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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCataclysm Class Changes: Priest
by Adam Holisky 
Apr 8th 2010 at 2:55AM
Some of the major highlights:
- Mind Spike (level 81): Deals Shadowfrost damage and puts a debuff on the target that improves subsequent Mind Spike damage.
- Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you can't have both up at once
- Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.
- Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.
Priest Cataclysm ChangesIn World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you'll get an early look at some of the changes in store for the priest class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, as well as an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.
New Priest Spells
Heal (available at level 16): While priests already have a spell called Heal, the existing version becomes obsolete at higher levels, which is something we intend to change in Cataclysm. Introduced at a low level, the "new" Heal spell will functionally work much like a down-ranked Greater Heal did in the past, adding more granularity to your direct-healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an issue (making Flash Heal the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to use. Heal is intended to be the priest's go-to direct-healing spell unless they need something bigger (Greater Heal) or faster (Flash Heal). We will be following a similar philosophy with all the healing classes.
Mind Spike (level 81): Deals Shadowfrost damage and puts a debuff on the target that improves subsequent Mind Spike damage. The intent of Mind Spike is to fill a niche missing in Shadow DPS, though it may be occasionally useful for healers as well. Mind Spike provides a quick nuke to use in situations where the priest doesn't have time to set up the normal rotation, such as when adds are dying too fast or you have to swap targets a lot. Spamming Mind Spike will do about as much damage as casting Mind Flay on a target afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain. The idea behind the debuff is that when you cast Mind Spike, we expect you to cast a lot of them; we don't intend you to fit it into an already full Shadow rotation. It also provides Shadow with a spell to cast when locked out of the Shadow school. (School lockouts will no longer affect both schools for multi-school spells.) 1.5-second cast. 30-yard range. No cooldown.
Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you can't have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner Will should be useful on a more situational basis.
Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.
Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
In addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.
New Talents and Talent Changes
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Discipline
Healing
Meditation
Absorption
Holy
Healing
Meditation
Radiance
Shadow
Spell damage
Spell Crit
Shadow Orbs
Absorption: Improves the strength of shields such as Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier.
Radiance: Your direct heals add a small heal-over-time component to the target.
Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feel more like "Shadow priests" before they obtain Shadowform.
We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.
New Priest Spells
Heal (available at level 16): While priests already have a spell called Heal, the existing version becomes obsolete at higher levels, which is something we intend to change in Cataclysm. Introduced at a low level, the "new" Heal spell will functionally work much like a down-ranked Greater Heal did in the past, adding more granularity to your direct-healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an issue (making Flash Heal the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to use. Heal is intended to be the priest's go-to direct-healing spell unless they need something bigger (Greater Heal) or faster (Flash Heal). We will be following a similar philosophy with all the healing classes.
Mind Spike (level 81): Deals Shadowfrost damage and puts a debuff on the target that improves subsequent Mind Spike damage. The intent of Mind Spike is to fill a niche missing in Shadow DPS, though it may be occasionally useful for healers as well. Mind Spike provides a quick nuke to use in situations where the priest doesn't have time to set up the normal rotation, such as when adds are dying too fast or you have to swap targets a lot. Spamming Mind Spike will do about as much damage as casting Mind Flay on a target afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain. The idea behind the debuff is that when you cast Mind Spike, we expect you to cast a lot of them; we don't intend you to fit it into an already full Shadow rotation. It also provides Shadow with a spell to cast when locked out of the Shadow school. (School lockouts will no longer affect both schools for multi-school spells.) 1.5-second cast. 30-yard range. No cooldown.
Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you can't have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner Will should be useful on a more situational basis.
Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.
Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
In addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.
- All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately. Hasted HoTs and DoTs will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks (meaning they will gain extra ticks to fill in the duration as appropriate).
- We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an "execute" -- something you do when the target is at 25% health.
- While we want to keep the priest's role as a well-rounded healer, we also want to make sure the class is a viable tank healer, which is something priests moved away from a little in Wrath of the Lich King. Greater Heal will probably be the tank-healing spell of choice, though we've also discussed giving Discipline a second shield so that they have a small shield to cast on lots of different targets, and a big, more expensive shield to cast on a tank or anyone else taking a ton of damage.
- Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit will be removed from the game. As Spirit will be the primary mana-regeneration stat, we don't want it to vary as much between solo, small group, and raid play. Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild will not boost Spirit either.
- Mana will be a bigger consideration for all healers. We aren't trying to make healing more painful; we're trying to make it more fun. When the cost of a spell isn't an issue, then casting the right spell for the job is less of an issue because you might as well just use your most powerful spell all of the time. We are, however, getting rid of the five-second rule, because we don't want to encourage standing around doing nothing. We're also going to cut back on the benefits of buffs such as Replenishment so priests (and all healers) don't feel as penalized when those buffs aren't available.
New Talents and Talent Changes
- We want to improve Discipline's single-target healing capacity. One key is to make sure shielding isn't always a more attractive option than healing.
- We want to improve Holy for PvP healing. One way to do this is to make sure that Heal's throughput is similar between both specs.
- We want to improve Shadow for short fights and reduce its susceptibility to school lockouts.
- Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.
- We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent will push the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies depending on the heals cast.
- Since the Shadow tree has a lot of passive damage-boosting abilities -- something we're trying to avoid in Cataclysm -- we will need to replace several of the tree's talents. One idea is to play off of the new Shadow Orbs mechanic (see Mastery section below), possibly allowing you to consume an orb to increase damage from Mind Blast or reduce Mind Spike's cast time.
- Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gear themselves around a Hit cap that isn't variable depending on group composition.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Discipline
Healing
Meditation
Absorption
Holy
Healing
Meditation
Radiance
Shadow
Spell damage
Spell Crit
Shadow Orbs
Absorption: Improves the strength of shields such as Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier.
Radiance: Your direct heals add a small heal-over-time component to the target.
Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feel more like "Shadow priests" before they obtain Shadowform.
We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.
Update: Ghostcrawler has chimed in with some clarifications.
Re: Priest Cataclysm ChangesA few quick clarifications:
Neither Inner Fire nor Inner Will has charges. The decision is on which armor you want up at the time.
Preventing dot clipping is something we want to do in general. It obviously benefits Shadow priests just as much as warlocks.
The idea behind Mind Spike is that you can't always settle into your normal, and high-ramp up rotation. It's also useful when you have to move or get school locked.
The closest analogue to PW:B is the DK Anti-Magic Zone, but it has some important differences, such as a way to counter it in PvP (since it absorbs all damage, not just magical damage).
The idea behind the Holy "cast three in a row" talent (it's called "Chakra") is that we've always positioned Holy as a versatile healer. This talent lets you shift into different modes. If you need to be a tank healer, cast three single target heals and your single-target healing is now better. Cast three area heals, and you can be a temporarily specialized group healer. We're going to try to play this mechanic up with a cool UI to try to get that "I'm almost in the zone" feel. We'll let it apply to as many types of spells as we can, perhaps even Smite for those times when nobody's taking damage.
We pulled Misery because we are pulling every group benefit that improves hit. It's annoying to have to swap your gear in and out depending on who shows up for your group. In general we're going to push even harder in Cataclysm for bringing people you like to play with, not bringing people who have awesome buffs. The answer to almost every question of "But why would they bring me?" should be "Because you know what the hell you're doing."
Neither Inner Fire nor Inner Will has charges. The decision is on which armor you want up at the time.
Preventing dot clipping is something we want to do in general. It obviously benefits Shadow priests just as much as warlocks.
The idea behind Mind Spike is that you can't always settle into your normal, and high-ramp up rotation. It's also useful when you have to move or get school locked.
The closest analogue to PW:B is the DK Anti-Magic Zone, but it has some important differences, such as a way to counter it in PvP (since it absorbs all damage, not just magical damage).
The idea behind the Holy "cast three in a row" talent (it's called "Chakra") is that we've always positioned Holy as a versatile healer. This talent lets you shift into different modes. If you need to be a tank healer, cast three single target heals and your single-target healing is now better. Cast three area heals, and you can be a temporarily specialized group healer. We're going to try to play this mechanic up with a cool UI to try to get that "I'm almost in the zone" feel. We'll let it apply to as many types of spells as we can, perhaps even Smite for those times when nobody's taking damage.
We pulled Misery because we are pulling every group benefit that improves hit. It's annoying to have to swap your gear in and out depending on who shows up for your group. In general we're going to push even harder in Cataclysm for bringing people you like to play with, not bringing people who have awesome buffs. The answer to almost every question of "But why would they bring me?" should be "Because you know what the hell you're doing."
In addition to commenting, don't forget that we're also looking for guest posts on the above changes.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.Filed under: Priest, News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 9 of 12)
Gothia Apr 8th 2010 6:31AM
I didn't see if our shield is going to be able to record absorbs to an actual number instead of an abstract stat like armor or armor pen - this ability needs something to quanitify its benefit. I am so tired of having to suck it up on healing meters for wipes - "your healing numbers are low" - "healing meters don't account for absorbs" - "you need to do better or we will have to replace you"
This needs to be fixed because when the raid runs into a wall the blame game starts on low dps and low healing - Disc deserves better.
Kay Apr 8th 2010 6:47AM
Stop running with clueless raid leaders?
Gothia Apr 8th 2010 7:36AM
That is not the solution to the problem and I won't go as far as to say "every" Disc has taken a bite from Recounts bitter fruit - I can say that it is very probable that most have.
Should we continue to use arbitrary numbers that are "guessing" the absorption amount of a shield or can we base this ability on cold hard facts?
Kay Apr 8th 2010 8:14AM
While i agree that it would be nice to have more quantifiable absorbs analysis, my point is that if a raid leader is kicking a disc for low performance on the heal meters, they are clueless. In fact, there are many fights where high performance on the meters is a sign of being a bad healer. See the guy not healing Incinerate Flesh on Jaraxus, or spamming everything as fast and hard as possible on Anub. I'm also pretty sure Body & Souling and cleansing infected folks on rotface nerfs my healing done, but i'm certainly doing the right thing. The only points where heal meters are remotely useful is for 2 same spec people doing the same job in similar gear. And even then there's too many variables.
I digress, heal meters are only worth anything if you know how to interpret them properly, and a raid leader who threatens to kick over low absolute heal numbers is bad, and should either be educated or you shouldn't run with them.
Hyzenthlay Apr 8th 2010 7:05AM
A sports flavoured PvP alternative for PvE'ers who don't like being spending three quarters of a buttle stun-locked: Horde and Alliance field teams of DKs and Priests to grip-bounce gnomes up and down Alterac Valley.
Belfs cheerlead, Dwarves start up Gnome-Grip themed taverns, Goblins make an obscene amount of gold from everyone involved. Everybody wins!
Bharat Apr 8th 2010 7:24AM
this is totally off topic but i really love the picture of the priest up there, its making me itch to make a beautiful dark haired human priest.
Jade Apr 8th 2010 7:27AM
I know everyone is focused on Leap of Faith...
But Inner Fire and Inner Will. More speed and spell power when, as usual, nothing is hurting me.
And best of all... No More Charges! What a damned annoying mechanic that is. Either nothing ever hits you, and the charges don't matter, or you are suddenly swarmed, your inner fire crumples like paper, and so do you.
The control on PW:B will likely be the cooldown time and mana cost. I would imagine both will be based around bubbling every member of a 5 man, normalizing that, then lowering both with disc. talents.
dogin8tr Apr 8th 2010 8:13AM
They should take Death Grip off a cooldown, Then we can play Grip tag in Orgrimmar
brandon Apr 8th 2010 7:46AM
oh god im so rolling a priest
KJP Apr 8th 2010 7:49AM
Life Grip... or perhaps, given what people want to do with it, we should just call it LOLGrip.
For me, the big news here is that the question of "what's the hit cap?" will actually be a number rather than a shrug and an "it depends".
Erthshade Apr 8th 2010 10:12AM
Alas that the answer is still going to be 'it depends'. They've stated they want to make higher tier bosses require more +hit, so to take this expansion as an example, Marrowgar would require more +hit than Kel'thuzad.
Anjelle Apr 8th 2010 11:31AM
I too see and absolutely KNOW that we will be now held responsible for "healing stupid" that can't manage to move correctly or get out of the ickies. It will be up to us to make sure that our raid leaders continue the mentality of that we shouldn't HAVE to save someone in those situations... and that they should be able to take care of themselves with proper situational awareness. I'm hoping, and assume, we will see situations built into fights to highlight proper usage for this.. where we have to do it as a mechanic and not as a "get OUT of that, Stupid!"
For pure FUN value tho... Ohhhhhhhh, I can't wait!! My tank partner is horrible about pulling the classic Bubble Hearth on me and then giggling. Now I can go *yank* "Oh NOooOOoo you don't!!"
Rachel Apr 8th 2010 8:38AM
"We pulled Misery because we are pulling every group benefit that improves hit. It's annoying to have to swap your gear in and out depending on who shows up for your group."
Thank you Bliz!!! I hate having to worry if I am going to have a Draenei in my group for 1% buff or hearing people complain they need a Draenei in their group. Cataclysm is going to be awesome. Now, WTB hunter preview.
Hoggersbud Apr 8th 2010 9:11AM
Well, a few nice ideas, but nothing spectacularly game-changing. Yet. Still not bad.
Seamus Apr 8th 2010 9:35AM
My initial reaction to this is "meh". Always seems like priests get some kind of weird, semi-useful ability. Holy Nova used to be at the bottom of the tree and was laughed at, Circle of Healing was roundly dismissed for most of BC, Mass Dispel was a big fat joke, Divine Hymn left most of us scratching our heads, and Lightwell! Good lord, don't get me started on Lightwell. They've changed most of them now, but it's been frustrsting.
In thinking about it a little bit more, I just don't like it at all. Let's take the 3 examples Blizzard gave for using this spell:
1. To help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro
So, I'm going to pull someone towards me who has all the aggro? Really? And what do you suppose comes along with them? Look! It's all the mean, nasty mobs! Who cleave and whirlwind! Why in the hell would I ever want to do this? Besides, this would only be possible in a 5-man where the distance between players is not that great to matter. You pull aggro in a raid and you get one-shotted.
2. To help players that are being focused on in PvP
Ok, I can see this being useful. I don't PvP enough to care, but I can see it. Only problem I see here is if they are being focused, they're going to be dead too quick for me to grab them.
3. To help players who just can't seem to get out of the fire in time
Yeah, but I usually just heal through the damage. I'm _a healer_. My first and best instinct is always to cast a heal, not grip them over to me. I've got other things to worry about (like, am _I_ standing in the fire?) I'm focusing on the bars, not where people are standing. And if they die anyways, they deserve to.
Urthona Apr 8th 2010 9:44AM
Shadowfrost
I never liked the bundling of the BC era cloth sets. Frozen Shadoweave was such an odd combination of specialties when compared to Spellfire. Serious Frost Mages would get it made, but I don't remember many serious Frost Mages that didn't have PVP gear. Instead, I saw Frozen Shadoweave on EVERY Shadow Priest until very late in the expansion. They at least kept the boots. When they did away with school-specific caster gear, I lamented another bit of unique flavor leaving the game. However, I didn't lament "Frozen Shadoweave" at all. Pairing Frost with Shadow made no sense to me for the classes at the time. If they had made Frozen ShadowPLATE... well, that would have been much more fun.
I can understand the goal of giving Shadow Priests another school with which to cast and do damage. Lockouts are a huge problem for single school classses. Still, is Frost really the best school to pair with Shadow? For PRIESTS? While I can see the blurring of schools may be a result of experiences in Northrend, I don't see Priestesses of Elune or An'she's Monastic Order adapting that way. I can see wanting to build a spell that operates differently than Fel Fire, which combines Fire and Shadow Magic. What strikes me as odd is that the spell designers ignored "Devouring Plague". Combining a Nature magic aspect to a Priest's Shadow isn't as far of a leap, and suits all eleven races of Priests; especially Worgen, Undead, Night Elves, Trolls and Tauren.
Maybe Shadowfrost was chosen because the word is easier to say, and words that evoke Nature magic are more obscure. Mind Spike deals Shadowrath damage? Shadowlife? Shadowplague?
It's odd.
Amonita Apr 13th 2010 5:37AM
Totally agree with you. While I love the spell, the combination of schools just makes me go; uh... what?
Then again, it's never made sense to me that priests can't de-curse. ;)
While logic is often irrelevant; at least the mechanic is useful.
zaababy Apr 8th 2010 9:51AM
Time to dust off that level 65 priest! Boy this sounds fun! And of course I'll want to try out each and every talent tree. Too bad you can only have dual specs and not triple!
PKthe13thvah Apr 8th 2010 11:14AM
This, singlehandedly, makes me want to roll a priest. And I have NEVER had the urge to roll priest before.
Namdrof Apr 8th 2010 9:59AM
This may be a dumb q... but here goes anyways: The art that is at the top of this story... who is it depicting (name, race, location, etc.)? It struck me as really cool looking and I want to know more about it.