Whenever a patch is released, there are cries of "nerf" on all sides - because regardless of the change, it's probably negative to some.  And while some so-called nerfs will be found in the patch notes, others are conspicuously absent, leaving players in the dark about whether new game behavior is an intentional change or a mistake of some sort.

While many of these complaints spring up before and after every patch, one in particular has caught my eye.  The recent revamp of priest talents includes a new talent called Spiritual Guidance - which can increase damage and healing spells by up to 25% of the priest's total spirit.  This sounds like a nice buff to spirit for a priest, but in patch 1.10, spirit itemization seems to have been changed.  A number of high spirit items have had their spirit stat significantly reduced while the devout set has had its spirit bonus removed.  As priests copy over to the test server, they're realizing that their total spirit has dropped significantly - and thinking Spiritual Guidance might not be as good as they thought.

Hopefully this is a mistaken case of Blizzard's itemization department not talking to the class department.  Or perhaps there are new spirit items to replace the ones that are about to become not so good.  We'll only know for certain when 1.10 hits the live servers.

Tags: patch 1.10, Patch1.10, spiritual guidance, SpiritualGuidance, stealth nerf, StealthNerf

Filed under: Patches, Items, Priest