f13.net forums - Leaked Priest Changes?

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July 20, 2025, 05:13:37 AM

we're back, baby

Stop derailing the priest fights. My money's on shadow. They melt faces.

Quote from: cevik on January 27, 2006, 07:11:14 AM

And I still have spirit tap over ranged because I haven't respeced since I was leveling up.

So you haven't respeced yet, but you know the exact realworld value of the talents I have and I know nothing? Ok.

Quote from: Calantus on January 27, 2006, 05:09:37 PM

Quote from: cevik on January 27, 2006, 07:11:14 AM

And I still have spirit tap over ranged because I haven't respeced since I was leveling up.

So you haven't respeced yet, but you know the exact realworld value of the talents I have and I know nothing? Ok.

Huh?

You asked why I have 5 points in spirit tap, instead of 2 in ranged and 3 in shadow focus (the typical thing to do when you've respeced out of spirit tap, which is considered only good for leveling). If you think because I dont' have 2 points in shadow reach and 3 in shadow focus that I can't tell you how fucking VERY useful silence or mind flay or shadow form is, then you are actually as retarded as you look.

Listen, if you want to have a virtual epeen waving contest about how very fucking many ab, wsg, and av's I've been in, fine, lets whip it out. Just because I haven't respeced out of spirit tap (since I've known FOREVER that 1.10 was going to bring a free respec) doesn't mean I don't know my character like the back of my fucking hand..

Let me guess, I can't tell you anything about the end game unless I have a level 60 with at least 5 epics, so I just need to stfu? Jesus, talk about degrading into the WoW boards.. we've made the leap.

Let me rephrase: So you have been shadow the entire course of your priest's life, and yet you think you know the realworld worth of the talents I choose despite never having them yourself?

And this is not me saying my spec is great, I'm saying my spec is what *I* prefer in PVP, and its similar to a spec any PVP healer focussed priest would choose. This whole thing started off with me objecting to you saying shadow is "the pvp spec" when it's not.

My priest is Disc/Shadow Spec. No Holy. No Shadowform. Shadowform is best for PvE where you don't have to heal.

Quote from: Sachant on January 30, 2006, 02:01:21 PM

My priest is Disc/Shadow Spec. No Holy. No Shadowform. Shadowform is best for PvE where you don't have to heal.

Agreed. I plan to drop it as soon as I hit 60 since solo'ing (really only instance where non-healing pve happens) will not really be necessary at that point. I might try that Disc/Shadow. It kind of goes along with my own thinking at the moment. I'd like to be a diverse as possible to meet any need (pvp small group, pvp large group, pve small group, pve large group.)

Quote from: Calantus on January 27, 2006, 10:56:48 PM

Let me rephrase: So you have been shadow the entire course of your priest's life, and yet you think you know the realworld worth of the talents I choose despite never having them yourself?

No.. I'm up to extremely expensive respecs (50g) now that I've finally capped, and I'm waiting to respec again for when I get a free one. I've tried multiple specs, but since I only pvp, I have realized that the best (most versatile spec) is one that includes shadowform.

Wise fwom da gwabe!

It's looking like Fear-Ward will stay dwarf-only, which kinda sucks but I'm more than happy with the whole "feedback = damage shield" change for humans so I can live with it.

I dunno how many of you read the priest boards. I try to avoid them, but saw This thread friday and didn't see anyone talking about it here.

The biggie was that Eyonix let it slip that Gheal will be a 3 second cast, down to 2.5 with talents as well as a 10% improvement in mana-efficiency. BIG change, and makes someone who's already good at timing their g-heal even happier, because I can watch more TV while raiding instead of having to worry about spamming 2-3 flash heals. (Wha? Don't look at me like that, all priests do it.)

From the sound of things, it's also looking like they're going to leave Shadow relativly untouched. This is a GOOD thing. Discipline will be the mana-control tree and Healing will be (gasp) healing.. and Holy Fire will be an all-priest spell rather than a talent. (Um ok..not much use to me NOW other than to make the raid say "WTF was that?")

With just these few changes, though, I'm a happy priest. The rest will be gravy, but you couldn't tell that from the Priest boards themselves. Good lord these fuckers whine like Mages.

Holy Crap, Holy's worth it.

I'm going to quote all of Eyonix's post because the forums are acting screwey with everyone hammering them hoping for the talent calc link.

Quote

Minor Note: The Talent Calculator will be up momentariry.

So the priest talent changes have been unveiled through the interactive calculator and I thought it would be a good idea to discuss what was revealed. My goal is only to outline a most of the changes, so it's likely that I might have left out something small here or there. I encourage players to take an extensive pass using the calculator which has been linked in the news post I created on the front page of our website. After reading my comments, please feel free to use this thread to discuss of any aspect of the priest talents.

Going from left to right, I'll start the discussion off with the Discipline tree. You'll immediately notice that Wand Specialization has been made a first tier talent. I feel that this is great for two reasons. First, previously neither available tier 1 Discipline talents felt very exciting or rewarding when investing your points into them at early levels. I feel this is no longer the case. Second, you won't have to compete with Improved Power Word: Shield or Fortitude to receive this talent. Moving on to tier 2 talents, Silent Resolve will now reduce the threat caused by all spells, rather than simply damage spells. You're probably also noticing that Improved Power Word: Shield no longer reduces the duration of the weakened soul effect and I'm sure you're freaking out.

Worry not, this is because the core ability, Power Word: Shield has been improved to only cause a weakened soul effect of 15 seconds, which previously required three talent points, hence the change detailed below.

The Improved Power Word: Shield talent will now increase the damage absorbed by 15%. The new focused casting effect of Martyrdom increases resistance to Interrupt effects by 20%, in addition to preventing the caster from losing casting time when taking damage. Inner Focus as you can see is no longer a 21-point talent, and now available by investing only a mere ten points into the tree. Also, the cooldown has been reduced to three minutes. Competing with the ability is Meditation, also previously a 21-point talent. This still offers an increase to mana regeneration while casting by 15%, however, now only costs three points.

Moving onto the 15-point talents, you can see that Improved Inner Fire remains the same. What we changed is the core ability. Next patch Inner Fire will provide 50% more armor than before. The duration will also be increased to ten minutes but now the effect will be removed when the caster endures twenty successful damaging melee or ranged hits. We've also increased the mana cost and removed the melee attack power boost from the ability as such offers the priest very little benefit.

The new 21-point talents are Divine Spirit and Mental Strength.

Finally, the new 31-point talent for the Discipline tree is called Power Infusion. This ability infuses the target with power, increasing spell damage and healing by 20% for 15 seconds, and can be used every three minutes. This spell is very similar to Arcane Power, however it can be cast on other players, enhances healing as well as damage, and doesn't increase the mana cost of spells cast while under its effect.

This is a long thread, so bear with me... ;)

I have a feeling most priests have been really curious to see what we've done with the Holy Tree. Well, fortunately the wait is over. You'll notice two things right off the bat. Improved Renew offers the same level of improvement for only three points, and a brand new talent is immediately available - Healing Focus. This talent, for only two points will gives players a 70% chance of avoiding interruption caused by damage when casting any healing spell.

Next at the five-point mark you'll notice another brand new talent - Spell Warding, which reduces all damage taken by 10%. That which was previously a 21-point talent now stands next to it, Divine Fury. In addition to being available much sooner, this talent now reduces the casting time of Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Greater Heal spells by 0.1 sec.

Remember, with this talent (available very early in the tree) Greater Heal will cast in 2.5 seconds!

I'm actually pretty excited about what's next. Holy Nova is now an eleven-point talent and has no cooldown whatsoever (of course universal global cooldown is still in-effect). This means that much like Improved Arcane Explosion, priests can spam small bursts of threatless holy goodness which both damages foes and heals friends. The mana cost has been increased, so it's not as efficient as before. We actually had alot of fun testing this spell in both PvE and PvP, and I'm excited to read through player feedback when this is live on the PTRs.

Moving on to the competing eleven-point talents, another new ability is revealed, Blessed Recovery. This passive ability will heal 25% of the damage received over 6 seconds after being struck by a melee or critical ranged hit. Lastly, take a look at Inspiration. This talent now only costs three points.

Holy Reach is another new talent available to the priests. For two points, players can increases the range of their Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of their Prayer of Healing and Holy Nova spells by 20%. Improved Healing has the same effect and is found in the same place, however, only three points need to be invested in order to gain the 15% mana cost reduction to those healing spells. The last talent on this tier is called Searing Light which increases the damage of Holy Fire and Smite by 10%.

Don't forget, Holy Fire is now a core ability and the casting time reduced to 3.5 seconds. Which of course becomes 3 seconds with the appropriate talent (the same talent which also benefits the casting time of Heal and Greater Heal.

Another great new passive ability talent - Spiritual Guidance, is located at the 21-point mark. This talent will permanently improve the priests spell damage and healing by up to 25% of their total spirit. Pretty nice boost, if I do say so myself.

I must admit, the next improvement has me awfully excited. Spirit of Redemption, (you know that angel that lets everyone know you've died and that their probably about to die as well:), will now allow the priest to become the angel, upon death. For ten seconds, the priest can cast any healing spell completely free! This allows the strategic player much better control in preventing a wipe.

As you can see the new 26-point talent is Spiritual Healing, which as before offers the priest a 10% increase to all healing spells. Placing points this far into the tree, assuming you've picked up Improved Renew and Spiritual Guidance will most definitely make the Holy Priest's heals stand out.

It should be no surprise that the final rank Holy talent is brand new, seeing that Holy Nova is now an 11-point talent. This new spell, called Lightwell will create a holy lightwell near the priest. At final rank, friendly targets can click the lightwell to restore 1600 health over a period of ten seconds. The lightwell has five charges, meaning, up to five players can use the lightwell before it expires. Our testing has shown that this ability works great in both smaller dungeons and raids, often times allowing the lower maintenance party members to take advantage of the healing properties of this well, while the priest and other healing classes focused on the main tank or whomever was taking heavy damage.

One other thing I'd like to mention before moving on to the Shadow tree is the fact that Focus Casting has been removed completely. Essentially, with the improvements to Martyrdom and the new talent Healing Focus, it wasn't as valuable a talent as before.

So, what improvements have we made to Shadow you ask? You'll actually notice that very little changes were made, so fortunately, you're almost done reading my post. :)

Shadow Affinity only costs three points now, instead of five. Improved Fade will no longer increase the duration of the spell, but rather decrease the cooldown by a total of six seconds. Shadow Weaving is available for 16-points. While Vampiric Embrace remains the same, a new talent is available called Improved Vampiric Embrace. For two points, the amount healed by Vampiric Embrace will be increased by 10%.

Well, this pretty much sums up the changes. It's likely we'll make some more adjustments and tweaks based upon what's revealed through testing on the PTRs. As a priest, I'm excited. How about you guys? Post your thoughts...

Sidenote: Try not to quote my entire thread, if possible please. Threads break much sooner that way, and I'd like to get as much out of this discussion thread as possible, before creating a "part 2".
[ post edited by Eyonix ]

I should have rolled a priest. Goddamn.

Holy, holy tree Batman!

This makes me want to dust off my priest... but meh. I still don't like healbotting, not matter how efficient they make it.

Some mages are going to be happy. Power Infusion stacked with Arcane Power and the epic trinkets will equal some INSAAAANE damage.

Quote from: Jobu on February 23, 2006, 11:28:43 AM

Purge ftw.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priests2/talents.html

The holy tree is insane now. It's survivability and healing rolled into one and that's ALL I care about so I'm stoked. Disc tree got streamlined a little and some talents got moved down. So happy I can grab meditation nice and low in the tree so as not to have to choose between my raiding spec and PVP spec. I'm currently hovering between 2 main specs and 2 variations each, which way I go is largely gonna depend on how good the 31 holy talent turns out to be. Gonna be tough waiting for the test server now. :-(

Also shadow PVP got nerfed fairly hard IMO with the removal of focussed casting. The other changes it got don't make up for it much at all for PVP. They got buffed nicely for PVE though with more healing from vamp embrace, less points for shad affinity, and access to meditation.

I can totally see a holy build for PvP that would just rock. Again, depends how good that 31 talent is.

A good team backed up by a holy priest > all.

Paladin/Priest combo for the AB win!

Edit: that Power Infusion talent makes me hopeful for bloodlust when shaman review comes around.

Holy will now be the PvP spec, which actually rocks.. I'm pleased.. :)

Quote from: cevik on February 23, 2006, 12:29:48 PM

Holy will now be the PvP spec, which actually rocks.. I'm pleased.. :)

ya, so much potential out of it now.

Holymoly Build

Props to Blizz for making the holy tree something to want just as bad as the shadow tree. I'm not crazy about the disc. tree because you can get so much out of the other two, but there's potential there too.

Disc/Holy PvP Survival - Selfish Build

Edit: Fixed links.

Unfortunately your builds are linking to the old Talent calculator, not the new.. :(

Change the link to "priest2" instead of just "priest".

Quote from: cevik on February 23, 2006, 12:29:48 PM

Holy will now be the PvP spec, which actually rocks.. I'm pleased.. :)

Makes me wonder how powerful the guy who did the "smite LOL" video will be now. He was doing some serious damage as it was.

I'm very, VERY happy with the Holy tree now, how could I not be? Discipline looks attractive, too, but I'm loving the thought of Lightwell. The angel prereq I'm not a big fan or, nor of losing my %10 mana boost from disc, but hey, I'll cope.

Quote from: MrHat on February 23, 2006, 01:12:45 PM

Disc/Holy PvP Survival - Selfish Build

I'd move the 'throwaway' point in improved healing to Holy Reach. 5% mana reduction on lesser/greater heal vs 10% increase in Holy Fire, Smite and Holy Nova reach.

My Current Build

Here's what I'm going to in 1.10, the UBER HOLY SPEC patch.

MMmm Holy Nova

I might Drop Holy Nova and holy reach and pick-up the remaining points in Blessed Recovery and Imp. Prayer of healing. Depends on how it works out on the test server. I'm just a PvE priest, so all the +dmg stuff, while nice for the PvP priests aren't what I'm after. My Hunter's my pvp character.

I have seen a couple new smite builds that are full disc and 20 points into holy and damn they could pump out some scary numbers. Especially when they kick in the disc end talent. That combined with the ability to spam holy nova is going to change what you seen AV quite a bit.

kaid

Holy Fire Extreme

That one could explode some crazy damage if you loaded up on SPI, but the stars would have to align just right.

Lightwell is a kick in the crotch for a 31 pt talent. 2 extra seconds for 400 less heal than a heavy runecloth bandage. Once every 10m. 6 charges. Channeling, which means any mob aoe and it's canceled. I don't see this being used, at all, ever, in a raid.

This line

"Our testing has shown that this ability works great in both smaller dungeons and raids, often times allowing the lower maintenance party members to take advantage of the healing properties of this well, while the priest and other healing classes focused on the main tank or whomever was taking heavy damage."

leads me to believe that that Lightwell is cast like a pet, and just sits there, waiting for people to right-click it. The priest then goes about his business of keeping the tank alive (pulling is probably held until after the Lightwell is cast). When Johnny Support gets alittle aggro, then loses it back to the tank, he steps over to the Lightwell and BAM! gets healed (for instance - the hunter takes a little beating on a pull, before tank grabs aggro). This generates no aggro for the priest, nor does it take away from his concentration on the tank.

My understanding could be flawed though.

Quote from: Typhon on February 23, 2006, 04:44:01 PM

Yes, it's great for a priest.. throw down the wall and forget your melee dps.

It's terrible for the DPS and the raid as a whole. There is no "BAM". It's a 10 second channel. First, my point was it's simply inferior (except in cost) to something melee already has - the heavy runecloth bandage. Furthermore,. most higher end mobs do AoE damage that cancels all channeling spells so you can't use bandages (or the healwell) without getting behind a wall. Finally, this heal takes your melee out of doing the stabbity-stab on the mob which prolongs the fight which makes you heal the main tank more in the long run. It's simply better and easier to throw a renew on your rogue like you do already and go back to healing the main tank.

Depends, will have to see how it works out in practice. This should be very nice for rogues though, as in many raid boss fights, Rogues are last on the healing priority list. We actually aren't allowed to heal them in certain fights, and they relie soley on bandages and pots for healing. This will help in those situations.

Of course, I'm a PvP priest (shadow currently). Think I will go for something like this:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priests2/talents.html?50023113320515120505120202000000000000000000000

Crit priest ftw.

I'd say not picking up spell warding as a healing priest would be a mistake for either PVP or or PVE raiding. Most of the damage you're gonna take (that isn't on a wipe or a 1-hit regardless) is going to be spell damage. We bust ass to get resistances up for certain fights, and this would essentially give you the equivalent of a whole lot of it.

This is the spec I'm thinking of going:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priests2/talents.html?50023213300000023350133000015510000000000000000

The point in light well is pending how useful I find it. Since that point would just give me +1% crit on my holy spells if not in there it's not much of a loss. I threw that same point into holy fire for kicks and giggles in my current spec, so unless light well totally sucks I'll pick it up.

The only questions in my mind ar whether to go the gheal talents over inspiration/crit heals, and whether to go spiritual healing or mental agility.

EDIT: My original spec didn't have inner focus and was changed to the above after a comment in this thread. I went ahead and editted this post so people don't keep telling me to get inner focus ( Heart

Yeah, the spell warding would be very nice, but there are just so many other things I'd like, and I want to maximize holy damage. Going to be a tough choice when I actually do respec. Though on your build, I think it would be folly to not throw 1 point into Inner Focus. Its a very nice ability, and I'm sure you can redirect 1 point from somewhere ;).

Quote from: bhodi on February 23, 2006, 04:48:54 PM

First, my point was it's simply inferior (except in cost) to something melee already has - the heavy runecloth bandage

One point of order:

All talents are balanced around the EARLIEST level you can get them. Notice Divine Spirit has been reduced in amount from the 31 point version. This is because you can get it 6 levels earlier. The later ranks likely remain the same. The same will be true of lightwell. The LEVEL 40 version is worse than a skill you can't get until 42 and doesn't indicate how big a heal the L60 version will be.

Top level lightwell is going to heal the person for 1600.