8885 is not entirely kind to Priests
by Eliah Hecht 
Aug 30th 2008 at 7:00PM
My favorite class was certainly not left out of the party when it came to this beta build. The most interesting changes to me:
- Inner Fire works on spell power now, not just healing spell power as was the case in previous builds. This only makes sense, given that spell power is unified now.
- Penance has been buffed for all ranks, but I need to see proper numbers before I can make any conclusions. MMO-Champion is noting that it now ticks twice instead of thrice; I'm hoping that's a bug related to lowering the channel time to 2 sec.
- The new Disc talent Grace got the stuffing nerfed out of it. It now reads as follows: Your Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Penance spells have a 50/100% chance to bless the target with Grace, reducing damage done to the target by 1%. This effect will stack up to 3 times. Effect lasts 8 sec. Yikes. It was a very strong talent, but I'm not sure it deserved to be hit quite this hard.
- Focused Power reworked to increase your total spell damage and healing by 2/4%, and reduce the cast time of Mass Dispel by 0.5 sec. Anything that makes you 2% more Priest per talent point is practically a must-have talent.
- New Disc talent: Renewed Hope (Tier 8): Increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal, Greater Heal and Penance spells by 3% on targets afflicted by the Weakened Soul effect.
- Vampiric Touch changed to implement the new mana battery model ("cause up to 10 party or raid members to gain 0.5% of their maximum mana per second while you are dealing shadow damage").
- Misery changed to 3 ranks, now gives 1/2/3% spell hit.
- Shadow Weaving changed to 3 ranks, and now only increases the shadow damage you deal.
Definitely a bittersweet moment in the Priest development cycle. I really hope Shadow gets some major buffs soon.
[via MMO-Champion]
Filed under: Priest, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
implemon Aug 30th 2008 7:06PM
Spriests are useless now. Ty blizz, at least you cemented my choice to roll disc in wotlk
neadamthal Sep 1st 2008 7:40AM
what did priests ever do to blizzard??! i was already unimpressed with teh changes but this is worse!
Gzuss Aug 30th 2008 7:11PM
And this is why I'm rolling a Death Knight as my new main in Wrath
Ooze Aug 30th 2008 7:18PM
In BC, Shadow Priests had their purpose, now they are just useless.
Jewbanks Aug 30th 2008 7:20PM
do multiple mana regenners stack?.. and if so in what way?
Thander Aug 30th 2008 11:49PM
No, it doesn't stack and it's a raid wide buff. I'm hopeful Blizzard will up the shadow priest's scaling but don't expect to be unique anymore.
Patrick Aug 30th 2008 7:21PM
I really don't understand the Misery change. I see that playing out in two ways:
1) Everyone gears 3% under spell hit max and assumes there will be a shadow priest on the raid. This would be nice, but it would again require a shadow priest on all raids, which is what I thought Blizzard was trying to get away from with these changes.
2) Everyone gears to reach the spell hit cap, making this talent useless.
Does anyone understand this?
rick gregory Aug 30th 2008 7:38PM
No. And there's the problem - do people gear assuming they have a spriest with Misery? Or do they assume not to be safe (since we're not needed for mana regen anymore)? If the latter, I'll not spec into it. In fact I think it's fair to say I'll NEVER spec into it unless the hit cap for other casters is so high that they can't possible cap out. If that's the case it might be a useful talent. But only in those cases. If casters can cap out then I'm going to assume they will and use the points elsewhere.
Jack Spicer Aug 30th 2008 8:45PM
I didn't get to beyond Kara in TBC, but I was under the impression that even without trying everyone was hitting their spell hit cap (i.e. beyond x more spell hit would be useless).
So I would expect that the Misery changes would eventually benefit no one in the raid, even the spriest.
Boo :(
Jewbanks Aug 30th 2008 7:43PM
wont the spell hit help the caster also? plus i often let myself a percent or so off the hit cap, because im to lazy to regem every time i get an upgrade
Justin Aug 30th 2008 7:46PM
@ Jewbanks
It won't matter if the other casters in your raid are spell caped. If you're geared right, theres no need for the extra few%
uncaringbear Aug 30th 2008 7:56PM
Thank you Blizzard. Any doubts I had about the viability of shadow priests in WOTLK have been confirmed. Looks like I will be respeccing healbot. Yeh, yeh, this is still Beta, but you know and I know that spriests will be ****ed come launch day.
Jane Gray Aug 31st 2008 7:29PM
You'd be better off rerolling a druid, tahts what I'm doing. The priest healing changes (or rather the changes everyone else is getting) make holy priests pretty blah as well.
Radiophonic Aug 30th 2008 8:44PM
One word for Bliz: Lamesauce
Jack Spicer Aug 30th 2008 8:47PM
I am really worried about the state of Spriests as well. With the changes I'm seeing, unless they receive a huge DPS boost (which I think is pretty unlikely given the track record on spriests so far) they won't even be able to get spots in 5-man groups, let alone raids.
Cowbane Aug 30th 2008 9:13PM
So, It seems like they're not only out to destroy shadow priests, but every other spec as well..."reducing damage done to the target by 1%" That's it? Also what happened to the penance ticks? What past did Blizzard have with priests?
Jack Spicer Aug 30th 2008 10:09PM
Well, that 1% does stack 3 times, to be fair, but its still underwhelming.
Penance, as far as I've read, hits instantly for a 1/3 of the healing, and then ticks two more times over 2 seconds.
Paul Aug 30th 2008 9:23PM
Good thing I've been levelling my balance druid. Bye, Shadow! :(
Shadowisp Aug 30th 2008 9:31PM
The problem is that priests true power is raiding, and they have been so focused on standardising this they have been swinging the nerf bat at both Shadow & Healing Priests way too hard.
Fair to expect a major spit and polish overhaul... but when.
Shadow Priests were told "soon" by Blizz blues, that was 3 nerfs ago... and each time they havent given us a solid answer on Vampiric Touch until now.
Blizz sandboxing is worrysome, its hard being on the sideline to this.
Shadowisp Aug 30th 2008 9:33PM
I think the worse change is Misery is +3 hit. Every class is not going to assume they always have a shadow priest in thier run (blizz have admitted thats the aim of the utility rebalance). So everyone will aim for and gain hit cap on thier own.
Hell, my raid doesnt even account for having Draeni casters in thier group for 1% hit. Hit Cap yourself or dont bother coming is the main attitudes around.