divine-spirit
Latest
Spiritual Guidance: When I was your age ...
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. Every so often, I'm hit with this brilliant idea that I should level another priest. It always sounds like a lot of fun at first, especially when I'm just toying around in the character creation screen making my new baby all pretty. Do I want brown hair or blond hair? The sexy eyes or the vapid ones? Hmm ... now what do I name her? The fun ends a few minutes later when after skipping the opening cinematic (which I've already seen), I pick up my first quest and realize I've done this before. Sure, maybe this time I'm picking up Salvaged Supplies instead of Cactus Apples -- but really, it's always the same. That's why after about 5 minutes of killing eight boars or eight bandits or eight worgen, I bask in the glory of level 2 and log out. Except for today. Today, I was determined to get my new darling Elyria up to level 12 so I could see all of the new Worgen content and the new Forsaken quests in Silverpine Forest after that. I was really determined this time, and as a result, I made it through something like 42 Smite casts without logging out and got to learn Flash Heal as a result That's when I realized that damn, priests these days have it easy. Flash Heal at level 3? Really? Let me tell you how it used to be.
WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Holy and Disc Priest changes
A lot of changes are being introduced for both types of healing Priests in the upcoming 3.1 patch. Some of them are expected and others are unexpected! As always, check out the full PTR notes (which are most likely incomplete). The promised changes to increase Holy's PvP ability don't seem to be here yet. I rubbed my eyes when I saw it because this wasn't the Holy tree I remembered. As an overall grade, I'd say there are some serious buffs being doled out for healing Priests. Our Area of Effect heals have been ramped up! Some notable highlights? Rapture has some new additions to it (It grants energy, rage, mana, or runic power to the target when it is removed). Prayer of Healing is no longer restricted to the Priests current party. Renew get's some extra nice bonuses in the form of an instant-application aspect and an overall spellpower bonus. Keep reading! Disc and Holy changes are after the break!
WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Shadow Priest changes
The PTR patch notes have hit, and while we don't have the entire spread of changes yet (they'll be coming in waves), we do have a lot of pretty good material to look at. Personally, I think the Shadow Priest changes are pretty great this time around. PvP Shadow Priests might feel a little disappointed, but PvE Priests should be fairly happy with how things are going so far.Even PvP received a few good buffs, but while it's a step in the right direction, it simply isn't enough. It feels as if they're trying to approach some of the big issues carefully, when they really do need to go in there and start making pretty sweeping changes to the PvP-centric talents of the Shadow Priest. A lot needs to change to make the Shadow Priest relevant in PvP again without strapping a Warlock to their hip at all times.Enough of that, though. Let's look into the changes, shall we? Shadowfiend: Health scaling increased. Now receives 30% of the master's spell power. Mana return increased to 5%, up from 4%. The Shadowfiend now receives mana when its melee attacks land, rather than when it deals damage. Movement speed normalized to player movement speed. Tooltip revised.
Breakfast Topic: 3.1nticipation
Only a few changes have been announced so far, but I know you're all excited. I know I am. Patch 3.1 promises to be a big one -- it'll contain Ulduar, some class balance changes, and maybe, just maybe, dual-specs. That's a really fat patch right there. Yesterday, Eyonix announced some of the changes coming to Priests, Rogues, and Shamans. Some of the changes were kind of a surprise to me, actually, like Divine Spirit becoming a baseline ability. On the other hand, our very own Matticus seems to have pulled a Nostradamus and foresaw Power Word: Barrier making its way into the game.Sure, it might not turn out to be a 51-point talent (it'll likely replace the 21-point Divine Spirit in the Discipline tree), but that's as close as anyone can get to guessing Blizzard's next move. So hey, it's Breakfast Topic time! Let's play a little game since I know you're about as bored as I am and equally excited to find out what's on Blizzard's agenda. Whip out your wish list crystal ball and toss up what changes you think are going to be announced next. Do you think 3.1 is when they'll finally remove the Mage class? I don't think so, either, but it just might be the patch where all Warlocks are turned into vanity pets. Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
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.
Replenishment is mandatory and other buff discussion from Ghostcrawler
One of the major overhauls heading from Burning Crusade into Wrath of the Lich King was the consolidation of buffs and debuffs. In an attempt to keep raid groups from thinking they had to bring one specific class to get one specific buff or debuff, Blizzard switched some spells up, gave buffs to more classes, and made them unstackable, the result being that one can take one of a certain handful of class and specs to get the buff or debuff they desire, in theory giving a raid more choice about who they bring. Still, the buffs and debuffs remain, and Ghostcrawler has been having some pretty interesting discussions about them in the past few days. To start with, he came out and said it pretty plainly: Replenishment is Mandatory. Blizzard will balance fights under the assumption you have Replenishment much as they do under the assumption you have a tank. In the short term, this means your raid is probably going to want to find a Shadow Priest, Retribution Paladin, or Survival Hunter if they haven't already.
