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Holy Pally Changes In Cataclysm
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Post by
flyrescue
I am curious what other folks think about the changes Blizzard may make to Holy Pallies in Cataclysm. I'm not particularly happy with the changes Blizzard is making.
We waited a long time for a functional Beacon of Light, and the changes they propose to make will almost certainly render it useless except perhaps in heroics.
Flash of Light is already essentially useless in all but heroics. Making it fast(er) but expensive will just make it unused. We already have Holy Shock to fill the fast but expensive gap.
Changing the mechanics of Holy Light basically amounts to renaming Flash of Light.
It appears that we get an AOE heal that we can use while still casting other spells - if so, cool. Guardian may be a nice spell as well, but with a long cooldown.
It may well be that all of these changes will result in a more dynamic class and more "fun", but I'm not hopeful. I'll give it a chance, but if it works the way I think it will, my druid will become my main.
Post by
228908
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
skribs
You seem to have a very small perspective on cataclysm...or even healing in WotLK anyway.
First off, healing isn't going to be what it is in WotLK. Instead of spamming a throughput ability, you will be using the right heal for the job. It isn't going to be this if-you're-not-at-full-you're-dead or constant AoE every fight, which is what makes things like blanket hots or spamming glyphed HL so powerfl.
Second, FoL isn't going to be made faster. It's just going to be inefficient. HL will be the efficient heal. The new heal will be our big heal. What this means is that for general healing, HL will do. For quick heals (e.g. if that person isn't healed in 1.6 sec they'll die), FoL is where it's at. When the damage is high, use the big heal.
Third, the beacon change is to counterract the strategy of "Double my heals and ignore the person I beacon." In that role, 1 GCD on a target every 90 seconds is half your healing (usually ~30-40% of my effective heals). Imagine if Earth Shield had 50 charges and healed for what it does now per charge, that would be OP.
Post by
338789
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
skribs
The reason for three heals is like blizzard said, they want cast time, healing done, and mana to matter at different points. With two heals, they either have to eliminate one factor (e.g. both may be similar HPS) which makes the decision less important, or they have to have one heal with two of the factors (e.g. FoL being an efficient flash heal) while the other is only dealing with one factor, which makes healing lean heavily toward the one spell.
Getting away from "Hit X on CD, otherwise hit Y, or in this random scenario hit Z" (which is what a lot of healing is right now) is what Blizzard is trying to get away from. The stereotypes right now are:
Disc Priests either raid bubble or spam FH on a tank, keeping up weakened soul (1-2 abilities).
Holy Priests will generally ProM on CD, CoH on CD, otherwise Renew (3 abilities).
Druids do 5x1 Rejuv x WG (2 abilities).
Shamans spam CH with a little LHW (2 abilities).
Paladins beacon and HL spam (2 abilities).
Granted, that's an exagerated list, and good healers will work other abilities in as needed. However, even for those other healers, you'll generally see 70+% of a player's healing coming from their primary abilities. What blizzard wants instead of a fight favoring the "spam" being 95%-5% (of one to another) and then a fight not favoring spam being 60%-40%, maybe on a longer fight you have 80% of the efficient heal, on a fight where everyone must be topped off you have 50% of the flash heal, and on a shorter fight with a lot of incoming damage you have 65% of the big heal. That way you're tailoring the heal to the fight, instead of the gear.
In this case, let's say they took 2 heals and kept the HPS the same. So you have a slower, efficient heal and a faster, inefficient heal. So on the efficient fight, use the slow one. On the top-off fight, use the fast one. On the high damage fight, use...either. It takes the skill of knowing the right ability out on that fight.
In the other circumstance, let's say they combined efficiency and speed into one, and big into the other. Now you use the fast/efficient heal on 2 of every 3 fights, which gives you once again the stigma of "spam FoL." Blizzard doesn't want us to be one-trick ponies, but to actually have to think as we're healing. It will make it harder and require people to relearn, but it will also offer a greater challenge.
Of course, they're making it easier in the sense that missing a GCD isn't the end of the world anymore. So they're offering challenges in healing strategy, rather than "how fast can you right click on healy bars?"
Post by
299264
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
GenXCub
Sunwell had a few different things that were new compared to places like Kara and Magtheridon. HL Spam was new for Sunwell, true, but shaman healers chain healing everyone were the preferred other healers. There was a lot more raid-wide damage. So they just decided to up the healing needed for everyone, and players found the best ways to handle it.
Post by
Brique
I liked tank healing in Wrath. It's true that paladins were the best class for it, and well it was sorta true that not having one made a raid five times more difficult. I'm glad to see them noticing it, but I'm looking at changes across the class previews and I'm really concerned they're killing healing niches. I saw GC note that they're sure certain encounters will play to a certain healing class' abilities, but it's just too easy to simulate a paladin's healing. We're just a simple class with strong direct healing. That's always been our focus. We always try to trivialize our resources so we can just focus on incoming damage. I don't like that not topping people off is going to be the smart way to heal. I never minded a little overheal, but now it's just going to be an irreversible waste. If we cast a Holy Light in Cataclysm but both tanks haven't taken enough damage, then we'll have wasted half of the spell. Mana inefficiency will be a killer. I liked the urgency of the healing game in Wrath, and of course I found it fun when resources could be trivialized by a few swings for Seal of Wisdom.
I don't like what they've given us on information for healing in Cataclysm. I'm under a pretty serious conviction that rerolling a tank or a pure DPS class would be my best bet to keep the game enjoyable. It frustrates me to just drop a class I put so much thought into, but I just don't feel like I'm going to like the changes. I like sharp and precise gameplay, and I just don't feel like the healing game is going to keep that with the little kernels of information I'm seeing.
Anyways, if the sky is falling I'll say that I loved healing in Wrath, and I wanted so badly for them to retain what I liked about it into Cataclysm. If it doesn't fall, I still feel like we're going to pay a pretty heavy price for the pulsing AE heal and we have a good chance of being ignored if our tank healing ability doesn't overshadow all the other classes'.
Of course there's not enough information. It's fun to dream instead of looking at someone's armory and telling them stuff they could have just read in the stickies or telling someone why their new über Holy Shock PvE DPS spec just isn't going to work. I'm sure you enjoy being as helpful as an Amnesty International for lazy peeps, but that's not everything that's valid for discussion, so stop thinking stating an opinion on an interesting subject is below you.
The time restriction based on healer's mana will probably make gearing for regen the premiere progression setup. And with content being (gameplay-wise) the same between 10m and 25m, I'm hoping progression will be the aim for everyone. Also, more sky falling mumbo jumbo, will we still be valid healers for 10m if every healer has the ability to tank heal?
The reason for three heals is like blizzard said, they want cast time, healing done, and mana to matter at different points. With two heals, they either have to eliminate one factor (e.g. both may be similar HPS) which makes the decision less important, or they have to have one heal with two of the factors (e.g. FoL being an efficient flash heal) while the other is only dealing with one factor, which makes healing lean heavily toward the one spell.
I can support this idea the way you're putting it. But I also think that the healing game already supported diverse spell choice based on encounters on the high end of raiding. In certain cases. Although, I want to say it wasn't stressed at all. I'd heal on my priest when I wouldn't have a spot open for my paladin, and I really noticed that what you're saying about primary spells is extremely valid.
Of course, they're making it easier in the sense that missing a GCD isn't the end of the world anymore. So they're offering challenges in healing strategy, rather than "how fast can you right click on healy bars?"
But every other role has the wasted GCD being bad. I don't like thinking healing should be different. I think it adds a bit more of a skill cap to worry about
encounter stuff
plus
resources
plus
output
. I feel like Blizzard is trying to trivialize one of those for each role innately instead of simply you being smart about your gearing. I feel like they're trying to trivialize output by making you more concerned about resources. I feel like they're trying to trivialize output for tanks by making them more focused on encounter stuff. I feel like they're trivializing resources for DPS by making them more concerned over output. I feel like the gameplay is more fun when the three are always a concern. But I have some faith that high end raiding will be the place where those all remain a concern.
Post by
299264
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Brique
There's a pretty solid correlation between output and resources though, and making resources non-trivial makes output just as non-trivial. I would argue that output today is pretty trivial, and it's all about mana management for holy paladins. It's completely about how long you can sustain healing at "super big gulp" v. "regular."
What I think what Blizzard is doing is they are trying to force us to be smart about how we play
as well as
being smart about gearing. What I think they need to be careful about is making sure that healers don't feel
ineffectual
. If we aren't constantly called on to top everyone up for fear of the next hit bringing someone down, well, it's going to be much less of an adrenaline rush, to be sure. A *little* less franticness would be okay with me. I don't think it will be at the point though where we'll be questioning why we're bringing healers at all. I do hope that the length of combat generally doesn't get overly drawn out - I prefer knowing if a wipe is going to happen sooner than later.
I tend to group up output with the rate of output. I like a bit of adrenaline rush and quick acting in my healing, and I'm kinda expecting the gameplay to lean away from it. I don't want to see that corner of it go away. I guess that high energy will still be around in some form in some class in some role, but I really wanted it to stay in healing.
I guess what I don't understand is the need for a faster, less mana-efficient heal if we have Holy Shock. I mean, isn't this what Holy Shock was for? Can't get faster than instant, and the cooldown on it, combined with the mana cost, prevents abuse. And the mechanic where on crit the next FoL was instant or the next HL could be better *is* interesting.
It does seem like our spellbook is getting a bit bloated because of that. The bomb heal bigger than Holy Light will surely stroke some egos somewhere down the road, but I kinda feel like the three heals we're using now complimented one another pretty well. It's sad to see Blizzard didn't seem to think so.
I like the use of longer-than-GCD cooldowns for making the game interesting - timers present more opportunities for strategy than pure mana and cast times, especially where cast times become largely irrelevant, as has been the case with FoL and HL when haste is stacked as high as it is these days. There have definitely been cases where I've watched that HS cooldown while a non-tank party member is taking fire and sweated a bit.
Being restrained by the GCD did add some urgency and I really felt I was being on top of my game when I could squeeze out that quick on-demand healing. It seems like Blizzard wants to downplay that style of gameplay and instead focus on the resource game. I just find that slow-but-steady gameplay uninteresting.
Post by
pezz
Of course, they're making it easier in the sense that missing a GCD isn't the end of the world anymore. So they're offering challenges in healing strategy, rather than "how fast can you right click on healy bars?"
But every other role has the wasted GCD being bad. I don't like thinking healing should be different. I think it adds a bit more of a skill cap to worry about
encounter stuff
plus
resources
plus
output
.
Missing GCDs is still going to be bad, like it is for every class. But the penalty for doing so in Wrath was trivial for anyone but healers and ridiculously high for healers.
Secondly, I'm not worried about an AoE heal hurting our ability to be the premier tank healers. Cata-style damage has already done that pretty well. In wrath, you
needed
Holy Paladins because of Holy Light spam on a tank. Of course, you
wanted
them for mitigation/utility cooldowns like no other class has, but Aura Mastery is less vital than Holy Light. I point this out because it'll still be here for us in Cata. You aren't going to
need
Holy Light spam in Cata anymore, even if absolutely no healer or tank classes were receiving any changes. Healing Hands or whatever it's called is giving us a new tool to adapt with.
Finally, I agree with armill. I would prefer healing to be a little bit less frantic than it is right now. Still challenging, but there are less frantic things about paladin healing which are still challenging (how do I organize my cooldowns for this fight? When do I have time to use SoW? Is it even appropriate here? Will I need a throughput cooldown at any time? If not, should I tie them to DP? And of course, raid triage). I just don't feel like I need to be saving the tank's life (and consequently, letting him die if I make even a tiny mistake) every GCD.
Post by
skribs
But every other role has the wasted GCD being bad. I don't like thinking healing should be different. I think it adds a bit more of a skill cap to worry about encounter stuff plus resources plus output. I feel like Blizzard is trying to trivialize one of those for each role innately instead of simply you being smart about your gearing. I feel like they're trying to trivialize output by making you more concerned about resources. I feel like they're trying to trivialize output for tanks by making them more focused on encounter stuff. I feel like they're trivializing resources for DPS by making them more concerned over output. I feel like the gameplay is more fun when the three are always a concern. But I have some faith that high end raiding will be the place where those all remain a concern.
DPS misses a GCD = boss lives a second longer. Healer misses a GCD = someone dies. This is the difference between the other two. Granted, it's not that severe, but DPS are slowly ebbing away at a massive health pool while healers are constantly going after those tiny health pools to keep them alive. At very high-end content yes it may mean the difference between berserk and kill, but in any content if healers slack for 10 seconds you're likely going to wipe, while we could probably have DPS slack for 30 seconds on festergut and still get him easy.
Plus, currently the amount of overheal is rediculous. Spamming mainly HL and using beacon, I generally sit >60% overhealing. If you drop that down to 30% (and HL is actually the mana efficient heal) then you're being more conservative. It's not like every point of overhealing will shorten the enrage timer by 3 seconds, its just that if all you do is spam your high throughput abilities you won't be able to keep it up through the whole fight.
Post by
Brique
I'm reading these blue posts.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24262371492&sid=1&pageNo=4
One of GCs points in there was that Blizzard wants paladins to be able to heal a group in a manageable number of GCDs. That's fine, but I found that challenge enjoyable. I liked frantic healing. It was refreshing and it's what made me stick to my holy paladin through every tier of Wrath. I'm kinda surprised people didn't like paladin healing for that reason as well.
So what is it you find fun about paladin healing if you don't think the sky is falling? I'm really interested because I'm really sure a lot of people here seem like paladin lifers and just go with the flow. I refuse to believe that a class in the game can hold my attention after it's been gutted of what I find fun. I moved on from my IDS priest from TBC after they removed downranking. I knew that tank healing wasn't going to return to priests anytime soon after that. I enjoyed my t5 bonus, and I enjoyed not thinking about mana between clearcasting procs, my priest specific trinket, and Inner Focus. I could regenerate probably 30% of my mana in about 10 seconds. I loved abusing the 5 second rule. I liked outlasting paladins. They gutted tank healing for holy priests. I didn't stick with the class.
I'm beginning to warm up to Healing Hands with this
post
.
Yep. Healing Hands is one of the ways we want to let paladins raid heal and it might even be the dominant way. We want to give them a group heal that isn't Circle of Healing or Chain Heal, because we've already done those spells and we want to do something new here.
Might Even Be Dominant?
Goddammitboyhowdy.
This MIGHT be worthy of congratulations! I still don't like forfeiting the position of "good tank healers" to pretty much every class with Tall, Grande, and Venti healing spells. Which will be 3 of the 4 classes. !@#$. :[
Spell selection,
especially in this post
, seems to want everyone to be using "cast the right heal" philosophy that's still present in Wrath today. I think he's slightly absent that we still could do that today, but he's totally right we can ignore it and still be fine.
I really don't think the ever present fear in healing should be running out of mana. That's just god awful. It makes me think healing is going to severely limited and I'll find that stressful.
Post by
pezz
So what is it you find fun about paladin healing if you don't think the sky is falling? I'm really interested because I'm really sure a lot of people here seem like paladin lifers and just go with the flow.
Personally, I like having to manage more utility cooldowns than other classes have. I like learning the best place in a fight to use them, and watch as a trivialize an encounter mechanic for little to no mana. I like that I can triage a raid better than just about any class (triage as opposed to fully heal, I hate druid healing).
I like everything about paladin mana management. I like that watching my mana actually matters, but at the same time if I'm careful about using mana cooldowns and melee'ing, mana isn't really an issue. I like our mechanics for managing mana. Innervate/Mana Tide are boring and can pretty much be calculated out as flat Mp5 effects. Finding out when Divine Plea won't kill your tank or you can spare a GCD or two to melee is not nearly so simple, which makes it more rewarding to do it correctly. (Look! I pressed the innervate button! I am as good as you can possibly be at mana management! Not that it even matters!)
Somewhat specific to ICC, I like having a ton of buttons to control adds and mobs, although a lot of those go away without all these undead running around.
What I don't like is having to frantically holy light every GCD because otherwise the tank dies.
So I think, we really just find different things about the role enjoyable.
Post by
299264
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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