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The latest patch 5.4 newsThe Light and How to Swing It: The new holy paladin toolbox
by Chase Christian 
Jul 4th 2010 at 12:00PM
With the Cataclysm beta now underway, Blizzard's been kind enough to lift the NDA that had been shrouding any expansion information from our eyes. I have been using this opportunity to read up on what holy paladins can look forward to once we're level 85. We have some new information on Healing Hands, and it looks to be a fairly powerful AoE heal (more on that next week). I've also seen some recent changes to the holy tree to reflect the healing game in Cataclysm, as well as some cleanup of talents that were out of place.
The biggest upset for me is our new 21-point talent, Divine Light. It's the "big and expensive" heal that was needed to move paladins to the Three Heal System, and I really don't understand why we need to spend a talent slot to pick up what's supposed to be a core healing spell. I don't care about spending the extra point in the tree, I had just been hoping we would've seen something cool put in the vacancy that was created by the new baseline Holy Shock. The next question is: so what's Divine Light good for anyway?
Before we get into the nitty gritty numbers part of this article, I just want to say that Divine Light has got to be the most uninspired name I've ever heard of. If they move to a Five Heal model in whatever expansion comes next, I guarantee you we'll be seeing Sacred Light and Light of Purity on the table. Prot paladins will be looking forward to Justice's Shield and Guardian's Hammer, while retribution will pick up Storm of the Crusade and Divine Judgement. I understand that paladins are very in tune with the Light and all of that, but can we get a little bit of diversity in our nomenclature?
Holy Shock
The first spell I'd like to touch on is Holy Shock, mainly because it's the one seeing the biggest improvement. We've got a new talent, Improved Holy Shock, which reduces the mana cost of Holy Shock by 70%. When combined with a few points in Benediction, which we'll have free talent points to drop into, Holy Shock's mana cost will be incredibly low. It will actually become our cheapest heal, and with the new Sanctified Light granting it an extra 15% critical strike chance, we will see some huge returns from Illumination.
This is exactly what was needed to jump start usage of Holy Shock, and I can see paladins casting it on cooldown now. It's now crazy efficient, can be casted while moving, and it's currently set to heal a significant amount of HP. It's synergy with Infusion of Light will make it valuable as well, as we'll want to be critting as much as possible when mana is scarce.
Flash of Light
Here's a spell that has undergone some serious role reversal. Currently, Flash of Light is our cheapest, fastest, and weakest heal. Only one of those is going to carry over the Cataclysm, and that's the speed portion. Flash of Light's mana cost is skyrocketing, to be nearly equal to casting a Holy Light today. However, to compensate for that increase in cost, the healing done will also be equal to a Holy Light. If you think about that for a second, it's like they took Holy Light and just gave it a far quicker cast time.
While today that would be pretty much the most overpowered spell entire game, when mana starts to matter in Cataclysm, the cost will be too great to spam it. Could you imagine if your HL cast time was a measly 1 second? Clearly mana regeneration will need to be crippled to allow Flash of Light to not completely overpower every other heal we have. It's interesting to note that Holy Shock actually heals for a nearly identical amount at level 85, and they scale identically with spell power as well. Holy Shock will be our go-to heal when someone needs something quickly, but Flash of Light will be the backup when another heal won't get there in time.
Holy Light
The king of all healing spells. Right now, it's the one spell that every other healer wishes they had access to. It's powerful enough to plow through even the hardest hitting bosses, yet soft and quick enough to cure even minor afflictions. Cataclysm has repurposed Holy Light to essentially switch places with the current Flash of Light, making it our low-cost spam heal. It's new mana cost is actually lower than Flash of Light is today, meaning Holy Light will pretty much be spammable without ever having mana concerns. It's the vanilla heal that's not fast enough to heal quick damage or strong enough to bring a tank from empty to full.
When we look at how it compares to today, one thing to note is the speed. In the beta, it's currently slated to have a 3-second cast time, which is a bit misleading. Holy Light, as of today, has a 2.5-second cast time on live, but both Holy Lights are affected by talents in the holy tree. Light's Grace shaves 0.5-seconds off today's HL, giving it a 2-second baseline cast time. The Improved Holy Light of the future cuts a full second off of the new HL, making the cast times identical.
The difference is that we get to do away with the dumb Light's Grace mechanic, and that the new Holy Light actually scales better with spellpower than the old HL. This means stronger HLs comparatively, though it's worth noting that they did nerf the base heal amount of HL to make sure we weren't immediately gods of healing when Cataclysm is released. I am not really sure where Blizzard is going with Holy Light, to be completely honest with you. Holy Light will cost just 1/5th of what it used to, will have an identical cast time, and will heal for what will probably be a similar amount. What's going to stop every holy paladin from stacking haste instead of intellect and continuing in our Holy Light spamming trend?
Divine Light
While holy paladins have yet to be raid-tested in the beta (the level cap is only 82 right now), I am already feeling wary about Divine Light. It's going to be the slowest spell in our toolbox, and by quite a bit. It's also going to be the most expensive base heal in our toolbox, costing even more than the quick Flash of Light. While the heal may be large, we can actually achieve a higher amount of healing per second by casting two Flash of Lights instead of one Divine Light. The only advantage of Divine Light is that it's more efficient than Flash of Light and has better throughput than Holy Light. Its niche will be a situation where our target is grieviously wounded (needs the entire big heal), won't need the healing quickly (so Flash of Light is too expensive), but also can't wait for two Holy Lights to get there (which would be more efficient).
That seems like a really, really narrow niche to be in. Why not just cast two Holy Lights and save on mana, for only one more second of waiting? Or if time is of the essence, spend the mana to use two Flash of Lights? On top of all of that, we can always just Holy Shock and then Holy Light to heal for as much as Divine Light, but in the same amount of time and for less mana. And finally, on top of that, Divine Light isn't even passed through Beacon of Light, so any combination of Holy Shock and Holy Light becomes the better decision.
Conclusion
Our adaptation to the Three Heal Model seems to be working alright, as Holy Light and Flash of Light both have some pretty obvious niches and use cases. I am concerned about where Divine Light is going to fit into this, and I'm not sure how they're going to work it in. Either they'll have to skyrocket the healing done to make it the highest HPS option, or perhaps shorten the cast time but add a cooldown to keep it balanced. Right now, the balance between HPS and mana does not favor Divine Light, and that's going to keep it on our alternate bar unless some tweaking happens between now and Cataclysm's launch.
The Light and How to Swing It (Holy Edition) is dedicated to helping holy paladins become the powerful healers that we're destined to be. If you're new to the paladin's healing ways, you can learn the ropes with our Holy 101 article. We also have information on how to keep a tank alive, how to heal a raid when necessary and how to beat the GCD. Tanking is a job, DPS is a craft -- but healing is truly an art.Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Valt Jul 4th 2010 1:23PM
"Remember, health pools will be a great deal larger in Cataclysm and damage less spikey. "
I wouldnt count on this so much. They've said it since/before BC. "Less spikey damage to tanks", "more health". More health just comes no matter what anyway and its just clever move to call it feature (wich I dont want to comment about too much to cause too much fanboy rage).
Yeah call me pessimistic but they have said this for years now and they would have to convince me with more than words to show it will be "less spikey".
theRaptor Jul 4th 2010 2:43PM
@Valt
Just go look at the gear. It has redonkilous amounts of health on it (+500 stamina on 80 greens). They aren't just doing this to make tank healing nicer, but also to fix PVP by making player DPS a fraction of player health pools to slow the whole thing down.
They screwed tanking in Wrath because of unlimited healer mana. Which they are also fixing by moving all healers to the same mana model.
sheets_brandon Jul 5th 2010 12:24AM
I honestly don't know what to think of this yet. It goes both ways in my head:
On one hand, with bigger health pools and less spiky damage, Blizzard can more easily design encounters and add other features/techniques on fights, rather than the almost constant "this happens and now you have to heal a lot or you wipe" model that applies to almost every boss. We can have things to do that involve more than beaconing the tank and HLing the other to... life. This could be a very good thing.
On the other hand, this could be very bad. One of my favorite things about healing as opposed to DPSing is the constant pressure it puts, and fighting to pull the tank and raid back from the brink of death is something that a damage rotation on a boss has never been able to match in fun for me. From the sound of it, they could be turning healing from a passive, dynamic role to something comparable to dps. If it ends up like that, I don't know if I would care to do it anymore.
Hopefully I am surprised in a good way but simplification, although nice to attract a wider audience of gamers of varying skill, doesn't always prove the best option.
Aedilhild Jul 4th 2010 1:28PM
I just played around with healing beta-side.
Between narrowed casting times and the respective benefits of Infusion of Light, Flash of Light and Holy Light have clear roles. Flash works best as an instant followup (for a second target) to a critical Holy Shock; while Holy Light becomes the mainstay unless a player doesn't have an extra three-tenths of a second. I like that.
The Glyph of Holy Light has been removed (currently listed as "broken.") Healing Hands aside, I think holy paladins badly need a long-range multi-target spell.
Before Divine Light's announcement, I suggested a talent-based group heal for Holy Light (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=25399922276&postId=254795761938).
Since, as Chase argues, Divine Light doesn't necessarily justify its own talent point, I think a couple of the 5-step talents in the Holy tree could be compressed to make way for something similar. Or, if Holy Light will become as exploited and problematic as Chase worries it will, it could be the subject for division for multiple targets.
brian Jul 5th 2010 3:04AM
I think Divine Light was made a talent to keep it out of the hands of Ret and Prot paladins. The whole, "Ret and Prot get too much healing baseline" deal.
That said, when the mana cost is that high, and with a 3 second cast time, it sounds like it would be fairly prohibitive for them to cast it anyway. Especially when they can just eschew some damage for a Holy Shock on themselves.
An interesting activated ability, another heal (group or no) that adds thought and extra mechanics, or even letting you center Healing Hands on a target would be amazing.
David Jul 4th 2010 2:02PM
The one thing that the healing community, imo, seems to be forgetting is that the health pools will almost be doubling. So in effect all healing spells will be healing a smaller percentage of the health pools. With large health pools spike damage will be less of an issue one or two shotting a tank, but the damage intake will still be large which means healing is going to become a catch up game. For instance lets say our tank is an undead DK named Cupcake with 100 health (add as many zeros, just making the math easier). Cupcake is tanking 10 damage every 3 seconds. but HL/HW/GH only heals for 8. Oh and the rest of the party is taking 4 damage every 2 secs, and we only have 80 health. In addition one of our dpsers, we will call him Healmenow, has his spell effects turned down and doesnt relize he is standing in fire, because he is used to not fretting about stuff like that, and takes 6 damage every 1 sec. The encounter last 4 mins and we go OOM in 3.5 mins spamming everything. I forsee at the end of encounters everyone being below half health and healers OOM. The days of DPS standing around tapping their feet waiting for us to top them off between pulls are over. Everyone will be eating and drinking alot more than we currently do in WotLK.
0wn3d Jul 4th 2010 2:45PM
I was thinking about copying my holy pally over to the beta some time soon (I'm still somewhat scared of healing with the completely default UI, I've already tried healing BRC on different characters and there is a lot of damage going around), so if anyone has any questions or anything they want me to test, just reply to this comment.
0wn3d Jul 4th 2010 2:46PM
Apparently that was a reply to another comment... whoops.
theRaptor Jul 4th 2010 2:50PM
That is the classic raiding model, which Blizzard don't want to go back to. They want a medium between classic/TBC (where healers felt guilty for letting the GOOD dps die) and Wrath (where healers feel guilty for letting someone go below 90% health). I would expect that AoE phases would be where healers need to triage and afterwards they will play catch up.
But yeah if the DPS are retards and can't do their jobs you will have a healer OOM wipe. Gone are the days of 6k GS pure DPS classes being able to barely pull 3k DPS in a PUG.
Expect a lot of "Not standing in fire is haaaaaard blizzzz fiiiixxx!!111" posts on the wow forums come cata.
0wn3d Jul 4th 2010 2:46PM
I'll try and make this not a reply this time....
I was thinking about copying my holy pally over to the beta some time soon (I'm still somewhat scared of healing with the completely default UI, I've already tried healing BRC on different characters and there is a lot of damage going around), so if anyone has any questions or anything they want me to test, just reply to this comment.
holyhaberdashery Jul 4th 2010 2:54PM
"It's now crazy efficient, can be casted while moving..."
Past tense of cast is cast. Ugh. It's almost as bad as when people say "more funner" or "pasgetti" instead of spaghetti.
That pet peeve out of the way, they really should have kept Holy Shock in the Holy Tree. Non healing specs healing on the move seems counter intuitive. All three specs having access to all three basic heals seems to make infinitely more sense.
Shade Jul 4th 2010 7:54PM
The difference is that 'casted' is at least a legitimate mistake due mostly to the fact that the verb 'cast' is not common outside of fishing or fantasy, whereas people who say 'more funner' or 'pasgetti' are doing it on purpose for the tone it creates, similar to leetspeak.
As for Holy Shock being available to all three specs, I think that has the potential to go a long way in letting paladins engage their raid awareness. Remembering the damage component, it does for example allow a Ret paladin to make the snap decision: "The tanks just switched on Festergut. If I Shock the boss, no one's going to complain - I'm DPS and I'm doing my job. But should I Shock the tank to help the healers out a little?"
Granted, a Holy Shock from a Ret paladin won't do a lot. But every now and then you run into situations where a boss does maybe 10 or 11 overkill and the raid wipes. Tiny little things carry the day in those moments.
holyhaberdashery Jul 6th 2010 2:25PM
And the article was written by someone who should be well acquainted with fantasy by now.
So besides instant Exorcism procs Rets need another instant nuke?
Also, I've never known an Enhancement shaman to waste a Maelstrom proc on a heal--unless it was for himself.
My problem is that healing on the run is *power* and should be reserved for the Paladin's Holy spec. Ret already have a way to cast instant heals, and Prot shouldn't need this ability.
If we're to go to a 3 heal system (low, med, high) then they should all have a cast time.
Gundehar Jul 4th 2010 3:13PM
Divine Light just makes no sense. I played around with a beta talent calculator and a 51/5/18 Holy build seems really intuitive right off the bat, leaving 2 points unused for experimentation.
That said, Divine Light in its current format is in too narrow of a niche to be remembered or useful IMO. Say I cast Holy Shock and somehow don't manage to crit and get the GCD-free Flash of Light, leaving another 5 seconds (after GCD) before Holy Shock is off CD. Then I have a 3 second window in which to start casting Divine Light or else it's more advantageous to get a Holy Light/Holy Shock/Holy Light combo with 2 seconds to go on the Holy Shock CD.
And with health pools allowing for more flexibility, isn't there a possibility of simply allowing players to spam Holy Light? It is far less costly and even transfers among the Beacon of Light.
Something has got to change with Divine Light, or I'm spending it's point elsewhere and going back to a 2-trick pony.
Sharvis Jul 4th 2010 3:15PM
Does anyone have a link to an up to date talent calculator for holy paladins? Wowhead's is blank for some reason and MMOChampion's isn't changed. Thanks.
0wn3d Jul 4th 2010 5:02PM
Ok I copied over my holy paladin and I'll note some of the changes that I've noticed so far.
First off I'm using this spec: http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#sxAVcxzVdMVqboxGzubh
The first thing I noticed is that with my current gemming (Stacking intellect duh) and the spec above it put me at 3806 SP unbuffed, about 800 more than I have on live unbuffed. My unbuffed mana pool was also above 38k which is around 3k more than on live.
Now to the spells (Note: I have 734 haste rating, 803 crit rating, and seal of wisdom is active WITH the glyph):
Flash of Light: This spell feels EXACTLY like holy light now. With the buffed spell power it only heals for a slightly smaller amount than holy light used to, but it casts much faster (1.23 sec with my haste). It costs 1126 mana and is able to spammed similarly to how I can spam holy light and keep my mana up with DP/Seal of wisdom.
Holy Light: This spell couldn't feel any more different... It heals for much less than flash of light now (12k crits, and thats with the hugely increased amount of spell power). It has a 1.63 second cast time which is only about .2 seconds faster than it would be on live with light's grace. With my libram of renewal it has a mana cost of 143. As far as I can tell libram of renewal will be useless now with the huge decrease in the mana cost.
Holy Shock: With the talents above it has a mana cost of only 197 on a 6 second CD. Because of the talent that reduced the mana cost my 70%, illumination actually returns MORE mana than this spell costs. It heals for a similar amount as holy light (around 12k crits).
Divine Light: I believe this spell is currently bugged because it has the exact same (1.63 sec) cast time as holy light. My guess would be that the talent to decrease the cast time of holy light is also affecting divine light. With this cast time divine light feels like a slightly stronger version of holy light (The live version of it). It has a 1144 mana cost (slightly less than flash of light). I'm getting around 25k crits with it.
Beacon of light: 263 mana cost, not much else to say. Its not going to be nearly as useful with it only applying to holy light and holy shock.
Cleanse: Only 615 mana (less than Blizzard made it sound like it would be). As stated, can be cast at any time so it can be wasted.
Blessings:
Kings is now 5% stats and 79 resistances (Guessing its the same as GotW now). Its a raid buff like gift also, has no reagent cost, and has no single target and raid version (This is the case with nearly every buff in the game).
Might: 10% attack power and 92 mp5. Everything else is just like kings with reagents, etc...
Auras:
Devotion, ret, conc, and crusader are all just about the same. Resistance on the other hand have changed: There is now just one Resistance Aura. Right now its giving me 130 fire, frost and shadow resistance. This should make dealing with auras a bit easier.
As of now Divine Plea, Divine Sac, Divine Illumination, Sacred Shield, and Avenging Wrath all appear to work exactly the same for now.
Consecration: This doesn't apply to holy pallys that much, but to paladins in general: Currently it lasts for 15 seconds with an 8 second cooldown. I'm not sure how this will work (As in if it will stack), and this could also be a bug.
This is all I have for now, reply if you want any more information.
0wn3d Jul 4th 2010 5:59PM
Well I healed my first dungeon (Throne of the tides) and I'm going to share what I think is going to happen in cata (With the current talents/spells, etc...)
I think there are going to be 2 viable "specs", similar to how it is now with a holy light and flash of light spec.
Holy Light: I think any spec focusing on holy light is going to completely forget about intellect. That's right, no more intellect for holy light! I think holy light specs are going to stack spell power and haste. With the current mana cost, there is no need to have a large mana pool, and you will probably never run out of mana by just spamming holy light. This spec would be making full use of BoL, and holy shock may be used on cooldown because its basically mana neutral (If it crits you get more mana than it costs) and it heals for about as much as holy light.
Flash of Light: I think that a spec focusing on flash of light is going to continue stacking intellect, but gearing will be slightly different. Instead of the current situation where haste is basically better than any other stat (Crit or mp5), haste will become nearly useless for a flash of light spec. Crit will probably become the most important stat after intellect by far. Being able to crit more will not only help with the mana cost, but will play nicely with our new mastery bonus. Flash of Light specs should be able to provide huge AND quick heals while keeping their mana up just like we do now with Holy Light. So whats the downside? The lack of beacon being effective. This spec would more than likely be applying beacon with its new reduced mana cost, but it will not be used nearly as much. Since you should be able to throw a quick and huge heal at a tank it shouldn't be too much of an issue, and beacon will still apply to holy shock which will also be used on cooldown. The other benefit to this spec is the sacred shield HoT which is much stronger now that flash of light is much stronger.
If I had to guess, I would assume right now that the builds may look something like this:
Holy Light: http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#sxAVcxzVdMVqboxGzubhZV
Flash of Light: http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#sxAVcxzVdMVqboxZVfbx0h
The flash of light build focuses on increasing crit chance as much as possible, while the holy light build focuses on the utility that prot provides.
And as for divine light... I really see no use for it. Flash of light heals for a truck right now, and as stated in the article holy shock + flash of light can provide a ton of healing for a similar mana cost.
Gundehar Jul 4th 2010 6:04PM
Ok, now I digress from my anti-Divine Light tirade; these numbers have shown some promise. So basically now we have:
Holy Light (pew-pew): light cost, light heals, decently fast speed
Flash of Light (pow-pow): decent cost, nice old-style HL-sized heals, really nice speed too (and those Holy Shock crits for insta-cast!)
Divine Light (kaboom!): decent cost, heavy-handed crit, takes a while to load but when it goes - wowza
Seems to me that Holy Shock has almost become a Prayer of Mending type of spell: fire on every CD. That Infusion of Light proc still riding for a nice long 15s?
0wn3d Jul 4th 2010 6:18PM
Yep, infusion of light is still 15 seconds.
As for holy shock, I'm predicting the glyph of holy shock (if it doesn't change) to be standard now also, lowering that CD by one second will be pretty awesome and I don't see glyph of beacon being very useful any more (It was only useful when beacon actually took a decent amount of mana to cast).
oneraindrop Jul 5th 2010 2:03AM
Own3d, do you mind if I copy these comments and your numbers to do a little speculating of my own?