Priest Talent Calculator Update (Feb 15th)

[PsyBomb]

I'm looking at the new trees and am honestly excited by what I've seen and heard. Note this is NOT by what is currently on the calculators, in order to see the exciting bits you have to acknowledge what is coming and also what will likely come. I'm reading between the lines a lot for this, but anything I say here I deem likely to happen via experience from the other expansion releases plus what Blues have been saying.

The return of Atonement: Blues have already stated more than once that Atonement will be a glyph, not a talent, because it would not be useful to all three specs. Whether they need to keep this line of reasoning with the other talents is immaterial, because it means that Disc (and possibly Chastise Chakra Holy) are going to be able to go Atonement plus Vampiric Dominance and splash 145% of the holy damage they deal entirely as smart heals, and 45% of everything else. The question is whether these heals count as "direct" for the purposes of Echo of Light, if so then Holy will be concentrated insanity (maybe even going to Serenity Chakra to keep renews rolling on a TON of targets)
Atonement healing was my favorite part of being a priest, one that sadly couldn't keep up once I crossed level 80. The opportunity to do so in raids would make my Disc Priest my main forever more.

Shadow: There is no way we've seen everything in Shadow, it isn't possible. We specifically haven't seen the core of the Shadow Orb generation mechanic. According to Blizz, they're attempting to take some of the RNG out without removing it all. I can think of about four ways to achieve this off the top of my head, I'm sure Blizz has a way or two by now. The spec loses some in the utility department (though not much, to be honest, we still have Flash Heal, dispel/Mass Dispel, and PW:S plus anything from talents). We also need to see how Evangelism works out. I'm also hoping the Shadow Orbs turn into a resource bar, ensuring that they won't be able to be dispelled.
I'll admit to not being too solid on shadow-side PvP (I'm Holy for that), but I see almost no major losses for PvP purposes (especially if the Psychic Fiend isn't killable). If anything, there are a few new MAJOR tricks in the the talent tiers for anyone wishing to save an ally while in Shadow (Void Shift springs forcibly to mind). The only concern is the loss of Devouring Plague, but depending on how Vampiric Touch shapes up that will be a moot point. Dispel changes are not a major detriment to the Shadow Priest, either, just a playstyle change more towards dispersed DoTs (Shadowcleaves) which will be near-impossible for a single healer to cleanse and will cost valuable cooldowns and GCDs in in 5v5.

There is also the fact that there are at least 5 major playstyles available among three specs, probably much more than that once we get into the nitty-gritty. This is a common complaint among several other classes, that their specs are forcing them out of beloved variations. I don't see that here, every variation of Priest I've played in is available plus extra perks via this system.

[Annesh]

hurk

Thanks for your feedback; yeah I realized most of the ideas were mainly for PvP, I like how we function in raids except for the awkward mechanics of Evangelism, Apparitions, and the Orb system.

Why unconvinced about my Path of the Devout? Inner Will as a "movement buff" is laughable. It's 2% faster than boot speed, totally unnoticeable. Lots of classes are getting the ability to run 15% faster as a talent. Why not us?

By the way, on my ideas for Inner Will and Inner Fire, I don't actually like Inner Will, I think the mana cost reduction is weird; why isn't it just baseline? And the move speed doesn't stack with boot speed, so half of the components of an entire armor spell is worthless and the other half should be folded into the spells. So I've been trying to decide what the best way to revamp them would be, make them both interesting and viable. Also spec-related but not spec-dependent, similar to Frost/Molten/Mage Armor, and Fel/Demon Armor. I agree this probably isn't the best way to do it but that's what I was trying to do. Remember that Shadow Will stacks up to 20% less damage when attacking you, that's not insignificant.

Sleep is prefaced with Power Word because I like that naming convention and think there should be more iterations of it.

Your feedback on Mighty Soul is extremely valuable, it presents the healer's perspective I don't have. I'll change the wording so it's good for Holy as well. I like the name on that talent so I've gotta make it a good one.

It's interesting to me that you've associated casting on the move with shamans. Fire mages have been able to Scorch on the move for a while now, and take a look at Kil'Jaedan's Cunning in Warlock Tier 6. It's Blizz themselves who are spreading out the cast-on-the-move love, I'd just like to see some of that love myself.

I wouldn't really consider my Spectral Guide invincibility, any more than rogue Vanish or mage Invis is invincibility. Those things are far stronger escape mechanics than this would be. I gather Blizz doesn't want Priests to have escape mechanisms as strong as other classes, but I feel like we need at least one that isn't complete crap.

As for the rest... yeah I love the concept of Penumbra but struggled to think of an actual effect that would agree with the amazing description, healing reduction was the best I could come up with - maybe also some aoe damage over time similar to Earthquake? Overall Shadow aoe would be balanced of course. Midnight Hour would be a pretty strong DPS cooldown. Bosses would almost certainly be immune to Shadow Word: Guilt (making it, once again, a PvP thing). Shadowfiend is too easy to counter, now that Shadow can't dispel party members; maybe it can become immune to CC only for Shadow.

Anyway, thanks again for your comments.

[Danner]

Anyway, thanks again for your comments.

No, thank YOU for bringing fresh ideas into a stale situation

Why unconvinced about my Path of the Devout? Inner Will as a "movement buff" is laughable.

Inner Will is indeed inferior to Inner Fire on virtually all fights, and if you just enchant your feet, it's pointless to boot (no pun intended). For a melee class, that 10% movement speed would be very good (though not so much since it doesn't stack with boot enchants), but for a ranged class, not so much. I did however use Inner Will on Atramedes in this expansion. But that's pretty much it. As you say the regen part of Inner Will is not really good enough to warrant losing the minor throughput boost, and the movement speed is generally pointless. As a Holy priest I use Body & Soul for speed, and that's all I ever need.

Inner Will should be looked at if you ask me. But I like the IDEA of inner will. Inner Fire offers survivability and throughput. Inner Fire offers speed and regen. Either buff is ideally useful in any situation. Unfortunately, Inner Fire seems to always win.

It's interesting to me that you've associated casting on the move with shamans. Fire mages have been able to Scorch on the move for a while now, and take a look at Kil'Jaedan's Cunning in Warlock Tier 6. It's Blizz themselves who are spreading out the cast-on-the-move love, I'd just like to see some of that love myself.

Point taken, and very very much noted on the shaman forums. I really consider cast-while-moving it a role/class feature akin to armor penetration and dispels. While cast-on-the-move is a fun thing, priests are really all about instant casts in PVP (hump, instant, hump, repeat). And in PVE, the cast-while-moving part is generally not needed.

I wouldn't really consider my Spectral Guide invincibility, any more than rogue Vanish or mage Invis is invincibility. Those things are far stronger escape mechanics than this would be. I gather Blizz doesn't want Priests to have escape mechanisms as strong as other classes, but I feel like we need at least one that isn't complete crap.

For PVP it is an awesome idea. For PVE, it's horribly unbalanced. When bosses deal ten million damage, you are expected to die. Not even Guardian Spirit will save you at that point. With this ability, you will survive. Vanish doesn't prevent damage. Iceblock does, but also effectively takes the caster out of combat while the effect goes on, effectively forcing another target. Guardian Spirit comes with a damage limit. This idea... doesn't really do that right now. And while a self-only guardian spirit is cool and all, this is quite a lot more powerful. I'm just saying it may be too strong. Nonetheless, I love the idea!

[zakaluka]

I did however use Inner Will on Atramedes in this expansion. But that's pretty much it.

Will is stupidly good for spine in this tier. It's kind of an aside, I suppose, since for the most part you're dead on with the stance discussion: It's almost never worth using a GCD to put on Will for renew/sanc because of the activity loss. It would have to be a very long fight with a convincing number of mechanics requiring precast healing, something we just don't see, ever. All the fights this tier that need precasts are short (morchok/warlord/warmaster/hagara....).

On the flip side, think about this: if Renew (in Will) were buffed substantially to put its mana efficiency on par with PoH (in Fire), there would be nothing wrong with the current system. Current problem with Renew? It just doesn't scale, with anything but int. bleh. In the Spine sandbox, and there only, we can make an argument that it scales with haste between breakpoints. Since there's a need to maintain renew on 3+ targets, the fact that ticks occur faster allows us to shift more activity out of GHeal and into Renew. Secondary problem: Divine Touch is at odds with Rapid Renewal - RR is for strong precasts, DT for reactive healing. But nobody uses Renew for reactive healing since it's quite frankly a very weak spot heal.

[Themos]

There was a recent blue post talking about the completeness of the new trees and priests weren't on that short list.
That said, here's my take on the work in progress wrt to PvE environments, and even more specifically raiding as Holy:

Tier 1 = mostly irrelevant, Tendrils may be the best suited for PvE though glyphs may change this.
Tier 2 = I'll be using Body and Soul mostly, since I'm so damn used to it this expansion. Phantasm may be useful depending on encounter mechanics.
Tier 3 = A big WTF knows depending on how Archangel works with Holy and how good Angelic Star is. A flat 15% SoL proc is sexy, especially at the beginning stages of an expac where direct heals will be the majority of your casts. This tier will be heavily influenced by personal preference, math, as well as playstyle.
Tier 4 = Desperate Prayer vs Final Prayer... DP gives better controlled use, and FP happens without intervention. Pros and Cons for either. Might depend on the fight.
Tier 5 = The old(current) Test of Faith is insanely good, one of the better talents in the Holy tree. Seeing it being neutered into Test of Fate makes me very sad. My best guess for this tier of talents is that it'll come down to PI and Serendipity flipping depending on the fight. Controlled burn phases will favor PI, and Serendipity will be better for sporadic random AoE dmg. Test of Fate's threshold is simply too stringent for both tank and raid healing.
Tier 6 = Vow of Unity + Binding Heal combos would be sick if the tank can manage to not take big hits. If the tank takes big hits, then Void Shift would be perfect as you can use it as a second cooldown -- since we'd have Guardian Spirit as well. Vampyric Dominance is the go to for AoE healing, imo.


I'd love to see Test of Fate moved to tier 6 and increasing the threshold closer up to 40% health and moving Void Shift to tier 5. And if that happens, might as well change Serendipity to some sort of cooldown ability of some sort and turn it into a cooldowns tier.


^Those are my impressions, and I'm fairly lax and not over analyzing since it's clear the priest tree is not finished.

Question: Why didn’t the priest tree change?
Answer: We are still in development. It is a challenge, when giving players a sneak peak at work in progress, to decide when to release what we have versus waiting to accumulate even more changes.

Q: Do Discipline priests have Prayer of Healing or not?
A: Our current design direction is this: Holy does AE healing with Prayer of Healing, and Discipline heals with (a much more powerful than today) Holy Nova. Divine Aegis would work with Holy Nova under this model. However, please see the question above. The priest tree is still in heavy development.