount, and the timing of the heals, the holy paladins are using a pure ToR rotation with Light of Down and Holy Radiance inserted during raid damage periods. These raid damage timings are big, often requiring the healers to top the whole raid from 5% to 100% in about 30s. and if you look at the recounts, the paladins are far behind until these huge raid damage happen. So why are they topping the meters, because of Holy Radiance, our new raid healing spell that we won't get before Cataclysm.
Yes it seems HR is too strong, but what would they be without it, because they are clearly only helping on the raid/tank with a ToR rotation beside using HR and that is not pulling the numbers.
Now let us read the last comment of Blizzard after these first raid tests:
So the devs decided to nerf Holy Radiance, which will bring the paladins probably way lower than what you can see on the two raids I invited you to watch. The questions for me are: will the buffs to our direct heals be enough to keep us competitive at 85, and give us back a healer spot at 80 in any serious raid encounter?
I'll keep looking at raid reports/logs/videos of the beta and try to analyze the buffs comparing them to the "old number" that you can find on Ophelie's blog (thx Ophelie ^^).
I'm kind of sad to say it, but I'm seriously considering switching class for the launch of Cataclysm if Holy Paladins can't be effective healers, at least at 85.
Before 4.0.1 I was confident in my healing, even when I wasn't pushing the numbers. I knew that I could do it and that if it was needed I could jump into power healing mode and start keeping all our 10-Man raid up for one minute or two just spamming Holy Light like crazy with my Beacon on our tank. None would die as long as I got enough mana, and I was playing conservatively. That saved us on Lich King, and I was proud of that.
Now I'm crap on numbers, but the sad part is that I'm not better than other healers on the mana side, unless I'm just using ToR, which seriously can't keep a tank/raid up by itself. If I need to start spamming Divine Light ... well things start to go wrong. My DL cost more than a holy priest Greater Heal and heals for seriously less at equal spellpower. We don't have any raid healing tool at 80, no more Sacred Shield & hot, no more judgement healing. Light of Dawn is cute but crap and way too situational.
That can sound like whining, and it probably is. But I'm dead serious on it, I can't support my raid anymore, or at least not enough to justify a healer spot on hard modes.
What about the future for Holy Paladins?
So I'm considering going ret until Cataclsym, at least I can perhaps do enough dps to be useful. But what about the future of pally healing?
Some perhaps remember how prot paladins were during most of TBC, and how holy paladins were during half of it, after being op at start. The answer for me is simple, balance is hard to achieve and when a class get shafted it often last for several months. Be it bad design, or a producer choice to balance the number of players on that specific class, it's not a fun spot to be in.
And I don't want to be playing a useless class/spec when we rush for 85 and raiding during Cataclysm, I don't have the time needed to rush two characters, so I need to pick-up the right healing class before Cataclysm goes live.
To answer that question I looked into how holy paladins are doing during the first raids that started this weekend on the Beta test realms. You can find very good videos on MMO Champion, I'm going to advise you two of them, that are being casted by holy paladins. You can watch them on Youtube following these links:
Paragon vs Halfus Wyrmbreaker
Paragon vs Chimaeron
I also read the elitist jerks holy paladin forum (always a good source of up-to-date information).
The answer is: Holy Paladins are doing great at lvl 85. Most 25-Man raids seem to be using something like 5-6 healers, 2 of them being Holy Paladins which are most of the time topping the meters. So what? Let's rejoice?
Not so fast my friends. If you look at the recount, and the timing of the heals, the holy paladins are using a pure ToR rotation with Light of Down and Holy Radiance inserted during raid damage periods. These raid damage timings are big, often requiring the healers to top the whole raid from 5% to 100% in about 30s. and if you look at the recounts, the paladins are far behind until these huge raid damage happen. So why are they topping the meters, because of Holy Radiance, our new raid healing spell that we won't get before Cataclysm.
Yes it seems HR is too strong, but what would they be without it, because they are clearly only helping on the raid/tank with a ToR rotation beside using HR and that is not pulling the numbers.
Now let us read the last comment of Blizzard after these first raid tests:
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.You can read the two blue posts about the state of Holy Paladins (look for the 18/10 post) and the hotfix deployed thanks to Boubouille blue tracker.
So the devs decided to nerf Holy Radiance, which will bring the paladins probably way lower than what you can see on the two raids I invited you to watch. The questions for me are: will the buffs to our direct heals be enough to keep us competitive at 85, and give us back a healer spot at 80 in any serious raid encounter?
I'll keep looking at raid reports/logs/videos of the beta and try to analyze the buffs comparing them to the "old number" that you can find on Ophelie's blog (thx Ophelie ^^).
I'm kind of sad to say it, but I'm seriously considering switching class for the launch of Cataclysm if Holy Paladins can't be effective healers, at least at 85.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Thanks to my readers.
A short post today to say this little paladin blog breached 2K readers a day on Wednesday.
That was a huge surprise for me as you are more about 100-200 readers on usual depending on my updates.
So I just wanted to make a post to thank you all that come here, and I hope I can continue to give you useful information on paladin healing in the future.
Have fun with the ToR build, and take care people :)
That was a huge surprise for me as you are more about 100-200 readers on usual depending on my updates.
So I just wanted to make a post to thank you all that come here, and I hope I can continue to give you useful information on paladin healing in the future.
Have fun with the ToR build, and take care people :)
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