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Priest Buffs

Ohne Kom­men­tar:

So the priest talent chan­ges have been unvei­led through the inter­ac­tive cal­cu­la­tor and I thought it would be a good idea to dis­cuss what was revea­led. My goal is only to out­line a most of the chan­ges, so it’s likely that I might have left out some­thing small here or there. I encou­rage play­ers to take an exten­sive pass using the cal­cu­la­tor which has been lin­ked in the news post I crea­ted on the front page of our web­site. After rea­ding my com­ments, please feel free to use this thread to dis­cuss of any aspect of the priest talents.

Going from left to right, I’ll start the dis­cus­sion off with the Disci­pline tree. You’ll imme­dia­tely notice that Wand Spe­cia­liza­tion has been made a first tier talent. I feel that this is great for two rea­sons. First, pre­viously neit­her avail­able tier 1 Disci­pline talents felt very excit­ing or rewar­ding when inves­ting your points into them at early levels. I feel this is no lon­ger the case. Second, you won’t have to com­pete with Impro­ved Power Word: Shield or For­ti­tude to receive this talent. Moving on to tier 2 talents, Silent Resolve will now reduce the threat cau­sed by all spells, rather than sim­ply damage spells. You’re pro­bably also noti­cing that Impro­ved Power Word: Shield no lon­ger redu­ces the dura­tion of the wea­ke­ned soul effect and I’m sure you’re frea­king out.

Worry not, this is because the core abi­lity, Power Word: Shield has been impro­ved to only cause a wea­ke­ned soul effect of 15 seconds, which pre­viously requi­red three talent points, hence the change detailed below.

The Impro­ved Power Word: Shield talent will now increase the damage absor­bed by 15%. The new focu­sed cas­ting effect of Mar­tyr­dom increa­ses resis­tance to Inter­rupt effects by 20%, in addi­tion to preven­ting the cas­ter from losing cas­ting time when taking damage. Inner Focus as you can see is no lon­ger a 21-point talent, and now avail­able by inves­ting only a mere ten points into the tree. Also, the cool­down has been redu­ced to three minu­tes. Com­pe­ting with the abi­lity is Medi­ta­tion, also pre­viously a 21-point talent. This still offers an increase to mana rege­ne­ra­tion while cas­ting by 15%, howe­ver, now only costs three points.

Moving onto the 15-point talents, you can see that Impro­ved Inner Fire remains the same. What we chan­ged is the core abi­lity. Next patch Inner Fire will pro­vide 50% more armor than before. The dura­tion will also be increa­sed to ten minu­tes but now the effect will be remo­ved when the cas­ter endu­res twenty suc­cess­ful dama­ging melee or ran­ged hits. We’ve also increa­sed the mana cost and remo­ved the melee attack power boost from the abi­lity as such offers the priest very little bene­fit.

The new 21-point talents are Divine Spi­rit and Men­tal Strength.

Finally, the new 31-point talent for the Disci­pline tree is cal­led Power Infu­sion. This abi­lity infu­ses the tar­get with power, incre­a­sing spell damage and hea­ling by 20% for 15 seconds, and can be used every three minu­tes. This spell is very simi­lar to Arcane Power, howe­ver it can be cast on other play­ers, enhan­ces hea­ling as well as damage, and doesn’t increase the mana cost of spells cast while under its effect.

This is a long thread, so bear with me… ;)

I have a fee­ling most priests have been really curious to see what we’ve done with the Holy Tree. Well, for­t­u­na­tely the wait is over. You’ll notice two things right off the bat. Impro­ved Renew offers the same level of impro­ve­ment for only three points, and a brand new talent is imme­dia­tely avail­able - Hea­ling Focus. This talent, for only two points will gives play­ers a 70% chance of avo­iding inter­rup­tion cau­sed by damage when cas­ting any hea­ling spell.

Next at the five-point mark you’ll notice ano­ther brand new talent - Spell War­ding, which redu­ces all damage taken by 10%. That which was pre­viously a 21-point talent now stands next to it, Divine Fury. In addi­tion to being avail­able much soo­ner, this talent now redu­ces the cas­ting time of Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Grea­ter Heal spells by 0.1 sec.

Remem­ber, with this talent (avail­able very early in the tree) Grea­ter Heal will cast in 2.5 seconds!

I’m actually pretty exci­ted about what’s next. Holy Nova is now an eleven-point talent and has no cool­down whatsoever (of course uni­ver­sal glo­bal cool­down is still in-effect). This means that much like Impro­ved Arcane Explo­sion, priests can spam small bursts of threat­less holy good­ness which both dama­ges foes and heals fri­ends. The mana cost has been increa­sed, so it’s not as effi­ci­ent as before. We actually had alot of fun tes­ting this spell in both PvE and PvP, and I’m exci­ted to read through player feed­back when this is live on the PTRs.

Moving on to the com­pe­ting eleven-point talents, ano­ther new abi­lity is revea­led, Bles­sed Reco­very. This pas­sive abi­lity will heal 25% of the damage recei­ved over 6 seconds after being struck by a melee or cri­ti­cal ran­ged hit. Lastly, take a look at Inspi­ra­tion. This talent now only costs three points.

Holy Reach is ano­ther new talent avail­able to the priests. For two points, play­ers can increa­ses the range of their Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of their Prayer of Hea­ling and Holy Nova spells by 20%. Impro­ved Hea­ling has the same effect and is found in the same place, howe­ver, only three points need to be inves­ted in order to gain the 15% mana cost reduc­tion to those hea­ling spells. The last talent on this tier is cal­led Sea­ring Light which increa­ses the damage of Holy Fire and Smite by 10%.

Don’t for­get, Holy Fire is now a core abi­lity and the cas­ting time redu­ced to 3.5 seconds. Which of course beco­mes 3 seconds with the appro­priate talent (the same talent which also bene­fits the cas­ting time of Heal and Grea­ter Heal.

Ano­ther great new pas­sive abi­lity talent - Spi­ri­tual Gui­dance, is loca­ted at the 21-point mark. This talent will per­man­ently improve the priests spell damage and hea­ling by up to 25% of their total spi­rit. Pretty nice boost, if I do say so mys­elf.

I must admit, the next impro­ve­ment has me awfully exci­ted. Spi­rit of Redemp­tion, (you know that angel that lets ever­yone know you’ve died and that their pro­bably about to die as well:), will now allow the priest to become the angel, upon death. For ten seconds, the priest can cast any hea­ling spell com­ple­tely free! This allows the stra­te­gic player much bet­ter con­trol in preven­ting a wipe.

As you can see the new 26-point talent is Spi­ri­tual Hea­ling, which as before offers the priest a 10% increase to all hea­ling spells. Pla­c­ing points this far into the tree, assu­ming you’ve picked up Impro­ved Renew and Spi­ri­tual Gui­dance will most defi­ni­tely make the Holy Priest’s heals stand out.

It should be no sur­prise that the final rank Holy talent is brand new, see­ing that Holy Nova is now an 11-point talent. This new spell, cal­led Light­well will create a holy light­well near the priest. At final rank, fri­endly tar­gets can click the light­well to res­tore 1600 health over a period of ten seconds. The light­well has five char­ges, mea­ning, up to five play­ers can use the light­well before it expi­res. Our tes­ting has shown that this abi­lity works great in both smal­ler dun­ge­ons and raids, often times allo­wing the lower main­ten­ance party mem­bers to take advan­tage of the hea­ling pro­per­ties of this well, while the priest and other hea­ling clas­ses focu­sed on the main tank or who­me­ver was taking heavy damage.

One other thing I’d like to men­tion before moving on to the Shadow tree is the fact that Focus Cas­ting has been remo­ved com­ple­tely. Essen­ti­ally, with the impro­ve­ments to Mar­tyr­dom and the new talent Hea­ling Focus, it wasn’t as valu­able a talent as before.

So, what impro­ve­ments have we made to Shadow you ask? You’ll actually notice that very little chan­ges were made, so for­t­u­na­tely, you’re almost done rea­ding my post. :)

Shadow Affi­nity only costs three points now, instead of five. Impro­ved Fade will no lon­ger increase the dura­tion of the spell, but rather decrease the cool­down by a total of six seconds. Shadow Wea­ving is avail­able for 16-points. While Vam­pi­ric Embrace remains the same, a new talent is avail­able cal­led Impro­ved Vam­pi­ric Embrace. For two points, the amount hea­led by Vam­pi­ric Embrace will be increa­sed by 10%.

Well, this pretty much sums up the chan­ges. It’s likely we’ll make some more adjust­ments and tweaks based upon what’s revea­led through tes­ting on the PTRs. As a priest, I’m exci­ted. How about you guys? Post your thoughts.…

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