As a reference, I mained prot pally from TBC (when given to the Horde) through WoTLK. I dropped the game and Paladins in Cata because they turned my paladin into a rogue. For some reason, it seems they want every class to have the rogue mechanic of building up a thing to do a thing. I have played my Pally off and on whenever a new expansion came, but have a much more enjoyable time tanking on anything but him.
Some people I know say having Holy Power feels more engaging. I completely disagree and just think itās an arbitrary thing there that makes no actual difference whatsoever, but still a mechanic that you must utilize, even as annoying as it is. With them bringing Holy Power back to prot, how does the Paladin community feel about it? I think itās a terrible idea and will have me perma bench my pally. Am I the minority? Do you guys enjoy the Holy Power mechanic?
Hereās my take on it. If anyone has played a Mistwalker monk, there is a talent that when you cast you enveloping it makes vivify cheaper and vice versa. It incentivises you to rotate those, but you donāt necessarily have to. You could literally do this with every class that has a āComboā mechanic such as Holy Power. Shoot, they already do it with Prot Warriors (revenge and shield bash or something). Wouldnāt you prefer more gameplay mechanics that werenāt arbitrary rather than using combos on non-rogue classes?
I didnāt say copy the same mechanic. Iām saying that utilize skills that work together without needing an arbitrary system. We didnāt always have Holy Power. The monk was just an example. I also gave a warrior example. And yes, both are more fun (to me) to play than a Holy Power prot Paladin. My question was if I was in the minority with my opinion on Holy Power. But good job giving helpful feedback and/or answering the question.
If I hate paladin when shadowlands launches Iāll simply play another class. Holy power might suck, it might not. From what Iāve heard a lot of people are enjoying it. So best piece of advice is to try it out for yourself and come to your own conclusion instead of trying to change things before itās been given a fair shot.
Iāve done Holy Power Prot. I didnāt like it. And if Iām in the majority, it would best to try and get them to change it before itās live because you know how much of a dick it will be if it goes live like that. I mean, yeah, if I donāt like it, Iām not gonna play it either, but if nobody is liking Prot with Holy Power, then it would be best to stop it before itās a āthingā. There is a reason it was reverted in Cata. People hated itā¦ not sure why they thought itād be smart to bring back.
Iām with you in not wanting holy power, butā¦ Majority? Minority? Short of polling the whole player base, I donāt know how anyone can answer that question for you. Response on the forums has been very mixed as far as Iāve seen. Similar numbers of people on both sides.
I hate Holy Power OP. It is so dull and lifeless and deadens so many new abilities because they have to be weak if they generate HP, have long CDs if they do anything useful (especially if they generate HP) and have to suck if they spend HP because if they donāt, they outshine the existing spenders that just do single target damage or AE damage. Every talent added and every spell has to fit into this and thatās just Ret, never mind designing tank and healer abilities within this system. To say nothing of balancing them on top of it and making it fun or smooth least of all.
It just limits so much. There is so little interaction between abilities and so little possible because of the Holy Power system. It is awful and I hate it. Every other system has been better such as Wrath Ret which was itself the final evolution of pally from useless in Vanilla and mediocre in BC and stuff like say Enh shaman in BFA. Not an amazing spec sure but there was lots of interaction between its abilities and the only real downside of its resource was you often had way too much of it. If only the same could be said for Holy Power but I digress.
Any system could be better. Any at all. Even a better version of how Holy Power works would make it fluid but that often makes it irrelevant rather than good. Legion did this. BFA in endgame gear with traits and essences does this too. Look at how smooth Windwalker is even though it has basically the same system AND energy like a Rogue AND it works. The abilities have lots of cool interactions as well being different from each other and you just donāt get that as Ret, never mind Holy or Prot who will be hamstrung creatively by this system. It might even be doable if someone loved the class but they donāt. They just donāt and it is well known and documented so it is unlikely to be changed. Warriors get Shattering Throw and Spell Reflect baseline and pallies get their stupid avenger buff made into an aura. Come on.
So there are a few of us that hate Holy power but then you will get those that are totally in love with it me personally I hate it. I like you feel like they turned paladins into a plated unstealthed rogue that uses 2h. They are even putting holy power into all 3 specs of paladins. This imo is bad.
I did not like holy power when it came out in cata. My holy paladin was my main then but I started playing my priest more until it became my main by MoP. It wasnāt a conscious decision to change due to holy power, but thatās probably the main reason for it in retrospect. Holy paladin is pretty good once again and it doesnāt need holy power.
Pretty much this, a lot of positive feedback on the Holy Power situation for prot so far. Itās crazy to me to see so many āsky is fallingā posts about it coming back when the net result will be higher uptime on SoTR, which has been our achilles heel for most of BfA.
I really love Holy Power, personally. Cataclysm is the only expansion I mained one character the whole time, and it was the Paladin. I didnāt play ret, but I LOVED both Prot and Holy, and Holy power was a part of that. I really love that it creates moments that feel impactful, and while the in-between moments are more about maintenance, how you get to the finishers is still really important. It creates a longer gameplay loop where you have to be thinking just a little bit further ahead. I loved having Shield of the Righteous as a goal that you have to work towards hitting, and being rewarded with a big crit on top of the defensives. Currently itās just a flimsy little slap that you mix into your real rotation. Itās your most important ability, but it gets no room to breath, or to shine.
I really, really hate hitting buttons that feel like pure filler, and when your skills give you resources, I donāt get that feeling. I actually miss having Crusader Strike on Prot because it was a filler with a point, whereas the current Hammer of the Righteous is basically pure filler, and even talenting into Blessed Hammer, it doesnāt make the button feel much better to hit. But if it felt like it was a part of building to your big buttons, that feels better to me.
Holy is a bit of a different one obviously, it will probably never have great interactions with HP just because of the desire to hold on to your big spender for emergencies. But I loved being able to choose how much to focus on big hard casted spells, or spending some time putting Crusader Strikes into the boss and using free Light of Dawns, which was insanely mana efficient in content that really pushed you to spam Holy Radiance nonstop. That being said, a lot of that play is still there even without Holy Power, because of how dynamic healing is, I donāt think Holy looses much by not having Holy Power.
That is the beauty of ābuild and spendā it creates a sense of satisfaction when you use a powerful ability.
SOTR in BFA is just a filler ability that if you donāt press you die. There is nothing enjoyable about using it.
Obviously the community is divided but I am certainly in the camp that enjoys Holy Power provided there are meaningful and powerful abilities to spent it on.
Personally I wish that you could spend 3-5 Holy Power to have an even bigger ability rather than the current cap of 3. That would add another element of decision making.
I donāt know about prot, but as ret I feel like Iāve had holy power for soo long I honestly donāt remember ret without it now (played ret since TBC) . Would I rather have a paladin without Holy Power? Sure I would, but I donāt think itās as bad (for me) as most people make it out to be. They fixed a lot with HP that caused problems with ret since the early days, and to me it flows smoothly enough. Haste certainly helps a lot, but doesnāt feel like CRAP without amazing gear because your HP spender hits hard AF.
I donāt really know how I feel about the other specs getting back HP, itā seems like some kind of blanket to add a few extra spells to the other specs they donāt really need, like Word of Glory and Shield of the Righteous. I donāt remember Prot being too bad with it and as for Holy I donāt remember at all, but I definitely wouldnāt force it on them unless they were begging for it.
For Ret I think HP is good, itās been around longer than it hasnāt, it has a few flaws, such as us not having enough generators and we end up with dead zones. I also think that TV should have a + crit included so that way when you donāt crit, your DPS doesnāt suffer as bad.