The Inspiration talent was a core part of Holy Priest builds for a long time. The basic concept of the talent was that the Priest’s direct heals, when critically striking, would reduce the recipient’s incoming damage for a time afterwards. For those who may not remember it word for word, I present both the original (Vanilla, BC) and most recent (Cataclysm) versions:
Inspiration (Vanilla)
Talent (3 points), Passive
Increases your target’s armor by 25% for 15 sec after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing spell.
Inspiration (Cataclysm)
Talent (2 points), Passive
Reduces your target’s physical damage taken by 10% for 15 sec after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, Penance, Prayer of Mending, Prayer of Healing, or Circle of Healing spell.
With one of Shadowlands’ stated aims being the unpruning of classes and return of previous spells and abilities, I think that this aspect of the prior Holy toolkit could be returned to shore up some of our current weaknesses. However, as the expectations on healers are different from what they were back then, it should also be revamped slightly to better meet the needs of the spec today. Here is my suggestion:
Inspiration
Passive
When your direct heals critically strike, they grant the target 5% Versatility for 8 seconds.
Note that I’m not suggesting the new Inspiration as a talent, just a baseline passive for Holy.
This version of Inspiration would accomplish several things:
- It lines up with all other such buffs/debuffs being set to 5%, such as Fortitude, Arcane Intellect, Mystic Touch, etc.
- It provides a way for Holy Priests to increase the group’s overall damage without having to contribute damage themselves, thus preserving the spec’s fantasy of being a “pure healer” who boosts the group through their support spells.
- It provides damage reduction on others, which is something the spec currently has no access to.
- It makes gearing more interesting by creating an interaction with a secondary stat.
While this change would not on its own fix the issues Holy is facing, I believe it would help.
Further to this, if the Inspiration passive were to return this would also justify the return of another old talent, Inner Focus. This is another talent which went through a variety of different incarnations before eventually being removed. For anyone unfamiliar:
Inner Focus (Vanilla)
Talent (1 point), Instant - 3 minute cooldown
When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect.
Inner Focus (Legion)
Honor Talent, Instant - 30 second cooldown
Provides immunity to Silence and Interruption effects for 5 sec and increases the critical effect chance of your next Heal, Flash Heal, Holy Word: Serenity, Holy Fire, and Smite by 100%.
Inner Focus has, admittedly changed more over its lifetime than Inspiration did. However, the core elements which I believe (given the assumption of Inspiration returning) would provide value to the spec today are:
- Instant cast spell on a cooldown
- Zero mana cost on next spell cast
- Increases the critical strike chance of the next spell cast
To that end, I would propose the following:
Inner Focus
Talent, Instant - 2 minute cooldown
Reduces the Mana cost of your next Heal, Flash Heal, or Holy Word: Serenity by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 100%.
As a point of note, I had initially considered allowing Inner Focus to affect any spell cast (as it did in its earliest versions), but discarded that idea once I realised that the optimal use would always be on Prayer of Healing for Inspiration spreading, which actually reduces the decision space and makes it a less interesting spell.
These elements would make Inner Focus valuable in the following situations:
- Long/intensive fights where mana is a serious concern.
- A guaranteed critical heal on someone who has just taken a large amount of damage.
- A guaranteed Inspiration proc on someone who is just about to take a large amount of damage.
- A guaranteed Inspiration proc on someone who is using a cooldown of their own, to increase their damage or healing throughput.
Thus the combination of Inspiration and Inner Focus would provide interesting gameplay choices through different potential use cases.