Challenge 24: Class Fantasy

This fortnight’s challenge from Z and Cinder is right up my street as my idea of the Priest class fantasy and Blizzard’s are essentially poles apart, possibly on different planets too. When it comes to my favourite class, I think that original idea of Priests in WoW has muddied the water. Remember back when each Priest race had special spells (and everyone wanted a Dwarf Priest for Fear ward) and to me, starting playing back then, there was the class fantasy but also an individual flavour depending on your race. Snow might be a Priest but she’s a Priestess of Elune first and foremost. Her class hall should be open and wild and full of moonwells not a rather dull space ship.

There aren’t many “famous” Priests wandering around and nor is there much detail especially when compared to the amazing Mage Hall or the wonderful Druidic area. In fact when it was first released I wrote this in a fit of pique and my feelings haven’t changed. The spell changes have also annoyed me, partly because I loved using Mind Vision in PvP and I fail to understand why when I can still use Shadow spells to Mind Control someone of a cliff, I shouldn’t have access to Fear or Mind Vision just because I’m Holy. I’m also not a fan of the moulting Owlcat which is the Priest class mount although I’m not sure what kind of flying creature I would associate with Priests unless they made race specific Spirit of Redemption type models which could carry you like this:

Of the other class halls I’ve accessed so far, I admit to a liking for the Monk temple however I want to be able to get to the Wood of Staves without mountaineering. I think they were helped there though by the idea that Monks came originally from Pandaria/from the Pandarians and that the original Temple/home of the Monks got destroyed through the weapon quests so using the Pandarian start zone does make sense. It’s also lovely and expansive.

I also love the Druid Class Hall and admit to being totally jealous of all the moonwells and the Night Elf buildings which my Priest would absolutely feel at home with.

I think part of the issue with Class fantasy is that we have had years of envisioning our own idea of what our characters are, the world in which they choose to surround them and what their class means to them. Then Blizzard come along and go, “oh class fantasy” and totally change everything we’ve imagined, the spells we love and try and squish things into little boxes. I think it works best with classes like the Druids (limited races, clear theme from the outset) and Death Knights but completely falls down with others including the Priests.

Squatters Rights

As part of my Class Hall chain, I was invited to Light’s Hope Chapel. The “Class Hall” envy set in approximately three seconds after arrival.

It seems that Priests are just like vampires, once across the threshold, we’re virtually impossible to get rid of.

Snow and her Moonkin/Feral Druid experiment pet creature are staying put and from my Underbelly experiences, it’s going to take a lot of Paladins to evict her.

A Weapon for All Seasons – The Three Priest Artifacts

I’m now level 105 and possessor of all three Artifact weapons available to Priests. My experiences of the quests might be slightly different to most Priests as I did all three quest chains as Holy but if I had to rate them, it would be as follows.

The easiest by far was Shadow. No annoying NPCs standing in burning floors, demon goop or anything else dangerous to their health. I also liked the outdoors element of the chain, where you could group up with other Priests if you wanted/needed. In fact, I think this was my favourite over all quest, even the dreadful “Scottish” accent of the Dwarf couldn’t ruin it. I love the snarky evil talking blade, it’s a shame it’s not a staff though or that it can’t be transmogrified into one as I’d love to use the Anathema skin.

Priest Specific spells needed: 1 – mass dispel although Holy Nova worked just as well at killing them.

Next on my list would be the Discipline artifact. Again I liked the fact that I could group up with another Priest on the outdoor elements and that it wasn’t all purely instanced. I’m possibly also slightly biased by the fact that my experience with the Beta was a lot harder (Thanks Azuregos…who clearly hadn’t forgiven me for killing him once a week for 18 months in vanilla and did nothing to help me during the middle part of the quest) than it was on live. I’m guessing if you are actually playing Discipline, you do the end part of the quest with a bit more finesse than my Holy Priest did but if it works, it works right?

Priest Specific spells used: 2 – levitate and mind control

 

Finally Holy, the first quest I completed and my least favourite of the lot. I hate Jace Darkweaver with a passion and sincerely hope if I ever have to group up with him again, he’s learnt to stay out of the fire by then. I think that’s a big part of my issue with the chain, how I can I be a hero if I need a motley bunch of minions to carry me to my artifact quest. Yes, I’m a healer and group part of play is a huge part of that but the Protection Warrior artifact weapon doesn’t exactly have you tanking for a party, the way that the Holy Priest quest has you healing people. I think that made it a bit bland compared to some of the other artifact quests I’ve done, for example the Assassination Rogue one.

Priest Specific spells used: 2 – levitate (because I could) and resurrection

All in all a lot of fun and provided a good break from questing/doing profession based things.

Totally Unnecessary Picture of Snow hanging with Azuregos

If I’d designed the Priest Class Hall for Legion …

Many moons ago, Mr Harpy and I spent a couple of months in Mexico. This is a photo of a place called Cholula (I’m assuming I took it whilst in a traffic jam) and the reason it’s in this post is that Church is not nestling on a hill but a Temple.

That recycling and re-purposing of sacred spaces would be the theme of my Priest Class Hall. From the outside, you’d see a church sitting on a slight hill but inside, it would be so much more.

The Shadow Hall

Imagine if you will, a Temple to an Old God deep within the earth. Dank, shadowy and with something which doesn’t bear too close an examination dripping down the walls. The air is thick with candle smoke and pallid pools cast strange reflections on the ceiling. If you look too deeply into the water, tentacles (or maybe it’s just pond weed) wave, encouraging you to wade in.

At one end of the room, we find a library full of dusty books whose subject matter seems to involve flaying of minds and melting of souls. This coupled with a pile of empty coffins beside them doesn’t paint a particularly wholesome image.

A pile of abandoned Anathemas lie sadly in a corner.

Famous Priests:

Shadow Priest Allister, author of that famous tome “Holy Bologna: What the Light won’t tell you” can be found sitting at a desk in an alcove asking for help deciding on the title of his new work, muttering different possibilities aloud.

Mistress Natalia Mar’alith, High Priestess of C’thun tends to the pools, every so often chanting something sibilant softly which has the waters churning with what looks like blood.

Vivienne Blackwhisper can be found playing cards with her Alliance counterpart Brienna Nightfell. In between hands they complain about their non Shadow Priest raid members in the Trial of the Crusader and discuss strategies for the upcoming Arena season.

Stairs rise up, twisting away from the fetid cellars. The space widens to provide a burial ground for those who died for their faith. Nightelf graves lie side by side with Troll, Tauren next to Gnome before narrowing again.

Discipline

At some point, the Night Elves were drawn to the power of the Temple below (or perhaps they thought building on top of it would help them guard it for the eons to come). Here within what was once a Temple to Elune, we find the Discipline Priests going about their business. One end of the room holds training dummies for the practical application of both Light and Shadow. Just like downstairs, there is a nook full of books although these seem a lot less forbidding, apart that is from the one that is shackled in an alcove. Through an Elven arch, we discover a Moonwell, complete with a statue of Elune, trees and benches make this a comfortable resting area.

Although the windows to the outside must be nothing more than illusions as the Temple is covered in rock and gardens, the moon is clearly visible through them at all times of day.

High Inquisitor Whitemane (yep, she’s still refusing to stay Dead and I don’t care what other classes think, she’s a Priest!) is teaching some Acolytes the art of resurrection.

Argent Confessor Paletress is in charge of the Confessional, step inside to confess your deepest darkest sins and receive a suitable and fitting penance. Every so often, you’ll discover one of the NPCs has beaten you to it and is admitting all sorts of scandalous stuff.

Moon Priestess Maestra has relocated from the Post which holds her name and can be found in conversation with Tyrande (a much more logical class “leader” choice given the Night Elf theme of the expansion.

Sister Aquinne has finished her training and been promoted to Full Priestess from Novice.

Thomas the Altar boy from Stormwind Cathedral runs errands between the NPCs, bringing one a book they need or another a bottle of holy water or a glass of wine.

Again the stairs climb upward, this time when they widen out, a small infirmary has been built into the alcove. Run by Chief Surgeon Gashweld and her Gnomish minions with assistance from some Goblin Priests.

Holy

 

Finally and more recently an intrepid (or lost) bunch of Humans or maybe Worgens came along and found the ruins. A whisper of the power once held inside captured their imaginations and a church was built, capping off the two Temples which came before it. In honor of the Priest takeover and our Draenic friends, the gardens outside have been given a distinctly Draenei flavour and inside the Church, proximity to the Naaru has caused things to begin to alter. Regardless of the time of day, sunlight streams through the windows.

A Lightwell glitters by the altar and Priests come and go in the pews, listening to sermons, chatting, praying quietly.

Ishanah

High Priestess MacDonnell has finally lost interest in Scourge Cauldrons and moved in search of a newer enemy to fight.

 

Random Details

The ghost of Erin Havenfire wanders randomly through the Class Hall, talking to herself about the balance of light and shadow. When clicked upon, she offers to show you why that balance is so important. If you want you can see a short video of her pressing some random Priest into service to help her gain the redemption she sought.

Books from all three “Faiths” move through the Class Hall, occasionally dueling each other with much smiting, mindflaying and a touch of holy nova from the glittering Holy books.

NPCs wear a variety of Priestly outfits, all the tiers are in use somewhere across the Class Hall.

The various Priest Class trainers all make appearances, conversing about such topics as their most terrible trainees and debating points of theology (I so want a Male Priest answering every question on religion with “that’s an ecumenical matter” and if you haven’t watched Father Ted you should).

In the gardens outside, you find dueling Priests and in a rose covered arbor, a two Worgens sit watching. The Trolls have distributed their Loas throughout the complex depending on where their beliefs lie.

 

Toys, Trinkets and other awesome stuff

A Spirit of Redemption combat pet, if you kill a critter with her out, she tells them it’s not yet their time and resurrects them. Should you aoe a whole bunch of cute little bunnies, she casts mass resurrection.

Devouring Plague, a pet.

Every so often, she enters shadowform and casts devouring plague on a critter, cackling.

A Travelling Sermon, yep if you can’t get your raid to come to listen to Paletress, you can take a miniature but equally loud and annoying holographic version of her to them…one of the less discussed “benefits” of letting Gnomes and Goblins be priests.

Mini Benediction/Anathema, follows you around casting sparkles every so often (think holy nova but either gold or shadowy). That way, even Shadow Priests can still have their Anathema out whilst using their Artifact weapon.

Holy Priests can purchase a toy entitled “Inept Shadowfiend”. On a 3 minute cooldown, you can summon an “inept shadowfiend” for 12 seconds. It will appear, stand around looking a bit dazed and confused for a bit, hug your feet, drool on the floor and then vanish back from whence it came.

Titles

One of the “flavour” aspects which drew me to the Priest Class was the race specific spells we used to have. In order to recapture that idea that we’re very much drawing on different religions, the titles reflect the differences between the races.

Night Elves: Moon Priest/Moon Priestess

Gnomes/Goblins: Chief Surgeon

Humans/Dwarves/Troll: High Priest/High Priestess

Tauren: Seer

Draenei: Anchorite

Forsaken: Shadow Priest/Shadow Priestess (Torn on this one. The lore might say one thing, but not all Undead Priests are shadow).

Yes, this is a very Alliance centric vision but so is the one we’re getting in Legion. There would obviously be more Horde NPCs but in my admittedly quick look, I was struggling to find that many unique Horde Priests who stand out.

Edit: If this post leaves you with the idea that I’m not hugely taken with the Priest Class Hall that Blizzard have designed, you would be correct.

 

 

#Alt Appreciation – Priest Week

This week is dedicated to one of my favourite classes, yep, it’s finally #Priest Week.

When I first started playing WoW, we spent a lot of time PvPing in the Barrens and in Hillsbrad and despite loving my Warlock, there were two Horde Shadow Priests who inspired me a lot (probably because beating them was hard). When we came to reroll on a PvP server a few months down the line because of the new battleground queues made PvPing impossible on our server, I decided that instead of making a new Warlock, I’d go for a Shadow Priest. We were leveling as a threesome and as two hybrids (Priest and Druid) and a pure dps class, we could run dungeons at the appropriate level with no problems at all without needing to find another 2 players. It varied on who tanked and who healed, for example on Princess Theradras in Maraudon my Shadow Priest tanked whilst Mr Harpy’s feral Druid healed me but it worked great. Then we hit level 54 and joined a guild who were planning on running Molten Core real soon. Next thing I knew, I was Holy/Disc to raid and haven’t really looked back.

Throughout the original game I played a Priest, only switching to a Paladin a few months into the Burning Crusade. It didn’t take me long to realize that for me at least, this was a mistake, one which I wanted to rectify as swiftly as possible and in fact started taking my Priest to more and more alt fun runs. By the time the Sunwell came out, I was tempted to go back to playing one as my main but all our Shamans quit at once siting school, drama or wanting to re-roll themselves and whilst the final choice was mine, I went for Heroism for over Circle of Healing.

When Wrath was released, I went Priest from the start and the same with Cataclysm and MoP. I might currently be flirting with a Monk but I suspect that eventually the call of the Priest will be too strong for me to ignore.

Sprout

Because everyone needs at least one Gnome Priest in their lives!

Erinys as she was originally

Erinys as she is today

At some point I would like to return to her to original state because she’ll always a Priestess of Elune to me but for the moment she’s sneaking around pretending to be a Blood Elf.

General Dornröschen

Named for one of my favorite fairy tales, Sleeping Beauty which just seemed appropriate for a Forsaken Priest. I farmed rank 12 on her during the original game and she wears her title with pride. There was no botting, afking in corners or using hard core premades to get there, just lots of pvp some with friends but the vast majority just with Mr Harpy’s warrior.

There are few more Priestly skeletons hiding away on my account but these are my three main trouble causers.

Thoughts on being 90

Whilst levelling is a journey full of wonder and amazement, arrival at 90 is like landing at the airport to discover they’ve lost your baggage, customs want to strip search you but you’ve won the lottery to compensate. Sure there are a lot of positives but some definite negatives thrown into the mix as well.

1. Dailies, dailies, dailies as far as the eye can see. The choice is overwhelming as is the feeling that you should ignore the “fun” ones (Tillers/Anglers/Cloud Serpents) whilst concentrating on the rest in the run up to raids and the arena season starting. Given that I don’t go back to work until Thursday, we have been spamming the lot but it definitely feels like overload. On the plus side (a phrase I never thought I’d ever use in this context) most of the daily hubs involve going to one specific area and slaughtering & collecting. On top of that, compared to the Molten Front, killing vermling, playing catch with baby dragons and beating up sharks with your bare hands is a refreshing change.

2. Heroics aren’t really heroic in any shape or form. When I queued up for the first time I was really nervous remembering back to the start of Cataclysm when on some trash packs mana was an issue. I didn’t need to worry, in fact even after boss fights my interweaving of power word:solace into the mix meant I didn’t need to drink then either. I know the challenge modes are there for just that purpose but I would have liked the Heroics to be slightly tougher. It just feels a bit wrong where the Stormstout brewery for example felt harder on normal at 86 than it did at 90 on heroic (just wearing blue 450 gear in every slot apart from my 463 legs and my epic trinket from Coren).

3. PvP is awesome. My favourite all time battleground now has to be the Temple of Kotmogu. It’s fast paced, fun and a bit like arenaing but with objectives other than making sure you’re the last team standing. I definitely don’t feel squishy as Holy unless the whole opposing team piles on top of me (or I’ve been hogging a power ball too long) which is a good start to an expansion too. I plan on doing a proper post covering my choice of glyphs + talents as Holy for each of the maps once I’ve finished testing a few things.

4. Scenarios! I love all of the ones I’ve played so far (apart from Theramore). They’re quick, varied and because it’s not just standing still and healing like a proper dungeon, great fun (ignoring the lore side of it, Theramore is just a bit too much like running a dungeon).

The loot bags are annoying though, I know RNG is RNG but so far Mr Harpy has had an item from pretty much every second bag and I’ve had zero which makes gearing up a little more irritating.

5. Priesting. Why oh why can’t chakras last after death and on zoning. I know it’s not a massive issue for most things but it’s still a quality of life issue. Other than that, I’m pretty happy with Holy. Mana is 10 times better than it was at the start of Cataclysm in both pve and pvp. In fact the only other thing which annoys me is the lack of useful minor glyphs for my chosen spec. We have a choice of ten, four are shadow specific, one is disc specific, one is holy specific but requires your death and the others are just flavour.

6. Pet battles. Fear my Hopling because it will lick you to death! This turned out to be more addictive and less annoying than on the beta. I’m still working my way through pre Outlands pets but I hit 250 unique pets a while back and am route to 400 albeit slowly. I have to admit I went and tamed an Infested Bear Cub even though I said I never would. (By the way, they only seem to spawn after midnight if you’re looking, at least that’s the only time I’ve ever found any sign of them). Also whoever designed Jaguero Isle to have a separate weather system to that of southern STV can take a spinning crane kick to the face.

7. MoP transmogrification. Yes please! The cloth pvp set consisting of a pants suit had me panicking slightly but the weapons and off-hands are stunning.

8. Pandas. I’m still not 100 percent convinced, but I’ve made one even though she hasn’t made it out of the start zone yet. She’s a Priest (surprise surprise) called Snowflower after a book I fell in love with a little while ago when I found a beat up copy in a charity shop. I’m slightly saddened by the fact that my favourite beta hairstyle isn’t available at the character creation stage but am hoping it will be an option once she escapes the Isle.

9. The Storyline in general. I’m really impressed with the stories this time around. Blizzard have added some really lovely touches and some tragic moments. I was particularly taken with the fact that my evil double giggles.

It’s a great mix of tragic, comedic and thought provoking.

I think I started out looking for things to criticise, wanting to believe that WoW had nothing left to offer me, that I reached my final destination as far as the game was concerned but it seems that somehow despite my cynicism, Pandaria’s beauty and sense of wonder has managed to pull me back.

BETA: Glyph of the Heavens

The current beta build (15657) brought Priests our first cosmetic minor glyph.

Glyph of  the Heavens – Your Levitate targets will appear to be riding on a cloud for the duration of the spell.

Well would you have your eyes open if you were standing on a cloud?

The cloud is dynamic which is a nice touch, fluidly shifting in size.

 I can’t help wondering if it’s a bit big for Gnomes though. At it’s largest (as shown in the top picture) it’s about the same size as my Priest. Will I be using it when Mists goes live? Probably not, I find the movement a bit distracting and since I tend to use levitate mostly for leaping from the Lumber Mill to the Blacksmith, I’m not sure I’d want my arrival to be heralded by a large fluffy storm cloud.

BETA: Spectral Guise

I want to like this ability, I really do but I’m struggling to find anything positive at all to say about it. Regardless of whether you consider it in the light of PvP or PvE it has several obvious flaws.

White hits count towards the three hits. Thus fast hitting classes like rogues break you out far too fast.

You can’t cast anything whilst invisible nor can you interact with anything, including your lightwell.

You might as well announce your disappearing act with a fanfare of trumpets, some fireworks and a troop of cheerleaders. Subtle it isn’t. Not only is there an audible “whoosh”, you also fade to black before vanishing then there is a slight delay in which the enemy de-targets you before the “clone” appears. Which brings me to my next point.

This is my Gnome in all her awesome lv 87 glory:

This is my Spectral Guise:

Feel free to play spot the differences. I would imagine that by the time we’re one month into the expansion, everyone who isn’t a bot will recognise exactly what you’re doing and how to counter it. Also regardless of the health you’re at when you cast Spectral Guise, the clone spawns with a 100 percent which is another give away.

At the moment, any damage you (the real you, not the pale imitation) takes breaks the illusion. So you need to be careful about when you use it. Any dots on you before hand and it’s a no no even if said dots are absorbed by your shield. If you get caught by any AoE effects whilst trying to sneak off, same deal.

As Spectral Guise does break on damage to you and doesn’t clear snares, my biggest headache whilst duelling was the preparation I needed to get the most out of it.

cc -> dispel -> racial (if the snares weren’t magic) -> Spectral Guise

As the most I gained was 30 yards and since everyone else has at least one way of getting back to you, it barely bought me any time at all. I would have been arguably better just using fear and then spam healing myself.

In mass PvP, I can imagine myself using it pro-actively, for example sneaking into an enemy group using it and then fearing to break them up. Other than that, the best use I can think of is using it to cancel spells enemy casters/bosses are using on you.

So what about PvE, if I’m in a dungeon with a bad tank, I already have fade (which I can talent to remove snares) as well as either void tendrils or glyphable fear.

One other possible use (besides using it to cancel one spell cast on you every 30 seconds), would be on encounters like the new Huntsman in the Scarlet Monastery. The kind of fights where you get an arrow over your head and a pack of animals which can’t be taunted set on you for a set duration. If the arrow copies to your “clone” that is. I still need to test this as when I tried the Scarlet Monastery earlier, the boss insisted on targeting my party member rather than me. Of course if Mists brings us another Faction Champions type encounter, then yes, this spell will have a niche but until then, it’s rather lacklustre.

As an lv 87 Priest who has quested through both new zones as well as run the new dungeon as Holy, I can’t think of a single occasion where I “needed” Spectral Guise or even one where it would have been my go to solution. Given that it’s our only new non-talented ability this expansion, I feel that’s rather sad.

I would like to see a couple of quick fixes implemented to make it more desirable.

1. Make it require only yellow hits to break or make it last for a percentage of your health pool.
2.  Have it work a bit like vanish in that any damage the real you incurs whilst it’s active doesn’t break the effect. That way AoE and dots wouldn’t be so much of an issue. Either that or fix it to work with absorbs so that any absorbed damage doesn’t make you reappear.
3. I’d also like it to copy my character, exact same health/mana and health percentage please.

Edit: On top of all this, Darkener left a great comment about his/her idea for a Spectral Guise glyph.

“Glyph of Spectral Guise:Your Spectral Guise spell can be cast while stunned, immobilized, polymorphed, feared, charmed, disoriented, Sapped or mind controlled (under the effect of any CC).”

I have to say I love this idea. Of course it would rely on Blizzard fixing Spectral Guise so that the “sneaky” you doesn’t take damage whilst invisible but it would make a big difference in PvP. Since most of the glyphs these days are trade offs, perhaps a small increase to the cooldown would be required but I could live with that if I got a decent “Save me!” spell out of it.

Finally I have one last issue with it. As it’s not true stealth, mini-pets stick by your side and give the game away. In an expansion based around mini-pet battles, this is bad. I want to have my new companions out in PvP.

BETA: Thoughts on PvPing as a Healing Priest in MoP.

Disclaimers and stuff: First Beta build and everything is likely to change between now and live. Blizzard have admitted that the Priest Class still is a work in progress and things are missing/being switched around.

Crowd Control

Fear is back as baseline and Holy still has access to Chastise (the disorient).

Our other cc options can be found on Tier 1 of the new talent trees and they are:

• Dominate Mind. 30 second cooldown. (appears to replace our current Mind Control) and is usable on all but mechanical targets.
• Pysfiend. 45 second cooldown. Summons a Pysfiend that stands in place. The Pysfiend casts a Psychic Scream on a nearby enemy within 30 yards every 1.5 seconds, preferring targets which attack the Priest. Psychic Scream causes enemies to flee for 30 seconds, damage caused may interrupt the effect. (Given that Fear is back as a baseline, this may change. Due to diminishing returns, it’s unlikely to be my preferred choice in PvP).
• Void Tendrils. 30 second cooldown. Summons shadowy tendrils out of the ground, rooting all targets within 8 yards for 20 seconds. Killing the tendril will cancel the effect. (Wonder if the Freya root macro could be re-used  for tendril killing).

Damage Prevention

First of all, it looks like that staple of Disc PvP, Focused Will is gone for good. Disc does however hang on to both Pain Suppression and Power Word: Barrier.

Other options available to us will include:

Glyph of Inner Sanctum: Spell damage taken is reduced by 6% while within Inner Fire, and the movement speed bonus of your Inner Will is increased by 6%.

This is basically our current talent in the Disc tree swapped to a glyph.

Talent: Phantasm (tier 2) – Any time you Fade you remove all movement impairing effects from yourself and your movement speed will be unimpaired for 3 seconds. In addition to this, you are no longer targettable by ranged attacks for its duration.

This combines a reworking of the current PvP set bonus with an old shadow talent of the same name with some new goodies.

If the “duration” means Fade and it keeps the same cooldown/duration it currently has, that could be 10 seconds out of every 30 that ranged spells just can’t hit you. Ever the optimist, but I’m not sure I see this going live as is.

At the moment, the other choices on tier 2 are purely movement speed related and since a boost to movement speed is no use unless you first clear snares, I’m erring towards this as my PvP pick.

Spectral Guise looks as if it’s making a come back as our lv 87 ability.

Instant cast, 30 second cooldown. Your shadow blurs into the darkness, leaving behind your true form. As a shadow you are invisible but remain in combat. Lasts six seconds or until your true form is hit by 3 direct attacks.

I’m currently  undecided on this one. If those “3 direct” hits include white damage, I’d say this is a fairly useless party trick. If not then it has possibilities. I’d like it to work like this,

/cast Spectral Guise. Then working on the same sort of principle as the Highborne Soul Mirror,  my shadowy self splits off  from my “real” body. Whoever is currently using me as a punching bag, keeps hitting the “fake” me whilst the real me gets to wander off, re-appearing a few yards away.

Dispels.

Instead of having an offensive and defensive dispel and a remove disease, we now have one defensive dispel which removes both magic and disease effects from a target and an offensive dispel. (This was my preferred solution when I discussed dispels a few weeks back although I’m still not convinced that adding a cooldown to dispels makes their use  any more intelligent than when we could spam them willy-nilly.).

Purify (new spell) – 8 second cooldown, removes all magic effects and diseases  from one friendly target. Is only available to Holy and Disc.

Glyph of Purify: heals your target X% upon successful removal of debuffs.

Dispel Magic – now has an 8 second cooldown and removes one buff from an enemy.

Glyph of Dispel Magic: Your Dispel Magic spell also damages your target for 0 Holy damage when you successfully dispel a magical effect.

Glyph of Leap of Faith: Your Leap of Faith spell now also clears all movement impairing effects from your target.

Mass Dispel is still with us and since it appears to be an option for Symbiosis, it seems as if it’s going to stay that way.

Offensive Magic.

According to the spell lists, Holy and Disc are losing access to most of the Shadow magic abilities (mindblast and mindspike). I have to admit, I’m  not particularly happy about this as I’ve always preferred using my shadow school when fighting melee, that way if I do get kicked, I’m not locked out of my heals.

We still have Shadow word: Death to annoy Mages though.

Glyph of Holy Fire: Your Holy Fire spell is now instant. Having another instant is always good in PvP and this might combine nicely with Atonement.

Atonement is also meant to be making an return as a glyph but hasn’t put in an appearance yet.

Cooldowns.

Disc has Pain Suppression, Power Word: Barrier and Hymn of Hope (even if we don’t know how that’s going to work just yet, however given that according to the data-miners, Symbiosis may give Disc Priests Tranquillity, I’d put money on the fact that it’s not going to be a heal).

Holy has Divine Hymn (on a 3 minute cooldown), Lightwell (which now has 15 charges as baseline) and Guardian Spirit (which hasn’t changed).

Talents offer us a few more possibilities.

Desperate Prayer is still available as a talent but it’s currently a choice between that, Voidshift and the new version of Angelic Bulwark.

Voidshift has now shifted itself to tier 4 of the talent tree. “You swap health percentage with the current friendly target. After this effect ends, whoever has the lowest health is automatically healed for 25 percent of their total health”. This has a 3 minute cooldown.

Tier 6 of the talent tree offers Vow of Unity. “Can not be cast on Tank specialized players”. 15 second duration, 2 minute cooldown, all healing on both targets is shared, and a portion will travel in both directions as well. The small print means this is rather lacklustre in PvE. I’d like to play around with it and binding heal as Holy. However since quite a few battlegrounds revolve around flags and flag carriers are often tank specced, I’m not as excited as I was before they added the caveat.

Other Useful Things.

Inner Focus is still Disc only and Strength of Soul (that crucial PvP talent) now appears to be a glyph.

It seems like Reflective Shield is also becoming a glyph. This makes me happy because I’ve beaten lots of people in 1 v 1s that I would otherwise have lost without it.

Other Priestly Beta Links: (will add to this as I find them)

• Corgi Island.
• Stories of O.
• MMO Champion Priest Forums.
• The EU Battlenet Forums.
• Plus Heal

I’m sure there is loads of things I’m missing but on the whole, so far I’m excited about PvP in Mists.

Transmogrification Tuesday – Green grow the rushes oh!

This is my Undead Priest, Dornröschen. One of her most prized possessions is her Arathi basin tabard so I thought I’d base her outfit around it. The shoulders are Priest only and the helm is Horde only unless you are a Warlock so it’s a fairly specific ensemble but then since the Alliance don’t get a green tabard I suppose it doesn’t matter. I know the shades of green aren’t identical but I prefer the detail on this robe as opposed to the one which matches the shoulders. The fanged face on the tabard is almost mirrored by one on the skirt.

• Helm – Mag’hari Ritualist’s Horns (reward from a Horde only quest in Nagrand)
• Chest – Gown of Spiritual Wonder (Costs 520 justice points and can be bought in either Shattrah or the Isle of Quel’Danas)
• Shoulders – Gladiator’s Mooncloth Mantle (Purchasable by honor in Area 52 or by a tier token in the Isle of Quel’Danas)
• Staff – Staff of the Hale Magefire (Blue BoE random world drop)

For the hands, wrists and feet any dark coloured plain gloves and boots will do. I went with the Staff of Hale Magefire because it’s the staff that all my Priests started out with and as such has lots of memories. The baleful flames on it go with the yellowy green hints on the shoulders, tabard and robe too.