MoP Beta Spirit Shell Reimagined

Posted in Articles on May 10 2012

In the latest MoP beta build (15688), Spirit Shell has been significantly altered. In previous builds Spirit Shell was designed to be the mana neutral healing spell for Discipline Priests.

I finally had a chance to log on and check out the new Spirit Shell, and it's very interesting. There are a couple of interesting notes about the way in which it works.

Multiple Spirit Shell Shields

Casting Spirit Shell and then multiple different healing spells stacks up different "shields", each of which is named after the individual healing spell. For example, the following two screenshots show what happens when you cast Spirit Shell followed by Flash Heal and Greater Heal.

Spirit Shell Stacking

Casting Spirit Shell and then the same healing spell stacks up different "shields", each of which is named after the individual healing spell, although there does appear to be a limit to the stacking, as you can see in the combat log:

Interestingly, it appears as though the stacking cap is per each healing spell, so in some cases you might be better off casting multiple, different healing spells. However, in practice, your targets will likely be taking damage, and the shields might not even have a chance to stack up to their maximum value anyway.

Conclusion

It's still early, but Spirit Shell seems like a very interesting spell, although it is certainly a significant departure from the original goal of Spirit Shell, I can see it having a few very interesting uses.

1. Preparing for incoming raid AoE damage with Prayer of Healing. The 15 second duration of Spirit Shell should allow a Discipline Priest to pre-cast two full Prayer of Healing spells on each group in a 10 person raid.
2. Preparing for spikes of tank damage with a few casts of Greater Heal.

All in all, I like what I see so far, and Spirit Shell should prove to be very useful.

Published May 10 2012 - Permalink

blog comments powered by Disqus