Forum post of the day: Faith in healing
by Amanda Dean 
Jul 6th 2008 at 3:15AM
The community seems to be in agreement that Paladins need a little love. At one point the champions of light, along with Warriors dominated the arenas. It's pretty clear that Paladins have been left behind in PvP. This class has found a niche alongside Druids and Warriors in the tanking corps. But is this the only place for a Pally any more?
Lolbubble of Ysera opened a discussion about how well Paladins fair as PvE healers. The thread continued with some of the pros and cons of holy heals. Pallies have the ability to bless their party members, which is always pleasant. They are also mana efficient, especially when there's a knowledgeable player behind the keyboard. They tend to be focused healers, falling short of Prayer of Mending or Chain Heal. This is not necessarily bad if the player is assigned a tank to heal, but not great for overall raid heals. Paladins also have a noticeable lack of reusable instant healing spells.
Lolferal of Blackrock suggested that Paladins become less useful healers throughout endgame progression:
Paladins are a great healer when leveling up
Paladins are a great healer when doing early 70 dungeons
Paladins are still great when doing beginning 10 man / 25 mans
Paladins start to show downsides when you begin to do more difficult 25 mans
Paladins start to be really crappy when you begin to do toughest 25 mans
Blizzard has some plans for Paladins in the future. Right now, Pallies have a very limited number of spells to rely on as healers. In Wrath of the Lich King, this class expects to see Hand of Purity, which is supposed to behave similar to the Priests Prayer of Mending.
For right now, what's the best role for a Pally?
Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Instances, Raiding, Forums, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Defrocked Jul 6th 2008 3:31AM
I've been having the same problem lately. I am a 70 human Paladin shockadin. 40/0/21 specced and do pretty well in Kara and Gruuls. But stick me in a random heroic or recently Ahune and it's all I can do to keep up with the splash damage that everyone receives. I hate tanking, never played Ret and love to heal. And with all the rep I've ground after being 70 I have no urge to reroll. Blizzard please give us some healing love!
Saeverud Jul 6th 2008 3:38AM
This is the trend all the paladin specs follow really. Prot Paladin's make fantastic tanks for the five man content, and good tanks for 10 man stuff. Once you get into 25 man and on, we begin to fall short compared to other classes.
When it comes to later raid progression, Holy paladins are only really able to keep up is by stacking spell haste, able to cast incredibly fast healing spells, and heal a ton at a time. Unfortunately doing so we lose our legendary mana efficiency and can go OOM very fast is we're not careful.
And in PVP we completely fall short. Being the number one easiest class to shut down and lock since every single spell and ability falls under the holy section, reduces us to a big pile of auto swing armor.
wandrin Jul 6th 2008 3:49AM
I'm not sure what the best role for a paladin at this point is, but at the toughest raid level is seems they can do anything. So mabye they aren't the best but i wouldn't say they are exactly crappy.
Ret: http://wowwebstats.com/prjmtunvpxmso?s=19224-19726
Tank and heal: http://wowwebstats.com/ghbh3xohjdt2c?s=3870-4389
Katiya Jul 6th 2008 3:58AM
My main raid spec was as Holy for my guild, however I also built up a set of tanking gear as an offspec.
Previously the paladins in the guild performed extremely well in the earlier raid content - often topping the charts for healing output. Now however as we are in late SSC / TK and MH (also starting BT this week). I have noticed that there is a huge gulf between what the Holy paladins can produce in healing and what shaman, priests and especially resto druids can put out there. To the point where I am beginning to get concerned over the viability of taking too many Holy Paladins.
As such I have found myself wearing my tanking gear recently on our raids and speccing as protection instead.
I also used to be a healer in a number of arena teams, back in Season 1 and 2 - but gave that up as players learnt how to deal with paladin healers in arenas and the whole experience became more frustrating than fun.
I certainly feel that Protection is becoming the only viable raid spec for paladins these days as our limitations for raid healing are really starting to show in mid to late content. I'd like to see Blizz sort this out in WotLK, but really not holding my breath as a Prayer of Mending style ability (Prayer of mending Lite) is really not going to shake up paladin healing all that much.
Ferarro Jul 6th 2008 11:25PM
I made a post about this issue on my blog:
http://ferarro.blogspot.com/2008/06/report-card-paladins.html
Due to over 94% of all Paladins being Holy in pre-BC, I think Blizzard decided to leave Holy alone for a bit while they worked on buffing another tree. They decided to make Prot viable and tweak Ret enough to calm the cries. But that left Paladin tanking gimmicky, DPS sub-par, and healing dead last.
Time will tell if they've learned from their mistakes.
Deusmortis Jul 6th 2008 4:17AM
Best role? It's hard to say.
There was a time when Holy was basically the only spec. Then, Prot started to shine, and eventually, Ret followed suit. Still, warriors are almost always preferable unless there is some kind of crazy Hyjal/Felmyst style AOE tanking needed. Ret is on a strictly one-per-raid basis, and anything Holy can do other classes can do better.
PVP is even worse, since Blizz really seems to hate us. No comp in the game was hit as hard as War/Pal, and the Paladin half of that equation ate all of the "game balancing" nerfs. Freedom? Shortened. Sacrifice? Added cooldown. Bubble? Auto-dispelled by MD. Protection? Given a massive "Please remove this effect now" neon sign of an icon above the target's head. No tanking spec long endures in arena, and although Ret may be workable, it's far from optimal.
I'm starting to think that the Paladin's best role these days is at the raid entrance, buffing the more favored classes before they zone in.
Procris Jul 6th 2008 4:43AM
Holy is still the most viable spec for the majority of paladins. Our ability to heal may be falling behind the rest of the healers but it won't ever change the fact that healers are always needed. Good healers more so. Thats PvE discussed. PvP is a complete mess and in my opinion paladins are currently "broken" in that respect. Once bubble has been used, thats it, you can pretty much kill the paladin off because they really don't have any other form of defence, other than healing themselves which interrupts if your good can take care of easily. Druids and Priests make far better arena healers than paladins.
Then protection. I've tanked every 5 man on my paladin and very well, but never really got the chance to take it any further, so i can't really comment on what its like raiding 25 man content as one.
Lasty retri. No one seems to ever want a retri paladin for anything despite that they bring utility such as 3% crit to all attacks, as well as the normal buffs, auras. In PvP it can be viable because of the gear and depending on group setups but generally paladin retri PvP gear is inferior to every other class that pvps. I mean, before 2.3 or 4 it didn't even really have any resilience on it for crying out loud >.>
The talent trees are a complete mess. Its unfair a druid can tank, dps as well as heal but when it comes to paladins - Blizzard say they want to focus on "the core trees of Holy and Protection". Granted I think bliz has done a great job at making protection actually useful since BC but theres no excuse for ignoring the retri tree.
Conspirator Jul 9th 2008 11:46PM
Pallys are broken now, and well on their way to being broken in the future. The time that blizz is spending, right now, not announcing and consequently "testing" our new talents and abilities for the alpha pretty much dooms us...again.
This is the third time in a row that blizz has decided to finish up pallys last over all the classes. I think this is why we are pretty much broken.
First time, 2 weeks before the open beta, the still talentless pallys running around in blizz's closed beta had their mechanics changed entirely, from a short range spellcaster to a auto attacking retard. 2nd time when we were the last to begin testing in the burning crusade expack beta, just like right now. And the current situation, the alpha goes beta next week, and we still don't have talents and new abilities up.
Argent Jul 6th 2008 7:46AM
i think lolferal nailed holy paladins dead center. being a holy paladin in MH/BT and onward is about as un-fun as this game gets atm.
doyesac Jul 6th 2008 8:39AM
Not to be THAT guy, but you mean:
"...a discussion about how well Paladins FARE as PvE healers."
That is all. Carry on.
VSUReaper Jul 6th 2008 10:27AM
Granted I'm not in the hardest of raids (entering T5 next week) but as a healer (a priest), I'm jealous about the fact that they are more mana efficient and have taken my raid assignment from me (mt heals), and as a tank, I wouldnt stand to have anyone else heal me. Priests are nice for the renew and POM, but it sucks to see some spike dmg land and they blow half their mana to get back on top of the situation.
Yeah, they need something to make it easier for the fights like Ahune with splash damage, but they are far from broken.
Procyon Jul 6th 2008 11:24AM
I am a holy pally. My guild is 4/5 Hyjal and 3/9 BT. I regularly rank between 2-5 in healing most nights. THe nights that we bring 4 priests though I am always 5th. On fights like Naj in BT I hold my own, but am relegated to MT heal duty. I throw heals around after his bubble bursts, but mainly I spam the tank with Flash of Light and the occasional Holy Light. As we progress in BT I need to start picking up some spell haste gear or I am am going to be completely gimped. I know I can heal with the best healers in my guild or even my server, but there are areas where being a pally cripples me.
Pallies need a POM/Circle type heal. I am not saying it needs to be as effective as the Priest spells, but added utility would be great.
Holy shock needs to be able to be specced into the holy tree for improvements. Also, change the mechanic of having to face the person being healed...not damaged, but healed. Talents for extending it's range, lessening the CD or the mana cost would go a long way to making it a viable instant cast heal. With range being the first priority. I rarely use Holy Shock to heal during a raid but when I do it is pretty useful. I can rip off a 2.5 - 3k Holy Shock then immediately follow it with a 3k Flash of light that's almost 6k heals in a matter of less than 2 seconds. Which at times has saved wipes.
One more thing I'd like to see for pallies is that when you judge a mob that any damage refreshes the judgment. For long boss fights that would be fantastic, but I digress. (AOE Judgments would be rad as well).
So, pallies are not gimped...especially if you know how to play your class, but we definitely need some healing love.
Also, our main tank is a prot pally and a very excellent one at that.
My 2 cents
Mevolution Jul 6th 2008 11:58AM
I don't think holy pallies should have aoe because I'd rather not have all healing classes playing the same and be interchangeable. why would you roll a cloth only priest with it's lower attributes, when you can just roll a plate wearing pally who can also wearing mail, leather and cloth?
Just need to take their niche of buffers/single target healers further. Friendly judgements/30 second buffs on a friendly target? like +healing, avoidance, attack power for 30 seconds. Healer friendly aura's or maybe a more offensive based healer considering well..they're paladins..they wear plate. >.>
Clevins Jul 6th 2008 1:47PM
You beat me to it. It sounds like pallies who raid deeply do need some love. But simply giving them a PoM kind of heal and an AOE heal seems shortsighted.
WE focus on what can change about the class, but as much as anything, the encounters have to be designed to utilize the viable specs of the classes.
Procyon Jul 6th 2008 2:59PM
Maybe an AOE heal is a little far fetched, but my ideas to revamp holy shock would go a long way into making our heals a bit more viable in the end game....which will be old hat in like 6 months.
Procyon Jul 6th 2008 3:01PM
Maybe an AOE heal is a little far fetched, but my ideas to revamp holy shock would go a long way into making our heals a bit more viable in the end game....which will be old hat in like 6 months.
Procyon Jul 6th 2008 3:01PM
Double post.
50 DKP minus!!
my2cents Jul 6th 2008 5:28PM
I really think some HoT action is what Holy Pallies need. Nothing nearly as strong as what a druid has, or even a priest's renew, but something.
Perhaps making seal of light's heal proc have a (very) small HoT component after its initial heal, and let it proc off of heals onto the target you're healing. Also, a talent that causes heal crits to heal an additional 5% over 3 secs could help. Neither of these would make HoTs a really large part of pally healing, but would definitely help...just a thought.
Chamual Jul 6th 2008 6:00PM
Also you can't just look at healing charts and say 'x heals for more than y'. You have to consider who is being healed. If it is a fight with high raid damage, of course the raid healers are gonna come out on top as there is more healing to do.
Paladins generally are healing the tanks, and especially as you start to farm certain raids, the tanks are gonna be taking less damage overall because their gear has improved with the farming.
Paladin healers do seem to thin out as guilds progress, the healing core shifts away from them, but there is still always a couple there.
Maybe the reason holy paladins thin out is because their places get taken by prot or retribution paladins. It's always nice to 3-5 blessings, and if you are short on holy paladins its one of the good things ret and prot pallies can add to the raid.
uncaringbear Jul 6th 2008 6:24PM
My pally would be the happiest girl around if she had access to a HOT and an AOE heal. While we're hard to beat as single-target healers, healing in general can be very stressful for us with such single-dimension healing.