Priest Changes Coming!

[Luminon]

As a paladin I can spec tank, DPS, or healing and still not match a druid that specs the same. Weep in greater quantities novice. ;)
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Oh, i will :P . I was discussing druids in endgame raids though, they neither tank or dps there nor do paladins. And like Quark said, paladins beat druids at raid healing since a druid can't even finish his cast before a priest/paladin has topped someone off.

See I'm not complaining about the druid class as a whole, I think it's the best class for 5-man groups actually. But when it comes to raids the "masters of none" mentality really hurt druids because you're supposed to specialize for something in a raid.

[Tal]

Oh, i will  :P . I was discussing druids in endgame raids though, they neither tank or dps there nor do paladins. And like Quark said, paladins beat druids at raid healing since a druid can't even finish his cast before a priest/paladin has topped someone off.[right][snapback]101266[/snapback][/right]

Amend that to "before a priest has topped someone off" and I might agree with you. In order for my paladin to keep anyone topped off I need to start casting before they take damage in the hopes I'll be able to land it before a flash heal goes off. If I put on all my + to healing I still cannot keep up with a healing specc'd priest.

That being said on my warrior I've felt just as comfortable with a druid/paladin team healing me on fights as a priest/feral specc'd druid combo. In a raid environment there is certainly room for a druid to heal a warrior especially in longer fights with a tank that has plenty of + to defense to smooth out the bumps in damage.

On my priest I frequently have to "warn" other mana users that I heal like a druid preferring longer more efficient heals and heals over time to flash healing.

See I'm not complaining about the druid class as a whole, I think it's the best class for 5-man groups actually. But when it comes to raids the "masters of none" mentality really hurt druids because you're supposed to specialize for something in a raid.
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On Stormrage we have feral druids go dps on many fights with no appreciable loss in healing. Hell I'm a mortal strike warrior who more often than not is in full DPS gear acting like a monkey without an perceived loss in tanking. There have been nights where we've been short on tanks and had a druid in bear form tank, again without any noticeable loss in healing power. Raid leaders who don't utitilize the 32ish classes that are in this game fluidly are just limiting themselves in my not so humble opinion.

And yes I am bitter about the fact that druids are a true hybrid where paladins are lackluster in all ways.

[Kevin]

I find it easier to heal, in most situations, in Ony and MC (my paladin has not been in BWL though my druid and warrior have) with my paladin. This was another reason why I decided when 1.9 came out to make sure my paladin could heal as well as possible and made the druid feral.

Since neither one of them really needs to do much healing at all until we face a boss in MC the paladin is easier to heal with and make it mean something by stopping my paltry DPS and throwing out a holy light or a flash of light (I've got about +200 healing in my standard MC gear I can get to +318 so my flash of light is generally hitthing for about 600 healing and can get up around 700 before crits which since I do wear some spell crit gear as well is about 15% of the time. My druid is pretty much in cat form for everything but bosses giving rogues, DPS warriors and hunters 3% more crit chance and doing decent damage. But even before that I was pretty much resigned to trying to heal the person who was listed as #3 or #4 or the emergency monitor if I didn't want heals canceled all the time or I didn't want to just burn regrowth all the time (which I've started to do on trash mobs when I heal with her). Now if there are only 2 or 3 priests I can actually provide a lot of uncancelled healing as 2 of them will stay pretty much tied up with the tanks. I can cross heal pretty well or I can even get heals in on the MT.

On Ony since I've figure out her timing on attacks I can start my heal before she attacks and generally get it to land within about .5 seconds of when the attack hits (generally just bothering with her flame breath here) so if she hits with it I'll generally land the heal before other healers, if she doesn't it'll get canceled since the tank is fine. Also with the priests split up it's a bit more likely that I'll be able to heal someone else on my side before a priest flashes them.

But I've still taken to just going cat form and beating on her in phase one and using half my mana pool on wrath/moonfire in phase 2. Depending on the mana levels in phase 3 I will either DPS or help healing.

My paladin can and often does constantly heal in Onyxia, since I will try to find out what paladins are built for higher DPS and have them do more DPS since I'm not really built for heavy DPS. 31 holy/20 prot is built for healing and can off tank since I do have improved righteous fury. I'm actually pretty good at just keeping a mob occupied while self healing and if people give me a little lead time to get the right seals judged on on myself I can hold aggro decently too.

But I do find it much easier to heal with a paladin in the end game raids where my heals mean something than I do with my druid.

Now that being said come a boss fight I generally prefer to have my druid, at least for Sulf, Golemag and domo. But some of that is because my druid is still better geared for healing because she hit 60 before my paladin did.

But my druid is still a much better hybrid than my pally. Much more versatile and can do anything my paladin can do better in most cases. Trash mob raid healing being one of the few exceptions. They are pretty much equal in heal power on 5 mans right now if they are primary healer. The druid is better at DPS and tanking though.

[castille]

ARGH!

New racial info being released today, and the forums are 'not ready'! ;)

[Gurnsey]

I've gathered information regarding upcoming design changes for the Priest racial specific abilities, and as I had hoped am able to share with each of you the specifics. Other changes to the Priest class have been outlined in the sticky thread entitled "Priests, it's Friday!", and we're hoping to unveil the changes to the talents through the interactive calculator soon.

These changes will go live upon the release of patch 1.10.

When using Feedback, the human priest will surround himself with anti-magical energy. Any successful spell cast against the priest will burn mana from the attacker and deal Shadow damage.

The Night Elf will notice that Starshards has been redesigned to work similar to Curse of Agony, dealing lower initial damage which increases as the duration continues. The mana cost will drop substantially for all ranks, and the spell damage will be increased .

All ranks of this spell will have a 6 second channeling duration.

The ranged damage reduction from Elune's Grace will be increased, both its duration and mana cost will decrease, and the spell will also increases the priest's chance to dodge.

This spell now has a cooldown.

The Troll's Shadowguard will become an instant cast ability. The tooltip will also be updated to reflect that damage caused by the spell causes no threat. Such is already the case, however, is not currently documented.

Hex of Weakness will apply a -20% healing modifier in addition to its normal effect. The healing debuff does not stack with the warrior's Mortal Strike ability, although the damage penalty will stack with either Touch or Curse of Weakness.

The Undead's Touch of Weakness will become a 10 minute self buff which is triggered when the caster become struck by a melee attack. The effect will otherwise remain the same.

Fear Ward, Desperate Prayer and Devouring Plague will remain unchanged.

As a NE priest, I can say...urg ok. The fact that Starshards is still a channel sucks, but if the mana cost is a lot lower, I can live with it. We'll have to see if Elunes adds enough dodge to be useful if I gain aggro, so I'd pop up Inner Fire and Elunes.

The human Feedback will be nice for PVP duels, but otherwise I can't see it all that great.

It seems that they made the UD Priest EVEN MORE desireable, which reduces the chance that anyone would play a troll even more. The healing mod might be kinda useful on Hex, but again...

Just waiting on the Talents now...

[vor_lord]

Hex of Weakness will apply a -20% healing modifier in addition to its normal effect. The healing debuff does not stack with the warrior's Mortal Strike ability, although the damage penalty will stack with either Touch or Curse of Weakness.

I wonder if this is dispellable? If not, troll priests will have a significant advantage in priest vs. priest one on one combat (meh).

The Undead's Touch of Weakness will become a 10 minute self buff which is triggered when the caster become struck by a melee attack. The effect will otherwise remain the same.

This is probably the right way to do this spell. Before when it would trigger on wands, it was free damage mitigation. Now, you must get hit to apply it.

Fear Ward, Desperate Prayer and Devouring Plague will remain unchanged.

And these three are still much better than anything the poor troll or NE can muster up. Dwarves still hold their place as clearly holding the best racials, and Undead maintain theirs in second place.

I'm underimpressed.

[Luminon]

Hmm, new hex of weakness and feedback sound quite powerfull for pvp, can't wait to see those in action.
On a diffrent note, lots of priests are going to be pissed about fear ward remaining unchanged :P . My warlock's happy though.

[Krossandra]

I'm pretty much "meh" about allowing all priests to get it.  They damned well better make something else really tasty in the holy tree if they're giving away my holy fire!

You know what they should give us? Holy Fire Pony. Aw yeah. *cackles madly*

[MongoJerry]

It seems that they made the UD Priest EVEN MORE desireable, which reduces the chance that anyone would play a troll even more.  The healing mod might be kinda useful on Hex, but again...

I don't know. It seems like they made more improvements were made to Troll priests rather than undead. Combined with the already made changes to Troll berserking, it's not a ridiculous idea to have a troll priest around. The only thing they did to Undead was make it so that Curse of Weakness is triggered when hit rather than when you hit the intended target. This is a blessing and a curse (pardon the pun). When soloing or PvPing, this seems like benefit as it'll be easy to just prebuff it on yourself to use it. On the other hand, in group PvE, it'll be harder to get it to be placed on the mob you want it to be put on. Since most people don't use CoW anyway, however, this seems like a nice change. (I used to use CoW all the time when farming when it was triggered via wands, but ever since they removed that, I've largely left it unused).

[Treesh]

You know what they should give us?  Holy Fire Pony.  Aw yeah.  *cackles madly*
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oooOOOOOooh. Yeah, that'll do. :D

[Rinnhart]

I wonder if this is dispellable? If not, troll priests will have a significant advantage in priest vs. priest one on one combat (meh).

It's dispellable, but it's a curse. This is a very significant advantage against paladins and priests.

This is probably the right way to do this spell.  Before when it would trigger on wands, it was free damage mitigation.  Now, you must get hit to apply it.

A significant advantage depending upon how often it goes off. It could add up very quickly.

And these three are still much better than anything the poor troll or NE can muster up.  Dwarves still hold their place as clearly holding the best racials, and Undead maintain theirs in second place.

I'm underimpressed.
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I agree. This doesn't change the overall "hierarchy" of priests, it just means the very rare troll priest is gonna suck alot more if you're a healer.

Undead priests already eat rogues alive, and they're the class most effected by chance to go off when struck.

[Professor Frink]

The Night Elf will notice that Starshards has been redesigned to work similar to Curse of Agony, dealing lower initial damage which increases as the duration continues. The mana cost will drop substantially for all ranks, and the spell damage will be increased .

All ranks of this spell will have a 6 second channeling duration.

The current problem with starshards is not that it costs too much mana or doesn't do enough damage, it's that it's a 6 second channel spell that gets the +magic/+arcane bonus of an instant. Also, IIRC, mana regen stops at the start of a channeled spell and stays off until 5 secs after the end.

Is there anything immune to holy but not to arcane?
How does curse of agony work?

The ranged damage reduction from Elune's Grace will be increased, both its duration and mana cost will decrease, and the spell will also increases the priest's chance to dodge.

This spell now has a cooldown.

Hmmm... my goal of transforming into a rogue advances one more step. Now all I need is an offhander that looks like a dagger...

-- frink

[MongoJerry]

It's dispellable, but it's a curse. This is a very significant advantage against paladins and priests...

I agree. This doesn't change the overall "hierarchy" of priests, it just means the very rare troll priest is gonna suck alot more if you're a healer.

It'd also be helpful to use on flag carriers and general people you want your group to kill. It won't stack with Mortal Strike, but I assume it lasts longer, and you don't always have a warrior MS'ing a target. I don't see how you come to the conclusion that it makes a troll suck more. The changes seem to benefit Trolls, not take them away.

A significant advantage depending upon how often it goes off. It could add up very quickly...

Undead priests already eat rogues alive, and they're the class most effected by chance to go off when struck.

I don't think you understand how Curse of Weakness works. It's a one charge deal. You cast it to buff yourself and then it goes off and it gets used up. Currently, it goes off when the priest does a melee attack on something and it causes a small amount of extra damage and reduces the damage dealt by 20. This is not going to affect a rogue in significant way. The new CoW will help when soloing against normal mobs, but it won't be significant in PvP.

[Gurnsey]

It'd also be helpful to use on flag carriers and general people you want your group to kill.  It won't stack with Mortal Strike, but I assume it lasts longer, and you don't always have a warrior MS'ing a target.  I don't see how you come to the conclusion that it makes a troll suck more.  The changes seem to benefit Trolls, not take them away.
I don't think you understand how Curse of Weakness works.  It's a one charge deal.  You cast it to buff yourself and then it goes off and it gets used up.  Currently, it goes off when the priest does a melee attack on something and it causes a small amount of extra damage and reduces the damage dealt by 20.  This is not going to affect a rogue in significant way.  The new CoW will help when soloing against normal mobs, but it won't be significant in PvP.
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Just to set things straight, Curse of Weakness is a Warlock spell.

Touch of Weakness is the Undead Priest racial that we are discussing. Hex of Weakness is the Troll racial and is a cast curse similar to the Warlock spell.

Too much weakness!

[MongoJerry]

Just to set things straight,  Curse of Weakness is a Warlock spell.

Touch of Weakness is the Undead Priest racial that we are discussing.  Hex of Weakness is the Troll racial and is a cast curse similar to the Warlock spell.

Yeah, yeah, Touch of Weakness. That's an embarassing mistake, but you got the idea. I think of Touch of Weakness as a weaker version of Curse of Weakness. Unfortunately, they don't stack.

[Rinnhart]

I don't see how you come to the conclusion that it makes a troll suck more. The changes seem to benefit Trolls, not take them away.

You're reading it wrong. It will suck more to be a healer fighting trolls, not a troll fighting healers. This is definately a buff.

I don't think you understand how Curse of Weakness works.  It's a one charge deal.  You cast it to buff yourself and then it goes off and it gets used up.  Currently, it goes off when the priest does a melee attack on something and it causes a small amount of extra damage and reduces the damage dealt by 20.  This is not going to affect a rogue in significant way.  The new CoW will help when soloing against normal mobs, but it won't be significant in PvP.
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I wasn't aware that it was a single charge, no, I thought it was a persistent effect like feedback. I stand corrected.

[Bolty]

As a NE priest, I can say...urg ok.  The fact that Starshards is still a channel sucks, but if the mana cost is a lot lower, I can live with it.  We'll have to see if Elunes adds enough dodge to be useful if I gain aggro, so I'd pop up Inner Fire and Elunes.

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Looks like in terms of healing power, the status quo is unchanged. Dwarven priests are still best for healing, while Humans and Night Elves are buffed for PvP/soloing power.

I still think that it was Blizzard's intention all along to make the "uglier" races more desirable for Priests; else you'd see only 1 out of 1000 Priests being Dwarves. Certainly, if you take away the race-specific Priest spells, Humans and Night Elves are more desirable (5% spirit boost, rep bonus, mace bonus, or shadowmeld, and overall "prettier"). Many people think Trolls "look cooler" than Undead but you'd have to be nuts or unaware of racial abilities to roll a Troll Priest in the past.

So, if they buffed up the other races in regards to healing abilities, everyone who rolled the "ugly" Priest races would be peeved and would demand the chance to reset their race (yeah, like that would happen). The only thing that makes Dwarves cool is Desperate Prayer and Fear Ward. Gun Specialization? Stoneform? Treasure Finding? Uh, yeah. :) All useless racial abilities for Priests.

Most Priests in the Avarice Alliance are Night Elves, despite the advantages that Dwarves get.

-Bolty

[Lissa]

Looks like in terms of healing power, the status quo is unchanged.  Dwarven priests are still best for healing, while Humans and Night Elves are buffed for PvP/soloing power.

I still think that it was Blizzard's intention all along to make the "uglier" races more desirable for Priests; else you'd see only 1 out of 1000 Priests being Dwarves.  Certainly, if you take away the race-specific Priest spells, Humans and Night Elves are more desirable (5% spirit boost, rep bonus, mace bonus, or shadowmeld, and overall "prettier").  Many people think Trolls "look cooler" than Undead but you'd have to be nuts or unaware of racial abilities to roll a Troll Priest in the past.

I think my biggest gripe at this point is the fact that Star Shards is still a single target spell. IMO, it should be like the WC3 Priestess of the Moon power, an AoE that does something like 50 to 75 DPS at the highest spell level (which is well below the AoEs of Warlocks and Mages). Just switch when the NE gets the two spells (Star Shards is gotten at 20 instead of 10 now and Elune's Grace is gotten at 10 instead of 20 now).

So, if they buffed up the other races in regards to healing abilities, everyone who rolled the "ugly" Priest races would be peeved and would demand the chance to reset their race (yeah, like that would happen).  The only thing that makes Dwarves cool is Desperate Prayer and Fear Ward.  Gun Specialization?  Stoneform?  Treasure Finding?  Uh, yeah.  :)  All useless racial abilities for Priests.

I know atleast 3 dwarven priests that would argue against you on the treasure finding... ;)

Most Priests in the Avarice Alliance are Night Elves, despite the advantages that Dwarves get.

-Bolty
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For me, it's one issue and one issue only why I don't play Dwarves and Gnomes, LoS. The shorties have problems with LoS and I hate having my LoS blocked easily by minor thing (a small boulder in the landscape presents no problem for Humans or NEs, but it presents a major problem for Dwarves and Gnomes when they're near it).

Besides, Ori was an NE priest in beta and was going to be an NE priest in live... ;)

[Treesh]

For me, it's one issue and one issue only why I don't play Dwarves and Gnomes, LoS.  The shorties have problems with LoS and I hate having my LoS blocked easily by minor thing (a small boulder in the landscape presents no problem for Humans or NEs, but it presents a major problem for Dwarves and Gnomes when they're near it).
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Much hate to the LoS issues. Everyone remember way back when I was the only dwarf priest along in MC? We get a new tank and you'd hear me screaming "LOS!" either in /ra or over TS. And the other healers didn't have any issue at all. I'd burn full stacks of light feathers just to get LOS in Molten Core a lot of the times. It was very, very frustrating and if I knew then what I know now, I really don't think Aleri would be a dwarf.

[Raelynn]

Yeah, yeah, Touch of Weakness.  That's an embarassing mistake, but you got the idea.  I think of Touch of Weakness as a weaker version of Curse of Weakness.  Unfortunately, they don't stack.
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I think part of the change will allow it to stack with Curse of Weakness