Patch 5.4 PTR's Level 45 Talents for Holy Paladins

The Changes:
Blizzard recently updated the Public Test Realm patch notes for World of Warcraft's 5.4 patch, which includes significant changes to the level 45 talent tier for Paladins. The relevant patch notes are as follows:

Talents

• Eternal Flame's initial healing has been reduced by 30%. 

• Sacred Shield (Old) has been renamed to Holy Shield and is no longer a talent. Holy Shield is a Protection Paladin ability learned at level 85. 

• Sacred Shield (New)
• Holy: When the Paladin or their Beacon of Light target falls below 30% health, that target gains a Sacred Shield absorbing damage equal to 30% of their maximum health. Sacred Shield can only occur once every 2 minutes. 

• Protection, Retribution: When the Paladin falls below 30% health, they gain a Sacred Shield absorbing damage equal to 30% of their maximum health. Sacred Shield can only occur once every 2 minutes. 

• Selfless Healer stacks now also work on Divine Light in addition to Flash of Light.
• Bastion of Glory will now apply Selfless Healer's bonus to healing to the casting Paladin as well as other targets and consume all stacks of Bastion of Glory in the process.

Holy

• Mastery: Illuminated Healing no longer activates from periodic healing effects.

Don't panic, though! Community Manager Rygarius clarified some of the changes and the intentions behind them in this forum post. I'm not going to go over everything, but here are the salient points:

• Selfless Healer was intended to be a viable option for Holy Paladins who happen to enjoy a playstyle that involves frequent usage of Judgment. Blizzard recognizes that not everybody enjoys this playstyle, so it's not meant to be an attractive talent for everybody.
• Eternal Flame was used far too frequently by Holy Paladins, so Blizzard is trying to figure out how to nerf it so Selfless Healer and Sacred Shield become viable choices. The 30% nerf to Eternal Flame's initial heal will probably be reverted, but the change to make it no longer stack Holy's Illuminated Healing mastery is here to stay.
• Sacred Shield's changes listed above are all pretty much going to be scrapped, because it buffs Protection too much and because the new Sacred Shield is unattractive for Holy and Retribution. Blizzard is looking for a way to make the currently existing talent more attractive to Holy and Retribution, but they haven't decided what exactly to do quite yet.

That means the level 45 talent changes for Holy Paladins at the moment amount to the much more easily manageable:

Talents

• Selfless Healer stacks now also work on Divine Light in addition to Flash of Light.

Holy

• Mastery: Illuminated Healing no longer activates from periodic healing effects.

My Thoughts:
I am actually somewhat intrigued by the Selfless Healer changes. At level 90 and with 26,000 spellpower (roughly normal tier 15-geared), a 3-stack of Selfless Healer grants you the approximate healing power of a Divine Light plus a Holy Light for the mana cost of a Holy Light and 4 nonconsecutive global cooldowns. The big question I have, though, is how does it interact with Infusion of Light procs? If the instant Divine Light consumes the proc, then it loses much of its appeal, but if it leaves the proc untouched (or better yet, allows the instant Divine Light to bypass triggering the global cooldown in exchange for consuming the proc), then it might be worthwhile to give this talent a second look.

However, Selfless Healer still has one fundamental flaw: Judgment just isn't really a Holy spell. Protection and Retribution both have effects that make it something worth casting relatively frequently, but Holy has no real reason to cast it except for this talent. Without some additional base effect for Holy, spending global cooldowns on Judgment will always be seen as a detriment, and I think Selfless Healer will remain unpopular.

As for Eternal Flame and Sacred Shield, the former's HoT ticks refreshing the Illuminated Healing mastery is a blatantly overpowered mechanic, and so many Holy Paladins choose this talent that I can see why Blizzard wants to tone it down, however the biggest reason why I chose Eternal Flame over Sacred Shield (even though I had tried Sacred Shield first and prefer it conceptually over Eternal Flame) is that Eternal Flame benefits from haste, critical strike, mastery, and transfers over Beacon of Light, whereas Sacred Shield only benefits from haste. Unless Blizzard allows Sacred Shield to benefit from Holy's strengths as well as Eternal Flame does, I'm not sure it will ever be as attractive.

Mists of Pandaria and the Possible Return of the Shockadin

Thus far in the Mists of Pandaria beta I haven't really done much of anything. Most of my "adventures", if they can even be called that, have involved running around Stormwind City and experimenting with the various spells, talents, and glyphs available in the beta thus far. However, one of the things that I have been noticing—and getting increasingly excited about—is that a preliminary look at what's available seems to suggest that the Shockadin may be making a return soon. The evidence for such is still slim, but ultimately it comes down to two particular glyphs:

• Glyph of Holy Shock: Holy Shock, as you may know, is one of the signature abilities of the Holy specialization, and is the reason why the Shockadin is named such. While it isn't a particularly powerful damage-dealing ability initially, the glyph halves its healing potential in exchange for doubling its damage-dealing capability. Considering how central Holy Shock's damage is to the entire concept of the Shockadin itself, this glyph is essentially what makes the Shockadin potentially viable.

• Glyph of Denounce: Denounce is a new Holy-only ability learned at level 20 that basically acts as our spammable ranged nuke. It's incredibly cheap, and has the added benefit of preventing its target from being able to deal critical strikes for 4 seconds after being hit. When glyphed, Denounce also gives the Paladin a 6-second buff that increases Holy damage by 20%—and virtually all damage a Shockadin deals is Holy damage, which makes this glyph a significant boost in DPS.

While the two above glyphs essentially act as the heart of the beta Shockadin, there are some additional factors to be considered

• Sacred Shield is one of our level 45 talent choices. It provides a 30 second buff on a single target that occasionally acts as a damage shield, but also increases the critical effect chance of Word of Glory by 30%. While this may not seem like that big of a deal, the lack of a Holy Power cost (unlike its alternative, Eternal Flame) and the buff to Word of Glory allows the latter become the go-to Holy Power dump. Since Holy Paladins have no way to spend Holy Power for offense, Word of Glory becomes the next best thing thanks to the Glyph of Word of Glory.

• Glyph of Word of Glory: This glyph causes Word of Glory casts, regardless of target, to also grant the casting Paladin 10% additional damage for 6 seconds. While this buff shouldn't make Word of Glory a rotational ability, since the damage boost won't make up for the lost global cooldown, it does at least mean that casting Word of Glory is slightly less of a damage loss than either Light of Dawn or Eternal Flame, which are the only other Holy Power-consuming abilities available to the Shockadin. Plus, combined with the Sacred Shield talent, Word of Glory will likely be significantly more potent for self-healing than the alternatives, as well.

• Sanctified Wrath is one of our level 75 talent choices, and allows Holy Shock to be cast without cooldown whenever Avenging Wrath is active—and that's in addition to the 20% increased damage from Avenging Wrath itself. Considering Holy Shock is the hardest hitting ability in the Paladin arsenal, and that Holy Power is significantly less useful for a Shockadin due to the fact that it cannot be used for dealing damage, Sanctified Wrath is really the only choice amongst the level 75 talents that makes any sense.

I'll probably be experimenting more with the Shockadin as I get more time for the beta test, but from basic target dummy tests it doesn't seem like it will fare too badly. It almost certainly won't be up to Retribution's standards, but given it's high potential for healing in a pinch, I think the trade-off may be worth it. At the very least, it seems like it could be an effective Holy leveling/PvP spec, if nothing else.

Brief First Impressions of the Mists of Pandaria Beta

Note: WoWhead linking isn't really playing all that nicely with the beta data. The tooltips appear to be the live version of abilities, but clicking them will take you to the Mists of Pandaria equivalents, so be sure to click through to see the beta tooltips.

I finally managed to set aside some time to check out the Mists of Pandaria beta last night and answer some questions on PlusHeal, and here were some of my first impressions from running around Stormwind and messing around with target dummies:

• Holy Radiance no longer has a HoT portion. Additionally, it's splash healing has been reduced to 50% of the healing done to the primary target, but the splashes can crit independently (thus healing for the same amount as the primary target), and it all triggers our Illuminated Healing mastery. Yes, the Illuminated Healing shield is triggered on the splashed targets, too.

• Light of Dawn no longer has a facing requirement: it now heals the most injured targets in a full 360° circle (sphere?) around the Paladin rather than a frontal cone. This seems to make the Glyph of Light of Dawn a little less valuable, even in 10-man raids, though it may become more useful for Scenarios or Arenas. It still only extends 30 yards, though, which seems a bit inconvenient considering all of our other heals are 40 yards. Also, the animation looks a bit stupid, since the healing cone now erupts straight upwards from the top of our heads.

• Mana is normalized to 102,000 mana for a level 85 Holy Paladin, regardless of gear.

• Haste is less potent. The rating now converts to a smaller haste percentage than before, plus we no longer have the 9% haste from Judgments of the Pure or the potential haste rating from our relic slot, so heals feel somewhat sluggish. My normally 1.94 sec Holy Light was suddenly taking 2.19 sec to cast, which is enough to be noticeable.

• Crit rating is also converting into a smaller percentage, but as I didn't gear crit for PvE, I'm not sure how noticeable it is.

• Spirit converts very nicely at level 85, with 1 Spirit equaling 1 mana regenerated every 5 seconds while in combat (at least, according to the tooltips). I wonder if this is consistent throughout all levels, or if the ratios change like the various stats that use ratings.

• Crusader Strike is dirt cheap at 600 mana, and might be a decent way to build up Holy Power when in melee range. In comparison, Holy Shock costs 2800 mana. It does almost no damage, though, since Crusader Strike is based on weapon damage and Holy weapons sacrifice weapon damage for spell power. Also, Sanctity of Battle seems to apply to Holy, too, (though this might be the result of a character copy error) which means Crusader Strike is available fairly frequently - roughly one in every 3 GCDs with my gear.

• Holy Shock now has a spiffy new icon. So does Turn Evil.

• Denounce (formerly Holy Wrath, though closer in current implementation to Exorcism since it seems to no longer have an AoE component) is also really cheap at 1880 mana, and does about as much damage as Holy Shock. Also, it has a new graphic.

• Between Glyph of Denounce, Glyph of Holy Shock, and Glyph of Word of Glory, I'm cautiously optimistic that the Shockadin might make something of a comeback. Unfortunately, though, it's damage output doesn't seem very viable currently.

• I miss Daybreak. Not having any mechanic that allows back-to-back Holy Shock casts makes me sad.

• My action bars feel very empty. Very empty, indeed.

Updated Feb 15th: Preliminary Paladin Ability Changes in Mists of Pandaria

Back before last Thanksgiving, I posted a list of Preliminary Paladin Ability Changes in Mists of Pandaria based on the Official Talent Calculator preview. Well, said calculator was updated just today, so let's go back and look at the changes once again to see how things compare. The changes listed herein are in comparison to the current 4.3.2 live game, and many are simply copied over from my previous post on the matter with details unchanged or only slightly tweaked. Note that for the most part, I will not be taking changes to mana costs into consideration unless the change fundamentally affects the purpose or usage of ability (such as turning a cooldown-limited ability into a spammable mana-limited one) because these numbers appear to still be very much in flux.

Level 1:

• Parry (Passive) was conspicuously absent in the previous update, but has now returned and is at level 1 rather than level 10.
• Armor Skills (Passive) remains relatively unchanged. It just removes the reference to training, since classes will automatically learn abilities rather than having to train them.
• Weapon Skills (Passive) is unchanged.
• Crusader Strike deals 100% weapon damage (down from 135%). The new version makes no mention of generating Holy Power, but this is likely an oversight considering the changes to Hammer of the Righteous.

Level 3:

• Seal of Command: a new single-target damage-dealing seal. "Fills the Paladin with Holy Light, causing melee attacks to deal 9 additional Holy damage." Seal of Righteousness is being moved to level 42 and having the AoE component from the Seals of Command talent built in.
• Judgement is being moved to level 5.

Level 5:

• Judgement is being moved here from level 3 and given a 30 yard base range (up from 10 yards) and 6 sec base cooldown (down from 8 sec).
• Devotion Aura is effectively being removed. There is a new Holy specialization ability with the same name at level 60, but the effect is completely different.

Level 7:

• Hammer of Justice is being moved here from level 14, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Holy Light is being changed to a level 33 Holy specialization ability.

Level 9:

• Word of Glory appears to be having the base cooldown changed to 1.5 sec for all Paladins (down from 20 sec for Protection and Retribution, and up from the potential 1 sec minimum global cooldown for Holy Paladins).

Level 10:

• (Holy) Holy Shock remains as-is, though the new calculator seems to imply it now has a full 40 yard range for hostile targets. Not sure if this is an intended change or oversight/tooltip limitation, but considering the change from the previous public talent iteration, it might be intentional.
• (Holy) Walk in the Light is gone.
• (Holy) Holy Insight (Passive) increases your mana pool by 400%. This is likely to compensate for the removal of Intellect's ability to increase maximum mana.
• (Holy) Meditation is back! [See previous post on the topic.]

• (Protection) Avenger's Shield has its cooldown reduced to 9 sec (down from 15 sec).
• (Protection) Touched by the Light renamed to Guarded by the Light.
• (Protection) Guarded by the Light (Passive) is renamed from Touched by the Light, and has only a slim relation to the current Guarded by the Light talent. Compared to Touched by the Light it still increases total stamina by 15%, and increases spell power by an amount equal to 100% of your Strength (up from 60%), but now also reduces your chance to be critically hit by melee attacks by 6%, grants 5% of maximum mana every 2 sec, and removes Word of Glory from the global cooldown (the sole influence of the Guarded by the Light talent). It no longer seems to increase spell hit.
• (Protection) Vengeance seems to be unchanged (though it will probably follow 4.3 mechanics).
• (Protection) Judgements of the Wise is being moved to level 28.

• (Retribution) Templar's Verdict appears to require 3 Holy Power to use, and deals 165% weapon damage (up from 90% with 3 Holy Power currently).
• (Retribution) Sheath of Light renamed to Sword of Light.
• (Retribution) Sword of Light (Passive) is renamed from Sheath of Light and some effects have been changed. It now increases spell power by an amount equal to 100% of your Strength (up from 30% of attack power), no longer increases your chance to hit with spells by 8%, but instead increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 25% and grants 5% of maximum mana every 2 sec.
• (Retribution) Judgements of the Bold is being moved to level 28.

Level 12:

• Righteous Fury is unchanged.
• Redemption is being moved to level 13.

Level 13:

• Redemption is being moved here from level 12, and is mostly unchanged from the 4.3 version which increases the range to 40 yards. There's also a fairly hefty mana cost increase to 75% base mana (up from 64%).

Level 14:

• Flash of Light is being moved here from level 16, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Hammer of Justice is being moved to level 7.
• Hand of Reckoning is being moved to level 15 and renamed Reckoning.

Level 15:

• Reckoning is being moved here from level 14, and is being renamed from Hand of Reckoning.

Level 16:

• Lay on Hands is unchanged.
• Flash of Light is being moved to level 14.

Level 18:

• Divine Shield is being moved here from level 48, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Exorcism is being changed to a Retribution specialization ability at level 46.
• Hand of Protection is being moved to level 48.

Level 20:

• No mention is made of the summon mount abilities for Paladins. Not sure if they're being removed or just not mentioned in the new talent calculator.

• (Holy) Holy Wrath is being moved here from level 28 and is now a Holy specialization ability. It only costs 9% of base mana (down from 20%), has no cooldown (down from 15 sec cooldown), takes 1.5 sec to cast (up from instant), and no longer stuns demons and undead, but instead "prevents targets from causing critical effects for the next 6 sec." Additionally, the ability is now centered on an enemy target rather than on the player, and has a 30 yard cast range.

• (Protection) Hammer of the Righteous is moved here from the Protection tier 3 talent position. Damage reduced to 20% weapon damage (down from 30%). Additionally, it now also places a Weakened Blows effect on all affected targets, which reduces their physical damage dealt by 10% for 30 sec. Weakened Blows is likely a debuff applied by multiple classes (similar to the Replenishment buff).

• (Retribution) Also gains the above Hammer of the Righteous ability.

Level 22:

• Supplication (Passive) [see previous post on the topic] has been moved to level 33 and is now a Retribution specialization ability.
• Blessing of Kings is being moved to level 30.

Level 24:

• Consecration is being changed to a Protection specialization ability at level 33.
• Seal of Truth is being moved here from level 44. It now replaces Seal of Command (from level 3), and causes melee attacks (changed from single-target attacks) to deal 10% Holy weapon damage in addition to applying Censure.

Level 26:

• Retribution Aura is being removed, as are all current Paladin Auras. =(
• Divine Protection is being moved here from level 30, and is having the Glyph of Divine Protection effect folded in. It now provides no physical damage reduction (down from base 20%) and instead provides 40% magical damage reduction (up from base 20%).

Level 28:

• Holy Wrath is being changed to a level 20 Holy specialization ability.

• (Holy) Judgements of the Pure (Passive) is being moved here from the Holy tier 1 talent position. It no longer increases haste, but retains the 4.3 function of increasing mana regeneration from Spirit. It now states "Your Judgement increases your mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by 30% for 1 min".

• (Protection) Judgements of the Wise (Passive) is being moved here from the level 10 Protection specialization. It no longer grants mana, but instead states "Your Judgement hits grant one charge of Holy Power".

• (Retribution)  Judgements of the Bold (Passive) is being moved here from the level 10 Retribution specialization. It no longer grants mana, but instead states "Your Judgement hits grant one charge of Holy Power and cause the Physical Vulnerability effect." Physical Vulnerability appears to be a new debuff which increases the physical damage taken by the target by 4% for 30 sec, and is likely a debuff applied by multiple classes (similar to the Weakened Blows debuff above and the current Replenishment buff).

Level 30:

• Divine Protection is being moved to level 26.
• Blessing of Kings moved here from level 22, but is otherwise unchanged.

Level 32:

• Seal of Insight is no longer being moved to level 33 [see previous post on the topic]. The Glyph of Seal of Insight is being built in, so the seal now improves healing by 5% innately. Additionally, the seal now mentions "melee attacks" rather than "single-target attacks".

Level 33:

• (Holy) Holy Light is being moved here from level 7 and is now a Holy specialization ability with a 2.5 sec cast time (down from 3.0 sec).

• (Protection) Consecration is being moved here from level 24 and is now a Protection specialization ability with a 9 sec cooldown (down from 30 sec).

• (Retribution) Supplication (Passive) is a new passive class ability with an effect similar to the last part of Crusade. "For 15 sec after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor, your next Flash of Light heals for an additional 300%".

Level 34:

• Cleanse now removes all Poison and Disease effects (up from 1 of each).

• (Holy) Sacred Cleansing (Passive) is being moved here from the Holy tier 4 talent position. It no longer mentions the 1 Magic effect limit so it likely dispels all Magic effects.

• (Retribution) Crusader's Zeal (Passive) [see previous post on the topic] has been moved to level 60.

Level 36:

• Rebuke moved here from level 54, and cooldown has been increased to 15 sec (up from 10 sec).
• Righteous Defense appears to be removed.

Level 38:

• (Retribution) Divine Storm is being moved here from the Retribution tier 3 talent and is changed into an AoE version of Templar's Verdict. It now requires 3 Holy Power to use rather than 5% base mana, no longer generates Holy Power, no longer heals allies, and has no cooldown (down from 4.5 sec). It now states "An area attack that consumes 3 charges of Holy Power to cause 50% weapon damage to all enemies within 8 yards".

Level 39:

• (Holy) Beacon of Light is being moved here from the Holy tier 4 talent position and is unchanged from the 4.3 version, which only transfers 50% of Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Divine Light, and Light of Dawn heals and 100% of Holy Light heals.

Level 40:

• Again, no mention of the Paladin summon mount abilities.

• (Protection) Shield of the Righteous is being moved here from the Protection tier 4 talent position and now requires 3 Holy Power to cast and has a 1.5 sec cooldown. In addition to dealing damage it causes the next melee attack against you to be blocked and increases the amount your shield blocks by an additional 25% for 6 sec.

• (Retribution) Hammer of Wrath is being moved here from level 46 and is becoming a Retribution specialization ability. Additionally, it will generate a charge of Holy Power when used, but can only be used on targets with 20% or less health or during Avenging Wrath.

Level 42:

• Seal of Righteousness is being moved here from level 3 and now has the AoE component of the Seals of Command talent built in.
• Concentration Aura is being removed, as are all current Paladin Auras. =(

Level 44:

• Heart of the Crusader (Passive) is the always-on passive replacement for Crusader Aura and only affects the Paladin.
• Divine Plea is being changed to a level 46 Holy specialization ability.
• Seal of Truth is being moved to level 24.

Level 46:

• Turn Evil was going to be moved here from level 78 [see previous post on the topic], but now seems to be removed. =(

• (Holy) Divine Plea is being moved here from level 44 and is now a Holy specialization ability, but is otherwise unchanged.

• (Retribution) Exorcism is being moved here from level 18 and is now a Retribution specialization ability. It no longer costs mana, and instead generates a charge of Holy Power and is instant cast (down from 1.5 sec), but has a 20 sec cooldown (up from no cooldown).

Level 48:

• Hand of Protection is being moved here from level 18, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Divine Shield is being moved to level 18.

Level 50:

• Plate Specialization (Passive) is unchanged.

• (Holy) Infusion of Light (Passive) is being moved here from the Holy tier 3 talent and no longer increases Holy Shock critical effect chance, but retains the 4.3 change which includes the option to reduce the cast time of Holy Radiance.

• (Protection) Grand Crusader (Passive) is being moved here from the Protection tier 4 talent and once again includes Hammer of the Righteous [see previous post on the topic]. Proc chance increased to 40% (up from 20%) and primary target requirement removed.

• (Retribution) Art of War (Passive) is being moved here from the Retribution tier 3 talent and now gives autoattacks a 20% chance of resetting the cooldown of Exorcism rather than its previous effects.

Level 52:

• Hand of Freedom is unchanged.

Level 54:

• Rebuke is being moved to level 36.

Level 56:

• Blessing of Might is being moved to level 81.

• (Holy) Divine Light is being moved here from level 62 and is now a Holy specialization ability with a 2.5 sec cast time (down from 3 sec).

• (Retribution) Sanctity of Battle (Passive) is being moved here from the Retribution tier 4 talent and while it continues to affect Crusader Strike, it now also affects Judgement, Hammer of Wrath, and Hammer of the Righteous instead of Divine Storm. Additionally, it affects the global cooldown of the 4 abilities as well as the ability cooldown.

Level 60:

• (Holy) Devotion Aura is effectively the Holy specialization ability designed to replace the Holy tier 5 talent Aura Mastery and its combinations with Concentration Aura and Resistance Aura, and has no real relation to the current Devotion Aura other than reusing the name. It is an instant cast, 2 min cooldown ability which states "Inspire all party and raid members within 40 yards, granting them immunity to Silence and Interrupt effects and reducing all Fire, Frost, and Shadow damage taken by 20%. Lasts 6 sec."

• (Protection) Sanctuary (Passive) is a Protection specialization passive ability that combines the 10% increased armor value from items effect of the Protection tier 2 talent Toughness with the 10% damage reduction effect of the Protection tier 3 talent Sanctuary. It no longer decreases your chance to be critically hit (this effect has been moved to the Guarded by the Light passive at level 10) or restores mana on blocks or dodges.

• (Retribution) Crusader's Zeal (Passive): a new Retribution specialization passive ability. "Your autoattacks have a 20% chance to increase your attack speed by 25% for your next 3 melee swings."

Level 62:

• Crusader Aura is being removed and replaced by Heart of the Crusader at level 44.
• Divine Light is being changed to a Holy specialization ability at level 56.

Level 64:

• Seal of Justice is being changed to a Retribution specialization ability at level 70.

• (Holy) Tower of Radiance (Passive) is being moved here from the Holy tier 6 talent, and no longer generates a charge of Holy Power whenever Holy Radiance is cast (this effect has been built into Holy Radiance instead).

Level 66:

• Hand of Salvation is back [see previous post on the topic] and otherwise unchanged from live.

Level 70:

• (Holy) Light of Dawn is being moved here from the Holy tier 7 talent position and is unchanged from the 4.3 iteration.

• (Protection) Ardent Defender is being moved here from the Protection tier 7 talent position and is otherwise unchanged.

• (Retribution) Seal of Justice is being moved here from level 64 and is now a Retribution specialization ability. Now properly slows instead of capping movement speed, and states "Fills the Paladin with Holy Light, causing melee attacks to deal 4 additional Holy damage and reduce the target's movement speed by 50% for 5 sec." It's unclear how this might work with the level 30 talent Burden of Guilt, which causes Judgement to reduce the target's movement speed by 50% for 12 sec.

Level 72:

• Avenging Wrath is unchanged.

Level 76:

• Resistance Aura is being removed, as are all current Paladin Auras. =(

Level 78:

• Turn Evil was going to be moved to level 46, but now it seems it's being removed. =(

Level 80:

• Hand of Sacrifice is unchanged.
• Mastery (Passive) is gone, likely removed by the Department of Redundancy Department.

• (Holy) Mastery: Illuminated Healing (Passive) is unchanged.

• (Protection) Mastery: Divine Bulwark (Passive) is unchanged.

• (Retribution) Mastery: Hand of Light (Passive) base additional damage increased to 17% (up from 16.8%) and now includes Hammer of the Righteous in addition to Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, and Divine Storm.

Level 81:

• Blessing of Might moved here from level 56. No longer increases attack power and mana regeneration, but instead increases mastery by 5.

• (Retribution) Inquisition is being changed to a Retribution specialization ability and as the latter portion of Inquiry of Faith partially baked in so it lasts for 10 sec per charge of Holy Power (up from 4 sec per charge without Inquiry of Faith, but down from 12 sec per charge with Inquiry of Faith).

Level 83:

• (Holy) Holy Radiance is being changed to a Holy specialization ability and is being changed to have a 2.5 sec cast (down from 3 sec) and generate a charge of Holy Power innately (rather than requiring Tower of Radiance).

Level 85:

• Boundless Conviction (Passive) acts as a new buffer zone for extra Holy Power to prevent it from being wasted. It reads, "You may store an additional 2 Holy Power beyond the maximum of 3. No ability ever consumes more than 3 Holy Power."
• Guardian of Ancient Kings cooldown is being reduced to 3 min. Effects are otherwise unchanged.

• (Protection) Shield of the Templar (Passive) is being removed [see previous post on the topic] .

Level 87:

• Blinding Light: a new short-duration crowd control ability that costs 23% of base mana and is instant cast with a 3 min cooldown. "Emits a dazzling light in all directions, blinding enemies within 10 yards, causing them to wander disoriented for 6 sec."

Preliminary Paladin Ability Changes in Mists of Pandaria

Yesterday, Blizzard released their Official Talent Calculator for Mists of Pandaria, which includes not only the redesigned talent system, but also a list of all class skills and specialization skills. I'll spare you descriptions of all of the talents since you can just go there and look at them, and instead I'm going to go level-by-level through the Paladin abilities (both class and specialization) to outline the various changes I see. Here goes!

Level 1:

• Armor Skills (Passive) remains relatively unchanged. It just removes the reference to training, since classes will automatically learn abilities rather than having to train them.
• Weapon Skills (Passive) is unchanged.
• Crusader Strike deals 176% weapon damage (rather than 135%) and generates a charge of Holy Power [ed. note: it generates a charge presently, but for whatever reason the WoWhead tooltip doesn't show it].

Level 3:

• Seal of Command: a new single-target damage-dealing seal. "Fills the Paladin with Holy Light, causing direct attacks to deal 26 additional Holy damage." Seal of Righteousness is being moved to level 42 and having the AoE component from the Seals of Command talent built in.
• Judgement is being moved to level 5.

Level 5:

• Judgement is being moved here from level 3 and given a 30 yard base range (up from 10 yards) and 6 sec base cooldown (down from 8 sec).
  
• Devotion Aura is effectively being removed. There is a new Holy specialization ability with the same name at level 60, but the effect is completely different.

Level 7:

• Hammer of Justice is being moved here from level 14, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Holy Light is being changed to a level 32 Holy specialization ability.

Level 9:

• Word of Glory appears to be having the base cooldown removed for all Paladins.

Level 10:

• Parry is conspicuously absent. Not sure if it's being removed or if it's just not mentioned in the new talent calculator.

• (Holy) Holy Shock remains as-is, though the new calculator does not mention the 40 yard range for friendly targets. Not sure if this is an intended change or oversight/tooltip limitation, but I'll assume the latter.
• (Holy) Walk in the Light remains mostly unchanged, but no longer mentions the cooldown reduction for Word of Glory. Combined with the Word of Glory change from above, it seems the cooldown will simply be removed for everyone.
• (Holy) Meditation is gone.

• (Protection) Avenger's Shield is unchanged.
• (Protection) Touched by the Light gains some new effects. In addition to the current effects, it now "reduces the chance you will be critically hit by melee attacks by 6%" and "increases your mana regeneration by 10%".
• (Protection) Vengeance seems to be unchanged (though it will probably follow 4.3 mechanics).
• (Protection) Judgements of the Wise is being moved to level 30.

• (Retribution) Templar's Verdict appears to require 3 Holy Power to use, and only deals 39% weapon damage (down from 90% with 3 Holy Power currently).
• (Retribution) Sheath of Light gains some new effects. In addition to the current effects, it now also "increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 25%" and "increases your mana regeneration by 10%".
• (Retribution) Judgements of the Bold is being moved to level 30.

Level 12:

• Righteous Fury is unchanged.
• Redemption is being moved to level 13.

Level 13:

• Redemption is being moved here from level 12, and is unchanged from the 4.3 version which increases the range to 40 yards (up from 30 yards in 4.2).
  

Level 14:

• Flash of Light is being moved here from level 16, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Hammer of Justice is being moved to level 7.
• Hand of Reckoning is being moved to level 15.

Level 15:

• Hand of Reckoning is being moved here from level 14, but is otherwise unchanged.

Level 16:

• Lay on Hands is unchanged.
• Flash of Light is being moved to level 14.

Level 18:

• Divine Shield is being moved here from level 48, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Exorcism is being changed to a Retribution specialization ability at level 50.
• Hand of Protection is being moved to level 48.

Level 20:

• No mention is made of the summon mount abilities for Paladins. Not sure if they're being removed or just not mentioned in the new talent calculator.

• (Holy) Holy Wrath is being moved here from level 28 and is now a Holy specialization ability. It only costs 8% of base mana (down from 20%), has no cooldown (down from 15 sec cooldown), and no longer stuns demons and undead, but instead "prevents targets from causing critical effects for the next 6 sec."

• (Protection) Hammer of the Righteous is moved here from the Protection tier 3 talent position. In addition to a damage increase to 39% weapon damage (up from 30%), it now also "reduces [the targets'] physical damage done by 10% for 30 sec."

• (Retribution) Also gains the above Hammer of the Righteous ability.

Level 22:

• Supplication (Passive): a new passive class ability with an effect similar to the last part of Crusade. "For 15 sec after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor, your next Flash of Light heals for an additional 300%".
• Blessing of Kings is being moved to level 32.

Level 24:

• Consecration is unchanged.

Level 26:

• Seal of Truth is being moved here from level 44. Remains relatively unchanged, but now mentions "direct attacks" instead of "single-target attacks".
• Retribution Aura is being removed, as are all current Paladin Auras. =(

Level 28:

• Divine Protection is being moved here from level 30, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Holy Wrath is being changed to a level 20 Holy specialization ability.

Level 30:

• Divine Protection is being moved to level 28.

• (Holy) Judgements of the Pure (Passive) is being moved here from the Holy tier 1 talent position. It no longer increases haste, but retains the 4.3 function of increasing Spirit. It now states "Your Judgement increases your mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by 30%".

• (Protection) Judgements of the Wise (Passive) is being moved here from the level 10 Protection specialization. It no longer grants mana, but instead states "Your Judgement hits grant one charge of Holy Power".

• (Retribution)  Judgements of the Bold (Passive) is being moved here from the level 10 Retribution specialization. It no longer grants mana, but instead states "Your Judgement hits grant one charge of Holy Power and increase the physical damage taken by your target by 4% for 12 sec."

Level 32:

• Blessing of Kings moved here from level 22, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Seal of Insight is being moved to level 33.

• (Holy) Holy Light is being moved here from level 7 and is now a Holy specialization ability with a 2.5 sec cast time (down from 3.0 sec).

Level 33:

• Seal of Insight is being moved here from level 33. The Glyph of Seal of Insight is being built in, so the seal now improves healing by 5% innately. Additionally, the seal now mentions "direct attacks" rather than "single-target attacks".

Level 34:

• Cleanse is unchanged.

• (Holy) Sacred Cleansing (Passive) is being moved here from the Holy tier 4 talent position.

• (Retribution) Crusader's Zeal (Passive): a new Retribution specialization passive ability. "Your normal melee attacks have a chance to increase the attack speed by 25% for your next 3 melee swings" [ed. note: awkward wording straight from Blizzard—personally I think it should read "increase the attack speed for your next 3 melee swings by 25%"].

Level 36:

• Rebuke moved here from level 54, but otherwise is unchanged.
• Righteous Defense appears to be removed.

Level 38:

• (Retribution) Divine Storm is being moved here from the Retribution tier 3 talent and is changed into an AoE version of Templar's Verdict. It now requires 3 Holy Power to use rather than 5% base mana, no longer generates Holy Power, no longer heals allies, and has no cooldown (down from 4.5 sec). It now states "An area attack that consumes 3 charges of Holy Power to cause 100% weapon damage to all enemies within 8 yards".

Level 39:

• (Holy) Beacon of Light is being moved here from the Holy tier 4 talent position and is unchanged from the 4.3 version, which only transfers 50% of Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Divine Light, and Light of Dawn heals and 100% of Holy Light heals.

Level 40:

• Again, no mention of the Paladin summon mount abilities.

• (Protection) Shield of the Righteous is being moved here from the Protection tier 4 talent position and now requires 3 Holy Power to cast. In addition to dealing damage it "[improves] your block chance by 10% for 5 sec."

• (Retribution) Hammer of Wrath is being moved here from level 46 and is now a Retribution specialization ability, but is otherwise unchanged.

Level 42:

• Seal of Righteousness is being moved here from level 3 and now has the AoE component of the Seals of Command talent built in.
• Concentration Aura is being removed, as are all current Paladin Auras. =(

Level 44:

• Heart of the Crusader (Passive) is the always-on passive replacement for Crusader Aura.
• Divine Plea is being changed to a level 46 Holy specialization ability.
• Seal of Truth is being moved to level 26.

Level 46:

• Turn Evil is being moved here from level 78, but is relatively unchanged. No longer states "Damage caused may interrupt the effect".

• (Holy) Divine Plea is being moved here from level 44 and is now a Holy specialization ability, but is otherwise unchanged.

• (Retribution) Seal of Justice is being moved here from level 64 and is now a Retribution specialization ability. Now properly slows instead of capping movement speed, and states "Fills the Paladin with Holy Light, causing direct attacks to reduce the target's movement speed by 50% for 5 sec and deal 12 additional Holy damage".

Level 48:

• Hand of Protection is being moved here from level 18, but is otherwise unchanged.
• Divine Shield is being moved to level 18.

Level 50:

• Plate Specialization (Passive) is unchanged.

• (Holy) Infusion of Light (Passive) is being moved here from the Holy tier 3 talent and no longer increases Holy Shock critical effect chance, but retains the 4.3 change which includes the option to reduce the cast time of Holy Radiance.

• (Protection) Grand Crusader (Passive) is being moved here from the Protection tier 4 talent and no longer includes Hammer of the Righteous.

• (Retribution) Exorcism is being moved here from level 18 and is now a Retribution specialization ability. It no longer costs mana and instead generates a charge of Holy Power, but is not always available and states "Your autoattacks have a 20% chance to activate Exorcism".

Level 52:

• Hand of Freedom is unchanged.

Level 54:

• Rebuke is being moved to level 36.

Level 56:

• Blessing of Might is being moved to level 81.

• (Holy) Divine Light is being moved here from level 62 and is now a Holy specialization ability with a 2.5 sec cast time (down from 3 sec).

• (Retribution) Sanctity of Battle (Passive) is being moved here from the Retribution tier 4 talent and while it continues to affect Crusader Strike, it now affects Judgement and Hammer of the Righteous instead of Divine Storm. Additionally, it affects the global cooldown of the 3 abilities as well as the ability cooldown.

Level 60:

• (Holy) Devotion Aura is effectively the Holy specialization ability designed to replace the Holy tier 5 talent Aura Mastery and its combinations with Concentration Aura and Resistance Aura, and has no real relation to the current Devotion Aura other than reusing the name. It is an instant cast, 2 min cooldown ability which states "Inspire all party and raid members within 40 yards, granting them immunity to Silence and Interrupt effects and reducing all Fire, Frost, and Shadow damage by 20%. Lasts 6 sec."

• (Protection) Sanctuary (Passive) [ed. note: yes, it intentionally links to Toughness] is the Protection specialization passive ability version of the Protection tier 2 talent Toughness, and has no real relation to the current Protection tier 3 talent Sanctuary other than reusing the name.

Level 62:

• Crusader Aura is being removed and replaced by Heart of the Crusader at level 44.
• Divine Light is being changed to a Holy specialization ability at level 56.

Level 64:

• Seal of Justice is being changed to a Retribution specialization ability at level 46.

• (Holy) Tower of Radiance (Passive) is being moved here from the Holy tier 6 talent, but is otherwise unchanged.

Level 66:

• Hand of Salvation is being removed.

Level 70:

• (Holy) Light of Dawn is being moved here from the Holy tier 7 talent position and is unchanged from the 4.3 iteration, which heals up to 6 targets (up from 5 in 4.2).

Level 72:

• Avenging Wrath is unchanged.

Level 76:

• Resistance Aura is being removed, as are all current Paladin Auras. =(

Level 78:

• Turn Evil is being moved to level 46.

Level 78 80:

• Hand of Sacrifice is unchanged.
• Mastery (Passive) is unchanged.

• (Holy) Mastery: Illuminated Healing (Passive) is unchanged [ed. note: the base shield is 12%, though for whatever reason the WoWhead tooltip doesn't show it].

• (Protection) Mastery: Divine Bulwark (Passive) is unchanged  [ed. note: the base block chance is 18%, though for whatever reason the WoWhead tooltip doesn't show it].

• (Retribution) Mastery: Hand of Light (Passive)  is unchanged  [ed. note: the additional Holy damage is 17%, though for whatever reason the WoWhead tooltip doesn't show it].

Level 81:

• Blessing of Might moved here from level 56. No longer increases attack power and mana regeneration, but instead increases mastery by 5.

• (Retribution) Inquisition is being changed to a Retribution specialization ability and as the latter portion of Inquiry of Faith partially baked in so it lasts for 10 sec per charge of Holy Power (up from 4 sec per charge without Inquiry of Faith, but down from 12 sec per charge with Inquiry of Faith).

Level 83:

• (Holy) Holy Radiance is being changed to a Holy specialization ability that is otherwise unchanged from its 4.3 incarnation.

Level 85:

• Guardian of Ancient Kings is unchanged as far as I can tell due to tooltip limitations.

• (Protection) Shield of the Templar (Passive) is being moved here from the Protection tier 6 talent and no longer affects Avenging Wrath or Divine Plea, only Guardian of Ancient Kings.

Level 87:

• Blinding Light: a new short-duration crowd control ability that costs 20% of base mana and is instant cast with a 3 min cooldown. "Emits a dazzling light in all directions, blinding enemies within 10 yards, causing them to wander disoriented for 6 sec."

On the Rivalry of Mastery and Beacon

Holy Paladins have traditionally been known through World of Warcraft's history for being the healing class with the smallest healing toolkit. Over time and expansions, our tools have grown more numerous and eventually Blizzard standardized healing abilities to some degree in Cataclysm, but generally speaking our toolkit has rarely had an excess of abilities that performed the same basic task. The current Holy Paladin mastery—Illuminated Healing—and one of the tree's defining activated abilities—Beacon of Light—seem to me to be the new exception.

As things currently stand, both Illuminated Healing and Beacon of Light are two tools that essentially share the same primary function: to act as a health buffer for tank healing. However, the two act in such conflicting ways that they feel like rivals competing for a single job rather than two distinct utility abilities that each have their place in our toolbox. The way Beacon of Light is designed makes it less appealing, even with Tower of Radiance, to cast directly on the buffed tank unless absolutely necessary, but the Illuminated Healing mastery makes it more appealing to cast directly on the tank and thereby bypass Beacon of Light's whole purpose. Since both Beacon of Light and Illuminated Healing are wasted on targets that are not consistently taking damage, the only time the two effectively work together are when multiple tanks are taking damage simultaneously and for prolonged periods of time, which only happens in raids, and even then not on every fight.

The problem is made worse by the rules governing the Holy Radiance ability in patch 4.3. Even though the ability is being redesigned as an active heal rather than a passive one, it still won't be allowed to transfer through Beacon of Light, unlike our other AoE healing ability, Light of Dawn, and our other primary Holy Power generator, Holy Shock. However, it will be allowed to benefit from the Illuminated Healing mastery, which makes it feel like it should be used on or near tanks in order to not risk making the tank's health less stable.

I hope Blizzard doesn't leave the situation as-is, especially as design moves forward for the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion. To some degree, it feels to me that if the two abilities can't (or won't) be made to play nicely with each other, then either one should be altered to fit a more distinct role or the two should be rolled into a single ability.

On 11/9/11's Class Q&A

Blizzard had a live Class Q&A event this morning where the class designers Celestalon, Ghostcrawler, Koraa, Watcher, Wradyx, and Xelnath all participated to answer questions about World of Warcraft classes in real time. Unfortunately, they provided absolutely no answers for Holy Paladins, which makes me a sad panda.

Now, I can understand why they provided no answers. Earlier, Zarhym (@talkingcongas) posted the following tweet showing some of the statistics for the event:

Some #WoWCiL perspective stats: 1 hr 39 min live. 2 hosts. 6 devs. 4 mods. Over 130,000 readers. Over 10,000 comments/questions submitted.

In comparison, the class designers were only able to answer about 108 questions, so there was only about a 1 in 100 chance for any given question to be answered. Still, though, absolutely no answers for Holy Paladins is a real disappointment.

That said, I did participate in the event by submitting my own question. If you're curious what I asked, here's my submission:

Rumor has it that the upcoming Mistweaver spec of the Monk class will be a healer that stands in melee range of the boss while healing. Is there any truth to this, or is the rumor unfounded? If true, and if the heal-from-melee paradigm works out, has there been any thought to giving the plate-wearing, shield-bearing Holy Paladin a similar treatment?

Since I know not all Paladins are interested in a heal-from-melee playstyle, I'm not at all surprised that my question went unanswered. Still, I hope the more dynamic Monk playstyle works out and is successful enough for Blizzard to adapt it towards the Holy Paladin. It still annoys me that our healing plate may as well be cloth and our shield slot may as well be filled with an off-hand frill item for all the use they get in raiding.

On Patch 4.3's Holy Radiance Change

I'm not quite sure I like the upcoming change to Holy Radiance. The fact of the matter is that the current incarnation of Holy Radiance feels like it satisfies the potential that Paladin auras always had, but haven't truly been able to fill as always-on, free-to-cast abilities. Blizzard can't really make auras any stronger than they already are due to balancing issues, but Holy Radiance worked nicely as a short-term, mana-expensive buff that could bridge the gap between aura and non-aura.

Personally, I would have preferred that Light of Dawn have been made the chain-castable, mana-using AoE heal while Holy Radiance were powered up and turned into our AoE Holy Power spender. One of the benefits for this (in my mind, at least, since I'm sure there are plenty of Paladin healers who would disagree with me) would be to emphasize the idea of using the play area of the screen to heal rather than the UI. It's always kinda bugged me that tanks get to play with bosses, damage dealers get to play with the environment, but healers have to play with the UI rather than the friendly characters/positioning. There's already enough whack-a-gnoll with the single-target heals, so I feel as if AoE healing should take a different approach.

In Regards to the Holy Paladin Mastery

I've been working my way through a massive backlog of posts in my feedreader recently and I came across a post entitled Illuminated Healing: An Examination of the Holy Paladin Mastery from Kurn's Corner. In it Kurn talks about the problems with the current Holy Paladin mastery and why the proposed changes in patch 4.1 will do little to make it a more desirable stat for Paladins. She also compares how aptly the Illuminated Healing mastery fits with WoW's Holy Paladin and proposes several alternate masteries she feels would fit the class/spec better.

Kurn's post got me thinking: if I had the opportunity to make it happen, how would I change Illuminated Healing to not only make it more appealing to Paladins as a whole, but also make it feel like a better fit with the class. Here's what I came up with:

Essentially, there are two parts of the current Holy Paladin that still feel a bit off to me. The first part is the new Paladin mechanic, Holy Power. Personally, I think the mechanic should be further ingrained into the Holy spec by tying it in some fashion to the mastery system. The easiest way to do this would be to have mastery either influence its generation or trigger an effect on its expenditure.

Some possible ideas in this regard are to change Illuminated Healing so that it instead:

• allows Holy Light a (mastery-based %) chance to generate a charge of Holy Power when cast; or
• increases the healing done by Word of Glory or Light of Dawn (by a mastery-based %); or
• gives a (mastery-based %) chance for Word of Glory and Light of Dawn to proc a significantly large absorption shield (say anywhere from 50-100% of the amount healed); or
• causes Word of Glory and Light of Dawn to trigger a buff that increases the healing of the next healing spell cast (by a mastery-based % modified by how many Holy Power charges were consumed); or
• has an Elemental Overload/Wild Quiver effect, i.e., a (mastery-based %) chance for Word of Glory or Light of Dawn to trigger an extra healing effect on a nearby injured target. Or, alternately, a set % chance to trigger the effect with the mastery stat determining the size of the effect.

The second thing about the current Holy Paladin that I feel is somewhat off is the lack of synergy with the crit stat. Previously, Holy Paladins were very reliant on crit because we had a talent called Illumination that refunded mana upon critical heals. Sadly, Blizzard removed Illumination from Paladins and instead gave it to Shamans in the form of Improved Water Shield, and now crit is regarded as roughly tied with mastery for being the worst relevant Holy Paladin stat. As such, it would be nice if Blizzard brought Illumination back in one form or another to replace Illuminated Healing. Even if a resurrected Illumination were not directly tied to crit it would still be a welcome nod towards the class' history.

Several possible incarnations of a revived Illumination might be for it to:

• once again restore (a mastery-based % of) mana on critical heals; or
• allow critical heals to reduce the mana cost of the next non-Holy Power healing spell cast (by a mastery-based % of mana); or
• cause critical heals to trigger a buff that restores (a mastery-based % of) mana over x seconds which can roll so that multiple crits in a row do not waste the buff.

Now, some of you are undoubtedly thinking, 'Wait a minute! Paladins don't need any more mana regeneration! Giving them more would be overpowered!' Generally speaking, that's true. Holy Paladins don't really need more mana regeneration. However, currently Holy Paladins value two secondary stats very highly (namely Spirit and haste) and consider the other two secondary stats (crit and mastery) to be mostly worthless. By linking crit and mastery together as well as making mastery a mana regenerating stat, what you get is the emergence of a secondary style of Holy Paladin that substitutes mastery and crit for Spirit and haste. Since Spirit is one of the primary means of Paladin mana regeneration, this substitution means that very few Paladins would actually get more regeneration, since they would effectively have to pick either Spirit or mastery. If they instead tried to keep both Spirit and mastery at the expense of haste and crit, the result would be that their heals would lack throughput and the mana regeneration from mastery would be extremely sporadic and unreliable since it relies on crit (which the Paladin would be avoiding) to trigger.

Identity Crisis

Note: The following post is somewhat rambly and meaningless.  You've been warned.

When I first set up my second spec, I chose to pick a tanking spec as opposed to a damage dealing or alternate healing spec.  I had several reasons for my decision, including wanting to be more helpful to my friends, being more intrigued by the mechanics of Paladin tanking than damage dealing, and because Protection felt like the right choice from an in-character point of view.  Since then, I've ended up tanking significantly more dungeons than I've healed (although I still heal more often than tank in raids), and my tanking set has slowly grown from the initial Blacksmith-crafted set I started off with.  I'm somewhat saddened by the fact that the day has finally come where it's now better than the set of gear I use for healing.

Now, don't get me wrong, tanking as a Paladin is certainly as amusing as I thought it would be, but there's part of me that will always be a healer at heart.  I'm definitely a better healer than tank, still, but that's partly because I've found that I don't really enjoy tanking as much as I enjoy healing.  When I heal, I tend to not mind people's shenanigans (such as pulling extra groups or standing in front of a mob when meleeing), but as a tank those same behaviors drive me insane.  It's especially annoying when my friends are the ones pulling such stunts, as I have no doubt that they know better and are either being silly or have just gotten so used to steamrolling content that they've stopped bothering trying to play their best.

Unfortunately for me, raid invites have become few and far between (due to a massive supply of healers and a relatively stable healing core, which I'm not a part of), and the new Dungeon Finder system makes running 5-mans with friends a bit tedious, since a friends group requires sitting around and waiting for folks to swap characters, finish whatever they're doing, and/or organizing the group and figuring out where we want to go, which just begins to feel like wasting time considering I have access to instantaneous Dungeon Finder PuGs.  Plus, it's just plain easier to be mad at a random stranger who decides to slack off than a friend who's not giving it his all.  Besides, even prior to the new system my experience was that bad PuGs were a rarity, with the vast majority of PuG groups falling on the "would run with again" side of the scale, so I don't really have the same fear of random groups that so many others seem to have.  Who knows, maybe my standards are just low?

So, if you're wondering what the above post means for you, me, and/or the blog, the answer is pretty much "absolutely nothing".  I just felt I needed to get the above onto paper (even if it is the virtual kind) so I can get a better view of it and figure out what I want to do.  I don't really want to keep tanking (especially if it means that I'm denied the opportunity to heal instead), but I'm also not sure if hanging up my tanking set and picking up a big two-handed hammer in Cataclysm is the right way to go, either.  Perhaps this will help me sort it out.

Holy Paladin Healing Needs More Interactivity

I think I'm beginning to get a bit of Shaman envy.  Some friends were discussing Shaman Totems (the relics, not the spells) in-game, and the conversation slowly evolved into pointing out the differences between Shaman and Paladin healing.  If you look at the tools both classes have, they're surprisingly similar at first glance—to the point where you can list off the various heals each class uses and find an analogous spell for the other class.

However, despite the similarities on the surface, the deeper mechanisms of the classes are two completely different beasts.  The Shaman's entire healing system seems to be based off of creating intuitive rhythms and flows, and adapting to the situation at hand—it works extremely well with the water theme of the Shamans' Restoration tree.  The Paladin healing system, on the other hand, is an extremely forward min/maxing system.  All of the "interesting" parts are designed to maximize the strengths of each individual spell while mostly ignoring the weaknesses.  Take Infusion of Light for example—it currently makes our fast heal, Flash of Light, even faster, and our big heal, Holy Light, even bigger.  In Patch 3.3, it will also make our damage stabilization spell, Sacred Shield, provide more stability via Flash of Light HoT (technically, the base spell is being nerfed and Infusion of Light is being updated to un-nerf it for Holy, but that's besides the point).

There's very little in the Paladin Holy tree that encourages making use of the entire toolkit.  Sure, Holy Shock (with Infusion of Light) encourages using Flash of Light or Holy Light, but that's not really much of a choice due to Holy Shock's cooldown.  Flash of Light does nothing to encourage use of Holy Light, and vice versa, which has resulted in the current Paladin strategy of just picking one spell between the two primary heals, gearing to maximize it's potency, and then spamming it as long as possible.  Holy Light builds are generally built around the idea of being able to cast as many Holy Lights as possible—the occasional Flash of Lights mixed in is simply a necessary evil required to not empty one's mana reserves too quickly.  Flash of Light builds are designed to make Flash of Lights hit as hard as Paladinly possible, and the occasional Holy Lights are simply a necessary evil when Flash of Light simply does not have sufficient throughput (which is pretty much all the time nowadays).  Beacon of Light and Sacred Shield add very little to the equation (in terms of interactivity/fun)—in practice they're just abilities that require maintenance every 30-90 seconds, depending on talent specs and glyphs.

What I'd really like to see in Cataclysm is a series of changes to the Paladin Holy tree that is designed to make Paladin heals synergize with each other rather than compete with each other (hopefully in amusing off-the-wall ways).  The Flash of Light portion of Infusion of Light is definitely good in this respect, but so much more can be done to encourage the Paladin to use the entire healing arsenal available.  For example:

• Update the Holy Light portion of Infusion of Light into something more fun.  While crits are usually fun, a slightly higher chance to crit is completely lackluster—how can you tell if even helped you on any individual cast?  Instead, make it something that's not only useful, but also noticiable.  Perhaps a chance for your next Holy Light cast to trigger a bonus Illumination effect.  Heck, even an uninspired and boring "makes your next Holy Light spell heal for 5% more" has a tangible impact on healing, as compared to the current effect.
• Make Flash of Light do something beneficial for Holy Shock and/or Holy Light.  Perhaps give it a chance to trigger a buff that adds a HoT/shield/increased heal effect to the next Holy Shock or Holy Light cast.  Maybe the buff could be stackable and the number of stacks determines the strength of the effect (say, for sake of example 3/6/10% of a Holy Light or 10/20/30% of a Holy Shock).
• Give Sacred Shield some interaction with Holy Light.  One idea would be to allow a Holy Light crit on a target with Sacred Shield splash mini-bubbles on nearby targets, thereby encouraging the Paladin to Flash of Light those targets to leave behind lots of HoTs.  Another idea would be to give a Holy Light cast on a target that has Sacred Shield to energize the next bubble, allowing it to absorb more damage than it would be able to normally.
• Similarly, allow Sacred Shield and Holy Shock to interact.  For example, allow Holy Shock to "pop the bubble" causing the current or next Sacred Shield proc to instantly heal the target for its absorption amount, rather than (or in addition to) its normal effect.  Or maybe let it bounce a copy of a Sacred Shield bubble onto the lowest health party or raid member within 40 yards.
• Finally, allow Holy Light to help out Holy Shock and/or Flash of Light.  One possibility would be to let a Holy Light crit finish the current (or prevent the next) Holy Shock cooldown, and/or to increase the spell power coefficient of the next Flash of Light cast but with a corresponding increase in mana cost.

Any (or all) of the above would help create a sense of synergy that's currently very lacking in the Paladin Holy tree.  Additionally, it helps make Paladin healing more than a one- or two-dimensional affair by adding complexity and depth in a way that makes intelligent healing decisions matter (unlike the current healing "spam") while still keeping things fun instead of mind-bendingly confusing.  The flavor of the Paladin Holy tree could be enhanced further by keeping in mind the strengths of each spell when designing the interactions with others (for example, Holy Shock interactions would all have something to do with burst healing, Flash of Light with efficiency, Holy Light with raw and overwhelming power, and Sacred Shield with stability—I'd have done a better job of portraying this in the examples above, but I'm just too tired to think straight).

Ultimately, the goal would be to create a dynamic system that has a great deal of complexity, but is relatively simple to just jump into and play around and experiment with.  In other words, the idea is to make healing on a World of Warcraft Paladin akin to fighting on a Diablo 3 Monk.

Thoughts?

Holy is Where the (Gryphon)Heart Is

Yes, I know that's a terrible title, but too bad!  It's my blog and I'm going with it.  =P

Recently, Bell of 4 Haelz and Big Bear Butt of, well, Big Bear Butt posted their experiences of playing Retribution Paladins who have effectively been forced to go Holy or Protection in order to get groups (see: Bell's Locked Into Healing post & BBB's Tales from the LFG Tavern post).  While this post is only tangentially related to theirs', their posts in addition to a PuG experience a few nights ago did inspire me to write this one.

Now, Gryph has been a Holy Paladin for as long as I can remember.  Even before the 3 Paladin talent trees were first announced, I knew I wanted Gryph to be a more spiritually-, and less physically-, centric Paladin.  In my mind he's always been an individual defined more by his strength of will rather than his physical prowess, and when the Paladin talent trees were announced, Holy fit the bill quite perfectly.  For the first 4 or so years after WoW's launch, Gryph has been Holy, through and through (minus brief periods of time after the talent resets when he was unspecced).  In fact, I've never even spent so much as a copper to respec Gryph.

When dual specs came out, I finally took the plunge and grabbed him a tanking spec for pretty much the same reason that Bell and BBB probably picked up their second specs: easier group finding.  On Feathermoon Alliance, it turned out, it's significantly easier to find a group as a tank than a healer.  (Plus, I just like helping people, and being able to fill the two most desired roles in a group felt like it would be immensely helpful.)  Big mistake.  I don't think I've healed a PuG 5-man since.  =\  I'm pretty sure I've tanked more WotLK 5-mans than I've healed by now, both with PuGs and with all-friend groups.  Perhaps in Cataclysm I'll try Retribution as my second spec instead.

Anyway, as it turns out, I don't really think I enjoy tanking that much.  I say this because every time I'm tanking and someone does something silly (like not watch their own aggro), I go into a frothy-mouthed rage.  On the other hand, I'm much more calm when healing, and usually enjoy the same shenanigans that piss me off when I'm tanking.  Maybe Holy is just more fun because I have a lot more experience with it, or perhaps I'm just feeling inadequate as a tank because I'm not used to fitting emergency buttons into my tanking rotation (whereas emergency buttons feel much easier to integrate into my healing playstyle because they keep people alive—which is the primary purpose of healing).  One thing I do know, though: I'm never going to tank a 25-man raid in WotLK.  This is partly because I'm just not good enough of a tank, and partly because half the people in TRI have Protection Paladins (and the other half have some other tank).  =P

On MP5 and Intellect—My Hopes for the Holy Paladin's Future

So, anyone who has been keeping track of Paladin news should probably know that Blizzard isn't too happy with how Holy Paladins have turned out in terms of stat wants. The sheer emphasis on Intellect since the introduction of Divine Plea and Repenishment has gotten to somewhat absurd levels, and I agree with Blizzard in that there do need to be some changes in the near future to keep everything in from getting out of hand.

As many Paladins have stated, the emphasis on stacking Intellect is the cumulative result of several issues:

1. Intellect as a stat provides Paladins with almost everything needed to function in a healing capacity. It increases total mana, mana regeneration, spell critical strike chance, and spell power (via the Holy Guidance talent. The only other stat Paladins might desire for healing purposes is haste, but a lot of the gear that allows the stacking of Intellect also provides some degree of haste, which combined with that granted by Judgements of the Pure is ample enough.
2. Unlike stats such as Intellect and crit, mp5 has no synergy whatsoever with Paladin spells and talents. Haste is in a similar situation, but unlike mp5 haste is considered to have one or more "soft caps" that players tend to shoot for, such as reducing the global cooldown to 1 second or reducing the casting time of a frequently cast spell to 1 second. For mp5, there really isn't an easily definable goal.
   
3. MP5 is a flat-out boring stat. Unlike the other valuable stats for Holy Paladins, mp5 does nothing to make itself exciting. Intellect contribues to a plethora of additional stats, as mentioned in #1 above, but also visibly increases the total mana available to the Paladin. Crit causes big numbers and the occasional mana restoration from Illumination to scroll across the screen. Spell power helps to make the numbers that scroll across the screen even bigger, and the effect of haste is felt in the rhythm of casting more than it's seen, but even then its effect shows up in the tooltips of various spells. MP5 requires one to dig into the character window to be able to see any meaningful numbers. One cannot easily feel the impact mp5 has on the game. It's simply something that's there, in the background, doing its own thing and not bothering to stand out. In other words, it settles for the bare minimum number of pieces of flair.
4. MP5 is a significantly more expensive stat in terms of itemization budget than other stats. Why would anyone bother with gems that give a measly 6 mp5 when they can instead invest in gems that give 16 Intellect or 18 spell power instead? The latter two values just feel much more meaningful than the former.

At the very least, at least Blizzard recognizes issue number 4. In a recent post, Ghostcrawler stated:

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.

Personally, I think this is an excellent first step. However, it's only that—a first step. By itself, I doubt it will fix the Intellect stacking issue, but Ghostcrawler seems to be implying that there are additional changes in the works and I'm hoping some of them will address issues 1, 2, and 3 above. So how should these issues be addressed?

In my opinion, the best way to address the remaining issues is to reevaluate Divine Plea. The unfortunate truth is that Divine Plea is the primary culprit for the current state of Holy Paladin itemization problems. Repenishment also contributes to some degree, but changing Divine Plea is the easiest way to tweak Paladins without messing with other classes.

Now, when I say "reevaluate" and "tweak", I do not mean "nerf". I think it's absolutely possible to adjust Divine Plea to remain as powerful as it is today, but scale from a stat other than total mana. A stat such as mp5. This would make mp5 more synergistic with Paladin spells, thereby increasing the value of mp5, as well as reducing the value of Intellect all in one elegant swoop. Additionally, if things are done carefully, it can be adjusted to scale for Holy Paladins without destroying its worth for Protection and Retribution Paladins. For example, Divine Plea could be changed to something more like:

Divine Plea
Instant
1 minute cooldown
You gain X% of your base mana and Y% of your casting mana regeneration over 15 sec, but the amount healed by your Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Holy Shock spells is reduced by 50%.

Since Protection and Retribution Paladins don't bother to get Intellect or mp5 on their gear, the X percentage could be set so that Divine Plea returns the same amount of mana to them as it does currently, while the Y percentage could be adjusted to whatever amount of regeneration Blizzard wants Holy Paladins to have at various itemization levels. It's a fairly simple change on the surface that will solve issues 1, 2, and 3. Intellect will become slightly less valuable (1), mp5 will become more synergistic with Paladin spells (2), and the numbers that will scroll across the screen when a Holy Paladin uses Divine Plea will help to directly show the impact mp5 has on gameplay (3). In my mind, it's a win-win-win scenario.