The problem is that theorycrafters and other number crunchers hurt the credibility of priests. When you are not master of any one thing, your credibility goes down because there are going to be classes that can do “x” better than you.

A few things that I think need to happen is to really separate the 2 healing trees. What Blizzard did with shielding is amazing and though my priest is only 46, I am having a blast leveling her as discipline. First order of business should be to add dmg absorbed added to recount or other damage meters. Matticus threw out a number the other day about how much shields are really worth and then admitted that it was just a ballpark and he had no clue whether he was even close, but that he does attempt to evaluate the role of a shielding priest in raids.

Power infusion and pain suppression are great in the discipline tree, and I don’t know a mage that doesn’t ZOMFG /crappants the first time you throw them your power infusion.

Pain suppression does need reviewed though. With the change to threat mechanics and now that watching threat meters is no where what it used to be prior to Lich, the spell needs an overhaul of sorts. Hell even dropping the threat reduction mechanic on it would be amazing because then you could drop it on the tank as an on demand ardent defender. Threat isn’t really a viable mechanic in PVP and removing the threat reduction aspect will allow you to protect the one person who needs it most in an emergency, the tank.

I had originally hoped that Beacon of Light would be another overheal mechanic for Paladins since they were losing down ranking, but since Blizzard pulled off an epic fail to trump all others, let it work on shields now. When an overheal occur while a target is affected with the weakened soul effect, all overheals are dispersed to the 5 (4) closest party members within 15 (20, 30, whatever) yards. To oversimplify, if a disc priests heals the tank, who has weakened soul, and the heal hits for 3K, and the tank only needed 2k, the other 1000 is evenly broken up so that 5 (or 4) other players get 200 (250). If you are afraid it will be OP, then make it a percentage of the overheal. Whatever works best for balance.

As a druid, I’m not a big fan of handing out more HoTs. Earthliving weapon and riptide are both new hots in Lich that druids didn’t get and, in my opinion, needed more light appropriate names and should have been given to paladins, but I’m digressing. I had hoped that rejuvenation would receive a little healing love the way that corruption refreshing did, but make it something for a priest’s renew instead. Allow heal x (probably a flash) to refresh renew.

Lifebloom made druid healing unique in that it was more a preemptive heal if you wanted it to explode. The boss is casting some incoming AoE, drop a lifebloom or 2 in between keeping up your hots on target and let them explode after the AoE for well timed heals. The shielding in discipline is another unique mechanic to healing that I hope Blizzard is able to perfect because it’s not the same as the ‘ol whack a mole healing, and if any class deserves the healing overhaul, it’s priests, they do, afterall, have 2 healing talent trees. They should make them unique trees that attack healing with different styles. The advantage to this is that like the new elementalists builds due to the addition of frostfire for mages, you are likely to see the 2 main tree builds, and maybe some really effective hybrid tree builds.