I don’t think it should be terribly controversial to say that Spirit of Redemption is not inherently an exciting or useful ability. Indeed, in most situations it does literally nothing - since it only takes effect on death and not dying is the goal in 99% of situations, if you play correctly it might as well not exist for all the effect it has on your experience.
Personally, back in Vanilla/BC/Wrath when I first mained a holy priest I generally just didn’t take it (after all, it was only required for Lightwell which nobody clicked on anyway, though that’s a whole other topic); I figured why invest into a talent which if I played well would do nothing instead of one which would increase my actual effectiveness?
The concept of the ability is cool, there’s not denying that - but in its current form, all it really does is announce to the group that you stood in the fire and didn’t heal yourself.
I think it could do with being reworked into something more valuable. A good source of inspiration would be the PVP talent Spirit of the Redeemer. I’m envisaging something along the lines of:
Spirit of Redemption
Instant - 3 minute cooldown
You become the Spirit of Redemption for 10 seconds. You cannot move or attack and are immune to all harmful spells and abilities for the duration. Your healing spells cost no mana and heal for an additional 10% while this is active.
If you take damage that would kill you when Spirit of Redemption is not on cooldown, this ability will automatically activate; however, in this case you will immediately die when the effect ends.
This would turn it into a strong healing cooldown giving us more throughput and mana efficiency, while retaining its current functionality if we die without having used it. As an added bonus (which would make it a more interesting and interactive cooldown), we could also use it as an immunity to soak mechanics, which would give us more utility and thus increase our value comparative to other healers.
Another potential note on the topic of utility; if I was designing the ability, I would also add a talent to go along with it:
Redeem Ally
For the duration of Spirit of Redemption, your Spirit of Redemption ability is replaced by Redeem Ally:
40 yd range
Instant
Brings a dead ally back to life with 100% health and 20% mana. Castable in combat.
The addition of a battle res would increase our M+ desirability (and give a serious alternative when taking a Priest healer to Disc’s damage contribution and DRs). Tying it to a 3 minute cooldown and requiring a talent spend would give the ability a different flavour to resto druids’ battle res.
(Well… if I’m being entirely honest, it would basically just be to avoid hurting their feelings.)
So that’s my suggestion for improving a currently underwhelming ability which Blizzard seems to think is a cornerstone of the spec. Thoughts? Improvements?