12-16-2005, 12:37 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-16-2005, 10:54 PM by MongoJerry.)
That is a fantastic summary. I'm glad that the community reps (at least in Europe) do seem to grasp what people are telling them are problems with priests. Some comments on parts of the post.
Holy motherlode! Oh, wow! God, I hope they implement this. If they did, that would solve so many of the issues I had being a holy/disc priest in PvP, and I would so go back to a holy/disc build. It would allow the priest to actually (gasp!) heal and dispel in PvP. And yet, it would avoid the cheese of the pally shield that allows pally's to heal themselves and attack while shielded. Plus, this would be the answer to the prayer (pardon the pun) of what to do when an MS warrior comes at you. If the warrior goes fear immune early, you could go transcendence, wait for the fear immunity to run out, and then break out and psychic scream. The warrior would still likely win the battle, but it'd be nice to be able to have killing a holy/disc priest be a pita rather than the "free kill" it is today. It'd be useful in PvE situations, too! That would be so great.
I assume that this was a mixup or a sign that the writer does not play a priest himself, since it's shadow priests who most quickly run out of mana. The one benefit holy/disc priests have over shadow priests is their large mana pools and higher mana efficiency when healing.
This is odd, because I've never felt that way. There's nothing wrong with allowing a restoration spec'd druid be an excellent healer -- one even better than shadow priests -- , but a holy/disc priest will outshine a restoration spec'd druid in nearly all cases. In our raids, it's largely the priests who dominate the healing meters (those, that is, who aren't dispelling a lot). Often a couple druids will get into the top couple of slots on the healing meter, but then you also find that those druids are also on top of the overheal meter. Their hot's and larger heals end up causing a lot of extra healing that distorts the numbers on the straight healing meter. When you calculate the amount of healing actually performed, the priests take all the top slots, but the restoration druids are still good -- just around 90% as good, which is just fine.
Rather than feeling competition from the druids, I think of them complementary. I like that our tanks can have hot's running from both druids and priests at the same time. I'm glad we have the different heals going. Our strongest "power healing" teams are made up of two priests, two druids, and one mana tide spec'd shaman in each team. The druids innervate the priests when the priests get low on mana, and the shaman mana tides the whole group when the group gets low on mana. This kind of team can last a *long* time even in high dps environments like BWL.
I guess I can see that priests could use some more special abilities that no other healing class has (e.g. how druids have battle rez), but I've never felt the pressure to keep up with or beat the druids.
My greatest worry with the upcoming changes to priests is that they will make one last desperate attempt to revive greater heal -- like make it really mana efficient or worse clobber flash heal's mana efficiency to force people to use greater heal. I would rather that they threw out greater heal altogether as a bad idea and just improved flash heal if they feel the priests really need improvements in their healing power.
Yep. This is a major problem with priests. There's the PvE build and the PvP build and neither the twain shall meet. Warriors are the closest to having the same problem, although MS warriors can still tank very well.
I wish that Holy Nova would move farther down the tree and become a viable aoe damage spell and would no longer heal at all. However, I doubt that it'll ever go back to the way it was.
You mean that the priest's "primary stat" could become useful to a priest? Shocking!
Well, technically, we have the small level 50 quest series to get our prayer beads. And then there's that major class quest around level 8 that undead priests get to heal and buff a forsaken guard to get a robe that gives them +1 spirit. But, yeah, more class quests would be good.
Edit: I ment to say that I never felt that way about druids. That teaches me again not to post at four in the morning.
Quote:Transcendence(Holy form):
The Priest calls upon holy power to enter a state of transcendence. During the time duration of this spell, the priest becomes immune to all attacks, both physical and magical. The Priest however also becomes immune to all friendly spell casting (including his own). The Priest can only cast healing spells while being in a state of transcendence, but they will not cause additional threat. This would also allow for greater survivability in PvP.
Holy motherlode! Oh, wow! God, I hope they implement this. If they did, that would solve so many of the issues I had being a holy/disc priest in PvP, and I would so go back to a holy/disc build. It would allow the priest to actually (gasp!) heal and dispel in PvP. And yet, it would avoid the cheese of the pally shield that allows pally's to heal themselves and attack while shielded. Plus, this would be the answer to the prayer (pardon the pun) of what to do when an MS warrior comes at you. If the warrior goes fear immune early, you could go transcendence, wait for the fear immunity to run out, and then break out and psychic scream. The warrior would still likely win the battle, but it'd be nice to be able to have killing a holy/disc priest be a pita rather than the "free kill" it is today. It'd be useful in PvE situations, too! That would be so great.
Quote:Manapool
Many Priests have a hard time conserving mana, and they empty their manapool too fast. This is especially a problem if the Priest is not Shadow specced and therefore doesnât have the spirit tab talent.
I assume that this was a mixup or a sign that the writer does not play a priest himself, since it's shadow priests who most quickly run out of mana. The one benefit holy/disc priests have over shadow priests is their large mana pools and higher mana efficiency when healing.
Quote:Many priests also feel that their position as being the best/primary healers in the game is being threatened by especially druids but also paladins and shamans.
This is odd, because I've never felt that way. There's nothing wrong with allowing a restoration spec'd druid be an excellent healer -- one even better than shadow priests -- , but a holy/disc priest will outshine a restoration spec'd druid in nearly all cases. In our raids, it's largely the priests who dominate the healing meters (those, that is, who aren't dispelling a lot). Often a couple druids will get into the top couple of slots on the healing meter, but then you also find that those druids are also on top of the overheal meter. Their hot's and larger heals end up causing a lot of extra healing that distorts the numbers on the straight healing meter. When you calculate the amount of healing actually performed, the priests take all the top slots, but the restoration druids are still good -- just around 90% as good, which is just fine.
Rather than feeling competition from the druids, I think of them complementary. I like that our tanks can have hot's running from both druids and priests at the same time. I'm glad we have the different heals going. Our strongest "power healing" teams are made up of two priests, two druids, and one mana tide spec'd shaman in each team. The druids innervate the priests when the priests get low on mana, and the shaman mana tides the whole group when the group gets low on mana. This kind of team can last a *long* time even in high dps environments like BWL.
I guess I can see that priests could use some more special abilities that no other healing class has (e.g. how druids have battle rez), but I've never felt the pressure to keep up with or beat the druids.
Quote:In some cases the greater healing spells are too powerful and they therefore over heal the target, which is then resulting in a lot of agro on the Priest. This means that the priest is more or less forced to use the lesser healing spells, which is faster to cast but provides less healing.
My greatest worry with the upcoming changes to priests is that they will make one last desperate attempt to revive greater heal -- like make it really mana efficient or worse clobber flash heal's mana efficiency to force people to use greater heal. I would rather that they threw out greater heal altogether as a bad idea and just improved flash heal if they feel the priests really need improvements in their healing power.
Quote:Choices:
The current state of the talent trees forces the Priest to respect often according to what the Priest is going to do in-game. As it is now the Priest will for an example have to Holy Spec to be able to do high level instances, or have to spec for Shadow in order to play PvP or solo PvE. This makes Priest feel that they are forced to choose a certain talent tree in order to play a certain way. All in all it can be said that Priests donât want to be locked to a certain play style just because of the way they are specced.
Yep. This is a major problem with priests. There's the PvE build and the PvP build and neither the twain shall meet. Warriors are the closest to having the same problem, although MS warriors can still tank very well.
Quote:Make the Holy Nova spell more efficient by increasing the amount of healing or lowering the mana cost and the cooldown period. In addition make it cost fewer talent points as it is not worth 31 talent points.
I wish that Holy Nova would move farther down the tree and become a viable aoe damage spell and would no longer heal at all. However, I doubt that it'll ever go back to the way it was.
Quote:Increase the efficiency of the spirit ability/stat so that mana will be regenerated faster. Maybe give a priest an ability to reduce the 5 second rule, so that the Priest can increase the amount of mana regeneration.
You mean that the priest's "primary stat" could become useful to a priest? Shocking!
Quote:Class quests:
Create more class specific quests for the Priests during their leveling period. Currently the only class specific quests available is the Priest epic quest (Benediction/Anamathea)
Well, technically, we have the small level 50 quest series to get our prayer beads. And then there's that major class quest around level 8 that undead priests get to heal and buff a forsaken guard to get a robe that gives them +1 spirit. But, yeah, more class quests would be good.
Edit: I ment to say that I never felt that way about druids. That teaches me again not to post at four in the morning.