Nadagast

I posted this on the official boards, but I think I'll probably get better input here so I'm going to repost it. I'm sure a lot of you won't need the introduction so you can skip it if you want and just give me your thoughts...

I think one of the major things that people overlook when looking at Paladins and their healing efficiency is the efficiency of Flash of Light. This isn't because of Illumination (well partially but mostly not) it's because all that matters for a particular direct heal's mana efficiency is the base amount of mana per second it uses (in the limit of large amounts of +heal).

This is because you can think of +heal as adding a direct amount of Healing per second to your heals, and your mana cost will be HPS/MPS. The lower MPS is the more efficiently the heal will scale with gear. People like to say that faster heals and faster nukes get less benefit from +dmg or +heal but it's not true at all.

In the case of Flash of Light we have a spell with 180 mana cost and a 1.5 second cast time, so we get 120 mana used per second. This is the reason Flash of Light scales so well. No matter what heal you're spamming (unless it has a cast time reducing talent like GHeal) you'll be getting the same amount of +heal per second.

Flash of Light lets you use 100% of your +Heal for a mere 120 mana per second (less if you include Illumination but it doesn't matter).
Holy Light with Light's Grace lets you use 125% of your +Heal for 420 mana per second. This is why Holy Light is so mana inefficient compared to Flash of Light even though Holy Light actually starts off more mana efficient (2.76 hpm vs 2.64 hpm).

The problem is that healing efficiency scales (disregarding talents) like +heal/(mana/sec) and the only thing that the spell contributes to this is the mana/sec. So the slope of the hpm vs +heal curve goes like 1/(mana/sec), up to a constant coefficient and obviously talents.

I think this picture shows it much better than I ever could with words:
http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ciency2uc9.jpg
I left out talents (other than Illumination where indicated, and I included the -15% mana cost on GHeal). This is a graph that shows efficiency as a function of +heal for the 2 main Pally/Priest heals, with and without Illumination. For Illumination I have a 30% critrate with the nerfed Illumination.
By nerfing Illumination Blizzard is missing the point entirely. The efficiency of Paladins healing isn't due to Illumination (although it's an amazing ability) it's due to the ridiculously efficient scaling of Flash of Light.

I wonder if Blizzard has anyone doing the math like this, it's a pretty obvious problem with the way +healing works, and it's the exact reason downranking was so powerful before the nerf (not to say it isn't useful now). By downranking you were decreasing your mana/sec usage and still unloading all of your +heal hps.

As far as I can tell this is one of the biggest problems with Priest PvE healing, we have no well scaling heal. All of our heals have a high mps cost.
It's unbelievably powerful for Paladins to have a heal that scales the same as our Flash Heal and yet costs about 1/3 the mana. I don't want Paladins to get nerfed, it would just be nice if Blizzard gave every healer a heal this useful. (IE Priests, and Druids and Shamans to a lesser extent)

It seems to me like Blizzard does the math at 0 +heal and then doesn't check to see if it holds as +heal increases. At 0 +heal the values seem to make sense, but as +heal increases, the system goes downhill.

These are the values of M/S for heals if anyone cares (again after -15% GHeal talent, no Illumination)
Flash of Light 120mps
Holy Light 420 mps
Flash Heal 313.3 mps
Greater Heal 280.5 mps



That was the post, and, I'd like to add for this forum that I think this problem will just continue to grow as gear gets better. Flash of Light will just keep becoming more and more efficient and other heals just don't scale HPM-wise nearly as fast. Do you see this as a problem or not? If so, what do you think could be done to solve it? If not, why not?

 

PsiVen

Paladins generally don't spend any meaningful time outside the FSR, don't tend to have much spirit anyway, and don't have access to Shadowfiend. Illumination is a big deal because Flash of Light just doesn't cut it in many situations. I haven't been Holy since Naxx, but almost all of the changes in 2.0/TBC were improvements to Holy Light for a reason.

 

Xantcha

There's one big problem I'm seeing.

Downranking. Any Priest/Druid who wants to heal effectively will do it.

e.g. Greater Heal/Healing Touch can be downranked with great effeciency.

GHeal 1. is 125.8 MPS,
Htouch 6. is 90.3 MPS. (Bal/Resto cheaper HT spec).

 

Nadagast

Yeah but the problem is that downranking nerfs how much of your +heal per second you get, so it doesn't really help with mana efficiency (again, not to say downranking isn't useful, just that it doesn't change very much).

For example in my PvP gear I have on right now with 800 +heal, all ranks of GHeal are between 5.2 and 5.3 HPM according to DrDamage (which I'm pretty sure is correct). So downranking doesn't alleviate the problem, like it did in the past.

So as an example, (with made up numbers) if I have GHeal 7 and 3, maybe with GHeal 7 I get 120% of my +heal in terms of HPS, with 280 mps, but with GHeal 3 I get 60% of my +heal in terms of HPS but only 140 mps, so the effective HPM is the same in both cases. The numbers for GHeal 3 aren't exactly correct but the HPM doesn't change like it used to with downranking.

 

Xantcha

Downranking is still worth it even with the nerf, it's just stopped downranking from being insanely overpowered.

1. 800 +heal is low. A priest that I play with accumulated 1400 heal pre-raid instances, at the current time I have 1612 heal unbuffed. (Possible to reach 1800+ just on crafted tailoring gear alone)

2. Flash of light is a very weak heal. (Especially without BoL). (If someone could provide numbers please do.)

3. Quickly testing unbuffed with SWS.
Rank 6 HT. 8.5 HPM
Rank 13 HT 7.15 HPM

 

Jimb0v

Correct me if I'm wrong though, theres still a lot of benefit to downranking for a priest just in the inspiration bonus, and because you are more likley to be able to keep the tank at ful lhealth without losing efficiency.

When I was only casting max greater heal I could go many fights without casting a single heal because the tank never dropped low enough for it to make sense to let my heal land. if a tank has 15k health and he has to be at 11k health for me to let my heal land that can be dangerous on some of the tougher fights. Its a lot better to be constnatly casting rank 1 gh keeping insrpiration up and the mt topped off isn't it? I understand in theorycraft world theres no difference, but in reality there are a lot of benefits to downranking still.

 

Nadagast

Yeah again I'm not saying that downranking isn't useful just that it doesn't seem to be close to making up the difference. I know 800 +heal is low, that's in PvP gear

Ideally I'd like to see how downranking scales with extra +heal but last time I looked (which was admittedly awhile ago) the formulas didn't seem to fit the data that well.

 

Mencius

Downranking is an absolute must for Druids and Priests. I have played both classes and without down ranking you'd go out of mana so quickly and most of your healing would be overheal. Yeah, they nerfed it but the reason they did is because of the insane amounts of +healing that is attainable these days. I have upwards of 1700 +healing raid buffed and being able to use a rank 3 or 4 HT with that amount of +healing would make me over-mana-efficent (if thats possible). Downranking isn't as useful with lower +healing because you'll still need to post reasonably high numbers to keep people up and therefore need a larger base heal. But with the current attainable +healing for PvE content downranking in absolutely nessecary.

However, these days I am thinking about losing some +healing to gain more mana regen (see my thread +Healing Cap?).

+Healing Cap?

 

Nadagast

I'm well aware how necessary downranking is in raids, but that (at least with the data I have) doesn't really change the HPM very much. Or am I wrong?

 

Xantcha

From the top of my head.

Priest 1600 Heal

Gheal Rank1 - 2500~ per heal
Gheal Rank3 - 3500~ per heal (not too sure, but its in the 3k range somewhere)


Druid 1600 Heal

Healing Touch Rank4 - 1300~ per heal (guess, don't use this much if ever)
Healing Touch Rank5 - 1800~ per heal
Healing Touch Rank6 - 2300~ per heal
Healing Touch Rank9 - 3300~ per heal
Healing Touch Rank13 - 5400~ per heal.

Downranking does increase HPM even with the downranking nerf, just not so much that you would never run oom.

 

Drekor

Not really, a lot of people don't really give it the credit it deserves because they discount the fact it's a 1.5s cast heal not a 2+ second heal like the others.

At +1100 healing, BoL and souls redeemed my FoL goes for about 1350-1400 on average non crit. This is 900-933 HP/s that I'm putting out which is pretty standard for a single healer in any raid encounter when you take a look at the numbers after a boss fight.

Yes and no... for a paladin spam healing is ideal because no other class can do it as well as we can so we provide a "base" so to speak for other healers to build off of and they can always except X amount of healing from us. With a priest even with inspiration you have to think on the FSR a bit, basically the question is if you can chain cast X heal(x being a small heal) and switch and chain cast Y heal(y being a big heal) when needed and not run out of mana then by all means otherwise I'm not sure it's worthwhile there are other priests and shamans around that can apply the same buff.

 

Mencius

Are you assuming that every single point of you heal is landing every time? Take into consideration the amount of overheal you are doing. All that extra HPM that is overheal is lost and is basically wasted mana and healing.

Its usually better to land a 3k heal for full than a 5k heal with 2k of that being overheal. You've now spend extra mana and still only healed the target for 3k. Get it?

Here are the numbers for a Druid's HT assuming 3k +healing.

 

Nadagast

Is that with all talents factored in Mencius? And even there you're only getting about a ~30% increase in HPM from rank 13 to rank 4. While that's very respectable it doesn't seem like it even comes close to making up for FoL's ridiculous base efficiency.

 

Xantcha

Yes, FoL is very powerful. I'm just trying to put it into context where the OP was comparing max ranked GHeals and HTs to FoL spam.

FoL is what Healers try to imitate when they downrank, low hps, high hpm heals. Though paladins will always be superior with the 1.5s casting time.

 

Mencius

Yes. My Spec 27/0/34. I have only 1700 +healing or so, but the numbers are pretty much equally scaled down. The break even point for me is rank 7 or 8. If the mob hits extra hard (say, during an enrage or heavy cleaves) I use rank 8 to push out a little more healing, otherwise I use rank 7.

 

Nadagast

Yeah other Healers try to imitate the low MPS of Flash of Light by downranking but they incur the additional +heal coefficient penalty from downranking, whereas Paladins don't have the downranking penalty because they can use the top rank... it's not just the cast time that makes it better. It's that to get to a MPS value near Paladins (~120 mps) you need to nerf your +heal coeff so that you get less than 100% +heal every 3.5 seconds.

 

◊ zeidrich

Edit: My post was too long for it's own good. I was rambling.

In short:

FoL is the most efficient heal in the game. Some spell has to hold that title.

FoL doesn't have the efficacy to act as a primary heal.

Other classes have HoTs that marginalize the usefulness of a heal as small as FoL.

A paladin casting FoL is a paladin not casting HL.

A paladin is the most limited healing class in terms of mana regen options.

A paladins is also the most limited healing class in terms of healing options. We get no benefit from being outside FSR regenning.


If a priest gets LoM, he can use a shadowfiend, he can heal/cancel and stay in 5sr to get spirit regen. Priests have higher spirit, and abilities to help their mana go back up more quickly.

If a paladin gets LoM, he can use a potion. Paladins only have talents and abilities that let their mana go down more slowly. There are no plate items in the burning crusade with spirit on them. Not "few". None.

 

Khaelarys

Yes really - it baseline heals for what... 500 health? That is, by definition, a relatively weak heal. Shamans and priests both have 1.5 second heals that heal for a significant amount (Sorry druids )

After pimping out your healing stats, FoL is very useful - no one would argue that , it's a staple of our class - but it doesn't change the fact that given the same amount of plus healing, it's weaker than its counterparts. The power is in its efficiency, which was already mentioned, not in its relative strength.

After the illumination changes I'll still not run out of mana chaining FoL, and I'll still run out of mana when FoL isn't enough to cut it.

OP: Please also continue to post this anywhere you can - I've been a little disappointed lately that there hasn't been enough focus on our healing. Hopefully they'll change FoL to have a higher mana cost and lower baseline heal value (i'm hoping double digits). Then we'd have a lot more solo ret paladins floating around Outland.

 

Nadagast

But when you compare the HPS of the top rank of GHeal vs FoL that's not really fair since you can't cast very many top rank GHeals in an entire fight, they're so expensive.

The thing is that as +heal goes up the HPS percentage gap between FoL spam and any other heal with a higher base HPS (Flash Heal for example) goes down. FoL gets more mana efficient and it gets closer percentage-wise in terms of HPS as +heal goes up. As more and more of your total healing done comes from +heal, the base heal values matter less and less...

I specifically said I don't want a Paladin nerf, I don't even want Illumination to get the nerf it has on the PTR. I'm fine with healers feeling somewhat powerful.

 

Jimb0v

Excuse my ignorance, but aren't Shamans way worse off than paladins? Also, can't paladins put up judgement of wisdom?

 

grimjack

Judgement of wisdom returns mana based on melee and spell attacks done to the target. Healing and attacking are exclusive if you are the primary healer.

 

Noules

FoL's efficiency is actually even better than what's suggested in the OP. Due to the fact that FoL receives upgrades far slower than virtually every other spell (~12 levels? at the top end) FoL6 (which you receive at 58 or so) does not suffer from the downranking penalty of the other pre-level 60 heals. This means you can get full +healing benefit for 140 mana per cast. Combined with Blessing of Light, it does get pretty ridiculous. You essentially trade about 100 h/cast for 40 mana/cast, which is an excellent deal at virtually any halfway decent level of +healing.

Another thing to note is that HL4 still receives the full benefit from the top rank BoL (it does however suffer loss from +healing, like everything else) With the Libram of the Souls Redeemed, you're getting over 650 free healing per HL4. With Light's Grace/BoL active, HL4 is actually more efficient MpS and HpS compared to FoL6 until you hit fairly high +healing (I have about 1600 unbuffed at the moment and HL4 and FoL6 are essentially comparable). Using HL4 also provides the additional benefit of being able to transition into a HL11 as necessary while under Light's Grace (and for this reason alone any good healadin should be throwing out HL4's regardless of the efficiency occasionally to keep that quick response option open).

 

Xaev

My question here really relates to Blessing of Light. No matter how much math I show my guildmaster, he refuses to accept that Flash of Light is more efficient than Holy Light. He claims that his friend has done numerous tests and showed him that downranking is not changing the efficacy of Blessing of Light on Holy Light or Flash of Light and that those results skew the efficiency in favor of Holy Light.

I want to know - is any of this true or is he just barking up the wrong tree?

 

Noules

Sufficiently low rank HL doesn't get full benefit from BoL. It's just like pre-TBC - HL4+ and all ranks of FoL receive full benefit from BoL. However, HL4 suffers significantly from the +healing penalty due to its low level.

HL4 is among the most efficient spells at level 70 if the target has BoL and the paladin doesn't have -too- much +healing (at around 1500-ish, the HpM of HL4 and FoL6 on BoL is about the same; compared to FoL7 HL4 is still better). As you get more +healing, FoL (in particular FoL6, not FoL7) gets better faster.

There's a place for HL4, HL11, and FoL6 (again, not FoL7) depending on the situation. With good +healing gear, FoL6 is strictly better than HL4 (and far better manawise than any other HL), but HL4 does keep up Light's Grace for emergencies and is very comparable to FoL6 in terms of both HpM and HpS on a BoL'd target until you get -very- high +healing (personally, I also like the Scarab for the moment, and HL benefits more than FoL from that due to global cooldown).

So there's something to what your GM says, but it's not a complete story. In a raid setting it's probably pretty accurate since your +healing will likely be around the level HL4 and FoL6 are comparable, with the added benefit of maintaining Light's Grace. However, if you're ever going to heal a target without Blessing of Light or if you're strictly interested in pure efficiency without worrying about spikes (and have the gear for it), FoL6 can be the better choice.

 

◊ zeidrich

I'm not sure. Shamans have it worse in terms of efficiency of course. Shaman also have fun toys like Chain Heal, Earth Shield and Mana Tide Totem.

Lesser healing wave is more effective than flash of light, but more costly. Healing wave is more efficient than Holy Light but can't be reduced to as short a casting time.

Paladins can use judgement of wisdom of course, but to gain mana back from it requires us to stop healing and be in melee range of our target, and doesn't preclude the shaman from whacking it for mana too.

I don't know shaman that well anyways, they're still relatively new to our faction :P Don't get me wrong. My point wasn't that paladins suck. My point was the fact that FoL spam is the most efficient HpM in the game doesn't make it gamebreaking. It's the most efficient, but also the smallest direct heal.

The OP seemed to be implying that there was an imbalance because FoL scales so well, but even at good +healing levels you're not doing a signifigant amount of healing per second.

Definitely not enough that you could be a main healer. The only time I use FoL is as a buffer or a supplementary heal. This does NOT make a great healer, because although it's efficiency might net a high spot on the healing charts, if everyone were healing like that there wouldn't be enough healing output to cover for bursts.