I’m trying to understand what the new playstyle will be for Holy.
In BFA you spammed Prayer of Healing w/ high amounts of mastery + azerite armor = profit.
In Shadowlands you used Flash Concentration to turn into a single target pumping turret which made you able to burst heal through M+ and in raids.
Looking at the Priest Talent tree you get a -20% cast speed reduction on Flash Heal & Heal as long as your HP is above 75%. I can say that in most circumstances in a raid you will be above 75% hp the majority of the fight. Also, if you heal or damage a target at 35% or below you get a +10/20% heal/damage buff for 10s.
There’s also a talent that increases your SoL proc chance by an additional +12% if your target has a renew on them. This to me seems well broken… you’ll be getting SoL procs almost non-stop.
There’s also way more passive mana gain talent choices. Shadowfiend can return mana, targets dying with SWP return mana, Enlightenment is a choice, and Cosmic Ripple procs give you mana back. This is probably going to lead towards some healing intensive raids and less reliance on healers getting free mana recharges in M+.
Also, we get more combo choices like Benediction on-top of Halo and Divine Star and Holy Oration + Apotheosis + Light of the Naaru. There’s more talent choices for faster Holy Word resets as well.
My guess is Holy is going to lean more heavily on their Holy Words as their main source of healing, but I guess we’ll see what the Alpha/Beta has in store.
Either way I’m not feeling kosher for Holy going into the expansion. Many of the things that made the spec great this patch aren’t carrying over.