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Spiritual Guidance: Lightwell vs. Lightspring, plus new priest glyph and talent animations
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. The latest build on the Mists of Pandaria beta allowed players to purchase the newly implemented major and minor glyphs we spoke about two weeks ago. In the video above, you'll find animations for Glyph of Shadowy Friends, Glyph of Lightspring, Glyph of the Heavens, Glyph of Holy Resurrection, and Glyph of the Val'kyr. Is it just me, or does it look like Lightspring is casting mini Penance balls at its target? Perhaps there is a tiny disc priest trapped inside every Lightspring ... Hmm. While we're on the topic of Lightspring, there has been an interesting development since the glyph was first announced. Originally, it looked like Lightspring would heal players for less than Lightwell, a sort of toll for the fact that Lightspring was automated. In the latest beta build, however, it now looks like the HoTs from both Lightwell and Lightspring will heal for the same amount over time. I'm guessing the developers decided there wasn't much reason to reduce the amount of healing Lightspring does per tick since the 5 seconds of downtime between each heal is a limitation in itself. By only allowing the Lightspring to heal once every 5 seconds, the heal isn't any better than a single-target heal from another player, save for the fact that it will work while you're doing other things.
Spiritual Guidance: First impressions of the Mists of Pandaria beta from a healing priest
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. This past week, I finally got access to the Mists of Pandaria beta, which means I've had lots of shiny new stuff to play with recently. As a healing priest, I gave a thorough look at both holy and discipline priests and found a lot of things I felt I should report back. First, let's start with Chakra. Before I even finished downloading the beta client, I heard complaints from other priests saying that Chakra states had turned into stances (think warrior stances). The concept of this intrigued me, but when I finally got around to toying around with it, I didn't really know why anyone would think too much of it. The stances simplify Chakra, so rather than having to press two buttons to change to Chakra: Sanctuary, all you have to do is hit one. If you want to switch again, there is a 30-second cooldown before you can swap.
Cataclysm Talent Preview: Discipline priests
Last night, Blizzard unexpectedly released an extensive talent preview from Cataclysm for select classes. Priests were among those classes, and as the resident healing priest, I will be walking you through the preview for discipline (as well as holy) talent by talent. The preview confirms the full details on the long-awaited discipline ability, Power Word: Barrier. A new talent called Archangel was also unveiled. Hit the jump to check it out.
Cataclysm Talent Preview: Holy priests
If you didn't already know, late Wednesday evening, Blizzard released a new and thorough Cataclysm talent preview for select classes. Among those classes was the priest class, and as WoW.com's healing priest, thus I have been charged with providing you with a talent-by-talent breakdown for the holy tree. (There is also a preview analysis for discipline.) The preview's biggest highlight is Chakra, but there are a few twists and turns in the tree that are well worth a look. Hit the jump and we'll get down to business.
Spiritual Guidance: Holy? Disc? We're all priests
Every Sunday (and the occasional weekday) Dawn Moore reinvents what "smitelol" means to her shadowy cohort, Fox Van Allen, by busting down a door with penance lasers and raising holy hell to a Tarantino soundtrack. In the column Spiritual Guidance she offers advice to holy and discipline priests on how to wield the holy light, with style. When I first started raiding, it was in late Burning Crusade. At the time I fancied myself a PvPer, shying away from raids due to attunements, and the long gear climb I'd have to perform in order to catch up with friends doing tier 5 content. Despite this, sometime during tier 6, a friend of mine convinced me to come along to a raid. How he convinced the raid leader though, I can't imagine. I remember standing there in my resilience gear, surrounded by players in their various shiny gear sets, and asking myself over and over, "what am I doing here?" I sheepishly put my talents into the holy tree, and tried to arrange my bars to accommodate the spells I hadn't cast in months. I was out of my element. And then I saw Baba. She was beautiful.
Healer survey contains a wealth of information about healing
If you've ever wanted a close-up look at the game's healing zeitgeist, Miss Medicina has it -- she recently started up a survey/meme of healers around the WoW blogosphere, and the answers are now in and posted on her site. They make for some interesting weekend reading, especially if you're interested in healing and what healers think of it. I'm sure there's lots of conclusions that could be drawn out of this (I'll let you all come up with some in the comments as well), but just reading through them on my own, it seems like there's a few threads between them. The majority of healing seems to be done in 10-mans, which probably isn't too surprising, given that's where most of the endgame players are right now as well. There's no clear winner on class or spec (all four healing classes are represented pretty evenly, though I didn't really crunch the numbers), though there are quite a few priests, and of those, things seem to be split between holy and disc. In terms of a favorite spell, there's almost no crossover at all -- people are all over the place, from Beacon to Penance to Circle of Healing. To hear these guys tell it, healers have all kinds of fun spells to play with. In terms of a weakness to healing, two main answers appear: mana regeneration (always an issue with mana-heavy classes like healers) and mobility. Shamans and druids have problems with big burst healing, and paladins say they need more group healing strength, but almost everyone mentions either mana or movement. There's a lot more to look through, too, in terms of how healers evaluate their performance and addon recommendations from everyone. As a look inside the healer "scene," there is a ton of information in there about what healers are up to out on the realms.
Spiritual Guidance: Did we need the patch 3.2 nerfs?
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new UI and addons blog for WoW. Patch 3.2 nerfs here we go! Where do I start? There are several intriguing changes impacting the Priest class (specifically those of us that heal). On the one hand I'm partially disappointed by some of the changes. On the other hand I'm relieved because the changes could have been worse. Let us get to it then, shall we?
ESRB's ad campaign with Boston mayor in the wild
Although it was announced a couple weeks ago (we were busy), we finally got a chance to the see the ESRB and Boston mayor Thomas Menino's "public education campaign" about the video game rating system on the side of Beantown buses. Like Mayor Menino, we also totally "suit up" before we sit down for an afternoon of gaming with the local neighborhood children. There are also local radio and television ads.The campaign is likely part of Menino's continuing penance for making some ill-advised moves against the games industry and hooking up with Jack Thompson to do so. The state of Massachusetts is currently attempting to pass incentives to grow its stable of major developers and turn the city into the East Coast hub of game development.
Patch 3.1 PTR Priest glyph changes thus far
One of the things Patch 3.1 is supplying in spades is glyphs and glyph changes. Every class is getting a ton of them, and it's really hard to keep up with them there are so many. Priests are coming out alright so far through the whole process, with a lot of our current glyphs being improved and our new glyphs being legitimately useful, if situational. Let's see what's new, shall we? Glyph of Fade - Reduces the cooldown of your Fade spell by 9 sec. (Old: Increases the duration and cooldown of your Fade spell by 50%.) This is massively better than what it was previously, and I suspect that this will become a popular Shadow Priest glyph in PvP. Two points in Veiled Shadows plus this glyph means a 15 second cooldown on Fade. Every 15 seconds, a Shadow Priest will be able to clear all movement impairing effects, assuming they have Improved Shadowform. That's pretty friggin' sweet.
Spiritual Guidance: Too many Disc Priests?
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Are there too many Disc Priests? Is it becoming overwhelming? The popularity of Discipline has started to spread. I don't believe it's been entirely adopted just yet. There's still a few hold outs who continue to think that Discipline is not able to hold it's own against the other specs and classes. By hold its own, I mean stand up and compare to. Now obviously other healing classes will believe that their class is superior and they should because we do have a certain loyalty to ourselves. I respect the capabilities of Paladins, Druids, and Shamans. I don't think they're inferior. But I'm still going to be a Priest for life. There can never be enough Disc Priests! I am proud to be a Discipline Priest. It is not just a style. It is not a simple technique. It is a way of life. I know that there are closet Discipline Priests out there. I get emails and messages from them often. There's always questions out about differences between a Holy Priest and a Disc Priest.
A look at the stated Priest changes for patch 3.1
By now you've seen that Eyonix has started announcing some class changes for the upcoming patch 3.1. Priests were actually the first class up to bat this time around, and there are a handful of really cool changes in there. Some of them way cooler than they really need to be, so we'll see how things work out. Let's take a look, eh? Divine Spirit - this spell is now a core ability available to all Priests. Adding Divine Spirit to every Priest's repertoire is, by itself, a pretty fantastic change. Now that Spirit is used by more classes than just the Priests themselves, Divine Spirit has awesome group utility. I suspect Improved Divine Spirit will remain a talent, but even without the improved version of the spell, it's a great little boost. I love this change so much that I'm actively looking for problems with it, so I can curb my enthusiasm. Hmm. Oh, I know! This will make me spend more money on reagents. Ugh, clearly this is just another money sink. How dare they! Slap in the face!Nah, it's pretty cool.
Spiritual Guidance: What each type of Priest can do and arena musings
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week, Matticus looks at what a Priest can do and reflects on his experience so far in arena. I managed to get myself into a pickup heroic Naxx group the other day. No, it wasn't on my Priest. The Priest is my baby and I can't lock him into such raids while we're still raiding. It was my Shaman that I took into heroic Naxx. After Flame Shocking and Lava Bursting my way through both Spider and Plague Wings and the first two bosses of the Military Quarter, we came across the Four Horsemen. (Yes, there is a point to this, keep reading!)
Wrath of the Lich King: Priest roundup
Cheer up and be optimistic! Try not to be too worried about the Priest class. True we haven't changed all that much, we are still the most diverse healing class in the game. Even Elizabeth Harper and Phaelia agree that we still remain the best healers (for now). Don't be disheartened! But the challenge starts now. Hitting 80 will be a bit slower for us Holy specced players in comparison to other classes and specs. We can still hold our own against Arthas' minions! So where are we at then? State of the Game For the Priests that have just returned to the game, the biggest change is the fact that Priest racials have been removed. Hymn of Hope, Holy Nova and Devouring Plague are baseline abilities for all Priests . We'll be competing against Mages and Warlocks for gear since the three classes utilize Spirit to an extent. Circle of Healing is now a smart heal which could come with a 6 second cooldown as a penalty. Oh yeah, Prayer of Mending now draws threat for the caster instead of the target. The upside is that you can talent it to reduce the cooldown by 3 seconds with Divine Providence. Talent Trees Desperate Prayer takes up the 11 point talent slot where Holy Nova used to be. Discipline received a near complete overhaul. And guess what? It looks like it could be a raid viable spec! Check out Alex's Shadow Priest overview for a quick refresher. Dispersion: Great talent? Or greatest talent? General Tips A few notable Priest spells were covered in our Skill Mastery columns. Check out Penance and Guardian Spirit. Having fun is the most important thing you can do. If the quest givers or mobs are overloaded, find a few guildies and lock yourselves into Utgarde Keep for a while.
Spiritual Guidance: The Discipline raiding spec thoughts and review
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week Matticus is going to try to shed some light on the Discipline spec in a raiding environment! I'll admit it. I've been Holy my entire life. I'd only go Discipline just to have some fun in PvP on the weekends in order to grab myself some extra Arena points for PvP gear and what not. In the past, I did try to go all out Discipline because we had some many Priests. Variety is the spice of life right? As time went on, my Guild slowly started losing to Priests to real life until I was the only one remaining. The guild could not afford me to experiment any longer and I switched back to the comfort of Holy. Over the past weekend, I had a chance to try out Discipline in full with the new spells and expanded tree on both live and beta servers. How did it go?
3 Raid healing Priest specs at a glance
Now that the patch has been out for several days, players are slowly getting accustomed to various specs and talents. They're trialing them now in raid situations to get a future handle for them when they hit raiding at 80. How well did they hold up? Here's a brief summary of the 3 raid specs I suggested: 14/47/0 (Traditional with CoH): Here's the spec many Holy Priests are used to. Key talents include Meditation, Improved Power Word Fortitude, Surge of Light, Circle of Healing, Serendipity, and Improved Holy Concentration (up to 2 ranks). The emphasis is on trying to maximize your mana return as much as possible. 4/57/0 (Guardian Spirit): Only 4 points invested into Discipline for this spec. You're nabbing all the upper tier ones including Guardian Spirit. Even though the cheat death effect isn't as useful right now, raiding with this spec will serve as good practice for those that do want to master it. At level 80, the 10 additional talent points can be used to snag Meditation and Inner Focus. Right now, the one thing going against this spec is the mana regeneration. I get a nice healthy 800+ mana regen out of combat. But if I'm in combat I only get about 125 mp5. So experiment with this spec if your raid DPS is insanely overwhelming. The race is between the damage your raid dishes out and the mana resources your healers have. 56/5/0 (Penance): Key talents include Focused Power, Rapture, Divine Aegis, Pain Suppression, Grace, Borrowed Time, and Penance. A reader brought up a great point in comments last week. There's no realistic reason to grab Reflective Shield. That was a mistake on my end and has been taken into consideration. As a result, I've adjusted the Disc tree spec accordingly. I get to jump into Black Temple again tonight and I'm going to switch to this and give it a shot. Note that none of the specs above have any points invested in Silent Resolve. Especially with the latest patch and the way threat is, there is no reason to grab any right now. The tanks I play with generate an insane amount of threat. However, please keep in mind that these are suggested specs. Your actual mileage may vary. If you're encountering threat problems, then by all means feel free to pick up Silent Resolve. For the Shadow Priests, take a look at Alex's Shadow Priest talent build.
Mind Flay gets bigger crits, better beams
The class designers have filtered out a little more information regarding our Mind Flay upgrades, and it's very pleasant to hear. In addition to the higher coefficient on Mind Flay and gaining an ability to crit, Shadow Power will give Mind Flay 100% bonus damage crits, rather than the baseline 50%. This is very good news, because 50% crits just don't cut it anymore. Almost everybody has 100% bonus crit damage via talents, and not having the option to spec that way is quite a hurdle when you're trying to be competitive. Very good news indeed.In less game changing but still exciting news, Mind Flay and other beam-type spells (Drain Life, Drain Soul, etc) will be getting a graphical overhaul. Perhaps they'll be more like Penance's fancy missiles? Or maybe they'll just be more of a beam than "behold my blue/green/purple/yellow squiggly line of doom!" Either way, I'm happy to hear it. I'm a firm believer in 'shinier is better.'
Skill Mastery: Penance
Welcome to Skill Mastery! In the weeks to come, the WoW Insider staff will give you the skinny on each and every new skill coming in Wrath of the Lich King or, in some cases, in the 3.0 patch. Healing priests aren't getting a ton of new tricks in Wrath. In fact, some of our old tricks are getting removed: downranking is no longer viable, so goodbye Greater Heal (Rank 1). However, like every other class, we are getting a few new spells, and one of them is Penance. Penance is the 51-point Discipline talent, and it currently reads like this (at max rank): 33% of base mana, 30 yard range Channeled, 10 sec cooldown Launces a volley of holy light at the target, causing 184 Holy damage to an enemy, or 670 to 756 healing to an ally every 1 sec for 3 sec.
Spiritual Guidance: Utgarde Keep and the Nexus as Discipline
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Matt scored a beta key and busied himself speccing and respeccing his Priest multiple times and decided to test the new talents in a healing party environment. After getting a beta key, I was absolutely excited with all the Priest changes and additions made. Several of the other WoW Insider bloggers wanted to get into Utgarde Keep and the Nexus in order to experience both places. The objective was to try out our new toys, of course. The party composition determined the talents I picked up. All in all, it I had a blast tearing through both instances and learned more about the new Discipline talents intimately.
Ask a Beta Tester: Death Knight-free edition
Have beta questions? We've got beta answers right here on Ask a Beta Tester! Today I'm going to start out with a few questions that we've answered before -- but people seem so desperate to know, that I feel I have to at least point them in the right direction.Aracross asked: Is CoT3 (old Stratholme) in the beta?The outer instance is, but the you can't zone in yet. It's supposed to be a level 80 instance, though, and the level cap is set at 77 right now.Samman asked: Is the epic flying mount training 5,000g?There are currently no changes to any mount training costs in the beta. Sorry!Now, on to the questions of the day! (Surprisingly Death Knight free!)
Wrath Beta patch notes: Priest
My main is a Priest. A Shadow Priest, to be precise. While I started out Holy, my Priest has always been my main and probably always will be. The only thing that could possibly draw me away is my Protection Paladin, should my raid ever need another. Obviously, the very first thing I looked at in the Wrath Beta patch notes were the Priest notes. I've talked about what we saw in Alpha, and I was cautiously optimistic at the time. After seeing these notes... well... yeah, I'm still optimistic. I am (dare I say it?)... excited, even!I'll tuck my analysis behind the cut, but here are my three favorite notes out of the Priest notes: New Talent: Improved Spirit Tap (Shadow) - Gives you a 50/100% chance to gain a 50% bonus to your Spirit after gaining a critical effect chance from your Mind Blast or Shadow Word: Death spells. For the duration, your mana will regenreate at a 25% rate while casting. Lasts 8 sec. Lightwell (Holy): Cast time reduced to .5 sec, down from 1.5 sec. Charges increased to 10, up from 5. Now breaks from any attack that hits you for 30% or more of your total health. Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5. Shadowform (Shadow): Now has an innate 30% threat reduction. Now has a shapeshift UI.
