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Select Priest glyphs changed in latest beta push
Do you remember when the Shadow Priest glyphs made their rounds, and then we all complained a lot and made suggestions as to how they should be fixed? Guess what, guys. They aren't terrible anymore! I know, it's a shock! The updated Shadow Priest glyphs are all pretty much straight buffs, while some of the Holy ones are buffs, and some are fixed balancing issues. Let's take a look, shall we?Glyph of Lightwell - Increases the amount healed by your Lightwell by 20%.I've played around with Lightwell on the beta quite a bit, actually, and its current incarnation is fantastic. The HoT rarely breaks, and my guildies are generally intelligent enough to know when to use it. At level 77 in full level 70 gear, each tick of LIghtwell currently heals for around 2,200. Each tick healing for 2600-2700 with this glyph is pretty amazing, considering it's a "set it and forget it" heal.Glyph of Renew - Reduces the duration of your Renew by 3 sec. but increases the amount healed per tick by 40%.Sounds good to me. It will be a little more mana intensive to keep the HoT on a tank, but strong HoTs are priceless.
A Shadow Priest's take on the new Priest glyphs
My Priest buddy Matt Low is going to cover the new Holy and Discipline glyphs later today, and I'm going to look at what us Shadow Fiends get so far. Let's leap right into the Shadow stuff, eh?Glyph of Psychic Scream - Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream by 3 seconds.Not bad, not amazing. You can argue that those 3 seconds will never, ever come into play in PvP, and you would be mostly correct. PvE, I've never said "Oh man I wish my silly fear lasted THREE MORE SECONDS" but oh well. Not all glyphs need to be drool-worthy. A Psychic Scream glyph might be something I would use while leveling. Reducing the cooldown by another 1-3 seconds would be far superior, though.Glyph of Shadow Word: Death - Targets below 35% health take an additional 5% damage from your Shadow Word: Death spell. Kinda counter-intuitive to the new talent Pain and Suffering, but more damage is more damage. I don't see anything really very wrong with this glyph. Should be good for PvP, good for leveling. Works against Pain and Suffering for raiding, but like I said, yay damage. EDIT: What I mean by counter-intuitive is that Pain and Suffering reduces how much damage we take, but now we're buffing that damage back up. It isn't a huge deal, more damage is awesome, but I would rather see that damage placed on a different spell for a raiding setting. It's quality everywhere else.
Breakfast Topic: How do you feel about Wrath so far?
A lot of changes have gone into Wrath of the Lich King since we last asked this question, so what do you think of Wrath thus far? Has some of your pessimism melted away? Has your optimism melted away? Just plain don't care until you have the finished product in your hands?Personally, I'm mostly optimistic. Being in the beta is very exciting, and let me tell ya, the zones and quests are blowing my mind. Unfortunately, my preferred class/spec is not turning out to be as grand as the changes originally made it sound. Heck, they changed their mind about giving Mind Flay a 30 yard range. The short range on that thing still doesn't make sense to, oh... anybody in the entire freaking world. That's alright though, I'm still having a ton of fun with my Shadow Priest and they're not done with class changes quite yet, nowhere close. I remain optimistic.Honestly, with eye candy like this, I'm not sure how you can be completely down in the dumps about the upcoming expansion. There's way too many new things and far too much exciting content to throw a tantrum over pitfalls of my class right now. Maybe I'll do that later, but for now I'm pretty darn happy.
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.
Hybrid Theory: Shadow Priests and the Wrath Alpha
Welcome to Hybrid Theory, where we discuss all things hybrid in the World of Warcraft. Hybrid Theory is brought to you each week by columnist/blogger Alex Ziebart.I really thought my excitement over Wrath of the Lich King would fade after the initial onslaught of alpha information and just come back around launch time, but that hasn't really been the case. It's been a pretty consistent type of excitement, and I pretty much devour every piece of information I can find.We've talked about Druids already, but while I love Hybrids in general, my Shadow Priest is my main and my first love. Yes yes, I'm sure some of you still disagree with Priests being Hybrids, but I'm of the opinion that they are so I shall continue. If you want to disagree, do so in the Comments section below. I adore playing my Shadow Priest, but I think all Shadow Priest players agree with me when I say there are some definite issues with the class on some level or another. Why don't we take a seat and see what might be on the devs' minds, eh?
Fear Ward and Spell Haste for facemelters
Yesterday's announcements brought two big notes that will be affecting Shadow Priests. The Fear Ward change and the fact that Spell Haste will affect the global cooldown.The Fear Ward change, like I mentioned in my last post, is primarily a convenience change for PvE. Reupping Fear Ward every 3 minutes when you need to keep putting Shadowform back on afterwards is annoying, and a large mana drain over long encounters. However, it wasn't crippling, so not a very big deal. What this will help the most is PvP, especially arenas. Having an arena match last longer than three minutes isn't unlikely, so you will probably want to put Fear Ward back up at some point throughout the match. Being required to drop Shadowform to do it is sort of a pain, considering both the loss of damage and the mitigation Shadowform supplies you with, arguably one of the Shadow Priest's strongest defenses. The Spell Haste change is what has me a little excited. I'll admit right away, I haven't crunched any numbers. I'm notoriously bad at breaking down raw stats, I usually just eyeball my gear and take a guess. I'm right or pretty close more often than not but don't hate me too much if my guesses here are completely wrong. If you want to see some raw numbers, you can probably check them out over at the ShadowPriest.com forum.
