Frattus

I'm not quite so sure 'bout the smiter in WotLK..

5% Crit removed (force of will), improved divine Spirit nerfed by 4%, new Rank smite cost more mana, Holy Fire casttime reduced (no way to get oo5sr after surge of light anymore) and CD 7 secs, improved Spriti Tap only for shadowcrits..

On the other hand +5% Spelldmg from twin disciplines, the new boni from enlightenement and potentially reduced CD on PI..

I just don't know if a shadow crit build would be more viable come LK..

 

Alici

Is there any other sub-spec that gets as little love as the Smite Priest? The build is definitely fun and appealing, but I’m afraid that with so many additions to every other DPS spec in WotLK, and with the Smite Priest actually getting subtractions from its talent synergies, is there really anything left for Smite/Holy Fire/Holy Nova aficionados except as spells that healers cast when not healing?

I believe Smite and Holy Fire currently dwell as the middle redheaded stepchildren of WoW spells because they simply are not part of the bigger plan in raiding and PvP. When other healers DPS, they use spells that are a staple of DPS rotations of their DPS specs. Resto Druids Wrath/Starfire (Balance) or go Feral, Shamans use Lightning Bolt (Elemental), and Paladins use SoR (a staple of Protection Paladins). Their spells do not get neglected because they are part of the whole package for DPS specs, and get all sorts of damage boosts and utility to go along with.

When priests want to DPS, however, Shadow really is the only option. With all the improvements to Shadow’s damage output as well as the sizable mana-efficiency advantage, Smite spec’s underdog position will quickly devolve into something that simply is not viable. Is it because Blizzard believes priests must be either healers or shadow? If this is the case, then why do Smite and Holy Fire (and to a lesser extent, the damage portions of Holy Nova and Penance) still exist? And what’s even more offensive, why do we then have talents that focus on improving Smite? Current Smite Priests claim a decent showing on damage meters, but without love or utility even that tiny victory will vanish.

So, if the WotLK changes go through with no major revisions to our beloved Smite Priest, it’s going to be another disappointing year for our holy warriors. One of the most intriguing sub-specs lore-wise will fade into oblivion.

 

cruumash

One thing worth noting is that with the level cap at 80, you get 10 more talent points to play with but none of the new talents come into play for a Smite priest. So you essentially get all the DPS goodies. And don't forget that Enlightenment and Spiritual Guidance are feeding off each other.

So while it may have gotten the least amount of love (although the faster and stronger Holy Fire is nice), you always get to play with all the toys.

 

gia

The simple answer is that Smite and Holy Fire are there to help out priests that choose to level as holy or discipline when soloing/questing, there has been no indication that the design has ever been different.

I've only leveled to 71 on beta so far as 51/10/0 but I've been really enjoying the new Holy Fire, with 1k spell power I'm regularly getting crits around 3k which is noticeably more than Smite and at a lower casting time.

Old: Holy Fire - Spell - World of Warcraft
New: Holy Fire - Spell - World of Warcraft

I'm hoping that whenever new ranks of Penance get added/balanced that it will out dps Smite so that I can do a Holy Fire -> Penance -> Smite -> Smite rotation.

Also the biggest buff to the smiting priest by far is the new Spell Power itemization, being able to DPS and heal at 100% effectiveness in the same fight without swapping gear has great value.

 

dedmonwakeen

Could you do some Penance testing? Avoid dps-enhancing talents, note your spell power, cast Penance a bunch of times and track the min/max values?

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft

 

gia

Penance ticks don't have much variance, at 1007 Spell Power it ticks for 461-462. After removing some items, at 690 Spell Power it ticks for 380-381.

Current spec is: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

 

dedmonwakeen

delta damage = 3 * ( 462 - 381 ) = 243

adjusting for Twin Disciplines and Enlightenment...
adjusted delta damage = ( 243 / 1.05 ) / 1.05 = 220

delta power = ( 1007 - 690 ) = 317

coefficient = ( 220 / 317 ) = 70%

70% is very very very unexciting for a channeled spell with a 10sec cooldown

At present it is certainly not worth using. With the reduced cast time of Holy Fire you can't even abuse the 5SR with Penance+HolyFire.

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft

 

Alici

Once again, I don't think that any other class has base spells that are only considered useful while leveling/questing. It's my belief that if spells are designed, they ought to not outlast their usefulness when you magically turn 60/70/80, or transition to raiding/arenas. Any other spell/ability has a use in raids/arena that justifies a place for the player utilizing it; Smite does not.

I understand that Smite and Holy Fire were created with thematic elements in mind. I think that it's one of the most attractive archetypes from a RP standpoint, a holy warrior calling down the wrath of the heavens to smite his enemies and cleanse evil with holy flames. I liked the beginning of TBC when talents were introduced to augment and improve the power of Smite, but as time went along the shortcomings of Smite became more and more apparent. And with no new improvements, Smite simply cannot compete.

Why should a popular spec be relegated to the sidelines as nothing more than a leveling tool? It's definitely not for lack of demand, if the number of posts in this thread are any indication.


What exactly was the intent of including a damage component for Penance? When I first saw the numbers in Alpha, I thought that it could be a good addition to Smite rotations. However, they heavily reduced the damage without reducing the mana cost or adding utility. Now it costs much more than Smite without adding any appreciable damage bonus, and the coefficient is even worse than Smite. Penance can stack Grace on a friendly target, but there is no equivalent for its damage component. So, what is the purpose of it doing damage?

What I personally would have liked to see is a damage counterpart to Grace that utilizes the 3-tick aspect of Penance. Something like my suggestion to the now defunct Persecution talent in the Discipline discussion. Right now, with its high mana cost and low damage output, there is no reason to use Penance for damage at all, and Smite is a better option in almost every case. Is the fact that it's a dual heal/damage spell hampering its design, forcing Blizzard to make it underpowered?

 

solbergb

While some of these have PVP uses, you really only see heavy use during leveling for most mages in PVE

Arcane Missiles
Pyroblast
Cone of Cold
frostbite talented frost spells
impact talented fire spells

frost nova has significant issues when used in a team situation - it is much weaker in endgame PVE than it is while soloing for that reason.

Blizzard and flame strike just aren't very good, but have some spot uses here and there. They probably get used about as often as healers get bored and toss smites around.

I'm sure if I was more familiar with leveling other classes from 1-70 I could come up with other exampels. Holy priests are primarily a healer class. The holy spells are sufficient to level with, given the formidable defensive advantages of holy priests. They just don't hold a candle to what a primary DPS spec can do, and really should not. All mages get to cover the healer role when not DPSing is bandages.

 

Raglu

Those all have PvP uses, and Arcane Missiles has simply been unsuccessful as a PvE main nuke rather than unintended as a main nuke--look at Missile Barrage in the WotLK talents. Unlike these spells, Smite and Holy Nuke are poor for PvP, due to their cast times.

The point that was made before about how Smite and Holy Fire were made for the leveling Holy priest doesn't fit either, because Holy and Disc priests can use Shadow spells (unlike how Shadow Priests lose Shadowform for casting Holy spells). If Blizzard really intended all priest damage to be done as Shadow-school and all healing be done as Holy (the school, not spec), Smite and Holy Fire could have been shadow versions of themselves (it could be thematically explicable, wouldn't be that hard). But because they are not shadow school, the situation lends itself to say that Blizzard lost focus on making a suitable holy-oriented healer/DPS hybrid spec and had forgot about making Smite better, rather than intending that Smite and Holy Fire were meant for leveling only.

 

Starfire

Perhaps its because Blizzard is now focusing on Discipline being the highest single target hps healer (how successful they are, that is another topic) as opposed to the previous "staying power" focus (See Eyonix's comments, granted this also failed as holy did it better).

Don't forget, there's also no Sanctity Aura or Judgement of the Crusader anymore. And, if I remember correctly, Holy isn't part of Curse of Elements (only bringing this up since there is no more Sanctity Aura or Judgement of the Crusader).

I think the thing Smite needs the most is a talent to increase Smite, Holy Fire, Penance (and maybe even Holy Nova) criticals by 100%. A single change alone would increase our scaling from gear and be enough of a damage increase to augment the loss of Sanctity Aura. Additionally, it'd help solidify Discipline gearing for Crit for Divine Aegis / Rapture while healing and being dual role damage dealer.

 

François

Smiter talent build in WotLK is clear, from 40/28/3 leveling/farm to 43/28/0 instancing.
Smiter equips a standard cloth spellpower set.

Yet Smiter is not a viable raider, and is not intended to be, from all we know. The removal of Smite-helping paladin abilities is a solid proof that Blizzard devs have no interest in Smiter dps viability.

A smiter build takes 2 kind of talents :
- pure dps talents : Surge of light, Searing light, mayby Reflective shield, what else ? nothing in WotLK, thanks to Force of Will removal.
- healing/dps hybrid ones : Holy specialisation, Twin disciplines, Divine fury, etc. (I include here Focused power)

The low number of pure dps talents is proof to me that the design intent is not to offer a dps raiding spec, but rather to offer a way to be effective with a raiding spec
- in farming
- in a 5 man instance with two healers, one has to deal damage
- in (gimmick ?) raid fights where healers have to dps on particular phases
- in pvp
Untalented shadow spells must not be expected to fill these needs, if we have any hope the shadow talents will offer shadow priest scaling through raid content.

If a deep discipline healer, or a deep holy healer feels he hasn't enough tools for those dps, he should take the pure dps talents of his tree (4 or 5 points, not a big deal), focus also the healing/dps talents and have fun with it.

Reflective shield has very good synergies with the WotLK Discipline tree design, and Surge of light procs are excellent when you consider how CoH, Test of Faith, Inspiration work.

Yet another indice of what Blizzard expect priest healer dps to be : the threat-free part of Reflective shield and Holy nova, the non-critting (=no threat spike) free smites from Surge of light.

 

Starfire

You know, Penance would be viable IF you could pick up Penance and Surge of Light. I mean, assuming 30% crit rate, and assuming I remember statistics properly, 1 - .6^3 means you have a 78.4% chance to get at least one of your Penance hits to crit, which would then proc Surge of Light.

I humbly request that someone who is in Beta make a suggestion that Imp. Spirit Tap can be procced from offensive Penance crits.

 

Ninaske

I've been watching this thread here and there, referred to it when I originally specced into Smite back in the day when Kara was srs bsns. I now raid as a full-time Smiter, and my guild is currently working on Hyjal and BT. Our Hunter CL told me last night I'd better not drop Smite spec, as he believes I'm the game's only T6-content Disc DPS priest. I told him I'm sure there are more out there, but that's getting off-topic. There are issues I'm worried about for the expansion. I came back this morning to see what EJ had to say about WotLK's changes. Lo and behold, the same concerns I expressed.

The loss of 5% of our crit will not break the spec, but it will hurt. As will the loss of 4% on IDS. I've not yet theorycrafted the build entirely at 80 (RL issues standing in the way, too busy), but I have come up with what I believe I'll be shooting for in my talent tree at 80: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (43/28/0). I will not be taking advantage of the new Penance talent due to the fact that it looks to me to offer very little damage, especially for 3 seconds of casting time. I believe I read that it ticks for ~600 or so each second (correct me if I'm wrong). 1200 damage out of 3 seconds cast time sounds disgusting to me. 2 seconds right now, at 70, produces 1700-1900 damage. I'm of the opinion that Penance's damage component is similar to Holy Paladins' Holy Shock: not meant for a damage rotation.

On the plus side, having Enlightenment in the spec will be tremendous. For example. +5% intellect will increase crit bonus quite a bit, as well as total mana pool, complementing Mental Strength (though I'm not sure if it will stack additively or multiplicatively). The stamina bonus is negligible as a DPS spec, but the Spirit is the real deliciousness of this talent. I'd like to know which stacking method it will use in cooperation with Spirit of Redemption's +5% Spirit bonus.

Overall, my concerns about my beloved spec are, despite the advantages, leading me to a crossroads. I will give Smite a shot at 80 and see how it turns out. However, I am opening the possibility of main-switching to one of my alts. It's a sad possibility, given the work done to get this far as a spec that supposedly doesn't exist even in Gruul's. But not all things last forever, right?

 

Starfire

The 4% nerf to IDS isn't necessairly as big of an issue. You're forgetting our gear is going to have a lot more spirit and all casters are going to want spirit. Constantius ran some numbers over on the Holy and Discipline healing thread.

Also, you really should take into account the possibility of speccing 5 into shadow if you are planning to primarily be a dpser. You should have a decent crit rate and since I highly doubt you're using +holy spellpower items, mindblast should always be viable. (As far as I can tell, the only talent you have that does not affect mindblast will be Searing Light and Divine Fury).

Gaining Imp. Spirit Tap not only increases your regeneration, but it should increase your damage for the duration due to Spiritual Guidance and IDS.

P.S. Penance might actually be your raid ticket, since it seems Discipline healing will fall behind in terms of HPS and staying power (see the other thread), it could be viable to bring a Discipline priest as a primariy dpser whose sole healing job is to Penance the tank every 8 seconds or something to put up grace.

 

dedmonwakeen

My sims are showing Shadow DPS really hurting in comparison to Mage/Ele-Shaman/Boomkin...... and Holy DPS even worse.

(As in Boomkin and Mage specs doing 30% to 50% more dmg than Holy-Priest.)

While the SP community is providing a ton of feedback..... there just aren't that many Smiters out there to make some noise.

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft

 

Ninaske

There never have been, and never will be enough Smiters to make said noise, dedmonwakeen. Few people want to go into what it takes to play a class beyond "Press this and this and this and you're raid viable. Your skill is determined by your gear." It's a sad truth.

As for the Penance-Gracing DPS priests.. eh.. I could see maybe taking 2 points from Unbreakable Will to put into Grace, but going as far as Penance would require the loss of necessary DPS talents. This would effectively change you from a decent-to-excellent (variable by player) DPS into an acceptable DPS and utility priest (essentially you'll be another version of the current shadow priest, affecting different raid members). You'd be better off getting Grace and keeping Rank 1 Flash Heal ready when it's needed. From the impression I'm getting, it's not worth sacrificing the DPS talents.

More info on it would be nice if I could get the condensed-soup version. I haven't the time recently to go dig into number changes for Wrath, and I don't have a beta key yet so I haven't seen how things have changed for our spells. Is the %-of-base-mana thing a new global trend, affecting all spell mana costs, or is it just mainly talent spells?

 

GIJebus

I would still never consider bringing a smite priest into a raid, but for what it's worth "War Priest" in wotlk is really a lot of fun for 5's and possibly 10's. With the spellpower change sunwell gear is roughly 1600 spell damage with a ton of mana regen but the fun part is the skill required to heal and smite at the same time. Obviously one has priority over the other. The new holy fire is great damage with a very short cast time.

Of course, every other damage class is doing tons more damage but they can't heal while doing it.


VVVV After they removed down ranking I picked up spirit tap, It adds about 200 spell power and does make you unstoppable, it's pretty sweet for leveling/grinding.

 

Creech

I've been leveling in the beta using a Disc/Smite build that basically maximizes holy damage, crits and takes advantage of Spirit Tap keeping my mana regen while casting and +dmg buff up. I've found that for grinding, Disc/Holy is much, much faster than Shadow. No comparison. There's no downtime. Shadow kinda requires a few seconds after a kill to get out of 5SR, but Disc/Holy regens mana faster than you can spend it unless you're smite-spamming for an extended period of time.

From my experience, smite builds have no place in a raid, but they are the dominant grinding builds. There's the added benefit of being a very solid healer for a quick instance run. Time those insta-smites right and you can manage to get Spirit Tap even while healing.