[Priest] Ask a Beta Tester! MoP edition

[Naga Coatl]

I doubt so, but even if it's true, I think that it would be a horrible cosmetic change. If I imagine those levitating-static priest apparition moving to a target...

...So static... and... Static...

...

...It would be painfully ridiculous, imho.

[Theed]

Glyph of Vampiric Touch

[Unholypriest]

Theed do you make a new Video with the new Spells / Glyphs?

[Kaesebrezen]

How does the current tree look now? (Are cascade, halo and DS the lvl 90 talents?)

[Theed]

I am at work.. but i have lunch break soon. I will try to get you screenshots.

[Unholypriest]

I am at work.. but i have lunch break soon. I will try to get you screenshots.

Thanks, Sir!

[Deleted]

Cascade and Halo are the new lvl 90 talents so no screenshots or movies to come out soon I think.
AA still doesn´t work for shadows due to having no evangelism to activate it and feedback / ticket function in beta is still off yeah blizz ....

[Theed]

New shadow glyphs are not available yet.

[Deleted]

So we still have 1 missing talent and Vow of Unity disappeared?

[Danner]

Halo:

Imagine AssCreed, when Ezio gets a hold of the apple of eden. This is how I envision that spell. A pretty neat idea for a spell, really. All it really needs is a disorient effect glyph to make it a carbon copy

Obvious problem #1: Holy damage. What about shadowpriests? We may get a dark halo to redeem that issue. *crossing fingers*
Obvious problem #2: If you thought Psychic scream was useless in dungeons or raids, try fitting in a 30yd AoE without ninjapulling.
Obvious problem #3: As this is to be a choice against divine star, it needs to do virtually no damage at melee range. Making it quite situational. The damage at 25 yds looks good, but not many mobs stay at range for long. Priests are tanks by nature after all. So that sort of leaves this as an opener unless you have a tank...
Obvious problem #4: That manacost is 3x as large as it should be! Did someone balance priest spell costs against other casters spell costs?

Divine Star:

We already discussed the yoyo. I kinda like the idea, and it's certainly novel. But I think I speak for everyone when I say it needs a bounce glyph to have it a chance to bounce back AGAIN after returning based on some criteria. Priests could be the new Zon'ozz!

Obvious problem #1: Holy damage. Dark star, is it happening?
Obvious problem #2: Easily dodged? Not a problem in PVE, but probably in PVP. Alternatively, it moves so fast that the fact that it hits twice is just cosmetic.

Cascade
This spell I like. It's sort of a smart targetting spell, but with a very neat twist. It's selecting the furthest away target rather than the most hurt one. As far as AoE damage spells go, this is somewhat unique. The spell doesn't say, but I assume each target will receive diminishing returns in terms of healing / damage. The big thing about this spell is that it hits so many targets, making it quite on par with the other two spells, without requiring stacking (Divine Star) or required priest-in-the-center (Halo). 1+2+4+8 smart targets is quite decent. Oh. and it's instant!

Obvious problem #1: Holy damage. Dark cascade?
Obvious problem #2: Hard to limit in PVE. I could easily envision hitting a mob inside an AoE pack, and pulling the entire room due to the "pick furthest target" clause.
Obvious problem #3: Manacost may be a bit much. it's not THAT much better than Divine Star, even though it has a heavy burst potential on the initial target. One of these two are "off" I'd say.

---------------

Overall impressions:

I like the new lvl 90 tier. It's got some damage, some healing and (assuming we get dark versions of the talents) it should be useful for everyone. It's got a theme (holy damage/healing on cooldowns), a purpose (aoe burst when you need it) and is filled with new spells roughly doing the same thing, although in very different ways. All three spells should offer a very nice burst option for healing at least! Imagine healing Chimaeron with either of these!

Mostly, I'm worried about complexity vs rewards. These spells have cast times (two of them at least), setup costs in terms of positioning, heavy mana costs (at least two of them), cooldowns (probably to not invalidate mind sear)... all to validate their high burst. But I fear they will at the end of the day not really do a whole lot of damage or healing. Numbers can and will be tweaked, and historically, that has always meant for priests one thing: very low damage on our aoe spells. Case in point: Holy Nova and Mind Sear.

[Deleted]

Cascade is just prayer oof mending which can deal dmg -> if you use it as dmg spell continuos bounces are automaticly dmg or can jump to ally and heal?

Halo is holy nova vs.2...with big mana cost and bad targeting...there is also prolbem with ninja pulling or breaking CCs as Danner said

i don't know why all spells have to be as dmg to enemy/healing to ally...if they make it different for shadow (deal shadow dmg) and healing for disc/holy i'll be happy

[Lothrik]

Nobody is going to pick Divine Star or Halo over Cascade. Healing would be very interesting if we had all three, having to choose just one is boring.

Halo and Divine Star will both require specific positioning to be worth the mana, while Cascade would be used on cooldown regardless of positioning.

I expect Cascade to be nerfed into the ground if they keep the talent tiers as-is.

Cascade is the only talent here that actually brings something useful to the table that healers (Priests in particular) want: A decent way to heal people that don't stack up. Divine Star in that situation is just as bad as Prayer of Healing a single target, and Halo has too long of a cooldown to be relied on.

Good ideas, weak execution. If these were core class spells instead of talents I would be praising them instead of complaining.

[Fenixdown]

Cascade is most definitely not just "ProM that can do damage". Each time it bounces, it splits, thus duplicating it's effect. Now, granted, the wording on this is a little fuzzy, but I am guessing this means each split then splits when bouncing.

This means upon four bounces, at it's maximum, it will have dealt damage to or healed a maximum of 31 targets. Now, obviously given the text stating it cannot hit the same target twice, this means that this is a full on raid healing spell, but not likely much of a damage ability.

The question THEN is this. Can it do both affects simultaneously? If that is the case, then this means you can gain it's full effect on both it's damage AND it's healing ends, which on add boss encounters (like heroic Yor'sahj) can make it extremely beneficial.

I also think the lack of something shadowy is strange in the 90 point talents. Divine Star seems the obvious choice since it does "Divine" (whatever that is) damage. Perhaps it will still gain benefit from shadow's skills? It is hard to say.

I think the reason they are giving healers more damage/healing abilities is because of monk's design. I think they want healers to be able to contribute more to DPS than they currently do, unless they are specced into those types of roles (such as AA or shamans with the lightning bolt talent).

Penance added to Atonement is also fantastic.

[Danner]

AtomicKiller:

From what I understand, Cascade will hit all targets at once.
It kinda works like chain lightning or chain heal, bouncing on several unique targets per cast. The main difference is that it actually jumps onto two new targets after each bounce, sort of creating a forked lightning effect.

It's a instant cast, that will instantly heal 1+2+4+8 (+16 ?) targets in range. But it can only hit one target once, so you will likely run out of targets before you get to that point.
Or hurt 1+2+4+8 (+16 ?) targets instantly. The talent obviously need more work, and noone can test it as you can only get to lvl 86 in the beta right now.
But imo, this looks excellent as an AoE healing cooldown to pull the entire raid up from low HP.

Comparing Cascade and Halo, halo will hit for more, on everyone in a large range. Cascade will likely burst for more on the initial target, and less on the latter bounce targets. Divine star will likely beat both in thoughput, but only really be effective when everyone is stacked.

--

Is either ability excellent for AoE damage? Jury is still out on that one. I'm not sure this is going to be a major thing to look forward to for damage dealers. You hit lvl 90, and suddently you have a spell that's decent in some scenarios that don't happen often... While hitting 300k AoE DPS is cool and all, it isn't actually giving you an edge that's worth something.

There is no doubt that Halo hitting all enemies in range for 70k damage pretty godlike (will be nerfed massively, for sure!), but its use is really limited to scenarios where there are a lot of enemies, you don't risk pulling adds, and don't risk breaking CC. At the end of the day, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with another case of Holy Nova due to the damage being tweaked to hell.

I just fear we'll end up with: "Everyone! Stand back! I will now channel Halo, dealing 683 damage to everything in range!"

[Theed]

Shadowpriest mana is an real issue right now on beta. Really. I just ran a dungeon and 80% of the time i was oom. (Yes, I used Shadowfiend and Dispersion on Cooldown).

[Yvaelle]

Shadowpriest mana is an real issue right now on beta. Really. I just ran a dungeon and 80% of the time i was oom. (Yes, I used Shadowfiend and Dispersion on Cooldown).

Is it just that the spells are too expensive still, or that other classes have better mana returns built into their specs?

[FieryBull]

About the glyph of shadow apparitions. Keep in mind it's a beta and it's probably easier to test it that way then bake it into the core ability right away. It doesn't mean it's going to stay as a glyph at all.

[Deleted]

I know this is pretty trivial but can anyone tell me if they have changed he animation to speedshields? I saw a video of a paladin using a sprint ability and it looked like a giant prayer of mending chancing him. was just wondering if they changed out sprint (body and soul) to the same thing.

[Nindza93]

My suggestion would be that priests get with PvP 4piece set bonus, instead of the rubbish one which reduces the cast time of mind spike and mind blast by 5%, being able to mind flay while moving. It would be the least OP thing then an actual slow, but still much better than what we have now...
Your thoughts on this?

[Prod]

Just how far is 30 yds really (like in regards to boss encounters and usual distances between trash packs)? People keep on worrying about Halo pulling the next trash pack over. But, most spells are in the 30-40 yd range and whenever I cast from max range, it doesn't feel like my target is yonder over there. For comparison, it's double Atonement range.

One more obvious question about Halo and Cascade: Wonder how much exactly does distance play into it? Hopefully hitting something at point blank still has an effect. Another thing, seeing as Halo's max effectiveness reaches 25 yds out of the total 30, I hope there's also a minimum effectiveness of 10 yds or something (as in hitting something at point blank is as strong as hitting something 10 yds away). This would help with raid stacking situations.