Priest Concern Summary

[Bolty]

Priests are finally getting their love in 1.10. Of course, looking at the displeasure Paladins are having with 1.9, the Priest community is a little...unsettled.

On the WoW Europe boards, Aeus wrote a fantastic summary detailing the decline of Priests over the last year, as other classes have had their buffs and Priests have been just...doing nothing, really. :) If you're wondering what it is I've been complaining about lately, give it a read.

An especially striking note is this one:

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. The priests have very powerful healing spells, but they are very slow to cast, which causes problems when doing high level instances. The Priests are therefore almost constantly forced to use their lesser healing spells because they take a shorter time to cast, and the lesser healing spells of the Priest does equal or worse healing than similar spells from other classes with healing abilities.

I feel that in 40-player raid environments, Priests have been passed up by Druids. Unless aggro is a concern, like in the Razorgore encounter, the Druids' superior massive healing abilities have pushed them above the Priests. I don't like it, but I do accept it - that's why I begrudgingly recommended we use Druids as the primary healers for tanks in our Avarice raids. I doubt those Druids who would rather go feral (and I hear talk of letting some of them try bear-tanking) really like that role, either. And there lies the rub...

...many people who roll Priests do it because they want to be the best healers. Those who roll Druids do so because they want the versatility. And yet, due to their awesome healing powers, Druids wind up being just as critical to 40-player healing as Priests, if not MORE so. Both class players would be happier if the roles were reversed, I would expect - if Druids weren't as good healing, there wouldn't be as much pressure on them to spec for healing and heal all night like there is now. They could afford to spec all-out for damage or for tanking, and enjoy those other roles. Priests would be happier because their primary role wasn't being usurped while Blizzard ignores them.

Let's see what patch 1.10 brings...I'm anxiously waiting.

-Bolty

[Xanthix]

Blizzard is aware of Priests' concerns, and will no doubt be addressing them as best they can in 1.10. Hopefully they will look at the important issues that are real concerns, and not the idiotic things that people on the priest forum often whine about.

The post linked below shows that Blizz is well aware of our dissatisfaction with Greater Heal, and that they will be tinkering with it to make it more useful. Priests already have an excellent quick heal, the best shield spell, the best group heal, and Fade. Once Greater Heal becomes more viable, it should settle concerns about holy Priest viability.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...&tmp=1#blizzard

[Sword_of_Doom]

I would like to say that the idea of Druids or Paladins or Shammies equalling or surpassing the healing power of a Priest is ludicrous at best. Statistically there has never ever been a Druid or Paladin that has cracked the top 4 of In Aeternum's/Critical Mass healing charts in the entire time i have been there (9 months). Just two weeks ago i kept track of healing done in MC (prior to killing Ragnaros) and here are the rounded numbers.
Priest#1 1.4 million
Priest#2 1.2 million
Priest#3 1.2 million
Priest#4 1.0 million
Priest#5 975,000
Druid#6 600, 000


This is typical numbers from a typical MC run.

Blackwing Lair is much the same.

I would guess from time to time a Druid could match the healing power of a Priest on a single target mob say like Firemaw or even Nefarian.

The healing numbers i had from a Nefarian fight basically went like this.

Priest#1 117 k
Priest#2 117k
Paladin#3 110k
Druid#4 105k
Paladin#5 100k
Druid#6 100k

The Nefarian fight is really the only fight in the game where i see Paladins or Druids matching the healing power of a Priest. Paladins with Divine Favor/Illumination and talent buffed heals are actually a great secret in this game and for Critical Mass has been essential to their success.

Priests in a hardcore raiding guild have always been#1 by a large margin usually.

I am quite happy with my healing abilities the only thing i would like to see much improved is the Holy Tree. Master Healer (Greater Heal talent) is worthless in Blackwing Lair and the only thing i could see it being worthwhile is if it started at 3 seconds and then with talents brought it down to 2.5.

But to give you an example of my typical numbers. Fully buffed i have 9600 mana and have +600 to healing with equipment. My average flash heal is in the 1300 range and with crits hits in the 1900's. I have the Hibernation Crystal (+350 to healing for 15 seconds and useable every two minutes) that brings my flash heals to the 1450 range and 2150 range for crits. My renews tick for 314 and with the Hibernation Crystal hit 380. Any more buffage to a Priest would seriously overpower the Priest. There is a balance to be kept in this game. If they make serious improvements to the class i am going to be laughing all the way to the bank because i have built my character to be the best healer anyways. So any changes to the better for the Priest class is just bonus to me.

[Professor Frink]

Priests are finally getting their love in 1.10.
(snip)
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I can only imagine that I'm not playing my priest "right" (that is, in the roles people usually play priests) because I've never felt particularly unloved. I can't comment on the high-end healing situation, since I'm shadow-specced and haven't done any large-scale raiding, but the PVP-heavy complaint list on the blue post just leaves me baffled--I hit 60 and went into battlegrounds wearing single-player quest rewards, a few tailored items, and any 'of shadow wrath' equipment i could get from the AH at reasonable price, and had no particular difficulty holding my own. Now that I have AV rep rewards and the lower bits of PVP rank rewards (bringing my stamina out of the comedy one-hit-kill range) I generally appear in the top 3 or so killing-blow ranks in AB.

I don't feel particularly exceptional, in particular I generally lose to horde priests in anything resembling a fair fight (and often when I get the drop on them) so I assume that once I gather some purples and a better understanding of my class I'll be rather devastating.

...

Random beefs with the blue post, and a defense of the priest class as it stands, or at least changes in an entirely different nature than the blue post suggests:

Shadow vs. Holy is cool. It's a defining characteristic of the class that there's actually two distinct and incompatible paths. Without it, the priest would just be the cloth version of yet another dps/heal hybrid class.

If they think holy tree isn't viable outside of endgame raid healing, might I suggest tweaking the game mechanics so that the 'possess' effect of mind control still allows the priest to cast spells on the possessee? (ie, casting a petbar ability causes the possessed pet to do the action, but casting a regular spell acts as if the pet were targeted, instead of breaking channel). Not treating possessee kills as NPC kills (in the manner of a kill performed solely by a hunter's pet not granting XP or loot) would help too. You could go crazy with this, removing the timelimt and/or 100% break on damage, and allowing the priest to move to follow the possessee, turning the holy priest into some sort of crazy reverse hunter, if you didn't mind radically altering solo priest play.

Some method of converting mana to melee damage (perhaps as a on-next-attack buff you could put on yourself or others) would go along way towards fixing the "so what do I do when there's nobody to heal" situation.

"the lack of [PVP] escaping abilities, entrapment/snaring abilities or crowd control abilities."... except AOE fear, silence, heal-over-time, dispel and a damageshield, all of which can be cast while running and have short cooldowns; 10% chance to stun on attack; Mind flay to snare; a instacast dot that keeps people in combat and out of stealth; and the rather helpful ability to completly stun a player while inspiring them to leap from the nearest cliff.

"they feel that it is actually only the Undead and the Dwarf racial spells that are useful in the game". I can't speak for the trolls and humans, but shadowmeld comes in handy, both for opting out of a bad pull and PvP ambushing. Being invisible while you eat/drink/answer the phone is a nice bonus too. Elune's grace is handy, if highly situational. I haven't tried starshards, but it might be a viable DPS option for holy nightelves (batman)

"For an example change some of the spells so that they have a shorter casting time or even an instant casting time" bleh. Must every class have everything? Lack of instant DPS and AoE is one of those things that makes priests priests and not shamans that can't wear mail.

"Power Word Shield should have a certain time in the beginning in which it can not be dispelled" Can anyone but other priests and shammies dispel PW:S? This would actually make priests weaker, since it's removing a useful priest ability (dispel) and adding yet more safety to the plate-wearing set.

"Shorter Cooldown for AoE Fear" Getting 2 fears off while being double-teamed by melee classes is not uncommon. I didn't think "not entirely immune to melee" was considered a class-breaking bug.

"Give the Priest an ability to cast spells while moving." What, greater heal? Mind Blast? Most priest skills are already instants.

"Create more talents which will make spells more powerful, thus giving the target a smaller chance to resist a spell. In some cases even make some spells unable to be resisted" I respecced away from 5/5 shadow focus because it was massive overkill. I can dispell most spell-based shadow resistance. Silence is the only thing I notice popping resist a lot, due to silence-specific resistance being commonplace. Even if someone managed total shadow resitance, AFAIK there's no such thing as holy resist at all--smite isn't exactly the biggest DPS on the block but it's something. +dmg to all magic works for smite, right?

"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 doesn’t have the spirit tab talent. " You don't have to be shadow specced; spirit tap requires no other shadow points.

"Chance the racial spells so that they become faction spells instead. That way there will be difference between Horde and Alliance Priests, but the difference between races will be ironed out." Both the Races and the Factions are artifical distinctions handed down from our so-called game "masters" to pit us against one another. Until the Workers of Warcraft rise up and throw off their oppressive chains of item acquisition and meaningless bourgeoisie "questing" we will be nothing but the pawns of Blizzard's corporate machine!

My vote for a useful 31st holy talent: make overheals do something useful! Pop another damageshield worth 20% of the overheal, simply give the target more health than max (but can't be healed again until below max), refund all or some of the mana, give the excess heal to any partymember, something. Would instantly make greater heal viable again, and put the holy priest back on top for group healing. (assuming they're not already)

... so, yeah, I hope most of those changes never see the light of day. I shall resume lurking now that I got my rant off...

--
frink

[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.

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.

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 doesn’t 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.

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.

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.

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 don’t 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.

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.

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!

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.

[lfd]

Statistically
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DamageMeter's healing stats are utterly worthless, and will continue to be so until they don't count overhealing. Even then, until they also count "number of times Dispel Magic/Remove Curse was cast", they'll continue to be a poor indication of the contribution made to a raid by a class.

[lfd]

Hi, Fangtooth. ;-)

I've used 'code' tags for the parts of the post I've quoted from frink, because the forum software doesn't seem to like large numbers of 'quote' tags.

Code:

I can't comment on the high-end healing situation, since I'm shadow-specced and haven't done any large-scale raiding

An awful lot of the complaints about the priest are about exactly that, but I'll accept that you're just talking about PvP for now, even though I suspect this is some way under 50% of the problem area ;-)

Code:

Now that I have AV rep rewards and the lower bits of PVP rank rewards (bringing my stamina out of the comedy one-hit-kill range) I generally appear in the top 3 or so killing-blow ranks in AB.

What does killing blow tell you? Often it goes to the warriors due to execute, but shadow priests have burst damage (mind blast) and a dot to catch runners (sw:pain), so I'd be very surprised if you weren't.

Code:

I assume that once I gather some purples and a better understanding of my class I'll be rather devastating.

See, that's one of the problems mentioned. The epic priest (and caster in general, though less so for the others) gear just doesn't scale as much as the epic melee gear; you won't find you're doing that much more damage, yet you're surely taking an awful lot more. Some of the best shadow priest equipment at the moment is blue, coupled with the epic trinkets from ZG and MC that increase damage greatly for a short period of time. You'll be trading off killing power for stamina.

Code:

Shadow vs. Holy is cool.  It's a defining characteristic of the class that there's actually two distinct and incompatible paths.  Without it, the priest would just be the cloth version of yet another dps/heal hybrid class.

There's nothing wrong with being yet another dps/heal hybrid class, though, if it means we're less boxed in in our choices. I'd much rather have the flexibility than this "defining characteristic" which sounds like simply dressing up the problem in prettier words instead of fixing it. At the moment they're not incompatible anyway, as the two best holy talents are right at the start of the holy tree.

Code:

might I suggest tweaking the game mechanics so that the 'possess' effect of mind control still allows the priest to cast spells on the possessee?

This has been suggested over and over again. I'd love it, personally, but I suspect it won't happen, as it would come dangerously close to helping us be the "masters of crowd control" that our class description claims we are. ;-)

Let's have our instant-cast more-effective Mind Soothe back again, too, please.

Code:

"the lack of [PVP] escaping abilities, entrapment/snaring abilities or crowd control abilities."... except AOE fear, silence, heal-over-time, dispel and a damageshield, all of which can be cast while running and have short cooldowns; 10% chance to stun on attack; Mind flay to snare; a instacast dot that keeps people in combat and out of stealth; and the rather helpful ability to completly stun a player while inspiring them to leap from the nearest cliff.

This is laughable.

AoE fear: there are just too many ways to break this. Not just the two commonest of the trinket and will of the forsaken, but also engineering (lots of this in pvp), whichever of the warrior abilities it is that counters it but also - and this is the real killer - any damage delivered to the target. I used to be able to reliably fear and mind flay someone before they got back to me and mashed me. Now I have to hope they don't break out of the fear early AND my damage doesn't break it AND fear hasn't bugged and they haven't actually run anywhere.

Silence is deep in the shadow tree, lasts 5 seconds (1.5 of which you'll be on cooldown yourself), and has a much longer cooldown than mage's counterspell (which isn't a talent). This isn't a problem of itself, but the complaints in the concerns thread were around holy/disc priest survivability in pvp, not just shadow.

Heal over time is useful, except you won't be ticking that high if you're shadow (and you can't cast it on yourself if you're in shadowform). Dispel is very powerful, but is being nerfed (much higher mana cost in 1.9).

I don't count 26 (with talents) and 45 seconds as "short cooldowns", either. Most pvp fights will be over in that timeframe. You also can't count mind flay as a decent snare, either, since it stops snaring the instant mind flay ends, and you can't run anywhere while you're casting it, making it useless for gaining distance from melee opponents.

Code:

"they feel that it is actually only the Undead and the Dwarf racial spells that are useful in the game".  I can't speak for the trolls and humans, but shadowmeld comes in handy, both for opting out of a bad pull and PvP ambushing.

Well, what you can't speak for is exactly the problem area. Trolls get the royal shaft, whereas the humans get a _melee_ skill. Compare and contrast to fear ward and will of the forsaken/devouring plague. Shadowmeld is nice to the point of being overpowered, especially on the end of a hunter with aimed shot.

Code:

"For an example change some of the spells so that they have a shorter casting time or even an instant casting time" bleh.  Must every class have everything? Lack of instant DPS and AoE is one of those things that makes priests priests and not shamans that can't wear mail.

So you'd rather the priest was completely gimped, just for the sake of it not being similar to another class? Bizarre. The point is vague, anyway; there are plenty of spells that could be made instant and thus more useful without resorting to the DPS ones (or the non-existent AoE ones, holy joke aside); shadowguard, for a start, or mind soothe. Hell, even mind blast wouldn't be that overpowered given the cooldown (compare to mage's fire blast, maybe?).

Code:

"Shorter Cooldown for AoE Fear" Getting 2 fears off while being double-teamed by melee classes is not uncommon.

Yes, it is, especially if you're on your own. The shorter cooldown would also help against the various ways to break fear. If you trinket out of a mage's polymorph, you'll get immediately resheeped.

Code:

"Give the Priest an ability to cast spells while moving." What, greater heal? Mind Blast?  Most priest skills are already instants.

Eh? Base priests (racials aside) have one instant spammable spell, given talents - mind flay - and one dot. We have one "instant" heal over time. None of our other heals are instant.

Code:

AFAIK there's no such thing as holy resist at all

It is possible, at least for PvE monsters, to partially resist holy damage; I assume the same is also true for players, although I have no proof of this.

Code:

You don't have to be shadow specced; spirit tap requires no other shadow points.

But does require you to kill a green mob/player. You also have to get the killing blow. If you're going for spirit tap as well as blackout, which you vaunted earlier as being desirable, that's 10 points in shadow which is going to lock your choices in disc/holy somewhat; if you're pvping without improved pw:s, you're going to die more often.

Assume the bits that I didn't quote are things I agree with ;-)

[Sword_of_Doom]

DamageMeter's healing stats are utterly worthless, and will continue to be so until they don't count overhealing.  Even then, until they also count "number of times Dispel Magic/Remove Curse was cast", they'll continue to be a poor indication of the contribution made to a raid by a class.
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I use the statistics in a general way. It is one of the tools of evaluation as to where heals are going and what types of heals are being used. Even if you strip away overhealing (and generally Druids/Paladins are in the 30%+ range for overhealing) the numbers woulds still show Priests as number 1 in In Aeternum/Cm as far as pure healing. Don't get me wrong i love Druids and the versatility they bring to the game. Priests can be very boring because we generally are stationary, watch 40 health bars and do the same thing over and over and over again.

[Kevin]

I use the statistics in a general way.  It is one of the tools of evaluation as to where heals are going and what types of heals are being used.  Even if you strip away overhealing (and generally Druids/Paladins are in the 30%+ range for overhealing) the numbers woulds still show Priests as number 1 in In Aeternum/Cm as far as pure healing.  Don't get me wrong i love Druids and the versatility they bring to the game.  Priests can be very boring because we generally are stationary, watch 40 health bars and do the same thing over and over and over again.
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Hmmm what are your druids and paladins doing wrong then? I'm generally at 15% or so overhealing with my paladin or priest, which is where most of our priests fall, as are most of our other paladins and druids. While it is usually priests in the top spot, it is not uncommon to see a druid or paladin hit #2 or #3. Priests are very likely to get high over heal just from using the AoE heals more often. Of course we use a bit more of a FFA healing set-up than many other guilds so maybe our paladins and druids have more chances to heal. And it's usually only Ony or some of the ZG fights where the paladins end up towards the top. Of course in MC we generally let a resto druid be the main healer for the tanks on trash mobs we move through MC faster this way it seems and that helps the druids get more healing in too.

[Quark]

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.

... :wacko:
Guess nobody really cares about balance, anymore? And tell me, exactly what 2 player combination could take care of the priest/warrior duo if this happened? You complain that Paladins are sick in PvP because they can heal while surviving ... then want the same exact thing for yourself?

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.

Prayer of Healing? Anyway, the battle rez is both a blessing and a curse. Druids are the only healers in the game that aren't effective at out of combat rez.

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.

To be honest, I'd like to see something like Greater Heal still there, but have Flash Heal become a better spell with talents. Druids are pretty much stuck into long spell heals (Regrowth is very inefficient), so I see a big advantage in having one slower and one faster (druid healing touches, priest flash heals). If Greater Heal becomes the spell of choice, the tank's life will become much spikier. Spikes are dangerous.

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.
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Ravenholdt has been in the game, unfinished, since 1.2 (I think). When Blizzard put in the class specific Sunken Temple quests, they added 4 classes (1.7) and 4 classes (1.8). But wait, there's 9 classes, right? Druids got screwed. Druid's last quest is at level 16.

[Lissa]

Priests are finally getting their love in 1.10.  Of course, looking at the displeasure Paladins are having with 1.9, the Priest community is a little...unsettled.

On the WoW Europe boards, Aeus wrote a fantastic summary detailing the decline of Priests over the last year, as other classes have had their buffs and Priests have been just...doing nothing, really.  :)  If you're wondering what it is I've been complaining about lately, give it a read.

An especially striking note is this one:
I feel that in 40-player raid environments, Priests have been passed up by Druids.  Unless aggro is a concern, like in the Razorgore encounter, the Druids' superior massive healing abilities have pushed them above the Priests.  I don't like it, but I do accept it - that's why I begrudgingly recommended we use Druids as the primary healers for tanks in our Avarice raids.  I doubt those Druids who would rather go feral (and I hear talk of letting some of them try bear-tanking) really like that role, either.  And there lies the rub...

...many people who roll Priests do it because they want to be the best healers.  Those who roll Druids do so because they want the versatility.  And yet, due to their awesome healing powers, Druids wind up being just as critical to 40-player healing as Priests, if not MORE so.  Both class players would be happier if the roles were reversed, I would expect - if Druids weren't as good healing, there wouldn't be as much pressure on them to spec for healing and heal all night like there is now.  They could afford to spec all-out for damage or for tanking, and enjoy those other roles.  Priests would be happier because their primary role wasn't being usurped while Blizzard ignores them.

Let's see what patch 1.10 brings...I'm anxiously waiting.

-Bolty
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This has been an issue since Beta. I remember this issue being brought up in the Priest beta forums sometime in August or September '04. I know I had suggested then some changes to talents like making the Master Healer effect all healing spells, but instead of being a direct time drop as it is now, make it percentage based, say 5% per talent point which would make Greater Heal a 3 second spell when fully speced and Flash Heal 1.20s to 1.25s cast (although with the global cool down, you would still have to wait .3 to .25s before casting again).

Something I would have also liked to have seen as a talent in Discipline that would become the lv 31 talent is something that removed the 5 second regen penalty or make it so that the priest regens more than 15% of their mana while casting (say 30% to 50% while casting). Because mana regen is such an issue for the priest in end game raiding, x mana/5 seconds is far more useful than spirit in the middle of a fight. Every point of mana regened is equal to 4 spirit for the priest (5 for druid) while out of combat, but when in combat it's equal to 26.67 spirit for a priest. So, in order to make Spirit more useful in comparison, Discipline really needs a talent that boosts regen during the 5 second rule higher so that x mana/5 seconds isn't hugely more useful than straight spirit.

One other thing that I would like, and I'm not sure how priests would take it, is to remove some of the damage spells the priest has and take them back to the original vision, that being Healer/CCer. Those that played the priest in Beta 2 or earlier probably remember Sleep and some of the other factors. Give priests spells that can make mobs temporary pets (not Mind Control, but an actual pet like Hunters and Warlocks) so that the priest can continue to cast spells. A spell that can root. Ultimately though, Blizzard should relook at their original vision again and give the Priest more options for CC as they were initially intended.

[Quark]

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might I suggest tweaking the game mechanics so that the 'possess' effect of mind control still allows the priest to cast spells on the possessee?

This has been suggested over and over again.  I'd love it, personally, but I suspect it won't happen, as it would come dangerously close to helping us be the "masters of crowd control" that our class description claims we are. ;-)

I'd like to see this "master of crowd control" quote people keep talking about. Priests were stripped of their CC for a reason.

Let's have our instant-cast more-effective Mind Soothe back again, too, please.

Riiight ... so any 5man can avoid every fight in an instance once again.

AoE fear ...

Your AoE fear may not be that reliable, but neither is any other escape mechanism in the game. Vanish gets removed/dotted, CC gets broken by trinkets/damage, Sprint gets slowed, Feign Death is just /laughed at ...

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"Give the Priest an ability to cast spells while moving." What, greater heal? Mind Blast?  Most priest skills are already instants.

Eh?  Base priests (racials aside) have one instant spammable spell, given talents - mind flay - and one dot.  We have one "instant" heal over time.  None of our other heals are instant.

The only non-self heal in the game that's instant is a Nature Swiftness modified druid heal. There's absolutly no good that could come out of a regularly instant heal.

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AFAIK there's no such thing as holy resist at all

It is possible, at least for PvE monsters, to partially resist holy damage; I assume the same is also true for players, although I have no proof of this.

Players (and I think monsters) all have 0 holy resist. There's no such thing as holy resist in the fact that you can't raise it, I believe. So lvl differences (and a pure spell resist i.e "miss") are the only reductions possible.

[lfd]

I'd like to see this "master of crowd control" quote people keep talking about.  Priests were stripped of their CC for a reason.

It's either a misquote or it went out in something like the fansite pack; it crops up enough times in google for me to think it's a template, but you're right, it's not what it says any longer at least on the priest's class page on the website.

However, it does say "The Priest class is the master of healing and hate control. Other classes such as the Shaman, Druid, and Paladin can heal, but not as well as the Priest".

I think you'd find at best equally as many priests who disagreed with that last sentence as agreed with it, but focussing on the hate control bit for a second, re: our original instant Mind Soothe spell:

Riiight ... so any 5man can avoid every fight in an instance once again.

No, that's just silly. I believe mind soothe was changed to only work on humanoids to help prevent that. I can't see why it shouldn't be an instant cast, which would enable us to cast it on the run.

I may be getting confused between "suggested improvements" and "past behaviour", but I also thought - as per the name of the skill - that mind soothe reduced the aggro the priest had on the targeted mob, which would fit in with the 'master of... hate control' class role. Fade certainly isn't hate control mastery; it's only a temporary reduction in threat.

Your AoE fear may not be that reliable, but neither is any other escape mechanism in the game.  Vanish gets removed/dotted, CC gets broken by trinkets/damage, Sprint gets slowed, Feign Death is just /laughed at ...

AoE fear in PvE is situational at best; you're just so likely to pull adds that it's not worthwhile using. Just because no other escape mechanism is reliable is no reason that priests shouldn't have a reliable one, though; we lack the ability to stand up to the damage, even in our tough cookie Inner Fire mode.

Feign Death is actually useful/annoying as it causes whoever is targeting the hunter to lose their target, not to mention let the hunter lay traps etc.

The only non-self heal in the game that's instant is a Nature Swiftness modified druid heal.  There's absolutly no good that could come out of a regularly instant heal.

That's not what I was talking about, though. I was talking about spells. Priests can do damage too, you know. We have no instantly damaging spells. SW:Pain and mind flay both take time to tick (and if you've ever been trying to tag mobs before a moonfiring druid, you'll know how long that is). Shadow priests are often derogatively referred to as shadow mages, yet mages have many instant-cast (and snaring in some cases, but that's a different argument) spells. We have none; they're either "short cast, long cooldown" or "long cast, no cooldown (and not castable in shadowform)". The only thing that comes close to an instant cast spell is channeled, so can't be used on the move.

Players (and I think monsters) all have 0 holy resist.  There's no such thing as holy resist in the fact that you can't raise it, I believe.  So lvl differences (and a pure spell resist i.e "miss") are the only reductions possible.
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Well, yes. But I didn't say that wasn't true, just that monsters could partially resist it :)

[Lissa]

I'd like to see this "master of crowd control" quote people keep talking about.  Priests were stripped of their CC for a reason.
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The original vision, and this goes back to the alpha stages of the game, was that Priests were to be primary CCers of the game with Healing. When Blizzard got to the beta, they degraded the Priest's CC abilities and replaced some of it with damage spells (from what I've heard from Alpha testers, Priests did not have Smite, SW:P, and Mind Blast in Alpha, damage from a Priest was melee only). The only Priest CC abilities that survived to push 3 were Sleep (given to mages in push 3, later changed to Poly in push 4), Mind Control, Mind Soothe (use to work on everything, now only humanoids), and Psychic Scream (horribly nerfed like all fears since the game went live).

Also, if you can get a look at one of the early Priest pages during the early pushes of the beta (1 through 3 or 4), Blizzard actually stated on the description that they were the Masters of Crowd Control above their healing aspects. I'll see if I can dig up an archieve page somewhere to show that that was Blizzard's original vision for the Priest.

[Lissa]

It's either a misquote or it went out in something like the fansite pack; it crops up enough times in google for me to think it's a template, but you're right, it's not what it says any longer at least on the priest's class page on the website.
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It's not a misquote, see my below post on it (one directly replying to Quark).

[Tal]

The original vision, and this goes back to the alpha stages of the game, was that Priests were to be primary CCers of the game with Healing.  When Blizzard got to the beta, they degraded the Priest's CC abilities and replaced some of it with damage spells (from what I've heard from Alpha testers, Priests did not have Smite, SW:P, and Mind Blast in Alpha, damage from a Priest was melee only).  The only Priest CC abilities that survived to push 3 were Sleep (given to mages in push 3, later changed to Poly in push 4), Mind Control, Mind Soothe (use to work on everything, now only humanoids), and Psychic Scream (horribly nerfed like all fears since the game went live).

Also, if you can get a look at one of the early Priest pages during the early pushes of the beta (1 through 3 or 4), Blizzard actually stated on the description that they were the Masters of Crowd Control above their healing aspects.  I'll see if I can dig up an archieve page somewhere to show that that was Blizzard's original vision for the Priest.
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I could have sworn that Alpha priests also could cast confusion (works like conflag) - I'll need to dig up and post that screenie I have of a priest in a hood saying "These aren't the elves you're looking for" to a orc that has the dazed effect over its head.

[Quark]

The original vision ...
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Right, it was changed for a reason. Make priests good at CC and healing, you make alot of other classes that much weaker. Priest/Warrior/Rogue/Rogue/Rogue doesn't seem so bad when you know the priest can CC just like a mage, does it?

[Lissa]

Right, it was changed for a reason.  Make priests good at CC and healing, you make alot of other classes that much weaker.  Priest/Warrior/Rogue/Rogue/Rogue doesn't seem so bad when you know the priest can CC just like a mage, does it?
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That's the problem though Quark, the Priest healing spells weren't as good in most cases as they are now. The healing spells there were more inefficient. Likewise, the only damage a priest could do was melee, they didn't have Smite, they didn't have Mind Blast, they didn't have SW:P. This is why they were called the "Masters of Crowd Control", it was what they did best, not healing, not damage, but crowd control.

[Concillian]

I'd like to see a dual path enabled in the bottom of the holy tree.

Path 1) offer some way of giving damage reduction... be it through increased defense and armor, straight damage reduction, whatever. 10%-15% reduction in total to make holy slightly more viable in PvP. That 10-15% isn't necessarily one talent, could be three talents that all require significant points spent.

Path 2) similar to the current path to the bottom of holy, perhaps with a tweak or two to (greater) heal.

I'd couple that with a strengthening of the 31 point discipline talent that not only gives Divine Spirit, but also a passive buff to the priest's own spirit (say an additional +level/2 spirit or an additional 10% to continue while casting). Something that would make raiding priests want to more strongly consider 31 discipline, so that they have to choose between the survivability of going holy or the mana regen of going discipline. PvP priests would have to choose between holy for healing and shadow for damage.

To me, a priest re-do isn't about priests not being able to heal... they heal great. To me it's about balancing the trees so you have to make some tough decisions. Right now, if you PvP you go shadow... PERIOD. and if you raid you might pick up Divine Spirit. This is what needs to change. There needs to be strong enough offering that raiding priests and PvP priests alike need to wieght their options as to which tree they'd most prefer to use.

If you can come up with a scenario where you really have to think about the trade-offs between going 31 in one tree vs. 31 in the other, or going 30/21 or 21 in 2 trees, then the trees are right. Druid trees offer this, warrior trees offer this, Rogue and Warlock trees offer this to some extent... Priest trees do not offer this.

[KiloVictor]

Something I would have also liked to have seen as a talent in Discipline that would become the lv 31 talent is something that removed the 5 second regen penalty or make it so that the priest regens more than 15% of their mana while casting (say 30% to 50% while casting).  Because mana regen is such an issue for the priest in end game raiding, x mana/5 seconds is far more useful than spirit in the middle of a fight.

I suspect this would become imbalancing. The 5-second rule only came in because there were builds that basically never ran out of mana, and Blizzard wanted to make sure that managing your mana pool remained one of the important aspects of playing a priest.

Even so, they've elected to give us this through itemization; the 3-piece set bonus for Transcendence is 15% mana regen that stacks with Meditation (the talent that gives 15% active mana regen while casting). With 300 SPR, +550 healing gear and a 3/5 Transcendence/Prophecy split, I've found that I seldom need to stop and drink for anything but raids and PVP.

No argument that Discipline needs a better top talent, but I would personally rather have something akin to Nature's Swiftness than a mana regen talent.

Every point of mana regened is equal to 4 spirit for the priest (5 for druid) while out of combat, but when in combat it's equal to 26.67 spirit for a priest.  So, in order to make Spirit more useful in comparison, Discipline really needs a talent that boosts regen during the 5 second rule higher so that x mana/5 seconds isn't hugely more useful than straight spirit.
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I'd be interested in hearing what other raid priests have found, but I've banked most of my mana regen gear now. Even before I had access to the Transcendence set bonus, I found that using Inner Focus and Greater Heal would allow me to get a good stint of 100% regen time in the middle of most fights, and that meant that SPR was often better than +mana/5s gear. With 30% regen all the time, mana/5s on gear is much less attractive than it once was.

~Kv