I haven't played the game since release and have a hard time parsing the patch logs for direct and indirect changes to priests, but I've read that they're really good at dealing damage now (or, maybe they always were, and people hadn't noticed?). Which spells in particular are useful? Should I stay pure priest? I've read that Magran and Berath in particular are good, why?

Priest of Magran - because of PL stacking 
All Magran PL8 - PL9  spells has Fire keyword - now in game exist 2 weapons with +2 to fire power level, pet with +1 to fire keyword, and ring that give you +10 acc to fire spells
Death Godlike with Death Door will give you additional +3 PL
Prestige talent +1 
And potion +2

Which in summary give you +11 PL to L9 spells, you can go further and empower it and receive +16 to PL ~ (didn't remember correctly) 160% ~ 80% 
PL bonus multiplicative which mean if you has 20 strength (+30%) to Damage + (25%) potion of last stand + 40% (RED HAND) + 20% Captain Food ~ +(115 - 130)% DM 
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Which in summary produce 3x - 4x DM output, with symbol of Magran each critical tick usually do ~200DM, you can cast 2 symbols, and watch how your enemies melting

Symbol of Magran also target Will defense instead of Fortitude, make your enemies blind, and hit only FoE targets 

Usually you cast BDD and run into middle of enemies group, cast symbol 

Edited August 7, 20187 yr by mant2si

Or Nature Godlike for those of us who don't like to deliberately stay on the brink of death (-2 PL but still strong).

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/103959-strategies-zeus-blessing-technique/ - If you don't like PL stacking and prefer something non-standard, you don't need another subclass, pure priest will be even stronger

Edited August 7, 20187 yr by mant2si