Priest T8 set bonuses clarified
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 20th 2009 at 4:00PM
As of the latest PTR build we now have access to most of the set bonuses for the tier 8 gear that's going to drop in Ulduar, including the bonuses for both priest sets, shadow and healing. In case you haven't seen them before, the bonuses are as follows:
- Healing:
- Two-piece: Increases the crit chance of your Prayer of Healing by 10%
- Four-piece: Casting Power Word: Shield also grants you 250 spell power until cancelled.
- Shadow:
- Two-piece: Increases the damage done by your Devouring Plague by 15%.
- Four-piece: Your Mind Blast also grants you 240 haste rating until cancelled.
The parts listed in bold up above are new; these numbers are just placeholders in the PTR client right now, but Ghostcrawler has clarified that the intended values are somewhere along those lines. No word yet on what "is cancelled" is supposed to mean, as far as I know.
I'm not a big fan of either of the healing bonuses. The two-piece is okay, but even with PoH being targettable I don't think I'll be casting it enough to get a large amount of use out of the bonus (at least, I hope I won't; it's an exensive spell and if raid damage is huge all the time in Ulduar, I will be sad). The four-piece is nigh-useless for Holy priests (to which concern GC's answer is basically "learn to play"), but at least Disc will get a kick out of it. I definitely prefer the T7 healing bonuses over the T8 ones.
I'll let someone else analyze the Shadow bonuses more (I may pick up Shadow for dual-spec, but I haven't played it since level 50/patch 1.10), although I do feel the need to mention that the Shadow four-piece is basically free haste rating. Unlike a certain other priest T8 four-piece bonus I'm not mentioning.
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ceann Mar 20th 2009 4:07PM
I would think "until cancelled" is simply a placeholder for a short duration like most trinket/bonus procs.
Aaron Mar 20th 2009 4:13PM
Placeholder? Like it will be replaced with "30 seconds" or something like that?
Chris Anthony Mar 20th 2009 10:12PM
Just so, Aaron. It'll either be a brief duration (probably 5-10 seconds) or until a certain number of spells are cast (probably 1).
Fugmug Mar 20th 2009 4:12PM
Okay, the lack of clarification on the first post had a fairly mocking comment from me on how bad the priest bonus was.
I take that all back now.
jfofla Mar 20th 2009 4:24PM
OMG and I thought the new Pally Tier was ugly..that priest helm is hideous.
Kaylad Mar 21st 2009 8:35AM
It looks absolutely vile.
Sanguinefrozenboy Mar 20th 2009 4:37PM
I'm still aghast about how the Priest tier helmet doesn't show your hair. I also don't understand why they didn't go with the concept art, it's so much better looking.
Maybe they'll make it so when you go into combat, your hood automatically comes on and your wings shoot up!
Ha ha ha, one can wish.
About the set bonuses, 2 piece doesn't look very good, but 4 piece will give holy a reason to use Shield. I think they're designed to be one for holy and one for disc. Then again, I'm not a healer so I don't know.
Shadow bonuses are ok, nothing special but a pretty good boost. 2 piece bonus is just a damage buff which is good, 4 piece one almost eliminates the need for any haste on a shadow priest which is good in my opinion because then I can focus more on stacking Crit as my second attribute.
Honestly, I'd prefer the second part looked at a bit, but so far my only complaint is the stupid helmet.
OMFG FIX THE DAMN HELMET!
Tish Mar 20th 2009 4:45PM
Ugh, I agree. I love the halo of the T7 gear. I think I might just keep it around to wear when I don't need "the best" on. :D
Thankfully we don't have to show our helms in game.
Charlie Mar 20th 2009 6:51PM
The set bonus will definatley buff up disc specs, (the high crit for divine aegis especially now that it can finally be used on any group, and using shields all the time).
But it's not like the 4pc won't ever be used by holy. It's an indirect way to increase shields throughput. Tank dying? Shield then GH to get the extra throughput. Raid dying? Shield Tank to allow raid healing and use the extra throughput on CoH to get the raid up.
Tier bonuses can change play significantly (see mage 2pcT5). GC said as much that some tier bonus are designed to do this.
Anyways, overall the healing set bonus are sick for disc, and ok for holy. I'm just glad my priest is disc =D.
charsquatch Mar 20th 2009 11:38PM
i imagine the third set bonus of losing your hair is a nod to monks and all that. monks of various sects of many religions tend to shave their heads... still, im not compleatly sure that i approve, and i definatly feel bad for all the women out there.
perhaps holy magic gives off a lot of radiation...
Spoonman Mar 20th 2009 11:53PM
Pretty sure the helm does still show your hair, it only this model that it is displayed on is bald. If you check the other races they still have hair with this helm on, in that sense I thought it was one of the better looking sets coming out.
Sanguinefrozenboy Mar 21st 2009 1:32PM
Where can you see the sets with hair? The ones I saw with all the other races made all of them have shaved heads.
Sanguinefrozenboy Mar 21st 2009 1:34PM
Where can you see the sets with hair? The ones I saw with other races still made them have shaved heads.
PS sorry if my comment appears twice, having problems replying.
I-man Mar 20th 2009 4:38PM
so to get the full benefit of the the 4 set bonus we should cast the shield on the person least likely to take damage (so we can get the sp buff for the full 30 seconds). seems silly.
the spellpower is nice, i just wish we could get it by doing something that isn't so pointless. i'm holy though...maybe a discipline priest has a different take on the bonus.
Balius Mar 20th 2009 4:51PM
Casting the shield procs the buff to the priest. I don't think the shield's survival matters after that. At least, the tooltip doesn't seem to indicate that the shield itself is integral to the buff.
Trilynne Mar 20th 2009 4:52PM
^This. It would be useless for the shield to be cast on people taking damage, because it would get 'canceled'(ie, absorb max damage and disappear) in the space of about half a second if it was cast on a tank, from what I understand. (I'm a tank myself, not a priest, but my fiance plays a holy priest) I -hope- that 'canceled' business turns out to be 'for 30sec' or something more useful.
Gryph667 Mar 20th 2009 4:53PM
Remember, they have fixed, or are fixing Shield/Tanking mechanics so warriors and druids get the full benefit from damage received rage generation. So, it would be perfectly reasonable to Shield people who are taking a lot of damage as well. Additionally, your rets shouldn't be standing in damage zones to force healing for Spiritual Attunement anymore since only deep prot will have it, so they aren't a good shield target. Damage prevented is effective healing, even if it doesn't show up in recount or WWS.
TLDR: Shield the tank, silly.
Gryph667 Mar 20th 2009 4:57PM
@Balius and Trilynne
They aren't going to tie the buff to the duration of the shield. That would be stupid and counter intuitive. Blizzard only does stupid and counter intuitive things when it comes to Long Strange Trip.
Jack Spicer Mar 20th 2009 5:40PM
If you're a holy priest and want to cast shield to proc the tier 4 bonus and have a disc priest in your raid, the best person to cast this on would be yourself. Otherwise, say if you cast it on the main tank, you risk locking your Disc priest out of using their more powerful shields on that target for 15 seconds.
I-man Mar 20th 2009 7:05PM
thanks. this makes more sense, the spell wording just makes it sound like you'll only the bonus while the shield is active. hopefully you're right and the bonus will be worthwhile.