With the announcement of the next World of Warcraft expansion at Blizzcon on the weekend, Blizzard has given us a little peek at the possible new level 100 talents that may become available for Disc & Holy Priests in Warlords of Draenor. We’re going to take a look at these new talents and analyze how they might perform in the current Disc and Holy Healing state.
Please remember, these talents are a very early preview to what may or may not become available to us when the next expasion Warlords of Draenor is released. We’re looking at these purely from an informational standpoint and to assess where we might see the developers taking our beloved Priests in WoD. Have a read through the post and let us know what you think!
First things first, don’t pay attention to any particular numbers in any new or information for Warlods of Draenor, due to the item squish that will come with it.
Divine Clarity
- Discipline (Clarity of Will)
- 1000 Mana, 40 yd range
- 2.50 sec cast
- Shields the target with a protective ward, absorbing 2500 damage within 30 sec.
- Replaces Greater Heal.
- Holy (Clarity of Purpose)
- 1000 Mana, 40 yd range
- 2.50 sec cast
- Heals allies within 10 yards of the target for 5000, split such that more injured targets will receive a larger portion of the healing.
- Replaces Greater Heal.
- Shadow (Clarity of Power)
- Passive
- Your direct Shadow damage spells deal 40% additional damage to targets not affected by your periodic Shadow damage spells. Casting Mind Spike also reduces the cooldown of Mind Blast by 1 sec.
- Shadowy Recall now also affects your direct Shadow damage spells.
Divine Clarity, a talent that changes depending on your specialization. If you’re Disc, you’ll get Clarity of Will, a single-target ward(shield) that will absorb damage for 30 seconds. It replaces Greater Heal so you won’t be able to use that healing spell anymore.
This is an interesting talent for Disc Priests with the possible ability to be able to selectivly double shield players by using this along with Power Word: Shield, which could mean for quite a lot of damage mitigation. It’s also a shield that can ultimately be cast non-stop if you wanted to, but mana could suffer so we’ll need to see the numbers.
If you’re a Holy Priest choosing this talent, your Greater Heal will be replaced by a AoE smart heal that heals most injured targets within 10 yards of your original target. This is a situational talent choice should you requre an extra AoE heal. It’s similar to Circle of Healing, however the range is reduced and it has a cast time. We’ll need to see how it stacks up against our other heals such as Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing once we know how the numbers compare.
Power of the Void
- Discipline & Holy (Shifting Perspectives)
- Passive
- Your Void Shift spell has no cooldown, but can only be cast on allies with less health than you, and no longer heals.
- Shadow (Void Entropy)
- All Shadow Orbs, 40 yd range
- 1.5 sec cast
- Consumes up to 3 Shadow Orbs to deal up to 750 Shadow damage every 3.00 sec for 60 sec.
An interesting change to our Void Shift spell through this second talent, Power of the Void. Basically what this means for both Disc and Holy Priests, is that you can use this freely on as many targets that you like, as long as their health is less than yours. However we’re not sure if this refers to HP(Hit Points) or percentage based health. We assume that it will refer to percentage based health for this post.
We can definitely see a use for this spell, as you’re free to swap health bars with anyone freely, provided you’re healed up to full in between each use. This is more of a single-target based talent so is a pretty situational option. The end-game encounters are greatly going to influence the talent choices that we make. For example the AoE talent for Holy Priests would be hard to skip in the current state that healing is in. We’ll need to see how healing changes in the new expansion before making our choice obviously.
Spiritual Guidance
- Discipline & Holy (Saving Grace)
- 3000 Mana, 40 yd range
- Instant
- Instantly heals a friendly target for 50% of their maximum health. Reduces your healing done by 10% for 10 sec, stacking up to 10 times.
- Shadow (Auspicious Spirits)
- Passive
- Your Shadowy Apparitions also grant you 1 Shadow Orb when they deal damage.
This talent, Spiritual Guidance, is the same for Holy and Disc Priests(Saving Grace). Similar to the second talent Power of the Void, Spiritual Guidance is a health based instant heal that heals your target for 50% of their maximum health. This could be great for emergency healing, with an instant cast heal for such a large amount being quite scarce for any healer. But, with the good must come the bad, and there has to be a bad. Each time this heal is used, any healing done afterwards is reduced by 10% for 10 seconds. Use this 10 times in quick succession, your healing would be reduced by 100% for 10 seconds!
We would probably look at using this spell towards the end of heavy single target damage, like a boss cool down that heavily damages a tank. This won’t be a spammable heal as the effect it has on our healing could really hamper our ability to use normal spells effectively. We also believe that each time it’s used it does effect itself. So if healing a damaged main tank, they’ll be healed for 50% of their maximum health x 100%. The second time you use it(within 10 seconds), say on the off-tank, it would heal for 50% of their maximum health x 90%. Something to keep in mind.
We do like the idea of this, having an emergency 50% of maximum health heal available could be crucial to keeping your raid alive. Yes, your healing meters will suffer after the fact that you use this spell and your healing is reduced by 10% each time you use it. But a tank alive is better than a dead tank and topping the meters. Havng said that, this is comparable to the second new talent, as they’re both single target oh crap buttons based on health percentages. The second talent however doesn’t punish your next heal like this one does.
We could see this being used sneakily (hidden in a bush) in PvP!
All in all, we’re pretty excited about these possible new talents, especially the first talent Divine Clarity. More shields for Disc and More AoE for Holy! I’ll miss you Greater Heal! But we’ll see.
What do you think about the new talent for the Disc and Holy Priests? Are you excited? Were you more excited for the level 90 talents? Are these new talents a big enough carrot on a stick for you to level? Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook/Twitter pages!