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.
FoL spamming doesn't make you a good main healer (although for many raid purposes it works out just fine) but it does make a very good tool in the hands of a main healer. Yes, you have to deal with spikes if you're MH and you're the only healer. But so does every other healer.
The issue is that FoL is basically the Paladin equivalent of a HoT, except we trade player casting time for mana efficiency - healing effectively is then a matter of intelligently trading time versus mana. Paladins have far better options than other healers regarding that trade off when it comes to single target healing. There's nothing preventing a good MH pally from spamming FoL6 as a baseline, throwing out a HL4 on the BOL tank to maintain Light's Grace every 15 seconds, and breaking out the big HL11 when someone needs quick healing right now. For single target healing that's pretty much the best of all worlds, and it allows the Paladin to tune their HpS to match the incoming DPS to maximize mana efficiency. While priests and druids can also do this to some extent by burst healing and getting out of the 5SR, the heavy-handedness of 5SR makes it very difficult to do this in a continuous manner (no benefit if you can't wait the 5s, and a sudden jumps after the 5s).
FoL spamming doesn't make you a good main healer (although for many raid purposes it works out just fine) but it does make a very good tool in the hands of a main healer. Yes, you have to deal with spikes if you're MH and you're the only healer. But so does every other healer.
On Magtheridon, my guild has me (Bal/Resto Druid) and a Pally MH the tank after Mag breaks. We do just fine, I take care of the spikes and the Pally does the topping up.
I totally agree that FoL spamming doesn't make a good healer, and its blatently apparent that Pallys who do ONLY this are much lower on the heal meters than even our Tree Druids and Priests.
I guess my main problem re: Paladin's rather amazing efficiency is that Paladins have Blessings and Auras as well. While I in no way support a nerf of Paladins, one must ask why Blizzard almost intends raids to stack this class. Raiding Hunters, for example, could potentially receive BoMight, BoWisdom, BoKings, BoSalvation, BoLight, and the benefits of Judgments and Auras when their raids stacked Paladins. I don't know if BoFreedom and BoProtection have worth in SCC. Wipe recovery in Divine Intervention to make better use of Soulstones, the added bonus of not competing against tanks for tiered gear, still-superb talents. Priests, however, offer Fortitude, Spirit, and Shadow Protection (the latter of which Paladins can provide for free, for no reagent cost) and 'group' heals, and this *could* be okay, but encounters up until SSC at least have yet to utilize this aspect.
Why should Paladins offer so much utility and receive arguably the best heal is the question at the core of this thread I guess. I'm not sure what is the optimal number of healers, I presume somwhere around 9. Why, then, would a raid leader bring more than 1 heal-specced Priest or any heal-specced Shamans or Druids (although 2.1 may change this) if given the option of say, 7 Paladins? People bring up 'burst' damage, but can a line-up of 7 Paladins -- all spamming FoL6 or efficient HL's except for some rotation of a high-ranked HL to keep Light's Grace up? Are there any encounters where a boss can do more than a sustained HPS of 6-7k? Up until SSC, no raid content exists that challenges this set-up. As of now, Paladins gear + talents + consumables + other methods (Mana Tide, feral-specced Druid's Innervate, Shadow Priests) can almost overcome the required MPS of mindlessly FOL6 spamming (although the Illumination nerf hampers this to some degree). Whether or not in SSC and beyond content requires efficient or quick forms of group healing is unknown to me -- I have yet to even step foot into SSC. Say there are these new encounters that require more forms of group heals, would that be enough to make it worthwhile to switch up the this 'ideal' line-up?
Sorry, this slightly diverged from the topic, but I guess this is why healing efficiency should be brought up. If Blizzard wants to keep heal-spec Priests viable -- Arena is a whole other set of problems -- Blizzard needs to either introduce a lower rank of Greater Heal that still utilizes a good portion of +heal so as to be effective, reduce the mana cost of Flash Heal, improve the +heal coefficients received through downranking Flash Heal, or change the structure of upcoming encounters so that it would be an incentive to have more than 1 Priest (e.g AE fights).
It seems like Blizzard is trying to make Priest's niche AE healing but it doesn't seem to be needed on that many encounters. It really seems to diminish the overall usefulness of the class.
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.
It's not actually. It's the most efficient single target direct heal in the game.
Lifebloom is the most efficient single target heal in the game. With 1215 healing I get 12 health per mana out of tree form, and 15 health per mana in the form. Even at 50% overhealing I'm as efficient as a paladin using flash of light with 1500 healing that never overheals.
The downside of course is that I don't restore nearly as much health per second, so to really make the most out of it I need to heal multiple targets.
Prayer of mending is actually the most theoretically mana efficient heal in the game overall though, at over 20 health per mana with just +1000 healing if it bounces perfectly.
I guess my main problem re: Paladin's rather amazing efficiency is that Paladins have Blessings and Auras as well(...)
Why should Paladins offer so much utility and receive arguably the best heal is the question at the core of this thread I guess. I'm not sure what is the optimal number of healers, I presume somwhere around 9. Why, then, would a raid leader bring more than 1 heal-specced Priest or any heal-specced Shamans or Druids (although 2.1 may change this) if given the option of say, 7 Paladins?
In terms of pure healing, I think you are correct: in most cases, you probably do want to use paladins as the backbone of your healer setup, for the tanks at least. The main downsides to paladin healers are that they really need to constantly cast to fully take advantage of their benefits (so any encounter that requires constant moving is not good) and that they're terrible at group healing, both in terms of time and mana.
However, the flip issue is that there's no compelling reason to bring Paladins to the raid except for buffing and healing. Priests, Druids, and Shaman all have fairly viable offspecs. There's not much call for a Paladin tank or DPS in raids. In terms of class distribution within raids, all four of the classes probably have approximately equal demand when considering all the potential specs. Whether this is how Blizzard is trying to balance things, who knows.
Why, then, would a raid leader bring more than 1 heal-specced Priest or any heal-specced Shamans or Druids (although 2.1 may change this) if given the option of say, 7 Paladins?.
All three classes have utility purposes and all have different types of healing styles. You need to have a balanced raid in order to maximize all the beneficial stuff that each class can bring.
Speaking from a Druid's perspective I have an innervate, combat rez, tons of HoTs, Mark of the Wild, decurse, cure poision, cyclone, hibernate, etc.
Shaman have chain heal, earth shield, a plethora of totems, reincarnate, etc.
Priests have shield, fort, spirit, prayer of mending, dispell, another HoT, etc.
Shaman and Druids in particular have the ability to both DPS and heal especially when specced properly, and we routinely have a Druid tank, then DPS, then heal where needed. We also have Shaman DPS more often than heal, but if the shit hits the fan they are more than capable of healing out a fight.
In many ways I think about it like baseball. Hitting home runs is nice, but any good coach knows that games are won by getting base hits. You always wanna have a few guys that can hit the long ball but when it comes down to it, you need to have a fully developed team that utilizes all it's strengths (and weaknesses) to win.
It's not actually. It's the most efficient single target direct heal in the game.
Lifebloom is the most efficient single target heal in the game. With 1215 healing I get 12 health per mana out of tree form, and 15 health per mana in the form. Even at 50% overhealing I'm as efficient as a paladin using flash of light with 1500 healing that never overheals.
The downside of course is that I don't restore nearly as much health per second, so to really make the most out of it I need to heal multiple targets.
Prayer of mending is actually the most theoretically mana efficient heal in the game overall though, at over 20 health per mana with just +1000 healing if it bounces perfectly.
Exactly,
For topping off raids, treeform druids are actually pretty good. A lifebloom + maybe a rejuv is enough to "top off" anyone not taking quick damage and is more efficient than any paladin spell. They can also keep hots on the MT, throw in a regrowth for some help on big bursts, and swiftmend/NS if the going gets tough.
The efficiency of treeform is too often neglected imo. Not to mention a much more interesting healing style with many different ways to heal.
Paladins are a one trick pony. Either that trick needs to be good, or they need more options for healing. With a significant nerf to (primarily) one of our *2* heals, I think paladin healing needs to be re-evaluated.
While FoL is the most mana efficient healing spell in the game it simply doesn't put out enough hps . I'm a regen whore on my priest, and only have around 1400 +healing raid buffed/potted, in most ssc fights I'll use r3/4 gheal for tank healing; this ends up putting out around 1400 hps. In order for a paladin to achieve this hps with a FoL, it must be healing for 2100 on average. Even with BoL and including crits the paladin would have to obtain an obscene amount of +healing in order for this to be practical.
I do however agree that shaman are in dire need of some sort of regen gimick. Paladins gain mana through mp5 and crit, druids/priests gain mana through spirit and mp5, shaman only gain mana through mp5. Right now my problem with paladins is that their regeneration abilities work under any circumstance (crit is luck based, but over the duration of a long fight it generally evens out) while priest and druids have to actively work to get the most out of their regen. But going back to shaman, in terms of pve capabilities (ignoring stam fo the time being) they only have 3 stats that they focus on +heal, mp5, int whereas the other 3 healing classes have 4. In terms of item-points the more of one stat that is on an item the more expensive each additional point is to put on it, so spreading points out over different stats will use your item-points better for your gear. Since shaman only have 3 stats to focus on, they in a sense are getting shafted since priests, druids, and pallies are getting more stats for their item-points.
Off the top of my head I can't think of any gimmick that could be added to shaman, perhaps a stat that enhances the abilities of their totems?
While FoL is the most mana efficient healing spell in the game it simply doesn't put out enough hps . I'm a regen whore on my priest, and only have around 1400 +healing raid buffed/potted, in most ssc fights I'll use r3/4 gheal for tank healing; this ends up putting out around 1400 hps. In order for a paladin to achieve this hps with a FoL, it must be healing for 2100 on average. Even with BoL and including crits the paladin would have to obtain an obscene amount of +healing in order for this to be practical.
Counting crits, FoL spam on a BoL target is ~1200 hps for me, at about 1600 +healing unbuffed (with Libram of Souls Redeemed). It really doesn't that -that- much +healing for FoL spam to be competitive, and it's not FoL spam that makes Paladins effective single target healers.
Throwing in HL4 to maintain Light's Grace and factoring in HL11's to counter spikes, Paladins can pretty much dial whatever HpS is appropriate for the encounter. It's essentially like being able to downrank just as much as you need to (over time) without taking the +healing penalty. When it comes to healing a single, BoL'd target over a long period of time, it's hard to beat a Paladin. The main issue is that that's the only thing we're good at, healingwise, and the patch will threaten at least the endurance of Paladin healing.
In most of the boss fights at the moment mana spend per second is not the most important thing. When your MT take hit for 6-8k+ every 2 sec ( this hit can be dodged/parryed/missed ofc ) you just cant use healing spell that actualy heal for less than 5k because in some unlucky moment your MT will be twoshoted. And even with BoL FL can't heal for that much.
From my expirience 1,5 sec heals are something really rarely usable in boss fight exept for some emergency heal on secondary target that will take timed AoE dmg and need fast heal and this is mostly done by shamans and not paladins because we have way more HpS.
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?
No, i dont get it. This is valid point if you know how much dmg your target will take but in most cases you start your heal before the his is actualy done so you dont know how much dmg you will heal. In other words overheal is good untill the point you are oom before fight ends, if you reach this point than you need to do less overheal.
As a healing shaman in raids i endup healing raid dmg mostly and if there is no raid dmg i help for MT. Doing this with CH and having resto talents for CH i can top whole raid in less time than any other class in the game, for the cost of not so much mana really.
In most of the boss fights in raid instances atm you have multiple targets take different amount of dmg for different amount of time and on top of this you have MT taking almost constant amount of dps (with huge spikes sometimes). This situation make every healing class really good for some part of healing and realy needed for its specific strong sides. You can have paladins heal MT for long time with high HpS spells without going oom too fast, priests and druids heal some OT's and shamans heal raid dmg or OT if needed.
So long story short: healing efficiency is not only mana spend per second. Healing efficiency is more complex thing with a lot "if's".
04/20/07, 6:08 PM
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