Penance

[Keelie]

I'm a bit underwhelmed by Penance. However, Improved Healing knocks off 15% of the mana cost. I also assume it's meant to quickly proc all 3 stacks of Grace, reducing damage done to the target by 6% and increasing healing done by 6%. With Aspiration, you can keep Grace proc'd constantly. Like Arcane Missiles, supposedly this can crit on each missile, allowing it to proc Divine Aegis. I've also heard that it's going to be made an instant cast, which would transform it into a HoT, taking away it's ability to proc crit-based talents, though making it more useful, all-around. It's about 2k healing or 500 damage, assuming 1000 spell power with a .43 coeff, I'd guess it heals for about 3k and does about 1000 damage?

Anyhow, can anyone comment or otherwise enlighten me on how Penance stacks up in the beta right now?

[Kam]

its rubbish. GH is better. Penance can proc divine aegis more frequently but GH will proc less frequently but bigger (which I think is more important), Penance costs too much mana, has a cooldown, and does no decent damage at twice the cost of smite. It is channeled too for extra fail, plus cannot be cast on yourself.

oh and it is not going to be made instant cast, that is just people getting confused over poorly datamined information.

[lifelessdruid]

Penance has the potential to be a great spell - stacks grace fast, can put up divine ageis more reliably (which, if speced for it, will return 25% of the damage absorbed as mana to you) and, unless I'm mistaken, new divine ageis do not cancel eachother out - rather they add the remaining protection and refresh the duration, which is good (say if all 3 crit, or something)
Now thats potential - the mana cost is, in theorycraft, stupidly high and it does draw a direct line back to you, making it suck more in pvp situations. I hope they fix it by the time everything goes live - otherwise I think we will see alot of people taking spirit of redemtion over this.
maybe it's good, maybe not. it has potential.