Relearning Mana Management...again

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.

So the official patch notes show that for us priests there are the following changes (highlighted in blue text, with my commentary followiing each piece is normal boring old black and white):

• General

• The duration of Levitate has been increased to 10 minutes, up from 2.
  Seriously? Why I have no idea but it is going to make my fishing on water a lot easier.
• The mana cost of Power Word: Fortitude has been reduced by approximately 68%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• The mana cost of Shadow Protection has been reduced by approximately 65%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
  OK these are better, it will make buffing up the combat rezzed person less mana draing and also for helping out Duane who just realised he was late entering the instance after the last wipe and missed the buffing session.
• The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%.
  OMG nerf! But wait hang on....31% mana for more than double the benefit? Sweet I approve, it stops the boring bubble spamming of ICC but gives our bubbles moar power and don't forget that mastery will affect this power too 10% more of 208% is a huge win and then there is the 20% insta heal from the Glyph.
• Prayer of Healing effectiveness has been reduced by 15%.
  This one is a loss, but it is only a small amount but the HPM could make it less viable than it is now.
• The mana cost of Renew has been reduced by 24%.
  Short and simple and very powerful for our mana too, particularly when playing Holy.
• Mind Blast now does 18% more damage than Mind Spike.
  Another simple upgrade, and to the Shadow Priests primary nuke, always a good sight to see buffs like this.
• Mind Control now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
  Not a regular participant to the PVP arena, but as a victim of Mind Control its good to see it reduced, it does mean though that walking people off of the mountain at the Lumber Mill in Arathi Basin will need to be done very quickly.
• Mind Sear can now be channeled on friendly targets in addition to enemy targets. In addition, Mind Sear's damage has been increased by roughly 15%. 
  For me this is making the spell how it always should have been. It was painful to see your selected target be killed before you had finished the channel. Now its hit the tank with it and all will die.

• Talent Specializations
  

  • Discipline
    

    • Divine Aegis: Critical effects from Prayer of Healing now award a bonus amount in addition to the default, always-proc Divine Aegis effect.
      This is awesome too, extra bubbles and more benefit from the Discipline mastery
    • Grace is no longer limited to one target at a time.
      Another powerful upgrade. Now if Grace is applied through Atonement this can be a huge buff.
    • Improved Power Word: Shield now also increases the amount absorbed by an additional 15/30% when cast on oneself.
      More focused towards PVP and questing, but in PVE I'll gladly take it as it can save you global wasted on a heal spell.
    • Focused Will now procs when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.
      A PVP talent again but for those situations when Resilience fails you this will help a little.
    • Pain Suppression is no longer dispellable.
      Yet another PVP buff but a valuable one all the same.
    • Penance mana cost has been increased by 7%, but healing has been increased by 20%.
      Much like the PW:Shield change he small increase in mana cost is more than offset by the increase to its potency increase.
    • Strength of Soul now occurs when the priest casts Inner Focus on oneself, rather than Power Word: Shield. In addition, Strength of Soul now also causes the priest to become immune to silence, interrupt, and dispel effects for 2/4 seconds after using Inner Focus.
      This change confuses me. I thought that the Strength of Soul talent reduced the time the Weakened Soul debuff was on your target when you cast a heal on that target not when you cast a PW:Shield on yourself. That said, the immunity to silence/interrupt is useful in PVP but other than that I'm not sure if Strength of Soul is still worth spending 1/2 talents on.Will really need more clarification on what we are getting here. 
  • Holy
    

    • Chakra
      

      • Blessed Resilience will now proc when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect. 
        Much like Focused Will in the Disc section, this is a PVP survivability talent. In PVE it is pretty useless
      • Chakra states now last 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.
        This is great, a big buff meaning that the frequency you need to apply the Chakra is halved meaning you can remain in your preferred chakra state between trash pulls or during regen phases of fights like Magmaw. However, if you're casting the wrong heals to benefit the chakra state you still need to be switching states. 
      • Binding Heal and Holy Word: Serenity now refresh the duration of Renew on the target, in addition to the other direct heals.
      • Binding Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal can now trigger Chakra: Serenity.
        This is a good sensible change not a game breaker I agree but one that puts us in the right state at the earliest opportunity.
      • Mind Spike can now trigger Chakra: Chastise.
        A good change for our damage output but I'm not sure if this really solved issues people are experiencing or not. Chakra is too far down the Holy tree for this to affect Shadow Priests mainly aimed for PVP and questing ease I assume.
    • Circle of Healing effectiveness has been increased by 30%.
      Awesome, the Holy signature spell just got a great big buff I await the nerfbat on it soon.
    • Desperate Prayer now heals the priest for 30% of their total health, up from a very subpar value.
      Not sure that this will make the talent worthy of a spot or not maybe I'll play with the talent trees a bit to make a finl jusdgement but I have Binding Heal and am not afraid to use it.
    • Guardian Spirit: The absorb/heal from this ability can now never exceed 200% of the maximum health of the target.
      A bit of a nerf but if my target is taking over 300k in a hit I'm sure they are doing something wrong and probably deserve to die anyway. We can't heal through stupid...
    • Holy Concentration now increases the amount of mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by an additional 15/30%, down from 20/40%.
      A 10% nerf to spirit regen? I'm hoping the mana reduction mentioned elsewhere will more than offset this or else us priests are going to struggle for mana again.
    • Holy Word: Chastise now has a 30-second cooldown, up from 25. In addition, it properly breaks from damage.
      Another minor nerf but nothing too major as it is only a 3 second stun anyway.
    • Lightwell's health has been increased by 50% (for PvP purposes).
      Another minor change. I can only assume that it was getting killed too easy in PVP. In PVE mobs ignore it.
    • Serendipity now has Spell Alert and Floating Combat Text feedback support.
      Nice change, hopefully not too in your face graphically, I am predicting a power auras like self configurable interface coming soon.
    • Surge of Light can now also proc from Flash Heal and Greater Heal, and can now also critically hit.
      Not a talent I take because of the shocking proc rate on it. More procs will make this better not more spells that trigger it.
  • Shadow
    

    • Shadow Orbs' benefit from mastery has been increased by approximately 16%.
      A pure and simple damage buff based on matery. Who could object to it?
    • Vampiric Embrace now lasts until cancelled.
      Another simple but effective change that means most poeple will lose it when they respec. May as well just make it a passive ability.
• Glyphs
  

  • Glyph of Mind Flay no longer requires Shadow Word: Pain to be on the target.
    A small change that allows our shadowy brethren to mess around with their rotations a bit but as MF has a chance to refreshes the duration of SW:Pain it really is just for openers on boss fights and upping DPS on trash packs.
  • Glyph of Pain Suppression has been renamed Glyph of Desperation and now allows Guardian Spirit to be cast while stunned, in addition to Pain Suppression.
    Another minor change that simply levels the playing field between disc and holy in PVP.
  • Glyph of Psychic Horror now reduces the cooldown of Psychic Horror by 30 seconds, down from 60.
    PVP nerf I have never taken the talent and never found the use for the glyph in PVE.
  • Glyph of Spirit of Redemption has been converted into Glyph of Prayer of Mending, which increases the healing done by the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 60%. 
    Losing this glyph is nasty, but the one we gain is much more productive and overall a buff. Sure Holy priests now have 6 seconds less to wina fight when dead. Staying alive is the answer!