Guess the new priest spells and changes

[iLive]

Aw man. The priest date was just shot up to the 8th on the european forums. Because "it will be posted on the 7th, us time... late in the day - meaning 8th european time".

Guess it's back to work. At least 9 hrs until it is posted.

On the upside, shammy info coming in less than 9 hours

It's not moralistic to attack the messenger (but instead the message creator), but man I want to rip your head off now!

[Venara]

Aw man. The priest date was just shot up to the 8th on the european forums. Because "it will be posted on the 7th, us time... late in the day - meaning 8th european time".

Guess it's back to work. At least 9 hrs until it is posted.

On the upside, shammy info coming in less than 9 hours

Well, that just means that the earliest posting time would be around 16-18 PM (US time) on the 7th, if I'm not mistaken. Because that would be around midnight in the EU. Really depends though - afaik the US are -6 to -8 hours (depending on the state).

I'm curious how they're going to do it. Either way it will be night for one or the other at the time they're going to post it. (Because with a 6-8 hour time shift you can't manage to post it at a time that's convenient for both, unless the "7th in US and 8th in EU" thing is wrong)

[iLive]

Well, that just means that the earliest posting time would be around 16-18 PM (US time) on the 7th, if I'm not mistaken. Because that would be around midnight in the EU. Really depends though - afaik the US are -6 to -8 hours (depending on the state).

I'm curious how they're going to do it. Either way it will be night for one or the other at the time they're going to post it. (Because with a 6-8 hour time shift you can't manage to post it at a time that's convenient for both, unless the "7th in US and 8th in EU" thing is wrong)

Morning is better than night to me, so give it to the US at 12:00, so it's at 20:00 in EU.

[Xelaeno]

Man...I woke up early for nothing? :'(

[Venara]

Morning is better than night to me, so give it to the US at 12:00, so it's at 20:00 in EU.

That doesn't work, since it's going to be posted on the 7th in US while it's already the 8th in EU.

[Danner]

Shaman is up.

Healing Wave renamed Greater Healing Wave
New cheap "main" heal: Healing Wave. Indicates priests will get "Heal" back in the game too.
New aoe hot: Healing Rain. 2 sec cast time, 10 sec cooldown, limitless targets in a small area. Cooldowns still suck, but a mass renew is pretty awesome.
New PVP escape ability, PVP shammies rejoice. Also, this spell might allow casting while moving. How awesome isn't that?
Spirit Link re-added to the game, too cool an idea to drop. I wonder what that means to Mark of Divinity we saw early in WoTLK beta...

Ancestral Knowledge will boost mana pool size, not Intellect. I can see disc getting the same treatment.

Resto shaman mastery is akin to Test of Faith, although it is not a discrete "have it or not" deal - rather a ramping getting more powerful as HP goes lower. Very nice.

[Kaesebrezen]

How our preview will be:

Spells

Mastery for Shadow
Enhancement Shamans get Nature Damage because their primary mastery only gives melee damage.
Our primary mastery gives spelldamage, so DoT damage would just be laughable.

And this line

With the Mastery system, we're also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature's Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.

We can see example of all talents and get the rest examples from Blizzcon.
This will be the significant part of our preview. Shadow and Holy have tons of those talents, and Disc has quite some few too.


Edit:
Expect our preview between 0:00 - 1:00 CEST

[PriestLuna]

I didn't say OP. I said that the difference between using it on 10 and 25 man is large (~250% more effective in 25 than 10 man), so therefor a better suggestion would be for the group of 5 people or 5 random people. Then you would still be able to use shield on other targets.

Blizzard doesn't want cooldowns to be spammed, but give them an effect that makes them better at some situations than on others, so the player can feel the "NOW IS THE TIME" effect. Therefor adding a spell like Prayer of Mending (which is casted on CD often) would be a stupid move, because they just stated they wanted to get away from it.

1. I would argue a large fraction of existing spells in the game are much more effective in a 25man atmosphere. I'd still be happy with it targeting 5 people, but would rather it be a bit more spammable. Your comment that it wouldn't be fair in 25mans is mute, every non-single target spell or ability scales better in 25mans than 10/5mans of course.

2. The "NOW IS THE TIME" effect isn't going to be accomplished. I already have "NOW IS THE TIME" spells like Divine Hymn, Hymn of Hope, Shadowfiend, Penance, Prayer of Healing, Binding Heal, Fade, etc. Classes already have these "NOW IS THE TIME" spells and it's fine for all specs heals, dps, tanking. We refer to them as CDs, do we not? Now is the time, pop your CDs. I think adding more CD abilities will be the stupid move as they already aren't used as often as they could be thanks to outgearing, good play, etc. I propose it'll dumb down rotations, and baddies won't know when to use them anyway.

[WorgenFreeman]

They brought back the Spirit Link which was according to Blizzard 'too complicated to implement', so my guess is that we, discipline priests, will finally get our Power Word: Barrier spell back.

I would want it to be a smart spell, something like Circle of Healing -- it shields those, with the lowest health pool.

[Domi]

I would like to see something like DKs anti-magic zone, it would be intresting to see one bubble eating dmg for whole raid. Maybe Lightwell would finally come useful when ppl are taking shelter in da bubble?

Possibly make Power Word: Barrier like this? Or something else intresting, I don't think smart heals are intresting, even if they are powerful.

[Nodja]

I'm not really sure how the nuke will play out, to be honest.

It has to beat MF, otherwise there is no point in casting the new nuke, ever.
It can't beat MF, otherwise MF is simply deprecated, replacing the iconic spriest spell with a bolt.

... I'm puzzled.

What could make sense is that the "new nuke" is some talent increasing MFdps on non-player mobs for the first 20 seconds.

You still have to cast MF to refresh shadow word pain.

And there's always a solution like this.

Faesmelt, 2 seconds cast time
Deals X amount of damage and applies Face Disfigurement on the target. Face disfigurement causes your next Mind Blast or Mind Flay to deal extra 3% extra damage per stack but removes Face Disfigurement from the target. Up to 2 stacks. 10 seconds duration.

[KidGosu]

Just throwing this out there...... Just a random thought.

I don't think they ever specifically said we'd be getting a new spell. They just said that we'd be getting a no-cooldown, spammable nuke.

Maybe they're revamping Mind Blast? Increasing it's damage and cast time and coefficients and whatnot to resemble other similar nukes from other caster classes. The current talent to reduce it's cooldown could become a talent to reduce it's cast from 3 or 2.5 seconds to 2.5 or 2 seconds.

Boring, I know, I'm just saying, that THAT might be the special Shadow nuke they're thinking about.

I agree with this, and hope it is correct....
And i hope they change mind sear a bit, making it more powerful (by a small margin) if its cast on a target with 1/2/3 of your dots

[Danner]

All warlock damage-over-time (DoT) spells will benefit from crit and haste innately. Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoT's duration, but rather to add additional ticks. When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer "clip" the final tick. Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting Affliction currently works.

Spriests are very likely to get the same treatment.

[fabian]

Spriests are very likely to get the same treatment.

It looks like it is going to be clunky, if they go with same duration but reduced time between ticks, there will be obvious haste "soft caps", but obviously more haste will be a good thing. The clipping mechanic is also nice.

[Abandon]

I think it will be a lot better than it currently is, given that slight latency spikes won't punish you by overwriting a DoT too soon any more. I also have no idea where you are getting the idea it is going to be "clunky". Dot is refreshed by adding more time to it, so if you keep 100% uptime then you will get the full amount of haste benefiting the spell. Over a 2 minute boss fight, if you have 20% haste, then your Vampiric Touch will tick 20% faster for the entire fight if you keep it refreshed. There also won't be any soft caps for exactly the same reason.

[Danner]

Big question is: will hots get the same deal?

Guess we'll find out - after this commercial break.

[Dharmabhum]

I'm wondering if we're getting a cheap heal in cataclysm.

FHeal is obviously our fast inefficient heal
GHeal is obviously our big expensive heal

Sort of, but I'm imagining them putting a heal in between those two. They did the same with Shaman just now, keeping lesser healing wave and boosting healing wave to greater healing wave. Insert a medium type go-to heal and it definitely fits the model they've been preaching about quick/expensive vs. long/efficient.

[conscript]

Sort of, but I'm imagining them putting a heal in between those two. They did the same with Shaman just now, keeping lesser healing wave and boosting healing wave to greater healing wave. Insert a medium type go-to heal and it definitely fits the model they've been preaching about quick/expensive vs. long/efficient.

More ranks of Heal ftw. Can't wait to see what they are changing about Light Well. Its already my favorite heal in game, can't wait until it is even more amazing than it is now.

[fabian]

I think it will be a lot better than it currently is, given that slight latency spikes won't punish you by overwriting a DoT too soon any more. I also have no idea where you are getting the idea it is going to be "clunky". Dot is refreshed by adding more time to it, so if you keep 100% uptime then you will get the full amount of haste benefiting the spell. Over a 2 minute boss fight, if you have 20% haste, then your Vampiric Touch will tick 20% faster for the entire fight if you keep it refreshed. There also won't be any soft caps for exactly the same reason.

Ok, there will be soft caps(on short fights) and it will be clunky for the exact reason that you said...

Lets use your example of 20% haste on VT

A 15s duration, each tick is 3s apart at 0% haste. At 20% haste, that comes to be 2.5s between each tick which results in a 6 tick VT. Now any haste between 0% and 20% will be useless for the initial application, with you only noticing the extra dot in later casts. While in the current situation, you get an even number of ticks each application. The soft caps will be different for each dot, and will be evenly spaced out(VT's is every 20%).

I am not saying the system is bad(there are more good things about than bad) but too me, it seems like a clunky system.

[Abandon]

All you need to do is refresh it before it falls off and it will never be a problem. Remember that refreshing a DoT this way will not just apply a new DoT which starts ticking when you cast it, it will increase the amount of remaining time on the DoT. So if you keep Vampiric Touch refreshed all the time, then you will have it on the boss for the entire boss fight, and the distance between the ticks will be the same, without a break like they currently have when refreshing.