Welcome to patch 5.0.x! You’ll have a few weeks to get yourself acclimated for the great levelling push in under a month. Whether you plan to dungeon grind or quest your way to 85, it doesn’t hurt to refresh your skills.
Priest changes and additions
- Fixed mana pools! We’re now down to 100k mana at level 85. For reference, Circle of Healing costs 3200 mana, Flash Heal costs 5900 mana, and Renew costs 2600 mana. Some reforging may be needed for regen purposes. We’ll have 300000 at level 90.
- Our ranged slot is gone! But, we can now use Wands in our main hand. So if you happen to have a heroic Wand but haven’t been able to get a heroic main hand or staff, congratulations! Wand stats have been buffed to account for this.
- Divine Hymn is no longer available to Shadow Priests or Discipline Priests.
- Dispel has an 8 second cooldown. Mass Dispel has a 15 second cooldown. Fights like Spine of Deathwing have been compensated accordingly.
- Chakra spells can be used directly. You don’t have to follow it up with a trigger. Remember to bind both Chakra: Sanctuary and Chakra: Serenity.
- New Discipline spell: Spirit Shell
- Inner Fire increases spell power by 10% instead of a static value.
- Power Word: Fortitude increases Stamina by 10% instead of a static value.
- Evangelism built in to both Discipline and Holy. However, only Discipline can activate Archangel.
Playing styles
Holy
Holy users, you’ll just need to get accustomed to Chakra and stance switching. Nothing else has really changed dramatically. If you’ve been a Holy player before, congratulations! There isn’t much to learn. Lightwell now has the option to be made more “user friendly” via Glyph of Lightspring.
I do have one request though.
Blizzard, is it possible to add a visual distinction between Lightwells that can be clicked versus Lightwells that can’t? Maybe make Lightspring blueish instead.
Discipline
With Archangel and Evangelism available all the time (as in, not needing a talent), those of you who are familiar with keeping Archangel stacks active during heated moments will be in good shape. Sadly, Glyph of Power Word: Barrier is gone. Spirit Shell is a new ability which turns Heal, Greater Heal, and Prayer of Healing into absorption shield generators.
About Spirit Shell
- Will scale with your crit chance
- Scales with Mastery: Shield Discipline
- Scales with Grace
- Unaffected by Archangel
- Unaffected by Inner Focus
- Maximum ceiling of ~60% of target health (Tried with different gear combinations, but needs additional verification)
General changes
- AoE looting. By far the best change of the patch.
- Battletags. No more having to hand out email addresses anymore. Why couldn’t they have just started with this in the first place?
Recommended glyphs
For raiding
Prime glyphs have been taken out. But there’s lots of glyph selections now. Take your pick!
- Circle of Healing (Holy): Make sure your regen is high enough to account for the increased cost.
- Power Word: Shield (Any)
- Prayer of Mending (Holy/Discipline)
- Lightspring (Holy)
- Lightwell (Holy)
- Fade (Any)
- Renew (Any)
Talent notes
Tier 1: Level 15 (Crowd control)
- Void Tendrils: If you need to CC anything in raids, I suggest using this.
- Psyfiend
- Dominate Mind
Tier 2: Level 30 (Movement)
- Body and Soul: If you’re one of the few Priests in raid, great! Suggest using this for pickup raids like the raid finder.
- Angelic Feather: Anyone who runs over this will gain the speed benefit. If you need additional precision when it comes to targeting, opt for Body and Soul instead. In practice, I’ve seen cases where the wrong person makes up a feather or someone just strolls near it without realizing it.
- Phantasm: Probably best for PvP. Though there are a few raid encounters which have slowing effects.
Tier 3: Level 45 (Mana)
- From Darkness, Comes Light
- Mindbender: The problem with Mindbender is that I keep forgetting to use it off cooldown. Set up an aura so that it automatically reminds you when it’s available.
- Power Word: Solace: Useful for encounters where there’s idle time.
Tier 4: Level 60 (Defensive)
- Desperate Prayer: This spell has served me perfectly in previous expansions and it’ll continue to do the same. When you get access to Void Shift at level 87, what I like to do is Void Shift a tank who has low health and then immediately use Desperate Prayer to restore health from the inherited pool I took from the tank.
- Spectral Guise: Best for PvP.
- Angelic Bulwark: Neat for not having to worry about your own survivability as much. Think of it as a safety net.
Tier 5: Level 75 (Extra power)
- Twist of Fate: Don’t underestimate this. An additional 15% healing for 10 seconds if you heal someone below 20%? In a raid environment, it’s possible to keep this buff up for long stretches at a time. Heck, Circle of Healing alone should help maintain it on most bosses.
- Power Infusion: Available only to the casting Priest.
- Divine Insight
Tier 6: Level 90 (AoE)
- Cascade: Loving Cascade for raid play.
- Divine Star: Best used if the majority of the raid group is stacked together.
- Halo: Do not use this in dungeons. The potential to unintentionally pull mobs is high (personal experience).
Less than a month to go before panda-monium hits! You’ll be ready and supporting your guild in no time!
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