State of Priest - Enter the Mists [5.0] edition

[Venaliter]

O

<opinion>
Derevka thoroughly convinced me that 150% rapture returns was quite powerful. And now it's 200%.

If Deverka said this, he is wrong. Specifically, at least from a PvP aspect. Priests go oom two, three times faster then the other healers. We needed the help with mana. Somehow.

Whether this was the right way, or further reducing the mana costs of our spells + Rapture to 175% or whatever, something needed to be done.

[nobodysbaby]

The buff to Disc is already live, and you can see the results on www.raidbots.com. Quite an uplift.

[Danner]

I do not disagree with the mana state, Venaliter. Priest healing is still expensive as heck.
That said, I found that if I hold back (as holy), and compare against a paladin playing normally, we both run oom roughly at the same time, doing roughly the same healing.
The difference is that I can go all out, and burn my manabar in 20 seconds or less, doing incredible healing while it lasts, but then I'm really useless for the rest of the fight.

Priests do go OOM though. But as holy, I really just blame myself for overexerting myself. My fault, not really a balance problem. At least not more than 10% of a balance problem.
As disc, I just feel gimped, to the point where I mostly gave up on the spec. Most of that is down to lacking throughput cooldowns. Spirit Shell is fun and all, but it's no Divine Hymn, and I feel subpar when I heal normally.

I've never been much of a PVPer, but I do understand it is bad for disc priests right now. I don't disagree that something needed to be done. But rapture was actually quite powerful at 150%. And yes, Derevka called me out on a claim where I said it was not, and he was really right. Should be some 20 pages back in this very thread if you want the exact quote. Question is - do we really want to go back to the "hit PWS every 6 seconds to stay afloat in the mana department" situation? Because that is the outcome of this latest change. PWS will now be mana positive the moment you hit heroic gear, and the problem will increase as the expansion goes.

I would actually start off by reducing the cost of some key discipline heals. PWS is prohibitely expensive unless you proc rapture. That's by design, to prevent WoTLK shieldspamming happening all over again, but mentally I'm running around with a "must-not-cast-pws" mindset as a result. PoH is maybe also a bit too expensive - and that goes for both specs. It's one of those heals I expect to be able to use regularly, and I'm not really able to without running oom.

As for Divine Aegis, I think it's too much of a crutch for disc. And at 50%, that's almost like running around with a permanent spirit shell, isn't it? I really wish they'd just kill chakra, kill or lower DA; and raise the baseline healing power of the spells in question instead.

Then again, all of this is in the opinions of a person who isn't disc baseline. So take my opinions as they are.

[Mazi]

They MAY have gone too far... http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...=15206&e=15490 - I was shit with Rapture too :X

[KieraDK]

<rant>
And, halo/cascade not being castable in SoR form... uh, why? I know they are powerful spells and all,
but Blizz soon need to update that tooltip to "heal from beyond the grave, using an arbitrary subset of your usual heals".
</rant>

Most likely because you can deal damage with those spells as well.

[Danner]

How about disabling the enemy targeting option instead?

[nobodysbaby]

They MAY have gone too far... http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...=15206&e=15490 - I was shit with Rapture too :X

Yeah, maybe. The biggest reason being speccs without raid CD/mitigation should be higher hps wise (Monks, Hpri, Druid), why else bring them? (I know there are exceptions to everything, but baseline, that). Well, it is good Disc being strong, as long as it won't be like in FL.

[Deleted]

How about disabling the enemy targeting option instead?

Potentialy a design decision rather then design oversight. Not many situations would call for the ability for the spell designers to be able to do that, so perhaps they don't have the tech to do so. Rather then use programmer and QA time on it, they chose simply to disable it in SoR altogether. Not the best decision from a gameplay PoV, but I can see why they'd do it.

[Deleted]

Spamming PWS was less boring than POH? :/

---------- Post added 2012-11-07 at 06:12 PM ----------

Tank healing on Stone Guard with DI was actually fun :P http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=9464&e=9851

During WotLK i raided 10man and i wasnt only spamming PW:S, sure it was huge part of it but casting a good amount of flash heals made it feel less boring than it is now specially after the buff.

Also PW:S made u cast more activly and mouseover more targets, PoH just target one person cast PoH wait 2 sec target one in other group and cast PoH rince and repeat.

So yea i do prefer spam PW:S many > Penance > Flash Heal > PoM on CD in WotLK vs spam PoH > PoH with SS (MoP) > PoH with inner Focus > PW:S on rapture CD > PoM on CD and Penance on tank as it is now in MoP and late Cata.

Early Cata was good with a fair amount of gheal, pw:s on rapture cd, poh and pom on cd together with penance

[Mazi]

Does anyone know if Lightwell/Spring benefit from Chakra? If so, which? Is it single target or aoe? I don't really have logs I can compare.. although I guess I could just stand in Shrine and cast it.. lol

[Danner]

Chastise Chakra offers bonuses to:
- Smite
- Holy Fire
- Shadow Word: Pain
- Power Word: Solace
- Divine Star / Cascade / Halo Damage
- Mind Sear
- Holy Nova Damage

Serenity Chakra offers bonuses to:
- Heal
- Flash Heal / Binding Heal
- Greater Heal
- Renew

Sanctuary offers bonuses to:
- Prayer of Healing
- Circle of Healing
- Divine Star / Cascade / Halo Healing
- Divine Hymn
- Holy Nova Healing

Notable spells that do not gain anything from either chakra state:
- Power Word: Shield
- Lightwell / Lightspring
- Shadow Word: Death
- Prayer of Mending
- Shadowfiend

[Mazi]

I knew there was a reason we kept you around Danner

[Deleted]

Spirit Shell no longer benefits from Mastery, and now properly includes the benefits of Divine Aegis and critical effect chance.

Auch... but as expected

Power Word: Solace replaces Holy Fire. It deals the same damage and interacts with other spells and abilities in the same manner, but is instant, costs no mana, and restores 1% of maximum mana on each cast.

Interesting change there, alltho, will it be worth it to take over mindbender..

[Danner]

I like the solace change simply due to absolutely hating the old spell. But... 1% every 10 seconds is .... not exactly worth mentioning, and smells suspiciously of that paladin seal regen mechanic. The point of the old solace was that you could use those extra GCDs to something useful, spamming it 20 times in a row and have a chunk of mana. But this?

Here in norway we used to have a coin worth "50 øre". It was roughly worth 0.05£. You couldn't buy anything with it. All the shops kept giving them to you in change, but if you had like 10 of them then maybe you could buy something microscopic - like a lollipop or something. This spell kinda feels like it is giving me "50 øre". If I save and collect enough of those 50 øre coins, I may eventually be able to afford a "Heal".

You know what most people said to those "50 øre" coins?
- "No thanks, I don't need it".
The coin was eventually discontinued for this very reason. For this reason I never liked Solace either.

But baking the old holy fire glyph into it may not be a bad idea. At least now I have a reason to take this talent while questing.

--

Now, the thing that TRULY breaks my heart is the nerf to Body & Soul. Why? Was it making priests too OP in PVP? Could we use it to negate powerful fight mechanics?
Whyyyy?

I'm currently still sticking to B&S due to it being one of those beloved spells. But now... why would a non-disc-priest fathomably pick this over angelic feather?
Even Disc priests would probably want to think twice before choosing.

--

And dominate mind can have a negative cast time for all I care, it still sucks as a CC talent.

--

As for the disc changes... all I will say is that them developers are so bloody stubborn. How about not making rapture scale with spirit, and such avoid having to re-do this entire mana balance mess every single content patch? 250% may be perfect now, but it will be OP one patch from now. And craptastic the first patch of the next expansion. The value really really needs to be a fixed percentage, dag-nabbit.

Spirit Shell nerf... we all saw it coming I'm afraid.

As for the focused will... I guess this will help those struggling PVP healing priests out there. Not sure it will be enough quite yet, but it sure will help.

But you know... there are actually two healing specs. Food for thought.

[Deleted]

Danner you cracked me up with your coin concept but you are indeed right.

Correct me if I'm wrong on B&S but afaik it doesn't break the movement impairing effects - phantasm is a much more superior choice for pvp. So I don't think that was mainly the reason for the nerf.

I'd only pick Angelic feathers if I want the Twin Peaks achievement or a specific raid enough, otherwise I'm not so keen on wasting GCD on such a spell when I could be healing instead.

[Darkener]

I really love Angelic Feather. I use it all the time in PvE and PvP. With the new duration it looks like you can go from placing 4 feathers back to back to 6 feathers, thats 36 seconds of 60% speed vs. 16 seconds before. That's a huge change. When I'm escorting a flag carrier I use them to get me and the FC out of danger. Before, I could speed boost me and the FC twice, for 8 seconds, with this change I can boost both of us 3 times each for 18 seconds. That's huge. Boost your speed for 3 seconds every 15 seconds at a huge mana cost or 36 seconds for free. I see no comparison. For those with poor mouse targeting skills here's a tip, place the feather right BEHIND your feet. You will get the effect, you don't need to put it in front of you and it will greatly improve accuracy.

[nobodysbaby]

If they make Solace (Holy Fire version) better than Mindbender, then here ya go, another 1-0 to Disc vs Holy?? Like we need that in the mana department...

Give Holy 1 krona.

[Darkener]

If they make Solace (Holy Fire version) better than Mindbender, then here ya go, another 1-0 to Disc vs Holy?? Like we need that in the mana department...

Give Holy 1 krona.

Something like, "Your Flash Heal increases combat mana regeneration by 50% for 10 seconds". If you Flash Heal again before the 10 seconds are up it just resets to 10 seconds, no "extra" mana regeneration.

[Danner]

New Solace is actually very awesome for disc. If you hit all those Holy Fire casts anyway, the fact that they are now free of charge is worth a whole lot of mana over the course of a minute. So for disc, this talent is awesome. You save+gain potentially more mana than mindbender can offer. For Disc, the new talent is a buff, and a no-brainer. Best in tier, by far, in virtually all circumstances. For disc.

The direct mana gains are as follows:
Mindbender gains: 10-11% per minute
New Solace gains: exactly 6% per minute

In addition, Holy Fire is now free, which equates to this amount of mana "gained":
Maximum saves: 1.8% * 6 = 10.8% per minute (without evangelism accounted for)
Minimum saves: 1.8% * 6 * 0.8 = 8.64% per minute (with full evangelism)

But yeah, it would be nice if the entire class was taken into consideration when balance was made. I really don't like situations where you can say "this is the disc talent of this tier". I don't even like it when you can say "this is the PVP talent of this tier". If 5.2 went live tomorrow, a holy priest only really has genuine choices in tier 5 and tier 6. All the other tiers either simply does not matter in PVE, or 2 out of 3 talents are provably subpar or completely useless. At that point I would like to claim that the new talent system is a failure.

[Chimaera]

New Power Word: Solace

For Disc:
Full evangelism is a 30% reduction in mana cost. Also consider you cannot possibly get 6 per minute. It just will not happen that you hit it the exact moment it comes off cooldown every 10s without impairing healing in some manner. With 5 per minute and full evangelism reduction you are down to 11.3% (14% with no evangelism) per minute and that is still hitting it rather close to on cooldown. If you use holy fire pretty aggressively currently that makes the talent an attractive choice but reasonable. With the 4p I cast holy fire more as a movement heal than for stacking evangelism so for the most part I will be staying with mindbender because you cannot be hitting an ability nearly on cooldown and holding it for a movement heal at the same time.

For Holy:
Honestly, when I saw the talent read the way it does about interacting with other spells and abilities the same way, I thought this was going to be a disc only version. Holy has no basis to cast holy fire from the healing side of things which means you only get to count the mana it produces and 5% per minute is clearly worse than mindbender on top of being a noticeable damage loss. The only selling point would be if you are going holy dps and want a movement damage option but even that is hardly attractive against losing mindbender's damage.