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 attacksNew
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 9040 yd range
1.5 sec castStrike 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 9030 yd range
1.5 sec castCall 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 9015.0% of base mana
40 yd rangeInstant
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.
I’m inclined to think that it’s a bug that Solace turns into Insanity, since that’s the “mana sustainability” tier and Insanity has no mana component, in addition to the existence of Mind Siphon. That said, as you noted, shadow doesn’t really need mana returns like healers do, so who knows.
My main point is that I love Mindbender being on such a short cooldown. I think one weakness for priests is how long our mana return cooldowns are. It’s tougher to manage pacing when you have a long cooldown that returns a ton of mana. If you use it early, some of it may be wasted. Trying to line that cooldown timer up with the encounter times can be tricky. A short cooldown that returns much less gives you a lot more flexibility in use.
That said, I’ve always thought Surge of Light was a fun talent (the proc chance is just too low on live to be worth it…that seems to be fixed in MoP) and Power Word: Telluric Currents seems like a great tool, too…I enjoy using TC on my shaman on live.
So, basically, that tier should be fun to make decisions on from encounter to encounter.