Paladins Raid Healing in Cataclysm?
Ghostcrawler made a couple posts today about healers and some of the things he would like to see for them in the future, presumably in Cataclysm.
More health, smaller damage and heals
First, he mentions that he’d like to go back to the earlier models from classic WOW and BC where healers had more time to coordinate with each other and let each other where there heals were going without just spamming their heals non-stop. He mentioned that this could be achieved by giving players more health and making heals more expensive, which is something he’s said before that they were planning to do in Cataclysm.
Raid healing paladins
Now, this is the important part. In a different thread, he got into more specifics about Holy Paladins. First, he says that paladins are the outliers of the healing team, because of how effective we are at bombing huge heals on two people at the same time. In the future, he wants paladins to move into a more raid healing role and not be as required in the group in order to make it through an encounter. A person should be able to choose any group of healers, as long as there’s a good variety of classes. He says that the fix for this isn’t to nerf paladins. There are two fixes. The first is to change the encounters by reducing damage so there aren’t as many huge constant swings, make heals cost more so there isn’t unlimited mana, and make heals less spammy with more coordination between the healing team. The second change is to make sure a paladin on raid heal duty doesn’t feel gimped.
Big changes for paladins?
So, it sounds like there are going two big changes to Holy Paladins in Cataclysm. The first is that we won’t be as overly powerful compared to other healers when it comes to single and double tank healing. The second big change is that Holy Paladins will be given tools to be able to raid heal effectively without feeling gimped. Sounds like huge changes to me!
While I recently made a post on the Flash of Light build for a Holy Paladin, right now paladins really are not true raid healers and really shine at our best when assigned to tank healing, especially on fights where two people are taking a ton of damage at the same time. It sounds like this may change in Cataclysm to make paladins more well-rounded healers. I don’t see Blizzard giving paladins the same heals that the other raid healers currently have. Instead, I see Blizzard coming up with something entirely new and interesting to add to our arsenal that will bring us in line with the other raid healers in a way we probably haven’t thought of at all.
Blizzard also posted a short answer about Holy Paladins during the twitter Q&A:
Q. Is there any info you can share on future plans for holy paladins?
A. I hear they need more healing spells.
Confirmation! Paladins get more healing spells in the next expansion!
What do you think? What kind of heals do you see paladins getting in Cataclysm?
Read on for the full quotes from Ghostcrawler:
“Now in general I wish there was a little more coordination among healers, but the current damage model we have just doesn’t really allow it. I remember when tanking Molten Core, that the priest would say over vent “Big heal coming on the OT!” as he powered up a Greater Heal. You don’t have that luxury these days. One of our designers was watching an old Illidan video recently and remarked how everyone was at 50% for so much of the fight. Now days someone is at 100%, will hit 100% in the next couple of GCDs, or will be dead. In that environment, you’d get “Big –” out of your mouth before it would be too late. Players need more health and heals have to be a little more expensive.”
“Yeah, as I said in another thread just now, I think the paladin is an outlier. It’s okay for healers to have things they are slightly better at or slightly worse at, but the paladin is too firmly cemented into the role of MT healer. We don’t want building a raid to be “Okay, grab a paladin and another healer.” It should be “Grab 2 healers, preferably different ones.” This doesn’t mean paladin nerfs are incoming, because some of the problem is the nature of healing right now (huge constant swings, unlimited mana, much spamming, little coordination), and the other half of that is making sure a paladin on raid heal duty didn’t feel gimped. “
I read this post as well, and gave it some thought. The idea I came up with was this:
New Healing Aura Spell:
This aura causes your Flash of Light spell to heal 4 additional players beyond the targeted player, but increases the cooldown of FoL to 6 seconds and increases its mana cost by %xyz.
Each crit could return 20% of the 30% base mana illumination returns. It would essentially be our version of CoH but we could turn it on and off depending on what we are doing. The aura could also be made a buff instead, but that felt a little too Beacon of Light-y.
I love this idea to make Consecration like Holy Shock, so if friendly’s are standing in it they get healed, while if baddies are in it they get damaged! But they would have to nerf us to the ground to give us something OP like that.
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On topic, I really enjoy the holy paladin role in a raid - we aren’t of much use keeping the raid up but the tanks don’t die as long as we are assigned to them, or shouldn’t really :d
In very specific encounters I wish we had somewhat more of an aoe heal rather than just the HL glyph but it has definitely not reached the point where I am willing to give up on our tank healing abilities in order to raid heal a little bit more.
Wish they keep things just like they are, each healing class has its strengths and in my opinion it should stay that way.
I have also had ideas in the past like vaillidan about making our consecrate have a healing aspect, that way we have an aoe heal that fits with our class idea. And since many of us stand with the melee, its perfect for giving melee heals. The other option is to add an aura mastery like ability that heals everyone in range of you, but that seems a little too powerful. As long as we don’t get nerfed I’m all for letting us have a bit more raid healing, I just hope its a new spell or change of a current non-healing spell since our list of heals is so small we need to add more not change what we have.
I just hope bringing back “classic” healing from MC days by increasing mana cost isn’t Healer Rotation (that is rotating healers so that they can regen mana) again.
Maybe I haven’t covered all the angles here, but I’ve always thought of making a talent (Holy, obviously) that turns FoL into a follow-up HoT, as if everyone had SS on them already. I figure, make it heal for 100% over 2 seconds? Or maybe 3? It would be a great addition to support our raid-healing, and the quick HoT still carries the “fast heal” feel.
I don’t think changing our current heals is a good answer as they all fill their set roles very well, which is why I said we need to either get a new spell, or change a current one like the consecration change vaillidan said above. Simply changing FoL for example just cuts out our small efficient heal leaving us with holy shock and holy light to heal tank/single target with.
I personally do not like the healing revamp they are planning for Cataclysm. Having to coordinate healing abilities with other healers also adds more stress to the under appreciated healing job… At this point in time in wotlk I am facing massive healer burnout and some other healers in my guild will agree.
On GC’s quote, “Grab 2 healers, preferably different ones.” I have to thumb my nose at this one. If that situation were in Cataclysm I can guarantee Paladins won’t be the top consideration on who to bring to such raid. Resto druid’s and holy priests have held such high respect as great healers. Until Wotlk, Paladin healing wasn’t highly regarded. Wotlk gave holy paladin’s their time to shine (disc priests too!)and shine we did (as per World of Logs; healing parses for the majority of the fights Hpaladins’ have the highest EHPS.
I will see how the changes pan out, but in all likelyhood I will not be playing a holy paladin come Cata.
Well I like paladin healing I used to run a priest healer but gave it up and rolled my current paladin. I hope that we do not get our current spells changed, a new healing spell would be the correct thing to do (and reading that post it looks like that will be the road that blizz takes).
As for more cooperation between healers? What if everyone doesnt have vent? Or your headset broke today? Are you to be excluded just because you dont have Vent? Maybe that guy or blizz has stock in vent and he wants to bump its value?
Make paladins a more all around healer ok that is a plus but dont tkae away what we are good at.
Well an importent factor to remember here is that INT and SP becomes one in Cataclysm. That means that everybody is going to have manapools the size of HL paladins, while HL paladins won’t see that big a change. This means that the cost of all spells in general is going way up and even with full stacked INT you won’t be able to spam HL(as much as you did in WOTLK that is). Not only does this mean that the HL “build” goes away. So does the FOL “build”. What is left is a Half-HL/Half-FOL build that requires use of both spells. Which spell that is going to be most dominant, i don’t know, but one thing is sure. It is going to take more skill to master than either of the 2 old buils.
Int and SP become 1 in Cataclysm? Is this true? If so this will change the game alot?
Spell power will still exist in Cataclysm, but not on gear. All your spellpower will come from Intellect. So, yeah, I think Sumadin summed it up very well.
Ok consider me pissed off!!! I play a holy/prot pally on khadgar, and why in the hell would i want to be moved into a more raid healing role!!!I enjoy the fact that i can do something that other healing classes for the most part cant(ive seen some other classes tank heal dont get me wrong)My healing partner is a druid and between her and i we rock it hard and keep our raid up and know our rolls and compliment each other very very well so why change whats not broke!!! If your playing a holy pally and want to be a raid healer then roll up a droooood for christ sakes. and leave us alone plz .
Ive also read on other forums about mana regen problems on holy pallys well i think your playing your toon wrong. For the most part i end fights with beter then half of my 35k mana pool. Maybe its because i took the time to get a small arena rating and picked up the flash of light libram mmmm something that wasn’t hard to do and now im no so dependent on holy light as some other pallys are thats only there for post big hits.
Maybe i should see abut making a website on how to heal in ICC if notice there is alot of time where one of the tanks is not taking any damage so there is your opportunity to beacon the targeted tank sacred shield them pop your flash to create your hot then help raid heal until its time for the tanks to swap then set everything up for the other tank and go back to helping your raid healer out. Also you can pop sacred shield on a target then flash to create your hot then move to the next player and do the same ive had as many as 6 hots rolling at one time so instead of changing the class ppl just need to get more creative with there playing.
Sure ill get yelled at by many for this post if its allowed to stay up but ohhh well i love my pally and everything he can do and do not want to see him changed.
You can find me on khadgar my name is kappy look me up
laterz
Let’s just see what Blizzard decide before saying we like/dislike it.
So bring the player to the raid rather than the class is the idea for the changes. I see this as good and bad.
I currently like the fact that each class isn’t versatile. Can we really get 10 paladins in a 10m raid and now be successful? bring the player not the class….
So in Cata - bad players won’t see content and won’t get picked for groups.
Those poor bad players, no more being carried through content. Like i used to not mind carrying a shaman in raid if we had none for heroism. or carrying a boomkin for their aura etc..
They benefit the rest of the raid so everyone else does more dmg/healing. Even if they are a poor player, they still support everyone else.
I’m also not sure about the new idea of reactive healing instead of spamming heals the entire fight. I’ll have to wait and see what it’s like before I can comment.
A few questions come to mind regarding cata:
1. Will there still be a division into FoL healers and HL healers, or is it going to get all “mixed up” with the addition of the new spells
2. How mana efficient is “healing hands” is it meant to be kept up at all times or just for special cases
3. Will there finally be a proper non pvp libram for FoL healers
4. They say FuL will be less mana efficient but who much so
Current Spells:
1. Holy Light - 6% mana (Cata) versus 29% (LK)
2. Flash of Light - 27% mana (Cata) versus 7% (LK)
3. Holy Shock - 8% mana (Cata) versus 18% (LK)
New Spells:
1. Light of Dawn (healing spell in a cone effect) - 21% mana
2. Divine Light - 30% mana, same casting time than Holy Light
3. Healing Hands (aoe healing spell) - 40%
4. Word of Glory - Consume Holy Power gain through Holy Shock System
Healing hands should be saved for fight with raid damage like Queen in ICC.
Spamming Holy Light through out the fight instead of FoL. Notice that holy light is less expensive than FoL in LK (6% versus 7%)
Cast Holy Shock whenever it’s up. You need the Holy Power to increase your healing, to use Word of Glory and because some talents increase the effect of HS and give some nice bonus to other spell.
Light of Dawn - OP spell when you need to heal melee group in front of you (including tank).
Résumé: right now, you spam FoL and HL at high pick dmg. In cataclysm, replace the FoL by HL and HL by Divine Light.
Flash of Light, a fast spell to be used when HShock is down.
AND…PALLY WILL REMAIN OP!
PS: SORRY FOR MY BAD ENGLISH!
I love being a tank healer. An additional AoE heal would be beneficial for sketchy fights, but I currently have no problem spamming HL and Shocking an unlucky DPS for the (hopefully) instant FoL for my SS target. I like the idea of having a raid healer and a tank healer; obviously raids are viable as is with two healing classes that are non-pally because people do it. As a pally, I’m highly sought-after. I don’t want this to go away. I enjoy being valuable. Not to mention I’ve worked hard perfecting my build, glyph choices, and mana efficiency.
However, an upside I see to this is that 10m raids with two pally healers will ALSO a viable option in Cata. Before, unless your pallys had mad haste, having only pally heals would have been severely inadequate. There’s a downside to this, too: now I have to share my caster plate drops. What’s wrong with being the only person in a raid that can use something for MS?
I used paladin heals for a long time and I was very satisfy with it.
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