Ghostcrawler on holy paladins in Mists of Pandaria
Holy paladins have some questions as to where their healing is going in Mists of Pandaria -- and Ghostcrawler, like the last son of Krypton, has burst onto the scene to answer them. Yes, that's what Superman does: He bursts through stone walls and answers questions about holy paladins.
Dr. Street (that's his secret identity -- shh, don't tell anyone) offers details on paladin healing and mana cost, why certain abilities like Holy Radiance were nerfed, and the critical chance of Holy Shock. It seems that paladin healing is intended to be balanced around its many mana-discounted or outright free effects. While if a paladin and another healer both just stood there and cast their cheapest heal, the paladin would indeed run out of mana sooner, the design of the class is intended so that they won't do that, so design has to be balanced around those free heals. I won't pretend to be an expert, but the premise seems logical enough.
Ghostcrawler also mentions specifically that the Holy Radiance and Holy Shock spells are being looked at and could be adjusted if they're underperforming. You'll find the entire post reproduced here after the break, so you paladin healers (or any healers who are interested) can take a look and see what you think.
It's hard just to compare heal costs and numbers without looking at the whole package. Paladin heals tend to be expensive because so much of their healing costs no mana. Likewise, we don't balance around perfect Beacon transference, but you can't ignore it either.
If you look at how much paladins actually heal in a fight though, it should be pretty competitive with the other healers. I know that's not easy to look at right now on beta, but it will get easier once A) raids are open, B) we enable mods again, C) more theorycrafters conclude that we aren't fiddling with numbers so much so that their time isn't being wasted. (We aren't fiddling with numbers nearly so much, so maybe that will encourage some theorycrafters).
Remember though, that each healer is different. Example: Resto shaman look great on fights where everyone can cluster for Healing Rain and Chain Heal and any time everyone stays very wounded for very long.
Because paladins have so many mana-free heals, they actually can't subsist on fumes as long as other healers. If every healer decided just to cast their Holy Light equivalent and nothing else, paladins would go out of mana faster. Now there shouldn't be any situations where you really heal like that.
Two concerns that I think warrant us looking at further are the healing of Holy Radiance and the crit chance of Holy Shock. We nerfed Holy Radiance so that Light of Dawn can be stronger -- it feels weird when the "finisher" is puny compared to the "builder." On the other hand, healers don't always have the luxury to wait for the finisher before doing some heavy healing. We've heard a lot of feedback that Holy Radiance is a little weak, so we'll take a look at it.
As far as Holy Shock goes, it did suffer from the pruning of many of the passive talents and glyphs that gave it such a high crit rate. In a vacuum, it doesn't need a high crit chance. It is an instant, relatively cheap heal that delivers on Holy Power. You're going to want to push it. But we agree that Infusion of Light is intended to help mix up what heals you cast and that it needs to proc at a reasonable rate.
It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
