Yoink's (7.7) Balance Changes - Cleric

[Yoink 2,142]

Goals:
Every class has a viable spec in solo, group, and large scale.
All talent choices are competitive with each other and placed in appropriate locations within the talent tree.
Make adjustment to abilities that underperform.
If a mechanic is oppressive, change it in such a way so that it retains what makes it good but is no longer oppressive.

Clerics are in a good spot. They have viable promotions at every level of the game. Just need a bit of tweaking to bring holy damage in check and to make some low quality talents more competitive choices.

Circle of Life - Swap with Strength in numbers.
Strength in Numbers - Swap with Circle of Life.
Strength in numbers is not good enough to be in such a difficult spot to reach. AoE Rez is very good and could be harder to reach when focusing on the DPS side of the tree.

Hammer of the Gods - Now only applies to auto attacks made from the melee tray.
Hammer of the Gods is just too powerful for what it does when you take the rest of the class into consideration. Instead of removing it, it now only works in the melee tray unless you are a Radical.

Holy Aura - Grants Both Powers, Holy and Vengeful Aura.
Vengeful Aura - Replace with Divine Aura.
Holy and Vengeful aura on the same talent point would be a nice QoL change. Adding the Divine Aura power in its own spot would still add some tough choice between which aura to run.

Radical 1st node - Upgrade hammer of the god's passive to include Ranged LMB attacks.
Radical’s will keep their holy dmg ranged LMB attacks. They will be the only Cleric that can do this.

Illuminate - Reduce the animation time.
This would be a nice QoL change.

Divine Presence - Add, ‘while active the clerics Shield Block does not consume stamina.
Divine Presence needs a boost to be worth it for being in the hardest spot to reach. Having the block talent behind it might make it more attractive for Arbiters who want to be melee brawlers and block using stamina as a resource is very clunky to begin with. Block is basically not used because being unable to retaliate is worse than the benefit of blocking.

Word of Wrath - Auto Crit when in execute range. Max range of ability can not be increased.
Word of Wrath is never worth the point. The damage is worse than LMB and Searing Light even in execute range. Making it auto crit vs targets in execute range would make it more attractive without raising its base damage.

Blessed Protection - Applies Barrier + additional 500 barrier.
Blessed Protection is bar filler in the best case scenario. Often not chosen at all. A small buff could help.

These changes should make all of the talents desirable. Holy damage is put in check by only being available to Melee unless you are a Radical. Arbiter is made more of a melee brawler, as I think it was intended.

[UnderGrowth 214]

Just remove holy damage from the game, True damage is an unhealthy mechanic to balance around in a pvp game with so much emphasis on gear.

[redfactor4 46]

Oh yes please, improve the illuminate cast animation... just speed that thing up by 100%.