Community class review from the EU: Priests
by Dan O'Halloran 
Oct 7th 2007 at 9:00AM
Yesterday, we spotlighted a class review of Rogues done by the European players on their official forums. Turns out MVP Schwick asked the EU players to review Priests the week before. They also took into account the upcoming Patch 2.3 Priest adjustments.Issues brought up covered Priest performance in the areas of PvE, PvP, Raiding, Utility, DPS, Healing, Itemization, and Racials.
Despite some argument over Priest's biggest problem, everyone agreed on the following:
- Holy Priests are not in enough demand for raids
- Spirit needs its mana regen increased
- Mana issues plague the class
- PvP survivability is a big issue
- Holy talents needs buffs
- Priests are too fragile
Next week, the community class review will focus on Hunters.
Filed under: Priest, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Schwick Oct 7th 2007 9:14AM
Hunter is also done last Friday (first draft though, so I'm still adding changes soon).
Druids are currently being discussed and a summary will be made on Friday/Saterday.
After Druids I think I'll review Warriors. And I'm still planning on revisiting the Rogues, the notes still need tweaking.
Also do note: This review is meant to give Blizzard a couple of solutions. Which solution Blizzard picks or covers the problem with something else is up to them.
And yes, these notes get mailed to them (the EU side that is, if it reaches the Developers is up to them).
Anon Oct 7th 2007 9:26AM
Fantastic. Keep up the good work Schwick!
Zghuk Oct 7th 2007 9:40AM
a good overview, but I dont think blizzard will make great changes in the holy tree. the priest community urges blizzard for changing the holytree for 2 years now and nothing happend.
I predict that blizzard will change 2-3 talents in the disc and holy tree and that's it!
Schwick Oct 7th 2007 9:47AM
Well one thing people are forgetting is: The Expansion (WLK) is in development and it will introduce new talents and spells/abilities.
It's possible many concerns will be dealt with in the upcoming expansion
I know TBC did a few things some classes were hoping for (Druid/Paladin tanking springs to mind).
hpavc Oct 7th 2007 9:53AM
I believe that Priests suffer horribly from a history of attempting to make them viable shadow or pvp viable in general. Its not a bad thing that they have been given attentions to become viable, but its made them a frankenstein monster from it (and the whole racial business is awesome, but never worked out for the same reasons, the constant struggle for balance)
Many of the small limits that hold pve priests back are in place to make them not overly insane in pvp.
An example would be any mana efficiency or spirit buff that might be given to priests, if some how pvp/shadow were to obtain this in addition to their own it would make them too overpowered. If somehow holy became more resilient, same thing. Suddenly shadow would be plate wearing.
Other classes such as droods/paladins and shaman have a better pve/pvp transition than priests do. because of their hybrid nature obviously. But the 'zomg healz' from the other classes that priests often envy is because the most maxxed out holy priest might be a walking exploit if the three trees worked well in synergy both pve/pvp.
Devs have been burned by the Priest class mechanics in the past horribly. The reason for the 5second rule would be the mother of all overpowered oversights. The idea that a ~500 spirit priest back in the day literally could not run out of mana their regen was so strong.
Poddo Oct 7th 2007 11:29AM
I'll admit that I haven't read any of the comments here or on the forum, but if they are expecting all or even most of those changes, they're asking for too much. More mana, more healing power, AND more survivability? Here, let me make a warrior class review:
Warriors have no healing spells
Warriors have no ranged abilities
Warriors can't use a shield AND a 2 hander.
Theres a thing called class balance. I agree that priests aren't nearly as viable as they should be for healing, but thats what they should address. If you want to be the most effective healer, then there needs to be a trade-off: squishyness.
/end rant
I'm sorry if anyone said that they weren't expecting all of these chagnes. I just read the article.
opiv421 Oct 7th 2007 11:47AM
They will continue to shove useless AOE heals down our throat and ignore all the requests from the community. Over 70% of priests don't take their 41 pt talents in the holy and disc trees, you would think blizz would get the idea by now.
Memzer Oct 7th 2007 1:03PM
@6 Survivability is definitely a key concern for a priest though. Go to the armory and compare a PvE Holy Priest with a PvE Holy Paladin / Resto Druid / Resto Shaman for guilds who will be entering or completing 25 man content. The other healing classes will all be walking in with more life (one day blizzard will put some stamina on cloth healing gear), armour (leather/mail/plate), and in the case of a paladin - an invulnerability bubble.
Now if priests came to a raid or instance with stronger healing or utility than other classes then perhaps they could accept their survivability deficiencies but this is just not the case. On the utility side a single priest can be brought to a raid for all of their buffs, additional priests will not provide additional benefits. On the other hand you can bring up to four paladins for their buffs and auras, multiple shamans for their totems, and even stacking druids is more beneficial for combat resurrection and their tree-form buff. On the healing side of things the priest has become jack of all trades, master of none. All of the hybrid healers provide comparable healing capabilities to a priest, while excelling in a particular area; Paladins are better and more efficient at single target healing, Druids provide better HoTs and Shamans provide better area of effect heals.
I've played a Holy Priest and Holy Paladin through most heroic content and for most of Karazhan and through Gruul's Lair - my priest was mostly benched because he was just too damned squishy and as a result he's now shadow; my paladin on the other hand is always in demand. (Disclaimer: I haven't played a Resto Shaman or Druid at 70 yet, but I do realise they have some survivability issues as well!).
So when your raid leader is making the roster for an upcoming raid and they have a choice between a priest who brings average healing, minimal utility, and low comparative survivability, and a hybrid who can generally heal as well as a priest, and out-shine priests in particular areas (think about encounter min/maxing, nobody cares about trash), all with better survivability... expect to join the reinforcement queue with most of the other holy priests out there.
This kind of turned into a vent and I apologise for that, it's just that I'm so disappointed in what blizzard did to my 'raiding' priest. At least I can take some solace in the fact that everybody needs shadow priests these days :/
jlkennedy Oct 7th 2007 1:49PM
Why do people keep acting like priests are not a "hybrid" class? Their DPS spec is more raid and pvp viable than that of shamans or pallies.
The idea that they're somehow NOT a hybrid, and should therefore heal better than pallies, druids, and shaman is incorrect.
That said, holy priests need buffs. Just don't pretend the other healers are "hybrids" and you're not.
Poddo Oct 7th 2007 2:49PM
@8 (memzer)
I totally understand what you mean, and thats what I meant by my post, even if i didn't get it across. The class if definitely in need of fixing, and 2 things will help it. Survivability or better healing utility. If they get better survivability, they're basicly becoming druids/shamans. OK healing and OK survivability. To define the class better, they should get much better utility in healing, and still be a little squishier as a trade off. I'm all for having a better healing priest. But if you give them both, they become fairly unbalanced in the opposite direction.
vern Oct 7th 2007 4:01PM
I'm a holy priest, and I don't think I will ever be benched. Here is my WWS results (anonymous for guildies privacy).
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/2097/top1en3.jpg
That report includes Solarian kill and attempts, Void Reaver kill, a dozen of attempts onto Kael,
Hydross and Lurker Kills (this is a 5 hours raid, HPS was 967 for a 114mn HPS time, 8 deaths).I am the priest at the top (skills breakdown included).
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8851/top2gz1.jpg
I don't think meters are that important, but they still tells a story you can't ignore and they help you benchmarking your progress.
I don't see the priest class that badly broken, but it's not an accessible class and requires a lot of work and research to be best used. I don't have an alt, I do a lot of tests in AV, I farm a lot (I'm an alchemist) even if I am working on reducing my consumables dependency (I used to need 30 mana pots per raids, you can see i am down to 10).I value stats (especially MP5) before the +healing. I believe the +healing gets you killed too often.I use OUTFITTER a lot. My MP5 gear is 305 mp5 fully buffed (~370mp5 with the virtual MP5 = T5 bonus, metagem, Eye of Gruul., Spellsurge) for 1600 healing. I am a big fan of fade. In doubt FADE :P.
Too often people see a priest as a Main Tank healer only, I disagree. I am a raid healer and I am here to compensate gaps when others can't manage a damage spike. My raid leader is smart enough to correctly make groups so my COH is at its maximum efficiency.
Understand this folks: the priest class is not broken.
Its just very hard to play it right.
I would welcome any tree changes for better regen, but i ll be OK without them.
Hidden_Agenda Oct 7th 2007 11:00PM
Pretty soon, all classes are going to get plate, be able to DPS, and have the ability to heal. All classes will have the same abilities and no longer will retain any class defining attributes. Though, class names will be kept intact for appearance sake.
I understand the issues concerning survivability, but in the end it really won't matter. Why? Because Blizzard will keep trying to balance PvE and PvP. Neither of which can be successfully balanced w/o impacting the other.
Lurr Oct 8th 2007 9:03AM
* Holy Priests are not in enough demand for raids
More precise: Not enough demand beyond the first.
* Spirit needs its mana regen increased
True
* Mana issues plague the class
Not in pve. priests and druids have the best regen available in the game.
* PvP survivability is a big issue
True
* Holy talents needs buffs
I am able to select things that benefit my pve performance up until 40. So it does not need a general buffs
* Priests are too fragile
I guess this is pointed towards pve, since pvp has been commented.
Who is this compared to ? tree-druids and shamans is not fragile in pve ?
Paladins is kings of survivability, but that alone does not make priests fragile.
We have spell warding and shield, which is more than many others.