Been meaning to do this for a while. Wanted to analyze all the new proposed talents for the different healing classes to see which ones I would choose if I played that healer.
Priest talents
Level 15: Nothing. All various CC effects. May as well go with the bread and butter Psychic Scream.
Level 30: Nothing. All various movement effects. Probably Body and Soul for me in most cases.
Level 45: From Darkness, Comes Light would be my main selection. Depending on the encounter, strategy and positioning, Divine Star would be an excellent alternative. Not opposed to blasting the spell down one direction healing the group.
Level 60: Defensive, personal cooldowns here. Leaning heavily toward Desperate Prayer.
Level 75: Wow. This is the hardest selection to make. I think I would take Power Infusion. Not only could I use it on myself for extra healing speed but in the event I don’t need it, i can toss it onto another player. But Twist of Fate and Serendipity are both excellent choices. You really might not be able to go wrong with any of these choices.
Level 90: This would be the second hardest talent selection to make after level 75, I think. Vampiric Dominance offers the ability for you to splash or cleave heal your group. Void Shift* offers another single target cooldown. Vow of Unity is another modified single target cooldown which gives your healing spells a pseudo Binding Heal effect with the added bonus of redirecting half the damage your target takes to you. Void Shift wins!
* For those who are curious, due to the wording of the talent, I believe that the health percentage swap is only temporary. That is, if my target had 30% health and I had 100% health when I used Void Shift and I healed myself from 30% to 60%, the health pools would reverse again so that my target had 60% health and I would have his health percentage (before being healed for that additional 25%).
If the expansion were to come out today, I would be satisfied if these were the talents that came with it. It really does make you think. In some of these cases, there isn’t always a clear cut answer as a simple strategy change or a different encounter could lead to a radically altered talent choice. The latter talents are designed to really make you excel as a healer.
Skills
Where did Vampiric Embrace and Devouring Plague go? That was the first thing I noticed. Nice to see I get Lightwell folded into the Holy skillset without having to actually spec into it. Train of Thought received the same treatment as well. No word on what our level 85+ skills are. But I think Discipline is receiving the castable Shield past 85 at some point.
My thoughts on the rest of the healers will come later this week!
EDIT: WHERE DID PRAYER OF HEALING GO?!
Speaking of missing skills, I didn’t see Mind Blast in there either, despite being mentioned in 3 of the talents, which makes me think the skills list isn’t complete. Holy Nova and Shadow Protection I also didn’t see in there, but could conceivably have been removed intentionally.
Also JUST noticed that Prayer of Healing is gone.
Did you see that Shadow gets access to Flash Heal but will not be able to pick up Heal or Greater Heal on the way up while leveling?
There are several pieces missing from the healer’s tool kit. Only Holy gets Renew and Binding Heal… Divine Aegis and Mass Dispel conspicuously absent along with Prayer of Healing and Mass Dispel and Fear Ward…
I think the level 90 bracket will be the one that I’ll change the most as we move from encounter to encounter. Besides, I’m looking forward to killing someone with Void Shift.
I was looking at this today, and it’s interesting that I made different choices in all but Body and Soul. Perhaps we can each pick some that we like, and not be wrong. If so, that’s good.
I liked Void Tendrils for crowd control.
Divine Star for the short, 30 sec cooldown.
Final Prayer since it’s automatic (no click needed).
Twist of Fate is automatic and not a cooldown.
Vampiric Dominance for the constant splash healing.
It’s gonna be fun to pick your flavor of healing.
It’s okay guys, I just saw Bashiok’s blue post. Looks like there’s more than a few spells missing (including Prayer of Healing).
Some of them may be deliverate though.
for my serious business disc spec id take the same you picked but swap desperate prayer for angelic bulwark. i long ago made shielding myself a reflex on damage. also helps i have a self cast shield macro bound to Q for quick access.
Am I crazy or is Atonement healing gone?
The level 90 talent Vampiric Dominance seems to be its replacement. That kills leveling as a smite priest and you don’t even need to do damage, it works off heals.
I’m hoping that Atonement is being baked in to being a disc priest and we’re just not seeing it here because we aren’t seeing all the spec passives. (Like maybe Divine Aegis…)
Edit: Or maybe… it will be a glyph?
I really hope so. Atonement was one of the main reasons that I wanted to go Discipline. It’s unique and fun (and really great when you outgear content).
I would be a sad Druid to see Atonement gone.It’s a fantastic playstyle, and challenging in all the *right* ways and for all the *right* reasons.
TBH, I really wish they would also make Resto Tree healing RDPS based. The playstyle is simply too cool to be relegated to a sub-spec.
Might get your wisht here, Atanae. Symbiosis might give you Archangel. … Or maybe they’d call it Archdryad or soething instead.
I actually can’t wait for them to review these… 😛 I looked over the holy paladin tree today and I felt like the poor orphan kid who got the stinky dirty pair of shoes that some other kid wore before…
I also see the choices as very limited to be honest : some of them are seriously limiting for one spec or the other (for example the fact that you can’t gain evangelism as holy at least in that situation makes archangel a pretty superfluous choice?) – in other cases some spells are just superior to others – PI seems miles better than any of the other two on that tier.
Overall the feeling stays that whatever buff you gain you need to trade off something(within the same talent), which is not the case with the talents for other classes – and this puts me off somewhat.
Luckily this is not even alpha and other classes have it worse! 😛
As a long time Disc healer pre-Attonement, assuming it stays around in some form as a glyph or spec specific passive. Here’s my take on the ‘Talent Tree’.
15. Void Tendrils. – Like them to stay right put instead of
dashing off to pick up friends.
30. Body-n-Soul. Can’t go wrong with a bubble speed boost.
45. With Attonment Archangel, without From Darkness Light. I’ve really liked having a healing buff I could prime up and use for heavy damage sections.
60. I’m a little split, Final Prayer or Desperate Prayer. If you pick up the Disc mastery bonus to the absorb effect then I’m going to lean on the Final Prayer. Little shorter CD time.
75. Power Infusion. Hard to go wrong with PI
90. I’m thinking Vampric Dominance. With or without Attonement its going to be handy to pick up a ‘heal’ cleave. With Attonement healing its IMHO a no brainer.