Shield of the Righteous isn’t cutting it anymore for Holy as a dps spender, it’s required melee usage is what’s holding us back in more ways then one, Light of Dawn should be used in replacement, it’s essentially SotR but better in every way.
SotR - Melee, 3 HP, hits everything in a Frontal 5 yards.
LoD - Mid Melee, 3 HP, hits everything in a Frontal 12 yards.
LoD firstly is unique to Holy Paladin, visually aswell, I think all specs should have similarities, Judgment, Hammer of Wrath, Crusader Strike etc. but also have its own unique flare to keep specs distinct enough from one another especially when it comes to spenders.
Prot - Shield of the Righteous.
Ret - Divine Storm.
Holy - Light of Dawn.
I’ll further explain, SotR is another contribution on why Holy Paladin dps is so low. Firstly it requires us literally to be ontop of the main target so we get its pity cleave, we have to be in melee, the ability can be cast regardless if it will hit or not, your target moves it can miss, when chasing moving targets it whiffs a lot, doing any type of mechanic that requires movement or step 1 yard out of melee, we can’t use it. Literally zero DPS.
Light of Dawn will give Holy Paladins that extra breathing room, more range is such a huge QoL allowing us to dps running to a target, chasing and has a better option to hit more targets. The heal it does on the side while abysmal especially in M+ infact the spell alone literally never casted, would be a nice help.
Light of Dawn really is Shield of the Righteous but better in every way, not forget to mention it has amazing visuals that sadly in 3/4 of the content will be never seen.
Delves, PvE and PvP it’s simply not pressed only in Raid.
Let LoD have some damage to it, let Holy Paladins, just like Ret have a spender with a little range, let me cleanse my enemies souls with purging holy light.
Holy Paladin focus is you know in its name being Holy, we should uniquely wield the light to be offensive. It’s our thing.
This then opens up 2h or 1h/shield giving players the preference but aswell help Holy immensely. We need a little range to continue our dps when healing isn’t needed but if we can’t get into melee to be ontop of the target.
Holy can build Holy Power in any situation, range or melee yet to spend it we can’t. Considering 11.0.5 they removed that being in our consecration boosts WoG and SotR damage and healing, theirs really no excuse anymore to not make the change.
I wouldn’t even consider it “Ranged” but just the same QoL they’ve given to Ret, they still melee but the added range abilities have gotten was huge.
TLDR: Remove SotR from Holy, bake its dps and talent synergies into LoD, Holy benefits every way possible.
, but it’s simply just Holy getting the same QoL Retribution has gotten in its spenders, which was insanely great and welcomed change.