I am sick as a dog today with a cold, and additionally spent all weekend hanging out with guildies in real life and not going anywhere near WoW. (I know, go fig!) The result is that I have very little to post today.

I will say this: before embarking on a coin collection run for the Lunar Festival, take a moment to plan your route ahead of time, or follow a guide like that found on Random Ravings. Otherwise you will end up like me, addled on cold meds and distracted by side quests (yay, Sprite Darter Hatchling!), and never get anything done.

I posted a version of this on my guild site for Patch Day, and I figured it fit here too. I’ll have some CoH feedback after we finish up Naxx tonight, but it is, in fact, not the end of Priests as we know it. But let’s look at how the change affects the rest of the raid…

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Look. Healers know stuff. We watch the status of the raid for a (WoW) living. We know when you pulled aggro, we know when you stood in the AoE too long, and usually we know who pulled that extra pack of mobs. CoH was a one-button solution to everything, and while it wasn’t a ton of fun to play that way it sure was effective. So. No more CoH and WG. What does that mean to you, a DPSer? (Wait, it means something to DPS?)

1) You are even less likely to stay alive while standing in AoE. We could kind of cover for you before in fights when there wasn’t a TON of overall damage (ie. NOT Sapphiron’s blizzard), but that’s not possible. To be honest, I think some folks have gotten kind of used to standing in unpleasant things and continuing to slug or cast. I’ve watched it happen. This is a bad habit, and won’t be sustainable anymore.

2) Things like Vortex, where the raid or a large portion of it take inescapable damage, are going to hurt more. Consider starting to collect a stamina set for those fights, like in the old days of Bloodboil.

3) We are going to survive fewer bad pulls. That pull last night on the way to Thaddius with a pack of geists, two giants, and a shade? While our DPS is pretty hot, I feel that we would not have survived that without trivializing the instance with druids and priests (!!). We should try and be more careful about where we’re standing.

In short, our overpowered heals allowed the raid as a whole to get a little sloppy with stuff. We won’t have that buffer anymore. Healer or DPS – don’t stand in bad crap.

Usually reading the official WoW Healing forum just makes me misanthropic and bitter, but I actually read a post from Ghostcrawler over the weekend that made me feel downright hopeful about the direction of our class in PvE. I should add here in all fairness that the current implementation of CoH is a bit of a one-press monkey button. Yes, I spam it more than I should, because I CAN. What I object to is the new cooldown. If priests are supposed to be the jack of all trades with big toolboxes, don’t limit my choices and make me juggle timers. Anyway, a few stirring words:

I have said before Hymns are near the top of our list of priest issues.

Hooray! I use Hymn of Hope quite a bit, if only to help the caster DPS in my group recoup mana. If you have time to channel the spell, why not use it? I hate leaving mana on the table. That being said, it is kind of inadequate. Yesterday we had two priests in the same group using this Hymn at the same time (while Malygos shifts from P1 to P2), and that seemed just about perfect. Keep it reasonable, but if I’m going to be unable to heal for 8 seconds, at least make it worth my time.

I’ve used Divine Hymn once, when I was overwhelmed with level 78-ish mobs while farming. I hear it’s useful while hiding behind ice blocks during Sapphiron, but I haven’t tried it. For 20% of your base mana this spell just seems too chaotic. It does a little of everything, and nothing good. Perhaps it’s just intended for PvP, but for PvE I have yet to find a good use for it. Take away the incapacitation aspect, and make it cheaper. You could even leave the lengthy six minute timer — ta da, it’s an AoE hot for emergencies. I still wouldn’t use it that often, but more than I do now.

That is our eventual goal (to make Prayer of Healing and Holy Nova raid-wide). You can’t just take a party spell and shift it up to raid level without making other changes. It would be too overpowered at its current numbers, and if we deflate the numbers, it wouldn’t do it’s job, particularly in 5-player groups. Therefore both will require tinkering to change them. We don’t view these as critical issues so they are low on the list. Holy Nova is slightly higher.

This was the bit that excited me the most. If Prayer of Healing and Holy Nova effect the whole raid, then essentially we lose CoH for any practical purpose, but gain two AoE heals in it’s place — one slow, big, efficient one, and one fast, small, inefficient one. This is the type of thing I was speaking of in my introduction above: don’t minimize my options, give me more choices! I would be very happy to give up one overpowered heal for two interesting and unique options.

However, that kind of marginalizes Circle of Healing even more, making me wonder why exactly I’m spending 41 points for it.

Holy Nova and Renew likely could use some higher numbers. Renew is still a decent spell though. I don’t think it is “take off your bar” level. The coefficient may be too low or perhaps not enough talents affect it.

All I can really say about this is: YES. Please improve the efficiency of Renew. It used to be our most efficient spell, and, man, was I ever a Renew spammer. I’ve actually trained myself to not use it in the last month or so simply because it’s a waste of time. Not enough healing and too much mana. It’s our one HoT, and it should at least be worth putting on the tank!

I would be surprised if (the top third) of the Discipline tree looked the same in 3.1. I’ll leave it at that.

Oh my god oh my god oh my god, let the rampant speculation begin. Every holy priest rolls their eyes at the mandatory 13 points in Disc, although the pill is a lot easier to swallow now with Improved Inner Fire. Could they.. actually be thinking of making Meditation a spell, and not a talent? My world is askew.

So overall I’m pleased to see that the class honchos at Blizz are putting some thought into priests, and I’m glad that thus far I agree with their vision. We’ll see how much of this actually makes it into the next couple of patches. The proof is in the pudding.. or the raid healing.

Someone on a WoW community I follow posted this tribute to the priest tier sets, and it really is a walk down memory lane. Priests have, overall, been extraordinarily lucky with our gear sets, and I really do love the wings and halo theme they’ve been rocking lately, as well as the T5/6 hoods.

In the bank I still have Devout Sandals (damn you, Maleki the Palid), Prophecy Shoulders (which dropped for the first time EVER for our guild when we revisited Molten Core after 3.0), a hat from heroic Crypts that looks identical to the never-obtained T2 glowy crown, The Wings from T5 (which I will never, ever, ever, ever give up), and the entire T6 set, destined to be seen on a Figureprint one day. I’m also keeping the Will of Arlokk (snake staff!), Benediction (sparkle staff!), and the Staff of Immaculate Recovery (priest on a stick!).**

I’m remarkably fond of the T7 halo, but less so of the ghostly wing shoulders. Really, though, I think it’s all about the T8 ninja mask in Ulduar. The purpose of the priest is to flip out and kill people!