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Finally! Solid patch 3.1 change.

Spell suggestions for holy paladins

There has been some talk about holy paladins and their lack of fun the last few days. A result from Infusion of Light and Sacred Shield getting changed no doubt. With these changes holy paladins are almost back in the Burning Crusade when it comes gameplay. They are still spamming one healing spell over and over. The change is that they are forced to judge, and I'm calling it "forced" since the rate in which you have to do it is annoying, and that Beacon of Light can be used once in a while. The lowered cooldown on Holy Shock also made holy paladins better at mobility and PvP.

So, what needs to be done? At the very least holy paladins must have a good incentive to use all of their healing spells, since they have so few. Right now there's Holy Light that is the bread and butter healing spell. Flash of Light can be weaved in to the rotation (when the tank is near full health) to save mana and it can be used together with a IoL proc to increase mobility. That isn't enough to be honest. Mainly because it's really boring. As for Holy Shock, I'm not sure it's potent enough to save the day in PvE, but it's boost to mobility alone make people use it. So making people use FoL, without abandoning HL, would be a good start.

Other than that...what can be done to make holy paladin healing more fun? How about a proc with a duration that change the way the paladin heal for a few seconds? How about a judgement that actually help the holy paladin with healing (so that you can gain something from judging often)? How about a new healing spell?


I'll try to create some suggestions:

Nurturing Light (18% of base mana, instant cast, 40 yd range)
Infuses the target with a healing light for 5 sec. When Nurturing Light completes its duration or is dispelled, the target and 4 nearby party or raid members are healed for x to y. Your Flash of Light spells landing on the target will increase the duration for 4 sec up to a maximum of 15 sec and the healing effect will increase over time up to a maximum of 400% after 15 sec uptime. You can only have one Nurturing Light active at a time.

It's mana efficiency is great if the FoLs doesn't overheal, and decent if they only overheal. By juggling FoL you can make Nurturing Light go off when it really matters, with decent precision.

This suggestion would give holy paladins a new spell, which is a unique AoE empowered by direct heals. This would give an incentive to use FoL, both to empower the AoE and to trigger it's effect at the right moment inbetween using HL.

Improved Judgement of Light
Your Judgement of Light effect scale 50%/100%/150% better from spell power, but scale 33%/66%/100% worse from attack power. In addition your Judgement of Light spell will heal 3 nearby targets for x - y / x*2 - y*2 / x*3 - y*3.

This suggestion will give holy paladins a unique AoE, restricted by proximity to the hostile target that get judged, and thus get another tool. It will give holy paladins the choice of judging often, as opposed to now that you want to judge as seldom as possible. It should give the paladin more to do while allowing her to babysit JotP a little less. The spell should also scale in favor of the holy paladin now, so that ret paladins can judge wisdom as it should be. Glyph of Holy Light can be scrapped and redone.

Might edit the post if I can think of a fun proc. But for now, ta-ta.

Replenisher Role(?)

Ghostcrawler got his own words turned against him the other day, in an attempt to get replenishment nerfed and get mana regen in general un-nerfed. "As long as players are expecting raid slots because of their amazing utility then utility is probably too amazing" was what he had written previously, and this is what he replied to the nitpicking (part of the post):

Nerf healing, because healers get spots in raids because they can heal.

As you well know, assuming you read the thread, this was a case of a class or spec wanting a unique buff to guarantee them a raid spot. It wasn't enough to bring *a* buff. They wanted a unique buff such that their guild would say, for example, "We have to take a Retribution paladin or we'll be really behind."

I admit, I'm no fan of replenishment as the ability works right now. However I can see the potential that Blizzard do in all of this (I think). I don't get why GC compared replenishment to healing. One is a role while the other is a passive (more or less) ability. Apples and Oranges. Or do they really view replenishment as a role? I beg to differ. For it to qualify as a role it would have to take skill. Right now it's a watered down version of the dps skillset. You just dps, good or bad doesn't matter, and you get replenishment as a freebe. You can't really be a bad replenisher, only a bad dps'er while doing it. If it did take skill, and a different kind of skill, then replenisher could be considered a role.

It could turn out ok if they made a new role out of replenishment, a real role, and it could end up as a general support role (dps/support) eventually. Problem would be that it's a big change, and one that the affected specs never signed up for. On the other hand there are certainly people that would like this gaming style. Maximizing their (active) support while bringing as much dps as possible, a fine line.

There might be something to replenishment. I just think Blizzard are doing it all wrong. Either it's a unique buff (and susceptible to nerfs) or it's a role, not some form of bastard child between the two. Personally I'd treat it as a buff amogst others, and stop removing other aspects of mana regen to make it fit. Blizzard, you want groups to grow in power as the group grows right? You are moving away from that at the moment with the merger of BoW and MST. When I'm ready to implement a sweeping change as a support role, then I'd go for it. Not before that.

The Emerald Dream

Information about the next expansion has been released to me through my power of fortune-telling! You read about it here first!

The Emerald Dream (working name)

Features:

* Gain access to the Emerald Dream and explore the supercontinent Kalimdor! This is the largest continent in a WoW expansion so far, filled with new content.

* Grow in power as you make your way to level 90, gaining new abilities and talents along the way.

* Hold your guild meetings in a Guild Hall! The Guild Hall is bound to the guild, not to any person in particular, so anyone can contribute to the look and atmosphere of the building. While much of the furniture and decorations can be acquired by the means of gold (or simply by being an old guild), much must be earned by achieving things as a guild!

* Guild Achievements has been added to the game! A few of these achievements can be earned by single guild members, but most require you to accomplish things as a group or a raid. Lead your guild to glory!

* Learn more about the Emerald Nightmare and help in the fight against it. See whole zones change as the corruption regresses.

* Two new professions: Carving and Woodcutting! Carving let you fashion solid materials like horn, stone or wood into useful items. Woodcutting allow you to cut wood to be used in carving, but also in other crafting professions.

* Play and master the new hero class. Spirit Walker, a champion of the spirit world.

* And much, much more!

Paladins and the PTR

A lot of stuff has happened since my last post. PTR participants are venturing further into Ulduar, loot are being added to the bosses in there, the PTR has been updated with a few new builds etc. As an old holy paladin I'll focus on changes relevant to this spec in this post.

* Auras will now persist through death and affect a 40 yard radius.
I didn't mind reactivating auras after getting resurrected, but the range change...about time...
* Blessing of Kings is now trainable at level 20. Removed from talent trees.
A change long overdue. The buff is too important to be limited to one (or perhaps two) specs. In fact some other class should recieve an eqvivalent version.
* Hand of Sacrifice: The damage transferred by this ability is now capped by the Paladin’s health.
I'm not sure why it would have to be limited in two ways, it already has a time restraint.
* Forbearance reduced to 2 min duration.
Won't really make a differance.
* Sacred Shield: This effect cannot be cast on more than one friendly target at a time.
I can see why it would be nerfed. Well, I can't see how it could be nerfed due to heavy raid damage mitigation as they claim. There are worse culprits in that area, like Judgement of Light, that require less effort to boot. I would have liked to do something more fun than to keep a spell up and running on all raid members with my spare GCDs. Bad thing is that it devalues FoL even further and that Blizzard doesn't throw holy paladins a bone to make up for the loss.
* Aura Mastery: Now makes anyone affected by Concentration Aura to be immune to Interrupt and Silence mechanics and increases the effectiveness of all other auras by 100%. Lasts 10 sec. 2 min cooldown.
Seem very unpolished. It also doesn't have the wow factor other classes specs have when they get their 11p talent at level 20. It could potentially be a fun talent.
* Blessed Hands: No longer reduces cooldowns of Hand spells. Instead, it improves the effectiveness of Hand of Salvation by 50/100% and Hand of Sacrifice by an additional 5/10%.
From worthless to great to worthless again.
* Enlightened Judgements: No longer increases the range of Judgement of Justice. Moved to Tier 10.
* Infusion of Light: Now increases the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead of reducing cast time. Moved to Tier 10.
* Judgements of the Pure moved to Tier 9.
* Sacred Cleansing moved to Tier 8.
This redesign doesn't change much for PvE, other than tree look less estetic. PvP'ers might be even more tempted to go for a retribution hybrid, which is bad. The Enlightened Judgements change...why? Isn't it more fun for the spec if it can stop a runner and save the day? Did druids cry their eyes out that they have one counter class? The Infusion of Light change makes no sense at all. Bottom line is that playing a holy paladin just got a whole lot less fun.
* Improved Concentration Aura: The resistance to silence and interrupt granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Concentration Aura.
Good change, from a PvP perspective. Now the paladin have a choice to change aura depending on the setup they face.

* Improved Devotion Aura: The additional healing granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Devotion Aura.
Good change. Devotion Aura usually isn't prio one amongst auras.
* Divine Guardian re-designed: Now increases the effectiveness of Divine Sacrifice by an additional 5/10% and increases the duration of Sacred Shield by 50/100% and the amount absorbed by 10/20%.
This talent was nerfed, and I could see why. How exactly is Divine Sacrifice improved? More health transfered or a higher potential? The Sacred Shield part is nice.
* Divine Protection: Cooldown reduced to 3 min.
Seem natural after the spell effect was changed.
* New Talent: Divine Sacrifice: Causes all party/raid members affected by one of the paladin’s auras to transfer 30% of all damage taken to the paladin (maximum of 150% of the paladin’s max health). Lasts 10 sec. 2 min cooldown.
Wierd and somewhat unimaginative talent. What happens if you use it during a raidwide AoE? Instant death?
* New Talent: Divinity: Tier-1 protection talent, increases healing done by and to you by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Decent entry talent for holy into the protection tree.

* Sanctified Seals: Renamed Sanctity of Battle. Now also increases damage done by Exorcism and Crusader Strike by 5/10/15%
Even more of a reason for holy paladins to get this talent. For PvP and damage dealing potential in general.


The long story short is: Blizzard is dumbing down the spec and are making it less fun to play. Come on! Don't nerf the stuff that makes healing as a paladin remotely fun and start nerfing stuff that doesn't have an impact on the fun factor. Honestly.

On a different note, I've been feeling like designing a hero class. A healing hero class. Will have to see if I can think of something.

Healing Fun (Revisited!)

As of lately there have been lots of threads about healing fun (or rather the lack of it). One might think that this is only a kneejerk reaction to the recent mana regeneration nerf announcement, but is that the whole truth? Could it be that healers in general like the idea of healing so much they can't see the shortcommings?

The healing role have always been very dear to me, and my characters tended to become healers if at all possible. I'll try to pinpoint what makes healing fun, and what makes healing not fun, and see if I can come to some sort of a conclusion.

When is healing fun?
Healing is challenging - I like it when healing is challenging. Mana shouldn't be a non-issue and I should have to use my spells to the fullest, unless I totally overgear the instance. Goes hand in hand with healing variation.
Use of non-healing spells - I like it when I can use spells that aren't immidiately associated with healing to help my group and help with my role. In fact it's one of the more gratifying feelings since it doesn't happen that often. At least not compared to using healing spells. Be it a timely spell interrupt, stun or crowd control.
Variation when healing - I like it when I'm encouraged to use my full set of healing and damage prevention spells when healing. I don't want to be able to spam one spell over and over again and get away with it.
Varying types of damage - In raids I like it when there's a mix of predictable and unpredictable damage, as well as targeted damage versus AoE damage. Unpredictable damage keep you on your toes and the predictable damage is a pleasant distraction.
When assignments matter - In raids I like it when you can assign healers to certain targets, and it makes the encounter easier. It shouldn't be rocket science, but assignments should matter.

When isn't healing fun?
Discrimination - It's not fun when a dungeon seem constructed as a counter to certain healing specs. What comes to mind is Magisters' Terrace for holy paladins, at least before WotLK. While it was doable, it was much easier for the remaining healing specs at the time.
Healer is to blame - It's not fun when everything that can go wrong in an encounter can be blamed on the healer. Since healers are responsible for keeping the group/raid alive, much of what can go wrong can be blamed on them. That comes with the job. But healers shouldn't be able to bail out damage dealers every single time they do something stupid, just because you can save them in theory if you react near instantly and/or waste loads of mana. Mostly a raid issue.
Spamming - It's not fun when one healing spell rule them all. This is even more important after the downranking nerf.
UI fall short - Healers spend most of their time watching health bars. Many of the UI shortcommings can be fixed by downloading 3:rd party addons. But the fact that the UI, after all these years, still is so primitive and poor for healers is incredible. In a bad way. Even with addons we can feel impaired in certain situation because of UI limitations.
When benched - It's not fun when a healer get benched only because the raid want to do a timed run or get some other achievement done. This is a fundamental flaw with healing in this game. You work yourself out of a raid spot.

So what can be done to make healing more fun?
Keep challenging healers - This is an obvious solution, and something that Blizzard always aim to do. Keep in mind that all specs need to be challenged but also encouraged to use all their spells to keep on top of healing.
Less healing fallback - Use more enrage timers, punish stupid damage dealers in ways other than by damage in some encounters.
Let healers increase dps - It kinda goes against all Laws of WoW, but it would be nice if healers can increase the potency of damage dealers dps by the means of active and passive buffs. The healers themselves shouldn't dps. It would be awesome if bringing the standard amount of healers would give a higher overall raid dps than bringing fewer, but decrease the overall dps if more are brought.
Revamp the UI - Sounds like a no-brainer, but it has hardly been touched from vanilla WoW so it can't be that obvious. Healers need to be able to have fun healing without addons. Some people say they do fine without them, but I can assure them that they'll never look back if they start using them. Healers need to be able to do this without addons: customize the look/size of the UI, filter options on buffs/debuffs shown and possibility to show both types at the same time, urgent debuffs that is always shown with a larger icon (encounter specific) and the possibility to make debuffs curable for the class shown as urgent or visualized in some other way, make the raid frame belonging to someone being targeted stand out from the crowd, easy way to go mouse-over healing (like Clique/Healbot), restored UI after disconnects, an actual threat meter... I could go on forever.
Thinking outside the box - I have no idea how fun it would be, but what about this: possibility to charge up a healing spell, possibility to start cast and hold healing spells, feint spellcasting, healing combos and so on.

There you go, some suggestions on how one can make healing more fun in WoW. This was mostly for PvE, as PvP is another matter completly. It has to do with survivability. What comes to mind in terms of PvP I'd say innate resilience, some base resilience that increase with level that keep burst damage down in PvP. Letting healers increase dps as suggested above might buy them some time as well.

Dual Spec on the Horizon

The long awaited ability to set up two seperate sets of talents, also known as dual spec, will be added with the upcomming content patch. Well, if everything goes according to plan that is. Blizzard have released a Q&A where Senior Game Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street answer a few questions about the new feature. In this post I'll quote parts of the Q&A and then comment on the answer GC give us.


Nethaera: Who will be able to use it?
Ghostcrawler: Players who have reached the maximum level will be able to set up dual specs.

I know that this isn't set in stone, and that they might expand the feature to include characters leveling up, but I think this is too restrictive. Personally I would allow players to get this ability at lvl 70 to begin with, and expand down to lvl 60 if deemed possible. Also make the ability WotLK only.


Nethaera: Why do players need to be max level in order to do this?
Ghostcrawler: We didn’t want to burden lower-level players with extra complexity as they’re working to level up and learn their class. But if the feature proves popular we might consider expanding it.

You are seriously underestimating your players. Besides, it's not like it's mandatory to get a second spec. If you think it's too complicated then you can wait with getting it.


Nethaera: How do you switch between specs?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to switch between their talent specs by visiting any Lexicon of Power provided they’ve paid for the ability to have a secondary spec. Lexicons of Power will be available in major cities, and inscribers will also be able to create a new item that summons one. Anyone can purchase this item, but it requires a ritual of several players to summon it for use by the party. It’s similar to a repair bot in that it will exist in the world for a short duration. It’s important to keep in mind that you will not be able to switch specs while in combat or Arenas. While you won’t be able to switch your spec without the Lexicon, you will still be able to look at your secondary spec whenever you want to.

Seem like a good solution to be honest. Would be cool if Lexicons of Power could be added in Shattrath and Dalaran. Raiders having to take a detour to Azeroth every time it's raid time (or raid end) would be annoying. Letting inscribers create items capable of summoning lexicons is cool. Professions in general could use some more service opportunities like this. The item could perhaps summon a sealed tome of sorts. If three party/raid members channel at the same time it unlocks and become a Lexicon of Power. Duration/Cooldown...10 minutes perhaps? It gives the raid plenty of time to respec for a boss encounter, defeat the encounter and then spec back afterwards.


Nethaera: Is the item that allows you to summon a Lexicon of Power reusable, or is it used up?
Ghostcrawler: We haven’t made a final decision on that yet, and will be evaluating how it works on the PTR.

Tough call. Both would work really. Reusuable equals more of an achievement for the character, while one time use mean more business opportunities for inscriptors. I'm leaning towards reusuable myself, with some hard to get materials.

(Source)

Class Change Highlights

As we all know Blizzard are working hard on the new content patch, patch 3.1. A week ago some highlights were released, focusing on class changes. These were almost exclusively changes that would be described as buffs. I'm guessing Blizzard want to get the ruthless forum mob in a good mood before releasing any details about nerfs. ;)

Jokes aside, there's some really nice stuff in that list, so go have a look if you haven't already.

(Source)

Next time I post it will probably be about the dual spec announcement.

Mana Regeneration Nerf and Healing Fun

A few days ago developers announced that mana regeneration will most likely be nerfed in content patch 3.1, since they believe it's currently too powerful.

A list of some of the changes in short:

• Decreased mana regeneration outside the five second rule.
• Reduced mana regeneration granted by spirit across the board.
• Boosted effect from spirit regen ---> mp5 abilities/talents.
• Increased healing penalty on Divine Plea from 20% to 50%.
• Spiritual Attunement won't be as effective for holy paladins anymore.
• Clearcasting procs won't keep you out of the five second rule.
• Raids will be balanced with the assumption that replenishment will be present.

The changes should have the following impact on the different healing classes:

• Druids and priests: Will be less tempted to regen mana outside the five second rule. The change to clearcasting procs will make it harder to remain outside previously mentioned rule. Intensity/Meditation will be buffed so that mana regen within the five second rule will remain roughly the same as before the nerf. Will have more issues recovering mana out of combat (have to drink more).
• Paladins: Will not have a very favorable mana regen in encounters with heavy raid damage, and thus have a more even mana regen. Divine Plea will not be cast mindlessly anymore.
• Shamans: Won't be affected much by the nerf. The other classes will be brought down to the shaman class in terms of mana regeneration.

Nerfs to mana regeneration has happened several times since the dawn of the game, and this won't likely be the last time. I agree with the developers that mana regeneration needs to be kept in check. While it's never fun to be nerfed, it's not fun to never have to think about mana either. A mana regen nerf will mean that mana efficient spells will have a comeback, and with them come a new level of skill: to know when to use the appropriate spell. So in this case a nerf = more fun.

However in some ways I don't agree with how they choose to nerf mana regen. For instance how they nerf the potency of mana regen outside of the five second rule. First off making the most out of out-of-casting regen takes some skill, but most of all it's fun. Do healers need less fun at this point? I can hardly believe my eyes when Ghostcrawler say, after all the talk about mana regen nerfs, that they'd like for healers to be able to pause without disaster as a result... Ehm, wouldn't the five second rule be a nice incentive to take it easy? The current changes bring spirit closer to mp5. Depending on how much they choose to nerf regen outside of the five second rule, they might not be encouraged to pause at all.

By the way, isn't it about time that Intensity/Meditation become baseline for druids/priests? They were as must-have as talents get for balance/resto/disc/holy/shadow even before the buff. After the buff it's just silly...

What's next on the agenda...ah yes, replenishment. I like the idea of replenishment. I don't like how they are making it mandatory for raiding. What happened to "bring the player, not the class"? A mandatory replenishment goes against this goal, and it doesn't even make raiding more fun in the process. It would be better for the game if it was made into a minor buff that a few classes brought as a bonus, and that replenishment is balanced around existing mana regen instead of mana regen getting balanced around an imbalanced replenishment.

They said the high mana regeneration at the moment devalues the ability. I'd say that the pathetic raid difficulty at the moment devalues the ability. In Ulduar we will see replenishment's true colors, and I'm certain it will be deemed overpowered at that point.

On the bright side, paladins have so far been nerfed in ways that doesn't make them less fun to heal with. The change to Divine Plea should even make things more interesting and fun. Wish that druids and priests could recieve the same treatment.

(Source) / (Source)