I wrote a whole long post with constrictive criticism but ended up deleting it because ultimately it probably wont do you any good.
Holy paladins are very, very strong healers and if you don’t agree your simply playing it wrong.
Look up guides, analyze logs, and most importantly just keep playing. You’ll get better… eventually.
That’s true, but the way damage is structured in different raid difficulties supports this misconception. In progression, especially mythic, its extremely valuable when the damage output it difficult to keep up with. But beyond that, more typically its just the tanks taking the damage necessary to warrant a strong single target heal. Looking at heroic/normal/LFR, it feels really lackluster because its is too uncommon for the damage output on any given non tank target to warrant a significant single target heal without a large amount of overhealing. And in cases where it is, other healers can just as viably cover the one off heal that’s needed because usually raid wide damage isn’t going out at the same time. So then inclination is to heal the tanks because they are the ones taking that kind of consistent and substantial damage to warrant a casted heal.
Moreover to the conundrum, is that minor smart heals or HOTs can provide enough smoother healing to stop damage from accumulating enough to warrant the big heal. So again the player is likely to default to considering themselves a tank healer, where it feels like that spot healing counts. Frustration I think builds because a spec like MW with soothing mists and the resultant instant cast vivify can top up on demand instead of getting forced to guess whether a 1 second cast will actually heal the target or just be >50% overhealing.
In the right content it can feel rewarding to be that person saving your raid members from near death. But IMO it feels like more often than not with the way damage is structured in LFR/Normal/Heroic raids and with ~4 other healers works out, the seemingly obvious thing for a paladin to put their mana into is healing a tank. IMO this is especially true if you don’t read guides that explicitly tell you otherwise or raid with a group of healers that can’t keep up. Moreover the way raidwide damage works out is that you spend CD’s when there’s heavy raid damage, one healer does this at a time leaving the other 3 healers plus you to spot heal those who are low, so you’re now competing with 3 other players for spot healing during that 4-5 second window of recovering from burst raid damage.
This has been my experience going through LFR, heroic and some mythic difficulty bosses in Uldir on my hpal. Heroic wasn’t as bad, but that’s because our raid comp was 2 healing a 10 man and didn’t have 3-4 other people that could pick up the spot healing in a ~20 man when someone dropped low enough.
So thinking more about it I don’t necessarily think it’s a misconception, assuming my experience is similar to others. IMO it’s more a reality for those who are doing lower difficulty content. Assuming the majority of the community does the lower difficulties I think it’s actually a true statement, and while the design is intended to be as you described otherwise in practice it doesn’t typically workout that way.
Agree 100%, and i have stopped playing now.
If other healers are healing all the low health players in your LFR/normal/heroic raids, then the group has too many healers and you can focus on dpsing while using judgement on cd, LoD when there is aoe hits, and Holy Shock on low targets while your tanks have beacons. If you look at high hps pallies on AOE fights most of their healing is from sources besides Flash of light, holy light, and LoM.
Healing is a team game, you are not there to Beat the other healers, just to provide strong throughput as needed to survive the encounter and help dps when you can. Being good at sniping heals when over healing is not really a skill that makes a healing spec good.
Whether we’re tank healers or not, still doesn’t change anything about us not being any fun.
A lot of folks will relate “fun” to “big numbers” or “chart topping”
These “big numbers” get bigger when we’re in melee, but I’m assuming a lot of HPal are still sitting in the back with the ranged trying to snipe heals, thus “tiny numbers, much bore”
Holy Paladin needs it’s whole class fantasy looked at/revised starting with our Mastery.
Not fun is on opinion that is not shared. I find it very enjoyable. I have been playing mine a lot lately. I find the dynamic talents very nice. I have dungeon and raid talents that play very differently from each other. It is like playing 2 different specs but only having to gear one spec.
I am sorry you do not enjoy the game play. What is not fun about the game play? Have you tried some of the other healing classes? I have all 5 healing classes geared and I find them all enjoyable for different reasons.
I don’t disagree with you, and I also feel like you missed the point of my post which is that given the context of the current raid setups the damage patterns don’t oftenly enough warrant the burst healing that paladins are intended to provide to non-tanks because the AOE healing and raid spot heals can be/are also picked up by your other healers. Negating the whole point of the niche they were designed to fill. You can always limit the number of healers but that’s not being honest to the established ratio of healers that’s been prevalent the whole expansion, and as everyone get’s geared up the necessity gets to be less and less. Stereotypes exist for a reason and usually they are based on some amount of truth.
I thought maybe it was just because I kept tracking blue posts through mmo, but it’s not just that. Where did your beautiful yak profile go?! Did they take that away?!
so what you’re saying is that pally is just a weaker version of a monk, got it.
I also feel like you missed the point of the post. Pallies heals are more complex then other healers, they just things like judgement of light which, beacons, AC, LoD, and some spot healing via Holy shock. Their healing is slow and spread out over a number of sources so the majority of players do not use all of their tools and fail to keep up with other healers as a result.
Damage in the current raid is relatively rotty with some mechanics that spike the raid at predictable times. Pallies can use their kit to address this very well, but if the group has an excess of healers, or the pally is not using all their kit, there hps is going to be bottom because other heals will get to the damage faster.
None of the pally spells currently overheal damage consistently when used correctly because they are too “bursty”. If pallies are not preforming over other heals its because they are too slow not to bursty. When someone is at 75% health or less you can hit them with a holy shock or procced cast and heal them up just as you always can.
The original topic that you replied to my response of, was that the current damage patterns don’t encourage players at lower difficulties to use their kit properly, which is in part due to the niche that paladins are designed to fill and partly due to the way raid DTPS is designed. Their core abilities are tailored to strong single target heals which arn’t as necessary in that difficulty content making it harder for a player to appreciate the niche that Paladins are designed to fill. I think your acknowledging this when you say the damage is rotty. And I was using that as a basis to say that that it doesn’t encourage those players to use their entire kit properly. As far as I can tell we’re not disagreeing on this.
I really don’t want to get into cherry picking pieces of each others posts because more often than not they are entirely context dependent on the scenarios we’re talking about. Moreover we’re not disagreeing with each other about how pallys should be played. All I’ve been saying is that the current gameplay in lower difficulty raids doesn’t encourage them to be used the way they Ysthlerins noted they are designed to be.
You talk about a monk 20 ilvls lower than you “keeping up” but that doesn’t make sense. Monks are different than paladins, and their heals are different than a paladins.
When a holy shock will heal instantly, what does a monk do? If the target needs healing right now, the holy shock could heal him. The monk can burn cocoon, but it’s got a long cooldown.
Holy Paladin has competitive throughput overall. Holy Paladin have very competitive healing, and because of their method of reactive healing, the heals that they put on are more impactful. A monk more healing in logs because renewal, a powerful but situational raid cooldown.
Holy Paladin has a powerful but situational raid cooldown in Aura Mastery, but that impact doesn’t get added to healing meters because it’s percentage damage reduction rather than healing or absorb.
Both renewal and Aura Mastery should be used for specific damage events and when one is better than the other depends on the specific encounter.
Paladin is a very interesting healer in my opinion. It’s a strongly reactive healer, in that you don’t build up HoTs or shields on a target you expect to take damage soon. But instead it’s a highly positional healer, so rather than casting spells on targets that are going to take damage in the future, you want to move near targets who take damage in the future.
Paladin has some powerful cooldowns. Sacrifice and protection are great and nearly unparalleled. Again, these directly impact whether a target dies or not, but don’t show up in healing meters. Auras and Light of Dawn require you to manage your position and be aware of the playfield and who is on it to maximize them.
I mean, other healers are cool too. But paladin is an interesting class that fills a specific role. They’re spot healers. When the raid takes raidwide damage the paladin can reduce it by 20%, the monk can revival and heal a bunch of it up, the disc priests can buoy a bunch of people through atonement and evangelism, the holy priests can have their mending bouncing around. The paladins can use light of dawn for the people they prepped nearby, and then they are the best spot healers. While the raid’s health is still suppressed, they’re the best for ensuring that someone won’t die to a few single target abilities. In the mean time, the Monk is probably better on the tank because of the way channeling soothing mist interacts with cooldowns. Monks are a firmer commitment with enveloping mist, soothing mist. The paladin can throw a holy shock and then continue to heal the same target, or move to another one without penalty. With beacon they can switch off their primary target with little penalty or ramp.
Paladins are a positional healer that fills the role of the savior. They have the most tools to save a player RIGHT NOW without long cooldowns. Their preparation is to be properly positioned for auras and light of dawn to be most effective, but don’t need to proactively buff or HoT up their targets like other healers. Paladins don’t have consistent raid-wide healing options, but have a raid-wide damage reduction cooldown through devotion aura mastery. Paladins don’t have ranged AoE healing but do have the highest range spot healing with rule of law.
I mean, fun is subjective, but they’re a solid class that takes a lot of nuance to play well, and fill a niche that doesn’t fully overlap with other healers. If you’re primarily looking to see the highest number on the meters, then maybe monk is better. Monk’s a good healer too, but fills a different role, and while they can output a bit more healing overall, paladins are still competitive and beat monks at healing RIGHT NOW AT ALL COSTS, while if a monk wants to do something without a cast time, he better hope cocoon is off cooldown. All heal specs are solid right now actually, at least in raids. The balance shifts a bit when you get to dungeons.
Your problem might be that you have too much healing so people who should be AoE healing are spot healing, or AoE healing is negating the need to spot heal, or whatever. This is OK because Paladin is also second to only Disc in terms of healer DPS. And if you need a healer part time for a period of high intensity in a fight and can’t swap them for DPS, then Paladin is a good choice because they have no ramp time for their healing. They can just get going when those periods of high damage that justify bringing that extra healer comes.
If you bring too many healers and judge how fun your class is by how much healing you get on the meter, and you’re healing a bunch of non-critical damage with an uncoordinated group and are up against a bunch of healers with smart HoTs and AoE heals, yeah, you’ll feel left behind. But in that case, you’ve just got too much healing, and there’s a whole raid comp issue.
I guess look at it this way. If you’re doing low healing and nobody’s dying, then either things are perfect and you’re playing as well as you should and you should focus on your DPS when not healing because you need this many healers to survive some specific phase or damage event, OR you don’t actually NEED all the healers you have and someone needs to switch to DPS. If you are doing low healing and people are dying in avoidable ways, then as a paladin this is your problem. You are the healer that is most suited to save them. You can holy shock to heal them instantly, you can light of the martyr, and flash of light is very powerful and fast.
Yeah, it’s not the best option to stack paladins for an encounter with nothing but consistent raid wide rot damage, but mix a few damage profiles together and let some of the other healers deal with the rot damage and have the paladin focus on the single target damage sources and you’ll be valuable. The only time paladins aren’t useful is when nobody is at risk of dying. If this is the case, then it should all be easy.
I’d say Paladin is a very challenging class because it’s way easier to prep HoTs on a target than it is to be aware of the playfield in such a way to maximize mastery, auras and Light of Dawn.
I think Paladin is also kind of a dull class when you’re on farm content, overgearing it, with too many healers, and pressured to show high parses.
I am not making myself clear I guess. You keep saying they are tailored to strong single target healing. That is exactly what I am saying they are not. They use to be that, but they do not do that anymore is my point.
TLDR, if you want to heal as a pally and do a lot of healing (HPS), you need to use alot of different various sources, and the raid needs to be below 100% health most of the time to facilitate this healing. If you just spot heal low health targets, and do not use your high values spells (LoD, Judgement, AC, HS) you will fail because they do bad HPS when just spot healing with FoL and HL.
Would love to have someone engage like this in regards to mm Hunter. Most are still dissatisfied with it and our 8.1 communication was one and done. No back and forth. Are we just SOL since a CM doesn’t play our class?
I hope you’re still in this thread. I love my Holy Paladin only for the memories now, we’re not fun. We’re not strong nor weak, sure, but we’ve had so much more mechanisms and abilities just deleted from us that it’s unbelievably sad and disappointing. Our class identity and design is all over the place, we’re like a weird amalgamation of unsupportive concepts and mechanics that don’t fit with each other, I’ve made a few threads discussing them previously. Beacon has abilities that don’t contribute, our mastery has abilities that don’t contribute or interact, we have some incredibly dated cooldown, like Lay on Hands having a 10 minute cooldown is a joke compared to abilities other healers have access to.
We used to have a cool DPS aspect as shockadin, where we had exorcism/denounce, and the ability to make WoG do damage to enemies. We had actual AoE healing that was viable, Holy Radiance and Daybreak procs were only removed because Blizzard didn’t like how good it was with Beacon so it was nerfed then pruned. Auras are a joke, buffs are gone, seals are gone, half of our hands are gone. We lost our HP buff that was given to us because Martyr is a health spender, but it was nerfed so it’s rarely used. We haven’t received a new non-talent ability since LotM, and before that Blinding Light which became a talent.
I just want the team to understand that issues most people are having are gameplay wise, not balance issues.
Yea, we’ll probably continue to disagree on that. Over the course of a fight over 2/3 of your casts will be single target from holy shock and FL/HL procs. To me, that alone is the definition of a spot healer. Beyond that, when you break down the healing (example mythrax kill 90+ percentile) contributions ~15% will come from LoD, ~6% from judgement, so with 50% of 20% from beacons thats ~30% of total healing from the AOE abilities or explicitly not spothealing.
So the other one to compare would be a monk which can produce similar spot healing, again on mythrax because both benefit from the stacking and both producing the limit of what the specs can do at ~35k HPS mark. Close to 30% of the healing came from non-direct sources (EF, Chi Burst) with cleave healing from vivify that isnt fixed like beacon is. Conversely an AOE build with RJW and EF has >50% healing contribution. The difference between AOE and spot healing is >20% of non-direct healing.
IMO relative to other healers these are the ones that excel at spot healing. Because they have kits that are well tailored to single target output and relative to other healers they have more single target focused heals. This is why I don’t want to discuss these types of points, because when you compare the niches they fill it becomes as much a matter of opinion when someone is sufficient at spot healing or not.
As someone who has a 382 Monk and a 382 Paladin, I can say number wise they’re very close, but monks will always be better because of mobility alone.
Look through logs, high preforming hpals will have 10-20% of their healing from FoL and HL. HL is a filler, and FoL should only be used when someone is going to drop and you do not have a better/more efficient spell.
I understand that your idea is a common miss conception in the community, but pallies are not getting most of their hps in raids from their fillers, only 30% at most including beacons. Most Pally players fail because they do not get the most out of their “good” spells (HS, LoD, Judgement, AC, Aura). Fillers are not what make healers do well. If the good spells are neglected and only fillers are focused on you are going to have a bad time.
More likely than not it’s because holy Shock not critically striking can be life or death in 5-man content.
I really don’t like the variable healing of shock. One time it heals for half of someones hp and the other it’s like 10% or less. Drives me nuts. Sometimes i sit there and look at my frames and wonder “Did I not cast a HS just now?” xD