Tuesday, October 14, 2008

3.0 Priest spec

Had me some free time today to mess around with the talent calculators, and think about what I'm going to do with Alierah when 3.0.2 hits tomorrow. Right now I'm using this Shadow spec (yes, I dinged 61) - it has the "obligatory" 14 points in Discipline, with Wand Specialization, Improved Power Word: Shield, Inner Focus and Meditation. On the shadow side, there were 1 or 2 points I wasn't entirely happy with, but they were used as fillers anyway, so weren't such a big problem. Now, however, everything is going to change - whether or not I stick with Shadow. So let's play around with the different trees and see if I can come up with something I like.

Shadow

With Improved PW:S moved down to the 3rd tier, it seems like getting the goodies from Discipline will require more points to get to the goodies. Add to that the removal of Wand Specialization, and it means a lot more filler... I'm hoping that Twin Disciplines will justify the 5 points to it, at least*.

On the Shadow side, things remain fairly similar to my old spec. Spirit Tap now only takes 3 points to max, and while Improved Spirit Tap doesn't look like it'll be that useful, it still beats Blackout for PvE/solo play. The next change is in only taking 4/5 Improved Mind Blast this time. I don't use Mind Blast as much as I used to, relying on Mind Flay much more, so I probably won't miss that extra 0.5 second it takes for the CD to finish. Shadow Weaving will still get 3 points, except that now that's the maximum, instead of being 3/5 - nice bonus. The rest is pretty similar - Shadowform, Vampiric Embrace (and Improved VE), 4/5 in Darkness and Shadow Power, and finally 1 point in Misery. The bonuses in Improved Shadowform seem nice, but don't really strike me as must-have's. So here's what I've got for Shadow at level 61, now let's see about the other trees.

Discipline

Looking at the Shadow spec, and seeing 16 points (well, it might be 17, if I decide to get Inner Focus as well) got me considering a Discipline spec. So, let's see...

First off, I still want my Spirit Tap, especially now that it's only 3 points. Hooray!

The bottom part of the Discipline tree looks fairly similar to the Shadow build - I don't want a PvP build and I prefer "soloing" talents over healing talents so there isn't much choice there. I will get Inner Focus, though. 3 points in Mental Agility will get me past the next tier so I can get Divine Spirit and Improved Divine Spirit - more mana and more spell damage is very nice. For the next 2 points, I'm a little undecided on whether I should finish off Mental Agility or get 2/5 in Mental Strength, but it doesn't seem to be that important for now. Next, Focused Power for that little extra umph and Enlightenment for stamina and spirit. Now we have Reflective Shield and Rapture right down from it, both of which seem very useful.

This brings us to level 52. The options now seem to be between continuing down the Discipline tree, which seems to mostly have more survivability/"emergency" talents, or to get some Holy talents for better smiting... I think I'll go with that for now. So that gives us this spec.

Holy

Finally, let's give a shot to a Holy spec. Again, start with Spirit Tap and some Discipline, and then start working on the Holy tree. Again, going on the principle that I want to improve my offensive spells, there aren't too many choices here. I went with Holy Specialization, Improved Renew**, Divine Fury, Blessed Recovery, Searing Light, Spiritual Guidance, Spirit of Redemption*** and Surge of Light. And that's it... There aren't any more talents to help with mana regeneration or with doing more damage - everything else is for healing.

So now I can either keep going with Holy, improving healing or I can put my remaining 5 points in one of the other trees. There's nothing that useful in Shadow right now, and the first 2 points would pretty much be wasted anyway, but Discipline has some very attractive offers. Another 5 points there are just enough for Divine Spirit, so going with Inner Focus and 3/5 Mental Agility, or 4/5 Mental Agility could be a pretty good choice. So here's the "final" level 61 spec. I suppose you could say that being 21/28/3 makes it more of a hybrid spec than a Holy spec, and you'd be right - but like I said, there aren't really any other choices in the Holy tree for soloing.

Summary

So there ypu have it - 3 experimental specs, 2 of which are for trees I have no experience with at all. Are they any good? I guess that at least for 1 of them, I'll find out soon enough. For the rest, I guess it's up to you. What do you think? Are they good/bad/ugly? Will they work? Have any suggestions for improvement?
Oh, and I really hope the links will still work after the patch goes live. :)




* I wonder if the bonus applies to Vampiric Embrace, too. It's instant, and it heals - it's just not a direct HoT. If it does, it might make it slightly more attractive for Shadow priests.

** Yes, I know it's not an offensive spell, but I needed somewhere to put the points and it'll probably be used very often (especially with the bonus from Twin Disciplines).

*** Not so much for the spirit healer thing, but more for the spirit bonus.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's a good spec, I think I would have sunk a few points into reducing the mana cost of healing spells, as well as increasing the amount healed even if you solo a lot you might find they come in handy and in grouping with others in Outland instances where mobs hit a lot harder your heals are more powerful and you aren't using as much mana.

I mainly solo but I have found putting a few points in those areas have really helped me out a lot (occasionally I am fighting 3-4 mobs) and in the group setting those talent points are priceless. I just left a group earlier about an hour ago although they were five levels higher than myself, same with the mobs, I was able to keep up no problem and I did not go OOM. :-)