How do you figure tbc nerfed holy paladins? They have the best single-target heals in the game. It takes getting into t6 content and rampant raid-wide damage for priests to finally shine.

dan, maybe you did not notice, but in tbc the key talent of the paladin class (illumination) got nerfed by 30%, while the key regeneration stat for priests and druids (spirit) got buffed by an equal amount.
also the way holy paladins scale with gear does not really compare to the awesome scaling of resto shamen or coh priests today.
t6+ content is where the mark of the game is set today, noone really cares if pallys topped the meters in kara 1,5 years ago ;)

Yes it was changed but c'mon that was 8 or so patches into the lifespan of tbc. For the majority of tbc paladins were op compared to their peers. The change made thing more competitive. Besides all it really resulted in for was a change in gemming from spell crit to mp5. It wasn't a make or break change by any stretch of the imagination.

dan got pwned

Outside of the illumination nerf, Paladins were mainly nerfed in response to their dominance in arena season 1. Blessing of Freedom and Blessing of Sacrifice both got cooldowns dramatically out of line with their actual utility, and Blessing of Freedom and Blessing of protection both got giant "DISPEL ME" animations. Mass Dispel was buffed in the middle of Season 1 to prioritize for Divine Shield and Ice Block over other dispellable effects, unlike every other dispel in the game.

None of this really affects PvE that much, but saying Holy Pallies weren't nerfed is simply naive. Holy Pallies didn't receive a nerf in PvE outside of Illumination which, admittedly, was way OP to begin with, especially with the amount of crit you can achieve now. But the other classes were all buffed significantly, while Holy Pallies literally got nothing new in the expansion except a 15 second long 3-minute cooldown mana saving device, which really only made up for the nerf to Illumination anyway.

What Blizzard needs to realize is that Paladins as a rule are based around burst, be it burst Healing, burst Damage, or burst Threat, and that burst is only viable in PvP. Sustainability is what rules the day in PvE. They claim to have big changes in the works. I'll believe it when I see it. They changed all the itemization for Ret so we didn't need spell damage anymore, but seemed to forget that Alliance retadins don't get to use Seal of Blood. We are stuck with Righteousness, Command, or Vengeance, all of which STILL base their damage on your spellpower. So CS and our white hits got buffed, and our seals and judgements got nerfed. If that doesn't show a fundamental misunderstanding of the way our class works, I don't know what would.

anyone who trots out nonsense like paladins having 'the best single target heal in the game' just make me laugh.

that hasn't been the case since T5 content. we could at least claim HL was more efficent than GH, but oh yeah, then that blown out of the water as well.

paladins were strong healers in T4 content and maybe the early parts of T5 progression, but they've sucked ever since.

Holy was nerfed? More like Paladins were normalized. Holy Paladins still do sick healing AND can mana buff. Can any other healers *cough Priests* cast a mana regen buff, no. I think Paladins where not hit hard enough with the normalization bat by Blizzard.

Priests should never want what other healing classes have.

Naix -

What is Divine Spirit?
What is Innervate?
What are Mana Spring Totem and Mana Tide Totem?

Every healer has a Mana Regen buff mechanic in some form, Paladins aren't special in this regard.

Divine Spirit is a talent. To get it a priest would have to pass on CoH. Plus, it buffs your spirit by 50... not a whole lot of regen going there

awesome post Heilig!