Paladins and Druids to get a Lift

[kandrathe]

I don't understand the problem?

If this arrangement suits your needs, then why is there something broken?

Talents were never meant to be invested fully into 1 tree and result in a well-rounded version of that class. Full investment means specialization in 1 area, deficiency in other areas. I think they've accomplished that for the most part w/ Holy & Shadow.
[right][snapback]85580[/snapback][/right]

If Talents were not meant to be fully invested in one tree, then why the dependencies which require 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 points invested to select the next tier. No, they are a tree where the more desirable talent enhancements require lower level investments. So I cannot be "well-rounded" by choosing the best talents of each of the three trees, I need to get stuff I don't really want to fullfil the requirements to get to the skills I do want.

My beef with my Holy Spec'd priest was that she would only excel in group play as healer, and the pain of corpse walks through STV when I could not complete quests at my level without calling/begging for help. I had to become a sort of stalker, trying to find areas where other people were also questing to take advantage of their killing, while in return healing, and buffing them so as not to be a total leech. But, that was not always possible, and often the quests I needed to do were devoid of players.

I think what clinched the respec for me was being Lvl 39 and struggling to do [38] Kurzen's Mystery, the troll 4 tablet collection quest which requires you to travel to 4 ruins and fight through the trolls. Using every tool in my arsenal (even mind soothe, MC, fade) I was finally able to succeed and finish that quest, but it took me at least 6 hours and countless corpse runs. It was 6 hours of sheer drudgery and it did not make the game fun. Killing speed per troll was terribly slow (30-45 sec), and any additional add was usually death. Often the tablets were guarded by 3-4 trolls with 2 or more patrols. Many times I would get up to fighting the last mob, only to have respawns wipe me out.

My feeling is that the Holy tree gets you very little until the end game, when you will do most of your play in parties. IMHO, Priest is one class, that requires one spec for questing (unless you run with comrades) and another for party play. For me, there is not enough damage output (and as Treesh says, other bonuses) in the Holy tree to allow for investing 31 points to get Holy Nova. I decided that for now, I would focus on maximizing my abilitiy to solo quests, while still being a viable healer for instances.

What is "broken" in my opinion is that until the changes to the shadow tree, Blizzards vision of a priest was as a group healer. The discipline and holy trees still suffer from that mind set, such that if you want to specialize in healing, it pretty much neuters you in your ability to cause damage and thus solo quests. I've played the other "healing" classes as well, and I find that the priest is unique in their almost total dependence on others to kill. Even little things would help, like a chance for Mind Blast to cause a 30 second stun giving some CC besides Shackle, useable on more mobs. Blizzard did make changes to the Shadow tree, allowing priest a new arsenal of damage.

I have 31 points in the shadow tree now, and this is the spec I will probably aim for;



Until the end game, when I will probably respec again, as my damage abilities will be trumped by my need to be a better healer.