It is build 9056 that is going on live, the last version on the PTR/Beta was 9038. So there will be a lot of changes that were said but not implemented yet, and a probably few surprises.
Um, the current version on beta is 9061.
9056 was the version with the raidwide Judgement cooldown of 4 seconds if I'm not mistaken.
9056 was the version with the raidwide Judgement cooldown of 4 seconds if I'm not mistaken.
Actually, after checking my version numbers, 9056 is an "in between" build. Beta went from 9038 -> 9061, so it could have either version of the bugged Judgements.
buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
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- to reduce or deaden the force of
Have any addons been created to help Holy manage BoL and Judgements? I was thinking some addon that has a countdown for your beacon duration, and if you click on it(or have a hotkey), it recasts beacon on the last beacon target. And maybe some laser light show if you don't have beacon up... Perhaps something similar with judgements, that will automatically target the MT (or MA) target for judgement without losing your current healing target. This could be macro'd, but I'm not sure how.
how are people managing sacred shield? I was only on the PTR so I don't know how it fits into our healing "rotation".
On sacred shield, that will be interesting. Doing heroics at 80 I pretty much always keep it on the tank and myself (a ret paladin) since I found myself healing often...as well as pulling aggro often ;-)
But a mod for x-perl (or whichever you prefer) that maybe gives a slight golden glow to players with sacred shield up would be cool for instant visual feedback similar to debuff and aggro highlighting. And of course something similar for beacon, though I only play kosher!
Actually, after checking my version numbers, 9056 is an "in between" build. Beta went from 9038 -> 9061, so it could have either version of the bugged Judgements.
9056 was the last push of the PTR. It definitely had proc'ing-on-every-hit-with-no-cooldown bugged Judgements.
I'm a little confused about the ret builds I'm seeing for raid healing. I don't understand why all the DPS talents are being taken. Are you guys actually using ret gear? I was imagining it would still largely be in holy gear, even with the sheath of light talent.
I haven't been on the beta, so I could just be way off, but I was imagining a more raid healing focused spec would be something like this (considering I don't care in the least about soloability): Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
I'm a little confused about the ret builds I'm seeing for raid healing. I don't understand why all the DPS talents are being taken. Are you guys actually using ret gear? I was imagining it would still largely be in holy gear, even with the sheath of light talent.
Am I missing something?
Unless your group is doing Sunwell or running with few healers, you can heal fine with 8 points in Holy.
With the Sheath build, you still would heal in normal gear.
51/5/5 is imo the best build for Sunwell or playing with less healers.
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.'
Is anyone aware of a good map of the new utility abilities for all the classes, and what they don't stack with, who provides the best version of it, etc. Like, the raid mana regen provided by judgements of the wise is also provided by shadow priests, etc.
Is anyone aware of a good map of the new utility abilities for all the classes, and what they don't stack with, who provides the best version of it, etc. Like, the raid mana regen provided by judgements of the wise is also provided by shadow priests, etc.
I'm probably going to run something similar to this to raid/solo. I may not even put the points in divine intellect and throw 2 more points into ret. Divine Strength would be good, but if you plan on healing, the 3 points in Healing Light are really hard to pass up. Divine Storm isn't even a necessity, but the ability is so much fun when doing melee I wanted to grab it.
Ok, so far I really like the build. However, now that I'm trying it a question or two for you...
What have you found to be the optimal combination of seals/judgements/cs/ds to maximize dps given this build?
Can you describe for me what you've found to be the optimal use of seals/judgements etc. when you are healing a raid or heroic?
Looking at a recount of a session* with a single target dummy, It shows I get the most damage per CGD in this order:
Seal >>> Judgement >> Consecration >> DS > CS. I'm not sure where exorcism, holy wrath, and hammer of wrath fit in though.
My question is: Do I do more overall DPS if I wait .5 seconds for Judgement or Consecration, or push them back 1 second by hitting DS or CS.
Regarding the Glyph of Holy light that has the splash heal for 100yards - has this been confirmed as a tooltip error? Or is the splash heal actually 100yds?
I didn't get a chance to source any glyphs before last night's raid - we absolutely blasted through Black Temple and cleared the place in 3 hours with no mods, undergeared alts and server lag. I was specced 51/5/5, and with the raid buffs we had I don't think I needed to drink until ressing a couple of people at Supremus. Having said that I did ultimately resort to FoL spam, using HL only rarely - the removal of downranking will take a little getting used to. For Najentus, I put Bacon on the MT and sniped heals on DPS and those hit by spine, and without Judgement of light (I was judging wisdom) I topped healing. In situations where there is minimal overheal, Bacon is a truly nifty talent.
It will also take some time to get used to the mechanics of IoL and utilising Holy Shock more often. With the sheer mana drain of Holy Light its difficult to keep up Light's Grace, however the current build on live only has IoL affecting HL, not FoL, which means hitting DF and HS to guarantee a crit will give you a fast Holy Light within the next 15 seconds so you don't need LG to get that first HL off quickly.
As I said mana isn't a huge issue however the potion sickness was annoying in a few fights - I found Illidari Council a little difficult however we really killed them too quickly for mana to be that much of an issue.
All in all despite my initial trepidation regarding the state of holy, I have to agree with a number of people in this thread that used correctly, Holy spec is far from as useless as it may look when compared to other healers.
Last edited by Soralin : 10/16/08 at 1:46 AM.
Reason: IoL Duration
It will also take some time to get used to the mechanics of IoL and utilising Holy Shock more often. With the sheer mana drain of Holy Light its difficult to keep up Light's Grace, however the current build on live only has IoL affecting HL, not FoL, which means hitting DF and HS to guarantee a crit will give you a fast Holy Light within the next 30seconds (I think? Duration of the buff might be incorrect) so you don't need LG to get that first HL off quickly.
Duration of Infusion is 15 seconds. Problem is, with it only knocking one second off the casting time it actually takes longer to use DF+HS, HL than it does to just cast DF+HL, and the heal isn't much greater if you don't crit on the HL as well. As an emergency throughput booster, it's useless except when responding to a precisely predictable spike (e.g. bursting Naj'entus's shield) or when you need to cross-heal while using Beacon on the tank.
That said, IoL will be much improved in utility when you're in 2/5 T7. HS will have better than 50% crit then, so you'll be keeping IoL up a lot more than you will be Light's Grace.
I didn't get a chance to source any glyphs before last night's raid - we absolutely blasted through Black Temple and cleared the place in 3 hours with no mods, undergeared alts and server lag. I was specced 51/5/5, and with the raid buffs we had I don't think I needed to drink until ressing a couple of people at Supremus. Having said that I did ultimately resort to FoL spam, using HL only rarely - the removal of downranking will take a little getting used to. For Najentus, I put Bacon on the MT and sniped heals on DPS and those hit by spine, and without Judgement of light (I was judging wisdom) I topped healing. In situations where there is minimal overheal, Bacon is a truly nifty talent.
This tactic worked because Naj'entus damage on the tank is not (and never was) the difficult portion of the fight. If Blizzard opt for more encounters of that style then Beacon will be quite good for addressing damage on the MT.
However, my own experience with Sunwell & Twins (especially) last night revealed that Beacon really can't keep the tank up even when you use it to funnel heals from someone who is taking constant damage. On Twins, I put Beacon on one of the MTs (switched it every confounding blow) and kept the Warlock tank up. This tactic seemed to me to be semi-viable because the magic damage portion of the fight remains unchanged while the physical damage produced by Sacrolash has been approximately halved.
Sadly, I had to constantly switch off the Warlock to top up the MT because there would be an unlucky avoidance string from the MT, a chain heal or CoH would snipe the Warlock or he would simply resist a spell. Honestly, I simply cannot see how Beacon can be trusted properly when other healers have "smart" heals that can involuntarily reduce the effectiveness of our top talent.
I guess the forum QQ about Beacon scaling inversely with number of healers was pretty accurate.
It will also take some time to get used to the mechanics of IoL and utilising Holy Shock more often. With the sheer mana drain of Holy Light its difficult to keep up Light's Grace, however the current build on live only has IoL affecting HL, not FoL, which means hitting DF and HS to guarantee a crit will give you a fast Holy Light within the next 30seconds (I think? Duration of the buff might be incorrect) so you don't need LG to get that first HL off quickly.
I didn't really consider this aspect as the instant FoL from IoL will end up going live and will destroy any possibility of waiting on a fast HL. That said, I did top meters last night in Sunwell for what it's worth. Of course I was still nearly 50% overheal because using max rank HL is like performing brain surgery with a jackhammer.
As I said mana isn't a huge issue however the potion sickness was annoying in a few fights - I found Illidari Council a little difficult however we really killed them too quickly for mana to be that much of an issue.
BAsically FoL is still the same "spam and never run oom" spell while HL is still a huge mana hog. If you have to chain cast HL for any reason at all then you will run out very very quickly. This, to me, seems to enforce a playstyle of mixed FoL/HL spells in order to approximate the mid-range heal that we have been requesting for so long.
All in all despite my initial trepidation regarding the state of holy, I have to agree with a number of people in this thread that used correctly, Holy spec is far from as useless as it may look when compared to other healers.
In my opinion, after last night, Holy can pump out some truly impressive numbers with amazing throughput. We still utterly suck at addressing aoe damage and Beacon gets sniped constantly. JotP was nice though, I was sitting at approximately 30% haste after judgements which meant I could react quicker (read: snipe heals) than most.
Overall, I really didn't see a huge difference in the holy playstyle. The same weaknesses were there in a raiding environment but our throughput got bumped to ludicrous proportions. Unfortunately, since every other healer has to be capable of healing the MT effectively, all that extra throughput is wasted.
However, my own experience with Sunwell & Twins (especially) last night revealed that Beacon really can't keep the tank up even when you use it to funnel heals from someone who is taking constant damage. On Twins, I put Beacon on one of the MTs (switched it every confounding blow) and kept the Warlock tank up. This tactic seemed to me to be semi-viable because the magic damage portion of the fight remains unchanged while the physical damage produced by Sacrolash has been approximately halved.
Sadly, I had to constantly switch off the Warlock to top up the MT because there would be an unlucky avoidance string from the MT, a chain heal or CoH would snipe the Warlock or he would simply resist a spell. Honestly, I simply cannot see how Beacon can be trusted properly when other healers have "smart" heals that can involuntarily reduce the effectiveness of our top talent.
The way you're talking, it sounds like you expect Beacon to do your job for you while you get to do something else. That isn't what it's for.
Beacon only ever goes on the MT when you're in a situation where you're often needed to cross-heal and nobody else is likely to do it, which generally only happens in 10-mans and 5-mans. In 25-man raids, all tanks have designated healers. If you try swiping someone else's work, you'll inevitably see the effect you described. You're better putting Beacon on an appropriate off-target who is sure to take damage but is a lower healing priority than the MT, such as a raid healer in AOE fights or an off-tank in Saber Lash/Hurtful Strike fights. It's even worth putting it on yourself in some cases; it converts Hand of Sacrifice into Pain Suppression.
Has anyone had a chance to see how Light / Wisdom looks on live after the purported changes? I can pretty much guess how much damage DS does now that it's physical.
I was healing for 655 on SoL and I was around 300 on mana on SoW. Any idea?
As I stated yesterday, we are happy with Ret's PvE damage and sustatined damage in PvP, but were concerned that the burst damage in PvP could be too high. We discussed this for literally hours yesterday, which was certainly not the first time we have discussed the issue. Thus I hope these changes are not perceived as a knee-jerk reaction, but I am sure that will depend a great deal on which class you play.
Divine Storm -- the damage was changed from Holy to Physical. As you know, Holy damage is almost never mitigated and this talent could pack a lot into a very short time. This is a nerf to the ability's damage. This change is now active on Live.
Repentence -- this ability now lasts for only 6 seconds in PvP (down from 10). Obviously this is also a nerf. This change is also active on Live.
Art of War -- now affects all damage done by Judgements, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm (instead of critical strike damage). Net dps should be about the same but less bursty. This change will be made before Nov 13.
Righteous Vengeance -- now applies a dot affect similar to Deep Wounds (instead of critical strike damage). This ends up being a significant buff to the ability to make up for the damage lost to Divine Storm, but is also less bursty. This change will be made before Nov 13.
Glyph of Crusader Strike -- now reduces mana cost (instead of increased damage on stunned targets.) We thought paladins could stack too much damage vs. stunned targets. This change will be made before Nov 13.
We also fixed a bug with Seal and Judgement of Light that could sometimes result in too much healing.
In our tests, Retribution dps remains the same over longer periods of time, but they can't do quite so much damage in the initial few seconds of a PvP encounter.
I know Ret pallies feel a little picked on since we've made this mistake before of having them come out the gate too strong and then had to correct them. For that I do apologize. It's a difficult spec to balance since part of its design is to have large crits and stuns, which have obvious PvP implications. We are pretty confident this will not nerf pallies into the ground as I facetiously promised yesterday, but if we overdid it, we'll be happy to back off some of the changes.
On the other hand, maybe we'll see fewer BGs with 20 paladins on the opposing side and can get some reasonable feedback on all the other classes in the game.
Solid changes. While we'll need to see the numbers to accurately determine if this is a DPS-neutral change whilst still being a nerf to burst... at least it's not just a blunt "nerf CS - TO THE GROUND BABY" reactiion.
Alright, having a blast on live now doing things to raid bosses that should be illegal, but I could use some serious help tracking my cooldowns and "dots".
Please do share your favorite mod/configuration for tracking when to refresh seals (now that we don't just judge + re-seal like we used to) and such.
The new DoTimer (my old standby) is cluttering itself up showing a whole ton of things I don't care about, like showing per-person in the raid what buff I have on them and the duration left in the same spot it is showing me how much time is left on my Seal and whatnot.
I'd really like to focus an addon around my core abilities. I have Elk Buffbars off to the right side of my screen for a clear view of my buffs/debuffs, so its really just affects I have up on mobs and cooldowns on my other abilities.
I'm guessing I can spend time on DoTimer to turn off all the crap that it is throwing into the mix, but perhaps there is a simple mod that handles it without much configuration some of you are now using?
Is it my imagination, or does JoW stack on live? I was running Heroic Mech with a Retadin and Protadin and got 254/55x2 mana back off the same spell cast (1 LB, I was healing, just wanted to test it). Will this apply to raids? Going to test it tonight if we get something together.
Solid changes. While we'll need to see the numbers to accurately determine if this is a DPS-neutral change whilst still being a nerf to burst... at least it's not just a blunt "nerf CS - TO THE GROUND BABY" reactiion.
This does leave our 31, 41 and 51 point retribution talents as poor copies of other classes' lowlevel baseline abilities though.
Aside from the "feeling" of that, I'm happy with the changes.
I put the new talents into my spreadsheet in a very rough fashion and got a 4% overall sustained damage increase. While our burst is going down, our dps is going up for pve: Win for raiders, lose for pvp ret.
10/14/08, 2:31 PM
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