The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Preview of 3.1.0
by Vonya
Normally I don’t do pre-patch notifications, but this one’s pretty gosh-darned exciting for priests, and I wanted to share.
MMO-Champion’s BlueTracker has some Highlights for Upcoming Class Changes posted.
I’ll copy/paste the priest notes here, but those of you who also play other classes might want to follow the link and see if you’re mentioned.
PRIEST
Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests. Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group). Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now heals for more. Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved: Shadow Form now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion now removes snares. Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest. Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are cast. We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.
Divine Spirit
FINALLY, they are giving this buff to all priests. The fact that it actually buffs holy priests more than disc priests, and yet holy priests who fill out their holy tree cannot get the buff has always been a beef with me. Hallelujah!
I am assuming that the improved version of the buff will still be disc. That’s fine, especially since the spellpower boost from it is not unique (and is actually overwritten by some buffs brought by other lasses).
Power Word : Barrier
An AOE bubble? *flails and begins gibbering* Oh man, oh man, oh man. That is gonna be so. much. FUN! I wonder what the cooldown will be? Are we talking six seconds (CoH style) or are we talking 5 minutes or are we talking twenty minutes? Inquiring minds want to know!
AOE Heals
They buffed our AOE heals? *blinks, rubs her eyes, and looks again* Prayer of Healing is no longer stuck in MY group? CoH heals for more? (Hopefully it’s enough to make the six second cooldown worthwhile). Holy Nova costs less? (Egads, am I going to have to start taking that spell seriously? I mean, I know some people already are, but I LIKE having a spell to make fun of! It makes me feel powerful and godlike. NOW who am I going to laugh at? Oh, right. melee hunters. Gotcha.)
PVP
Don’t care. Sorry, those of you that do. I’m sure those are very exciting changes. I would rather not log on than engage in PVP.
Penance
Castable on ME?! Lawd ha mahcy! Someone fan me, quick!
Serendipity
Reduces casting…waiiiiit a minute. Are these REAL patch notes? *suspicious* Serendipity was the awesomesauce drizzled over an entire tree of Holy Awesome, and they’re making it BETTER? I didn’t even think that was possible.
In truth, they’re probably trying to find creative ways to encourage priests to use something OTHER than Circle of Healing and Flash Heal.
More PVP
*checks* Yup. Still don’t care.
Summary
Is it Christmas? Am I dreaming? How much will these change between now and actual implementation?
I do not know, but my heart is all a-flutter!
February 5th, 2009
Serendipity: The fear on the PlusHeal front is they’re changing Serendipity FROM mana back on overheal TO haste combo. Which would make me a saaaaaad panda, it’s totally one of my favorite talents.
But yes, word on the front seems to go something like:
Priest reads changes
Priest brain gets stuck on DS becoming base (after FOUR YEARS THANK YOU VERY MUCH BLIZZARD, god I remember when that was 31 pt discipline and single target only and being the only priest with it in MC and the raid leader making me buff everyone with a mana bar and… *sob*)
Priest wets pants with joy.
February 5th, 2009
I hope serendipity still keeps its mana refund along with the new cast time reductions. If so, wow. Great news for priests so far. I’m having a ton of fun raid healing in Wrath already, these changes will make it even more interesting weaving flashes/bindings in between POH/Gheal and some upgraded Circles. Woo Hoo!
February 5th, 2009
As someone that PVPs occasionally, Disc priests getting DS is going to be annnoooyyiiiing. They’re hard enough to kill as is, but now they get that grace period to heal their partner even after death? Ugh.
February 5th, 2009
Nevermind, that’s Spirit of Redemption. Too many spirit moves.
February 5th, 2009
I am positively giddy over the notes! My one worry is that it is a change to Serendipity rather than an addition. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
As far as Holy Nova…I was like you. I sneered at the spell. Refused to spend points in it and secretly laughed at those that did! However…I had trouble finding a 3rd major Glyph that I liked….till I tried this. I do not use it tons, but I do like it and find that glyphed it is a very usable spell in certain situations.
February 5th, 2009
*weak wave*
Had to calm down enough to write this comment. Like Jov said, my first reaction this morning when I started to read the changes this morning went like this:
*Sips cafe con leche*
Oh nice, priest changes
*Reads about DS*
HOLY F**KING SH*T!!! (Insert screams of joy, rubbing of eyes to make sure it wasn’t an illusion)
Continues to read.
AoE spell getting buffed.
AoE shield for the party
What the hell! are we getting Punk’d. Where is what’s his name?
It is like dying and going to WoW heaven for priests. I am in love.
My only worry, like everyone else, is about serendipity. I REALLY hope that remark about haste is an addition and not a complete change of the talent. I love it as it is and would be sad to see it changed. More worry worms in when I think about Blizz’s comments in the last month about wanted to make mana management a real part of the game. Right now, if you have replenishment and decent mp5, mana isn’t a huge worry. Maybe the changes to serendipity are their first efforts to combat that and make us focus more on our mana bar.
Either way…even if…please don’t…they change serendipity, the fact I get DS just makes me want to have Blizz’s e-babies.
Happy day!
February 5th, 2009
I read those notes this morning after respeccing my priest to Disc last night. After spending the evening giggling maniacally as mobs beat themselves to death on my rubber bubble (giddy as a wee schoolgirl, I was…and if you’ve ever seen me you know how disturbing that image is) these incoming changes made me nearly squeal with delight.
February 5th, 2009
I wept tears of joy last night as I read this on mmo-champ.
But who cares what I do late at night.
February 5th, 2009
I have a lowbie shadow priest alt, and I don’t intend on levelling her as anything other than shadow, so there’s not AS much to look forward to from a DPS perspective. However, baselining Divine Spirit is very nice, as that really helps with upping Shadow’s spellpower. Me likey.
February 5th, 2009
I’ll echo the giddy comments. Bre was squeeing at me this morning in BA Chat even before I GOT to BA chat! Those changes…okay, I need another Disc priest in my raid. I just may have to look at that tree again in 3.1…
And for the record, my dearest Ego: Holy Nova is indeed a very viable, very important part of a 25-man raid, and NOT just for killing zombie chow or teeny little spiders. PoH + CoH + HN in 3 sec == Loatheb easysauce. Yummmmm! So just stop giggling at my Holy Nova! (Even if I DO use it to impress the raid with my priestly 3-figure DPS!)
February 5th, 2009
*hyperventilates*
Oh these changes are just so so so good I’m having difficulty believing it. So excited about the new patch!!
Though I agree that I hope this is an addition to Serendipity, rather than a replacement. This is the only possible downside, so I guess it’s there to keep me sober cause otherwise I’d be so giddy I’d feel drunk from excitement.
February 5th, 2009
I had to go back and re-read the notes when your summary mentioned PvP — I apparently skipped right over those parts
February 5th, 2009
This post makes it official: Ego *usually* posts something about upcomming patches!
February 5th, 2009
Let’s be realistic, Blues have been commenting a couple times how mana regen seems to be ignored.
Serendipity is likely to be a change, not a straight buff. Also expect mana regen to take a hit in 3.1… everybody will be paying hard for these fancy new heals
PWB sounds like something that replaces DS as the 21 point talent in the Disc tree (while still making it unavailable to priests who go 51 pt holy)
February 5th, 2009
I love it. I’m willing to take the hit on Serendipity in exchange for these other goodies. The Divine Spirit change now gives me back a bunch of talent points to experiment with.
I don’t know about everyone else, but usually when I’m casting Binding or Flash heal, a faster cast time on Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing would be VERY serendipitous.
February 5th, 2009
Party Bubble ftw!
And I like being able to cast Penance on myself too! Whoot! Yay!
I’m happy. Very.
_Misa
February 5th, 2009
Wow…. AoE bubble… i think that’s what stunned me the most lol, specially as a disc priest i do wonder tho, if these bubbles will apply the same buffs our PW:S currently do to all targets o.o! also will it be smart like CoH, or castable on our own group only? Still… gotta say reading this made me <3 blizz some more XD hopefully there’s more info out soon!
February 5th, 2009
I was already loving Disc but now I feel likes it’s Christmas all over again! I haven’t felt this excited about a new patch in a loooong time
February 5th, 2009
Very nice priest buffs. Remember, though, that they’re reducing mana regen out of 5 second rule, so there will be less mana to play with. I think healing will become a tad trickier due to mana constraints, and also a tad more versatile and fun. Blizzards seems to be trying to move away from “healing = endless whack-a-mole”.
February 5th, 2009
Yeah someone pinch me!
*keeps an eye open for the nerf bat*
February 6th, 2009
I too was excited to read this… until the skeptic in my kicked it.
Devil’s Advocate here: Blizzard has tried to create some kind of April’s Fool joke for the last 4 years. The Pandarian idea… Happy Pandy from in-game… (recurring trend with the pandas) There is a small voice in the back of my head whispering that this might be precursor to a big… “Gotchya!” come April 1.
It would be REMARKABLY stupid on Blizzard’s part to be using something like this as an April Fool’s joke, but I wouldn’t necessarily put it above them. They have made some changes in the past that seemed somewhat out-of-sorts and less than wise… but who know.
If it does turn out that this is something that will come to fruition… then /squee
February 6th, 2009
Shadow Form now reduces magic as well as physical damage.
Now mages can 2 shot me instead…
And… that’s about it for poor Shadow Priests. We get a very small amount of spellpower from Divine Spirit if it’s not talented so although it’s a nice small buff the amount of money I spend on Candles will triple (unless ofc there’s a disc priest with the talented version there).
Am glad Disc is getting some nice buffs after all those years in the cold but am a bit emo that Shadow gets nerfed into the floor all the time then gets a tiny bit of a PvP buff.
Want funky new spells :’(
February 8th, 2009
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT
I was already going disc on meh priesty and now…*joy*
*fans Ego since everyone else ignored her request*
February 9th, 2009
I love LOVE lovelovelove the idea of Power Word: Barrier… but here’s the thing. Even though you (Or I!) don’t care about PVP, it will probably spoil this spell for us. Because I can’t think of a way it wouldn’t be completely overpowered in an arena setting. Stupid PVP.
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