Power Word: Barrier idea

[hedgehog]

I was thinking about raid healing in Cataclysm and realized that every healer has their own aoe heal type thing. Paladins have the cone heal thing and divine radiance, druids have efflorescence, shamans have healing rain, holy priests have holy word: serenity (I think that's the aoe one), and disc has power word: barrier. The only problem is that disc's is limited by the number of people taking damage, if everyone is taking damage in one area then it absorbs just the same as one person, whereas more people means more healing for every other one.

So my idea is to make it instead empower power word: shield, like maybe make it so that your power word: shield that hits one target in it will be applied to all targets in it, but only apply weakened soul to the main target. This should make it worth the 3 minute cooldown for only 10 seconds, but if it is op you could just apply 50% of each shield to people or tweak it in some similar way.

I also realize this might make it terrible for pvp (or just far worse), so maybe put it in glyph form? So that you have a choice about it.


So tell me your thoughts on this, I'd like to hear what you guys think before I post it on the official forums.



Edit: Forgot about divine radiance for paladins.

[Aiurwyn]

it absorbs 30% of all damage taken. That scales quite well no matter how many people are under it. And each of the other classes is having their big AoE capped at 6 people, or at least being less effective.

( Was changed to this in the last beta build)

[Arrelliana]

This idea was somewhat already implemented with the change to POH in the latest beta build. Divine Aegis automatically procs on POH. So now you can effectively put a weak version of a short duration shield on everyone taking damage. As a preshield might not be the most mana efficient, but it definitely buffed the throughput of the spell for disc and actually provides a lot of synergy with the aoe hots. While your DA is absorbing damage, the other aoe spells will restore health behind the shields.

I don't think we will see a change where blizzard gets away from the positional requirement of pw:b.

[Spl4sh3r]

Disc Priests can also use Prayer of Mending (the one that jumps between targets) and Prayer of Healing. There don't need to be a AoE heal specific for each spec.

[Superfresh]

it absorbs 30% of all damage taken. That scales quite well no matter how many people are under it. And each of the other classes is having their big AoE capped at 6 people, or at least being less effective.

( Was changed to this in the last beta build)

+1
With the buff to PW:B and a huge nerf to Radiance, Sanctuary, Efflor, and Rain - Barrier is now arguably the best AoE spell given to any healing class in the current build.