Design Insight on Holy Paladin?

#1 - March 15, 2017, 11:57 p.m.

To begin, I am posting this here over GD because it has to do with how a class was developed for Legion. If this needs to be moved, please let me know and I will move it pronto.

Something that I've thought about quite a bit recently has to do with the way Holy Paladins heal versus how Discipline Priests heal. This isn't a post to complain about one or the other, but possibly (hopefully) get some design insight on Holy Paladin specifically.

Holy Paladin was, to my understanding, designed to be more of "Melee healer" in Legion than it ever has been before. This is due to the removal of Denounce, the addition of their new Mastery (Mastery is what makes them heal for more due to proximity, correct?), and the fact that their mastery increases their armor by 30%.

With these things in mind, wouldn't it have made sense to redesign Holy Paladin with a "heal through damage" play style as well? I understand the desire to keep it a "niche play style" with Disc Priest, but I believe it would have been both very cool to make Holy Paladin heal through damage generated via melee and simultaneously fit the class fantasy of the heavily armored bearer of The Light. Personally, I would have been much more gungho to play my Paladin at the launch of Legion had this been the case.

I personally will hold out hope for this, but is there any chance that we might be able to get some insight on why this wasn't the determined play style for Holy Paladins in Legion?

Edit: Just realized that this thread is labeled as the place for "in-development changes". Will move this to GD.

Sigma

Game Designer

#2 - March 16, 2017, 6:19 a.m.

Primarily because we don't want to force people into a playstyle (baseline, without talents) where they have to both target friendly targets to heal and enemy targets to damage, and frequently swap between them. Discipline is built very specifically for people who want that, and is good place to have it because 1) the class has Holy as an alternative and 2) Discipline has historically had a component of that, so a lot of players who want it are already there. But it's a playstyle that's both unusual and complex, and it's not likely to be baked into the core functionality of 2 out of 6 healing specs.

Sigma

Game Designer

#16 - March 17, 2017, 2:52 a.m.

03/16/2017 07:38 AMPosted by Azkaelon
Beacon of the Saviour from Legion Alpha, for example, would have been an amazing addition to support the melee healer playstyle.

That was the original intent of that talent, and we know some people liked it. We didn't remove it because the concept is totally bad, but that particular design had rotational impacts we weren't happy with (it encouraged a fully all-in DPS rotation, rather than a healer playstyle that got buffs of some sort from DPS abilities). Augmenting your healing through attacks is still something there's room for on the spec when we have the right time and place for it.

In general, where healers do get healing benefits from damage abilities, we're avoiding the classic "smart heal for X% of the damage you deal." We'd rather you still do your healing primarily through making decisions about casting healing spells. That doesn't have to be a strict rule--Avenging Crusader and Way of the Crane are neat designs and could potentially be in PvE as well--but it's one thing we think about.