Big Blue Post

[oldmandennis]

Linky

Some interesting info.

Sithilius will be three parts, the current northern part will get solo/5man content with a storyline that takes you all over (and hopefully gives you a use for the sithilid goo that's been in my bank forever), a 20 man exterior instance (probably about as hard as MC, only 20 man) and a 40 man interior instance > BWL.

4 green dragon exterior raid bosses like Kazzak/Azuregos.

They are trying to find a way to encourage PVP outside of BG's, and are trying to draw it away from questing players.

Lowering the launch number for AV from 30 to 20 will definatly hurt horde PUG's on our server.

Druids get the major talent overhaul in 1.8, paladins in 1.9. Those are the last classes with whole trees that are borked, but I'm sure other small changes will trickle in.

[lfd]

Druids get the major talent overhaul in 1.8, paladins in 1.9.  Those are the last classes with whole trees that are borked
[right][snapback]88538[/snapback][/right]

...and the holy priests wept.

[Bolty]

...and the holy priests wept.[right][snapback]88589[/snapback][/right]

Yeah, didn't Druids just get/are getting big buffs to their forms? And now more work?

Eyonix has started posting to the Priest forum as of late, giving Priest players some hope that attention is being given to their class - especially when Eyonix posted that he didn't consider Holy Nova to be worth the talent point investment, instead going for Inner Focus (that's right, a 21 point Disc talent beats a 31 point Holy talent). He's also going to spec in Master Healer, giving the players there some amusement...with the new 5 second rule mechanics, Master Healer is even more not worth the talent investment than before. Hopefully he'll see that and report it.

Buff Holy tree too much, and Priests not only doom other healing classes, but they doom shadow Priests. Every group will demand a Priest with a Holy spec and it would become a requirement for raids. Druids will be thrown out. So Blizzard has a challenge - how can they make the 31 point Holy spell good enough to get without upsetting the game balance?

Every time I look at Mage talents, I think of how well designed they are. Sure, there are some "useless" talents like Wand Specialization, but the fact that the Mage was the first class to get talents shows. They've been refined all throughout the beta and are what they should be - a set of choices and tradeoffs between lots of juicy talents that make you really want to respec a lot.

For Priests, there's very few options for decent talent builds. If you're going for power in PvE healing, the 26 disc/25 holy build is the gold standard. Going for PvP, the power goes into the shadow tree with a few backup disc talents. Heavy use of the Holy tree is considered a "variant" by most, because the tree is so disjointed!

What it SHOULD be is that there would exist raging debates on talent choices between the trees and what tradeoffs to make. But when a 21 point disc talent is better than a 31 point holy talent, something's wrong. Inner Focus will save a group's butt far more than Holy Nova will. Mmm, a free high-chance-to-crit Prayer of Healing, yummy.

-Bolty

[Kevin]

Yeah, didn't Druids just get/are getting big buffs to their forms?  And now more work?
[right][snapback]88592[/snapback][/right]

The 1.7 changes for druids were supposed to come with talent changes but those were delayed because of the extensive hunter changes. It is not that big of a buff to forms (no change at all to bear really and the changes to cat might let us keep our DPS up around a poorly equiped fury warrior but no a well equiped one). It also leaves many pointless talents sitting around and it is at best a bandaid to the itemization issues that druids face. Druids are still more broken than priest. The only broken part about priests is the holy tree where druids in end game have broken feral and balance trees. I don't really expect any talent changes on a druid that will change how they heal at all, unless they plan to change the priest, paladin, and shaman's healing drastically in the future and change the druid now to mesh with it.

[Hedon]

Buff Holy tree too much, and Priests not only doom other healing classes, but they doom shadow Priests.  Every group will demand a Priest with a Holy spec and it would become a requirement for raids.

Would become a requirement? It is often already one, though most emphasis is put on the disc tree rather than the holy tree. Many guilds will not allow shadow priests to join their raids already.

Our guild alliance requires for the healing classes:

For Priests:
0 points in Shadow;

For Druids:
at least 31 points in Restoration;

For Shamans;
0 points in Elemental; at least 21 points in Restoration;


I concur that with an improved priest holy tree, druids would run the risk of losing their raid slots in favor of more priests. Though I would like to see a revamped holy tree for my priestess, I personally do not consider this to be the highest priority.


The Blizzard post looks good: The double layer raid content in Ahn’Qiraj sounds promising, as well as finally new non raid content in form of a massive influx of questlines in Silithus and improvements to the Darkmoon Faire.

[lemekim]

Buff Holy tree too much, and Priests not only doom other healing classes, but they doom shadow Priests.  Every group will demand a Priest with a Holy spec and it would become a requirement for raids.  Druids will be thrown out.  So Blizzard has a challenge - how can they make the 31 point Holy spell good enough to get without upsetting the game balance?
[right][snapback]88592[/snapback][/right]

It's not that hard really. Since most people fear that a 21/31 point talents that boost healing aspect will make speccing for healing mandatory, these talents should provide instead utility. Blizzard tried that with the Holy Nova, but it didn't work out.

An example of a 31 talent point that many priests would love, and yet it wouldn't directly affect their healing ability, is a 10 second immunity shield with 5 minute cooldown, ala Divine Shield. Would it be useful? Very. Would it help priests in PvP that actually heal? Yes. Would it make healing in places like MC/BWL/Onyxia different? No, not really.

Since Paladins have it already, implementing that would be out of the question, but this is an example of a good potential talent.

[Lissa]

For Priests, there's very few options for decent talent builds.  If you're going for power in PvE healing, the 26 disc/25 holy build is the gold standard.  Going for PvP, the power goes into the shadow tree with a few backup disc talents.  Heavy use of the Holy tree is considered a "variant" by most, because the tree is so disjointed!

-Bolty
[right][snapback]88592[/snapback][/right]

Disagree here.

Holy really isn't that much of an improvement over non-Holy for being able to be efficient in raids. Most of the Healing effieciency comes very early in the Holy tree and as such, you can get away with only 10 points or less in Holy and still be close to the same efficiency as a Holy Priest that goes deep into the tree. From the raiding we've done on Onyxia and in MC, there's been little need for Subtlety, little need for Improved Healing (most of our healers rarely drop below 75% mana during the raids unless something goes horribly wrong), little need for Improved Prayer of Healing (unless something goes horribly wrong, only a few people get injured during the raids even dealing with most Bosses), Improved Flash heal is rarely needed unless a mob gets away from a tank (usually to something going horribly wrong), and Spirit of Redemption I can count on one hand where is has come in useful during our raids. The only two useful talents that I have seen, and one is argueable in the raids, has been Improved Renew (this is the argueable one) and Spiritual Healing.

As is goes though, Discipline to atleast Inner Focus is a big winner for the raiding Priest. Of those beyond Inner Focus, again, it's argueable their use due to +mana/5 seconds items. Meditation might be a bigger winner if Priests got something along the lines of the Mages' Mage Armor when combined with +mana/5 second items, but right now it's not that big of a help over +mana/5 seconds.

Something I see a lot of people overlook though is Shadow for raiding. One of the best talents for when things go wrong is Improved Fade. Combine that with Vestments of Truefaith and you have one great combo for keeping the agro off the Priest (leaving you up for only 8 seconds out of the cast timer on Fade were you have full agro).

[oldmandennis]

Just because some people think that a 21 point talent is better then a 31 does not mean your trees are screwed up. I'm not saying they are or aren't, but that fact does not mean they are.

For example, Natures Swiftness (21 restoration) is easily the single best Shaman talent. The 31 point Enhancement one, StormStrike, is terrible. I would eventually like to see it and other talents like improved grounding totem made into something interesting. No matter how "overpowered" your class is, all of the talents should be worthwhile choices. But since the class is pretty much WAI, I know it will be a while.

The Paladin is the last class with trees so borked they almost break the class.

By the way, NS being what it is, requiring 21 points in resto really means your guild is saying "don't be an idiot". But if they really boot people for putting the rest in Elemental instead of Enhancement, they are just being jerks. Requiring 31 resto would be harsh, but at least makes some sense. Mana Tide is really good in raids but the other 10 points are useless. Taking Tide it prevents you from taking Parry or Elemental fury, two very nice talents. But other then Ancestral Knowledge (mana), nothing in enhancement affects raiding.

Also, a further blue post clarified: the northern sithilius quests/solo/5man stuff will be in 1.8, the southern instnaces are in 1.9. I'm a little bit sceptical about their ability to put out two instances in the same patch, but I guess we will see.

[Concillian]

Buff Holy tree too much, and Priests not only doom other healing classes, but they doom shadow Priests.  Every group will demand a Priest with a Holy spec and it would become a requirement for raids.  Druids will be thrown out.  So Blizzard has a challenge - how can they make the 31 point Holy spell good enough to get without upsetting the game balance?
[right][snapback]88592[/snapback][/right]

My idea for holy priests was to swap the Improved healing and Master Healer talents in location. Then make Master healer be a talent that dramatically reduces casting time, but also reduces amount healed such that a 5/5 investment yields 1.5s (flash, mostly uninterruptible with talents) 2.1s (heal) and 2.6s (greater) healing amounts. But the mana efficiency will be slightly reduced.

This brings a 'transformative' type talent in the holy tree that can be used with 31 points in any other tree, but a shadow or disc build will give up the mana efficiency boost of the Imp. Healing. This also allows the mana efficiency of improved healing to be actually useful.

It allows priests to have better heal per mana than current flash heal, but not dramatically so, by enabling the use of the long time heal spells easier. It also brings larger effect of +healing as that is dependent on the initial healing time than current flash heals.

The top end holy talent would negate usage of Inner Focus. Rather than give a 0 mana heal, I propose something similar to Nature's Swiftness, a 0 time heal. Which gives some variety without overpowering, especially since people going that far in the holy tree would not generally have the full greater heal, they would take the 'cut down' greater heal.

I think those three changes would bring spice to the holy tree without imbalancing things too drastically. The 'transformative type talent is important to have on a tier where it can be reached with just 20 points to encourage diversification.

[kandrathe]

...
Our guild alliance requires for the healing classes:
...
[right][snapback]88598[/snapback][/right]

Ugh. How stiffling. Do all the warriors need to be defense spec, all the hunters marksmanship, all the mages arcane? The amazing cookie cutter guild.

[Kevin]

That kind of speed for heals would pretty much prevent any druid from ever landing any heal, ever.

[Quark]

Ugh.  How stiffling.  Do all the warriors need to be defense spec, all the hunters marksmanship, all the mages arcane?  The amazing cookie cutter guild.
[right][snapback]88618[/snapback][/right]

Hehe, unfortunately MS and Fury warriors are amazingly effective (in their own ways), so this guild could be extra lenient in those cases. Next patch, Hunters can be Marksmanship and Survival combined, as long as you get essential 21 or 31 point skills! As for Mages, they should be Ice for raids, with varying levels of Arcane compared to Ice. No fire for you!

Somehow, though, I bet Rogues aren't forced into the raiding builds. Which is funny, since the Cold Blood/Preparation builds are the most versatile, and versatility means crap in MC.

[Warlock]

I don't think the 31 point talents should be appreciably superior to the other x1 talents. After 21 in a tree, 10 more for the 31 point talent should be just as viable as 11 in another tree. I'd like to see 11/21/11 (+8) to be just as attractive as 11/31/0 (+9).

I also don't agree with the common opinion of the holy tree. This is coming from a Druid healer, so I'm used to using long cast time heals because it's all I have... but none of them look seriously out of whack to me as an outsider to the class. Yes, there are a couple of talents that specifically buff the big long cast heal. One is identical to the one I swear by on my Druid and there is another talent to reduce cast time. If there was a similar cast time reducer in my restoration tree I'd certainly take it.

As for Druid tree's being fine, the restoration tree is. I'd like to be able to spend more points there - like it or not, in the endgame raids I do nothing but heal and it's not possible for me to spend all 51 talent points on improving that aspect as a Priest can - but the tree is OK. The other trees... to a first appoximation, every 40+ Druid has Innervate. Druid talent selection is about what to do after you've taken every good talent in restoration.

[Zarathustra]

Caydiem has made a good number of posts in the Druid forum lately, and it seems a big goal of the talent revamp for Druids is to make a Feral or Balance spec "desireable" in a raid. We can only guess at what that'd mean for the end-tree talents.

[MissileToad]

Hey guys. Long time poster, first time lurker. Or something like that...

Clarification on Silithus info by Tigole today...


"The Ahn'Qiraj Temple (the 40 person raid zone) is slightly more difficult than BWL, but not by much. The difficulty gap between Blackwing Lair and the Ahn'Qiraj Temple is very small in comparison to the difficulty gap between Molten Core and Blackwing Lair.

The very end boss of the Temple, however, is *extremely* difficult.

Please remember, AQ is scheduled to open in the 1.9.0 content patch at the soonest. It will not be included in the 1.8.0 patch. The 1.8.0 patch includes a host of new Silithus quests as well as four non-instanced dragons."

[Lissa]

Just because some people think that a 21 point talent is better then a 31 does not mean your trees are screwed up.  I'm not saying they are or aren't, but that fact does not mean they are.

For example, Natures Swiftness (21 restoration) is easily the single best Shaman talent.  The 31 point Enhancement one, StormStrike, is terrible.  I would eventually like to see it and other talents like improved grounding totem made into something interesting.  No matter how "overpowered" your class is, all of the talents should be worthwhile choices.  But since the class is pretty much WAI, I know it will be a while.

The Paladin is the last class with trees so borked they almost break the class.

By the way, NS being what it is, requiring 21 points in resto really means your guild is saying "don't be an idiot".  But if they really boot people for putting the rest in Elemental instead of Enhancement, they are just being jerks.  Requiring 31 resto would be harsh, but at least makes some sense. Mana Tide is really good in raids but the other 10 points are useless.  Taking Tide it prevents you from taking Parry or Elemental fury, two very nice talents.  But other then Ancestral Knowledge (mana), nothing in enhancement affects raiding.

Also, a further blue post clarified: the northern sithilius quests/solo/5man stuff will be in 1.8, the southern instnaces are in 1.9.  I'm a little bit sceptical about their ability to put out two instances in the same patch, but I guess we will see.
[right][snapback]88612[/snapback][/right]

I think you misunderstood my point. The point I was trying to make is that the 25 Holy/26 Disc build Bolty was talking about isn't that incredible for raiding. This isn't about buffing trees or showing that one tree is worse than others, it's pointing out the misconception of throwing all those points into those two trees without looking at alternate builds that can be just as useful, if not more so, in raid situations.

[MongoJerry]

Hehe, unfortunately MS and Fury warriors are amazingly effective (in their own ways), so this guild could be extra lenient in those cases.

Ah, the benefit of being Alliance. Our guild is actually having a set of warriors switch to protection spec, so that they can hold aggro onto Vael and the other BWL bosses better. Hopefully, the Paladin seal that affects aggro will be nerfed against those bosses as has been discussed previously, so you can feel our pain.

Next patch, Hunters can be Marksmanship and Survival combined, as long as you get essential 21 or 31 point skills!  As for Mages, they should be Ice for raids, with varying levels of Arcane compared to Ice.  No fire for you!

Sounds like your guild is going way overboard. Of course, our guild considers the WoW end-game to be PvP and the raiding content merely a way to get PvP equipment, so we don't like to gimp our players in PvP unless we absolutely have to to pass a certain boss.

Regarding priests, the "no shadow points at all" requirement is BS. At most, a priest should be required to put in 10 points into holy -- Improved Renew (which, yes, is very useful) and Spiritual Healing. Other than that, they should be free to spend their talents as they wish, since the shadow tree has some very useful talents in it.

Just because some people think that a 21 point talent is better then a 31 does not mean your trees are screwed up.  I'm not saying they are or aren't, but that fact does not mean they are.

The main problem with Holy Nova is that you have to somehow spend another 30 points in the Holy Tree to get it, and there aren't 30 points worth of useful talents in the tree to spend on. Regarding Holy Nova itself, though, I've already said in other threads that it should go back to being an offensive spell the way it was in the beta, only with serviceable damage. I'd say make it deal 350 damage to all targets in a 10 yard radius with a 5 second cooldown. That would be nowhere near what mages or warlocks can do, but it would let a holy priest do something no other kind of priest can do and fill a niche role as an aoe support class -- like a shaman's fire totem or hunter's volley.

By the way, I just recently respec'd again (now up to 45g to respec!) to 26/25 disc/holy. I didn't even realize it was a standard build, although it'd be interesting to compare where the points are spent (I didn't bother with Subtlety). But anyway, I finally got my 3-piece transcendence set, which gives +15% mana regeneration while casting, so by placing talent points in the discipline tree, I now get a total of 30% mana regeneration while casting. Combine that with excellent other equipment and the mana efficiency that other discipline and holy talents give, and I hardly ever run out of mana now. Once I finally get my Benediction staff (we never kill Kazzak when I'm on, grrrr!) and enchant it with +55 healing spells, I might be able to start getting away with using Rank 1 Flash Heal a lot, which would mean I would never run out of mana at all.

[Hedon]

Well our Warriors should have at least at least 15 points in Protection for Off Tanks and at least 31 points for designated Main Tanks.

And yes Mages have to be Ice/Arcane specced. Warlocks mostly Destruction/Affliction.

No requirements for Hunters and Rogues as of yet.

Of course, our guild considers the WoW end-game to be PvP and the raiding content merely a way to get PvP equipment, so we don't like to gimp our players in PvP unless we absolutely have to to pass a certain boss.

It is different in our case. We are a heaviliy PvE oriented guild and also label us as such für recruitment purposes, altough we play on a PvP Server. Since the advent of the Battlegrounds there is little difference between PvE and PvP Servers though, as most PvP action happens inside BG and can be considered to be "consenting". Thereby there is little need to skill for PvP to defend oneself. Achievment at PvP in the BG/Honor System environment seems to be much more time consuming than achievment in the raid circus, as you have to compete against other players and there will be always someone better than you, snatching up the percious very upper ranks.

[Tal]

Hehe, unfortunately MS and Fury warriors are amazingly effective (in their own ways), so this guild could be extra lenient in those cases.  [right][snapback]88627[/snapback][/right]

I would stop raiding if folks started pressuring me to be protection specc'd on Shalandrax. Its bad enough that blizzard's end game is forcing me to rethink Sharanna's spec from protection/retribution to healing/protection. :)

[Brista]

It is different in our case. We are a heaviliy PvE oriented guild and also label us as such für recruitment purposes, altough we play on a PvP Server. Since the advent of the Battlegrounds there is little difference between PvE and PvP Servers though, as most PvP action happens inside BG and can be considered to be "consenting". Thereby there is little need to skill for PvP to defend oneself. Achievment at PvP in the BG/Honor System environment seems to be much more time consuming than achievment in the raid circus, as you have to compete against other players and there will be always someone better than you, snatching up the percious very upper ranks.
[right][snapback]88747[/snapback][/right]

I don't quite understand why you say there is little need to skill for PvP to defend oneself

Unless you pvp in very tight packs then Protection Warriors and Holy Priests are at a disadvantage

Are you saying that your players do well in battlegrounds pvp because your organisation is superior to disorganised players with cookie-cutter builds? Or are you simply saying you don't really care how you do in battlegrounds since you're optimising for PvE raiding

With regard to your last point about timescales surely it goes as follows:

Easiest - getting AV factional epics. All you have to do is leech for 3 days /played or so. No skill required (although if you contribute it helps)

Medium - PvE raiding. Some of the team need to know what they're doing or be able to adapt very well. But for most it's simply a matter of following orders, not doing a Leeeeroy and performing basic class functions. Is that unfair? That's what it seems like to me, possibly MC and BWL demand everyone to play out of their skins but that's not the impression I've gained so far

Hardest - epics awarded for rank 14. You have to play pretty much full time. Maybe if the popularity of the game drops off this will become easier but currently there are enough fanatics on each server that you need to play very intensely indeed to hit this rank since you need to out-perform everyone else in a game which largely rewards time spent over any other aspect of playing