Holy Paladins are almost overpowered - Changes incoming in Patch 3.2.
There’s been a lot of discussion going down on the official Paladin forums about the problems with Holy Paladins. Now, most of these problems have existed for as long as the paladin has existed and Holy Paladins have been complaining about it for just as long. Paladins have always excelled at single target healing and our strategy when tank healing has always been to just spam one button (either Flash of Light, like in BC, or Holy Light, like now). But it sounds like Blizzard may finally be doing something about it.
Ghostcrawler and Blizzard have been making some promises lately that the problems with Holy Paladins may finally be solved (somewhat). According to Ghostcrawler, there are four main problems that he’s been hearing from Holy Paladins:
- Stacking Intellect isn’t fun, but we have to because Mp5 is almost useless.
- Having 70%+ overheal isn’t fun.
- Focusing so much on the main tank in a raid isn’t fun.
- Casting nothing but Holy Light isn’t fun.
I don’t necessarily agree that these are all true problems or that a Holy Paladin has to do all of these things. As I’ve said before, I’m not convinced that requiring your Holy Paladin to spam one button is even the best strategy, but its certainly an effective strategy and a good way to play to the strengths of each class. Ghostcrawler himself said that while the paladin niche may be single-target healing, when he looks at raid stats, nearly all of them are managing to heal people besides the MT. He also said that running a 10-man raid with two Holy Paladins works fine, and I agree with him. But I definitely also agree that if we did have to do all of the above, it would not be fun, which is the main reason why I don’t do any of the 4 things listed above (and I still do fine in raids).
This morning Ghostcrawler stated that they have proposed changes for Holy Paladins that will actually fix all of the above four problems. However, according to him, these changes will almost definitely involve mana regen and mana pool nerfs. According to Ghostcrawler, the only reason Holy Paladins aren’t currently overpowered is because of our single-target focus. If we remove that single-target focus then we also have to be nerfed somehow.
Big things are coming down the pipe for Holy Paladins. It will involve nerfs to our mana pool and mana regen, but will also include changes to increase our flexibility as a raid healer and to reduce our overhealing. I’m frankly very happy about this. Anything that strengthens our ability to raid heal and reduces our need to stack Intellect and spam Holy Light makes me very happy. These changes will strengthen my current play style, which I love. So my advice? Hold on to that Mp5 gear and get ready to rain Flashes and Shocks all over the raid! Good times…
And if you don’t like the nerfs remember… we asked for it.
What might the changes be?
If I’m a betting man, I would guess that there will be changes to Illumination to make it work more off of Mp5. There may also be nerfs to Divine Intellect and/or Divine Plea. There may be some sort of buff to Flash of Light, probably an increase in the amount it heals for or possibly a mana cost reduction. But who knows what Blizzard is cooking up in that laboratory of theirs?
I’ve posted the direct quotes from Ghostcrawler below, which can be found in the thread linked to above.
Ghostcrawler:
“An apparent “double standard” exists because the game has far fewer healing specs than damage specs. Most 25-player raids are going to have a diversity of healers so it’s okay in our minds for them to have more discrete niches. While there are many fights where single-target damage is not particularly useful, there are very, very few fights that are not tanked, and therefore where single-target healing is not particularly useful. Besides, while the paladin niche may be single-target healing, when I look at raid stats, nearly all of them are managing to heal people besides the MT. I’ve run 10-player raids with 2 paladin healers plenty of times. It works fine.”
“Look, we get that….
1) Stacking mostly Int isn’t fun.
2) Having 70%+ overheal isn’t fun.
3) Focusing so much on the main tank in a raid isn’t fun.
4) Casting nothing but Holy Light isn’t fun.We do have some ideas for how to fix these problems. They aren’t redesign-the-class level because frankly we don’t think the class needs that, but the proposed changes would fix the above four problems. Understand though that part of reducing overhealing and being a more flexible raid healer might come with regen or mana pool nerfs. It is possible that the only thing keeping Holy paladins from being too good right now is their narrow focus.”
Update: Ghostcrawler has a few more comments:
“I meant “too good” in the sense of healing per second and longevity. You can spam very fast Holy Lights virtually forever, or at least much longer than the typical boss encounter lasts. The big negatives for a Holy paladin right now are having insanely high overhealing (but who cares since mana is cheap?) and having a narrow niche of single target (usually tank) healing. Improve the efficiency (not mana efficiency but replace the overhealing with actual healing) or let paladins heal multiple targets at once and I think it would be hard to argue that any of the other classes could compete.”
“I would say [Holy Paladin's problems are a] lack of ability to heal multiples and lack of ability to move. We have let other specs creep into the paladin role with perhaps not letting the paladin creep out enough. Again, we’re not talking about overhauling the Holy tree or getting 5 new healing spells next patch. While we’re not prepared to announce our plans yet, I also don’t want anyone’s imagination to run wild here”
And here’s some quotes from community members that Ghostcrawler liked:
“I find it odd that a lot of the paladin community is capable of complaining that our healing is too simple while simultaneously complaining about any possible change to address that issue. If we do get more useful tools/AoE, etc, I would expect nerfs to our current one-trick show. Change is unsettling, but arbitrarily assuming the change is going to be terrible is just useless pessimism.”
“We understand that GC. Please nerf our longevity/mana regen to bring those changes you mentioned that will make the class more fun to play! I don’t care how you nerf us if you make it so we don’t have to cast hugely inefficient holy lights all the time. It’s just lame.”
“I think a large part of the reason WHY our mana regen is so op right now is that we HAVE to have op mana regen to be effective tank healers with the way we are currently designed. If you make it so we are a.) more efficient and b.) more flexible with raid vs. tank healing, it makes total sense that you will need to nerf our mana regen/longevity. Please do what you need to do to fix paladins so they are not the mind numbing experience they are now.”
And for those people who are against any changes:
“Don’t homogenize me, bro!”
“/win”
Update: One more comment from Ghostcrawler:
“We understand a lot of players like the play style of paladins. We aren’t interested in turning them into priests by any stretch. What we would like to do is make having more than one Holy paladin in a raid slightly more attractive. If you do a 10-player raid with 2 Holy paladins and 1 Resto druid, you should not feel gimped. If you have excess Resto druids, one of them can always hot and Nourish a tank. If you have excess Holy paladins, then you have one of them just using Flash on the rogues or furiously overhealing them with HL.
We like healing niches and we think we are pretty close with them currently. If there was a healing niche of say “Good at healing melee on very long and heavily magical fights” I think everyone would agree that is probably too narrow a niche. We just need to make sure healers feel somewhat useful even when they are not in the perfect healing situation for their particular class.”
Update: Ghostcrawler has a response to the question of whether we should be collecting Ulduar Mp5 gear:
“Regardless of any other changes we might make, mp5 just doesn’t seem to provide enough point for point on gear. It’s possible (likely?) we’ll just increase all of the mp5 on gear.”
It seems like if they’re increasing the amount Mp5 on gear and nerfing us so we need that much Mp5, then we definitely need to start collecting Mp5 gear. Unless this also means that they’re adding Mp5 to gear that currently doesn’t have any.
1) holy paladins are not OP.
2) holy paladins have an excellent niche.
3) regearing and relearning healing styles is going to suck.
4) it’s going to take blizz months before they get everything adjusted just right. till then paladins are probably going to blow as blizz would rather have us nerfed than be OP.
all in all, i’m pretty disgusted about the whole thing. a holy paladin is a MT healer. if i wanted to raid heal i’d roll a stinkin priest or drood. but no, they have to homogenize all the classes till any healer can do any job. gg
I agree with the previous commenter, I don’t think Holy Paladins are OP and relearning this new way of healing is going to a colossal pain. I don’t spam Holy Light unless I’ve got Beacon on the tank and I’m two-man healing Ulduar 10.
I hope to hell this gets tested on the PTR for a while prior to launch so I can figure out what gear I need to start collecting. Simply saying MP5 gear doesn’t help as there are usually 1-2 other stats on a given piece of gear. Will Haste be a stat to stack? Will Crit Rating be phased out as a useful stat? I can see them getting rid of Illumination all together in order to make room in the tree for something that amps up MP5. If our mana pool is shrinking and our regen is taking a hit then how the hell are we going to get spots in Raids when we’re going OOM all the time on long fights?
Glad I’ve got alts and a tanking set.
Well, you have agree that something needs to be done with the Mp5 gear. Blizzard doesn’t want to just remove Mp5 from our gear because it means we’re left with overpowered stats on our gear compared to other healers who still need a regen stat, especially as we move into the next tiers of gear. So, they definitely need to do something to nerf our Intellect and raise the power of Mp5.
If you read through that thread, there are a lot of paladins that only spam Holy Light. I personally think this is bad design. No other healing class only uses one button. Its not very interesting.
I think Holy Paladins will still be the best tank healers, we just won’t be doing it with only one button anymore. They may nerf our regen and our mana pool but increase our efficiency (through more use of Flash of Light). Learning when to use each spell is what makes this game interesting.
As for gear changes, it definitely depends on what the changes they make are. I think haste will still be just as useful. Crit may be less useful, but we’ll have to see. Intellect will probably be less useful and Mp5 more useful. Spell Power may be more useful. Overall though, I don’t think we will be changing gear that much, with the exception of Mp5, which is already on a ton of our Ulduar gear anyway.
ok… here’s my thought process.
1) a paladin healer is a MT healer. we should be able to keep tanks up with minimal help from other healers (apart from hots/shields/occasional spot healing). during some hards modes we obviously have to have someone help us out (end of thorim for example).
2) out tanks are getting hit between 20-30k without bosses doing special abilities. for most tanks this is 2 shot range. this is great and i enjoy it, but incoming dmg like this requires me to have the ablility to muscle my way through it (ie spam when needed). i need the ability to put out insane amounts of raw hps or my tank will die.
3) raw hps requires either incredibly efficient heals or amazing regen. since HL costs over 1k i need the regen.
4) blizz has given me an awesome way to regen mana. i stack intellect and i stack crit (2 stats for regen as opposed to just 1 in BC btw). now both these obviously benefit my healing apart from simply mana regen, but if it weren’t for the mana they give me i would almost ignore the stats entirely.
now i know what you’re saying. “blizz is going to make mp5 great for you so you will be able to ignore these stats a little more.” really? mp5 is going to give me as much mana as i currently get through illumination, replenishment, and plea?
“no, but you really don’t need that much mana. after all, you’re OP. look at your overhealing. it’s over 30%!” ummm… have you tried to heal any of the 25 man hard modes? by the end of all of them (except hodir) i’m almost completely oom. and what do i have to show for it? effective healing that is LESS than our droods and disc priests. in the majority of the fights i can’t compete with other classes (don’t tell me i suck… my guild is top 100 US).
the fact that i generally don’t keep up with other healers isn’t a problem at this point; i’m in the raid for 1 reason: keep MT up (and of course heal the raid when i have the opportunity, gogo bacon). currently, with the gear i’ve been provided and the regen stats i’ve been given i can do a pretty solid job of it. now… if blizz goes crazy and totally readjusts 1) my regen 2) my heals 3) my heal style i can guarantee you i won’t be able to do as good as good a job MT healing as i am now. ask me why… because blizz has stated paladins are OP and they need to nerf us. you think i’m gonna be a better MT healer after this nerf? no.
“well, you won’t have to be a MT healer. you can be a raid healer.” ummm… i’m a paladin. i didn’t role a different class. i signed up for MT heals and that’s what i want to do. not only that but priests and droods currently own the raid healing side of the block. if i show up and start to take their raid spots (wildly assuming blizz will make me as good as they are) what are they going to do? “grab some bench, holy priest, i’m a holy paladin and i raid heal.” sounds like one of those WoW comics strips. right before that he can say “i’m a raider.”
i do understand blizz’s concern. is our regen currently a too much? i honestly think it is. if the toned it down a little, though, they could solve this problem much easier than totally overhauling the type of healer i am and how my spells work. wtf. keep your idea for next xpac and make a new healer. my suggestion would be 1) make are T8 piece bonuses completely worthless. oh wait… they already did that. 1)pull back on some of the stats that is currently on the gear. i’m going to hit 45% unbuffed crit way easy. pull it back some. 2) reduce the amount of mana illumination returns. imo 45% would be a workable number.
as you can tell i’m pretty pissed about this whole thing. i’m pretty worried about what great changes they are going to be implementing and how long it will be till we begin “working as intended.” b/c of this i’m lvling a drood and may start gearing my priest out as well. i’m not gonna get blindsided by some idiot developers who clearly have no clue how there game works.
I think you’re definitely correct Apokteino. Holy Paladins may not be as good main tank healers after this change.
So, the question is: Are Holy Paladins supposed to be able to “keep tanks up with minimal help from other healers”. I don’t think that was/is Blizzard’s intentions with the class. I know Blizzard never intended for us to just spam one button. Why give us multiple heal spells if we were never supposed to use them? Its obvious from the amount of Mp5 they put on Ulduar gear that we were never intended to stack Intellect so high that we can spam our least-mana efficient spell non-stop without any regen. They expect us to need and use Mp5 and to use our more mana-efficient spells (Flash of Light). Holy Paladins were intended to be strong tank healers but not solo tank healers.
To me, Beacon of Light in particular screams “beacon the tank and heal the raid”. Holy Shock and Flash of Light will rarely get sniped and will almost always get doubled on the tank. I don’t think being able to use Beacon on yourself, stand in one place, and hit one hotkey to heal the tank was ever really intended. Its too simple.
I talked about this in the earlier post that I linked in this article, but I think having 3 - 4 healers helping heal the tank was always Blizzard’s intention. Throwing many more smaller heals and shields on the tank means damage and healing is more rounded and less bursty and the tank has less chance of dying since you’re not relying on just one healer who may mess up.
Holy Paladins are powerful because we can raid heal and help with tank healing at the exact same time. All of our heals are doubled. A Holy Paladin can do a ton of raid healing with Holy Shock, Flash of Light, and Holy Light as appropriate while at the same time doing a ton of healing on the tank. I can easily see how this could get OP if Holy Shock and Flash of Light got too powerful. I mean there are already some 10-man fights that I can solo heal because I can pretty much ignore the tank, who’s getting overhealed by all my beacon heals. Sure, in 25-man we won’t be able to solo heal the tank, but I don’t think we were ever intended to be able to solo heal the tank. We’re strong tank healers compared to others but we’re really not supposed to be solo tank healers.
All that being said, I hope they don’t change things too much. People who enjoy Holy Light solo tank healing should be able to continue to do that, IMO.
hmm… well i’m not 100% sure i agree with your opinion about having 3-4 healers on the tanks. basically then all the tanks turn into is another member of the raid that all the raid healers have to worry about. also, like i said i hate this idea of homogenizing everything. paladins are excellent tank healers- why change it?
my concern is they’re going to totally screw up our spec/gear/heals and all of the sudden a disc priest or smart shammy will be able to “tank heal” (because whether you like it or not you need to assign someone to the tank- how effectively you want him to keep the tank up w/o the help of other healers is a different matter). that will leave paladins to do waht? raid heal? when droods and holy priests are already godly raid heals? no way is blizz stupid enough to turn their MT healer into the best raid healer in the game. so what happens? we’re back in SW and i’m a buffbot. gg.
imo if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. things are far from broke and the problem i think a lot of paladins are running into is that they have an incredibly sexy class with great gear but they are doing all the easy modes. of course they are going to look OP. normal modes aren’t even much more difficult than naxx. tweak our mana regen some… but other than that leave it alone.
also, i would like to point out that paladins use a lot more spells this xpac than they did in the previous one. “spamming” HL now is nothing like spamming FoL was back in Hyjal and BT. THAT was mindless spamming. HL “spam” is a lot more involved.
I also hope that things don’t change too much. I stack crit, sp, and int on all my gear, with haste coming naturally from most epic healing gear. I basically disregard mp5. I avoid using holy light whenever possible. I don’t think I need it, and the only pallies I ever see go oom during a fight are holy light spammers. I use flash of light and holy shock quite a bit. I spend most of my time healing the tank, but because I use quicker heals I usually have time to help heal the raid. I’m not trying to heal everyone to full, just using shock and flash on whoever is closest to dying while the aoe healers cast the big raid heals. It’s not boring at all, and because I’m not a one-dimensional healer I’m still useful in situations where full blast tank healing isn’t necessary. Sure I’ll never keep up with a good aoe healer on fights where everyone takes a mild amount of damage (like trash pulls in the arachnid quarter, to use a basic example), but aoe healers will never keep up with me on a fight like Patch.
I think having some degree of specialization in healers is a good thing. Having several different types of heals being cast helps the group quite a bit. However, specialization doesn’t have to mean one-dimensional. For example, take the Loatheb fight. I’m usaully a tank healer in heroic Naxx, but on Loatheb I’m able to heal 4 people in the 3 second window. I Beacon the tank, load up Holy Light to go off as soon as the aura is up, then hit Holy Shock and Flash of Light before the aura comes back. I am able to compete with all but the best aoe healers. Currently I would welcome a skilled healer of any class into my raids. Just going by the Recount numbers I’ve seen, all of the healing classes are competitive when played skillfully.
If Holy Light spammers are feeling bored and one-dimensional, then don’t spam Holy Light. Trade chat on my server is filled with Chuck Norris jokes, anal references, and people telling each other how to play their toons. It’s easily my least favorite aspect of WOW. I’m not a member of an ultra competitive raiding guild, maybe that’s why I don’t get the Holy Light spam thing. I’m the primary holy pally in my guild, so I don’t have someone around telling me how to play. I have completed all of the LK raids except Ulduar though, on regular and heroic. I’m halfway through 10 man Ulduar. I have yet to encounter a fight that requires me to use Holy Light exclusively. I hope that any changes that are made don’t mess with my method too much.
Just saw your last post Apokteino, and I agree about the old method of nothing but FoL spam being the definition of boring. I did it that way for a while, and I still spam FoL quite a bit. However, I prefer to mix in HS and HL as needed, plus the addition of Sacred Shield and Beacon help to keep me from hitting the same button from the moment of the pull until us or them are dead like I used to.
You’re exactly right. There’s two ways to ensure that a class gets a spot in a raid:
1. Make each class exactly the same as every other class, so it doesn’t matter who you bring or
2. Give each class a unique skill that is required for the raid (like MT healing).
Unfortunately, Blizzard tries to do #1 but fails at it and paladins are usually the ones who fall behind. So all healers end up doing the same thing (raid healing) except paladins are worse at it. Considering their track record, I can see where your concern is.
Where I disagree is that Blizzard can’t make a Holy Paladin as good a raid healer as a Holy Priest. Its true that if 5 people are all going to die in 3 seconds, the Holy Priest is going to be better. But if you give the Holy Paladin 5 seconds instead of 3, he can pump out more healing to all 5 of those people for less mana than the Holy Priest can in 5 seconds. Holy Shock -> Instant Flash of Light - > Holy Light -> Holy Light -> Beacon Heals. You just pumped out well over 60k healing in less than 5 seconds and saved 5 lives and you can repeat it immediately and indefinitely. Three of those heals were instant (including the Beacon), so they got healed almost immediately upon taking damage, and 3 of those people are now at full health. That’s not taking into account SS and the HL Glyph. A Holy Priest can’t do that. Their AoE heals all have high mana costs and/or long cooldowns as well as some sort of other limitations (like a 15 yard range). Our heals don’t.
I’m just hoping that Blizzard treats us well.
Yes, that is true. Over time a smart pally can raid heal effectively. The Loatheb fight is a bit too situational to be used to judge all raid healing. I know what you mean by paladins being able to sustain a good amount of raid heals. For fights like Kel’thuzad, Ignis, or Kologarn where any member of the raid can suddenly take burst damage while the tank is also taking a decent beating, I actually prefer to be assigned to raid heals. I can help out on the tank quite a bit with Beacon and FoL, and HS + FoL is perfect for Frost Blasts, Slag Pots, or Grips. Plus, HL puts out a heck of a lot of HPS, I just like to use it only when needed because of it’s high mana cost.
hrmm… well after gcs new posts i’m still concerned. if they turn pallies into raid healers it will be the dumbest thing they ever did. there are already 3 other classes that can do that. i can’t believe they would consider making another one.
at this point probably the only change that would make me remotely happy would be to play with our specs enough that you could either spec to raid heal or MT heal (still a dum idea imo. I’M A PALADIN WTF). you could probably position talents to beat down mana regen to where you want it for the raid-healing paladins (lol) and tone it down just a little for the MT healers.
here’s the problem though. if they totally destroy our niche as MT healers (which it appears they will, at least to the point where a disc priest would be preferred over us) and then expect us to come in as raid healers, they have got a lot of buffing to do (which ironically is the opposite of their goal). paladins seriously have horrible raid healing compared to other classes. i’m still worried we’re going to end up back in SW.
I disagree that paladins have horrible raid healing for one reason: I’ve been raid healing 25-mans as a paladin every week for the last 6+ months and I’ve topped the healing meters almost every single time, even when I first started Naxx. That’s the main reason I started this blog, because of the good raid healing results that I’ve been consistently getting ever since Wrath launched. I don’t know if its because my UI setup is better or because I always run with crappy healers or what, but I’m proof that paladins can raid heal as good as any other class. Beacon of Light is amazing, it literally doubles your healing when used on the tank. IMO, raid healing is also much more fun. I can’t imagine how Overpowered my raid healing will be if Blizzard buffs my ability to raid heal even more.
If you’re interested in learning how to raid heal as a paladin, I try to describe the entire process in my other posts. I just can’t accept when people say that paladins aren’t good raid healers because I’m proof otherwise.
hehe… i do appreciate the tips and i’ll give it a read. there definitely may be some thing(s) i’m doing wrong and can improve on. i’m always more than ready to admit that. any healer who isn’t working on improving some aspect of there game… should roll a dpser. = P my guild is currently top 100 US (uprising- aerie peak), though, so i think i have a pretty good feel for where we are.
honestly the issue may be your other healers. 1 month ago i would have told you that you were doing something terribly wrong if you were getting outhealed by anyone. however, in the last few weeks we’ve gotten 3 straight up amazing healers: 1 drood, 1 priest, and 1 shaman. now there are a few rare fights (freya and thorim hard, are the only fights that comes to mind- oh, and razorscale… gogo FoLs) that i top meters. but generally they do such an awesome job in keeping up the raid that my HL bombs (which i cast if anyone is -6k health) aren’t needed unless the dmg is intense much. if i was brought in and told to raid heal (which i would assume would not include HLs on MT but rather simply beaconing him) i can promise you i wouldn’t have even half their effective healing on 75% of the encounters. are we better “raid healer” than we were in BC? sure. but we’re definitely not a real “raid healer” (nor do i think we need to be, especially at the expense of losing our MT healer status).
“Improve the efficiency (not mana efficiency but replace the overhealing with actual healing) or let paladins heal multiple targets at once and I think it would be hard to argue that any of the other classes could compete.”
It really hurts me to see this… as a Resto Druid, I don’t expect nor do I want to see our MT healer, a Pally, to HoT/AoE everyone (or even the tank) with his overhealing. Don’t turn them in to Druids or Priests, but by all means make their play style more fun (which should be the perpetual goal for every class). Our raids use a HP more or less every night and he’s an exceptional healer that nearly always ends with more healing done than everyone (total and on encounters). I know for a fact he doesn’t just heal the tank and that without his raid healing, our newer (including myself) healers would fail the raid in an incredible manner.
I think the question is: “How can mp5 become useful?”. I don’t like that this always derails into the old “one-button-healer”-discussion.
I think the ways it should be designed is that I am the healer that can fill up the huge missing parts of the tank’s health bar while still spreading the instant healing love around the raid. On the other hand I really want the priest or shaman to occasionally crit a heal on the tank for the armor buff or I’d like a couple of hots to smooth out the big hits.
For me it is already working like this. I can only assume I am in too trivial content and Ulduar hard modes need us to be one-button-spamming. If that’s the case by all means fix it. But fix it in a way that I can still heal like I do: Beacon on the tank and sniping heals all around.
HL spamming is something I only do when the boss enrages and I still have 90% mana.
After thinking a bit, I think if something needs to be changed its Divine Plea. It gives int too much weight and at the same time totally devalues mp5.
Furthermore int&crit are scaling while mp5 is not.
to add a suggestion:
1) Divine Plea can only be used out of combat. No healing penalty
2) change prot-talent “guarded by light” to trigger divine plea instead of refreshing it.
3) change illumination to refund X% of base cost plus mana equal to your mp5 value times Y (you do the tweaking please). X could also be 0.
How about us BG/Arena ppl…? If basechanges are happening the changes should be balanced in the current gear imho.
so the answer to making mp5 a more “useful” stat for us is give us more… /facepalm
More then a comment to leave I’m looking to get a bit of feedback on the 3.2 change. I currently am holy/ret 51/2/18 for 3.1, I used to be 53/0/18 since 3.0. I speced this way for the additional 8% crit from the ret tree. I’ve always been a crit based healer more than anything and top the healer meters due to my large crit %. I’m looking for your opinion on a few topics. First, with the reduction to illumination should I still be concerned with a large crit % or due to the low amount of mana illumination will now restore should I move to mp5 (dreading it if you say yes), or is critting still a more valid way of mana restore then mp5 on gear? i have about 38+% crit unbuffed and my holyspells raid buffed (boomkin aura + focus magic) is aprox 46% add on top of that all the talents in holy that increase crit on holy light and holy shock I crit quite frequently. Second what glyphs to run? for my major glyphs I use holy shock, holy light and seal of wisdom. I was thinking about dropping holy light since by the sound of it we wont be using it as much. I was never a spam holy light on the tank I try to make use of all my spells and abilities to their maximum; however with the change in beacon and overhealing transfered to the beacon target holy light still sounds valid - even more so then before. Third and finally, I used to gem intellect in yellow sockets, int and stam in blue, and one of 3 orange gems in red (either spell power and crit, spell power and hast or spell power and int depending) thinking about moving away from the spell power and haste since Ulduar gear has so much haste on it naturally. Just looking hopefull for a small bit of feedback on these topics as I haven’t found anything in your posts, however I could have missed them when browsing your site. Thanks again and well done on this site. This is the most informative site on holy paladins and you base your opinions on the math rather then personal attachment to a particular style. Well cone 5/5.
Its obvious that 3.2 is going to cause a lot of confusion. Gearing a Holy Paladin isn’t going to be straightforward anymore. Even playing a Holy Paladin isn’t going to be straightforward. I can’t say exactly what ratio of crit to Mp5 we’re going to need. But what seems obvious is that we are going to need more Mp5 and less crit than we have now. How much more is the big question though because obviously crit is still important as well.
I think the Glyph of Holy Light is still good, especially if you use it on melee dps or anytime people are grouped up. You might want to consider the Flash of Light glyph instead of the Holy Shock glyph though. We’ll definitely need to be using FoL more in 3.2.
I think your gemming strategy is still good for 3.2. It sounds like you have a good balance of various stats. Moving a litte more away from haste and crit is probably a good idea. You might actually want more spell power in 3.2 for stronger flash of lights.
after having played 3.2 for a couple of days i found that the same gear is doing the job just fine for me. Today we beat the new 10 man raids first boss (since we cant fight second boss yet, and i found myself still with beacon on mt spamming FoL on ot. With throwing my judgement of light every cool down, and using divine plea only after getting off of a HL spree. i was able to keep mana pretty efficiently thruout the whole fight (which if you havnt seen that fight is hella long.) My final opinion on the nerfs is that we werent hurt that bad i was able to crank out way more efficient heals and uped my HPS a little.
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