Priest Concern Summary

[KiloVictor]

Something I would have also liked to have seen as a talent in Discipline that would become the lv 31 talent is something that removed the 5 second regen penalty or make it so that the priest regens more than 15% of their mana while casting (say 30% to 50% while casting).  Because mana regen is such an issue for the priest in end game raiding, x mana/5 seconds is far more useful than spirit in the middle of a fight.

I suspect this would become imbalancing. The 5-second rule only came in because there were builds that basically never ran out of mana, and Blizzard wanted to make sure that managing your mana pool remained one of the important aspects of playing a priest.

Even so, they've elected to give us this through itemization; the 3-piece set bonus for Transcendence is 15% mana regen that stacks with Meditation (the talent that gives 15% active mana regen while casting). With 300 SPR, +550 healing gear and a 3/5 Transcendence/Prophecy split, I've found that I seldom need to stop and drink for anything but raids and PVP.

No argument that Discipline needs a better top talent, but I would personally rather have something akin to Nature's Swiftness than a mana regen talent.

Every point of mana regened is equal to 4 spirit for the priest (5 for druid) while out of combat, but when in combat it's equal to 26.67 spirit for a priest.  So, in order to make Spirit more useful in comparison, Discipline really needs a talent that boosts regen during the 5 second rule higher so that x mana/5 seconds isn't hugely more useful than straight spirit.
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I'd be interested in hearing what other raid priests have found, but I've banked most of my mana regen gear now. Even before I had access to the Transcendence set bonus, I found that using Inner Focus and Greater Heal would allow me to get a good stint of 100% regen time in the middle of most fights, and that meant that SPR was often better than +mana/5s gear. With 30% regen all the time, mana/5s on gear is much less attractive than it once was.

~Kv