New test realm patch notes.

[Alarick]

All the reasons given are indeed reasons not to use Holy Nova, but they themselves do not break the talent. An AOE instant heal is still nifty, as is an instant cast AOE for priests.

The real problem with the talent, and I think the reason people really hate it, is its placement. To get it, you must give up Inner Focus and Silence, two awesome always-useful talents. You must also put lots of points in Holy, probably in Master Healer, which people find less than exciting.

I think Blizzard is looking at the talent itself, which is fine, and ignoring the issue of its placement. Holy Nova is a fine talent (who wouldn't take it if it were a tier 2 or 3 talent?), but it's just underwhelming given its position, and compared to your other options.
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Yea. It's not so much the talent in and of itself, but the talent as a 31 point talent. It's no where near effective enough to be at the top of the Holy tree.

It's a shame that Fangtooth seemed to bring to the developers that a small change like the cooldown on that spell would make the Holy tree a good tree again. He seemed to ignore all of the good comments about how the tree as a whole is lacking, and leaves little to no reason to go full holy when it means giving up some of the Disc or Shadow talents you could be getting.