The following is feedback concerning Holy Paladin. This is a very long post already, so I’ll avoid wasting time on lengthy introductions and get right into it.
Holy Paladin received a substantial rework in Dragonflight, during a .5 patch, and was significantly overpowered on release. Unfortunately, this had the effect of disguising intrinsic flaws in its new design, flaws that week after week and month after month of subsequent nerfs have since laid bare.
Holy Power
Holy Power has ended up in a weird spot in the latter half of Dragonflight, with certain builds de-emphasizing it almost entirely. This comes down to the delicate balance Holy Power exists in with HPal’s other resources, such as holy shock, infusion of light, and, notably, the global cooldown.
The initial buffs to holy power spenders (HoPo, affectionately,) that we have seen on the alpha, as well as further buffs in the Hero Trees, especially Herald of the Sun, certainly seem sufficient to eliminate the “NoPo” or “LowPo” builds for the moment. We will almost certainly want to spend holy power in The War Within. But the issue may return again, subject to further tuning, talent changes, and tier set design.
More lasting solutions to this could be found in the spec’s history, but also in the design of other paladin specialisations. In mists of pandaria, holy power worked more like combo points, with your spenders consuming anywhere between 1 and 5 holy power. Retribution paladin in Dragonflight also has a talent that makes its spenders stronger, but now cost 4 holy power instead of 3.
Notably, the increase in cost is not commensurate with the increase in power. However, this talent has still seen play because while it represents a reduction in damage per holy power, you benefit from that damage in less gcds. Because the ratio of power between ret’s builders and its spenders is relatively close, and because it is also gcd locked in (parts of) its rotation, the trade-off can be worth it. Both of those things are also true for Holy, and so I believe a talent like this would be a great fit for paladin’s healer specialisation. It would exist as a simple switch that players could toggle any time holy’s resource economy leans one way or another, reducing the need for constant iterative buffs and nerfs to keep up with minor fluctuations in the spec’s priorities.
Infusion of Light, Inflorescence of the Sunwell, and Imbued Infusions
Now we must talk about the other side of that resource economy. I feel that the two stacks of Infusion of Light granted by Inflo currently has the effect of smothering the rotation. I acknowledge this might feel different at lower crit ratings at the start of a new expansion, though. Inflo is an incredibly powerful talent for our mana economy too, one that we currently can scarcely play without. I think that Inflo needs to be adjusted in a number of ways, if not removed, but if it is, it’s important that our mana economy is adjusted to compensate for these changes, too.
Imbued Infusions is a primary contributor to this problem, as it incentivises spending infusions constantly even when flash of light itself will mostly overheal. Flash of Light has received nerfs going into The War Within, which might appear like a move away from a casting-heavy playstyle, but with holy shock being buffed in turn this simply shifts the value of flash of light even more in favor of what it does for the rotation, rather than its actual healing.
In general I think that casting should make up a smaller % of paladin’s rotation, but should also feel more impactful when we choose to do so. Having less infusions, and shifting the focus of infusions back to buffing the cast itself, rather than driving some other aspect of the rotation, would provide better feedback on the additional “work” of having to hard cast the spell. I am quite happy to cast a flash of light every now and then if it will do life-saving healing. I would rather not cast it 8 times a minute simply so that I can press more holy shocks.
To clarify, I do not think Holy Paladin should ever be split into a casting and a not-casting playstyle. All paladins should cast some of the time, infusions should always be something you want to spend. How often you cast, how many infusions you gain, and the strength of both of those things should be something smoothly adjustable on a sliding scale within the talent tree, but even the extreme casting-end of that scale should probably cast less often than we do now. Too many casts and you hit a point where it becomes incompatible with the needs of playing in melee.
I think its worth considering an alternative design for Imbued Infusions if the talent is to remain, potentially something where consuming infusions maintains a buff that causes Holy Shock to cooldown quicker. This would allow infusions to retain their rotational importance, without the requirement of spamming flash of light to consume all of them, regardless of current healing requirement. It would also ease some of the negative impact of Inflorescence of the Sunwell on the rotation, and reduce the synergy between the two talents to a spot where other alternatives might more meaningfully compete. As a bonus, the risk of ‘overcapping’ holy shock charges would be largely removed.
Addendum: while the 05/29 changes to the way Holy Light interacts with infusion are, I feel, a positive for the spec, especially with regards to making infusions feel impactful, they risk exacerbating much of the above by replacing Flash of Light in the rotation with an even longer cast time spell. I believe that changes to Imbued Infusions are even more necessary in light of this new direction. With Holy Light being such a powerful heal, I strongly believe that the best place for it in the rotation is as just that and only that: an ability we use when we are in need of a large amount of healing.
Beacon of Virtue / Beacon of Faith
I’ll be upfront and say that I don’t enjoy Beacon of Virtue. I’m not a fan of abilities being on the gcd which do no damage or healing directly. These ‘set up gcds’ more often than not choke up a roation and lead to it feeling slow and unresponsive. Holy Paladin has far too many of these gcds, others of which I’ll get into later.
That aside, Beacon of Virtue has become far too strong relative to the alternative and has negatively impacted the tuning of the rest of paladin’s kit. I’m happy to see this being partially addressed in the nerfs to Beacon healing in the war within, but also think more could be done. I think the 30% reduction in effectiveness on Beacon of Faith has outlived its necessity, especially with this node being functionally mandatory to reach Daybreak, and “single beacon” no longer being a playstyle that really exists.
In my mind, Virtue and Faith should offer a choice between burst healing and a more sustained healing profile. The node fails to live up to this ideal when Virtue is tuned so strongly as to be the correct choice in Virtue-ally (hah!) all situations.
I’d also like to see the positioning of this node rethought, as it has little intuitively to do with the Daybreak node which it leads into.
Light of the Martyr
I’m tentatively positive about the “rework” of Light of the Martyr, but I think its worth pointing out that a 20% buff to holy shock in exchange for a heal absorb for 30% of its healing is a net nerf. That doesn’t have to be a deal breaker, stronger spot healing can be worth that kind of trade-off, but even with this talent I would never be tempted to call Holy Shock a “strong spot heal.” Consider as well how much worse this gets in any scenario with significant overhealing. The heal absorb from this talent is calculated off the raw healing, same as the old Light of the Martyr’s recoil. This becomes even more significant with the new design, as Holy Shock is an ability we are incentivized to cast regardless of current healing requirements in order to apply glimmers and set up for Daybreak combos. This will lead to a lot of situations where the additional healing from this talent is contributing nothing, while we are still paying the price for taking it.
At the very least I think this needs to work off effective healing, rather than raw throughput, if it doesn’t already. There should probably also be a cap on the size of the heal absorb, as talents like Blessing of An’she and Power of the Silver Hand open up the possibility of proccing a very large heal absorb on yourself at unexpected moments.
I would have liked it if some version of Maraad’s Dying Breath could have been made to work with this redesign, as its a talent I personally love and am sad to see gone. There are now two talents that proc a large buff to Holy Shock, mentioned just above, but both are completely rng. Something more deterministic would be appreciated.
For lack of anywhere else to mention this, if no Maraad’s node is planned, I think pathing should exist between Bestow Light and Reclamation. The talents are thematically linked, and if you’re playing one you’re likely to want to play the other. There’s no need to enforce taking Tyr’s Deliverance the way the current pathing does.
I do anticipate there being some issues with how this set of talents interacts with Beacon of Virtue specifically, especially in an m+ environment where the paladin will always be the target of one of the beacons, to the point the two talents feel almost mutually exclusive. Maybe that’s intended?
Mana management and Daybreak
I like the idea behind Daybreak, but feel it fails to live up to the gameplay it seems to promise. It reads like a trade off, you sacrifice your active glimmers, potential future healing, for an immediate return of upfront healing and mana. That design suggests that some level of decision making should be involved, but this is not how it plays out in practice. In reality, you press the spell nearly on cooldown, and because Divine Toll shares the same cooldown you immediately replenish the glimmers you sacrificed. If you don’t press the spell on cooldown, you fall behind the mana curve the spec is being balanced around. There’s no decision making, no trade-off, no real mana management. Holy Paladin’s mana economy remains as linear as ever, with almost no agency over it beyond “just stop casting.”
A (much) more minor gripe I have is with Rising Sunlight, which contributes a lot of the burst in this combo, but sometimes you just get unlucky with holy shock resets and don’t actually have the charges to send all 3 shocks in the window you actually want them in. I worry that rising sunlight in particular may also be negatively effecting the baseline tuning of holy shock.
I think there’s room to iterate on the Daybreak / Divine Toll / Glimmer loop. I really like the idea of a version of Daybreak without a cooldown, that just becomes castable any time you have 5+ Glimmers out. Could take it even further and remove Divine Toll’s cooldown when you’re specced into Daybreak too, and just have it be something you charge up by consuming a certain number of Glimmer of Lights. Idk, you know? Not a game designer, just think there are cooler possibilities here than are currently being explored.
Tyr’s Deliverance
I’d like to see Tyr’s Deliverance reimagined or removed. I think that Tyr’s gameplay, which encourages casting on specific people to extend the buff, is unfun and feels in conflict with the natural desire to prioritize low health targets, and a real low point of the rotation at the moment is having to cast Tyr’s Deliverance and Hand of Deliverance back to back. My feeling is that if two cooldowns are always used together they could probably stand to be reworked into one cooldown. Tyr’s as a shorter window which enhances casting for the duration in some other way is something I could get behind. Something strong, but also situational, requiring more plant-and-cast than standard gameplay. If it’s to remain otherwise unchanged, I’d rather it was just passive, without the extension gameplay.
On a more general tuning note, despite feeling unimpactful in the type of healing it does, Tyr’s still does a lot of healing, which makes it virtually impossible to pass up, even for builds that aren’t looking to cast all that much.
Blessing of Summer
Pros:
Autumn is interesting. Cooldowns being more flexible is fun. Self-casting Autumn is nice as a default, but its not so powerful that you feel bad about giving it away when it enables some important aspect of raid strategy. Maybe the gold-standard for support effects, honestly.
It’s difficult to know what to write about Blessing of Summer given that it is being redesigned for the War Within. It will effectively be an external nature’s vigil. No longer tying our personal damage to a DPS’s performance is a big positive for this change. Though the optimal target will ultimately come down to class tuning and personal performance, the fact that the possibility at least exists that if you are the strongest healer in your raid then you are also the best target for Summer is another positive. The additional option of using the spell for more healing in a tough spot is a nice bit of flexibility. A cap on this effect is mentioned in the blue post, I hope this is considerate not just of converting aoe damage to healing, but also of healing-to-dps scenarios like casting this ability on an Evoker during a full-raid Lifebind / Emerald Communion ramp, as it would be a shame to see the ability tuned around this kind of outlier. I’m cautiously optimistic, but can say with certainty that I like this better than the old design, which I guess puts this in the ‘pro’ column.
Cons:
Unfortunately, I think Blessing of Winter just ends up being an empty global our mana gets tuned around. I would feel more favorably about it if our sustain proved good enough in the war within that we can seriously consider giving it to other healers, but it’s still not interesting.
I don’t have much to say about Spring. It’s a bit boring as a flat healing increase, but its strong, at least when it actually lines up at a desirable time. I might like it more if passing it off to another healer, often the correct strategic choice, didn’t reflect on me as personal throughput loss. You’ve got that aug evoker loghook tech, would be good to see it put to use in other areas of the game.
The greater problems with Seasons come down not to the individual effects, but how the spell as a whole fits into and impacts the rest of the rotation. Seasons being on gcd is very uncomfortable on such a global-heavy spec. 4 gcds per 3 minutes is a large commitment of inputs with no direct, immediate feedback, for effects that, much of the time, are not even benefitting our gameplay directly. Blessing of Seasons most often feels like a chore, something which intrudes upon what I actually want to be doing. Between Seasons, Blessing of Virtue, and, potentially, Lightsmith, Holy Paladin has a lot of on-gcd set up we have to do, buttons which do no, or very little, healing at the time we press them, but which we still have to get out of the way to do our healing. I would greatly like to see this number reduced.
Where support gameplay is made a part of healer specs, the aim should be to make it as unintrusive as possible. Power Infusion is off the gcd, blessing of seasons should be as well, if it continues to exist. With regards to Power Infusion, I think Blessing of Seasons would also benefit greatly in terms of enjoyment if it had a Twins of the Sun Priestess style effect at no additional talent point cost. The spell’s positioning in the tree is problematic, too. If Power Infusion or Twins were included in the capstone tier of specialisation trees, priests would riot. For this reason I think if the spell is to remain it could be located higher in the tree, or even in the class tree (you have already proven willing to put spec-locked abilities there), where it feels less burdensome to take it, and where it competes with less personal throughput.
Ultimately, whatever fun the ability provides just does not feel commensurate with the effort required to play with it, and resolving the jank may not be a hill worth dying on. I think few would be upset by its total removal. If it’s to remain in the game it should be substantially streamlined. Fewer abilities, off gcd, effects mirrored on the caster, and a faster rotation which better harmonizes with the underlying frequencies of the game would all be good places to start. The ability is only 2 expansions old, we need not be married to its current design. There is plenty of room to iterate.
Devotion Aura, Ret Aura, Holy Paladin tuning and optimal raid comps
With the addition of retribution aura, paladin is now the only class in the game that brings two ‘ mandatory’ raid buffs, requiring two paladins in every raid to form an optimal raid composition. This is silly, obviously.
There is also a common community perception that holy paladin is being tuned around Devotion aura, a raid buff that any paladin spec can bring. This is a tax that no other raid buff bringing spec seems to have to pay.
Neither of these situations are desirable, and removing devotion aura is the simplest method to resolving both of them. Retribution aura is sufficient to guarantee at least one paladin a spot in the raid. Without devotion aura and the requirement to fit two paladins into every raid comp, we might finally see a shift away from holy paladin as a permanent fixture of cutting edge content, and the balance team can get back to tuning holy paladin as they would any other healer, without the anchor around its neck that is devo aura and its decades-spanning reserved spot in world first kills.
A few notes on hero talents
I am posting this feedback relatively early, so the following are mostly just preliminary reactions.
Herald of the Sun
Phenomenal tree. Some notes. I think Dawnlight would feel better if it did not trigger from Light of Dawn. This would give more control over its application, and also, the possibility of actually playing around talents like Morning Star or Gleaming Rays. Currently it would be impossible to maximise uptime on Gleaming Rays without just not spending holy power, which defeats the entire point. Morning Star will just be a medium buff to your first Dawnlight and then a much smaller or non-existent buff to your second.
The design of Eternal Flame, while historic, seems poorly considered for the current needs of the game. Twenty seconds is a very long duration, for a not so substantial heal. I don’t totally get the thinking here.
Currently, consuming Awakening to gain 12 seconds of Avenging Wrath is not triggering the effects of Sun’s Avatar if an instance of Avenging Wrath is already active. This should obviously be fixed, but while you’re at it, it has been the case for years that triggering Awakening during Avenging Wrath extends AW, but pressing Avenging Wrath during Awakening simply overwrites the current AW duration and resets it to 20s. I would love to see this finally addressed and the behaviour made consistent & symmetrical.
Lightsmith
Holy Armaments has all the same gameplay problems as Blessing of Seasons, and I’m disappointed to see this kind of design being doubled down on in the war within. It’s just more gcds with poor direct feedback. Lightsmith is so similar to what has come before, in fact, that Blessing of Summer had to be redesigned because Sacred Weapon was doing basically the same thing. Holy Bulwark reads like a copy paste of Barrier of Faith, minus the things that make barrier of faith interact with the rest of our kit.
There’s just nothing in this tree that interests or excites me. It adds more chore gcds to the spec I’ll never feel excited about pressing. If you want some implementable feedback: make holy armaments feel good when you press the button.
It’s so over
Thanks for reading this far. This isn’t comprehensive, despite how long it is, but I’ve tried to focus on points I haven’t seen brought up as much in discords and youtube comment sections and so on.
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