Patch 3.08

[Gobbeldygook]

And yet somehow paladin healers don't dominate PVP.

Are you being sarcastic?  Paladin healers are incredibly dominant in PVP.

[Sjofn]

Are they dominant again? They were shit for a while.

[Geki]

It's awful, I couldn't make it out of Dalaran hardly. Also, for some reason I was getting some serious fps problems in one of the instances after a while, which I could only chalk up to them getting choked with ppl to get out of the raining lagfire.

This is one of the worst patches in a while, which is even worse considering they delayed it for a long long time.

I noticed this as well, but to me it looked like the client had an obvious memory leak.  Dropped down to 25-30'ish fps in Northrend in a matter of about an hour (on a high end rig) and memory use had crept to about 85-90%.  Killed the client and logged back in to see memory drop back down to 40-50% used, and it continued to climb gradually as fps dropped at the same rate.  Logged out and forgot about wow for the night.

[Nonentity]

Pallies are totally the dominant PVP healers right now, just with how bursty all the damage is - they're the best because they can actually survive long enough to heal.

[kildorn]

They're dominant less because of plate and more because 12 seconds of immunity > every other healer's lifespan in total. So 12s of healing beats 0s of healing. Resil isn't the fix, burst is just broken as hell on a few classes right now.

[Soulflame]

And yet somehow paladin healers don't dominate PVP.

Well... I've heard that holy paladins are kind of... well.  Overpowered in 2v2.  It's just a rumor though!

[Draegan]

nm

[Ingmar]

And yet somehow paladin healers don't dominate PVP.

Are you being sarcastic?  Paladin healers are incredibly dominant in PVP.

No healers are dominant in PVP right now. Paladins can lay claim to being vaguely effective at best. And they were terrible through TBC after the first couple seasons.

[Gobbeldygook]

No healers are dominant in PVP right now. Paladins can lay claim to being vaguely effective at best. And they were terrible through TBC after the first couple seasons.

The idea that healers are 'nonviable' is complete bullshit.  On SK-gaming's top 100, most of top 2's teams have a healer and not just paladins.  Resto shaman, druids, and priests are all represented to varying degrees.

Holy paladins are as dominant now as resto druids ever were.  Just go step into the arena or even just look at the arena statistics.  Paladins are the most represented class at 2k+ by a large margin with only DKs and rogues even close.  A supermajority of those paladins are holy.

[Kail]

Unless I'm completely missing something, the bubble nerf doesn't help that, though, does it?  Looks like it nuts Ret but doesn't touch Holy or healing at all.

[Ingmar]

No healers are dominant in PVP right now. Paladins can lay claim to being vaguely effective at best. And they were terrible through TBC after the first couple seasons.

The idea that healers are 'nonviable' is complete bullshit.  On SK-gaming's top 100, most of top 2's teams have a healer and not just paladins.  Resto shaman, druids, and priests are all represented to varying degrees.

Holy paladins are as dominant now as resto druids ever were.  Just go step into the arena or even just look at the arena statistics.  Paladins are the most represented class at 2k+ by a large margin with only DKs and rogues even close.  A supermajority of those paladins are holy.

I would hesitate to say 2v2 arena is the best measurement of pvp viability. In particular I'm not sure drilling down to the small chunk of players at high ratings says much about the general state of balance.

Still, that's significantly better than I expected it to be. My experience with healers in PVP this expansion has primarily been with easily killing them as a protection warrior in pve tanking gear, but that has all been in BG/Wintergrasp.

[Rasix]

The Skadi bug on UP is really fucking annoying.  We could not get the bastard to stop resetting randomly during the encounter.

[Azaroth]

My Skadi Likes To Reset All The Time

[Ratama]

No healers are dominant in PVP right now. Paladins can lay claim to being vaguely effective at best. And they were terrible through TBC after the first couple seasons.

The idea that healers are 'nonviable' is complete bullshit.  On SK-gaming's top 100, most of top 2's teams have a healer and not just paladins.

Healing is completely gimped atm; a Holydin actually does less healing/second to their main healing target through MS than the higher DPS class/specs do in damage to that same target (barring a DK in Frost Presence, which is why that combo's so fucking OP...  well, that and DS).

In BGs and most Arena scenarios, adding a healer is simply less effective than having another DPS along, assuming equal gear/skill.

PS:  2v2 Arena =/= PvP in general.

[Gobbeldygook]

Healing is completely gimped atm
...
PS:  2v2 Arena =/= PvP in general.

Proof is in the pudding, bro.  If healing is so gimp, why are the top teams in the world dominated by teams with healers, even the non-DK teams?  Why are triple DPS teams at high ratings all but unknown?  Why are quintuple DPS teams completely unknown?

[K9]

Paladin healers

[Fabricated]

I guess they fixed the Heigan safe spot and increased the size of his aura so he can't be tanked on his platform easily during phase 1. Noooooo, now I have to do that horribly retarded fight how Blizzard intended.

[K9]

Yeah, I don't get why people think Heigan is an enjoyable fight.

[Ingmar]

Healing is completely gimped atm
...
PS:  2v2 Arena =/= PvP in general.

Proof is in the pudding, bro.  If healing is so gimp, why are the top teams in the world dominated by teams with healers, even the non-DK teams?  Why are triple DPS teams at high ratings all but unknown?  Why are quintuple DPS teams completely unknown?

Those top teams have access to resilience gear that nobody else does, and healers are significantly harder to play in PVP than other classes. The combination of good players and gear with actual defenses on it lets healers function much better.

At least that is my theory.

[Azaroth]

It's because everyone is playing Ret pallies and ret vs. holy = failretlul.

My theory.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I don't get why people think Heigan is an enjoyable fight.

I love that fight. Love love love it. 

[Fordel]

They're dominant less because of plate and more because 12 seconds of immunity > every other healer's lifespan in total. So 12s of healing beats 0s of healing. Resil isn't the fix, burst is just broken as hell on a few classes right now.

A Priest with improved death glyphed was nearly as 'viable' 

[Morfiend]

On the topic of healing. I think Ming is kind of a douchebag, but he makes some good points in this article.

Is Healing Overpowered?

Took a 200 point drop in 5v5 as 4DPS before getting all of it back as 3DPS/2Healer.  Started with rogue/double arcane mage/boomkin/paladin, and there is just too little margin for error against teams that could take 20+ points from us.  Quite simply, I see very little benefit of playing 4DPS as opposed to 3DPS/2Healer.  Your burst as 3DPS is more than enough to burst someone down and your second healer (usually priest or shaman) can play just as offensively as a 4th DPS when you need offense.  With a single healer, all it takes is one interrupt on your lone healer and you are going to lose someone.

The difference of swapping out either one of the two arcane mages or boomkin for a restoration shaman was simply night and day.  Heroism in an environment where there is simply not enough globals to dispel, is 40 seconds of haste that works wonders for both offense and defense.  The plethora array of totems shaman brings to the table along with his hex/shock also work wonders.  But the biggest benefit is his healing to free up our paladin for cleanses, as before he only had globals to freedom, BOP and heal.

I can't tell you how many times I was at <1000 health, with a healing debuff on, and two seconds later, I was back to full health.  I have seen this on our targets as well.  I will say a lot of it has to do with paladin's huge heals, but I really wonder what will happen to burst classes like rogue/mage if Blizzard revamps resilience across the board to reduce damage.  With less than 300 resilience and the other team's primary target almost every game, the two healers on my team kept me alive through some disgusting bursts.  Many times I almost let go of the keyboard thinking I was about to die, and two seconds later I was topped off.

As Radikal, the arcane mage on my team would put it.  Proportionally, an AP/POM pyro does a smaller percentage of a player's health bar than it did back in TBC.  Healing, on the other hand, recovers a much bigger percentage of a player's health.  In most comps it is already a very bad idea to go on the healer of the opposing team, what will happen if/when they nerf damage?  As much complaints as there have been about arcane mages, which of the four healers can they kill 1v1?

[Paelos]

Yeah, I don't get why people think Heigan is an enjoyable fight.

Because it's different, it's pretty forgiving in it's current state (you can lose half the raid and still win), and you get to laugh at the retards who fail.

[caladein]

Because it's different, it's pretty forgiving in it's current state (you can lose half the raid and still win), and you get to laugh at the retards who fail.

That's really the only redeeming quality to the encounter.  As a Holy Priest the fight is basically Prayer of Mending + Abolish Disease and "Oh look, the retards died even with Guardian Spirit."

Although I'm not sure what Fabricated is talking about with changes to Phase 1, we tanked him on his platform as usual Tuesday night.

[Fordel]

We do the reverse, we make the tank and melee DPS run around, with the healers and ranged on the platform until he teleports back up.

[Koyasha]

I guess they fixed the Heigan safe spot and increased the size of his aura so he can't be tanked on his platform easily during phase 1. Noooooo, now I have to do that horribly retarded fight how Blizzard intended.

That fight is horribly retarded due to how stupidly easy it is.  100% predictable pattern with absolutely zero randomness.  There's zero excuse to die on that fight once you've watched the pattern a few times, even if you have lag, because you can completely anticipate everything, it can even be timed, and move as soon as the room explosion goes off.  It'd take somewhere around 4000ms latency to make that fight unsurvivable.

Anybody remember the Trial of Foresight in EQ? 

[Lightstalker]

It's awful, I couldn't make it out of Dalaran hardly. Also, for some reason I was getting some serious fps problems in one of the instances after a while, which I could only chalk up to them getting choked with ppl to get out of the raining lagfire.

This is one of the worst patches in a while, which is even worse considering they delayed it for a long long time.

I noticed this as well, but to me it looked like the client had an obvious memory leak.  Dropped down to 25-30'ish fps in Northrend in a matter of about an hour (on a high end rig) and memory use had crept to about 85-90%.  Killed the client and logged back in to see memory drop back down to 40-50% used, and it continued to climb gradually as fps dropped at the same rate.  Logged out and forgot about wow for the night.

Memory leak, or curious memory management.  You can watch it climb while you play, as you load more characters/terrain the memory usage climbs through the roof.  Might actually be worse than the one that's still in the LotRO client.   +100mb consumed in 5 minutes of riding through Dalaran, maybe they just increased the limit on how much of the world they'll keep in memory in the client and that's what is causing problems for long running clients.  Client seems to move faster initially, but with stutters whenever a lot of new things are loaded at once.

Haven't CTD'd yet, nor corrupted my WTF folder so the jury is still out on if this represents a step back in quality of just another step to the side.

[Ironwood]

I guess they fixed the Heigan safe spot and increased the size of his aura so he can't be tanked on his platform easily during phase 1. Noooooo, now I have to do that horribly retarded fight how Blizzard intended.

That fight is horribly retarded due to how stupidly easy it is.  100% predictable pattern with absolutely zero randomness.  There's zero excuse to die on that fight once you've watched the pattern a few times, even if you have lag, because you can completely anticipate everything, it can even be timed, and move as soon as the room explosion goes off.  It'd take somewhere around 4000ms latency to make that fight unsurvivable.

Anybody remember the Trial of Foresight in EQ? 

This.  I beat this fight first time on 10man, even when other tards didn't 'get it' and died.  It's quite literally a fight you can do with 5 chaps, simply due to the challenge of the puzzle not being there.

[K9]

That's really the only redeeming quality to the encounter.  As a Holy Priest the fight is basically Prayer of Mending + Abolish Disease and "Oh look, the retards died even with Guardian Spirit."

Although I'm not sure what Fabricated is talking about with changes to Phase 1, we tanked him on his platform as usual Tuesday night.

The phase 1 change was made because his aura was smaller than the diagonal width of the platform, so you could tank him in one corner and have your healers and ranged DPS in the opposite corner.

The reason that I find heigan so dull is because Phase 2 is very boring once you've learnt the pattern and just artificially lengthens the fight.

[Azaroth]

Phase 2 IS the fight.

[Draegan]

After once or twice it's a retarded fight.  It's stupid and boring.

[Merusk]

Hey there's nothing stupid or boring about a fight that a tank and a healer can solo. Really!

 

[Lantyssa]

Hey there's nothing stupid or boring about a fight that a tank and a healer can solo. Really!

Solo... together?

[Sjofn]

Hey there's nothing stupid or boring about a fight that a tank and a healer can solo. Really!

Solo... together?

THE TANK AND HEALER ARE AS ONE