Technically the third healing option you have is Judgement of Light, but its not very interactive or controllable besides judging but it is significant.
Look, I haven't had Illumination since 1.9, the paladin patch. (And during a brief stint of Holy right before pre-TBC 2.0)
After losing Illumination from my build, I had to learn mana efficiency the way other healing classes do it - minimizing overhealing, cancel-casts, careful choice of heal ranks.
There's absolutely no way that I'd be reduced to a one-button spamming monkey if I were to respec Holy for all the boosts it'd give to my healing. If the changes to Illumination alone are enough to force you into that playstyle ... I'd doubt your understanding of paladin mechanics.
But enough of this sort of sillyness. Focus on numbers if you want to make a case for non-change. Or ignore it all and enjoy the ride. Self-pity is a long paladin tradition, but it doesn't lead anywhere.
No offense, but it's that kind of misinformation that probably lead to all the complaining in the first place.
The only way a paladin can be a 1 button heal money is spamming FoL, and the illumination nerf doesn't really change that. This also doesn't work in raids in the expac, the damage is simply too high, this only worked pre-TBC (That's not to say FoL isn't useful anymore, it is, you just can't rely on FoL only without using HL).
A paladin using max rank HL has to heal cancel just like every other healer. I've played a priest for 2 years, I know how to heal cancel, I know how to downrank (not really applicable anymore), I know how to heal efficiently, and I had to do all that as paladin too. Without it, I'd run oom just like everybody else (albeit probably not as quickly).
What illumination did was make Holy Light mana efficient in the first place, because without that talent, it's got the worst hp/mp ratio of all the healers.
I can live with a nerf, it was warranted, I just hope they don't ruin spell crit so we become just another healer that focusses on mp5/+healing only (we wouldn't even have spirit regen, which at least adds the aspect of trying to stay out of the FSR as much as possible).
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.
Well, pre-tbc when looking for paladin gear you weren't worried about spellcrit. Every raid encounter was a FoL spamming endeavor, so it was easier to get mp5 than it was to get spellcrit. If you showed a paladin a piece of plate gear with 1% Crit 50 heal and 5mp5 50 Heal, most of the time the latter would be chosen because spellcrit, while nice, wasn't as powerful as it is now. You still had decent sets, while it wasn't amazing, it worked. 5 Piece Judgement was powerful since you got the extra 47 healing.
While Naxx and Tier3 was a step in the right direction, in its time it was powerful because of the +Heal/mp5 that hadn't been seen - not because of the +Spellcrit. The crit was just an added extra to help supplement our already high longevity. When the additions of Sanctified Light and Light's Grace were announced, we almost knew Holy Light would be our main heal. We didn't fathom how strong Spellcrit would become - or how powerful illumination would scale. I don't think Blizzard did either. It got out of hand, the potency got reduced. Flash of Light wasn't the cause, many paladins started using Flash of Light as often as they used Holy Light pre-bc. Max rank FoL gained 1.4mp5 over the previous rank. Holy Light is where it became really powerful, since it was possible to make Holy Light more HPS than FoL, as well as more efficient.
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.
That or start working towards a Paladin design of a melee class. On one level, the idea of being able to spec into a HoT in holy is kind of neat, but at the same time nothing about a Paladin in any lore screams HoT or immense AE healing or anything like that. Small direct heals are about it.
A good substitute that would encourage paladins to melee and provide additional healing would be something like an Improved Judgment of Light talent that drastically enhanced the amount of healing it restored, or perhaps tied that amount to you smacking the mob.
That or start working towards a Paladin design of a melee class. On one level, the idea of being able to spec into a HoT in holy is kind of neat, but at the same time nothing about a Paladin in any lore screams HoT or immense AE healing or anything like that. Small direct heals are about it.
A good substitute that would encourage paladins to melee and provide additional healing would be something like an Improved Judgment of Light talent that drastically enhanced the amount of healing it restored, or perhaps tied that amount to you smacking the mob.
Not to rain on your parade but...yeah I can see how useful meleeing would be against all those non-melee friendly bosses in SSC and TK. Wonderful idea =) Getting killed by Leothras or causing a chain-tomb on all the melee for Hydross would be a wonderful way to play my class to its "full potential".
I don't care about lore, and I think Paladins meleeing is hilarious. Please lets not give Blizzard ideas.
What they should have done from the very beginning is make the paladins masters of instant heals. Every heal should have been instant cast with 20 or less range. There, you can now melee and heal and you have to be in the thick of things. One large heal on a decently long coold down (10 seconds or so) one small heal on a shorter coold down (5 seconds or so)
however, they have gone down a different road with paladins. Personally this change probably effects myself less than some (I went for a build to get close to 1900 fol hits on tanks). But even with Flash of Light spamming I am losing 45 MP5. I have no idea where I am supposed to pick that up at. I already use a not inconsiderable amount of consumables and now flasks of regeneration are much less effective.
I almost feel like a pre 1.9 pally again. Though I guess it isn't THAT bad. But I am seriously looking at what 41 pts of holy buys me compared to 20 now.
I don't care about lore, and I think Paladins meleeing is hilarious. Please lets not give Blizzard ideas.
Not to rain on your parade but...yeah I can see how useful meleeing would be against all those non-melee friendly bosses in SSC and TK. Wonderful idea =) Getting killed by Leothras or causing a chain-tomb on all the melee for Hydross would be a wonderful way to play my class to its "full potential".
Well yeah, it's a lore thing. I find the concept of paladins not meleeing retarded, the same way I would find a mage being a duel-wielding weapons master retarded. I didn't say it fit in well with existing game mechanics, I'd just rather have them work at fixing it. Restricting the functionality of a class based upon poor design (like melee-unfriendly TBC) is just ignoring the precursor problem.
Originally Posted by Brodda Thep
What they should have done from the very beginning is make the paladins masters of instant heals. Every heal should have been instant cast with 20 or less range. There, you can now melee and heal and you have to be in the thick of things. One large heal on a decently long coold down (10 seconds or so) one small heal on a shorter coold down (5 seconds or so).
Instant heals built up by dealing damage or smiting mobs or something, that would have been an awesome design path to make a true melee support class. Alas.
Originally Posted by Brodda Thep
I almost feel like a pre 1.9 pally again. Though I guess it isn't THAT bad. But I am seriously looking at what 41 pts of holy buys me compared to 20 now.
I had been thinking about this as well. Basically most of the talents from 15-30 took a 50% effectiveness nerf, which has the side effect of making Light's Grace less useful also. Still required for PvP healing, no doubt, but you won't be able to support 2 second HL for nearly as long as now. Basically having 20 holy after this patch is much less of an issue than having 20 holy right now, if that is your thing.
On the flipside, Divine Illumination may also be more appealing simply to maintain efficiency.
On the flipside, Divine Illumination may also be more appealing simply to maintain efficiency.
Yes, but Divine Illumination also receives quite an indirect nerf since you'll no longer be gaining nearly as much mana from crits while it is active, which was one of its nice points. The synergy with Illumination making it actually GAIN you mana when a spell critted was amazing.
I agree with Amera that adding more melee synergy would be a viable route for improving a paladin's retinue of heals, and I think that it would help distinguish the class. Currently the judgement system is decidedly unfriendly to paladins that are strictly healers, at least in raid content. Adding options to improve judgement of light (in effectiveness and practicality) would make a lot of sense.
However, the obvious place to modify healing mechanics for paladins is holy shock. Right now holy shock is simply a poor spell. It is an insta-cast heal, but it is also small and gets little benefit from +healing. It does have some use, but it could definitely use a rework to make it a definitive paladin ability. As a reference consider how Earthen Shield augments shaman healing.
Consider the following talent suggestion:
Holy Shock:
400 mana, 20 yard range, 15 second cooldown
Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 530 to 574 damage to an enemy or 668 to 712 healing to an ally. In addition, Holy shock refreshes your judgement on a target enemy for 20 seconds.
Enlightened Holy Shock:
Your Holy Shock spell gains an additional 15%/30% of bonus damage and healing. In addition, the range of holy shock is increased by 5/10 yards.
Yes, but Divine Illumination also receives quite an indirect nerf since you'll no longer be gaining nearly as much mana from crits while it is active, which was one of its nice points. The synergy with Illumination making it actually GAIN you mana when a spell critted was amazing.
You'll still save the same amount of mana with DI that you saved before. Crits will return less mana now, but you get the same amount of mana back from crits regardless of whether DI is active or not.
EDIT: You know, buffing DI back to a two-minute cooldown would hardly be overpowered at this point.
Last edited by Cathela : 04/15/07 at 2:23 PM.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
Adding melee synergy? I've been playing the class the way it is for more than 2 years now, if I wanted more melee I'd roll something else. To me "adding melee synergy" is about as useful as a pile of shit on my porch. A freaking spaceship crashed and vomitted forth alliance shamans, we're so far beyond lore at this point it's laughable to bring it up.
I'm actually trying to find stuff now on how they handled the hunter change, did they make any posts with explanations behind the agi/ap change? At least nobody had to tell them to change the loot which in hindsight was far less fubared than say boots of valiance. Basically I'm with Sigurd, at the very least they have to look at all the gear and change sanctified light.
Now a lot of you guys think this change is for the greater good looking at the bigger picture of raiding and whatnot. I couldn't disagree more. Holy is fun to raid. Raiding wise holy paladin is about dead last on the list of priorities for being looked at. I'm not buying into this the notion that extending healer mana pools trivializes encounters and makes the game less fun. First of all, there's no gear in the game right now that'll make you afford to play like a retard. Not even remotely. Second, given quality of play, healers shouldn't ever run out of mana. This is true at all times or you wouldn't beat encounters. Difference is paladins now can do it without chainchugging super manas. Given the new focus of alchemy you guys have to agree that every healer should be where the paladins are now.
Illumination change, just like every class change in this patch, is all about the arenas. Now I want you to think about why should you have to make concessions for a minor part of an inherently bad pvp game you don't even care for.
Adding melee synergy? I've been playing the class the way it is for more than 2 years now, if I wanted more melee I'd roll something else. To me "adding melee synergy" is about as useful as a pile of shit on my porch. A freaking spaceship crashed and vomitted forth alliance shamans, we're so far beyond lore at this point it's laughable to bring it up.
I'm actually trying to find stuff now on how they handled the hunter change, did they make any posts with explanations behind the agi/ap change? At least nobody had to tell them to change the loot which in hindsight was far less fubared than say boots of valiance. Basically I'm with Sigurd, at the very least they have to look at all the gear and change sanctified light.
Now a lot of you guys think this change is for the greater good looking at the bigger picture of raiding and whatnot. I couldn't disagree more. Holy is fun to raid. Raiding wise holy paladin is about dead last on the list of priorities for being looked at. I'm not buying into this the notion that extending healer mana pools trivializes encounters and makes the game less fun. First of all, there's no gear in the game right now that'll make you afford to play like a retard. Not even remotely. Second, given quality of play, healers shouldn't ever run out of mana. This is true at all times or you wouldn't beat encounters. Difference is paladins now can do it without chainchugging super manas. Given the new focus of alchemy you guys have to agree that every healer should be where the paladins are now.
Illumination change, just like every class change in this patch, is all about the arenas. Now I want you to think about why should you have to make concessions for a minor part of an inherently bad pvp game you don't even care for.
I'm not sure this is a PvP change. Our ability to heal with almost complete impunity for 12 seconds is what causes the biggest complaints there.
I think this has to do with the fact that many high end raiding guilds would stack paladins instead of bringing a diverse group of healers, because we make such excellent single target spammers, and most fights require a good amount of them.
A part of the solution to that can be reducing our effectiveness when it comes to single target spamming, if our lead over the other healers is too big (although I think the current nerf is way over the top).
Another part of the solution, however, has to be making sure that the other healer classes are attractive alternatives to bring. If we lose our advantage on single target healing, we would need compensation in some other place, or we as healers will simply be in the reverse situation as right now (where there is no clear reason to bring paladins beyond blessings, a problem some healers currently suffer from when compared to the single target healing power of the paladin).
I think a middle ground can be reached there. Where paladins remain the best single target healers, but not to the point where you would want to stack them and give up the utility of other healing classes. I just don't think they found that middle ground with this nerf, because I think it would take giving something to priests, as well as reducing the planned nerf to us (I think druids and shamans already have that utility because they are far more stackable, an extra resto druid is an extra combat rez, vate, and NS/swiftmend, an extra resto shaman is an extra tide, earthshield, totems for one group, and NS).
Just a random thought on Illumination as it is now, would it perhaps be more interesting if instead of refunding half the mana cost of the spell you crit with, it instead gives you a clearcasting style buff that reduces the mana cost of your next spell by 50%?
Than again that's actually a buff over the recent change, since you could just wait until you get a crit and then cast a more expensive spell.
Last edited by Chicken : 04/15/07 at 5:45 PM.
Reason: A somewhat late minor grammatical fix
buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of
For the pallies that are concerned mostly with the need for itemization change to go along with the nerf, as a druid I can say they seem to be keeping the promise of "we're nerfing you now so we can scale your gear better" so far. There may be a gap in there where gear sucks before they add the changes in, but they do seem to be following through on these things.
Adding melee synergy? I've been playing the class the way it is for more than 2 years now, if I wanted more melee I'd roll something else. To me "adding melee synergy" is about as useful as a pile of shit on my porch. A freaking spaceship crashed and vomitted forth alliance shamans, we're so far beyond lore at this point it's laughable to bring it up.
Well I'm glad you've internalized and accepted an inherent design flaw with the class, but I imagine many of us aren't so willing to accept it and would prefer they fix it. A game doesn't really need 4 healers who value roughly the same exact type of gear (save for Spi/mp5 in some cases) who could for all practical purposes be wearing Tx priest gear to fill their raiding role. At least spell-crit gave us something unique to value, but with the nerf, it seems like an excellent time to revist the class as a whole and fix conceptual problems that have existed since release. Ideally each class should have its own style, its own varied gear choices, and so on, so that playing one healer isn't more or less just like playing another.
Originally Posted by Levk
Illumination change, just like every class change in this patch, is all about the arenas. Now I want you to think about why should you have to make concessions for a minor part of an inherently bad pvp game you don't even care for.
You mean in inherently bad pvp game you don't care for. I assure you, many players in fact love PvP in WoW and prioritize it above other game types. I also disagree that this is primarily a PvP nerf - paladins are not the most valued arena healers because of Illumination.
Not directly related to 2.1, but does Spell Hit affect Seal of Command/Judgment of command/Crusader Strike or is it Melee Hit?
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Just a random thought on Illumination as it is now, would it perhaps be more interesting if instead of refunding half the mana cost of the spell you crit with, it instead gives you a clearcasting style buff that reduces the mana cost of your next spell by 50%?
Than again that's actually a buff over the recent change, since you could just wait until you get a crit and then cast a more expensive spell.
Well healing isn't DPS, either your tank is missing 6k hp and you have to cast the big heal regardless of procs or he's missing 300hp and those 6k are meaningless.
Technically the third healing option you have is Judgement of Light, but its not very interactive or controllable besides judging but it is significant.
.... and it doesn't work for ranged attacks (hunters, mages, locks, priests, boomkins, lazerbeam shaman)
The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.
Maybe a nerf to paladin healing is indeed necessary when compared to other classes. But the whole tree is so much centered around Illumination. I mean 11% crit on holy light, 100% crit every 2 minutes are now rather boring. Paying 3% basemana to shape of 50% mana is not exactly what I'd call a good talent.
For the pallies that are concerned mostly with the need for itemization change to go along with the nerf, as a druid I can say they seem to be keeping the promise of "we're nerfing you now so we can scale your gear better" so far. There may be a gap in there where gear sucks before they add the changes in, but they do seem to be following through on these things.
I'd feel alot better if they promised such things to paladins. However, there was zero warning about the illumination nerf, no explanation given for it, and there have been no blue posts promising anything in the way of itemization changes.
Well I'm glad you've internalized and accepted an inherent design flaw with the class, but I imagine many of us aren't so willing to accept it and would prefer they fix it. A game doesn't really need 4 healers who value roughly the same exact type of gear (save for Spi/mp5 in some cases) who could for all practical purposes be wearing Tx priest gear to fill their raiding role. At least spell-crit gave us something unique to value, but with the nerf, it seems like an excellent time to revist the class as a whole and fix conceptual problems that have existed since release. Ideally each class should have its own style, its own varied gear choices, and so on, so that playing one healer isn't more or less just like playing another.
Just by browsing the board a lot, I noticed you really really seem to be upset that paladins are pigeonholed into healing, and you are upset that paladins don't have a viable option to be a melee class (melee dps/melee support). I fully understand that coming from other MMORPGs one could get a different idea of what paladins would be like, but don't you think that it is a bit late to complain that paladins don't quite fit your vision of a holy warrior?
Just by browsing the board a lot, I noticed you really really seem to be upset that paladins are pigeonholed into healing, and you are upset that paladins don't have a viable option to be a melee class (melee dps/melee support). I fully understand that coming from other MMORPGs one could get a different idea of what paladins would be like, but don't you think that it is a bit late to complain that paladins don't quite fit your vision of a holy warrior?
The retribution tree has a line of core talents that strictly improve a paladin's damage (Conviction, Two-Handed Weapon Specialization, Crusade, Vengeance, and Fanaticism). Much of the rest of the tree leans toward melee support with its boosts to the judgement system and aura talents. While it is clear that paladin's are insufficient in a melee dps/melee support role, it does not take a particularly inspired vision to see the potential within the current class design.
Its not as if Amera wants a 4th tree that is a melee support tree; the tree is already there and mechanics are already in place. They just have not been implemented in a way that makes the spec generally viable at the end-game. Pushing for improvements in this regard is no different than Balance Druids or Enhancement Shaman asking to be viable in 1.11.
Now for a personal suggestion to amuse myself. I think it might be prudent to remove the judgement refresh on Crusader strike and make it so that any melee attack from a paladin will refresh all judgements on that target. Currently, having a judgement refresh on Crusader strike hamstrings design of its cooldown. At 10 seconds it just does not work, because a miss causes all the judgements to drop from the target. Decreasing its cooldown clearly causes the developers angst with regard to paladin burst, since virtually all of a paladin's damage is up front. However, it is a great idea to have one paladin be able to refresh all judgements, because it makes them more functional and provides an impetus for one paladin in the raid to stay in melee range. Coupled with this change, I'd suggest putting a group buff component on Crusader Strike. For example, all party members within 40 yards of the paladin gain 5% melee and spell haste for 12 seconds. 5% would be small enough to primarily counter lag on fast spells without bumping into the CGD, but it would not strictly force a party make-up by applying to both melee and spell haste.
04/14/07, 3:18 PM
Restricting the functionality of a class based upon poor design (like melee-unfriendly TBC) is just ignoring the precursor problem. 
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