Did We Really Not See This Coming?

MS Paint: Because Photoshop wouldn't open and I was short on time.

Let's be honest. As much as I hate to admit it, as someone who plays more than one healing class....Paladins were OP. You're lying to yourself if you say otherwise, or at the very least you haven't done a raid and seen how we utterly destroy other healers in mana efficiency and output yet. That was remedied with the hotfixes last night. Folks, Tower of Radiance has been nerfed. Light of Dawn also got hit in the swinging of the bat. (I mean seriously, look at that guy's arms!)

Initially I was, like many of you probably are, pissed. But, after I thought about it a little, we had this coming. I'm not saying it brings us inline though, we still have some kinks to work out, let's take a look.

Why ToR and Light of Dawn were OP

To understand why these warranted a nerf, lets look at what made them overpowered in the first place. I mean, at first I was right there with the pitchfork, ready to head on down to Irvine, but a little thought changed my mind.

The way that most Paladins were healing was pretty much this:

Holy Shock -> Holy Light(x2) -> Light of Dawn

(I'll be honest, I wasn't. I liked Word of Glory better. But I'm horrible at facing the right direction.)

Anyways, this was overpowered because it used very, very little mana, and the overhealing from the group was still going to the tank. Even at a 50% reduced rate, it was still a ton of healing for a very small amount of mana. It meant we were powerful, and efficient. Mostly, other healers were complaining. (They had a right to)

The Nerf

So Blizzard's answer was to change ToR so that Holy Light no longer generate Holy Power when cast directly at our Beacon of Light. This reduces our mana efficiency by way of giving us less free heals. Also slows down the rate at which we can use WoG, slowing our output.

Light of Dawn also took a hit, suffering a fairly hefty nerf, although I don't have exact numbers.

Why This Isn't The End of The World

Tower of Radiance still provides a valuable talent in that it allows us to get some free heals as a reward for using our expensive ones in periods of heavy damage. It still accomplishes that goal. Light of Dawn I'm still iffy about though, I find it very difficult to use and unwieldy in raids, but that's a different issue altogether. This should bring us closer in line with other healing classes. In other words, we should be squirming a little more.


The Problems This Brings

Now, this wouldn't be complete without a little rant, as I am annoyed. We just lost a huge chunk of our efficiency. Yes, we were more efficient than other healers. But, there was a reason. Spirit is our only real regen tool. We don't get a shadowfiend, or a totem, or an innervate. (A few of those we can bug other people for...but the same argument can be made that the other healers can as well. Let's assume were all using our regen tools for ourselves. Which will usually be the case.) Guess what we have? Divine Plea. This will never get popped when it's really needed. The only time we can really use it is when there is a break in damage, and we often have to /cancelaura it off once the damage starts up again. We no longer have the necessary cushions to use it. This leaves our options pretty limited. Sure, we can just use bigger heals to get through the 50% nerf, but they're expensive. By the time plea comes down, we would have gained nothing, or very little. We will need some sort of small compensation to our regen in the long run here, and I'm sure we'll get one.


Possible Options

So, what can they do to help our regen, and make us a little less bitter? I've got a few ideas.

Make Plea Better

An obvious suggestion, but it might be too overpowered depending on how they handle it. In my opinion, remove the 50% reduction, and increase the cooldown to make up for it. It would actually let us use the spell.


Buff Holy Shock

There's kind of two choices here. They can buff the actual output of it, but even that isn't necessary. What I want is a lower cooldown. Just one second lower. That lowers the time to 3 HP by 3 seconds, which over the course of a fight, adds up.

Talent Crusader Strike To Be Cheaper

Yea, I know we can glyph it. Don't make us waste the slot. Roll it into ToR to make the talent more attractive.

Make ToR Less Talent Points

Free us up a bit to grab some other toys, such as Blessed Life. (Still testing what procs that in raids though)


Give Us Another Way To Generate HP

Such as making Flash and DL have a chance to do it on targets other than just our Beacon. I understand the talent is meant to make us want to heal our beacon directly, but we are going to do that anyways. And if it's really necessary to give us an incentive, treat it like ES. Change the glyph to increase healing we do directly to the beacon.

~~~

Nerfs are never fun. But, if you're going to be playing a Paladin, get used to the lollercoaster now. They won't leave us defenseless. 

/bubblehearth