Just a quick thought (and a lot of text about the thinking behind it): why make auras into a set it and forget it talent tier?

I'm not saying the design of the individual auras isn't interesting at the moment, but I don't think it's horribly fun to respect a talent before a particular fight (i.e., aura X is the best choice for fight Y) and go into set-it-and-forget it mode–especially not when auras are supposed to be a core part of the class fantasy and design.

Why not make holy auras baseline and let the player adapt to situations by swapping to fit the moment instead of the fight as a whole? Granted, a lot of the time you'll have a planned strategy and leave a certain aura on, but for players that want to be active with the auras you'd have room for improvement. Just like beacons at the moment: you can do fine with set-it-and forget it mode on the tanks, but there are plenty of opportunities to swap beacons around in fights to minimize overheal and maximize throughput (sidenote: please give legion holy a way to keep no-GCD beacon ;; ).

Talents are supposed to give players meaningful choices and making auras baseline would take away from that? I get that, but googling "what aura do I use for ____?" and then clicking that talent... once...while out of combat... isn't very meaningful. Plenty of ways to make an aura tier talent interesting and adjustable for different play styles based on baseline auras: swapping gives a buff (players that wanna lots of buttons)? some sort of ramping up of your aura the longer you have it on (set-it-and forget it players)? self buff for the number of players in the aura–maybe it's stronger with fewer players to create a tradeoff dynamic (add more gameplay and thought around positioning)? the effect of your last aura persists for a few seconds after swapping (some people like weaving!)? Or just enhance the specific auras. (But doesn't buffing a specific aura just lock you to that choice again? No, I'm not going to feel compelled to keep a strong aura of mercy on if the raid is already topped off or keep a buffed-up devo on in a period of low damage.)
Interesting, potential to change gameplay, enhances a core element of the class, gives options for multiple play styles.


Yes, even if only one aura can be active at a time, there's an increase in the specs power by giving access to all three–I do understand that. So does what I'm saying imply that set-it-and-forget-it players would get nerfed by tuning around this VS the current model of a single available aura? Well, yeah. But, I'll point out that a player who specifically wants to put less effort and thought into the spec (not meant in a bad way–some players want low stress gameplay instead of a million UI elements flashing at them) is self-nerfing. When I play random alts, I tend to go for more passive/"faceroll" talents because I'm not interested in investing too much time into them; because of this, I expect to get less out of the spec than someone who mains it and is willing to put a ton of effort into maximizing the spec.

Ultimately, I'd just like to see some interesting gameplay elements for holy paladin. Taking out holy power is all good and well if there is a more compelling mechanic or gameplay element to replace it with, but I don't see it at the moment. (I think mastery adds a little bit of something to think about, but most likely it's going to boil down to stacking on melee, stacking on ranged, crying on fights that force players to spread before getting raidwide aoe, or herding your hunters onto the ranged group). The life-as-a-resource martyr model could be interesting if more synergies and mechanics were put in around it (or, *cough cough* if things like aura of sacrifice could be used on and off with other auras), but at the moment the gameplay around it seems like more of a clunky sidenote. I personally like the melee-healer (i.e., smacking it with a hammer, not just being in melee range) concept and think it adds depth, but I think baseline, switchable auras is more universal and could be appreciated by all play styles of the spec.