WoW Priest Talents Revealed

[net7runner]

Blizzard has released the preliminary changes to the Priest class in the upcoming 1.10 patch for World of Warcraft.
You can try out the new talent calculator here (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priests2/talents.html).
There's a lengthy blue post on the changes here (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-priest&t=648886&s=new&tmp=1#new) (although the massive board activity seems to have broken the thread).
You can read about the previously announced racial spell changes here (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-priest&t=599782&p=1&tmp=1#post599782).

Pretty impressive Holy tree buff and they (thankfully) left Shadow alone for the most part. Now it seems like each tree has both 31- and 20-point investment potential.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

Yay my mage is still shit.

[Echani]

Looking very nice indeed. When I do go back to WoW, for however long or short I last, I'm planning on rolling a priest, so these changes are rather appealing. Chances are my return'll be after the expansion's released at the end of this year though :o College and anti-MMORPG sentiments are more important for the moment

[mig]

Speaking as someone who has a lvl 60 priest, all I can say is "meh". Then again, that's my general attitude towards the game at this point. Unplayable servers are far too common, Kil'Jaeden has been terrible since shortly after launch. I don't enjoy waiting for 1 hour+ in queues and loading screens before even being allowed to play the game.

[Neosho]

As a priest, i like these changes...i haven't seen the problems that mig is talking about.

[Draft]

Yay my mage is still shit.Umm, mages are probably one of the strongest classes, talent and ability wise. They are right up there with rogues in terms of not needing a revamp. Gear wise they are hurting a little, but they are hardly "shit."

Anyway, priests are getting a really, really nice buff.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

Umm, mages are probably one of the strongest classes, talent and ability wise. They are right up there with rogues in terms of not needing a revamp. Gear wise they are hurting a little, but they are hardly "shit."

Anyway, priests are getting a really, really nice buff.

Got a 60 mage? End game for mages is totally shit and not only gear, but skill wise, mages are fucked and need something new. Having decent burst damage but then cooldowns needed for said damage is total bs. Also lack of decent defense gets old way too fast. I was obsessed with WoW, then hit 60 and hate the game.

[gzsfrk]

Wow... what a nice review with some very nice feedback from the Community Manager explaining them. The priest review is the final proof needed to demonstrate that Paladins are the red-headed step-children of the WoW universe. Of course, what with needing to balance the populations more towards Horde, I guess SOME class has to take one for the overall game balance. Glad I quit months ago...

[DeadPixel]

I played a human shadow priest until 50 and got super bored. Soloing was easy, grouping was fairly easy, although more challenging and gear was not hard to get, which if neglected does not really make you weak.

I finally deleted all my characters and never looked back. RIP

[bradlay]

They made Holy a sexy spec. This is awesome news for everyone.

[Lind]

Very nice changes, finaly I can look at a talent genarator as a PvE priest and not just see one or two ways to go.

[Demize99]

Pallies are Bubbleboys. They survive for freaking ever, thats their strength. They are in fact really annoying to fight, but you have to enjoy playing defensive to enjoy them. Too many people think "ooh a warrior with heals!" Roll a druid then.

[Royal Fool]

Paladins enjoy the dubious benefit of being able to shield and teleport out of a fight if they are losing against the guy that is 6-7 levels lower than them.

[mightbe]

They made Holy a sexy spec. This is awesome news for everyone.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Holy/Disc is more attractive than ever.

[Lon Lon Rabbit]

I'm coming back to WoW.
I said I'd do it when they patched priest, and at last they have.
I didn't expect them to do much to the heals either, but they have, which is awesome news for me, I've always played holy from talent one, I find full support tonnes of fun.
Thank you muchly Blizzard.

[xcalibur]

Mages are gimp... the only classes mages have a chance against are warriors and rogues... every other class owns mages.

/retired 60 mage


-X

[Mason]

Eh, the two new 31-point talents made me blink a few times.

The discipline one is only useful if you use it on someone who knows instantly to shift to their lower-tier spells for those 15 seconds. In any high-end instance, suddenly upping a damage or healing caster's power by 20% will get them a lot of aggro and not much else. 20% mana cost reduction would be the PvE-friendly alternative. It's basically a PvP-only ability, but given how it'll get dispelled pretty quickly in a large number of fights, plus its long cool-down, I'd say its value is pretty low.

The holy 31-pt spell is just strange. If it doesn't give aggro to the caster or user then I can see it being an okay toy, but non-time-critical healing isn't a really big threat, and players won't be able to get healing charges quickly enough to help them out of sticky spots. I hope there's a cooldown, or else the first time someone gets hurt they'll click like madmen and take all 5 charges. This'd be a lot more useful if it auto-healed characters in range who are below 50%, that'd at least be an okay "oh crap" last resort.

And of course, the fact that any damage dispels it will make it useless for PvP and most of the really dangerous PvE encounters, so yet again we've got something which makes easy stuff slightly easier.

The PW:S change seems pretty crappy off the bat, too. I need to read the details on that (forums are down), but if they really took away the huge cooldown reduction for a 15% absorption increase, then that's going to be a problem.

[snake-eyes]

According to a post from Bliz, they reduced the cool down of the debuff from PW:S to the same lvl as if you had speced fully into it.

[Mason]

Good, I'd guessed that they did, as basically the priest population would quit otherwise. Nerfing underpowered abilities just ain't right.

They still need to let PW:S benefit from spell damage or healing increases, though. 1083 damage is better than 942, but pretty much any DPS class still burns through that in seconds (if you're lucky).

[XenonCJ]

Can I get "Fear Ward" for my stupid Human Priest now?

[XenonCJ]

Mages are gimp... the only classes mages have a chance against are warriors and rogues... every other class owns mages.

/retired 60 mage


-XI have a 47 mage and I'm so far quite happy with it... Are you not using counterspell when you pvp other classes?

I find I can beat most classes except hunters...

[ubartehbarbarian]

the game changes when you reach 60, try beating a Druid then. I don't play a mage but with all the whining you hear from them something must be broken. I've got a priest, and think these changes are o.k.... at least you don't have to spend 31 points for divine spirit anymore, but I don't see the new ones being all that usefull for pve, while the 20 percent bonus to damage might make a holy spec priest viable in pvp now? maybe not. I suspect they'll still get owned by rogues and such.

[Mason]

I have a 47 mage and I'm so far quite happy with it... Are you not using counterspell when you pvp other classes?

I find I can beat most classes except hunters...

The only mages who survived against my shadow priest were the ones who started blinking away early. Faces were melted. Of course, if I renewed now I'm sure I could sink a full mana bar into anyone and not dent them. Itemization ftw.

[Crabby]

I especially enjoy how they gave priests all the talents that used to differentiate paladin healers from priest healers. In the most sarcastic and seethingly angry way a person can appreciate something.

[Speed_D]

I have a 60 priest also and I agree: "meh".

The shadow tree got nothing useful whatsoever.

The holy and disc trees got some... interesting changes, but not all good. For example, now you can't have both Mental Strength and Spiritual Healing anymore, because the latter was moved so far down the tree.

The people who will benefit most are disc/holy priests who want to pvp. They got a huge survivability upgrade (Healing Focus + Spell Warding + Blessed Recovery), and nice damage bonuses (Power Infusion, Divine Fury, Searing Light). Holy Nova is now instacast so priests can be like mages to stop people from grabbing flags in Arathi Basin.

I'd probably go 31 disc / 20 holy if I had any interest in those two trees.

Lightwell seems like mostly a toy although it might be handy in fights where you are out of range to heal people, like Ragnaros knockback.

[Mason]

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.

WTF? They can't simply do a freaking no-brainer change like making Inner Fire less of a pain without adding some bullshit like it falling after 20 hits. Soloing up a priest would now be quite the pleasant experience, refreshing the more-expensive Inner Fire before every single fight instead of every few.