Havoc12

@KalistraMerged

Interesting choices. It may be better or worse than what I posted, I can't really compare without seeing it in action. I suspect though that only 1 point in grace will result in 80%+ of the return from it, so I am not sure the second point is worth it. Also there is always the question of whether you can afford to pass up on at least 2 points in improved healing. I would say 1 from grace and 1 from aspiration or pain suppression.

 

Starfire

It upsets me as a night-elf to be casting Devouring Plague. I sincerely hope they rename the ability for Alliance priests. (See Bloodlust and Heroism).

Overall, today's changes were absolutely awe-inspiring and amazing. The itemisation and racials are huge huge benefits.

 

Liths

Speaking strictly from a raiding pov those changes aren't terribly exciting. Well, less worthless items from naxx is good I suppose, but I really don't see what those racials are going to change. If Symbol of Hope remains base mana it's trash. It's the equaliant of under 2mp/5 for your group, how awesome. DP isn't something you'll be throwing around in raid settings, and I'll lose a talent point if I want to keep desperate prayer. For the races who had worthless racials it's nice, but for especially draenei priests, or even if you just happen to have a draenei priest in your raid its a pretty big loss in power.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good change. It was pretty silly how much better draenei priests were than other, but with wotlk pre patch hitting live servers soon I'm getting seriously worried. Things right now is a mess in terms of class balance.

 

Observer

The updated Twin Disciplines talent should read "Increases your spell damage and healing on instant spells by 5%, except for the main instant spell in this very tree."

Regarding Symbol of Hope, no matter how weak it is, it's still better than not having Symbol of Hope. Every little bit helps.

 

james

Am very used to NOT having to spec my 11 point talent. But Desperate Prayer as an 11 pt talent is something we've been asking for, for a while. However, there needs to be a PVE reason to take it. i.e. a secondary effect. Perhaps increased spirit for 10s after.

Since I'm losing talent points to gain this - albeit a better version - I'd like to see them compensate me with some talent points saved. Lower tier Discipline. Meditation. Tactical Mastery. Stance Mastery. You know what I'm saying.

I sincerely hope that we don't get "mugged" into taking Symbol of Hope / Holy Nova / Devouring Plague as our "new spells". Each class seems to be getting 3 new spells - atm we only have Mind Sear and Divine Hymn. Was hoping our 3rd slot would be an interesting spell that would provide a differing gamestyle between TBC and Wrath. Initially, Mark of Divinity was going to be that spell - but that seems to have been recalled and rebranded as the paladin 51 pt Holy talent.

One good thing to come from these becoming baseline is that we can now have talents affect these abilities.

I wouldn't mind having Healing Prayers need Desperate Prayer as a pre-requisite and giving our Desperate Prayer ability a 50%/100% chance to remove all curses.

Or maybe the weak Borrowed Time could add a Heroism/Bloodlust effect to Symbol of Hope with debuff. Lord knows they've been trying to do something with that.

 

Mr. Crow

My first reaction to this change is how Desperate Prayer will interact with the usage of Binding Heal. Given the prevalence of AoE damage in BC, BH made sense because it kept the Priest up without stopping the healing on the MT. But putting Desperate Prayer on a 30sec CD just puts another check into play: "Do I use burn a GC to keep myself up with DP or do I keep healing the tank?"

Was it three new spells for everyone? I was under the impression that it was two: one at 75, one at 80. Which kinda chafes me a bit, since everyone in BC got 4-5 new spells. I can understand not wanting to glut the action bars, but makes me wonder.

I don't know how much Desperate Prayer needs any kind of rider abilities -- the dramatic cooldown reduction means it's going to be a extra 2000 HP for priest every 30 seconds, which isn't bad for no mana. I'll be interested in seeing what synergy happens with Hymn of Hope, and (despite the name) every DPS priest will probably like Devouring Plague regardless of synergies.

 

Hegen

Desperate Prayer has saved me countless times in raids when the healthstone timer was up. It's instant, so you can even invoke it when running. Use an emergency macro that invokes Shield, Healthstone, Desperate Prayer, then repeatedly invoke it when things go wrong. That happens everywhere beyond Karazhan, not just on trash.

Priests that are not dead heal more. Totally worth a talent point.

Consider that you can use it while moving. Many encounters in BT and ZA come to mind where Binding heal is no alternative. Besides that you are correct: Binding Heal is a better use of a GcD whenever you're not moving.

 

The Not So Evil

Desperate Prayer as 11 pointer is actually quite decent, when you look at overall changes. Mana and Healing Potions are now only 1 per fight, Desperate Prayer is our personal Healing Potion now. Yes it does slightly interfer with Binding Heal, but do remember Desparate Prayer can be done on the move. Also there is a life before 60. The synergy between a Guardian Spirit and Desperate Prayer might be borderline overpowered in PvP however. (its basically the priest version of Nature's Swiftness - Healing Touch on self only)

If Devouring Plague is still a disease, we will see a nice synergy between Priests and Death Knights.

 

Thorongil

Not to forget that the cooldown on Desperate Prayer has been lowered to 30 seconds. Basically it is a Healing Potion x4, not even considering the fact that Healing Potions are not available more than once a fight and DP does not trigger the Potion cooldown this is awesome. Besides, it scales with Spellpower. I understand that the nerfing bat hit us quite hard the last couple of builds but if you continue complaining about such an awesome 11-pointer you should maybe start opening your eyes again and recognize that there is no conspiracy against you.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Idril.png

 

Shan

I use Desperate Prayer togheter with Healthstones in PvE. It's pretty decent for that, even if 10 min cooldown was too long for such a small heal. At 80 it will heal comparatively more (1.7k base -> 4k base), unless they nerf it.

 

Havoc12

It looks like grace will be 6% healing for the priest who cast it.

Do we have any final figures for spell power to healing conversion? What is the current model. Last time I looked at it we were assuming casttime/3.5*1.88 does this still stand. Also does anyone have any idea what the scaling of penance is? I presume that each hit counts a 1sec cast.

 

Sarjin

If it actually lasted 20 seconds, true. However unfortunately it's a buff lasting a maximum of 20 seconds consumed on the next heal being cast. As it is right now due to latency issues, the first GHeal after the proc will not gain the haste, yet it is the next GHeal being cast; the system seems oblivious to this spell not getting the benefit however, meaning the spell does consume the buff.

Just wondering on Desperate Prayer btw, given the 30 second timer. Any people think it might be possible to cast it on other people? Since a 30 second cooldown seems a bit low for a self heal (if still useful of course).

At least these changes indicate they might be willing to change some ideas which worked. There's a fair amount of fixing to be done to priests to be somewhat on par with say Druids, but it's a first step I guess. Personally I'm more worried about things like the lack of raid utility, the lack of synergy between talents, and how unimaginative and boring the holy tree is compared to Resto. I'm not too worried about the numbers, even though I am concerned; those can be easily adapted, redesigning a tree takes more time.

 

Shan

Just to check, is 3583 base mana, 175 int and 192 spi for a lvl 80 priest correct? (with slight differences to int and spi due to varying races).

 

Thorongil

I can not imagine that would be possible without making DP cost some serious amount of mana. A huge Instant Heal for free every 30 seconds that does not cost mana and is useable on anyone? That seems a bit overpowered for a 11-pointer. Moreover, it would make going oom severly hard (given the fact that a combination of Clearcast+InnerFocusCast+DP would give you a huge amount of oofsr time).

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Idril.png

 

Hegen

Currently, on PTR, penance gives:

1111 spellpower (really): 1460 roughly average per 1s cast.
530 spellpower: 1180 roughly average per 1s cast.

Test series of 4 penance casts each, so numbers are rough. Tested with a level 70 disc/holy build. Holy until 3/3 Inspiration.

 

Sarjin

I was guessing indeed that the no mana cost might indeed be cause some fun additional OO5SR juggling, not sure what they would do with the magnitude, and what it would be like in WotLK. Not sure if there would be adjustments, but on the other hand given some skills other classes get baseline, and us being the only class without a true single target instant heal, would it actually be that overpowered with some tweaks? I just wonder if they intend us to give a 4-5k (or whatever) self heal on 30 second timer, I'd have expected a longer cooldown in that case, like most emergency buttons. Not that I'd be terribly unhappy about that implementation, but targetable DP could add a bit of a new twist to our healing rotations, which is one thing especially Holy sorely lacks at the moment.

 

Shatter Combo w/ Fries

No huge sample sizes, but 5 casts per set (15 ticks)

972 spellpower: 1382 avg tick

888 spellpower: 1336 avg tick

0 spellpower: 875 avg ticks

52.3%
51.9%
52.6%
52.1%

I have focused power 2/2

So, just an early estimate, looks like it gains right at 50% of spellpower +/- 2%.

 

Thorongil

While this is basically true, I think the main problem lies in the cooldown. If it was made targetable to other players 30 seconds would simply be too low. On the other hand for any spell with a cooldown of several minutes you can hardly talk of "implementing it to our rotation", since the cooldown prevents frequent use. The possibility of getting a targeted instant heal is tasty but for my part I´d rather stick with the considerable boost of a lower cooldown and the restriction of self-usage instead of blurring the spell while trying to balance it around targeted usage.

Not to forget, 30 seconds on DP is a considerable improvement for Arena survivability.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Idril.png

 

Sarjin

True, we'll have to see I guess. Just that to me a self-cast DP will be nice addition which is undoubtedly useful, whereas making it castable on others will obviously be a change of much greater effect to our playstyle. I don't really know how they'd do it with balance, though as is there is no real balance from what I hear, comparing Resto Druids with Holy Priests. Obviously there's some options for this, one to nerf down Flourish (Blizzard's typically favored solution), one to buff Priest numbers to be on par, and a third to add a new ability/dimension to priest healing which with some balancing closes the gap. The third to me would be the most fun one, but not sure if it's viable from a balance point of view.

One more thing regarding the new racials which was noted on the beta boards: Symbol of Hope was renamed to Hymn of Hope. Symbol of Hope in my eyes would be a fine name for all priests (esp compared to Devouring Plague retaining its name), yet this name means we now have two 'Hymn' spells, just like we have two Power Word and two Shadow Word spells. Now this could be because they show some basic similarities, it could however also foreshadow upcoming new talent changes. My prime candidate for implementing this would be Discipline Tier 2. As it is, our 14 points in Discipline do in my eyes not really measure up with the points Druids put in Balance, and the benefits they get. Improved PW:F is very boring and unimaginative, and Shield currently gets skipped by many as well. Seeing some other talents, in terms of power it might make sense to roll both talents into a single one ('Words of Supreme Power' probably sounds a bit too much), and have the open place taken by a talent which also increases the power of the Hymn spells (insert catchy name here) or lowers their cooldown. Might also be something for another location however, I am not quite sure about the necessity of threat reduction in WotLK; otherwise a more streamlined speccing in Disc (14 points, rest Holy) would still be skipping the new talent in favor of that and the Power Word one likely. Still, a talent like this in lower Holy or Discipline would make sense to me.

 

Kamakaze

I will miss Starshards, but overall the racial changes sound good. It was an old concept that they never really put enough effort into it to balance it.

I think Desperate Prayer is fine as it is, if it still remains free and on a 30 second cooldown then it is an extremely powerful PvP talent and a midly useful PvE one. Which is more than Holy Nova ever was. Some priests might skip it for PvE, but I definitely would take it, I love binding heal, and having a personal healthstone every 30 seconds is pretty good for quite a few fights.

I have never used Devouring Plague, but if the mana cost is lowered enough then it is a nice replacement for Starshards, and while Hymn of Hope seems rather weak, it is better for raiding than Elunes Grace.

Also both Desperate Prayer and Devouring Plague are affected by Twin Disciplines, making the talent more useful as it only affects instants (also affects holy nova!)

 

Lambi

Are you guys forgetting how much 30 seconds is? DP being castable on others is definitely not impossible, especially for an 11 point talent. However maybe put a mana cost on it comparable to flash heal?

 

Kamakaze

I would prefer it remain free. We don't know if it will even remain free at this point anyway. There is no reason at all that it should be castable on others. Regardless of whether people use it or not, Power Word: Shield is our short cooldown instant cast targetted "heal". It is much more effective than before and scales the same as Flash Heal now. Desperate Prayer does not need to duplicate that functionality.

 

Alexanderr

I'm only on the PTR sadly and not the beta, I've placed in feedback about the issue there and also posted on the EU PTR forum however it got about 10 views before the forum was consumed with "How do I download patch" threads and I very much doubt anyone has read it sadly.

Whilst not a tech head I can see how applying the spell haste live might be an issue and something Blizz would be reluctant to do. If that is the case then how about separating the 2 effects. At the moment on the PTR, with 3/3 Improved Holy Conc. when you proc it you gain two buffs....Clearcasting and Improved Holy Conc buff. However both are always consumed during the situation I described earlier. If Clearcasting and IHC were truly separate buffs, then when the situation of chain casting arises we simply have Clearcasting being consumed by the heal in progress and IHC haste effect being used on the next applicable spell. When not chain casting then both can be applied and consumed as normal.

 

Liths

Priest base mana is 3863 at level 80, don't really know the int/spi values.

 

Kortar

Does Desperate Prayer consume a GCD? Normally, non-mana abilities don't and, IIRC, DP doesn't currently consume a GCD.