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Q u o t e:
The problem isnt so much right now, Yes we can heal the majority of Ulduar hard modes. The problem is other classes can do our job aswell as other jobs that we cant. This discrepency will be more of a problem as raid content gets more and more difficult. If you raided late in TBC you will know what i am talking about and see that the holy paladin is heading down that road once again. Blizz imo has to act now or palys will be shown the bench again during the final raid instance with promises from blizz to fix us in the next expansion.

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Very true my little Gnome friend...

For those of you saying "Paladins have a roll: MT healing", trying doing even that role on a high mobility fight such as Thorim hardmode or Freya+3. At best our bread and butter heal (Holy Light) will be a 1.8-2 second cast on a single target for 10-12k. I've been healing for almost 3 years now, and never have a felt more helpless than on fights where mobility is a key aspect of the fight.

I'm only talking hardmodes here, because normal modes are pretty much a joke now. A great example of this is we had to skip doing Steelbreaker last this week because we were short one of our Resto Druids and our only Holy Priest. We had enough healers, but resto shamans and holy paladins just don't have the mobile HPS to keep up with hardmode damage, not even close!

I feel your pain Resto Shamans, I really do... The both of us need some serious rework and I doubt Blizzard will get it right before 4.0, if ever.

PS- Beacon of Light has gotten our MT killed so many times I flat out don't even use it anymore, I may even stop speccing into it for 25 man hardmodes.

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Q u o t e:
We have some changes in 3.2 that will address some of the concerns healing shamans and paladins have.

I think the quote some of you are referring to is when I said none of the classes in the game need a complete overhaul. That kind of verbiage tends to come from players who are looking for a completely different class than the one they are actually playing. The kind of changes we're talking about do not involve blowing up the talent trees, core spells or class mechanics and starting over. We almost never do that.

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Much appreciated GC. I know you've just rustled the hornets nest, but I have one quick question:

You (the devs) knew the amount of raid damage, spacing and increased mobility that would be required for most of the hard modes. Why was it not brought up earlier that this level of healing would create 2 superior classes/specs versus 2 others that flat out can't compete in that environment?

Hey GC, is it your intention to make a certain healing spec only viable in either just raid healing or just tank healing?

For example: I cannot do MT healing job as a holy priest in some harder ulduar 25 bosses. My single target healing capability is just not up to par with the enocounter and not very mana efficient, I would have to switch to disc in order to do the job.

Same thing with holy paladins cannot complete the job of raid healing in similar encounters.

what im trying to say is: These different specs/class of healing are intended to do just 1 job or do you design them so they can do both AE/single target ,but with different playstyle?

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Q u o t e:
Hey GC, is it your intention to make a certain healing spec only viable in either just raid healing or just tank healing?

For example: I cannot do MT healing job as a holy priest in some harder ulduar 25 bosses. My single target healing capability is just not up to par with the enocounter and not very mana efficient, I would have to switch to disc in order to do the job.

Same thing with holy paladins cannot complete the job of raid healing in similar encounters.

what im trying to say is: These different specs/class of healing are intended to do just 1 job or do you design them so they can do either but with different playstyle?

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If they intended for holy priests and holy paladins to do similar jobs with different playstyles then they've failed miserably. I prefer to think that they are more competent than that, and they do not intend for every healer to be able to do the same thing with a different flavor.

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Q u o t e:
We have some changes in 3.2 that will address some of the concerns healing shamans and paladins have.

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AKA Your going to be this way for 2-3 more months and until the end of the arena season so get used to it.

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Q u o t e:
what im trying to say is: These different specs/class of healing are intended to do just 1 job or do you design them so they can do both AE/single target ,but with different playstyle?

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There inlies the problem with two completely optional modes to each boss: easy or hard. I'm not sure if the devs can balance both the differing difficulties and the way healers perform in those environments. Normal mode anyone can heal in any way, but hardmodes bring out the best and worste in the healing classes.

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Q u o t e:
I think the quote some of you are referring to is when I said none of the classes in the game need a complete overhaul. That kind of verbiage tends to come from players who are looking for a completely different class than the one they are actually playing. The kind of changes we're talking about do not involve blowing up the talent trees, core spells or class mechanics and starting over. We almost never do that.

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An "overhaul", at least when referring to cars, means a restoration of a non-working car to its working-as-intended condition. It's not scrapping the car, picking up the crushed metal and molding a new car out of it, as you described it.

I know I'm just arguing semantics here, but for clarification, when we refer to an overhaul here we're not requesting scrapping the class and starting over.

Shamans undeniably have a lot of outdated, trivial and non-working mechanics right now, from Totems to CH jump range/fall-off, from mobility to improperly-designed synergy among spells (Riptide-CH come to mind).

Paladins have been using the same pathetically small toolbox since vanilla. A bandaid AoE Glyph is pretty insufficient for them to raid heal with. Illumination mechanic as been just about the same (with just a mana amount change) for 4 years. In some ways they're even more limited than Shamans, with the one saving grace that they are actually unmatched in single target throughput and longevity.

Overhauling these classes doesn't mean scrapping them and rebuilding them. It means actually restoring their outdated, rusty mechanics and bring them upto the level the other two healers have evolved into over the years.

Now I understand there are changes in the works for both of these classes, due in for 3.2. We're all glad to hear that, and thanks for recognizing some of the issues we've been talking about the last month. No one is expecting a complete rework of their talent trees but both these classes have issues regarding their "core spells". If those spells aren't addressed directly, the changes won't go past being bandaid, half-assed fixes intended to just buy time until the next xpac. Not really fair, is it?

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Q u o t e:


Thats great to here. But...

You cant keep jumping on these forums and telling us this and then leave us in the dark, i understand you dont want to release imformation to early in case of "false promises", But you need to understand people arnt happy and need something to "feed" off until the PTR go up. Otherwise imaganations run wild and false exspectations are set.

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I've seen you complaining about Paladin tank healing. Many of the people who aren't happy, won't be happy in any circumstances.

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Q u o t e:


I highly doubt any plans to balance Shaman and Pallies on par with Druids and Priests are set for patch 3.2.

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I love people who are afraid to post on their mains. And instead post on lvl 26 hunters talking about Ulduar healing.

Holy pallies can do more than fine healing in Ulduar. Shaman probably need a small bump though. If holy pallies get AoE, their exising abilities definitely need to be nerfed.

However, for a couple months after 3.2 I fully expect Holy Pallies and Shaman to be OP. It's just the way class balancing seems to work. You overcorrect, then do smaller corrections to get them more balanced.

What I'd like to see is something done to CH to balance it against the god mode healing that is PoH, I have no complaints with HoT's as with hots you can heal a whole lot of people for a little at a time but you're gonna have trouble with the big spike dmg we're seeing in hard modes.

What I'd also like to see is paladins given a way to AoE heal... not on par with priests/shaman (because we can't single target heal like a paladin) but in the 4-5k hps range.

I'd like passive healing totems to not be in the game or considered "part" of my hps. I'd like Mp5 to be worth the ilvl it takes up on gear or gems. By worth it I mean for it to do something other than just regen less than half a cast every five seconds at ulduar gearing levels (at full ilvl 226 level gear or higher I have 500 mp5 raid buffed), or for it to have some other benefit, such as increases healing done or scales with int or friggen something.

I think it shows how bad mp5 is as a stat when even at ulduar gear item levels the devs figured shaman didn't even need it on 40% of our tier gear.

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Q u o t e:
We have a design vision for each class and spec.

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Are you going to maintain that vision going forward? Specifically with Paladins?

I enjoy the present healing aesthetic and do not want it to be muddled together into something resembling my other healers. I want it to feel different. Are you guys going to do that in this overhaul (or whatever you're calling it), or is Paladin healing going to continue to have the same flavor a lot of us love?

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Q u o t e:
"They just need to completely start over with our class. We'll never work until we have Mortal Strike, Execute, Wild Growth, Thistle Tea, Innervate, Scourge Strike, no mana and can fly."

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That's planned for the next heroic class, nothing to fear.

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Q u o t e:
Think about it this way. We have a design vision for each class and spec. We readily make changes when the tools or mechanics you have when you aren't meeting that vision. Rarely do we change the vision, though it does happen. The end-game paladin in vanilla WoW was intended to be a healer. We now support an end-game dps or tanking role. The Holy paladin has classically been a tank healer. We're okay though with expanding their breadth a little bit for those situations where you have more paladins than tanks or the raid is taking a lot of damage. However we aren't likely to do that by giving paladins a Wild Growth clone, because that doesn't fit the vision.

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Here's something I'd like you to consider... You keep telling us about your vision and such, but only give us snippets. I think a lot of us would be much happier with a better idea of exactly what your vision is. I personally would be willing to fore go RSN (Really Soon, Now!) changes to our class to have a better understanding of where it is going. Maybe then I can decide if I really want to keep playing with my paladin or give up and try something else that's more appealing.

I'm not just talking paladins here either - This is something that all classes & specs should have. Perhaps you have it somewhere hidden secret - but I'm just not clear on where it is, and what it is.

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Q u o t e:


We are working on a (long) post to explain some of the paladin changes. I don't have an ETA.

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GC,
As a point of clarification, do you know if the post that is being composed for future release will cover the whole of the Paladin class, or will it be specific to just Holy Paladin healing?

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Q u o t e:
"They just need to completely start over with our class. We'll never work until we have Mortal Strike, Execute, Wild Growth, Thistle Tea, Innervate, Scourge Strike, no mana and can fly."

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I LoL'd. Can you put me down for one of these? They sound fun:)

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Q u o t e:

Thistle Tea

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WTB old thistle tea for world PvP.