A new build for patch 3.2 hit the PTR recently, and all of the related Shadow Priest changes are things that
the recent Q&A hinted toward or straight out told us to expect. Let's not waste any time here and dig right into the changes.
- Vampiric Touch now deals more damage when dispelled. (Max rank deals 1360 damage, previously 680)
Definitely not a surprise here. I've been saying
for a long time that this component of the spell needed a significant buff, Ghostcrawler agreed, and doubling its base damage can probably be considered that. We'll still need to see it in action to determine if it's enough. If it's
not enough, at least it's closer, and that's something.
- Devouring Plague cooldown removed, can now only be applied to one target at a time.
This is a change I long expected, and despite Ghostcrawler initially seeming iffy on it in the Shadow Priest Q&A, the simple fact that it was mentioned made me more hopeful that it would happen. And it is happening! So I'm pretty happy about that. There isn't much more to say. It'll make playing a Shadow Priest much less frustrating when it comes to encounters where you're swapping targets a lot.
Yogg-Saron, I'm looking at
you.
- Dispersion's cooldown has been lowered to 2 minutes.
This is a good change for the arena, and probably PvP in general. For all of our grievances with it, it does do its job in the arena. Buying you time while your partner heals or peels, stopping an assist train dead. It doesn't do anything for our grievances with it in PvE, though, which is unfortunate.
- Improved Mind Blast now has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to reduce healing done to the target by 20% for 10 seconds when used in Shadowform.
Eh.
Eh. It's a buff, a pretty useful one, but I'm pretty... unexcited about it. I mean, really? Another MS effect? And they gave one to Frost Mages in this build, too. The same one Shadow Priests get, but built into
Permafrost. Whatever happened to, 'If we give everyone MS, we might as well put a healing debuff aura on everyone when they enter the arena.' We're getting pretty close to saying screw it and putting up that aura, aren't we?
Is
Mortal Strike the mechanic they default to when they notice a class has PvP problems? Mortal Strike,
Aimed Shot,
Wound Poison, then they tried it out on
Flametongue (which didn't make it live), and now they're spreading the debuff to Shadow Priests and Frost Mages? Of course, they're probably not spreading the debuff around because people
need MS as a class, but rather because arena
teams need the debuff. They're enforcing the "bring the player" mantra that I've grown so tired of hearing* on PvP now, rather than just PvE. Still, 'throw MS at it until we have another idea' is pretty old at this point. Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm complaining about an undeniable buff and something likely needed for arena balance. I shouldn't be, but come on now. Whatever happened to creativity?
*I don't hate the design philosophy, it's a good one that I appreciate. I hate the phrase being used ad nauseum for whatever agenda someone is pushing at that particular moment
Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Tags: aimed-shot, build-10072, devouring-plague, dispersion, flametongue, frost, ghostcrawler, improved-mind-blast, mind-blast, mortal-strike, patch-3.2, patch-3.2-build-10072, patch-3.2-changes, patch-3.2-wow, permafrost, priest, shadow, shadow-priest, vampiric-touch, world-of-warcraft-patch-3.2, wow-3.2-changes, wow-new-patch, wow-patch, wow-patch-3.2, wow-patch-news
Filed under: Priest, Patches, Analysis / Opinion
Jul 8th 2009 at 11:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Stridez Jul 8th 2009 11:12AM
"We're getting pretty close to saying screw it and putting up that aura, aren't we?"
Yeah, it's definitely getting that way. I'm wondering how this might affect the success of the dps'ers without a MS now. Although this is probably less of an issue with 2vs2 being afairly inconsequential now.
Stridez Jul 8th 2009 11:15AM
Bah, lack of an edit button :(
I meant to say "...less of an issue with 2vs2 being a fairly inconsequential arena bracket now."
Continuum6 Jul 8th 2009 2:36PM
Please do screw it and put up the aura. As a Feral druid, i have no MS in my spellbook, ty.
It's getting pretty old and frustrating being increasingly one of the only classes that lacks an MS.
Oh, yeah, which bring me to my second point:
BLIZZ GIV DROODS AN MS!!!111oneone
every-freaking one else has one now. sheesh
Arkey Jul 9th 2009 11:46AM
I think the MS change is a good thing. Well, it's a start...
Blizz should implement a larger variety of healing debuffs. It shouldn't be something "you have" or "you don't have". And if you have it, it certainly shouldn't be a 50% debuff you keep up on your target the whole fight. It should work more like survivability CDs, it's something you use at the right moment. Also, they all have different mechanics, advantages and weakness, but they all have the same purpose (which is reducing pressure on you). The purpose of MS should be adding pressure AT THE RIGHT MOMENT.
IMO bring back old wound stacks and remove glyph of aimed shot. Players should be able to choose which kind of healing debuff they want, which one would work best with their comp. For instance, I can see a low cd range 20% Ms work good for teams that switch a lot.
MS should be something like this :
Priest : good dmg/high uptime/ranged/20%
Hunter : medium uptime/ranged/50%
Rogue : takes time to apply/high uptime/can be cleansed/up to 50%/protects other debuffs from cleanse in some way.
etc...
sephirah Jul 8th 2009 11:20AM
"Is Mortal Strike the mechanic they default to when they notice a class has PvP problems? "
No, warlocks don't get it in the patch (except for HoTs).
Wyred Jul 9th 2009 5:28AM
Probably because you can drop a player with 1k resil within a fear with conflagrate crits. If you have that kind of burst and cc, you don't get MS.
undapants Jul 8th 2009 11:29AM
Yeah
What was that about buffing warlocks and shadowpriests by standardising resilience to reduce ALL damage (not just dot) ?
And now Mages get buffs and healing debuffs from talents, warlocks destro damage gets reduced....i'm failing to see the good points here....
As one of the only DPS classes without it, i say bring on the aura -.-
vazhkatsi Jul 8th 2009 1:13PM
except we have the +20% healing(26 talented) and said aura would help screw afflictions survivability even further.
devilsei Jul 8th 2009 2:33PM
Watch them add the MS Aura...
Tacked onto retribution paladins.
Kneeber Jul 8th 2009 11:31AM
Where's the MS for ret? I think it would be useful since they cut our burst at the knees. Ret PVP will be challenging....UGH lol
kozom Jul 8th 2009 11:44AM
By challenging do you mean require more skill than pounding your face on the keyboard until you win?
Philip Jul 8th 2009 12:08PM
Why the rate-down for Kneeber? It was a legitimate question. Ret has seen a drastic change on the PTR and Ret was already very comp-dependent in 2's (I know, my partner is Ret). Healing is very OP right now in PvP and even very good rets will have trouble bursting down healers after 3.2.
I'm also in agreement with other posters. This MS effect for mages/priests is very lazy.
Blizz realized there was no way to nerf healing in PvP without destroying it in PvE. I'd also wager a guess that none of these proposed MS effects to mage/SPriest will help.
clevins Jul 8th 2009 1:35PM
@phillip
Because this is about priests, not ret QQ?
devilsei Jul 8th 2009 3:34PM
@Clevins
And at the end of the post, Alex started talking about the MS effect and how Blizz didn't want to tack it onto every class but are now throwing it onto classes, so really, what kneeber and philip have said is relevant to this.
bushkanaka86 Jul 8th 2009 11:31AM
In my 4 years of playing my priest I have never once been shadow. The closest I came was in the very beginning when I didn't realize you were supposed to "spec" and I spread points everywhere and I think I had about 12-14 shadow in there. Even now I am dual specced Holy and Disc.
Shadow does sound like fun though some times. These changes are all for shadow priests and it kind of makes me interested in trying it. I don't know if I can give up my Disc spec though because I love causing grief in PvP and Arena when people can't kill me.
Candina@WH Jul 8th 2009 11:37AM
Lets see if I can sum up the changes:
Vamperic Touch does more damage when dispelled -- PVP / Arena Change
Dispersion cool down reduced -- PVP / Arena Change
Mind Blast now has a healing Debuff -- PVP / Arena Change
So...
Seems to me, Blizz is saying that this is as good as it gets as a Priest in PVE.
Go Team :-/
Hanako Jul 8th 2009 12:17PM
There are some instances when the "MS" debuff is useful in PVE. I can think of a few pulls/trash in Ulduar when lessening the healing some of the mobs get makes clearing up to bosses significantly quicker. Is this making or breaking the game? No. But if you don't have an Arms Warrior/Marks Hunter/Rogue (which can be easy when you have room for 5-6 DPS in 10-man's) I'll welcome more classes being able to bring the debuff.
Angus Jul 8th 2009 6:11PM
You sorta forgot devouring plague.
Which happened to be a PVE change...
yunkndatwunk Jul 8th 2009 11:37AM
The problem as I see it is, a game like City of Villians was designed from the ground up as a "bring the player not the class". But even city of Heroes was not, and Warcraft is the same way. It was designed from the very beginning as "bring the class".
All of these efforts are mere bandaids to a larger problem with WoW. You can't fix the wow classes to make them all viable by giving them all replenishment and mortal strike or (insert next skill to be handed out). Since even then these bandaids only affect buffs and debuffs, you don't see them addressing the core trinity and lack of healers which is a much larger problem that has plagued the game since day 1. (and every game that follows the trinity paradigm).
Radiophonic Jul 8th 2009 11:38AM
Now, to make the spec fun to play. I have a shadow offspec that I use and man, is it ever boring. Pre-wrath shadow was much more...interesting even if it was slightly frustrating.