Posts with tag Power-word-shield

There are a lot of cards in Hearthstone. It can be difficult to know which ones to craft with your hard earned dust, especially in the beginning. Do you save up for a legendary or try and craft more accessible cards in order to build up decent library? I mentioned it before, but I think the best option is grabbing up the basics, specifically cards that hold value across multiple decks.

There's no ranking behind these cards, so grab them up in whatever order you see fit. All of them have strengths and weaknesses, which we'll discuss below.

WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Matticus is now a panda. He wields shadowy powers as well as his chopsticks but continues to play supportive healing roles in challenge modes. Stop by the World of Matticus for more!

Greetings my brothers and sisters!

It has been too long since I've donned my healing robes. I've been predominantly shadow this whole expansion. I will be spiritually guiding you this week at Dawn's request and we are getting ever closer to a patch 5.2 drop. With the PvP season ending soon, you can bet your trinkets that a release is imminent. The final stages of patch development are winding down. Most of the new abilities or talent changes have been overhauled. Now it's all about tuning and numbers. There's been some fundamental patch changes recently since the last time the PTR changes were reviewed.

To summarize:

• Divine Aegis reworked
• Mastery: Shield Discipline reworked
• Power Word: Solace updates
• Shadow buffs

Last week, priests (and other less amazing classes) got a first look at the tier 15 set bonuses in the works for patch 5.2. The reactions so far have been mixed. Most discipline and holy priests seem to have had their interests piqued, while many shadow priests were seen grumbling discontentedly during the first few days. Have a look for yourself.

• Healer two-piece Your Prayer of Mending heals for 10% more each time it jumps to a new target.
• Healer four-piece Your Penance and Circle of Healing have a 40% chance to summon a Golden Apparition, which moves to a nearby ally and heals for an additional 92500 to 107500.
• Shadow two-piece When your Shadowy Apparitions damage their target, they have a 65% chance to extend the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch, causing each to deal damage one additional time.
• Shadow four-piece Periodic damage from your Vampiric Touch has a 10% chance to trigger your Shadowy Apparition.

Blizzard has been fairly responsive to many complaints and inquiries made about these bonuses. For example, when shadow priests pointed out that Shadowy Apparitions were slow, buggy, and only a small portion of shadow DPS, Blizzard responded by letting us know that the cap was going to be raised for priests with the two-piece bonus, if not removed entirely. The developers also mentioned that work had been done to improve the AI on Shadowy Apparitions and get rid of bugs. Sound good?

Update: This article has been updated for build 16467, with changes notated in bold.

WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore is a discipline priest by reputation, but still enjoys melting faces as shadow and bugging her raid to click the Lightwell as holy.

One of the most interesting things about the new talent system added in Mists of Pandaria is that it encourages priests (and all classes) to choose which talent is best for them at almost every turn. No longer is one talent clearly better than another when examining them in a bell jar. Now instead you have to look at how and where the talent will be used; one talent might shine brightly in certain scenarios but be so utterly awful in others that it's practically unusable. The result of all this? We're now adjusting our talent builds more than ever.

Of course, this isn't a new thing for DPS, who frequently swapped to alternative talent builds on each encounter to get the best possible damage (got to beat those 'locks!) but for healers it's more of a change. In the past, a healing priest might have considered switching between disc or holy, but rarely did that involve altering individual talents in our trees. Usually healers had an all-purpose build that was good for everything; changing around talents was only done on the rare occasion. That makes this new talent system a bit of a shake up for us, since the majority of priests are healers (two healing specs and all). So today I thought we'd look at the new priest talents as thoroughly as we could so it's easier to decide which one you want.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

Well, we got it. I never thought I'd see the day, but we finally got the Trial of the Crusader Lightwell that shoots heals at allied players instead of requiring them to click. Holy priests will gain access to the new Lightwell, called Lightspring, using a glyph of the same name. Before you get too excited, however, I should mention that there is a catch. Apparently, automatic Lightwells don't heal for nearly as much as a manual ones do, so depending on the fight and your raid members' ability to use the Lightwell in the first place, you may choose to skip the Glyph of Lightspring now and again.

Good ol' Derevka has already written up a thorough first look at Lightspring in which he points out many of the spell's limitations. In the post, he points out that Lightspring only heals targets at less than 50% of their health, and it has a 5-second cooldown between heals to prevent it from being used as a raid cooldown. To read the rest of Derevka's write-up and see his comparisons on the numerical output of the two spells, head over to Tales of a Priest.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

Remember last month when I talked about increasing your HPS as a discipline priest through an aggressive style of healing? Well, this week I'm going to do it again for holy priests. So if you've be looking to climb up the healing meters and make other healers hate you, stick around.

The philosophy behind increasing your output as a holy priest is quite different than that of a disc priest. It's still very greedy but it's not nearly as competitive, since it doesn't require you to directly snipe heals from other healers. Instead, you'll be searching for every half second where you can utilize your most powerful spells and do so before other healers have the chance to do something similar. Just like with disc priests, you'll be milking your mana bar for all it's worth and spamming your regenerative cooldowns whenever you can.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

I received an email three weeks back from a discipline priest who told me she thought her performance on the healing meters was too low. Though there wasn't any pressure on her from her guild to change what she was doing, she was bothered that her peers often outhealed her by a significant amount -- even another discipline priest with worse gear and a laggy computer. She told me she'd first noticed it at the start of Cataclysm, despite the fact that her performance on meters should have gone up with the change to combat logs (which allowed absorption from Power Word: Shield and Divine Aegis to register on meters). She kept up with her assignments regardless, and none of her targets ever died, but something just didn't seem right to her.

The priest linked me her armory but said that she didn't think it was anything to do with her gear choices, which I agreed with upon my own inspection. She also described what she was casting, none of which seemed horribly egregious to me. What could be wrong?

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

Holy talent trees, it's September! That means we're closing in on a year since Cataclysm was released, and it's about that time when priests start feeling really insecure about their gear and stat choices. (It also time to stock up on those Midsummer Ground Flower fireworks I like so much. The Harvest Festival vendors sell them.) Who knows what causes it, but it seems like whenever six months goes by without major community discussion on stat weights, everyone starts thinking they're doing things wrong. My mailbox is testament to this strange phenomenon and admittedly, even I'm feeling susceptible to it this time around.

Therefore, I decided that I'm going to be revisiting priest stat weights today so we can take a look at how things have (or more truthfully, haven't) changed since Cataclysm was released. I'll also be examining at how those stat weights play out in a few standard healing playstyles that have developed since the expansion launch. This week, I'll be covering discipline first because I have to maintain the myth that I hate holy priests; then next week, I'll release an almost identical version for holy priests.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

Every so often, I'm hit with this brilliant idea that I should level another priest. It always sounds like a lot of fun at first, especially when I'm just toying around in the character creation screen making my new baby all pretty. Do I want brown hair or blond hair? The sexy eyes or the vapid ones? Hmm ... now what do I name her? The fun ends a few minutes later when after skipping the opening cinematic (which I've already seen), I pick up my first quest and realize I've done this before. Sure, maybe this time I'm picking up Salvaged Supplies instead of Cactus Apples -- but really, it's always the same. That's why after about 5 minutes of killing eight boars or eight bandits or eight worgen, I bask in the glory of level 2 and log out.

Except for today. Today, I was determined to get my new darling Elyria up to level 12 so I could see all of the new Worgen content and the new Forsaken quests in Silverpine Forest after that. I was really determined this time, and as a result, I made it through something like 42 Smite casts without logging out and got to learn Flash Heal as a result That's when I realized that damn, priests these days have it easy. Flash Heal at level 3? Really? Let me tell you how it used to be.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen loiters around the drugstore, drinking chocolate malted Falcons and giving away free high school. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

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, Fox Van Allen still appears to be alive the impact of the changes seems to have varied. Have you acclimated to the changes yet? Are you wondering why hunter pets are acting like they've been chomping on mood stabilizers even when you heal them? Do you want a cookie? Then let me direct you to all the important things you need to know in a post-4.1 patch world.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow while knocking back "naptime potions." Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

Earlier this week Blizzard surprised the masses by releasing an early sneak peek at patch 4.1 on the PTR. Though the patch features no major raid content, it has made some tiny changes to the priest class that could have some big impacts!

Among the patch changes for priests are a nerf to Power Word: Shield, a buff to Divine Aegis, a possibly nerf to Dispel Magic, and a new animation for Holy Word: Sanctuary which I've included a video of after the break.

Every Sunday at WoW Insider, you'll find Spiritual Guidance, a guide to healing as a discipline or holy priest. Priestess Dawn Moore will bring you the latest in news, discussion and advice for priests in the World of Warcraft while simultaneously battling her shadow priest rival, Fox Van Allen. This week Dawn is able to take a break, since Fox is busy promoting the musical tour of Foxlight, his Hannah Montana-esque alter ego.

Previously on Lo -- Spiritual Guidance, I assaulted your eyeballs with monoliths of text describing what's going to be happening in patch 4.0.1. This week, in response to a couple of emails I got, I'm going to scale it all back and talk less about the nitty-gritty and more about how to apply the patch to whatever it is you're still doing in the game. Working on heroic Lich King? OK, we'll talk about that. Halion? Sure, we'll do that too. Farming Invincible? Err ... Well, I guess I could draft up some sort of farm content. ICC drinki -- An ESRB rating falls on Dawn's head. Yes, well, let's get to it, shall we?

Every Sunday at WoW Insider, you'll find Spiritual Guidance, a guide to healing as a discipline or holy priest. Priestess Dawn Moore will bring you the latest in news, discussion and advice for priests in the World of Warcraft while simultaneously battling her shadow priest rival, Fox Van Allen. This week, Dawn has been training an infantry of super-perceptive aerial assault sheep to counter the Dark Shrine she spotted Fox warping into WoW Insider HQ earlier.

The latest build for the Cataclysm beta was the big news yesterday, thanks to ol' B at MMO-Champion. The news hit sometime in the night while most priests were nestled all snug in their beds, but High Priest Matticus and I were up late drinking chocolate malts and playing wall ball, so we got a head start on the information ... which we promptly used to write about pets and shaman.

Last week, I said I'd be finishing my Cataclysm roundup this weekend, but since there were quite a few changes in this latest beta build (which I'm guessing will affect the release of patch 4.0.1), I think it's better if we discuss the details of the changes before we try to summarize them. There was also a super-exciting (though entirely superficial) change with this patch as well ...

Leap of Faith, also known as "Life Grip," got a brand new animation! Check out the video after the jump.

Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we discuss how our new mastery bonus will affect the class.

Every class was designed with a specific flavor in mind. If you read Blizzard's official descriptions of the classes, you'll see that skills and abilities were not assigned at random. These paradigms of thinking for each class pulled from fantasy archetypes and characters from Warcraft's rich lore. Each class had a purpose, and those purposes were what made the game diverse. With 40 people in a raid, you could easily assume that every one of these crucial roles was filled. Unfortunately, that doesn't carry over to today's raiding scene. With the seemingly constant shrinkage of the de facto raid size from 40, to 25, to 10, it's become more and more difficult for the developers to ensure that we'll have all of the tools and abilities available in the game.

Blizzard's faced with the tough challenge of trying to ensure that each class stays unique, but also allowing for enough overlap that you're not forced to raid with a perfect mix. Bloodlust has always been the posterchild for this war between uniqueness and homogenization. Shamans have claimed that Bloodlust is their right alone, but the developers decided to give the ability to mages as well. Discipline priests, the sleeper healers of Wrath that went from useless bubblers to raid-shielding gods, were next in Blizzard's sights. Luckily for us, the devs chose paladins to be the recipients of this socialist disbursement.

Last night, Blizzard unexpectedly released an extensive talent preview from Cataclysm for select classes. Priests were among those classes, and as the resident healing priest, I will be walking you through the preview for discipline (as well as holy) talent by talent.

The preview confirms the full details on the long-awaited discipline ability, Power Word: Barrier. A new talent called Archangel was also unveiled. Hit the jump to check it out.