Patch 3.1 PTR build 9658 Priest changes
by Alex Ziebart 
Mar 6th 2009 at 4:30PM
Shadow
- Shadowform now gives the the periodic damage from your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells the ability to critically hit for 100% increased damage.
- Mind Melt now also increases the periodic critical strike chance of your Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain spells by 3/6%.
Discipline
- Mental Agility changed from 5 to 3 Ranks. Now Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 4/7/10%. (Old - 2/4/6/8/10%)
Holy
- Serendipity now reduces the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell by 4/8/12%. (Down from 6/12/20%)
- New talent: Body and Soul - When you cast Power Word: Shield, you increase the target's movement speed by 30/60% for 4 sec, and you have a 50% chance when you cast Abolish Disease on yourself to also cleanse 1 poison effect in addition to diseases.
The Poison removal component is... well, it's something. It doesn't look like dropping the second point into this talent brings that up to a 100% chance, it stays at 50%, so I suspect many Priests won't be fond of this talent due to the RNG nature. If you're trying to remove a Rogue's poison from yourself, the last thing you want is to get an unlucky streak of Abolish Disease not removing the Poison at all. You'd probably rather be trying to heal yourself or escape with your GCDs. If the second point does make it a 100% chance to remove the poison, well, then it's pretty awesome. Note that the Poison removal only works on yourself, so this won't be a must-have talent in PvE.
And that's all that this build brings us. I think that Holy is the only spec of the three that might be a little unhappy due to that Serendipity nerf, but it's all pretty good and simple stuff beyond that.
[Class changes via MMO-Champion]
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.Filed under: Priest, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tinnitus Mar 6th 2009 4:46PM
Ooh. Think its time I level my priest :)
Nikkodemus Mar 6th 2009 4:59PM
That's not a PvP escape, if anything it may let us actually catch someone! What annoys me more than the fact that we're so squishy in PvP is that if anyone wants to just run away from me, there is NOTHING I can do to stop them :-p Maybe get off 1 slow nuke before they're out of range or nuke us both with SW:D.
If anything maybe this will let me think I can chase someone in WG without them being long gone in 2 seconds.
Naix Mar 6th 2009 5:00PM
With no blink, ice block, evil port spell....priests need all the escapes they can get.
Torr Mar 6th 2009 5:00PM
I think you are misunderstanding what these changes are. Psychic Horror was pretty much a required thing for Shadow because they were countered too heavily by melee. This MIGHT give them some arena viability, because at the moment they are almost nonexistant in arena.
Body and Soul will not be used in PvP simply because going that deep in holy is not worth it. Discipline is still a MUCH better option for any pvp priest. Expect Body and Soul to never be seen in arena.
Psychic Scream and Divine Hymn share a cooldown, so don't count them both. It's either one or the other to nearly the same effect, and divine hymn has a 5 minute cooldown.
I have no idea what Desparation is.
So here are the PvP escapes for Priests:
Discipline:
-Psychic Scream. That's it.
Shadow:
-Fade
-Psychic Scream
-Psychic Horror
-Dispersion
As you can see shadow has more escapes, but as a caster dps in pvp they need this in order to compete. Compare it to a mage who has blink, sheep, frost nova, frostbolt slow, and iceblock. Just because shadow has a lot of escapes doesn't mean its going to be viable because at the moment it is nonexistant in high end arena play. These new changes are necessary to make the class viable, and by no means make it OP.
John Mar 6th 2009 5:17PM
The change to mental agility is good for holy priests also, since only 3 points are needed instead of 5 to minimize cost of prayer of mending, renew, and circle of healing.
Serendipity change semi-stinks. It's cool since the haste from an improved holy conc proc was very infrequent and not something you'd want to rely on to keep your tank alive. Now you can get the haste buff prepped to use when you want it.
On the other hand, the change stinks for mana consumption due to overheal - going to wait a bit more now before casting a round of flash heals? Or just bite the time/mana cost bullet and use the party-targetable prayer of healing (with talent to reduce cost and glyphed for the hot).
AyaJulia Mar 6th 2009 5:29PM
What? First let's divide this up by talent tree, because you're making this look unreasonable.
BASELINE:
Power Word: Shield - Gives you 2-3 hits or so, tops, then you're naked for 15 seconds.
Divine Hymn - Priests laugh about this endlessly. You have no idea how poorly it really works.
Psychic Scream - 30sec CD, and you just know it's coming when you start beating on a priest, so you save your trinket for this, make it useless anyway, and burn the priest down before it can get another one out.
HOLY:
Body and Soul - No telling how deep in the holy tree this will be, but unless it's high enough for Disc priests to take as well, you won't see it often. Holy is often cited as not viable in PvP/Arena due to squish-factor.
SHADOW:
Psychic Horror - Can't comment on this, haven't seen it in action.
Silence - Might give you this one, never PvPed a shadow.
Improved Shadow Form - Fade is on a 30sec CD, not that hard to work around.
Dispersion (I can only assume this is what you meant by Desperation) - 5 minute CD, and Mages have something almost equal anyway, so your "other clothies need love" argument is invalid.
DISCIPLINE:
.....nothing. They have talents to make themselves tougher, but no escapes.
A -highly skilled- priest is going to be able to juggle some of these, but none of them have more than a few from your list. Be realistic. Priests are still really, really squishy.
Auldrin Mar 6th 2009 5:39PM
I think you completely missed the point with the poison removal- even regular abolish poison isn't great against rogues, but hunters viper sting on the other hand... we really need a way to dispel it, and here it is. Although, as it's in holy, chances are it won't make a difference.
Torr Mar 6th 2009 7:03PM
They nerfed Viper Sting. We no longer need to dispel it in order to have a hope of living.
JustSomeGuy Mar 6th 2009 6:50PM
Not too bad, but the class still needs a lot of work until it can rise above it's current "worst class in the game" status.
IMO, now that Reflect Shield has been removed, Disc has become even less viable than previously. Without Reflect, the priest (as usual) can only do one of two things- try to stay alive for a few seconds longer, or try casting a few (generally irrelevant) damage spells.
So meh. My 70 priest will still sit unleveled for another patch cycle. Maybe 3.2...
Renegade667 Mar 7th 2009 5:25PM
Reflective shield was not removed it was moved lower in the tree.....
Deb Mar 6th 2009 8:48PM
Priests have been behind the eight ball for a long time now. They need the buffs to even enter an arena and have a scion of hope to
survive.
Eisengel Mar 7th 2009 12:00AM
Actually, thank you Kompressah. I don't think I've seen anyone yet who made a post that had replies to it actually address the replies and respond in a mature way that indicated they actually read and understood the replies. So.. thank you Kompressah for making this corner of teh intarwebz a bit less innane.
Gothia Mar 7th 2009 3:38AM
What? Priests have been everybody's bitch since Wrath and if you take a look at the talent tree you would see that those talents are spread across and deep into 3 different trees.
Sorry, I'm not about to get up and start dancing a jig because I really do not see anything that will make Priests viable against current PvP burst damage. Instead of lasting for 2.2 seconds in the Arena, you will last for 4 seconds? I am sure GC is on his Grandstand at this moment taking a flipping Bow; "I doubled Priest's Arena Survivability".
Korialstrazs Mar 7th 2009 4:02PM
An escape, something to let us get away, all specs, and I don't mean a movement speed buff. What if fade worked in pvp with all specs, it'd be nice to see fade actually popped the priest into a mini-invisible state.
Quitius Mar 8th 2009 3:48PM
Kompressah, what is one change or ability that will save this class in a bg?
BRING BACK BLACK OUT.
we might have some utilities to get out of a "tight situation" but as mentioned we still are squishy and can be shut down 1 on 1, and if someone joins in against me with the other dude ... forget about it.
I understand blizz wants to get rid of ranged stuns, but .. there is simple no reason for them to toss out a HUGE part of a pvp def. for s-priests.
If they really want to try and change things up for priests and want to make Holy more interesting and desirable for pvp I have an idea. HOLY FORM. There's a shadow form ... so whats the deal why have we not seen a holy form, it only makes sence. Increased dmg and heals with some anti stuns in the mix. Bring back reflective shield, and what the hell happened to our group shield that everyone was raving about.
Pallys: shields/stuns/mana regen galore
Locks: fears/hella dots/pets/ self hp regen/self mana regen
Hunters: ... dont even get me started .... (still pissed about arcane shot dispelling)
DK: actually ... i own dks ... as long as i can stay the hell away from them
Rogue: the usual stuns and hella dps (thers no reason i should be killed just cuz im fighting a rogue)
War: fear/spell reflect/decent dps/ intercept .. but again if i can stay away from them and within ranged combat im fine
shammys: meh totems ftw
Mages: blink/frost fire/counter spell/ bubbles/ dampen magic/ a pet/etc.
... need i go on?
bascially when It comes down to it, all of those classes have ALOT of ways to survive, not including the #1, most of them ARNT SQUISHY (minus mages)
Why do i care about increased dot dmg ... I have three dots, one is useless and the other two are decent, but two dots criting more is not gunna put me back on the dps charts with the nerf (in my opinion) to shadow form.
so what do priests have?
shield (if you dont have this up all the time as a priest in pvp then ur a moron, and even then if you do have it up, its gone in about 3 seconds when your being hit and it doest offer any stun resis.
fear: someone laid this one out b4, 30 sec CD is garbage
silence: yea this is good, and usually can let me get my killing blows (now, not in 3.1) but too often is it resisted or I dont even use cuz a hunter and rogue are pwning me
dispersion: this i use all the time as my oh sh*t button. and it looks like that will serve the purpose even more in 3.1, but ... why am i wasting it as an oh sh*t when the real purpose of it is to get mana back. If it saved me from not dying right now, but im OOM in about 10 sec. later cuz I'm still in combat ... now what ... you guessed it DEAD
fade/imp shadow form: wase of a talent spec imo, id rather take sp and all that jazz than to get out of a stun (i know that might seem a little cliche since i am bs-ing about stuns BUT if i HAVE to spec for this then .. its really not an option .. its a necesity ... i want spell or passive buff that will do this instead of wasting my points in disc. to increase my innerfire/shield/mana cost reductions.
psyc. horror - ... i have to play with it .. not sure if its actually going to be worth it.
thus .. the whole damn class just needs a major overhall imo ... and that's not some QQ crap you hear on the forums, even non priest players will agreed that either A) there's rarely ever a priest seen or used, esp in pvp. B) we get pwnd super easy unless your in super epic gear C) there is nothing that makes a priest a priest (aside from holy priests) theres nothing that make us feared or that people QQ about US being too cool.
... what does that say?
oh yea ... what happens when spirit nerf hits, will I even be able to fight for more than 15 seconds and then pop out of form to heal myself or someone else? (my guess it not quite since my mana regen is going to be trash)
Ben Striegel Mar 19th 2009 11:14PM
I may be misunderstanding the wording of Body and Soul regarding poison cleansing, but wouldn't Abolish Disease then have a 50% chance to cleanse a poison every 3 seconds for 12 seconds? This is clearly meant to increase priest survivability against rogues, but one of the biggest issues of poison cleansing is that a rogue is just gonna apply another one before your GCD is over (see also the QQ from dwarf priests regarding the recent Stoneform nerf). This seems like an elegant solution, as for one global cooldown you've got an even chance of cleansing incoming poisons for the next 12 seconds.