Discipline Talents
Please note that all talent descriptions refer to having the full number of talent points possible in that talent.
Unbreakable Will
5/5 Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by 15%.
There are very few talents, items, etc. that provide defense against Stun, Fear, and Silence effects. This talent is one of them. All three of these effects can mean death for a priest when soloing, and can mean death of the entire party in an instance. If you choose to invest any points in the Discipline tree you have to choose between one of the two first tier talents in this tree, and Unbreakable Will is a talent that will always be useful in any situation.
Silent Resolve
5/5 Reduces the threat generated by your damage spells by -20%.
This talent is more flexible than its equivalent in the Shadow tree, Shadow Affinity, applying to any damage spells at the small cost of reducing aggro by -20% instead of -25%, meaning that this talent would be approriate for a Holy-focused priest while also being useful to a Shadow-focused priest who wants to split into the Disciple tree. This being said, this talent is not that versatile overall… When soloing this talent does not assist you at all, and if you are acting as a healer in a group then this talent doesn’t reduce aggro caused by your heals.
Wand Specialization
5/5 Increases your damage with Wands by 25%.
The primary way for a priest to effectively deal damage is through spellcasting. Wands are a useful way to deal ranged damage without costing any mana, though wands will always be significantly below the damage that you can cause through spellcasting. At level 30 (just to pick a level), Mind Flay deals 42 dps, Mind Blast deals 116 dps, and Smite deals 63 dps (without any talents affecting this damage). Most wands usable by a level 30 priest are in the 25-30 dps range. With 37.5 dps, still below any the 25% extra damage the wand damage becomes 31.25-of the dps of the three spells listed, meaning that the overall damage output of your priest will not be affected at all.
Martyrdom
2/2 Gives you a 100% chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents you from losing casting time when taking damage.
This is definintely a talent that you don’t want to have to use, but when you do you’ll be glad that you have it at your disposal. Martyrdom will often be most useful when soloing as you shouldn’t be taking too many hits when you’re in a group, and probably most effective when soloing two (or more) enemies at a time when it can be quite difficult to cast any non-instant spell. The six-second window allows you to heal yourself without interruption and to cast one or two offensive spells (to hopefully put one attacker to rest). It can take some time to be aware of when this talent kicks in and how to use it to its greatest effect, and expecting it to kick in when it doesn’t can lead to very unpleasant results.
Improved Power Word: Shield
3/3 Reduces the duration of your Power World Shield’s Weakened Soul effect by -15.0 sec.
PW:Shield is one of the few true “life savers” in the game, being able to provide immediate relief to either yourself or a companion. It also allows you or a fellow spell caster to cast heals or offensive spells without interruption, perhaps giving you the time you need to save yourself or an ally, or to finish off an enemy and remove an immediate danger. The only drawback to the spell, however, is the 30 second cooldown between castings. Under heavy fire the a shield can easily fall in half that time, if not sooner. This talent provides you with a signficantly greater number of opportunities to fight without spell interruption or to save a companion at the last minute.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude
2/2 Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 30%.
This talent can provide either a small amount or a great amount of added heatlth, anywhere from 20 health extra for yourself from +30% to a +8 Stamina PW:Fortitude up to 800 extra health for your party from +30% to five castings of the highest rank PW:Fortitude. (Recall that +1 Stamina = +10 health.) In loose terms it seems that the +30% to PW:Fortitude can be translated into roughly being able to take one extra hit, perhaps two hits for mail/plate wearers. In a tight situation, the extra hit can mean the difference between getting a heal off or you/your companion dying.
Focused Casting
1/1 While active, you no longer lose casting time from taking damage. Lasts 8 seconds.
The benefits of Martyrdom without having to wait for an enemy to get a critical strike against you, and it lasts a bit longer as a bonus. This talent is generally more useful in situations where you are fighting one-on-one, where the chance of your opponent gettinga critical strike against you is smaller than when fighting multiple enemies, or when you accidentally draw the attention of a large number of opponents and you need to be able to cast without interruption well before you want any of them to get a critical strike against you.
Mental Agility
5/5 Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by -10%.
Before evalutating this talent, let’s list the spells that are affected by it: Vampiric Embrace, PW:Fortitude, SW:Pain, PW:Shield, Renew, Fade, Inner Fire, Cure Disease, Psychic Scream, Dispel Magic, Silence, Mind Flay, Mind Vision, Shadow Protection, Abolish Disease, Levitate, Holy Nova, Divine Spirit, and Prayer of Fortitude, and both of your racial spells (unless you’re a Troll, in which case only one is an instant cast). Of the 21 spells listed (the 19 listed plus your two racial spells, unless you’re a Troll), perhaps 12 of them plus one or two of your racial spells (depending on race) will be used while actively engaged in combat. You’ll notice some core combat spells covered by this talent (Renew, PW:Shield, SW:Pain, Fade, Mind Flay for Shadow priests) and also some core spells left out (Mind Blast, Smite, Flash Heal, Prayer of Healing). The value of this talent depends, moreso than most, on your play style and what spells you tend to use the most.
Improved Inner Fire
3/3 Increases the effects of your Inner Fire spell by 45%.
The amount off damage that your armor absorbs depends greatly on your equipment, what level you are, and what other buffs you have active. Assuming that Inner Fire is your only armor buff, the added effect from this talent will usually gives you no more than +5% damage absorption and even that is at the outer limits. The bonus to your attack power is also highly dependent on equipment, level, and other buffs, though roughly speaking the added effect from this talent usually gives you no more than a few dps.
Mental Strength
5/5 Increases your maximum Mana by 10%.
When it comes to playing a spellcaster of any kind, your effectiveness often boils down to the size of your mana pool. No matter what your play style is, the added mana will always provide you with the ability to cast one or two more spells in combat (depending on the spell’s mana cost and your mana pool). There really isn’t that much more to say.
Improved Mana Burn
2/2 Reduces the casting time of your Mana Burn spell by -0.5 sec.
The normal casting time of Mana Burn is 3.0 seconds with this talent bringing that down to 2.5 seconds. Mana Burn is a possibly the best spell for draining mana from an opponent, draining mana roughly twice as fast as a Warlock’s Drain Mana spell (though they get to keep what they drain) and dealing physical damager while a Hunter’s Viper Sting does not (though the Hunter’s sting is “fire and forget”, leaving the Hunter free to perform other actions). When soloing computer enemies is seems just as easy to kill them outright as it does to drain their mana, and in an instance this spell by itself is usually not strong enough to cripple an enemy spellcaster. However, in an instance with a Priest, Warlock, or Hunter to aid you in draining mana the results can be devastating. This talent seems to be most effective in PvP situations where your opponents will be using their mana in a very skilled, deadly fashion and you want to make sure that they have none of it to work with. For PvP, the -0.5 seconds of casting time can give you enough time to PW:Shield an ally who comes under heavy fire during the cast and might even make the difference for whether or not your Mana Burn goes off before an enemy priest’s does.
Meditation
5/5 Allows 15% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.
If one side of the coin for priests is how big their mana pools are, then the other side of the coin is how quickly they can replenish their mana. Skilled priests can work around the five second rule somewhat both when soloing and when in groups, though there are occasions when holding off on healing can be deadly and having long periods of back-to-back casting with breaks smaller than five seconds is unavoidable. This talent can provide a needed edge to be able to provide healing for just that much longer to turn the tide in a battle. Depending on your level (and, therefore, the mana costs of your spells) and your Spirit (and the amount of +Spirit equipment you have), 15% of your regeneration may or may not seem like that much. This talent is most useful when combined with another way to regenerate mana while casting, such as a few pieces of “+X mana every Y sec.” equipment or a Paladin’s Blessing of Wisdom, as together they can provide a consistent and significant supply of mana.
Inner Focus
1/1 When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by -100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect.
This talent is an excellent last ditch effort to keep either yourself or your party alive when you’re out of mana and your party is hanging on by a thread, or to be able to cast a costly spell for free and keep your mana in reserve to react to a combat as it unfolds. Unless time is a very pressing issue, it’s often best to pair this talent with a high mana cost spell such as Prayer of Healing or Greater Heal (or possibly even a Mind Control depending on how much crowd control is needed). The +25% critical effect is less useful than it might seem as there are a number of priest spells that are unable to have a critical effect and there seems to
currently be an issue with +% critical effect powers not working on healing spells.
Force of Will
5/5 Increases your spell damage by 5% and the critical strike chance of your offensive spells by 5%.
A talent that might seem out of place given that Discipline spells generally don’t deal damage, though it helps some with keeping the damage up for a priest heavy committed to the Discipline tree. That said, for a priest with the same number of talent points other trees, a Shadow priest can have +25% damage and a Holy priest can have +5% critical strike, +10% Smite damage, and -0.5 sec. casting time to Smite and Holy Fire (the -0.5 sec. casting time for Smite is effectively a +25% increase in the dps of Smite).
Divine Spirit
1/1 Holy power infuses the target, increasing their Spirit by 23 for 30 minutes.
The added sprit translates roughly to +5.7 mana and +2.5 health every two seconds. Keep in mind, though, that the mana regeneration still has to take the five second rule into account and that health does not regenerate during combat (unless you are a Troll, in which case your regeneration is at a highly reduced rate). This talent unlocks the first rank of the Divine Spirit spell and you can purchase two more powerful ranks of the spell as you gain levels. The third rank of this spell (the highest possible) gives a bonus of 35 Spirit, which is +8.7 mana and +3.9 health every two seconds. If you take the highest rank of this spell and combine it with Meditation, the result is the equivalent of about a “+3.3 mana every 5 sec.” piece of equipment while casting.
Holy Talents
Please note that all talent descriptions refer to having the full number of talent points possible in that talent.
Improved Renew
5/5 Increases the amounted healed by your Renew spell by 15%.
Renew is a core healing spell for both soloing and grouping being an instant cast that doesn’t generate any “up front” aggro because it heals over time. This talent, combined with “Spiritual Healing” and “Mental Agility” (from the Discipline talent tree), takes a maximum rank Renew spell from healing 2.22 health per mana to healing 3.08 health per mana, a jump of 36% in mana efficiency. This is a huge gain and will add great value to any healer’s arsenal.
Holy Specialization
5/5 Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 5%.
If you are going into the Holy talent tree for bonuses healing spells, it is important to note that Renew does not have any chance of getting a critical effect and that PW:Shield is a Discipline spell and, therefore, does not get this increase. This talent will be useful for increasing any “Heal” spell (Flash Heal, etc.) and Prayer of Healing, so there is still some value to be gained from it. Sometimes a critical heal at the right time, especially with Prayer of Healing, can make a huge difference, and other times you’ll go through prolonged fights with very few (if any) criticals to your heals. This talent does aid with Smite and Holy Fire, meaning that you can use it offensively to boost your overall dps in addition to using it to supplement your healing spells.
Spiritual Healing
5/5 Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 10%.
The priest’s main role in any group is to be an effective and efficient healer. This talent makes all of your healing spells more potent. There isn’t much more that can be said about this talent.
Improved Smite
5/5 Increases the damage of your Smite spell by 10%
Any priest investing heavily into Holy talents will most likely be using Smite and his/her primary damage spell. This talent increases the overall damage dealt by Smite, which translates into a faster and more effective priest for soloing. That said, if you are investing moderately in Holy talents for the benefits to healing, then this talent will probably not complement your overall talent build as much at other talents would.
Holy Fire
1/1 Consumes the enemy in flames that cause 90 to 116 Fire damage and an additional 28 Fire damage over 8 seconds.
The main damage spell for Holy priests is Smite, and taking this talent unlocks another Holy damage spell to add to your spellbook. You can get this talent first at level 20 and at level 22 get Smite Rank 4 which deals 91 to 105 damage. Holy Fire deals slightly more damage on average and deals some damage over time, making it a good spell to pull enemies with. Holy Fire has a cooldown on one minute, meaning that you cannot cast it during combat if you pulled with it, but given the casting time is 5 seconds you probably wouldn’t want to. Holy Fire continues to be slightly more damage than Smite as you learn further ranks over time.
Inspiration
5/5 Increases your target’s armor by 25% for 15 seconds after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing spell.
A 25% bonus to the armor of your tank duirng a combat can give you a bit of needed breathing room during a harrowing fight as your tank will probably be wearing mail or plate. This talent relies on critical effects of your healing spells, meaning that it isn’t very predictable. It also isn’t very effective on cloth-wearers or even leather-wearers as the added armor bonus isn’t going to be very signifciant.
Subtlety
5/5 Reduces the threat generated by your healing spells by 20%.
An effective group is built upon its ability to control aggro and to keep the enemies focused on the aggro managers and not on anyone else, especially not on the healers. This talents helps you stay invisible to the enemies as you heal your companions, meaning that you can focus on the health bars of others instead of your own. Subtlety also makes it easier for aggro managers to do their jobs as they have one less party member to worry about suddenly coming under attack. It is still quite possible to generate enough threat with this talent to have enemies focus on you, though it’s significantly less likely to happen.
Improved Healing
5/5 Reduces the Mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal spells by -15%.
First, keep in mind that you are only going to be using one of these spells at any point in your priestly career, meaning that the bonus to three spells is slightly deceptive. That said, these are the most mana efficient healing spells (for healing a single target) and this talent significantly improves that already considerable efficiency. A maximum rank Greater Heal spell heals 2.64 health per mana and this talent, combined with “Spiritual Healing”, turns that into 3.42 health per mana, a jump of 29.5% mana efficiency. If your tank is taking a nasty beating, this talent can help you keep your tank up that much longer. If you tend not to use these spells that often (often relying more on Flash Heal) then this talent will not be of much value to you.
Improved Flash Heal
2/2 Gives you a 70% chance of avoiding interruption casued by damage while casting Flash Heal.
Flash Heal is the spell you turn to when you or a companion absolutely needs health now as Renew is too slow and PW:Shield may still be cooling down. Many times this will happen when you are taking hits, and this talent allows you to continue functioning effectively as a healer while also taking fire. When in instances you might find yourself Flash Healing yourself while you’re taking the hits, but you’ll be able to keep yourself alive and give your aggro managers time to get the enemies off of you. When soloing this spell makes taking on multiple enemies at a time significantly easier as you’ll be able to better maintain your health.
Divine Fury
5/5 Reduces the casting time of your Smite and Holy Fire spells by -0.5 sec.
This talent is an excellent choice for Holy priests to increase their overall damage output. The normal casting time of Smite is 2.5 seconds, meaning that this talent translates into -20% casting time, which then translates into +25% damage-per-second. You’ll be going through your mana faster as you’ll be casting more Smite spells, though you can choose to control that by consciously using your weapons/wand to supplement spell damage. The casting time decrease for Holy Fire isn’t that significant as a 4.5 second casting time on an attack spell is increidbly long for anything other than pulling enemies.
Improved Prayer of Healing
2/2 Reduces the Mana cost of your Prayer of Healing spell by -20%.
If at least three of your companions are wounded, then Prayer of Healing is the most mana efficient (and time efficient, for that matter) spell to get your party’s health back up. This talent makes it even more efficient. Assuming that you’ve got three wounded party members, a maximum rank Prayer of Healing heals 2.81 health per mana and this talent, combined with “Spiritual Healing”, turns that into 3.87 health per mana 37.7% increase in mana efficiency. This is a huge increase in your effectiveness in coping with large combats or “area of effect” damage.
Spirit of Redemption
1/1 Upon death, summons a Spirit of Redemption that heals nearby friendly targets for 318 to 360 and another 343 over 21 seconds.
You can think of this talent as being a weak Flash Heal and a weak Renew on all of your companions when you die. Feelings on this talent tend to be mixed. The argument for it is that this talent can keep the rest of the party going long enough near the end of a combat to avoid a complete wipe when the healer dies. The argument against is that rarely will the healer die unless things are going very, very wrong and a last ditch heal spell won’t change that. Both positions have merit, and you’ll have to decide for yourself whether or not you think that this will come in useful overall.
Master Healer
5/5 Reduces the casting time of your Heal and Greater Heal spells by -0.5.
Greater Heal is the best healing spell for getting your tank’s health topped off while he/she is taking massive damage. The only downside to the spell is the 4.0 second casting time as it’s very easy for your tank to die when you’re just about to finish casting the spell. This talent may seem somewhat ineffective as 3.5 seconds is still a long time for a heal spell, but the extra half second can easily make the difference between deciding to cast Greater Heal or playing it safe with two or three Flash Heals.
Holy Nova
1/1 Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing 96 to 105 Holy damage to all targets within 10 yards. The effect also temporarily reduces your threat level against nearby targets for 5 seconds.
Holy Nova is an instant cast area of effect attack spell unlocked by this talent, and you can purchase later ranks of this spell as you gain levels. The “reduces your threat level” effect is basically the same as the Fade spell, and since this spell can be cast every five seconds you can effectively Fade yourself indefinitely while healing in between. You can get this talent first at level 40, and comparing it to other area of effect attack spells at level 40 (the closest in style being the Mage’s Arcane Explosion which deals 139 to 151 damage) Holy Fire doesn’t measure up that well and is somewhat less mana efficient. That said, it is the only area of effect attack spell available to priests and its threat reduction helps keep you safe.
Shadow Talents
Please note that all talent descriptions refer to having the full number of talent points possible in that talent.
Spirit Tap
5/5 Gives you a 100% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target that yields experience. For the duration, your Mana may regenerate at a 50% rate while casting. Lasts 15 seconds.
This talent is an excellent way to reduce downtime while soloing and avoid spending much money purchasing drinks for yourself. However, where this talent really shines is when you’re fighting two-on-one against you (or worse) or get an unexpected add. Keeping the damage going against the enemies while also having to keep your own health up will quickly run through your mana and after you manage to kill one of your opponents you may find yourself unable to stick it out with the second. Spirit Tap, however, gives you that 15 seconds of mana regeneration that can be just enough to win the battle. (Note that while killing other players in PvP does not give your experience, you can still gain the benefit from Spirit Tap if your opponent is at least “green” to you.)
Spirit Tap is not without its limitations, however: you must deal the killing blow in order for Spirit Tap to activate. This makes it less useful in groups when you will be dealing (on average) significantly less damage than your companions and will in all likelihood not get the killing blow. This becomes more and more likely as your level increases as the need for you to focus fulling on healing increases. Also, the higher in level you get the more focused on instances you often become as well, which makes this limitation on Spirit Tap stand out even more. It seems to be not uncommon for 50+ level priests to change their talent build and swap out Spirit Tap in favor of Blackout because of this.
Blackout
5/5 Gives your Shadow damage spells a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds.
The usefulness of this talent tends to depend on how much PvP you engage in. Most priests who focus on PvE tend to prefer Spirit Tap to Blackout when selecting first tier talents because of the downtime reduction. Many priets who focus on PvP prefer this talent becomes much more valuable as other players are generally much more dangerous than computer enemies, meaning that stunning them benefits you much more than stunning a computer enemy, and the issue of downtime isn’t really an issue for PvP situations. As noted above, it’s not uncommon for veteran priests to swap out Spirit Tap for Blackout later in their careers.
Shadow Affinity
5/5 Reduces the threat generated by your Shadow spells by -25%.
Most priests tend to find this talent of minimal value. If you are soloing then the talent doesn’t help you because threat isn’t an issue. If you are in a group then chances are that you are focusing on healing and this talent doesn’t affect aggro generated by healing. The only situation in which this talent would be of use is if you were a side healer and were dealing out some damage, though often in that situation you should be able to keep your threat low enough to not attract too much attention.
Improved Shadow Word: Pain
2/2 Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 6.0 sec.
This talent does not make SW:Pain weaker by spreading out the same amount of damage over a longer period of time. What it does is add two “ticks” to the spell. SW:Pain at Rank 4 (just to pick one) deals out 234 damage over 18 seconds and does so in the form of six 3-second “ticks”, dealing out 39 damage every 3 seconds. This talent would make the spell deal out this damage eight times instead of six (two extra 3-second “ticks” worth), dealing a total of 312 damage over 24 seconds.
Often the 18 second duration of SW:Pain isn’t enough to run through a full combat when soloing, meaning that you either have to do without the added damage or have to spend the mana on a second casting of the spell. With this talent it’s much more likely to run the full course of a fight and aid you when/if you switch from spells to weapons/wand to finish off your opponent. This talent also makes SW:Pain slightly better at preventing runners as the two extra ticks sometimes is enough to kill the running enemy.
Shadow Focus
5/5 Reduces your target’s chance to resist your Shadow spells by 10%.
One of the greatest hurdles for a spellcaster to overcome is the resistance of his/her enemies. It’s often significantly more difficult for a spellcaster to take on an enemy two or more levels above him/her because of the increased resistance from the level difference. This talent makes it much easier for you to damage enemies at a higher level than you, increasing your overall effectiveness in both soloing and in PvP situations. Also for PvP, this talent is a significant counter to enemy priests’ Shadow Protection spell and enemy paladins’ Shadow Resistance aura.
Improved Psychic Scream
2/2 Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream spell by -4.0 sec.
Similarly to Blackout, this talent has a different value depending on whether or not you focus on PvE or PvP. Psychic Scream is an excellent spell and something that experienced priests use somewhat regularly in PvE, though the four second cooldown for PvE usually doesn’t add that much value as one casting is usually enough. In PvP, however, this talent can make a huge difference. Psychic Scream is one of the reasons why Shadow Priests are so feared in PvP situations, especially in group situations where priests can use this spell to send an enemy party into disarray. Regardless of whether or not you focus on PvE or PvP, however, this talent is often taken if you are investing heavily in the Shadow tree as it is a prerequisite for the Silence talent.
Improved Mind Blast
5/5 Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by -2.5 sec.
Mind Blast is the best damage spell that priests have when it comes to damage-per-second and one of the two core spells for every Shadow Priest. This talent lets you cast Mind Blast significantly faster, leaving only 5.5 seconds gaps between castings instead of 8.0 second gaps, which translates into a significantly higher overall dps.
Mind Flay
1/1 Assault the target’s mind with Shadow energy, causing 75 Shadow damage over 3 deconds and slowing the target to 50% of their movement speed.
Mind Flay is the most efficient damage spell priests have access to in terms of damage dealt vs. mana spent. Mind Flay is a good follow up to Mind Blast/Smite when pulling an enemy as it will increase the time it takes for the enemy to reach you. Mind Flay with Psychic Scream makes for a highly effecitve combination, slowing down the enemy when feared to keep the enemy in range of your spells and then slowing down the enemy on his run back to you. Mind Flay is also the best priest spell for dealing with runners as it slows their movement by 50%. It’s also a good choice for dealing damage with in a group as it doesn’t generate too much aggro and the channeling can be interrupted to cast a heal if necessary. (Note that this talent gives you access to the first rank of the Mind Flay spell. As you level you will be given the opportunity to purchase higher ranks of the spell that deal more damage just as with other spells.)
Improved Fade
2/2 Increases the duration of your Fade ability by 10.0 sec.
Fade is a key spell that every priest uses to help the party manage aggro effectively. It’s a fast and safe way to get aggro off of you, possibly the fastest and safest way that priests have to do so. (The reason I’m emphasizing “safe” is because casting Psychic Scream gets enemies off of you but only the great risk of pulling neighboring mobs in an instance, meaning that the “solution” can easily be worse than the problem.) Sometimes the normal 10 seconds duration of Fade is enough to get things under control, but sometimes not. This can happen when your party is fighting enemies of a high level as the aggro managers can miss/be resisted and your heals won’t be. The extra 10 seconds can be a life saver.
Shadow Reach
3/3 Increases the range of your Shadow damage spells by 20%.
If the best offensive talents are ones that directly increase your damage-per-second, then the second best ones are those that increase your flexibility in dealing out damage. This talent falls squarely into that second category. With the added range, pulling an enemy with Mind Blast, following up with SW:Pain, and then getting a full Mind Flay off before the enemy even takes a swing at you is quite doable. The added four yards to Mind Flay also makes the Psychic Scream/Mind Flay combination that much easier to pull off, and it also makes catching runners in an instance that much easier as well.
Silence
1/1 Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 seconds.
Enemy healer trying to heal himself/herself? Enemy caster dealing out a great deal of damage? Then Silence is your answer. Regardless of whether or not you focus on PvE or PvP, this talent can have significant value for you. The main criticism against this talent is that it “only lasts five seconds.” If that is your feeling, try counting to five slowly in instances before you start healing your companions. Five seconds doesn’t sound like that long, but when you’re in the middle of heated combat it can make all the difference.
Shadow Weaving
5/5 Your Shadow damage spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Shadow damage. This vulnerability increases the Shadow damage dealt to your target by 3% and lasts 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
While it might take a few spells to get going at full strength, this talent is an excellent way to increase your overall damage-per-second in any combat with a possible +15% damage (by having the effect stack five times), and getting up to +15% with five damage spells isn’t as difficult as it might seem. This talent affects any Shadow damage dealt to the target, so in the event that you’re traveling with a Warlock, for example, Shadow Weaving increases your party’s overall dps by that much more.
Vampiric Embrace
1/1 Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 20% of any Shadow damage you deal for 60 seconds.
This talent gives you the great ability to deal out damage and heal you and your party at the same time. This can be highly useful when soloing and when you’re a side healer and want to take the edge off of the main healer. The drawback is that this spell causes a great deal of aggro because you’re effectively casting damage spells and a low powered Prayer of Healing spell at the same time, meaning that you’ve got to manage two sources of aggro at the same time. Using this in conjunction with Mind Blast generates a huge amount of threat. This can be controlled with practice, and this drawback doesn’t come up at all when soloing.
Darkness
5/5 Increases your Shadow spell damage by 10%.
This talent lets you deal 10% more overall damage. If you’re this heavily invested in the Shadow tree then you’ve already committed to dealing out larger and larger amounts of damage (especially since Shadow Weaving is a prerequisite for Darkness), in which case your damage-per-second is genearlly how you measure your progress.
Shadowform
1/1 Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15% and reducing physical damage done to you by -15%. However, you may only cast Shadow and Discipline spells while in this form.
There are definite drawbacks to being in Shadowform, the most obvious and significant being the inability to heal yourself and others. This can get you killed in the wrong situation, and if you’re the party’s healer then you’re not going to want to spend that much time (if any) in Shadowform. That said, one talent point for +15% to Shadow damage is the best trade off that priests will ever get in terms of increasing overall damage-per-second. While Shadowform may have its definitely drawbacks in a group, it is of great use when soloing, especially when combined with Vampiric Embrace
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