Priests and our discontents
by Eliah Hecht 
Dec 7th 2006 at 5:58PM
I think it's safe to say that a lot of priests are less than happy with 2.0.1. The official forums are fairly chock-full with players saying they've cancelled their accounts, druids claiming that they're the new best healers (and not a few priests agreeing), and the perennial claims of PvP imbalance. Discontent in the forums is of course nothing new, but it does seem that more people than usual are dissatisfied.From the point of view of this raiding holy priest, there are a few reasons for this (after the jump):
- The add-on nerf. Utilities that many priests considered essential, like Decursive and CTRA's emergency monitor, will almost certainly never work like they used to again. On the other hand, I know a few priests who welcome this change, since they don't want to be so reliant on add-ons anyway. My own take is that decursing is going to be a bit more of a chore now, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Until then, though, I fear Sulferon much more than I used to.
- The downranking nerf. Spells that were trained at earlier levels receive much less of your +healing now, to the point where Heal 4 doesn't become very mana-efficient until you have something like 1000 +healing (I can post the math if anyone's interested). I may be overreacting, but this seems to force us into the "big heals when you can, flash heals when necessary" strategy, without giving us a viable medium heal. Greater Heal 5 (which is now trainable, yay!) heals for over 2,000 on average, without counting any +heal that you may have. In my eyes, that's simply too big for a bread-and-butter heal.
- Lackluster talents. I'm of two minds about this point: on the one hand, when the priest BC talents were first announced, there was much rejoicing; but now, folks are saying that our talents prove that Blizzard hates priests. I agree that none of the 41-point talents are all that; but on the other hand, Improved Divine Spirit, Holy Concentration, and Surge of Light are pretty attractive, as well as the change to Spirit of Redemption (the talent now includes a passive 5% boost to your total Spirit). We didn't get a tree form or anything like that, but that makes me more happy for druids than sad for priests (in fact, I rolled a new druid last night instead of logging in to my priest main and respeccing, simply because I really want tree form).
Now you might point out that the first two points apply equally to all healing classes, and this is probably true (I've never gotten another healing class past 40, so I'm not sure personally). However, I think priests were more addicted to our downranking and our add-ons than the other healing classes. And it's hard to argue that our 41-point Holy and Discipline talents stack up to other classes' 41-point healing talents.
As a final point, the new animation for Holy Fire is pretty strange -- the casting animation is the same as Resurrection, and when the spell hits it looks like a holy-colored version of Warlocks' Searing Pain -- but I hear this was changed back to the old animation on the BC beta realms a month ago, so I expect we'll get the same treatment on the live realms before long.
So what do you guys think? Are you retiring your priests, or is this just a speed bump and I should lern2play? Are any of you still happy with the priest talents? And what do all you shadow priests think of things in WoW 2?
Filed under: Priest, Patches, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ian Dec 7th 2006 6:17PM
Whiney whinersons. My heals do the same as they did before. And the new rank of Renew is the sexiest spell ever. Add in the stacking, and it's probably the best priest buff ever.
And I have no pity for anyone who became so reliant on a 3rd party app that they have forgotten how to play the game. And, yes, I've decursed 40-man raids.
Unkle Dec 7th 2006 6:28PM
I agree with #1
Decus Dec 7th 2006 6:55PM
Priests aren't the only ones getting hit by the +healing nerf. There will be no more of me (a druid) spamming rank 4 healing touch instead of rank 10 or 11 healing touch.
Winterheart Dec 7th 2006 6:39PM
As a 60 Shadowpriest I am loving the new talents . I mean I am simply amazed by the amount of damage I am able to inflict about 5-6 battleground runs and I was always 1 or 2 in damage dealt and with vampiric embrace had a nice little amount of amount healed.
Fabian Dec 7th 2006 6:42PM
I must say my shadow priest is much more fun to play now. I crit more often and more reliable, also my +shadow/+spell damage gear finally seems to be working. Meaning I manage more damage on regular attacks. So far I like it.
Mar Dec 7th 2006 6:52PM
I've specc'd holy to 41 to give all the new healing things a try. However, i lose major mana efficiency from the additional 10 points in Discipline. I am of the opinion that the priest talents in Disc and Holy will make more sense once we can use 61 points.
Also, I'm raiding tonight, so I'll be testing out the circle of healing, and seeing if it is helpful when healing the bunched up melee groups. Too soon to tell, but I trhink for the holy/raid priest oiur old specs will be better until we can invest the extra 10 points we get from level 70. (Plus we get some nice little spells on the way up to 70 that may make the difference).
I don't think blizzard balanced the new talent trees for level 60; but for level 70. So some classes will be more powerful with the talents they have access to now, but will wane at 70.
But it still made me kind of sad that there wasn't much to get excited about for us. I wanted to turn into something or summon a phoenix or something.. lol!
anach Dec 7th 2006 6:53PM
1) I don't see what is so hard about clicking on someone and then pressing a button. Its not hard. See that guy who looks like hes on fire? yeah click on him and cast dispell. Wow that was hard. I've never used decursive and have been through all of AQ40 and a bit of naxx. Its not hard. If you wanted the game to play for you I suggest picking up a copy of dungeon siege.
It should be easier to break up healing now too, just heal in your group 90% of the time and it sure simplifies alot.
2) I think the main reason they did this is because they want to give more gear options for priests. Previously +healing gear did just about everything, downraking made you heal more for less and for longer periods of time. It was almost always better to pick gear that had more +healing than any other stat because of this.
3) IMO priests definately got the weakest of talent additions compared to the other classes. After respec'ing most of my characters to nearly completely different specs, my priest spec stayed almost exactly the same :/
Killets Dec 7th 2006 6:57PM
Here's my comments after 1 day of raiding:
1) Downranking nerf hurt Druids basically as much as priests if not more. If you think GHeal5 is bad, take a look at Druid's HT11. Forgot the base healing, but healing for 3800hp with my gear is overkill. I ended up using HT7, and my priest used Heal4 most of the time instead of the standard Heal2 that he used to.
2) CTRA seemed really screwy to me and a few healing guildies of mine. There was lag with it. Windows were updating real slow, and emergency monitor was definitely fubared. As a guild, we had everyone switch to the default blizzard raid windows.
3) Stacking renews/rejuvs is godly.
4) Priest clearcasting is woah awesome.
Gist Dec 7th 2006 7:31PM
I never used any add-ons to heal before, and I used all my top-ranked heals anyway, so the patch didn't bother me at all.
Though, IMO, there's no longer a "great" healing spec. I used to have just enough in Disc to get the great Spirit buff, and still have all the +healing stuff in the Holy tree. Most raiding priests had the good ol' cookie cutter Holy/Disc spec and it worked well for us. Now, until lvl 70, it's one or the other. I'm giving up on my priest until the XP for that reason. Besides, why run Naxx when lvl 65 Blues will trump epics soon.
Cala Dec 7th 2006 7:52PM
People can say lern2play all they want and they can act all elitist when they say that they've decursed mc/bwl/aq/naxx raids and they don't like mods...
Whatev. I do miss decursive, I do miss emergency monitor, I am NOT looking forward to healing MC raids, and NONE of the 41 point talents blow my skirt up.
Circle of healing is too little at too much mana. Pain suppression? Woohoo. Someone's not doing their job if it's hitting you. Shadow? Yeah. Goes without saying that on most PvE servers, if you're not Holy/Disc spec, you're going to be passed over a bit.
The downranking hurts a little, but I use a combo of Renew rank 7 and flash heal rank 5. Little baby heals that let me take a step back and see if I need to paste on a bigger heal, or if someone's already got that in the works.
I'll learn how to decurse without Decursive. I'll find the combo that works for me for healing. But I'm still going to miss decursive. I'm still going to miss emergency monitor. And none of these 41 point talents will ever blow my skirt up. And everyone that says lern2play can just stuff it.
AcceptableRisk Dec 7th 2006 8:25PM
Personally, nothing really changed. The new post-31 talents aren't really too exciting and I never used any extra addons so when the new patch came up, I just used my old spec and continued the same as I did before.
It was still a little dissappointing despite that. My warlock got some major changes. Most of them awesome. Playing my priest is kind of stale in comparison.
Monigote Dec 7th 2006 9:43PM
I can't believe nobody mentioned the withdrawal of Mind Control's powers... First of all it sucked to begin with... A mob thrown off a cliff SHOULD die as should anyone else. And now they take away the spell bar so you can only run around and hit with the lame mob...
Anywho, so far Im sticking with my disc priest. Cause everyone always needs a good priest :D.
MAgentha Dec 7th 2006 9:54PM
> Heal 4 doesn't become very mana-efficient until >you have something like 1000 +healing (I can post the >math if anyone's interested).
I'm very interested on knowing how do u do the maths for healing, i f you could, please, do me the favor of posting the formula i'd be very pleased 0:D.
Does it works in the same for dmg spells(i.e. frostbolt)?
Thanks a lot.
ryaz Dec 7th 2006 11:45PM
its not like preists are not needed still, Try being a shaman, usless for virtualy everything
exodus Dec 8th 2006 1:04PM
Shaman received one good thing from this patch: Earth Shield. You'd think there would an article about how they are discontent...
I've heard more shaman saying they are rerolling as a result of pally dps than ever before. Kind of sad.
Landmark Dec 8th 2006 11:18AM
You think they nerfed priests? Try playing a mage. We're so fragile now that a warrior can swing at us, miss, and we'd still die.
Mischa Dec 11th 2006 1:24PM
Reflective shield is soo damn awesome really. Anyway, I'm quite alright with the new talents.
Domenico Dec 8th 2006 4:16AM
Everyone got a little something cool, except Priests. Most players can spec up to a 41 point talent and have something new and shiny to play with. Not only do priests have to do without that, but we get subtle little nerfs or downgrades to things that were kind of cool. You can't deny that cool-factor helps one enjoy playing a class. Changing the graphic on Holy Fire was pointless and took some of our "bling" away. Taking away our ability to use a mobs abilities when under Mind Control also makes instances and even soloing a lot less fun. There used to be an element of discovery there. I guess we were having too much fun, even with the little things we as priests were holding on to. Why so many pointless changes to things that weren't broken and not enough changes to things that needed fixing? Blizzard has claimed that they released this patch "for the players" as a kind of "gift" to tide them over until the XP comes out. Priests got a lump of coal.
Zka Dec 8th 2006 5:13AM
I'm levelling a priest because our guild needs more healers.
Ofc I'm shadow ATM but just because I want to hit 60 this year, or at least before BC. Shadow priest were friggin imba, even more imba after the patch.
I see most people doing the same mistake when whining about nerfs. Yes, decursive and downranking nerf may hit the current raid content badly. But those won't be a problem in BC pve content. BC is designed around players NOT having decursive and NOT being able to heal forever with lower ranks.
Scone Dec 8th 2006 5:19AM
The reason priests get bored in raids, is because they use mods to go into easy mode. Ive tried emergency monitor, and honestly, if you rely on that, youre not a very good priest. Remove your mods and start playing the game the way it should be played. Its more exciting, youre more concentrated and it shouldnt be done any other way.
I am also a bit sad about the +healing nerf, but it would have gone to the extreme in the later levels, and would have been too imbalanced if you think about it.
Im tired of people complaining. Take a few steps back, and look at the bigger picture. Dont be so damn self centered (that goes for all of you, not just priests). Theres a lot of people out there complaining as much as you, playing a different class than you, and being as dumb and annoying as you. Stop it!