Paladin Concern Summary

[Chesspiece_face]

Unfortunately, the Public Testing phase of 1.9 is over, so it looks like we're screwed.
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Couple posts taken from the WoW forums describing how Paladin heals were nerfed in 1.9:

I was doing some testing with the holy spec last night and I found some disturbing results.

First things first. My healing build is +247 healing.

The follow is all done with blessing of light.


In 1.8 my flash heals crit for 908max.
They cost 123mana with the FoL talents.

In 1.9 we lose the mana reduction. And we gain a 12% boost to our flash of light.

In 1.9, my flash heals crit for 981max.

At quick glance, you might think (as I did) that in 1.9, my flash heal crit would be 908x1.12=1016.

But, the 12% buff is only to the base spell. So, the more healing gear you have, the less significant the +12% is.

My mana efficiency in 1.8 is
7.4hp/mana

In 1.9 it is
7.0hp/mana

And the more healing gear I get, the worse that spread of ratios becomes.

Because the affect of the 12% mana reduction applies to the whole spell (healing gear and all), where as the 12% buff applies only to the base spell.

So, as you better your healing gear, you will become less and less effective compared to a 1.8 paladin.
- Laurelyn

On a Rank1 Flash of Light, the talent will provide an extra 9 hp per heal, or the equivalent of +20 healing.
On a Rank6 Flash of Light, the talent will provide an extra 46 hp per heal, or the equivalent of +107 healing.

The 12% mana reduction reduces mana cost by 4mp for Rank1, or equivalent to 13 mp/5sec mana regen when chain-casting.
It reduces mana cost by 17mp for Rank6, equivalent to 57 mp/5sec mana regen when chain-casting.

Let me put it another way:
When you're spamming Flash of Light during battle:
- Would you rather have +20 healing or 13 mana regen?
- Would you rather have +107 healing or +57 mana regen?

I'll break it down even further using Blizzard's own itemization formula they use when determining the balance of stats to put on loot (1 healing ~ 0.45 points, 1 mana regen ~ 2.5 points):

1.8 talents:
Rank1 = 13 mana regen = 32.5 points
Rank6 = 57 mana regen = 142.5 points

1.9 talents:
Rank1 = 20 healing = 9 points
Rank6 = 107 healing = 48 points

1.8 Rank1 is 32.5/9 = 3.6 times better than 1.9.
1.8 Rank6 is 142.5/48 = 3.0 times better than 1.9.

I hope this has made the point clearer for those still skeptical: According to my calculations, the 1.8 Flash of Light talent is at least 3 times better than the 1.9 Flash of Light talent!

In addition to the above empirical point: The even more powerful reason this can be considered a nerf to the mana efficiency of Paladins is because the old mana cost reduction provided a -scalable- 12% hp/mana efficiency boost, while the healing power boost in 1.9 increases our hp/mana efficiency by 12% only with zero +healing

- Lavabolt