They really are some odd changes. Some seems like just messing with stats to see what happens (like the 3% 2 handed nerf a few builds ago), some their trying to make Holy spec out of Ret (like JotW) and well...DP I have no idea...Be nice if they added a holy talent that does for DP what Fanaticism does for RF.

I feel bad for Holy, but I also want to see whats going to happen in the next few weeks. You can't give that many nerfs without a few buffs. I just don't see this build as an "end all".

I would just like to submit that this is sig-worthy.

This is ridiculous. I wish there was an MMO out there that had a good PvE end game and did not have a PvP game at all. Over and over we see an interesting and fun mechanic (or spec) get completely gutted because of arenas.

Holy needs something huge. They have always been the most limited healer - limited to no mobility, single-target healing only - and to be viable in that role they need to either be unmatched at it (which is unbalanced in PvP) or infinitely sustainable (also unbalanced in PvP, plus conflicts with Blizz's "mana matters" philosophy). I just don't think it can work - Blizzard cannot make holydins powerful enough single-target healers to make them raid-worthy without overpowering them in arenas.

So they'd better roll out something new - an AoE heal is fast approaching a must at this juncture I would say. Consecrate is an obvious place to put it, since no one else has a location-limited AoE HoT so it would be new and unique. It has to be powerful though such that it can hold its own against CoH, wild growth, or chain heal (because the other three healers can hold their own against paladins in the tank healing department, more or less). The mobility issue has to be dealt with too in some fashion if descriptions of Sapphiron are accurate (i.e., you don't get to stand still much but spend most of the encounter running from blizzards).

They're running out of time though. I'm beginning to suspect that this is going to cause a mass exodus from the holy tree (hey, ret's fully viable now and it's fun!) and then two months into Wrath they'll make some hamfisted buff and overpower holydins and then they'll spend the rest of the expansion trying to balance them back into line.

PvP paladins were too strong in seasons 1 and 2 because people hadn't figured out mana burn. They simply let us stand there and smash big heals onto the focus target without even attempting to CC. Nothing really changed from S2 to S3 except that other classes figured out that despite our plate, and our bubbles we were immobile healing turrets and could easily be taken out of the game.

Now it is the same situation again except that mana burn, until recently, didn't work due to JotW. This is what caused all the problems. IoL added some much needed mobility to the holy paladin and makes them more more viable in 2's and 3's but was never the core issue. It depends on a crit to provide the proc so in my eyes hardly seems unfair.

I really hope they haven't nerfed IoL because of arena testing. It is far too early in my eyes to be making changes that massively affect PvE based on very early PvP feedback.

I know many of these posts are resembling whining and that is because, right now, there is very little to be optimistic about. We're reasonably late in the beta test phase so changes we're seeing now are much more likely to last through till release.

Well, Blizzard has been shown to overreact with nerfs/buffs before (flametongue MS anyone?), and I hope this is one of those moments. Otherwise, yeah I'm speechless as well... my condolences to the holy paladins out there.

My guess is they nerfed IoL to make Light's Grace more attractive. IoL + Light's Grace = instant heals. It seems like they expect us to use HL as part of the regular healing rotation, rather than as an emergency heal.

That's the only explanation I have.

The thing is that Light's Grace was still attractive before that (if it wasn't for JotW). Light's Grace has always only benefited the second HL, never the first. That's why IoL was so nice. It started the combo, working on the first HL, and we had Light's Grace for successive HLs, making the two talents work very nicely together.

Edit: Oops, didn't realize the extent of the nerf. Thought IoL would make HL 0.5s cast.

Why not just make Light's Grace passive or proc off from any heal, and reduce Infusion of Light to 1/2 sec instead? :/

0.5 + 1 = 1.5

2.5 - 1.5 = 1

If the intention was to make light's grace more attractive then they should have reduced IoL to 2 seconds and then it would function as you describe. As it stands now holy paladins have 2 talents which reduce holy light cast time. Probably the more annoying this is that even with a 1 second Holy Light you can still be interrupted but the GCD will remain at 1.5 seconds. You gain no throughput advantage for casting faster but lose all the mobility that IoL offered.

My mistake. I thought they dropped it to a 0.5s so you couldn't cast it on the run. Much bigger nerf than I thought.

Edit: My prediction is that Ghostcrawler posts that some designer was "just playing with talents, and the build accidentally got the changes." Amazing how that keeps happening to paladins.

I'm wondering why we're not getting a change if Protection gear is. It isn't a big issue, since pvp gear at 80 is corrected, but it doesn't make sense to me.

I am in the same position. I haven't been a holy paladin for a while, and these changes are mind-boggling. The only thing I can say to holy pallies is that maybe you're in the same phase that ret went through when the consolidation to buffs happened and JotW was just replenishment. It sucks, but it can only get better from here.

There is still time for buffs.

I guess if I were going to put the most optimistic possible spin on this, I'd say they've got buffs planned for deep holy. But boy, they'd have to be pretty damn impressive buffs. Gutting IoL like this really removes most of what I thought was fun about WotLK holy.

The IoL nerf was complete unnecessary. If they felt that holy was going to be overpowered in arena they could've just put a cd on IoL so it doesn't proc every time you crit a holy shock. Like maybe once every 30 secs or so. As it stands now there's no point in going any deeper than illumination/divine favor.