Most new abilities utility not raw power. Guardian Spirit has saved our tank several times when we first started heroics, now that we have geared up it is less useful.

My class the rogue received two abilities, fan of knives and tricks of the trade. Fan of the knives is mediocre aoe (although it is getting some buffs soon) that is useful for aoe pulls where I normally don't do much damage. Tricks of the trade is essentially hunter's misdirect. This is great as it allows me to begin dpsing immediately after the pull during heroics. This reduces our clear time more than you would think. Additionally the buff I give my aggro dumping target increases their damage done by 15%. With a bit of clever aggro wiping (vanish/invis) I can use this on another rogue/mage to pump up their dps quite a bit.
 

Resto druids have a new heal called Nourish. It has a relatively short casting time and benefits if there are already HoTs up on the tank which is pretty much 100% of the time in a fight if you're a druid. It isn't that useful in normal dungeons, I have never used in when soloing and I have used it a bit in heroics but for 10 man raids. Keeping HoTs up with the occasional group heal is consuming most of my time in raids, as such I could live without it.

Despite the disappointment that is the new spell I do still enjoy playing the class immensely, the addition of a group heal just before the expansion made healing a lot more interesting for some reason.
 

The shadow priest in my guild was praising Mind Seer, but the obvious interaction with most of the shadow talents is prolly why. she duos with a heavy Disc Priest and I think they are just AoEing everything now.

My main currently is a Paladin. I get Divine Plea - an awesome spell for all specs, when I was Ret it was a great way to top off my pathetic mana pool, I can imagine it serving the same purpose for prot spec as well. With my current Holy spec this spell makes it so I don't need to drink between pulls in heroics (combined with arcane torrent, I can net back approx. 6k mana), Completed the timed Heroic Strath run the other day and I think I sat once after the third boss. Shield of Righteousness(I think that's what is called) - good prot spell, I've also mixed in when I'm soloing as holy spec, Ret doesn't get much from this one. Scared Shield, another amazing spell for holy spec, situational usfulness for prot and ret pallys.

Over all I'd say holy spec gained the most from the new pally spells with ret losing out (though Plea is still really good for that spec).
 

Hymn of Hope seems like it might be useful for a boss phase change where you are stuck in combat, but not stunned.

As a shadowpriest who was healing a couple of instances, I got some mileage out of casting PoM, renew, (maybe shield), then Mind Searing the main target when there were a few smaller enemies around a big enemy. Fade if needed. It did seem pretty inefficient, though.
 

Mind Sear is praised by our shadows too. Nice thing, because it is a moving ae....that is great. In combination with a holy-nova priest we also had a team that enjoyed levelling only by pulling everything and ae-ing it down.

The thing with hymn of hope is, to use it before running out of mana in the right moment ;) Same thing withe the health-stone of warlocks...do not use it at 10% health but at 50% ;)
I used hymn of hope very often while levelling my holy priest. Now I am using it in raids and I am still trying to optimize timing. It is fun to estimate the right time for channeling the 8 seconds. And it gives you mana in combat. Not much but it helps. Of course if you are playing very conservative with slow pulls and crowd control in 5-man-dungeons you will never need this. For me Mana-Management and speeding up dungeon-time is one of the things in wow I enjoy most and this is a further way to restore a small amount of the important blue stuff ;) Next to inner focus, trinkets, shadowfiend, pots and runes...
 

As a holy paladin, I got Divine Plea and Sacred Shield as new abilities.

Divine Plea: You gain 25% of your total mana over 15 sec, but the amount healed by your spells is reduced by 20%.

I like this a ability a lot.
1) The cooldown is short so it's often up when I need it.
2) The -20% heal effect makes it require some skill when deciding when to use it. Can't just use it whenever the cooldown is over.
3) It scales with total mana and therefore intellect. This combines nicely with a lot of holy paladin talents.
4) Beats mindlessly drinking mana potions whenever you can.

Sacred Shield: Each time the target takes damage they gain a Sacred Shield, absorbing 500 damage and increasing the paladin's chance to critically hit with Flash of Light by 50% for up to 6 sec. They cannot gain this effect more than once every 6 sec. Lasts 30 sec.

A very mana efficient "heal", but I don't like it anywhere near as much as Divine Plea.
The problem is that the effect of this spell is mostly hidden from me.
I don't see when the shield activates, I don't see the damage it absorbs.
Maybe I can notice that my Flash of Light crit rate increases, but that's all.
 

Rogues have one new ability that is decent, "Tricks of the Trade" is basicly either a weaker misdirect or 15% damage buff to a nearby friendly for 1/5 of the time (rogues can trade and both gain advantage). Other than TotT rogues got a terrible aoe that does very little damage and a disarm on demand (which isn't so much a northrend ability as it's available at lvl 20).

While these are hardly complain worthy as the rogue is still a very fun class, rogue dps is now average and since rogues bring almost no utility, getting raids is much more difficult.
 

Hymn of Hope: Not very useful imo. I used it sometimes, but the amount restored is laughable.
Mind Sear: Try using it while grouping with a tank. If you pull about 10 mobs it doesn't matter that one is not getting damage, the other 9 will die rapidly. I found this to be the most efficient method of getting xp, sadly it is rare that you find that much mobs in one place.
Guardian Spirit: This is simply awesome. I can't count how often this saved our tank in heroic when our equip was still a little lacking. Its also godlike if things are happening a bit too fast, simply put guardian spirit on the tank and rest assured that you have one (huge) groupmember less to care about for the next seconds.
Divine Hymn: I'm still experimenting a bit with the heal component of this spell, it seams to be worth the cost/casttime. The sleep component is extremely situational however, I never saw it work in instances until now.
 

I am really enjoying the new Prot Warrior skills, especially Sword and Board. It seems to make leveling much more fun.
 

Warlocks get Demonic Circle, and that's all. It's a great PvP ability; you leave a circle somewhere then teleport back to it later. It's handy in instances where you KNOW there's a safe location to be, so you can leave it there in advance.
Still, disappointing to only get one new ability.

Hunters, I hear, love Kill Shot and generally are disappointed by their level 80, which allows them to place a frost trap at range. Ask an actual Hunter for what they think or for more details, but one Hunter in my guild keeps alternating between praising & bitching.
 

Just to clarify (sorry, I don't see an edit button), patch 3.0 gave us Warlocks a great new Affliction 51 point talent, as well as other 51 pt talents; the class got just one BASE spell.
 

I would agree that holy priests got lack luster spells this time around. I do have a 65 priest who I like playing, but don’t really feel the urge to get to 80 now. My main is a paladin (just hit 80 yesterday) and I think we got awesome skills. Mentioned above, skills did not include Shield of the Righteous which is the absolute best skill of them all. I’m protection spec and I’ve crit for over 5k with SotR. Amazing skill for PvP and PvE(solo, and group). Ofcourse this skill is of no use if you’re ret spec and minimal use if you are holy, as it increases in damage w/ shield block.
 

Only being level 78 at the moment, I can't comment on the new lvl80 Hunter skills.
With level 74 Hunters got a new Aspect of the Dragonhawk which is immensly useful: it not only grants more AP than the Aspect of the Hawk (as such it wouldn't be a "new" skill at all), but it also grants the dodge buff from Aspect of the Monkey. Combining the two Aspects greatly reduces the need to switch aspects... at least in pvp, since I never used aotm in pve. But I won't say having +18% Dodge for nothing due to the new Aspect isn't a nice bonus in pve too.

At level 75 we get two other new skills: Kill Shot (a long range attack dealing 200% weapon damage plus [RAP * 0.40 + 650]. Kill Shot can only be used on enemies that have 20% or less health.) and Master's Call (Your pet attempts to remove all stun and movement impairing effects on the target, and cause them to be immune to all effects for 4 sec.).
Kill Shot shows some very nice dps, but I never use it soloing and only against bosses or elites. The same for Master's Call: I never use it soloing! Both skills are mostly for pvp and an attempt by Blizz to give hunters more of a chance in arenas.

All in all, for soloing nothing really fantastic for Hunters, I must say. For Dungeons, raids and pvp we must wait and see :)
 

@Decease re: rogues being low dps.

Respec assassination as seen here http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ef0exoVboIzAo0xV0hZxb and nothing will outdps you unless it outgears you.
 

Warriors gained a move that is simply stunning.

Basically at level 75 you gain something called Enraged Regeneration. It consumes an enraged effect (note: you have to be enraged) and then heals you for 30% of your maximum HP (at that time) over 10 seconds. Plus it only has a 3minute cooldown and only costs 15 rage.

Now every tree for Warriors has an enrage effect within it. Arms enrages when you crit something. Fury enrages when you get hit. Prot enrages when you parry/dodge/block. Thus effectively enrage is up 'most' the time (arguably Fury gets the weakest of the three) and available a good percentage of the time. It makes soloing elites as DPS a little easier, it reduces down time by a bunch and it's probably one of the best 'oh shit' buttons Warriors have currently in their arsenal.

As an example, at level 80 my Prot Warrior has 22,000 HP unbuffed. Once he put commanding shout on (2200 hp), pops his HP trinket (1750 hp) and uses Last Stand (30% maximum hp increase for 20 seconds) he stands at around 34k/35k. That's his maximum hp though. I could be on say only 2k-3k because of a particually large hit. I pop enraged regeneration and I gain like 11k of HP over 10 seconds. That's a 1100 heal every second. It really does help the healers out in sticky situations and 3minutes is truly nothing for the impact it has. Just imagine when you're in T7, you know say a Frenzy is coming up on a boss and your raid buffed. You can pop that and it's like having an additional healer on you for 10 seconds.

It works just as well if you're Arms, you have an enrage up and the healers are struggling to keep you and the tank up. You can pop it to give them some slack whilst they concentrate on keeping the main target alive and kicking. It sort of made Warriors have a bit of 'stand on your own two feet' feel to it.

Bladestorm is hilarious also. I giggle a little everytime I use it.
 

Mind Sear does damage every tick and can crit and proc Blackout. Given the AoE heavy nature of both normal and heroic dungeons plus even raid content in WOTLK, the spell is a must have and much more effective for nuking.

This is also the bad part of WOTLK, my friend is a rogue and suffers in this kind of environment, even thought of playing his Shadow Priest instead because they now have AoE capabilities, and trust me, Mind Sear works very well.
 

This is the worst understanding of new priest abilities I have ever read.

Mind Sear worse then Holy Nova? Do you know what a shadow priest is? Have you ever been to a dungeon?
Hymn of Hope is not a new ability. It is a draenei racial canceled and given to all, it's not amazing, but it's something for nothing.
Guardian Spirit is amazing. It is the best ability ever given to any healer in the history of the game.

In this review, all you've done is said "meh, it sucks for solo/leveling". Are you that short-sighted?
They are all amazing abilities for 5/10/25 man dungeons.
 

"All in all, for soloing nothing really fantastic for Hunters"
Not much in the way of new spells perhaps, but the pet revamp has been fantastic. People talk about DKs being OP, but Volley + Gorilladin for a BM hunter is insane. With humble green gear I burn through solo content at an incredible rate and out-DPS people many levels above me in instances. Hunters (who were already strong soloers) have been buffed enormously in Wrath.
 

Do you know what a shadow priest is?

Yes, but as I clearly stated, I don't play one. And for a non-shadow priest Mind Sear is useless.

Guardian Spirit is amazing. It is the best ability ever given to any healer in the history of the game.

No, Circle of Healing is the best ability ever given to any healer, which is why it'll be nerfed. As a holy priest you should never ever be in a situation where Guardian Spirit is even useful, because it indicates you failed to do your job prior to it.

And as I stated, I'm level 77 and didn't raid yet, so usefulness of these spells in raids was excluded from the analysis.
 

@ Sven:
I was merely talking of base skills. Indeed, the pet revamp is fantastic (I just hope Blizz changes bears swipe), as is the MM 51 talent Chimera Shot (the SV 51 talent Explosive Shot lacks behind in dps, but appears to be a lot of fun). To be honest: Hunters really don't need more or better skills for soloing... or dungeons. Dps is high, survivability is fine, downtime is near zero (aotv ftw). The only problem pre-WOTLK was arenas! We'll have to see if things changed with 3.0.
 

I think the spells are more useful for priests than you make them out to be, Tobold. Yes, I understand that from your PoV as a lvl 77 holy spec they might not seem all that great, but keep in mind these spells are designed to be used in different situations:
-Mind Sear is absolutely fantastic for a shadow priest in instances, it gives them the ability to keep up with mages/locks for aoe dps. It really helps.
-Hymn of Hope might not be great for soloing, but I can see it being very useful in Arenas, for example, where every bit of extra mana helps, or in mana intensive boss fights - 8% of mana x 5 members = 40% extra mana that wouldnt be there otherwise.
-Guardian Spirit - here's an example where it can be incredibly useful: boss enrages. 40% extra Healing is huge for those 10s, it makes healing so much smoother - and it also has nothing to do with failing to do your job. It's also a talent, not a gained skill.

To sum it up, I think these spells are a nice addition to a priest's arsenal. They are not mean to be impressive on the journey from 70 to 80, they are meant to serve in their niche role at cap level, something that adds flavor and versatility to a priest's arsenal. I also think these spells are better than what other classes received, warriors for example got the short end of the stick.
 

Hey Tobold -

Liked your comments about the new holy priest spells. I haven't had a chance to use many of them myself (I'm only about 3/4 of the way through level 71) but I haven't really been doing any healing in WOTLK yet, I'm soloing quests in Borean Tundra and farming cloth to level my tailoring right now.

I'm actually MUCH more excited about some of the retooling existing spells have gotten. The new Inner Fire at level 71 with 90+ spell power is completely awesome. The new Improved Spirit Tap is also amazingly good.

I've come up with my newest, most improved Solo PVE Holy Priest DPS build, check out my Armory at http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorefiend&n=Bahama if this is something you've ever considered. When combined with my old Spirit-heavy Tier 5 gear from Burning Crusade it has massive crits (3K Smites are the norm) and uses NO mana. Yes that's right, I haven't sat down to drink yet since respeccing, and I haven't used my wand either. My rotation is Bubble -> SW:P -> Smite -> Holy Fire -> Smite -> Smite -> SW:D. I haven't run into a single mob yet in Northrend with any form of Holy resistance. Has anyone else?

I can't WAIT till the next Smite rank up at 74. I really hope I can find a way to keep this build sustainable up through 80.

Bahama
71 Undead Priest
Gorefiend - US - PVP
 

Mind Sear does AoE to most mobs in the area and procs often, Holy Nova heals yes, but the mana costs are bad for Nova. Compare the Dmg to MAna ratio and as Mana is the biggest problem atm for Priests its worth the change in tactics.
 

"Hymn of Fail" is utterly useless in my opinion. There may be rare occasions when you have some obvious down time in healing and could channel it for 8 sec but that is not likely when you need it the most. 8% is laughable. That is basically one spell for 8 secs of down time. That very slim usefulness is further reduce as the number of non-mana users in your group goes up. Having a Draenei Priest I remember fondly "Symbol of Hope." It didn't give you much mana but it was noticeable (barely) and it was instant. They need to make it instant again and bump up the amount it restores. Why couldn't they have simply given Symbol of Hope to everyone?

Mind Sear is ok. Holy Nova is great if you get mobbed by lots of little targets and need the heals but it chews though mana fast. On the other hand if your tank gets mobbed by the little targets while holding the boss, it is kind of nice to be able to center an aoe away from you that doesn't cause boss damage and therefore more aggro. Little bit situational but not bad. It doesn't do as well if you don't have a single bigger mob to bounce it off of that will survive long enough to make a good target. It is, however, the only thing a shadow priest has for aoe that will not bust them out of shadow form. It is, from that perspective, a very big improvement. I used to joke, when I was shadow and someone would ask what spriests had for aoe, I would link them back [E-Z Thro Dynamite]

Guardian Spirit is both cool and frustrating. Great idea, but 10 seconds is a very small window. Timing it right is very difficult but when you do land it at just the right moment you are so glad you had it. I mostly concentrate on using it when I have to spam heal the tank and I am slowly falling behind and can see it. 40% healing can catch you back up in a hurry. I would much prefer, however, for this spell to be a buff that is activated automatically and used up (like fear ward) when the tank hits 20%

Divine hymn, just turned 80, just got it, but haven't used it yet. I like the idea but it seems very situational. The 15 yard range is small. If you want to use the sleep portion of it you have to coordinate with others to stop dps. In a 10 man the chances of having a bunch of mobs around you that aren't dotted up is slim. 3 seconds of almost half damage (40% damage reduction) after they wake up is going to suck. 3 seconds is a long time when things are going to hell. 20% mana is steep but the healing is good. I am also doubting it will incapacitate a boss. Hopefully I am wrong. I am expecting it to be most useful for the healing if you are in a tight group getting aoe'd and perhaps soloing to give you 20 seconds to run like hell from a bad scene.

As for things that are still a problem, they need to just drop Lightwell. (lolwell?) It is a wasted spot on the holy tree. This talent has been wasting space for too many years now. Some people like it or at least say they like it but few bother to get it. A year and a half ago Zyph crunched some numbers out of the armory http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=100510812&sid=1 and showed that far and away, the most skipped 31 point talent was lightwell. That is, of those who had at least 31 points in a tree, how many would skip the 31 point talent? 75% skipped lightwell. The next highest was the 30% for survival hunters skipping theirs. Axe it.

I love CoH, I use it all the time, I have 5 in Divine Providence to make it and all the other group heals better. But I think the best thing since sliced bread might be the new Inner Fire with 3 in Improved Inner Fire. That is just too much spell power to pass up.

I also continue to envy paladins for their cleanse. They get to cure poison in addition to what priests can do and they get all three packaged together in a one convenient single spell. I also don't understand why holy priests and paladins can't remove curses. It just seems like something holy people could do. I understand that Blizz has traditionally tried give each class unique abilities so they can stand out, but with this expansion they have been going away from that. They have been making the various classes within a role more interchangeable. Not everyone will agree but I think this is a good idea on Blizz's part. Besides, priests already don't have a debuff removal that distinguishes them from pallies. This seems like something Blizz has overlooked in terms of making classes interchangeable. Simply give each healing class 2 distinct debuff removals and then allow the healing specs to fill in the gaps using talents. For priests, replace dispel magic and abolish disease with one spell and then add cure poison to it as the 11 point talent (baseline Divine Prayer) and add remove curse to it as the 31 point talent (junking lolwell.)

The pallies are making me depressed with all the talk about Divine Plea. :(
 

Just to clarify (sorry, I don't see an edit button), patch 3.0 gave us Warlocks a great new Affliction 51 point talent, as well as other 51 pt talents; the class got just one BASE spell.

No. All classes got a level 75 and a level 80 ability. You may not like it, but Shadowflame is the warlock 75 ability.

As a DK technically ALL my abilities are new. But we also got a 75 and 80 ability.

Empower Rune Weapon: I can never really find a time to use it. With a 5 minute cooldown and refreshing something with a short cooldown (runes) I always get in the "I can just wait a second" complex. It's the same thing as, say, a frost mage never cold snaping to get another frost nova or a hunter using readiness period. They just always slip my mind. Seems cool though. Wish I knew how to use it better.

Army of the Dead: Since when was 6 an army? Oh well, I really do like this ability, and it even can serve as a mini, very short shield wall with a 20 minute cooldown as it lowers your damage taken by dodge+parry for 6 seconds. But 20 minute cooldown is also harsh. I LOVE unleashing these guys when I find the chance, but don't find the chance often.
 

A note about Guardian Spirit, it is a dual-pronged ability.

It prevents the death of the target. For the duration of the effect, it ALSO buffs ALL healing recieved by the target by 40%, that's quite a substantial amount. This effect could be used in a similar fashion to tank cooldowns on a tighter timer, put it up just before or during a part of a fight where the tank is known to be taking heavy damage, and it will go a long way towards helping the healer crew manage it.


For one talent point, it's a pretty good ability. It doesn't even need the 'prevents death' tag to be worth its weight in gold as far as raiding goes.



For the priest above me, they seriously buffed Lightwell moving into this expansion. It's a far cry from the useless "you got hit with a paper cut so the heal cancels" ability it used to be. If you're skipping that talent, you're passing up quite a potent helper.
 

Ah, Caleb, thank you, I honestly thought that Shadowflame was a talented ability :D
Scratch what I said about Warlocks only getting Demonic Circle :D
 

@Neri: I don't know about your DDs, but mine are are kind topping each other on the damage meters while moving out of the fire. If DDs would have enough slacktime to use lightwell, they could simply have used that time to avoid the damage altogether. That may be a bit of a oversimplification but really, I don't trust any DD to use it right. And I'm already fighting for every point I can get in the holytree.
 

"As a holy priest you should never ever be in a situation where Guardian Spirit is even useful, because it indicates you failed to do your job prior to it."
Guardian spirit is probably the best spell I ever had as a holy priest. Have a large spike of damage incoming on your war (Maexxna raidwide 6 sec stun in enrage for instance, or rhino enrage in Heroic Gundrak) ? First time war blows shield wall, second time war blows last stance, third time the warrior is out of cooldown and about to be stomped : enters guardian spirit...
Yes these things can only work if you communicate, you won't be able to use them in the flow of the fight without coordinating with your tank, that's a given in a raid context but nothing forbids you to strategize a bit as a casual 5-instance / heroic instances player...

Mind sear is for shadow priests, although you can use it on safe AE pulls to shorten the trash...

Anyway the priest healing toolbox is already somewhat large, we have shield / slow-casting large efficient heal / fast-casting not-so-small not-so inefficient heal (properly glyphed) / heal over time / binding heal / instant AE heal / slow-casting large group heal / fire and forget HoT source... There is no class with as wide a range of healing abilities... I don't see anything

The only thing I agree with is that Hymn of hope seems weak and quite buggy atm...
 

Not much in the way of new spells perhaps, but the pet revamp has been fantastic. People talk about DKs being OP, but Volley + Gorilladin for a BM hunter is insane. With humble green gear I burn through solo content at an incredible rate and out-DPS people many levels above me in instances. Hunters (who were already strong soloers) have been buffed enormously in Wrath.

Can't say I disagree. Lvling with a gorilla gave the term "EZmode" a whole new meaning. Luckily we also got other abilities that make the "hunters" stand even more out from the "huntards", like the new ranged freezing trap. It's awesome when used right, but it takes training to be able to aim it correctly at moving targets. I love the new pet talents though, spec your pet correctly and you won't need to waste bag space on pet food ever again. My kitty can even self-res, and because cats can learn the Bloodthirsty talent (which restores happiness and health when the pet is attacking something) even a combat res just means you just need to slap on a Mend Pet and send it in again if it dies (which it shouldn't really, but shit happens). The class has been much more streamlined, the new abilities are just icing on the cake, due to the new Aspect of the Viper I never drink in instances anymore, I just slap on the aspect between pulls.

Another thing I've missed with the hunter class is high numbers. Hunter always felt like nothing more but a powerful DoT, but Chimera Shot and Kill Shot changed that. I like saving my trinkets and cooldowns until bosses are on 20% hp, then buff myself up maximally and fire Kill Shot. Probably not the best use of cooldowns, but it sure as hell is fun seeing the amazing crits casters have been bragging about for years. Chimera Shot is in the same boat, I've only tried it at 70, but I can imagine numbers not too far below Kill Shot ones.