Why is Holy losing crusader strike?

I just want to add that not only does it feel bad to lose Crusader Strike, creating gaps in our rotation, removing baseline Hammer of Wrath as its own separate ability and merging it with Judgment while Avenging Wrath is active also feels really bad.

We no longer have an Execute ability, creating awful moments when an enemy is low health and there is nothing we can do but stand there and auto-attack. With Veneration it allowed us to use it on targets regardless of health, yet another dps ability in our rotation gone.

I cannot stress enough how horrible these changes are, Classic WoW Holy levelling was more fun than Midnight.

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Criticism hits harder when it is not clear hyperbole.

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It’s not hyperbole, in Classic we had Judgment, Holy Shock, Consecration, Hammer of Wrath and Seals.

In Midnight we only have Judgment, Holy Shock, Consecration and Shield of Righteousness.

At least in Classic i could equip spell power gear and my abilities would hit like a truck.

I’m all for losing crusader strike. I’d personally like a mid-range healer, and not a melee. Give the option to weave into melee, but I despise the requirement to pull competitive numbers. It’s also hard to compare Paladins in WoW’s lore to game mechanics. Yes, people like having melee healers. Yes, long-time players miss when Holy wasn’t melee. In my opinion, mid range healers can connect the two.

Paladins were originally priests who decided to learn how to use the light as a weapon, while also supporting their allies. I believe this sounds more like protection than any other spec.

Maybe it’s just me. But this is the first time in a very long time that I’m just bummed about how Holy currently is, and I’m looking forward to Midnight and whatever changes that the expansion will bring to Holy.

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No, making holy paladin a mid-range healer just makes it inadequate for both sides.

I want to be a melee healer. I play Holy Paladin because it is a melee healer.

Making it mid-range is just as dissatisfying as making it a pure caster healer.

I play holy paladin when it is a melee-focused spec built around instant casts.

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Speaking from experience… it’s also the place your toon will die most often. If you’re with melee, you move with melee to avoid things. If you’re with range, you move with range to avoid things. If you’re standing in the middle… you moved too late.

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We’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I can’t wrap my head around the idea of someone considering it “more fun” to have Holy Shock on a 30 second cooldown, and having to recast buffs to their auto-attacks every 10 seconds after hitting Judgment.

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The Human Paladins of Stormwind were.
The lore of the Warcraft universe has been added to significantly since, and there are Paladin-equivalents who predate the Human kingdoms entirely (Troll Prelates/Freethinkers, Draenei Vindicators)

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You have my full support :+1:t4:.

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And there are those who don’t want to play melee healers, because Paladins have spent more years NOT as melee healers. Just because a change happened a few expacs ago doesn’t make it a good one for everyon who had been playing the class prior to that.

We’re just of two different opinions and talking about it is fine, but people don’t need to get so bent out of shape about it (not referring to you or your comment). We’re still in Alpha. There’s no telling what will actually make it to retail.

Fair points!

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I kind of get the reasoning, but it’s simultaneously telling Holy Paladins, “we don’t want you to be able to deal enough damage to engage in anything aside from group content.”

It’s weird.

I really hope they revert the crusader strike removal, i have played holy pally as an alt since the TBC and yes it has had both iterations of ranged and melee but the removal of one playstyle feels like it would be a folly. Not only would this leave dead globals in the spec but also would split the community on how its played. Why not just take a similar route to Mistweaver who have a stance option for fistweaving or cast weaving? (also it makes me sad that this removal of Crusader Strike would make the Avenging Crusader talent pointless and would need to just be removed at that point cause only judgement working for it makes its useless)

Holy Paladin has had crusader strike since October 12, 2010. It took time for players to warm up to it, but it was there and was situationally useful.

And Holy Paladin was a ranged healer for 16 years. There was nothing wrong with that design and a lot of Paladin players prefer the ranged style over sweating balls in melee range to deliver pathetic dps and mediocre healing.

Which is why it’s stupid that was they want to remove melee instead of having both.

Which we already know they can do, as seen by clearly dividing MW’s tree between melee and ranged.

Hell they are doing it again with Devourer Demon Hunters.

It honestly boggles the mind that they keep trying to straddle the line with Holy Paladin specifically and it just will not work.

I won’t miss Crusader’s Strike on Hpal. It’s weak damage, and in current style high movement fights I find I am constantly out-of-range with it.

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Ok…so far this isn’t as awful as I initially thought, just make SoTR not require a shield and I think they may be cooking, it’s very similar to how meleeing was a mana management tool. I still want crusader strike but if they make SoTR worth weaving with mana sustain and a better cdr on shock then it may not be over for us.

This is what it seems they are trying to do. Id rather have crusader strike as well though. Lots of shock spam its looking like.

Hopefully ellesmere will put out a video this week on this build.

Im giga bad at math, what does this make the cooldown of Holy Shock now?

I do think .5% of mana from SotR is a too small but would need to see it in practice.

I still don’t like not having Crusader Strike, but if the cooldown of Holy Shock gets low enough it might even out and SotR returning mana means we still have a reason to be in melee range.