#1 - June 21, 2013, 12:34 a.m.
In my opinion Selfless Healer has always been an inferior option compared to it's counterparts when taken by a Holy Paladin for one main reason.
Being forced to use a gcd once every 5 or so seconds that doesn't actually do any healing (what I'm trying to do in the first place) isn't worth it. Blizzard almost made a change to make it build stacks with judgement and holy shock, and while that would have been nice, it would have been a little too good. Make judgement worth while to use as holy. To make it worthwhile, as often as it comes off cd it needs to be useable on allies and heal them. Also give it some kind of forced proc or additional incentive to use it each time it's available such as one of the following; increase their next direct heal received from the paladin, or grant a 5 second temporary beacon of light effect or something, make it a dependable way to force an Infusion of Light Proc, make it grant one holy power, maybe give back 200% of the mana, make it apply a small stackable hot on allies while seal of insight is enabled similar to how seal of truth applies a dot to enemies that it took to cast it . In other words, make judgement useful to a healer for holy. Judgement doesn't help holy right now... at all. In fact it hurts. It takes mana away. We don't want that. It demands something from a healer that they don't want to do in the first place. The only reason holy paladins got used to enjoy judging back in cataclysm and Wrath was because it granted mana. You got used to it. But when the mana return mechanic was taken away, then that effect ended. Make judgement a part of the holy paladin healer tool kit if you wish selfless healer to be taken by holy paladins.
Sanctified Wrath
It's nice to see Sanctified Wrath getting some love but the main reason any holy paladin worth their salt doesn't take it, is because 30 seconds every 3 minutes isn't a lot compared to Holy Avenger and that it only works with holy shock (single target healing and daybreak) where holy avenger and divine purpose enhance single target as well as all multiple target healing options that raid healers need. If Sanctified wrath increased the crit chance on Holy Radiance and Daybreak then I may it take it, but even then I would hesitate b/c it's still only available for 30 seconds every 3 min. It's just too long of a wait where I'm stuck without it. Maybe change sanctified wrath instead of increasing it's duration for 30 seconds, instead reduce it's cd somehow so it's available more often so it's useable more in dire situations like Holy Avenger is.
Eternal Flame
Eternal Flame seems really out of place. I think the reason it's taken so often by holy paladins is because a dependable "when you need on who you need it" heal over time spell is a part of the healer toolkit that all healers need. Every healer has a hot that they can put on multiple people. To not choose that limits your options for healing multiple people. My proposal is do two things.
a. Make it baseline for holy only so that you no longer have to try it make it be 3 different things for 3 different specs.
b. Change it so that it is not attached to Word of Glory but instead it's own hot and have it heal for how much it does now. It'll still cost holy power as it currently does, heal for between 30% and 50% more than Word of Glory does, just over a longer amount of time. Maybe compress it into a 20 second duration to make the heal seem like it heals for slightly more. This is this game's fourth expansion. Isn't it about time that Holy Paladins who are legitimate raid healers got a baseline heal over time that isn't restricted somehow? I'm thinking the main problem with Eternal Flame healing for so much was the up front word of glory portion, hence blizzard's recent 5.4 ptr nerf on it and not the secondary hot portion.
Sacred Shield (5.2 Talent)
The reason that I never took Sacred Shield was for two reasons as a holy paladin
a. It was limited to one person so it was a terrible tool for raid healing, and even for tank healing you almost were never limited to "only heal this one tank and just it the entire fight.
b. It didn't scale with stats all that well. Just Spellpower and haste. Mastery and crit were useless for it (Mastery might have too good). I think it would have been a better idea instead of redesigning it, would be to either make the absorbs applied be crit-able, apply mastery, OR remove it's one person only limitation and make it cost about as much mana as divine light to make sure that the it isn't spammed too much.
Illuminated Healing.
Our mastery gets an overpowerd reputation mainly b/c of how much healing (absorbs in this case) it seems to do. I like the mechanic and how useful it is. I don't think it should unreasonable for mastery to be a healer's best stat some times. However it's not good when you consider how rewarding unintelligent healer play can be with it. All overheal still applies a shield. That shouldn't be the case for a mechanic that is applied by spells that can overheal. In my opinion Illuminated Healing should not apply an absorb on healing that is overheal. This will encourage holy paladins to try to avoid overhealing which is how a skilled healer is supposed to be in the first place. Of course this is a pretty big nerf and would most certainly reduce our hps by a lot. It would be nice to get a buff to Illuminated healing somewhere without encouraging unintelligent healing. Perhaps make Beacon of Light transfers that are not overheal apply a Illuminated Healing Shield, or perhaps raise the mastery coefficient back from 1.25 to it's former level at 1.5.
IH is a cool mechanic but it becomes too good when mindless overhealing can be rewarding.
Please post your thoughts on the state of holy. Please try to keep feedback constructive. This is not the place to flame, or complain.
