Holy Spell for lvl 10

[Biernot]

I would actually love Surge of Light as a defining holy spell. It is both good for healing and for soloing. The only problem is, that it is very dependend on gear and at lower levels it just doesn't work too good.

[KaynDarksbane]

Just as a side note, remember that you get an active ability *and* at least one passive at level 10.

Personally, I see it being Guardian Spirit and either a reworked Surge of Light or Spirit of Redemption.

[Zeuq]

Just as a side note, remember that you get an active ability *and* at least one passive at level 10.

I could have misread, but what I understood from passives was working what used to be the Masteries for spending points would become a baseline when you choose the tree. Thus, for Holy, you'd passively get +X% Healing and +X% Meditation. I think we'd also get some base amount of Radiance as well, though I wasn't sure if that would only be granted from the Mastery stat or not.

[Azyoulike]

They won't give Chakra as a signature ability, just like they won't give Body and Soul as a signature ability. These are fine examples of their "new" talent point direction, and they wouldn't want to waste these fine talent point sinks that are actually "game-changing", "interesting" and "fun".

No - that's a bad analogy. B&S is fun and optional, Chakra is OP and mandatory, unless it gets nerfed into the ground. Bear in mind that at least one spec is getting their current L51 ability as their L10 (retridins) - and the general assumption is that disc is too.

They don't have a problem making L10 abilities fun/cool/powerful/best-spell-in-tree or whatever. The requirements are that it should be a deep ability of the tree, a mandatory talent, useful at endgame and useful at L10. Chakra pushes all those buttons.

Kelesti beat me to it, but I agree with her reasoning. With some changes they might be able to make it work, but it's not an ability in the way Mind Flay, Penance, or the other examples given.

Neither is Dual wield, but enhance shammys get it as their L10.
Neither is the new Eclipse bar, but moonkin get it as their L10.

It doesn't have to be an a button that you push, it has to be a mechanic or spell that transforms how your spec plays. A powerful new spell is one thing that fits that bill, but it's certainly not the only thing.

And imagine being new to the game and seeing that tooltip when you hit level 10 and you're still trying to learn the class, you can't tell me you wouldn't be confused.

If some players do find Chakra confusing ( honestly I wouldn't ) that's a good reason to give it to them at L10 - so by the time the time they hit L25 - when decisions actually become meaningful, they understand what it does.

A soloing holy priest will spend his entire time in smite-chakra, that's an extra 15% holy damage - which is pretty nice. He'll get that even if he's too confused to realize it.

[Millhi]

taken from blue post:
Holy signature ability
We think healers will expect to get an actual heal (or some kind of defensive ability) as their signature spell, but we also want something that's actually useful at level 10. Lightwell, Circle of Healing and even Spirit of Redemption are very signature Holy abilities, but none are very useful when soloing gnolls in Elwynn. (Source)

wihc means they want an signature holy ability wich also can be used while soloing and not only for healing.

my guess goes to holy nova or holy fire (with a change so it heals ofc)

[Zoros]

No - that's a bad analogy. B&S is fun and optional, Chakra is OP and mandatory, unless it gets nerfed into the ground. Bear in mind that at least one spec is getting their current L51 ability as their L10 (retridins) - and the general assumption is that disc is too.

The Chakra version that I have seen was far form OP and mandatory. It was a Divine Providence that requiered 3 PoH in a row to activate, or an Empowered Renew that requiered 2 more points and again 3 Renew spell in a row to get it, or a Searing Light for 2 more talent points that requieres 3 smite in a row to get it. That is OP? Chakra was like 4 talents in one, but not 4 at the same time, and the most important, Chakra requiered an strict activation to work. At least for PvP Chakra will be the most useless holy talent by far. For PvE we can live without an additional 10% of healing or DPS.

They don't have a problem making L10 abilities fun/cool/powerful/best-spell-in-tree or whatever. The requirements are that it should be a deep ability of the tree, a mandatory talent, useful at endgame and useful at L10. Chakra pushes all those buttons.

Chakra for lvl 10? Ouch! It's an horrible talent, priest must have the option to decide if they want to be struck in a boring holy form that reduces their flexibility. Besides, Chakra is boring compared with Surge of Light. Chakra for 10 lvl priests will be the same of Searing Light, just a boring 12% damage increase.

[Azyoulike]

The Chakra version that I have seen was far form OP and mandatory.

I'm going off the version on the current MMO-champ cata talent calculator. What are you looking at?

Renew: 10% extra healing - and .5sec off the Renew GCD - Mandatory for endgame
PoH: 10% extra healing , 2.5 sec off CoH CD - Situational for endgame
Heal: 5% crit and refreshes renew - Solid for endgame and LFG level
Smite: 15% extra damage - Very solid for levelling

You don't think that constitutes a mandatory talent? The activation sounds annoying, till you realize it lasts for 20 seconds. At which point you realize that it's FAR less annoying than Grace, and considerably more powerful.

For PvE we can live without an additional 10% of healing or DPS.

Erm - ok.

Priest must have the option to decide if they want to be struck in a boring holy form that reduces their flexibility.

Let me try to explain this very carefully.

Either the Chakra bonuses are powerful or they aren't. If they're not, then it doesn't limit your flexibility in any way since it doesn't matter which if any is currently active.
If they are then it does, but you can't opt out of that by just not talenting it - that's like opting out of the present inflexibility of tree-form for a resto druid by not talenting it.
Sure you'll be able to do everything without worrying about chakra, but you'll almost always be worse than the other priest who got it.

Your only way to opt out of Chakra as it is currently showing on the MMO-champ cata calculator is to respec/reroll out of holy. Otherwise your spec will be massively suboptimal.

Besides, Chakra is boring compared with Surge of Light. Chakra for 10 lvl priests will be the same of Searing Light, just a boring 12% damage increase.

Surge of light is a throughput decrease. Making it non-optional in the tree would be a horrible horrible call.

[Kelesti]

I don't get what all the hate is on Holy Nova going into Holy, when many of those same people suggest a Holy Fire spell. Holy Fire is used by Discipline even moreso than Holy Nova, because of its offensive pressure, and great synergy with Smite itself. Losing Holy Nova would "cripple" PvP discipline, but Holy Fire wouldn't?

This is not to mention the difference between Discipline and Holy spells at that point is one has a windup (Cast time) whereas the other starts instantly. Both having lingering effects (additional ticks of Penance, vs HoT tick), both are mainly burst on a cooldown, and both can be used offensively or defensively.

Or in short: Holy Shock, with a cast time, vs Arcane Holy Shock Missiles /yawn
As much as the awesomeness that is Holy Fire, that doesn't feel Priest-like at all. Maybe it does, but it just ... meh. A very bland substance that leaves a yucky aftertaste in my mouth, no thanks.

And as for a short cast time heal, with a HoT on it, we have one of those. It's called "Heal", and under Chakra it refreshes Renew, and after 75 it applies Radiance. Getting a stronger or weaker version at level 10 really ruins the point of bringing "Heal" back anyways, and it would be pointless to get an "iconic" ability that we're just going to replace, that mirrors what we already have (or are going to have).

And if Discipline can't function without Holy Nova (like most builds did in TBC?), then that could be deemed bad design and they would get work to function without Holy Nova.

Edit: And the last we saw of Surge of Light, it didn't apply to Flash Heal anymore. It was Smite and Holy Nova. We aren't getting another instant heal. And balancing a random chance sucks at low levels as much as endgame.

Second Edit: The renew refresh is the hotness of the Heal chakra, Az. That deserves a bold, too.

[Azyoulike]

I don't get what all the hate is on Holy Nova going into Holy, when many of those same people suggest a Holy Fire spell. Holy Fire is used by Discipline even moreso than Holy Nova, because of its offensive pressure, and great synergy with Smite itself. Losing Holy Nova would "cripple" PvP discipline, but Holy Fire wouldn't?

Personally I'm not really concerned with PvP, I'm looking at this more from a PvE perspective where HN is far more valuable than HF. In PvP all bets are off, all healers are becoming much more offensive in Cata - so it's impossible to tell which nukes will be critical to Disc.

I agree that Holy fire shouldn't be the Holy tree L10 though, mostly because it's not important at end-game, and there's no way to make it important without screwing up some other spell. Well I suppose they could make it heal players near the target like attonment, but honestly yuk.

And if Discipline can't function without Holy Nova (like most builds did in TBC?), then that could be deemed bad design and they would get work to function without Holy Nova.

Back in TBC when HN was a holy talent it was almost completely useless, except Rank 1 for stealth popping. It got substantially buffed when wrath hit and it became baseline.

I'm sure disc can function without HN, just as Holy can. But it would be an unnecessary quality of life issue. Look at it this way, Holy doesn't need HN either, but how would you feel if it was about to be made deep disc? If it was removed Disc would then need their own AoE damage spell - which would inevitably just be a copy of somebody elses AoE but with more gold animation - either that or Evangilism would have to buff Mind Sear.

It won't be Holy Nova.

[Deathwhisper]

If lightwell was changed to a totem like ability, which attacked enemies and healed friendly within a certain range, it could be a pretty awesome holy-baseline.

Yeah but that would make priests into basically shammans.

That seems boring having my Lightwell do all the work :|

Doesn't shout "Holy Priest" to me at all...it screams Shamman-lite

[KaynDarksbane]

I could have misread, but what I understood from passives was working what used to be the Masteries for spending points would become a baseline when you choose the tree. Thus, for Holy, you'd passively get +X% Healing and +X% Meditation. I think we'd also get some base amount of Radiance as well, though I wasn't sure if that would only be granted from the Mastery stat or not.

They never said that all the old Masteries were swapped over to passives; they haven't specified. From what I've read, the passive you get at 10 doesn't change, and can be anything from a talent to an old Mastery. Dual-Wield for Enhancement Shamans, for instance. Or the 10% Two-Hand damage and/or Anger Management for Arms Warriors. Or the 20% Fire damage used as an example for Fire Mages. Going off of the old Masteries alone is not supported at all at this point.

EDIT: We might as well speculate.

[Kelesti]

Potential Holy Fire/Atonement type heal? Agreed: Yuk.

For awhile, the Holy Nova "buff" that came with 3.0 was screamed as a nerf, not because it didn't cost talent points but because Rank 1 was no longer an option to spam. You could get rid of half your mana pool before potentially finding said Rogue, let alone dealing with him in combat.

As far as quality of life, there is still Mending, Barrier's badass cooldown, whatever they're going to do with Prayer of Healing, and the fact that Discipline is going to be doing a lot more "healing" than it is now. Infact, all healers are picking up location dependent heals, whether it's a cooldown (short or long), or maintained. And smart healing in and of itself is going to be on the decline.

Casting "Heal" on a raid member will probably be how Discipline and Holy respond to damage that doesn't need "right now" healing, when Renew still might pose a risk, so the Heal game itself is changing, and the new party-less Holy Nova needs to fill a niche that isn't just a weaker Circle with damage (because what's the point of taking Circle as an "iconic Holy ability" anyways?)

As far as Discipline not having an AoE spell, neither does Shadow but that isn't a problem when their single target output is more than efficient at the time. Discipline will be rocking the shields and a hard hitting penance, and can take things down faster than Holy can, while generally holding much more control. If Reflective Shield started working on alternate targets again(but credited to the Priest) one could consider that as Discipline's AoE :P

It still can very well be Holy Nova, or Holy Nova as first tier even. Either way, the only answer to "it will/won't" will be the next beta push. But Nova still fits what they seem to want from it.

Edit: And Kayn, they said "You will get everything that you need at this level, that would be boring passive talents anyways". That means a) Meditation, and b) +Healing%. Beyond that, it's open season on what else they might throw in. But they also said that each spec gets an ability that goes with it: Enhancement isn't Dual Wield, it's Lava Lash, because Dual Wield's the passive. Arms gets the passives of 2h Weapons (+10% damage) and Anger Management, but their level 10 ability is Mortal Strike.

[KaynDarksbane]

Edit: And Kayn, they said "You will get everything that you need at this level, that would be boring passive talents anyways". That means a) Meditation, and b) +Healing%. Beyond that, it's open season on what else they might throw in. But they also said that each spec gets an ability that goes with it: Enhancement isn't Dual Wield, it's Lava Lash, because Dual Wield's the passive. Arms gets the passives of 2h Weapons (+10% damage) and Anger Management, but their level 10 ability is Mortal Strike.

Assuming that those are the level 10 passives is ignoring what evidence we have. So far we don't have a single example of all of a classes Masteries becoming passives at level 10... there still has to be a Mastery stat.

I'm not saying it won't be those... it certainly *could.* But you have no reason to assume that it will be, and no solid logic to back up that assumption.

So far we have TWO examples of a talent becoming a passive (Dual-Wield and Anger Management). I don't see how you can get away with disregarding that possibility at this point.

EDIT: Yes of course we get an active ability... when did I say we don't? I was just pointing out that we can also speculate as to the passive that goes along with it.

[Kelesti]

Mastery Stat from the beginning was only going to hit up "Radiance", and have no effect on +Healing or Meditation.

And we've had examples of Frost Knights getting a Passive that lets it get 50% more Frost Damage and 25% weapon damage (or something like that?), because it's boring and stuff you shouldn't have to talent anyways. The evidence is: They don't want "Meditation" to be talented, because then it's required for every single spec, period. They want it to be a bonus, just for being a healer. That was why there were passive talent bonuses. Now, they aren't based around how many talents you put in the tree, they're based around just being that spec. That was the point.

Mastery as a stat never did affect either of those bonuses, when they came up with it they didn't have a name to associate the first two so they just ran with it. It sounded cooler with "mastery" than "Passive Talent Bonus" but obviously caused confusion. Mastery only did, and only will, affect Radiance, after you can train it at 75.

[KaynDarksbane]

You are correct on one point: those stats were never increased by Mastery. My bad.

However, let's again look at Enh Shammies. Their original Masteries were:

Melee Haste
Melee Damage
Nature Damage

As far as we know, NONE of these are level 10 passives. Hmm... And even if it turns out that they are... Dual-Wield was also added to the list.

The same thing for Arms Warriors. Original Masteries:

Melee Damage
Armor Pen
Bonus Swing

None of these were swapped over as-is to level 10 passives that we know about, though melee damage kinda was (reduced to 2h only). Armor Pen wasn't mentioned, and they ADDED Anger Management.

So my point still stands. You have no logical reason to assume that +Healing/Meditation will be the passives, or will be the only passives.

It's certainly fine that you think they will be, but refusing the possibility of others is simply dumb.

[Azyoulike]

For awhile, the Holy Nova "buff" that came with 3.0 was screamed as a nerf, not because it didn't cost talent points but because Rank 1 was no longer an option to spam.

Yes, it took till late Naxx and the CoH nerf for people to actually start looking at HN and realize that it was actually useful for more than killing snake traps and popping stealth with Rank 1. Which just goes to show how truly bad it was back in TBC.

As far as quality of life, there is still Mending, Barrier's badass cooldown, whatever they're going to do with Prayer of Healing, and the fact that Discipline is going to be doing a lot more "healing" than it is now.

But ALL those also apply to holy if they made Holy Nova Disc only, just substitute CoH for PW:B. Holy Nova is like binding heal, it's very situational - but when you want it you really want it.

As far as Discipline not having an AoE spell, neither does Shadow but that isn't a problem when their single target output is more than efficient at the time. Discipline will be rocking the shields and a hard hitting penance, and can take things down faster than Holy can, while generally holding much more control.

We're talking levelling/soloing now? Then, um not really. The shield differences are tiny while levelling, so disc doesn't have much more control. Penance hits harder than smite, but not so much as all that - and Holy has traditionally at least had a harder hitting smite which made up for it. Right now, soloing, there is very little to choose from between a holy spec at L70-80 and a disc spec - the disc spec probably has slightly lower dps, but slightly better uptime - though it depends on BT uptime.

Taking HN away from disc would literally kill it as a levelling spec for me, especially in the frenzy after Cata launches. How the heck else am I supposed to tag mobs the moment they spawn!

It still can very well be Holy Nova, or Holy Nova as first tier even. Either way, the only answer to "it will/won't" will be the next beta push. But Nova still fits what they seem to want from it.

It does most of what they need it to do for holy, but it would needlessly screw over disc, and then they'd need to cover the gaps. Moreover many would complain it was a nerf to holy,

'Everybody else is getting something they used to spend talents to get and I gets HN /toysoutofpram.' - I'm 80% sure it will be Chakra.

[sacrypheyes]

like i said on the other topic, imo the spell has to be either Guardian spirit or another new spell.

but if that single signature spell if meant to help leveling on the offensive side, then i see no currently known spell that fits the spot.

[KaynDarksbane]

I'm 80% sure it will be Chakra.

Chakra is not an active ability. I can't see them substituting it for an active ability. Everyone else gets a new button to press, and Holy Priests get... an extra passive? Doesn't make sense to me.

If they add Chakra at level 10, it will be as a passive.

[Zoros]

I'm going off the version on the current MMO-champ cata talent calculator. What are you looking at?

Renew: 10% extra healing - and .5sec off the Renew GCD - Mandatory for endgame

Mandatory? Not all priests are mindless spamming Renew to steal heals and top the healing meters. I play trying to keep my mates alive, not trying to top rankings. : /

Heal: 5% crit and refreshes renew - Solid for endgame and LFG level

Holy Specialization talent is better, and it's in the first holy tier, and it's not necessary an activation to make it work.

Smite: 15% extra damage - Very solid for levelling

Searing Light costs less talent points and does something similar. Besides Searing Light affect all your smites not only the 4th and the incomming ones.

You don't think that constitutes a mandatory talent? The activation sounds annoying, till you realize it lasts for 20 seconds. At which point you realize that it's FAR less annoying than Grace, and considerably more powerful.

It doesn't last 20 seconds if you want to keep it the entire combat, it lasts 14 seconds for Heal and Smite, and 11 seconds for Prayer. I want to cast any spell in any moment, not just 75% of my time.

If they're not, then it doesn't limit your flexibility in any way since it doesn't matter which if any is currently active.

I it's necessary I will cast Leap of Faith after 2 Renew spells losing the chance to reactivate Chakra. That is the reason why I chose freedom over rotation. You prefer rotations, ok! But that is the reason why Chakra has to be optional, different opinions, different options.

Otherwise your spec will be massively suboptimal.

Why? I don't spam Renew, so to spend 5 talent points to reduce a bit its cooldown would be absurd. Heal Chakra seems really boring, why I want a talent that makes Renew spell a buff? In my opinion it's not fun to cast Inner Fire before a fight and forget about it. Why transform Renew spell into the same? I'm sure that Blizzard will have more interesting options for me.

[muto]

Other:

Whatever Blizzard wants it to be.

Edit: Though I'd really be happy if Blizzard was smart and made it Holy Nova.

uh no surge of light would be wayyyy better especially with BoA gear making your crit insanely high and remember surge of light gives you mana-less smites.