Paladins and Druids to get a Lift

[savaughn]

This might be common knowledge, but I just saw this and it made my Pally's day.

"All class talents (which haven't already) will be receiving improvements, however, Rogue talents are further down the line than most. The next two are Druids and Paladins seeing as they currently need the most attention. "

[Quark]

This might be common knowledge, but I just saw this and it made my Pally's day.

"All class talents (which haven't already) will be receiving improvements, however, Rogue talents are further down the line than most. The next two are Druids and Paladins seeing as they currently need the most attention. "
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Aye, happy that Druids and Paladins are up next. On a related note, Tyren is asking for Rogue feedback again. I guess he forgot that he only responded to idiots or said "that's a legitimate concern, but not something that's going to change in the forseeable future" the first time. Vanish was fixed before we got the feedback the first time, and any other true concern has been ignored.

I wonder what makes him think we'll be happy to give more/different feedback when Blizzard didn't care the first time ... go spend your time on some other class you're actually willing to change.

[MongoJerry]

Where's the Holy tree love? *sniff*

[lemekim]

Where's the Holy tree love? *sniff*
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I think Blizzard is hesitant to work on the Holy tree, since that would pose similar problem that they have with warriors - If one tree is significantly better at Healing (and in warrior's case, tanking), one would almost be forced to spec into that tree to do high-end content. Otherwise balancing the encounters would be hell; they could be almost impossible without a warrior specced into protection, but cake with that spec.

So Blizzard must indroduce some useful yet not directly healing improving skills, but their last attempts at this (Holy Nova, and Holy Fire) were pretty bad, so they are hesitant to work on them.

[kandrathe]

I think Blizzard is hesitant to work on the Holy tree, since that would pose similar problem that they have with warriors - If one tree is significantly better at Healing (and in warrior's case, tanking), one would almost be forced to spec into that tree to do high-end content. Otherwise balancing the encounters would be hell; they could be almost impossible without a warrior specced into protection, but cake with that spec.

So Blizzard must indroduce some useful yet not directly healing improving skills, but their last attempts at this (Holy Nova, and Holy Fire) were pretty bad, so they are hesitant to work on them.
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Well... I think there are some things they could tweak to make Holy a more viable lvl 1-60 build. I would use Smite more if it didn't take forever (2.5 sec), and scaled in damage more comparable to shadow tree (not better, just in the ball game). When I was Holy spec'd lvl 39, I had trouble soloing mobs below my level. After respec'ing shadow, I can solo mobs 2-3 levels above me, and even elites near my level. If it were not for resisting, I could easily handle +4-5 level above me. If all I were doing was support healing in instances, then Holy would be fine. But, I don't have the luxury of team questing, so I respec'd to shadow for my own sanity.

In Holy damage I had smite, and if invested 5 pts in the talent would get +10% to dmg meaning at lvl 3 level smite would do 212-240 (+21-24) and if invested another 5 pts high in the tree I could reduce the cast time to 2 sec. The shadow damage skills are also available, but with and extensive investment in both healing and holy damage you really wouldn't be able to do both. Rather, one is drawn to limit their investment in Holy to beef up Shadow, or Discipline tree. Fixing the defense blocking critical heals and effects would be a nice easy fix that would give a little holy love. Generally, they will need to include more +dmg % to talents like Inspiration, or Master Healer (thus making it more Holy Wrath).

Holy Fire becomes a waste of talent points since if does not scale after initial investment. Holy Nova is an interesting idea, only for being the ultimate holy tree skill it does so little damage or healing. Why not make it do half of what Prayer of Healing does, and transfer the remaining half into holy damage. So at level 40 you would do 225 healing and 225 dmg and at level 60, about 450 healing, and 450 dmg.

The shadow tree can beef up (-->) the skills quite a bit with +15% dmg from shadow weaving, +10% chance to stun, +10% damage from darkness, and +15% damage in shadow form. For shadow damage I have available, SW:P (over 18 sec, 366 --> 513), Mind Blast (279-297 --> 391-416), Mind Flay (over 3 sec, 186 --> 260), and my wand (32 - 61 Shadow Dmg Spd 1.40 33dps ** I've read conflicting about whether talents affect wands so I will test this.).

[Treesh]

Fixing the defense blocking critical heals and effects would be a nice easy fix that would give a little holy love.  Generally, they will need to include more +dmg % to talents like Inspiration, or Master Healer (thus making it more Holy Wrath). 

Holy Fire becomes a waste of talent points since if does not scale after initial investment.  Holy Nova is an interesting idea, only for being the ultimate holy tree skill it does so little damage or healing.  Why not make it do half of what Prayer of Healing does, and transfer the remaining half into holy damage.  So at level 40 you would do 225 healing and 225 dmg and at level 60, about 450 healing, and 450 dmg.
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Defense blocking critical heals has been fixed.

What do you mean it doesn't scale after initial investment? There is more than one rank of holy fire. Or are you talking about making the talent that only boosts smite damage boost both holy fire and smite? Aleri's holy fire does 405-513 with an additional 165 damage over 10 seconds. If a warlock throws on a curse of elements, I have critted for 1040 damage before without counting the tiny DoT component. Yeah, still not the best DPS out there, but it's better than nothing. ;) Besides, it looks pretty. :D

My holy nova on Aleri does between 250-300something to every critter in the area (yes, less than what you are suggesting) because of how often it crits, but frequently will heal for around 500 damage, again because of how frequently it crits. I do have talent points in holy specialization (increase chance to crit) and spiritual healing (boosts effect of healing spells by 10%), but holy nova in action really does work better than what it looks like on paper. I wouldn't boost the damage of it directly (or at least not much), but it would be nice if the boost to smite would boost all the holy offensive spells. The 30 second timer is much better than the minute long timer it used to be, but I do wish it still dropped some aggro rather than just not adding any additional.

Edit: Forgot to mention the biggest bonus of holy nova - instant AoE heal. Your entire group just got punted and you want to heal them a bit before they might land somewhere ouchy? Holy nova while in the air. The mages/warlocks in your group are AoEing and the critters are almost dead, but you need to quickly heal the whole group and hopefully take out some critters while doing so? Holy nova. Those hordes of little tiny skeletons outside the Baron's room that come charging in? Holy nova. Those skels in Scholo (iirc) who are immune to everything except physical damage and holy damage? Holy nova. The Lyceum when you've got AoErs with you? A quick Holy Nova to top off the AoErs (and help out a little) and you can move on with less downtime and less risk of getting monkeys respawning on top of you. The priest will have more mana than constantly shielding the AoErs (if you have more than one AoEr in the group), the mages won't have to burn extra mana through mana shield use, and yet they still stay healthy.

There are plenty of uses for holy nova. You just have to pick the times when it will be most effective.

[Kevin]

I think Blizzard is hesitant to work on the Holy tree, since that would pose similar problem that they have with warriors - If one tree is significantly better at Healing (and in warrior's case, tanking), one would almost be forced to spec into that tree to do high-end content. Otherwise balancing the encounters would be hell; they could be almost impossible without a warrior specced into protection, but cake with that spec.

So Blizzard must indroduce some useful yet not directly healing improving skills, but their last attempts at this (Holy Nova, and Holy Fire) were pretty bad, so they are hesitant to work on them.
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Of course the problem with protection right now is that it is a worse tank in 90-95% of the game, a worse DPS add, a worse off tank, and is horribly gimped in PvP without anger management. Shield Slam helps and makes it more PvP viable but protection at deeper than 15 points is still pretty much pointless.

How about a shield charge skill that lets you do an intercept type deal in defensive stance? This doesn't make you a better tank but it helps with off tank and PvP for sure. It gives you a way to halp "protect" your party makes better. Too many of the high end protection talents add a marginal and/or situational benefit that are usually still offset by the higher damage potential of fury or arms warrior. Heck even concussion blow becomes pretty pointless with all the stun immune mobs out there. Protection needs to be better at tanking than an arms/fury with defiance for the tanking argument to really hold any water for me. Even without defiance I still think arms/fury are better at most tanking situations. Actually the high end tanking seems to be determined almost more by gear than anything else right now. This is part of the reason why Gnolack won't be tanking the high end stuff anytime soon. I just can't focus on getting him the loot he needs to really be able to do it and still have fun with the game.

Since I won't see a protection warrior as a better tank give me more utility so that I can at least be a better off tank and do a bit more in PvP than I do right now.

I'd like to see some damage help to holy as well. I'd like to see an AoE healing buff. This isn't going to help all that much in a raid since the AoE heals only help your party, so it's going to help your healing in your "oh #$%&" situations, which is what proteciton warrior talents do right now, but not change much at all for high end. This is the current idea behind Holy Nova as I see it. I've seen Holy Nova save a wipe that a priest without it would have lost the party. Or lost all but one of the party. I agree that you don't want the healing so good that it trivializes an encounter but Holy still needs love. But Holy Nova alone isn't enough for the tree. A holy priest either needs to be a better healer than they are or have better damage options. I don't think they are as broken as protection warriors right now but I still think they are broken.

[Artega]

What I find maddening about Protection is that there are some VERY good talents in there (especially PvP-wise), but it's very difficult to justify digging deep enough to get them.

Improved Shield Bash and Concussion Blow are great to have in PvP, but can you really justify giving up Mortal Strike and Improved Hamstring to get them?

[lemekim]

There is finally some new info on the paladin spell:

"Since my initial post brought forth more questions than answers, I gathered some specfic details to share with you. Please be aware that what's listed below applies to the final rank of the spell - available at level 60.


Damage 504-556

Mana 425mana

Cast 1second

Cooldown 6seconds

Range 30yards"

And it's usable when target is at 20% or below. Ranged Execute!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...in&T=338065&P=1

[Kevin]

What I find maddening about Protection is that there are some VERY good talents in there (especially PvP-wise), but it's very difficult to justify digging deep enough to get them.

Improved Shield Bash and Concussion Blow are great to have in PvP, but can you really justify giving up Mortal Strike and Improved Hamstring to get them?
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Yep. The tree has a lot of junk and very situational stuff. Even in PvE giving up MS or bloodthirst (and everything else that goes with them) is hard to justify. I can only do it for role play purposes to be honest with you. As I've said a 15/31/5 build is probably going to be a better tank given the same equipment.

T1: Improved Shield spec is pretty marginal as is anticipation.
T2: Toughness is good. Iron Will doesn't really help in practice. Imp Bloodrage is better the less people you have around and is marginal.
T3: Last Stand is better with less people around but is still only marginal. Improved Shield block is pointless after about L40 when you have a high enough parry and dodge to have revenge available all the time. Improved Revenge is alright for 5 man and less, pointless in raid as the thing is stun immune if revenge procs. Defiance is very helpful for holding aggro while tanking.
T4: Imp Sunder is OK, it doesn't hurt since you spam that skill a lot but it doesn't help that much. Imp disarm is eh, 3 more seconds where you can't be mortal striked is nice but 10 vs 13 sec isn't that big a deal. Shorten the cooldown by say 10 seconds and I'd probably take it. Imp Taunt is just to help with oh #$%& moments is very easy to live withouth.
T4: Imp Shield wall gets you 15 vs 10 seconds of shield wall. That isn't bad. One of the few higher tier skills that actually helps you tank better but again 5 more seconds usually doesn't matter for the times when you are using the skill. Imp Shield Bash is very good in PvE and PvP. Concussion Blow is excellent in PvP and very good in 5 man PvE but marginal in raids.
T5: 1H Weapon Spec is actually nice since it helps you all the time. Now that i got some 1H upgrades I'm do higher dual wield DPS on single targets in part thanks to this talent.
T6: Shield Slam is a good rage dump and alright in PvP. You can get 1K crits against low armor foes. I find I do a lot of dual wield then swap in shield and slam and go back to dual or the 2 hander. When I solo it's about 20% of my total damage output.

[Zarathustra]

I think the biggest challenge on the Druid front will be to make the class at least APPEAR to be the little brother of the classes it emulates.

Bear form could use some additional way to help build aggro. Right now it has Growl and Intimidating Roar, but in my experience the painfully slow attack speed (and lack of real damage on hits) makes it difficult to build aggro on enemies. Perhaps an instant attack skill on a timer?

To play devil's advocate against myself... it is possible for a Druid to tank. I've even done some pinch-tanking in MC when a Warrior went down against Core Hounds, shifting to bear and growling to pull one off the cloth. Even in casting gear, it worked for getting us out of a tight spot.

Cat form is going to see some increases with 1.7, so I'll reserve my judgement until I have experience with it. The addition of agility to attack power is a welcome change, and the shot in the arm that's planned could be enough to do the trick. It's my understanding that Cat form is to be the Druid's emulation of the rogue class, and the additional damage may make it function as just that.

I've seen people calling for a variation of Kick, giving the Druid some form of spell interruption. I don't see the need for it. Leave that in the realm of Rogues.

Restoration is the wannabe Priest route, and right now it's filling that role well. The only beef I have is with pointless talents like those that add life and mana regen in combat (amounting to a pittance in practice), or the Improved Tranquility talent that apparently was forgotten with the advent of Barkskin. Fix/improve those three talents or remove them in lieu of something else.

And now Balance... the little Mage that could. I have the most experience here and thus have quite a bit to address. I actually don't have much to request in the way of buffs, but some of the talents are in serious need of review.

Improved Entangling Roots is pointless. If you have those talent points to spare, place them in Nature's Grasp and you have an INSTANT means of rooting while under attack. If anything, change the talent to make it decrease the chance roots will break when damage is taken. That might make the talent more attractive.

Improved Thorns only works when the spell is cast upon the Druid himself. Bug or feature? *shrugs* Either way, 5 talent points are not worth spending to have a CHANCE of getting some extra damage when an enemy strikes the Druid. That's a CHANCE of 18 additional damage. No thanks. Suggestion? Make the talent increase the damage of thorns. Period. No "chance of" involved at all.

Weapon Balance has me confused. I melee quite a bit in primary form in order to get OoC procs, and I still wouldn't spend talent points here. 10% damage doesn't amount to much outside of Feral forms. While I appreciate the option it gives for a melee-oriented caster, the melee weapon damage of a Druid is low enough that 10% isn't going to do much for his efficacy.

And finally, my favorite spell in the Druid's repertoire: Hurricane. I use it all the time when I don't have to function as a dedicated healer. When I am a primary healer, there are still many situations where it comes in handy. Still, this in no way lives up to the idea of being the ultimate Balance spell at a Druid's disposal. It is the only AoE spell at the Druid's disposal, and is and end-tree talent at that. Blizzard has stated they don't want this spell to be more powerful than the other classes' AoE skills. With the damage it does, and a 1 minute timer, that's hardly going to be an issue. This is the one place I want to see a true buff to the class. Either incrase the damage SLIGHTLY, improved the debuff SLIGHTLY to slow movement as well as attack speed, increase its AoE; anything, really. The nature of the spell (*groans* pardon that pun) is such that +damage gear hardly increases its damage, since it is spread out over time. Barkskin was a good start to making it viable. Let's see some more.

[Pantalaimon]

But Holy Nova alone isn't enough for the tree.  A holy priest either needs to be a better healer than they are or have better damage options.  I don't think they are as broken as protection warriors right now but I still think they are broken.
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The major problem with the entire tree is it appears to be mostly geared towards using greater heal, and priests barely use that spell in my experience. If you're specced holy, you can heal much better... "druid style", with the big slow heal. You'll also last forever before going oom. Going holy does make you a much better healer... if you heal in that style.

BUT most encounters you just can't afford to make a 3.5 second cast. It's just asking for trouble, playing ping-pong with the tank's health like that. I think it's a developer oversight they never really bothered to correct (read as: if they fixed holy to make us heal better with the heal we actually use, flash heal, it would give holy an advantage in MC and the like, so they won't do that)

I saw a post a while back, I think it was here, about a priest that was going to try and use greater heal for most of their healing. How did that work out, I wonder?

[Warlock]

I think simply removing the timer from Hurricane would make it worthwhile. I'm thinking here of how it compares to Consecration (another talented AE available from a non-AE class) - higher damage and the attack speed debuff as compensation for channelling (so the Druid can't do anything else), higher talent cost and lower armour while using it. Probably not enough to get "LFM Mage, Lock or Druid for BRD" posts, but enough to make the final talent attractive.

[Brista]

I saw a post a while back, I think it was here, about a priest that was going to try and use greater heal for most of their healing.  How did that work out, I wonder?
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That was me

I'm still with my Shadow spec as I still mainly solo with that character. I do use Greater Heal and try to avoid using the other heals as I play with pretty raw pickup players as a rule. If someone who isn't the tank is low I wait until they're down to about 20% or let them die, with the tank I usually go at 40%, maybe lower if I don't think they have aggro controlled

Very occasionally a tank dies because I gambled and started healing too late, but it's much more common that I pull mobs off the tank when I start healing and get in trouble

I'm firmly convinced that "playing ping-pong" is the best method unless you're confident of your tank and remains a perfectly valid method even when you know the tank is superb

I generally don't throw renews and flash heals around at the non-tanks until I can see that aggro is under control. To my surprise, some players are very comfortable with this and will cheerfully over-nuke and die over and over again, thinking nothing of playing the second half of an instance in an all-red suit

[Tal]

This might be common knowledge, but I just saw this and it made my Pally's day.

"All class talents (which haven't already) will be receiving improvements, however, Rogue talents are further down the line than most. The next two are Druids and Paladins seeing as they currently need the most attention. "
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I really don't have any hope that Blizzard will actually do anything to make the Paladin trees more intuitive or attractive. Personally I feel that if a paladin gimps him/herself to go protection that it should be Protection specc'd warrior -> Protection specc'd paladin -> Arms/Fury warrior for tanking. Just a Arms/Fury Warrior should be -> Retribution Paladin. A paladin that spec's healing should be a better healer than a feral specc'd druid in my opinion as well. But that is probably more of a nightmare to balance than Blizzard wants to worry about. :(

[crowley]

Rather, one is drawn to limit their investment in Holy to beef up Shadow, or Discipline tree.

I don't understand the problem?

If this arrangement suits your needs, then why is there something broken?

Talents were never meant to be invested fully into 1 tree and result in a well-rounded version of that class. Full investment means specialization in 1 area, deficiency in other areas. I think they've accomplished that for the most part w/ Holy & Shadow.

[crowley]

This might be common knowledge, but I just saw this and it made my Pally's day.

"All class talents (which haven't already) will be receiving improvements, however, Rogue talents are further down the line than most. The next two are Druids and Paladins seeing as they currently need the most attention. "
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Yeah this was announaced a while ago and for a while Druids were expecting their talent changes to the patch after the hunter changes (which would be 1.7, the next one) and all hell broke loose when they found out it wasn't coming out to 1.8 or later.

There was this assumption that it would be 1 talent change per patch, looks like they aren't going to be going that quickly.

God knows when classes after Paladin will get theirs, possibly 6 months down the line or longer.

[MongoJerry]

The major problem with the entire tree is it appears to be mostly geared towards using greater heal, and priests barely use that spell in my experience.  If you're specced holy, you can heal much better... "druid style", with the big slow heal. You'll also last forever before going oom.  Going holy does make you a much better healer... if you heal in that style.

BUT most encounters you just can't afford to make a 3.5 second cast.  It's just asking for trouble, playing ping-pong with the tank's health like that.  I think it's a developer oversight they never really bothered to correct (read as: if they fixed holy to make us heal better with the heal we actually use, flash heal, it would give holy an advantage in MC and the like, so they won't do that)

Yep, exactly.

Regarding Holy Nova, there are several things wrong with it, but first of all, let me say that at one time Blizzard had the right idea of what to do with Holy Nova and then went astray. Back in the beta, Holy Nova was a damage spell rather than a healing spell. It had a 5 second cooldown rather than a 30 second cooldown and could deliver a small amount of damage while also reducing aggro. I didn't care about the aggro reduction, since I had fade for that. But what was cool about it was that finally for the first time ever, priests actually had an aoe damage spell of their own. Players who are used to playing characters with aoe skills may not appreciate the predicament priests find themselves in by not having an aoe spell. Those bugs in Tanaris that release those little bugs with little health but who deal good damage and stutter spellcasting? Devastating. Know that a rogue is nearby but you don't want to waste your psychic scream on a guess? Too bad. Prior to the introduction of priest talents with Holy Nova, I dreamed of having some modest aoe spell to use, and this Holy Nova talent that came in was the first thing I wanted above everything else.

Well, it turned out that the damage was really really small, but I did figure out that I could wear a bunch of +damage items to boost the damage dealt. At the time, the damage added directly to spells and wasn't reduced according to (roughly) the cast time of the spell. So I managed to pull together a +damage outfit and got to the point where I could do a fair amount of damage with Holy Nova. It wasn't up to mage arcane explosion level, but I'd say maybe a half or one-third of that. Still, it made things really really fun. At that time, Blackrock Depths was the big instance, so being able to aoe in the Lyceum (the room with the ten billion dwarfs) was fantastic. I had a ball with it.

And what's more, Holy Nova added a new dimension to the holy priest. The holy priest wasn't just a healer, he or she was also a character who could play a supporting aoe damage role like a shaman's totems or a hunter's volley. This made the holy specialized priest different and unique. The shadow tree allowed a priest to be a single target dps character, while the holy tree allowed a priest to be able to aoe for a modest amount of damage. It was a great tradeoff.

But then Blizzard whacked Holy Nova off at the knees. The first thing they did was make +damage items scale according to (roughly) the cast time on the spell. This was a necessary balance change or otherwise spells like arcane explosion would do obscene amounts of damage. But Blizzard didn't compensate for this change by increasing the damage that Holy Nova dealt, so Holy Nova became for all practical purposes useless because of how little damage it dealt. People left the holy tree in droves.

In an attempt to revive Holy Nova, Blizzard then went the completely wrong direction. Instead of making it a useful damage spell, they suddenly made it into "yet another healing spell." Like priests really need yet another healing spell. We already have an instant cast healing spell in PW:Shield. We already have a much more powerful group healing spell in Prayer of Healing. We don't need another spell like this. Yes, I suppose once in a blue moon the stars align and a party can be saved by a spell that heals them for 360 damage once a fight, but for some reason in over 18 months of playing a priest, I have never once thought to myself, "Boy, I wish I had a spell like that!"

I'm sure Treesh can come back and list off a dozen times where Holy Nova saved her party, but then we get to the next problem with Holy Nova: the opportunity cost of getting it. If I were to go back to a full healer spec, no way would I get Holy Nova. I'd get Inner Focus, the 21-point Disciplline talent that makes the next spell mana free and adds 25% to the spell's chance to crit. I had that talent for the longest time, and I'll tell you, it's the talent that's saved my parties' butts so many times. I used to love to be able to throw that one last desperate mana-free greater heal on a tank in the hope of pulling out the win or by far my favorite was to hit Inner Focus and then cast Prayer of Healing. A mana-free critical Prayer of Healing? Now, *that* is a spell that saves a party! And the beauty of Inner Focus is that not only does it give you a free spell, but also because your spell doesn't use mana, your mana continues to regenerate right through the cast so that by the time you finish casting the spell, you'll often have enough mana then to cast a flash heal. Now, that is a talent that I want and miss with my hybrid build -- not that Holy Nova one.

And then finally, the problem with Holy Nova is that it also means that you have to spend a full 30 points in a largely gimpy talent tree in order to get it. There are only three talents in the Holy Tree that I really want and yearn for -- Improved Renew (increases effectiveness of Renew by 15%), Spiritual Healing (increases amount healed by healing spells by 10%), and Improved Prayer of Healing (reduces the mana cost of Prayer of Healing by 20%). I can get the first two with 10 easy points. The last one, I miss, but I'm not going to drop 10 other points in the tree just to get it. The rest of the talents in the tree are kind of bland. It's not that they're useless, but they are blasse -- as in, yeah, I'll take them, but I'm not going to cheer about it. Inspiration (increases target's armor by 25% in the event of a critical heal) is kind of neat if you're going full healer spec, Holy Specialization (increase the critical chance of holy spells by 5%) is fine if you don't have anywhere else to drop points into, and one should probably drop points into Subtlety to reduce healing aggro if you don't have Improved Fade. But there's not really much there to the tree. There's certainly not much there that would make me a significantly better healer after I spend the first 10 points in the tree. I might as well spend the rest of my points in the Discipline tree to maximize my mana and maybe get some of the toys like Mind Flay and Silence that the shadow tree gives me.

So, in essence, Holy Nova is a ho hum talent that one has to give up far more powerful and interesting talents in order to get. I won't say that it wouldn't ever be useful, but is it worth a 31 point investment in the Holy Tree? No. If it only required a 21 point investment in the Holy Tree, then maybe it could be interesting on some level. But it's by no means a 31-point top-of-the-tree spell. Now, if its cooldown were reduced to 5 seconds and it went back to being a modest dps aoe spell, then that would be interesting. But sadly, it doesn't sound like that's going to happen.

Regarding the rest of the tree, you've nailed the problem right on the head as far as the problems at the top of the tree -- that those talents expect a person to be using greater heal rather than flash heals. That's just totally ridiculous and the Holy Tree should be reworked just for that problem alone. Regarding Holy Fire, its problem is simply that its damage isn't enough. It's supposed to be the openning salvo spell like a mage's pyroblast or a hunter's aimed shot, but it does little more damage than a Mind Blast does. It's damage needs to be upped by around 50% to make it a more interesting spell.

I saw a post a while back, I think it was here, about a priest that was going to try and use greater heal for most of their healing.  How did that work out, I wonder?

You're probably thinking of my mini-guide to healing that's posted in the strategy forums, but I never said that greater heal would be used for most of my healing. I said that I could see maybe trying to make it about half my healing if things worked out right. But that statement assumed an investment in Improved Healing, which reduces the mana cost of Greater Heal by 15%. But, since I play on a PvP server and do a lot of PvP, I've had to abandon that idea and switch to a hybrid build. Silence and Mind Flay are just too important to give up in PvP, and without Improved Healing, there's no benefit to casting Greater Heal over Flash Heal. One might think that there's still a slight mana cost benefit to Greater Heal, but in reality overhealing and the inability to take advantage of critical heals reduces the mana cost savings significantly. I don't remember the last time I used Greater Heal. It's been a while.

[Treesh]

You're probably thinking of my mini-guide to healing that's posted in the strategy forums, but I never said that greater heal would be used for most of my healing.
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No, he's thinking of Brista's post.

And about holy nova and holy fire, in release the priest boards were filled with complaints of "why have the top tier talents doing damage rather than healing better?" I guess you don't agree with all those other priests either. I think the main thing you are forgetting is the difference between PvP and PvE. PvE isn't solely about how much damage can you pump out in a short amount of time. The aggro reduction would be a help when your fade is still in cooldown (and would be even with improved fade). The AoE heal is nice. And it's not just a "save the group from a wipe once in a blue moon" skill MJ.

But since you've made up your mind on beta holy nova and refuse to actually see what this version of holy nova is like, it's fruitless to continue the discussion and I don't like my opinion being belittled instead of actually discussed.

And the reason why I keep mentioning how holy nova isn't pointless is because while the holy tree is "broken", it's not broken because of holy nova. It's the other talents available that make the holy tree less than desirable. It's not a neutered holy fire or neutered holy nova, it's the great utility of the other trees and lack of anything really unique in the holy tree that make it less than desirable.

[Kevin]

I really don't have any hope that Blizzard will actually do anything to make the Paladin trees more intuitive or attractive. Personally I feel that if a paladin gimps him/herself to go protection that it should be Protection specc'd warrior -> Protection specc'd paladin -> Arms/Fury warrior for tanking. Just a Arms/Fury Warrior should be -> Retribution Paladin. A paladin that spec's healing should be a better healer than a feral specc'd druid in my opinion as well. But that is probably more of a nightmare to balance than Blizzard wants to worry about. :(
[right][snapback]85579[/snapback][/right]

I'm not sure that a holy spec paladin is a worse healer than a feral druid right now. I'm only part way into my holy spec and I'm pretty impressed with how well a paladin can heal. I had no more trouble healing Maraudon with my partial holy spec paladin than I did with my full on restoration spec druid. The thing a paladin lacks is healing people other than the tanks efficiently. Priests have good AoE heals and a good HoT. Druids have a HoT. Paladins have to use Holy Light or Flash of Light.

Lets look at L46 which is where I was with both classes when I healed Maraudon

Druid
L44 Healing Touch 1199 to 1427 3.5 second cast 545 mana
L42 Regrowth 511 to 575 + 546 over 21 2.0 second cast 510 mana
L46 Rejuv 488 over 12 instant cast 235 mana
My spec changed that to
HT: 1259 to 1498 512 mana
RG: 537 to 604 + 573 over 21 510 mana, 20% chance to crit the first part
RJ: 586 235 mana
natures swiftness

Paladin
L46 Holy Light 945 to 1053 2.5 second cast 465 mana
L42 Flash of Light 197 to 221 1.5 second cast 90 mana
L40 Blessing of Ligth 210 to Holy and 60 to Flash 85 mana
My spec changed that to
HL: 1058 to 1179 465 mana
FL: same
BL: same
can't be interrupted with concentration aura up.
20% chance to get all mana back after a crit heal.
can crit heal when I want

I had Blessing of Light up on the tanks. That means 1268 to 1389 healed with a 2.5 second cast spell. That is better than the restoration spec druids healing touch. Flash of Light was 257 to 281 healed then. I had Blessing of Protection to stop damage when I needed to, the druid has two HoT's to slow it down. I can crit heal when I want to, every 2 minutes, though I still have a 2.5 second cast to get that. The druid can instant heal with any one of their spells every 3 minutes.

I was wearing leather, plate, chain, and cloth items for +int on the paladin. I had a shield on. My damage reduction was around 45% still. The druid had around 22%. The paladin could get up there and swing and do more damage thanks to AP bonus than the druid could. And both are reduced to doing melee damage in order to help do damage. If I got aggro I could keep healing without issues, the druid couldn't because of stuttering. The paladin actually was a lot less likely to get aggro as well.

A 2.5 second cast heal is not that bad, it's about the same time as the druids "fast" regrowth which is 2.0 but doesn't heal as much damage up front and takes a lot more mana.

At L60 the paladin does drop off in healing some but I'm not sure a feral druid is a better healer.
Druid
HT: 1890 to 2230 790 mana
RG: 1003 to 1119 + 1064 over 21s 880 mana
RJ: 756 over 12s 335 mana

Paladin
HL: 1246 to 1388 580 mana (1646 to 1788 with BL up)
FL: 343 to 383 140 mana (458 to 498 with BL up)
BL: 400 and 115
Holy Spec
HL: 1396 to 1555 (1796 to 1955)

Druids use Healing Touch a fair bit to stay mana efficient and Holy Light with the blessing up casts faster and has healing right around the same amount with the blessing up for less mana. Flash of Light might need some work I won't disagree with that. Don't forget about that healing that judging Seal of Light can do. It is no Rejuvination but it does help. Rejuv and Regrowth are powerful, but they do take away the mana pretty quick. Holy Light, while you need to be pretty much always casting it, is not a bad heal.

Just throwing some thoughts out there on the healing. I find paladins to be quite good at healing while growing up. I find that I don't really use Flash of Light at all though, in emergency situations Blessing of Protection is generally