Holy priests in 8962
by Eliah Hecht 
Sep 18th 2008 at 12:30PM
Holy priests were no more exempt than Shadow priests from the changes in 8962. Most were good, and many were previewed by Koraa, but let's look at them anyway, shall we?
- Divine Hymn now does a HoT (10 closest targets within 15 yards, 348 every sec for 6 sec) as well as its previous effect of putting enemies to sleep and reducing incoming damage.
OK, I'm now officially convinced by this spell. It's on a six-minute CD, which is pretty good, and that is a good chunk of healing to ten targets for less than the cost of a max-rank Greater Heal. Even if it didn't put enemies to sleep or decrease damage taken, I would still use it as a cheaper, wider-effect Prayer of Healing. [Edit: just noticed I'd misread the skill; it makes enemies take less damage. That's a bit depressing.]
- Holy Fire is now a 2 second cast. Whatever, although this probably means it won't scale as well with spell power; it used to be our most efficient nuke (assuming you let the DoT tick out).
- Holy Nova is now base, and Desperate Prayer is taking its place as a talent, with a 2 minute cooldown (down from 5), but a mana cost (about as much as a Flash Heal). This is a great big nerf to Desperate Prayer if you had it before (as I did), but I suppose it will be nice for it to be available to all priests. Not sure if I'll take it as a PvE priest; I don't really have that particular talent point to spare.
- Symbol of Hope converted into Hymn of Hope, as a level 60 skill. I'm not great at napkin math, but it looks like it was also buffed in speed of mana recovery while being reduced in duration. Significantly, it is now a channeled spell; the priest has to not be healing for as long as they want the mana regen to work. Will have to keep an eye on this one.
These last two changes are fallout from the removal of Priest racials, and I would like to take this opportunity to say: thank you for removing Priest racials, Blizz. Took you long enough.
- Holy Concentration and Improved Holy Concentration have had their numbers bumped back up. They sorely needed it after last build.
- Surge of Light now will make your next Flash Heal or Smite free and instant (but unable to crit); previously, it was just Smite. This is great news if you ask me; I'm always trying to find ways to work this talent into my healing or healing/leveling builds, and this will make it much easier. It should also make all that spell crit they've been putting on our Karazhan sets for the Disc priests a little more useful.
- Divine Providence, Holy Reach, and Improved Healing now affect Divine Hymn.
- Blessed Recovery changed to add additional healing if you get crit more during the duration.
In glyph news: Glyph of Renew used to increase the amount healed by each tick by 40%; now it's just 25% (in exchange for a 20% reduction in duration). And there's a new Glyph of Inner Fire, which looks PvP-oriented to me.
Overall a decent patch for us. I'm finally interested in Divine Hymn as more than a gimmick spell. I'm sad to (effectively) lose my Desperate Prayer, but it'll be nice to get that Plague thingy I keep hearing about from the trolls undead. And I'm really glad about Holy Concentration and Surge of Light getting changed.
Filed under: Priest, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kivnel Sep 18th 2008 12:36PM
You realise they halved the heal and doubled the cooldown of Divine Hymn in this build right?
Kivnel Sep 18th 2008 12:39PM
Oh yeah, and Holy Fire has been a two second cast since Alpha.
Holy Concentration was nerfed for any reasonable entry-gearing level. If you have 3/3 in both HC and Imp HC, you need 20% spell crit for it to be on par with the old 9%. And even then you're working against a DOUBLE RNG instead of a single.
Hoggersbud Sep 18th 2008 1:05PM
I dunno what you been smoking, but Holy Fire is a 3.5 second cast spell.
Jar Sep 18th 2008 2:15PM
Pretty sure he meant since the WotlK Alpha =]
Dan Sep 18th 2008 12:40PM
Did I miss something or does this spell reduce the damage your raid does instead of reducing the damage it takes as you seemed to imply? Although you never actually stated that it seems weird to say that you would cast the spell "even if" it didn't reduce the damage you did by 40% -- it would be BETTER if it didn't have this effect.
Or at least that's what the Wowhead tooltip says, but considering you said this aspect was unchanged I think you may have been misreading it.
Dan Sep 18th 2008 12:42PM
PS, I meant Divine Hymn. "Enemies take 40% less damage while incapacitated ..."
Galla Sep 18th 2008 1:19PM
So does that mean that Symbol of Hope or Hymn of Hope now, is a holy spell and cant be used in shadow form? It seemed like I had played with draenei shadow priests in the past that used this spell while still in shadow form.
my2cents Sep 18th 2008 5:06PM
Currently (in Live), it is castable in shadowform. I use it pretty much every time the cd's up on my spriest. I really hope it'll still be usable in shadowform.
Tullivia Sep 18th 2008 2:22PM
Devouring plague is the undead skill, not troll. :)
Eliah Hecht Sep 18th 2008 2:23PM
Yeesh, thanks. That's what I get for trying to talk about the Horde before I've had my coffee.
Tullivia Sep 18th 2008 2:42PM
Come to the Horde side of the force!
We have cookies (and premium mocha-chip melt shakes).
Bootsanator Sep 18th 2008 2:43PM
Thanks for beating me to it, Tullivia.
I was about to lay the smack down myself :P
As few of us as there are, I know most of us troll priests will miss our Shadowguard, if not Hex of Weakness.
Gimme bak mah spinneh purplez!
Seriously though, soloing troll shadowpriests with blackout and shadow weaving adored Shadowguard (and if you didn't, you weren't doing it right, hehe)
Overall though, definitely fine with the racial removal.
They should probably rename devouring plague or something though. Kind of weird to have most ally races cast a plague on someone if you're not a death knight.
Vajarra Sep 18th 2008 2:29PM
Channeled now? /sigh
And I see the cooldown is 5 minutes, rather than Symbol's 2 minutes. If I timed it right, I could get to use it twice over the course of a boss fight.
Cetha Sep 18th 2008 2:43PM
odd that you say Thanks Blizzard for finally getting rid of priest racials..and then end your article with that you are sad to be losing your Desperate Prayer...you see how this is contradictory?
I, for one, have always enjoyed the idea of priest racials (even back when I had to channel my starshards) as I'm a big fan of anything in the game that makes the characters different instead of one giant homogenized pool
Bumblo Sep 18th 2008 2:51PM
yeah now that holy conc scales with crit, and surge of light gives free flash heals, priests are going to start stacking crit like crazy. a crit gheal has the chance of proccing like 4 different priest talents which is yum.
tayluca Sep 18th 2008 4:01PM
Quote: And there's a new Glyph of Inner Fire, which looks PvP-oriented to me.
.....
Inner Fire...
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=48168
Talent: Improved Inner Fire...
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=14771
Spell: Inner Fire = +120 spellpower, 20 charges
Disc Talent: Imp Inner Fire = +45% effect of Inner Fire, 12 charges
Glyph: Glyph of Inner Fire = +20 charges
Increased spellpower = increased HEALING.
Having more charges = less time having to reapply the self-buff, especially for encounters where you might be taking aoe damage for example.
Andelorn Sep 19th 2008 10:20AM
52 charges is pretty damn nifty. I've these both on my priest in the PTR.
aulmus Sep 18th 2008 4:06PM
Hymn is Hope is next to useless, a five-minute cooldown on an eight-second channeled effect for barely 1200 mana (assuming a 15k mana pool) is crap. Not worth the global cooldown or the time spent channeling it.
Jack Spicer Sep 18th 2008 5:18PM
I'm not sure if this was noted or not, but if you have both Surge of Light and Holy Concentration and they both proc at the same time (pretty likely) then casting flash heal would be a huge waste. It would already be instant cast and free from surge of light, so it wouldn't receive any benefit from Holy Concentration although it will probably consume a charge from it.
If, on the other hand, when they both proc you cast a couple greater heals, you're most likely going to watch time time on that surge of light proc run out.