#1 - Feb. 23, 2016, 10:43 p.m.
So, let’s get into it, Legion has done a great job so far of streamlining our toolkit both by taking Holy Words from a very situational part of our kit to a more central feature, and by removing Chakras, which previously were punishing or at least confusing. I am a huge fan of these changes, but in the process of making Holy Words these exceptionally powerful spells there has been a shift that has taken place with Holy's playstyle which in some ways has taken us in a direction I am not fond of.
In Warlords we've seen a "more is better" ideal that has come with Holy in which constant casts, and quick casting spells, are highly desired and used heavily to maximize multiple synergies. Sanctuary chakra has been the most heavily used chakra in WoD and pairing that with Words of Mending gave us an intuitive playstyle full of synergy, in which following your ABCs (Always Be Castin) ESPECIALLY with Renew filler was an intuitive and rewarding playstyle. No matter what you were casting, whether you just hit 100 in 640 gear or you were a mythic raider with ilvl of 740, all spells benefited from Sanc chakra and WoMPoM.
My focus, and primary concern for Holy in Legion, is that this new backbone being established for Holy in your Holy Words (moving away from CoH as your backbone) creates some issues in playstyle where there is no reward or synergies for casting your fillers while your cd reduction abilities are so costly (Flash/PoH) or not rewarding enough to feel “worth” casting (Heal/PoH) that the Holy Words do not get used nearly as much as I would like to see them used. I would like to present a concept for consideration in which Holy becomes far more focused on Holy Word usage than currently presented, through reducing mana cost/subsequent healing effect of spells that trigger Serendipity, and increasing the number of spells that trigger Serendipity, to further encourage the class fantasy of Holy Priests as faithful miracle workers through increased Holy Word usage.
Much of this ties into the tuning of mana costs for spells. Historically Holy has always had multiple ways to turn mana into throughput, so much so that we often were rewarded for stacking a very high amount of spirit (especially compared to our sister spec Discipline) in order to maximize the use of said spells. The alternative approach of lower spirit, high filler use, and higher stats was rarely higher throughput in actuality due to absorption effects or encounter design. Now that absorbs have been largely neutered, we are at a point where yes our filler will be exceptionally more effective BUT we are also at a point in Alpha where the design is largely up for critique. I would like to critique this design and demonstrate how a few tweaks can drastically change Holy’s playstyle in Legion to provide a more fun, VERSATILE healer which is the whole point of being a Holy Priest.
Mana is the key.
Holy in Legion is headed towards a playstyle characterized by very high filler use and of situational spells that have a high mana cost which is often prohibitive of sustained use. Demonic Phylactery (DP) in Hellfire Citadel gave Holy a huge gift, relief from the exhaustively high costs of its direct healing spells. Holy requires DP to be viable at a high level of raiding in Patch 6.2 and while it has given us the ability to perform on par with other throughput healers, it has also given us an extremely fun and engaging playstyle, certainly the most fun of the (WoD) expansion. The sheer amount of spells that Holy could have situational, but also frequent use of has been a pleasure to utilize and I would like a great deal of that to be preserved going into Legion. How to carry this over? By reducing Flash and PoH in mana cost, and subsequently healing effect to balance, this will allow Holy to use these spells far more frequently to better reduce the cooldowns of the Holy Words. These spells currently do not incentivize Holy enough to maximize the use of Serenity/Sanctify, and you are relegated to using primarily Renew/PoM both of which have zero Holy Word synergy (unless you talent into Piety) unlike WoD Holy where your filler (Renew) and PoM did have synergy with your “Backbone” spell in CoH baseline. Giving Renew a very small amount of Serendipity synergy would be a step I would recommend to further push the use of Holy’s Miracles of Faith aka Holy Words in a raid environment.
(cont.)
