Discipline Priest now even more awesome!

Healing as a discipline priest just got a lot better as of Patch 3.1.  Here are the changes from the live-server patch notes:

Discipline

• Divine Aegis: Divine Aegis effects will now stack, however the amount absorbed cannot exceed 125*level (of the target). It will also now take into account total healing including overhealing.
• Improved Divine Spirit: This talent has been removed.
• New Talent: Improved Flash Heal: Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 5/10/15%, and increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal by 4/7/10% on friendly targets at or below 50% health.
• Grace: This talent no longer decreases damage done to the target, but the duration has increased to 15 seconds and the healing bonus has increased from 2% to 3%. This affect now cannot be applied to more than one target at a time.
• Improved Power Word: Fortitude: Now also increases your total stamina by 2/4%.
• Meditation and Improved Power: Word shield have changed locations with each other.
• Meditation: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.
• Mental Agility: Reduced to 3 points (4/7/10%), down from 5.
• New Talent: Soul Warding: Reduces the cooldown of your Power Word: Shield ability by 4 seconds, and reduces the mana cost of your Power Word: Shield by 30%.
• Penance: Damage increased approximately 30%.This spell can now be cast on yourself.
• Power Infusion: This effect now has a new spell effect.
• Renewed Hope: This talent also now allows you to proc the Renewed Hope buff on all party/raid members every time you cast Power Word: Shield, reducing damage taken by 3%. Lasts 20 seconds.
• Unbreakable Will:Increased from 3/6/9/12/15% to 6/12/18/24/30%

Diving Aegis is getting a nice buff by allowing it to stack AND counting the total amount of the crit heal, not just the net heal.  With high enough crit you can get a shield up to 125*80 on an end game player…so with some quick math, you can stack crit and stack up a shield to block 10,000 damage.  PLUS your power word shield.  That is some nice mitigation.

The new flash heal talent is great for discipline since it is our main heal next to penance.  Reduced mana cost and crit to targets under 50% are both really welcomed.

Grace got a slight nerf, but thats okay, 3% increased heal is fine, I guess we’ll try to get it on the tank and all will be okay.

More stamina for the priest is always great, so Imp. fortitude is nice, especially since we all have the talent in our healing spec anyway.

50% mana regen fixes the spirit mana regeneration nerf that is going on across the board, so I’m not too worried about the discipline priest mana regeneration.

Soul Warding looks nice, I assume it will be taken by all discipline priests since both saving mana on PW:S and reducing its universial cooldown are good for our healing style.

PENANCE DOES 30% MORE DAMAGE! Now soloing is going to be even better! Also, we can cast it on ourselves…that’ll save a wipe or two.  Sometimes getting stuck on trying to heal me while watching the tank die creates a guilty feeling…

Power infusion is going to look different now…hopefully it will look cool…we’ll see.

Renewed Hope procc’ing on the whole party is also awesome.  I like the idea of active group buff’s from proc’s.  Less damage for everybody!

Unbreakable Will increasing to 30% is nice for our pvp fellows.  I don’t think i’ll be taking the talent if this is the only change on the talent…

Well, enjoy discipline priests!  Use these to your advantage when trying to get your guild’s bid for the legendary mace!

~Nick Fox

Patch 3.1 hits live servers TODAY! (4/14/09)

I won’t be able to write the detailed post I’d like to due to real life time crunches affecting me today, but the wordpress community should know that Patch 3.1, Secrets of Ulduar is hitting live realms today.  There will be an extended Tuesday downtime to put the patch all together and serve it up.  hopefully it does not turn into an all day lag and disconnect fest, but deep down we know it probably will.

With this patch comes Ulduar, the new 10 and 25 man raid instance, the Argent Tournament held in Icecrown Glacier, Duel Specs, revamped LFG interface, and really a lot more.  I am kind of hoping the Argent Tournament hangs around for awhile, as I really want to get the mount, tabard, shirt, and pet of my favorite horde city, Silvermoon.  That adds up to 205 champion seals, and my priest is only level 75.  I won’t be able to play until Saturday, so I still need 5 levels and enough time to get 205 seals…It is going to be close >.>

So anyway, I’ll let the offical Secrets of Ulduar trailer do the rest of the talking for me.  Watch it a few times and it will be like you read one of my overly long posts!

~Nick Fox

PS – Why does Varian, Thrall, and Garrosh look so terrible in the face?

Will Ulduar have a more “offical” preview?

Anyone who played from the begining of The Burning Crusade should remember the awesome video previews of Black Temple, Zul’Aman, and Sunwell.  They told a story and really got into some of the lore of the respective raid instance.  I am kind of ‘meh’ on the video preview we have gotten for Ulduar so far.  The music is pretty epic, and I’m hoping that is one of the new music files added for the raid instance, but I want more story.  How about Norganonn (sp) telling the story of the Titans locking up Ulduar to contain the ancient evil creeping up from the ground.  Or Thorim talking about how much revenge he needs to wreck upon those who corrupted his brother Loken.  Give us some more story Blizzard…we know Ulduar looks awesome, and sounds awesome…but don’t make us tell the story ourselves.  I want to know why I have to subdue Hodir* and the other temple guardians of Storm Peaks and why we have to go kill Yogg-Saron.  I mean, maybe being mind-controlled by him forever has its benefits?  I NEED YOU TO TELL ME IT DOESNT BLIZZARD!

Here’s to hoping for another, more substantial video preview…

~Nick

* I say subdue for a reason…Hodir has been up on the PTR from last night and he actually warps away in the end…maybe to help in a future fight?