Priest talent analysis

A Priest's Talent trees focus on the Priest's two main roles in a party: Mitigation/Healing (Discipline/Holy respectively), and DPS (Shadow).

Talent Trees in General

A Priest's talent choices depend largely on what role they wish to have, but a Priest can perform a healing or damage role regardless of their spec (ex: a Shadow Priest can heal instead of DPS).

The Holy tree is the popular choice for players who prefer a healing role. While some of the talents add to a Holy Priest's damage (probably to make it easier for soloing), the majority of Holy talents improve the Priest's healing spells. Holy Priests are among the best healers in the game with their key spells Circle of Healing and Guardian Spirit, possibly only rivaled by a Restoration Druid in Tree of Life form.

The Discipline tree has become a legitimate healing spec with recent changes to the tree. While Holy priests focus on raid healing and pushing health bars up, Discipline priests excel at keeping one or two targets alive. Discipline priests don't top heal charts because they spend a lot of time preventing damage from occurring in the first place with key talents like Improved Power Word: Shield and Grace, and their 51-point spell Penance. In addition, Discipline is able to put out damage that Holy priests generally can not.

The Shadow tree is largely a DPS tree. Shadow Priests can deal a good amount of single-target DPS, and also have several other abilities that benefit the party. One of a Shadow Priest's greatest abilities is supplemental healing through Vampiric Embrace, as well as party-wide mana regeneration through Vampiric Touch. Shadow Priests should also keep in mind that they still have substantial reserve direct healing abilities, useful in emergencies. More than one 5 man dungeon group or Warsong flag carrier has been saved by a Shadow Priest's well-timed barrage of Flash Heals and Prayer of Mending.

Discipline

Unbreakable Will

5 points: Reduces the duration of Stun, Fear, and Silence effects done to you by an additional 30%.

• The Stun and Fear resistance isn't very useful in PvE, since you won't be getting stunned very often (most stuns are melee range effects) and you have Fear Ward, but the Silence resistance is fairly useful. For PvP, this talent's basically a must-have.
  • Solo Utility: Almost useless, since most mobs that can stun, fear, or silence you aren't running around in places where you'd be soloing.
  • Raid Utility: Good if you're in a raid situation where a boss is going to use AoE silence or fear (if your Fear Ward is, say, on a tank) effects, but points are better spent on increasing pure effectiveness.
  • PvP Utility: Almost essential. Priests are already very squishy so any extra time to act is invaluable. Many classes with spell interrupt abilities (Rogues and Warriors, especially) can talent their interrupts to Silence the target.
• Bottom Line: Not worth the points for soloing, situational in raids, and amazing for PvP.

Twin Disciplines

5 points: Increases the damage and healing done by your instant spells by 5%.

• Useful for soling healing Priests, though only increases your instants.
  • Solo Utility: Instant spells you'll use are Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, Power Word: Shield, and Renew. Preferred over taking points in Unbreakable Will.
  • Raid Utility: Same as Solo Utility, as well as for Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing and Flash Heal under the effect of Surge of Light.
  • PvP Utility: Increases damage, but not preferred over stun/fear/silence reduction.
• Bottom Line: Every PvE spec should put 5 points here, since all three benefit. PvP specs should prioritize Unbreakable Will.

Silent Resolve

5 points: Reduces the threat generated by your Holy and Discipline spells by 20% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 30%.

• A boon for raiding Holy/Discipline Priests, and the dispel chance reduction is good in PvP.
  • Solo Utility: Useless. Few (if any) mobs will dispel your buffs and debuffs, and threat doesn't matter if you're alone.
  • Raid Utility: A healer rarely produces the kind of threat that a tank or dps does, and so this talent is not as powerful as it seems. However, fights that involve a constant barrage of Circle of Healing casts can benefit from this ability, although even then Fade can be enough.
  • PvP Utility: Threat doesn't matter in PvP, but the dispel resistance is good for your buffs and debuffs.
• Bottom Line: Useless for soloing, threat reduction is situational but still handy in raids, and the dispel resistance is good in PvP.

Improved Inner Fire

3 points: Increases the effect of your Inner Fire spell by 45%, and increases the total number of charges by 12.

• A good Talent to take. The extra spellpower granted from ranks 8 and 9 of Inner Fire is nice in any situation.
  • Solo Utility: Anything that boosts a cloth-wearer's Armor rating is a great thing to have.
  • Raid Utility: If you draw aggro during a raid, you will die with or without this talent. Otherwise, most raidwide damage does not take armor into account. In short, the extra armor is useless on a raid. However, at level 71 Inner Fire provides extra spellpower as well, making this talent essential for priests level 71+.
  • PvP Utility: Melee classes usually look at a Priest as an easy kill. Higher Armor isn't just going to keep you alive longer, it's going to surprise anyone who tries to take you out with melee attacks (watch out for Rogues, though; they have Talents to ignore armor, they attack so fast that your Inner Fire won't last long, and there isn't much that'll protect you from an Ambush crit). The spellpower bonus is always a plus.
• Bottom Line: Ok for soloing, essential and raiding, good for PvP.

Improved Power Word: Fortitude

2 points: Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 30%, and increases your total Stamina by 4%.

• Great for any Priest, no matter what you do or what your spec.
  • Solo Utility: A bigger effect from PW:F means more health, more health means you're less likely to get your ass handed to you.
  • Raid Utility: Bigger buffs to your group members. Even better for the tanks, since you get more time to get a heal off if something goes wrong.
  • PvP Utility: For two points, you gain almost 500 health plus another 4% of your stamina; This is easily another 500 health. with resilience and a priests mitigation, this health goes a long, long way in pvp.
• Bottom Line: Unbelievably good for all specs. Take this talent.

Martyrdom

2 points: Gives you a 100% chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after being the victim of a melee or ranged critical strike. The Focused Casting effect reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Priest spells and decreases the duration of Interrupt effects by 20%.

• This talent's kind of a two-edged sword. The immunity to pushback is great, and the interrupt resistance is nice. But you have to get hit by a crit--a white damage crit at that--and Priests aren't exactly good at surviving that kind of attack.
  • Solo Utility: Good. When you're soloing, you have to take all the hits, so any critical hits you take are going to make it easier to either survive or kill whatever you're fighting. The Interrupt resistance won't be as useful, since not many mobs have an interrupt ability, but it's good to have just in case.
  • Raid Utility: Not worth it. You need to get hit for this talent to kick in, and in a raid or group, that's not something that's supposed to happen. Even if you do get the proc, you'll probably only be casting spells like Fade, Renew, Circle of Healing, or Power Word: Shield, so the pushback immunity on your casting is wasted.
  • PvP Utility: Pretty good. In PvP, especially Battlegrounds, melee classes and Hunters usually have quite a bit of +crit gear, so it's more likely that you'll get the proc. The interrupt resistance is also great; a lot of classes get powers that interrupt casting.
• Bottom Line: Good for Soloing and PvP, not worth it if you're going to be grouping and raiding a lot.

Improved Power Word: Shield

3 points: Increases the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield by 15%.

• Good for many situations.
  • Solo Utility: PW:S is the Priest's main "Panic Button" in solo situations. A boost in the amount of punishment the shield can take is good for making an escape.
  • Raid Utility: Discipline priests, who focus their healing strategy around using Power Word: Shield, benefit enormously from this talent. Generally not taken by Holy or Shadow priests for build reasons--the benefit offered by the talent just isn't enough to make it viable.
  • PvP Utility: Good for when you run into a place with a lot of fighting going on. Just remember what was said about Improved PW:F: It won't help you much if your opponent can dispel your buffs.
• Bottom Line: Great for soloing and grouping, okay for PvP. Essential for deep Discipline spec.

Inner Focus

Requires 10 points in Discipline Talents
1 point: Instant cast, 3 min cooldown. 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.

• Great for many situations. Off the global cooldown, which means it can be used just before any other spell.
  • Solo Utility: Because of the short cooldown, it is advisable to use this ability whenever it is available while soloing. It will increase your mana efficiency and add a bit extra damage output. Especially good synergy with Surge of Light .
  • Raid Utility: This is an amazing ability for raiding priests. As any spell cast with no mana cost will not activate the five second rule, use it any time you find yourself outside the five second rule to stay outside longer. See the Formulas:Mana Regen page for more information. Great synergy with Holy Concentration. In addition, the improved crit chance makes Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing, and Penance a force to be reckoned with.
  • PvP Utility: Can be difficult to use in PvP, but very powerful for its mana conservation. Saving 1250 mana from a Mass Dispel, or 2400 mana from a Divine Hymn (that has +25% crit chance) can be a huge swing.
• Bottom Line: Excellent for soloing efficiency, great for playing the five second rule and power heals while raiding, and nice for big spells in pvp. This talent is great as long as you remember to use it.

Meditation

Requires 10 points in Discipline Talents
3 points: Allows 50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.

• Essential no matter what you do.
  • Solo Utility: A good way to help reduce downtime, since you'll have more mana by the end of the fight.
  • Raid Utility: Because spirit gives mana regeneration while not casting, and most priest gear has heavy spirit, it is essential to use this talent. It supplies a great bulk of the "while casting" mana which is so important while raiding.
  • PvP Utility: Nothing special, but the regeneration might be helpful in case you need to try to conserve mana.
• Bottom Line: Regardless of specialisation, every healing priest build should have this talent, as well as most shadow builds.

Absolution

Requires 10 points in Discipline Talents
3 points: Reduces the mana cost of your Dispel Magic, Cure Disease, Abolish Disease and Mass Dispel spells by 15%.

• Makes it more mana-efficient to dispel Magic and Disease debuffs.
  • Solo Utility: Okay. Just a little less mana used to get rid of a Disease or Magic debuff.
  • Raid Utility: Generally not taken by raiding priests. There are just too few fights where a priest finds herself casting enough Dispels to make this worth taking.
  • PvP Utility: Dispelling is on par with making people not die in terms of importance in PvP. With the amount of dispelling one should be doing this talent can save a lot of mana over the course of a match.
• Bottom Line: Generally useless for raiding, okay for soloing, Fantastic for PvP if you can spare the points.

Mental Agility

Requires 15 points in Discipline Talents
5 points: Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 10%.

• Good for the people who like to cast instant spells.
  • Solo Utility: You use less mana on your instant cast spells, so you have both more mana for the longer cast times and slightly less downtime.
  • Raid Utility: This talent is a mainstay of any Circle of Healing priest, as well as for deep Discipline priests who should be spamming Power Word: Shield. Also necessary to get Power Infusion.
  • PvP Utility: Like Renew, PW:S, and Psychic Scream? This is going to be a nice thing to have if your mana is low for some reason (Warlocks using Drain Mana :( ).
• Bottom Line: Extremely beneficial for healing priests. Not necessary for Shadow priests, who could be spending these points in the Shadow tree for more damage.

Improved Mana Burn

Requires 15 points in Discipline Talents
2 points: Reduces the casting time of your Mana Burn spell by 1 sec.

• Controversial. It's useless in some situations (fighting a Warrior in PvP, for example), but an enormous help in others (destroying a mob's mana supply so they can't heal). Whether or not this is going to be useful depends on what you usually do.
  • Solo Utility: Most mobs have too much mana for mana burn to be effective.
  • Raid Utility: Same as Solo Utility
  • PvP Utility: Mana Burn shines in PvP. Everyone except for Warriors, Rogues, and Druids in Bear/Dire Bear/Cat Form is going to hate this (don't bother using it on Warlocks; they can just drain your mana and health to get back what you destroyed); Hunters, Shamans, and Paladins are going to be your worst enemies if you like to use Mana Burn in PvP (they hate losing their mana to Warlocks and Priests).
• Bottom Line: Awesome in PvP, otherwise worthless

Reflective Shield

Requires 20 points in Discipline Talents
2 points: Causes 45% of the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield to reflect back at the attacker. This damage causes no threat.

• The "absorbed by your shield" is important. The damage only procs for shields used on yourself.
  • Solo Utility: Not that great; most mobs don't do enough damage for the reflection effect to matter that much. Still, the damage it does cause is going to help bring the mob down a little faster, but you could just put those three points into Shadow and achieve better results.
    
  • Raid Utility: Not useful. The only time this talent does damage is when the shield is on yourself AND absorbs damage--and chances are you're busy shielding the tanks and high-threat DPS players.
  • PvP Utility: Excellent. People cannot tell what Talents you have without checking the Armory, so they are not very likely to know that they will take almost half of the damage they throw at you. One of the most fun moments in priest PvP is when a rogue or warrior kills themselves on your Reflective Shield.
• Bottom Line: Great fun in PvP, passable for soloing. Not advisable in any sort of group.

Mental Strength

Requires 20 points in Discipline Talents
5 points: Increases your total intellect by 15%.

• Caster + Mana Bonus = Good.
  • Solo Utility: You have more mana to use, so you can blow through more mobs before you need to stop to restore your mana.
  • Raid Utility: You need all the mana you can get, either for DPS or healing.
  • PvP Utility: More mana for more heals, damage, and fears.
• Bottom Line: If you're going this far into Discipline, you should get this.

Soul Warding

Requires 20 points in Discipline Talents
Requires 3 points in Improved Power Word: Shield
1 point: Reduces the cooldown of your Power Word: Shield ability by 4 seconds, and reduces the mana cost of your Power Word: Shield by 30%.

• Whoa. This talent makes Power Word: Shield even more spammable by effectively removing the cooldown of the spell. Not to mention the 30% decrease in mana cost. With this talent, you can use PW:S with the frequency of Renew. Combine this with Borrowed Time and you can shield a dozen raid members before the Weakened Soul effect wears off the first one.
  • Solo Utility: The 30% mana reduction is nice. Of course, with the Weakened Soul debuff, you're not going to be refreshing PW:S fast enough on yourself to see any benefit from the removal of the cooldown.
  • Raid Utility: This talent turns the priest into a "raid shielder". Combine this with Borrowed Time, Glyph of Power Word: Shield, and a Renew here and there for respectable AoE damage mitigation.
  • PvP Utility: Godly for PvP. Quickly shield a handful of PvP-raid members fighting in Arena/Battlegrounds for little mana. PW:S causes the Weakened Soul debuff which Renewed Hope relies upon.
• Bottom Line: This is quite a little gem of a talent. Essential as part of any Discipline build.

Focused Power

Requires 25 points in Discipline Talents
2 points: Increases damage and healing done by your spells by 4%. In addition, your Mass Dispel cast time is reduced by 1 sec.

• Good for many situations.
  • Solo Utility: More damage = win. The cast time reduction for Mass Dispel isn't as useful, since you can just use an ordinary Dispel Magic.
  • Raid Utility: Same as solo. Being able to cast a faster Mass Dispel is helpful if the mobs have a lot of buffs and there are a large amount of damaging debuffs on your raid members.
  • PvP Utility: The improvements to Mass Dispel are going to make it harder for your opponents to get an advantage.
• Bottom Line: Generally only Discipline priests will make it this far down here and it is a good addition to the build, increasing overall output of healing for PvE and eliminating a long cast on Mass Dispel in PvP.

Enlightenment

Requires 25 points in Discipline Talents
3 points: Increases your total Spirit by 6% and increases your spell haste by 6%.

• Spirit and Haste. Unfortunately, it is so far into the Discipline Tree that you can't have this and the high-end Shadow talents.
  • Solo Utility: More spirit means faster mana regen, and more haste means faster casts.
  • Raid Utility: As above.
  • PvP Utility: As above.
• Bottom Line: Essential talent if you are this far into Discipline. Unfortunately, most Holy and Shadow builds cannot afford to go this deep into the tree.

Focused Will

Requires 30 points in Discipline Talents
3 points: Increases your spell critical effect chance by 3%, and after taking a critical hit you gain the Focused Will effect, reducing all damage taken by 4% and increasing healing effects on you by 5%. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 8 sec.

• Bad in that it requires you to get nailed by a critical hit, but the effects of the buff are a bit better than the one from Martyrdom. The spell critical chance makes this talent attractive for raiders.
  • Solo Utility: Nice to have; any crits you take are going to make it harder for the mob to kill you, and easier for you to heal the damage (even if the buff is a little short).
  • Raid Utility: Ignore the "taking a critical hit" part, the 3% spell crit this talent grants you isn't all that bad. You would need 138 spell crit rating at level 80 to make up for not having this talent. Your Divine Aegis shields rely upon spell crit. Inspiration (if you take it) in the Holy tree relies on crit. Granted, Focused Will's placement deep in the Discipline tree doesn't give this talent a lot of pizazz for the raider but more spell crit is always attractive.
  • PvP Utility: Nice to have; you'll be harder to kill if they get a crit (they'll be trying to get one), and you can heal the damage faster.
• Bottom Line: A good tool all round but not essential.

Power Infusion

Requires 30 points in Discipline Talents
Requires 5 points in Mental Strength
1 point: 16% of base mana, 30 yd range, Instant cast, 3 min cooldown. Infuses the target with power, increasing spell casting speed by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%. Lasts 15 sec.

• A great spell to have. Generally used on the highest DPS spellcaster to really crank out damage but can also be reserved for healers (either yourself or another) if mana is an issue or heals need to be spammed quickly.
  • Solo Utility: A decent buff that allows you to cast 20% faster, giving you up to 20%Dps or Hps, while increasing your mana efficiency for 15 seconds.
  • Raid Utility: Acts as an individual "mini-Heroism" for a player, increasing DPS or HPS.
  • PvP Utility: A nice way to increase your DPS but is susceptible to being dispelled or stolen
• Bottom Line: If you are this deep into Discipline, you should get it. An almost required talent.

Improved Flash Heal

Requires 35 points in Discipline Talents
3 points: Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 15%, and increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal by 10% on friendly targets at or below 50% health.

• Reduces the mana cost and ups the crit chance of Flash heal at low health.
  • Solo Utility: If you are leveling discipline then this talent may be skippable depending on how much damage you are taking. In overpulling this may be useful to get your hp back up but the mana cost won't be as important see as how more time will be spent dpsing than healing.
  • Raid Utility: Essential for deep-disc healers. Penance and Flash Heal are your main healing spells and the reduces mana cost will help sustain your mana over the longer, more healing intensive fights. Couple this talent with Glyph of Flash Heal and you've got a 25% mana cost reduction on flash heal along with the upped crit after 50% health in case someone gets in a nasty situation with Penance on cooldown.
  • PvP Utility: Mana will almost always be an issue in arena matches especially with the overall lack of direct mp5 on cloth PvP gear. This will help with more taxing fights and allow you the chance to get an almost guaranteed Divine Aegis on a low health target.
• Bottom Line: Not amazing for leveling but a lovely talent for disc priests in either raiding or pvp situations.

Renewed Hope

Requires 35 points in Discipline Talents
2 points: Increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal, Greater Heal and Penance (Heal) spells by 4% on targets afflicted by the Weakened Soul effect, and you have a 100% chance to reduce all damage taken by 3% for 20 sec to all friendly party and raid targets when you cast Power Word: Shield.

• 4% critical chance on targets you cast a shield on, with a raid-wide 3% damage reduction every time you cast Power Word: Shield.
  • Solo Utility: Since you will commonly use Power Word: Shield on yourself, this is essentially a free 4% crit to heal yourself not to mention the 3% damage reduction from the aura.
  • Raid Utility: Same as Solo, except it's likely a free 4% crit on your tanks rather than yourself.
  • PvP Utility: Yes, if you're looking to spend points in something to buff heals.
• Bottom Line: For PvE, this is great! Useful for PvP too. Divine Aegis relies upon heal criticals -- don't get it without this talent as well.

Rapture

Requires 35 points in Discipline Talents
3 points: When your Power Word: Shield is completely absorbed or dispelled you are instantly energized with 2.5% of your total mana, and you have a 100% chance to energize your shielded target with 2% total mana, 8 rage, 16 energy or 32 runic power. This effect can only occur once every 12 sec.

• This talent allows Discipline priest to chain cast. As long as their shields are absorbing damage and they aren't overhealing too badly, Rapture has more returns than a Wal-Mart on December 26. However, the jury is out on whether or not Rapture is still bugged. In the past it gave returns based on the target's mana, rather than the priest's--so it gave little or no benefit when the target is a rage-generating warrior or runic-power death knight.
  • Solo Utility: As a skill that eases on mana costs for self-healing, this can reduce downtime.
  • Raid Utility: Yes, without question. This is how you survive long fights while all the other healers run out of mana and burn a Runic Mana Potion.
  • PvP Utility: The solution if you're running out of mana.
• Bottom Line: Outstanding and central to a priest's regen--if working correctly.

Aspiration

Requires 35 points in Discipline Talents
2 points: Reduces the cooldown of your Inner Focus, Power Infusion, Pain Suppression and Penance spells by 20%.

• Since Penance is a Discipline priest's main heal, reducing the cooldown from 10 seconds to 8 is serious business. Bringing Power Infusion to 1½ minutes, and Inner Focus and Pain Suppression to 2½ minutes is also great.
  • Solo Utility: Not so great. Penance is not currently self-target, so the only benefit is to skills that are generally only needed once during fights with elite mobs.
  • Raid Utility: Utterly fantastic. Helps spam Penance, and often allows you to squeeze in an extra Power Infusion before a boss's enrage timer.
  • PvP Utility: Amazingly beneficial as it reduces the CD of both Penance as well as Pain Suppression making it essential for arena.
• Bottom Line: Gigantic boon toward healing in any setting.

Divine Aegis

Requires 40 points in Discipline Talents
3 points: Critical heals create a protective shield on the target, absorbing 30% of the amount healed. Lasts 12 sec.

• Commonly called the priest's Bubble. Assuming Divine Aegis fully absorbs damage, this effectively changes your healing crits from 150% normal power to 195%.
  • Solo Utility: Good. If you're spending time healing yourself, the bubble adds some survivability.
  • Raid Utility: One of the defining skills of Discipline, converting your crit chance into pure mitigation
  • PvP Utility: Can provide a healer with some extra time to get their target back up to full health; however the proc rate itself varies with your crit rating so it is not guaranteed to go off when you want it to. Works well with disc and early holy's crit talents.
• Bottom Line: Take it. This is one of the reasons priests go Discipline.

Pain Suppression

Requires 40 points in Discipline Talents
1 point: 8% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 3 min cooldown. Instantly and permanently reduces a friendly target's threat by 5%, reduces all damage taken by 40% and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 65% for 8 sec.

• It's not as flashy as some of the other top-tier Talents (like Dragon's Breath or Mangle), but it's pretty good.
  • Solo Utility: Only good for the 40% damage reduction, but that's pretty nice in case you get more mobs you can handle (or the one you're fighting got you down to under half health then healed itself).
  • Raid Utility: The 5% threat reduction can be useful for saving a DPS that just pulled aggro. However, this should almost always be reserved for tanks. Hodir's Frozen Blows, Deconstructor's Tantrums, and Auriaya trash, among other hard hitting moves in Ulduar can be mitigated greatly. The 5% threat reduction will in no way jeopardize a well geared or well played tank's threat on a boss.
  • PvP Utility: This is key to getting yourself out of a sticky situation. Throwing it on a low health target or using it on yourself while stunned (courtesy of Glyph of Pain Suppression) can buy you those essential extra seconds to throw up a heal, trinket, or get away.
• Bottom Line: Great cooldown for hard-to-heal PvE fights and an essential "Oh, crap" button in PvP or soloing.

Grace

Requires 40 points in Discipline Talents
2 points: Your Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Penance spells have a 100% chance to bless the target with Grace, increasing all healing received from the Priest by 3%. This effect will stack up to 3 times. Effect lasts 15 sec. Grace can only be active on one target at a time.

• When you heal, you buff the target. Simple yet effective.
  • Solo Utility: If you're using Flash Heal or Penance on yourself, this adds survivability. Not useful at all if you're relying only on Renew and Power Word: Shield
  • Raid Utility: Yes. For tank healing it is essential; however it becomes less useful if you are a raid healing disc priest.
  • PvP Utility: Situational. 9% extra healing is nothing to scoff at; however, the buff is only able to be up on one target. This is easily solved with penance. A full three tick penance will reapply 3 stacks of grace to your target in 2 secs.
• Bottom Line: Key for raiding, decent in pvp.

Borrowed Time

Requires 45 points in Discipline Talents
X points: Grants 25% spell haste for your next spell after casting Power Word: Shield, and increases the amount absorbed by your Power Word: Shield equal to 40% of your spell power. (6 seconds)

• Improves the Discipline priest's key spell, Power Word: Shield. In addition, it procs after any use of Shield, and is not consumed by spells like Holy Nova and Penance. It affects the channeling time of Penance, but does not affect the global cooldown
  • Solo Utility: Better shields and a free haste effect after each one.
  • Raid Utility: You're spamming Shield anyway, so the bonus is nice. This also allows for quick single-target saving--shield the target, then use the haste to fire off a quick Penance (which stacks Grace), and follow with a Flash Heal or a Greater Heal (Highly Situational, i.e., Emerald Dreamwalker or a /stopcasting Greater Heal).
  • PvP Utility: Same as Raid
• Bottom Line: Yes, you want this talent.

Penance

Requires 50 points in Discipline Talents
1 point: Launches a volley of holy light at the target, causing 184 Holy damage to an enemy, or 670 to 756 healing to an ally every 1 sec for 2 sec.

• At level 80, damages for 288 and heals for 1484 to 1676. Note that each cast actually has THREE ticks--one instantly, one a second later, and another after one more second.
  • Solo Utility: Marginal. Another other damage spell is a better use of mana.
  • Raid Utility: The main spell in a disc healer's arsenal. Completely essential.
  • PvP Utility: The main spell in a disc healer's arsenal. Completely essential.
• Bottom Line: Along with improved shields, Penance defines the Discipline priest as a healer capable of swiftly and efficiently bringing a single target from near death to max health. Take it, and wonder how you ever managed to heal without it.

Holy

Healing Focus

2 points: Reduces any pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting any healing spell by 70%.

• This Talent's not that useful: You can get more pushback resistance from a Power Word: Shield cast.
  • Solo Utility: A nice boost if you need to heal yourself in a fight, but you can always just throw on PW:S if you need to heal; a 100% pushback resistance while shielded beats a 35/70% resistance with this talent (Note that you may be unable to cast a PW:S on you, due to the debuff it gives you or lack of mana, in which case this is a life saver).
  • Raid Utility: Very few times will push back be an issue in a raiding environment for a healing priest. The only time it will occur is when aggro has been gained on a mob at which point Fade is a better option seeing as how you will likely be too dead to heal yourself otherwise making push back a moot point.
  • PvP Utility: 70% push back reduction is very useful for getting those essential heals off while that rather angry rogue or warrior decides to use you as a punching bag.
• Bottom Line: Great for PvP, may be of use while soloing, but raiders would get more use out of putting points elsewhere.

Improved Renew

3 points: Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 15%.

• A good investment; Renew is one of the most commonly used heals for keeping party members topped off.
  • Solo Utility: Renew's already a good way to keep your health up during a fight, so this just makes it better.
  • Raid Utility: You won't have to use up as much mana trying to keep your raid members alive; just throw on a Renew and maybe a PW:S to keep their health up.
  • PvP Utility: A powered-up instant cast heal is going to be a big help in PvP, since you don't have to worry about getting interrupted.
• Bottom Line: A good choice for soloing and group healing, and it can be helpful in PvP.

Holy Specialization

5 point: Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 5%.

• Very nice; a crit bonus to both healing and damage spells is a big help for healing priests.
  • Solo Utility: A higher crit chance means you can kill mobs faster.
  • Raid Utility: Crits on heals are going to restore more health, so you don't have to heal quite as frequently. Many healer talents also proc of crits sure as deep discipline's Divine Aegis, and holy's Inspiration and Surge of Light. Essential for healing builds; however Shadow Priest's are left in the cold seeing how this talent only effects HOLY spells.
  • PvP Utility: Criting with an offensive Smite or Holy Fire may help end the match early and the crit healing only makes it better when your Divine Aegis preventing more damage and allowing you extra time to throw up a heal, fear, or maybe mana burn that rather annoying healadin on the other team.
• Bottom Line: Excellent talent for those who are going deep into the Holy or Discipline tree. Since Shadow priests can't cast holy spells, though, it's not good at all.

Spell Warding

Requires 5 points in Holy Talents
5 points: Reduces all spell damage taken by 10%

• Situationally useful. It depends on what you like to do.
  • Solo Utility: Not godly, but it's nice to have in case you run into a caster mob, or you aggro a patrolling caster mob while you're trying to kill someone else.
  • Raid Utility: Virtually useless unless you're fighting mobs with AoE spells such as Sapphiron or Hodir and even then the damage is easily healed through without this. Points best spent elsewhere.
  • PvP Utility: Useful against any form of class that uses magic including DKs and Retadins. At least a few points should be allotted here if they can be afforded in your PvP build.
• Bottom Line: A nice thing to have for soloing and PvP. Not worth it for raiding.

Divine Fury

Requires 5 points in Holy Talents
5 points: Reduces the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Greater Heal spells by .5 sec.

• Any Holy Priest worth their mana will take this.
  • Solo Utility: Faster casts means fewer pushback chances and more spells in a shorter amount of time.
  • Raid Utility: A must-have if you're planning on being a Holy group healer. Your party members are depending on you for heals, and the faster you can get them off the better. Discipline priests get more use from Flash Heal though and Penance and would be better off sticking at least 3 of the 5 points in Improved Renew instead while making your way down to Inspiration. However, for raiding this only affects Greater heal, and generally as a raid-healing ]holy priest you will only be casting Greater Heal with a full stack of Serendipity anyway, and as tank-healing (or Emerald Dreamwalker-healing) Discipline you will rarely cast a Greater Heal without Borrowed Time immediately after a Penance (If you're quick, you can squeeze two spells out under Borrowed Time since Penance does not consume the effect), and might not use at all as a raid-shielding Discipline Priest.
  • PvP Utility: Faster casts mean fewer chances to be interrupted on your offensive attacks, making this great for PvPing.
• Bottom Line: If you're going deep into the Holy tree for raiding this is a great talent. Great for soloing and solid enough for PvPing.

Desperate Prayer

Requires 10 points in Holy Talents
1 point: Instantly heals the caster for 263 to 325.

• Heals for 3716-4384 at level 80. A terrific panic button for priests who need a heal NOW.
  • Solo Utility: One point that can make the difference between death and victory.
  • Raid Utility: With raid heavy damage fights making up most encounters this could easily save you during that Safety Dance lag spike, the unlucky Light Bomb during Tantrum, or any of Ignis's molten friends that might decide to give you a hug before the add tank taunts.
  • PvP Utility: Essential. As a healer in PvP you will be most likely to get attacked and sometimes you have what seems like less than a second after getting out of that rogues stun lock at 200hp to decide what to do. Welcome to a self-target only, INSTANT heal that can crit for about 10k. (Thank you, Blizzard.)
• Bottom Line: All healers need this.

Blessed Recovery

Requires 10 points in Holy Talents
3 points: After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit, heal 15% of the damage taken over 6 sec. Additional crits taken during the effect increase healing received.

• Situationally useful.
  
  • Solo Utility: You'll be taking all the hits, so anything to help take the sting out of a critical strike is welcome.
    
  • Raid Utility: There are very few times when mobs will be aggroing onto the healer. When they do they are either too weak to really matter (Gluth's zombies, and Maexxna's spiders) or they will 2 shot you regardless of crit or noncrit. 3 Points would be far more beneficial elsewhere.
    
  • PvP Utility: Nice. Every class will try to stack on as much +crit gear as they can, so being able to get healed from getting hit by a critical strike is a lifesaver.
    
• Bottom Line: Good to have for soloing or PvP, not a very good investment in raids.
  

Inspiration

Requires 10 points in Holy Talents
3 points: Reduces your target's physical damage taken by 3%/7%/10% for 15 sec after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, Penance, Prayer of Healing, or Circle of Healing spell.

• Very useful Talent for healers.
  
  • Solo Utility: 10% damage reduction is substantial realizing that the majority of mob damage you take will be physical, but the chance of critically healing yourself and still having the buff when you engage your next mob are slim.
    
  • Raid Utility: The damage reduction is invaluable for tanking and is easy to keep up for most of the fight on one target. Interestingly, the buff can be on multiple targets at a time, but as a raid healer the usefulness of the talent is decreased due to the fact that most of the people you heal should not be taking physical damage.
    
  • PvP Utility: This talent is great against physical damage dealers, but provides no mitigation against magical damage. The bonus may not be up all the time in pvp, and priests who stack crit will see the greatest benefit from this talent. In addition to its effect, the proc also adds another buff that dispellers must burn through.
    
• Bottom Line: A must-have for raids, useful for soloing, and situational in pvp.
  

Holy Reach

Requires 15 points in Holy Talents
2 points: Increases the range of your Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of your Prayer of Healing, Holy Nova, Divine Hymn and Circle of Healing spells by 20%.

• A range increase for holy's offensive spells and aoe heals.
  • Solo Utility: If leveling as disc, holy, or some combination it is a decent talent due to the range increase of your Smite and Holy Fire; however, not a terribly impressive talent for soloing all together.
  • Raid Utility: For Priests deciding to go deep Holy this is amazing for raid healing. If you are disc your points are best spent elsewhere.
  • PvP Utility: The increased range on offensive spells is nice for any healy PvPer; however, unless you are pvping as deep holy this talent is almost useless and even then not the best thing to put points in.
• Bottom Line: Mediocre for soloing, decent for PvP, amazing for deep Holy raiders.

Improved Healing

Requires 15 points in Holy Talents
3 points: Reduces the mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, Divine Hymn and Penance spells by 15%.

• Reduced mana cost to some healing spells.
  • Solo Utility: This talent focuses on healing spells which makes it almost moot for soloing. The reduced mana cost will save a slight amount of drinking time in the long run however not enough to be noticeable.
  • Raid Utility: If a disc healer can afford the points to grab this, the reduced mana cost to Penance is nice; however most disc builds can't afford this many points into the holy tree. For Holy Priests this is a nice talent but seeing as how only 2 of the spells will actually be used in raids (Greater Heal and Divine Hymn) one of which is on a decently long cool down, its utility is slightly disappointing. A good mana saver for when you do use those spells though.
  • PvP Utility: If PvPing, the reduced mana cost is nice due to how mana taxing long fights can be; however, seeing as how it only helps with a couple spells and the spell it helps with has a rather long cast, comparatively, points may be better spent in other more beneficial talents such as spell warding or blessed recovery.
• Bottom Line: With two of the spells getting replaced as you level (lesser heal and heal), divine hymn on a 10 minute CD, and the other two spells being situationall used based on spec, this talent is mediocre regardless of use.

Searing Light

Requires 5 Points in Divine Fury and 15 points in Holy Talents
2 points: Increases the damage of your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance spells by 10%.

• Increases damage done by holy spells.
  • Solo Utility: This is a really good soloing talent as it increases the damage of all offensive holy spells by 10%.
  • Raid Utility: There are very, very, very few opportunities for a healer to DPS in raids and even fewer where they should. This is one of those talents best not taken, points instead should be put into a talent that helps your healing or utility in raids.
  • PvP Utility: This is rather good for those offensive moments in PvP. While few disc builds will find room for this talent, some holy builds may. Just dont get caught up and forget your priority is healing.
• Bottom Line: Great for soloing, decent for holy pvp, should be avoided in any serious raiding builds.

Healing Prayers

Requires 20 points in Holy Talents
2 points: Reduces the mana cost of your Prayer of Healing and Prayer of Mending spell by 20%.

• Reduces the mana cost of PoM and PoH.
  • Solo Utility: Not amazing for soloing as Prayer of Healing is a group heal.
  • Raid Utility: Great for Holy Priests especially when assigned to raid.
  • PvP Utility: Not amazing but decent. PoH takes a while to cast and is easily interrupted by a Kick, Counterspell, etc. Mana is always an issue so reduced cost on PoM is nice.
• Bottom Line: Great for raid, mediocre for anything else.

Spirit of Redemption

Requires 20 points in Holy Talents
1 points: Increases total Spirit by 5% and upon death, the priest becomes the Spirit of Redemption for 15 sec. The Spirit of Redemption cannot move, attack, be attacked or targeted by any spells or effects. While in this form the priest can cast any healing spell free of cost. When the effect ends, the priest dies.

• Allows you to heal, free of charge, for 15 seconds after you are killed. This effect may be extended to 21 seconds with Glyph of Spirit of Redemption
  • Solo Utility: When you are dead you are dead, there is no one else to heal. Really it only makes you look foolish when soloing until you cancel the effect(or it ends) and you start the corpse run back. The spirit increase is decent however if paired with other talents.
  • Raid Utility: Ideally in a raid you should never die. Assuming you have, however, this would allow you to continue healing your assigned target for between 15 seconds (unglyphed) and 21 seconds(glyphed) while your raid makes plans for a brez. The 5% additional spirit is nice as it ups both your mp5 (Meditation) and spell power (Spiritual Guidance.)
  • PvP Utility: When PvPing holy it may allow the extra heals your partner or team needs to turn the odds back in their favor after you go down. In this form you are untargetable and therefore uninterpretable, which is a plus.
• Bottom Line: Essential for raiding, decent for PvP, negligable for soloing outside of the spirit bonus.

Spiritual Guidance

Requires 20 points in Holy Talents
5 points: Increases spell power by 25% of your total Spirit.

• A nice spell power boost for Holy Priests.
  • Solo Utility: Spell power is always useful.
  • Raid Utility: Same.
  • PvP Utility: Same.
• Bottom Line: Provides a great Spell power boost which is useful for any purpose.

Surge of Light

Requires 25 points in Holy Talents
2 points: Your spell criticals have a 50% chance to cause your next Smite or Flash Heal spell to be instant cast, cost no mana but be incapable of a critical hit. This effect lasts 10 sec.

• Allows you a free, instant cast Flash of Light or Smite.
  • Solo Utility: If leveling or grinding as Holy, this spell will allow you quick damage or healing on a target.
  • Raid Utility: In a raid, where a Holy priest will be critically hitting a substantial amount, this allows for a free heal, saving mana and time as well as allowing a chance to get out of the 5 second rule, or to stay out of it.
  • PvP Utility: As above, this will allow a free heal in PvP, where mana can be precious. Additionally, this will allow the full power of a Flash Heal with no risk of being interrupted or locked out of Holy magic.
• Bottom Line: A good investment of talents, fully worth 2 points.

Spiritual Healing

Requires 25 points in Holy Talents
5 points: Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 10%

• Increases the power of all healing spells by 10%
  • Solo Utility: Not so useful as you shouldn't be healing yourself all that much. However, if you do get into a tight spot, this can be the difference of a flash heal which saves you and one which doesn't.
  • Raid Utility: Essential. This is a core talent which will bump up your healing to the levels required in raids. It will also save you mana as each cast of a healing spell will yield more healing per mana.
  • PvP Utility: Like with raids, this will improve your efficiency.
• Bottom Line: Every priest this deep into the holy tree should get this.

Holy Concentration

Requires 30 points in holy Talents
3 points: Your mana regeneration is increased by 50% for 8 seconds after you critically heal with Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal or Empowered Renew

• DESCRIPTION
  • Solo Utility: You won't be healing that much.
  • Raid Utility: This plays a significant part in your mana-regen.
  • PvP Utility: Nice, but not must-have
• Bottom Line: mandatory in raids. In PvP you usually die before you run out of mana.

Lightwell

Requires 30 points in Holy Talents
1 point: Creates a Holy Lightwell. Members of your raid or party can click the Lightwell to restore 801 health over 6 sec. Attacks done to you equal to 30% of your total health will cancel the effect. Lightwell lasts for 3 min or 10 charges.

• Places a clickable well in front of the Priest. Players may click the well to recieve a HoT.
  • Solo Utility: Very rarely will a time pop up that a Lightwell be more useful than popping a Greater Heal/Flash Heal.
  • Raid Utility: Raids generally will not break their job in order to click the well. Typically considered a waste of a spell.
  • PvP Utility: Chances are, friendly players will be spread out too much for this to be of any use.
• Bottom Line: The breaking at 30%, the ten charges, and the requirement for other players to click make this a lackluster talent. Well coordinated groups may find better use for this talent. People generally click on the well as a joke (because if you spec into this, its not considered a serious holy spec)

Blessed Resilience

Requires 30 points in holy Talents
3 points: Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 3%, and critical hits made against you have a 60% chance to prevent you from being critically hit for 6 seconds.

• More healing, less damage.
  • Solo Utility: Mobs don't hit that much.
  • Raid Utility: Decent boost to heals, but rather minimal. Useless second effect, you're barely going to survive another hit from big enemies if you manage to survive a critical. (Not that you should be hit in the first place)
  • PvP Utility: Imagine a rogue unloading every single CD on you... and only the first one crits.
• Bottom Line: A PvP talent with a semi-decent healing effect. May be safely skipped.

Empowered Healing

Requires 35 points in Holy Talents
5 points: Your Greater Heal spell gains an additional 40% and your Flash Heal and Binding Heal gain an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects.

• Your main healing spells now have even more power to them.
  • Solo Utility: A slight reduction in downtime, nothing more.
  • Raid Utility: Binding Heal is excellent for keeping yourself alive as well as your target. Having a stronger Flash Heal and Greater Heal means better heals.
  • PvP Utility: When healing allies in PvP, keeping them alive for as long as possible means having plenty of bang to the heal.
• Bottom Line: An excellent talent for both raiding and PvP. Solo may also find use in this talent, though they may wish to look into other talents first.

Serendipity

Requires 35 points in holy Talents
3 points: When you heal with Flash Heal or Binding Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer Of healing is reduced by 12%. Stacks up 3 times.

• DESCRIPTION
  • Solo Utility: You simply won't be healing that much.
  • Raid Utility: Take it. 35% off the mind-numbingly eternally long Prayer of Healing cast time? Take it!
  • PvP Utility: This will be useful in sticky situations.
• Bottom Line: Good for healing.

Circle of Healing

Requires 40 points in Holy Talents
1 point:Heals up to 5 party or raid members within 15 yard of the target by 958 to 1058.

• DESCRIPTION Much better than Holy Nova. Holy Nova is very mana-inefficient.
  • Solo Utility: You won't be healing that much.
  • Raid Utility: Take it. One of the best AoE heals there is.
  • PvP Utility: Same as above.
• Bottom Line: Take it.

Test of Faith

Requires 40 points in Holy Talents
3 points: Increases you healing by 12% on friendly targets at or below 50% health

• DESCRIPTION
  • Solo Utility: You shouldn't let yourself get this low to begin with.
  • Raid Utility: It depends. Do you prepare for the best or for the worst?
  • PvP Utility: Take it. This will save your ass many times.
• Bottom Line: Yes for PvP, depends on your play-style in PvE,

Divine Providence

Requires 45 points in Holy Talents
5 points: Increases the amount healed by Circle of Healing, Binding Heal, Holy Nova, Prayer of Healing, Divine Hymn and Prayer of Mending by 10% and reduces the Cooldown of Prayer of Mending by 30%

• DESCRIPTION
  • Solo Utility: You won't be healing that much.
  • Raid Utility: Take it. Solid 10% more healing to your core spells.
  • PvP Utility: Take it.
• Bottom Line: Take it.

Guardian Spirit

Requires 50 points in Holy Talents
1 point: Calls upon a guardian spirit to watch over a friendly target. The spirit increases the amount of healing recieved by the target by 40% and also prevents the target from dying by sacrificing itself. This sacrifice terminates the effect but heals the target by 50% of their maximum health.

• DESCRIPTION
  • Solo Utility: Take it. You're already this deep into holy.
  • Raid Utility: Take it. You can safely focus on healing other people by outting this to tank. Combine with Glyph of Guardian Spirit for greater effect.
  • PvP Utility: Take it. Same as above, plus you can cheat death.
• Bottom Line: Take it for flak's sake!

Shadow

Spirit Tap

3 points: Gives you a 100% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target that yields experience or honor. For the duration, your mana will regenerate at a 83% rate while casting. Lasts 15 sec.

• Getting a killing blow which grants XP or honor will grant you double mana regeneration and you will regenerate mana during that period even while casting.
  • Solo Utility: Absolutely essential. Every leveling and soloing build should have this talent as it reduces downtime drastically. It should be the first three points you put in talents at level 10.
  • Raid Utility: Completely useless in 10 and 25 man raids as a healer since you should never be dealing damage. Mediocre in raids for DPS as you'll need mana most during boss fights... when this won't be proccing. Situational for both DPS and healing in 5 mans -- you will need impeccable timing to get the killing blow. Your points would probably be better spent elsewhere (Meditation in the Discipline branch).
  • PvP Utility: Like in 5 mans, you will need good timing to get the killing blow. This is more suited to a discipline or shadow priest than a holy priest who rarely casts offensive spells. Potential boon when you're in heavy combat if you can steal a kill with holy fire or one of your DoTs tick at the right time..
• Bottom Line: Absolute must for soloing and leveling, potentially useful in PvP and 5 mans. Useless in raid, generally only taken to spec into the nigh-required Improved Spirit Tap

Improved Spirit Tap

Requires 3 points in Spirit Tap
2 points: Your Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death Critical Strikes have a 100% chance and your Mind Flay Critical Strikes have a 50% chance to increase your total spirit by 5/10%. For the duration your mana will regenerate at a 17/33%. Lasts 8 sec.

• Burst damage crits allows to regenerate mana while casting and also increases spirit by 10% for the duration.
  • Solo Utility: Useful but only for higher levels when gear adds critical hit rating and longer fights like elites, since crits finish mobs very quickly and the effect is replaced with ordinary Spirit Tap.
  • Raid Utility: Provides decent mana regen and, coupled with Twisted Faith and Glyph of Shadow, translates into a minor spellpower gain.
  • PvP Utility: Same as Solo. But even less useful since endgame PvP gear provides too many resilience to proc this often. Maybe with Inner Focus (Discipline Tier 3).
• Bottom Line: Somewhat useful for PvE at higher levels. Might shine with DPS increase for Shadow raiders.

Darkness

Requires 0 points
5 points: Increases your Shadow spell damage by 10%.

• DESCRIPTION
  • Solo Utility: Flat-out DPS increase. Take this, but not before Spirit Tap.
  • Raid Utility: This is a core DPS boost to make a shadow priest viable in raids.
  • PvP Utility: This will make those DoTs and mind blasts just a little bit more deadly, giving you an edge. You may want to put your first points in this talent if you plan on exclusive shadow PvP.
• Bottom Line: This is an all-round DPS boost and all fully specced shadow priests will want this. PvP discipline priests may want this as well if they plan on dealing damage.

Shadow Affinity

Requires 5 points in shadow talents
3 points: Reduces the threat generated by your Shadow spells by 25%, and you receive 15% of your base mana when your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch spells are dispelled.

• DESCRIPTION
  • Solo Utility: You don't have to worry about reducing threat when soloing, and your spells will almost never be dispelled. Useless.
  • Raid Utility: With the threat overhaul in WotLK and the built-in threat reduction in Shadowform, this talent has been largely excluded from end-game raiding builds for some time, as threat is typically a non-issue. Perhaps more relevant for 5man and AOE-focused builds.
  • PvP Utility: Situational. If you spam SW:P on everything you may want this to recover the lost mana when dispelled, otherwise the points are probably better spent elsewhere.
• Bottom Line: Take it if you have problems with threat.

Improved Shadow Word: Pain

Requires 5 points in Shadow Talents
3 points: Increases the damage of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 6%.

• Provides more damage from your favorite DoT.
  • Solo Utility: Hey, the faster enemies go down, the better.
  • Raid Utility: A direct DPS increase. Shadow Priests will always want this since Shadow Word: Pain is part of their line up.
  • PvP Utility: Cause some major damage with this. Woe be to the player on the receiving end.
• Bottom Line: Never leave home without this talent.

Shadow Focus

Requires 5 points in shadow talents
3 points: Increases your chance to hit with your Shadow spells by 3%, and reduces the mana cost of your Shadow spells by 6%.

• DESCRIPTION
  • Solo Utility: Free hit rating and improved efficiency makes for fewer misses and less mana used. This'll shorten your downtime considerably.
  • Raid Utility: Like above, this frees you up from worrying about making that hit cap, so you can gem/enchant/gear-up elsewhere. Helps prevent from going out-of-mana too.
  • PvP Utility: Just like above.
• Bottom Line: This is a core shadow priest talent and you should take it.

Improved Psychic Scream

Requires 10 points in Shadow Talents
2 points: Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream spell by 4 sec.

• Turns Psychic Scream into a 26 second cooldown instead of 30 seconds.
  • Solo Utility: Limited use, fearing be towards the end of your options, not your first choice. and you're unlikely to need to do it more than once, though it will depend on your play style.
  • Raid Utility: In most encounters you will not need to use fear.
  • PvP Utility: This is a godsend in PvP! Psychic Scream is a PvP priest's panic and chaos button and the more often it's off cooldown the more you can use it!
• Bottom Line: Very useful for PvP, of very limited use otherwise.

Improved Mind Blast

Requires 10 points in Shadow Talents
5 points: Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 2.5 sec., and while in Shadowform your Mind Blast also has a 100% chance to reduce all healing done to the target by 20% for 10 sec.

• Reduces Mind Blast cooldown down to 5.5 sec., and when damages a target, it reduces healing done to it by 20% for 10 sec. Useful at lower levels. However this one demands all 5 points, so you really might want to get a cheaper yet better alternative. For instance it is much wiser to max Improved Shadow Word: Pain, Shadow Focus and Darkness before you go deeper into the tree. This talent is not worth the points.
  • Solo Utility: Better spend points elsewhere.
  • Raid Utility: So happens, that at endgame Mind Blast is cast only to proc Replenishment from Vampiric Touch since spell itself is less mana efficient than Mind Flay, so 8 sec. cooldown is just right. Healing reduction debuff isn't very useful too. So spend your points elsewhere.
  • PvP Utility: Considerable. If you are able to cast not only instant spells during PvP, this might be just for you. Healing debuff is truly handy in PvP on any target that gets any healing. However it is just 20% decrease so instead of 5000 heal it will be 4000 which is not good enough for you too. Better take Silence to prevent healing.
• Bottom Line: Decent talent that is not worth the points.

Mind Flay

Requires 10 points in Shadow talents
1 point: Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing X Shadow damage over 3 sec and slowing their movement speed by 50%.

• This is a channeled spell which deals shadow damage while snaring the target.
  • Solo Utility: Very useful for finishing off runners and may become a part of your core rotation due to its efficiency, depending on play style.
  • Raid Utility: This is the most mana efficient damage spell a priest has and is essential when combined with Vampiric Embrace.
  • PvP Utility: Like in solo, this is wonderful against runners and for keeping melee distanced from you.
• Bottom Line: For only one point, all but strict healing builds should take this.

Veiled Shadows

Requires 15 points in Shadow Talents
2 points: Decreases the cooldown of your Fade ability by 3/6 sec, and reduces the cooldown of your Shadowfiend ability by 1/2 minute(s).

• Reduces cooldown of the Shadowfiend by 2 minutes down to 3 minutes and Fade cooldown is reduced by 6 minutes down to 24 sec.
  • Solo Utility: Skip this. It might reduce downtime, but you still might use Shadowfiend only once during longer fight since even elites isn't so hard to kill. Threat has no use in solo.
  • Raid Utility: Take this. Shadowfiend restores mana and does decent damage itself, so in raids it is a good tool avoid oom in long fight. Reduced cooldown means you can call it much more often. Fade cooldown is useful if you get aggro often. And with Vampiric Embrace you do.
  • PvP Utility: Useful. If you have a Improved Shadowform, reduced Fade cooldown will let you to remove snares and roots more often. Shadowfiend does not really can do much in PvP. So if you have Improved Shadowform (which in fact you should) and use Fade often, you might want to invest couple spare points here.
• Bottom Line: Raiders should take this. PvP fighters might find this useful too. Not much use for soloing.

Shadow Reach

Requires 15 points in Shadow Talents
2 points: Increases the range of your offensive Shadow spells by 20%.

• Spellcast range of most spells is increased up to 36 yards.
  • Solo Utility: More range means more time that the target is snared and affected by DoTs before getting to you.
  • Raid Utility: Allows for extra room to position yourself as well as shorter time spent running in (less movement time = more DPS time).
  • PvP Utility: Allows to reach an enemy from greater distance. Highly recommended for PvP, but not so terribly necessary.
• Bottom Line: Decent utility. After all that's just a couple points.

Shadow Weaving

Requires 15 points in Shadow Talents
3 points: Your Shadow damage spells have a 33/66/100% chance to increase the Shadow damage you deal by 2% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

• 10% overall shadow damage increase after hitting 5 non-periodical shadows damage hits (Mind Flay counts as 3 hits for this effect).
  • Solo Utility: Very useful damage increase. However to keep this fully up you need to be able to attack another mob before effect fades.
  • Raid Utility: A must. Just for 3 points 10% DPS increase. You can't skip this!
  • PvP Utility: A must. Since PvP fights last far more longer than 5 spells this is really useful.
• Bottom Line: For just 3 points you simply cannot afford to skip it. Useful in any situation.

Silence

Requires 2 points in Improved Psychic Scream and 20 points in Shadow Talents
1 point: Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 sec.

• Short Silence and non-player casting interruption. Has a 45 sec cooldown.
  • Solo Utility: Situationally useful. For example some tough self-healing mob or elite might be interrupted while casting heal and that heal might have ruined your day. Not really useful against simple mob casters for its long cooldown.
  • Raid Utility: Situational. However you need 2 points in Improved Psychic Scream which for raiding you shouldn't need or even use. So long cooldown interruption isn't worth 3 points since other classes like Rogue or Shaman are born to do that.
  • PvP Utility: A nice tool to have. Very useful against casters. Might ruin their day when applied just when they need a panic button the most. For example on the Paladin just before he wants to cast Lay on Hands or Druid who is about to shift out to heal himself. Silence can't prevent a Druid from shape shifting but it prevents them from casting heals, and they don't expect it at all.
• Bottom Line: Very useful in PvP, might be skipped for PvE.

Vampiric Embrace

Requires 20 points in Shadow Talents
1 point: A buff that causes the priest to be healed for 15% of any single-target Shadow spell damage dealt by the priest, while the priest's party is healed for 3%.

• A self buff (previously free mana cast instant debuff) that embraces you to heal yourself from a damage done to the target, or many DoT'ed targets. Be sure to notice that healing causes threat. However shadow damage done by equipment like shadow damage wands does not proc this.
  • Solo Utility: Essential. In ordinary fights there is no longer a need to use a bubble.
  • Raid Utility: You and your raid want this. Healer won't need to heal you at all and free mass healing helps healers to do their job. And since healing causes threat, new-spawned trash is much more likely to attack you, for you heal the whole raid a little bit each. Tank and healer should keep that in mind.
  • PvP Utility: Essential. Healing massively from a damage done increases survivability greatly.
• Bottom Line: Trademark of a shadow priest. For only one point and utility it provides you simply can't skip it.

Improved Vampiric Embrace

Requires 1 point in Vampiric Embrace and 20 points in Shadow Talents
2 points: Increases the healing received from Vampiric Embrace by 33/67%.

• Increases healing done up to 25% to you and 5% to raid total shadow spell damage done. For instance 1000 shadow spell damage from any spell you cast instantly heals you for 250 hp and your raid for 50 hp each. Since endgame raiding deals much greater damage, shadow priest has nice HPS as a DPS.
  • Solo Utility: Take it. You'll be healed even more.
  • Raid Utility: If your tank can deal with the extra threat, you should take this.
  • PvP Utility: Take it. More damage, more healing, more survivability to you and PvP raid.
• Bottom Line: Nice improvement to already nice talent.

Focused Mind

Requires 20 points in Shadow Talents
3 points: Reduces the mana cost of your Mind Blast, Mind Control, Mind Flay and Mind Sear spells by 15%

• Reduces mana cost of Mind Blast, Mind Control, Mind Flay and Mind Sear by up to 15%.
  • Solo Utility: Simply reduces downtime. However you use at least one of them all the time.
  • Raid Utility: Same as solo. Decent mana savings, moreso for AOE-heavy fights.
  • PvP Utility: Not worth the points. Mana efficiency isn't top issue in PvP, but if you find yourself oom often, you should look at Meditation (discipline). You simply do not use these spells so often in PvP.
• Bottom Line: Improves mana efficiency for durable caster. Not so useful in PvP.

Mind Melt

Requires 25 points in Shadow Talents
2 points: Increases the critical strike chance of your Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Mind Sear spells by 4%, and increases the periodic critical strike chance of your Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain spells by 6%.

• Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Mind Sear critical strike chance increased by up to 4%, and Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain periodic critical strike chance is increased by up to 6%. You will be wasting talent points if you max this before you get Shadowform, for only in Shadowform your DoTs can crit. Great higher level talent.
  • Solo Utility: Take it. Fairly cheap critical strike chance increase.
  • Raid Utility: A must. DPS increase to all of the major parts of your rotation. Higher crit chance on Mind Flay should also increase Improved Spirit Tap uptime.
  • PvP Utility: Take it. Even with resilience gear you must not give up on a dream to crit on your enemy.
• Bottom Line: Nice talent to have. Fair damage increase for 2 points spend. Useful for any build.

Improved Devouring Plague

Requires 25 points in Shadow talents
3 points: Increases the periodic damage done by your Devouring Plague by 15% and when you cast Devouring Plague you instantly deal damage equal to 30% of its total periodic effect.

• Increases damage over time done by up to 15% and adds up to 30% of all DoT spell damage as an instant damage when applied.
  • Solo Utility: Flat DPS increase, kills those mobs faster!
  • Raid Utility: Good boost to your total DPS, take this.
  • PvP Utility: Devouring Plague is the worst nightmare for a class which can't heal itself. This makes it even worse. It also effectively gives you another instant-cast direct damage spell (don't use it for that too often though; it's very mana inefficient).
• Bottom Line: All around DPS boost and turns Devouring Plague into an instant direct-damage spell like the Druid's Moonfire! Take this.

Shadowform

Requires 30 points in Shadow Talents
Requires 1 point in Vampiric Embrace
1 point: Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15%, reducing all damage done to you by 15% and threat generated by 30%. However, you may not cast Holy spells while in this form except Cure Disease and Abolish Disease. Grants the periodic damage from your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells the ability to critically hit for 100% increased damage.

• The signature of a Shadow priest, one is not a Shadow priest without this talent. This aura will increase the priest's damaging Shadow magic to the level required for competitive DPS as well as reducing damage done to the priest, and reducing threat. Also, it will allow the Shadow priest's DoTs to critically hit. All of this is at the cost of being unable to use the Holy tree for spells such as heals. Discipline spells may still be used. As for Discipline skills and damage reduction, you might want to get Improved Inner Fire and Glyph of Inner Fire. These three things combined with a good gear provide physical damage reduction nearly equal to the plate armor with a shield. You, a cloth wearer and caster might become almost a tank with a bubble.
  • Solo Utility: For soloing, this talent shines in faster, more efficient kills.
  • Raid Utility: In raids, this will allow the priest to deal damage worthy of raiding with, allowing them to compete with other damage dealers.
  • PvP Utility: The damage reduction of Shadowform makes it very useful for PvP, allowing the priest to become tough to kill.
• Bottom Line: It is the most valuable talent in the Shadow tree and no Shadowpriest should ever be without this.

Shadow Power

Requires 30 points in Shadow Talents
5 points: Increases the critical strike damage of your Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Death spells by 20/40/60/80/100%.

• Increases you non-periodical shadow damage critical power up to 250%. Also should work with Improved Devouring Plague instant damage. Starting with Outland you might want to get this talent because there you begin to get items with Critical Hit Rating, so you will benefit from the talent more and more often.
  • Solo Utility: A must for higher levels.
  • Raid Utility: A must. Only Fire Mage now has greater Critical Hit Power. Great DPS increase.
  • PvP Utility: A must. Great damage increase.
• Bottom Line: A must to deal good damage in all situations. However this does not increase DoT damage critical power, but Shadowform does.

Improved Shadowform

Requires 1 point in Shadowform and 35 points in Shadow Talents
2 points: Your Fade ability has now a 100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects when used while in Shadowform, and reduces casting or channeling time lost when damaged by 70% when casting any Shadow spell while in Shadowform.

• Reduces pushback from damage while casting shadow spells in Shadowform. These 2 points will let you cast Mind Blast and Vampiric Touch even while being hit and do not lose much. However do not spam Mind Flay and Mind Sear even with this talent. You are losing the last damage tick if being hit, so you are wasting some mana here. In addition Fade ability removes all roots and snares in Shadowform.
  • Solo Utility: Take it. While soloing you'll be hit a lot.
  • Raid Utility: Situationally useful: it provides pushback protection (which prevents some DPS loss) for encounters with unavoidable raid damage.
  • PvP Utility: Take it. Same as Solo. Also Fade part might serve a lot in PvP. Initially Fade has no use in PvP, but with talent you might want to fix it. Useful especially against Druids and Mages.
• Bottom Line: A must for Solo and PvP. Can be useful for PVE.

Misery

Requires 35 points in Shadow Talents
3 points: Your Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay and Vampiric Touch spells also increase the chance for harmful spells to hit by 1/2/3% lasting 24 sec, and increases the damage of your Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Mind Sear spells by an amount equal to 5/10/15% of your spell power.

• Increases chance to hit a target by 3% and increase damage of Mind spells by 15% spell power. At level 80 chance to hit debuff saves you and your raid 98.37 hit rating so you can put points on something else. Effect may be on multiple targets. This talent makes Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain good opening spells.
  • Solo Utility: Take it. Increases damage and chance to hit.
  • Raid Utility: Take it. Increases damage and the whole raid's casters will hit affected targets easier.
  • PvP Utility: Take it. Damage increase and precious chance to hit when you hit.
• Bottom Line: Really good talent to spend points. At endgame it saves you almost 100 hit rating and increase Mind spells' damage even more.

Psychic Horror

Requires 40 points in Shadow Talents
1 point: You terrify the target causing them to tremble in horror for 3 seconds. Disarms target's main and ranged weapons for 10 secconds.

• Short fear and longer disarm. Also interrupts casting because target gets feared.
  • Solo Utility: Limited use. Provides some crowdcontrol if cast on mob that uses weapon.
  • Raid Utility: Safely skippable. Neither fear nor disarm will mean much in raids.
  • PvP Utility: A must. A great tool to have in PvP against physical fighters. Even if most of them reduce disarm duration, this skill may buy you those few precious seconds you need to finish them off or save yourself.
• Bottom Line: Amazing PvP tool. PvE won't find this very useful.

Vampiric Touch

Requires 1 point in Shadowform and 40 points in Shadow Talents
1 point: Causes X Shadow damage over 15 sec to your target and causes up to 10 party or raid members to gain 1% of their maximum mana per 5 seconds when you deal damage from Mind Blast.

• Another Priest's DoT. Vampiric Touch causes 850 damage (at rank 5) and if dispelled another 1360 which is more than DoT itself. Also if Mind Blast is cast on affected target, you, your party and raid (up to 10) gets Replenishment effect that restores 3% maximum mana over 15 sec. Multiple Mind Blast spam refreshes the effect. However this DoT has 1,5 sec cast time. Can be cast on multiple targets.
  • Solo Utility: A must. Another DoT. Great for opening for it has cast time and with Mind Flay it restores mana.
  • Raid Utility: A must. Great DPS increase for only one point. Also a tool to restore mana for your and your raid. And this Replenishment stacks with similar effects other classes produce.
  • PvP Utility: You want this. Even if it is with cast time, it increases damage greatly and if dispelled (which happens) it causes hard instant damage. Replenishment for your group (especially healer) if the fight lasts long is great too.
• Bottom Line: A must for every Shadow build. Deals nice damage and may restore mana.

Pain and Suffering

Requires 40 points in Shadow Talents
3 points: Your Mind Flay has a 33/66/100% chance to refresh the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain on the target, and reduces the damage you take from your own Shadow Word: Death by 10/20/30%.

• Your Mind Flay refreshes effect of Shadow Word: Pain. If cast just before effect fades, this saves you a bunch of mana since Mind Flay costs less mana and it does nice damage too. Also reduces damage taken by 30% if Shadow Word: Death does not kill a target.
  • Solo Utility: Not terribly useful. Mobs shouldn't live much longer than the debuff lasts. For mana efficiency you shouldn't be using Shadow Word: Death at all, because it does not do too much damage per mana and causes you damage which in the middle of a battle isn't a good idea. Maybe if you have Vampiric Embrace.
  • Raid Utility: Take this. Refreshing DoT with another damage spell saves a lot of mana in long fights. Using Shadow Word: Death while raiding can end up with you dead. You don't want that.
  • PvP Utility: Useful. Extending a DoT saves you time and mana you would use to renew it. To cast instant burst damage when in full health occasionally sounds nice. Better if it does not crit. Also sometimes in PvP suicide is good idea too, but you will lose item durability.
• Bottom Line: Amazing talent for raiding. Useful in PvP. Limited while Soloing.

Twisted Faith

Requires 45 points in Shadow Talents
5 points: Increases your spell power by 4/8/12/16/20 of your total Spirit, and your damage done by your Mind Flay and Mind Blast is increased by 2/4/6/8/10% if your target is afflicted by your Shadow Word: Pain.

• Increases damage done by Mind Flay and Mind Blast by 10% if target has Shadow Word: Pain on it. Since you use all of these skills a lot, you may increase DPS respectively. Also Glyph of Mind Flay adds additional 10% damage here. Your spirit stat now contributes to spell power. Works great with Spirit Tap and Improved Spirit Tap.
  • Solo Utility: Just take this.
  • Raid Utility: Simply take this.
  • PvP Utility: Are you still unsure?
• Bottom Line: Great high-end Shadow talent that is worth every single talent point. Useful for every Shadow Priest equally.

Dispersion

Requires 50 points in Shadow Talents
Requires 1 points in Vampiric Touch
1 point: You disperse into pure Shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 90%. You are unable to attack or cast spells, but you regenerate 6% mana every 1 sec for 6 sec. Dispersion can be cast while stunned, feared or silenced.

• Avoid damage, restore mana, and escape stuns. Too neat!
  • Solo Utility: Reduces downtime. Well timed, it can even allow you to benefit from a stun, fear or silence. Very useful if during the elite fight you run out of mana.
  • Raid Utility: Same as Solo. Additionally, this one might save your shadowy ass if you somehow managed to pull aggro off a tank and Fade happens to be on cooldown. While this will keep you from running oom on longer fights, this is a highly situational ability that can be used to avoid nasty raid AoE and reduce the amount of healing you need, or save your life. Certain fights can benefit from having this, but keep in mind that you should NOT rely on this for an excuse to get hit by normally avoidable raid damage - general rule of thumb, this won't save you from things you actually need saving from. This amounts to approximately 92% damage reduction (multiplicative) while in Shadowform. Macro with a Potion of Nightmares, but keep a regular dispersion on your bar if you need to keep mobile.
  • PvP Utility: Fantastic as a counter to spike damage and stuns.
• Bottom Line: After spending 50 points in Shadow, one more point is nothin'!

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