Priests vs. paladins: Blinded by the Light
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Apr 9th 2007 at 1:22PM
It's always interesting to see two classes go at it like hungry dogs fighting over a bone. Warriors versus druids about tank roles, mages vs. rogues about DPS and Cloak of Shadows, warlocks vs. pretty much everybody. Now the big fight on the forums is between two classes devoted to healing and being all-around good dudes: priests and paladins.
Priests have noticed that in post-TBC raids, they haven't been healing as well when specced holy/disc. They die quickly to AOEs and run out of mana rapidly. I talked to a priest in a Serpentshrine Cavern raiding guild about the priest's role in raids. She said that her main problem is that she goes OOM faster than before -- possibly due to a lack of spirit scaling -- and has noticed that pallies (and one resto druid) tend to be tops on healing, although she admits that may be because the Horde hasn't had pallies before and they tend to stand out. Plus, the pallies bring enviable blessings and auras to raids, while she has the less-than-exciting Fort. The mana problem has led her to have to stack more mana regen instead of plus healing gear in raids. On top of that, shadow spec is so appealing for raids nowadays that she's actually about to respec shadow to "help the group." Priests specced shadow for raids? Has the world gone mad?
This has led to two separate movements -- one to buff priests, and one to nerf paladins. Pallies have been fighting hard against the latter. If their DPS is bad and they're inferior tanks, pallies argue, what are they supposed to be good at besides healing? Personally, I'd like to see a buff to priest healing and pally tanking. The priest holy tree is really, really ... bad. Circle of Healing? Lightwell? The raiding priest I talked to suggested a talent that would increase combat mana regen, perhaps by a factor of spirit or something (assuming the priest has Meditation.)
Who do you think should be the top healer? How would you redesign the priest healing trees? Do you think that paladin healing needs a nerf in PVE?
Filed under: Paladin, Priest, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Classes, Talents
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Tony V Apr 9th 2007 1:31PM
If by "fighting hard" against changes you mean "tank and ret paladins have been asking for the holy tree to be nerfed", uh sure.
Venetia of Silver Hand Apr 9th 2007 2:31PM
"Circle of Healing? Lightwell?" That made me snort at work. These are truly laughable talents. I've seriously concidered respeccing to shadow myself as I don't seem to be nearly as effective in healing as I once was and I get tired of having to shout, "OOM" every few minutes.
Flit Apr 9th 2007 1:33PM
As a horde for life (HFL!), and now rolling a pally, I don't know how anybody could be calling for a buff to pallies. Seriously, some of those spells that pallies have for tanking are rediculous. And healing at 70 is beyond what most preists can do, even when they aren't spec'd for it. Preists need a buff for certain (for the holy/dis. trees), since that is, after all, their job, and shadow should be seen as off spec, not the main.
The day I see a Warrior clean out SM-cathedral all at once like that pally did, then pallies can start complaining about tank buffs, until then, stfu.
Either that, or give preists Plate :P
Tim Apr 9th 2007 2:43PM
Here are some suggestions:
1) A new kind of Spirit Tap for healbots that, when it procs off a heal, gives a sizeable temporary boost to your spirit. Not revolutionary but completely needed.
2)Here's a Lightwell I could learn to love. Some kind of blast wave for priests that a) throws all enemies back and dazes them for like 12 seconds or whatever and b) summons a lightwell with lotsa health in it. 60 min cooldown?
3) Create a health tie to one player, like a tank, that constantly streams health as needed, kinda like Mend Pet for hunters or locks, above and beyond regular heals. Maybe make it so that multiple priests doing same thing on same player gets a multiplier.
4) Group shield, but instead of 100% dmg protection, it's a smaller number. Damage Mitigation buff anyone?
I'm sure these have all been suggested but whatever... =)
Duromiir Apr 9th 2007 2:43PM
Pallies first (this is shorter): They're fine. Leave the poor folks alone. They can tank well, heal well and DPS well, if they spec and gear appropriately. Yes it requires some dedication and sacrifice, but being a specialist does that. That's fair.
Priests? Just buff holy/disc already. Yes, they *can* DPS in shadow, and yes, it *is* solid DPS (again with spec and gear). That, however, is not a good reason to leave any of their trees weak and/or containing undesirable talents deep in the build.
I'm all for the Class/subtype setup (tanking warrior/DPS warrior or resto-healing druid/DPS feral druid, for instance). It gives different players a chance to really explore their class' potential and play what they want.
Personally, I love having capable healers (our guild has quite a few, so I'm a very spoiled tank ;) )and would be very happy to see a reworking of the Holy/Disc trees for our healers.
brian Apr 9th 2007 1:45PM
1. I think pallys are the equivalent of red-mages in FFXI there meant to be good at many things but not great at anything.
2 Priest should obviuosly be the best at healing, since that IS there main porpose, and if you think otherwise your an idiot.
3. That comment about warlocks going at it with everyone is total rubbish. Go to warlock forums, we dont complain about anything, go to any other class forums and its full of people crying about things. The only times arguments start up in warlock forums is when other classes come in scream for a nerf, or when destro locks and affliction locks are going at it with each other
Lostmimic Apr 9th 2007 1:49PM
Issues Priest have seen Post TBC:
Inner fire, at 60 we got about 30% dmg midigation, at 70 its down to 20%, biiig drop in survivability.
Mana Regeneration: Pally bread and butter is mp5, Priest is suppost to be spirit (just look at the talent trees) the items have no scaled up spirit (like I saw some things in BWL with the same spi, but Mp5 has gone up alot more (even though it bugged at the moment)
Really Crappy Talents: Lolwell? mmm no, CoHealing, well its usefull, but more like usefull as a 31 point talent (maybe buff the range abit, its half that of PoH). Even though Shadow priest did get hit with the nerf bat, what they bring to the table is ridiculous, just made it a harder roll to play.
Right now I stay #1 on my healing meters, but thats because people arent trying, there is 1 druid and 1 pally that cares enough to put the effort and we all stay pritty close together on the meters. It used to be Priest Priest Priest Pally Priest Druid Pally on the meters, now its Me, 15% lower, other people, unless my 2 buddies are in the same run as me.
Natt Apr 9th 2007 1:51PM
I am a "casual raider" and the thing I would like to tweak as a priest is to increase the heal of GHeal.
Some random numbers, yours might vary, but the ratio is the important part:
At 60 I saw tanks with say 9k health, Rank 5 Gheal had a base max of 2200 health.
At 70 I have seen tanks with 15k health and Rang 7 Gheal has a base max of 2800.
So tanks health increased approx 66% and the top healing skill approx 28%. (And I think 9k vs 15k is conservative, I bet you have seen much higher health tanks)
I think this is a valid problem, healing gear is for sure better at 70 than 60, but I assume that gear just allow the players to raid harder stuff.
If Gheal rank 6 and 7 scaled with the amount of Sta introduced in TBC it would allow for (non-overhealing) priests to be a little more mana efficient.
Ryan Apr 9th 2007 2:49PM
IMO the pally mana-from-crit skill should be nerfed back to around 75% and their tanking should be buffed so that they are on part w/ druids/warriors.
thedog Apr 9th 2007 1:54PM
@3
The author isn't suggesting Warlocks hate each other. No, everyone hates warlocks for being overpowered.
Why does one class need to be the best at anything? Why can't someone need to work to be the best, not just granted it based on their class? If priests are meant to heal why are they given shadow abilities? Because they have the option dps! Same with Druids and tanking, warrios should not be the best because they rolled warrior. Your spec, gear, and skill will determine who is better, not your class in many cases.
Ryan Apr 9th 2007 1:58PM
@3
Priests are hybrids just like pallies, shammies & druids. In other games, this isn't the case, but in WoW every class has a damage tree. By the way, when you're throwing the label 'idiot' around, try not to confuse 'they're' and 'there', 'you're' and 'your' in the same sentence, it tends to make you look like you don't know what you're talking about.
Jeroboam Apr 9th 2007 2:00PM
@ Flit: You're talking out your ignorance there man. Yes, pallies can tank 15 mobs at once and take very little damage while taking a ton of it. And up to level 70 we pwn the other classes at tanking multimobs and in many cases even single mobs. The problem, and hence why pallies are inferior tanks, is that once you move been heroic instances, to kara and the 25 man raids, the trash hits too hard. There's no need to tank 4-5 mobs in 10 or 25 man raids, there's CC, the pulls arent that big, and if you could, they just hit too hard. Our problem is that we have significantly less health than a warrior or druid and to make up for it we have to fill all our enchant slots and sockets with +stam gear, severely limiting our avoidance, meaning in raids, we get it more often and for more damage, with less HP than either of the other two tanks. The biggest two problems with this is that pally stamina isn't where it should be and our itemization sucks. Pally "Tank Gear" is very poorly itemized, having stats like mp5 and +damage and healing are worthless when trash is hitting you for 3k, we need stamina and +dodge, block, and parry.
Hope that helps you understand what the big boys are talking about. (grumbles something about Horde paladin nubs.)
freehugz Apr 9th 2007 2:06PM
...revved up like a deuce Another runner in the night
brian Apr 9th 2007 2:02PM
i apologize for my bad english, but honestly i dont spell check everything i write, especially when im alt-tabbed
someone Apr 9th 2007 2:03PM
"If their DPS is bad and they're inferior tanks, pallies argue, what are they supposed to be good at"
Welcome to the shaman class.
Doodzin Apr 9th 2007 2:09PM
My main is a Disc/Holy priest. I wouldn't mind the lack of soloing capability if, when specked for it, I could easily be the top healer. As it stands now, we have a few "You've got to be joking!" talents, lightwell, circle of healing, and pain suppression. I wonder if there is a way to see what % of all priests took any of these poorly thought out talents.
Some talents that show up in Disc, seem to belong in holy and vice-versa. Shadow seems to be more or less OK. The CMs have posted that they are "looking at" circle of healing. I haven't heard anything about a change to lolwell, the biggest joke in the holy tree by far.
Anyway, priest holy tree needs a huge re-work imho. I know many former holy priests have rolled pallies and others specked shadow to complement holy pallies better. What a waste of a class!
Ehud Apr 9th 2007 2:12PM
Buff priest healing. Having both a priest and a rogue, I've found that since TBC, a) I get less tells to heal instances and my pally friends have gotten far more, and b) as my rogue, I'd much rather have a paladin heal an instance than a priest, mostly due to the fact that they can take more than 2 hits. Especially in heroics with attacks getting quite hefty, priest top healing and survivability needs to be buffed.
Zor Apr 9th 2007 3:00PM
lower the cost of priest's heals - are they not supposed to be the 'main class' of these abilities, switch pally bubble and priests bubble abilities.
i mean cmon, anything that powerful in def sould prohibit any offence. think potion of stoneform, or any other similar protection of this power in any other venue.
brian Apr 9th 2007 3:03PM
ok, like i said priest should be best at healing.
Pallys and Shamans, you ask why you aren't great at anything. Why should you be great at something, say for example healing, then why should you be good at everything else? you can buff, de-buff, heal and tank.
Why is it fair that your class should be great at anyone of those (even thought pallys are arguably the best buffers) and still be able to the other stuff great too.
You've gotten comfortable doing all those things and now your'e getting greedy.
twh Apr 9th 2007 3:03PM
"If their DPS is bad and they're inferior tanks, pallies argue, what are they supposed to be good at besides healing?"
*BZZT* Wrong. Pallies are more than capable tanks. Search the forums for posts where paladins that have not only Tanked Gruul, but DPS'ed successfully in Karazhan.
There is a link that assists the paladin in getting the gear and talents he needs to MT raids. And the one that DPS'ed did not do so in the usual fashion. I.e., they were actually thinking OUTSIDE the box, created by those min/maxing creeps in Nihilum and Death and Taxes.
Here's a Pre-raid tanking guide for pallies: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=89402279&sid=1
Here's a link of a Ret paladin that DPS'ed in Kara:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=89351604&sid=1
And as a side note: look at the OPs responses to the usual responses of haters.