PTR Notes: Fixing illumination
by Elizabeth Harper 
Apr 27th 2007 at 4:30PM
Over at Blessing of Kings, Coriel has a great explanation of how the paladin's to-be-changed Illumination talent -- which has been happily residing in the holy tree since the game's release -- became such a thorny problem. The talent (as it exists now) returns the base mana cost of a healing spell to the paladin when the healing spell crits. (It costs 5 talent points to bring it to this level of effectiveness and requires 15 points in the talent tree. So a fully maxxed illumination will cost you 20 talent points in the holy tree.) The end result is that, overall, the paladin receives a mana discount on their healing spells equal to their spell crit rate. Prior to patch 1.9, a paladin could boost his or her holy spell crit rate by 5% through talents (priests have a similar talent that boosts holy spell crit), but it was difficult for paladins to get any other spell crit gear. The plate itemization simply didn't exist and there was heavy competition for generic items that a paladin could use like the Azuresong Mageblade.
Illumination as a talent that reduced the cost of all healing abilities by 5% for 10 talent points (5 points for illumination and 5 more points for holy power to boost holy spell crit rate) wasn't shabby, but it certainly wasn't overpowered. Even combined with the divine favor talent -- which gave a guaranteed healing crit on the next cast (1 talent point, requires 20 points in the holy tree) to give the paladin a cost free crit heal for every two minute cooldown -- the ability didn't seem overwhelming. After all, priests have a similar (but more flexible) ability called inner focus which is a free, guaranteed crit spell cast on a three minute cooldown (1 talent point, requires 10 talent points in the discipline tree).
But with patch 1.9 came the paladin's talent review -- and Blizzard seemed to embrace spell crit as a core element of the holy tree and paladin healing. Plate spell crit items started becoming more common. And with the 2.0 patch, an additional +6% healing crit (sanctified light, 3 talent points requiring 20 points in the holy tree) was added to the holy tree (giving paladins a total of +11% crit from talents). Now it became possible for a paladin to easily acquire a 30% or higher spell crit rate, making their healing spells cost, on average, 30% less than normal. And once you get spell crit that high, you start to really see a paladin's mana pool go further than anyone else's.
But does cutting illumination's effect by 40% fix this problem? (If you haven't yet noticed, a recent PTR patch changed illumination from 50% to 60%, max.) As Coriel notes, this simply devalues the many existing talents in the holy tree -- you're spending the same amount of talent points to get half the effect. And without spell crit, there's just no compelling focus to the tree as a whole.
And now that efficiency will not be the major advantage of paladin healing, I have to wonder what Blizzard expects to replace it with. From the news on the PTRs, it sounds as though it won't be replaced with anything.
Filed under: Paladin, Patches, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Baylzie Apr 27th 2007 4:48PM
"And with the 2.0 patch, an additional +6% healing crit (sanctified light, 3 talent points requiring 20 points in the holy tree) was added to the holy tree (giving paladins a total of +11% crit from talents)."
Sanctified Light, to be fully maxed out, requires at least 23 Points into Holy, and ONLY effects Holy Light; therefore, the "+11% crit" you've stated only applies to Holy Light, leaving +5% crit from talents.
On another note: Assuming you're putting that many points into Holy (23 for Sanctified Light), you can add an additional talent point for Divine Favor.
-Baylzie (Tortheldrin)
Scott Apr 27th 2007 4:49PM
Let's not forget the benefit of spell crit on healing outside of the mana recovery. Spell crit increases healing efficiency quite a bit, so 30% crit rate expands the mana pool (through crits) as well. Of course, crits have a great chance of overhealing and thus being wasted - reducing their efficiency. Illumination's mana return was always 100% efficient and perhaps that was simply too much.
Quoi Apr 27th 2007 5:35PM
Umm, I don't see why this is such a big deal, honestly. You still get mana back, more than half, you just don't get it ALL back.
The mage one only refunds 30% max.
ocswing Apr 27th 2007 5:24PM
Blizzard is going this way with most talent nerfs now. Making you spend more talent points (rather than pre-BC) to get the same effect. It's happening with shadow priests as well. I suppose it's easier for them to do this than redesign the game, because they keep doing this sort of thing.
Note: The Priest "Inner Focus" Talent is not a guaranteed crit spell. It makes the next spell cast mana free and increases the crit chance by 25%.
Guernia Apr 27th 2007 5:51PM
Crit at 30% is a virtual 42% increase in mana pool at 100% mana return for healing spells.
With Illumination returning only 60% of mana, it equates to a virtual 22% increase in mana pool when healing.
Paladins continue to be the worst healing class as far as mana regenration is concerned (which also affects our other two trees) with BoW and SoW/JoW being our only real way of regenerating mana. This is further compounded by our heal spam technique not letting us out of the FSR for any sustained period (wheras other classes can use HoTs to buy themselves some time).
All this equates to paladins seeming to be highly efficient healers, but it only applies in the short term due to our large virtual mana pool supplied by 100% Illumination returns. In longer fights, we come out much much worse since it then becomes possible to expend all our mana, and with no clear mechanism to regain it, our efficiecy drops precipitously. Nerfing Illumination just makes that happen earlier.
For a true comparison, you have to take into account the length of the fight, the rate of mana regen for all healing classes, initial mana pools, virtual mana pools etc. I don't have the numbers on hand to do that, but it's clear that, eventually, those healing classes with much higher regen rates will have the upper hand in increasingly long encounters. I do hope that this is being taken into account with the new Illumination figures, and the future encounters that Blizzard designs and releases.
Coriel Apr 27th 2007 6:39PM
One small correction:
The talent Holy Power (+5% spell crit) did not exist before 1.9. Paladins generally only had spell crit from Int (our int-to-crit ratio was slightly different) and the few items we could scrounge up.
In many ways, Holy Power was a real shock when it showed up on the test server.
You can see the change in attitude about spell crit by looking at paladin class sets. Lawbringer (T1) only has 1% spell crit as a 5-piece bonus, Judgement (T2) has none. But Redemption (T3) suddenly has +spell crit on *five* of the pieces, and now all of our plate healing gear has spell crit.
someone Apr 27th 2007 6:47PM
QQ moar.
Honestly if you guys think you have it bad go look at the shaman class. I'm actually happy pallies are getting nerfed, the more every other class sucks the less my class does. I'm actually kinda mad they bumped it up to 60%, it should be 50%.
Guernia Apr 27th 2007 7:39PM
It'll take a lot more than that to nerf us down to shaman level. Enjoy your gimped class.
Kurackus Apr 27th 2007 7:43PM
They are doing the same thing to Paladin healing that they are doing to Shaman speel DPS
Nogun Apr 27th 2007 8:42PM
I sense a vibe in this post that Priests actually have it better than Paladins when it comes to talents. That's not so good for credibility.
cetha Apr 27th 2007 10:14PM
Paladins continue to be the worst healing class as far as mana regenration is concerned (which also affects our other two trees) with BoW and SoW/JoW being our only real way of regenerating mana. This is further compounded by our heal spam technique not letting us out of the FSR for any sustained period (wheras other classes can use HoTs to buy themselves some time).
umm...shammies don't have an HoT...and we are healers too...come back to me when your heals suck as much as mine...kthxbye
someone Apr 27th 2007 11:09PM
"umm...shammies don't have an HoT...and we are healers too...come back to me when your heals suck as much as mine...kthxbye"
#11 is right, and what he quoted from #5 is just blantely wrong, infact its so wrong it makes me laugh...have you even been to a raid? Honestly everytime I go oom the pallie still has 65% mana or more.
Hal Apr 27th 2007 11:30PM
i agree with #12... #5's main gripe seems to be that pally's can now actually run out of mana.
this would be like a warrior complaining that he doesn't have infinite health when tanking.
granted... if i had a talent that essentially meant i never ran OOM... i'd probably do all i could to prevent it from being taken away from me too.
Hybrys Apr 28th 2007 12:32AM
Shammies have no mana regen?
1. Mana Tide Totem. Long cooldown, but, you can initially, and after popping it, have Mana Spring down.
2. You are the "worst" healers because of the buffs you offer the class. 101 Spell Damage, AND 86 Strength, AND Mana back. Nevermind Heroism/Bloodlust. Kings/Fort/DS don't offset those.
3. If you are intelligent about mana regen, you'd get the totem that reduces the amount your Lightning Bolts cost into the negatives, giving you mana back. You can just make a macro to equip the totem when you are OOM, or everyone is fine for a cast or two, and get, like, 50 free mana.
Khanmora Apr 28th 2007 1:33AM
The problem with the above is when you are looking at a 35% heal crit rating on Holy Light alone (which is what we are talking about, most pallies average 25% for base holy spells) and we get to a place where we have to spam Holy Light then we can get an average of 12-14 heals in. After this nerf you are looking at 7-10 of our large heals. That's a big difference.
The biggest problem with this patch is that they are taking 2 things that effect pally mana regen and nerfing both of them so it is difficult to discern where the actual culprit is and balance it. Any pally will tell you that the idea of infinite mana comes when we are in a group with a shadow priest that has VE and VT up. VE procs Spiritual Attunement which gives us mana. VT gives mana back all on its own. We could literally spam our big heal and not have to think about our mana pool if the shadow priest had those up.
In this patch they are nerfing Illumination (which nullifies most of the gear that we have been working toward as a way of creating mana regen) and Spiritual Attunement. The real reason pallies were exceedingly efficient, IMO was the SA combined with VE and not Illumination.
So what you are going to see is pallies who start hogging up the mp5 gear to help our spam healing selves b/c having over 15% or so crit isn't going to do a darn thing for us. Guess what? None of the tier gear has as much mp5 as spell crit atm so I would certainly expect to see pallies downgrading armor to increase their mp5. When you have to chain heal and are constantly in the 5sr then you have to have that mp5 to cover. I think you will also see more holy pallies putting the points in BoW and not BoK anymore.
Jarrett Apr 28th 2007 8:19AM
"After all, priests have a similar (but more flexible) ability called inner focus which is a free, guaranteed crit spell cast on a three minute cooldown (1 talent point, requires 10 talent points in the discipline tree)."
Do you even read the links you post yourself? Check out that priest spell link again.
Guernia Apr 28th 2007 1:44PM
@11, did I say ALL other healing classes have HoTs? No. Learn to read.
--
@13, I was not complaining that we can run out of mana now. Priests and druids, for instance, can run out of mana. But, and this is the vital part you might have missed from post #5, *Pallies will not be able to regain that mana back once we run out* like other classes can. The *only* thing we have going for us is our expanded virtual mana pool. If you nerf that, you take away the only advantage and replace it with nothing.
Having a virtual 42% bonus to your mana pool is ludicrous *if you want paladins to heal in exactly the same way as other classes*. From the way paladins are set up (large mana pool, crappy regen) this is obviously not the case. If you want to move the paladin more towards the priest/druid style of healing, you have to decrease the mana pool, and increase mana regen, just like the other healing classes.
To compare to your analogy with the warrior, it would be like a warrior with 30,000HP, but you can't heal him except by eating. If you then nerf his total HP, you have to be able to somehow replensih his HP or else he's useless.
--
@12, since you're the crappiest class in the game, you're SUPPOSED to have crap mana efficiency. It's been stated as such time and time again by Blue. Try asking for a buff for your own useless class next time instead of indulging in your schadenfreude.
Yes, I have been to a raid. Yes, I usually do have mana left after a fight. No, I haven't been able to compare my healing to that of shamans in 2.1 because no-one in my guild has any pretentions that shaman in raids are anything other than off-off-healers and group-focused buff bots. That is, if they even bother bringing their shaman - most relrolled after they figured out just how bad shaman were at everything. Much like you with your trolling commentary, really.
Xabian Apr 29th 2007 10:15PM
Speaking from a PvE perspective, Fear Ward is only beneficial in certain situations... While Human Priests have a bonus to spirit which is always beneficial. Nightelves at least get to look cool... that is a pretty big bonus, if you ask me!.
Maybe these skills need to be reworked, but everything has it's bonuses. If anything, they should do a better job of making users aware of these unique differences.
Astros Apr 30th 2007 8:36AM
@17
It's obvious that you don't care about game balance.
When a pally can have a virtually infinte mana pool, (with illumination and shadow priest's VE) something is wrong and needs to be changed.
I play a pally and I can admit that the current status of the illuminatin + VE is ridiculous. It is almost impossible to go OOM and this change is definetly needed.
Don't get mad because YOUR class is getting nerfed...It needed to be done, it was just simply not fair.
Ryan Apr 30th 2007 10:04AM
@14 Mana tide is 31 points into the resto tree, hardly something an elemental shaman has access to. If you believe that all shaman have this, I would agree with you that indeed they should; but as it stands we don't.