10.2 Priest Patch Notes + Tier Sets

Classes Priest
69

I think the 4-piece needs to be overhauled imho. Maybe just a flat % chance when casting PoM to make your next Holy Word free and not consume a charge would be a lot more consistent. Also, I did see Rapid Recovery did work with the set bonus Renew, but overall Empowered Renew does more healing.

The 2-piece seems fine how it is, but I think it’d end up overhealing more in M+ because my Echo of Light is already a 50%+ overheal and an extra ticking Renew when people are topped to 100% pretty quickly isn’t an extra benefit.

I missed out on the dungeon testing because I was on vacation unfortunately.

70

Possible, but it doesn’t heal on its own - So not really probable. But it does come off CD all the time anyway.

The double smite kinda sucks without it applying to the regular smite resets, too. Honestly I just want a full rework of 4p instead. Especially because it shoehorns Scov and therefore bender/VS.

1 Like
71

Whelp: the nerfs keep on rolling.

I went on the PTR and tested stuff.

  • PWL is slightly weaker: it’s a 115k heal (PTR) vs 130k (live). The rework fixes the issue of wasted casts, but it literally can’t be used unless target is <35% hp. That makes me wonder if people can macro it…

Disc

  • Shadow Covenant got nerfed down quite a bit which is fine. You can reset down Mind Bender to like a 30s cd, but there was a million people lagging the PTR so couldn’t really test it.
  • Other end tree talents still seem underwhelming: Weal and Aoe and TE in particular.
  • Still nothing about instant cast free Radiances.

Holy

  • Lost about 5% Mastery, but it ticks every 2s instead of 3s. This is both a nerf & buff at the same time. Echo of Light overhealed a lot (50%+) because its tick rate was too slow.
  • Typical Blizzard: instead of buffing all the other end tree talents they nerf Divine Image. -_-
  • PoM nerfed: great that’s a -5% hps nerf.
  • Pontifex is still weak as a talent choice
  • Holy is just getting absolutely crapped on now. Overall it’s like an -8% hps nerf just with the DI + PoM changes.
3 Likes
72

Is there anything we got that we are looking forward to? I mean whatever if they want to make changes that’s up to the game devs but there is a big difference to me between “your character will be the same next patch and except only worse in many ways” vs “your character will be the same except worse in almost every way but you got this one new cool thing”. I need something to look forward to minus the set…

73

I’m really sick of Disc’s design around being big burst windows. Years ago, I loved Disc-it was fun, it was easy, and maybe it was a bit Alt Holy, but Holy’s deal worked. Since Legion, Disc and Shadow have been screwed up. Shadow was finally feeling like it was figured out again, but this Insanity change is ridiculous.

Disc… I want it to live up to the 2/3rds caster dps 2/3rds healer that was proposed in Legion instead of the 4/10ths dps and healer we got. It sickens me when playing Disc, it sickens me when I have a Disc healer and I’m tanking. It was sort of ok when PW:S had no CD, but we don’t even have THAT anymore.

I out DPS Disc as Holy 100% of the time. That is not the Discipline experience I ever wanted.

74

I have no idea who said this needed a 25% buff but I mean, okay.

I am very surprised this didn’t happen earlier, tbh. I’ve seen people pointing out that it’s weird void summoner references Sfiend at all considering bender was required to take it since the start of the xpac.

Everything else about the disc change is alright, I guess. But the tier set still sucks, and reducing the duration of Scov even by a couple seconds just made it significantly worse.

No idea why Holy’s getting slammed by nerfs, but it’s definitely looking like it’s sliding towards a ‘spam heal’ tier again.

75

I mean in Legion’s early tiers, Disc was better than advertised. It was doing more damage than tanks but also doing as much hps as the healers and it was incredibly overpowered for a couple raid tiers. Even post nerfs and focusing its damage downward it remained meta for a long time. It took MAJOR hits in Slands to get it to the point that it was doing fairly mediocre, and in DF it’s been pretty fine.

If you’ve been outdpsing disc as holy any patch besides post .1.5, you’ve probably been playing Disc weirdly or are just more comfortable on Holy so able to get more damage out, or both.

In 10.2 PTR, Disc right now is more damage than holy no contest because of Inescapable Torment.

76

10.2 changes makes me look at my disc priest for the first time since I tested disc on df ptr.

While I didn’t think we had too many spells, I felt like there was a lot of redundancy between spells.

Solace was just another smite, just instant (with smite being 1.5sec cast, it’s basically just a cast before the gdc or after…)
Mindblast was a shadow smite. It became so boring since df launched… Combining it to schism is a great idea.

Shadow cov while it did a good chunk of base healing was close to VE as a spell, in the sense that you use it to make more healing with following shadow spells… It’s sad to see the base healing go, but I feel this is a good change in that it can be used more often + no mana spent.

While Mindgames isn’t what it used to be in shadowlands, I feel it played the same role than light’s wrath, in different contexts, but still in a ramp. While I loved light’s wrath in itself, it doesn’t bring any gameplay element that disc doesn’t have already.

Some seems sad to see Twilight equilibrium become “useless”. I personally didn’t like it and wouldn’t say it was “fun”. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just waiting for this to be removed from the tree :man_shrugging:

Edit. Oh, and welcome back TPO. I prefer this iteration of harsh discipline way better!

I loved playing mainly boon in shadowlands and I felt there was a missing piece for disc after df launched. Maybe Ult penitance will fill that void :thinking:

(mindgames was decent back then too, or even necro… but there was a piece missing still for me after Shadowlands)

77

10.2 feels like such a mess.

Holy Priest nerfed again. Resto Shaman nerfed again. If I was a Rsham or Hpriest main I’d be pretty upset with the proposed patch. Neither spec got anything really new or interesting gameplay wise. They are just weaker versions of their 10.1.7 specs with their talent options being even more imbalanced.

Disc is getting a lot of numerical power from talent adjustments and by simplifying how the spec plays but I dislike how mindless it is becoming. Spamming Smite 450 times in a key isn’t my idea of fun.

Then you have Rdruid, Pres, MW and probably Hpal that are gaining a lot of power going into 10.2. In the patch that Blizzard are ostensibly reining in healing throughput to make raid healing less spikey, 4/7 healers (5 if you include Disc) are getting significantly stronger. If you’re one of those 4 (or 5) I guess you’re having a good time but if you’re one of the others (or Blizzard isn’t done nerfing) then you’re probably not feeling great.

I don’t know why Blizzard have chosen to nerf the throughput of the two weakest throughput healers, either. Doesn’t make much sense to me.

2 Likes
78

Mistweaver especially.

If that tier set doesn’t get nerfed I honestly am just confused. That’s such a massive climb in HPS for a spec that’s already getting a decent chunk of buffs and wasn’t really anywhere near THAT far behind.

1 Like
79

It just got buffed too. To be fair though, the 2pce and 4pce don’t work with AoE healing and don’t work with half their toolkit.

But Vivify, Soothing (just got buffed also from Statue), Unison, Enveloping and ReM got pretty big buffs in 10.2.

It’s one thing for Blizzard to say they want to make changes to healing in 10.2 and make mana more meaningful and so on. But what we are getting is balance changes to each healing spec in different ways and Priests in particular are looking very imbalanced.

I can’t imagine any environment in 10.2 where Holy is comparable to Disc. Disc is just so much stronger on the PTR than it is on live but Holy is significantly weaker?! On live an argument could be made that at least Holy is “easier” or “simpler” to play than Disc but on PTR that isn’t the case anymore and I’d even say that Holy is now more complicated and demanding to play and get good value out of its toolkit than Disc is which can almost just spam 3 or 4 buttons for optimal play.

80

This is disappointing. I was actually wondering where the PWL buff to go along with all the other single target buffs. The tiny mana cost was a pretty big benefit in pvp. Using it properly did feel rewarding but plenty of times it gets ruined by heals from other players. The 10 second CD was really nice for keeping myself or a team mate alive while they are under heavy pressure. That extra 5 second wait is going to translate to a lot more deaths.

So heals less, costs more mana, and has a longer CD. The only compensation being that you can no longer risk messing it up. That flat 3% healing increase is looking better by the moment.

Damn and they are nerfing Holys mastery and aoe heals more.

81

Yeah, my plan with my monk was to try a jade serpent + unison build even in M+. Basically every once in a while hitting Soom without committing to channel to keep the statue going, since the statue’s soom also gains unison.

Basically a ton of passive healing then if things ever get dangerous TFT or Yulon to soom and viv cleave to pump out a ton of burst. The tier just seems wild for that.

I think the nerfs to holy feel very fueled by just a cursory glance at their raid performance. If you don’t dig very deep, Holy’s throughput looks like it’s higher than everyone else’s there.

And I mean, I do totally agree with nerfing PoM a bit going into next tier. Holy is over-indexed on PoM right now, for sure, because in raid your HPS is almost entirely dependent on how well you kept it on CD.

It’s more everything else they’re changing that has me scratching my head. Prismatic Echoes wasn’t even a great talent, tbh. Now it’s kinda just… there. Divine Image was great, sure, but it was the only really good capstone talent, so to see it just get chunked feels awful. Pontifex is so far out of the way that picking it up just feels like a giant sacrifice no matter where you go in the tree. Heal has a prohibitive cast time for raiding without Lightweaver, but picking up lightweaver requires a giant point sink no matter how you get there that will make you lose QoL somewhere, etc, etc.

82

I don’t understand what Blizzard is doing.

Holy Paladin’s were the only healer that needed to be toned down for next season because they’re 85%+ of all the healers with logs on a +25 or higher. It was a combination of being overtuned and also their kit was way too stacked.

Every other healer needed to be brought up to their level. I thought 10.2 would be the opportunity to do that, but apparently not. Disc is the only healer getting overhauled and the changes simplify the spec + added in Ultimate Penitence. This is literally something they should be doing to Holy at the same exact time.

Instead they’re dumping nerfs on Holy every week without giving anything to compensate for. It’s just atrocious, especially when Holy is underperforming in raid hps compared to something like Resto Druids who are +20% higher than everyone else.

I don’t look at the +30% single target buffs as a buff because everyone else is getting them. I view it more like the trash is going to hit 30% harder because Blizzard can’t tune anything properly.

5 Likes
83

I get the feeling that this is what would be happening if Blizzard knew what they were doing with each healer. Unfortunately it’s painfully obvious that Blizzard just don’t play and don’t understand and don’t think about some healers. Blizzard forgetting that Heal exists and is even a spell in their first round of single target tuning shows that Holy Priest is one of those specs.

Resto Druid is certainly being brought up to Hpal standards. Their throughput and toolkit and flexibility on the PTR is incredible. Healing without spending mana or healing while moving constantly are both now Resto Druid stengths. They also now have the ability to lean into a flat, efficient, sustained HoT healing profile or can lean into an extremely powerful burst healing profile where they can pack literally millions of healing into a few GCD’s and do it often, without relying on CD’s.

Preservation is similarly very powerful but it’s also the single most difficult healing spec to minmax so it often doesn’t seem that good. On The PTR their set bonus works with Echo such that you can Echo a target and cast Dream Breath or Spirit Bloom on them so you’ll hit them with the Dream Breath, Echo the Dream Breath, hit with the Living Flame from the set bonus and also Echo the Living Flame and then both of those Living Flames have a chance to proc Essence Burst and/or Echo. I’m not sure if it’s a bug or working as intended but it’s extremely powerful and fun.

Mistweavers have numerically overtuned set bonuses because those bonuses don’t work with or affect about half their spells and it’s likely intentional. Even so, they are getting set bonuses that shore up notable weaknesses in their healing profile while also gaining a lot of numerical power. I’ve included Mistweavers in the “Blizzard don’t care about or play” group for a while but in recent months we’ve seen the addition of the old Mana Tea and now set bonuses that are effectively copies of the HFC set bonuses in WoD so at least Blizzard know what they’re doing with the spec, even though it’s taking them back to their MoP/WoD design with a modern twist (which I really like).

Then there is Disc which seems to get reworked every expansion. It seems like Blizzard are attempting to modernize their toolkit and healing profile similarly to how they did with Paladin. I’m not a huge fan of how much Smite spam there is and how simplified the gameplay has become but I can’t say that the spec is lacking in power or that its healing profile or toolkit is weak on the PTR. It’s very, very good. A lot of the “clunk” has been removed and it now has distinct areas in which it excels, such as damage and absorbs and sustained throughput.

I wish I got similar vibes from Holy Priest. I wish it seemed like Blizzard has a direction for the spec and idea of what it should excel at or how it should stand out from other healers but in my mind there is really one Priest healing spec that Blizzard think about; and it isn’t Holy. I’m clinging onto hope that the Mastery change from 6s to 4s will be a big buff and that the spec will feel much better with it. I’m also hoping that the 4pce will get significantly buffed or reworked such that it can be relied upon or planned around.

If I’m really huffing the copium I tell myself that maybe Blizzard are still getting around to taking a focused look at and working on Holy Priest.

84

I’m not hopeful. Blizz recognized that Discipline was underperforming in raids in Season 2, and has answered that with some real fixes for Discipline, and further nerfs to Holy. They have not committed to the viability of both specs in both forms of PvE content, and are clearly content to make us pick one.

The fixes Holy needs are not huge in number - Shadow and Disc getting talent reworks has shown the poor condition of the Holy tree. 8 talents to prop up ProM, and multiple dead capstones, should ordinarily constitute a cry for help.

It’s still early in the 10.2 development cycle but absent communication – and it’s been absent for a long time – there’s a pretty big disconnect about the state of the spec.

85

I don’t understand the logic either. There’s only 3-4 Holy Priests and 15 Disc Priests who qualify for the seasonal title compared to 100s of Holy Paladins.

The issue with healers this season is they were largely overshadowed by the god comp and how powerful Holy Paladins are.

Here’s the stats over the last 2 weeks for +25s…

Holy Paladin - 27,174 parses
Disc Priest - 7,046 parses
Holy Priest - 2,764 parses
Resto Shaman - 2,750 parses
Resto Druid - 1,870 parses
Mistweaver - 1,108 parses
Pres Evoker - 464 parses

When you push it up to +28s…

Holy Paladin - 12,718 parses
Disc Priest - 1,508 parses
Holy Priest - 174 parses
Resto Shaman - 328 parses
Resto Druid - 286 parses
Mistweaver - 102 parses
Pres Evoker - 42 parses

I literally see no reason why there’s not still going to be a Holy Paladin meta next season because they haven’t been nerfed down that much in the patch. They actually got single target healing buffs.

Priests had their utility nerfed which pushes them down the totem pole. Disc will probably still be popular, especially post-update, but the 2nd cousin to the Holy Paladins.

Pres Evokers aren’t going to get into keys simply because Aug Evokers overshadow them. That also makes it harder for Resto Shamans to fit in if the group has a heroism.

Bear Tanks are probably going to still be S-tier. That limits Resto Druids viability since you’re overlapping.

Then you got Mistweavers and Holy Priests which don’t really have a niche in M+. Holy Priests should have been elevated up to be the single target pumpers like they were in Shadowlands. Right now they’re not.

86

Ugh saw those holy priest nerfs. If it weren’t for the mog then I would have shelved mine already. Looks like I’ll be going disc.

87

Yea. I think Hpal is in a good enough position that it will likely be the meta healer in any patch where Prot Paladin is not the meta tank just because Paladin utility is so good.

As it stands Disc might be a contender for meta healer simply due to how much damage it can currently do on the PTR. But it lacks a kick and I imagine that damage will get brought into line which will just cement Hpal as the meta king yet again.

88

I don’t think Blizzard knows either lol

It’s pretty obvious they don’t have a clear vision for Shadow