Spiritual Guidance: Patch 4.1 to usher in big Chakra and Atonement healing changes
by Dawn Moore 
Mar 14th 2011 at 8:00PM
It's been two weeks since we first examined the upcoming priest changes for patch 4.1, and in that time, many more changes have piled up. To keep things interesting around here, I figured we'd talk about the changes over a plate of cookies.
Previously, we discussed the changes to the duration of Power Word: Shield, the tiny buff to Divine Aegis, and the huge change to Dispel Magic, so check back a couple weeks if you want to read about those changes. This week I'll be looking at a huge change to the mechanics of Chakra, the sort of return of Atonement healing, the nerf to Power Word: Barrier, and the tweak to our four-piece raid set bonus.
A buff for Chakra
So starting out, let's talk about the good news. First on the table is that the duration of Chakra has been removed, and the state you choose will last until canceled. Sporting Chakra: Serenity? It's there until you cancel it. Chakra: Sanctuary? Same thing. This makes your Chakra buff a bit like a stance, except you'll still have to activate the state you want using your trigger spells. You also will still not be able to switch between two stances in a short period of time -- the cooldown of Chakra remains a 30 seconds, unless you pick up State of Mind.
This is a positive change for holy priest healing output, since you will no longer need to spend an extra key press or spell you may not need to keep up your healing buff. Once you're in the stance you want to be in, you can play naturally and heal with the spells you want to use. Good, right?
Unfortunately, I think this change removes a bit too much of the complexity that the priest toolbox offers. Personally, the old 1-minute duration seemed fine to me -- no worse than a kitty druid maintaining her Mangle -- but since it's been changed, I guess the developers felt maintaining Chakra was either too penalizing on output or too difficult for players to handle. This really surprises me, though, because this new Chakra model fringes dangerously close the "fire and forget" model of spell that Blizzard developers said they wanted to avoid.
Well, either way, once this change goes into effect, we'll be needing a new set of macros for canceling Chakra. If you send me a good one (note: I hate writing macros), I'll toss it into my final 4.1 guide in a couple weeks.
A nerf for Power Word: Barrier
Time to splice in some bad news: Power Word: Barrier will be hit with the nerf bat. The spell will now have a 3-minute cooldown, rather than 2 minutes. It also will reduce damage on the targets under it for a tiny bit less, going from 30% reduction to 25%. Such a sad day for disc priests and probably 10-man raiders who were counting on those short cooldowns to make up for the lack of raid diversity.
Based on these changes and the changes other healers are getting, this fix seems to be largely about balancing disc priests with other healing classes. (So if you're not a disc priest, you can smile a little knowing smirk right about now.) The 2-minute cooldown was just too generous, and in the right raid setup, you could see a pair of disco priests countering almost every major boss ability, no matter what it was.
The return of Atonement healing
Several small changes are being made to the discipline tree to bring back Atonement healing.
- Atonement now works with Holy Fire in addition to Smite.
- The direct damage portion of Holy Fire can now trigger Evangelism.
- Holy Fire damage has been increased to be approximately 30% higher than Smite.
- Glyph of Divine Accuracy now also affects Holy Fire in addition to Smite.
So what does this mean? Well, first it means that the theorycrafters are going to have to do a bit of work to see how much you can squeeze out of this style of healing. Second, I think that we're going to have to consider that Atonement healing is not a replacement for healing all the time, just a stand-in when the conditions are right. It feels optional right now, and though the Holy Fire changes are going to affect it, I think Blizzard still intends to keep it optional for players who just want to cast healing spells.
Tier 11 set bonus changes
The developers also made some changes to the discipline/holy tier gear by removing a somewhat excessive requirement from the discipline priest tier bonus.
- The current healing priest 4-piece raid set bonus no longer requires a target to be under the effects of Weakened Soul for the priest to receive the spirit bonus. Instead the benefit will be granted each time the priest's Penance spell heals a target.
This is feedback we've seen quite a bit, and it's good. With the changes to Chakra in 4.0.6, we realize a lot of players feel that the Holy 4-piece set bonus is currently much stronger than its Discipline counterpart. We don't disagree and it's something we've been actively discussing changing in 4.1 (for example, we're considering potentially removing the Weakened Soul requirement on Penance targets in order for the Spirit bonus to apply).
Overall I don't think anyone will complain about this fix. The previous conditional was very rigid and pigeonholed discipline priests to healing just a few targets in order to always maintain the spirit bonus.
Tying up the loose ends
There were also a few miscellaneous buffs that I don't think need much explaining.
- Priests now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope.
- Surge of Light can now also trigger from Binding Heal.
Spiritual Guidance has the inside line on pre-raid gear, valor point and raid gear, and healing strategies for bosses such as Atramedes and Chimaeron. Newcomer to the priest class? Look into Discipline Priest 101 and Holy Priest 101.
Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Chris Mar 14th 2011 8:13PM
I'm glad the attonment heal is coming back. I missed it so.
Twill Mar 14th 2011 8:13PM
Its just getting better and better for Holy. Its interesting too. I thought Disc was my absolute favorite healing spec... until I tried holy.
wallaceab Mar 15th 2011 9:46AM
Happened to me too.....Disc was extremely interesting until i tried Holy
Matrillik Mar 14th 2011 8:18PM
So uhhh... How about that podcast? Haha I wonder how many angry emails you've gotten about that already.
Dawn Moore Mar 14th 2011 8:28PM
No angry emails actually. Kina was sick last week and after about Tuesday I don't have any free time in the week to do anything. If it doesn't get recorded on the weekend it's really hard to find the time later, especially if we want Matt on the show. Tonight's show is going to be late too... It happens. It's not something we want to make a habit of, but it will happen from time to time. We aren't getting paid to make it, it's just something we do for fun so the obligation to get it done when everything else is going wrong doesn't exist.
Girbek Mar 14th 2011 8:55PM
I think Chakra would be nice if they combined the old and current durations. A one minute duration and every direct healing adds a couple seconds to Chakra. That way, you can maintain it for a whole fight if you need it and it doesn't go away if you have an easier phase during a boss where you can regen mana.
And why would you need to have a macro to cancel Chakra? Isn't it removed if you cast it a second time? I refresh my chakra before it runs out all the time during boss fights, just because the timing is right, as long as it's not on cooldown.
Necromann Mar 14th 2011 9:01PM
I used atonement disc in 4.0 but when Cata hit, I found it too busy. I have since specced non attonement disc. Now that my gear has vastly improved and with the new 4.1 changes I might just go back.
Matrillik Mar 14th 2011 9:26PM
Holy Word: Chastise is awesome for pvp and can't be used while in a healing Chakra if you have the Revelations talent. Btw Dawn I'm not certain if this is what you meant by Chakra canceling but it would look something like:
/cancelaura Chakra
/cancelaura Chakra: Serenity
/cancelaura Chakra: Sanctuary
And then whatever else you want to cast on that GCD, but that should get rid of every Chakra you could possibly have on.
Aurilia Mar 14th 2011 9:14PM
30% higher? So we're talking 100k crits during Halfus Phase 2.
I can live with that.
Solanstus Mar 14th 2011 9:25PM
Blizz might have gotten a lot of spam mail from complainers about the similarities between a priest's Atonement and the holy pally's Judgements of the Pure along with Enlightened Judgements; and how the paladin's damage-based healing procs were less restricted with its Judgement mana return with Seal of Insight. However, Atonement is more prone to spamming and though Judgements on cd are, in my opinion, slightly OP for mana return, Atonement is, in the end, a less efficient, though more straight-healing-friendly proc. Agreed? Or am I missing something?
Matthew Mar 14th 2011 9:58PM
So, after having extracted all I could from pvp healing in wrath on my disc priest, I want to try something different.
How is Holy PvP?? Is it fun? Is it surviveable?
I worry about wanting to keep Chastise available, so missing out on Chakras irks me.
Please reply if you have anything to say!
Thanks in advance.
Xaklo Mar 15th 2011 3:31AM
You wont miss out on chastise if you go into the Smite-chackra state.
xitehtnis Mar 15th 2011 11:06AM
don't spec into revelations.
Pathros Mar 14th 2011 10:24PM
I'm just curious, is the limit to how much Atonement heals still at 30% of the casters health? So Disco priests still have a limit on the Halfus fight.
Please correct me if I am wrong. I'm sure it will help others as well.
Shulkman Mar 14th 2011 10:28PM
All I want to know is how in the world can I get the sound for Chakra to go away... I'm amazed I haven't found an addon for it yet. (Like Silencer for guns) When I get put into a 5 man with a priest who has chakra up for the entire instance, it makes my ears bleed.
Saeadame Mar 14th 2011 11:25PM
I could swear Chakra only made a sound while it was 'unactivated' (like Inner Focus does). I've only really noticed it when priests activate Chakra, don't cast a spell to put it in a state, and then /afk in the main AH.
Prissa Mar 14th 2011 11:32PM
I don't quite understand what you mean. Chakra only has a sound when you activate it but not entered a state yet (ie. not got the glowy runes around your feet yet, just the glowy hands). Yeah the sound for that is painful for long periods, but I do not see how any healy priest could manage to get through a dungeon without triggering a state. You'd have to try SO hard to do it.
zweitblom Mar 15th 2011 1:32AM
That's pretty easy to achieve, actually.
1) Create an empty file (e.g. with Notepad) and save it with the file name
precastmagelow.wav
(If you use a text editor to create that file, make sure it doesn't accidentically add the '.txt' extension to the file name)
2) If not in place already, create a subdirectory in Data called 'Sound', and in that another subdirectory called 'Spells'
3) Put the empty file into 'Spells'
4) Done.
Mind you that this will also silence all other effects that use the same sound, like portals, summons, and two or three Arcane mage and druid spells.
This method can be used to mute any sound in the game, provided you know its file name and location.
zweitblom Mar 15th 2011 1:39AM
Ah the heck, while I am at it (all those files also go into 'Spells':
- muting Mangle:
Mangle_Impact.ogg
Mangle_Impact.wav
- muting Dark Intentions (the new warlock buff)
SPELL_WL_FocusShadow_Impact_01.ogg
SPELL_WL_FocusShadow_Impact_02.ogg
SPELL_WL_FocusShadow_Impact_03.ogg
SPELL_WL_FocusShadow_Impact_04.ogg
SPELL_WL_FocusShadow_Impact_05.ogg
- muting Mount/Unmount
SpiritWolf.wav
Kaphik Mar 14th 2011 11:33PM
The Chakra change is very puzzling to me; it seems like a waste of time to change it. I agree with you, Dawn, it added a touch of complexity to the Holy spec. And just a touch, really. Before a pull if I wanted Serenity I'd hit a PoM on the tank then hit my Chakra button and do my healing, and if I wanted Sanctuary I hit Chakra before PoM. Even priests in my guilds who weren't used to using Chakra got it down pretty quickly.