Priest Changes Coming!

[Quark]

Two quick notes:

1) After this patch, I'm never dueling Cleoboltra again.

2)

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.

Rogues call dibs! Hehe.

And for more commentary, I'm gonna take this from a PvP vs Priests perspective only. Yell at me if I don't remain too objective, I'm going to try to state simply how these change the game, not whether or not the change is good or bad.

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.

Priests with this can be much more likely to get that one (or two) more heals they needed to beat Rogues, Mages, and (Felhunter) Warlocks. It's a thin line Priests tread between death and life when healing in PvP, this just means they stay alive more often.

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.

For comparison, I think my Rogue's armor is about 1650. I'd have to check that, though. Going just off a full set of Nightslayer, armor (1152) + agility (189*2) is showing as 1530 total armor. The rest would come from cloak and agility bonuses.

A full set of Transcendence give 666. 930*1.5 (new Inner Fire) = 1395, so that's 2061 armor for a Inner Fired Priest. Get the talent maxed, it's now 2022 + 666 = 2688. Wow. This is screaming as a PvP talent now.

Duration increase is nice, with the compromise that a priest that ends up fighting more than one opponent will typically lose the buff along the way.

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.

That sounds incredible, PvE and PvP. So many cases where a 20% difference is all it takes ... And since it's targettable, it's that much more powerful. Mage Bombs just got another boost in AV, too.

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.

Priests finally given talents other healers already have. A little miffed that it takes 2 points for a priest and 5 for a druid to get the same effect, though. Again, this just makes it more likely that the priest gets off the heal that saves a life in PvP.

Next at the five-point mark you'll notice another brand new talent - Spell Warding, which reduces all damage taken by 10%.

Hello innate Defensive Stance ... 10% is all that matters sometimes. On a PvE note, I think it's time a priest tanked Baron Geddon :P

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.

My new nightmare: 20 Priest 20 Mage AV. 20 Fears, 20 Arcane Explosioners, and a ton of priests healing and damaging while their fear is on cooldown. Warriors, you're no longer needed to push the pile :P

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.

As a Rogue this would scare me, but I'd probably overwhelm it anyway. Wonder if the healing stacks or overwrites itself, mainly. More worrisome for classes that don't crit as often if it overwrites.

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.

Oh ... oh man. Wow. Spirit is now even more useful for the class that benefits the most from it.

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.

Again ... wow. Killed the healer helping out that flag carrier? Too bad, he's still healing!

Overall, Shadow still seems to be the tree if you want to kill in PvP. If you want to support in PvP, Discipline is like a new god. A Discipline priest would be a great boost to any team, anywhere, in PvP.