[Priest] Holy WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 5

Mode · 07/18/08, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by Crosshairs

I wonder if it will take longer for our current gear to be replaced. It seems the idea is that one robe could be used for all cloth types but Priests would get more healing out of it by going deep into Holy.

My thought is that my current gear would provide more healing then the spellpower item, and then the deep holy talents would make my gear pretty over powered.

Much like the addition of spelldamage to healing gear, all spell damage and healing gear is being retroactively changed to spellpower.

Crosshairs · 07/18/08, 10:13 AM

I guess since healing gear has spell damage now listed it would also get retroactively fixed based on the logic that is it damage and healing now.

I was thinking in my head only gear that you would consider as damage gear would get this stat and the current healing gear would be unaffected.

constantius · 07/18/08, 10:48 AM

My notes:

1) Grace has been reduced to 2% per stack, 6% total.

2) Rapture now applies only to yourself. The combination of 1 and 2 remove any real suggestion of a serious Disc priest raiding spec for end-game. It's on the level of an affliction warlock now. No matter how hard you try to justify improved shields and better crits, you're a gimped healer with a one-trick pony (Grace) which isn't even that good now. If they keep tweaking the talents, I'm prepared to re-evaluate (happily): atm, the math shows deep Disc (50+ points) as being very weak comparatively.

3) Guardian Spirit is, like almost all 51 point talents, primarily focused toward PvP. I have strong doubts that anyone will take it for PvE when there's so much good stuff in the first 25 points of Disc, as there has been since TBC release.

4) Twin Disciplines is OMG. A T1 talent that gives us 5% spell damage and healing. At the current ratios if everything is maintained as the ilvls work now, this is FIFTEEN PERCENT HEALING SPELLS AND EFFECTS. At my current gearing, that's 405 HSE. For a T1 talent that replaces ... Wand Spec. Huge huge change if it actually goes live.

5) Serendipity and Test of Faith remain strong talents, and good reasons to spec deep Holy.

If the current talents go live, I suspect that myself + the other holy priest (assuming we run with 2) will spec: Spec 1 (with small variations at the bottom) and Spec 2 (with obvious variations if you decide you want 5/5 Divine Providence.

The one thing I'm currently unsure on is just how useful DP will be in WotLK. Obviously we can't know this until we get a feel for just how much healing we do with AE spells + PoM and Binding Heal. My suspicion is that getting 5 points in this will be slightly inferior to maxing out Test of Faith and Serendipity, but we'll obviously need to test it in raids before we'll truly know.

Anyway, I'm quite happy with deep Holy. I wish they hadn't changed Empowered Healing, but it was scaling just a bit too well ... I also suspect there may be a tooltip bug atm, since there are no more "bonus healing effects". If it's 10% of your "spell power", that's an entirely different kettle of fish, and is actually a net *buff*.

Anyway, positive things. If you get into Beta, make detailed, careful feedback, and let's give the devs something to think about with respect to deep Disc. If they want it to be raid viable, they're going at it exactly wrong.

Bjork · 07/18/08, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by constantius

2) Rapture now applies only to yourself. The combination of 1 and 2 remove any real suggestion of a serious Disc priest raiding spec for end-game. It's on the level of an affliction warlock now. No matter how hard you try to justify improved shields and better crits, you're a gimped healer with a one-trick pony (Grace) which isn't even that good now. If they keep tweaking the talents, I'm prepared to re-evaluate (happily): atm, the math shows deep Disc (50+ points) as being very weak comparatively.

Agree 100%. Happy day

KamPa · 07/18/08, 12:06 PM

Somewhat small question, but how does "intelligent targetting" of CoH/PoH treat pets? As it is now, it's theoretically possible to heal 10 targets - with being strictly limited to 5, it means they'll be skipped?

Havoc12 · 07/18/08, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by constantius

My notes:

1) Grace has been reduced to 2% per stack, 6% total.

2) Rapture now applies only to yourself. The combination of 1 and 2 remove any real suggestion of a serious Disc priest raiding spec for end-game. It's on the level of an affliction warlock now. No matter how hard you try to justify improved shields and better crits, you're a gimped healer with a one-trick pony (Grace) which isn't even that good now. If they keep tweaking the talents, I'm prepared to re-evaluate (happily): atm, the math shows deep Disc (50+ points) as being very weak comparatively.

3) Guardian Spirit is, like almost all 51 point talents, primarily focused toward PvP. I have strong doubts that anyone will take it for PvE when there's so much good stuff in the first 25 points of Disc, as there has been since TBC release.

4) Twin Disciplines is OMG. A T1 talent that gives us 5% spell damage and healing. At the current ratios if everything is maintained as the ilvls work now, this is FIFTEEN PERCENT HEALING SPELLS AND EFFECTS. At my current gearing, that's 405 HSE. For a T1 talent that replaces ... Wand Spec. Huge huge change if it actually goes live.

5) Serendipity and Test of Faith remain strong talents, and good reasons to spec deep Holy.

If the current talents go live, I suspect that myself + the other holy priest (assuming we run with 2) will spec: Spec 1 (with small variations at the bottom) and Spec 2 (with obvious variations if you decide you want 5/5 Divine Providence.

I dont agree that disc is not raid viable because of these effects. You are completely understimating what the new talents do for Disc. The previous version of rapture was probably too strong for PvE and too weak for PvP. More importantly it was too far up the tree as was enlightenment. Disc is just as viable as it was before, especially because of the nerf to holy concentration. Its not as big if the haste applies to all spells until its used up, but its very big if the haste applies only to GH/FH/BH. The new PWS talent makes disc priests easily as good as holy priests on tank healing and probably better than paladins, whose new talents are mostly unimpressive for tank healing. Their AoE renew is an impressive spell especially since the mechanic with which it works is really very clever, but otherwise using holy shock crits to get instant HL is better for PvP than for PvE. As for having to burn 2 GCDs to get 30 seconds of 10% haste. Its really just a mechanic to give holy pallys more utility by allowing them to judge the target than giving them more throuput.

As things stand, holy and disc are just about the best tank healers out there. Most raids will prefer disc priests on MT for high DPS encounters though because of grace, and PWS/divine aegis, which together represent at level70 values a total of 300-350 less DPS on the tank 6% less damage and 6% more healing, on top of inspiration. All in all if a tank is taking 3.5k DPS we are looking at 16% decreased damage on the tank on top of 6% more healing. The only way that disc will not be raid viable is if grace does not stack with tree aura.

Guardian spirit is ok for PvP, but not really. Just compare it with pain suppression. PS has less CD, is effectively undispellable now that we have 30% more dispel resistance absorbs more damage overall and it is not affected by -healing debuffs. Did I mention its a 41 not a 51 pointer? You want more? Compare it with nature switftness. Instant Healing Touch for effectively full HP.

Once again I think that ppl here are missing the big picture. Damage reduction is UBIQUITOUS. Spirit link, guardian spirit, pain suppression, and worst of all the new divine guardian talent for pallys.
"While Divine Shield is active 15/30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin."

This is patently absurd. Everythign teh paladin bubbles everyone around him takes 30% less damage! (the paladin is immune thanks to divine shield). I mean jeez.

There is one and only one conclusion from this. We are going to see a LOT of fights which involve around ppl surviving HUGE hits. Rather than being PvP only damage reduction talents are going to be required.

GS is not a PvP centric talent. Absorption of death blows does not make it cheat death. For a 51 pointer if it was really intended for PvP its a joke since effectively almost all of its power is affected by mortal strike. Even if you were trying to do a PvP holy build you would without question skip DP and GS. The only conceivable holy build for PvP is something like this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft, without too much leeway high up. You could try to get 2 ranks of rapture as 10% mana retuned from PWS is quite significant.

The only place where guardians spirit can really shine is in high movement and your targets get hit for very big hits or where its important to survive an extremely large hit. Its a PvE talent alright.

Shadow is the only tree with a 51 pointer that is havily aimed towards PvP.

The talent specs you posted are very strange. Why are you taking 5/5 MA?

Bjork · 07/18/08, 12:33 PM

This is my spec at 80 (as it looks now): http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

I guess you're right about disc being wanted if a tank is taking the vast majority of damage in the raid. After Sunwell and late BT it doesn't look like Blizzard are taking the game that way though.

Havoc12 · 07/18/08, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by Bjork

This is my spec at 80 (as it looks now): http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

I guess you're right about disc being wanted if a tank is taking the vast majority of damage in the raid. After Sunwell and late BT it doesn't look like Blizzard are taking the game that way though.

If the tank is not taking a lot of damage, disc wont be a great tank healer, but with divine aegis working on PoH and with PWS actually giving you mana if its all used up and healing for just about 50% a max rank gheal. I think disc will have a lot of utility. Especially since I am 100% certain we are going to see fights which revolve around damage reduction. I am sure that disc will be a fixture in most raids. I fully expect one priest in the raid to switch in some crit gear and respec deep disc for a few select fights even for raids which wont bring disc priests.

That is exactly the spec I was planning too. I am agonising about finding a way to get 2/2 healing prayers and was considering dropping inner focus, but its really a very hard choice.

Anyhow if raids want divine sprit now, a deep disc priest is a better choice as a hybrid imp DS holy priest is less usefull than a deep disc priest.

constantius · 07/18/08, 12:42 PM

That's my feeling: Sunwell is an instance full of raid damage, and with CHeal, CoH, the new paladin AE HoT, and tree-form druids getting raid-wide ToL ... it's just going to continue.

You really really really have to justify Discipline. That's my point. If you are ONLY healing 1 tank, and it's a Brutallus-style fight, then there is a spot for a Disc priest. Maybe. But I really don't see the talents being as strong as, say, fully up-ranked healing from a deep Holy priest with every talent picked out. The only thing that makes it close is Grace, which basically turns you into a debuff bitch.

Once (if?) I get into Beta, I'll evaluate it first-hand, but I'm strongly leaning toward not bothering with Disc for raids at this point, at least until we get to Patchwerk v2.0 and see what Blizzard's version of "hard hitting" is for WotLK.

[e] I need the numbers on the final ranks of GHeal that we get, but I strongly doubt even a 3/3 Imp PW:S and 5/5 Borrowed Time shield will equal 50% of a GHeal. And remember: my GHeals will be landing every 2.0 seconds for a minimum (max-rank, at 70, current gear) of 6000, non-crit. Add another rank of GHeal, a bit more gear, and I'm going to be landing 7500-ish heals every 2.0 seconds. Spec'ing 51 points in Disc to get a powerful shield isn't my idea of a good spec for PvE.

Sinndir · 07/18/08, 12:56 PM

Currently going to update my post (will only include Holy unless you guys want me to change it with Disc talents too).

Also I like the question about how will the 'smart' heals target pets... As far as I know with chain heal (someone please correct) they only hit pets if no other player character is missing health. I would assume CoH would be the same.

Nid, just curious why you wouldn't drop Mental Agility for full end talents in the holy tree?

Like Havoc and Rukli I plan on spec'ing something along the lines of this. Anywho, I'll be back with more thoughts after I update the first page.

constantius · 07/18/08, 1:13 PM

Basically, here's my rationale (which may change, who knows, we have NO clue what content we'll see): there's only one new regen talent in the bottom of Holy. They're nerfing mana pots. They're increasing mana costs of a few things, including CoH. Keeping Mental Agility helps with Renew/PoM/CoH mana costs at a cost of increased healing to my AE spells (basically).

I'll play around with it when I get a chance, but I figure I may end up going 23 Disc, since IDS is going to be *required* now that everyone is being pushed toward spirit-based regen.

Isin · 07/18/08, 1:28 PM

Originally Posted by inzanor

Improved Innerfire:
Increases the armor bonus and bonus healing of your Inner Fire spell by 10%/20%/30%.

Does this mean Inner Fire will increase (damage and) healing?

Yes, According to wowhead's parses, ranks 8 and 9 of Inner Fire increase spell power by 95 and 120 respectively.

inner fire - Wowhead Search

3/3 Improved Inner Fire will be worth 36 spellpower at level 80.

Isin · 07/18/08, 1:31 PM

Originally Posted by constantius

Basically, here's my rationale (which may change, who knows, we have NO clue what content we'll see): there's only one new regen talent in the bottom of Holy. They're nerfing mana pots. They're increasing mana costs of a few things, including CoH. Keeping Mental Agility helps with Renew/PoM/CoH mana costs at a cost of increased healing to my AE spells (basically).

I'll play around with it when I get a chance, but I figure I may end up going 23 Disc, since IDS is going to be *required* now that everyone is being pushed toward spirit-based regen.

But Constantius, why would level 80 be any different than 70 in terms of holy priest spec distribution in 25 man raids? Once one priest goes IDS, shouldn't the rest go GS? Even if it is gimmicky, It's better than 3 redundant talent specs.

Sinndir · 07/18/08, 1:42 PM

They may have removed Mark of Divinity, I cannot find it listed as our current abilities on MMO-Champion.

Havoc12 · 07/18/08, 1:44 PM

Originally Posted by constantius

[e] I need the numbers on the final ranks of GHeal that we get, but I strongly doubt even a 3/3 Imp PW:S and 5/5 Borrowed Time shield will equal 50% of a GHeal. And remember: my GHeals will be landing every 2.0 seconds for a minimum (max-rank, at 70, current gear) of 6000, non-crit. Add another rank of GHeal, a bit more gear, and I'm going to be landing 7500-ish heals every 2.0 seconds. Spec'ing 51 points in Disc to get a powerful shield isn't my idea of a good spec for PvE.

At level 70 max rank with your current gear and deep disc PWS absorbs 2892 damage, however you are getting the benefit of their T6 bonus. Without that its 50% of a non crit gheal. Since it only takes 1 second PWS adds 2892 HPS when included in a spell sequence. A PoM/PWS combo adds about 5k in 1 second making it the best panic button in the game.

At max rank PWS absorbs 4370 damage with a 1 second GCD and you are looking at 8.2k gheals. Only 50 points are required for the powerfull shield. And in addition to that you get grace, divine aegis, rapture for yor mana efficiency, pain suppression, PI and 20% more intellect. Deep disc is certainly a lot better than any impDS holy build, no matter how much you look at it, due to the nerf in IHC. If the spell haste is for all spells but the buff expires after 3 GH/FH/BH, then holy impDS is ok I guess, not as good as disc, but ok. If haste only applies to those 3 spells, impDS = disc and disc alone.

In general the number of classes getting damage reduction talents (e.g. dispersion, spirit link), especially the ridiculous pally 30% AoE DR, leads me to think that damage reduction is going to be necessary in PvE as well as PvP. This is why I think that disc will do well.