In World of Warcraft:It’s all intellect’s fault, again
In World of Warcraft:It’s all intellect’s fault, againDivine Plea scales with our maximum mana, and so it was nerfed into the ground. Seal of Insight previously scaled with our maximum mana, but no longer does. Illumination’s mana returns previously scaled with critical strike chance, and now we’re certain that the talent is gone completely. Are you seeing a trend? Holy paladins have been stacking intellect for years while abusing Holy Light’s massive throughput. That paradigm needs to go, and Blizzard is ensuring that it’s DOA by Cataclysm’s launch.With intellect and critical strike chance no longer pouring mana into our blue bars, what are our options? Spirit. If all of our “maximum mana” returns remained in place, intellect would be the same runaway stat it is today, except that it would also be increasing our throughput. In order to truly create a separation between throughput and longevity, Blizzard needed to destroy any regeneration based on intellect. I think that they’ve accomplished that goal, as we’re basically down to a gutted Divine Plea and Seal of Insight for mana regeneration abilities. Spirit is going to be necessary for us, and there’s no way around it.Rather than have holy paladins spend the first few months of Cataclysm try to find a way to extend the reign of Wrath’s healing dynamics, Blizzard simply executed every ability that supported that playstyle. We’re moving into brand new territory, and we’ve got to be willing to accept that we need to actually pick up