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5.0 Priest Talents
Blizzcon 2011 has come and gone. I know others are hating it (*cough* Zerl) and others are loving it.
5.0 MoP will bring about lots of changes – from QoL changes to revamping the talent tree.
Others are saying it is making the game easier while others are optimistic about the changes. For me overall, I am pleased with the annoucements at Blizzcon. Sure I can see that the new system is dumbing down the game to an extent. However, overall WoW is not only about the raiders. Cata for me was raiding ONRY. MoP appears will be raiding, some PvP, some Pokemon, some other things to improve oneself in other than raiding expansion. In otherwords it will bring more balance and QoL improvements for citizens of Azeroth. And also PANDAS are awesome…must be the Ranma 1/2 fan in me and the Chen Stormstout fanboy in me. MoP will be more about doing then sitting in Org or SW waiting for your Queue.
Going back to the talent trees, players will still pick their “spec” at level 10, and then a talent point at 15 and every 15 levels their after. Many abilities/former talents will be baseline for the class.
Seeing I am a priest I will take a look at the Priest talents.
Level 15 – Tier 1
Void Tendrils – sounds much like the druid roots spell.
Psy fiend – pet emits psychic scream to an enemy with 40 yds – every 2 sec for 10 sec. Interesting.
Psychic Scream – just like the original.
Overall for me, a meh tier. All of them have their uses perhaps while lvling – the Tendrils being the biggest one. Overall more use in PvP. PvE priests I bet will be picking the Tendrils. Because we all know unglyphed Psychic Scream is bad in PVE.
Level 30
Body and Soul – 30% more speed over the current version and the loss of a free cure disease.
Path of the Devout – 25% more speeds while levitating.
Phantasm – removes movement impearments when casting fade etc.
Once again meh – each point has it uses in PvP and PvE. PvE priests I assume will be picking Body and Soul.
Level 45
From darkness comes light
Surge of Light (caster form)
Smite, Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal have a chance to trigger a free Flash Heal (6% chance)
Surge of Darkness (shadow form)
6% chance when you mind flay to cause your next mindblast to be free and consume no shadow orbs.
Divine Star
Fires a star that will travel 20 yard, enemies in the path will be damages and allies in the path will be healed. It will then travel back to the caster and do the samething.
Archangel
Interesting 2 min cooldown now. or is 30 for archangel and 90 sec for dark?
Archangel is pretty much the same but no more mana regen.
Dark Archangel – now uses shadow orbs instead.
Around level 45 is where things get interesting. Right off the bat I would have to say From Darkness comes light is meh.
Archangel is still cool, but if we have to smite for it, I am not sure how many will go for it, I myself run no AA/A spec.
I being the anime dork will prob pick Divine Star for shits and giggles. As Analogue and Reversion from Looking for More stated. MOON PRISM POWER! Hell yeah Sailor moon time!
Level 60
Desperate Prayer – like the current one. It’s not bad if you remember to use it lol.
Angelic Bulwark – increases shields used on yourself.
Final Prayer – places a shield on you when an attack knocks you below 30% the Shield str is 20% of your total health.
Overall, priest survival cooldowns/abilities/talents….all decent choices. With the stronger ones being Desperate Prayer and Angelic Bulwark. Final Prayer to me – seems to more of a PvP thing or for those who are forgetful to use Desperate Prayer/Healthstone/Potions.
Level 75
Twist of fate – increases damage and healing done to target at or below 25%
Power Infusion – same as current.
Serendipity is now combined with Mind Melt when in Shadowform.
Overall I think this Tier a no brainer for Disc and Holy – Power Infusion. Twist of fate is interesting from a healing perspective, with depending on your healing comp this may not be needed. Besides the odd huge raid wide hit…how often is the raid at below 25%?
Level 90
Vow of Unity – kinda like Beacon of Light. Whenever you heal your target you are healed for 20% of the amt. Furthermore, 50% of the damage the target takes you take over 6 secs. Also when the target takes a hit that is greater then 30% of their life the Vow ends.
Void Shift – Yuo swap Life totals with target and then healed for 25% of your total health.
Vampiric Dominance – when you deal damage or heal – 15% of the amount is healed to 3 low health allies.
Tier 6 wooo~ I personally like the idea of the Vow of Unity and the Void Shift. For Shadow Priest the Vampiric Dominance is awesome, possibly also useful for Smite Priests.
I see myself trying out the Vow, combined with a Desperate Prayer or even pre-emptive shield with Angelic Bulwark and other shield str abilities. the Vow could be quite awesome. But if assigned to raid healing the Vampiric might be better. Void Shift has so many choices but will have to be timed…dont want to waste a LoH and Void Shift. Also soooo many trolling opportunities with it…..*evil grin*
Blizzcon – Mist is confirmed it appears
interesting…new race and new class – Monk
Swapping mains and race….
/furry
Heroic Baleroc
Basic setup – see link above.
Square is where (liyhe) as Shadow was assigned.
Between me and the Orange healer our lock had placed their portal.
Circle and X is where our 2 healers stood
Triangle is where our hunters stood.
Moon is our Mage.
Boss is where you would normally place them. and our 2 melee DPS were in melee. XD
What we did is for the 1st crystal, I took the 1st one entirely. I found I was able to stay alive thanks to our healers with calling for AM around 14-15 stacks and eating a cookie and bubble as needed. I popped Dispersion around 19 stacks to ride it out. Then I went back to my square position to wait out the tormented debuff.
Our order for crystals was Me, DK, Mage, Enhancement Shaman, Warlock, Hunter x1. The 2nd hunter was fit in as needed. We found that sticking to our order and using the 2nd hunter as a floater helped out to ease confusion.
After I took the 1st crystal, the DPS went with a 3 person per crystal rotation. With the next person being ready to take the crystal when the other person went. It is important to be close by to take it but not close enough to get the tormented debuff in error. Also we found it is best to always exit in one direction. We chose to leave from the left.
Healers after the 1st crystal were at 90-100+ stacks of the healing buff if i recall. If they cant build that fast, tank was more then likely not going to survive.
Also with the Countdown debuff – if it was a healer picked we made the people move to the healer to allow them to heal still. if it was 2 others, we had them meet in the middle.
Countdown may mess with your rotation on a little, but keep a level head and should be ok. reminder – Tormented is refreshed for both players if spread.
If a healer did get the debuff they needed to communicate to their healer so they could swap if they were on tank duty.
The tank on the 1st crystal will need to stay alive for that crystal solo – so cooldowns and healthstone, pots as needed.
Other then that, the fight is similar to normal. ranged need to get to their spots as best they can to lower the chance of spreading tormented. Heals need to comminicate and we found it best to have one person only to call out the order and the floater as needed. DPS check is quite high, we carely killed him – 2 seconds past enrage, but I know my case I flubbed my rotation – not a shadow priest at heart lol.
That is all from what I recall - not a lot of changes – just need to be more careful to detail and where you move.
Blizzcon predictions and another Heroic down!
Huzzah another Heroic down….!!!
SR we do things in the wrong order….
Things that other normal guild do and do well. SR flounders. Things/fights other guilds may save/do later – SR does well. Also clearing vent clear for the most part and keeping a strict order, and ONE person calling it out helped out a lot. Also healers (go Zarm and Vanicus) did an awesome job communicating when they needed to swap etc! Nice healing Arv even with tormented. Nice job DPS!
Heroic Baleroc down – one of the more difficult Heroic fights downed! It’s funny….if slackers would post their SS!! (/glare Rep and Lyssi) Poor arv 
This brings SR to 7th overall on Drak – It’s nice to see SR in the top 10. I know we will never be leading/cutting edge progression but it is nice for the epeen.
Plan for next week – Heroic Shannox and Baleroc again. Then Heroic Domo.
Blizzcon predictions
Of course more Diablo news, as it should be.
Expansion news – I have a gut feeling it could go either way for MoP or something totally new. I have doubts as MoP being a browser game as I don’t see Blizz putting resources into such a niche game. I am glad for the lack of leaks this year.
I doubt a new hero class – I think Blizz learned their lessen from trying to balance such a thing. If they were to add a new class I think they would have to work their way up just like everyone else imo. Monk seems like a good choice – given the route if they go MoP.
I think it is interesting to note a whole panel on talent trees – if the expansion does raise the lvl cap…the current point values will be thrown into chaos. So I predict another revamp once again. This would be a good chance to str/nerf/alter as needed for Blizz. Perhaps maybe even a chance to differentiate PVE and PVP.
As far as race – maybe both sides gets Pandas? Just like how the high elves and the blood elves are split. Night Elves and Naga. Darkspear Trolls and other Trolls. Humans/Gilneans. It could be feasible that the Pandarans are not as unified as we believe.
However, I think it would be one or the other – Class or Race – not both. As far as letting more races be other classes, I do not really see a reason for the class restrictions at this point. Except for the rare obvious ones – forsaken druids? Dranei druids? Belf shamans? Belf Druids?
More SC2 news but to be honest, I am lukewarm on that.
Random…..thoughts?
What is it about randomness that I dislike.
1.) lack of control over an outcome
2.) no direction
3.) chaos
Lack of Control/no direction/chaos
With my personality, I dislike anything that takes control from my hands. I dislike a direction or focus, and choas is never fun when trying to figure things out.
Those three reasons alone make the Rhyolith fight, normal or heroic versions, a real pet peeve. I appreciate Blizzard for their design of the fight, but those reasons alone take away any fun in the fight.
What one can control is the direction he moves and one can predict when the adds will spawn.
Which volcano is active vs inactive is a pain. This is not fun, much like RNG loot drops. Other bosses, which may pick a random player to do something, is not bad and not as annoying, but for some reason the volcano thing really irritates me.
Other fights in firelands so far are designed much better in my opinion. They are some degrees of randomness, which thru player interaction can help overcome it. Walking a giant into volcanoes is freakin annoying. Other boss mechanics which are random are short and not the major drive in the fight. The volcano activating is the entire freakin fight, it’s like fighting a giant slot machine. Randomness is not a good drive in encounter design, and vice versa neither is a fight that is easy to predict everything. Some element of randomness/chaos is needed.
4.3 PTR thoughts
I am not one for looking aroud in there, but reading the thoughts of those who have, I have to say I am positive about the encounters so far. Mixture of scripting and randomness with some uniqueness here and there. One thing I am not positive about is the length of the raid. 7 bosses? This is not enough to keep people entertained, engaged till the next expansion.
With SWTOR right around the corner, Blizzard will want something MORE to keep people engaged. Like others I have spoken to, I would hope Blizzard is planning a Sunwell type raid to keep people in WoW.
WoW’s Future
With other games on the horizon, WoW will need to do something if it wishes to be the dominant force in the MMO world. It cannot sit on it’s haunches for too long (which I feel EQ did) or change the same to something that people may not want to play (EQ2) . With games ilke SWTOR, GW2, The Secret World, etc. and the whole F2P model Blizzard needs to do something more.
I think Blizzard is doing something good with listening to the player’s wants (like transmog) but they need to do some more quality of life improvements. The transmog idea is really an old idea – games like Aion and LOTRO already have it in some form.
I know Blizzard does not like the idea for some reason but Player/Guild housing would so something to keep people in the game. Keeping people engaged by giving them something to take pride in an develop is a good idea. Endgame characters are more then “purplz”. Having them do quests, maybe PvP or other things to earn points or something to purchase things to decorate or allow them to make trophies of memorable fights would be a nice QOL addition. I know in FFXI, players had a moghouse to decorate and although I was not super crazy about it, I did take pride in at least decorating it. 
It was also cool that SE listened to players and allowed people to invite friend to visit your moghouse.
F2P vs Sub – blizzard really needs to keep WoW somewhat fresh to combat the F2P model. games that have swapped to a F2P model – Age of Conan and LOTRO I have to admit are done quite well. Lots of QOL things to keep casual to hardcore people involved and a non-intrusive cash shop.
WoW needs more QoL additions to it – not just more purplz and raids. MMOs are not a console game, it is an interactive social game, and that is what Blizzard I feel has forgotten when seeing the $$$ signs. Sitting around in Org/SW is not the best way to treat is’s customer base. Also relying on it’s popularity as it being “Warcraft” is getting old for many.
Lore issues
I know when it comes to lore, game mechanics must go beyond lore. What gets me is all the lore they tend to ignore.
Why not do more with faction leaders? Why are they stagnant figureheads….if i wanted that you could hire Waldo for that. Why are there not scenarios designed involving them more? I know there are some not feeling the PvP, but for those that are why not on PvP servers have a daily quest to kill faction leaders? (Could still be on PvE servers as well) Taking it a step further, to make sure the enemies capital is weakened (i.e guards) why not make it if the enemy faction capture certain certification on route to a city the # of guards/their str is weakened/while providing a buff to the attackers? Also design more BG with an empahsis on faction leaders, give them a chance to show their stuff.
Also with lore…why are not more things taken from lore? They are doing some things with the new 5 mans in 4.3, but why not expand upon the titans? Queen Azshara? Hell, I know we are all sick of Trolls – but what about Zandrazi or however one spells that.
As much as I am a horde at heart, where is the alliance love? Why nothing for dranei after BC??? Where is the alliance influence? Specifically on the human front…..I admit when playing the RTS I loved playing the humans. Where is the pride of the humans…why are they hiding behind the flag of SW, there are still some human nations out there, and where is the last heir to Lordaeron? Arthas’ sister? They brought back Gilneas…where are the others…. >< SW cannot expect to be the last bastion of humanity, there were so many other ones out there.
And most importantly – USE high overlord Saurfang more! He is much more badass then Garrosh. I understand the need for him, but he is nothing like what I imagined the “true” orcs from Nagrand would be. Sure they are more primitive etc, but they are not warmongering fools….
I am not for bringing back Thrall as Warchief - he did what he had to but is more of a character to bring about bigger things for Azeroth, but I am not sure Garrosh is quite right. Likewise, develop someone for the Alliance to along the lines like Thrall. Varian could have done it, but is too much like Garrosh, Jaina is too whiny, Greymane too old etc. The Alliance really needs a big personalilty that could draw the alliance together like thrall did for the horde. The alliance is too much disjointed to make a real push against the horde if all out war happened. The Alliance is too full of distrust with one another IMO, and again they do not have a shining star to say like Thrall.
Again WoW suffers from too much biasness, much like Warhammer did imo.
But enough rambling – H Rhyolith going down tonight!
I gets mounted….
Riding a large lizard is fun!
Firelands Nerfs…yes I know it has been talked to death.
Wow…
Nerfs, now this is not going to be about normal nerfs you can read about that all over the place.
But Shadow Rising is now 7/7 big mean old fire dude is “dead” onto Heroics!
Now even the Firelands Heroics have gotten about a 15% nerf, even nerfed they are a decent enough challenge still, because Normal Firelands is a zzzzzzzzz fest. (exception being rag). If you are not handling mechanics prepare to have a large repair bill!
1st Heroic tried – Shannon errrr Shannox
A few things Repgrind mentioned a few. The damage he deals is quite a bit more, but nothing that couldn’t be healed.
The issues that arose was the handling of the stacks. Each hit that rageface deals increases his damage by quite a bit, this is a the new to the heroic version of the fight. Like in normal, tanks still have to deal with jagged tear.
Borrowing an idea from Khizzara we had the raid line up much like they did and had the raid move as a whole when needed. It took 9 wipes, killed on the 10th pull, but each for the most part was improvement.
It really just took getting used to resetting stacks and having the raid move. Also important is the “rageface” kiters be on their toes. Also one thing to note, if your riplimb tank needs a breather, burn Riplimb down, by the time your raid may want to he will be at 50% around 2mil HP from 4 mil. It will allow your healers 30 seconds of not having to worry about that tank too much and 30 seconds that your tank can even help hitting Shannox lol. Having only one tank to worry about resetting jagged tear can help out a lot. Also for 30 seconds or so all the traps can be used on Rageface.
SR rules! Awesome job on Shannon. Too bad he dropped bad loot!
Then we went and facerolled Beth’tilac, Alyzrazor. We did put a few shots on heroic Rhyolith just to see how it is. To be honest it is not that bad, he is next.
But for tonight on the agenda is Heroic Baleroc and Majordomo.
Differences between normal and heroic – watch out as you can pass tormented onto other players. 2nd he can also cast countdown on 2 random people, if they do not come within 4 yds of one another – boom goes the raid. What sucks about this is the 2 people chosen and one of them has the tormented debuff and/or are soaking a crystal. Also of note, he has increased HP and still the very short 6 min enrage timer. Appears with 7 DPS – each DPS will need to average about 22.5K DPS + 6K from the tank (thanks adoe for the maths!) Looks like fun, according to Adoe….
Majordomo – I think we will try the no flame scythes and all cats strat. This will entail on all DPS avoiding as much damage as they can to keep concentration high. It seems easy on paper but having to deal with the flame orbs will be the main issue. People will need to not stack directly close/on the orb so if they have to leave from getting a leap, the fire is not on the orb, so someone can still get close and soak it.
Even nerfed, heroics can still provide some challenge, probably not as much as prenerf, but for now I will take them over the “lootship” normal firelands fights (minus rag )
4.3 thoughts
Michael Myers anyone.....
First off my beloved priests, our T13. I am not sure about it. I really like T12 so far. T13 reminds me of Holloween and mardi gras. Well with Transmog, it’s a moot point.
The bonuses for t13:
- Healer, 2P — After using Power Infusion or Lightwell, the mana cost of your healing spells is reduced by 25% for [10|15] sec. (10 sec for Discipline, 15 for non–Discipline.)
- Healer, 4P — Your Power Word: Shield has a 10% chance to absorb 100% additional damage, and the cooldown of your Holy Word abilities is reduced by 20%.
- Shadow, 2P — Shadow Word: Death deals an additional 55% damage, and you no longer take damage from your own Shadow Word: Death when the target fails to die.
- Shadow, 4P — Your Shadowfiend and Shadowy Apparitions have a 100% chance to grant you 3 Shadow Orbs each time they deal damage.
For healers: I am not sold on the 2P, especially as Holy. But it could be worse. For 4P – one word: blarg.
Shadow definitely wins out here. To be honest I would not be surprised to see it altered in some form before final release.
The changes to Holy for 4.3 are a step in the right direction – the changes to Divine Hymn and the ability to strenthen it and lessen its cooldown is quite nice. Its also nice to see they are fixing atonement to take into account large hitboxes (Beth’Tilac, and Rag made atonement useless)
The changes to Wild Growth were surprising to me.
•Wild Growth healing value has been reduced by 20%.
•Glyph of Wild Growth now also increases the cooldown on Wild Growth by 2 seconds.
Straight up nerf to druids? Why? Sure they are healing beasts, but does not make them seem OP or anything. It’s the player playing the class which makes it’s good, not the class. bad player still means bad druids.
Paladin’s also got some changes – no more mana from judging…they have to use spirit more. Why? Maybe someone can answer this, but are there low spirit paladins out there? (I know as disc i reforged a bunch of it away)
Other things that caught my eye was the new mounts.
Dancing Darkmoon bear! yes, please!
Also I know I should not have looked at it, but I could not help but look at the dungeon jounrnal preview for the new raid.
A few things caught my eye.
1.) Looks like a lot of damage sharing, so stacking…(SR we are screwed)
2.) Other mechanics where the raid may have to use the boss’ own abilities against it.
3.) Thrall as Earth Warden? not surprised really.
4.) Tyrande of the past…hawt….hopefully they will also make this her in game model. It’s quite impressive looking.
Hype……trying not to buy into it…must remain jaded!
As Lyssi knows, I am quite excited about SWTOR coming out. Well today Bioware decided to showcase and give us more info on the companions.
Pluses
1.) They have more personality then before, more customization, and romance if you are into that junk.
2.) They will level up and gain access to special companion only talents/abilities.
3.) Besides changing physical appearences you can change their armor as well now.
4.) A lot more complex and intelligent then WoW pets it appears.
Cons
1.) this an MMO, not a single player console RPG
2.) more complexity is not necessarily better
3.) this is an MMO not a solo game….
The link also has an interview with it, Bioware says the game is fully playable, start game to endgame, and they are just focusing on getting bugs out of the system….cause they want to deliver a polished game…I really hope they do, cause all the bugs in DA2 sucked, although ME2 did not have the same issues. The more I see SWTOR the more excited I am to play, however, it can still flop like many other MMOs.
P2P MMO’s are really going to raise the bar to stay viable, against giant WoW or even rival upstart Rift. Another thing against big AAA P2P MMO’s is the f2p model is really becoming more and more popular, and lets face it maybe the future of MMO’s. Look at the ressurgance in people playing games like AoC, EQ/EQ2, or LoTRO. And look at the plethora of F2P games like Atlantica Online, Guild Wars, Perfect World, and League of Legends.
If F2P going to be the furture of MMO’S? It really does seem that way. The people with the disposable income who appear to be the main audience of MMO’s now, may have been hardcore and playing for hours at a time. These people now have grown older, gotten jobs, married, kids etc, they maybe looking for something they can pickup and play and leave alone for an extended period of time. If this is the case the F2P model is the more attractive model, pay for more feature one may want and worry about a recurring fee. It seems as an audience gets older, the more casual it may become as a whole.
Hell even take WoW now…lots of more features that the casual base have cried for years…Transmog! With WoW being as old as it is, Blizzard will have to decide what they want to do with the game. They will want to add more things to keep more casual players resubbing, also they may also need to take a look at the possible conversion to a F2P model as it gets older and older. Lots of blogs and lots of forum posts show…omg wow is so boring etc etc etc, is such a grind…A prime indicator…for a break or quit.
(however, lets face it, no matter what skin a MMO has on…it’s all the same formula: kill ten rats, level up, kill more rats, get more loots, boom kill dragons, more loots, kill demons etc, get more loots. The good ol’ purple carrot trap is in place for MMOs whether we like it or not. People are inherantly greedy and want more for themselves or even their own virutal avatar. Not much can realy be done to change the MMO formula, hell even for gaming in general. It’s variations on the same grind.)
SWTOR….
OMG has a bubble….for the jedi sage….disc priest in space with lightsabers…..
The link above is for a talent calculator we all know and love. Sure things may change prior to shipping, but its cool to play around with the talents. Looking around in the Jedi Sage as a healer. there are talents here and there that look a lot like wow talents. One for example reminds me of Furor and Moonglow of the resto druid trees. There is also a disc like talent to allow for faster casting of….BUBBLES! Also a straight up more healing and dmg talent and a increase in the amt of dmg said bubble takes. Lots of AoE and HoT….so a healer with bubbles, HoTs, and AoEs…sounds likea priest
Ok I am set for SWTOR.
