Thread: State of Priest - The Hour of Twilight (4.3) edition

Welcome to our wonderful little corner of the internet, where we have cookies, cloaks, and occasionally Pizza!

We're going to try something different this time around, but it is going to need everyone to sort of follow suit so hang with me.

First and foremost, ground rules. Same as always:

We don't tolerate spec trolling or flame wars.
If there's anything else that needs to be added to Priests specifically, we'll update. But until then, it's pretty much the General Forum rules which you can find here.

Adding a new one:
Posting about Discipline Stat Weights:
The funny thing about Discipline's stat weights, is there's a "best" way to do things, and another "damn, I did that just as well with you with completely different gearing". Note the quotations. Certain gearing strategies play to certain playstyles, roles, raid makeups, etc. Posting to ask "I'm disc what stats do I stack" really helps no one, including yourself.

Also, if you need a bit of assistance, you can either post a question in one of our guides, or read How to Ask For Help: The Safe and Sure Way!. PMs to our current moderators also work too, being Arlee, Kelesti, [-Spiritus-], and Ultima

Now, without further ado, let's set off to the State of Priest - The Hour of Twilight (4.3) edition

What happened this patch to change how we play out?

Priest Changes:

• Divine Hymn now heals 5 targets per tick, up from 3.
  [-] This change alone makes it better than Prayer spam (...finally) for all specs, and while not quite as gamebreaking for Shadow as a Balance Tranquility, it can make enough of a difference to help pull through a kill.
• Levitate now has a new animation
  [-] Time to make everyone else jealous. Clearly the most important change of the patch.

Discipline

• Atonement now accounts for large hitboxes
  [-] No longer is the entire Archangel mechanic neutered simply because they felt a boss needed to be so big that you can never actually get within 15 yards of him. Long overdue, a welcome change.
• Divine Aegis has a new animation
  [-] Well, actually a modified old animation. It's a redux of the original soap bubble, without the runic circle. It's just about time we had this back, the soap bubble's more important than Atonement!

Holy

• Glyph of Circle of Healing now also increases the mana cost of Circle of Healing by 20%
  [-] This really doesn't change how the spell is used, except potentially allowing 10 man guilds to consider dropping it. Circle wasn't a big mana expenditure in the long run, and this will be valued on an individual basis.
• Holy Word: Serenity's effect is now functioning, and it also has a base cooldown of 10 seconds.
  [-] A decent buff to Holy's single target output, as well as nearly guaranteeing the crit buff's uptime when doing so. Doesn't fix its sustainability issues (comparatively speaking), but it's most certainly a large step in the right direction.
• Holy Word: Sanctuary's mana cost has been reduced.
  [-] This odd spell continues to ignore the target cap, and so making it easier and easier to use now is almost putting it on par with Healing Rain at this point.
• State of Mind no longer exists
  [-] I know this is part of a bigger change, but this single line alone is something we've been wanting since 4.0.6.
• Heavenly Voice {new talent, 2 ranks} increases Divine Hymn's healing by 100%, reducing its cooldown by 2.5/5 minutes
  [-] Holy has a cooldown to help hold it up. It's about time.

Shadow

• Glyph of Shadow has been implemented
  [-]Shadow Priests can actually finally see their gear. Thankfully it's optional, for those who want to keep the pure look. A boon for both camps.

As usual, what's your take?

While not necessarily a change, could we have the T13 set bonuses included. I can never remember them.

Well I'm very happy with the changes made to Priests. A couple of tweaks made to Holy, a couple of quality of life changes.

Just a quick question:

I have read that in patch 4.3, healing reduction debuffs are going to be 25%, up from 10%. I have not seen this apply to Mind Trauma in the patch notes. Does that mean Mind Trauma does not get the change?

They changed "the big three", being Wound Poison, Mortal Strike, and Aimed Shot. Everything else at this point (Frost Mage, Fury Warrior, Shadow) are still at 10%.

Originally Posted by Kelesti

They changed "the big three", being Wound Poison, Mortal Strike, and Aimed Shot. Everything else at this point (Frost Mage, Fury Warrior, Shadow) are still at 10%.

That's not correct.

They increased the "melee" ones .. Furry, Arms, Rogue and Hunter (BM!).

Ah, thank you. I hadn't completely followed that, I just knew that Mages and Shadow were still down at 10.

Originally Posted by iontel

think that priest will be one of the favourite healing classes in this patch

Not if your disc the new animation is pointless considering most healers are not looking around to see who has a bubble on them physically but other then that I suppose the lack of Disc changes means we didn't need fixing in Blizzards eyes and to be honest I agree with them Disc was pretty solid in 4.2.

And Kelesti its both a good and bad thing that you added that note about Discipline Stat Weights, the good being all new topics related to it can be stopped before they get out of hand and the bad thing is we can't really discuss it any more in heated pointless debates.

Originally Posted by CoolNitro

And Kelesti its both a good and bad thing that you added that note about Discipline Stat Weights, the good being all new topics related to it can be stopped before they get out of hand and the bad thing is we can't really discuss it any more in heated pointless debates.

Well clearly you get to 12.5% haste and then go stac--

* Kel smacks herself in the face with a frying pan*

Excuse me.


Alright, well back on topic. First off:
Serenity's shorter cooldown is a nice flair. I find myself happy to be using this cheap decent sized heal. I find myself happier that it actually works! I haven't really noticed the Sanctuary mana cost reduction, but I never really stared at tooltips to notice anyways. 10s, I'm spending more than half my time in Serenity, and fooling around on RaidFinder for something to do, even trash I use Serenity for, as a 15% stronger Renew wouldn't be enough but a crit flash is.

That said:

The new Spirit of Redemption is all kinds of sexy. Lightwell doesn't disappear on its activation, you keep all buffs on you, including your Chakra, until the effect ends. It triggers instantly, and it's oh so well done. I still think Hymn's a little over the top though, and waiting for it to get toned back.

Any news from the Shadow Front? Did I miss some changes?

Some changes I noticed that I didn't see up on that list (sorry if I just missed them)

levitate, you float when moving

inner will now reduces the mana cost of HW:Sanc

Originally Posted by Redsparrow

inner will now reduces the mana cost of HW:Sanc

Where is the proof of this? HW:Sanc is not instant cast..

I'll test that when I get home. But I guess that's what they meant when they were saying they were reducing the cost: making it reduced by things that reduce Instants.

It also makes sense in why I never noticed a drop in cost, seeing as I run 1/3 Agility, and Inner Fire.

I does indeed reduce the cost of Sanctuary. Even if it's not instant cast.

Which makes Inner sanctum less bad.

Well shit. Guess I gotta get 3/3 Agi >_>

I can also verify that Holy Word: Sanctuary is affected by Inner Will and Mental Agility. However, the same treatment was not extended to all shorter-than-one-second cast spells (Lightwell), so I guess they made it an exception to the rule, rather than a baseline coding change.

not that that matters to most people, Lightwell is still awesome.