We’re gaining a new self buff in the expansion. In addition to Inner Fire, we’re gaining a new one called Inner Will.
So the question is, which self buff should be used?
More power?
You can’t ever go wrong with having increased spellpower from Inner Fire. That’s an extra 1080 spellpower that you otherwise wouldn’t have had. I consider if the de facto self buff to use in most cases. The extra armor buff isn’t going to hurt either. Probably the default buff to use once our regeneration hits a point where we’re not struggling for mana as much. If I’m leveling, then I’ll definitely be using this for extra fire power.
More speed?
Inner Will reduces the mana cost of your instant spells by 15% and it increases your run speed. I’ve noticed myself resorting to using Inner Will more often in some of the dungeons I do and leaning towards a heavier spell usage involving Renew, Power Word: Shield and Prayer of Mending. This sounds like its going to be the armor buff of choice for Renew Priests if the viability is still there. Anything involving lots of running? Yeah, I’m going to toggle this on as well.
Don’t forget about Inner Sanctum. I wouldn’t spec into it normally. But if you find yourself using Inner Will more than Inner Fire just to run around faster, then it might be a worthwhile investment. I don’t know if I find the 6% spelldamage reduction side of it useful. I guess it will come down to hard mode specific fights where it would be needed to help with survivability. 6% feels a bit low to me. I mean if they were going to combine it with Spell Warding, shouldn’t it be upped to 10% instead? Of course, I’m probably forgetting the fact that we have a massive health pool.
Yes, I’m positive there are going to be encounters where that 6% is going to make or break you. Anyway, when you’re leveling, go with Inner Fire. When you’re doing dungeons or raids, use the one that’s going to benefit you the most.
I was really surprised when Blizzard took a mage-oriented approach towards giving Priests multiple types of “armor” spells.
That being said, I simply think Inner Fire will win out over Inner Will in 90% of cases, losing out only in movement heavy fights, where the decreased cost of instant casts and movement speed boost will both be worth more than the spellpower.
With each of our heals healing less proportionally than they have in Wrath, I feel like the HPM metric is going to be back in force, in which case I feel the spellpower is probably going to provide the larger benefit.
I think it’s becoming more common since warlocks also have this duality. Noting also this is a casters version of a “stance” like warriors or “presence” like Death Knights.
In regards to the comment about the spell dmg reduction being a bit low, I think you are missing the PVP benefits and thus the spell protection is probably a bit low to keep the PVP whiners at bay.
Long time reader, first time commenter! First I’d just like to thank you guys for the awesome blogs, which really helps my Priestly ways!
I recently got into the beta and made one of my characters a premade 85 priest to experiment with endgame. One of my passions is PvP, so I hopped into a couple of WSG. One of my first thoughts upon initially seeing Inner Will when it was announced was that it would be an excellent PvP spell. Seem so.
Also, being force to choose between Inner Fire or Inner Will as the situation demands it is another way the developers have integrated the “choose your own path” mindset similar to the talent trees. They are forcing us to change our armor as the situation demands. In PvP, I had a tough time deciding whether to keep up Inner Fire for the extra armor and Spell Power (for when I’m being beat on), or Inner Will for the speed boost, spell resist, and mana reduction.
In WSG, IW is definietly advantageous with the speed buff, especially when you have the flag or are protecting the flag carrier. PvE, I see it as much more situational and need to use it only if a fight has high-spell damage, lots of movement phases, or longevity fight (for mana conservation)
Going from mob to mob faster during leveling isn’t so bad either. I know I tried to keep up Aspect of Cheeta over Hawk on my low level hunter since liked the movement speed a lot.
While the spellpower buff would be the default one for raiding, I’m not so sure it’ll make a meaningful difference while leveling. When things die as quickly as they do in that setting, what you have to consider is whether that buff lets you get away with fewer spellcasts. I imagine it usually won’t, and even if it does sometimes, the visceral improvement won’t be as much as the +runspeed, not to mention the further decreased downtime that comes with reduced mana costs.
As an avid PvPer I’m super excited about Inner Will. The buff + the talent + the movement speed boot enchant means we can run at speeds of 124%. Now for people who’ve played disc in pvp you know our mobility when compared to other healers has always been a big disadvantage and this is Blizzard’s answer.
The good priests in a PvP environment will be swapping between the two depending on the current situation like mages do today.
I’d much rather have it that Blizz gave us two really good choices for buffs rather than make it one sided and an obvious choice. I give Blizz 5/5 on this one.