Question about double standard

Most trash pulls in Naxx used AE almost exlcusively. Being a single-target damage-dealer, and one with combo points no less, felt just terrible. Yeah, I know "nobody cares about trash." Except they do. Rogues (and at the time other specs with sub-par AE dps) wondered why anyone would want to bring them when the raid leader could speed up the whole raid by bringing someone who could AE. There are adds on some of the boss fights too and we knew that many of the upcoming Ulduar fights would have a lot of AE opportunities too.

We feel these days like "I bring the best AE!" is not a strong niche. Likewise, it felt archaic to say that some characters just had to sit around while everyone else AE'd those big packs down.

EDIT: Oh, okay I see the healing angle now.

An apparent "double standard" exists because the game has far fewer healing specs than damage specs. Most 25-player raids are going to have a diversity of healers so it's okay in our minds for them to have more discrete niches. While there are many fights where single-target damage is not particularly useful, there are very, very few fights that are not tanked, and therefore where single-target healing is not particularly useful. Besides, while the paladin niche may be single-target healing, when I look at raid stats, nearly all of them are managing to heal people besides the MT. I've run 10-player raids with 2 paladin healers plenty of times. It works fine.

Q u o t e:
Almost all of the Ulduar fights hinge on raid damage. Long-term tank bursts aren't too common.

Still, a great, great number of Ulduar wipes are because the tank died. There is also a tank burst mechanic on almost every fight.

This topic has strayed a little bit from "Why are there healing niches?" to "I am a paladin healer and I hate my class."

Look, we get that....

1) Stacking mostly Int isn't fun.
2) Having 70%+ overheal isn't fun.
3) Focusing so much on the main tank in a raid isn't fun.
4) Casting nothing but Holy Light isn't fun.

We do have some ideas for how to fix these problems. They aren't redesign-the-class level because frankly we don't think the class needs that, but the proposed changes would fix the above four problems. Understand though that part of reducing overhealing and being a more flexible raid healer might come with regen or mana pool nerfs. It is possible that the only thing keeping Holy paladins from being too good right now is their narrow focus.

Q u o t e:
Not to completely change the subject here, but this statement strikes me as odd. What do you mean "too good?" Do you mean objectively better than the other healers, or perhaps when a holy paladin is "too good" the encounter is simply easier than if you had a different class of healer?

I meant "too good" in the sense of healing per second and longevity. You can spam very fast Holy Lights virtually forever, or at least much longer than the typical boss encounter lasts. The big negatives for a Holy paladin right now are having insanely high overhealing (but who cares since mana is cheap?) and having a narrow niche of single target (usually tank) healing. Improve the efficiency (not mana efficiency but replace the overhealing with actual healing) or let paladins heal multiple targets at once and I think it would be hard to argue that any of the other classes could compete.

Q u o t e:
I think it's pretty clear that's what he is saying. "We realize it sucks to have to do nothing but spam Holy Light, so we're going to nerf you such that Holy Light can't be spammed anymore and then you'll be forced to do something else!"

Only the problem is: We have nothing else, so it will just remove all raid viability.

Just FYI, this is the kind of response that makes developers reluctant to talk about what we're working on. You have many threads of paladins explaining what they think the problems are in the class, but when we talk at all about changing things, the response is "Here comes the nerfs!"

Do you really think our goal or the outcome of any changes we would make will be to remove all raid viability? Or are you just trying to speak in hyperbole to make sure people get your point? If you are going to be so terrified that changes will make you worse, then our hands are kind of tied to ever making changes.

Q u o t e:
I find it odd that a lot of the paladin community is capable of complaining that our healing is too simple while simultaneously complaining about any possible change to address that issue. If we do get more useful tools/AoE, etc, I would expect nerfs to our current one-trick show. Change is unsettling, but arbitrarily assuming the change is going to be terrible is just useless pessimism.

Yep.

[Not tracked]

Q u o t e:
I'm not sure that overhealing is a negative of paladin healing specifically. It's a result of the spiky tank damage in many fights, high amounts of crit on our gear, and of course the ability to spam heals on a tank regardless of need because we never run OOM. Still, I don't think raids are sitting out holy paladins because they don't like overheals.

I agree nobody would get benched for overhealing. But when mana does matter then overhealing does too. Some paladins are saying "Yes, I overheal but what choice do I have?" which is fair. It's a liability, though perhaps a small one.

Q u o t e:
In my experience so far it is the other of the big negatives you mentioned, the lack of ability to heal multiple people quickly, that is causing us to be comparatively ineffective in some of the most important and challenging situations of hard mode fights.

I would say lack of ability to heal multiples and lack of ability to move. We have let other specs creep into the paladin role with perhaps not letting the paladin creep out enough. Again, we're not talking about overhauling the Holy tree or getting 5 new healing spells next patch. While we're not prepared to announce our plans yet, I also don't want anyone's imagination to run wild here.

Q u o t e:
We understand that GC. Please nerf our longevity/mana regen to bring those changes you mentioned that will make the class more fun to play! I don't care how you nerf us if you make it so we don't have to cast hugely inefficient holy lights all the time. It's just lame.

You understand, and other paladins agree with you, but as I'm sure you can tell from this thread others don't want any changes or are so suspicious of us that they fear any changes mean nerfs. I agree "hugely inefficient holy lights all the time" is lame.

Q u o t e:
I think a large part of the reason WHY our mana regen is so op right now is that we HAVE to have op mana regen to be effective tank healers with the way we are currently designed. If you make it so we are a.) more efficient and b.) more flexible with raid vs. tank healing, it makes total sense that you will need to nerf our mana regen/longevity. Please do what you need to do to fix paladins so they are not the mind numbing experience they are now.

Well said.

Q u o t e:
Don't homogenize me, bro!

/win

Q u o t e:
I'll offer you a deal, GC. We will do our best to stop the needless qq, and in exchange, you stop complaining about what a chore it is to address the concerns of the community simply because a few people choose to approach you with sarcasm.

I could care less what you say to me. I'm not going to be offended. However a lot of players come to these forums looking for intelligent discussion and get turned off by QQ, "Don't nerf me bro" and persecution complexes. You can tell this just by reading the forums -- this thread even. When we post "We want to change your class" and you respond "nerfs fall like rain and always hit paladins first" then many players roll their eyes and decide to skip out on the actual conversation and just read my comments on MMO Champion or wherever. That is bad. If we just wanted to announce changes, we wouldn't do it in the forums. We are here because we want to promote conversation, between us and the community, and within the community.

[Not tracked]

Q u o t e:
I know for a fact that there are a lot of paladins who do not want to be changed and who like the current style of play. Imo, if Blizz was to change the play style of the Holy Paladin I would think it would be cool if we had a choice (similar to priests, although not as drastic as it would be spread over one tree as opposed to being spread over two).

We understand a lot of players like the play style of paladins. We aren't interested in turning them into priests by any stretch. What we would like to do is make having more than one Holy paladin in a raid slightly more attractive. If you do a 10-player raid with 2 Holy paladins and 1 Resto druid, you should not feel gimped. If you have excess Resto druids, one of them can always hot and Nourish a tank. If you have excess Holy paladins, then you have one of them just using Flash on the rogues or furiously overhealing them with HL.

We like healing niches and we think we are pretty close with them currently. If there was a healing niche of say "Good at healing melee on very long and heavily magical fights" I think everyone would agree that is probably too narrow a niche. We just need to make sure healers feel somewhat useful even when they are not in the perfect healing situation for their particular class.