I have put this post off for to long and I am of the personnel opinion that someone needs to at least bring the issue forward so people can discuss it.
I play a Holy Priest not under my forum name on Elune. I have an item lv now of 347 so just on the lever point to T11 gear. I have managed to make most of the soft caps for Intel, Spirit, Haste the primary required ability's.
My issue with the build is a hidden flaw in the Talent tree an ability that seems relatively harmless for the Holy Spec build until you bother to really take a look at it.
The Talent is called "Serendipity" A state of mind the Priest will enter in order to take advantage of two other cast ability's that borrow a little time, IE increase spell casting haste and reduce the cost of the spells themselves.
The talent tree ability for "serendipity" says quote!
When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell cast time is reduced by 20% and mana cost reduced by 10%. Stacks up to 2 times. Last 20 seconds or until Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing is cast.
This sounds great right! Wrong! Binding Heal with a 1.31 cast time or Flash Heal also a 1.31 cast time both have a mana cost of 5767 to cast, if you cast either twice to reach a "serendipity state" level 2 that will cost you 11534 total mana.
The cost to cast "greater Heal" is only 5559 and a normal cast time of 2.18 and it heals for 19088.
The cost to cast "Prayer of Healing" is only 5353 and a normal cast time of 2.18 seconds and heals your party that are within 30 yards for an undisclosed tool tip value?
Why would I spend 208-416 extra mana or 414-828 extra mana to get a .2% cast time increase on "greater heal" or Prayer of Mending"?
This brings up another obvious issue the development team has again over looked! They have nerfed the Priests ability to re generate mana in combat to next to nothing even with very high Spirit and Intel the regen process is none existent. If that process was working and its not it might make sense to use Serendipity in an emergency even to keep a direct heal on a tank or party but under the current total loss of mana regeneration the ability is again broken and useless.
I have a Haste value on my priest of +14.70 = 1455, +11.36. The recommended soft cap in T11 gear for haste is 12.5% It makes no sense at all why Blizzard would take the only Ability in the Holy spec tree mechanic and make it next to worthless to use and it is also the only ability by casting "Flash Heal" or " Binding Heal" that enables an Action Bar PROC of ANY ability's for Holy Spec priest.
I have to say this is not acceptable and I do not think a developer at Blizzard had his cup of coffee before he missed this all so obvious waste of the Holy Priests only real Talent Tree casting Mechanic.
I have dropped "Serendipity" as a Talent out of the talent tree and placed 1 point in "Blessed Resilience" in order to achieve 31 points in "holy" spec so I can move 1 point over to Discipline tree and Boost "Improved Power Word: Shield. That just had it's 30 second duration timer reduced to 10 seconds on yet another Blizzard Nerf.
I also have as a carry over 3 points spent in Twin Disciplines and 3 points spent in "Mental Agility" and "Darkness"
However those are not part of the original issue in regards to the failure of Blizzard to realize they have BOKEN the Holy priests "Serendipity" ability and Mechanic.
These little hidden Nerfs behind the Up front patch notes are starting to wear thin with many people not just myself.
Warhammer online lost 25% of their fan base and eventually the game has all but closed when they removed a Bright Wizard Mechanic of "Scorched Earth" this was the ability to build combustion in order to use just about any ability they had. Not only did they remove its ability to generate Combustion it then cost combustion to then use the spell.
Many of the players that rolled that class on Wars live release date of sept 18 2007 walked away from the game at that point. More or less dooming the MMO to final destruction in 2010
I guess what I am trying to say without making it look like a Vineyard full of wine is why are the developers back dooring the ability's of classes in broad daylight with no regard to the players that are supposed to enjoy playing them.
If they make it none enjoyable to play people move on. I know in Warcraft that means less then little in grounds of player count, but just the same it would be nice to have a little TRUST in the people that are part of the development team, and not feel complete disgust for them.