Talent Review: Body and Soul

Here's another quickie talent review: Body and Soul

I suspect a lot of people, like me, looked at this talent, said "That's cute," and moved on. It's not exactly a reason to spec into Holy, and when you hold it up against the nice passives deep in holy that can improve all healing by 1 or 2 percent, it's easy to think of it as a gimmicky talent.

And it is gimmicky. But it is also made of pure fun and win.

Body and Soul is basically an on-demand Sprint. With Blink's cooldown. Castable on anyone. This gives a lot of mobility whenever you or a party member needs it.

At first when I saw Body and Soul, I thought it would be pretty fun for flag running in BG's, maybe in raids for catching up with a stray tank or fleeing DPSer. But it turns out there are TONS of uses for this baby:

• Helping tanks get to mobs (from Violet Hold to Yogg's guardians)
• Helping tanks kite (Gluth's zombies or even Vezax)
• Helping people get out of AOE
• Fleeing Kologarn's eye beams
• Avoiding Mimiron's Laser Barrage
• Dancing for Heigan

The list goes on: basically anytime anyone needs to be somewhere else NOW, this talent can be a big help. And since most of those times involve avoiding damage, having the movement be attached to a PW:Shield is great!

And the cool thing is, people notice this buff. Hit someone with Power Infusion and they might not even notice it. Hit them with Pain Suppression and they might ask what the shiny bubble is. But hit them with this, and they will immediately notice it, and often (literally) leap for joy. I first used Body and Soul in a heroic and within minutes, I had a tank asking for it on every pull (and to get to the bank faster in Dalaran, but that's another story). With good communication, this could help a tank position mobs faster than ever before.

Now, that said, raiders have gotten by at 100% speed (or slightly more with boot-enchants of the running fast) for years now, so Body and Soul is clearly not essential. Could you get more throughput out of investing talent points elsewhere in Holy? Probably. But you will not have nearly as much fun as with spammable shield-sprint. And sometimes having the right person in the right place can save a raid as surely as any heal can.

A word of warning, though. If you spec into Body and Soul long enough for your tanks or raidmates to become accustomed to it, be prepared to hear about it if you ever respec. You may prefer Disc healing or whatever, but your friends will value their ability to run around like maniacs at 160% speed. =)