Priest 6.0 Transition Guide

[Brewmonksta 157]

DISC

• Crit is still going to be king. The way that the current set bonus' work it will still be viable to be using AA on CD.
• The healing "rotation" for disc seems to be mostly unchanged. AA on CD, lvl90 talent on CD, PW:S for incoming tank(single target damage) and Atone for fillers. Although in stacked situations Holy Nova will do more healing as a filler. 
• In most situations only keep evangelism stacks for AA on CD for a healing cooldown. 
• Penance can still be used offensively if its not needed to top up a target.

• Evangelism no longer affects the damage or mana cost of spells so will now be a purely heal increase only.
• Atonement now heals for 25% less than before but will still be a viable filler it just wont be as overpowered as it is now.
• Cascade and Halo are now not instant cast however divine star has retained it instant cast status. This really only stops the cast on the move and involves planning to cast it when you wont need to dodge a mechanic. But holy Nova is better in stacked situations. 
• MANA: Shadowfiend no longer grants mana (mindbender does) - with the removal of rapture and hymm of hope there will be less mindless smite spam and more of a focus on mana management than currently. This will mean the possibility of having "downtime" so that you dont send yourself oom and will put a heavier importance of Meta tracking for those that may have not been tracking previously.
• Spirit Shell is now a level-75 talent, replacing Divine Insight for Discipline Priests. With ToF only proccing from heals under 35% the uptimes may be far less making SS as a talent more valuable in some situations but may be a talent that is switched regularly.

HOLY

• Multistrike will be very valuable for Holy in 6.0. due to the divine providence passive and its interaction with Holy mastery and PW:S
• Again the priority list "rotation" for holy remains mostly unchanged in 6.0.
• The constant healing throughput available from Holy will increase their raid viablitity but may be more noticable at lvl100 as we move to the triage style of healing rather than the bursts of topup needed now in SoO.
• Divine Providence is a new passive ability for Holy Priests. Divine Providence increases the amount of the Multistrike stat gains from all sources by 5%, and increases the damage and healing of Multistrikes by 20%.
• Cascade no longer refreshes the duration of Renew for Chakra: Serenity.
• Circle of Healing's cooldown is now 12 seconds (up from 10 seconds).
• The Chakra have be "nerfed" so that the chakra you choose will have less of an impact on your overall healing and more so be a choice depending on the role you are assigned and not be such a heavy penalty for not being in "the right Chakra"
• Chakra: Chastise no longer grants a chance for Smite to reset Holy Word: Chastise’s cooldown.
• Chakra: Sanctuary no longer increases healing of area-of-effect spells. It now causes healing spell casts to reduce the remaining cooldown on Circle of Healing by 1 second instead of always reducing the cooldown by 2 seconds.
• Chakra: Serenity no longer increases healing of single-target spells.
• Power Word: Shield may now critically strike or Multistrike.
• Power Word: Shield now has a chance for a critical effect based on critical strike chance and can Multistrike based on Multistrike chance for all specializations.

SHADOW

• Mastery has been changed! Now increases damage done by your Mind Blast, Mind Spike, and Mind Flay (includes Insanity).
• Mastermind is a new passive that increases Haste rating from all sources -- gear, gems, enchants, rating procs, etc. This functions exactly as the Amp Trinket does currently.
• From Darkness, Comes Light has been renamed to Surge of Darkness. In addition to procing from Vampiric Touch ticks, it is also able to proc from Devouring Plague ticks. Proc rate lowered from 20% per tick to 10% per tick. Also stacks up to 3 times, up from 2 times.
• Solace and Insanity has been renamed to Insanity. Insanity is no longer tied to Devouring Plague, instead any Shadow Orb spender now grants the Shadow Word: Insanity buff for 1.333 GCDs per orb consumed. Devouring Plague, Void Entropy, and Psychic Horror all provide this buff. Examples:
  • 0% haste casting a 1 orb Psychic Horror will yield 2.0 seconds of Shadow Word: Insanity.
  • 50% haste casting Devouring Plague will yield 4.0 seconds of Shadow Word: Insanity.
• Twist of Fate is only able to proc off of damaging abilities.
• Power Infusion now affects ALL Haste, not just Casting Haste. This means Mindbender/Shadowfiend will gain extra melee swings when Power Infusion is active.
• Divine Insight has been renamed to Shadowy Insight. In addition to procing from Shadow Word: Pain ticks, it can also now proc from Mind Spike (including Surge of Darkness Mind Spikes casts).
• All of the Level 90 talents (Cascade, Divine Star, and Halo) only do damage now.
• Prayer of Mending now has a 1 GCD cast time, up from being instant cast.
• Renew is no longer usable by Shadow.
• Binding heal is no longer usable by Shadow.
• Mana is no longer a concern for DPS. Casting healing spells will still drop your mana considerably.
• Dispersion no longer restores mana and is purely a defensive cooldown now.
• Shadowfiend no longer return mana. Mindbender still does.
• Vampiric Touch no longer returns mana per tick. The MoP Glove PvP perk is now built in (dispelling Vampiric Touch fears the dispeller for 3 seconds).
• Shadow Word: Pain's on-hit damage no longer proc Shadowy Insight or Shadowy Apparitions.
• Devouring Plague always costs 3 Shadow Orbs, always lasts 4 GCDs, and has a fixed 6 ticks. Tick damage, per tick, is equal to 1/6th the value of the on-hit damage caused by Devouring Plague, can not individually Crit, and can not individually Multistrike. Reminder: Devouring Plague has an Ignite mechanic where, if you reapply Devouring Plague before it expires, any ticks that had not yet done damage has its damage redistributed over 6 + 1 ticks (MoP-style DoT refresh timer). Multistrikes count as reapplying Devouring Plague. Examples:
  • Devouring Plague hits for 6000 damage. Each of the 6 ticks will do 1000 damage: 1000 * 6 = 6000.
  • Devouring Plague crits for 12000 damage. Each of the 6 ticks will do 2000 damage: 2000 * 6 = 12000.
  • Devouring Plague hits for 6000 damage and multistrikes for an additional 1800 damage. Each of the 7 ticks will do 1114.29 (on average) damage: 1114.29 * 7 = 6000 + 1800 = 7800.
  • Devouring Plague is already ticking on the target for 1000 and has 3 ticks remaining when a new Devouring Plague is applied. This new Devouring Plague hits for 6000 damage. Each of the 7 ticks will do 1285.72 (on average) damage: 1285.72 * 7 = 6000 + 3 * 1000 = 9000.
• Mind Blast's base cooldown is now 9.0 seconds and is now reduced by Haste. 50% Haste yields a 6.0 second cooldown along with a 1.0 second cast time.
• The T16 2P bonus has been changed to increase Mind Blast's damage by 20%.
• Crit is your most valuable stat, followed by Haste, then Mastery. Multistrike is more valuable than Mastery @ 90, but is only available via a trinket.

--Shadow contributed by Twintop

[Maplefire 37]

 

HOLY

• Chakra: Sanctuary no longer increases healing of area-of-effect spells. It now causes healing spell casts to reduce the remaining cooldown on Circle of Healing by 1 second instead of always reducing the cooldown by 2 seconds.
• Chakra: Serenity no longer increases healing of single-target spells.

 

Hi Brew,

 

In reading the holy changes, it sounds like we're getting some good changes. I'm curious about these two though - do you know (or opine) if these changes were made to better balance holy's healing with disc? I'm assuming Halo and Cascade will have timers for Holy as well. It looks like Holy's getting a little beefier, but Disc now seems to require a bit more thought into casts and downtime?

Edited October 1, 2014 by Maplefire

[Brewmonksta 157]

They were made to simplify the chakra choices and to make you feel less "punished" for picking one chakra over the other.

 

As for the holy vs disc, they are completely different playstyles so balancing the specs IMO can only come from the number tune and damage source style, which is WoD in a nutshell.

 

Because we are going to a triage style where there will be time to heal people up rather than having to heal them up for the next melee swing/damage source like current. This means that the topup style healers that can maintain a high throughput will have more value becasue the absorbs wont be able to take the full brunt of the hit and will simply mitigate some of the hit and leave the topup healers to do ther rest over the next few seconds.

 

The whole healing overhaul for WoD had been defined by blizzard as moving away from "i must fill every GCD" to smart targeted healing where healers have to choose the right heal with regard to target(smart heals are no longer so smart and aoe capping rules apply) and which spell to use so that overheals are minimised and mana is conserved.

[Espiee 161]

Nice to get started on the 6.0 transition, there's a double mention of PWS in the holy section though.

 

 

Again the priority list "rotation" for holy remains mostly unchanged in 6.0.

 

Holy's stat rotation will be somewhat different.

 

In terms of raw throughput MS and haste are very equal even considering the MS attunement. Haste obviously suffers from its adverse effect on our mana, but may still end up being better than mastery if Renew remains as pivotal as it is right now. Crit and versatility are undoubtedly the worst stats for holy, at least early in the expansion.

 

EDIT:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

After spending a few hours fiddling with holy across mythic, heroic and normal, I've realised a haste build is not likely to work that well at 90.

 

The damage pattern in SoO hasn't changed. Damage is still spiky and absorbs still rule supreme. For holy it becomes all about burst healing and for that job renew doesn't cut it. It doesn't heal for much per tick and along with the virtually endless mana we have at 90 you have access to far more potent abilities that benefit more from crit and mastery.

 

If anything I'd recommend going for a crit>mastery>haste build for now.

 

Keep in mind, haste is still going to be superior for warlords raiding(to mastery and crit) since damage is more continuous and burst healing counts for less.

 

 

Crit is still going to be king. The way that the current set bonus' work it will still be viable to be using AA on CD.

Crit is absolutely ruling supreme for disc, mastery remains second, haste, MS and versatility are going to be the least desirable stats.

 

 

The healing "rotation" for disc seems to be mostly unchanged. AA on CD, lvl90 talent on CD, PW:S for incoming tank(single target damage) and Atone for fillers.

I really doubt atonement is going to be widely used in warlords.

 

Atonement doesn't heal for much anymore and with the buffs to PWS, the introduction of CoW, we're going to be casting direct heals much more than doing dps.

 

As a point of reference, Penance heals every target for double what it deals in damage, smite heals for 6k on my premade character meanwhile Heal heals for 30.5k. In terms of HPS, that's 12.2k hps versus smite's 4.1k, while smite costs 25% more mana per cast.

 

Only HF is worth casting for atonement healing, but then again, with the availability of even better casts in terms of HPS like CoW and penance giving you 2 stacks per use with the 2pc, there's not going to be a reason to cast HF.

Edited October 17, 2014 by steve

[Gwenymph 414]

There was no way I was going to have the time to put something like this together.   Thanks so much Brew, and again.... Welcome to the Priest crew in WoD!

 

I will admit that for the time spent in the prior builds I did find myself using Atonement less and less each time I hit a new boss.  I am going to try and get in another round of testing, even if it is only LFR before 6.0

[Brewmonksta 157]

 

I really doubt atonement is going to be widely used in warlords.

I agree, but for the current to patch 6.0 transisiton and knwoing that we are still going to be in near BIS gear it should still be useful just less than live.

 

This guide is more for the SoO in 6.0. The warlords stats/rotation and playstyle will be quite different obviously and will take a guide better than a few dot points to outline :P

[Espiee 161]

I'll make an edit once the ptr comes online again, but the same logic should apply to SoO in 6.0.

 

If you need to heal people, heal, PWS and penance do more healing than offensive penance or smite comparing their HPM. You'll still want Solace to build AA.

 

Now, if healing isn't an issue in Mythic SoO, atonement may be our primary way to generate DA when spread out due to lack of anything else, but HN is going to be a better means to heal than smite if you can hit at least 5 targets. Which in a 20m guild shouldn't be too hard, especially in the melee stack. All in all, this will likely mean Atonement is limited to Holy fire and either 2 smites or penance to get 5 stacks for evangelism.

 

EDIT: Doing some testing on the PTR, just running around in shrine, NR does _more_ healing than smite even if it only hits one target. That shouldn't be surprising though. The SP coefficient for HN is 112% and Smite's is 92.5%. HN does cost a little more mana(592 vs 555), but that's a negligible difference at 0.1% more of your total mana per minute.

 

Essentially if there are just about any number of targets near you, HN is a better means to pad DA with than straight up atonement healing.

Edited October 3, 2014 by steve

[Armaiti 0]

I just made an account to ask a question, I was wondering since with the removal of reforging how will this affect our current gear? What kind of affect will this also have on Gemming for Holy/Disc for during SoO Mythic once it arrives on live?

Edited October 5, 2014 by Armaiti

[Gwenymph 414]

I just made an account to ask a question, I was wondering since with the removal of reforging how will this affect our current gear? What kind of affect will this also have on Gemming for Holy/Disc for during SoO Mythic once it arrives on live?

 

What I've noticed most is the loss of Spirit on most pcs for Holy spec.  I did change my gemming on Beta for Holy and Disc to snag more Spirit, though I will admit, the little I was able to gain did not make much of a difference on the raid testing prior to the gem change.  Unfortunately as far as testing goes, I never switched back after that first raid test so I can't tell you how much difference the Spirit makes after 3+ months of testing as it did that first test or two w/o the gem change.

 

EDIT:  The SoO run I was in was plagued with DCs and I cannot answer accurately enough to say what the loss in Spirit to Holy in SoO will be.  From what my Holy counterpart was telling me in his run, with less pugs, that the changes made the fights more trivial and he didn't notice the difference in his loss of Spirit.

[Armaiti 0]

What I've noticed most is the loss of Spirit on most pcs for Holy spec.  I did change my gemming on Beta for Holy and Disc to snag more Spirit, though I will admit, the little I was able to gain did not make much of a difference on the raid testing prior to the gem change.  Unfortunately as far as testing goes, I never switched back after that first raid test so I can't tell you how much difference the Spirit makes after 3+ months of testing as it did that first test or two w/o the gem change.

 

So gemming is still pretty much the same as it is in 5.4?, I'm currently going to be trialing as Holy and want to be ready to ensure that I am indeed viable come the patch.

 

Thank you.

[Espiee 161]

Mana at level 90 shouldn't be an issue.

 

If you retain spirit items in each slot(neck, rings, trinkets and cloak), the amount of spirit should roughly be equal to what you have before. Spirit is worth roughly 3.5 what is on live, seeing how you can have spirit on 6 of 16 slots, that means the raw availability of spirit is the same as live.

 

But then you need to account for the fact our spells now costs less and our mana pools are at 37k rather than 300k. That reduction in mana pool makes spirit ever so much more potent. Whereas spirit in mists restores 0.0002% of your mana per spirit, in warlords, at 90, that number is 0.0015%. Neither of those numbers seem large, but it essentially means spirit  in 6.0 regenerates 7.5 times the mana relative to your mana pool that spirit on live does.

 

Additionally our base mana regen has been upped from 0.4% per second to 0.8% per second at level 90.

 

Crit levels should stay about the same. Given that spirit on most items are being replaced by haste, crit or mastery, it is going to be possible to have crit/mastery items in *every* slot that isn't a ring or a trinket if you so desire. This should more than make up for the removal of reforging.

 

For holy you likely want haste over mastery over crit on items without spirit. Renew is going to be a workhorse and so is CoH. With Chakra: Sanctuary every heal cast reduced the cd on CoH and with more haste, the more Renew will heal for and the more you can cast it.

Edited October 5, 2014 by steve

[Twintop 45]

Added Shadow notes to the OP.

[Gwenymph 414]

Added Shadow notes to the OP.

 

Thank you!

[Bunnicula 0]

does the haste>mastery>crit apply to both 10/25 man settings?  i prioritzed crit over everything else due to our grp 5 healing most of SoO. That combined with  my EoL did a crap ton of overhealing if i prioritized mastery. 

[Espiee 161]

does the haste>mastery>crit apply to both 10/25 man settings?

 

It depends on what abilities you end up casting. Haste is a great throughput stat for most, but its adverse effect on your mana makes it an unattractive stat for plain increase to healing compared to mastery, crit or multistrike that all increase you healing but at no additional mana cost. Haste is however really great for Renew still it increases the healing of Renew without increasing the mana cost.

 

If Renew ends up being a dominant source of your healing(like it is on the beta), then haste is the stat to stack . If however a majority of your healing comes from direct heals and EoL, then mastery would be a better stat. It is likely not to matter much in the end for 6.0 since there is no more reforging we're talking about a 4 week period before a new expansion.

Edited October 12, 2014 by steve

[Wetty 6]

I've mained Shadow Priest for most of Cata + MoP, it sounds like they're completely re-thinking the way Shadow is played...not sure how I feel about this! Might be time for the Balance Druid to come out! I'll give Shadow a try but from reading the notes... RIP </3

[PissedOff 0]

Ok, so I was totally going to dump my Shadow Priest because cranking out any sort of dps is a total chore, but my guild Mistress wants me to stick with her. It looks like the whole purpose of having a ShadowPriest in a raid setting (if they're not going to do awesome dps like say ... a hunter) is being removed. Who is going to keep a mediocre dps if we don't have any utilities anymore? I mean, seriously, halo doesn't heal anymore? Say what?? I understand that our dps is supposed to improve, but I highly doubt we will be OPed in any way, shape, or form. Even though it feels like a job sometimes, I love being a naughty shadow priest, but I want to be useful in a raid setting. That's mostly why I play the game. Any suggestions? Also, I saw that crit would be best for healers. Has anyone figured out which will be a shadow's go to stat? (serious replies only please)

 

- Sincerely

<3 Me ;)

[Asyousleep 0]

Safe to consider HN as filler instead of Smite now going by what Steve mentioned. I also recall Smite being really weak on PTR.

Edited October 14, 2014 by Asyousleep

[Benneh 0]

Disc Priest here....

 

So I am confused now, so what is going to be good stat weighting in Mr Robot now?  As when I log on post patch its saying to change all my gems etc.  I had limited my spirit somewhat but obviously now with no reforge that will all be out of the window.

 

So do I trust Mr Robot or does someone have a good set of stat weightings I can pinch?

[Krazyito 521]

Don't trust Mr robot until they are out of beta, hell I wouldn't even trust it until we get to 100. New code and new types of gear threw it in a loop and even made it difficult for me to get what I wanted out of it (and I know exactly what I want, just getting the weights to do it is the problem) 

[Espiee 161]

Nothing has changed for disc in terms of stat weights:

 

int >= crit > mastery >> haste > spirit

 

You can get crit/mastery in all slots but one. The only major change for stats is that blue sockets should now be Rigid River's Heart since it gives 20 crit and is better than the 10 crit/spi gems.

 

On a related note, HN STRONK

[Gwenymph 414]

Ran a Mythic with some friends and pugged the empty spots.... yes Steve, Holy Nova is just.... yum.

 

In response to Mr. Robot, I will just give you an extra voice in the same direction of Krazy and Steve.  Stick w/ the gemming you have now except the change from Misty to Rigid.

 

I swapped out some trinkets and L90s, nothing extremely noteworthy except I will no longer be using cleave for Noru.  Sidenote I can confirm what Steve mentioned prior to 6.0 live and that is Mana Regen is extremely lenient in SoO.  So much so that I was able to get rid of the Samophlange and still spam to my hearts content.  Sadly I forgot to reglyph but here is the Mythic log with...  you know, Priests holding their thumb over Pallies for a little bit longer.  :)

 

Gwenymph WCL:  PuG Mythic 6.0 SoO

[Bytes 1]

I play Disc,

 

We ran a normal/heroic now, last night in SoO and I went in with few changes other than adjusting to spell loss on my healing interface. I was expecting mana issues... but was able to pretty much build up wings and spam PW:Shield and Holy nova all evening >< that was all I did really I felt a bit like a one button toon /shudder... endless shields and holy nova... penance to keep peeps topped up with a slow burst. 

 

Logs: suse the derping (there was a lot of derping - apparently I'm a womble without DBM and GTFO.)

 

~Bytes

Edited October 15, 2014 by Bytes

[Gwenymph 414]

I play Disc,

 

We ran a normal/heroic now, last night in SoO and I went in with few changes other than adjusting to spell loss on my healing interface. I was expecting mana issues... but was able to pretty much build up wings and spam PW:Shield and Holy nova all evening >< that was all I did really I felt a bit like a one button toon /shudder... endless shields and holy nova... penance to keep peeps topped up with a slow burst. 

 

Logs: suse the derping (there was a lot of derping - apparently I'm a womble without DBM and GTFO.)

 

~Bytes

 

Common theme the last two days.  Glad everyone didn't pack up shop and bail on Disc when 6.0 went live.  The last two weeks of buffs sure didn't hurt   :)

[Bytes 1]

 

 

 Glad everyone didn't pack up shop and bail on Disc when 6.0 went live.

 

 

Lol tbh I really am going to miss waiting like a tiger for the 10-12sec prior to major mechanic moment to lay my spirit shell blanket on the raid.  Made me feel all "knowledge = power" /insert-cackle-here. By the looks of it I may need to practice the Holy Nova or Prayer of Healing aegis application timing instead.