Discipline Priest Talent Preview

When I turned on the computer this morning I was greeted with a delightful surprise. Someone, somewhere, clearly wanted to make this a good day for me. Why else would they release the talent previews for Priest and Shaman? It must, surely, be because I’m torn as to which to level first!

Having been over both trees, I’m no closer to a decision. For this post, we’ll take a look at the Priest talents, focussing on the Discipline tree, since that’s the one I have the most experience with. The Discipline tree has seen some huge changes in the early tiers, and the changes are interesting to say the least. From the addition of Power Word: Barrier to a slew of DPS talents, this is not the Discipline tree that we’ve been used to during Wrath. Not by a long shot.

The two Tier 1 talents are the same as they always have been, Twin Disciplines for boosting damage and healing… and the amount absorbed by Power Word: Shield! That’s right, Twin Disciplines now boosts absorption by 5% on top of the current effects. Or at least it finally tells you in the tooltip that it does, anyway. Unbreakable Will is the same good old PvP talent that it always has been.

Tier 2 now holds Improved Inner Fire and Martyrdom , no change there. Focused Power has been moved up from Tier 6, and is joined by a new talent called Penitence, which is a 3 point talent. Penitence increases the critical effect chance of Smite and Penance. Sounds weird, right? You wait until we get to Tiers 4 and 5.

Tier 3 still features Inner Focus and Improved Power Word: Shield, but has a new addition in the form of Atonement, 3 points. Atonement is… interesting. When you deal damage with Smite, you instantly heal a nearby low health target for 45% of the damage. Repeat after me: Erm, what?

Tier 4 gives us Evangelism, which requires Penitence. Evangelism increases the damage done by your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance spells by 4% and reduces the mana cost of those spells by 6% for 15 seconds. 2 points, stacks 5 times. Now… I’ll forgive you for yelling “But that’s for levelling, you idiot!” Bear with me though. Tier 5 holds a surprise. Tier 4 still holds Mental Agility and Improved Mana Burn, so it’s not all strange territory!

Tier 5… the most important set of talents that I’ve ever seen. Ever. We’ll start with the boring one: Enlightenment. Increase total mana and health by 6%. Ok? Ok. That’s that bit done. Now, for the good stuff:

Archangel: Consumes your Evangelism effects, instantly restoring 3% of your total mana and increasing your healing done by 3% for each stack. Also allows you to channel Penance while moving. Lasts 18 seconds.
That, ladies and gents, is insane. And you know what? I love it. We don’t yet know whether it’s an on use effect (I’m guessing so), or whether it’ll have a cooldown. I’m sure it will though.

The other amazing talent that we’ve been waiting for is…

Power Word: Barrier! Summons a holy barrier on the target location that absorbs 293.25 damage done to party or raid members within it each time they take damage. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. The barrier lasts for 15 sec or until it absorbs 1955 damage.

That’s the new stuff, pretty much. Soul Warding has moved down to Tier 6, and is now a 3 point talent that reduces the cooldown by 3 seconds and reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Shield by 15%.
Everything under that is exactly as it always was, bar a little fiddling around of positions. The old staples of Rapture, Divine Aegis, Grace (with some changes to the stack effect, IE it now provides a 12% buff to healing), Pain Suppression, and of course Penance are still present.

Now, I may be reading the signals wrong, but I suspect that what’s happening here is that Blizzard are trying to push us towards a bit of combat healing. It’s not a playstyle that suits everyone, so it’s going to be very interesting to see how people react to this preview.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea. I’m not just saying that for the sake of agreeing with Blizzard either. I love dealing damage while in a healing capacity, not for the big numbers or anything like that, but for spicing up the encounters. This kind of meld between offensive and defensive spellcasting is perfectly suited for the Discipline tree. The DPS talents in the Discipline tree are perfectly complimented by a few similar talents in the base of the Holy tree. Talents like Divine Fury, and Searing Light which reduce the cast time and boost the damage of your DPS and Penance spells respectively. Divine Accuracy on the second Tier, which increase your chance to hit with Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance.

Holy, whilst containing DPS boosting talents, simply does not have the same synergy as Discipline when it comes to slipping in some Smites or Holy Fires whilst healing. Discipline is a mobile spec, you can run around the place without people dying in the time it takes to get from A to B. The addition of Atonement and Evangelism, and especially Archangel show a desire to get Discipline Priests doing more than just spamming bubbles and firing off Penance every 12 seconds.

If our Discipline tree looks anything like this preview when Cataclysm launches, I’ll be a very happy Priest.

Ah yeah, just as some food for thought… don’t expect it to last but, Discipline may well have another trick up it’s sleeve if Blizzard are feeling really generous:
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#bVI0uGhckhsffRtMEzcc00000000M

There’s a single free point there. I’d like to draw your attention to a signature Holy talent on Tier 5. Something to think about, eh?