Holy and Discipline Priest 3.0.2 spell and ability review
by Matt Low 
Oct 13th 2008 at 3:00PM
Mana regen
Key things to remember about mana regeneration and management:
- No chain potting
- No downranking
- Access to Hymn of Hope – I advise stacking Priests together in raids. This way they can all maximize their Hymn. Set up a Priest rotation. Work with other Priests and time your Hymns so that no more than 1 Priest is out of action (1 Hymn per minute maybe?). It's a channeling spell so park yourself in a safe spot. Last time I checked it was party only.
- Replenishment – It's a mana regen buff that restores 0.25% of a player's maximum mana every second. Make sure you include a Retribution Paladin, Survival Hunter, or a Shadow Priest. 10 man groups will benefit from having 1 Replenishment buff while 25 man groups could use 2 of them.
Healing
We can't cast Greater Heal as much before (since we can't down rank). In terms of direct heals, we're stuck with Flash Heal and Greater Heal. Healers especially will need to pay a lot closer attention to to the health of their targets and what spells to use. Gone are the days where we could mindlessly cast Rank 3 Greater Heal and not have it impact our mana. For the Priests that go down Holy, I do suspect we'll see a higher usage of Flash Heal (due to Surge of Light). Any Clearcasting procs will utilize a Greater Heal (just because of that that is is a free spell).
With respect to buffs, if you don't already, please remember to keep Inner Fire up on yourself at all times. It may seem inconsequential, but the Spellpower increase does help. Picking up the Improved Inner Fire talent helps increase the potency.
Holy Nova is now a base skill. You no longer have to talent for it.
Lightwell has been vastly improved. Among the major changes is the fact that it no longer breaks upon damage (unless the hit taken is larger than 30%). The charges contained have been doubled from 5 to 10 and the cast time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds from 1.5 seconds. Restores around 4000 health over 6 seconds whenever a party or raid member clicks on it. Yes, this does involve the use of your group to understand how it works. Consider spending some time with them on the features that Lightwell provides.
Bonus: Come up with boss fights in dungeons or raids from Classic, Burning Crusade, or even Wrath of the Lich King where this spell would come in handy.
New spells
Guardian Spirit – I did a Skill Mastery post on this a few weeks ago. Do check it out for the long version! The short version is that this is going to be the panic spell of choice for Priests.
Penance – Eliah did a great Skill Mastery post on this a little over a month ago and his words remain sound.
Divine Hymn – This is another AoE healing type spell with a twist. It's a 1.5 second cast which heals a HoT heal for players near you and incapacitates enemies within 15 yards for about 20 seconds. This spell definitely appears to be made for PvP players.
Gems and gearThere's a certain number of talents that place a lot of emphasis on crit. Currently, the healing gear that we're sporting doesn't have a lot of crit rating (if any). I'm going to suggest holding off on regemming gear for the time being but start acquiring them anyway. Assuming you're raiding, I don't think you're going to need a whole lot of it. Stick to the Spirit and healing gems for now until Wrath is here. Since you'll be leveling from 70-80 at that point, the mana regeneration is longer an issue and you can re-socket for Spell Crit and Spellpower.
You're going to be replacing your current gear as you level up anyways. Yes, it hurts. I feel the pain. T6 epics will start phasing out in favour of quest or instance blues around the level 76-77 mark.
Current Flavor of Gems
Red: Teardrop Crimson Spinel or Teardrop Living Ruby
Blue: Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire or Sparkling Star of Elune
Yellow: Luminous Pyrestone or Luminous Noble Topaz
Potential Future Flavor of Gems
Yellow: Potent Pyrestone or Gleaming Lionseye
There's two arguments to be had here for replacing Spellpower and Int gems with Spellpower and crit (and straight crit) gems.
The argument for Int gems is that Priests can get more of their mana back from specific talents (Hymn of Hope and Rapture). Note that both of the talents state that a percentage of the player's overall mana is returned.
The argument for the critical strike related gems is that they'll offer a higher chance of proccing your various talents that take crit into account (Holy Concentration, Divine Aegis).
I'll leave that to the commenter's and theorycrafters to break either arguments.
Glyphs
- Glyph of Renew
- Glyph of Power Word: Shield
- Glyph of Circle of Healing
- Glyph of Lightwell
- Glyph of Prayer of Healing
- Glyph of Flash Heal
- Glyph of Holy Nova
At level 70, only two Major Glyphs can be inscribed. The third one opens up when you reach 80.
Raiding healing Priests may wish to opt for the Glyphs in bold.Note that some glyphs are not available until you head past level 70 (since Inscriptioners need to train in Northrend).
Anyways, use your discretion when it comes to Glyphs. Pick your Glyphs in a fashion that help augment your play style. Personally I'll be grabbing Power Word: Shield and Flash Heal to see how that holds up. If it's full of fail, I can switch easily (albeit expensively) to other Glyphs. The reason I'm picking those is that I believe it will help me out a lot when I go for the full Discipline build. Figured I'd let the other Priests have fun with the Holy tree for a while.
Don't forget to check out other stuff we have on 3.0.2!Filed under: Priest, Items, Tips, How-tos, Raiding, Guides, Talents, Inscription
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kal Oct 13th 2008 3:10PM
Remember - Inner Fire does not help in any way with spellpower at level 70. It's only at 71+ that it starts improving spellpower. So it's not so essential to maximize it now.
Jon Oct 13th 2008 3:21PM
Quick note, Divine Hymn isn't around until 80
Jamison Oct 13th 2008 3:37PM
I thought potion sickness had been removed? If it's not there, then why doesn't chain potting work anymore?
crsh Oct 13th 2008 4:01PM
They're adding a limitation on potions; basically we'll only be able to use one super mana pot per fight. We still have our fiend tho, which we'll need to use early on (and before going after that potion) so we may get a chance to use it a second time if the fight lasts long enough.
jeremy Oct 13th 2008 4:17PM
poor shadow what has become of you :(
Medved Oct 13th 2008 6:00PM
I have a question about the spell power and the new gear. I was looking at the Hateful and Deadly stuff that drops from the new boss in lake wintergrasp. The main, infact the only, difference i saw was the mooncloth had spirit while satin had crit. Once dual specs come out i plan on lvling as a shadow and raid healing as a holy, both PvE, my only planning to do PvP is at 80 for high end gear i cant get when raiding. The spellpower reduces the need for two sets, and i would like to have just one, but i still dont know whats better, satin or mooncloth? Or a mix of the two?
Redaurora Oct 13th 2008 7:48PM
I have yet to find a good use of the lightwell. It usually gets wasted during the boss fight.
gsquirrelgo Oct 14th 2008 6:22AM
Please combine the Shadow columns with this, but not in the lackluster way it has been done in the past. I'm sorry Mat but don't feel that you have a good handle on spooky priest play and simply avoid writing about it rather than dealing with the deficiancy. Basically can we get the Encypted Text writer to re roll Priest?
gharbad Oct 14th 2008 3:39AM
Aside from the divine Hymn and Inner Fire mistakes mentioned above, some of the glyphs mentioned are also not yet availible as they require a skilllevel higher then 375. It would be nice if the author actually did 5 min of research on the ptr before writing this.
Matticus Oct 14th 2008 3:44AM
The last revision I saved didn't not save the line saying that a number of glyphs would not be learned by Inscriptionists until they hit Northrend.
This has been fixed and adjusted accordingly.
Winterhart Oct 15th 2008 10:26AM
The only problems I'm seeing are with shield spec and a warrior tank - I was 'raised' to never, ever bubble a warrior, and if we start speccing into constantly shielding, I predict that we'll be causing a lot of rage problems.
Obv. not so much of a problem with pally and DK tanks, but that'd be a big problem with warriors.
("We can't cast Greater Heal as much before (since we can't down rank)." What? Who the hell still downranked? I thought that stopped after Molten Core, for pity's sake. Something tells me I'll be casting GH exactly as much as I currently do. :p )
Caduceus Oct 19th 2008 8:01AM
I don't duel, pvp, or bg. I try to make informed choices when I create toon, and then I play it along the line of my understanding.
Frankly, I'm overwhelmed by all the patch changes. I just want to understand the relevant talents to solo pve and occasional 5-man instances.
Call me a simpleton if you will but that's all I care about. Where can I find information along this line?
TIA :)