Note:  I wrote this post before the recent announcement that Blizzard made about paladins doing more raid healing in Cataclysm.

 Dear Paladin Class Designers:

The paladin class has come a long way since the days of Molten Core.  Each new expansion has brought new talents, abilities and play-styles that have made playing a paladin a truly enjoyable experience.  However, like all things, there are areas for improvement.  I’d like to discuss some of those areas below, specifically relating to the Paladin Holy tree.

The first issue I’d like to discuss is related to gear.  The changes to gear in Patch 3.0 helped greatly to decrease the number of unwanted gear in raids.  However, healing plate is the only gear classification to receive no benefits from these changes.  With only 1 out of 30 specs able to use healer plate at all, it is one of the least sought after pieces, and thus one of the most disenchanted.  Since there is little competition for these pieces, it causes awkwardness in guild loot systems and makes DKP almost useless for a Holy Paladin.  It’s also inconsistent and unfair for other classes who do need to share their gear with many others.  Sharing gear leads to a greater chance of more people seeking that gear and leads to happier raiders.

Ideally, Paladins would share their healing gear with Restoration (and Elemental) Shamans.  However, lore and design issues make this solution problematic.  The best second option is for Holy Paladins to share gear with Retribution Paladins and other plate dps through a Strength -> Intellect modifier.  While this is less than ideal, it is better than the current situation where healer plate has to have a lower drop rate to justify its minimal use.  I understand the complexities of both these options and the unlikelihood of their implementation in Cataclysm.  However, I urge you to take a second look at the issue of healer plate and see if there can be an acceptable solution in the near future.

The second issue I’d like to discuss deals with the overall Holy Paladin play style.  Patch 3.0 ushered in some major improvements for Holy Paladins.  The addition of Sacred Shield, Beacon of Light, Judgements of the Pure and Enlightened Judgements revolutionized the way a paladin heals while still giving us a unique style compared to the other healers.  However, our main healing spells, Flash of Light and Holy Light, went mostly unchanged and still serve as simple, direct, single-person heals.  This has led to two completely different schools of thought for Holy Paladin healing – one focused on Holy Light and one focused on Flash of Light.  The current Holy Paladin design discourages a more balanced approach.  There is little incentive to use both spells within a single encounter or to balance stats around both spells.  A Holy Paladin can focus on either super-charged Flash of Lights or very mana-efficient and fast Holy Lights.  The focus on only one spell makes healing and choosing gear less interesting than it could be.

A possible solution is to add more interaction between the two spells.  For example:  a buff could be added that stacks on the Holy Paladin with each cast of Flash of Light and increases the range of the Glyph of Holy Light AoE heal with each stack (up to 40 yards).  Or a Holy Light cast could add a buff to the target that adds a Prayer of Mending-like effect to the target when hit with a Flash of Light.  These are just two ideas for adding some interaction between the two spells while also giving Holy Paladins more raid healing capability.  I realize that changes like this affect balance in many ways, both in PvE and PvP.  However, changes like this happen with each expansion.   I have no doubt that you will come up with a number of new and unique abilities for Holy Paladins in Cataclysm.  I just ask that these abilities give Holy Paladins more interaction between our two main heals and encourage us to have a more balanced and interesting approach to gear and healing than we do currently.

The last issue I’d like to discuss has to do with the Holy Paladin’s focus on tank healing.  While the recent changes to Beacon of Light were huge in making Holy Paladins viable raid healers, we are still at our best when assigned to heal a tank or two tanks.  Blizzard has done a remarkable job with recent patches allowing a variety of classes and specs to perform multiple roles, particularly with tanks and dps.  Each tanking class can now perform as main tank or off-tank for nearly any encounter, and each dps can serve a single-target or AoE role with almost equal proficiency if played correctly.  This is true while still maintaining the uniqueness of each class. 

You should give the same focus to the healing classes.  While I understand the need to specialize in a role (the way a priest does), I believe each healing class should be able to perform equally well in both the tank and raid healing role if desired (although not necessarily at the same time).  Allowing each class to perform every role does not in itself homogenize the classes, since each can perform the role in a different and unique way.  I’d love to see even more capabilities given to Holy Paladins to fulfill the raid healing role, rather than the opposite, which is shifting our focus even more into tank healing.  I ask that you consider this when developing the spec for Cataclysm.

Thanks for all your hard work and thanks for making WOW an awesome game!

What about you?  If you could write a letter to Blizzard, what would it say?