3.1 PTR Priest Summary

[Concillian]

PvE Holy

Nerfs:
- Improved Holy Concentration talent removed, which removes the haste after a clearcast would proc

I am very sad to see this talent go. because I will no longer be referred to as Improved Holy Conc. I will only be able to be referred to as Holy Conc. I guess that's acceptable. It's a lot better than when I was playing a warrior and people would keep telling me to blow someone or another.

- Holy Concentration talent replaced the chance for clearcast on a crit with a 100% proc for regen every crit. Math turns out to be a nerf (see later comments)
- Spirit regen nerf hits this spec the hardest.

Nerf or Buff, depending on how you value it:
- Serendipity talent replaced the 25% of spellcast mana returned when a greater or flash heal overheals with what amounts to a combo point system. Each flash or binding heal cast decreases the cast time of the next greater heal or Prayer of Healing by 12%. Note that this is not spell haste, but a flat decrease in the cast time. This stacks up to three times, for a maximum 36% reduction.

Without any points in Divine Fury, Greater & POH would be 3.0 / 2.64 / 2.28 / 1.92 second cast time. With divine fury, I'm not sure the mechanics, but I'd assume it's 2.5 / 2.2 / 1.9 / 1.6. If you're primarily casting greater on this combo point basis, the value of divine Fury is diminished.

This makes it a large nerf to mana regen, but a large buff to situationally being able to toss out a very large, very fast heal. You can use flash for the basics, then when a large heal is needed, throw out a larger heal with an even faster cast time than flash.

Buffs:
- Empowered Renew talent added. adds 5 / 10 / 15% of spellpower to renew + an instant heal portion for 5/10/15% of the total renew amount that can crit. SP portion effectively adds about 100 / 200 / 300 to total renew amount. with the other renew talent you're looking at renews that tick for ~1700. The instant heal portion will be smaller than the ticks, around 1300ish & can crit. Glyphed, the ticks will be over 2k, but the instant portion the same.
- Added +1/2/3% heal on Blessed Resilience, however, unlike the similar buff to the Disc PvP talent, you can't really get this talent without giving something else up, there aren't enough points.
- Shadowfiend was given more mana returen, more health and even a way to do more damage. Extra mana is on the order of 30-40 MP5 depending on gearing.
- ~40% base heal improvement to Circle of healing
- Prayer of Healing changed from always on the casting priest's party to cast on whatever party the person you have targeted is in.
- Shields buffed so rage can be generated through them, meaning no hesitation on casting them on warriors (though you may still need to hesitate on tanking pallies in easy content due to Spiritual Attunement mechanics)
- Meditation buffed to offseet spirit nerf inside FSR.

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Mana Regen implications
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Holy concentration comparison:
Old Holy concentration gave a free cast. Assuming this was used on flash heal, and you glyphed flash heal, this was worth 625 mana, plus potentially getting out of the 5 second rule if you did some other things. It had a 45% chance to proc. So every crit gave a 45% chance at 625 mana, or 280 mana on average, per crit.

New Holy Concentration gives +50% spirit regen for 8 seconds. It says +50% regen, but PTR is currently working so that it's only spirit/int regen via that formula they made complicated in 2.4.x. (323 / 573 MP5 inside / outside FSR --> 448 / 824, which is more like a 40ish% increase). If inside FSR the whole time it's like 125 MP5 for 8 seconds or 200 mana. and depends on gear, especially spirit.

So 200 mana per crit < 280 mana per crit already. Then there's intangibles like:
- Holy Concentration 3.1 cannot stack, crits back to back only refresh the 8s duration.
- Holy Concentration 3.0 allowed exiting the FSR easier by chaining with a Surge of Light proc or using Inner Focus. This results in a reduction in outside FSR time. I'm currently extimating that at 5% outside FSR instead of 20% outside FSR, but those are pretty much WAGs since my regen mod is tracking my play as disc, not my play as holy. At those estimates, the change combined with the reduction of outside FSR regen is a loss of approximately 100 MP5.

Serendipity loss I'll estimate by a naxx run of serendipty gains by Necrali. WWS log shows Replenishment at 235 MP5 when it was up and ratio-ing serendipity gains to that it's around 105 MP5. So another loss of around 100 MP5

MP5 loss estiamtes:
holy concentration loss based on free flash heal vs. crit effect (based on Necrali Naxx run: ~30 MP5
Loss based on spirit regen and estimated time outside FSR delta: ~100 MP5
Loss based on Serendipity: ~100 MP5

Gross loss ~230 MP5

Gains are from Shadowfiend (~30-40 MP5 in a 5 minute fight)

So net loss based on this log is around 200 MP5.

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Throughput
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There is a loss of the semi-random throughput increases from Improved holy concentration, but it is replaced with the much less random throughput increase of the new Serendipity talent which allows a very fast Greater Heal or Prayer of healing to be cast after "building up combo points" with flash or binding heal casts.

Throughput of Greater Heal spam is definitely lower, and it will be replaced with a flash spam --> greater rotation that will be slightly lower throughput, but will likely be considerably more precise in the application of that throughput.

It's possible the +3% healing from Blessed Resilience3.1 will make up for some of the haste loss from IHC. Overall, I think the changes here are quite decent changes from the single target throughput side of things. They seem to focus on being less spammy and more thoughtful decisions, and I encourage that.

Circle of healing increase plus targets Prayer of healing targetable both mean that AoE throughput potential is pretty huge, though mana will definitely become an issue.

Overall I think it's difficult to be disappointed with throughput changes. Raw throughput is theoretically lower, but in application, it's probably a better situation to be in for a skilled player.

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Talents
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There will be a tough decision in points spent to be made. I put together this rough framework:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?priest=050...03&version=9684

Which has 5 points leftover.

First the initial 4 tiers have some decisions:
- there are a lot of floating points here actually. Desperate Prayer, Healing Focus, Holy Reach, Imp. Renew, even Divine Fury are semi-optional talents. Improved healing is potentially optional with focus on less use of Greater Heal. There is just a lot of this portion of the tree where some cookie cutter spec will emerge, but in reality I think there is a LOT of personal flexibility afforded here. There is enough down the tree where you don't really want to spend more than 20 points in the first 4 tiers, but you can.

- The 2 virtually mandatory talents here are 3/3 inspiration and 5/5 Holy Specialization, which leaves 12 points to the discretion of the player for 16 potentially strong PvE locations to put them in.

The middle Tiers are fairly set. It's tought to get rid of any of Imp. Death +10% healing +25% SP on spirit, surge of light and holy concentration

Which, if you have 20 points in the first 4 tiers, leaves 5 points to distribute between:
- the last 2 points of empowered renew
- Blessed resilience (+3% raw heal)
- Test of Faith

1 point in Empowered Renew is probably best considered to be "Improved Holy Concentration" because it allows Renew to crit and trigger the mana return. Thus it's farily important to use at least 1/3 empowered renew.


Also of note is the Glyph of Guardian Spirit being added. Currently set at: "If your Guardian Spirit lasts its entire duration without being triggered, your Guardian Spirit cooldown is reset to 60 sec."
That sounds like it might be pretty worthwhile, because guardian spirit is amazingly good.

Overall, Mana-wise, it's a significantly larger nerf than Disc had. It should be manageable, but the loss in mana is nearly the same as replenishment. It's a lot to make up without having to do significant re-gearing.
Mechanics wise, spirit value vs. INT & MP5 is similar to 3.0 in terms of their relationships. I think INT gained a small amount with the Shadowfiend buff. Spirit lost OO5sr time, but gained the chenge to Holy Concentration for about a net 'break even'
Holy will likely have to re-gear some to help out on the mana side, which will reduce the throughput a little further. However, I really like the re-tooling of Holy Conc, and that may still be worth it.