This is another post from me where protection paladin is in focus and the purpose is to highlight changes that can make protection paladins become more viable raid tanks. This time with a focus on Lay on Hands.
Here are two other posts in the same category Prot paladin improvements and Exorcism - the solution to threat and ranged pulls?
Lay on Hands is a signature paladin ability which in clutch situations can save someone from certain death and heal them to full health (equal to the paladins maximum health). It has two drawbacks:
1. It uses all your remaining mana. Max rank will restore 550 mana to the target.
2. It has one hour cooldown unless talented. 2/2 improved Lay on Hands will reduce the cooldown by 20 minutes and give 30% increased armor to the target.
This brings me back to the title of the post; Useful but forgotten? Since it is on such a long cooldown you're often trying to find the optimal moment to use it, only to feel it being wasted if everything turned out well after all. For this reason I think many saves it and rarely end up using it, thus it being forgotten.
However, it is a very useful spell. It can be used as a planned cooldown both before and during a fight to buff a tank with 30% armor for 2 minutes. Loatheb, Maexxna, Broodlord are some examples. Therefore useful.
My suggestion is to reduce the base cooldown to 30minutes, and each talent point reduce it by an additional 5 minutes as well as increasing armor of target by 15%, but for 15 seconds pr talent point to match the reduced cd. By doing so it will become more useful for paladins in general. For prot paladins it may become the powerful defensive cooldown we need. Being able to instantly heal to full and 30% increased armor for 30 seconds at the cost of all but 550 mana every 30/25/20 minutes seem like a better way to make use of this spell in the game.
Warriors have Shield Wall which reduces damage taken by 75%. Prot paladins sorely need a reliable and powerful defensive cooldown. Lay on Hands can be that cooldown and in it's own unique way. It just need to be available more often.
I also think that on a 30/25/20min cooldown it shouldnt pose a problem for PvP or other balancing areas. You can probably use it once during a BG and obviously only once in a while in WPvP. Which is most likely on par with other classes powerful cooldowns. As it is now Lay on Hands has one of the longest cooldowns in the game and deserve to be a more used ability.