Holy priests in 8962
Holy priests were no more exempt than Shadow priests from the changes in 8962. Most were good, and many were previewed by Koraa, but let's look at them anyway, shall we?
Divine Hymn now does a HoT (10 closest targets within 15 yards, 348 every sec for 6 sec) as well as its previous effect of putting enemies to sleep and reducing incoming damage.
OK, I'm now officially convinced by this spell. It's on a six-minute CD, which is pretty good, and that is a good chunk of healing to ten targets for less than the cost of a max-rank Greater Heal. Even if it didn't put enemies to sleep or decrease damage taken, I would still use it as a cheaper, wider-effect Prayer of Healing. [Edit: just noticed I'd misread the skill; it makes enemies take less damage. That's a bit depressing.]
Holy Fire is now a 2 second cast. Whatever, although this probably means it won't scale as well with spell power; it used to be our most efficient nuke (assuming you let the DoT tick out).
Holy Nova is now base, and Desperate Prayer is taking its place as a talent, with a 2 minute cooldown (down from 5), but a mana cost (about as much as a Flash Heal). This is a great big nerf to Desperate Prayer if you had it before (as I did), but I suppose it will be nice for it to be available to all priests. Not sure if I'll take it as a PvE priest; I don't really have that particular talent point to spare.
Symbol of Hope converted into Hymn of Hope, as a level 60 skill. I'm not great at napkin math, but it looks like it was also buffed in speed of mana recovery while being reduced in duration. Significantly, it is now a channeled spell; the priest has to not be healing for as long as they want the mana regen to work. Will have to keep an eye on this one.
These last two changes are fallout from the removal of Priest racials, and I would like to take this opportunity to say: thank you for removing Priest racials, Blizz. Took you long enough.
Holy Concentration and Improved Holy Concentration have had their numbers bumped back up. They sorely needed it after last build.
Surge of Light now will make your next Flash Heal or Smite free and instant (but unable to crit); previously, it was just Smite. This is great news if you ask me; I'm always trying to find ways to work this talent into my healing or healing/leveling builds, and this will make it much easier. It should also make all that spell crit they've been putting on our Karazhan sets for the Disc priests a little more useful.
Divine Providence, Holy Reach, and Improved Healing now affect Divine Hymn.
Blessed Recovery changed to add additional healing if you get crit more during the duration.
In glyph news: Glyph of Renew used to increase the amount healed by each tick by 40%; now it's just 25% (in exchange for a 20% reduction in duration). And there's a new Glyph of Inner Fire, which looks PvP-oriented to me.
Overall a decent patch for us. I'm finally interested in Divine Hymn as more than a gimmick spell. I'm sad to (effectively) lose my Desperate Prayer, but it'll be nice to get that Plague thingy I keep hearing about from the trolls undead. And I'm really glad about Holy Concentration and Surge of Light getting changed.
