Unir

I'm not sure how to even respond to that. It is fairly offensive, and surprising considering that you actually know firsthand that were I to heal in that manner for Trample (or really any other raiding guild) I would not be raiding long.

As to the alleged playstyle changes "intended" by Blizzard - there appear to be two camps: those that want to be full-on healers with a broader array of actual healing abilities, which would bring a full Holy paladin closer in kind to a healing priest, healing druid, or healing shaman. Those players appear to emphasize "healer" first and paladin second.

The other camp is the opposite - those that want to be a paladin, and the full Holy version of a paladin is first and foremost a paladin but with emphasis on healing of the three options. That is to say, up front, swinging, "battle healer" - those are the phrases you see thrown around.

There is no right or wrong answer to this question, but there are opinions, there are Blizzard's design intentions, and there are critical analyses of the tools themselves both in theory and in application. The opinions are being thrown about, and have been for a long time - the analyses as well, but I would submit Blizzard's intention is still less than clear.

Because one wants a toolset that favors being a healer before favoring someone's notion of what a "paladin" is does not mean that one likes to only press one button, nor does favoring being a paladin before being a healer (i.e. battle healer, etc.) mean that one wants to give lackluster healing performance. This discussion should be sharing and comparison of ideas, not intellectual target practice.

I'm curious to see where they take the changes in the next pass-through. The mana-cost reevaluation is interesting.

 

• Arikah

I ran this (and various other) tests a few days ago with Kadrok (you lurking in this thread man?). Currently, the entire judgement system and crusader strike are bugged and we both submitted bug reports; what's happening now is CS does NOT refresh any judgements from any paladin (known issue), and the last paladin to apply the judgement is the effect you will get, as opposed to the stronger judgement as it should be. Pretty stupid that a level 70 judgement overrides a 77's ;p

Once they fix these issues, we can test this properly..

 

mclem

On that note, I seem to remember something about any form of strike would also refresh judgements (I might be misrecalling this), in which case with careful tab-targetting, wouldn't it be possible to maintain 3xJoW on mobs with Hammer of the Righteous? I think I saw something saying that JoW procs were handled per-mob.

 

Hylo

Maybe this is what it SHOULD be but judgements are most certainly not working like this in the beta. I killed several water elementals in Zul'Drak and checked my buffs closely. My typical JoR crit damage was 6k (6034 to be exact) and JoC was around 3.8k - in all these occasions I had 3/3 vengeance, 2/2 imp might and retribution aura - no procs or trinkets.

I also have 5/5 Judgements of the Pure but that 15% shouldn't make JoR 60% better than JoC, that should deal substantially more base damage. I also noticed JoR dealing more damage than JoC even before I put any points to that talent.

 

levk

Yeah, but also to refresh judgments on 3 mobs you'll need to first put them there and I don't think that particular situation arises very often. Paladin healing looks far more mobile friendly in WotLK than currently with all the instants and I'm trying to find ways to keep that mobility without being locked into melee range for regen. It's not that 'oooh I'm scared of melee range' and whatnot. But it does bind your options. Going down the list of Naxx bosses there are really only a couple where the range could be a problem if they kept the same mechanics, but it's definitely an inconvenience. If they made dots proc JoW, and made judgment effect on SoV put up a stack and refresh it would unbind you from melee range. Now priests would be cheaper still by using rank 1 SWP, but they don't get nifty effects like haste or mana for 3 people. As far as priests and wands, [Consecrated Wand] and are wands effected by melee haste? That'd make it pretty fast with windfury. The beta system right now actually works best for them. No longer the more you wand the more mana you get, but instead just try and work it in at least 4 seconds apart.

 

◊ Cathela

Look at the efficiency of Holy Light and Flash of Light at 70 and at 80.

Holy Light 11: 840 mana, 2978 mean healing, 3.54 hpm
Holy Light 13: 1880 mana, 5161 mean healing, 2.74 hpm

Flash of Light 7: 180 mana, 623 mean healing, 3.46 hpm
Flash of Light 9: 420 mana, 832 mean healing, 1.98 hpm

By way of comparison, look at the same for priests, a class that is definitely not intended to be meleeing:

Flash Heal 9: 470 mana, 1190 mean healing, 2.53 hpm
Flash Heal 11: 775 mana, 2040 mean healing, 2.63 hpm

Greater Heal 7: 825 mana, 2590 mean healing, 3.14 hpm
Greater Heal 9: 1290, mana 4270 mean healing, 3.31 hpm

Between level 70 and level 80, priest heals are essentially remaining at the same efficiency, even going up a little. Paladin heals are becoming much less efficient. Any viable paladin healing strategy is going to have to account for this.

How can you beat this? Three ways that I can think of:

1. Reduce overheal
2. Increase mana regen
3. Stack up a crapload of spellpower
4. Get nice extra effects from your heals

The new Holy Shock, Infusion of Light, Judgements of the Pure, and Enlightened Judgements, together with Light's Grace and raidwide haste from WoA totem help you with both #1 and #2. Faster heals and instant heals let you heal more reactively, which reduces overheal and gives you more time to spend meleeing. It's a completely different system from pre-BC and BC paladin healing. It's too early to say how well it'll work, but it has the potential to make paladin the most exciting healing class.

Adding Sheath to a holy build is basically attempting to try #3 and #4: boost your spellpower higher and use that and the HoT effect to overcome the low efficiency of the heals. This might well end up being the better option for 5-man healing, since reactive healing doesn't work so well when you're the one who has to do all the healing.

But you can only get so much out of it; even with Sheath, level 80 FoL spam is going to be a good bit less efficient than level 70 FoL spam, and in a raid there will be other healers who can fill the spam-healing role better.

EDIT: Obviously, this is all pending mana-cost re-evaluation and such, but I think the fact that the first-draft spells show such a huge shift is pretty good evidence that they intend paladin heals to have lower mana efficiency.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

• frmorrison

Wands are affected by spell crit and some % damage talents.

There is zero cloth melee haste gear, so someone in Beta would have to check it out, but I think it will not be affected. Even so, using a GCD with the new 100% JoW proc (with 4 second cooldown) is great to get a little more mana.

It is similar to Paladins Judging, except Paladins will have to use mana (but do more damage!).

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Redcape

I believe that Judging Command and Blood actually goes by the formula 100% BJD + 30%/45% of weapon damage instead of 125%. As far as I understand it the 125% only applies to Righteousness and all other use 100% of BJD. That would make your numbers make sense.

The post you quoted was right except that it put the 125% in for Command and Blood judgements when it should have been 100%, the rest is correct as I understand it.

 

Kigale

No offense was intended. I reread my post, it was a bit harsher than I intended. I think our ideas aren't as far apart as you think. The only difference is I'll be in melee range getting at least one swing every 6 seconds for ~600 mana. Everything else the so-called "battle healer" does will be identical. I'm also a little reluctant to try to understand blizzard's "intentions" as you keep mentioning. Blizzard never intended Warlocks to be 0/21/40, but trial and error proved it to be superior to other builds. Blizzard never intended Arms warriors to not use the 41 point ability. The best we can hope to do is take the given tools and try to eek out the highest performance. In this case, I argue that happens to be swinging your mace every 6 seconds to get a JoW and SoW proc. This is not to provide any dps whatsoever. The truly great paladins will attempt to use all their instant spells consecutively to maximize melee swings. This change could create a divide between good and great paladins. As it stands that difference is pretty negligible.

 

Questioner

Ok, we need a final word on this. (swing timer reset / paused / no affect) It is quite a major point in this discussion of whether "battle healing" can truly become a paladin playstyle or not.

Personally, I love the thought of a high output low efficiency healer that melees for mana to support big instant heals, but it would have never worked on TBC content. That doesn't mean it isn't possible to make it work in WotLK.

If a sheathe build is about sustained output and efficiency and a BoL build is about burst output while meleeing, that would be a cool compromise as long as the content supports both styles because it is quite apparent that there is attraction to both styles by different types of people.

 

levk

Actually I don't know why I said melee. Just feels that way I since it's something that takes a physical gear slot. Even if it uses spell haste, WoA, swift retribution and some haste gear they're bound to wear will surely push that wand to 1 second gcd floor. Or if they want to stay on the move, rank 1 SWP or even SWD.

 

• frmorrison

Heals in beta still reset your swing timer.

Once Holy gets another pass, your question should start to be answered, until then it cannot.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

◊ Cathela

At the moment, standard heals definitely do reset your swing timer in beta. I haven't tested IoL+HL, however.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

• frmorrison

In live, spells made instant via buffs or spells (think NS or 2/5 Tier 5 bonus for Shaman/Druid) will reset your swing timer.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Rustik

Something I thought of at work:

When Crusader strike procs Seal of Blood, does the SoB proc use normalized weapon speed, CS damage, or does it proc like any other SoB proc from a white swing?

I remember SotC used to nerf your CS swing because of it's mechanic before they fixed it, wondering if they did the same thing to SOB, or any of the other seals.

 

watersrog

I feel like this discussion is getting more and more absurd, as I am sure Blizzard didn't intend paladins (or any other healing class for the matter) to stay in melee range and lose like 1/4 or 1/5 of time swinging weapons to get mana. Yes, front line healer and all is a nice theoretical concept, but that's about it. 30 yards judgements, spell resetting swing timer and the fact you will lose a lot of time swinging instead of healing makes the all the front line healer thing unrealistic, at least for the moment.

 

• frmorrison

Seal of Blood (and every other Wrath Seal) do what the tooltip says it does. SoB does 35% of weapon damage as Holy, and no matter what that is what will happen.

SotC is bad and that is why it is being removed.


Even with heals resetting swings, you can still melee for more mana as long as you have an instant heal ready.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

◊ Cathela

The time you "lose" swinging your weapon is the time you would have spent casting and cancelling heals that turn out to be unnecessary. One Holy Shock does twice the healing of two FoLs instantly, and if it crits it gives you an even bigger instant heal that you can sit on for up to 15 seconds. You'll have plenty of time to judge, melee, etc.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Nitz

Hell, they said the paladins will face sweeping changes.. And watersrog, the Holy Concentration specced priests already do that, cast-cancelling in HC then cast-cancelling in Inner Focus. Paladins would melee for JoW/SoW procs sitting on an instant Holy Light (and eventually a Holy Shock right after this).

 

watersrog

It will take way more than mana back from JoW/SoW to convince most of the paladins to melee, in my opinion. Guess it remains to be seen.

 

Dekkar

What makes you so sure that their intentions aren't to do that? Paladins are the only healer with plate armour and an immunity bubble, and all healers are different. 30 yard judgements just means you now have the option to sit in the back or melee for mana if you so choose. Also, like the others above me pointed out, sitting on an instant HL allows you the freedom to melee for mana until you need to use it.

 

GSH

But baseline, you cannot melee-heal with Holy Shock. You either: switch targets, which turns off auto-attack, thus screwing over the whole melee-heal thing; deal damage with the Shock; or mouse-over macro the Shock.

I cannot believe that Blizzard is balancing us around a playstyle that requires a macro to be effective. And switching targets and restarting auto-attack every 6s is just as silly a playstyle.

 

Prinsesa

Sorry, I made a typo. JoR should be 125% BJD and JoComm should be 100% BJD + 30% weapon damage.

I'll correct my post.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Antmanton

Oh, come on now. Who here seriously heals without some kind of mouse-over and raid frame? This would simply serve to separate the good healers from the not-so-good ones. It's not even all that unintuitive by Blizzard's standards; just look at the original version of Righteous Defense. That ability absolutely required a macro for effective use.

Really, if some concern over basic required macros is the only obstacle to effective melee healing, I'd say that Blizzard is doing a damn fine job so far.

 

flyingtoastr

At this point in the cycle if you aren't healing with mouseover macros or a click-to-cast addon you're gimping yourself pretty hardcore. You could simply abuse focus frames with the Blizzard UI, but that is more clunky. Would it be a nice idea to get this some other way, yes, but there are a ton of tools to use so pleading ignorance isn't much of a defense.

But again, it's another thing that will separate the good paladins from the great ones. Great paladins will run with effective UI's that allow them to do so.