The Light and How to Swing It: Illuminated Healing still no Val'anyr
by Chase Christian 
Mar 13th 2011 at 3:00PM
When playing a healer, there's no single "right" way to play. Tanks can adjust their gear and strategy to boost their threat or avoidance, but both of those statistics are easy to track and monitor. Damage classes are obviously optimizing for one thing: DPS. Healers, on the other hand, can both get to the same point while taking completely different paths. Checking your healing per second on a healing meter won't show all of the times that you saved someone's life or made a great decision, and it never tells the whole story of an encounter. The best example is how your total healing done will plummet as your raid group gets better and better at avoiding damage on a particular encounter.
Healing meters do have a few useful purposes. They allow us to empirically test different strategies and gear choices, and we can monitor the effect of changes that we make. They also allow us to evaluate talents and individual abilities, which means we can make educated decisions about our talent and spell selection. When reviewing my healing done, I can figure out exactly what works and what doesn't. One thing has consistently stood out as negligible to my overall healing: Illuminated Healing. How did our mastery bonus end up so impotent?
It all started with a legendary
If you played a healer during the Wrath era, there was one weapon that you wanted to wield more than any other. Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings was an amazing legendary weapon for healers, and its power had guilds running Ulduar for years after its release. You could see its defining feature, the shiny bubbles, in every single world-first screenshot. Every healer wanted one, and your power scaled dramatically after obtaining one. With discipline priests highlighting the value of preventive healing, everyone had bubble fever. Val'anyr was invaluable on every single encounter in the expansion.
Discipline priests also had the ability to create heal-based bubbles via their talent Divine Aegis, but the heals had to be critical strikes. In the interest of spreading the bubble love to other classes, Blizzard's developers designed the holy paladin mastery bonus, Illuminated Healing, to mimic Divine Aegis and Val'anyr. The restrictions of requiring a critical strike or a weapon proc were stripped, and all of our healing spells simply generate a bubble that absorbs a portion of the heal's effect.
A holy paladin's best friend
In the Val'anyr days of Wrath, every holy paladin was sporting the Glyph of Holy Light. The glyph caused our HLs to splash nearby targets with extra healing, allowing us to hit several targets at once. Our throughput was second to none, and we were able to dish out our biggest heals without blinking. When Val'anyr's proc occurred, we would simply continue to unload massive Holy Lights on our targets. The cumulative effect of all of those Holy Lights would build up on our target (and nearby raid members), stacking the shield to a very sizable value. The bubbles lasted for 15 seconds and were refreshed with each heal, so you could stack up thousands and thousands of healing points on your target.
The Val'anyr absorption bubbles lasted for 15 seconds, stacked cumulatively, and only required that we use a mace in order to produce them. Holy paladins continued to use Val'anyr right through the Lich King heroic fight, which was considered to be the hardest encounter ever created (at the time). The proc worked simply and effectively, and the cost of using Val'anyr over a higher ilvl weapon was minimal.
What went wrong
When we first received word about our mastery bonus, Illuminated Healing, it looked like Val'anyr reborn. Every single one of our heals would create an absorption bubble, and we could stack mastery on our gear to make them even more powerful. However, even in the first days of receiving the information, many holy paladins were skeptical. The duration of the shields was only 6 seconds, which meant that it would be difficult to keep them up across an entire raid. In addition, the Illuminated Healing effect only started out with a baseline value of 8%, which was only about half of what Val'anyr had been granting us. I hoped that with enough mastery on our gear, we could make up for these deficiencies.
Seven months and several buffs later, our mastery bonus is still unattractive. The baseline bonus was increased to 10% and the scaling per point of mastery improved to 1.25%, but that still wasn't enough for us to hop on board. The duration of the shields was buffed to 8 seconds and is now slated to be set to a Val'anyr-esque 15 seconds in patch 4.1 (currently on the PTR).
Why haven't more paladins started gearing for mastery? It's clear that Blizzard wants us to be using it, as we see it smattered all over our tier set and other plate healing gear. Why is everyone reforging out of any mastery they get? Part of the issue is that much of our healing doesn't even proc Illuminated Healing bubbles, like Beacon of Light and Protector of the Innocent.
Illuminated Healing doesn't stack
The shields aren't cumulative. My World of Logs parses tell me that my average Divine Light heals for about 30k healing. If I had a decent amount of mastery, a Divine Light could leave a 4,500-point absorption bubble on my target. The issue is that if I end up healing someone twice -- say, with two Holy Lights -- they only get a bubble from one of the heals. The Val'anyr bubbles were actually hotfixed to give them a hard cap of 10k absorption per bubble. Even on a good day, my new bubbles will never be half as large as those. In addition, player HP pools have been multiplied several times over in Cataclysm, while the potency of these bubbles remains worse than the original.
When our mastery bonus was unveiled, I predicted that the success or failure of Illuminated Healing hinged on how the bubbles stacked. If they stacked, as Divine Aegis and Val'anyr did, then we would be looking at a very interesting mastery bonus that would create an entirely new branch of paladin healing strategy. We now know that while the absorption bubbles will be generated from the strongest recent heal, they're not designed to stack.
Because the bubbles are only a portion of one heal, he size of our bubbles from Holy Light and Light of Dawn is simply laughable. Even when looking at Divine Light casts, the mastery bubble just doesn't contribute a meaningful amount of throughput for the amount of itemization points we'd have to throw at it. I am glad that Blizzard is increasing the duration of the bubbles to 15 seconds, as that will go a long way toward ensuring their absorption is actually utilized.
The issue with Illuminated Healing is that even when all of the absorption is effective, the amount is still negligible. Stacking bubbles is what caused Val'anyr to be the iconic legendary that we all lusted for, and non-stacking bubbles is what's causing the mass exodus of holy paladins from the mastery stat.
The Light and How to Swing It: Holy helps holy paladins become the powerful healers we're destined to be. Learn the ropes in Cataclysm 101 for holy paladins, study the new balance between intellect and spirit and learn how to level your new Sunwalker. 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 1 of 2)
Angus Mar 13th 2011 3:40PM
Having recently made my off-spec Holy, I knew this after 10 minutes.
I watched the bubbles change number, never stack, and the numbers were laughable.
Why the devs can't figure this out with an entire beta, and months into the expansion is beyond me. Making the bubble stack would at least put it close to on par with haste.
Have it stack whenever you have a crit and it might even make all the secondary stats decent.
As it stands, the tier shoulders are worse than the shoulders in Heroic Throne of Tides. Something is wrong when you look at a 359 and think "meh."
silentk Mar 13th 2011 4:17PM
The tier shoulders have crit - not mastery, which can be reforged into haste. The intellect gain over the heroic blues is 100% worth it due to Intellect being the most important stat by a landslide. The tier shoulders also have a red socket.
Crit may not be our most desirable stat, but you're going to want more than a couple % spell crit to keep Conviction up.
Now for something relevant to the article, the change to 15s would be helpful if we start raid healing. I doubt the holy priest wants to switch jobs though.
Angus Mar 13th 2011 6:16PM
Yea, I mixed up mastery and crit in that comparison. Of course, the fact that tier shoulders have THE worst stat all over them seems kind of counter productive. Come to think of it, as Chase has already mentioned "Where's the effing Haste on Holydin tier?!"
Losing 30 int for that insane amount of haste isn't actually a bad thing though, especially with it having all that crit.
The 15 second thing, for raid healing? Not so much. If you have no disc priest, maybe it is nicer than nothing, but really it isn't going to matter. Our raid heals are "Holy Light, which isn't going to make a bubble that matters much at all, divine radiance (see article over how bad that is with our mastery) and "pop a 3 minute CD and watch our buddy emulate 4 heals."
Those bubbles are not going to help much at all for raid healing.
hp1 Mar 13th 2011 3:42PM
Couldn't agree more. The non-stacking and the over-writing aspect makes the mastery pointless.
It's exactly the same reason nearly all resto druids bypassed Living Seed during Wrath and are angry about having to throw away three talent points on LS now in Cata just to get to Efflorescence. How palis ended up with a mastery whose mechanics were proven by a druid talent for an entire expac to be totally lackluster is beyond me.
Jae Mar 13th 2011 3:48PM
I think one reason they may not want it to keep stacking with heals is because you could load up a tank with 5 minutes worth of Holy Light spamming to get a massive absorption effect. Maybe they could make it cap when out of combat, and stack with each heal in combat? It seems harder to balance than Val'anyr.
Jae Mar 13th 2011 3:50PM
"I think one reason they may not want it to keep stacking with heals is because you could load up a tank with 5 minutes worth of Holy Light spamming BEFORE COMBAT STARTED."*
wtb edit button!
dj.clayden Mar 13th 2011 3:53PM
That's simple.. they just make it stack, but enforce a reasonable shield size limit. No issue there.
Angus Mar 13th 2011 3:56PM
Wouldn't work.
Throwing any amount of healing that would be impressive enough to unbalance a boss fight would also entail sitting and drinking for more than 15 seconds. Even if you could get around this with creatively drinking for 10 seconds, throwing a heal, rinse repeat, it wouldn't really be worth the effort. That boss is still going to pound that shield off in no time flat and except for fights like halfus, the starting few seconds are rarely that bad.
Besides, they already showed the ability to cap a bubble with Valnir.
Anony Moss Mar 13th 2011 7:55PM
The best way, in my opinion, would be allow the bubbles to stack but cap them based on some % of the person being healed. In fact, the % your mastery gives to your heal would be an excellent % to use. IE: So at base of 10%, you'd get a 10% bubble that could stack to a max of 10% of the person's health; if you had 8 points of mastery (@ 1.25% each), you'd then get 20% of your heals stacking for a maximum of 20% of a person's health.
This would allow the bubbles to continue to scale, where as a set cap (like "10k") would become trivialized over time and need to be constantly monitored and adapted as content grew harder and gear grew more powerful.
hp1 Mar 13th 2011 8:20PM
I don't have personal experience with the pali mastery shields but one of the main problems, based on the druid Living Seed model, is that the shield will be overwritten by any heal that can apply a shield, even if the new shield is of lesser value than the existing one.
Twill Mar 13th 2011 3:58PM
It should work exactly like Val'anyr.
Each point of mastery should be equal to other secondary stats in a perfect world, so have it bring the same value as one point of haste would on throughput.
Idea if it doesn't stack -- have the old bubble just become regular healing.
Cheeselandman Mar 13th 2011 4:01PM
I think that even if its an issue, until 4.1 blizzard sees no reason to attempt to fix the mastery. At the moment, paladins are already good and well-balanced healers (at least at lower levels).
It'd be NICE if illuminated mastery was working as intended, but we'd probably face a nerf with something else- very likely thoughput.
Chase Christian Mar 13th 2011 4:13PM
I definitely agree, which is why I'm not THAT upset. I'd like it if our mastery bonus was more effective, but I care more about the holy paladin being effective as a whole.
silentk Mar 13th 2011 4:20PM
Solution: Only 1 mastery piece in the tier set. Even if 4 pieces were crit...
Shua Mar 13th 2011 11:23PM
We are to good without our mastery be amazing, no doubt
Sky Mar 13th 2011 4:12PM
How much of a factor do you think the change in healing philosophy changed the value of our Illuminated Healing. In wrath, where health bars were binary (1 or 0), anything that added to the tanks effective HP (such as bubbles) were extremely valuable. Now that Blizz has implemented the concept of triage healing, having bubbles isnt as good as it was before.
Cheeselandman Mar 13th 2011 4:32PM
I'd argue bubbles are even better than before, because its essentially a healing that is effective over a period of time. Unless a bubble wears off, it will always do the most heals it possible can in the form of prevention. In a sense, per mana, a bubble is worth more than a conventional heal, which is why bubbles have been nerfed so much.
They might have been valuable when health bars were either 1 or 0, but I think they're even more valuable now. Essentially, it adds a buffer to the zone of triage, and allows "preventative healing". Especially in cataclysm, preventative healing can be a very powerful tool, softening big blows that you know are coming. The issue with preventative healing, is if its timed wrong, or the damage misjudged, you end up doing overhealing which is wasted mana.
Bubbles can never overheal. The only thing bubbles can do is wear out, and especially in raiding, this will almost never happen. Bubbles are the most efficient form of healing, which is why they've been nerfed.
LazarusLong Mar 13th 2011 4:18PM
"That's simple.. they just make it stack, but enforce a reasonable shield size limit. No issue there."
Thats not exactly reasonable, the idea behind the mastery bonus is to leave a shield which will in fact require you to NOT heal the person right way. Your forgetting then your not always the only healer in a raid, and if you jump targets along with say a holy priest you can have echo of light and Illuminated Healing on a target. While prolly its not best to have a holy paladin raid heal AT the slightest, it is still possible.
it seems to me that the mastery bonus is in line with the talents of the prot paladin, where his word of glory leaves a shield. being in line with one of my favorite WC qoutes "My faith is my shield".
Paladins may benefit from a change of mastery but don't count on it just yet, Paladin tank healing is already quite strong at its base without the mastery and that seems to be the only real consern here.
Drowsgib Mar 13th 2011 4:48PM
Do you think there is a chance they will just change the mastery? It is clear we will never be raid healers. We can help out sometimes, but in reality, we are slower healers who like to drop massive heals. So why not play to that? Change the mastery to increase the amount healed following a critical strike. I don't play the numbers game but what if for every point of mastery you gain a % increase above what the crit would have healed? I would think that would push the stat priority towards mastery and crit. Just a thought.
Aurilia Mar 13th 2011 5:02PM
Okay, color me confused here.
You see, I'm a Discipline priest on my main, and have a Healadin alt. I find the concept of non-stacking bubbles a non-issue. Why? During boss encounters, when I throw my 25k+ Power Word: Shield on the tank, that bubble is generally gone quickly. Divine Aegis creates an absorb shield for 30% of my critical heals, and aside from some unusual encounters (ie: Smite-based crits on Phase 2 of Halfus), those shields are rarely larger then 10-15k.
Or to put it in another perspective, World of Logs now reports any Power Word: Shield or Divine Aegis (or Illuminated Healing) terminating due to duration limit as an overheal value. On Halfus 10N this past week, I experienced 1.4% overheal with PW:S and 4.3% overheal with the stacking Divine Aegis this article is jealous about. A healadin in the same raid experienced 17.1% overheal with his Illuminated Healing. And while shields accounted for a combined total of 38.5% of my overall healing for that encounter, Illuminated Healing only accounted for 7.5% of the healadins.
Now, my guild does not have a paladin that regularly raids with us, so it's potentially possible that I may have tossed shields onto the tank the healadin was assigned to, and those shields took priority over the paladins. it would require more research then a quick glance at the log provides to determine.
However, the point I wish to make has already been described. That the shield does not stack is a relative non-issue; the non-stacking variant of the shield already overheals for more then from a similarly geared Discipline priest, while at the same time providing very little effective healing. Further heals on the target already extends the duration of the Illuminated Healing with whichever shield value would be higher. Being able to stack that to larger values would just increase the amount of overhealing the ability provides.
So I disagree with the fact that the Illuminated Healing shields don't stack is the source of Mastery's weak value to Holy Paladins. I believe the effect itself is just too weak when the other secondary stats provide a larger benefit in healing effectiveness. In fact, Crit Rating might provide a larger benefit for Mastery then Mastery Rating itself does, as a critical heal helps produce a larger Illumated Healing shield.