So let’s preface this by saying that I am not one of those crazy theorycrafting math priests, with the charts and the knowhow. I mean, good on those guys, because I rely on them to help me figure out what I’m doing. However, what I am is someone who has played a holy priest for five years. I like to think over that time I’ve developed a pretty good gut feel for holy spec and the class in general.

Anyway, Cataclysm notes! Let’s begin.

Introduced at a low level, the “new” Heal spell will functionally work much like a down-ranked Greater Heal did in the past, adding more granularity to your direct-healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an issue (making Flash Heal the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to use.

Amusingly enough, I was discussing potential class notes earlier this week with my friend Thae the Cranky Resto Shaman and he joked that they would just give us a whole bunch of “medium” spells. “Priests clearly need more spells to choose from at any given moment! If you roll a priest, Blizz will send you a keyboard attachment to hold your extra bindings!” From his mouth to Blizzard’s ears, apparently.

I actually really like the fact that priests have a ton of options. I have six different healing spells alone that are important enough to be bound on my N52 keypad, and I certainly would prefer to have a ton of options than, say, play a paladin. (Oh, burn. Yeah, you heard me, Sema.) However, with THREE different levels of straight up heals.. something is going to fall by the wayside. My prediction is that Greater Heal will become even less used than it is now.

Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you can’t have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner Will should be useful on a more situational basis.

Increased movement speed… and reduced cost of instants. I see. I am reminded of a recent trip to Mexico, when I ordered onion rings and they were served with a side dish of mayo. Sometimes things just aren’t meant to go together.

I am currently specced into Body and Soul, so I can appreciate a judicious application of run speed, but in a self-buff? Coupled with cheap instant spells? Is this a PVP thing?

Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or “Life Grip”) is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can’t seem to get out of the fire in time.

Life. Grip. As god is my witness, I have no idea what to think about this. Well, okay, what I think is that I’ll be able to annoy the hell out of my guild. Oh, friends, the griefing possibilities. My eyes well up in joy just contemplating the chaos. That line about moving slow DPS around makes me nervous, though. I can hear the puggies now: “omg healer let me stand in goo until i slowly died!!!!!”

There are so many details I need to hear before I can decide on this. Will being gripped interrupt the party member’s cast? Does it reduce or remove aggro? Can it be used in Shadow Form? It would have to be a pretty unique circumstance during a raid boss for me to want to revoke a teammates control over their character for a couple of seconds.

I just don’t know. It sounds shiny. It will probably be useless.

All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately. Hasted HoTs and DoTs will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks (meaning they will gain extra ticks to fill in the duration as appropriate).

This is the best part of the whole preview, for me.

Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.

I think this is the Disc version of the HoTs update. This seems like a Big Deal. (And also the second priest version of a death knight ability in these notes.)

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.

Oh, I like this one too! Mea Culpa to Ghostcrawler — Serendipity turned out to be a really fun and useful mechanic, and these sound similar in nature. I’m also intrigued by the flexibility of the buff, which would potentially suit an array of Holy Priest styles. Just give the “empowered state” a fancy graphic, and we’ve got something like the much vaunted Holy Form that healy priests have been making puppy dog eyes about for years.

We’re also going to cut back on the benefits of buffs such as Replenishment so priests (and all healers) don’t feel as penalized when those buffs aren’t available.

I just included this line because I was vastly amused by the phrasing. Blizzard is going to take away our own mana regen buff as FAVOR to us so we don’t get all overwhelmed. I am actually kind of looking forward to seeing what they do with mana management, but this bit still made me chuckle.

I try not to count my patchnote chickens before they hatch, but I’m pretty satisfied with this preview. Let’s see what actually makes retail!

Cataclysm, Healing patch, priest

Right before 3.3 hit, I knew it was going to be an exciting patch. There was a whole new raid instance! And new recipes, a new legendary, new crafting orbs, three new heroics, and a new faction. Oh, and some change to the Looking For Group interface, but whatever, pug runs are stupid.

So here we are, a week after launch, and I have to admit that my 3.3 fangirling was right on the mark. Everything is fun and exciting! What I didn’t expect was becoming such a Looking For Dungeon addict.

I cannot say enough about this new system on a few different levels. As a guild leader, I love seeing lots of people on being active, and now in between raids you can look at the guild list and see people running everything, all over the place. Two or three guildies wanna group up? No problem. There’s no more “Oh, sorry, I ran that already,” and alts are suddenly really popular. I’ve even had a few people return to playing simply because they love being able to run a heroic any time their heart desires.

On a personal, player level, I have really enjoyed all my groups. Some of them were with excellent players, like the time I cleared Halls of Lightning in a fraction of the usual time (props to you mad chainpulling tanks!). Some of them were with barely adequate players. One of them was a heroic Nexus where I was not only the healer but also second highest DPS, and it was a BLAST. Granted, it was with a really good pug tank who didn’t need much looking after, but being a battle priest was probably the most fun I’ve ever had in Nexus, if not in recent heroic memory.

I even had the stereotypical dumb DK in one group, who announced halfway through that he was leveling his unarmed skill. I replied that I was going to start leveling my “unhealed” skill. The rest of the group chuckled.

Each LFG heroic is an adventure. Where are we going? What kind of tank will I have? Will the DPS be any good? Will people talk or be silent? Will they have silly names that I can ask about? (Favorite so far: a DK named Schmarthas.)

Before 3.3 my resistance to pugs was pretty well known by the guild. And I was happy that way! But suddenly I have become a Liore of the People, with badges and gold and titles and adorable puppies and alt gear and good stories.

So bravo, Blizz. I would never have asked for this feature, but now that it’s here I cannot get enough of it.

Technical Issues, WotLK LFG, patch

So 3.2 is here, probably a little earlier than we anticipated, and it is still making me cranky. (Cranky enough to not blog, but not cranky enough to stop playing!) Allow me to summarize:

GOOD

• Oracle pet!
• Adorable raptor pets with giant heads!
• New dailies!
• Raid timer extensions!

BAD

• Too many raid settings. Four different versions of Wyrms is not actually four different bosses.
• Three different types of T9. Some need badges. Some need general tokens. Some need class specific tokens. Some need tokens AND badges. I need a flowchart.
• The armor is still ugly. If you’re going to make all clothies wear the same style of gear, at least give us a rad menacing warlock design!

I kind of know what Blizz was doing, at least in part, and I appreciate that new recruits will be able to gear up faster now on their own and get to T8/T9 readiness without us having to run them through Naxx. Still, as one of my guildies said on patch day, the fact that you get three Conquest tokens from three bosses in the new 5-man really devalues the badges we’ve gotten so far in 25-man Ulduar (25 man regular, not 25 man Heroic hahahahahah oh man where am I).

Oh, and the bugs have been outstanding, although that’s to be expected with a patch and doesn’t really bother me. Our server was dead for most of patch day, and last night in Ulduar we had the awesome quintuple bots bug on XT. I’m not sure if everyone found them so amusing, but the sight of an ocean of bots swarming towards us — and the associated cries of panic on Vent — kept me giggling for the next hour. Never have I wished so badly to be DPS and on Mind Sear duty.

Anyway, on the guild front we have been toying with P3 of Yogg, and with the raid timer extension I feel pretty confident that we’ll get him down by next weekend. Then I think we’ll focus on hardmodes and dabble a bit in the new Colosseum. I admit my 21 shards and I selfishly hope the guild spirit is still up to learning Three Lights in the Darkness.

I suppose I can’t really complain too much. Summer doldrums are over, there’s some new content to be had, and I have bets with friends over which one of us will be asked to leave Blizzcon first. And, hey, at least T9 won’t make me look like a paladin.

Raiding Ruminations, Technical Issues, WotLK Colosseum, gear, patch, raiding, Ulduar

Look, I try to be nice and not complain about stuff too much, particularly stuff on the PTR. But the Tier 9 graphics.. in all sincerity, this pushes me to flip out in despair more than anything else I’ve ever seen. All armor classes look alike.

I am going to look just like a mage and a warlock. In our raid of nine different classes, there will be 4 different armor designs. Is this supposed to make us excited? I remember getting my Prophecy Robes in MC and feeling like a “real priest”. Even before the arrival of TBC I yearned for the T5 wings, and I admit my eyes watered a bit when I finally got them. T6 had the hood and shoulders of justice, and currently Liore is strutting around in a T8 ninja mask, which is entirely pleasing.

Call me vain, call me shallow, but I like Liore to look good. And this.. this is not good.

And don’t give me that lame RP excuse nonsense that, “we’re in an army now, we have uniforms”. First, nice decision to suddenly plead realism as we JOUST our way to Arthas. Secondly, I have to spend enough time looking like everyone else in real life as part of the office worker army, thanks. I really don’t care to do that in a game. And finally.. Liore the elf character is an anti-authoritarian fabulously sassy priest, and she doesn’t wanna wear a uniform. Yeah, take that RP excuse.

You know what? I’m feeling stubborn and reactionary this morning, but I’m not doing it. I’m not going to take any T9, if I even go to the Colosseum at all. Hopefully there will be offset gear, and if there’s not then I’ll just heal the whole damn thing in my Ulduar gear, and I’ll still rock. I. Am not. A mage. I’m not even a caster! And I won’t even get started on how my DK friend feels about looking like a PALADIN. It’s not pretty.

3.2 in general is just making me nuts, although I’m trying to not think about it too much while everything is still in flux on the PTR. Why are they bringing out another raid instance so soon? It feels cheap and rushed, with us locked in a big empty room with a big empty monster, wearing identical clothes. (And yes, I know the spoiler for the end of the instance, but still.) Oh, and more priest nerfs. And multiple overcomplications of the raid lockout system.

Really, really not impressed.

/rant

Raiding Ruminations, Random, WotLK gear, patch, priest, rants

In the week since 3.1 was released I’ve been focused on getting the guild pumped up, leading raids, learning new bosses, figuring out dual specs, and recruiting, not to mention the new fishing daily and Argent Tournament quests. In fact, it was only today that I sat down with the Armory, Elitist Jerks, and a pen and decided that it was time to work out exactly what happened to holy priests with this patch and what I was going to do about it.

A couple of months ago I wrote about how my mana regen in mostly Naxx-25 gear was kind of silly. And it was! There was little consideration for regen mechanics, and mana pots were some archaic concept that we joked about in the healer channel. Fortunately — and unfortunately — Blizz was paying attention to that, and nerfed the 5 second rule into oblivion. My o5sr regen was decreased by 40%, and, oh man, do I feel every single percent. Ideally this will get better with Ulduar gear, but for now it’s back to mana pots, mana flasks, and any other tricks. Another interesting effect of the change is that I feel quite lost without a source of replenishment. Whether it’s heroics or just farming old instances for mounts, all this Int isn’t doing me a whole ton of good without a shadow priest or ret pally or someone similar around.

Along with the changes to mana regen came changes to our spells and talents. I’ve said before that one of the great joys of playing a holy priest is all the options we have in our toolkit, and I’m exceedingly pleased to see that pattern continue in 3.1. Prayer of Healing is targetable, Renew is vastly improved, and wonders of wonders, I actually have Divine Hymn on my hotbar. There are a few different play styles available to holy priests now, and the talents to suit it.

I was always an unrepentant Renew spammer in Vanilla and TBC raids, and I missed that in WotLK. (Renew was grossly inefficient and just not quick enough to be worth it after 3.0.) I quite happily sunk six points now into Renew and Empowered Renew, and use it much as I suspect a Discipline priest would use shields — bored? throw some Renews around! Prayer of Healing has become pretty outstanding, although I admit I’m still training my brain and my fingers to use it as often and as correctly as I should. And I was never one to fuss too much with the o5sr tricks (Clearcast! Inner Focus! Trinkets! Surge of Light!), but I am entirely diggin’ the new Serendipity. Weaving Flash Heals and Prayer of Healing has already proven to be very nice, and will only get better the more I get used to it.

So what of Greater Heal, our eternal staple of heals? If your healing style includes GHeals, then it’s supported by both the old and new talents. If it doesn’t, though.. now, since 3.1, you can free yourself from all your old talent point ways! Let go of Divine Fury, or say goodbye to Improved Healing. The new math even shows that Empowered Healing is not as essential as it once was, depending on what spells you usually use. (Remember, if you want to tank heal, you should probably go Disc and do it right. Holy priests are for raid healing now.)

Tonight I’m going to respec to something like this, if not exactly that. I’ve given up Inner Focus, Improved Healing and Empowered Healing in favor of Healing Focus, Body and Soul, Test of Faith, and most of Blessed Resilience (for the healing bonus, not the damage reduction, natch). It’s a very, very, very “raid healing”-oriented spec, with bonuses for Renew, PoH, CoH, and PoM, and reductions to GHeal and Flash Heal. I’m a little concerned about giving up Inner Focus and not 100% convinced about the usefulness of Body and Soul, although the brainiacs over at EJ say it’s a good choice.

We’ll have to see how it plays in Ulduar, but I’m initially pretty intrigued. Ghostcrawler promised a long time ago that healing Priests would be made more interesting to play in 3.1, and by golly he may just have been right.

Healing, WotLK patch, priest