Blizzard to Paladins:

[lfd]

95% of Horde priests are undead, because the only other choice is being a troll, which have no useful racial abilities for priests.  The 5% that do choose trolls do it for looks.
[right][snapback]87281[/snapback][/right]

I did it for the starting area. My friend had rolled an orc, and I knew that orcs and trolls started in the same place. The things you do when you don't really know a game that well, eh?

I don't recall ever seeing a troll warrior. I guess there must be one. I quite like the health regen, but I still live in hope that shadowguard/hex of weakness will one day be buffed beyond mere comedy racial spells.

The throwing spec racial, useless to priests who can't learn throwing weapons, is just beyond words, really. When levelling up I used to use berserking just to make fights that I was in no danger of actually dying in go faster.

It's nice being taller than the other priests.

[Thawwing Light]

I did it for the starting area.  My friend had rolled an orc, and I knew that orcs and trolls started in the same place.  The things you do when you don't really know a game that well, eh?

I don't recall ever seeing a troll warrior.  I guess there must be one.  I quite like the health regen, but I still live in hope that shadowguard/hex of weakness will one day be buffed beyond mere comedy racial spells.

The throwing spec racial, useless to priests who can't learn throwing weapons, is just beyond words, really.  When levelling up I used to use berserking just to make fights that I was in no danger of actually dying in go faster.

It's nice being taller than the other priests.
[right][snapback]87338[/snapback][/right]

I'm a troll warrior. I'll tell you my reaction to our racial traits:

Regeneration: BULL^$%. Completely. I get maybe 4 health/sec. Sure, it helps a little, but it's not going to do jack with 50 spirit, and that's with wonderful crazy warrior health regeneration. Perhaps if I buffed my spirit by, say, 92 (+50 BL, +30 Ungoro, +12 Cooking), then it would be useful, but as it stands, it's complete crap.

Throwing Specialization: I pulled with thrown for a while. I use a bow for stats now, and it gets better damage anyway. Please, would someone explain the point to this stat? This makes any other trait look good.

Berzerking: I liked it much better before. 20% health? This I can do, and it was half decent with the Berzerksplosion mod, which turned my whole screen into a Berzerk button when that was up. 10% more damage take? Not when I'm tanking, no thanks. If I combine that with Berzerk Stance and Recklessness, I can suicide and the priest can't do anything about it. I think that changes actually nerfed this for me.

Beastslaying: I grind beasts often enough that I sorta notice this. Still, nothing stellar, but better than the rest of this crap.

Overall? The only good thing about being a troll is that I look DAMN cool.

[MongoJerry]

One-second Flash Heals sound more useful than a situational fear dispel.

You'll always get critted by melee opponents, but you won't always get feared.

Sounds like you're talking PvP. I'll take Devouring Plague, which is like an extra SW:Pain and Renew all in one. And WotF is fantastic, because yes you do get feared and mind controled surprisingly often in PvP. And PvE has a decent amount of fearing and mind controling going on, too. Underwater breathing and +10 shadow resistance have their uses, too. Funnily enough, I've also learned to enjoy Cannibalize ever since I've switched to using Shadowform. It's a nice way to top off the health without switching out of shadowform or wasting bandages or food.

The only modestly useful skill that troll priests get is Berserking, which sounds like at first glance that it could be interesting, but it's not. You have to activate it, which in itself slows it down as an emergency source of healing speed. Then, it also increases the damage you take by 10%. So, if you're being beat on, you have to hope that the 25% increase in casting speed, after activation, outpaces the 10% extra damage you're giving the opponent. Add in the fact that a large part of the priest's spells are instant cast -- PW:Shield, Renew, SW:Pain, Psychic Scream, and if you're shadow spec'd Mind Flay, Vampiric Embrace, and Silence -- and the benefit gets reduced significantly.

[Artega]

Yeah, but Devouring Plague sets you back 980 MP per cast, and I'd imagine it's dispellable. Even with a large MP pool, 980 MP is still a lot for something that can just be dispelled.

[kandrathe]

Yeah, but Devouring Plague sets you back 980 MP per cast, and I'd imagine it's dispellable.  Even with a large MP pool, 980 MP is still a lot for something that can just be dispelled.
[right][snapback]87512[/snapback][/right]

It's a disease curable by shaman, paladins and priests.

[MongoJerry]

It's a disease curable by shaman, paladins and priests.

In practical terms, shaman's don't dispell it, because they're Horde. Priests don't dispell it, because it requires casting a seperate "Remove Disease" spell which usually isn't on a priest's front hotbar, especially in PvP situations. Plus, the icon for it looks exactly like the Shadow Vulnerability curse that shadow priests automatically cast on people when they hit them with a shadow spell, so most priests don't even realize that they or someone else has been hit with something that they can dispell. SW:Pain's are frequently dispelled while Devouring Plague is almost never dispelled -- even when it's cast on another priest!

The only practical danger is a paladin casting Cleanse, since they don't have to look at the type of the spell to decide to dispell it. Again, however, so often even Paladins don't know to dispell it, because the icon looks the same as a curse. However, I usually reserve using Devouring Plague in small combat situations -- like if it's just me versus a rogue, warrior, hunter, or druid or if it's like 3 on 3 or less, where things are unlikely to be dispelled.

Yeah, but Devouring Plague sets you back 980 MP per cast, and I'd imagine it's dispellable. Even with a large MP pool, 980 MP is still a lot for something that can just be dispelled.

It's not much more than the cost of a SW:Pain and a Renew combined. It's nice to knock off a 1000+ health on someone and gain a 1000+ health all with an instant cast spell. Plus, if you're shadow spec'd and have Vampiric Embrace, you get healed twice by Devouring Plague -- first by DP itself and then by the 20% healing due to Vampiric Embrace. Trust me, I'm not playing Theorycraft here. I use Devouring Plague all the time and find it to be very useful.

One other thing, too, is that DP is particularly useful for shadowform priests (note: I also used it a lot when I was holy/disc spec), because PW:Shield and Devouring Plague are the only healing spells that shadowform priests can cast on themselves without knocking themselves out of shadowform.

[Mavfin]

Neither class is overpowered, so everyone needs to stop whining and bitching about how they supposedly are.
[right][snapback]87263[/snapback][/right]

I'll agree with that. I hear this crap on both sides. The pallies and alliance gripe about shamans incessantly, and the horde gripes about the paladins. Get over it.

[Quark]

Late addition to this thread:

We identified the cause of the threat bug that was causing erratic behavior in the Ebonroc and Chromaggus encounters. In fact, the bug could occur in any encounter but due to the length of the above mentioned fights, it's mainly being noticed there. The bug would cause aggro to "ping-pong" after a certain threat value was reached.

We *should* be able to get this bug fix into the 1.7.0 patch. If we cannot get it in there, we'll try to hotfix it or get it in an incremental patch soon after.

Apologies for this bug.

Sounds like they had integer overflow bugs with threat. Maybe this will make changes to BoS less necessary.

[Rinnhart]

Late addition to this thread:

We identified the cause of the threat bug that was causing erratic behavior in the Ebonroc and Chromaggus encounters. In fact, the bug could occur in any encounter but due to the length of the above mentioned fights, it's mainly being noticed there. The bug would cause aggro to "ping-pong" after a certain threat value was reached.

We *should* be able to get this bug fix into the 1.7.0 patch. If we cannot get it in there, we'll try to hotfix it or get it in an incremental patch soon after.

Apologies for this bug.

Sounds like they had integer overflow bugs with threat. Maybe this will make changes to BoS less necessary.
[right][snapback]88696[/snapback][/right]

They've decided that the best way to deal with BoS is to engineer any advantage it might grant out of the game.

[Brista]

It's a disease curable by shaman, paladins and priests.
[right][snapback]87519[/snapback][/right]

And dwarves

[Rinnhart]

Decursive.

[Artega]

Decursive.
[right][snapback]88761[/snapback][/right]

Exactly my thoughts.

[MongoJerry]

Decursive.

Will be removed soon.

And read the rest of my post where I discuss that I use it primarily in small party fights. Again, this isn't theorycraft.

[Malakar]

Hmm, I think many players forget the balance of Diablo I & II. :)

[Artega]

Will be removed soon.

And read the rest of my post where I discuss that I use it primarily in small party fights.  Again, this isn't theorycraft.
[right][snapback]88820[/snapback][/right]

It's not hard to remove a disease. Most people won't know, but anyone with half a brain will look at the debuff icon at some point, see Disease, and dispel it. Especially if that debuff harms your ally while healing the enemy priest.

Small party fights generally have at least one class capable of dispelling diseases, in my experience <_<

[MongoJerry]

It's not hard to remove a disease.  Most people won't know, but anyone with half a brain will look at the debuff icon at some point, see Disease, and dispel it.  Especially if that debuff harms your ally while healing the enemy priest.

Small party fights generally have at least one class capable of dispelling diseases, in my experience  <_<

And in my experience of actually using the spell, no. Or at least, I know when to use it and when not to so that it doesn't get dispelled. I said that I use it in 1v1 to 3v3 fights. In those cases, either there is often not someone there capable of dispelling diseases or the person who is capable of it is too busy doing other things to notice.

The most common situation I use it in, though, are 1v1 fights versus rogues, warriors, hunters, and mages. Rogues and warriors in particular love to challenge priests (it's nice to be geared up to fight them and turn the tables on them), and having an extra damaging and healing dot in those kinds of fights is very useful, whether I'm getting ganked while out farming or have a 1v1 to 3v3 matchup in CTF or want to throw some extra damage onto a flag carrier as he or she is leaving our flag room. Small party PvP happens a lot and I use Devouring Plague so often that it's on my front hot bar. And I can again tell you that in practical situations where things are moving fast, no, even when there is a dispeller around, Devouring Plague often does not get dispelled -- whether the person involved doesn't realize that it's a disease instead of a curse or whether it's because the potential dispeller is too busy doing other things, I don't know. But, no, in small party fights, it often doesn't get dispelled, even when my SW:Pain's do. I frequently laugh about it.

I really don't know why you're playing theorycraft with me on this. I'm telling you from over 10 months of practical playing experience as an undead priestess on a PvP server that Devouring Plague is an extremely useful spell that has frequently meant the difference in PvP fights that I've had (particularly in solo fights against rogues, warriors, and hunters). Your attempt to say that for some reason it shouldn't would be like me asking, "Why do you use Mortal Strike? You can just heal through that debuff!"

[Brista]

I use Devouring Plague lots too and almost never see it Cured

[Hedon]

I concur with Mongo here. Devouring Plague is very useful in 1on1 PvP situations, especially when fighting low HP / high DPS targets like Mages, Rogues or Hunters. Mana efficiency is usally not the most important issue when fighting those classes, as you will be rather dead before you run OOM. You have to get out as much damage as possible and stay alive, and this is where the Devouring Plague excels. Additional damage combined with healing. It's great to watch your enemy run away in fear (due to psychic scream) as his health bar is dwindling under the influence of two DOTs (Shadow Word Pain and Devouring Plague).

Devouring Plague is of limited use in PvE encounters, though I used it to solo elite mobs while leveling.

Generally it makes little sense to calculate things out in PvP. All this mana efficiency, DPS and HPS tables that have their use in PvE situtations, count little when you get ambushed by a rouge. ;)

[MongoJerry]

It's great to watch your enemy run away in fear (due to psychic scream) as his health bar is dwindling under the influence of two DOTs (Shadow Word Pain and Devouring Plague).

My favorite is watching rogues gouge or blind me and wait for their energy bars to regenerate -- all while having their life tick away under the influence of two dots and my health being regenerated by the DP dot.

[Rinnhart]

I use Devouring Plague lots too and almost never see it Cured
[right][snapback]88892[/snapback][/right]

Then your paladins are slacking off.