Hello, This will be a post to discuss the problems caused by the recent PTR changes to holy paladin gear, runes, and librams.
I want to open by saying that a nerf to shockadin was 100% justified given it’s power level before these changes.
HOWEVER, the magnitude and direction of these nerfs needs to be re-evaluated for the following reasons.
Firstly, the way the nerf has been implemented hurts traditional PVE hpals more than anyone else. This doesn’t make sense given shockadins were the target. Rather than nerfing the sets players would use for PVE healing, why not nerf the ZG set bonus? It’s 50% extra damage on shock for crying out loud! Getting a shock reset is basically the only source of dopamine that existed for hpals, without it they lead a boring life of cancel casting the tank repeatedly or spamming flash of light (funny how THIS type of 1 button spam is perfectly acceptable.) Not only that, but not being able to reset holy shock is a significant mobility nerf for hpals. Being able to use divine favor or get a holy shock crit heal for an extra 1.5s of movement as a healer is a big deal!
How is this ridiculously powerful niche 10man set bonus more important to keep intact than the already established holy rune and the best healing gear next phase?
Secondly, this nerf is a bit heavy handed. Nerf the damage, or nerf the procs, don’t nerf BOTH and essentially gut the build in pve while also making all the normal hpals feel bad. Infusion nerf is the worst part of this, but the judgement 2set being reduced to 25% of its original value is also a big hit. Not only can we not reset holy shock anymore, we also are now 15% less likely to even trigger the 3sec CD reduction. And on top of all that, librams nerfed as well? What is going on here? the infusion nerf already basically killed any real usefulness the holy wrath libram had, and it’s now nerfed in multiple ways. it’s 15 seconds MIN to get it stacked (IF you go 5/5 on crits) and if you decide that you need to actually use shock as a heal it won’t even count. This libram is borderline useless at this point especially considering most aoe packs will be dead before we even have it stacked.
Thirdly, a shockadin does not truly ever reach 100% crit with a functional build. In order to do this, they must use the wrath rune and lose a SIGNIFICANT amount of group and single target healing, to play a dps build that no one is ever going to actually bring to a raid because it isn’t good at either damage OR healing. even before these nerfs it was simming like 2000dps less than ret even with the full support of every melee group buff which is totally unrealistic and inflates it’s numbers.
Fourthly, this infusion nerf will make shockadin essentially unplayable until the ZG and t2 are both collected once it goes live. Every person who’s playing shockadin RIGHT NOW will be a complete loser in pvp with zero stopping power. I love that you guys are making sets to support niche builds, but this change makes all the gear mandatory, and destroys the ability we have now to pvp as shockadin.
POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS:
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Change the ZG set bonus to 30% and make it a stacking bonus of 6% per shock crit. Revert infusion to it’s previous state, and give t2 2pc 10% crit instead of 5. This would effectively remove the problematic issue of insane pvp burst since it will take time to stack the damage increase and require tactical play to use.
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Change infusion to allow an instant cast flash of light after a holy shock crit (alongside the 3sec shock CD.) and leave everything else as is. This solves the problem of hpals catching strays for no reason over the zg bonus, while also giving the pve shockadin something to cast when shock doesn’t crit, and leaving the pvp burst in it’s current nerfed state.
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Remove Holy shock from the list of spells that benefit from the wrath rune, nerf the ZG set and restore infusion and t2 to it’s previous state. Wrath rune is the only way to reach 100% crit and create the “1 button spam” boogeyman that people keep bringing up. It can only be done with full world buffs and suboptimal runes assigned for its intended role. On real servers where you cannot buy a world buff scroll and just have them permanently this is a non-issue for pvp but many people are up in arms because they got pounded by fully world buffed players on ptr while they wore glass cannon pve gear and no trinket.
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Add some sort of healing or utility function to replace the loss of shock resets. Some example could be a bonus to sacred shield on one of the sets, a set bonus or adjustment to hallowed ground that makes consecrate cleanse your entire party on the initial cast.
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If you are intent on leaving everything as is, consider allowing shockadin to cast hammer of wrath with no HP restriction. This will give a meaningful spell power scaling CASTED attack that can fill the gap when holy shock doesnt crit, and it’s already coded to work with beacon healing, without changing much in pvp because using it limits our mobility. I would consider reducing it’s mana cost as well.
Looking forward to hearing from others what can be done to make shockadin functional without being too overpowered and also without direct nerfs to normal holy players.