10.2 Priest Patch Notes + Tier Sets

Classes Priest
21

I tested the Disc Priest set bonus.

  • 2-piece bonus picks a random Atonement and extends it by 2s.
  • 4-piece does as it says: you double Smite your targets when under Shadow Covenant. That means faster Mind Bender reset and also makes the Blaze of Light talent a must pick. The overall double damage is more than Mind Blast per cast.
  • 4-piece is pretty strong when combo’d with the Sanctuary talent because it applies the bonus twice.

Overall the 2-piece is meh, but the 4-piece is strong because you can fast reset Mindbender by an extra 10s or more on the cd.

1 Like
22

Speaking for M+ Disc: changes look pretty bad and ill-conceived. We are going to feel the loss of Aberrus set very hard, and new set does not compensate in even the slightest regard. Insta-proc Radiance was the only way to deal with the group-burst high mobility combos that were so frequent in S2, and I suspect will become a pain point in S3 as well.

The 4-set is tied to Shadow Cov, and that’s now tied to Mindbender/etc, a long CD. I don’t see this set having the same impact as insta-proc Radiances. Furthermore- it’s just more dps, and if Atonement isn’t in a healthy place (it’s not in raids, and barely acceptable in M+ with the S2 4-set) it won’t be a worthy healing tool.

Harsh Discipline was a personal favorite and I enjoyed the determinant nature of it. It’s what a good rotational passive talent should aspire to be. Changing it to RNG already sounds bad and unreliable, but to attach it to the now nerfed, casted Radiance is going to limit it from being useful in situations where you want it.

Mind Blast is now just Schism by another name. Not useful, not cool. Plays havoc on Twilight Equilibrium. They’ve removed so many of the options for proccing TE, which hurts those who like the complex rotation, but then also disrupted the simplified rotation I prefer (MB->Smite->MB->Smite->Penance). Everyone suffers for this.

Luminous Barrier wasn’t seeing play, so they decide to nerf PW:B instead- not cool. PW:B already has constrictions to justify that meaty damage reduction, nerf the reduction and keep the positioning and timing requirements and you get another non-impactful wet-tissue-feeling group CD.

With the Mass Dispel changes, they had better remove Bursting. And the all-around utility nerfs seem so misaimed- trying to undermine Exodia shadow priests, but the end-around hurts Disc and Holy more, who needed the utility just to keep up with others’ special toys. Reminder, Holy Pallies still have an Invincibility button and Battle Res.

And the things they left untouched or unaddressed:
Aegis of Wrath untouched. Contrition still weak. Train of Thought, weak. The class tree still wracked with throughput vs needed utility binds. Shadow-Atonement half of the tree looks more mandatory than ever. PoM and Renew still lacking any synergies anywhere for us.

I know I had conflicts with the group of Discs who enjoyed the Schism-tree branch, wanted the complex Atonement-focused rotation and so on- I don’t like that style, but I still didn’t wish these kinds of radical changes on them.

3 Likes
23

I wondered if it was a buff. So if they are on cooldown, when 1 gets off you will immediately have 2 if you have that buff?

I honestly felt much better reading the tier set and feel like it has potential. It could perhaps keep me playing holy actually as I just was worried it was even playable with all of the nerfs.

I didn’t see you made this post about tier sets until now. Thanks for testing these things out!!

1 Like
24

Not really happy with any of the changes, but I really don’t understand the harshness of the symbol of hope nerf.

Like, did anyone feel like that was an overpowered utility?

Also, increasing the CD of mass dispel by 4x just feels brutal.

12 Likes
25

I don’t think we have a ton to be concerned about after messing with it.

The 50% buff to atonement outside raid means you can actually lean more on your atonement healing than you could before. Because of that, you’re generally resetting Bender much faster taking Void Summoner.

TE is pretty useless now, but on the other hand we can take Aegis of Wrath with void summoner AND the ultimate penitence line. We sacrifice Harsh Discipline that way, but Harsh Discipline rework makes it so much less consistent that it honestly doesn’t feel like much of a loss.

I’m seeing pretty significantly increased healing numbers through atonement right now, and our damage is actually pretty good IMO.

The only issue I think is our 4piece, which is… kinda extreme trash. Smiting is generally the last thing we want to be doing in a Scov window, so it’s very weird that the 4set is like 'hey we’ll buff smite there! :slight_smile: ’

26

It also feels very questionable…all these reworks when the expansion is heading to either -its end or - its half way trough. Either way its unbeliveably disrespectful to customers…that they released classes in such state that half of them need rework which take place like 3/4 year after the launch.

2 Likes
27

I would take some changes rather than no changes.
There is actually no right time for these changes. Someone will always be unhappy.
This is but the FIRST iteration. Changes will come to this.

1 Like
28

yep i’m betting they forget to buff the cd reduction granted to Salvation by holy words after this tier is over too : P.

also on another note related to Divine Star and Halo being nerfed. still no sign of Cascade anywhere… it has been a real shame, and personal pain point for me, to see how these cool spells from Pandaria have been repeatedly nerfed over time to the point of being nearly irrelevant. Halo at least has gotten several quality of life adjustments to its programming over the years so it wont aggro creatures not already in combat, and i think it doesn’t break CC now too.

but of the 3, Cascade was always the most fun to watch go out. i can’t help but suspect that the level of visual joy associated with the spell was one key reason for it being removed though. after all, they nerfed the original graphic on Divine Aegis, one of the most visually appealing graphics ever put into the game.

somebody on the dev team really seems to have an axe to grind with cool looking spells, and has insisted on steering the game in an incredibly visually boring direction for all these years. i know somebody’s bound to jump in here and say “oh no, its cause of how delayed teh healing is from when you press the button,” but the increasingly narrow gap from when one instance of damage goes out, to when the next damage event occurs, and the forced rabid frenzy of healing speed necessitated by that design as a consequence, has become one of the biggest design problems of the combat system as a whole.

they have always needed to slow the whole thing down for several years now. a game where cascade can exist is a better game

1 Like
29

How is the additional Atonement healing going to put in work, though, without the Aberrus 4-set? Considering ~70% of my Radiances were procs, (+15% healing, +3 second Atonement, -50% mana, insta-cast), that’s a lot of throughput, convenience, and risk mitigation wrapped into one that we’re losing, and the compensation is just Smite spam. Ult Pen sounds cool, but essentially just another long CD. A double Radiance proc was essentially a major CD of its own, and contributed throughout the fight. Kinda feeling like another Borrowed Power loss issue rearing its ugly head mid-expansion.

30

This and Mass Dispel nerf are going to kill the spec in pvp, not to mention pve.

Never understand why Mind Blast hits for nothing with this current design. Idiot devs doing idiot things.

15 Likes
31

I’m wondering as well. No instant cast Radiance and Atonements last 3s shorter.

It’s one step forward with the improvements, but two steps backward with what is lost.

3 Likes
32

That is where I am stuck too. All of the nerfs and that one just seemed petty.

2 Likes
33

Very much looking fwd to the Disc changes, did not really feel that it was a complicated rotation but I’m not mad about having to press less buttons, also ultimate penitence is going to feel amazing! :partying_face:

2 Likes
34

Yea, don’t think my spriest will be my main this patch. Reworked twice this expansion just to end up in the sewer.

4 Likes
35

I mean it’ll work a lot like Season 1 did, but considerably buffed from that time. Disc wasn’t really struggling at the end of S1 after our sins of the many and radiance throughput buffs.

That said, we can address it: if you want that feeling back, take Enduring Luminescence instead of Bright Pupil. The 10% increased duration comes out to 3 seconds - so it’s pretty close to what our tier set was.

Also Ultimate penitence basically functions as Harsh Discipline Penance x3 with a radiance cast (so you don’t waste a charge) when fully talented, and with using penance on CD, we can push it to about a 2.5m cd. So we gain a ton of on demand burst heal for when we need it. Rotating between that and Rapture for big group damage events is probably going to be the play.

36

If Mass Dispel has a 2 min CD, its effect should be buffed to dispel all enemy magic buffs in addition to all magic debuffs on allies in its radius. This is not too big of an ask at all. Two minutes is a substantial cooldown and its power should be proportioned accordingly.

Mass Dispel is probably my favorite priest spell. I love that priests have long been the dispel kings. It is unfortunate that Blizzard seems to be nerfing a beloved core class spell, and a core part of the class fantasy, because of sub-optimal dungeon design.

11 Likes
37

messing around with tier set as shadow. Im not gonna lie it does not feel great. But the best feeling build ive found for aoe is dropping yogg+nzoth for deathspeaker → mastermind → yshaarj

38

I see pros and cons for Ult Pen.
Take, for example, if it was active in this season:
In Nelth, we could bypass one extra heal check on the last three bosses. They all have 2-4 major damage phases that Ult looks like it could handle on its own, and little movement requirements.
Then you take Uldaman, Stonewatcher’s stomps or Deios’ wings, that blast the group much more frequently. Ult won’t help there.
Vortex Pinnacle, Ult can be a big boon on 1st boss, and salve through 1 or 2 Novas on Asaad. But I don’t think it could help you through Altairus’ Downburst.

I’m very concerned about fights with the tough group-wide burst + enforced mobility combo, where insta-Radiance was all but necessary. Luminescence isn’t an answer unless and until it replicates the 4set- any cast time still requires being stationary, which isn’t always possible (Iridius pools, Altairus again). As far as I know, Lumi only extends Atonement by 1.5 seconds. Lastly, remember we had 4-set AND Bright Pupil this season.

I was so happy to read Blizzard’s dev statement, they understand the problem- they just haven’t put forth a good solution.

1 Like
39

Some of your cons we don’t have another tool to replace it with that ult. pen is taking the place of right now.

It won’t cover every stonewatcher stomp, no. But Light’s Wrath would have covered just as many. We’ve also got significantly higher throughput for something like stomp outside of ult. pen right now.

In something like the constant rot fights like Altairus or Khajin in HoI, Ult pen is a healthbar reset. That’s pretty valuable as well. This is unironically a better healing CD than anyone else has access to, so we shouldn’t sell it short.

40

Insta-Radiance was that bridge over the frequent burst damage. Ult is more of a long CD to help fill that gap for the infrequent extreme burst phases after we’ve exhausted Barrier and Rapture.
Thinking to next season:
I don’t know some of the older M+ very well, DF has been the first time I enjoyed Disc enough to take it into M+. DotI has a lot less mobility checks. Ult will see great use there, I’m sure. Manor, Ataldazar, etc, I’ll find out. Darkheart and Everbloom are going to suck no matter what (already hate both on TW).

I don’t dislike Ultimate Penitence. It’s great for replacing Light’s Wrath, which I never liked. I’m more concerned with other things- the loss of the 4-set, Mind Blast, and Harsh Penitence changes most of all.