priest
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Mystery buff incoming for priests! [Update 2]
Yep, a mystery buff -- doesn't that sound exciting? We have no idea what it is, because the CMs don't have the go-ahead to tell us yet, but Nethaera claims it's "a positive change." And though she's trying not to overplay it, there are a lot of hopes riding on it being something good. Nethaera hopes to have more information for us on Tuesday -- but until then, it's speculation run wild! Do any of you have predictions for the priest's mystery buff?Update: Nethaera is currently telling us that we may get news tomorrow, Wednesday the 28th. Sorry to get everyone's hopes up, but hopefully we'll have some official news soon.Update 2: I believe we have the final word on improvements for priests this patch via Nethaera.
WoW Moviewatch: Rioting across the realms
Well, some players have decided that in-game riots may be the answer. The answer, at least until GMs started mass sleeping players participating and handing out three hour bans. This video (which is not entirely safe for work) covers rioting on Dentrag, but there are similar happenings on Warsong, Stormscale, and perhaps other realms. However, while many priests don't feel they're being listened to elsewhere, I'm not sure this is the solution -- at least unless your goal is to get your account banned.[Thanks, Adam]
Is there hope for the priest class?
After seeing the latest patch notes, there are plenty of unhappy priests out there. Not only was Vampiric Embrace -- a key talent for shadow priests attempting to maintain group utility and solo viability -- reduced in effectiveness by a forth (and its ability to crit removed completely), but shadow priests also lost threat reduction and holy priests lost Prayer of Mending -- a low-cost instant-cast heal that was excellent for priests trying to heal in PvP combat that is now rendered mostly useless by its new 20 second cooldown. Many priests seem to think that these changes are the death of PvE shadow priests and PvP holy priests. Is there a reason for priest players to have hope? Well, Nethaera says there is. On the priest forums she's reassuring players that their feedback is important and saying that Circle of Healing is being looked at and Lightwell may be looked at. And while I'm happy the class is still under review for possible tweaks, I wonder if they don't need a little more than what Nethaera says Blizzard is offering. And like the many other players who have attempted to post well-reasoned and constructive feedback on the priest forums, I feel ignored, despite Nethaera's assurances that all feedback is read. But if that's the case, I have to wonder why abilities that made life easier for priests are nerfed while complaints on countless other topics produce neither response nor result. Thank goodness I've been leveling a paladin -- with strong healing talents and great PvP survivability, they're everything I used to think my priest could be.
And the award for world's worst WoW player goes to...
Now I don't mean to make fun-- maybe this poor guy just hasn't had a lot of experience operating a keyboard or playing videogames. Maybe he just hasn't quite yet or just isn't able to pick up the skills to play this game.But when Lynyrd, a 64 Orc Hunter on Drak'thul, puts up a PvP whine post on the forums about how he was killed and camped by a 34 warlock, you just have to wonder what's happening there. A few replies in, there's a mention of more players joining in to the fight (apparently Lynyrd was helping a few lowbie friends when they decided to gang up on some Alliance), but when all the dust has cleared, it really looks like a 64 hunter somehow got taken down by a 38 lock and a 37 priest. Lynyrd makes another appearance later in the thread (after a few more illegible posts by the interested parties, I'm ready to call shenanigans on all of this, but it's still funny), and posts his spec, which is very... umm.... "broad," I guess. Most hunters tend to specialize in one tree, but Lynyrd has chosen to go for the least of all worlds-- he's got the very uncommon 15/20/20 hunter spec.Again, I can't really believe this is what it seems like-- as players point out, any 64 hunter who knows where the autoshot button is should be able to drop a 38 lock without thinking twice. But a read through the thread itself is definitely chuckleworthy.
AddOn Spotlight: MendWatch
Non-Priests (or Priests that don't heal), you might just want to skip over this one. MendWatch is an AddOn that...well, the author explains it best: MendWatch attempts to track the priest spell Prayer of Mending. A timer bar shows the current target of the Prayer of Mending spell with a countdown of how long the spell will last. When the target gets hit the amount the Prayer of Mending healed for will be shown and the bar will slowly fade away. If the Prayer of Mending jumps to a new target a new timer bar will be shown for the new target.This AddOn fixes my one complaint about Prayer of Mending: it can be a bit hard to track who it's on or whether you even have one out there at all, when the battle starts getting thick. Just like Cloak of Shadows brings a Rogue vs. caster duel from "imba" to "insane," MendWatch brings PoM from "awesome" to "incredible."If you're still reading but not familiar with Prayer of Mending, here's the spell's description:390 mana, instant cast, 40 yard rangePlaces a spell on the target that heals them for 800 the next time they take damage. When the heal occurs, Prayer of Mending jumps to a raid member within 20 yards. Jumps up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec after each jump. This spell can only be placed on one target at a time.
Improved Divine Spirit by the numbers
Having just hit 70 on my priest this morning, my mind is on heal specs. I'll probably stay with my holy DPS spec for a little while for attunements and rep grinding and whatnot, but sooner or later I'm going to go healbot. I just know it. For my money, the big debate as far as healbot specs go right now is Improved Divine Spirit (IDS) -- that is, whether you'll be better off with 21/40/0 or 23/38/0 (builds are for illustration only; I haven't been able to figure out whether Holy Concentration is worth it or not). These builds differ by only two points: the first has no points in IDS and 5/5 Empowered Healing (EH), the second has 2/2 IDS and 3/5 EH. Anyway, I was researching the issue, and eventually made my way over to the worldofwar.net Priest forums, where theorycraft superstar Trepidation (aka Trep) crunched the numbers and came up with a very nice chart of how much more you'd get from EH vs. IDS for various heals and various values of +heal and spirit. EH always helps your Greater Heal and Flash Heal more than IDS does; the question is whether the boost IDS gives the rest of your group, as well as your other heals, gives it the edge. The charts are too long to repost here, but I encourage you to go check them out. However, for commonly-quoted early endgame values of +1000 heal and 500 spirit, here's the breakdown: Rank 1 Gheal: 1.74% Rank 7 Gheal: 1.10% Rank 7 Flash: 1.17% That is, EH will give you somewhere between 1–2% more than IDS will, for your Gheal and Flash. These numbers will go up as you get more +heal, and go down as you get more spirit. So does IDS help other casters in your group, and your other heals, by 2% or so? If so, it might make sense to get IDS. Otherwise, it seems that EH is a stronger choice.What has your experience been? Have any of you had a chance to test some pure healing priest builds yet? Another question I've been wondering about, as I alluded to above, is Holy Concentration. I like it in theory, but I'm having trouble freeing up three points for it. How has it been working out for you, if anyone has it?
I'm in ur Outlands, holyin' my Priest
The Priests in my guild are falling off to the dark side, one by one. The most die-hard Holy one went Shadow today, after hitting level 64. However, I've refrained, instead having taken the advice of our guild's shadowiest Shadow Priest and specced into dps-focused Holy. As of level 62, I was 14/32/7: Discipline (14 points) 5/5 Wand Specialization 3/5 Silent Resolve 2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude 1/1 Inner Focus 3/3 MeditationHoly (32 points) 2/2 Healing Focus 3/3 Improved Renew 5/5 Holy Specialization 5/5 Divine Fury 1/1 Holy Nova 3/3 Inspiration 3/3 Improved Healing 2/2 Searing Light 1/1 Spirit of Redemption 5/5 Spiritual Guidance 2/2 Surge of LightShadow (7 points) 5/5 Spirit Tap 2/2 Improved Shadow Word: Pain And as a matter of fact, I'm now level 64 and haven't figured out where to spend my two more TP.
Blue teeches u 2 Burning Croosaid (also CoH is being looked at)
Here's a couple of notes on what you need to do, once you've got your claws on a copy of the expansion, to play.First, don't delete the WoW-2.0.0-to-2.0.3 patch. Apparently BC needs this patch to install, which makes sense, since the expansion went gold long before 2.0.3 rolled out. From Nethaera: As the Burning Crusade expansion was finished prior to the most current patch versions it will be necessary to re-patch to 2.0.3 once the expansion is installed. As some players remove their patches after they have been applied we would like to provide a helpful warning not to delete the "2.0.0-to-2.0.3" patch file as it will be required after the Burning Crusade is installed.
Make your own talent tree
If you haven't seen this yet, it's pretty funny. A site called Unleashed Gaming has broken out a nifty little feature: it's a javascript setup that allows you to create your own talent trees. Now you too can not only create your own specs and share them with others, you can actually create all new talent trees.A few of them have been popping up in different places. Linde offers a Hunter's wishlist tree that's chuckleworthy (the 51-point Marksmanship talent is called Swoop: "The next item you loot costs 0 DKP"), and Menae has made a much more cynical (and therefore hilarious) Priest talent tree. Finally, Priests are able to get Holyform (the tooltip says that the talent was really put in place just to shut the forum QQers up), and my favorite is probably (one of) the 51-point Shadow talents: with Improved Shadowform, "Your character is replaced with a Warlock."Unfortunately, just like the WoW Item Creator, there's no way to track what other people are making-- I'd love to see a list of the "ten most-viewed talent trees," just to see what people are coming up with. But this thing is definitely a lot of fun to play around with, whether you're trying to perfect what Blizzard does, or just mock them. If you come up with a good one, post it below.[ Thanks, Ootah! ]
Everybody loves healing
It's true! Comments to an earlier post suggest that a large number of you really get a kick out of keeping your fellow gamers alive. Blizzard's well-equipped you for this, with priests, druids, paladins, and shamans standing ready as class options. Personally, I've been the main healer for a group with all four of those classes, and can understand the satisfaction one gets from keeping a group going and not letting anyone die when a pull goes wrong.So if everyone loves healing so much, and with almost half the classes able to heal a 5-man or 10-man group as main healer, why is it that we still see the LFG channel inundated with "LF1M Healer for [instance here]. Will pay 5g! Will walk your dog! Will buy you flowers!" ?
WoW Rookie: Soulstone and you
As a priest, pally or possibly a lower level shaman, you are often bestowed with the responsibility of a soulstone, giving you the ability to self-rez. And as we all learned from Uncle Ben in Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. If you have never had the chance to be on the receiving end of a soulstone, it is easy to make a rookie mistake. While it is by no means complex, there are certain do's and don'ts that aren't always obvious. With that in mind, here are some things to remember if you are given a soulstone... If you are new to the soulstone business, odds are your warlock is too. If you have never played a warlock, you might assume that when a soulstone expires some kind of elaborate fireworks display appears in the warlock's UI, informing them that the group is screwed if they wipe if he doesn't conjure another stone. Without a proper mod, this is not the case. Odds are your new level 21 warlock friend doesn't have the fancy mod. So pay attention to your soulstone, and when you see it expire, or a minute or two before it expires, let your warlock know in party chat or in a /whisper. Your lock will usually appreciate it.
Circle of Healing or Circle of Terrible?
First Holy Nova. Then Lightwell. As of 2.0.1, Circle of Healing is the top-tier Holy talent for Priests. Notice a trend? All these talents have been considered...um..."less than optimal" by many vocal members of the priestly community. And folks have tried to defend all three of them by pointing out that they are nice to have in certain situations. Well, today Drysc plays the "situationally useful" card with respect to CoH over in the WoW General forums: "[CoH] has some amazing tactical uses; that you can sit (likely well) out of harms way and send heals to a group of players. To equalize some of that ability the healing potency isn't as strong as a normal prayer of healing maybe, but I don't think it's anything to be scoffed at either. I would be surprised if the talent was completely overlooked in strategies for future dungeons and encounters, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was relied on for more than a few".
Phat Loot Phriday: Robes of Insight
After today's discussion about looking good, I figured we'd go fashionable this week. Male cloth-wearers may complain about having to wear a dress from time to time, but when the girls put this one on, there aren't any complaints at all.Name: Robes of InsightType: Epic Cloth ChestArmor: 74Abilities: +25 Intellect, +15 Spirit Use: Reduces the cost of your next spell cast within 15 seconds by up to 500 mana (basically a free cast). 15 minute cooldown. Could be (and is considered by many players to be) the best looking "dress" in the game-- especially on human females. Hawt! How to Get It: Unfortunately, beauty ain't cheap. This thing is an Epic World Drop, which means it drops randomly, at an extremely low drop rate, on almost any mob in the world, which means you're just as unlikely to get it while in a group as you are tooling around by yourself. Farming it is like searching for a miniature needle in a hayfield, so you're likely going to have to depend on luck to get it in a drop.Or, more likely, you could just buy it. Most AHs, when they carry it, will have it at anywhere from 150g up to 400g (most average around 200-225g). It's only a level 47 item, however, which means that unless you're an alt, by the time you have the gold to buy it with, you probably won't need it anyway. But on the other hand, it is a really cool looking dress... How much would you pay to look like Leia in Empire?Getting Rid of It: If you're not that fashion-minded or don't wear cloth and are lucky enough to find this, by all means, put it towards that epic mount, and drop it on the AH for mucho moola. A vendor will give you 1g, 25s, 66c for it when you're ready to start wearing the next season's fashions.Update: And if you like the style but can't wait for the drop (and have a raid of 40 going into AQ), commenter Spyder points you to the Robes of the Guardian Saint, a drop from Fankriss in AQ40.
Burning Crusade skill updates
Well, I'd say "update," really, since the priest racial abilities, now officially confirmed, were already known from beta reports. What is new, however, is some major changes to the Warlock's spellstone. Not sure what a spellstone is? Well, that's understandable -- at present, they're conjered off-hand items that provide a spell crit bonus and can be consumed to absorb magical damage and remove all magical effects from the user. This later was always problematic, as it would remove negative effects, but also wipe high-mana cost buffs like Demon Armor (which costs 1580 mana to cast at level 60). The fact that they were off-hand meant that you couldn't use them with any of the wide array of nice caster staffs -- but they'll now be equipped in the wand slot rather than the off-hand slot. Beyond that, its effect has also been changed -- now it removes all harmful magical effects. And instead of being consumed on use, it has a 3 minute cooldown. I'd say these are pretty solid changes, which will mean my warlock will be seeing a lot more spellstone usage in the future![Note: Linking the European site because the US site seems to be offline this afternoon.]
Nerf FEAR!
We've all been there -- cheerfully minding our own business in a battleground when along comes a warlock to ruin our day. Fear, dot, dot, dot, fear, shadowbolt, fear, shadowbolt... And you've died with nary a chance to defend yourself. You may be tempted to run to the most convenient forum and yell "nerf locks! nerf fear!"Well, people of that persuasion, I point you towards Stylewalker's Nerf Warlocks FAQ, which covers all the bases on why fear isn't always an "iwin" button. Like how it's on diminishing returns (on a shared timer with seduce, even) and breaks on direct damage (and becomes more likely to break on dot damage with more spell damage gear). Does fear alone win fights for warlocks? I doubt it -- I've fought with plenty of horrible players for whom fear wasn't near enough to win a fight.
The final word on priest racial abilities
At last we have full disclosure on the racial abilities for Blood Elf and Draenei priests come the expansion -- or at least unconfirmed rumor from beta testers on the World of Raids forums. I am somewhat disappointed, though, having hoped the addition of new priest-available races would give Blizzard an opportunity to equalize the racial abilities across the factions -- as currently the Dwarf's Fear Ward ability makes some difficult raid encounters much simpler. So when it was announced that priests would have one old and one new racial ability, I had hoped to see a horde priest with Fear Ward. But instead, Blood Elves will receive Touch of Weakness (not a bad self-buff for soloing or PvPing) and the Draenei will receive Fear Ward (no explanation required). Well, perhaps we'll see fewer raid encounters in the future in which fear plays a large part.Update: Eyonix responds to the issue of racial abilities by saying (among other things), "there will be new ways (for both factions) to remove and/or prevent fear in the Burning Crusade. So, in short -- lay down that crutch, you don't need it anymore."
Priest racial abilities (maybe!)
Kyle pointed out the fact that World of Raids has posted the new priest racials will be in the expansion. Each race should get two race-specific abilities, and Eyonix has told us that one is to be unique and one will be a copy of another race's ability -- and about the latter we still know nothing. However, the unique racials are as follows....Blood ElfConsume Magic Instant 2 min cooldown Dispels one beneficial Magic effect from the caster and gives them 62 to 78 mana. DraeneiSymbol of Hope 15 Mana 40 yd range Instant cast 2 min cooldown Greatly increases the morale of party members, giving them 99 mana over 15 sec.
Priests & racial abilities
Priests are an unusual class -- the only class in the game to have class spess that are restricted to specific races. This has long been the source of complaints, as some racial abilities are immensely useful (such as a Dwarf's Fear Ward, which prevents its target from being feared and can make a number of raid situations easier), while others aren't worth putting on even a tertiary hotbar (such as a Human's Feedback, which restores mana to the priest on melee hit -- melee priest ftw!). As a long time priest, my biggest question about the coming expansion is this: what sort of class racials will Draenei and Blood Elf priests have? Well, CM Eyonix has provided me with a partial answer -- saying that the new races will receive one existing and one brand new racial skill. (Hmm, does the Blood Elves' new racial start with "fear" and end with "ward"? If so I'm already well on my way to having a third priest on my account!)
Burning Crusade Spells & Talents Updated
No, no -- still no hunter abilities. The main body of these changes seems to be extensive revisions to the priest abilities, making them a lot more interesting (and actually tempting me to spec higher than 31 points in any tree -- crazy!). However, there are also some tweaks for paladins, warlocks, and warriors. Check them out on the forums, or read on for the details.
Phat Loot Phriday: Bad Mojo Mask
It's Friday, and you know what that means-- time to break out the booze! If you're 21, I mean. But before we do that, let's take our weekly look at a neato piece of gear somewhere in Azeroth.Name: Bad Mojo MaskType: Rare Cloth HeadpieceArmor: 54Abilities: +24 Intellect Increases damage done by Shadow spells and effects by up to 14 Looks awesome, especially on gnomes! And if you like the look but want to wear leather, the Big Voodoo Mask looks almost exactly the same. Unfortunately for gnomes, the stats make it a better fit for a shadow priest. But while it's not ideal for a warlock (because they can get as much mana as they need from Life Tap), it would work for them too. And check this awesome TCG art featuring the mask How to Get It: As much as I want this on my 60 Shaman, the last version of this mask I could find drops in Zul Farrak (if anyone knows of a mail level 60 version of this thing, let me know, and if there isn't, Blizzard, get on that for BC). To get the BMM, you've got to loot it from Shadowpriest Sezz'ziz, who spawns at the very end of the fight down the stairs (when the NPCs are helping you out). He's got a few bodyguards with him, but if you've survived the big temple fight and have a few NPCs left, you won't have any trouble at all. There's about a 17% drop on it, so six runs (less if you're lucky, more if you're not) should do ya.Auction Price: It's BOP, a vendor will give you 78s 58c. But if I were you, I'd keep this thing around at least for another month or two. How else are you going to get candy on Halloween?Update: Jeremy also points out the sweet Hexxer's Cover, a nice ZG piece with better stats and a slightly different look. Although it doesn't really have that rustic, made-by-hand look that this one pulls off so well...
