Name

Description

Rating

Unbreakable Will

Subtle as it might be, this is one of the best first level talents in any tree.  The resistance to stuns, fears, and silence goes a long way in this game, both in PvE and PvP.

4

Wand Specialization

For a purely PvE priest this ability can be useful, but honestly I don’t think very much in comparison to other available talents.  Its not to say that this is a bad talent, only that the damage that a priest does wanding is piddley compared to other classes, and this increase does not make it a more effective use of skills.

2

Silent Resolve

Previous to 1,10, priests had a plethora of agro reduction talents:  one for healing, one for dealing, and one for dealing shadow damage. Now, this has been reduced by 1, so that this talent applies to both healing and dealing. This is an excellent talent for all but the most purely PvP priest

4

Martyrdom

Best Talent. Ever.  20% chance to avoid casting interruption, become uninterruptible after being the victim of a melee or ranged critical strike. A PvP priest can ask for nothing better. In PvE, this is effective in situations where the priest is being hit, either with an AoE or becomes the victim of a mob.

4

Improved Power Word: Shield

Previously, this talent was required by all priests. In its new form, the increase is rather /shrug.  15% increase in the effect of shield results in 144 extra damage prevention. This can be effective in situations, but shield is already the most inefficient “heal” that priests have.

3

Improved Power Word Fortitute

At level 60, increase the effect of Fortitude by 140 health. Not great, not bad.  I personally do not care for it, though it is beneficial for a single priest in the raid to have this talent.

2

Meditation

This ability looks awful on paper, but in reality can be a lifesaver.  People that crunch numbers say this ability sucks, and they are wrong.  Over long end game fights where the priest is constantly casting, this talent is worth its weight in gold.  For instance, a priest with 5 points in this ability and 300 spirit can expect an extra Flash Heal if they are under under the 5 second rule the entire 60 seconds.

Now that this talent is on the third tier of the Disc tree, there is no excuse for any priest not having this talent.  

5

Inner Focus

Free 1k mana with a tremendous chance to crit. This is a priests hidden weapon when a fight has gotten out of control. When used properly, this is more effective than Mental Strength. Assuming a Tier 1 priest with 7000 mana, this is 6 talent points, or a 2.4% per talent point increase in mana.  The tough part about this ability is learning when to use it.  Waiting till until the priest is completely out of mana and pop this is not the answer.  At that point, the tank probably cannot afford to wait for four seconds.  During a tough fight, pop this when the situation is controlled enough for a greater heal or when casting a Prayer of Healing.  The timer on this ability is short, and more than likely, the ability will be back next time you need it.  Something to note:  Prayer of Healing has a chance to crit on each member of your party individually, so with this ability, you are assured that at least one member of your party will recieve a crit.

5

Improved Inner Fire

This talent looks great on paper, but is modest in reality.  For an end game priest, this increases damage reduction by 2-3%.  This can could be useful for a shadow priest or priests focused on Player versus Player combat, but any other priest should not be getting hit and therefore does not need this ability.

3

Mental Agility

Most players pick this ability up because there is no other good option. If the priest is player versus player shadow spec this is a good buy because many of the priest abilities are instants (pain, silence, scream, fade, shield, renew, shield, dispel, abolish disease).  Holy priests get a much lower bang for the buck (renew, shield, dispel, disease).  In long battles this can be effective, but in the short run, this is the least effective of the three efficiency talents (Strength, Meditation, and Agility).

Of the Priest Talents that scale, this scales the worst.

2

Improved Mana Burn

This ability alters Mana Burn from having a casting time of “way to long” to “to long”.  It does not make Mana burn more tenable in PvP combat and overall, is kinda meh.

2

Mental Strength

5 points for 10% more mana. End game that can equate to anywhere from 500 to 800 extra mana. Can be useful. In most fights this will be more useful than Mental Agility. However, end game battles can last for longer than 20 minutes. At this point agility is more useful.

A priest that can spend 20-25 seconds in combat outside of the FSR has generally regenerated more mana than this ability provides.

3

Divine Spirit

As a 31 point talent, this one sucked. But as a 21 point talent, this ability is useful.  Additionally, it can now be paired with Spiritual Guidance in the Holy Tree for excellent results.

5

Force of WIll

Increases the damage potential of a Smiting priest by 1.5% per point.  Only effective in Holy damage builds. In all other builds, this talent is a waste of points.

3

Power Infusion

The new 31 point talent. This is a great PvP talent, but only marginally useful in PvE. In PvE this talent is most effective at killing people in the raid you do not like.

3

Name

Description

Rating

Improved Renew

Renew is one of the most often cast spells.  +15% is nice. Therefore, not a bad choice. In addition, stacked with the cost savings from Mental Agility, Renew becomes more efficient

Keep in mind with this talent, that it does not stack with spell power.  This means that the 48 +heal per talent point to renew that this ability gleans end game will never improve.  If one assumes that only 50% of ticks hit, and the priest uses this spell 1/3 of the time, the end result of this talent is a measly 8 +heal per talent point.

2

Healing Focus

70% chance of being uninterruptible while casting. There are so many end game encounters where the healers take damage, this talent is extremely beneficial to all healing priests.

5

Holy Specialization

Very useful talent.  If you can’t read the description and see the obvious benefits of this talent, then maybe WoW is too complicated for you.  This is great at procc’ing inspiration, and getting those extra big heals when you really need them.

In addition, this is one of the few talents in the holy tree that scales end game, making it more valuable. 

4

Divine Fury

A huge improvement for the holy priest this talent is. Shorten both Greater Heal, Heal, and Smite/Holy Fire. Score

5

Spell Warding

The first new ‘meh’ talent.  In PvP 10% is not enough (for 5 points) to save your life when being attacked, and in PvE, 10% is only useful against AoE’ing boss mobs.  All around, this talent stinks

1

Inspiration

The 25% bonus to armor equates to about a 5% damage reduction for 15 seconds.  An tier 1 tank should have about 55% damage reduction.  Therefore a hit for 2K damage becomes 900 without this ability, but 800 after. If you tank is hit every 3 seconds (reasonable), then this is worth 500 hit points, or half a flash heal.  This ability is exceptional in the proper situations, and great in PvP combat.

3

Blessed Recovery

Looks GREAT on paper...in practice kinda ok. The 25% recovery does not stack, so you are basically only recoving 25% of one fourth of a rogues crits.

2

Holy Nova

Not a bad talent any more. Deal poor damage and decent instant healing to everybody around you.  Exceptionally mana inefficient, but you can’t have everything.

3

Holy Reach

Increases the range of Smite and Holy Fire, and the radius of Nova and PoH.  This is really only useful in a damage build...the increase to PoH (the only true healing ability of the talent) is marginal.  However, in a damage build, this ability is all but required, giving a smiter the ability to hit enemies from 36 yards away.

This is even more effective when paired with the Zul Garub set, increasing the range of Fire and Smite to 42 yards, which is the longest range of any class in the game.

3

Improved Healing

Increase the effectiveness of Greater Heal and Heal by 15%.  Now that GH has had its casting time significantly shortened, there is no excuse for any priest not using it the majority of the time in instances and raids. This is a big, additional increase in effectiveness.

Because this ability applies a static change to the denominator of the Health Per Mana equation, the effect of this talent scales as a priest acquires more +healing.

4

Improved Prayer of Healing

Prayer of Healing basically casts flash heal on your entire party. W/out this talent Prayer of Healing costs 3 flash heals. With this talent, Prayer of Healing costs 2.

Depending on usage of PoH, this talent can be great or meh.

3

Spirit of Redemption

Great spell, except that the priest has to die to use it.

Word of warning with this talent:  When the talent procs (on the priests death) an Angel flies off of their body.  This amuses some people (myself included when I’m the one doing the killing), and can cause the priest to get camped...just so that the attackers can see the Angel again. I guess this is another sign that people in America really need some more heaven in their lives.

3

Searing Light

 Increase damage from Holy spells by 10%.  Very useful investment of 2 points in a holy damage build, otherwise, pass.  This does not scale, so in essence, this is worth 40 +spell power to the priest when casting smite or holy fire. 

3

Spiritual Guidance

For a Tier 1 Priest, this increases healing by about 3% for 5 points invested. Not a great deal.  However, this increases the damage output of the same priest by 10-12%, not a bad deal.  This isn’t as effective as picking up FoW and PI for a smiting priest, but makes for a better healer.

3

Spiritual Healing

+10% healing is fairly useful. Unfortunately it does not stack with +healing gear...so it does not scale end game.  Depending on the ratio of spells cast, this talent is worth 19 +heal per talent point invested to 40. 

3

Lightwell

Also known as “suckwell”.  Blizzard must have a thing about giving priests a crappy 31 point holy talent.  To be honest, this isn’t an awful talent, it just isn’t great.  But then, priests can’t complain now that we have two awesome PvP 31 point talents.

2

Name

Description

Rating

Spirit Tap

A great grinding ability.  If a priest casts their spells correctly, this can regenerate the vast majority of their mana bar. This is great for lowering downtimes and saving money on water.  Not so great in the end game, when the priest is unlikely to kill his target, except when soloing.

3

Blackout

One of the better first level abilities in the game. 10% chance to stun someone.  Superior to Spirit Tap in end game shadow builds. An interesting trick that one can perform with this ability is to repeatedly cast SW:P level 1 on a target, until Blackout procs.  The mana cost is cheap (40 mana per cast), and the effect is great on Flag Carriers in War Song Gulch, and anybody that is running away.

4

Shadow Affinity

With a PvE built shadow priest, this ability is powerful.  If not, then this ability is for the birds. PvE Shadow Priests will be covered later.  Additionally, I'm not sure at what point a priest ever needs 5 points in this ability.  Currently Snuggles (my priest) is a PvE shadow priests with 5 points in Resolve and 3 points in Affinity, and hardly ever gets agro. Either way, this talent is essential. My guild brings a combat shadow priest and one pve shadow into Molten Core. The Combat Shadow Priest (a general) is never in the top ten at damage dealing, and the pve shadow priest is always in the top 3. Their gear is rougly equivilent, the difference is the pve priest does get agro and can continuously go all out.

3

Improved Shadow Word Pain

Great ability for soloing or in Player versus Player (after you kill the opposing priest who can dispel this). Some people are confused by the wording of this talent.  What it does is extend the time that a target suffers under pain. So if you are target takes 300 damage per tick of pain, two points in this talent adds 600 damage per casting of pain (if the target lives that long). This talent makes pain fairly efficient.

3

Shadow Focus

Every single shadow priest should have 4 or 5 points in this.  As a leveling toon this allows the priest to attack mobs/people 4 levels above them(as opposed to 2 levels w/out).  As a lvl 60 this significantly reduces the number of resists the priest gets.  A lot of people skip over this one for more glamorous abilities, but trust me, this talent is very important.

4

Improved Psychic Scream

Does four seconds make much of a difference? YES! Scream is the spell that keeps you alive in Player versus Player.  Four seconds is a long time.  No Combat Shadow build is complete w/out this talent.

3

Improved Mind Blast

This talent is much more important end game than in leveling.  Mind Flay has the nasty blue line that screams "Look at me, I’m a priest, come squish me".  If the priest is not leveling and wishes to blast people’s without looking like an obvious priest get this talent and use blast. When leveling, pass. Five points in Improved Mind Blast allow priests to reach maximum damage potential by casting Blast, Flay, <instant>, Blast, Flay, <instant> without pause.  The only useful point volumes in this talent are 0, 2, and 5.  Two points allows the priest to Blast, Flay, Flay, Blast. Placing 1, 3, or 4 points in this talent should be avoided because it essentially wastes points.

3

Mind Flay

Best darn spell in the game. The most mana efficient damage spell with one heck of a debuff.  Deals damage and slows target by 50%.  A good priest can effectively kite a target forever with this spell and Psychic Scream.  Also great for slowing runners. This is also useful in instances, where a runner could bring five friends back to kill your party.

5

Improved Fade

This is the talent that holy priests are jealous over. Supremely powerful for instances.  This ability is one of the few in the shadow tree that are invaluable for instance runs. In essence, this increases the time that a priest is faded (and can do almost anything without getting agro) and decreases their cool down. Unfortunately, the only time a priest should pick up this skill is when they are leveling, unless the priest is a tri-spec (which I do not believe is effective.

3

Shadow Reach

Not great, but more range always helps.  Equates to 5 yards on mind blast and 3 on Mind Flay.  A Player versus Player spec Shadow Priest can use this, a PvE Shadow Priest should avoid this. Because other talents in the shadow tree are significantly more powerful than this, this spell feels weak.  Other casting classes get range improving abilities that are much more effective than this. Mages have two spells that increase their range by 20% (one for ice and one for fire) that at a cost of two talent points.  I understand that this has to do with balancing the classes, since Mages and Locks are designed for nuking, and hence, need an edge, but that leaves this ability ...lacking. Most Combat Shadow Priests should have this, level and PvE shadow priests should avoid this talent.

3

Silence

Stops a spell mid-cast and locks the caster out for 5 seconds. Basically, once a priest gets this ability, he can conquer every other casting class besides Locks. This spell is actually a one up on what mages have, as they must spend  2 talent points to get a spell lockout for 5 seconds.

5

Shadow Weaving

A so/so ability that must be acquired to get to go for the real stuff (darkness).  Useful in soloing or when the group is fighting elites, kind of pointless in normal group play. However, this talent does apply after spell power, so it scales. This is very helpful.

3

Vamperic Embrace

A tough call if you are soloing. This is useful in tight fights because shadow priests need every bit o life they can squeeze out. In a group Player versus Player situation, or for the PvE Shadow priest this spell is powerful.  Be warned:  this spell increases the agro of your damage spells by 40% (from the healing).  For a Player versus Environment Shadow Priest, this ability provides your entire party with a HOT while the priest is dealing massive damage. As a priest advances in the end game and acquires more +shadow and +spell damage items, Vamperic Embrace becomes very useful.  A well equipped shadow priest can basically provide their group with a semi-permenant renew through the use of this spell.

3

Improved Vamperic Embrace

Decent talent. If the priest is built for PvE damage, then this talent is a great way to keep your party topped off.  In PvP this talent is so, so.

3

Darkness

Nice ability, 10% is nothing to shake a stick at, but static, and does not scale with damage.

.

3

Shadow Form

One of the best abilities in the game and probably the most powerful 31 point talent of any class, just don’t get caught in it when you should be healing.  With this talent a priest has the damage reduction of a well equipped mail wearer. I cannot say enough about how powerful this ability is.

5