Healing Priest Set Bonuses in Wrath
As I was reading through some of the WoW.com articles this morning, I came across this page showing some of the new T10 set bonuses from the PTR. I’ve been trying to clean out/organize my bank a bit lately, which is full of all these epics from the raiding process that I can’t bring myself to DE yet. For instance, I have lots of different pieces from T7, both shadow and holy.

The set bonuses from T7 were… well, kinda awful. Disc priests seemed to get ignored entirely, actually. As I started looking through all the Wrath set bonuses (including the one on PTR now – we’ll see if that set bonus remains into live), I began to notice a trend. It seems like with T7 Blizz decided “a priest healer is a priest healer, so what?” and then they finally got the message that uh, Disc priests and Holy priests not only are NOT the same, they don’t WANT to be the same.

So then we move to T8. It’s a little better. 2p bonus is pretty good for Holy Priests, and sure, Disc priests *have* Prayer of Healing and use it occasionally. The 4p bonus just screams Disc (in fact, one might even argue it’s almost a little OP for Disc!) but kinda leaves Holy out… at least if we’re running around with any Disc Priests.

But then, by the time T9 rolls out, Blizz finally gives up on trying to make each set bonus generic for priests, and begins to call out spec-specific spells in the set bonuses. The 2p bonus is a spell that both Holy AND Disc should be using all the time. The 4p refers to individual talents that each spec has really began to relish.

And then we come to Tier 10. Holy mother of Flash Heal. Nomnomnomlove. The 2p bonus picks up again on spec-specific talents, and the 4p bonus does two awesome things: it uses a spell that BOTH specs will use a lot, and reduces a cooldown on each spec’s awesomest spell with the most cooldown QQ.

T7 Healing Priest: Heroes' Regalia of Faith (10 man) / Valorous Regalia of Faith (25man)
  • 2piece: Your Prayer of Mending will not jump an additional time.
  • 4piece: The cost of your Greater Heal is reduced by 5%
T8 Healing Priest: Valorous Sanctification Regalia (10 man) / Conqueror's Sanctification Regalia (25 man)
  • 2piece: Increases the critical heal chance of your Prayer of Healing by 10%.
  • 4piece: Casting Power Word: Shield also grants you 250 spellpower for 5 secs
T9 Healing Priest: Too Lazy To Type All Potential Names
  • 2piece: Increases the healing done by your Prayer of Mending by 20%
  • 4piece: Increases the shield from your Divine Aegis and the instant healing from your Empowered Renew by 10%
(Tentative) T10 Healing Priest:
  • 2piece: After your Pain Suppression or Guardian Spirit talents expire on your target, they grant your target 10% increased healing received for 10 secs.
  • 4piece: Your Flash Heal spell has a 15% chance to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance spells.
I really do find it fascinating to watch as Blizz developer goals evolve through time – and how they find creative and random ways to respond to suggestions from the class communities.
2 Responses
  1. Betelguese Says:

    First off, I don't play a Disc. I play a holy priest so this is coming from my view point. I just posted a long rant about this on our LYL forums. I have to disagree with you. ;-)

    Our T10 bonuses suck!

    2 set bonus - only works when we use PS or GS. I'm spec for GS so I can use it once a minute if I wanted to, but I usually don't. So it gives our target 10% increase to healing? It should be gives US 10% increase to healing. Ok so it gives 10% to our target which 9 times out of 10 is the tank. Well typically I give the tanks GS during an oh crap moment. Most of the time it isn't used so they are topped off by the time it expires. I guess it might be nice to give us a bit of a cushion afterwords, but 10% is crap. You see the other healing classes? Druids and Shaman get uber buffs!

    Now for the 4 set bonus, yeah it looks cool but think about it. You use CoH, 1.5 GC. You cast FH 1.5 cast, 3 seconds out of the 7 second CoH CD is done. And this is only a 15% chance??? I don't see this being using like ever.

    I actually like the T7 2 piece and T9 2 piece bonus. PoM is my number 2 spell so any bonus there is well received by me. I don't use PoH that much right now so I don't see any real benefit from those bonus. I'm trying to get it more into my rotation.

    T7 4 piece was a complete waste along with T8 4 piece for holy priest. I acutally love my T9 4 piece since I'm a renew whore.

    /end nerd priest rage! ;-)

    Capella on Gorefiend is my main btw.


  2. Oooo! Yay holy priest set bonus debates! Squee nerd priest rage!

    I can see what you are saying about the problem with having a set bonus specific to a spell you do not use very often. Now, I don't use GS very often, but when I do, I need it to be awesome. It has saved us from many a wipe. But, I will say in answer to your criticism about 10% increase in healing on the target that you are right - thats stupid. GS ALREADY gives a bonus to healing on the target. I think the reason they put that in there is because they were looking at Pain Suppression instead of Guardian Spirit.

    What it really needs to do is give Guardian Spirit the 40% decrease in damage taken that PS gives, and give PS the 40% healing bonus that GS does - or maybe not 40%, maybe only 10%, but you get the idea.

    What's nice about a healing increase on GS, is that basically, I can pop Guardian Spirit on the tank and then go about my business healing others, and let the main tank healer take care of the rest. Because healing is increased on the target, that means that it's a buff to everyone's heals and when all the raid healers see the MT going down, they are usually all trying to throw something on him or her. We're supposed to be working together, after all, not competing with one another!

    But what it also does is increases the chance your glyph of Guardian Spirit will do its thing. If healing is increased on the GSed target, then it is less likely for the target to go down and use up the spirit death. With the glyph, that means your cooldown resets and to a reduced time, and you can feel free to be even more liberal with your GS usage - throw it on some of those tricky mages!

    With regards to the 4piece bonus, by the time you get to T10 your GCD and cast time better not be that long! but your point still stands. 15% is definitely way too low to make it useful. But what I keep thinking about are all those free Flash heals from surge of light resetting my CoH cooldown. Except, you're right, it's not a 100% chance - 15% is crap. If it were 100%, you could have CoH > FH > CoH > FH > CoH > FH > hasted Prayer of Healing. :::drool::::

    regardless, it's not set in stone yet that the set bonus will stay that way. let's hope they tweak it up a bit more!


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