World of Warcraft®

12/14/2010 1:37 PMPosted by Nethaera

These hotfixes were intentional and we wanted to share more information about the "why" for you all here:

Mana is supposed to matter for healers, and in the case of Holy paladins, that just wasn’t happening. We were seeing raid groups attempting to learn new bosses where the other healers were out of mana while the paladins were still at 90% of mana. We also thought the experience of paladins healing harder heroic dungeons was inconsistent with that of other healers, or our design intent. We thought it was only a matter of time before groups started going out of their way to stack paladins for raids or recruit them for dungeon runs, which of course is not our intent. For this reason, we thought it was important to address this point now rather than sitting on it until a future patch.

The main culprit for the increased paladin efficiency this was Holy Power from Tower of Radiance. We were seeing a strategy develop where paladins would cast Holy Light on a Beaconed tank, and then cast Light of Dawn on the raid (and use very few other spells). This strategy was remarkably successful considering how simple it is. The Holy Power-based heals are supposed to be an important component of the paladin kit, but because Holy Light is designed to be super efficient, the overall strategy was too efficient. The intent of Tower of Radiance was to make directly healing a Beacon of Light target less punitive, but instead it was becoming the only smart way to play. You can still generate Holy Power by using Flash of Light or Divine Light on a Beaconed target, or through a variety of other ways. Remember, overall it isn’t balanced if paladins are just as mana efficient as other healers and have several mana-free spells.

Light of Dawn was adjusted because it was completely eclipsing Word of Glory. We lowered the healing of Word of Glory late in development, but also redesigned Light of Dawn. They had fallen out of sync, and Light of Dawn was just too good.

Awesome. So you changed it so that we'll basically never get to use either Word of Glory or Light of Dawn.

"Remember, overall it isn’t balanced if paladins are just as mana efficient as other healers and have several mana-free spells."
So it's balanced if we're less mana efficient than other healers, and can't use either our free or AOE heal?

Here - let me fix your post for you:

These hotfixes were intentional and we wanted to share more information about the "why" for you all here:

Mana s supposed to matter for all healers, and in the case of Holy Paladins, they had one abilitity which prevented them from completely OOMing 30 seconds into any boss fight. We at Blizzard have always been morally opposed to the Paladin class actually being competent in any particular spec. For this reason, we thought it was important to address this point now rather than sitting on it until a future patch.

The main culprit for the passable Paladin effciency was Holy Power from Tower of Radiance. We were seeing a strategy develop - really, the only effective method of playing the Paladin class as a healer in it's current state - where Paladins would cast Holy Light on a Beaconed tank and then cast Light of Dawn on the raid. This is how both of these spells were designed to be used, and it upset GC no end that it actually worked. Holy light being a single-target heal, and Light of Dawn being an AOE heal. Doesn't take a genius? But alas, having Paladins heal effectively is something we've been striving to prevent since 2.0. Remember, overall it isn't balanaced if Paladins are just as mana efficient as other healers, even if they're only that way because of the free heals.

We've been working hard at ensuring that Paladins are now no longer effective at healing either the tank or the raid. We're sure all other healing classes will be pleased that it is now impossible for a Paladin to sustain enough mana to keep a tank alive. Oh, and they'll virtually never have any Holy Power to heal the raid at all.

We might as well spec out of ToR now.

won't QQ.

Blizzard you take away our mana efficiency in Tower of Radiance but we will adapt. I know I surely will.

Goodbye Tower of Radiance. Hello Crusader Strike for Holy Power.

And before you know it they will be nerfing Crusader Strike for Holy Paladins but even then we will adapt.

.

We just got punished for being clever.

How about you tell us what we are suppose to be doing, how we are suppose to be doing it and how well so that we don't anger you all anymore?

We might as well spec out of ToR now.

I am literally going to do that right now. >.> 3/3 PotI 2/2 PoV 1/2 .... something...

There was no doubt that holy paladins were going to be nerfed. However, this nerf destroys the holy paladin playstyle. I think that removing the beacon proc from LoD would have been a much better first step.

12/14/2010 1:37 PMPosted by Nethaera

The main culprit for the increased paladin efficiency this was Holy Power from Tower of Radiance. We were seeing a strategy develop where paladins would cast Holy Light on a Beaconed tank, and then cast Light of Dawn on the raid (and use very few other spells). This strategy was remarkably successful considering how simple it is.

You were seeing this huh? Too bad you didn't read beta posts or feedback for this "strategy" that was posted since the minute you redesigned light of dawn.

Remove tower of radiance. You will have to nerf it again as we gain more mana regeneration. Nerfing Light of Dawn also is overkill. It heals for too little, and the "cooldown" or recharge time without tower of radiance is too long to justify the small amount of healing it does now.

How many more spells and mechanics will you have to kill before you address the core issue of Tower of Raidance and Beacon of Light making our class overpowered in one area?

I'm getting so incredibly tired of the complete lack of discussion with the community. You guys don't even mention that there's a problem, so that Holy Paladins have an opportunity to adapt over time and improve themselves.

Instead, without a word you nerf a huge staple of the current Holy Paladin play style and expect people to deal with it.

This is absolutely unacceptable, if you guys do not improve your relations with the community I'm sure I'm not the only person who will quit bringing my business to you.

I'm just a warlock with no Cataclysm, Vanilla, or BC healing to speak of...

... but in the two 10m bosses we killed last night, we finished the fight with the Priest OOM (since 10%, screaming "USE THE LIGHTWELL IM OOM") while the Paladin was at 50% or more.

While I don't have an opinion on the nerf, I must say a change was necessary.

Since this is the only way I knew of Paladin tanks to raid heal with effective throughput, are there any plans to bring healing up a few percent to compensate?