4.0 Cata Priest Spell & Talent Ideas XDFollow

Hey there!

This epic thread intends to list some ideas to changing the structure of the priest. I admit my ideas are more biased for pvp purposes but i've still tried to incorporate changes for pve as well. Hope you enjoy reading it (or not XD) and please comment on what you felt were good ideas, bads or any changes you’d like to see. If you dislike anything or want to see a change please make sure you’re specific and explain WHY so that I’ll have some idea on how to fix it ^^

For a visual representation of the changed structure of each talent tree I used: www.war-tools.com/t71442.html (Note: You might want to read this thread first to understand the revised priest spell names.) I have made significant rearrangements to talent positions in order to improve the leveling process.



The priest has two healing schools (Discipline and Holy) and one damage school (Shadow). The priest may learn a new spell every odd level and gains a talent point every even level from 10 to 80 and then all levels from 81-85 (maximum of 41 talent points at level 85).

At level 1, the priest gets the following passive abilities:
• Weapon Skills: one-handed maces, daggers, staves and wands
• Armour Skills: cloth only

The priest must also select one school of focus from the 3 available talent trees. Each tree provides access to different passive and active abilities which will greatly affect the priest’s capabilities as they level. Furthermore, each tree provides different starting benefits:

Discipline
• Active Spell – Penance
• Enlightenment (+15% to intellect)
• Meditation (50% mana regeneration from spirit while casting)
• Mastery – Soul Affinity (Increases the amount healed from all direct healing spells by 10% on targets affected by Weakened Soul; increases by an additional 1.25% per point of mastery rating).

The discipline tree mastery now only accounts for 2 spells (PW: Shield and Divine Aegis) whereas all other healer masteries benefit the majority of their healing spells (mainly direct heals). Now from a PvP perspective, both of these buffs can be dispelled or worse stolen by a mage. What use is this mastery if you can't even benefit from it or your enemy is benefiting from it? Further, unlike most base healing spells which have no cooldown, you can't spam a PW: Shield on the same target. You only get one chance to make use of the mastery bonus until up to another 15 sec passes by (Div aegis relying solely on a crit – you prob won’t use Mass Heal/Prayer of Healing as much in pvp).

'Soul Affinity' provides around-the-clock extra healing given you have the 'Weakened Soul' debuff which can't be dispelled. So once your shield falls through (by damage or dispel) you can still rely partly on your mastery to help pull through better heals. This mastery would also directly benefit your Divine Aegis shields as well since they absorb for up to 30% of the amount healed; thus, so long as your target/s have the Weakened Soul debuff then not only will they receive a bigger direct heal but also a bigger absorb shield if the heal critically hits (or if you simply cast Prayer of Healing/Mass Heal). I know that Disc is supposed to be about damage mitigation so this mastery still plays off the idea that you need to cast PW: Shield and have the Weakened Soul debuff on the target for your spells to benefit from mastery. Please comment on this idea ^^.

Holy
• Active Spell – Holy Word: Chastise
• Spiritual Healing (+15% to healing)
• Meditation (50% mana regeneration from spirit while casting)
• Mastery – Echo of Light (direct healing spells add a HoT buff which provides 10% additional healing over 6 sec; increases by an additional 1.25% per point of mastery rating).

Shadow
• Active Spell – Mind Flay
• Shadow Power (+25% to spell damage and +100% to critical shadow spell damage)
• Shadow Orbs (You have a 10% chance for your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Flay spells to grant you a Shadow Orb each time they deal damage. Casting your Mind Blast or Mind Spike spell consumes all Shadow Orbs, increasing damage of that spell by 10% per Shadow Orb, and granting 10% increased damage on your periodic Shadow spells for 15 sec. You can have up to a maximum of 3 orbs.)
• Mastery – Shadow Orb Power (Increases the amount of damage added from your shadow orbs by 11.6%; increases by an additional 1.5% per point of mastery rating.)

I feel the current Spriest mastery is a good mechanic but just needs to play off more Shadow talents. I provide afew suggestions further into this thread.



Spell Progression List

Note: I have rearranged the order in which priests learn spells as they level. This is to ensure you will always alternate with a new spell or talent point every time you level.

Level 1 – Smite

Level 3 – Flash Heal

Level 5 – Shadow Word: Pain

Level 7 – Power Word: Shield

Level 9 – Holy Word: Renew (Renew) *name changed – More Holy Word spells will become base priest spells. My goal is to balance the number of Power, Holy and Shadow word spells in each school of focus.*

Level 11 – Mind Blast

Level 13 – Inner Fire

Level 15 – Resurrection

Level 17 – Fade

Level 19 – Shadow Word: Death

Level 21 – Power Word: Fortitude

Level 23 – Heal

Level 25 – Holy Fire

Level 27 – Dispel Magic

Level 29 – Shadow Word: Fear (Psychic Scream) *name changed – I thought this sounded better and seems more straightforward (Psychic Horror has been changed as well).*

Level 31 – Devouring Plague

Level 33 – Cure Disease

Level 35 – Levitate

Level 37 – Shackle Undead

Level 39 – Greater Heal

Level 41 – Mind Spike *This spell has been shifted down to allow levelling shadow priests to benefit from the talent Mind Melt when they reach tier 5.*

Level 43 – Mind Soothe

Level 45 – Mass Heal (Prayer of Healing) *name changed – sounds more straightforward/self explanatory.*

Level 47 – Mental Domination (Mind Control) *name changed – there’s too many spells starting with ‘mind’.*

Level 49 – Mana Burn

Level 51 – Mysticism: +5% to intellect (passive)

Level 53 – Binding Heal

Level 55 – Mind Vision

Level 57 – Holy Nova

Level 59 – Shadow Protection

Level 61 – Fear Ward

Level 63 – Summon Shadowfiend (Shadowfiend) *name changed – felt it needed a verb ^^*

Level 65 – Holy Word: Aspire (Prayer of Mending) *name changed – how can a prayer be instant cast?*

Level 67 – Mass Dispel

Level 69 – Prayer of Hope (Hymn of Hope) *name changed – never liked the whole idea of priests singing hymns in battle.*

Level 71 – Circle of Fate (Mind Sear) *name changed – Infuses the target with shadow energy dealing x shadow damage every sec for 5 sec to all enemies within 10 yards of the target. Again too many spells starting with ‘mind’.*

Level 73 – Holy Word: Sanctuary *base spell; no longer talent – This gives discipline priests another ranged AoE heal for raiding in addition to Mass Heal.*

Level 75 – Power Word: Haste (Power Infusion) *name changed and made a base priest spell; no longer talent – this will add another Power Word spell to the collection and sounds more straightforward. Making this a base priest spell will also provide priests with a base, non-channeled CD for tricky situations. The spell now only increases spell haste by 15% and mana reduction by 15% for 12 sec and I have increased the cooldown to 3 min with disc talents able to reduce it back to the original 2 min. It also means a burst cooldown for shadow priests ^^ - but again it can be dispelled.*

Level 77 – Shadow Word: Silence *base spell; no longer talent – healers need another base crowd control ability for pvp especially since fear is much harder to use against spellcasters who usually keep at range. Unlike fears and stuns which affect both spellcasters and melee attackers, Silence is a more situational CC spell. Fear protects against melee attackers and silence against ranged. I have increased the cooldown up to 1 min with shadow speced priests able to reduce it back down to the original 45 sec.*

Level 79 – Prayer of Divinity (Divine Hymn) *name changed*

Level 80 – Mastery: the priest may now benefit from mastery stats on gear.

Level 81 – Inner Will

Level 83 – No additional spell but you get a talent point ;)

Level 85 – Leap of Faith



Summary of Spells/School (Total of 41 Spells – 3 additional spells added as base)

Discipline (11 Spells)
• Power Word: Haste
• Power Word: Shield
• Power Word: Fortitude
• Inner Fire
• Inner Will
• Dispel Magic
• Mass Dispel
• Shackle Undead
• Fear Ward
• Levitate
• Mana Burn

Holy (16 Spells)
• Holy Word: Sanctuary
• Holy Word: Renew
• Holy Word: Aspire
• Flash Heal
• Heal
• Greater Heal
• Mass Heal
• Binding Heal
• Smite
• Holy Fire
• Holy Nova
• Cure Disease
• Resurrection
• Prayer of Hope
• Prayer of Divinity
• Leap of Faith

Shadow (14 Spells)
• Shadow Word: Silence
• Shadow Word: Pain
• Shadow Word: Death
• Shadow Word: Fear
• Mind Blast
• Mind Spike
• Mind Vision
• Mind Soothe
• Devouring Plague
• Circle of Fate
• Fade
• Shadow Protection
• Mental Domination
• Summon Shadowfiend


I realise that with all the name changes, there might be alot of initial confusion but players will adapt to the new names/spells given time. WoW Websites & Forums can be updated to help players identify what their new spells do. I also admit my name changes aren’t really necessary but made purely for aesthetics but you must still agree that aesthetics are an important part of the game. How many female BE's do you see running around these days? ^^


Some of my goals in name changing were:

- each tree having equalish numbers of base Word Spells (a unique naming synergy no other class has):
Power Word: Shield, Fortitude, Haste, Barrier - if talented
Holy Word: Renew, Aspire, Sanctuary, Chastise - if talented
Shadow Word: Pain, Death, Fear, Silence, Horror - if talented

- currently there are 7 shadow spells starting with 'Mind' (Mind: Flay, Blast, Spike, Vision, Control, Soothe & Sear) don't you think that's afew too many? I pulled it back to 5.

- 'Prayer' will now designate a channelled multi-target spell with long cooldown; it's just not called a hymn anymore. Previous spells with 'prayer' in their name have been changed to account for this.

- Some of the name changes were intended to simplify:
Mass Heal or Prayer of healing? Self explanatory just like flash heal, binding heal etc.
Shadow Word: Fear or Psychic Scream? You utter a word of dark binding inflicting surrounding targets with fear for 8 sec; rather than letting out a 'psychic scream'.

I guess these are only my opinion and if you disagree that's ok just want to explain my reasoning for doing so.


Continued...


Explanation of some of the New & Modified Talent Abilities:

Discipline

• Tier 5 - Divine Wisdom *new passive talent – Allows you to channel Penance while moving and reduces the cooldown of your Power Word: Haste by 1 min.

A moving penance should make this spell even more interesting and useful for pve and pvp while the reduced cooldown brings PW: Haste back to the original 2 min.

• Tier 5 – Circle of Warding *new talent – The priest blesses the ground at the targeted location causing enemies within the area affected to be instantly knocked back 8 yards. The effect will persist within the area of the ward knocking back enemies that step within the boundary every sec for 5 sec. Has a 1.5 second cast-time and 2 minute cooldown.

This spell is intended to give discipline priests another ability (while Shadow Word: Fear is on cooldown) to protect themselves against melee attackers allowing us time to heal but can also be useful for briefly disrupting spellcasters (in addition to Shadow Word: Silence) since it can be cast at range.

On the other hand, it has a 1.5 sec cast time and 2 minute cooldown so it's not as easy to apply unlike all our other CC abilities which are instant cast and shorter cooldown (apart from MC/Mental Domination ^^). It also doesn't apply a debuff to the target like fears/silences/stuns do meaning they can still perform their abilities as normal. Only melee characters won't be able to hurt the priest or any friendly target standing within the circle for afew sec so long as they remain in the area. Note that ranged can still attack those targets in the circle.

• Tier 7 - Power Word: Barrier *Spell redesigned slightly - Instantly summons a protective holy barrier over a friendly target. The barrier reduces all damage dealt to the target and all friendly targets within a 15 yard radius by 30% for 10 sec. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage.

This should address the spell's mobility issues in pvp while still being viable in pve. When a boss/enemy moves around the room, players can reposition themselves while still benefiting from the shield as long as they remain close to the spell-target. The only downside from the original is that if the target dies while shielded then you lose the spell. Just means that you have to cast it at the right time on the right target – just like you do for Pain Suppression.*


Holy

• Tier 2 – Holy Word: Serenity *spell redesigned - instantly heals a friendly target for 30% of their total health and increases the critical effect chance of your healing spells on the target by 25% for 6 sec.

A combination of ideas from the currently used Holy Word Serenity and and Desperate Prayer spells. This should be a slightly better replacement for the Desperate Prayer allowing the spell to be cast on any friendly target and improving your next healing spells cast.*

• Tier 3 – Searing Light *new passive talent - Increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal by 5/10% on targets at or below 50% health and causes your Holy Fire to also the slow the affected target's movement speed by 15/30% for the duration.

Intended as a pvp spec talent improving holy priest survivability. The Flash Heal glyph would give +10% healing bonus to targets below 50% health making it less situational.*

• Tier 4 – Divine Providence *talent altered - Reduces the cooldown of your Chakra spell by 5/10 sec and causes your Prayer of Hope and Prayer of Divinity spells to affect 1/2 additional targets.*

Providing additional targets for these Prayer spells should increase their effectiveness in pve/raid healing during boss fights and since Chakra now lasts for up to a minute on PTR, it’s more useful reducing the spell cooldown to allow for quicker transfer between different Chakra states rather than extending this period further.

• Tier 5 – Spirit of Redemption *new mechanic – you now move 100% faster while in this form*

Sometimes when you die in a BG there are no friendly targets near you to heal or the battle moves away so you end up dismissing the spirit and wasting the whole point of the spell. At least in these situations you still have the opportunity to move around to another location or follow the battle and continue healing. It's a very slight but viable improvement.

*’Revelations’ has been removed since many of the Holy Words activated from that talent have been incorporated/redesigned as base priest spells. This was to combat pvp issues since you can’t chastise if you’re in a healing chakra. The only way around this before was to cancel your current chakra or simply not talent Revelations which defeats the point of having such a talent. By making the holy word spells base priest spells we can better decide how/when we want to use them.


Shadow

• Tier 2 – Phantasm *talent altered – When you cast Fade, you also remove all movement impairing effects and while Fade is active, your Leap of Faith spell is converted into Leap of Fate. Casting Leap of Fate will not break Shadowform. Leap of Fate - Pulls your spirit towards a friendly or enemy target moving yourself directly next to them. This spell shares a cooldown with Leap of Faith.*

This spell is intended to make shadow more attractive as a minor school focus if majoring in Holy or Discipline for pvp/arena by giving more crowd control mechanics to healers. I feel all major/minor school focus combinations should be somewhat viable instead of shadow and holy always with a discipline minor and discipline majors always with holy minor.

Making this a tier 2 spell allows any priest to make the Fade spell more useful mainly in pvp. The change to Leap of Faith is intended to make the spell more offensive allowing you to quickly jump to a ranged target and then perhaps fear bomb them. You still have the option of using Leap of Faith as normal since this alternative version will only work while you are faded.

• Tier 5 – Vampiric Touch *talent slightly altered – This ability is now a curse instead of a magic debuff*

This is to combat dispel issues that spriests had even with the current Sin & Punishment talent. This way no one single class can dispel ALL of an spriests dots. This is an improvement against fellow priests and pallies who cannot dispel curses but could dispel VT as a magic debuff.

• Tier 5 – Shadow Gate *new passive talent – Your Summon Shadowfiend spell now summons a more powerful Pit Fiend instead. The Pit Fiend restores half as much mana per attack (1.5% of total mana) as the Shadowfiend but lasts twice as long (30 sec), has 100% more health and is immune to fear. In addition, your Shadow Word: Fear spell casts will also summon a Shadow Orb.*

Intended on further buffing up your Fiend and your mastery by making them more battle ready for pvp. However, you could also pick this talent up for pve if only to help you proc a shadow orb.

• Tier 7 – Focused Shadow *new active talent – Your next Mind Blast or Mind Spike spell cast will benefit from from the number of Shadow Orbs active on you but will not consume them once the spell is cast. 1 min cooldown.*

A simple spell which buffs the use of the current Shadow Mastery system allowing you to cast optimal damage Mind Blast or Mind Spike spells twice in a row provided you time the spell cast until you have the maximum 3 orbs active on you. You can also still use it even if you only have 1 shadow orb active to help you maintain the Empowered Shadows effect.


Again refer to www.war-tools.com/t71442.html to see a visual representation of the talents.



Ok well that's everything, if you got this far then thanks for reading my essay lol ^^ Again yes the name changes aren't 'necessary' and these ideas are purely based on opinion. If you still don't agree with it that's ok, I’ll accept that just wanted to show that i have placed a great deal of thought into these changes. Blizz is constantly updating the game and I’m sure the current imbalances that priests are facing atm will be fixed by altering the values over time. Still would love to hear any further feedback on this as I will continue to make changes given demand but remember to give me specific details ;)


Finally, consider reading this interesting article about game design as well if you've got time to spare: www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html It’s basically about how Blizz makes WoW so addictive... a worthwhile read XD

Edited, Feb 15th 2011 8:34pm by lathander04

PS--I don’t follow links from first-time posters. Too many would-be hackers out there, not to mention a revolting number of viral marketers and the like.

UPDATED: 16 February, 2011. Spells and talents revised... http://www.war-tools.com/ct.html?l=71442

Edited, Feb 15th 2011 8:38pm by lathander04