Spiritual Guidance: The aftermath of patch 4.1 for holy and discipline priests
by Dawn Moore 
May 2nd 2011 at 9:00AM
Patch 4.1 went live last week, and with a long list of buffs and nerfs in the patch notes, it looked like it was going to be a big event for priests of all specs. Now, almost a week later now,
Dispel Magic: An inconvenient nerf
Patch 4.1 dished out a nerf to shadow priests by removing their ability to cast Dispel Magic on any target but themselves. Healing priests can still dispel as we always did, but unfortunately, this change means defensive magic dispelling is now entirely limited to healers.
The impact of this is, for the most part, an inconvenience. Even though shadow priests had the ability to help with dispelling before now, the average raid was probably letting their healers handle friendly dispelling, so the nerf probably hasn't had a very large effect.
One thing to consider, though, is what healers are the best at dispelling. Priests apply a 3% heal for the maximum health of the target with the Glyph of Dispel Magic, while paladins get a 20% reduction in the mana cost with Glyph of Cleanse. Shaman get a little bit of both those glyphs if they're specced into Cleansing Waters. (Druids don't have much going on that I'm aware of.) So what does this mean? In any future fights when healers are strained for mana, remember that paladins and shaman have the most cost-effective dispels. Priests have a slightly more expensive dispel than other healers, but with the glyph, targets will get a bit of healing. That said, all healers should help dispel -- but in a tight situation, it's good to know who does something best.
Holy priests blink at patch 4.1 changes
For the most part, holy priests only had good things coming to them in patch 4.1. Chakra's changes (which made the effect last until cancelled) made stance juggling a lot easier and guaranteed 100% uptime on our juicy tier 11 four-piece bonus. The only thing I'm left wondering about this buff is why was no change made to State of Mind? Sure, it's no more
The huge 30% buff to the healing done by Holy Word: Sanctuary was welcome, but the spell is still situational and expensive. Even though holy priests have incentive to cast the spell now, the situations in which it is optimal to cast are still limited. It did get a pretty new animation, though.
Finally, the most interesting buff holy priests received was to Surge of Light, which gained Binding Heal as one of the trigger spells for the talents' proc. I spoke with Oestrus earlier in the week about this, and while we agree that the change offers very little incentive to pure raid healing holy priests, it's still a great option for holy priests who are short on gear or healing 10-man raids. Using those two extra talents will, of course, cost you a couple extra talent points in the disc or shadow tree, but I'm sure I don't need to remind you of that.
Holy Fire and Atonement
Blizzard has attempted to breathe some life back into Atonement healing by incorporating Holy Fire into the mix. Overall, it's a nice buff, but it isn't a strong enough buff to justify taking Evangelism, Archangel, or Atonement again. Even with the extra synergy from Glyph of Smite, the healing done by Atonement just isn't strong enough to put it on par with the extra throughput you can do with Power Word: Shield and Strength of Soul since patch 4.0.6. The additional damage does help with raid DPS, but that damage is a drop in the bucket compared to any DPS class.
At this point, I'd say Atonement healing is only great for 5-mans and battlegrounds; for serious raiders or PvPers, there is always going to be some better throughput or utility you can dedicate your talents and time to. I wish it were different -- but alas, it just doesn't seem so.
Disc priest nerfs aren't that bad
I've left the worst of the patch for last -- and even then, I don't think it's as bad as some of us were thinking it would be. As you know, discipline priests were slated to receive two major nerfs in patch 4.1: the duration of Power Word: Shield was reduced to 15 seconds from 30 and the cooldown of Power Word: Barrier was increased to 3 minutes from 2 minutes.
Starting with the Power Word: Shield nerf, I actually think this nerf has done its job at killing shield spamming quite well. Though many players have been quick to point out that disc priests are still happily spamming away, the blues have stated before that shields are still a very important part of discipline healing; I don't disagree.
What this nerf did is kill the absurd thoughtlessness that went along with shield spamming previously. It's true that disc priests can still spam shields, but no more than holy priests can spam Renew or druids Rejuvenation. Yes, shields are much stronger than Renew or Rejuvenation, but spamming is still very costly for the average priest and not something that can be committed to without huge mana penalties.
Examining this nerf, I believe the developers were targeting the fact that 30 seconds is a huge window of time in which a healer can, without much skill or thought, respond to damage. I don't think they ever wanted to remove a disc priest's ability to use multiple shields in quick succession, just when and how often they could be used effectively. Now, after the patch, if you want to be effective with several shields, you have to plan more carefully and make sure you select the right targets at the right time. This requires that you know and understand a fight, and that does require a lot more skill than it did before.
If the developers wanted to completely kill shield spamming, they could easily do that by taking Soul Warding away (remember, that those talents are relatively new in the grand scheme of priest healing). Since they haven't, I can only assume they are okay with several shields being cast in a short succession of time -- and honestly, that makes sense when you consider how limited disc would be at raid healing without it. I'm pretty sure that it's the developers' intent to keep shields a core part of disc single-target and group healing, and if it wasn't, they'd have removed Soul Warding by now. That's all I have to say about that.
Dawn eats a chocolate. What?
Moving on ... The Power Word: Barrier nerf is without doubt the most troublesome part of patch 4.1 for priests. While 25-man raiders should have had no trouble adapting (since they'll likely have gained extra Tranquility casts and a Spirit Link Totem), the change could be absolutely devastating to certain 10-man raid teams if their healing composition no longer allows complete cooldown coverage on certain fights. 10-mans were already hurting due to composition limitations, and I'm certain this nerf has only made things worse.
Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do about the nerf other than try to tweak how you respond to raid damage before and after it occurs. Oddly enough, shield spamming is the original alternative to incoming damage, and it's quite handy that 10-mans aren't too affected by the Power Word: Shield nerf.
The best advice I can offer is to encouraging your raiders to use personal cooldowns when raid cooldowns aren't available. It's not the best fix, but it's what we had before all these fancy new abilities. Hopefully in the next tier, Blizzard will find a way to address the 10-man composition issue. Keep the faith, 10-man priests. /salute.
As for the rest of the buffs, they were all small and hardly worth mentioning. If you have any questions about them or what I've written here, feel free to leave a comment. Also, if you're looking for cookies, I left them with my secretary Mr. Van Allen. If you'd like one, please see him. If he doesn't give you one immediately, make sure to be incessant -- I find he forgets things sometimes.
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)
Udderpowered May 2nd 2011 9:13AM
My one problem with the bubble duration nerf is that I keep getting those damn tanks that pull the second it wears off, and now bubble is much more mana hungry it is actually noticable when I have to cast it twice between pulls as they're too busy basking in their specialness to bother staying at the keyboard between pulls. ¬¬
Azurite May 2nd 2011 12:36PM
Cast Fade when you see the tank is about to pull the Trash pack/Boss and then use PW:S.
You will not pull aggro and the tank will receive the shield to absorb the initial damage.
AGx07162 May 2nd 2011 5:27PM
I don't think its as much about the Hate as it is the fact that they make u cast it twice, and personally I think they do it on purpose. I play both a Paladin and Priest (among others) and I cant imagine why other tanks do that. I never have a problem getting/holding hate when I have the bubble (as long as the other DPS don't go trying to solo their own mobs and completely opening up on them instead of killing the marked target first).
Adriain May 2nd 2011 9:23AM
So, I'm a main-spec Shadow Priest that has recently stepped into the shoes of Holy for heroic runs (if only for the Satchels) and I find myself struggling in the new Troll instances. Might you be willing to eventually give a quick rundown on healing strategies for the new bosses for those of us that may be new to healing or perhaps returning to it after all of the many changes since Cata launch?
I'd like to add that while I am still a Shadow Priest at heart, I find myself reading your articles quite often to see the other side of Priesting, as well as to keep up to date on certain things just in case my raid ever asks me to step into a healing role (which has happened before). I really enjoy your columns, keep it up!
TheBlob May 2nd 2011 11:37AM
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/04/26/patch-4-1-guide-to-the-new-zulgurub/
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/04/26/patch-4-1-guide-to-the-new-zulaman/
Done and Done. The only fight that still isn't on there, oddly, is Daakara, where the strat is thus:
Lynx: Pop hero, kill adds, heal like mad if your tank doesn't taunt fast enough
Other than that it's pretty simple.
jarch3r May 2nd 2011 12:02PM
Let's be honest, healing this place is rough.
To successfully heal these new dungeons, you'll have to push out high HPS without burning through your mana. On top of that, your group has to know what they're doing. These aren't dungeons you can carry a dps through.
Homeschool May 2nd 2011 12:55PM
Note on Daakara: Leave the Healing Stream totems (have the tank pull the boss out of them) and stand in them yourself. The mana you gain (yes, you do gain mana) will allow you to spam your fastest heals without regard. As long as you remove the fire debuff from people, this fight becomes laughable at that point.
anderson.horn May 2nd 2011 9:37AM
Bubble duration actually hurts leveling more than I see it as a viable alternative to shield spamming. Currently, I can bubble before i pull a mob, kill it, pull another, kill it, and have the bubble wear off without getting any mana return from rapture.....this sucks. Disc is already not offensive enough...this is just another kick to the groin.
change mana regen
buff reflective
make smite/holy F more mobile
Jack Spicer May 2nd 2011 4:37PM
I don't see why they couldn't add a glyph that doubled the duration of PW:S on the caster.
Artemisian May 5th 2011 7:13PM
You're levelling a healer through solo content; accept it will never be easy and learn to deal with it. I've done it before, but it's never ideal. Think it's too problematic, dual-spec shadow.
oestrus May 2nd 2011 9:39AM
Thanks for the link, Dawn!
Putting those points in Surge of Light usually isn't too big of a deal, since you have to work your way far enough into the holy tree to get the good stuff anyway. The other options aren't too swell - either Tome of Light, Rapid Renewal, etc.
It does feel like Binding Heal is triggering Surge of Light more - at least for me. I wonder if it could have anything to do with the fact that Binding Heal is healing two people, instead of just one. Maybe each heal has a chance to proc it instead of each cast. I'm tempted to look into that subject a bit more.
Nina Katarina May 2nd 2011 9:41AM
Defensive magic dispelling is confined to healers? They took it away from mages?
Aurilia May 2nd 2011 10:01AM
Defensive magic dispelling is removing magic debuffs applied to members of your party/raid. Mages have Offensive dispels - removing magic buffs applied to enemy targets - and curse dispels.
Only the four healing classes have Defensive magic dispels, and the 4.1 change put priests in line with the other 3 healing classes which had to talent their cleansing spells for this effect.
Inissa May 2nd 2011 5:46PM
Not entirely true. Warlock have had defensive dispels the entire time. It's quite limited though. They have to have their imp out and even then it has a 6 second CD.
I've dispelled Blackout for a few PuG raids that don't know what they're doing.
Jack Mynock May 2nd 2011 9:49AM
I think you meant Disc was slated to revieve to major NERFS in 4.1, not buffs.
Dawn Moore May 2nd 2011 10:33AM
Missed that in the editing process >
alieria May 2nd 2011 9:50AM
Interesting take on atonement, Dawn. I'm a shade behind you in progression (7/13) and I find that basically every fight has some healing downtime where you can HF/smite rotate, and some give you HUGE bonuses for doing so (V+T - double dips on engulfing, so you can throw 110k crit heals + 40k DAs via smite, trivializing most damage for ~20s in the melee). Even fights where I don't use it a bunch (atramedes, for instance), I still generally get 2 AA's off, which provides a pretty big throughput burst when needed. And the new holy fire hits like GH for 1/4th the cost.
Just a counter point 2c for those interested.
HDPriest May 2nd 2011 10:45AM
I'm with you on this one. The Atonement heals from Smite and especially HF are icing, but the real reason for doing it is building Archangel stacks for the "ocrap!" moments. The CD is really short and is usually back up before I have time to rebuild the stacks. Again, the Atonement heals Are nice, but I honestly use it more like combo points for major AA healing (except on trash and slow phases where the extra DPS and splash healing is just plain fun.)
Homeschool May 2nd 2011 12:55PM
There are also several fights where the talent is exceedingly useful, like Maloriak and Halfus. Any boss that gets a damage taken debuff means higher Smite damage, and thus higher heals. (Which, you'll note, are smart heals.)
On heroic Halfus, you'll be throwing around 80-100k heals by the end. Our 25-man runs two Disc on that fight, simply because the two of us alone can output more healing than the entire team otherwise, by the time the last dragon goes down.
Maloriak is a similar situation - during green phase, when everyone is taking more damage, Smite-healing puts out as much as Flash Heal for a third of the cost.
While its value can be questionable on some fights, I've found the best strategy to be preparing 5 stacks just before an Intellect cooldown (such as Hymn of Hope or Synapse Springs, or both) and the mana return makes up for the cost.
Ciroth May 2nd 2011 1:41PM
I have been testing the AA build quite a bit since the patch. While it's use in a 25 man setting may be questionable as it is essentially a "Win More" spec, I have found it's use in 10 man content to be a great boon. I am not greatly geared and I haven't spent too much time reforging and gemming to take advantage of AA, but I can usually pull upwards of 6.7k DPS on ALL raiding bosses. On trick fights, I will pull upwards of 9k dps. While I understand that I am not on the bleeding edge of WoW progression, nor are the vast majority of players, these dps gains (while still healing), have been great in advancing content.
For those you that assert that my healing must suffer to be spending so much time DPSing, I agree with you. Where I once was first on the heal meters (like that matters), I am now 3-5% behind our paladin healer. It is a trade off I will have to live with.
In short: AA can smooth out and maintain tank/melee healing in a raid setting while at the same time matching or exceeding tank dps.