i’m almost through grinding rep to unlock lightforged draenei. my guild is smol and i’m torn between paladin and priest for levelling a new main to help out with dungeons and stuff. i’ve played a priest before, but paladin just appeals to me, sorta like the opposite theme to my death knight here that i’ve played since wrath.
i’m not talking about viability or anything like that. i know i’ll be able to play whatever, as we’re not a mythic-chasing guild or anything like that. what i’m asking is how the different specs feel during gameplay.
Well from a holy paladin perspective, its viable in both pve and pvp, but I take major issue with the current class design.
Feels as if its currently lacking in utility from a pvp perspective, and outside of hard casted heals, nothing heals much inbetween (no sacred shield/eternal flame), and bestow faith is a pretty lame spell to me. The core healing rotation feels very lack luster.
You are very reliant on holy shock critting to make your rotation feel smooth.
Glimmer build is nice though and pretty fun in pve. Melee wings is also pretty fun.
Its great in the sense than you can tank, heal or dps.
what is “wings” that i see referenced everywhere? is that the pally ability i see where the ret ones flare up with angel wings and start beating the crap out of everything?
Avenging Crusader, its like being a shockadin, basically your damage spells as a holy paladin do a little more damage, and now judgement and crusader strike heals.
Ret is fun, the rotation is alright (there are times when you just have nothing to press and are waiting on CD’s) and then there are other times when things are procing so much you don’t know what to press, the new essence system in 8.2 has really helped smooth out some issues i’ve personally had (I use Visions of Perfection because who doesn’t love random wings procs, and Memory of lucid dreams because more Holy Power means more good times)
Other then that your main damage will be coming from Templars Verdict or Divine Storm.
Our Mastery is nothing to write home about (your holy damage spells Mainly TV and DS do more holy damage…yeah) You don’t have much in the way of defensive CD’s besides Shield of Vengeance or Eye for an Eye and your mobility is next to nothing (no change here from Dk …lol) overall I main my ret and have for years, I think that they took away some really cool ideas from legion and while I would 100% change something with it, I do have fun.
While I don’t play prot, I am a high teir Ret and a casual holy. Ret is a lot of fun. Pve you can top the charts if you time cooldown right. That is the biggest thing for your damage. Using codowns at the best times. In pvp they are solid 1v1 against every class pretty much.
Holy is fun with 2 different builds currently being used. They also do very good healer dps when done right.
ret feels very sluggish at times with lots of empty spaces in the rotation, but with higher gear levels and the right expansion specific bandaids that will be removed somewhat soon it feels decent to play with lots of procs
has plenty of survivability with divine shield, shield of vengeance, flash of light, lay on hands, blessing of kings, and if talented eye for an eye and word of glory
the only spells that really matter are templar’s verdict and divine storm, everything else is just there to give you more of them, but they’re very hard hitting
also you’re slow, only mobility is a short duration speed boost
Prot feels fantastic to me, especially with Seraphim and good haste - I actually really like playing prot with the random Avenging Wrath-proc essence. Paired with Seraphim and Hand of the Protector, I essentially get a free Lay on Hands to most folks.
Prot plays very smooth to me, not as smooth as Blood - where death strike is a multi-purpose spell (heals, damages, and applies a small phys-shield) - but the ‘rotation’ flows nice and there’s always some buttons to press with certain talent-choices. However, it doesn’t feel spammy. Prot War feels spammy to me as when I played in Legion it felt as though I had to juggle a couple things (shield block, rage regen, ignore pain, cd management).
Ret’s 100 level talents all feel viable - and change the way it plays, for me. Divine Purpose is my go to for most content, with Crusade being something I prefer for Raids - on-demand burst. It’s been a while since I’ve played with Inquisition. I really like the proc-y feel of Divine Purpose for anything but raids, especially paired with Zeal and Blade of Wrath talents and at least one Empyrean Power trait. Coupled with the Avenging Wrath essence, I feel - thematically - like a holy warrior, being blessed at intervals when the Light judges me most worthy (where others see randomness, I see a heightened connection to the Light!). It’s not unusual to have a blade of wrath proc, transition into an empyrean power (free divine storm cast) proc, further dovetail into a divine purpose proc that gives a free templar’s verdict or divine storm (or Word of Glory, heal), and that also procs the Avenging Wrath essence…
It feels very satisfying at high haste! In Drustvar, with the silver weapons buff and my traits, trinkets and essence procing, I saw a couple instances of 81% haste.
I mostly like all three specs. The basic rotation flows pretty well across the board.
My big issue is with popping multiple cooldowns on the GCD; with Prot you have to deal with wings + Seraphim, Ret has wings + Inquisition, Holy has wings + Holy Avenger + Beacon of Virtue… clunky as hell. Ugh.
It was such a stupid change and it really hurts any class which relies on stacking cooldowns. But Blizzard is unbelievably stubborn and I don’t expect them to back down on this anytime soon.
Just to add, ret also has Blessing of Protection - a physical damage immunity spell, that also wipes aggro. The last part is very handy to use if it’s another dps that has an un-tauntable mechanic on them (thinking of Rezan in Atal’Dazar during pursuit.) You “BoP” them, and they are immune to all damage. On high keys, this can make it easier for a non-tank to soak the damage - it doesn’t last for the entirety of Pursuit, but it can be combined with the class’ own defensive.
Ret also gets Divine Shield, the ubiquitous paladin bubble. Immune from everything - even fall damage - also wiping threat.
Ret’s also have Lay On Hands - ten minute cooldown, but offers a full heal to any party member (or the target of the last boss of Temple of Sethraliss, which can be really helpful to simply push the phase).
Rets can also talent Word ofGlory which is an amazing 5-person heal. During Wings it can usually heal a party to full - maybe not tank - and while it does rob the ret of Holy Power, it can be really useful in conjunction with, say, a ‘free’ divine purpose proc
I do wish rets got access to blessing of sacrifice - like Prot and Holy, but I think they have good utility as is.
Oh, and rets can talent for a hard cc in the form of Repentance - humanoids, dragonkin, demons, undead…I think are the usable targets.
Yeah, it can get really clunky - and my wish is for divine steed off GCD.
I’ll toss my 2 coppers in I’m not a CE player and I mainly only run dungeons so I’ll defer to the raiders for their thoughts.
Holy - Glimmer is a lot of fun but isn’t all that engaging and I feel like it’ll get needed eventually. It’s a lot of fun and performs well in mythic plus dungeons. I don’t like that the Azerite is very restrictive due to needing 3x Glimmer traits and shoulders took a good bit of time to find for me. If you want to heal in melee range with a very fast-paced build check out Holy.
Ret - I personally like ret. the rotation can feel clunky if you don’t have enough haste/haste procs but when it flows it’s a ton of fun. The damage is great for bursting out AOE damage and you’ll see 100k+ dps for some larger pulls (rare but awesome) The group utility helps to make up for being closer to average sustained DPS.
Prot - I feel like Prot is in a good place right now. The major issues around survival ease up with gear and managing your mitigation. For my personal play, I put them on par with warriors for most content. I am not running +15s yet but 10-12s fee good.
TLDR: At 120 Pally feels at least “viable” in all content and good to great in some.
I’m not sure why you feel HPally lacks utility, they have some of the best utility around, a stun, snare immunity for allies, physical immunity for allies, access to a targeted incap, access to an aoe incap and sac. Not to mention the ability to spec Ultimate Sac and make an ally completely unkillable for 12 seconds. (as long as you don’t die yourself but there are plenty of ways to self mitigate the damage)
Typically in PvP Holy Shock is my top heal, then Divine Light, then Beacon. Holy Shock is the cornerstone of Holy, but outside of that, yes it’s pretty much all hard cast heals. It’s definitely rougher until you get a healthy amount of crit but with Vision of Perfection and Sanctified Wrath you’ll be tossing out Holy Shock crits like crazy.
Glimmer is very popular right now but only really necessary for raiding AFAIK. I’ve been doing Glimmer-less HPally for a while now and it’s pretty much the same build for PvP and dungeons. It’s mostly necessary for raids because then you can get Glimmer on a lot of people resulting in 20-60k of divided raid healing on top of the normal healing of every Holy Shock.
Are you seriously telling me I dont have enough crit? I have 31% crit… now that thats outta the way…
Core problem: First, Holy pally is much to reliant on crit and even when your critting the rotation is still feels really bland. Second, holy shocks crit modifier was nerfed in instanced pvp going into bfa. So we also have to hard cast more than ever. Also you shouldent have to have wings up or a big cd up for your core healing rotation to feel good.
The Healing rotation is uninspired, like really bestow faith? A 4 second delayed heal is the most uninspired spell in the game. Makes up nothing for what we’ve lost in terms of eternal flame/sacred shield. I actually cant remember the last time iv casted FoL in arenas that spell is so useless for how much mana it costs it sure as hell dosent really heal at all.
Holy pally utility is passable in pvp, but lacking, first sac lost its utility status when they took away 2 charges of it (cant really use to sac a CC anymore), now its strictly a defensive NOT utility.
Bop is a 5 minute CD, where classes mostly do magical damage, and can be easily purged (thnx legion for taking away holy pally buffs). Freedom is also easily purged by anyone with 1/2 a brain.
Glimmer build is meh at best, and still pretty bland in pve, holy shock < hope to gosh golly darn holy shock procs infusion of light < crusader < crusader Holy shock .
Which brings me to our mastery, its much to invasive in both pve and pvp, here stand here to do more healing, thats not fun nor viable in pvp (you eat extra ccs, get swapped to etc), and with the beacon of faith changes (no longer acts as you in regards to mastery) our mastery is even more useless.
Holy pally rep does not act like incap (its not instant), it is casted. like a sheep. Its in the CC category not utility.
The class has glaring problems and isnt even a shadow of its former self anymore.
