3.1 get here nowww

So as I’m sure most of you have heard, Blue announced a few of the exciting changes coming our way for the next big patch. There’s a lot of priest love in this patch!

“Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.” Yes, yes, a million times yes! I’d long been a DS priest while raiding in Burning Crusade content and I bemoaned the loss of Divine Spirit when I went to grab circle of healing. Now that  I went for a spec that had guardian spirit, I continue to miss divine spirit. It made no sense to always have one priest be the “assigned DS priest” for the sake of a raid. I had been wishing that this talent would be made trainable for ages and it looks like I got my wish.

“Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group).” I really like this, there have been times when I wished to shield every AOE caster before a pull and had to wait on the cooldown for shield while another shield I had applied earlier would slowly fizzle out. And now with Wrath, it seems like everyone’s taking damage all the time. Applying prayer of healing before an anticipated burst of AOE damage helps, but I’d rather keep most of my casting time directed to my tank.

“Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now heals for more.” Yessss, I like this change as well. I had been slowly weaning myself off using Circle of Healing since it was less mana efficient and thanks to the nerf, could no longer be spammed. Holy nova still doesn’t present much use to me aside from quick dispatching of rogue undead that stalk me in CoT : Stratholme but it’s nice to know it’ll be getting cheaper to use. I really like that I can use prayer of healing on any group now, this was something that was sorely needed.

“Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved: Shadowform now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion now removes snares.” No comment, I don’t play shadow much but it sounds like a decent change.

“Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.” Don’t have this but it sounds nifty.

“Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are cast.” I like this. A lot.

“We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.” As I said to someone earlier, maybe now maybe holy priests won’t be the ones that are in the graveyard sighing in BGs. Not that all holy priests die a lot..just…well, we just tend to not stay alive very well. =D

Also if this change is real and for the 3.0.9 patch as indicated by MMO-champion, then it’s really sweet: “Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.”

Finally, priests get some much belated love!

Source: World of Raids