Build 12479 Priest Talent Tree feedback

[Varaben]

Theres not a whole lot to see. These trees are just the condensed version of the old trees. I dont think its really worth discussing builds etc yet. Wait for another pass or two.

[Tadashii]

I am pretty sure it is just because of the Beta that Shadow is so bad. I mean remember they planned on having bigger trees at first, but then changed there mind quite recently (I think, I could be wrong) so not everything is set in stone yet. I mean what is there, 10 classes? 3 specs, with possible pvp specs to go into them. Now to redoing the talent trees for them without testing for all those things.

Anyway, they will fix it just gotta wait

[Vook]

Edit: What the hell? How did my post get above Crowe's? O.o His appears as posted at 9:22 AM...that's 10 minutes from now? Time warp?!

Found a lot of things wrong with your post, Crowe.

Rapture: Again, more PvP utility for Disc but the talent proved useful in Arenas and has earned its right to stay. A little too passive maybe, but whatever.

Lolwut? Rapture is not a PvP talent. PvE disc priests rely on it for almost all of their regen.

Tier 7
Power Word Barrier: The amount of damage absorbed is slightly confusing and could be anywhere between 15000 and 25000 damage at level 80. This would greatly improve Discs healing power in larger group situations and prove to be a nice new signature ability. As the ability requires positioning to work well, it needs to be fairly potent or it might end up like Lightwell.

Actually in a video someone posted, the tooltip said something like 33,000. So it's going to absorb for 33,000+ at level 80.

Tier 2
Improved Healing: Very bland. Why was it kept? Would have struck me as one of the first talents to be cut.

Less mana cost for Heal, which is going to be the new Flash Heal, is bad? =/

Sure of Light: Trying to get a bit of the Disc game-play into Holy. But it wont be enough for Holy PvP. Good talent but I doubt many will take it.

Lolwut? Lololwut? Surge of Light = Disc? I don't know what you're trying to say, here. Smite is not a Discipline spell. Neither is Holy Nova, though currently the tooltip says Smite and Holy Nova, but it's most likely wrong/bugged because Holy Nova is already instant...(unless they're giving it a cast time? D: )

Holy Concentration: Improves scaling with Crit, but could potentially be overpowered as such "gimmicky" mana-regen talents can potentially be exploited.

Don't see how you can "exploit" +15% spirit regen for 8 seconds.

Tier 1
Darkness: What is this talent doing here? Litte synergy with Holy and Disc, very passive and really boring...also kind of weak for the trimmed talent-trees. This talent should not exist any longer.
Improved Shadow Word Pain: Same story, although it's even weaker than Darkness. Maybe this should increase the procc chance of Shadow Orbs instead, but otherwise this talent needs to go.

Guess what? Cata's still in Beta.

Tier 2
Improved Psychic Scream: A very old talent, also seems like it should have been cut. The linking with Silence is simply annoying for PvE. Should be replaced although it does have a little synergy with Disc in PvP.

Er...no. Silence is linked to Imp. Psychic Scream so that you need to get pvp talents to get it. So that you actually have some difference between a pvp and pve spec. Besides, there are lots of other classes that interrupt (Warrior, Rogue, Shaman) and at much, much shorter cooldowns.

Improved Mind Blast: Now only a 1.5 second reduction in CD will certainly affect Shadowpriests DPS. Good to see that Shadow is keeping its MS effect though (unlike Frostmages).

Actually, +1 sec on MB cooldown isn't going to affect DPS much at all, seeing as Mind Flay has almost the same, and sometimes MORE DPE than MB, at ICC gear haste levels.

Tier 4
Silence: Why oh why is it still tied to Improved Psy. Scream? If it wouldn't require 3 TP to pick up, I think many Priests would opt to pick it up for PvE.

See above.

Vampiric Embrace: Signature Shadowpriest ability. The improved version was removed, which is a shame since normal VE is very weak.

Last time I checked, being healed for 15% of your damage isn't "very weak".

Empowered Shadow Orbs: Allow Shadow Orb generation. Odd to see this so deep in the tree. Depends how Shadow Orbs play out. Hopefully more than a prettier version of Shadow Weaving.

Read the tooltip. Increases the chance, not allows them to generate.

Shadow Apparitions: A very cool new Shadow Toy. Usefulness in PvE remains to be seen but in PvP it's already rocking!

Usefulness in PvE? Free damage.

Overall I'm very disappointed in the Shadow-Tree. It's quite obvious that most of the talents haven't been updated at all to suit the new trees and were simply copied from the older trees.

Did I tell you Cataclysm is still in Beta?

[Deleted]

Well, as a veteran Priest I thought I would share my opinion on the recently published Priest talent trees. Bare in mind, I have spent most of my time (roughly 98%) as a Shadowpriest and hence might lack the insight to correctly assess the changes from a healing PoV.

I should also not that a lot of the talents, especially in the Shadow-Tree, have not been properly updated to fit the new talent-trees.

Discipline

Tier 1
Improved Power Word: Shield: Up to 10% more absorb for Shields will prove useful to both Shadow and Holy trees as well, so it's a decent Tier 1 talent. After all, Shields were becoming a little weak for the non-Disc speccs.
Twin Disciplines: 3% more damage and healing from Instant Spells and PW: Shield seems a very weak talent. There really aren't that many instant cast spells for Priests and the 3% boost is just really, really low.
Mental Agility: 12% less mana costs for instant cast spells. This was always a popular choice for PvP speccs where Priests would suffer from mana issues. Not exciting, but useful for every specc.

Tier 2
Evangelism and Archangel: This seems like a very cool mechanic for Discs offensive + defensive game-play. Will certainly spice things up early on. Good stuff.
Improved Inner Fire: A popular choice as all specc need more armor and spellpower. Still a little bland imo and should at least affect the Inner Will ability as well. If that were the case, it might need to be reduced to 10%/TP.
Improved Mana Burn: Without this talent, Manaburn is borderline useless, with it...a very powerful tool. Having it accessible fir Holy and Shadow is good, but it still feels kinda meh.

Tier 3
Renewed Hope: Fits well with the Disc theme but a mere 4% increased Crit-chance seems a little bad for 2 TP. I think 10% bonus crit-chance would be more suitable.
Inner Focus: Always has been a very situational ability and mostly so in PvP. Preferably used in combo with expensive spells like Divine Hymn. While ok for just 1 TP...it still seems a little bland and outdated. Why isn't Power Infusion here instead?
Atonement: Again, a very cool Disc PvP ability, further emphasizing the offensive utility of Disc.

Tier 4
Reflective Shield: Situational yet useful talent, although it has caused issues in the past. Still, very suitable for Disc, although Shadow might have liked it as well.
Rapture: Again, more PvP utility for Disc but the talent proved useful in Arenas and has earned its right to stay. A little too passive maybe, but whatever.
Borrowed time: Disc Priest love to use this for quick mana burns. It also impacts PvE healing and hence is a good ability.

Tier 5
Aspiration: Not much to say really. Since it mentions Power Infusion the ability will probably pop up again somewhere.
Divine Aegis: Good stuff, again very Disc-like
Pain Suppression: Another signature Disc ability. Good thing it stayed.
Focused Will: Old Talent, yet powerful. Not much to say

Tier 6
Soul Warding: One of the most powerful Disc abilities making Shields into a real raid-tool. Seems more appropritae to have it so deep in the tree.
Grace: Encourages the main-tank healing abilities of Disc. The talent does seem a little bland however, although its not weak.

Tier 7
Power Word Barrier: The amount of damage absorbed is slightly confusing and could be anywhere between 15000 and 25000 damage at level 80. This would greatly improve Discs healing power in larger group situations and prove to be a nice new signature ability. As the ability requires positioning to work well, it needs to be fairly potent or it might end up like Lightwell.

Overall the new Disc tree seems very focused on PvP utility and offensive power. While there are plenty of abilities that boost the Shields, it seems the regular heals have fallen a little short. We shall see how things play out, but things are looking good for Disc.


Holy

Tier 1
Improved Renew: 10% more powerful Renew is a little bland, even for a Tier 1 talent. While the synergy with Empowered Renew is nice, it has little Synergy with Disc or Shadow. Should be spiced up a little for better synergy.
Empowered Healing: Seems a terrible Tier 1 talent. Speccing this talent early on is bad, because of the lack of spellpower. The bonus to healing is also really bland. This should be replaced.
Divine Fury: Only 3 TP now, instead of 5, making a lot of the bigger heals cast longer. Still a good Tier 1 talent to pace up the game early on and Disc will love it too.

Tier 2
Improved Healing: Very bland. Why was it kept? Would have struck me as one of the first talents to be cut.
Inspiration: Great, as usual, for MT healing and improves the usefulness pf Crit for Holy. Disc will love it too.

Tier 3
Empowered Renew: Good talent, especially if you use a lot of Renew.
Deliverance: Great talent to encourage flexible healing patterns. Kind of the opposite of Chakra but still good.
Improved Holy Nova: Holy Nova has always been highly situational. While a good talent, I'm not sure it will be very popular.
Sure of Light: Trying to get a bit of the Disc game-play into Holy. But it wont be enough for Holy PvP. Good talent but I doubt many will take it.

Tier 4
Healing Prayers: Only 1 Talent Point for 10% cheaper prayers. Not bad albeit a bit bland.
Spirit of Redemption: Improved dying as many call it, it is a signature Holy Priest ability. Although its usefulness is debatable, it still fun to see and use.
Holy Concentration: Improves scaling with Crit, but could potentially be overpowered as such "gimmicky" mana-regen talents can potentially be exploited.

Tier 5
Choir Leader: Good, but not a terribly interesting talent since Divine Hymn has a rather long cooldown. More of a flavor ability than anything.
Lightwell: Maybe people will use it in Cata...but I'm sceptical. At least it's very unique, but most players hate it.
Body and Soul: Fun ability that adds some tactical flavor to Priest Shields.

Tier 6
Circle of Healing: Holy Priests signature heal. Not much else to say.
Chakra: Will have major impacts on Priest healing and emphasizes the Holy Priest healing niche "flexibility".
Test of Faith: Good Talent, although a little bland. Could use a minor boost. Maybe 2 TP for 10% increased healing.

Tier 7
Guardian Spirit: Holy Tank-saving-cooldown. Good in various PvE encounters.

Overall Holy seems to have kept quite a few of the passive talents and lacks some unique mechanics and spells higher up in the tree. It certainly will feel a lot blander leveling as Holy compared to Disc. Adding some cooler abilities in the lower Tiers would help quite a bit. The synergy with Shadow especially is practically non-existant.


Shadow

Tier 1
Darkness: What is this talent doing here? Litte synergy with Holy and Disc, very passive and really boring...also kind of weak for the trimmed talent-trees. This talent should not exist any longer.
Improved Shadow Word Pain: Same story, although it's even weaker than Darkness. Maybe this should increase the procc chance of Shadow Orbs instead, but otherwise this talent needs to go.
Spirit Tap: A very popular talent for all speccs while leveling. Seems to have no use while raiding though, so in the end it's kind of meh.

Tier 2
Improved Psychic Scream: A very old talent, also seems like it should have been cut. The linking with Silence is simply annoying for PvE. Should be replaced although it does have a little synergy with Disc in PvP.
Improved Mind Blast: Now only a 1.5 second reduction in CD will certainly affect Shadowpriests DPS. Good to see that Shadow is keeping its MS effect though (unlike Frostmages).
Veilded Shadows: Good, mainly due to the reduced SF cooldown. In PvE this ability is a matter of choice, depending on your mana situation.

Tier 3
Shadowform: Pew Pew
Improved Shadowform: Shadows new raid-utility combined with a needed PvP skill. Seems like an odd combination and certainly reduces the "choice" element.
Improved Devouring Plague: Good ability, but it seems rather expensive for 3 TP.

Tier 4
Silence: Why oh why is it still tied to Improved Psy. Scream? If it wouldn't require 3 TP to pick up, I think many Priests would opt to pick it up for PvE.
Vampiric Embrace: Signature Shadowpriest ability. The improved version was removed, which is a shame since normal VE is very weak.
Shadow Power: Supposed to bring Shadowpriest nukes in line with other casters. Obviously not updated and hence kinda shit.
Mind Melt: The first talent to actually significantly impact Shadowpriest play-style. A slightly odd combination of effects, but very powerful and good.

Tier 5
Empowered Shadow Orbs: Allow Shadow Orb generation. Odd to see this so deep in the tree. Depends how Shadow Orbs play out. Hopefully more than a prettier version of Shadow Weaving.
Vampiric Touch: Another signature Shadowpriest ability. I'm still expecting Replenishment to be removed but so far its holding on tight.
Shadow Apparitions: A very cool new Shadow Toy. Usefulness in PvE remains to be seen but in PvP it's already rocking!

Tier 6
Psychic Horror: Still there and useful as ever in PvP. Litte use in PvE however which is a bit of a shame. I still think the CD could be lowered. 2 minutes seems rather long for such an ability.
Twisted Faith: Synergy between nukes and SW:P but really too weak be be noticeable. The Spirit to Hit conversion seems really bad too, especially compared to Balance/Elemental. A pretty bad talent in its current form.
Pain and Suffering: Nothing much changed here. Auto refreshing SW:P and less suicidal SW. Not special, but not bad either.

Tier 7
Dispersion: Often debated but overall most Shadowpriests have accepted it for what it is. A good survival cooldown that is great in PvP and can prove useful in certain PvE encounters to.

Overall I'm very disappointed in the Shadow-Tree. It's quite obvious that most of the talents haven't been updated at all to suit the new trees and were simply copied from the older trees. Still, many of the surviving talents seem bad choices and it makes you wonder what the Shadow tree is heading for. I'd also have liked to see Power Infusion remain accessible for Shadowpriests, giving them a DPS cooldown they have been asking for a long time.

[Zoros]

My opinion as holy priest:

BAD CONCERNS:

-Improved Healing and Healing Prayers are pointless, both must be removed.
-Heal should proc Deliverance.
-Holy Concentration still is useless for PvP. It should also proc when receiving a critical hit.
-Choir Leader is the worst talent I've ever seen. Discipline Priests can channel free Divine Hymns with 25% crit thanks to Inner Focus, and get additional ticks thanks to Borrowed Time. And Holy Priests who must be better with hymn spells only have a redundant heal that will be unnecessary 95% of times.
-I still miss some talent to buff Leap of Faith. A talent to instantly heal its target could be really interesting, even it could be included in Test of Faith.
-Holy PvP build is still too strict because Improved Inner Fire still exists.
-Chakra still is against our gameplay, is weak, and just work on trivial fights. At least we have more options to avoid it.
-We still have the same fun holy talents: Serendipity, Body and Soul and Surge of Light. Nothing new under the sun.
-Lightwell should be included in Empowered Renew talent.
-Don't understand the Blizzard purpose with Improved Mana Burn. Their intention is to force shadow and holy priests to go for it? If every PvP priest should get it, is not better to remove the talent and directly reduce Mana Burn cast time?
-No Mending cooldown reduction.

GOOD POINTS:

-No more boring survival talents to do PvP. In consequence, is no longer necessary to waste our dual specialization in a PvP build.
-We can be different in healing terms from other holy priests. I'm a no-Chakra holy priest!
-Talent max reduced to 3 feels good.
-Seems posible a holy-shadow PvP/solo build.
-Evangelism and Archangel seems really fun.
-Desperate Prayer change is perfect. The spell was really unpopular, and the new version could help holy PvP.
-There are some DPS talents, but I like the fact that we are still focused in healing. The 51 version was horrible, our options were reduced to survival or DPS :S

[Deleted]

Sorry for being a bit lazy with the quoting but here's my responses.

Edit: What the hell? How did my post get above Crowe's? O.o His appears as posted at 9:22 AM...that's 10 minutes from now? Time warp?!

Found a lot of things wrong with your post, Crowe.



Lolwut? Rapture is not a PvP talent. PvE disc priests rely on it for almost all of their regen.

Response: Ok, never raided as Disc so this might be true. My bad.


Actually in a video someone posted, the tooltip said something like 33,000. So it's going to absorb for 33,000+ at level 80.

Response: Well I was basing my estimations of the formula given. But 33000 sounds even better. Looks to be awesome.


Less mana cost for Heal, which is going to be the new Flash Heal, is bad? =/

Response: I'm sure it's a powerful talent but then again, so is +10% Shadow damage. That doesn't mean it's interesting or engaging. I was sure this was the type of talent Blizzard wanted to annihilate as that was part of the reasoning behind the talent-tree makeover.

Lolwut? Lololwut? Surge of Light = Disc? I don't know what you're trying to say, here. Smite is not a Discipline spell. Neither is Holy Nova, though currently the tooltip says Smite and Holy Nova, but it's most likely wrong/bugged because Holy Nova is already instant...(unless they're giving it a cast time? D: )

Response: I tried to say that this talent attempts to get Holy a little closer towards the Disc PvP play-style mixing offensive pressure and damage with defensive healing. I just don't think Holy has enough PvP utility to compete with Disc in its current form. So if Blizzard is serious about Holy PvP, they'll have to add more PvP talents. However I'm skeptical that many people are actually interested in Holy-Priest PvP.

Don't see how you can "exploit" +15% spirit regen for 8 seconds.

Response: I just see it as a potential scaling issue similar to Paladins old Illumination. With this talent, Priest mana-regen increases exponentially with better gear, which could make mana-management the no-brainer it is currently. That's clearly not what Blizzard wants. A 30% Crit-Rate would almost guarantee a 100% uptime of this talent.

Guess what? Cata's still in Beta.

Response: So? This is what forums are for. To discuss class mechanics and changes and how these may impact the game. Saying "it's still Beta" accomplishes nothing.

Er...no. Silence is linked to Imp. Psychic Scream so that you need to get pvp talents to get it. So that you actually have some difference between a pvp and pve spec. Besides, there are lots of other classes that interrupt (Warrior, Rogue, Shaman) and at much, much shorter cooldowns.

Response: Currently, Shadowpriests don't bring all that much utility to a dungeon run. Their CC is...problematic at times and beyond that, there is only damage. Having Silence available to a PvE Shadowpriest would have gone a long way. Sure, many classes can interrupt but why must Shadowpriest be an exception? It seems unreasonable to require them to spend 2 talent-points in an otherwise useless PvP ability. For PvP this is not an issue, since most PvPer would pick up Imp. PS anyhow.

Actually, +1 sec on MB cooldown isn't going to affect DPS much at all, seeing as Mind Flay has almost the same, and sometimes MORE DPE than MB, at ICC gear haste levels.

Response: Mindflay is only almost as good as Mindblast because of the T10 Set Bonus. Without the Set-Bonus, and "normalized" Haste levels, Mindblast is once again going to be the much more potent nuke. Now sure, the DPS impact for having a 1 second longer cooldown isn't huge, but I never said it was.


See above.



Last time I checked, being healed for 15% of your damage isn't "very weak".

Response: I was referring to the group-healing aspect of VE. The 3% group-healing is hardly stronger than a healing-stream totem. The self-healing component is of course, very powerful.

Read the tooltip. Increases the chance, not allows them to generate.

Response: Up to that point there was no mention of Shadowpriests utilizing Shadow Orbs. This ability is the first one to generate Shadow Orbs, since normal Mastery doesn't become available until level 78.

Usefulness in PvE? Free damage.

Response: Free damage is good, for sure. But some people on shadowpriest.com calculated that the DPS increase on a stationary encounter was very low. On mobile encounters it was a lot better for obvious reasons. I'm sure it will play out well though.


Did I tell you Cataclysm is still in Beta?

Response: Need I say it again? "Its still Beta" is an utter useless response when we're discussing game-play changes

[Deleted]

Improved Vampiric Embrace did not increase the group-healing part of VE. Remember the tooltip? "Increases healing RECEIVED from VE", not "Increases healing DONE by VE". And it'd be even more overpowered if it was as strong as a healing stream totem. That's a lot of healing, you know?

Holy Crapper you're right! I could have sworn it used to be "increases healing generated by VE by 33/66%". That would have boosted VE healing to 5% group/25% self. But I don't know, this might have been a while back.



WTF! My damned posts are all over the place!

[Abandon]

Remember that you have to spend 31 points in one tree before moving on to another tree. You can't do something like 21/20 or 10/10/21.



Improved Vampiric Embrace did not increase the group-healing part of VE. Remember the tooltip? "Increases healing RECEIVED from VE", not "Increases healing DONE by VE". And it'd be even more overpowered if it was as strong as a healing stream totem. That's a lot of healing, you know?

Yes. Yes it does.

It increases the healing by 10% for yourself and 2% for your party with two talent points in it.

[Abandon]

Improved Vampiric Embrace did not increase the group-healing part of VE. Remember the tooltip? "Increases healing RECEIVED from VE", not "Increases healing DONE by VE". And it'd be even more overpowered if it was as strong as a healing stream totem. That's a lot of healing, you know?

Improved Vampiric Touch DOES increase the group healing. Please stop saying that it doesn't.

[Zka]

My insights:

1) the shadow tree is horrible. You can spend almost all points and you get the optimal max dps build. No variatons at all. Also no useful talents for subspeccing into disc or holy. There are 3 useful talent points in disc. Yeah, also there is imp inner fire which you cannot spec without losing something important from your max dps shadow build. So it's completely stupid. Probably gonna get fixed.

2) disc and holy look much better. Too bad there is not a lot of interesting stuff for holy in disc and both trees need 38-39 points before you can subspec in the other tree and ofc the leftover points are not nearly enough. Putting only ~31-33 ponts in either healing tree to get ~10 point for subspeccing will leave your main tree greatly unfinished and it feels awkward.

I really liked the prot warrior tree, talents are cool and you have enough points and viable options to subspec into fury and/or arms.
Priest healing trees are mediocre atm, shadow is a total failure so far.

I'm sure they will make it better, so no drama

[AmosMoses]

Seems strange that they kept the same increase per talent point for all talents. Resulting in the talents which had a 5TP max rank less powerful than before and the talents with a 2 or 3 points the same power as before.

I thought they would reduce the total number of points by reducing the trees to 31 points and removing filler talents while keeping the combat bonuses the same or similar. Maybe the shortfall is made up by the mastery bonuses? I liked having 25% spell haste for borrowed time... feel like i'm losing somthing now it's only 15%.

Also... inner focus in, power infusion out? That's one dull talent making the cut and one fun talent being discarded imo.

[Tadashii]

I am pretty sure it is just because of the Beta that Shadow is so bad. I mean remember they planned on having bigger trees at first, but then changed there mind quite recently (I think, I could be wrong) so not everything is set in stone yet. I mean what is there, 10 classes? 3 specs, with possible pvp specs to go into them. Now to redoing the talent trees for them without testing for all those things.

Anyway, they will fix it just gotta wait

[fabian]

Vook, what is the difference? It does not say "that you received" but just received. Now, if you actually looked at the tooltip of VE after putting points into Imp VE, you'd notice it was 25%/5%.

WTF? Vook, I'm with you on the time warping posts...


Crowe, a lot of your points, specifically the ones about Rapture and Holy Concentration, kinda scream "I don't heal PvE", since those talents are already in game, and they're not game breaking, or horribly weak.

[nevermore]

- Divine Fury: I'm assuming that the new max rank 3 version gives -0.3 seconds cast time to <various spells> and that this is intended. While I can live with the extra cast time of Gheal, which from a wotlk perspective really is useless anyway. The loss of DPS on smite/holyfire is however quite severe. This will affect levelling healers, and holypriests in particular as we don't have penance to play with. I'm not sure it's a brilliant idea to lower smite dps even further.

Keep in mind that ALL the slow heals (Greater Heal, Healing Touch, Healing Wave, Holy Light etc) have had their cast-time reducing talents removed.
Except for us, Priests. We can talent for 0.3sec faster Greater Heal / Heal.
How cool is that

*edit*
My post are all over the place

[nevermore]

The Holy tree is a bit disappointing to be fair...

Empowered Healing / Improved Healing: wasn't the whole point of the talent tree revamp to remove talents like these?
Surge of Light: I hope this still applies to Flash Heal and the current tooltip is just a placeholder.
Healing Prayers: again, what is this still doing here?
Choir Leader: still not worth my precious talent points

Also, for the first time in the history of Holy Priests I will no longer be able to reach Inner Focus.
I won't have a shorter cooldown on Prayer of Mending any more.
I can't reach Atonement, which seemed to be a fun talent. And Smite is more "Holy" than "Discipline" to be honest

Basically the whole Holy tree is just a massive filler as of now.

[Danner]

I'm gone for 10 days, and it's like the game was hit by some sort of cataclysm. 31 talent points, massive talent changes. I was sort of expecting this to happen though. I'm just not quite sure blizzard got it quite right.

First impressions (healer centric):
Either the numbers of the talents haven't been updated properly, or a talent will be a whole lot less worth in cataclysm. Most 15% healing boost talents are now 10% when maxed out. But apart from the reduced throughput granted by talents, Divine Fury is probably the talent change that will affect healing priests the most if it is kept as-is: a 2.7 second greater heal will really not be that much different from a 3.0 second greater heal. This will massively affect smite though...

Opinion about the new Discipline:
The disc tree, as always, has a lot of unique fun utility in it, and they kept most of the cool toys. The downside is that it is virtually devoid of passive healing bonuses. I don't see that as a major downside, obviously discpriests have to be able to keep up with the other healers in PVE. Currently it doesn't really look like it will though; but probably this means that there will be some sort of passive lvl10 bonus kicking in granting extra intellect or something?

While levelling, Penance will be an EXCELLENT multipurpose tool that I thoroughly applaud for giving to discpriests at lvl 10. Great job on that one!

Opinion about the new Holy:
The holytree is the opposite of disc, really. Lots of passive bonuses, almost no "fun". The major difference seems to be that the passives are rather minor this time around, and usually only affecting one heal at a time. The only spell actually being affected notably by going deep holy is renew. And even that will pack less of a punch than on live. I don't think a shadowpriests will heal that much worse than a holypriests come cataclysm, maybe except for the sustainability. And that kinda makes me wonder what the hell a holypriest really is spending talent points on.

As far as the lvl10 bonus spell goes: Desperate Prayer is a joke compared to the awesome that is Penance. I don't see any priests with their mind intact wanting to level as holy when they can level as disc. Unless holy is supposed to be the choice for sado-masochists, this seriously need to either change, or the cooldown and cost of DP need to be significantly reduced. But even at 15 seconds CD and 0 mana, I don't think it will be worth to give up penance for while levelling. Penance is a tool. DP is a situational ability.

-----

Suggestions for improvements:

- Empowered Healing is both weak and malplaced; you don't see much spellpower on gear until outland, and even if int now gives SP, it won't really affect a levelling healer to any notable degree. If this is the talent is supposed to be what makes priests single target viable healers, then additional work is surely needed.

- Atonement: I think a lot of holypriests were looking forward to be able to smite-heal dungeons as well. Given it's current position in the disctree, that is no longer possible, and as a holypriests I somewhat feel enough cheated out of fun abilities already.

- Improved Healing: As the previous poster said: Kill this talent already. In a world where every talent point is supposed to be precious, this one really really sucks - it's the epitome filler talent that nobody really wants.

- Lightwell: Blizzard removed the talent reducing the cooldown on prayer of mending, but kept this travesty? It's time to take this dog behind the barn and shotgun it to death repeatedly until it is reduced to a red pool of goo. Seriously. The Wesley Crusher of WoW must die.

- Spell Warding (removed): I miss it. We took SW it because the other talents - that now still remaining - were deemed less useful than a minor unnecessary increase in survivability.

- Divine Fury: I'm assuming that the new max rank 3 version gives -0.3 seconds cast time to <various spells> and that this is intended. While I can live with the extra cast time of Gheal, which from a wotlk perspective really is useless anyway. The loss of DPS on smite/holyfire is however quite severe. This will affect levelling healers, and holypriests in particular as we don't have penance to play with. I'm not sure it's a brilliant idea to lower smite dps even further.

- SoL / Improved Holy Nova: The new holypriest "fun thing to do" kinda looks fun to spam, but I'm seriously concerned about the mana consumption here.

[Vook]

-Seems posible a holy-shadow PvP/solo build.

Remember that you have to spend 31 points in one tree before moving on to another tree. You can't do something like 21/20 or 10/10/21.

Response: I was referring to the group-healing aspect of VE. The 3% group-healing is hardly stronger than a healing-stream totem. The self-healing component is of course, very powerful.

Improved Vampiric Embrace did not increase the group-healing part of VE. Remember the tooltip? "Increases healing RECEIVED from VE", not "Increases healing DONE by VE". And it'd be even more overpowered if it was as strong as a healing stream totem. That's a lot of healing, you know?

[nobunga]

Improved Vampiric Embrace did not increase the group-healing part of VE. Remember the tooltip? "Increases healing RECEIVED from VE", not "Increases healing DONE by VE". And it'd be even more overpowered if it was as strong as a healing stream totem. That's a lot of healing, you know?

Arguing semantics is just that: Arguing semantics. Anyone who's played this game for more than a week or so knows that you better don't take the tooltips too literally. Improved Vampiric Embrace also affects the group healing component of VE. Sorry, you just don't understand the mechanics behind VE. Maybe you should actually log your priest toon (if you got one) and check the combat log. Had you ever done that before you would have noticed that VE consists of two heals actually, and that the Priest is also healed by the 'group heal' component of VE, and that both heals are affected by Imp. VE.

[Danner]

Keep in mind that ALL the slow heals (Greater Heal, Healing Touch, Healing Wave, Holy Light etc) have had their cast-time reducing talents removed.
Except for us, Priests. We can talent for 0.3sec faster Greater Heal / Heal.
How cool is that

This is actually true. Thanks for the heads up.

Priest:
Fheal: 1.5 sec
Heal: 3 sec cast - 0.3 sec = 2.7 sec
Greater Heal: 3 sec cast - 0.3 sec = 2.7 sec

Shaman:
Lesser Healing Wave: 1.5 sec
Healing Wave/Nourish: 3 sec
Greater Healing Wave: 3.5 sec

Druids / Paladins are still messy to look at

[Mandible]

Abit disappointed with the first outcast - in short there are way too many points for talents that you "need" for disc to have any significant amount of points left once you are done for holy (way too many 3 point talents).

Compare to fx. Warriors fury tree - you can make a different dps specs using all the needed dps talents and still have a few points left to spend on random stuff.