The new off spec

I have recently changed my off-spec to Holy because I no longer "need" to have a shadow spec for grinding daily quests to build up my guild rep and finally getting my 2500 daily quest achievement. I had specced dual-disc for times when I wasn't able to heal effectively with Atonement, but found that I simply wasn't using the non-Atonement spec. This week and last week, I'm working nights on the progression nights so am running with the bench/alt team which already has a Disc priest so decided to give Holy another bash as I haven't tried it seriously since December 2010 just after Cataclysm launched.

My initial task was to revisit the tree and decide how I wanted to spend my talents in the Holy tree.

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As promised yesterday here are my thoughts on the new priest talents. There are still many unanswered questions and what follows is my gut reactions and hopefully I won't have dissed as perfectly good talent or praised something unjustly


Level 15: Crowd control

• Void Tendrils: Roots with a 30 second cooldown good for running away from stuff and PvP;
• Psyfiend: A pet that pyschic screams every 2 seconds another PvP focused one imho but if a glyph stops the runing away could be great in PvE too;
• Psychic Scream: the old faithful, will be sad to lose it but Psyfiend could be too useful;

Level 30: Movement Speed

• Body and Soul: Speed Bubble - great for all healers and maybe Shadow too;
• Path of the Devout: 25% speed buff while levitating. Why? Running across water will be great but can see no other benefit;
• Phantasm: 3 second run speed buff when fading, also removes movement impairing effects - a PvP talent for those that don't love speed bubble;

Level 45: Self Buffs/Utility

• From Darkness, Comes Light: 6% chance for a free flash heal or a Shadow Orb free Mind Blast - looks like a great shadow option (assuming that Mind Blast has no CD and just requires a Shadow Orb). A waste for any healer;
• Divine Star: A boomerang version of Holy Nova, could be useful when you know you're going to be incapacitated and maybe PvP;
• Archangel: Healing/DPS boost-Looks like the clear cut winner to me and a great boost to Holy priests, I wonder if Atonement will work for them too?;

Level 60: Saving Thine Own Ass

• Desperate Prayer: 30% self heal always nice even for Shadow priests;
• Angelic Bulwark: 30% stronger self shield - could be sweet when levelling not sure on its raiding utility unless we going to see lots of ICC type aura damage;
• Final Prayer: 20% HP auto shield when you HP drops below 30% with 90 second CD. Will it stop a death if the blow takes you from 31% to death? Could be useful for all and maybe more powerful the Desperate Prayer especially for Shadow priests;

Level 75: More Self Buffs

• Twist of Fate: Improved healing on targets at 25% HP or less - they should get that low but useful when they do. My thoughts are this is more PvP than PvE;
• Power Infusion: Haste and mana cost reduction for the target, my money is this will be the best for all flavours of priest;
• Serendipity/Mind Melt: Haste and mana cost reduction for healers and faster (including instacast) Mind Blast for Shadow. a great choice for healers and a good one for shadow;

Level 90: Cross Healing

• Vow of Unity: A cross between Beacon of Light and Hand of Sacrifice the pallies have a useful option but maybe too risky;
• Void Shift: Swap health with your target a great choice for that tank/flag carrier who is about to die and taking a beating while you're at full HP and have no incoming damage;
• Vampiric Dominance: 15% heals to 3 nearby players. If this is in addition to Vampiric Embrace Shadow Priests are going to be even more useful but it looks like a great talent choice for healers especially in 5/10 man groups;

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Must admit I haven't planned this post so apologies in advance for the ramble....

Well we got Pandas.Mists of Pandaria will be the next expansion. I love that and am now praying that Blizz give us at least 1 more slot on the character selection screen cos I already have my 10 character slots filled with 1 of each class all at a level where I'll not be deleting 1 (although if pushed I probably would evict one to get a Pandaren Monk on the roster. Am really surprised they don't get druids as a class option though as it seems a really good fit for the race. Warriors, hunters, rogues (a bizarre choice but hey), priests, shaman, mages and of course monks are the classes so far.

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Hot on the heals (see what I did there?) of the Holy Priest 101, I bring to you the guide to being a Discipline priest, OK finally may have worked better I admit). Once again I shall guide you through the talents, tier by tier and by the end of it you will be armed with the knowledge to allow you to make an informed choice on which of the 2 healing methods suits your style of play best.
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I have been asked a few times recently on how I play the priest class, the talents I chose, the gear I pick, the gems and enchants I use. While there is no perfect answer there are a few simple rules that I use to help me be the 2nd greatest priest you know. Today I'm going to cover the first phase of making sure I end up 3rd on your list, that is your talent choices.

Right, you rolled a priest and got it to level 10, the UI is now shouting loudly at you that you must pick talents. This is your first real choice as a priest and one that we all know you're hovering your cursor over on the far right side ready to click shadow, and sure that is a real good DPS spec for levelling, but you know that no one likes a shadow priest as much as they like a healing one so resist that urge, Shadow can come at level 30 when you get dual specs. You need to feel the joy of levelling as a healer and really the first 20 levels will be so fast and easy there is no excuse not to do the healer thing 1st.

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Just go my first really detailed look at the list of changes for the next patch and what a lot of changes there are. One thing is for sure, we're going to have to relearn how to manage our mana all over again just as we did when 4.0.3 and Cataclysm came.

The list of changes doesn't just affect us priests though, all of our friends are getting the same treatment too. Did Blizz get it wrong? Did those beta testers actually do any testing? Well I think the answers there are no and yes but still the changes coming in are really needed but were probably not going to get pickedup on a small scale test as Blizz perform in-house (small is relative here their testing team is nothing compared to 12 million players) and the beta testers were testing so many things that were ever changing that somethings were miss diagnosed or just not discovered.
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