A final plea before Level 60...Smite Priest Runes

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
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Blizzard, Aggrend, someone…I know you are there somewhere…we smite priest devotees watched the SoD announcement and felt a glimmer of hope on the horizon. A hope that one of the oldest ever meme specs in WoW history would now have a chance to shine. SoD was and is the best opportunity to give this spec some love.

For example, below I suggest reworking the Spirit of the Redeemer Rune into a Holy damage version - one a rune that no one uses because healers use Dispersion or Pain suppression. Shadow priests also use Dispersion, so making the angel form a vengeful angel of judgement works thematically and doesn’t hurt anyone but make a spec thrive!

Zealotry - Bracers rune
Your damaging Holy spells consume a charge of Inner Fire to deal bonus damage equal to your total Spirit. In addition, your Smite ability refreshes Holy Fire’s damage-over-time effect.

Spirit of Reprobation - Boots rune
Enemies that die within 15 yards of you are purged, causing a Holy Nova at their corpse. Upon death, become the Spirit of Reprobation for 10 sec. While in this form, you can cast any damaging spell free of cost, but you cannot heal, move, be attacked, or be targeted by any spells or effects. Requires Spirit of Redemption talent.

Archangel - Helm rune
Surrender to a higher power for 25 seconds, increasing your spell critical strike chance and casting speed by 20%. During this time your healing and Shadow damage dealt are reduced by 50%, but you can cast Smite while moving. (6 minute cooldown)

Chastise - Cloak rune
Chastise the target, dealing Holy damage and converting your next Shadow Word: Pain into a sacred censure that deals Holy damage over 18 sec. (10 second cooldown)

Evangelism - Belt rune
Casting Smite, Holy Fire, or Holy Nova grants you Evangelism for 20 sec. Evangelism increases the damage done by those spells by 5% and reduces their mana cost by 5%. Stacks up to 5 times.

Sanctimonium - Chest rune
Your Holy Nova and Holy Fire deal 100% increased damage, and Holy Fire’s damage-over-time component stacks up to 10 times.

The Smite Priest has so much potential, potential that doesn’t detract from healing or shadow priests, you can add runes that focus solely on Holy damage in slots that already are used for other specs.

Two-handed Shamans, I have long supported your cause, and I beckon you to our aid. Help us bring this spec to life in the final phase of SoD!

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When my brother told me about SoD, A holy damage priest was what came to my mine

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still begging blizz to consider smite priest runes, and also buff shadow priests in pve

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Can we give healing priest more than 2 active rune buttons first and not put everything on a passive.

Get in line dude lol.

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oh i agree with that too, but atleast they are still good. i do think the spirit of redemption rune is flat out a huge mistake, if anything it shouldve been a lightwell rune.

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Here’s what I’d change of the current runes:

Helm - Pain and Suffering: In addition, Smite refreshes the duration of Holy Fire and does instant damage of the remaining periodic damage of Holy Fire, this instant damage can crit to proc Surge of Light.

Back - Vampiric Touch would need to also restore some % mana for holy damage, but this just pushes smite priest into being similar to a shadow priest just not in shadow form, so I’d rather not.

or

Back - Soul Warding: In addition, casting Power Word: Shield on yourself increases your holy spell damage and holy damage crit chance by 15% while the shield is active.
OR
20% cast speed after casting power word shield on yourself for 6 seconds.

Chest - Twisted Faith: Mind Flay, Mind Blast, and Smite deal 50% increased damage to targets afflicted with your Shadow Word: Pain.
OR
In addition, Smite deals 50% increased damage to targets afflicted with Holy Fire.

Waist - Renewed Hope: In addition, when you have weakened soul, your holy damaging spells gain increased hit chance + mana cost reduction to holy damaging spells

Feet - Spirit of the Redeemer: Also allow to cast holy damage spells (smite, penance, holy nova, holy fire) but for 50% reduced damage. Restores mana for damage done. This is just something to avoid void plague and also dispersion

Healing Focus Talent to Light Focus > Reduces knockback interruption for holy spells by 70%

Legs (a weak slot imo) - Tweak power word barrier to add some offensive component for only priest holy damage, or for all allies.
OR
Shared pain - SWP and Holy Fire hits 2 additional nearby targets. Maybe some other multi-target component with Holy Fire.

Wrist - Surge of Light: Add something for holy nova increased damage or 50% reduced mana cost. Also, option for Holy Fire at reduced cast time to .5-1.5 seconds with SoL proc

I think it really just depends on what kind of goal and gameplay style they would want to create with smite priest. It has to differentiate from shadow somehow as not a pure dot class.

I like your idea of using inner fire charges to buff damage. I would like to see something to improve holy nova, maybe surge of light increasing the damage. The mana cost is just crazy too. I also like the idea of putting PW:S in the rotation or expending the absorption of PW:S to turn it into damage either through spell casts or even reflect dmg. Can also something where smite reduces the cooldown of penance by 1 second. If I was going to make a rotation, I would have penance like the finisher ability. After smiting your enemy and sending holy fire upon them, then penance with each penance tick having a chance to stun. Or another penance channel-like ability on a 30s moderate CD that could also provide a short stun to mirror blackout. Call it Divine Wrath, Light’s Purification or maybe like that Lightforged Draenei racial “Light’s Judgment” with that animation of calling down a beam of light. Another idea, is for smite priest’s to actually gain a holy light fiery aura on their character model as a type of personal buff to damage, counterpart to shadow form maybe.

If we are pushing this deeper holy spirit of redeemer build, its kind of sad to miss out on PI and the talents there for 5% more crit and dmg, but this might be the play. PI should also work in a way that when you buff others with it, it also buffs yourself. The way we can maybe make smite priest a powerful asset is to actually buff lightwell too. Maybe a rune to alter it to become more offensive for the priest, reduce the cooldown and also provide utility to allies. Realistically, something where it doesn’t need to be clicked, cancels the healing on damage and even better if it provided a strengthening buff along with healing so it could have some benefit to smite priest. Maybe it can just become a rune to alter it and become that Light’s Wrath, using the lightforged draenei Light’s judgement racial animation to do big damage and heal allies on a longer CD. Smite priest needs to provide some unique utility because otherwise it’s just an inferior shadowpriest on terms of utility, unless its damage is OP.

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It wasnt a meme in TBC, it just has low threat reduction so it pulled aggro easily.

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I wanna see a smite priest :frowning:

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If Disc wasnt already the best, I would’ve loved to see the cata version of attonement

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Damn this whole rune selection is a banger. I’d play this class over my shaman!

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:frowning: hope is diminishing by the day, we can keep pushing for it tho!!!

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Blizzard can’t even devote time to making SPriest worth anything, not much hope for smite priest ;_;

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