According to MMO-Champion, holy paladins are, once again, being nerfed in this latest PTR build. Bear in mind that these changes may not see live servers, but this is what they’ve got going on at the moment.
Beacon of Light is triggered by Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Divine Light and Light of Dawn at 50% transference and Holy Light at 100% transference. It does not transfer Holy Radiance, Protector of the Innocent or other sources of healing.
So I’m reading that and going “Okay, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Divine Light, Light of Dawn, Holy Light, that’s fine, that’s normal… no Holy Radiance, okay… wait. No Protector of the Innocent? Probably no Enlightened Judgements either. And no other sources of healing. Okay, fine.”
And then it hit me.
“WAIT A MINUTE. HOLD THE PHONE. WHAT ABOUT WORD OF GLORY?!”
I can live without Protector of the Innocent transferring. I hate that talent and I’ll be able to drop one of those points into Last Word if that’s the case. I’ll still keep one point in Enlightened Judgements for my spirit to hit conversion, of course, and that’s fine.
But did they just forget to list Word of Glory or is Word of Glory really not going to transfer?
Frankly, I’m of the mind that they forgot to mention it. After all, our other Holy Power heal (Light of Dawn) is transferred at 50%, so why wouldn’t Word of Glory transfer?
*** ETA: A blue post clarified that this was, in fact, an oversight and Word of Glory will continue to transfer through Beacon of Light. The rest of this post, written before the clarification, has been left intact. ***
However, Blizzard has done some whacked-out things in the past. I wouldn’t put it past them to have done this deliberately. Obviously, they’re trying to tune us appropriately, and that’s okay, but it’s possible that Word of Glory will be nerfed in that it won’t transfer with Beacon of Light any longer. I’m not saying that’s likely. I’m saying it’s possible. I’m also not saying that this change will make it through to live, even if it is intended, but let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it is intended that Word of Glory no longer gets transferred.
The major question would be “Why?”
Let’s be honest: Word of Glory is a big heal. A 3-charge Word of Glory, that is. In my current gear (ilvl 383) while raid buffed, that’s about 24k on a non-crit. More than that, it’s an instant big heal. Comparatively, Holy Light is about 11.5k, Divine Light is about 30k, Holy Shock is around 10k and Flash of Light is around 23k.
But wait, you say, Flash of Light can be instant with an Infusion of Light proc and heals for about the same.
Right. But Flash of Light costs a ton of mana at the same time. Word of Glory is 100% free.
We currently have the ability to hit someone for a sizeable amount (~24k in my gear level, raid-buffed) as an instant-cast spell that is free of mana cost. And we can do that pretty darn frequently.
If we don’t use it on our Beacon of Light target, that’s ~24k healing to an individual and another ~12k healing to our Beacon. Instantly, that’s ~36k healing on a non-crit, costing us no mana, castable on the move.
So I could see why they would think this is overpowered. Our holy power generation isn’t terribly lacking, at least not from what I’ve noticed (but then, I tend to Beacon my own tank and benefit from Tower of Radiance), so I generally have a lot of Holy Power and, in fact, I do not dump it as often as I should. If used consistently at 3 stacks of Holy Power in higher gear levels, Word of Glory, and its subsequent transfer through Beacon of Light at the moment, is pretty darn overpowered.
I can see their reasoning, if this is an intentional change. Doesn’t mean I like it, but I can see how powerful that can be on a variety of fights.
That said, I am still hopeful that it’s just an oversight and they forgot to mention Word of Glory in the first part of their announcement.
In other news, Apotheosis downed Heroic Majordomo Staghelm on Sunday (and we’re looking for an exceptional retribution paladin and a skilled hunter!), Episode 38 of Blessing of Frost is out and I’ve been nominated for a Stopie Award! Go vote for me in the category: Loudest Voice on Twitter!
See http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/203362/no-word-of-glory-through-beacon
It’s a mistake in the patchnotes, so no nerf incoming.
Hazzlebarth – Yup, just updated the post. :)
Blue post just clarified that WoG does indeed trigger BoL transfer. /sighofrelief
However, it looks like our “self healing” talents (which are a crap design anyway) do indeed no longer transfer through Beacon. So no more PotI and EJ transfer. I’ve already dropped to one point in EJ just for the hit and since going strict 10’s, following the buff to WoG sunk that point into Last Word since my LoD usage has diminished. I can also see myself cannibalizing a point from PotI to put somewhere else (possibly Blessed Life once we determine how many fights will have mechanics that trigger the HP gain).
This also provides some additional insight to the change to our mana regen from judgement. Now that we are no longer needing to judge on CD for the mana regen component, and our self healing from judging doesn’t transfer, gone are the days of judging on CD. Personally, this makes me a little sad given that working around judging on CD and shocking on CD, I almost had a semi-rotation.
Overall, this doesn’t feel like the end of the world and I therefore wouldn’t mind if these changes do indeed stick from the PTR to live. What I do want to see is some finalization to the Holy Radiance changes and confirmation that our mastery will play a more substantial role in the next tier. These are two of the biggest changes (other than HP) that Blizz introduced to our class in Cata and neither of them (IMHO) have lived up to expectations.
P.S. Keep up the good work in Firelands Kurn. I look forward to hearing H Rag musings soon.
Bah. Beat me to it. Damn my wordiness. Good catch.
I am sorry to see the changes to our PotI/EJ transferring but its dedinately workable. Not sure why Blizz changed our Judgement mechanics for mana regen. It always worked for me, without any complaints. I will wait and see what our final outcome is before 4.3 launchs to decide where to allocate specific talents. Until then, will just plug along through FL Heroics.
I got a 80k crit on a WoG yesterday doing heroic Alysrazor; it was cast on the tank, though. Shame the European servers have been so laggy this week or I think we would have got her down.
I’ve been running 2/3 PotI for awhile now. If I had something more useful to put points into, I think I would have gone 1/3. PotI has been my biggest overheal in Cata, and really, having this as a 3 point talent is a bit silly.
My guildmate landed a 100k WoG crit this week. Rather ridiculous for 0 mana. I’m wondering what, if anything, we’ll see done to compensate us for the loss of what could amount to a couple thousand HPS. I am not at all worried either way.
I am, however, sad to see Radiance changed in 4.3. Mostly for healing on the run or concurrently with other spells and partly for the loss of a speed boost. What might turn out to be the most frustrating part of this change is that I’ll have to make a rather major adjustment to my click-healing configuration.