Originally Posted by
nzall
Now, I'd like to apologise in advance for sounding bitter and cynical, but it's just the way I feel about the 3rd talent tier. Because, you see, Blizzard again tries to turn a DPS spec into a offhealer, for the 3rd expansion in a row, with no other DPS spec or even hybrid that has the same problem.
WotLK: we had Art of War, which, until they redesigned Exorcism halfway in, gave us FoL offhealing options, but before that, we mostly took it for the damage buff to judgement, DS and CS. but no other hybrid had talents specifically meant for offhealing.
Cata: we currently have 2 talent points, Selfless Healer, which we can (thankfully) skip in PvE, but which most PvP paladins take, for the 10 second CD reduction, but not to use it on others. This talent is a DPS loss however you look at it, and to compound it, no other hybrid has talents that fulfill the same function (offhealing as DPS), except for enhancement shaman maelstrom, and they usually use it for damaging purposes.
MoP: okay, first and second tier have options for PvE, but 3rd tier, wha? we got the choice between a stacking proc to improve flash of light, a finisher HoT that consumes holy power, or sacred shield. please explain to me why I am FORCED to choose a healing talent, as a DPS? will healing be so difficult to keep everyone up that they expect DPS to assist the healers? if that's the case, then something's gone VERY horribly wrong in design.
and again, we're the only hybrid who they actually expect to offheal. druids are the closest, and even they gain nearly passive talents on those tiers that only affect themselves. shamans can choose cooldowns on those tiers that don't affect their DPS capacity. priests can choose a proc talent on their healing tier that they don't even need to think about and fires when they need it the most, and they don't lose DPS for it. even monks can choose mostly passive talents that they don't need to think about. again, paladins get the short end of the stick: we need to essentially manually activate our talents, and we lose DPS while doing so, either through resource consumption or through GCD usage.
as it stands, paladins again are expected to do stuff we are not meant to do, stuff that we don't want to do, stuff that's not even needed if your healers are halfway competent, because we are a supposed hybrid class, while no other hybrid class is similar. either give all 3 talents a DPS part (judgement increases exorcism damage, holy power DoT effect, or point blank AoE), or just remake that tier altogether, but don't leave it like this. because this is just bad design. as it stands, i'm likely to just chooose one at random and never even put it on my bars.