BC Priest Talents/Spells are Up!!!!!

[Emmalina]

I'm not in love with any of the 41 point talents, so I think my extra points will be invested in expanding Holy and Disc (My dream realized: Mental Strength and Spirtual Healing) rather than wasting points just to get to the 41 pointers. I like the Improved Divine Spirit with +healing and +dmg. Here's my potential build up to level 70:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-priest/talents.html?05520001305051200000023305103030205050000000000000000000000000

Mass Dispell looks great for PvE, but could be brutal in PvP with Unstable Affliction. I'm a little disappointed with the talents I guess, we didn't really get anything spectacular like a Water Elemental.

Here's to my Draenei Shaman come December.

Emma

[Genoism]

hah emma water elemental is a waste of a point if you thought it was special. Or most likely will at least. Most of the 41 point talents are lacking, especially with having to waste points getting to them on stuff that isn't that great.
But at least your not getting that champion garbage that you believed in :p

[Shadowwolf]

How do you even know its a waste? You havent even played it yet.

[Kothnok]

Cupcakes are lacking because they're not as big as normal cakes. 

[Genoism]

read it from some posts on that worldofraids site. Of course some people are only beginning to experiment with it so i doubt they know all its potential uses...and i didn't say it was a waste for sure, i just said it was most likely to be. I noticed all the 41 talents aren't that great. The pally ones especially give me a laugh. 2% more crusader dmg or something like that..lol what a joke.

[dharq]

Yeah, the 41 pt talents aren't much IMO, but the 35-40 pt priest disc talent is just awesome...

Improved PW:S- rank 5/5 - reflects 50% of the damage absorbed by your shield back on the damage dealer w/ no added threat. So in a BG, IPW:S goes on every member of the team, some dumb opposing mage tries to jump in and AOE your team, and suddenly POOF!! down goes the mage in an instant.

Beautiful! Absolutely Beautiful!

Who thinks priests will just be healers anymore?

[Emmalina]

The more I play with the talent calculator, the more options I discover. Here's a few potential builds, input is very appreciated, as you are the people I attempt to keep standing ;p

41/20/0
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-priest/talents.html?05521001305051200155023305103030000000000000000000000000000000



This one gets most of the goodies added deep in the Disc tree, like Reflective Shield, Imp Divine Spirit, etc. I think the points in Misery would be helpful in groups/raids for the casters, and I'm sure mages, locks and moonies wouldn't mind the extra 20% damage for 20 seconds from Power Infusion. This is all at the expense of Spiritual Guidance in the Holy tree, which essentially costs me +100 healing and +100 damage.

29/32/0

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-priest/talents.html?05520001305051200000023305103030205050000000000000000000000000



This is the same spec I originally posted. I see it pretty much as a pure group/raid healbot spec; despite the high tier talents, I view it as the strongest pure healing spec I can come up with. My only concern being that it may drive me to playing an alt and only using Emma to raid.

39/0/22
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-priest/talents.html?50520020305051200054000000000000000000000053222010051001000000


This is built towards pure utility for a group. Imp Divine Spirit, Imp Shadow Weaving, and Misery for increased group spell damage, with the 1 final point not in Misery being put in Silence. Decent for PvP, decent for Soloing IMO, but definitely gimped healing.

0/20/41
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-priest/talents.html?00000000000000000000023505002030000000000053252010351121051301

This one might be a little radical(if any about being a priest can be described as radical ;p), but I'm kind of partial to it. It has the core Holy talents to make sure healing isn't overly gimped, yet has most of the goodies in the Shadow tree. Great for PvP and soloing I would think, and Silence and Imp Shadow Weaving being of some raiding utility. None of the fun stuff in Disc however .

I'm not sold on the new talents themselves, but I'm starting to think maybe Blizzard was attempting to do exactly what Dharq mentioned, open our options up and allow us to be viable at things other than just healing, and at that I think they did well.

Let me know what you tink of these.

Emma

[Lyte]

Dharq and I have been talking about the new talents since you posted them.  Here is what I'm thinking:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-priest/talents.html?50523001303051200150023510103230203000000000000000000000000000

We were mainly talking about that new talent "Reflective Shield".  That thing seems cool to us.  "Causes 50% of the damage absorbed by the power word: shield to reflect back at the attacker and causes no threat."  We were thinking about those mobs that use aoe attacks and hit everyone.  If the main people meleeing it have the shield, that's some nice damage back at the mob.  Also, could you imagine in the bg's when mages rush into a group of people to aoe them and they all have the shield on?  can you say dead mage?

And on that note, I still think we should get GROUP SHIELD!  that was be so dang awesome.

[Kothnok]

Started playing with the calculator....

36/22/3
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-priest/talents.html?05521001305051200155023305103030000000000000000000000000000000

Shaved off some of the group benefits in favor of increasing to potential "mana endurance" during a fight.  Also kept the 50% shield reflection damage.  The Improved Reach point could go into Improved healing to max it out, but I was wondering if it would be better to leave it there so that Group Heal and Holy Nova are more effective.

Having not played a priest past 40 yet, tis definately just a "think out loud" kind of build.  Is Spirit Tap really worth my effort to include it as part of a "regen mana while fighting" thing?

[dharq]

From what I know of spirit tap, it only works when you get the kill shot on an enemy... In a raid situation with a priest, it's pretty doubtful that you'll get that shot since you lack a lot of instant damage (well, short of the new SW:K).

Don't know, but I find spirit tap kinda lacking for anything other than soloing/grinding... that may just be me though.

[Emmalina]

Yea, Spirit Tap only procs when you get the killing blow. At this point, if im soloing a mob, I don't usually use more than 20-25% of my mana, and with +Spirit and mp5 gear, you have your mana back before you know it. Like Dharq said, you'll rarely get the killing blow in groups, so I don't think Spirit Tap is useful beyond simply leveling, and from my understand, the 60-70 gap won't be standard grinding-type leveling. I think you can do a "mana mangement" build a number of ways

The shield reflect looks nifty, but I would guess at max rank shield it'll do 600-700 dmg. Good for PvP, maybe not worthwhile for raiding. Combined with group shield...that'd be outrageous.

The most surprising thing is how unappealing the deep Holy tree is. Prayer of Healing seems an adeqaute replacement for Circle of Renewal, and we learn PoH without wasting points like we'd have to do to get to CoR. They just put too many new toys in Disc to not go deep in Disc if you're not a Shadow priest. I think it's going to be hard for any non-Shadow priest to not put 30+ points in Disc.

Emma

[dharq]

I agree with what you said on the shield reflect.. at first. 600-700 dmg doesn't seem that much up front, but when you figure in mobs like Drakk in UBRS that have an AOE... shield all 4-5 melee ppl in the group and suddenly that becomes 2500-3500 damage instantly. Granted, that isn't a HUGE chunk, but it is a considerable enough amount to make it useful. -IF- for whatever reason, you have all 10 people in melee range with the general and he uses his AOE, that suddenly becomes 6000-7000 damage, and now that is really impressive.

I'm not saying it won't be situational because it will, but out of all the new talents coming in with TBC, I think the PW:S reflect is one of the biggest winners.

And Geno seems less than impressed with the Judgement of Crusader talent @ 41-pt retrib, but honestly, I think this is a HUGE improvement in overall raid DPS... If only one paladin in the group tosses this judgement on a raid boss, suddenly -everyone- who is meleeing that boss gains a +2% critical chance... I mean, that's like giving everyone in melee range a free epic/purple trinket! It doesn't sound impressive by itself for the paladin, but again in a group setting, it's a big deal.

From what I've seen so far, all-in-all, I really think TBC talents will be big improvements for each class. I'm not saying they'll be as big and spectacular as I'd hoped, but I think they'll be big improvements nonetheless.

[Genoism]

ya but what sane raid will let a pally 'dps' over healing....the benefits of his damage contribution are by FAR outwieghed by the healing he can do. Don't forget paladins have the best gains from spirit amongst all the other classes. When your priests are oom its the pallies that are keeping those health bars up. A fully holy spec'ed pally can out heal a priest any day, in regards to how much he could heal over time. Pallies flash heal is the most mana effecient spell in the game however their big heals suck up their mana pretty fast. So ya, 2% crit...not impressed, it won't save a raid certainly, your raid group either knows what its doing or it doesnt, beyond that is practice some moonkins or leader of the pack buffs are nice but overall most raids don't use it because they have other abilities that are far more useful. Which is how classes got pidgeon holed into healbots in the first place. If raids weren't so heal intensive then raids wouldn't mind having classes do something they don't excess best at.

[dharq]

Agreed... IF raids were staying in their current format.

With the change to 25-person raids, Blizz has already said they want to make hybrids actually operate in a hybrid role. There are several threads in the official forums where this is mentioned. I think we're going to see a significant change in tactics from the existing raids. At least I hope.

[Emmalina]

lol Geno, your priest bashing is unwelcome here