For anyone that is interested in armorying my toon, I’ve recently switched from Johannah of Kalecgos to Johanah of Cenarius. I’m in a hilarious guild of 50% gnomes called <Pirate>.

I’ve switched from the role of a Holy priest in ICC-10 to Discipline priest in ICC-25. I’ve also finally had the pleasure, in a rather short span, of seeing all the ICC bosses – heroic Putricide included. Crazy! I intend to continue looking into Holy and Smite specs, but my recent shift in guilds may put those on the wayside until the release of Cataclysm. Or, at the very least, it will put my practice of them on the wayside.

For all you Holy and PvP lovers though, I am keeping my alternate spec Holy PvP, and expect some Holy PvP videos from me in the near future. I’m just dealing with some touch-ups to my PvP gear. I tried Smite spec in PvP the other night, but my druid boyfriend quickly lamented about the lack of healers and I switched back to classic (and yet still not oft used) Holy PvP.

Do not expect Discipline PvP articles on this blog because, quite frankly, it’s not my playstyle – although feel free to discuss it as much as you’d like!

I’m looking forward to the potentiality of Serendipity-like benefits to Smite in Cataclysm and hope this drives my non-raid-healing spec into a Smite direction. I’ll be leveling a Worgen rogue with my boyfriend and his buddy in Cataclysm, and if I understand rogue PvP fun factor right, that will make me abandon priest PvP pretty much altogether. Anyone out there crazy enough to level priest twice just to have a priest Worgen (before race changes include Worgen, of course)?

Update: For kind readers and Kalecgos stalkers, we are currently guildless due to things not working out on a social level in Pirate. (I thought they talked way too little and were way too serious, then they picked a fight with one of the people that joined with me. I didn’t wait for strike three.)

I’m sure they’re a great guild and it just didn’t work out for us. We’re just too far into WotLK, which I’m not a huge fan of, and too close for Cataclysm, for me to waste any mental energy in it.

I’m in Vegas at the moment, but I’ll be doing an update soon on some of the predicted changes on see for Smite in Cataclysm due to its current alpha! (I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting into the beta and then this blog will primarily change to that focus versus WotLK, as an FYI.)

The priest preview for Cataclysm was posted today. I’m sure we’re all excited. I gobbled it up way earlier this morning, but just now got the time to actually blog about… Chakra for Smite!

So, the story. The first thing I did, of course, was comb around for smite benefits. A sad face struck me when I saw how they would be balancing the mastery system (it’s all healing fun for the Discipline and Holy trees), but then my shadow priest friend pointed out later the possibility of Smite being thrown into Chakra, the Serendipity-Replacement-on-Steroids.

Here’s Ghostcrawler’s quote:

The idea behind the Holy “cast three in a row” talent (it’s called “Chakra”) is that we’ve always positioned Holy as a versatile healer. This talent lets you shift into different modes. If you need to be a tank healer, cast three single target heals and your single-target healing is now better. Cast three area heals, and you can be a temporarily specialized group healer. We’re going to try to play this mechanic up with a cool UI to try to get that “I’m almost in the zone” feel. We’ll let it apply to as many types of spells as we can, perhaps even Smite for those times when nobody’s taking damage.

The way Chakra was described earlier in the post is an “improved healing state” that Holy priests will have access to. I imagine it’ll be deep into the tree to avoid Discipline priests getting access to it in addition to their already stellar bubbles. (Did I mention they’re finally doing the group bubble and — wait for it — LIFE GRIP!?)

The other thing I really liked about the changes – beyond the fact Smite has a chance, however small, of being as neat as it was in Burning Crusade once Cataclysm hits – is that they’re addressing Holy in PvP. Now, I already PvP Holy, so whatever they do will be a bolster in my stubborn land. Hurray for Discipline not being the only way to go!

To read more, check out the priest preview on the forums.

A blue went up today about the changes to dispels in Cataclysm. My shadow priest friend claims that priests have had an OP advantage with Mass Dispel and a magic dispel that gets of both offensive and defensive magic, but I’ve always thought the whole one-sided thing with shaman Purge is strange. Apparently, though, we’re all going one-sided!

Here are the changes we’re looking at:

• Druids will be able to dispel defensive magic, curses, and poison.
• Paladins will be able to dispel defensive magic, diseases, and poison.
• Priests will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and disease.
• Shaman will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and curses.

What’s this mean for priests? Not a lot, really.

Druids got magic, great. I don’t play paladins, so I’m not sure what occurred there. Shamans got a boost to Purge, woot. Shamans also lost poisons and diseases… that’s a sad panda.

You could say, “But wait!–Holy priests lost the ability to remove poisons on themselves!” but they’ve already reassured that Body and Soul will remain the same. Score. Dispels also cannot be mashed anymore (they’ll go off whether there’s something to dispel or not), and this makes me excited concerning mashing is just a bad mechanic in general. I like smart dispeling.

Shadow priests lost the ability to remove diseases, and while I could complain about that, I interpreted that more as, “So now you have to have a healing paladin or priest on a boss fight with disease.” And that, to me, is just jiffy.

Except wait!

That means we’ll be interchangeable with paladins! Nooooo, don’t make me Discipline!