Build 15882 Priest changes

[Deleted]

So, after having almost no info, feedback or mention on official forums what so ever we get a couple changes next build:

Divine Insight is getting nerfed 3 times, down to 5% from 15% - kinda expected, it was way better than any talents that tier;
From Darkness, Comes Light now also does 20% extra damage, also expected, seeing it was the weakest of 3, tho not sure if it's still any good;
Shadow Word: Insanity is getting a 25% nerf, which is kinda strange, given that it was still inferior in terms of DPS to the Mindbender;
Power Word: Solace is being brought in line with shaman LB regeneration;

Mastery is getting buffed, probably will still stay lowest priority stat tho, but needs to be tested;
Crit is brought up a bit by making apparitions spawn every DoT crit instead of on tic chance, but they also got an almost 50% dmg nerf (can they hit any less at this point?);

And now the interesting one: Mind sear is getting a 30% nerf. Honestly (and this was only tested in 5 mans) was was feeling that our AoE was in a good place. Yes, it was boring as fuck, but at least competitive. I was just behind a ele shammy spamming CLs, but apparently we're not supposed to be competitive with other classes.

So... Thoughts? Deffinately looking forward to seeing in on the servers and actually testing the new stats. Also just gonna try and be smartass and predict that best DPS will be Mindpender+PI.

[FairLadyz]

Anytime I think of Mind Sear I remember when it was first put in game and so OP that even as a Holy Priest I was top damage whenever there was AoE. What a baddie, spamming MS instead of healing..... =(

[Kaesebrezen]

So... Thoughts?

1) DI is a VERY bad talent now. Yes, it was too strong before. Yes, it may be in place now. But a 5% procrate on one single spell is just horrible boring. 5% is nothing. That's about 1 proc per minute.

2) FDCL gets buffed to put it's coefficient at ~150%, SW:I is nerfed to 190%. What must not be forgotten is that you still loose one full SW:P tick. Honestly, i'd even expect a Mindbender damage nerf hidden in there.

3) ShA. Assuming a 20% critrate, you will get roughly the same amount of apparitions, but they'll hit for nothing. Once again pretty unnoticeable. They could just make them proc on each SW:P tick as an visual upgrade with no damage. Would at least look cool.

4) Mastery. Was a required change. Good thing it happened, and with the buff to FDCL it will probably make it a lot better than SW:I, and if Mindbender is nerfed, it will be a lot better than him too.

5) Assuming a Mindbender nerf, he'll probably hit like a wet noodle now... Fun. -.-

[Gamdwelf]

Yes lvl 90 talents can hit now!

[Kelesti]

Power Word: Solace is being brought in line with shaman LB regeneration;

Lightning Bolt costs mana, Telluric Currents is designed not as a regen ability but "free Lightning Bolts". Currents is worth about 0.5% mana per cast, and is a lot slower than 1.5 seconds.

Waiting on a mana and damage nerf to Mindbender to go along with this.

[Yvaelle]

Initial thoughts (haven't mathed it out yet, but this gives me lots of new stuff to fix my thread with):

Divine Insight nerf is too strong, a 10% nerf would have likely balanced the DPS gains of these abilities.

From Darkness buff is perfect, it makes it more of a viable PvE choice without making it necessary.

Shadow Word: Insanity nerf is because it scaled too well in multi-dot scenarios, the problem now is that it won't be viable for anything outside of multi-dot scenarios where we know we can land like 3-4 Insanity targets the whole fight. Since no fight in the game would offer us that many Insanities per minute (and remember, it was very low priority even before the nerf, so now you really don't want to use it unless you have nothing else to do with your time).

Insanity should have been just changed to have a cooldown and an even higher damage value than before. For example, a 280% spellpower coefficient and a 15 second cooldown would mean we could only really use it as a single target spell - but would have a high enough damage value that it might be worthwhile (less that mindbender but in some cases more useful). Alternately I'd recommend something even bigger like giving it a 40 second or even 60 second cooldown, but giving it some real damage and/or a debuff (8 second 70% snare perhaps?

The mastery buff is a start, but it's still our weakest stat - I don't have to do the math to tell you that part. It should have been buffed to 16% if they wanted it to match crits pseudopower value. But given they buffed crits PP by tying Appariation rate to crit, they obviously weren't happy with us avoiding both crit and mastery as "useless" stats. That said, the "buff" to crits PP value by tying it to Appariation spawn rate would have almost had value if they didn't nerf the daylights out of Appariations, which were already mostly useless?

This logic escapes me. We will see crits PP value go up like 2% compared to int (because spawning appariations that do almost nothing isnt very valuable), and we'll see masteries PP value go up to 40% of int, but still be well below crit, and still "useless" compared to our real stats - hit / haste / spellpower / int.

The mind sear nerf is also confusing, considering AoE wasn't really a strength of ours in MoP before the nerf (it wasn't a weakness either, but given that some classes are Destroying Everything AoE - why nerf the middle of the pack? 30% is a colossal nerf too... I feel like I'm missing something, someone fill me in if so.

Edit: Also, I'm boggled by the changes they chose to make - I think we all expected a nerf to DP and a buff to VT/Pain, certainly the Divine Insight is a nerf to DP in a sense - but not really what we were expecting (DP is as strong as ever, just less common now). Also - compared to most other classes on the beta, I was kind of expecting general buffs, but all we got were nerfs. I guess they haven't looked at raid damage yet?

[Isheria]

Why would mindbender get nerfed? After these nerfs solace will give 4.5k mana per cast (assuming non-max mana meta) and mindbender gives 4088 per hit. If anything mindbender should be buffed to 1.5% or even more for the simple reason that you lose shadowfiend by taking it while with solace you obviously still keep shadowfiend and despite this nerf solace is still the better option so nothing changed pretty much.

[Deleted]

The only explenation to the Mindsear nerf I can come up with, is that due to the DI nerf most people will take PI and that combined with Mindsear may have been to strong but 30% is just way too much

[Yvaelle]

Why would mindbender get nerfed? After these nerfs solace will give 4.5k mana per cast (assuming non-max mana meta) and mindbender gives 4088 per hit. If anything mindbender should be buffed to 1.5% or even more for the simple reason that you lose shadowfiend by taking it while with solace you obviously still keep shadowfiend and despite this nerf solace is still the better option so nothing changed pretty much.

^ Solace / Sfiend is still definitely the better options for mana return than Mindbender. Don't nerf my octopus too! Her name is Julie, she dreams of being a dancer, she volunteers 45 seconds of every minute to feeding the homeless, her dog died a couple months ago and she's been hiding how hurt she is ever since. Don't be mean to Julie! ^^

[Kelesti]

The only explenation to the Mindsear nerf I can come up with, is that due to the DI nerf most people will take PI and that combined with Mindsear may have been to strong but 30% is just way too much

I can actually see Twist of Fate being good on add fights, being that it's a buff you take with you, not just on the adds but can transfer it onto additional boss damage. But maybe, with PI... yeah.

[mindp]

I guess they haven't looked at raid damage yet?

I really doubt it.

Honestly, minus the odd ball patch we see today (which doesn't mean much), I'm liking the direction shadow is going. Compared to what I was seeing in Cata Beta about this time, gross. Good grief.

[Kelesti]

^ Solace / Sfiend is still definitely the better options for mana return than Mindbender. Don't nerf my octopus too! Her name is Julie, she dreams of being a dancer, she volunteers 45 seconds of every minute to feeding the homeless, her dog died a couple months ago and she's been hiding how hurt she is ever since. Don't be mean to Julie! ^^

Poor Julie.

[Yvaelle]

Poor Julie.

Don't worry about Julie! They didn't nerf her, and she just got an audition to a dance troupe in London! Is it bad that some part of me secretly hopes she doesn't get the part and move to London? I'll miss her so! But, I want her to be happy - and I know it will make her happy. Fly Julie! Spread your tentacles and soar above even your dreams!


Edit: I literally just made Julie up at the start of this thread, and then just ran with the idea - I don't know why it's so fun to personify my octopus like this, but it's hilarious

[Deleted]

I'm speechless...
Everything so balanced and good blizzard really have some odd thoughts!

1st thing i lol'ed at was the ShA dmg nerf.. Oh god - they hit like a feather that falls to the floor.
2nd: Mind sear? Wtf - never ever saw that coming -.-
3rd: DI was too OP when multi-dotting, but nerfing it to 5% for single target is just ridiculous.. They should tweak it, to somehow reduce proc rate when put on more than 1/2 targets. Because right now it's useless.

4th: FDCL, i was like yey, but again - why buff that single talent and nerf every other spell

Blizzard is weird tbh. They keep overlooking things thay may have to get nerfed, but nerfs something less powerful already.
I don't get this anymore..

[Deleted]

Divine Insight is getting nerfed 3 times, down to 5% from 15% - kinda expected, it was way better than any talents that tier;

So sad, just hope 5% isn't to low to cause us to be either alright or absolutely crap single target.

[Highmoon7]

Divine Insight got nerfed to the ground. It went from being the best talent in the tier to the worst. Of course the extra mind blast is nice from shadow orbs, but I think they'll have to put it back to 10% to compete. Right now I'm thinking power infusion.

PW:I nerf was needed. 260% of SP on an instant cast was too strong.

Shadowy apparitions got a big nerf. Even if you get to 20% crit they now do about 1/3rd the damage. I don't see them doing much in PvP as Spriest spend more in haste, crit will be between 10-15%. This easily lowers their total damage in PvP to around 20% of their current out put.

[lwalker8]

This thread seems pretty negative for what will amount to a buff to shadow damage on beta right now ...

[Kelesti]

This thread seems pretty negative for what will amount to a buff to shadow damage on beta right now ...

Where do you see any of that at this point?

[Deleted]

This thread seems pretty negative for what will amount to a buff to shadow damage on beta right now ...

Yep were buffed, but other classes are even more buffed.
We were in such a nice spot and had potential - but it's destroyed once again now..

A nerf to DI and SW:I would have been okay (though DI shouldnt be nerfed to 5%)
That would mean balancing.
But blizz always fucks up with even more nerfs than needed and then compensating with a buff to our lowest hitting spell, with no intention of making us better.

Hope this is enough of an answer!

[Brusalk]

It's not a buff. They buffed our scaling with mastery/crit by a small amount while nerfing our orb generation, apparition damage, mind sear damage and Insanity damage. They slightly buffed FDCL, but compared to the amount of damage we just lost from orb generation alone, it's a nerf.

I don't understand why they nerfed Insanity. We can only use it by consuming a SWP that has 2 ticks left, so single target it's not used very often. Multi-dotting the same is true, but we get a fair amount of damage backloaded on the SWP by consuming them all with Insanity.


Also, SAs only proc off of SWP crits, not DoT crits, so Mind-Sear won't proc SAs like someone said previously.


I think the mastery/crit change was decent, but needs to go farther. The other nerfs I think were not the right way to do it. Insanity could've been buffed but put on a CD such that it can only be used really for single-target. Eliminates all those problems. The DI change is fine, if MBs CD benefitted from haste again.



/shrug

I don't really like this patch for us. I feel like a lot of it is going in the wrong direction.