Comments on: A Look at 4.2 and Holy Paladins as of May 19, 2011

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Tue, 24 May 2011 22:45:00 +0000

Sounds like you’ve got the most important tricks down. Judgement and HoSac are the best mana returners/savers I’ve found.

Other tricks are meleeing when possible, using an mana return trinket on +/- cooldown (I pop Core of Ripeness when I’m at about 80%) , use Divine Plea whenever there’s some downtime (or use Divine Plea as needed, coupled with an output booster). AM is a great spell for any period of big elemental damage (on Chimaeron’s last phase, from what I understand there’s a lot of shadow damage on heroic mode so it’s extremely helpful there. It’s less useful on regular mode.)

I’m told that the damage on hard mode is really intense so it’s probably hard to stray from Divine Light, but whenever you can get away with using Holy Light, it saves a lot of mana. Sometimes I even stop casting for a few seconds for the extra spirit regen if I need to and can get away with it. (Not sure how feasible that is on hard modes though!)

Oh- and if the entire raid is low low low on health, that’s the moment to pop Guardian. Tons of healing for so little mana.

By: Andy/Betancore

Andy/Betancore — Tue, 24 May 2011 14:53:24 +0000

Woohoo, even more reason for Holy pallies to glyph Divine Protection!

By: Anne Martin

Anne Martin — Tue, 24 May 2011 13:32:02 +0000

Can you talk about your strategies for getting your mana bar back up? I am pretty good about judging on cd (I have an annoying powa flash when its up). I also use HoS pretty frequently with DivSh since its such a tasty way to smooth out damage and take advantage of JoTP (not mana-free but cheap comparatively). I guess AM especially in last phase Chimaeron counts as mana-free healing. There are probably others Im missing.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Sat, 21 May 2011 12:59:55 +0000

Thank you! I really appreciate it! The times are stressful so your words of encouragement mean a lot.

By: Ellandria

Ellandria — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:17:06 +0000

I’ve been following your blog for a good while now (I got hooked by the “Anub’Arak 10 Strategy” you posted on World of Matticus) and I’d just like to thank you for providing me with the amount of entertainment that you have. Even with exams coming up, you don’t fail to update your blog on a regular basis. Oh, and speaking of exams, good luck!

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 19 May 2011 23:55:09 +0000

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was saying. Even on regular modes, tank damage is spiky.

By: Ngita

Ngita — Thu, 19 May 2011 23:31:32 +0000

Yes we spam divine light in heroic raids, But its because their is nothing else to push, The idea of running oom and using triage was a good idea. but the reality is you get into heroic modes and your tanks hp starts moving in big chunks at a fast pace, its almost no different from icc except for the fact thst spells cost s whole lot more.

My resto druid is getting pretty close to getting chog’all in alt raids and the difference is their is so many more ways I can spend mana when i need too. Yes its easier to run oom, but thats because I have the tools.

By: alanvinton

alanvinton — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:55:24 +0000

Agreed.

I always heal better when I have no mana! I am finding myself more and more being able to heal the last 20% of a heroic boss encounter with no mana, purely by thinking (and therefore judging) more!

Wise words, Ophelie – I really should have thought before I posted.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:49:18 +0000

PTRs are a very controlled environment and only give the devs an idea of what real content will be like. Mana is a touchy area because, like you said, mana usage varies immensely based on your team, your content size, your content level, your gear, individual fights, etc. It'll never be perfectly tuned. Also, while us pallies might go through mana faster than other classes, we have a lot of powerful and wonderful ways to regain mana (but having not played other classes, I don't know how they compare to us in that respect). As weird as it makes me, I like running out of mana. I like having to think strategically about how to get my bar back up. I'd rather go through mana faster and have to work my arse off to build my bar back up than absent-mindedly faceroll my way through an encounter. My ideal healing class, the bestest, most amazing healing class for me, would be a class with the potential of being extremely powerful, but that is extremely hard to do right.

By: alanvinton

alanvinton — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:36:45 +0000

Whilst I am sure the all-powerful Blizzard know what they are doing when they make changes such as this, I always think “Why did they not notice this in the previous PTR?”. I think we NEED that extra mana we sometimes have in fights, because we have less “OMG Lots of people are standing in the fire” heals like priests or druids have, for example. My mana usage varies GREATLY, and I mean more greatly (is that correct english?) than other classes – if lots of people take raid damage, for example steam (or whatever it is) on Magmaw, Druids have wild growth (which does not scale with distance), priests have Divine Hymn (same), whereas we have a heal which is distance dependent. I will not stack on the melee DPS (the ones who are taking the damage) because otherwise i’d be taking damage too, and all to increase the efficiency of my (not cheap) AoE heal.

Improve the scaling of Holy Radiance, or make LoD an all round heal!

Just my thoughts, I may be wrong, but hopefully someone from Blizzard will read this and change it (I will give jaffa cakes!)