Penance
From Wowpedia
| Penance | |
|---|---|
| |
| Usable by | |
| Class | Priest |
| Properties | |
| Type | Offensive, Defensive |
| School | Holy |
| Cooldown | 12 seconds |
| Talents | |
| Talent tree | Discipline |
| Improvement talents |  [Twin Disciplines],  [Evangelism],  [Inspiration],  [Grace],  [Renewed Hope],  [Train of Thought] |
Penance is the Discipline priest's primary ability, granted upon choosing the Discipline tree. While channeled, it deals direct damage to an enemy or heals a friendly target.
Contents |
Notes
- Penance heals or damages three times, the first tick occurring instantly upon cast.
- The instant first tick of this spell can save party members who would otherwise die while waiting for
[Flash Heal] to cast.
- Penance is one of the fastest single target heals available to a Discipline priest, equal with [Flash Heal].
- Penance is by far the most mana efficient single target heal available to a Discipline priest.
- For these reasons, it is generally the primary direct heal used by Discipline priests.
- Each heal from Penance receives 29.7% of the priest's spell power per tick of healing, and 45.8% of the priest's spellpower per tick of damage. This is better than the alternatives both for damage dealing (
[Smite], 
[Mind Spike]) and healing (
[Heal], 
[Greater Heal]).
- Like
[Holy Shock], this spell has two ranges depending on its use. When used to attack, it has a 30 yard range; when used to heal, it has a 40 yard range.
-
[Power Word: Shield] prevents pushback and ensures that the effect of Penance is fully used.
- Even if pushback prevents the final tick from landing, this is still one of the priest's most mana efficient heals. Pushback can only prevent one tick, as it can only cancel 50% of a channeled spell.
- Penance has exactly half the mana cost of [Flash Heal].
- A full cast of Penance heals for around the same amount as [Greater Heal], depending on improvements.
- While the Discipline talent [Grace] can be procced by a number of healing spells, it is procced by each tick of Penance, meaning that a single full Penance cast will bless the target with the maximum 3 stacks of Grace. As 3 separate casts would otherwise be required to produce this effect, this makes Penance easily the fastest and cheapest way to place the full Grace effect upon a target. This also makes Penance an ideal first heal to be cast upon a target, ensuring that all subsequent heals (including the 2nd and 3rd ticks of the Penance itself) will benefit from [Grace].
- When used upon enemies, Penance has the highest DPS of any single target direct damage spell available to Discipline priests. The only exception is
[Mind Blast] when cast upon a target afflicted with 1 more stacks of the [Mind Spike] debuff.
- It is also one of the most mana efficient options - only [Holy Fire], when time allows for its DoT component, offers a superior efficiency.
- Along with
[Shadow Word: Death] (and arguably 
[Holy Nova]), Penance is one of the only ways for a Discipline priest to deal instant damage.
- Penance is subject to
[Borrowed Time] haste, but will not consume the effect.
Improvements
- [Twin Disciplines] increases Shadow and Holy spell damage and healing by 2/4/6%
- [Evangelism] stacks increase the throughput of Penance, but Penance cannot be used to build Evangelism stacks
- [Inspiration] procs from Penance crits, temporarily reducing the target's physical damage taken by 5/10%
- [Grace] procs from each tick of Penance - granting up to 3 stacks per cast, increasing healing received from the priest by up to 24%
- [Renewed Hope] increases the critical strike chance of Penance on targets afflicted by Weakened Soul or your Grace effect by 5/10%
- [Train of Thought] gives [Smite] a 50/100% chance to reduce the cooldown of Penance by 1 sec
-
[Glyph of Penance] reduces the cooldown of Penance by 2 sec
Patch changes
-
Patch 4.0.6 (2011-02-08): Mana cost has been increased by 7%, but healing has been increased by 20%.
- Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Mana cost reduced
-
Patch 3.2.0 (2009-08-04): Cooldown increased to 12 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
- Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): Penance can now be cast on the priest himself and the damage has been increased.
- Patch 3.0.2 (2008-10-14): Added.
External links
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