Cataclysm Priest Changes - Page 20

tedv · 08/20/10, 5:10 PM

I think this whole discussion ignores something very important about boss fights. There are legitimate situations where healing priests will best benefit the raid by casting DPS spells. Not all fights require exactly the same healing output for the entire duration. Fights like Sindragosa have periods where all healing ceases. Putricide only has challenging healing in the last phase. Non-paladin healers have nothing to do for the first 90 seconds of Saurfang. I don't think Blizzard's boss fight design is changing any time soon.

With that in mind, it could legitimately be worth spending 4 talent points to put out semi-respectable DPS in a raid setting. Even if you only do half the damage of a dedicated DPS class, and only during low healing, high burn phases, that's still a considerable asset to the raid.

If you want mana regeneration, Veiled Shadows is clearly the better option. The real question is how useful the additional bit of DPS will be, and how much the talents really buy a priest. It's hard to judge this without knowing the exact encounters in Cataclysm raiding, but if I were speccing for Lich King boss fights with the new talent spec, I'd take the full boat of smite talents in my holy spec.

Ellyh · 08/21/10, 3:12 AM

Lots of holy priest changes

* Holy Word: Chastise *New* - Chastise the target for 563.9 to 632.71 Holy damage, and Immobilizing them for 2 sec. 15% of base mana, 30 yd range, Instant cast, 45 sec cooldown
* Heavenly Voice is gone.
* Binding Prayers is gone.
* Holy Concentration moved from Tier 4 to Tier 3 and revamped - Increases the amount of mana regeneration while in combat by an additional 10/20%.
* Serendipity now reduces cast time by 10/20% (up from 6/12%) and also reduces mana cost by 5/10%. Stacks up to 2 times, down from 3 times.
* Surge of Light is gone.
* Revelations (Tier 5) *New* - While in a Chakra state, your Holy Word: Chastise ability will transform into a different ability depending on which state you are in. Holy Word: Serenity (Heal) - Instantly heals the target for 3161.85 to 3730.47, and increases the critical effect chance of your healing spells on the target by 25% for until cancelled. 45 sec cooldown. Holy Word: Aspire (Renew) - Instantly heals the target for 2363.56 and another 4471.99 over until cancelled. 15 sec cooldown. Holy Word: Sanctuary (Prayer of Healing) - Blesses the ground with Divine light, healing all within it for 298.75 to 355.32 every 2 for 15 sec. Only one Sanctuary can be active at any one time.
* Twirling Light (Tier 6) *New* - When you deal damage with Smite, Holy Fire, or Holy Word: Chastise your next Flash Heal is instant at 75% reduced mana cost, but heals for 30% of the amount. Lasts for 10 sec. When you deal damage with Smite, Holy Fire, or Holy Word: Chastise your next Flash Heal is instant at 75% reduced mana cost, but heals for 60% of the amount. Lasts for 10 sec.

some exciting stuff there but I am getting worried that holy priesting is going to require a lot of practice and timer support as you try to keep track of the fight mechanics and the raid life bars and then the following:
Chakra
Chastise and all it's morphlings
CoH
Guardian Angel
Shadowfiend
PoM
Renew(s) Duration

and optionally depending on spec.
Weakened soul
pws cooldown
serendipidity
archangel
desperate prayer
lightwell

I would hate to be be a new player chosing holy priest as my first class and basically running into all this attention sapping detail once I start healing.

The good news is that according to the MMO-Champion talent calculator Lightwell is no longer tied to Chakra. What is obvious is that under the new talent tree there is very little reason to take the two hated anchors of the holy tree (lightwell and improved death, aka spirit of redemption). They have even been moved out of the central core line where the X1 talents have traditionally been located.

ttyl · 08/21/10, 3:28 AM

Holy Word tooltips: http://i35.tinypic.com/wk4nph.jpg
Interesting mechanics. HW:Aspire is the only mediocre one, but I guess that balances out Renew Chakra.

Fallenangel · 08/21/10, 6:02 AM

I tend to agree that it seems a bit too much, but there might be some relaxing factors. I wouldn't expect Glyph of GS to stick around, making the CD of GS longer (possibly optional talent?). Fiend tends to be a use-on-cd once you've used it for the first time. Chakra probably won't change midfight a lot.
I'm not really liking Twirling Light. a 40% healing reduction and 2s cast is a hefty price to pay for making a 1.5s spell instant. The mana cost reduction is not very strong since you have to pay for the DPS spell. That said it's competing with powerhouses like Lightwell and Spirit of Redemption - and manages to lose, imo.

Hegen · 08/21/10, 9:18 AM

Originally Posted by Fallenangel

I'm not really liking Twirling Light. a 40% healing reduction and 2s cast is a hefty price to pay for making a 1.5s spell instant. The mana cost reduction is not very strong since you have to pay for the DPS spell.

That talent is meant to allow healers to dps, then quickly react if things go wrong. It's not meant to be woven into a healing sequence, but rather at the end of a DPS sequence, allowing you to catch up on healing by throwing an instant, inexpensive heal.

That's the situation I described where you saved mana by using free SoL smites, but had to catch up using an expensive FH. Thankfully, that Archangel+SoL combo is gone, and I think Twirling Light is a perfect solution (though maybe the 60% penalty is a bit too harsh). It's a very good talent if a healer intends to dps, and a useless talent if he doesn't.

Fallenangel · 08/21/10, 10:50 AM

It just doesn't do enough. If you're smiting then clearly there's no healing needed. Then suddenly someone needs heals so badly that you need a weakened FH cause even 1.5s pre-haste is too slow? I don't see it happening. If you really need an instant, there's always PW:S. I'd much rather have Lightwell, tragically enough. The implementation of healer-going-dps is much cleaner, simpler and more interesting for resto shamans.
As an aside Chakra doesn't play well with stopping and smiting if it goes beyond a few seconds.

Hegen · 08/21/10, 1:39 PM

Originally Posted by Fallenangel

It just doesn't do enough.
...
If you really need an instant, there's always PW:S.

With the talent, you can still have that. At any time between ending the last smite and 10s later you can fit that FH in. Pw:S first, then FH, if you like. Heal first, then FH, if you like. Any way you slice it, it's a compensation for the reaction time you lost by dpsing. More isn't necessary or warranted.

If that's not enough to justify the two talent points for you, you can also use it to top up people who a got a bit of damage while you are in your dps cycle. Personally, I'd consider that to be less important, usually there will be some healer full time healing (yeah, XT heart phase, I know), but you can if you want to.

KalistraMerged · 08/22/10, 6:00 AM

Personally I'm trying to figure how to make use of atonement. Realistically you need to take 6 talent points and hit to make it viable for weaving with 'normal' healing rotations in disc, is this going to be a nice idea, not going to happen?

I'm looking at:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

as being a preety cookie-cutter disc spec (one point free), not sure how we can get the 'free' points needed for evang+arch+atone

Ultimoron · 08/22/10, 11:28 AM

At the moment, with the new changes, it seems like you have a few difficult choices with a DPS spec, between Shadow and Holy (subbing into Disc for Evangelism and Archangel). Unfortunately, Darkness int he new build is a potentially potent damage talent (+3% haste passive? Yes please!)

HW: Chastise looks to be interesting as well, especially with the combination of Chakra and Revelations. It will make Holy much more priority-based, making decision-making more important as a HPriest. However, that 45s cooldown scares me and strikes me as being too long...

I see WoW Talent Calculator - Sigrie as being the 'best' spec.

Elimbras · 08/22/10, 1:59 PM

I like the new Holy Word. Seems we know finally our level-10 ability.

I'me not definitely set up about Twirling Light. But I'm not convinced yet. Currently, I don't really see it as useful. If after smiting, I want to heal "slowly" someone, I can always Heal him. If it is urgent (because of RST for example), I can Flash Heal him. All what this talent does is basically turn Flash Heal into a new subpar "heal" (with basically the same cost (7% base mana for the "reduced" fh, 6% for heal), half casting time (1.5s compared to 3s), and most likely less healing). And I'm losing the possibility of an (expensive) fast "strong" heal if needed.

Shadowalker · 08/23/10, 12:26 AM

It looks like Twirling Light is going to be one of those optional talents which you may or may not pick up depending on your play style. I could see myself casting a smite every 10 seconds or so during damage lulls so that I can have an instant flash heal prepared for any unexpected burst damage. While it may not be overly significant, it is instant an instant heal at the same cost as our standard heal.

Provided that no mandatory talents steal it's thunder, I can definitely see myself experimenting with Twirling Light.

Ayreon · 08/23/10, 7:29 AM

Dunno but the thought of having to press a button every 60 seconds was a reason I went combat instead of mutil on my rogue, despite having 277 daggers..and now priests are getting pretty much the same thing Hunger for Blood is (yes, I know there is a talent that automatically extends the Chakra duration but I still think the current implementation is not...elegant enough)

I like what are they trying to do with the talent, I am just not sure the activation method is right just yet. I would much prefer it to be a passive talent.

Lambi · 08/23/10, 11:53 AM

I disagree. In my opinion the utilities and spell choices a priest have to make is what makes us fun to play. I like the current chakra idea and I'm praying that Blizzard will keep Leap of Faith for release. I'm dying to try it out.

What suggestion do you have in mind with chakra being passive? It was much clunkier before when you had to use 3 spells in a row.

Ayreon · 08/23/10, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by Lambi

What suggestion do you have in mind with chakra being passive? It was much clunkier before when you had to use 3 spells in a row.

It definitely was, I like how it is only activated by a single spellcast now. What I would suggest is, keep the talent like it is now but just make it a passive ability - as far as I understand, you will want to have Chakra running the entire fight. I cant't see the fun in closely keeping an eye on if it's running and reactivating it if it falls off for whatever reason. (and if it never does then then it becomes a 'press this button at the start of the fight then forget about it' - almost as bad as Hunger for Blood is now.)

So in short, keep it like it is now, just make it passive.

Elimbras · 08/23/10, 12:57 PM

I don't know about what you mean as passive. We definitely need a mean to tell the game "I want to enter a new Chakra now". The penalty otherwise is to change Chakra each time we use a different spell, and that would be definitely worst !

They could however remove the duration. Chakra, still on a 1min CD cooldown, would then let us enter a new chakra state, depending on which spell we cast next. But that Chakra state would last until cancelled, or until using one again the chakra spell. I don't have a definitive answer on wether that would be better.
On one hand, it prevents us from constantly refreshing the chakra (especially heal / renew chakra) for a fight where we don't switch chakra states. Even with duration extension, the current chakra will at some point fall down. We then need to set up a new one, and that's not something specifically funny to watch. Achieving 100% presence of chakra will be desirable, possible, and not fun sometimes (when we'll have to use weird tricks to do it).
On the other side, duration-free chakra would feel a lot like paladin auras and warriors stances. Something in-between I guess, as it will change our abilities, which is more than paladins auras or DK presences, but it won't change which abilities we can use, and that is less than what stances does.