Upcoming priest changes discussed

[Avesther]

1. "Binding Heal": The mana cost has been reduced by 32%. The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate it is a low threat spell, which was already the case.
   
   Buff. It should've been this way to begin with. Now it costs just over 700 mana to cast, which is far less then 2 flash heals. This spell is a staple in Arena's where you can heal yourself plus another party member at the same time. It also allows you to heal a tank in an instance after you've taken a hit or two with out initiating an addition global cooldown or another 5 second rule violation>.
2. "Circle of Healing" (Holy) effect increased.
   
   Buff? On the test servers I think I saw a 50 hp per target increase. But then, I have more +healing now then I did when I first did some tests with this spell. Without more info, this buff is simply a carrot that they are hanging out in hopes to get more priests out of Divine Spirit and Improved Divine Spirit. Seriously, to get me out of DS\Imp DS, CoH needs to be free and heal for 2k per target. Again, this spell is better off in PvP and arenas. Heal everbody in a 15 yard radius for 750 health. The radius itself is to small.
3. "Empowered Healing" and "Holy Concentration" now affect "Binding Heal".
   
   Fix more then a buff. Binding heal should've been receiving benefits from empowered healing and Holy Concentration. Our other two direct heals do.
4. Focused Power (Discipline) now also increases the chance to hit with Mass Dispel, reduces the cast time of Mass Dispel but no longer increases the damage against feared targets.
   
   Focused power talent in its current form should've seen who ever came up with that idea FIRED from Blizzard on the spot, no questions asked. For those who don't know, its current form basically increased the chance to hit feared target and increases the damage done to feared targets. Given all the fear breaking mechanisms employed in PvP, you could never hope to get a spell off in time. And to make matters worse, given that our fear breaks on a sneeze, why would we want to do any damage to cause it to break?
   
   The reduced cast time of mass dispell is beneficial. Its current 1.5 seconds is long. But the talent itself is too deep in the discipline tree to be of any use to a priest looking to take advantage of survivability talents in the holy tree.
5. "Holy Fire": The rank 9 tooltip has been corrected to indicate it does Holy damage.
   
   Fix. Seriously, Blizzard needs to hire some quality control people to look over this stuff.
6. "Holy Nova": Rank 2 will no longer receive double the intended increase in range from "Holy Reach".
   
   Fix, a negative fix none-the-less.
7. "Mind control" no longer has a 100 yard range limitation in instances.
   
   Buff. Under its current limitation, we can't used a mind controlled mob to fight the next pack. And Mind control in reality is one of those crowd control measure priests have that actually do more to control a priest then the enemy.
8. "Pain Suppression" now reduces damage taken by 65% and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 65% for the duration.
   
   Buff. Having a 41 point talent that lets the opposition know that a priest needs a dispell right now is just bad planning. The amount of damage reduction has gone up by a whole 5% (that means the average rogue will see a 100 damage drop against a priest with this buff up. The 65% chance to resist dispell and purge is not enough. Straight up it should be immune to dispell and purge and only be dispellable by mass dispell. Its not like a priest is immune to damage, casting interupts or stuns and disorients during this time.
9. "Power Word: Shield": The "Weakened Soul" effect will no longer sometimes be re-applied while zoning with this buff on.
   
   Fix.
10. "Prayer of Fortitude": The range on rank 3 has been changed to match all other ranks of this spell.
    
    Fix.
11. "Prayer of Fortitude", ranks 1 and 2, are now available on trainers.
    
    Fix.
12. "Prayer of Mending": This spell is now affected by "Silent Resolve", "Amplify Magic", and "Dampen Magic".
    
    Buff and nerf at the same time. Prayer of Mending attributes the hate to the person off whom it procs, it doesn't come back to the priest unless it procs off the priest. Why should my threat reduction talent affect its threat generation on somebody else? It being affected by Amplify Magic and Dampen magic is a buff, but more of a fix. Prayer of mending is a magic buff, it is logical that these other buffs\debuffs affect it.
13. "Prayer of Shadow Protection", rank 1, is now available on trainers.
    
    Fix.
14. "Reflective Shield": When this effect is triggered, the priest will no longer be forced to stand up.
    
    Fix.
15. "Shadowfiend": This pet will now come into the game with full health and mana, including that gained from a percentage of its master's stamina and intellect.
    
    Fix. But Shadowfiend needs alot more fixing.
16. "Shadow Weaving" (Shadow): Effect reduced by 1% per rank.
    
    Nerf, stupid nerf. Considering shadow weaving affects all shadow damage done on the target, it benefited warlocks and holy priests dotting mobs. This is just a stupid nerf bring shadow priest damage back down to pre-1.10 levels.
17. "Shadow Word: Death": Cooldown increased to 12 sec.
    
    Nerf, stupid nerf. SW is an instant direct damage cast on a 6 second cooldown. It does alot of damage and it returns that damage back to the priest. The trade offs on this spell were balanced, now they are not. Remove the damage returned to the priest aspect of SW and it will be fine with a 12 second cooldown.
18. "Silent Resolve": Some priest spells were unaffected by this talent. They should now all be affected.
    
    Fix. But again, somebody at Blizzard should be fired for letting these little QC items go through.
19. "Spirit of Redemption" and "Spiritual Guidance" now work while the priest is in "Shadowform".
    
    Fix.
20. "Spirit Tap": This ability will no longer be triggered by killing some creature-cast totems.
    
    Fix.
21. "Surge of Light": "Smite" spells triggered by this talent will no longer sometimes critically strike. In addition, the free "Smite" granted will not consume the effect of "Inner Focus". "Holy Nova" heals can now trigger "Surge of Light" as well.
    
    Fix, negative again, but only a fix not a nerf.
22. "Symbol of Hope": amount of mana regained increased.
    
    Buff. (Not a general preist buff, only one class is affected)
23. "Touch of Weakness": This spell can now activate "Surge of Light".
    
    Buff. (Not a general preist buff, only one class is affected)
    
    If they are going to buff two of the racial talents, they should buff them all.
24. "Vampiric Touch": This spell now consumes the "Inner Focus buff".
    
    Fix.

 

[Avesther]

Stealth buff on Binding heal?

In addition to being cheaper to cast than two flash heals, generating noticeably less threat, Binding Heal will now also be fully uninterruptible with the first Hallowed Raiment set bonus and talents in focused healing.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=94941257&pageNo=1&sid=1#19

 

[Que Pasa]

I wouldn't mind having circle of healing being worthwhile to spec into.

 

[Avesther]

I do have CoH and it is more powerful then most people give it credit. I'm more and more pleasantly suprised by it. I spammed it during the Maiden of Virtue on the DPS in the concecration and it really made the concecration DPS a non-issue. I also used in WSG on my group in the flag room, and it is amazing at keeping 3 people up both defending and picking up the flag. I use alot when fleeing from any 1v1 pvp encounter (I seriously can't kill anbody right now in PvP until I start getting real pvp gear). Last night (Saturday night) I died a total of 7 times in 2.5 hours of WSG. It's great for keeping the flag carry up while on the run. I dare imagine what this talent would be like with blessed recovery and in the arena's.

Anyway, I'm happy with the skill, its worth getting. Not happy with Lightwell, but thats a different story altogether.

 

[Fritz The Grand]

So have you decided that it is better than Divine Spirit and Improved Divine Spirit?

 

[Avesther]

To say Divine Spirit\Imp DS is better (or worse) then CoH is like saying Shadow Power is better (or worse) then Mental agility. I prefer looking at viability. Is CoH a viable or wasted talent. From the last week of using it, I'm seeing it more and more as a viable talent.

DS \ Imp DS is a viable talent set, and very usefull. Is it worth giving up for CoH. Thats personal opinion and probably a gear thing.

What you get for DS at level 70:
50 spirit
31 mana per 5 outside FSR trap
5 mana per 5 inside FSR trap

Imp DS at level 70 gives you (with spiritual guidance / without)
upto +17.5 / +5 healing (plus pre DS buff spirit)
upto +17.5 / +5 damage (plus pre DS buff spirit)

Imp DS at level 70 gives the raid upto +10% of spirit as +healing\damage with +5 healing\damage being minimum


CoH gives you a 400 mana, instant cast heal (only GCD affects it) for 750ish that affects everybody in a party within upto 18 yards of your target. Each heal by crit (procing inspiration), each member healed has a chance to proc any trinket that works of spell casts, so each cast has 5 hits that can proc items. Its castable on any party, including parties not in your raid.

Lightwell is very situational, and I'm finding situations all the time to use it. But its best used personally most times. I used it during the curator fight to heal myself from the damage done by the sparks, whatever they are called. Take some damage, and when it was away from me, click on light well for 2500 healing that I already dumped Mana on before the fight. I got to heal myself for about 10k (5 x 2500), saved myself over 4.5k mana (900 mana x 5) because I spent the mana before the fight and regened it back with a quick drink. Basically, 10k healing for free.