prayer of mending

5 Killer Priest Changes Coming in Warlords

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Good gravy, so many new changes coming with the alpha notes! Instead of going through all of them, I’m just going to summarize my favourites. You can turn to BlizzPro later in the week for a more in-depth analysis.

Atonement nerfs

Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming. For almost the entire expansion, Discipline Priests were considered top tier and a virtual must have in progression focused guilds. It wasn’t so much the temporarily healing buff from Evangelism, but the Archangel ratios which made us a force to be reckoned.

Let’s deal damage with any of our main DPS nukes. On top of that, a portion of the damage done is going to also heal. Oh and it’s a smart heal!

In a way, I’m disappointed that it’s lowered but I can’t help but think it’ll help equalize the state of healing classes a little more. At the very least, maybe it’ll lower Discipline representation some and allow us Holy Priest guys back into the fray as a better alternative. There was nothing really wrong with Holy (well, there was but we’ll cover that in a moment), but Holy just wasn’t quite as well sought after.

That’ll be different in the future largely because of…

Chakra changes

Remember when Chakra came into play? It was almost two expansions ago during the start of Cataclysm. It essentially functioned as a stance for Holy Priests. Certain spells would become stronger depending on which Chakra you had active and you’d gain access to a Holy Word spell that corresponded with that stance. It was intended to provide flexibility and allow Priests to select the role they were going to perform in a raid: Single target healing or multi-target healing.

If you were in a Chakra stance and wanted to do something outside of the benefit, your spells wouldn’t make quite as an impact. The alpha notes said it quite clearly: The buff from being in a certain Chakra “felt like a penalty for being in the wrong Chakra, rather than a bonus for being in the right Chakra”.

Chakra: Sanctuary provided a strong buff to Prayer of Healing which was great when I was covering groups but it was lousy if I needed to spot heal the tank for a few moments. Lowering the bonuses attained in Serenity and Sanctuary are a start. Saying “I’m only losing 10% of a healing boost instead of a 25% bonus” is much more reassuring. Instead, Holy Word: Serenity and Sanctuary are receiving more of a healing bonus. I suspect our normal baseline spells will be adjusted and balanced accordingly.

Removal of Mana Hymn

Gone.

Just like that.

How else am I supposed to get my mana back? One of our healing utilities is out the window as a victim of Blizzard’s crackdown on ability bloat. Now they’ve promised that mana regeneration rates and spirit will be monitored to offset the loss of Hymn of Hope. Now I’m really at the mercy of my own healing spells. I can’t heal full throttle and rely on Mana Hymn to provide me with a cushion anymore. I’m going to miss it.

New glyphs

To be more specific, I’m giddy with Glyph of Restored Faith. It can be used as an escape or a closer or if I just want to get next to someone. Maybe it isn’t that killer, but I really do like the fun I can get with this. I can pull myself out of harms way if I’m caught standing in a fire! It’s like a pseudo defensive cooldown!

Level 100 talents

You can find the new talents at the recently updated WoW Head calculator. I liked that old talent with Void Shift where you could use it as many times as you wanted but I guess that one was tossed.

Now there’s healing talents when you reach level 100 like Words of Mending. Every healing or absorb spell generates a stack of Word of Mending. Hit 5 stacks, cast a free Prayer of Mending! Worried about Prayer of Mending overriding itself? A minor change was introduced where Prayer of Mending from multiple Priests are able to be applied on the same target. Not only that, one Priest can have multiple applications of Prayer of Mending on more than one target!

I mean, yo dawg! I heard you like Prayer of Mending! So I put a Words of Mending on your Prayer of Mending so you can Prayer of Mending while you Prayer of Mending!

Holy Priests gain access to another talent called Clarity of Purpose. It replaces Prayer of Healing with a new spell called Clarity of Purpose. We know that smart healing spells are getting dumber. But if healing spells were given an IQ, I’m certain Clarity of Purpose would take home the smartest heal ever award. It’ll heal players within 10 yards of your target. Not only that, it splits the heal so that weaker players receive more of the healing pie.

Now that’s legit!

This is going to be a fun beta testing period. Warlords needs to come soon! I’ll do my best to keep track of any pertinent Priest changes and updates as we progress through the development stages of the expansion.

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Oh Chakra, How You’ve Changed

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Keybinds.

So many keybinds.

Another expansion means more new spells and abilities and we’re gradually running out of keys to use. Chakra’s been split three ways now. As you know, the corresponding bonus you get from Chakra is decided base on what spell you use immediately after Chakra has activated.

Now you can just activate whichever Chakra you want by hitting a button.

So on the one hand, that’s nice because you don’t have to rely on spell selection anymore to get the Chakra you want.

Question: No more fat fingering the wrong spell and being in the wrong Chakra stance. Hands up! How many times did mistakenly  you hit Prayer of Mending after casting Chakra and being in Chakra: Sanctuary instead of being in Chakra: Serenity specifically for a phase?

On the other hand, now I have to find a way to free up more keys for the individual Chakra bonuses. I figure I can just stick to Chakra: Serenity and Chakra: Sanctuary. Not sure how often I’d use Chakra: Chastise unless I’m leveling.

Mists of Pandaria Priest Glyph Changes

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List is incomplete but there’s been a few glyphs that are out there already. Not too many Priest ones have been released, but here’s what’s available so far. My guess is that we’ll be seeing more glyph changes pretty soon. They’re probably in the process of either devising new ones or converting some of the existing talents into glyphs.

Glyph of Power Word Shield

20% of the absorb from your Power Word: Shield spell is converted into healing.

This change made me cringe slightly. If I read that right, it means a percentage of the absorb amount goes directly into healing. The current design of this glyph on live is that Power Word shield absorbs 100% of the amount and heals for 20% of the absorb. The upcoming design means the shield will absorb 80% of the initial value with the rest going into the heal.

Live

Absorb for 100000, heal for 20000

Proposed for Mists

Absorb for 80000, heal for 20000

Typo, you think?

Glyph of Prayer of Mending

The first charge of your Prayer of Mending heals for an additional 60% but your Prayer of Mending has 1 fewer charges.

Looks like a slight nerf to the current Prayer of Mending glyph. It retains the bonus healing to the initial charge but you lose out on the last charge so it doesn’t bounce around as much. Going to say this is a definite situational glyph. If you’re in an encounter with AoE damage or a heavy aura fight, you’ll probably want this unglyphed. If it’s a strategic encounter though where there isn’t as much damage going around or going to very limited players, then the glyph has added benefits due to the front loaded nature of it.

Glyph of Holy Fire

Your Holy Fire spell is now instant.

I’m speechless.

Glyph of Circle of Healing

Your Circle of Healing spell heals 1 additional target, but its mana cost is increased by 35%.

Not much of a change here, I don’t think. Meant for balance purposes with the increase in mana and the added target.

What Priest glyphs would you like to see designed or converted from existing talents?

Edit: Zeroes. Sigh.

Making the Switch: Holy to Disc

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This is a guest post from Seriah, a PlusHeal community member

Priests are the main healing class in WoW, the official site even says so.  But to some people on the outside looking in they might not know that there are different mechanics in the individual Priest trees.  Having leveled and raided as Shadow and Holy I recently made the change to Discipline – it always looked like a fun tree and the new changes in LK sealed the deal for me. I’ve had experience in all forms of Priesting, but by no means am I claiming to be an expert on the class – just well experienced.

The intent here is to share my experience as a new Discipline Priest with everyone, especially anyone considering the switch be it because they think it looks like a fun change of pace or if you just hate the CoH nerf that much. I’ll attempt to walk you through what would happen if you dropped the Holy hat and picked up the Disc one – starting with your talent points.

Like with any spec there are those talents that you simply have to have, nothing fills that category better than the 3 P’s for Disc talents:

  • Power Infusion
  • Pain Suppression
  • Penance

Penance is absolutely the best healing spell I’ve ever had experience with – yes, more than CoH.  PI and PS are great too, especially since there are so many bosses that frenzy now when they’re at 20%.  How to spend your talents is a different article in itself, this is a brief overview of what you can expect from a cast sequence and mechanics point of view.

Hopefully you have a decent about of crit, be it by talents or gear, because once you start to see Divine Aegis (DA) in action you’ll love it.  Before a pull you’ll still want to do the usual PoM on the tank, but now you’ll also want to pop Power Word: Shield (PW:S) on him so the weakened soul debuff will show up – yes this is a good thing because you should be talented into Renewed Hope. 

When the pull starts, PoM will bounce with a crit (if you’re lucky) wrapping a DA bubble around the tank and giving you time to hit renew with no sense of urgency at all.  As long as incoming damage is minimal, you can stick to Flashes, Renews, and PoMs and be fine. The fun starts when the damage spikes.

On those big pulls where no one likes to CC anymore or on bosses that can hit like a whole fleet of trucks is where you’ll see those damage mitigation abilities of Disc healing really shine.  Keeping a full stack of Grace on the tank helps, and since they’re probably getting beat on a good bit that shouldn’t be too terribly hard.  PoM every time it’s up and say a little prayer so that it crits for a DA proc. 

Watch the cooldown on Penance. It hits 3 times during your channel and if you’re really on a roll with the luck and it crits all 3 times you can easily see 12k healing in less than 1.5 sec. there’s no one that can touch your HPS on hastened Penance.

That’s all fine well and good, but what if you get pushed to raid healing? 

First of all, if that happens you probably want to have a chat with your raid leader about the setup, if they still want you on raid duty then you can’t go wrong with shields and flashes, penance if they really need it.  Pain Suppression also works nicely here, if you have an overzealous DPS that can’t seem to watch Omen to save their lives, literally. It’ll reduce their threat, usually enough to let a tank get above them again, and if that doesn’t work then at least they shouldn’t die from the Iron Fist that giant is about to drop on them so the tank can then taunt.

If you’re doing heroics, and at this point most of us are, then you’re going to have to deal with group damage. The best way to do so is with Divine Hymn if you’re not in a fight where damage is constantly coming in.  If it’s a constant high damage fight you can shield yourself for the haste and to avoid interruption and pop off a Prayer of Healing.  Yeah, it’s 1800 mana, but it beats casting flash heal 5 times.  Of course if you’re on the move there’s always Holy Nova as well – which I’ve learned to not hate now.

So there you have it, a basic analysis of what you can expect as a Discipline Priest.

In short remember the 5 P’s of Priesting:

  • Power Word: Shield
  • Power Infusion
  • Pain Suppression
  • Penance
  • Prayer of Mending

Prayer of Mending Generates Threat for Priest (Same with LB, Earth Shield)

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Yeah, you read that right. Threat is now being slightly changed. As it stands right now, Prayer of Mending when activated generates threat for the player it is on. This change now means that every time we cast Prayer of Mending and it activates, threat is generated for us.

The same effect applies to Lifebloom and Earth Shield for their respective classes. Wonder what the Paladin equivalent is.

Source: This blue post

PS, the life of a blogger. One window open on an RSS feed for blue posts, one open in GMail for contacts, one open in Twitter for breaking news and one on course notes for my exam Monday :(.

EDIT: And one messenger window open for my favorite enhancement shammy to fast track me interesting stuff!