[Warrior Priest] - Grace

[ThePollie]

Healing on the move.

Once Sigmar's Shield is properly buffed, we'll have a means to heal at least one person somewhat effectively when retreating. Until then, we're limited to casting Healing Hand, one by one, on teammates and hoping it's enough.

While we could stop and cast Divine Mend, here and there, it leaves us excessively vulnerable to being snared and killed, and ultimately won't heal much because of Divine Fury and our lack of Willpower or Salvation points.

Neutralizing kiting.

This won't ever fully go away, nor should it, but as it stands it's a hard counter that we have absolutely no play for.

A means to break snares and roots would be useful, but should probably be Mastery-centric to avoid Salvation having yet another defense atop their pile. As it stands, we get rooted and snared a lot, and it absolutely shuts us down. Other healers continue doing their jobs, while we're disabled completely unless the enemy is incompetent enough to stay in melee while we're locked down.

Our snare is fairly lackluster. Target must be Cursed, requires two global cooldowns to apply it on your own, and either attack can be parried or blocked. It doesn't seem like much of an issue until you try and use it in practice. Combined with our lack of gap closers and inability to break snares and roots, I find a lot of enemies can snare me and run out of range or knock me back before I can manage to land both attacks. Not saying our snare needs changed, but it compounds our inability to get close and keep from being evaded.

A movement speed increase, possibly tied to an attack, could be a solution. I had the idea of having Smite grant a 20% or so movement speed increase, possibly stack two or three times. Though, again, we'd need a way to prevent Salvation from having access to it.

Crowd control of our own.

I've heard a few complaints that we have no form of crowd control of our own to help support our teams. We do, actually. We just have no access to them yet, and won't until Tier 4 is unlocked. At about level 36 or so we get Vow of Silence, a 4 second Silence at melee range. A good way for us to put pressure on enemy healers or cut back on Sorcerer damage. Assuming we can reach either, anyway. We also have an AoE stagger, Morale 3, which again we don't have just yet.

Moving AOE detaunt to melee heal tree (first tactic)
Add/Convert some of the direct melee heals to HoTs (to bridge not in range, more KD)
Bump melee AOE/HoTs heals to good enough (compared to back line)
Adding at least some (weak) ranged healing capabilities
Possibly make AOE cleanse 45 feet and make it 3 or 7 points instead (nerf back line AOE cleansers)
Consider a run speed increase on a high CD (poor mans charge)

1 - I'd rather find a way to make it inaccessible to Salvation. Possibly have it tied to having a two-handed hammer in hand.
2 - If even possible, I'm not so sure that's a good idea, either. I'd rather see Healing Hand buffed, possibly allow it to also draw from Strength as a source instead of just Willpower.
3 - Directly, our heals are fine. They have the potential to match Salvation healing, the problem lies in mitigation crippling us.
4 - We already have that. Healing Hand and Divine Mend. Both are weak.
5 - I'll differ to someone else on that, I lack experience with it.
6 - See above suggestions.

[Bozzax]

A silence is a wasted KD. Remove that from your hotbars please

AOE stagger is good though

[ThePollie]

A silence is a wasted KD. Remove that from your hotbars please

AOE stagger is good though

Again, we have neither until Tier 4.

Most people who suggest to change the "grace WP" into a full healer who is competitive are aware of those problems, which is pretty clear when you read their posts.

It is very likely we'll never be a full healer. Our healing is tied to damage dealt, if we could completely match a dedicated healer while also doing damage, there would be only a few reasons to take anything else.

Theoretically, our healing could be made to 100% match theirs, balanced around the risk involved with frontline combat. But for now, I'd rather see our ability to perform combat support refined.

[Deadpoet]

I am so happy melee healing is finally being looked at seriously. Also happy that 2 of my suggestions from months ago (SR tactic incorporated into the ability thereby freeing a tactic slot, and making SR igore a % of armor or deal spirit damage as every other WP lifetap ability) have appeared in this thread without being (this time) dismissed.

I have continued thinking about these issues in these months and I have come to think the approach to healing through fighting could be changed a little bit.

I propose, only in an abstract, theoretically way, A new approach. Maybe its foolosh, but here it goes:

Heal through DAMAGE has some side issues: Need lots of stat reorganization, itemizitation changes, needs to bypass block/parry, is negated by absorb, is halved by guard, etc Also to fix these issues could make melee WP a too poweful machine.

I propose Heal through ATTACK. Make Sigmars Radiance independent of actual damge done and have it heal for a big set heal value, obviously higher than Salvation group heal to make it appealing for a group. the heal value would scale significatly with mastery points in Grace. It must be a high heal number to compensate for the stretches of time when the WP is CC'd and unable to heal.

In this way you dont need to boost the dps of the WP to translate it into healing (so no OP melee WP,), and bypass all the mitigation and avoidance issues.

On a side note, I think that the correct itemization that Azarael points out is still very necessary.

CC isssues are still a pressing dificulty for the viablity of the melee healer.

The changes to sigmars shield are ABSOLUTELY essential for thsi build. I agree with all the posters.

[ThePollie]

I propose Heal through ATTACK. Make Sigmars Radiance independent of actual damge done and have it heal for a big set heal value, obviously higher than Salvation group heal to make it appealing for a group. the heal value would scale significatly with mastery points in Grace. It must be a high heal number to compensate for the stretches of time when the WP is CC'd and unable to heal.

Wouldn't mind the base heal portion healing regardless of success of attack, while % damage heal added if the attack connects, but having it heal a lot regardless is a bad idea. We could just pound on tanks and get mass healing for free. For now, I'd settle for not requiring that idiotic tactic.

In this way you dont need to boost the dps of the WP to translate it into healing (so no OP melee WP,), and bypass all the mitigation and avoidance issues.

On a side note, I think that the correct itemization that Azarael points out is still very necessary.

CC isssues are still a pressing dificulty for the viablity of the melee healer.

The changes to sigmars shield are ABSOLUTELY essential for thsi build. I agree with all the posters.

[Luth]

Spoiler:

Most people who suggest to change the "grace WP" into a full healer who is competitive are aware of those problems, which is pretty clear when you read their posts.

It is very likely we'll never be a full healer. Our healing is tied to damage dealt, if we could completely match a dedicated healer while also doing damage, there would be only a few reasons to take anything else.

Theoretically, our healing could be made to 100% match theirs, balanced around the risk involved with frontline combat. But for now, I'd rather see our ability to perform combat support refined.

I meant a fully viable healer to fill a healer slot who has a higher risk, but also a higher reward factor. Atm this discussion is still circling around grace WPs who act as a DD class.
Why should the Grace WPs healing output match only be 100% of a range healbots output? He has a far higher risk by running into the enemies instead of running away from them, so he should heal for more if he can actually land a hit.

If you choose the difficult/dangerous way, you should get more from it, as someone who chooses the easy/safe way.
Atm they get less healing and it is more difficult and it is more dangerous, which needs everything to be addressed.

Imo a grace WP should

1. heal for more than a range WP, if he is in melee range
2. be capable to survive at the frontline without requiring the full attention of a tank all the time
3. be somewhat CC resistant, but should have no big CC abilities by himself (i would go that far and remove the option to snare people from the grace WP)
explanation: no class can have everything, or it starts to be OP; CC should be mainly provided by tanks, who are on the other side not very resistant to CC themselves
4. part of the CC resistance: have some tool to reach targets (e.g. runspeed buff, maybe a tactic that procs on defense or something)
5. low damage output

A wrath WP should
1. crippled healing output compared to the grace WP, no grouphealing at all
2. have good CC options, but no protection against CC
3. good damage output, but lower than any real DD (particularly the burst potential)

To achieve this i suggest the following:

1. The AOE melee healing skill(s) changed to single target with the secondary effect that they get AOE range when prayer of devotion is running
2. Prayer of devotion could bolster the healing output
3. Some pure damage abilites that have a secondary CC effect if prayer of righteousness is running
4. Prayer of righteousness could bolster the damage output
3. The prayers should have a long cooldown, so that people can't switch them infight as they like

Edit: If the healing portion of the abilities is made indepenent from the damage dealt and the healing done is generaly raised, it would be maybe better for balancing when melee healing is affected by healdebuffs too.

[Deadpoet]

pounding on a tank and getting full amount of healing is set as an example of why it shouldnt be allowed for the WP to heal through ATTACK and not through damage? A mara pounding on a tank will get also the full amount of healing his ability allows, regardless of the enemy's mitigation. Only need the ability to proc. You can argue the amount of heal should be nerfed, but the mechanic per se doesnt need to be changed. A salvation priest will heal for the same amount standing next to a tank or to a naked sorc.
I think a melee healer deserves to rely on big heals regardless of the damage he deals or the mitigation he encounters. Why? because he is risking his life in the thick of the destro melee train, unlike the backline healers.

[Bozzax]

This is what I'd test

1. Empowered Transfer / Grace of Sigmar add a “on hit” AOE x heal over 5s for group members within 100 feet

2. Decrease the range of Cleansing Power/ Efficient Patching to 30-45 feet and move it to 3 pts tactic

3. Terrifying Aura/Intimidating Repent unchanged

(4. Sigmar's Grace is prolly to op if it becomes common and would be more reasonable with a 20-30s duration instead of an hour)

[Luth]

(4. Sigmar's Grace is prolly to op if it becomes common and would be more reasonable with a 20-30s duration instead of an hour)

I'd like to add something i noticed (sorry if already mentioned):

While the wounds buff "Sigmars Grace" looks good on the paper, it is close to useless in praxis.

Every good chosen or WE removes it instantly from you (blessing). So if you think "nice, my wounds is 5700" consider yourself double wounds debuffed when you run into a chosen/WE.
Rebuffing it mid fight is also no option any grace WP normally can afford (and even if he does, it will be removed few seconds later again).

This buff is actually really bad for a 14 points ability (not that it would be the only 14 points ability that is lame...).
It will also almost everytime removed first, even when other blessings are applied, as most other blessings are cast later in the fight (IB, knight, WL, WP group hot/shield; the only exception: RP rune buff, if cast before the wounds buff. But those are core and don't req. 14 mastery points...).

[Landaren]

2. Decrease the range of Cleansing Power/ Efficient Patching to 30-45 feet and move it to 3 pts tactic
Why does this have anything to do with melee healing?

4. Sigmar's Grace is prolly to op if it becomes common and would be more reasonable with a 20-30s duration instead of an hour
Except Marauders remove double the amount of wounds that sigmar's grace gives and has no cooldown? Blastwave removes the same amount as sigmar's grace. There are plenty of counters to this already.

How about tying some kind of stat increase for the warpriest only, to the Buffs on top of their group utility? Like Salv gives willpower for the WP, grace gives toughness and righteousness gives str? maybe that could help the MaD issue?