TLDR: Title. Flash of light heals for so little even with multiple talents modifying it+divine favor. Holy light is stronger, but there are so many mini ccs, tons of interrupts and plenty of regular cc that getting off a 2.1s cast (reduced from my haste) is almost never possible. Flash needs to heal a bit more and holy light needs to be faster outside of just every 45s with DF.
Caster paladin is in a very rough spot in pvp. Getting interrupted is extremely punishing in this meta with how fast it is, so spending time casting spells -needs- to mean something. Those spells have to be moving health bars or its just not worth casting them, which is what is happening in pvp right now for hpal.
Melee wings is the dominant playstyle because it provides more healing, all of which is instant so it is harder to shut the hpals healing down. Melee wings playstyle is very anti-healer in pvp, it is the opposite of what healers have been doing for a long time (playing pillar). Im not against it, but having the option of playing caster paladin without just losing a majority of my healing power would be really great.
For some numbers: Divine revelations 10%+illumination 10%+divine purpose 60%, flash of light non crit healed for 60k. That is an 80% modifier on flash of light and it healed for about 17% of someones health pool (with 350k hp). This is a casted spell healing for that little. You can take lights grace for another 25%, and it will heal for 20% of someones health pool. All of these spell modifiers and it barely moves health bars outside of divine favor+crit+iol.
I should say, i am not an insane pvp player. I am learning slowly coming from pve. However, you can also ask borngood this question and he will tell you that caster is rough for these same reasons. “you cast flash of light and their health bar goes down” to quote him.
4 Likes
What’s sad is that our fast cast holy light from infusion of light that we lost is currently in the game in the form of the holy priest 2set tier
7 Likes
Yeah it’s very sad. Priest also gets an rng free instant flash heal talent on top of that.
Not only did we lose fast cast holy light, they took divine favor and put it in the spec tree but took away the interrupt protection lol. No way they expect hpals to cast a 2.3-2.1 second cast in pvp with absolutely no interrupt protection? Flash of light itself is already difficult to get off consistently.
And to add to that, divine favor is purgeable and stealable (shamans, dhs, mages, evokers, priests can all take it off). I think divine favor was supposed to be the solution to fast cast holy light, or at the very least it got added right after they talked about trying to find a solution for it via IoL or other means.
It’s just in such a bad spot. Our casted spells do not move health bars in one of the most punishing metas to be casting, and we lost our interrupt protection on top of that.
We need selfless healer for holy light and lights celerity for Flash of light in our tree. Don’t care where it goes, but we need those options. Just take selfless healer, swap flash for holy light, and then put lights celerity in the tree too.
1 Like
My wishlist for hpal:
Infusion of light holy light fast cast
Judgment generates holy power
Consuming infusion of light with judgment reduces cd of judgment by half
Consuming infusion of light with crusader strike causes crusader strike to heal allies for x amount of damage dealt (even if you have regular wings talented)
Holy shock crits can now proc veneration
Hammer of wrath added as an ability that heals with avenging crusader (giving AC more ranged aoe healing options when judgment is on cd)
Holy power ranged damage spender (harsh words)
Mastery changed to literally anything else. Even shock barrier as a mastery would be so much better than current
The problem with infusion being fast cast is we lose the holy power from HL which takes away a lot of the power from that spell. Ideally at least imo I would want fast cast from somewhere else IE selfless healer, or even applying the 1.5s cast reduction (old iol) to Inflorescence of the sunwell in place of the holy power every 3 HLs that way we don’t lose anything of value but still gain the fast cast. 2 hopo from beacon/iol is enough, don’t really need the 1 every 3 HLs as it’s useless even now since we don’t cast it so replacing that should be fine
Agree with the rest though. They wanted caster hpal to be a playstyle and didn’t give it a ranged damage spender or even a damage ability at all, veneration is too random to be counted. Mastery should go too, we do less healing in pvp for playing/positioning properly lol
the extra holy power every x casts isn’t worth losing being able to use the spell in pvp. make it a choice node between extra holy power and fast cast if needed so that pvers in melee range of the boss can keep casting 2.5 sec holy lights on full hp beacon targets for their holy power and pvpers can get to press holy light in pvp while having dks, warriors, rogues and dhs sitting on them. lights grace gives a 15% wall to holy light which is plenty of power for the spell in a meta with dampening that ramps up faster + almost every class having ms
I think you are saying the same thing? pvers do not need the extra holy power every 3 casts, fast cast is way better. I was saying replace the holy power every 3 casts from Sunwell with fast cast HL. So sunwell would be “reduces the cast time of holy light by 1.5 sec with infusion of light” and would keep the fol mana reduction.
Keeping regular infusion is good, we do not need to lose the guaranteed holy power from that. You get a holy power every time you use HL with infusion up, that is very good for both pve and pvp. Makes no sense to delete that for old infusion when old infusion can just be added to sunwell right
Hpal is D tier. we suck booty rn in pvp while other specs go BROKEN, since hpal is doing mediocre in pve we wont be seeing pvp balance changes lol
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Playing more and getting a little bit higher rating, I have to say that HPal feels too weak.
It has the highest skill floor of any healer and has a tremendous amount of things to watch. Holy power, reckoning, immense amount of debuffs/buffs to either BoP or sac, etc.
If you get stuck in flash spam, you’re going to lose. Our mastery is counter intuitive to our class and is horrible. Melee wings doesn’t offer any survival and is basically just a judge proc and then you go back to casting heals.
If you go in for crusader strikes, you are guaranteed to be AoE Cc’d and then focused.
Our damage is practically the most lackluster of any of the healers and our skills are designed around getting into the fray to do DPS.
Overall, paladin is in a wonky and fairly bad state. They are viable by high-end players, but mid to low level they are non-existent in arena.
3 Likes
The thing there is high end players can make anything viable, pvp is all about experience. If you know exactly what you and everyone around you is going to do, you will be good on any class/spec.
Hpal has massive issues in pvp and in general though so hopefully something happens there.
1 Like