Holy Nerf Batman!Follow

/cry

Infusion of Light = seems worthless now. If you cast Divine Favor/Holy Shock to proc this. Then, cast a Holy Light. So you get a non-crit Holy Light and auto-crit Holy Shock in 2.5 seconds. Or, you could just cast Divine Favor/Holy Light and get an auto-crit Holy Light in the same amount of time - which heals for more, and you get more mana back. hmmmm...

Divine Plea = worthless to Holy now, which is interesting since it is in the Holy tree. Why would I want to stop healing for 15 seconds? hmmmmmmm...

Please - someone tell me that I'm interpreting this wrong. Please please please.

Edited, Oct 1st 2008 8:31am by YJMark

That makes sense. But then what is the point of the spell? If it's going to be made pretty much useless, then why bother having it at all? I really can't see it ever being used in any situation at all. What would be cool is if they made it a Holy Talent, and removed the healing debuff. Put it deep into the Holy tree so that Ret won't take it. Problem solved :)

I really hate QQing, but I was really looking forward to the few new abilities for Holy. Infusion of Light was going to be fun to try a play with. Now, it seems more like a talent to skip :(

Agh - I'm probably just over-reacting.

i don't think its this at all... have you seen how much extra int we're getting at 80? if we gear like we're supposed to we won't have any. so base mana = max mana for ret. this is completely and totally a holy mana efficiency nerf. if any holy wanted to take JotW to have unlimited mana he still can, but rather than 20% of 15k (3000 mana) every 8 seconds for about 1875 mp5 they now only get 33% base mana (i'll check but i think its about 6k) for about 2000 mana or 1250 mp5. a ret pally putting on healing gear will feel this i suppose but otherwise ret got buffed and the nerfs were definitely directed at holy. with the Divine Plea nerf making it useless for holy, holy will be more than ever driven to JotW in ret which is now less useful than ever for holy (still nice... just less useful than before).

just to help visualize why this isn't a ret nerf, before we'd have gotten 20% of 6k for 1.2k mana or 750 mp5 roughly. now its up to what i said for holy now - 1250mp5 equivelant. thats a 60% mp5 increase for ret. this is huge. i couldn't run out of mana before. now i can consecrate 100% and still not run out of mana. it definitely is cementing my decision to level my second 70 (ret pally) first and maybe possibly eventually get around to leveling my "holy" pally who will end up more a healing/dps hybrid than a real healer...

my biggest concern is that now a holy pally will likely be able to bring all the utility that ret was supposed to have. this proably won't be a problem, but if ret dps gets balanced any lower this will render ret pointless again. i don't think this will be the case, but it is a remote possibility made concerning only because of ret history.

so, i thought aout this some more and i honestly think this makes life a little easier for me. i will still level my ret first, but my currently holy paly will be second instead of my hunter. when he hits 80 though he will definitely be prot not ret. despite the evidence pointing to pallies being inferior tanks in everything except for threat generation, the new prot pally seems full of fun in my opinion. he''ll liely never be holy again.

my ret pally on the other hand, will be my new healer as needed. ret has better tools for healing than holy in my opinion.... no mana problems. Sol HoTs. AoW instant FoL's. more bonus SP (not needing BoW means i'll use imp BoM so i'll have min 1k AP which SoL converts to 300 bonus healing; it would take 1500 intellect to equal that).

in the end ret pallies are almost exactly what i was hoping for when i rolled my holy pally 3 1/2 years ago... a holy warrior divinely inspired to destroy evil and keep his allies alive and well... ret and prot both fit this description perfectly to me. holy feels divinely forgotten.

as a christian the analogy that comes to mind is Elijah vs the Prophets of Baal. Holy feels like the prophets of Baal who plead and cut themselves and did everything they could possibly do to get the attention of their God and got not even a spark of fire from heaven. Ret feels like Elijah who had recently been completely unknown as a farmer an just started being known before this but clearly was granted divine powers since as soon as it was his turn it took nothing but a simple prayer to get his answer of fire from heaven. sorry for the out there analog, but it was so clear in my mind i had to say it lol.

either way at 70 i will have 2 pallies both of whom will be fun. Muralimohan will be my tank. Camila will be my ret specc'd DPS/healer depending on whats needed. it will certainly save me a lot of respecc'ing.

yep, i just read that. it honestly doesn't change my mind about spec althought it did make me very happy for when i'm ret healing... lol.

Ghostcrawler's response to that one was surprising to say the least, since she normally approaches the community pretty directly and (so it seems) honestly, with a nice touch of humor. I'm thinking the pressure of having to get this thing done in the next few weeks combined with the non-stop uproar from the entire WoW community (as apparently noone was really happy with that last build) got to her. I wonder if she got a slap from the higher-ups, and if she will scale back her involvement on the boards as a result of this.

yeah the responses when they come on the o-board seem to have gone from rare but positive and informative to lately they're more common and just telling people basically to l2play and shut up cause blizz plays pallies and knows better than the unified pally community what the state of holy (and prot) is and apparently they're fine. mabe even OP. it is a tad odd. if prot didn't seem so much more fun than before (even if a little unpowered compared to all 3 other classes) and ret amazingly better than before i would likely be mad at them. instead i am just confused how they can make prot more fun, fix Ret so brilliantly and then nerf the spec that was already least fun to the point where if you see holy pallies the way the spec is going now you'll take a screen shot for the rare find and then boot them from your group to find a real healer... its just confusing. i love blizz right now for the new Ret pally, but i can't help see how blatantly they've screwed our holy brothers. hopefully though the change to divine plea is a start towards reversing this trend. with the blue posts lately saying how they know better and holy is fine and maybe too strong i'm not holding my breath. we have 2 weeks though before the patch to make final decisions on our opinion.

hmm, honestly normally i'd say you're right. however, here's something to ponder.... look at how many pages of civil, helpful, even thrilled-to-be-asked posts you have in the thread BLIZZ STARTED to get holy pally feedback. then look at the following patches with holy changes. healing specs went further into ret and less into holy with each patch. a slap on the face to the civil posters? why? and then comes the last patch with one too many hits below the belt to holy pallies and finally holy pally outrage is unanimous and aggressive and very very far from being civil... almost immediately comes a post from GC saying they'll un-nerf DP and even make it better than before the nerf. after this comes someone still frustrated and he makes a well thought out post with numbers and statistics and links and yes, a little bit of frustration that his spec of choice has been so mis-treated in his eyes and GC has the nerve to tell him they only listen to civil feedback? honestly, i prefer being helpful. i think on here i have very rarely "helped" anyone by being mean to them. however, blizz has set the example for how to get through to them. being nice does nothing. uniting in outrage gets things changed. if blizz wanted nicer posters they should have set a different example.

sad, yes :'( but you can only be nice for so long when you're being constantly slapped around. i'm done with holy i think. i'll have a prot pally and a ret DPS/off-healing pally. but, i'd love to see my holy pally brothers getting some blizz love.

personally, it'd be nice to see 51/x/x be fully desired, while keeping a x/0/40+ healing spec still be viable, similat to how disc can dps and can be a valid healing spec depending on the situation. having 4 viable specs could be like the druid, except 2 slightly different healing specs, a tank spec and a dps spec, rather than melee/caster dps specs and a tank spec and a healing spec. that would make more variety in playing a pally and add fun to pally healing imo.

only time will tell at this point though.

and i hate that fact :( i really really wish blizz could have set some example of listening to the polite posts of the past... i guess those are easier to ignore than unified attacks though :( realizing you'll lose an entire spec from the game and potentially a good number of paying accounts should not need to be the factor that changes dev's minds.

You do have a big point there. I never read all the posts and it has been a while since I played, let alone any real holy work. I do agree with the masses, pallies in general have needed alot of work, ret got there fix, hopefully holy gets put back to being fun for all you guys. I would really enjoy seeing you all out there.

very true. however, spec holy in the current beta build and see if my ret pally with the same gear doesn't heal better and for longer.

honestly as much as we'll be crit'ing i think the HoT from SoL will be very common and the instant FoL was available on most of my judgements on the test dummy testing i was doing for the seals. this was very handy for SoB tests cause i never had to stop to cast a heal. right now mana is going to be one of the biggest problems for holy imo and JotW answers that. also the SP from SoL will be huge since we'll be using BoM instead of BoW as a ret healer.

divine favor is nice, but its a long cooldown and i rarely rely on it anyway. i wouldn't miss it not specc'ing into it.

sancrified light and holy power are ok. kinda would miss the crit i suppose.

holy shock is nice for sure. especially with increased healing now and only a 6 second CD.

holy guidance is trash compared to SoL now.i've done the math, but including BoM a pally with no STR or AP on his gear wil easily have over 1k AP. Just assuming 1k though you'd get 300 SP from SoL which would take 1500 INT to get from Holy Guiance.

lights grace is a great concept, but except for a very few fights i don't spam HL quite enough for it to useful, especially since it means 25% faster mana useage. SoL will make your crits up to 60% bigger becauseof the HoT w/o costing more.

BoL i'm still up in the air about. as much as i am unimpressed with holy right now i do want to give this a fair test before writing it off.

all in all, JotW nearly endless mana, SoL's HoT, SoL's AP to SP conversion, and AoW's instant FoL's are, as a package, in my opinion all better for healing than what holy has in its package. and honestly my spec wouldn't be 51 points in ret anyway. DS won't be needed for healing since you won't have time to use it or a weapon to take advantage of it fully. i'll play around and get a possible deep ret healing spec for you and post it so you know what i'm looking at for spec.

ok, here's what's likely to be my spec for healing if i really chose to have a toon spec to heal.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sxA0xhzhcZZVfbxoIzcrsr0h

the important talents are:
Benediction - 10% mana cost reduction on seals, judgements, blessings, hand spells, etc.
Improved Judgement - 20% more opportunities to get mana back from judgements = up to 20% more mana
Improved Blessing of Might - 25% better BoM = even more Spellpower
Conviction - 5% crit to heals
Sanctified Seals - 3% crit to heals
Judgements of the Wise - Replenishment and instant mana return
Art of War - 20% more Judgement Crit and an instant cast FoL when it does crit
Fanaticism - i have 10% judgement crit chance and 12% less threat. you might be able to find a way to get more (maybe not taking Sanctified Wrath)
Sanctified Wrath - 2 min CD on Avenging Wrath which boosts healing by 20%
Sheath of Light - 30% of AP -> SP; HoT on crit heals

Spiritual Focus - 70% less chance to lost healing time
Healing Light - 12% more healing
Divine Intellect - 15% more Int helps with mana regen from replenishment
Illumination - Mana return on crit heals (get the pic that crit heals will be huge for this spec...)
*Divine Favor - eh, use it if you like it
*Sanctified Light - 6% crit on Holy Light
*3/5 Holy Power - 3% crit on all heals

what do you miss out on?
2/5 Holy Power - 2% crit on all heals
Holy Shock - nice heal :)
Infusion of Light - trash now
Holy Guidance - less spellpower than SoL
Lights Grace - .5 secs off HL after first HL
Judgements of the Pure - 10% haste
Beacon of Light - possibly useful healing tool

you lose compared to 53/0/18 spec:
2% crit
Extra Heal (biggest thing you missing IMO)
.5 sec faster HL
10% haste
Extra tool (maybe/maybe not useful)

you gain compared to 53/0/18 spec:
Sheath of Light
Sanctified Wrath
2/5 Fanaticism
Judgements of the Wise
Art of War

this adds up to:
30% judgement crit chance
12% less threat
extra bonus SP that will scale faster w/ raid buffs than Holy Guidance
a HoT on crit Heals
33% more Avenging Wrath
Replenishment
Big Instant mana returns every 8 Secs
Instant cast FoL's after more than 50% of your Judgements - take time out to judge for mana return, but next FoL is instant cast to help you catch up faster after the Judge GCD

all in all, i personally think my 28/0/43 will perform better. i'll do some testing though on both of these (admittedly test dummies aren't good targets for BoL when i test that and i won't see any HoT ticks on a Test Dummy, so forgive any possible errors i might make calculating these into my test results when i do this.