Cataclysm Holy Paladin Updates 9/18/10

The cataclysm changes page for holy paladins has been updated on the main website. There are some very interesting changes and it seems like Blizzard is really starting to streamline the trees for us.

Holy Light base healing has been reduced by 25%. Mana costs changed to 9% of base mana, up from 6% of base mana.
After healing on the PTR I can tell why this change was made. Healing with HL meant infinite mana at such a low base cost. It also healed for a little bit too much... using HS and then HL with speed of light up was extremely effective. Blizzard wants us to dip into Flash of Light more and feel the mana burn... and they can't well do that with HL + HS + Word of Glory (no mana) taking up a large part of the rotation.

Light of Dawn base healing has been increased by 10%. Can no longer consume Holy Power to increase healing.
Light of Dawn was a little bit too much of a sacrifice as it was it seemed to me. Being situational in nature by default due to it being a positional spell, it also ate all of your holy power, has a long cooldown, and doesn't heal for that much. Even so, it's still fun to use and does provide a little "oomph" when everyone takes damage. The problem is the "oomph" is what you get and then your holy power is sapped so you can't WOG someone else (you essentially have to start over, which means people hang at their lower health far too long). Is 10% enough? Probably not since it won't increase anymore.

Improved Concentration Aura is gone.
I see this more as Blizzard trying to weed out old mechanics than a nerf really. It was a PVP talent as it was anyway, and a very unexciting one at that.

Daybreak now has a 10/20% chance to make your next Holy Shock not trigger a cooldown if used within 12 sec. (Old - 15/30% chance to reset Holy Shock's cooldown)
Really good streamlining change in my opinion. This will probably save GCD's and make our play experience more smooth. I noticed on PTR that Daybreak was more annoying than useful since I'd be casting some heals, Daybreak would proc, and I'd already be casting something else. This makes it so you can finish that cast... but also be ready to use HS twice in a row. It was too broken up before where it would be HS > cast (DAYBREAK PROC) > cast (woops, my DB procced, I should've used HS) > HS. Sometimes the Daybreak would be wasted it seemed like since HS would've come off cooldown by itself anyway.

Spiritual Focus (Tier 5) *New* - Grants hit rating equal to 50/100% of any Spirit gained from items or effects.
I'm really happy that this talent is here. I hate missing judgements on live and I love the current hit talent.

However, this talent makes us choose between Blessed Life (the new one, not the old junk) and it to maintain a 31 point holy build. Spiritual Focus is a must-have for PVP I think, but maybe not in PVE. I can see Blessed Life being a godsend on fights where we take... any kind of damage that procs it at all. Spiritual Focus is a more passive bonus... but a good one. I think Spritual Focus needs something else to make it not so clear which one to take in PVE. I'd certainly trade hit for chances to gain holy power. Blizzard should give it something like a 10% chance to get holy power on judgement. Then it would compete with Blessed Life I think (Blessed Life is 100% when you take direct damage).

Alternatively, we can break our 31 point build and use something like this to obtain Blessed Life and SF (32/2/7). You end up losing 5% WOG/HS passive crit from ret and the situational 30% WOG crit when your target is below 35% life (you still get +30%, heh), but crit is massively nerfed I don't see any problem with this. If things stay like this I'll probably go with a build like this.

Eternal Glory is now a Tier 1 Protection talent.
Good. Super important talents shouldn't be limited to getting only right at 85.