FYI, instant HL resets your swing timer.

I still think AoW is fine as it is. Just like if an Enhance heals instead of LvB or LB he loses damage, a Ret healing loses damage.

Then why don't we lose DPS for Divine Storm healing? Why doesn't Blood Aura reduce a party's damage by 2%? Why is VE the most efficient heal in the game?

Again, MW was designed to increase DPS by making shamans use their major combat system while meleeing. AoW was designed simply to increase utility. It has NO bearing on our DPS. Blizzard's big thing for Wrath has been "you don't sacrifice your damage for utility anymore", why is AoW so different?

Mmm. Now that I think about it a long time ago (like 1.4-ish) they had to manually go in and change Consecration so it didn't reset the timer anymore. Your theory would make sense.

Since when has impale been a utility talent?

This ENTIRE discussion for the past 3 pages has been about the instant heals from AoW. I know I'm supposed to be nice to people, but come on.

I don't think anyone is saying the talent is bad in it's current implementation. It's more the dichotomy between it and Maelstrom Weapon (and to a lesser degree, that thing that gives Warriors instant Slams, whatever it's called).

I know that any Ret Paladin worth their salt in both PvE and PvP would be hard pressed to give up AoW, even if they don't change a single thing about it.

I think the question really is, what is the intention here? Is AoW intended to allow healing while DPSing, with no loss? Is the game being balanced from that? We must ask in the future tense, because atm the game is NOT balanced.

On the other hand, is the heal from AoW designed as more of a choice, DPS vs. healing? If so, is our damage and survivability as Ret being balanced around that? How often do they see a Ret Paladin using AoW heals?

Digressing a bit, but I for one would like to see some hard data on exactly how much using AoW heals every time they're up would actually impact a DPS rotation.

Honestly, this discussion is so heated only because this talent is so new. Instant FoLs aren't gamebreaking in PvE or PvP, we're just not used to them. Pretend for a moment that Cleanse reset the swing timer. I could argue very happily the Cleanse is far more powerful than an occasional instant FoL. So why is it so gamebreaking that a middle level talent gives us this additional utility? Should we also be forced to choose between cleansing and DPSing?

This is one more example of how people put healing up on this massive pedestal, as if it is more important than anything else anyone can bring to the table. Why is an occasional small heal so overpowered?

I tested it out, and the drop in DPS is noticeable. I was getting about 1200 dps just spamming my macro on a target dummy. I tried using instant FoLs at about 1 every 10s or so, whenever the next ability was still on a large cooldown. DPS during that time was about 1075.

(level 70, T4, Gorehowl, level 70 dummy, about 250K damage done for each test)

This thread has again degenerated into a discussion about a non-issue. An instant cast resetting the swing timer is due to bad programming, sloppy programming or an inability for the developers to know their own mechanics. Pure and simple. Do any rogue instants reset the swing timer? DK instants? No. So there's no debate involved. Once you've played a game where people can cast while moving and that doesn't rest swing timers, you'll get an idea of how bad this game's codebase is. I can see the point of lobbying for it to not reset the swing timer (although if this were reality, it's something we shouldn't have to lobby for - it would be implemented already). However, it's a simple game bug and it should be fixed one way or another. Yes, this is another example of why blizzard need to have people in-house who actually play the game - they'd pick up on these quirks instantly and not need pages and pages of people arguing about it to fix the bug.

Come on guys. Shape up already.

There's a very good reason no one in their right minds uses Hammer of Wrath right now. We lose a lot more from resetting our swing timer than a Dual Wielder, given both the longer timer in general and the fact that our swings are a ton of damage.

Actually the precedent is here for a change. AoW resetting the swing timer makes that part of the talent pretty worthless for anything other than soloing. The other "reset" mechanics have all been changed. Slam now simply pushes back the timer instead of resetting it. MW as has been discussed ad nauseum doesn't have any affect at all. Steady Shot no longer clips the next autoshot but simply pushes it back. Everything else is going in that direction.

Not only that but resets are unintuitive. Think about a new player who decides he wants to be a Wrecking Crew and starts leveling an Arms Warrior. Does he have any idea how valuable a good Slam rotation is? Does a brand new Hunter understand why you don't just want to spam shots when the cooldowns are up? These are all very unintuitive mechanics that aren't explained at all within the game.

The game does support casting while moving. See various engineering toys and the ancient version of bandages (IIRC), which were channeled but usable on the move.

That casting on the move isn't implemented is a design decision - that's a unique advantage of instant cast spells. (balanced with higher mana costs, lower coefficients, and/or cooldowns)


In the case of AoW, it's the ability working as the rest of the game already works - the exception is Maelstrom Weapon, not AoW. It'd be a bug only if Blizzard didn't intend for the weapon swing timer reset. (My guess: Yes, but it's not essential to balancing the talent; so it's still up for change if there's a convincing case for it)

Unless Quartz is broken the current test build isn't resetting the swing timer from AoW heals anyway. I do know that the last build certainly was though I could visually see the wait without even having quartz installed.