Sure. But hpals should still cast lol. The entire playstyle is all instants and being in melee range doing damage. It’s designed around mythic+.
The design may be good for the casual PvEer. But as PvPer I disagree. The design is clunky and awkward. They got rid of Infusion of Light fast cast procs. Your mastery wants you to play in melee range, but that’s the last place you want to be in PvP.
Dunno. It used to be my favorite healer. Not since Legion tbh.
Disagree: keep in mind that a) Holy’s damage contribution has been absolutely critical in the world-first raiding scene, and b) until the combination of Necrolord preference and tier set bonus, Holy spend the last expansion basically ignoring its major AoE heal in M+
This is entirely opinion, by the way.
Which I think is a unique and interesting playstyle
I don’t PvP much: isn’t not having to hard cast much a good thing though?
melee wings is cringe delete that talent
Idk about you guys, but I feel far more alive wading into the thick of battle and topping my team off whilst bludgeoning my foes with melee Holy Paladin.
I don’t think I can say the same about hiding the back whimpering in fear, pillar humping, and hardcasting 40 yards away (except maybe 40 man BGs).
Also opinion.
Dunno. I don’t really care to argue. I played hpal for years. It’s just very clunky to play right now compared to past iterations, disregarding if it is good or bad in the current meta.
I just prefer the defensive caster hpal. Also preferred older disc priest iterations as well. It’s clear blizz double dipped on the fantasy and competitive pve and aren’t set on changing anything back. Oh well.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea of caster paladin, but some things need a redesign for it to be viable. I’m going to be suggesting some buffs which may make you think “but that would also buff melee pally” so I will mention up front: Avenging Crusader is OP. Its existence is the only thing keeping holy pally viable; some of that healing needs to be moved to other abilities. Let’s get an idea of how strong Avenging Crusader is.
Avenging Wrath vs Avenging Crusader all talents (ignore cooldown/cost/duration for now)
Avenging Wrath gives 20% damage, 20% healing, 20% extra crit chance (which is sort of extra value on holy shock because holy shock crits give infusion of light, but that doesn’t do much and holy shock already has increased crit chance so the average increase of healing is less than other abilities), and 40% holy shock cooldown reduction (which lets you move more and guaranteed holy power each time, so minor throughput increase, slightly better with Glimmer). These benefits are all multiplicative. Let’s say Avenging Wrath works out to a 60% healing throughput increase (1.6x) for its duration.
Changing your choice node to Avenging Crusader loses you the 20% damage, 20% healing, and 20% extra crit chance for 30% judgment, crusader strike, and auto attack damage, judgment and crusader strike also have 30% faster cooldown, but most importantly, heal up to 3 injured allies for 250% of their damage. So my crusader strike for 8625 damage heals 3 targets for 21,560 each. 12281 judgment = 30,702 healing on 3 targets. I can fit 2 judgments and 6 crusader strikes into the 15s window.
How much healing can I get done in 15s outside of cooldowns? Well starting at 5 holy power (because Avenging Crusader now costs 5 holy power) the best case scenario
But the realistic scenario for how much non-cooldown healing you can do in those 15 seconds is you have to move a bit so let’s say you lose 3 flash of light but cast 2 holy shocks (~15k) while moving (yes you can move a little during light of the dawn, but you may need to move more than 1 GCD at a time or it may not line up with your light of the dawn). You average more like 4 people per light of the dawn because they’re not all injured / not all clumped together. You also average less than maximum mastery value, so let’s say 30% instead of 34% average mastery which is 3% less total healing. And then you have to consider that you probably aren’t getting holy power from every flash of light, so you’ll have 1 less light of the dawn, but you might cast another flash of light during that time instead.
Relative to the realistic amount of healing you can do in 15s, Avenging Crusader is ~ 113% increase healing throughput (2.13x), not to mention the mana saved and damage done.
We factored the new 5 holy power cost of Avenging Crusader into the calculation of how much healing you could otherwise do. The 15 second duration relative to 45 second cooldown is able to be used very frequently. Avenging Wrath is 25 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown, which could be better in specific situations but generally less valuable (even if it was as strong as Avenging Crusader).
Avenging Crusader needs major nerfs; more like 150% damage as healing instead of 250%, or maybe heals 2 targets instead of 3, or make it not heal your beacon.
Beacon is potentially a large chunk of healing; abilities that work with beacon have to be tuned down because of it. This is fine when everyone is taking damage, but there are a couple scenarios where this causes struggles:
Having to stand still to cast lots of flash of light / holy light does not work well; too many mechanics require movement (including stuff that hurts the whole team, which is when you need that healing throughput). This is bad in general for caster paladin (some of the other healers also struggle with this), but in particular the cooldowns Barrier of Faith and Tyr’s Deliverance are specifically designed around you spamming flash of light / holy light; you lose value when you have to move.
Infusion of Light bonuses are not appealing; no one says “yay more mana” when holy shock crits (the decreased flash of light mana cost). Not that I want Infusion of Light to be strong; I don’t want my success to rely on a specific ability critting. Remove or redesign it.
A couple other things that don’t make sense to me
Good luck. Them trying to figured this very thing out is why MW are so screwed all the time.
So holy is now a top-tier healer? What’s the problem then? Holy paladin was also a top-tier healer long before the Call of Duty gen-z spec was ever implemented into the game.
It’s not an opinion though, it’s objective reality. The only thing holding holy paladin back right now is “”“developers”"" (if paladin has such a thing) wasting time and effort on appeasing the Call of Duty action zoomer ret paladins who want healer queue times. If holy paladin was developed for the people who want to play real healers (ie: caster hpal) we could reclaim our rightful place as god-tier healer. You’re the problem here, not me.
Honestly with the introduction of Evoker being mid ranged, Caster Paladin could fill this role aswell, regardless we need to be closer for our Mastery and Light of Dawn and our CC.
It’s not crazy to think Caster Paladin’s can hover around 15yds weaving in and out to cc but can then retreat back to 15yds.
If anything Divine Steed goes to a 30 sec cd, which I pray eventually does they most likely will have more mobility then Preservation Evoker, as in M+ we only have one cast of hover. We don’t talent into 2. So most of the time you either hover or walk into range to Tail Swipe or Wing buffet and walk back.
Caster Paladin could be the exact same, Divine steed for a blinding light or hammer of justice but then go back and hover around 15yds.
I think both builds can work, melee and caster, just I feel like the current iteration for Caster isn’t viable and needs work. We need a ranged filler to replace crusader strike to generate holy power, consecration ground targeted, and Divine Steed across the class should be 30 seconds regardless. Paladins need more mobility.
Seriously those changes alone would make Caster Paladin in a much better place.
Call it nostalgia, just I’m not a fan of Melee Paladin, it be nice to go back to its roots. The Armoured Clad Paladin casting from afar but if you got close they had the utility to keep you at bay.
But I think both builds should be a viable choice moving forward, look at MW Monks, with the recent buffs theirs a huge surge of Mistweaving over Fistweaving due to the insane HPS it can pump, while Fistweaving does more damage and heals through its damage.
I wish they’d go full melee style. Been playing paladin since wrath and once it was a thing it was the most enjoyable style for me. The content changed and made being a turret healer no longer viable, then instant casts starting creeping in everywhere. Might as well embrace it. I did at least try out the new AC briefly, and while the playstyle is a LOT of fun, the issue is it removes the 20% healing bonus you’d get going the other route. It needs to be a stronger cd – 3 hp instead, bit more healing on judge/cs, and maybe if that’s not enough some more CDR on Judge/CS.
What I would really prefer though is something like the DoK/Warrior Priest melee build from Warhammer Online, or the medic from Wildstar. The DoK and WP melee builds revolved around a similar mechanic to the beacons – your defensive target received your heals. Their caster build was primarily focused around group healing, and was more effective at that. Medic was a PBAOE healer, and VERY fun.
Also, consecration needs to follow the paladin by default. Many of the ground targets/ground drop spells in the game need to go this route at least on healing/tank specs.
The fact that in most cases stopping to use the infusion of light and melee holy especially in vault where theres mechanics and things to dodge constantly.
Overall Holy Paladin seems way undertuned
I had a hard time reading this to be honest, but from what I gathered, you’re comparing healing numbers during avenging crusader, which is a cooldown, to not using cooldowns and inefficiently spamming flash of light to use light of dawn and then using that point to prove AC is better?
Yes please that would be amazing
Its good when you can do it from range
You don’t have the healing throughput to eat every crowd control and damage to the face by being melee in pvp
Melee in pvp is a death sentence for a healer and just making it really easy for enemies to prevent you from playing
Hpal dies in arena if someone looks at them funny. Once bubble is gone you’re running for your life for 3.5 minutes. Those 30 seconds of forbearance are terrifying
Same thing with monks and why they don’t fistweave in ladder arena. You use cocoon and now you’re on edge for a minute
A lot of the problems with caster right now have to do with:
a) IoL FoL being too weak (revert IoL change)
b) HL being too slow (revert IoL change)
c) WoG only decent with DP procs (RNG is awful design)
d) Awakening is lots of throughput locked behind RNG (RNG is awful design)
We could really go deep and examine the build (HS should be 100% crit chance again, not 30% lol), beacons off GCD, mastery sucks, etc but the biggest problems I think are what I listed above. A lot of it just feels like tuning issues. C and D from the list above also negatively affect the melee build. Maybe A and B do as well, but probably not to the same extent.
The core of caster hpal used to be spam IoL FoL and IoL HL, but the IoL change in SL broke this and for some reason has yet to be fixed. The core of melee build is be glued to melee range as much as possible and spam CS to lower the remaining CD on HS to keep your glimmers rolling. Both specs use beacons, both specs balance the same CDs (mostly), and I refuse to believe that it is impossible to satisfy both camps within the framework of a single spec when the core gameplay of both is pretty straight forward.
You’re playing the spec wrong if you do this btw lol (in pve anyway)
This hit me the other day - maybe somebody else posted this and I never saw it.
A talent that converts infusion of light procs to cause your next crusader strike to heal as though you have avenging crusader up. This will help throughput outside of wings and reduce hard casting when building for melee healing.
Smart healing would help as well but that’s not a new suggestion. I feel like those two things would definitely be a big help for the build to sustain throughput and heals to be meaningful vs wasted on 90% hp targets and not the guy sitting at 10%.
I estimated how much healing you get from Avenging Wrath just based on 20% healing, 20% crit, etc. (1.6x)
I took numbers from healing training dummy to add up how much healing Avenging Crusader gives me. (572k)
I took numbers from healing training dummy to add up how much no-cooldown healing you can do in 15 seconds (same duration as Avenging Crusader) starting with 5 holy power (the cost of new Avenging Crusader). (best case 368k, more realistic 268k)
I calculated how much more healing you get from Avenging Crusader than the realistic amount. (2.13x)
Conclusion: Avenging Crusader is way better than Avenging Wrath, and should be nerfed
(that was the first section, other sections about things that need to be buffed)
It’s basically a flash of light on 3 injured people, or a bit less if you don’t have the 30% crusader strike damage from avenging crusader. That’s too much value.
No one said anything about caster paladins ALSO being ranged. That’s not even how it works right now.
Caster paladin should die, but if it does exist it’ll NEVER be ranged.
Also, bringing up that caster paladin existed before the modern (better) design is asinine. It would be like saying Ret should return to auto attacking with seal of command. Holy carved out its iconic identity when it became a melee healer, and all its best updates were when the devs enhanced that.
There can be no going back to caster.
Tweak the value down. Build it into the talent to heal x% to make it reasonable. This is just an example to let melee paladin focus on instant cast shocks and melee to heal and have infusion procs fit the theme better.