Things that feel bad when playing Hpal

Classes Paladin
21

If they don’t rework the class entirely, improving Flash of Light or Holy Light it will never compete, they buffed Tyr’s Deliverance by 25%, didn’t help because any talent attached to Flash of Light or Holy Light is dead in the water.

Look at the highest key done, 28+, literally avoided every talent node that uses flash of light and Holy Light. Literally avoided the complete left side, so no moment of compassion or resplendent light and Divine Favour, and respectfully the complete right side which we all know is useless.

If they want Tyr’s Deliverance to remotely compete, Holy Shock needs at minimum be added to the extension window and personally I don’t think that will make it useful, same goes if Holy Shock was added to barrier of Faith.

We need a overhaul. A complete redesign which most likely isn’t going to happen anytime soon, maybe 10.2?, where I bet they’ll give us a tier bonus focusing on FoL and HL so they become useful.

Blizzard seems to be making tier bonuses now so we play with useless talents and builds.

But until this overhaul, if it ever happens might aswell fix what we have, blessing of Winter giving more mana back be a great start.

1 Like
22

What happens if Winter becomes so good that putting it on another healer because they can make better use of 20-30% mana than us is the play? What then?

We’re left conserving with our 2 cd button rotation (consecrate and HoW) simping for someone else.

I just don’t know why an inherently expensive spec, designed as such with mana return via a talent that can be used on another healer would be a good idea. Just reduce the base cost of 2 spells. Crusader strike and holy shock and be done.

Classes like monk, and to a lesser extent shaman, who are designed to have more expensive spells have ways of getting mana back via active and passive gameplay elements like teas and resurgence. Both of which only benefit them.

Making holy pal an expensive healer where the intended answer is a 3 minute cd to return 20% or 30% of any healers mana is just risky imo.

1 Like
23

100% remove SotR. The more I think about it, the more I think Exorcism would actually be a really great dps spender for holy paladins only. It didn’t make a lot of sense for ret, but picture it, with almost the same mechanics, for holy: add a 3hp cost to it to make it a spender, but have it do flat up-front damage+DoT to primary target, and if you’re standing in consecration it also does its DoT damage to surrounding enemies, giving it double-duty as a single-target and AOE damage spender, while still incentivizing paladins to stay near the frontlines to lay down and stand in consecration.

3 Likes
24

I have always hated blessing of seasons in all its forms. It’s annoying, fidgety busywork and should be done away with. Either of the two currently unused covenant abilities would be better

4 Likes
25

crusader strike needs 3 things:

  1. mana cost reduced significantly
  2. damage increased significantly
  3. changes removed. CS is both our best single target ability and our prime HP builder - if HPal is going to be a builder/spender healer than we should be free to build as the situation allows. right now we are capped, and that is unintuitive, unfun, and makes for a strange playstyle.

on the topic of blessings:

I’d rather blessing of seasons be replaced with something more class fitting. I don’t think it fits the class fantasy, the rotating abilities are cheesy, and for a capstone/final row spec talent it is very underwhelming.

compare the bottom row of resto shaman with holy pally. yikes, what a difference in usability - there are so many meaningful choices for shaman. Monk and druid also have some nice meaningful choices - as in if you could you’d take more than you can given the tree structure.

the only node that I like in HPal is glimmer, and while it’s worth taking for the consistent throughput related to holy shock and toll, it’s not hugely powerful and that’s ok. the bottom row should be meaningful choices that grant either consistent throughput or burst healing. I don’t think blessing of seasons, inflorescence of the sunwell, or empyrean legacy offer those. and if you are playing a melee build you probably aren’t going down the path of boundless salvation.

2 Likes
26

works for me. I’d rather see harsh words reappear as it’s a simpler solution and I could remove the spender keybind from my bar, but exorcism would totally fit the class fantasy, increase our dps, and utilize existing animations/icons/assets which would be a simple change from a coding perspective.

1 Like
27

You’re absolutely right about that part, I would like to remove keybinds if possible, and harsh words would do that really well (plus not have to worry about making awakening work with more abilities). And it makes thematic sense for WoG to be castable on either ally or enemy, since Holy Shock and Holy Prism are already targetable on either. I would like lots of abilities to be pruned tbh, while allowing others to be castable on allies or enemies to make up for the loss, not just for paladins but many classes.

edit: Also consecration and light’s hammer have dual effects in their AOE as well… this seems to be a thing with paladins as a class that could be expanded.

edit edit: AAAAAH Tyr’s Deliverance should be changed to either heal allies OR hurt enemies kind of like monks’ Chi Wave, and Boundless Salvation changed to increase duration on HP spender use instead of FoL/HL

1 Like
28

I’ve been advocating for removal of SotR and bringing back Harsh Words for a long time, but Blizzard knows better as always :frowning: .

But until we get huge changes we need to make due with whatever we have and realistically that’s having Blessing of Winter being our way to regenerate mana back. Regardless if we love/hate the spell.

Personally I’d rather it be buffed to 2% at minimum for now to help alleviate our mana issues as a temporary solution until they figure out or rework abilities and costs and then take it back down to 1%.

Like I mentioned, something now to help is better then nothing.

In a perfect world I’d love for a big shake up, a big spec tree overhaul, personally I think Holy Paladin needs to be re looked at, the Spec and tree as a whole doesn’t blend well, we have to many useless abilities and talents.

29

I’ve been messing around with healing and I have to say this is the biggest issue with holy. The healing isn’t too bad if you spec nonAC (sadage) but the dps is atrocious. I can end keys doing 30k+ dps overall on my other healers… Holy I’m lucky to hit 15k lol. Letting sotr proc awakening would help a lot but still I don’t think it would be enough.

30

In my experience, the only way to do even moderate damage as hpal is to spec into glimmer and devote EVERY Divine Toll to hitting enemy packs, so you can stack glimmer early on five enemies and try to coast off the glimmer damage. But then of course you’re using one of your best emergency healing buttons on cooldown for damage instead of healing, leaving you with less to deal with emergencies.

As opposed to resto shaman, say, where I can do decent damage with healing rain at range, instant-cast flame shock proccing instant-cast lavabursts, and chain lightning (with or without stormbringer) whenever I want, not affecting my healing ability at all.

1 Like
31

Why? Just reduce costs. :dracthyr_shrug:

Personally I’d rather it be buffed to 2% at minimum for now to help alleviate our mana issues as a temporary solution until they figure out or rework abilities and costs and then take it back down to 1%.

Like I mentioned above. What happens if this increase to 2% means that at a total of 30% mana return it doesn’t just get used on another healer in the raid because they can make better effective use of 30% mana?

Buffing Winter, reducing our cost later and than nerfing it again is far more work than it would take to nerf 2 spells. Crusader strike and Holy Shock.

Sure something is better than nothing but fixing the root issue is better than a bandaid when the real fix is like 2 hours work at max.

32

Bringing Winter to 2% is a lot easier then just going through and adjusting skills to find that sweet spot which will take considerate time. It’s just a easy quick solution to just increase Blessing of Winter.

Honestly, I don’t see a problem with this, it’s like in Shadowlands Resto Druids would exclusively Innervate Priests, the important factor is, we are being brought to raids, we get credit for progression, AotC, CE whatever difficulty you choose. But most importantly in keys we are going to be self sufficient.

Why are we being brought to Raids now, think about, our healing is subpar, our dps is abysmal, we provide Devotion Aura…

33

Holy is fun and imo is strong but you’re right that there is a lot in the kit that isn’t used or doesn’t fit into the spec.

34

Well yeah if you put it like that then sure. Do you think they would need to put any consideration into doubling winter at all or is that completely free of any balance considerations for some reason? Less thought required then reducing the cost of our largest 2 contributors to mana issues.

We have different goals then. I thought the idea was resolving our mana issues not just being brought to buff another healer. In terms of solutions to fixing our mana issues, I think this proves that buffing winter is not it I’m afraid.

35

Everything said here is correct. The only minor amendment I would make is to point #5 Aura Mastery.

It is in fact very impactful…to your raid’s lag…that is all. Blizzard fix Holy Spec seriously.

36

A lot of thought, every first Blessing of Winter is net neutral, after the first Winter, going through 4 Seasons to get back to Winter the second time and so forth is actually net negative to our mana. So going through the Seasons and hitting Winter everytime after the 1st just slows down the mana bleed, giving an illusion it’s beneficial.

I’m No Way saying Crusader Strike or Holy Shock can’t be adjusted, Even on the ptr I’ve left three suggestions,

  • Holy Shock has no mana cost attached, it’s purely a cd based ability, quick solution.

  • Blessing of Winter buffed to 2%, giving us a positive gain to our mana, rewarding optimal play, quick solution.

  • Adjusting Mana from our kit, I even said Crusader Strike is definitely the main culprit, but that takes time figuring out, they need to find that sweet spot, how much is too much, length of encounter, duration of key, how will this handle in higher level content, theirs a lot that goes into adjusting it.

But I’m in no way opposed to either solutions.

But Blessing of Winter as is, is underperforming if you do the maths. Especially when comparing it to certain other Healers with how they can manage mana. Throw in the fast pace of M+, it’s more obvious then ever.

I personally think it be an awesome niche like how you mentioned in Raids using Winter on a healer with a better throughput, secures our Raid position which is great, we will have a niche that no other healer can bring to the party.

In the end Raiding is a team effort especially in higher end content, look back at all Raids, Mythic Ghuun, you’d literally bring 2 warlocks, not because they did damage, their dps back then was horrible, purely to have two gates to help dunk the balls on each side.

Sometimes you bring a class for utility, it’s been like that through out all of WoW history in a Raiding Environment.

It’s not different goals, Healers bring different Utility to a raiding environment, Winter being buffed will be Huge when it comes to Mythic +, our self mana management would finally be decent.

I’m sorry but if in a Raid and you were asked to Winter a Resto Druid and you say no, especially considering our healing throughput is abysmal, maybe a team environment isn’t for you.

I’d definitely change my tune if our healing was on par, but sadly until we get buffed, I don’t see a problem being a mana battery in a team raid environment. Atleast we will be more then a walking 3% DR.

37

I’m perfectly fine with giving other healers in a raid environment a buff if they benefit from it. That’s not my issue at all. The issues I have are:

  1. Apparently just flat-out doubling Winter would be a “quick win” for the developers. As opposed to what? Trying to find the sweet spot by nerfing mana cost of 2 spells. That is just not true on any level.
  2. The mana issues we have are core to the spec. Why make Winter the solution for it? Further solidify its place as a mandatory talent.
  3. If buffing Winter is the solution and using Winter on a friendly is the right answer then we haven’t fixed the core problem. The way people are talking, Hpals will just hit Cons and HoW at the end of a raid encounter because they are oom, meanwhile using their only mana return on a friendly. It doesn’t matter how much of a team player you are, that is a bad spot to be in.
  4. Buffing Winter would have broader ramifications to raid balance. Something I think Blizzard would rather avoid especially since Ret aura returned. Further increasing Holy’s raid utility would be pretty unpopular.

You talk as though Holy is dead and we need a new reason to be brought. We’re still very much being brought right now.

Anyway, I thought you were saying just buff Winter instead of fixing the root mana issues, but it sounds like you have suggested nerfing the mana cost too.

38

Buffing winter is not the answer and we don’t need quick solutions.

First, devs have stated many times they do not like hearing solutions that’s why I left my post void of them despite having many ideas. Totally fine to post ideas though I just left them out of the OP for that reason.

Second, buffing winter is bad because if they over do it, then it becomes more valuable to use on a healer that can actually convert mana into big raidwide healing (rdruid/rsham/disc etc). We use it on ourselves now because the gain isn’t crazy enough to go somewhere else, but if they buff it that will probably change and assuming all of your healers are good players, youll be actively hurting the raid by not regenerating rdruid/rsham/disc mana as opposed to yourself.

Third, ideally mana gets fixed via baseline adjustments to things like cs/hs, or they add mana restoral to baseline abilities we have and can further add onto that via talents related to whatever ability is chosen.

2 Likes
39

imo, the only mana solution is the reduction of cost to crusader strike and/or holy shock. that right there would obviate the need for winter and remove our mana issues.

2 Likes
40

If you feel like your burning through mana then here are a few tips

  1. Make sure your using your blessing of seasons consistently to get more blessing of winter mana regen.
  2. Grab the embellishments that increase potion uptime and use potions of chilled clarity on CD. (Optional unless your pushing really high keys where drinking between pulls is a time sink)
  3. Mana Pots!
  4. The conjured chillglobe can give you a substantial amount of mana back on a 1min CD when you use it below 65% mana. Make sure to get the Weak aura that tells you when to use it.
  5. I wouldn’t recommend over 32% haste, too much haste can cause you to burn through mana very quickly.
    Tips on increasing Damage
  6. Maintain Consecration up time and using lights hammer on cd
  7. Stay in melee range of the target to increase melee uptime, alot of people underestimate how significant your melee dmg can be.
  8. Potion of shocking Disclosure
  9. Some good trinkets to use as a holy paladin are the furious range feather and iceblood deathsnare, although these should only be used if your comfortable with the healing requirement of a key. These trinkets provide a SIGNIFICANT dmg increase.
  10. Using your onyx annulet with dmg stones.
  11. SOTR should be used when your wings are up on trash, be mindful though to make sure you have 5 holy power if its bursting week or unavoidable dmg is coming so you can heal through it.
  12. You can use frozen devotion enchant on your weapon but its not a huge dps increase and I’d recommend sophic devotion always but its up to you.