After a long wait...

The priest changes for Cataclysm have finally arrived! Here are some thoughts on the new info.

New spells:

Heal (available at level 16): I'd guessed a while ago that they'd be revamping priests' single target heals. With Lesser Heal and Heal both becoming useless (and slowly, Greater Heal went in the same direction), the spell book (and priest healing design) was just messy. Tying this in with all the changes to mana regen across the healing-board, I can see this helping with the competition priests were facing against other healers for direct, single-target spells (cough, Paladins). This is similar to what they're doing with shamans' new healing wave, announced earlier today.

Mind Spike (level 81): I was taken aback when I first read the description of how this spell is intended to be used. They want priests to repeatedly cast the same spell, forgoing their rotation? But understanding that it's for situational use, I can see how it helps. Shadow priests need to build up their damage, which means doing any decent damage on trash is a pain. So this will help boost shadow priests' overall dps. I like that they also tied in frost damage, so shadow priests now have something to cast when locked out of the shadow spell school. Two in one.

Inner Will (level 83): Yum, more utility! And this spell is pretty unique. It's another self-buff, like Inner Fire -- you must choose between them now. However, Inner Will seems much more situational than Inner Fire is. Having higher spell power for all spells trumps run speed and lower-cost instant spells when you don't need to move. But for when you do need to heal on the move*, this will be a great addition, not to mention awesome for PvP, if that's how you roll.

Leap of Faith (level 85): This is amazing. Oh my gosh. This idea was being discussed in the priest forums just earlier tonight in a "if you could have any ability..." thread. (Leaked info? Who knows.) Being able to save a friendly player from damage, and preventing from having to heal them? Such a cool idea. Sorry, all I can do is marvel at the moment, it's just so brilliant. There have been so many times where I've wished I could move a player from something dangerous, knowing they were in a bad spot, and having to resort to healing them through their ignorance. Though this rewards players for being lazy... at least it will interrupt their casting to teach them a lesson (thanks for pointing this out, Lym of Bronzebeard!). If they don't want to lose out on their DPS... they'll learn not to stand in the fire. One can hope.

Changes to abilities and mechanics:

• HoTs and DoTs benefiting from crit and haste (but not shortening the duration, just increasing ticks) will be a great addition.
• "We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an "execute" -- something you do when the target is at 25% health." Great! Now our resident shadow priest will have less opportunity to nearly kill himself from SW: Death crits! :) (at least back in BC days)
• "While we want to keep the priest's role as a well-rounded healer"... lulz. Anyone else feel like this may be utterly lost? At least they're trying to find ways to make priests well-rounded again, focusing first on letting us tank heal again, with possibilities such as larger shields for Discipline, and fixing Greater Heal.
• "We are, however, getting rid of the five-second rule, because we don't want to encourage standing around doing nothing." This is interesting. With the assumption that they're fixing mana regen (and having too much) across the board, I'm guessing we miss this.

New talents and talent changes:

• "We want to improve Discipline's single-target healing capacity. One key is to make sure shielding isn't always a more attractive option than healing." An interesting gesture. I'd like to see how they balance this.
• "We want to improve Holy for PvP healing. One way to do this is to make sure that Heal's throughput is similar between both specs." I would love to PvP with a holy spec, as much as I love discipline too. I think there's real potential for holy PvP, the tree would just need a little more PvP love.
• "We want to improve Shadow for short fights and reduce its susceptibility to school lockouts." Sounds like they have more than just Mind Spike spiking their minds.** But this spell is already a good start.
• "Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield." Been a long time coming.
• "We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent will push the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies depending on the heals cast." I'm wary about this one.... I'm all for making Holy more interesting to play. However, this feels like a recycled Serendipity. Don't get me wrong, Serendipity is cool. I like having a faster Prayer of Healing. But right now, it's a bit of a joke; basically it's okay to overheal with a few unneeded flash heals to get the increased speed effect for Prayer of Healing. To me, this shows that the problem is too much mana and not enough speed. Promoting overhealing shouldn't be okay. All that said, this situation will probably be very different once all of the mana regen changes are implemented (as in, not having the mana to waste). And who knows, since each 3-cast spell will have its own unique buff, it may not turn into the same situation. I can just see that this "new Serendipity" could be abused in the same way as the current one.
• Shadow Orbs mechanic: Destroying the orbs would increase your shadow damage with certain spells. Apparently this idea is similar to the old Troll priest racial ability from way back when, or at least the animation of it... I'm not quite sure what the racial was.
• "Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gear themselves around a Hit cap that isn't variable depending on group composition." Good. Because this reminds me of when people rely on having a Draenei in their group for raids. I hate that. Suck it up and gem/enchant your hit!***

Hope you guys enjoyed the read and all the juicy new priest info! Comment with your thoughts. :)

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*I was itching for a run speed increase on my priest, which is why I got the rocket boot enchant. I love it. Useful in so many ICC situations (Putricide's slimes, anyone? Need to run to one of Valithria's dream portals?).
**Sorry, I love terrible puns.
*** Another pet peeve surfacing. Am I unreasonable on this point? How does everyone else feel about relying on Heroic Presence?