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Patch 1.10 News: Priest Updates Considered

Now that everyone's had some time to read and think about the announced priest changes, it's time to talk about what the changes mean. What talent builds will be best for raiding or PVPing under these changes? Are these new talents really as good as they sound? Theoretical builds and commentary after the jump.



Of course there are more viable build combinations, but here are three interesting builds that really aren't options on the live realms at present (at least not for anything besides novelty value!). This post lacks 31-point builds for both Holy and Shadow, but I'm sure readers can make the jump from the 30-point Holy build to the 31-point, and desirable full-shadow builds haven't changed much with these proposed alterations to the talent trees.

Holy Damage/Spirit Build - 21/25/5
This is an out and out damage build based on leveraging the utility of the new Spiritual Guidance talent, which increases your damage done by 25% of your spirit. The lack of Silent Resolve for reduced threat makes this more of a PVP or soloing build, but Silent Resolve could certainly be integrated into the overall concept.

Discipline Talents - We're going into discipline primarily for Divine Spirit - because, remember, increasing your spirit is going to increase your damage output.

Unbreakable Will - rank 5/5 - 15% chance to resist stun, fear, and silence effects.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - rank 2/2 - 30% improvement to your fortitude spell, bringing it from a 54 point stamina bonus to a 70 point stamina bonus at max rank.
Improved Power Word: Shield - rank 3/3 - 15% improvement to the damage absorbed by your shield. This is about 150 extra damage absorbed (assuming it's calculated before healing gear), which may or may not be worth the talent points. However, we need to put points somewhere to get up to Divine Spirit.
Martyrdom - rank 2/2 - If you've been hit by a critical strike, Martyrdom grants you focused casting (prevents your casts from being interrupted by damage) as well as gives you a 20% chance to reduce interrupt effects for 6 seconds. If you have more of an interest in healing than doing damage, you might want to skip this talent - there's a new two-point talent in holy that gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption on all heals, and you don't have to take damage to make use of it.
Inner Focus - rank 1/1 - Lets you cast a spell for free every 3 minutes, with a 25% increased critical chance.
Meditation - rank 3/3 - Allows 15% of mana to regenerate while casting. This talent is especially useful in a build focusing on high levels of spirit.
Improved Inner Fire - rank 3/3 - 45% improvement to Inner Fire. More armor means less damage taken from hits - which tends to mean you live longer.
Mental Agility - rank 1/5 - Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 2%. While Mental Agility isn't bad, this is really just a place-holder point to be able to get to Divine Spirit. You can put this point anywhere else if you feel you need to, or rearrange points to put more here. (But do take time to consider how many instant cast spells are available to you before allocating more points.)
Divine Spirit - rank 1/1 - At max rank, this increases your spirit by 35. Mmm, spirit!

Holy Talents - The goal here is to pick up damage improvement and especially Spiritual Guidance.

Healing Focus - rank 2/2 - 70% chance to avoid interruption while casting any healing spell for only two points. This talent is a winner.
Holy Specialization - rank 5/5 - Increases your chance to crit with holy spells by 5%. Since this build's damage is going to focus on the use of Smite and Holy Fire, this is a plus.
Divine Fury - rank 5/5 - Reduces the cast time of Smite, Holy Fire, Heal, and Greater Heal by a half second. With the improvement to both your healing and damage dealing abilities given by this talent, it's hard to turn down - this is a key component to any Holy build, damage or no.
Holy Nova - rank 1/1 - An instant-cast AOE that does holy damage to your enemies and heals your friends. In its present form on the live realms, the damage and healing components are both weak, but this may be different from what we'll see on the test realm. However, even with the low damage potential, it's hard to say no to an instant-cast, no cooldown AOE. The only other class that has a spell like this is the mage, and why should we let them have all the fun?
Blessed Recovery - rank 3/3 - Heals you for 25% of damage taken after you've been victim to a critical strike. Like Martyrdom, this requires you to be taking hits in order to take effect. Some would argue that if you're taking hits, chances are you aren't going to last long anyway, and this talent only postpones the inevitable - slightly at that. However, it's a free heal when you need it most, and it's hard to see that as a bad thing.
Holy Reach - rank 2/2 - 20% increase in the range of Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova, and Prayer of Healing.
Searing Light - rank 2/2 - 10% increase in the damage done by Smite and Holy Fire.
Spiritual Guidance - rank 5/5 - Increases damage and healing done by up to 25% of your spirit. This is the key component to this build's strategy.

Shadow Talents - Just for Spirit Tap!

Spirit Tap - rank 5/5 - Grants you a 100% bonus to your spirit for 15 seconds if you receive the killing blow on a target. This talent is incredible for soloing (PVE or PVP), because you'll always get the killing blow, which in this build will grant you both immensely increased mana regeneration and damage. You'll find it less useful in group play, where landing a killing blow is more hit or miss, and you'll find it almost completely useless if you're healing instead of doing damage (I say "almost" because every so often you will end up with a killing blow through Shadow Word: Pain - but it's not something to rely on). If this talent isn't for you, consider Spell Warding in Holy, which, for 5 points, reduces spell damage taken by 10%.

Healing Spirit Build - 21/30/0
This build is similar to the above, but focuses on healing improvement over damage improvement. Because of Spiritual Guidance, you'll still be able to put out some good holy damage with this build, but when it's a choice of healing or damage talents, I've picked healing here. This may be the new "cookie cutter" healing build, though some may prefer to skip Divine Spirit for filling out Spiritual Healing and getting the new 31-point Lightwell talent. (For a 18/32/0 build.)

Discipline Talents - The goal here is utility. Silent Resolve, Improved Fortitude, Inner Focus, Meditation, and Divine Spirit are all excellent tools for a healing priest.

Unbreakable Will - rank 5/5 - While the 15% chance to resist stun, fear, and silence effects is good, it's pretty common for healers to spend time wanding while regening mana or waiting for someone to need a heal. Wand specialization increases your wanding damage, which some players may find useful.
Silent Resolve - rank 5/5 - This talent reduces the threat caused by your damage and healing spells by 20%. An excellent investment if you plan on doing any PVE healing or DPS.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - rank 2/2 - 30% improvement to your fortitude spell, bringing it from a 54 point stamina bonus to a 70 point stamina bonus at max rank.
Improved Power Word: Shield - rank 3/3 - 15% improvement to the damage absorbed by your shield. This is about 150 extra damage absorbed (assuming it's calculated before healing gear), which may or may not be worth the talent points. However, we need to put points somewhere to get up to Divine Spirit.
Inner Focus - rank 1/1 - Lets you cast a spell for free every 3 minutes, with a 25% increased critical chance.
Meditation - rank 3/3 - Allows 15% of mana to regenerate while casting. This talent is especially useful in a build focusing on high levels of spirit.
Mental Agility - rank 1/5 - Again, a place-holder.
Divine Spirit - rank 1/1 - At max rank, this increases your spirit by 35.

Holy Talents - Here we're trying to maximize healing ability. If you want to have more damage options, you could switch the two points in Improved Healing into Searing Light - your only loss is a bit of mana efficiency.

Healing Focus - rank 2/2 - 70% chance to avoid interruption while casting any healing spell.
Improved Renew - rank 3/3 - 15% improvement to your renew spell. Renew is my favorite front-line healing spell, and being able to get this for only three points makes me happy.
Spell Warding - rank 5/5 - 10% reduction in spell damage taken by your target.
Divine Fury - rank 5/5 - Reduces the cast time of Smite, Holy Fire, Heal, and Greater Heal by a half second. This gives you a 2.5 second cast Greater Heal - a powerful tool indeed.
Holy Nova - rank 1/1 - A threat-free, instant-cast AOE that damages enemies and heals friends. Yes, it's weaker than Prayer of Healing, but it also doesn't require you to cast Fade immediately afterward.
Holy Reach - rank 2/2 - 20% increase in the range of Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova, and Prayer of Healing.
Improved Healing - rank 2/3 - Reduces the mana cost of Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal spells by 10%. This is something of a place-holder, and you may wish to spend these two points in Searing Light instead.
Spirit of Redemption - rank 1/1 - While this talent used to be little more than an angel-shaped flag signifying the death of a Holy priest, it now has immense potential. With this talent, after your death you will be transformed into a Sprit of Redemption. You will not be able to move or attack, but you will be able to cast any healing spells, free of mana cost, for 10 seconds.
Spiritual Guidance - rank 5/5 - Increases damage and healing done by up to 25% of your spirit. This allows us to leverage the priest's usually high spirit for extra healing (or damage - if that's your thing).
Spiritual Healing - rank 4/5 - 8% improvement to all healing spells, providing a decent all-around boost to your healing ability. You could max this out to 10, but you're either sacrificing Spirit of Redemption or Divine Spirit, both of which are pretty darned nice to have.

Discipline Damage Build - 32/19/0 or 32/0/19
This is a pure discipline build that leverages damage potential of Power Infusion and Force of Will. Pair it with 19 points in either Holy or Shadow to supplement it with your damage improvement of choice. (I feel Holy is a slightly superior choice for the 19 point investment because there are more improvements to Holy damage and crit low in the tree, whereas the best bonuses to Shadow show up only once you've invested more than 20 points.) Force of Will is a nice talent that isn't new, but it was so deep in Discipline (which offered no complimentary rewards), that few picked it up.

Discipline Talents - Our main goal here is to get the top tier talents. Anything in the middle can be shuffled around to suit you.

Unbreakable Will - rank 5/5 - 15% chance to resist stun, fear, and silence effects.
Silent Resolve - rank 1/5 - A place-holder point that you could toss anywhere. (Though if you're interested in PVE damage-dealing or healing, a few points here would definitely be useful.)
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - rank 2/2 - 30% improvement to your fortitude spell, bringing it from a 54 point stamina bonus to a 70 point stamina bonus at max rank.
Improved Power Word: Shield - rank 3/3 - 15% improvement to the damage absorbed by your shield. This is about 150 extra damage absorbed (assuming it's calculated before healing gear), which may or may not be worth the talent points. However, we need to put points somewhere to get to the top of the tree.
Inner Focus - rank 1/1 - Lets you cast a spell for free every 3 minutes, with a 25% increased critical chance. I don't even need to explain how good this would be for damage spells.
Meditation - rank 3/3 - Allows 15% of mana to regenerate while casting.
Mental Agility - rank 5/5 - Reduces the mana cost of your instant-cast spells by 10%. While this only effects a limited number of your spells, there aren't a lot of options on this tier of the talent tree.
Mental Strength - rank 5/5 - Increases your maximum mana by 10%. More mana means more casting, which is always a good thing - and you need to put five points here to get Power Infusion, anyway.
Divine Spirit - rank 1/1 - At max rank, this increases your spirit by 35.
Force of Will - rank 5/5 - Increases your spell damage by 5% and the critical strike chance of your offensive spells by 5%. The fact that this single talent effects all of your damage spells is what makes it great - you can pair this with talents in Holy or Shadow to improve your damage.
Power Infusion - rank 1/1 - Increases your target's spell damage and healing by 20% for 15 seconds. If you play in a group, mages will beg you to cast this on them. (Whether or not you would then proceed to cast it on yourself and giggle is an exercises left up to the reader.)

Holy Talents - Here we're focusing on supplimenting Discipline damage boosts with Holy damage boosts.

Healing Focus
- rank 2/2 - 70% chance to avoid interruption while casting any healing spell for only two points. This isn't exactly a damage boost, but the utility it provides is huge if you ever need to heal while under fire.
Holy Specialization - rank 5/5 - Increases your chance to crit with holy spells by 5%. Since this build's damage is going to focus on the use of Smite and Holy Fire, this is a plus.
Spell Warding - rank 2/5 - While this talent does seem nifty, these are really just place-holder points. If you're interested in more healing focus, you could drop these two points in either Inspiration (which benefits from your improved holy spell crit chance) or Improved Healing (which improves mana efficiency for Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal).
Divine Fury - rank 5/5 - Reduces the cast time of Smite, Holy Fire, Heal, and Greater Heal by a half second. With the improvement to both your healing and damage dealing abilities given by this talent, it's hard to turn down - this is a key component to any Holy build, damage or no.
Holy Nova - rank 1/1 - An instant-cast AOE that does holy damage to your enemies and heals your friends. In its present form on the live realms, the damage and healing components are both weak, but this may be different from what we'll see on the test realm. However, even with the low damage potential, it's hard to say no to an instant-cast, no cooldown AOE. The only other class that has a spell like this is the mage, and why should we let them have all the fun?
Holy Reach - rank 2/2 - 20% increase in the range of Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova, and Prayer of Healing.
Searing Light - rank 2/2 - 10% increase in the damage done by Smite and Holy Fire.

...or...

Shadow Talents - Here we're focusing on supplimenting our Discipline damage boosts with Shado damage boosts.

Blackout - rank 5/5 - Gives your shadow spells a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds. Everyone always asks - Blackout or Spirit Tap? The answer is... it depends. Spirit Tap tends to be more useful for leveling up, but it can also be worthwhile if you spend a lot of time soloing end-game (faction grinding, anyone?). Blackout is nice for PVP or PVE content if you're doing shadow-based DPS.
Improved Shadow Word: Pain - rank 2/2 - Adds two ticks to your SW:P ability.
Shadow Focus - rank 3/5 - Reduces your target's chance to resist your shadow spells by 6%.
Improved Mind Blast - rank 5/5 - Reduces the cooldown on Mind Blast by 2.5 seconds. Since Mind Blast is your main nuke, and the only shadow ability that can crit, being able to cast it more often is very nice.
Mind Flay - rank 1/1 - This is the "face melting" skill of lore. A channeled spell doing shadow damage and reducing the target's movement speed by 50%. Very mana efficient.
Shadow Reach - rank 3/3 - Increases the range of your shadow spells by 20%.

The Tri-Spec - 14/11/11
This build focuses on maximum versatility - you get some of the low-tier gems in all three trees, and have 15 points remaining to drop in to whichever tree you see fit to customize for your play-style.

Discipline Talents
Unbreakable Will - rank 5/5 - While the 15% chance to resist stun, fear, and silence effects.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - rank 2/2 - 30% improvement to your fortitude spell, bringing it from a 54 point stamina bonus to a 70 point stamina bonus at max rank.
Improved Power Word: Shield - rank 3/3 - 15% improvement to the damage absorbed by your shield. This is about 150 extra damage absorbed (assuming it's calculated before healing gear), which may or may not be worth the talent points. However, we need to put points somewhere to get to the top of the tree.
Inner Focus - rank 1/1 - Lets you cast a spell for free every 3 minutes, with a 25% increased critical chance. I don't even need to explain how good this would be for damage spells.
Meditation - rank 3/3 - Allows 15% of mana to regenerate while casting.

Holy Talents
Healing Focus - rank 2/2 - 70% chance to avoid interruption while casting any healing spell.
Improved Renew - rank 3/3 - 15% improvement to your renew spell. Renew is my favorite front-line healing spell, and being able to get this for only three points makes me happy.
Divine Fury - rank 5/5 - Reduces the cast time of Smite, Holy Fire, Heal, and Greater Heal by a half second. This gives you a 2.5 second cast Greater Heal - a powerful tool indeed.
Holy Nova - rank 1/1 - A threat-free, instant-cast AOE that damages enemies and heals friends. Yes, it's weaker than Prayer of Healing, but it also doesn't require you to cast Fade immediately afterward.

Shadow Talents
Blackout - rank 5/5 - Gives your shadow spells a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds. For this build, unless you plan on going further into Shadow or using Mind Flay for everything, I might recommend Spirit Tap. Both of these talents are situational, but Blackout will only proc from shadow spells, whereas Spirit Tap can proc from any spell school.
Improved Shadow Word: Pain - rank 2/2 - Adds two ticks to your SW:P ability.
Shadow Focus - rank 3/5 - Reduces your target's chance to resist your shadow spells by 6%.
Mind Flay - rank 1/1 - This is the "face melting" skill of lore. A channeled spell doing shadow damage and reducing the target's movement speed by 50%. Very mana efficient.