The Tier set for Holy Paladin is very interesting and it is clearly an attempt at innovating Light’s Hammer and Holy Prism. These two spells have been a very long and stable part of Holy Paladins toolkit but neither have ever seen any changes and have never been more than very low impact, filler spells. Using two old spells that haven’t seen changes in years comes with its own issues though, such as, the low range on Holy Prism, very low base healing and damage, and too high mana cost. Currently, Holy Prism does about the same damage as a single auto attack and less healing that a non crit Holy Shock (which is already not a lot).
Nonetheless, this kind of innovation and experimentation is a very welcome slight breath of fresh air to a spec that has suffered since Shadowlands from a very basic and shallow (re)implementation of Holy Power. I believe that going forward that this is exactly the kind of stuff that we need to make Holy Power a more interesting system, and I only hope to see more like it in the form of baseline changes to the talent tree instead of only through borrowed power.
This is the kind of tier set that’s going to feel strange to lose when going in to 10.2, and while it’s obviously still a long way away, some thought should be put into whether at least the Holy Power generation part of the tier should be made baseline.
With that being said, I am glad to finally see a hint of innovation for a spec that has grown very stale since the unwarranted reintroduction of Holy Power.
How the Tier Set Feels
Holy Prism has not seen regular play for a very long time, but being able to generate 3 Holy Power consistently on a fairly short cooldown can become a great change of pace. However, Holy Prism simply does not heal enough or do enough damage to feel satisfying to press, even with the 80% increase from the tier set.
Additionally. while a good idea on paper, I do not believe that having it grant different amount of Holy Power based on target selection is going to create interesting gameplay. We will just have a situation where one way is always better than the other, which is completely unideal. The Holy Power granted should be similar whether using it for Single Target or AoE healing so as to allow the decision making to be entirely dependent on whether you need Single Target or AoE healing. This will also require a balancing of Holy Prism‘s ST vs AoE healing effects to make the ST comparatively better.
As for Light’s Hammer, the Holy Power generation is reminiscent of Divine Resonance. Personally, I am not a big fan of this way of generating Holy Power as it can make it quite awkward to not overcap while playing the normal rotation. But combined with the increased tick rate and the cooldown reduction from the 2-set, it could be a decent throughput increase.
However, compared to the potential decision making of Holy Prism, Light’s Hammer is much more “fire and forget”, and playstyle wise it does not change much besides granting a bit more Holy Power.
Tuning
With the cooldown reduction from the 2-Set we will be able to get out a Light’s Hammer roughly every 40 seconds, combined with the 100% faster tickrate this equates to roughly 300% more healing from Light’s Hammer, while also granting 6 additional Holy Power per minute.
Using my own log from Kurog as a basis and using total napkin math, then tuning wise when playing Light’s Hammer we are looking at a roughly 15% overall healing increase. This is slightly better than the current tier set from Vault of the Incanates.
Regarding Holy Prism, as I mentioned above, it simply does not do enough healing or damage even with the 80% buff.
Holy Prism needs to be better than Light’s Hammer on spread fights otherwise it might as well not exist. The 15 yard range is way too low and needs to be increased massively. But even so it is still not competitive, it requires more globals, does less healing and less damage. Every aspect of the spell needs significant buffs. I think Holy Prism as a spell has so much potential that has never been realized and I am very glad to see some experimentation on it.
Final Notes
- Both the damage and the healing of Holy Prism should be buffed baseline, the mana cost should be reduced, and the range of 15 yards needs to be increased.
- The Holy Power generation from Holy Prism should be independent of target selection, and Holy Prism balanced to make the choice of target more interesting.
- Make sure to make Holy Prism and Light’s Hammer count as generators for the purposes of Of Dusk and Dawn, Seal of Order and Fading Light.
- The set bonus regarding Holy Power generation likely needs to be made baseline going in to Patch 10.2.
- The 2-set bonus increasing healing of Holy Shock should affect non crits too. With the loss of previous tier and the changes to Of Dusk and Dawn, too much direct healing power is being pushed out of Holy Shock.
The idea behind the tier set is great and innovative and I highly hope to see more experimentation to non-borrowed power systems to make Holy Power a more interesting system for Holy Paladin.
