Holy Paladin General Feedback
I sadly do not have access to the Alpha myself, so I am forbidden from posting in the correct feedback thread, and so I am posting it here instead. As I do not have Alpha, this post will focus the mana issues the spec has at the moment and what can be done in TWW to address them.
Firstly, I want to say that I am extremely positive about the direction the initial changes have indicated. Redirecting power from Beacons to Holy Shock and Spenders is exactly what the spec needs at this point. It will help make our spot healing feel much better and responsive, and leans much more back in to the identity of the whack-a-mole spot healer. But I think we still need to go further, especially seeing as both our Hero Talent trees add a lot of additional fluff healing.
I think the prime target should be Tyr’s Deliverance. Tyr’s Deliverance is a pretty boring spell that makes up too large a portion of our healing due to its 1 minute long duration. The healing increase to HS, FoL, and HL it provides is interesting, but it just doesn’t feel appropriate to have so much power tied to this trickle-healing spell. I honestly think we would be best of by having this spell removed and having its power shifted to other things. This would also help with the button bloat problem the spec has.
Mana and its Rotational Impact
In recent times, Holy has had very few ways to manage our mana. So far this has not changed in TWW, and without major overhauling changes to the spec I don’t see this changing.
In Dragonflight, mana has become a limiting factor in our ability to keep up our
core rotation. As a combo point based spec with a short cd main generator in Holy Shock, it is essential to the enjoyment of the spec that we are able to cast this generator on cooldown, and spend Holy Power, without worrying about our mana. This is not the case in Dragonflight nor in TWW. Casting Holy Shock and spenders on cooldown eventually leads to us going OOM even if you cast no other spell what so ever.
I think this is the most significant problem of the spec at the moment, as it means we have to cast a copious amount Flash of Lights with Infusion of Light, even to the point that we waste the Holy Shock cooldown reduction from the Imbued Infusions talent. It is counter-intuitive and frustrating that it is wrong to cast Holy Shock on cooldown.
The core rotation of; Spend Holy Power, build Holy Power with Holy Shocks, and get Holy Power and cooldown reduction on Holy Shock by spending Infusions, is fun and intuitive, but it is unfeasible due to mana consumption of Holy Shock and Holy Power Spenders.
Holy Paladin is a spec with many different resources to manage, and mana is the least interesting and most frustrating of them all. As a combo point based spec that relies entirely on Holy Shock and its procs (Infusions) to generate said combo points, its is deeply frustrating that we are not able to cast that spell on cooldown without mana problems as it makes our playstyle fall apart to not cast Holy Shock.
It might sound like I am asking for Holy Paladin to have infinite mana, but that is not the case. I want the mana consumption shifted out of Holy Shock and Holy Power spenders and put in to other optional spells instead.
Solution?
I do not like to give very specific ideas on the design of the spec, but an idea could be to once again make Infusion of Light give a lot of cast time reduction to Holy Light, which would mean that you could turn Holy Light in to our big mana spender without it having an utterly detrimental cast time.
This would create an interesting choice where you spend Infusions on Flash of Light to save mana, but Holy Light when you need big healing and have excess mana to spend. To truly facilitate this, Resplendent Light would probably have to be buffed to turn Holy Light in to a Holy Radiance-esque spell.
This is obviously just one solution, but I think it could be a good one.
I want to reiterate that I am extremely pleased by the changes the spec has received so far and I am very positive about how the spec is looking in TWW. It genuinely feel like our feedback is being heard, and I cant wait to get my hands on the Alpha or Beta to truly test our Hero Talents, and everything else.
