The New Priest Talent Tiers

[Mazi]

Angelic Bulwark increases the effectiveness of your shield effects on yourself. Does this stack with Body and Soul? Do we get 78% movement speed increase?

Nice catch, but my guess is it only means the absorb effects, not the entirety of effect you gain from the shield, ie B&S - otherwise that combo would be just totally out there for both PvP & PvE lol

[Kelesti]

A survival cooldown that kicked you out of Shadowform for the entire span of its time as a Priest Racial spell.



True. Then again, so do several other Holy Spells that kick you out of Shadowform.

But the point is to make talents atteactive choices, not null. They're letting druids cast heals in bear form for crying out loud. I really think the time for such limitations is past when it comes to these talented abilities. Divine Star is supposed to compete with either a free Mind Blast, or Archangel, and the only way that's happening is not breaking Shadowform
. The same with Bulwark/Final Prayer vs Desperate Prayer. Desperate Prayer has to be attractive as an option, and for that to work as a talented ability, for any reason a Shadow Priest wants this, it has to not break Shadowform. That said, Flash Heal, Divine Hymn, Smite, et al... i expect these to continue tearing you kicking and screaming from the shadows faster than parents do to emo teens on picture day. But not for these.

As for Levitate, I can see it changing. They want to remove "clutter and useless spells", but specifically left this one in, and talented no less. 25% could potentially be downplayed by breaking on Damage... Except this is even more limited because it's self-only. So yeah, Levitate has to be changing.

[Redsparowe]

As long as they change levitate to no longer cancel my cast/channel when broken I'm cool with it :P

[Mazi]

But you can't jump when you're levitated

[Kelesti]

But you can't jump when you're levitated

If I can float like I own the world, I don't care!

[Cephius]

Hmmm yes, I do find the idea of changing spells such as levitate to be more useful rather interesting.

I also just noticed that they gave desperate prayer to druids as well. o.O

[Zuziza]

As for Void Shift, the wording doesn't explain what happens when the spell ends. Lets say the tank has 25% hp and you have 100%. You switch, obviously you have his hp and he has yours. Now after the effect ends does his health switch to what yours currently is, or what it was? Either way is the 25% done before or after you switch health back? What I'm asking is do you have to heal yourself during the effect so that when you switch back the tank will have full health?

I would assume yes, since the wording is pretty specific that it has a duration, though it doesn't say how long. So, yes, you'd probably need to get healed so the tank isn't screwed when it gets switched back.

Void Tendrils concern me, because it says "Killing the tendrils will cancel the effect." How useful is this in raiding scenarios with large amounts of aoe damage? Will they have a lot of health or very little? (This one is mostly speculation).

They will probably be immune to AOE damage like pets and totems are, so you'd have to target them specifically. Raid trash and bosses typically do not target totems or pets for attacks, so my guess is that they'd last the full duration in a raid. In PVP, on the other hand...

In From Light Comes Darkness, the shadow section says you have a 6% chance to make your next MB instant and not cost orbs. Is the damage done by MB equal the the number of orbs on you currently or 3? Does the effect stack? Because I really hate the thought of having to stop a MF just to cast MB instantly. Loss of DPS I think.

It mentioned nothing about losing the damage boost to MB, so I doubt that's something the talent does. However, there has been no explanation from Blizz as to how our mastery could be changing. If shadow orbs are going to be needed just to cast MB, then will ES be passive, still triggered by MB, or will it be changed? That's all very iffy atm, and we'll have to wait for a clear announcement to know what they plan to do with it.

[Hodho]

Void Tendrills just made my day! At long last priests have something to stop players dead in PvP instead of the fear which is good but its easily broken.

[Rosreniadhya]

Void Tendrills just made my day! At long last priests have something to stop players dead in PvP instead of the fear which is good but its easily broken.

Seeing as the tendrils are going to be kill-able (at least at this stage of development), I remain unconvinced of the spell's power, unless those tendrils are darn hard to kill. It feels like they gave us one more bad tool in addition to the existing one, which is also bad. I'd rather have one good tool than two that tend to fail on me. Seeing as Psyfiend seems to be designed for casting more Psychic Screams, even that one feels unreliable.

Although, I suppose that variety is good. And I guess I need to keep reminding myself that this isn't even at an alpha stage yet, so a lot of things are most likely going to change from this preview we got.

[Arlee]

As for Levitate, I can see it changing. They want to remove "clutter and useless spells", but specifically left this one in, and talented no less. 25% could potentially be downplayed by breaking on Damage... Except this is even more limited because it's self-only. So yeah, Levitate has to be changing.

Well when he was talking about the Levitate talent he made the comment that you pretty much will always have levitate on... so I think they are planning to change it.

[Purple]

But the point is to make talents atteactive choices, not null. They're letting druids cast heals in bear form for crying out loud. I really think the time for such limitations is past when it comes to these talented abilities.

I don't disagree that it is time for such limitations to be a thing of the past. I've just seen enough oversights or balancing approaches over the years that I'm not going to go into things assuming that Blizzard agrees with you (though I hope they do).

Divine Star is supposed to compete with either a free Mind Blast, or Archangel, and the only way that's happening is not breaking Shadowform
. The same with Bulwark/Final Prayer vs Desperate Prayer. Desperate Prayer has to be attractive as an option, and for that to work as a talented ability, for any reason a Shadow Priest wants this, it has to not break Shadowform.

All true, to be attractive, to be true choices, they have to all be viable options, even if you're a Shadowpriest in Shadowform.

That said, Flash Heal, Divine Hymn, Smite, et al... i expect these to continue tearing you kicking and screaming from the shadows faster than parents do to emo teens on picture day. But not for these.

Not at all related to the discussion, but I loved the imagery.

As for Levitate, I can see it changing. They want to remove "clutter and useless spells", but specifically left this one in, and talented no less. 25% could potentially be downplayed by breaking on Damage... Except this is even more limited because it's self-only. So yeah, Levitate has to be changing.

I was having a talk with someone the other day that thought instead of breaking on damage, that one portion or the other of Levitate might be temporarily suppressed, while in combat, to a debatable extent until you manage to leave combat. Perhaps cutting the speed bonus down by a percent (or entirely) and so on and so forth. I've seen games that used speed suppressants myself, so, whether or not Blizzard might do such a thing or not, I can at least say I've seen similar things down.

I remember the older reasons it broke were simply so you couldn't levitate over water, away from some melee, and easily kite them.. but I'm not entirely sure that's still a modern concern. On top of which, again with the idea of temporary suppression, the speed could stay but the levitation itself could be limited or suppressed during combat.

Obviously there are a lot of things that they could do.

The things they will do though? I guess we'll see. I like to err on the side of caution.

[Direshadow]

I wonder if Shadow will have talents that reduce the cooldown on PS and Tendrils

[nobodysbaby]

I can't wait for this to hit PTR's. It is really hard to come to any conclusions about it before then.

I do have high hopes this brings even more of a choice what healer setup you will want to have, for example; 1 Disc/Holy tankhealer with an extra "tank CD" and 1 Disc/Holy raidhealer with an extra raid heal. 1 healer Priest with the extra CC, 1 with the B&S/Levi speed etcetc. However there is a big risk the talents becomes quite obvious choice for 1 specc, or particular bossfights (I prefer the later, that would atleast bring some variety in playstyle).

My biggest concern is how they will "make it work"; I sense months and months of unbalance, with fail tries to balancing and fine tuning healing again.... And as a MS Holy, I am pretty fed up with that already, since the Rate of Change indicates changes should not be hasted once on Live.