Paladins and Druids to get a Lift

[Kevin]

I think Blizzard is hesitant to work on the Holy tree, since that would pose similar problem that they have with warriors - If one tree is significantly better at Healing (and in warrior's case, tanking), one would almost be forced to spec into that tree to do high-end content. Otherwise balancing the encounters would be hell; they could be almost impossible without a warrior specced into protection, but cake with that spec.

So Blizzard must indroduce some useful yet not directly healing improving skills, but their last attempts at this (Holy Nova, and Holy Fire) were pretty bad, so they are hesitant to work on them.
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Of course the problem with protection right now is that it is a worse tank in 90-95% of the game, a worse DPS add, a worse off tank, and is horribly gimped in PvP without anger management. Shield Slam helps and makes it more PvP viable but protection at deeper than 15 points is still pretty much pointless.

How about a shield charge skill that lets you do an intercept type deal in defensive stance? This doesn't make you a better tank but it helps with off tank and PvP for sure. It gives you a way to halp "protect" your party makes better. Too many of the high end protection talents add a marginal and/or situational benefit that are usually still offset by the higher damage potential of fury or arms warrior. Heck even concussion blow becomes pretty pointless with all the stun immune mobs out there. Protection needs to be better at tanking than an arms/fury with defiance for the tanking argument to really hold any water for me. Even without defiance I still think arms/fury are better at most tanking situations. Actually the high end tanking seems to be determined almost more by gear than anything else right now. This is part of the reason why Gnolack won't be tanking the high end stuff anytime soon. I just can't focus on getting him the loot he needs to really be able to do it and still have fun with the game.

Since I won't see a protection warrior as a better tank give me more utility so that I can at least be a better off tank and do a bit more in PvP than I do right now.

I'd like to see some damage help to holy as well. I'd like to see an AoE healing buff. This isn't going to help all that much in a raid since the AoE heals only help your party, so it's going to help your healing in your "oh #$%&" situations, which is what proteciton warrior talents do right now, but not change much at all for high end. This is the current idea behind Holy Nova as I see it. I've seen Holy Nova save a wipe that a priest without it would have lost the party. Or lost all but one of the party. I agree that you don't want the healing so good that it trivializes an encounter but Holy still needs love. But Holy Nova alone isn't enough for the tree. A holy priest either needs to be a better healer than they are or have better damage options. I don't think they are as broken as protection warriors right now but I still think they are broken.