How so? HW:L isn’t a damage spell. It’ll gain more from Holy’s mastery than it will from atonement. As-is I wouldn’t even take HW:Life on Disc - we’ve got a ton of mitigation as-is, and it’s going to likely take some really heavy tree investment.
The rest I mostly agree with - but these are mostly things that Disc kinda has besides the renew change.
More specifically, I’m referring to Grace, which amplifies your healing to people who have atonement on them.
I’m also referring to the upfront burst healing that is needed when people are low health and in real danger of death. HW:L will gain more from Holy’s mastery than the atonement when you look at its full healing contribution over the course of 6 seconds or if you’re just going by the meters, but in a practical application it’s going to be the burst healing that saves people who get low more often than any residual hots that tick twice for a fraction of that amount over the course of 6 seconds.
I kinda see what you mean with that - but I do think it’s still better on holy. Unless HW:L is undertuned and can’t save any situations on its own, then grace isn’t going to make or break it. So long as it performs the function of stabilizing someone’s health, I’d rather have the echo ticks than possible overhealing in most content. PvP’s a different story though.
Holy Word Life is lackluster for a bottom tree ability. A heal that is only effective if the target you’re healing is at 35% hp or less is rarely going to get used properly. Increase the threshold to 50% and it’ll work… otherwise I’d much rather have something like Ray of Hope.
Also, I don’t like Holy being stuffed with another Heal button that basically does what Serenity does. I have no idea what key slot I would even put it on.
well they boosted HW:L by alot compared to before so it might be good. They said its gonna be a 400% increase for 35% hp. While right now we have a 150% for 20% hp.
The 15% hp difference already make it better an the 400% gonna be real helpfull.
But they also need to make an effect for Divine word Talent. Same for Salvation.
HW:Life is a bit duplicative/redundant for Holy, which already has three single-target healing spells, all of which are boosted by Divine Word and Guardian Spirit (two cooldowns that boost single target healing!). What Holy really lacks is an external DR - not necessarily saying it needs one right now, but just noting it’s glaringly absent.
HW: Life may have decent throughput now…it was boosted by 150%. And it is easier to use…35% is a lot easier than the 25% it was at previously. But I wonder, after they re-path/re-arrange the talent trees, what we’d have to give up for it. None of the end-tier talents of the main class tree are “amazing” right now, even if they can find use.
Though HW:L is a bit lackluster, it will help with losing FC if they don’t add it to our new tree. Not sure how it will look now, but before there was a good chunk of talents that would have helped us keep our healing power in M+ (Unwavering Will, LotN/Apoth/HO, Divine Word, HW:L, etc) Still don’t really like HW:L though.
They could also just buff our FH to compensate, maybe make it more expensive if they want to, as long as they are keeping these extra mana options that they had in the first iteration on our tree.
Void Shift could also be added to that list if used well - would have killed to have it on Necrotic weeks in the past, better than Vitality Conduit was last expansion.
I think people tend to forget how often people fall below 35%, at least in keys. Based on the text from the blue post, HW:L is buffed quite a lot. The damage component is no longer there, and on top of that, it’s effectively a 10s cd spell if you use them on target <35% health.
If the DF dungeon damage shape up to be anything like S4, HW:L can be a must take. For holy, I think it has the potential to fill the gap for losing Flash concentration, and I personally hope that ability DOESN’T come back. It’s time to move on from the spamming one button for ALL situations gameplay.
Wait til we see what’s our other capstones on the class tree. More recent trees aren’t all that powerful
Look at the monk class tree capstones. They look ok utility wise but aren’t really up there in terms of throughput.
If this is what we’re getting, hw:life could be a decent capstone 
Void shift will be very powerful in necrotic weeks Fix’s that issue. Anyone know if it counts on the meters as a heal/hps?
I also wonder if it’s the 30% pws buff talent will be a capstone and up against day lights wrath etc. might make it a key only ability.
I remember it counting on the meters as a heal.
daketh planning on using void shift for good and hps, im planning on using void shift to troll my guild mates on farm content.
That’s cause you are an evil Sod But certainly yes on other healers in raid. But I think it’s an excellent spell to come back.
I wonder what the state of mana will be in DF. People may forget but besides the 10% healing/15% damage/other DPS buffs in 9.2 were a slew of huge reductions in mana costs. That was especially important to accommodate the faster cycle of holy words.
Are mana costs in DF starting off baseline where we’re at now? In which case I’m imagining a much slower cycle of play due to losing tier sets and FC and there are all these mana options anyway in the tree…
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/en/wow/t/dragonflight-beta-development-notes/1278546/10
General
Class Tree
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Depth of the Shadows – Purge the Wicked / Shadow Word: Pain increase the healing of your next Shadow Mend by 2%, stacking up to 25 times.
Death and Madness has been redesigned – Resets the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death if the target is not killed while below 20% health. Generates 30 Insanity over 4 seconds if the target dies within 7 seconds.
New Talent: Inspiration – Critical heals from Flash Heal, Penance, and Heal grant Inspiration, reducing physical damage taken by 5% for 15 seconds.
New Talent: Void Tendrils – Roots all enemies within 8 yards for 20 seconds (6 seconds in PvP combat). Void Tendrils can be killed to break the root.
New Talent: Blessed Recovery – After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit, Blessed Recovery heals you for 20% of the damage taken over 6 seconds. Additional critical hits taken during the effect increase the healing received.
Translucent Image – Now lasts the full duration of Fade. Buff consolidated into Fade to reduce aura squares.
New Talent: Phantasm – Fade removes all movement impairing effects when used.
New Talent: Angelic Bulwark – Anytime a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your total health lasting for 20 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 90 seconds.
Shadow Mend – Now a 15 second cooldown. Healing amount increased by 20%.
New Talent: Move with Grace – Leap of Faith’s cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds.
Throes of Pain – Now restores 1% mana for Holy/Disc and 5 Insanity for Shadow.
New Talent: Rhapsody – For every 5 seconds that you do not cast Holy Nova, the healing and damage of your next Holy Nova is increased by 10%. This effect can stack up to 20 times.
New Talent: Sheer Terror – Increases the amount of damage required to break your Psychic Scream by 100%.
Cleric’s Armaments – Removed and merged into Tools of the Cloth.
Tools of the Cloth – For 12 seconds after casting Power Word: Shield, you deal 10% additional damage and healing with Smite and Holy Nova.
New Talent: Manipulation – Your Smite, Penance, Holy Fire, Mind Blast, and Mind Spike casts reduce the cooldown of Mindgames by 0.5/1.0 seconds.
Holy Word: Life – No longer gives backlash to the player. If a target is healed below 35% health, the healing amount is increased by 400% and the cooldown of Holy Word: Life is reduced by 25 seconds.
New Talent: Shattered Perceptions – Mindgames lasts an additional 2 seconds, deals an additional 25% damage, and reverses 25% additional damage or healing.
New Talent: Improved Purify – Purify additionally removes all Disease effects (Disc/Holy only).
New Talent: Spell Warding – Now also reduces all magic damage taken by 3%.
New Talent: Apathy – Your Mind Blast critical strikes reduce your target’s movement speed by 75% for 4 seconds.
New Talent: Improved Fade – Reduces the cooldown of Fade by 5 seconds/10 seconds.
Shadow Word: Death – Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Psychic Voice – Cooldown reduction reduced to 15 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Void Shield – Moved from PvP Talents to talent tree.
Improved Mass Dispel – Moved from PvP Talents to talent tree.
Void Shift – Moved from PvP Talents to talent tree.
Psychic Scream – Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 60 seconds).
Purify – Baseline for Holy and Discipline. Only dispels Magic effects.
Shadow Word: Pain – Duration increased to 16 seconds to offset the loss of a rank 2 spell (was 12 seconds).
Eternal Rest – Reduces the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death by 12 seconds.
Discipline
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Rapture – Causes Power Word: Shield to have no cooldown and increases its absorption by 30% (was 200%).
Atonement – Can now be applied by Renew and Flash Heal.
New Talent: Make Amends – When Penance deals damage, the duration of Atonement on yourself is increased by 1 second and when your Penance heals, the duration of Atonement on your target is increased by 1 second.
New Talent: Divine Aegis – Critical heals create a protective shield around your target, absorbing 8%/15% of the amount healed. Lasts 15 seconds. Critical heals with Power Word: Shield absorb 8%/15% additional damage.
New Talent: Aegis of Wrath – Power Word: Shield absorbs 30% additional damage, but the absorb amount decays by 3% every 1 second.
Exaltation – Increases the duration of Rapture and Spirit Shell by 3 seconds (was 1 second).
New Talent: Bright Pupil – Reduces the cooldown of Power Word: Radiance by 5 seconds.
New Talent: Enduring Luminescence – Power Word: Radiance applies Atonement at an additional 15% of its normal duration.
New Talent: Painful Punishment – Each Penance bolt extends the duration of Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked on enemies hit by 0.7 seconds.
New Talent: Improved Shadow Word: Pain – Increases the damage of Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked by 8%/15%.
New Talent: Borrowed Time – Casting Power Word: Shield increases your Haste by 4%/8% for 4 seconds.
New Talent: Train of Thought – Flash Heal, Renew, and Shadow Mend reduce the cooldown of Power Word: Shield by 1 second. Smite reduces the cooldown of Penance by 0.5 seconds.
New Talent: Balance in All Things – Your damaging Shadow spells increase the damage of your next Holy spell cast within 6 seconds by 15%. Your damaging Holy spells increase the damage of your next Shadow spell cast within 6 seconds by 15%.
New Talent: Resplendent Light – Light’s Wrath deals an additional 2%/4% damage per ally affected by your Atonement.
New Talent: Fiending Dark – Your Smite, Mind Blast, and Penance casts reduce the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 3 seconds/6 seconds and Mindbender by 1 seconds/2 seconds.
New Talent: Expiation – Increases the damage of Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death by 10%/20%. Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death consume 3 seconds/6 seconds of Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked, instantly dealing that damage.
New Talent: Wrath, Unleashed - Reduces the cast time of Light’s Wrath by 1 second and increases its critical strike chance by 15%. Smite deals 40% additional damage for 15 seconds after casting Light’s Wrath.
New Talent: Weal and Woe – Your Penance bolts increase the damage of your next Smite by 8% or the absorb of your next Power Word: Shield by 3%. Stacks up to 7 times.
Power of the Dark Side – Increases the effectiveness of Penance by 30% (was 50%).
Light’s Promise – Name changed (was Power Word: Radiance Rank 2).
Protector of the Frail – Reduces the cooldown of Pain Suppression by 3 seconds (was 2 seconds).
Pain Transformation – Heals for 12% of maximum health and applies Atonement (was 8% of max health).
Malicious Scission – Increases the duration of Schism by 3 seconds (was 50%).
Purge the Wicked – Now deals Radiant damage (was Fire).
Penance – Now a baseline ability.
Atonement – Removed Shadow Word: Death from the Atonement blacklist, meaning it can now Atone.
Holy
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Revitalizing Prayers – Prayer of Healing has a 15%/30% chance to apply a 6 second Renew to allies it heals.
New Talent: Prayerful Litany – Prayer of Healing restores an additional 30% health to the most injured ally it affects.
New Talent: Empowered Renew – Renew instantly heals your target for 10% of its total periodic effect.
New Talent: Rapid Recovery – Increases the healing done by Renew by 35%, but decreases its base duration by 3 seconds.
New Talent: Desperate Times – Increases healing by 6%/12% on friendly targets at or below 50% health.
New Talent: Spirited Litany – After your Prayer of Mending heals 80/40 times, gain Power Infusion for 10 seconds.
New Talent: Archbishop Benedictus’ Restitution – After Spirit of Redemption expires, you will revive at up to 100% health, based on your effectiveness during Spirit of Redemption. After reviving, you cannot benefit from Spirit of Redemption for 10 min.
New Talent: Holy Mending – When Prayer of Mending jumps to a target affected by your Renew, that target is instantly healed.
New Talent: Everlasting Light – Heal restores up to 15% additional health based on your missing mana.
New Talent: Say Your Prayers – Prayer of Mending has a 15% chance to not consume a charge when it jumps to a new target.
Divine Word – Sanctuary can no longer be moved.
New Talent: Healing Chorus – Your Renew healing increases the healing done by your next Circle of Healing by 2%, stacking up to 25 times.
New Talent: Orison – Circle of Healing heals 1 additional ally and its cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds.
New Talent: Crisis Management – Increases the critical strike chance of Flash Heal and Heal by 8%/15%.
New Talent: Prismatic Echoes – Increases the healing done by your Mastery: Echo of Light by 15%/30%.
New Talent: Prayers of the Virtuous – Prayer of Mending gains 1/2 additional charges.
New Talent: Pontifex – Critical heals from Flash Heal and Heal increase your healing done by your next word spell by 10%, stacking up to 2 times.
New Talent: Harmonious Apparatus – Circle of Healing reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify, Prayer of Mending reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Serenity, and Holy Fire reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Chastise by 2 seconds/4 seconds.
New Talent: Lightweaver – Flash Heal reduces the cast time of your next Heal within 20 seconds by 30% and increases its healing done by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.
Heal – Now a baseline ability.
Guardians of the Light – Guardian Spirit summons a spirit to watch over you in addition to your target.
Sanctified Prayers – Casting Holy Word: Sanctify increases healing done by Prayer of Healing by 10% for 15 seconds.
Benediction – Your Prayer of Mending has a 15% chance to leave a Renew on each target it heals (was 25%).
Renewed Faith – Your healing is increased by 8% on targets with Renew (was 10%).
Miracle Worker – Holy Word: Serenity gains an additional charge.
Shadow
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Mind Spike – Blasts the target for Shadowfrost damage, but extinguishes your shadow damage-over-time effects from the target in the process. Mind Spike also increases the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast on the target by 30%. Stacks up to 3 times. Generates 6 Insanity.
New Talent: Mind Flay: Insanity – Casting Devouring Plague transforms your Mind Flay spell into Mind Flay: Insanity for 5 seconds. Mind Flay: Insanity deals 80% more damage than Mind Flay.
Mind Sear – No longer generates Insanity. Now costs 25 Insanity per tick to channel.
Tithe Evasion – Shadow Word: Death deals 75% less damage to you.
Mental Fortitude – Devouring Plague now triggers this. Is now capped at 10% maximum health.
Rot and Wither renamed to Mental Decay. Now guaranteed to extend Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain.
Psychic Link – Now also occurs from Mind Spike.
Monomania – Also increases the critical chance of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch.
New Talent: Painbreaker’s Psalm – Shadow Word: Death consumes 4 seconds/8 seconds of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch, instantly dealing that damage to the target and generating up to 10/20 Insanity.
New Talent: Lunacy – Reduces the Insanity cost of Devouring Plague by 10. Reduces the Insanity drained when Mind Sear deals damage by 5.
New Talent: Dark Void – Unleashes an explosion of dark energy around the target, dealing Shadow damage and applying Shadow Word: Pain to your target and 7 nearby enemies. Generates 20 Insanity.
New Talent: Tormented Spirits – Your Shadow Word: Pain damage has a 5% chance to create a shadowy version of yourself that floats towards all targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch. Critical strikes increase the chance to 10%.
New Talent: Mind Melt – Mind Spike reduces cast time of your next Mind Blast by 50%, stacking up 2 times. Lasts 6 seconds.
New Talent: Surge of Darkness – Your Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague damage have a chance to cause your next Mind Spike not to consume your damage over time effects, be instant, and deal 50% additional damage. Stacks up to 3 times.
New Talent: Dark Evangelism – Your Mind Flay, Mind Sear, and Void Torrent damage increases the damage of your periodic Shadow effects by 1%/2%, stacking up to 5 times.
New Talent: Dark Ascension – Consumes Dark Evangelism to increase the damage of your non-periodic Shadow abilities by 4% per stack consumed. Lasts 18 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
New Talent: Maddening Touch – Vampiric Touch has a 50%/100% chance to generate 1 Insanity each time it deals damage.
New Talent: Whispers of the Damned – Your Mind Blast and Mind Spike critical strikes generate an additional 3/5 Insanity.
New Talent: Piercing Shadows – Your Shadow damage spell casts increase the Shadow damage you deal by 0.5%/1.0% for 25 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
New Talent: Pain of Death – Increases the damage dealt by Shadow Word: Death by 25%. Shadow Word: Death deals 20% of its damage to all targets affected by your Shadow Word: Pain within 40 yards.
New Talent: Derangement – Increases the initial damage of Devouring Plague by 75%. Mind Sear deals damage 20% faster.
New Talent: Fiending Dark – Critical damage from Mind Spike and Mind Flay reduces the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 3 seconds/6 seconds and Mindbender by 1 seconds/2 seconds.
New Talent: Mastermind – Increases the critical strike chance of Mind Spike and Mind Blast by 3%/6% and increases their critical strike damage bonus by 15%/30%.
Mind Flay – Now overrides Smite.
Vampiric Touch – Now a baseline ability.
Shadowform – Holy spells no longer cancel Shadowform.
Mind Sear – Damage increased by 80%.
Dispersion – Now also heals the player for 25% of their maximum health over its duration.
Intangibility – Dispersion heals you for an additional 25% of your maximum health over its duration and its cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds.
Shadow Crash – Now applies Vampiric Touch to 4 targets.
Void Eruption – Cooldown increased to 2 minutes (was 90 seconds).
Surrender to Madness – Cooldown increased to 2 minutes (was 90 seconds).
Void Bolt – Cooldown increased to 9 seconds and damage increased by 23% (was 4.5 seconds).
Hungering Void – Debuff duration increased to 12 seconds (was 6 seconds). Damage over time extension increased to 2 seconds and 4 seconds on critical strikes (was 1 second and 2 seconds).
Vampiric Insight – No longer gives a charge to Mind Blast passively.
PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER
DEVELOPERS’ NOTE
In today’s build players will notice changes to some classes’ PvP talents, and we wanted to share our thoughts on PvP Talents going into Dragonflight. In addition to being one of our tuning knobs for PvP, a general goal for PvP talents is to provide interesting gameplay mechanics unique to PvP while also maintaining classes’ fantasy and combat feel.
The talent revamp has a large impact on PvP in multiple ways. Firstly, players will have access to new abilities that are in the class and spec trees as well as the option to customize their builds tailored for specific PvP content and team compositions. These options and talent changes will provide new and exciting gameplay opportunities in PvP at the start of the expansion.
Additionally, the talent revamp inherently affected PvP talents for all specs, but to varying degrees – some talent trees integrated existing PvP talents into the core and spec trees, some classes had abilities redesigned that impacted specific PvP talents and many PvP talents require dependencies from the talent trees. After an assessment of the PvP Talents available to each spec we have some notes and changes going into Dragonflight.
The new Dragonflight talents trees have made a number of abilities available to an entire class that were previously only available to a single specialization. So, several PvP talents based on these abilities are also now available to the entire class. In the upcoming alpha build, Priests and Mages are the first classes we have updated with this philosophy. At the same time, several PvP talents are now being used Dragonflight talent tree or no longer work due to class changes. In cases where a spec does not have enough PvP talents to meet our minimum criteria, we will be adding new abilities. We will be continuing to evaluate PvP talents when the expansion launches and we intend to take a broader look to PvP talents later in the expansion life cycle, similar to what was done in Shadowlands’ Chains of Domination update.
As noted above, PvP talents shine when they lean into gameplay scenarios that are very unique to PvP. One example of a new PvP talent is one Shaman players may have already noticed, Precognition - If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds. In this week’s build, all caster DPS and healer specializations will have Precognition as an available PvP talent. This talent is intended to elevate the importance of fake-casting gameplay. We look forward to your feedback on it.
All ranged spell casting and healing specializations have a new PvP Talent:
General
Eternal Rest – Now available for all specializations.
New PvP Talent: Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds.
New PvP Talent: Catharsis – 20% of all damage that you take is stored in the Catharstick. The stored amount cannot exceed 15% of your maximum health. The initial damage of your next Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked deals this stored damage to your target.
Discipline
Holy
Shadow
Wow, this is a LOT to digest. A LOT more than I expected from this update. I’m especially thrilled to see they’re taking inspiration from some of the PvP talents and moving them into the tree.
The theorycrafters have their work cut out for them because most of these (besides having to buy back our current Purify) sound potentially rotational changing.
Yeah this is pretty substantial, lots to unpack here.
Ok I just noticed the Echo of Light buff. Wow. That’s going to add up quickly!
And the rez cloak is back! And guardian spirit also saves us and another target from death. And all those other defensives… I thought shaman was looking fairly immortal in their new tree but we have some competitive options!
^ That alone makes me very happy. So long Voidform for being the only option to play Shadow.