War-Crafting

Game mechanics, add-ons, play styles, guides, explanations and how-to’s.

Serenity and Renew Buffs

by

You might have noticed that within this recent ~20 GB beta patch that Renew and Serenity gained some buffs.

  • Chakra: Serenity healing increased by 70%
  • Rapid Renewal (New): Your Renew heals for an additional 15%, instantly heals the target for 15% of the total periodic effect, and has a 0 second reduced global cooldown.

But what you might not know is that being in Serenity increases Renew by an additional 15%. A minor update was given to Serenity so that the single target healing buff (from spells like Flash Heal and Greater Heal) now applies to Renew. This component of Serenity is effective as of the current build as it apparently wasn’t in place before. I didn’t notice until it was pointed out to me by @KelestiMMO. Thanks!

Health restored

Discipline Holy Holy (Serenity)

5230

7998

9199
Speaking of Serenity, it got mad buffed. Hits super hard now (From 7900 + 76.2% spell power to 13400 + 130% spellpower).

Discipline: The Cooldown Spec

by

Flipping through the various Priest spells in anticipation of MoP, I noticed something about the cooldowns. Discipline has a little more than Holy. Anyone else thinking it’s starting to look a little cooldown heavy?

Both specs

Holy

Discipline

The cooldown on Spirit Shell’s a minute long. DIscipline’s playstyle feels a little different now. I’d feel a little better if Spirit Shell could be switched to a stance akin to Chakra. You could toggle Spirit Shell on and off between healing and absorbs instead.

But I digress.

The main point I wanted to go with is that it feels like we’re starting to juggle a rather high amount of cooldowns now. The game isn’t quite as simple as it was before. Cooldown bloat? Seems like it’s getting there to me. Here’s what the required cooldowns for healers should be (at minimum):

  • A tank save
  • A raid save
  • A mana replenishing save
  • A class specific save

Those are all should be what’s needed. Every healer has something to help protect the tank and the entire raid with. They get an ability to help restore mana (either to themselves or to the raid). Lastly, they get one other cooldown that’s unique to their class (Lightwell, Rebirth, etc). With Discipline, you get one that makes your next spell free. You have another one that increases your healing done and gives back mana. Power Infusion would’ve belonged onto that list if it wasn’t made available to all specs.

Hope they don’t add too many more in the future.

Going to try to heal more instances and such as Discipline though. Really want to try to master that class. But I need to relearn when to use which abilities when (truest of Spirit Shell).

EDIT: I didn’t list any of the CDs accessible via talents. (Power Infusion, Cascade, etc)

Updated Tier 3 Priest Talents – Power Word: Solace

by

A big beta update today with changes to classes. Priests received some extra love in the tier 3 section of talents. The tier 3 row consists of abilities that help restore mana.

Archangel has been removed from the talent system and has been folded into Discipline only, so no worries for Disc Priests there.

From Darkness, Comes Light received no changes.

Mindbender

Mindbender receives a slight change to the mana return and cooldown.

Old

Cooldown: 3 minutes
Mana: 4% whenever Mindbender attacks

New

Cooldown: 1 minute
Mana: 1% whenever Mindbender attacks

When I used it on beta, it returned ~40080 mana. Each swing from Mindbender returned 4008 (10 swings). I like the cooldown change the most. Even though we don’t get as mana whenever we use it, the shorter cooldown helps offset that. On an 8 minute encounter, you could use Mindbender 3 times:

0:00
3:00
6:00

But since you can use every minute, you’ll be able to take advantage of it more often. Shadowpriests are going to love it since they’ll get more opportunities to line up their cooldowns in conjunction with it.

Power Word: Solace

This is the new talent replacing Archangel.

Power Word: Solace
Level 90

40 yd range
1.5 sec cast

Strike an enemy with the power of the heavens, dealing 1978 to 2219 (+ 40% of SpellPower) Holy damage and restoring 2% maximum mana.

The damage from that spell is peanuts. You’re not going to be using this spell for DPS, that’s for sure. Reminds me of Telluric Currents. I’d switch to Power Word: Solace if I run into encounters with periods of there being little to no healing being needed. Gives me time to go all out with intense healing before switching to Solace to help restore my mana back.

Apparently, Shadow has a version:

Mind Siphon
Level 90

30 yd range
1.5 sec cast

Call upon the shadows to siphon energy from an enemy, dealing 1978 to 2219 (+ 40% of SpellPower) Shadow damage and restoring 2% maximum mana.

Which is weird because the in game talents say that if you switch to Shadow form, Power Word: Solace actually turns into this:

Shadow Word: Insanity
Level 90

15.0% of base mana
40 yd range

Instant

Blasts the target for 664 to 700 (+ 65% of SpellPower) Shadowfrost damage, and causes your shadow damage-over-time spells to erupt, dealing up to 100% additional damage per damage-over-time spell on the target but removing them in the process.

So I’m not sure what the final word on it is, but I don’t think Shadow needs a mana regeneration spell with the other tools they have available (Shadowfiend, Dispersion, Hymn of Hope). I’m more inclined to think Shadow Word: Insanity is Shadow’s answer to the loss of access to Evangelism and Archangel.

Priest Talent: Divine Star

by

We looked at Halo the other day and here’s the other level 90 talent: Divine Star. If you play League of Legends, you’ll notice it’s eerily similar to one of Ahri’s abilities. The Priest shoots out a glowing ball which returns after a short distance. Whenever it passes through someone, it heals or injures them depending.

I haven’t noticed an AoE healing cap on the spell. But then again, I haven’t been able to use it in a raid environment or anything. Still, it’s a way cool spell. Can’t wait to put it through it’s paces.

Pointers

  • This spell connects twice. Make sure you’re close enough to your targets so that Divine Star double-hits. It appears as if only one heal is applied if the target is at the peak of Divine Star (Need to confirm).
  • Divine Star will always follow you on its return path. Work on your movement and strafing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMcb5n6lLdM

Level 90 Spell: Halo

by

At level 90, you gain access to Beyonce-inspired spell, Halo.

It’s an AoE healing (or DPS) type spell depending on your spec. The healing scales depending on the distance between you and the rest of your targets. The biggest impact occurs to players that are 25 yards away. That’s going to be a little tricky for you to eyeball. Would be nice if AVR was still around so that you had a HuD telling you how far exactly 25 yards away was.

Halo isn’t a spell that’s targetable. It uses you as the main point before emanating outward.

You can see it in action below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp10FrESsGE