not really

Tbh, if they had wanted to nerf our mana efficiency, they could've just added extra 100 manacost to FoL top ranks or so.

This is what makes the whole thing mindboggling.

Now they have to remake all our gear from BC 5mans upwards to remove the crit and give us mp5, which makes us even more manaefficient with FoL (since however you gear now, HL will never be efficient).
Or they could've just leave us with the old itemization, which would generally nerf FoL too, just not enough to make a damn difference.

I still dont get it.

Till blizzard fixes the epics worse than blues with this nerf, shamans we're coming for your loot. Doomwalker helm is a lot better (I have mine set up with 171 healing and a good pile of mp5), restrung red dragonstalker shoulders are a lot better. I was working out ways to get more crit (13% unbuffed is kinda low) and trade out some mp5 for it, but that's not the case anymore. What this really does is make me want to cut down on the gladiator set, though the new gladiator maces are pretty nice though.

When FoL doesn't cut it, we'll pretty much have to alternate FoL/HL, first to keep our mana costs down, second to increase HPS.

I'm interested in hearing how you solo heal tanks where the tank is taking ~8k damage every 3-4 seconds besides spamming max rank HL - because I guess I never quite figured that one out. I played a Priest for over 200 days, and grasp quite well downranking and alternating heals for maximum benefit, even post downrank nerf. All that goes out the window with some of the fights currently.

Its spam max rank and hope your HP/S can keep up - which I don't mind since its actually exciting.

During trash and what not there is absolutely no reason to not spam FoL (or to put it in your words "reduced to a one-button spamming monkey") since what you don't catch in HP/S is made up with Renews/Rejuv/Regrowths/Chain Heals anyways, and the HP/M from FOL absolutely destroys anything else.

And if its a tank and spank fight - Paladins are best served via spamming max FOL, with a R4 HL every ~10 seconds to keep LG up incase of a spike for some max rank HL action.

Was that a good enough explanation from a "one-button spamming monkey"? I even had mostly correct grammar .

With regards to the new Ardent Defender (hereafter AD), I did a brief analysis earlier. Before I go through that, though, I just want to state that I'm assuming there has been no change to AD's ability to be "leapfrogged," e.g. if you start at 36% health and a mob deals base damage equal to 36% of your total health, the AD effect will not take place and you will die. Also, let H represent your total base health.

First, let's look at the theoretical effect of each AD implementation on your effective total health:

Old:
(0.20 * H) / 0.50 + (0.80 * H) = 1.20 * H

New:
(0.35 * H) / 0.70 + (0.65 * H) = 1.15 * H

So theoretically, the total effective health increase by AD is lower under the new implementation. But obviously it's not often where you're being hit for so little that AD grants its full effect. To compare the two talents, I decided to find three points for each one. The first point will be how much damage a mob must cause with a single hit to have a non-zero chance of leapfrogging AD. The second point will be how much damage a mob must cause with a single hit to have a 50% chance of leapfrogging AD. The third point will be how much damage a mob must cause with a single hit to leapfrog AD 100% of the time.

To calculate the first point, we must establish what we mean by leapfrogging precisely. I take it to mean a situation where you receive damage in such a way that AD does not increase your effective health. Note that this can still happen even if you fall below AD's activation level and it "kicks in." For example, let's say a mob hits you for some amount, and you drop below the activation level for AD. Now AD kicks in. Say the mob hits you again, and the damage from the second hit is reduced by AD, but it's still high enough that you die. I consider that leapfrogging, even though AD did kick in, because you still died from those two hits.

So, to figure out the point at which there is a non-zero chance of having AD leapfrogged, we must figure out the point where, if you are 1 HP away from having AD kick in (that is, current health exactly = AD activation level * H), and get hit twice for X base damage, you will take exactly enough damage to die. And we want to do this for both the old AD and the new AD:

Old:
X + 0.5 * X = 0.20 * H
1.5 * X = 0.20 * H
X = 0.1333 * H

New:
X + 0.7 * X = 0.35 * H
1.7 * X = 0.35 * H
X = 0.2059 * H

So, with the old talent, any mob that hits for at least 13.33% of your total health can potentially leapfrog AD, but with the new talent, your baseline goes up to 20.59% of your total health. I don't know what a typical number for buffed health for a paladin tank in a raiding situation would be, but I know I'm usually at 12k in my very early-Kara gear, so my baseline will go up from 1600 to about 2471.

Now, obviously this isn't too useful a measure, because the likelihood of being just outside the point of AD activating and taking exactly enough damage to die is pretty slim. Obviously you're likely to have some sort of "cushion" between your current health level and AD activating when the mob hits you. So let's try to find the 50% point, where, even if it takes exactly half of the mob's hit to drop you to the AD activation level (and the rest of the hit drops you further below that), the next hit will still deal enough post-AD damage to kill you:

Old:
0.5 * X + 0.5 * X = 0.20 * H
X = 0.20 * H

New:
0.5 * X + 0.7 * X = 0.35 * H
1.2 * X = 0.35 * H
X = 0.2917 * H

So with the old AD, you had a 50% "chance" to be leapfrogged if the mob hit for 20% of your health, and with the new, it's 29.17% of your health. Again, for me with 12k health, my 50% chance point goes from 2400 to 3500.

Finally, we want to know how much damage the mob must deal in a single hit for AD to be completely worthless. We can find this number by figuring out the maximum amount of health we can have and have AD activate, and dividing it by the percentage of damage that "gets through" AD. Alternatively, we can approximate it by taking the activation point and dividing it by the same. Like so:

Old:
0.5 * X = 0.20 * H
X = 0.40 * H

New:
0.7 * X = 0.35 * H
X = 0.50 * H

So the point of complete worthlessness for AD increases by 10% of your total health. For me, it goes from 4800 to 6000.

So the story is that the range of usefulness of AD goes up by a lot, especially if you have higher total health. Obviously, it still scales down in usefulness as the damage dealt by a mob per hit scales up, but in general it's a lot better after the change.

I can't see these changes making it Live. At some point someone from Itemisation will speak to someone from Talents (you know what I mean!), and realise how much the Illumination change screws our itemisation up. Or at least I'd like to believe that...

Well any scaling talent that good is inherently "bad" - but in this case Paladins have been balanced around it for so long that it has become a mitigating factor for us to see any improvement in areas we could use it. (Sounds familiar geeee.... Oh yeah Divine Shield.)

Hopefully they see that the nerf was a little much, and add more healing utility to our Holy Tree. That in my opinion would be the best outcome, since if they don't nerf Illumination now, we're all going to be running around wearing "Optimal CRITZLOL" gear in 4 months with 50% base Holy Crit. I agree its a nerf that needs to happen in the long term health of the game, but we also need massive changes to our healing and itemization to compensate to bring us back in line/ability with the other healers.

This has been hotfixed since people were abusing it to trivialize Maiden.

Yeah it's better on the almost non-existant time we're continually chain casting. If you're cast canceling the mp5 gets better and better. In practice we're likely closer to canceling 50% of heals than we are to using 100% of HL casts. The value of crits can be reduced by the percent of spells we interupt, weighted with the approximate time of the casting (say 2/3 of the way through) + GCD for interupting. I'd estimate it closer to 400 after the nerf, so even going by sockets that give 9 mp5 (3x 3mp5) for the 24 (3x +8 crit) crit rating, we'd be better off.

Well put. With the gear plans laid out by blizzard our crit was going no where but up and up.

Your posts have some awesome insight, I love reading them.

However, if I remember correctly, quite some time ago there was a CTprofile where a Paladin already had 42%+ crit(though buffed) with legacy WoW gear at level 60. Of course, his +healing was lacking, but if you're stacking on +spellcrit, your +healing is generally lower than someone who focuses on +healing instead.

That said, I'm quite bummed about this change as well. I mostly do PvP(though my guild is currently working on SCC) and FoL doesn't cut it there. You have to use Holy Light, and Holy Light is a huge manasink. As you said, the itemization pushes using Illumination(See: Blue PvP gear/Arena healing gear). I wonder if they're going to re-itemize that as well? Time will tell. Or possibly Blizzard decides to re-call the nerf, though I'd call that unlikely.

Addendum: The L60 Paladin had rather crap gear, I admit. However, it was already possible to reach high crit levels at L60. Now, you can reach high crit levels but with rather decent +healing as well. They should just 'balance' it out, that even if you're going for a full +crit healing set, your +healing doesn't reach beyond X, where X is what Blizzard deems balanced.

You're still going to use Holy Light in PvP, unless you have such a high amount of +healing, that your FoL can outheal, or even stall, a half decent assist-train.

Just wanted to note (since I didn't see it said anywhere) that T4 Holy gear recieved no changes to compensate for the illumination thing.

At least where early TBC is concerned, itemization actually FAVORS this Illumination nerf, since the blue level 70 plate healing gear is almost exclusively mp/5, and the reskined Lawbringer healing plate in KZ also focuses heavily on mp/5.

However, once you get into T4+ territory.... this change requires an entire reconceptualization of Paladin itemization, or else you'll just see Pallies sticking with their Karazhan loot / level 70 instance blues forever, since spell crit's value is so diminished.

Remember when many paladins hated the 41 point Holy talent, compared it to a trinket, and wanted it replaced? I defended it as having situational use, especially for spam-healing with 2 second HLs, Illumination, etc. Funny how it's considered a useful healing tool now. I never spec'd into the talent (on Live). Does that change the value or mechanics of the talent in any way?

Take my (Ret/Holy paladin) opinions with a grain of salt. But what's the big picture? What are the majority of raid healers? Is that right? How will this change affect that balance?



In which of those situations does 50% illumination change what heals you use? The scenarios you picked seem to have an "obvious solution" - spam max-rank HL or FL. You would do that with 100% illumination. You would do the same with 50% illumination. If you think that's being a "monkey", you already are one. (And so am I) = P


Our healing power hasn't changed. Given your scenarios, you'll use the exact same heals as you did pre-patch - you just won't be able to keep it up as long, meaning you may need a backup healer, another shadow priest in your group, or more consumable use. It's a nerf by any measure. But is it "unacceptable" or "unreasonable" considering the current state of WoW? /shrug


= P

This is the crux of the problem, as consumable use is being nerfed considerably past what I have been using in the past, (Elixir of Mastery, Healing Power, Adept, Flask of Resto and Fel Mana) along with encounters like Karathress basically near our limit for single target healing. Since by the time a second healer can finally relieve me I am near the end of my barrel barring a random lucky string of crits. Other healers need the Shadowpriest as well, and it is quite a hairy fight for the first few minutes as far as healing goes mana wise. Sure I can hope they will nerf the fight so I can continue to solo heal a tank for it with only 1 flask and mana pot chugging - but odds that they will do so as evidenced by their record in the past? Next to none.

There were also a lot of DPS upgrades in this patch, though. The Glancing Blows change is a big one. Fights will be shorter, so who knows? Maybe burning power 10-15% faster won't be quite so fatal.

For those who are interested, I went back and looked at our webstats from various SSC kills. It gives the mana gained from all abilities including Illumination. In most cases Illumination was giving about 100-150 mp5, so with the changes thats losing about 50-75 mp5. Pretty huge, but not gamebreaking.

I think what most people are upset about, at least the ones here, is that once again core abilities of the class were changed yet there was no change to itemization to compensate for the changes.

I for one could care less about the illumination nerf. After the post (drysc?) commenting on why they changed how PvP rewards are bought, I've learned to just roll with the punches and try to adapt to the new changes made.
I would really like to see my gladiator gear changed though. I don't enjoy spending over 4k pts just to go get some blue gear with 0 res on it but has mp5.

Oh and the irony is fun.
"LoL! retnoob, get in the back and heal"
"K"
"Wait, wait, wait, you outheal me. NERF PLZ!"

Functionally very right. The most amusing thing, though, is how Illumination has lasted this long simply because Blizzard had no idea how to itemize paladins. Imagine if in BWL Judgment had been made like Redemption, with huge heal and spell crit? Aside from thwarting the clothadins of the era, I think this problem would have come to the forefront a lot sooner. With Tier 3, such a small amount of players ever got any of it, let alone like half the set, that they probably didn't see the glaring scaling issue. Then comes TBC and easy-to-access Kara and Heroic gear, and suddenly it's glaringly obvious.

Anyway, this is very similar to the Hunter Agi/AP nerf, completely changing their itemization needs, and hopefully they wise up to this and compensate. I guess the boring aspect is that instead of looking for something unique in our healing gear, we are now basically just like every other class, seeking out +heal and +mp5 with crit being a bonus.

I'm interested to see if this actually makes raiding builds with ~20 Holy much more viable, since it will be difficult to support LG with this nerf to HL spam, and the general reduction in efficiency of the crit talents.

It wasn't a case of how to itemize paladins; far from it. PreBC paladins have decent itemization. With Flash of Light at 140 mana, spamming it would relate the value of 1% crit to 4-5mp5. Before the downrank nerf, even, paladins could get away with spamming Rank1 Flash of Light for 35 mana - endlessly. Illumination was an added extra since Flash of Light was our bread and butter. Using Holy Light was only in dire situations. Its mana cost (660) was incredibly high, it was long, and with 15 healers in a 40 man raid, whoever would've needed it could be topped off a lot quicker with 1.5 second heals.

The reason why this had to be inevitably nerfed was due to the fact Holy Light ended up becoming the primary heal for most paladins; mainly due to Light's Grace which increased the HPS by 20%, and Sanctified Light, which gave us an extra 6% crit on top of the 5% from Holy Power. Talents alone, even when spamming a downranked R8 Holy Light would be worth 160mp5( ([580/200]*5)*11 ) This amount for the Flash of Light happy PreBC paladin? R7FoL only gained 30mp5 (since it didnt get the 6% from Sanc Light).

Holy Light took over as the primary heal, and the quickest and most effective way to increase HPS/Efficiency was spellcrit - hands down. I believe I calculated 1% Spellcrit to be worth about +60 healing and +7mp5 on average (Based on a breakdown of heals cast, heal ranks, time between heals, etc). This turned the 22.1 iVL points from the spellcrit into 43.8 iVL points (27 and 16.8 for healing/mp5 respectively). Even then - a paladin boasting 30% chance to crit with a Holy Light and chain spamming HL8 (my personal favorite) could achieve 2000+HPS for well over 3 minutes. 30% crit was worth 435mp5 and 1770 healing (assuming the previous). That's a crazy amount of mp5, and I'm sure Blizzard hadn't fully thought of how powerful spellcrit would be.

The Illumination nerf halved the efficiency of Spellcrit, but did not touch the secondary effect which was the added healing bonus. Instead of having 60heal 7mp5 per Crit, it was reduced to 60heal 3.5mp5 per crit. It's going to be a rough transition, especially for the paladins who went for a build more oriented toward crit and neglecting mp5. I personally never let go the value of mp5 from my PreBC days.

Did it screw up our itemization? Yeah, that needs a fix. Did it screw up our overall healing effectiveness? Not horribly. Let's just hope blizzard doesn't design encounters where we need the kind of healing output paladins are achieving now.

I'd like to see a change to Sanctified Light, since the value of the crit for HL has lost its potency. I'd like to see the talent work closer like Dreamstate/Unrelenting Storm, however the bonus would be closer in terms of regen to Meditation/Intensity.

The change would see the average paladin (at 550 intellect) gaining 33mp5. The vaule of 6% crit from HL was about 25-40 depending on which heals you use. The regen from this talent wouldn't see a drastic change, but it'd lower the HPS increase you got from Holy Light. Not to mention that adding the talents to improve mp5 would be a big help if Blizzard doesn't improve itemization to disvalue Spellcrit now.

Er, what? You mean Pre-TBC Naxx paladins. Virtually everything before Naxx was horribly itemized for healing, thus the clothadin phenom. It's the whole reason Naxx seemed like such a huge upgrade for the "hybrid" classes.

Well, yes and no. It had to be nerfed because it was the only perfectly scaling form of mana regeneration available in the game, and would eventually reach ridiculous proportions, as mentioned earlier. It is functionally similar to the ratings vs flat % issue in itemization. I don't think it was specifically do to Holy Light, but to all paladin healing.


Anyway, the point Deris made, that paladins are being reduced to more of a one button class, stands. Even now I already use FoL way more than any other spell while raiding and still dominate the healing charts (along with the other paladins), but in extreme burst damage situations and PvP Illumination made Holy Light awesome. With 50% Illum I'll be using FoL even more. If Paladins really are intended to be primary healers, they need to give us more healing options and techniques besides one button spam. Or just seriously reconfigure the other talent trees to give us other legitimate, interesting spec options.

I agree with this. Being "the best single-target healers" is conceptually poor design. Single target healing is the most important type of healing by far, and any healer will tell you that the overwhelming majority of their heals are single target heals; each healer should be comparable in his or her single-target healing capabilities. This is necessary, if nothing else, so that single group content can be continually challenging, yet not impossible for a certain class due to certain limitations in HP/S or mana efficiency. "Utility heals" are definitely the way to go, giving each healer class a 'niche'.

Priests have PoM, Prayer of Healing, etc. Shaman have Earthshield, Chain Heal, and NS. Druids have a plethora of HoTs and NS. Paladins need something. It doesn't really need to be that 'powerful', but something that adds depth to the class. I'm not going to try and even suggest something in particular, there's a million and one things that could actually be done, but I think it's definitely the direction to go.

The worst part about the situation right now is it will be months before gear and talents will be brought in line with the change, if at all.