Clean and simple idea, bring OW Mercy’s “Guardian Angel” ability to slowly glide over to an ally while having the ability to continue healing while mid-flight. I think it would be very thematic for holy/disc. Throughout multiple raid tiers, priests always struggled with getting knocked off or not being able to heal while moving during heavy movement phases. This would help priests never get pushed off any platforms (and avoid needing to be a race with built-in mobility like goblins). I understand this will be a weaker version of the “reverse life grip” but I believe that is fine since you will have the trade-off of being able to heal while flying to your chosen ally. Feather just doesn’t cut it and Blizzard already said they didn’t want to bring back the reverse life grip. I believe this could be a happy compromise which is thematic to the priest class.
Side note, it can also allow other players to have a little fun and troll the priest by jumping off ledges and forcing the priest to their deaths.
I’ve made the suggestion already to take the issues surrounding Power Infusion and add in the talent changing tech into the class tree for both Power Infusion and Twins of the Sun priestess to change base on your current specialization similar to what you can see happening in the warrior class talent tree.
So for Discipline, nothing changes. They still get PI and twins as PI was originally a discipline tree only spell.
For Holy, you get Ascension instead of PI. Ascension first became the Ashran priest spell where you get to actually fly around for 15 seconds or so. Currently, it’s a Holy PvP talent.
So bring it into the class tree for holy only. Then the twins replacement talent, you instead extend Ascension to your party when you use Ascension yourself.
This gives holy a unique niche of adding verticality situations in the game that can be explored further for specific purposes to avoid areas or to handle specific mechanics or to avoid ground based mechanics.
For Shadow, it will become Spectral Guise. I think the reason we don’t have spectral guise outright is because it would be too powerful for the healing specs to go in stealth on demand.
But only allowing shadow access to it will grant the ability to tweak it specifically for shadow to not be overpowered while granting some means of escape which could lead into something like Demon Hunters Netherwalk ability to avoid damage outright.
So in a more clear and concise format…
Holy specialization
Ascension
You ascend into the air out of harms way, granting 100% increased movement speed for 15 seconds. 3 minute cooldown.
PvP modifier
You become immune to movement effects and duration is increased by 5 seconds.
Discipline specialization
Power Infusion
Infuses the target with power for 20 sec, increasing haste by 25% and all absorption effects by 100%. 3 minute cooldown.
PvP modifier
Atonement healing is increased by 100% to targets infused with Power Infusion.
Shadow specialization
Spectral Guise
Your shadow blurs into the darkness, leaving your true form behind. As a shadow you are stealthed, but remain in combat. Lasts 6 sec or until your true form is hit by 3 direct attacks. 3 minute cooldown.
PvP modifier
Using fade reduces the cooldown by 10 seconds and 1 second for each Shadowy Apparition spawned.
Replacement for Twins of the Sun Priestess
Holy specialization
Angelic Embrace
Ascension is extended to your group (5) and the cooldown is reduced by 60 seconds.
Useful to bypass areas by flying over obstacles or traversing vertically to deal with something or using a short cut. Also useful during a fight with ground mechanics as it can be used to avoid completely.
Discipline specialization
Twins of the Sun Priestess
Power Infusion also grants you 100% of its effects when used on an ally and the cooldown is reduced by 60 seconds.
Shadow specialization
Enveloping Shadows
While remained stealthed, you become immune to damage and Spectral Guise cooldown is reduced by 60 seconds.
Useful to soak / avoid damage similar to Demon Hunters Netherwalk ability.
Frankly, you will never see PI exclusive to 1 spec without the other 2 getting the same level of output from 2 talent points like that. It would be very imbalanced and create a massive amount of problems.
1stly, Discipline is not really considered a DPS spec. Its more of a support spec… at least that’s how it started out as Holy was regulated to Healing and Shadow to damage.
2ndly, You just push the power from PI into the rest of your toolkit be you getting a haste buff while in Voidform/Dark Archangel or in some other passive way. Similar to how Shadowform granted 5% haste a while back now.
The idea that Power Infusion is shared between all 3 specs and in a way that it is a core ability where you really cant ignore to NOT take it is a relatively new concept.
Its really not a difficult task to take on since by all rights all 3 specs play so vastly differently that each can be considered a different role and therefore should come with different strengths and weaknesses as has been the case for the vast majority of the games history. So I don’t see a reason why that cant be explored again.
I don’t think you read what I wrote. I said you cannot put PI in one 1 spec without the other 2 getting equal power in exchange. I’m not saying you cannot do it at all, I’m saying you have to give equal power. Utility spells like Ascension or Spectral Guise do not remotely add up to the raw power that PI provides. Many raid tiers, key seasons, and some pvp seasons have been impacted by this single spell existing - it is that powerful.
Furthermore, the developers in blue posts have talked about PI before, liking how it functions and not liking how people view it because of logging. Basically, you have an added problem of them specifically liking how it works right now, meaning you have less of a chance of it changing.
Oh I’m aware of the last stated thoughts on Power Infusion from the devs.
I just don’t agree with their take and that was also made before they recently announced at 2023 blizzcon that there was various structural pillars of design that they were referring to as the holy grail or core rules to abide by but they have since started questioning those rules and actively making changes that go against those very rules.
I think the current stance on Power Infusion is one of those things that is very much on the table to be analyzed with a new lens of design goals.
You can see it has already been shown that the fear the players had with PI during DF beta has already come to fruition in the latest form of nerfs to PI purely because of other classes heavily affected by it.
This was a legitimate fear and concern that was brought up by the playerbase in DF beta consistently and as we can see, rightfully so. So the players know the issues with PI and I think it’s only a matter of time that the wow devs will come around and reassess how PI will be handled moving forward.
That is why I am suggesting my proposal to fix the PI issue in relegating it to be Discipline only and for Holy to compete with utility, they get more group based utility to avoid pathways or mechanics to speed up 5 mans or ignore mechanics outright (though that would only work if they properly design content with that in mind) and then shadow being the DPS spec should have its utility be more shadow specific and having the ability to soak damage and just be a general sponge or to avoid targeting mechanics outright could be very valuable (again only if content is designed with that in mind).
So I would say that the replacements for Holy and Shadow are very contingent on the content that finds itself in the game, but if done right, they could prove very useful and compete with PI.
Case in point is how Shackle Undead, Mind Soothe and Mass Dispel found very little use prior to DF where they made the content to take advantage of those utility spells a lot more thus then causing a different issue of have all those utility options at the same time being so strong as it was in 10.1
That’s my general take on what has been done and my justification on a possible path forward in this regard.
Also, you have to also consider that it was the same blue post that spoke to PI that also spoke about the other popular topics that have been brought up by the priest community that essentially were all relegated to either a PvP or other classes already have a similar ability issue while at the same time, both mages and hunters got things that were specifically priest type abilities.
So the logic is not consistent between classes and most specifically, has priest for some reason held to a different set of rules and standards that I think requires to be readdressed in its entirety because that was a lot of disconnect happening in a single post that quite frankly is unacceptable given different posts of other devs at the same time for other classes directly conflicting with the reasoning and justification of the PWGFY priest post.
Holy / Disc definitely need some kind of root removal and/or mobility thing. They can just update Phantasm to remove roots as well.
It gets obnoxious when were on fights like Mythic Tindral and Priests are the only spec that can’t get out of roots and Mythic Raszageth were the only spec that gets blown off the platform because we don’t have the mobility.
Having to be baby sat by other specs to get through mechanics is cancer.