Home Archives for War-Crafting Priest Discussion
Spirit Shell Change: Burst Bubble Spam!
May 8, 2012 6 Comments

Spirit Shell Change: Burst Bubble Spam!

Spirit Shell: For the next 15 sec, your Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Prayer of Healing no longer heal but instead create absorption shields that last 15 sec.

Cool! Not less than half a day since I posted that we were expecting Spirit Shell changes, they went and changed up the design of it entirely. In terms of absorb values, my guess is that they’re going to be a 1:1 value. So if you heal for 10000, you’ll be creating shields for 10000.

Instead of a spell that directly creates a shield, they’ve given us an ability that turns most of our healing spells into shield spells. Interesting design change. Can’t wait to try it in action. At least we now have a clear toggle between the times when we need to restore health and the times to create shields. Nifty ability though because even if the raid is at near full health, Disc priests can easily toggle Spirit Shell on and blanket the raid with shields and add that extra health buffer to everyone.

I suppose this is one way to shield spam the raid!

And as promised, Rapture removes the cooldown on Power Word: Shield.

Filed Under: All Stories, Mists of Pandaria, Priest Discussion, War-Crafting Tagged: , , , , , ,
Oh Chakra, How You’ve Changed
May 2, 2012 6 Comments

Oh Chakra, How You’ve Changed

Keybinds.

So many keybinds.

Another expansion means more new spells and abilities and we’re gradually running out of keys to use. Chakra’s been split three ways now. As you know, the corresponding bonus you get from Chakra is decided base on what spell you use immediately after Chakra has activated.

Now you can just activate whichever Chakra you want by hitting a button.

So on the one hand, that’s nice because you don’t have to rely on spell selection anymore to get the Chakra you want.

Question: No more fat fingering the wrong spell and being in the wrong Chakra stance. Hands up! How many times did mistakenly  you hit Prayer of Mending after casting Chakra and being in Chakra: Sanctuary instead of being in Chakra: Serenity specifically for a phase?

On the other hand, now I have to find a way to free up more keys for the individual Chakra bonuses. I figure I can just stick to Chakra: Serenity and Chakra: Sanctuary. Not sure how often I’d use Chakra: Chastise unless I’m leveling.

Filed Under: All Stories, Priest Discussion, PvE Healing Tagged: , , , ,
Priest talent: Mindbender
April 25, 2012 1 Comment

Priest talent: Mindbender

Really quick, my earlier post about Atonement is no longer accurate. Atonement is now a baseline, Discipline ability. It’s no longer a glyph and Holy has no access to it anymore. Edit: Discipline has access to Atonement at level 60.

Mindbender
40 yd range
4 min cooldown

Creates a Mindbender to attack the target.  Caster receives 6% mana when the Mindbender attacks. Damage taken by area of effect attacks is reduced. Lasts 15 sec.

It’s literally a flying squid. And it sucks the mana out of opponents. Not sure if this is a placeholder model or not, but I rather like it.  Now that the level 45 talents are seemingly finished, which one of the three talents would you choose?

I’m not actually sure which one of these I would take. My default choice will most likely be From Darkness, Comes Light. I really like having those free, instant Flash Heals. Not exactly the most reliable and there’s an heavier emphasis on procs. Can’t ignore the benefits of Mindbender though. A 4 minute cooldown means it can be used twice on most raid encounters.

Filed Under: All Stories, Mists of Pandaria, News and Opinion, Priest Discussion Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
Atonement Priests in Mists
April 24, 2012 9 Comments

Atonement Priests in Mists

Edit: As of build 15640, Atonement is no longer a glyph or a talent. It appears to be a baseline ability built into Discipline and will not be accessible to Holy. Discipline Priests will learn it at level 60.

Plan on going Atonement? The process has changed.

For starters, Atonement isn’t something you talent into anymore. Instead, all the relevant abilities are located in your glyphs (See the above screenshot).

Atonement presently takes up a Major glyph slot. For it to continue being a strong style of healing for Priests, you’ll need to grab Glyph of Smite. You could grab Glyph of Holy Fire but it doesn’t seem to be as important. In order to be an Atonement priest, you must have the Atonement glyph and the Smite glyph. The Holy Fire glyph makes the spell instant but might not be a necessity depending on the encounters.

Not quite sure how I feel about moving Atonement from talents to glyphs. I understand what the move was made: So that Priests could really pick out their talents without feeling they had to force themselves down one route. At the same time though, limiting it to a glyph means that Atonement Priests don’t have as much flexibility either when it comes to glyph selection. I’d wager that you’d still have to grab Archangel in order to remain competitive.

The bright side is that you can go Atonement as Holy.  Chakra: Chastise increases the potency even further.

That third glyph slot?

You could go with the Glyph of Circle of Healing or Glyph of Penance as your two spec stapes.

There hasn’t been much change to the style of healing. If you’re comfortable playing Atonement right now, you should have no difficulties heading into the expansion. At least you can set up a specific glyph page just for Atonement.

Leveling as Smite spec? Still good to go (I’ve been doing it from 85 – 87).

Will you be giving Atonement a shot in Mists?

Filed Under: All Stories, Mists of Pandaria, Priest Discussion, PvE Healing Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
Priest 87 Ability: Spectral Guise
April 20, 2012 6 Comments

Priest 87 Ability: Spectral Guise

Spectral Guise is the current spell all Priests gain at level 87. as a talent at level 60.

Spectral Guise
30 sec cooldown

Your shadow blurs into the darkness, leaving your true form behind. As a shadow you are invisible, but remain in combat. Lasts 6 sec or until your true form is hit by 3 direct attacks.0

It seems much more suited towards PvP action than anything else. I can see it coming in handy for PvE stuff while you’re questing or if you’re one of the few people left alive in engagement.

What would help improve this illusion is if my clone taunted or if it casted a placebo spell dependant on my spec (Flash Healfor 0 or Mind Flay for 0).

Here’s a direct link to check out the video.

What do you think of Spectral Guise? Something you’d use?

Filed Under: All Stories, Mists of Pandaria, Priest Discussion Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
Mists: Further Priest Changes on the Horizon
April 12, 2012 4 Comments

Mists: Further Priest Changes on the Horizon

Ghostcrawler commented on a Discipline feedback post earlier today.

To summarize the key points:

  • Confirmation that Spirit Shell is a spammable absorb that won’t be as powerful as Power Word: Shield. On beta, it fills the Heal role which is not very satisfactory. They are exploring the option of having it fill the Greater Heal position instead.
  • They’re exploring ways to bring Rapture back in.  However, they want it to scale with Spirit so that Discipline Priests don’t neglect Spirit on their gear.
  • Power Word: Barrier mana costs are comparable to Divine Hymn.
  • They’re exploring ways to reduce the mana cost of Mass Dispel but the spells is quite powerful and they’re considering the inclusion of a cooldown aspect.
  • Players running through dungeons and raids are saying they have problems casting big heals and they are looking into this problem.
  • The priest talents are still not finalized and will be undergoing further refinement.
  • Glyph of Penance sucks. Glyphs as a whole are incomplete and continue to be developed.

Personally, I find it refreshing to see GC back in action again offering glimpses into the world of game balance and the various developer thought processes. Rapture’s a way cool mechanic and all, but with the other changes and such, I’m not sure if finding a way to restore it back in Mists is a real priority.  Do you agree with the problems and solutions that are in the process of being implemented?

Filed Under: All Stories, Mists of Pandaria, Priest Discussion Tagged: , , ,
New Priest Talent: Feathers from Heaven
April 6, 2012 12 Comments

New Priest Talent: Feathers from Heaven

Feathers from Heaven replaces the previous Levitate talent that we had at level 30.

Feathers From Heaven
40 yd range

Place Heavenly Feathers at the target location. Each Heavenly Feather causes a single nearby friendly target to gain 60% movement speed for 4 sec.  Only 3 Feathers can be placed at one time.  Accumulates an additional charge once every 10 sec.

I place a feather on the ground. If a player runs near it, they get a temporary speed boost. Unlike Alysrazor, they don’t need to click it. They just need to be within range of it. You can not cast it around objects (line of sight issues). You can cast it while moving. So if you need to get somewhere really fast, just drop them in rapid succession to get you or a friendly player from point A to point B fast.

Since you’re limited to only 3 charges, you can’t use a whole stack of them one after the other. It takes time for it to recharge.

Here’s a direct link to check out the video.

Wha’cha think? Is this talent going to appeal to you? If it were live now, which bosses would you use it on?

Filed Under: All Stories, Priest Discussion Tagged: , , ,
How Spirit Shell Works
April 6, 2012 1 Comment

How Spirit Shell Works

During dungeons when Spirit Shell is fully absorbed, it is only healing for 1. Do you know if this is a bug or if they intend it to not heal the target when fully absorbed?

- Rave31211

Received a few comments and questions from people wondering about the use of Spirit Shell so I’ll do my best to clear it up some.

When Spirit Shell is on a player, it places a shield on them. After 8 seconds, the shield wears off. That player is healed for 80% of the absorb amount remaining.

If the shield gets completely absorbed, the player gets healed for a whopping 1 health point (I guess it rounds up). There’s a few problems with it right now:

  • It can’t crit
  • It’s a really long cast time for a low benefit
  • You can’t see the benefits in your raid frames
  • Doesn’t add Grace (Thanks FtenEQ)

Derevka has added his own thoughts on Spirit Shell and created a forum thread in the beta forums expressing feedback. I don’t expect this to be the final version.

Filed Under: All Stories, Priest Discussion, PvE Healing Tagged: , ,
Running Out of Mana? Here’s One Reason
April 3, 2012 8 Comments

Running Out of Mana? Here’s One Reason

My Google reader is set to examine various search terms allowing me to keep a pulse on what’s going out there with Priests. One search result that popped up on my reader involved a holy priest. Their problem was that they kept running out of mana. No matter what they did, they had a really hard time sustaining the necessary healing required for that instance.

Out of habit, I looked up their priest on armory.

Problem solved.

No enchants, no gems, or other augments.

It almost feels like really new players take for granted the power that augments provide their characters. Do you think Blizzard balances instances around the fact that your character should have enchants and such? Maybe the harder 4.3 ones, but not the entry level heroics.

Back to the story, it turns out I wasn’t the only one who spotted the lack of character investment. When others pointed it out, the player commented by saying they didn’t have the money to afford it.

At least they have an answer to the first problem.

New players, if you want to start hitting up the harder stuff, start investing. Even if you can’t afford a Power Torrent, you can probably snag a Heartsong. Can’t do 20 stats? Settle for 15. Don’t need 65 mastery when cheaper 50 haste options exist. No sense socketing an epic red gem on a blue quality item when a gren quality red gem will do the trick for now.

Even if they’re not the best improvements money can buy, at least they’re still an improvement.

 

Filed Under: All Stories, Priest Discussion Tagged: , , , , ,
Heroic Morchok Down: Where Next?
January 25, 2012 8 Comments

Heroic Morchok Down: Where Next?

Managed to score Heroic Morchok on Tuesday. Ended up using 6 healers. Another classic 22% wipe, then a 16% wipe, then a 13% followed by an 8% then a kill. Actually, the numbers aren’t precise. But that’s what it seemed like anyway.

How to Land 3 Healing Spells in Under 2 Seconds

It seems impossible, doesn’t it?

Note that I didn’t quite say I would cast 3 spells only that I would land them. You have to be precise when it comes to timing and you need to be ready to pounce on the next spell the moment the other one is finished.

We were working on heroic Morchok for a total of 6 – 8 hours (over 4 weeks, with raid hours lost due to a healer shortage). Our longest attempt was just under 6 minutes. Most of the wipes occurred between 2 – 3 minutes. The trickiest part for me was maintaining tank health right after a stomp. A common occurrence I noticed is that after Kohcrom stomped, he would attack the tank around 2 seconds later. If I timed it right, I could land a Flash Heal and a quick Holy Word: Serenity. But sometimes that wasn’t enough. I needed another way because those two spells just weren’t consistent enough. Sometimes the tank lived, sometimes he died. I wanted a better (and consistent) way in keeping that tank alive.

It all revolved around the Stomp.

After a few wipes, I realized the consistency of his melee swing following the stomp. I didn’t want to focus exclusively on the tank to the detriment of the group. But at the same time, if the tank dropped it was game over.

Timers from DBM gave me a 5 second count down on approximately when the stomp would land.

I ended up watching the animation of the stomp. The moment the foot start rising up, I’d target the tank and hit Prayer of Healing ensuring it would land just after Stomp connected with the group. This gave me time for a quick Flash Heal (Or Binding Heal) followed up with Serenity (or a Circle of Healing if the tank was sufficiently high enough.

Credits to

Lodur for gemming all strength reforging to Mastery giving him the ability to really stabilize players and allowing me to spike them back  up.

The DPS warriors on my side who picked up on the fact that when I frantically called their name, it meant I wanted a Rallying Cry (and giving us that buffer after a fumbled heal).

Logan of the LeetSauced podcast (and soon-to-be host of the Matticast) for remaining calm, collected and patient after enduring hours of frustrating incidents beyond his control.

Tanks with 4 piece bonuses. Seriously. More bonuses like this in the future.

Old Spice. I smelled awesome that raid.

Now what?

What’s the next hard mode boss that you went to after Morchok (25 man as I understand 10 man has different priorities)?

Hagara?

Ping pong guy?

Ooze boss?

Seems like we’re going to take a hard look at Hagara. Pointers?

Filed Under: All Stories, Dragon Soul, Featured, Priest Discussion, PvE Healing, War-Crafting Tagged: , , , , ,
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