Un-nerfing for priests and paladins
by Elizabeth Harper 
Feb 27th 2007 at 10:31PM
Paladins rejoice, because Blizzard has decided to reverse the two changes that were planned to be implemented in 2.0.10. Eyonix informs us that they felt "the adjustments were too imposing on the class' ability to tank in dungeons." So Avenging Wrath won't be sharing a cooldown with Divine Shield (but will invoke Forbearance) and Forbearance won't give the player a -15% damage debuff. This should mean that paladins will be unchanged in patch 2.0.10.
While it's not clear if this is the mystery buff Nethaera was telling us about, Eyonix let us in on some interesting changes. In addition to looking at improving Lightwell and analyzing priest survivability in PvP and PvE, Blizzard is planning on making the following concrete changes:
- The cooldown on Prayer of Mending has been reduced to 10 seconds (instead of the planned 20 second cooldown).
- The damage mitigation of Power Word: Shield is being improved by increasing the bonus it gains from +healing gear by 10% (to 20%).
- Circle of Healing will now cost 30% less mana.
Filed under: Paladin, Priest, Patches, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
rosefu Feb 27th 2007 10:40PM
These changes are insulting.
My account stays deactivated, but I might log in to check in on my guildies.
Don't I sound so ungrateful for a class that just received some kind of buff? And such wonderful buffs they are!
Thanks Blizzard! I now die 0.00002 seconds later.
xzor Feb 27th 2007 10:56PM
this is a joke.
the reason they want prayer of mending on a timer is because they don't want priests spamming it. but its still on the global timer, so even before the patch it was unspamable.
the best lev 70 priests have around 1000 +heal. given the extra 10% boost, we will now receive a whole additional 100 hit pts. yes, 100 hit points, in a world where most dps classes can do 2k damage in 1 shot.
circle of healing: 30% less cost of a useless spell is still useless.
but i guess theres still hope they "are looking at lightwell.." those famous words that blue is required to udder every time they post on the priest forums.
i have canceled my acct with blizz, and as much as it pains me to say, having previously enjoyed WoW, i will not return until blizz stops treating priests and being the only class that is required to be the suckiest class.
Baluki Feb 27th 2007 11:05PM
I really don't understand why Blizz clings so tightly to these horrible talents that nobody wants. Circle of Healing is undeniably lame, as is Totem of Wrath. We were hoping for some sort of cool new 41-point ability, and we got spells that don't add anything new or interesting to the game.
Personally, I've always liked Lightwell, but it's just not very useful. Why take the time in the middle of a battle to find the lightwell and click it when you can just wait for your healer to heal you? I mean, people can't even be bothered to stay in range of a totem...
crsh Feb 27th 2007 11:34PM
For any priest player willing to spec deep in healbot spec there should be an advantage for PvP: if it can't DPS you down, it should be able to keep her/himself alive near endlessly without much effort. Healing priests should have the ability to keep themselves alive without effort to compensate for less than average damage and defenses.
This game doesn't need more of this so-called balance Blizz is supposedly working at continously, it needs some goddamn common sense: healers should not be a free HK in PvP, they should be a force to be reckoned with because they can't die easily. Let them keep instant-cast PoM for God's sake.
And this is coming from a rogue, ladies and gents.
obadiah Feb 28th 2007 3:55AM
Quite simple... Blizz does not want you to be a priest. Paladins and druids heal more efficiently anyway.
Acceptable Risk Feb 28th 2007 1:13AM
Now how about returning Shadow to raid viability?
My game time ran out a bit ago and I'm thinking I'm just going to let it go until they stop making substantial class-altering changes every week. Changing things around for the sake of balance is one thing, but if you can't count on your class or your spec to stay consistant from one week to the next, it gets very frustrating.
Wake me up when I can expect a couple of weeks without a patch.
Ethan Butterfield Feb 28th 2007 1:49AM
As a ret/prot Pally, yay/wtf? Happy the nerfs got removed but too much burst damage? You're kidding, right?
But to my Priest brothers...damn, you folks need some love, not another boot to the kidneys. I thought it was bad with Blizzard considering me to be nothing but a healbot in plate. Priests, though, it seems like your entire purpose is to be nerfed to hell whenever someone figures out a way to actually be useful for a change. Not cool.
geoff Feb 28th 2007 2:37AM
@xzor
While I agree with you in general about the uselessness of the add 10% bonus to PW: S scaling, the best priests at 70 should have more than +1000 healing.
Pre expansion my level 60 priest had +1000 healing unbuffed. The most well geared priests on my server had ~1200.
I've hardly upgraded any healing gear and sit at around +1200 healing raid buffed at 70.
I'd imagine that the very top geared priests are getting close to 1500-1600 or more +healing.
Anyway, not that this changes the "buff" (lol) very much at all. It still sucks.
Ben Feb 28th 2007 2:46AM
The best priests have about 1000 healing? Damn, I guess that makes me about 45% better than the best :P
But yeah...the 10 second reduction on the PoM cooldown is nice, but it's kind of like being told you can keep one hand instead of losing both.
Honestly I could not care less about PvP viability or survivability. I don't PvP with my priest at all and when I die in a group it's usually because I do something stupid like walk into a cleave or an AoE.
I'm also perfectly ok with the amount of healing I can do....my biggest Greater Heal regularly lands for about 4800 and crits for 6-7k. My Renews tick for over 650. And actually, even with the massive downranking nerf I've still found that one of the spells I'm using most often is my rank 1 Greater Heal, which costs about 315 mana and heals for 2500+.
I can certainly see a few areas where our abilities haven't scaled quite as well, and I definitely respect the feelings/frustrations of priests who want to PvP, but for the most part I'm happy with my ability to perform my role. I certainly don't think we're as massively underpowered as some others do.
The one thing that really frustrates me is the staggering disparity between soloing capability for shadow and holy/disc. I'm gradually building up a decent +damage set from quests and drops that default to me, but even at level 70 with 670 bonus damage I'm barely more powerful than my level 63 mage who only has about 320 +damage. Right now I'm working on leveling him just so I'll have a character to farm motes for my priest.
chimera Feb 28th 2007 3:09AM
I don't feel that a priest is an inadequate healer. We have all the tools: hot (renew), passive heal (PoM still very useful in PVE even with a cooldown), fast heal, slow heal, aoe heal, instant heal (bubble). A druid has got no fast heal, no spammable aoe heal... A paladin has got no aoe heal at all.
I think shadow was really too powerful with such a low threat.
All in all, the biggest problem might be pvp survivability (tbh I don't care pvp at all) and suck holy talents (lolwell + circle of healing) that are 99% useless waste of talent points.
OutlandishTrendz Feb 28th 2007 4:33AM
@9
Druid does not fast heal? how bout instant with swiftmend?
bubble as a instant heal? how so with a renew that barely negates the amount your being for?
paladin for aoe, why would they need one with their short cast times and even instant casts?
Tell me your main is a priest, cuz if it is then reroll.
Junzim Feb 28th 2007 5:44AM
Ideally I'd like to have seen that in mana cost inverted - ie: +30% more healing to Circle of Healing rather than making it cheaper.
That said, it is a welcome buff to a talent that needed some love.
10 seconds is still too big a nerf, 4 seconds (Same as PW:S) would put it out of the 'spammable' bracket but still let us use it adequately in PvE.
Lightwell is a good talent but to be honest I can't be bothered to explain why for the 100th time to other priests, either you like it or you don't. It places the honous for healing upon the injured (clothies and mana-hungry Warlocks when I use it) but they can click it whilst they're casting or doing something else. It's great on several boss battles even in Kharazan but it does however need to scale.
PW:S scaling is nice to have but it doesn't change the fact that the difference between our lvl 70 PW:S and our lvl 60 PW:S is LESS than the difference between our Lvl 60 PW:S and our lvl 5X PW:S, WHY!? There's no explanation for this anywhere.
At the moment, PW:S is just a global cooldown sucker that won't save anyone.
kabes Feb 28th 2007 8:00AM
Judging by how quick Blizzard changes their mind, and the knee-jerk reactions they make makes me wonder if they really know what they want to do with class balance.
Why don't they test this stuff internally? More and more this game seems like its balanced around forum whining....and if it's not, they need to change their process so it doesn't seem that way because it looks very unprofessional.
Finally, they need to pick something (either PVP or PVE) and balance the classes solely around that rather than trying to juggle them. I'd say balance it around PVE since WoW is a PVE game even though all the whining revolves around PVP balance.
What would happen if it was balanced around PVE? Druids would get back their old stam and armor bonuses (in bear form) that were nerfed which is good cause I always like a druid tank. Hunters would finally do some decent damage in PVE and not the same damage they did at 60. Warlocks could get their dots re-buffed back to how they were, etc.
If you want to PVP, roll a PVP alt that's good at PVP imo. I'm sick of forum QQing destroying PVE balance. I never understood the QQing in the first place...you want your teammates nerfed? Why? They'll help you win. Why does everyone think they are entitled to win every single 1v1 matchup and the game isn't balanced until their class can do that? Why not get a friend who plays one of these classes you hate and PVP with them?
WoW is played by the biggest bunch of crybabies I've ever come across. Who knew people would dedicate so much time and passion on the subject simply because they can't win every fight. I just wish Blizzard had the balls to ignore the kiddies.
Pogle Feb 28th 2007 8:40AM
I'm a... no... wait, I was a feral druid and the other toon on my account was, a priest!
Yep, account "deactivated", I've given up.
Blizz have completely lost touch, the druid nerf was brutal and removed us from the heroics and 10+ instances, the priest changes demonstrate they really dont understand what they're doing.
Time to move on, it pains me to leave, but I've got to stop waiting for them to luck onto a decent change.
Kaylek Feb 28th 2007 9:27AM
I think the real issue is they look too hard at the numbers. It's like reading meters out of context, just seeing "so and so has healed for this ungodly amount" versus the person who's actually healing efficiently.
For Paladins, I know all it can mean is that Holy paladins are going to see a damage nerf. Retribution isn't the real issue, and you can see it from reading the pally boards, where far too many people stumbled onto Holy's new burst DPS viability (for PVP) and took it upon themselves to shout really loud about it and talk about how much better they are than Retribution. Right now, Holy does compete, but if you're crunching the numbers they're still technically lower in overall DPS.
But Holy isn't about just DPS, it's about all the support it offers, and right now Holy boasts comparable DPS -and- all of the healing support that comes with the base talents in the tree. I guess it's just too good to be true for long.
Todd Feb 28th 2007 9:36AM
I still don't understand how the Blizzard devs suck so much at balancing classes. True evidence that the devs just seem kinda lost on what they really want to do or what needs to be done. Mages get the same slack, as the devs have no clue what they really want to do with THAT class.
Matthew Feb 28th 2007 10:27AM
Class Balancing will never happen unless Blizz decides to go back to the board and really start over.
1. Decide what the base classes are. In my mind, they are: Warrior, Rogue, Priest.
2. Set those classes as the standard to measure others against.
3. Hybrid/Variant Classes (Warlock, Shaman, Mage, etc...): these classes have a combination or modification of the base classes. If they have additional utility or abilities, then their base likeness should not be equal to the parent class.
4. Talent Trees should be adjusted to
a. Allow the Hybrid/Variant classes to regain the ground they inherently lose to the parent class, or
b. Allow the parent class to gain some additional utility.
In the end, the mage and rogue should both be really similiar, except mages are at range. A holy-specced pally should be a viable Main Healer (not as good, but viable). A feral druid should be a viable Main Tank (not as good as a warrior, but viable).
This isn't rocket science... I could go longer into why I put only those three as parents, but the concept follows.
Karl Feb 28th 2007 10:52AM
I'm trying to be upbeat today, but I just find it amusing how when we learn we are being nerfed, we complain (and sometimes rightfully so), and then when something where Blizzard says either they are not going through with the nerf, or the nerf won't be as bad as we expected, that we complain that we weren't buffed instead. I know its just the nature of a forum thread.
I'm just going to be happy that they reversed the decision on the Pally nerf. I hope priests are at least a little relieved that they weren't smacked around as badly as anticipated. I've never played a priest before, and therefore don't find myself entirely qualified to judge, but I would think that priests would be pretty happy about the Power Word: Shield buff. I love when a priest tosses that on me.
Noon Feb 28th 2007 6:59PM
So this IS the 2.0.10 Burning Druid Patch after all.
Roguerhunter Feb 28th 2007 1:36PM
What about an ultimate spell for Priests. I think this spell would put them on top of the chain as main healers even though others might be quite as good but you have to have a spell that stands out... This spell can have pros and cons and be the deciding factor in raids or parties...
Holy Sacrament: Gives the party full Mana/Health/Rage and refreshes last buffs as it places the Priest in a state of excorism for 15 secs. 3 Players mush perform excorisum with a Holy Bible regent. If the time exceeds the 15 secs Priest will become Evil and attack Party members until killed. Upon resurection priest will have a 35% mana/health/spells debuff for 20min.
This spell is on an 1 hr cool down.