I’ve been holding back on forming a strong opinion about this patch for a while now. As a main healer with all healing classes at least at RR 85, some nearing RR 90, I wanted to give it time to see how things unfold. However, I’d like to share some initial concerns from my point of view as a small-scale player, as many of these issues have likely already been voiced by others.
Looking specifically at Zealot and RP in small-scale games (scenarios, ranked, group ranked), these classes were already struggling with GCD management before the patch. They must juggle multiple tasks beyond just healing—such as maintaining good positioning, CCing enemy healers, cleansing targets, and dropping Talon when necessary.
Zealot/RP vs. DoK/WP – Cognitive Load and Playability Differences
DoK and WP, for instance, remain cognitively less taxing by design, relying on a limited set of core abilities, which can be beneficial for class learnability. Their kits require very little cooldown management while benefiting from strong, passively applied bonuses through covenants and prayers and a higher armor value which is very forgiving in terms of bad positioning. This is especially evident with the new 20% on-hit Bless for WP/DoK, which essentially provides a permanent buff that occurs passively.
Meanwhile, Zealots and RPs find themselves in a situation similar to BGs and IBs compared to other tanks—overloaded with essential skills that require constant cooldown tracking and management. As a comparison, DoK’s group healing HoT has a cooldown that almost matches its duration, making it seamlessly playable alongside just one additional healing ability with a 5-second cooldown. Those are essentially the only important cooldowns a DoK needs to manage.
In contrast, Zealots now have to juggle:
- Upkeeping Marks/Runes individually
- Additional abilities depending on their build ~ Stagger~ Winds of Insanity
This results in significantly more GCD&CD micromanagement while also being inferior defensively—for example, their 50% damage reduction ability can be shattered and has a very high cooldown, whereas DoK and WP now have both ST
and AoE detaunts for more consistent uptime while also having a significantly higher armor and also the luxury now to go into discipline tactics due to their regular defensive kit.
Build Diversity or Forced Specialization?
To put it plainly, I already fear that RP and Zealot no longer have a kit that feels enjoyable to play under these changes. The class was already micromanagement-heavy before, and this rework might exacerbate the issue. Additionally, I fail to see how this genuinely increases build diversity—instead, it seems to further enforce the necessity of speccing into master runes/rituals, making them feel even more mandatory rather than allowing for viable alternative build.
The Rising Power of AM/Shaman and Zealot/RP’s Declining Relevance
Furthermore, when considering changes to other classes, such as Shaman and AM, it seems Zealot/RP is being pushed out of relevance due to poor playability.
Let me explain:
With mandatory rituals, you are forced to opt out of one of the 13-point abilities—either Winds of Insanity or Stagger—which also means potentially giving up on core bonuses such as absorb tactic which AM and Shaman do not have either.
- Why take Stagger on Zealot (which has a decent chance of being disrupted) when AM and Shaman receive an undefendable silence that seamlessly integrates into their new mechanics as it consumes tranquility?
- Why go for Zealot bless tactic when rituals tactic appliance has been nerfed - while the 20% On-Hit tactic Bless on DoK/WP is most likely permaup.
The Issue With AM/Shaman’s DPS and Their Over-Simplified Playstyle
On the test server, I strongly dislike how the current mechanic seamlessly aids the DPS playstyle for both AM and Shaman, which was already overly simplified (apply several DoTs, then direct hit - check screenshot). Essentially the DPS AM/Shaman are now officially a 1 Button Gaming experience where you could use the ability sequencer to deal quite broken amount of damage.
Why is this problematic you might ask (I won't even go into NA timezone gameplay)? Neither Sorc nor BW, despite their high burst potential, can achieve comparable numbers on a similar channeling ability despite having absurdly high downsides - here again we see how difficult it is to reach "balance" when changing one class can affect other classes heavily.
We’ve already seen situations in the past where Sorc, even before its class mechanic nerfs, was abandoned in favor of DPS Shaman. Why?
DPS Shamans simply brought more to the table—AoE detaunt, auto-detaunt, running tactics, own healdebuff and resistance debuff, and the ability to self-heal and support teammates.
This patch seems to be pushing that advantage even further while reducing skill expression for AM/Shaman players.
Tranquility vs. Force – A System That Rewards One Side More Than the Other
I won’t go too in-depth on this, but after playing AM and Shaman as a healer for over a decade, I can confidently say that building Force under the old mechanic
was rewarding, even though few players fully utilized it.
Previously, it required sacrificing GCDs to maintain better healing throughput rather than just padding stats, making it a conscious decision with a trade-off. Now, however, building Force feels virtually pointless compared to how Tranquility is rewarded - which leads to the next point....
Why Tranquility Feels Much Stronger Than Force
First of all, you can already enter every game with five stacks of Tranquility, meaning your first ability that consumes it will always be improved.
Given the way healers function, you naturally:
- Maintain HoTs on at least 2-3 targets
➡ This means you passively reach five stacks of Tranquility very quickly and very often.
The rewards for Tranquility also seem significantly more valuable, such as:
An additional HoT on your group heal & reduced cast time
Making your ST heal instant
Allowing your channel heal to be cast on the move while increasing its effectiveness by 30%
Undefendable Silence
When we look at Force, glaring inconsistencies arise.
A prime example:
➡ Why buff Phoenix’s Rejuvenation, which heals approximately 200 HP/sec (based on Sovereign AM gear) by X% the resulting healing value is minimal, when you could instead use an improved AP drain that restores AP to your entire group?
In practice, I also struggle to see a realistic scenario where either a Healer or a DPS AM/Shaman would be able to cast five consecutive direct-hit abilities without interruption to build Force. As for both healing and DPS, dropping DoTs, HoTs, or cleanses in favor of maintaining Force stacks is simply not practical.
Final Thoughts – Maybe a Step in the Wrong Direction
The new class mechanic means we've moved from a system that was difficult to utilize to one that is now automatically applied in a weaker version (which is an improvement in usability).
More importantly, from a healer’s perspective, building Force simply isn’t worth it. Consuming five stacks of Force to improve something like a single-target HoT is a complete waste of a GCD in the current meta, where many classes have core access to Shatter Enchantment (SE).
If SE is utilized even occasionally, keeping any HoTs alive—especially with at least two disenchanters on the enemy team—is wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst.
Ironically, the old class mechanic actually provided some safety in this regard—building Force allowed for faster casting of spells with a buildup time, and when combined with the Triumphant proc, healers were able to keep their group alive without relying on HoTs.
This was something I personally wished/expected to be addressed in this patch, yet instead, certain classes—like DPS DoK—now receive additional bonuses for using Shatter Enchantment (...question mark?).
edit:
My personal wish is for all three healer archetypes to be equally challenging to play while maintaining distinct depth in their mechanics. I see a lot of potential in both the new and old class mechanics of AM/Shaman, but currently, none of the healers are truly on par in terms of difficulty vs. outcome.
As I previously mentioned, nothing inherently changed about DoK and WP—their kit remains largely the same:
➡ Hit/pray to build class mechanic & use mechanic to heal
There’s no tactical depth in this approach—nothing comparable to what AM/Shaman must now manage or the GCD struggles that RP and Zealot continue to face.
edit2:
After extensive testing I am pretty much convinced the way healing abilities scale now will break the game heavily. There are certain classes such as DoK who are able to cast 3,8k healings on a 0.5 sec cast ability or 3,1k group healing in 1 sec in certain circumstances. I don't really think it's healthy for the game to change scaling values with Healpower especially considering that all other DPS archetypes have not a similar scaling and if they have - there is still armor or resistances preventing insanely high outcome values. For healing what you cast is what you get, there are no resistances or armor that scales down the values. I do especially feel also that DoK and WP are extremely overbuffed - as the only healerclass that was already tankier by nature due to higher armor tier. Giving these classes perma access to 25% healcrit values with tactics seems not healthy to me and draws out RP/Zealot from having any viablity. I already see that many DoK's and WP's will become the new backline healer that are semi Healpower specced as there is then nearly no difference between them and other healers - just factually way more healing for free.
An additional HoT on your group heal & reduced cast time