1. #1
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    A future after Vampiric Dominance?

    Soo now that Vamp dominance is gone and Vampiric Embrace is a cooldown spell [loves it], will you miss/do you feel nerfed without the trickle healing we once had?

    I have to admit, the design of Vampiric Dominance made me squee a little bit, just for nostalgia sake [people would actually notice shadow heals again], but I do love the cooldown we got in return. Anything is better than the version we got in cata, which did nothing more than deny us an actual piece of raid utility.

    Which do you prefer? Would you like to see something else removed in order to get both? Do you think things will change before live?

  2. #2
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    We are losing Divine Hymn in MoP. The healing off Vampiric Embrace (cooldown) is less than DH, but more common than DH and doesn't interrupt our dps. This is a good model.

    The loss of VE (passive healing) has no equivalent, Vampiric Dominance would have been an excellent new design here - but we don't have it now. Overall it's a big nerf to shadow healing and raid utility,

    The power of our heals like Flash Heal are up though, so maybe we can drop form and bomb Flash Heals when needed now - but that feels like a worse design than Cata where we heal for very little but throughout the fight and based on our dps.

    I would really like to see Vampiric Dominance make a come back in some form, for example:

    Passive - heals one party or raid member for 15% of the shadow damage you deal, prefers the lowest health party of raid member.

    That's a three times nerf to the past model, and a 1/6th nerf to the current Live model of self-healing, but it's 100% effective healing (on live we do 18% damage as healing but its overwhelmingly ineffective on most fights).

    We bring fewer raid buffs and debuffs than our competitors (ranged dps) so a big part of our value as caster dps comes from bringing those healing tools (Vampiric Embrace, Divine Hymn) - without them we are inefficient options if DPS is balanced.
    Last edited by Yvaelle; 2012-04-09 at 04:41 PM.
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  3. #3
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    Somewhat agree, I thought the 'three lowerst hp raid members' design was a really good balance, still big enough to actually effect the targets, but not numerous enough to be too much for nothing.

    I'd hate to have to drop form and start flash healing [like really hate it]. I wouldn't mind maybe one of the 10 second duration/30 second cooldown models they have made some spells into. I can see that the 100% uptime causes some overhealing problems, but maybe a 10sec duration, off GCD ability, would at least make it fun, apparent, and require some thinking about when to use it. Without being the 3min cooldown solely.

  4. #4
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    Ah that would work too - something like:

    Vampiric Embrace - 15 second duration, 1 minute cooldown
    Heals for 50% of your damage split across all raid members in melee range.

    It's an Embrace, they should have to be in hugging distance for hugs! ^^ That way its not a smart heal, but if your stacked up or alone its fully effective on you.

    Then the glyph can be the same:

    Glyph of Vampiric Embrace
    VE lasts 10 seconds but heals for 100% of damage done.
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  5. #5
    This is the idea I'm having a guildie post on the Beta Class forum, along with a bunch of other feedback and ideas.

    Vampiric Embrace: This spell's shift from a passive trickle of extra health to a large-scale raid healing cooldown is one that makes sense and many Shadowpriests like it a lot, myself included.

    I believe its current implementation is flawed and feels wonky, because for solo play it returns far, far more health than you'd ever need, but in dungeons or raids it becomes much less noticeable, especially in 25 man raids. I truly think the only way to handle it is to just smart-heal the 4-5 most injured people for a flat % of the shadowpriest's damage.

    However, despite how pleased I am with it becoming a cooldown (which replaces Divine Hymn, of course), I for one am going to miss the old VE, and I'd like to explore the possibility of keeping both.

    Currently, Shadowpriests do have both already, the passive trickle and also a big raid healing cooldown. The caveat, of course, is the Shadowpriest has to stop DPSing and channel the cooldown, dropping Shadowform in the meantime.

    Taking a look at some of the new Warlock stuff, I think something similar might make Shadowpriests very happy. Here is the proposal:

    Vampiric Embrace: You heal yourself and four nearby injured party or raid members for 3% of all single-target shadow damage you deal. Activate to triple the healing generated for 15 seconds, on a 3 minute cooldown. The passive effect is disabled while the activated effect is active.

    This way, we keep our little trickle with the added bonus that very little of it will be overhealing, and also retain our big raid healing cooldown with the added bonus that we get to keep DPSing while it's running. Vampiric Touch will add some additional self-healing as well. It's a small net positive for us so we don't have to feel nerfed, and since at best we'll count as about 25% of an extra healer, it shouldn't be so good that guilds rush to stack Shadowpriests. That's what you guys are afraid of, right?

  6. #6
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    Sounds good, and like something they might actually go for. I still prefer the 15% to three targets than the 3% to more, how long is the warlock cooldown when you activate the cast?

  7. #7
    Well, Vampiric Dominance was a talent, and this VE will be a Shadowpriest baseline. VD is mathematically superior, and I have to imagine that's why they got rid of it. They're terrified of guilds stacking Shadowpriests. If the game ever comes to a point where a viable raid comp is two tanks and 23 Shadowpriests, well, that's just not something they want to let happen.

    I don't think VD is coming back, but I'd love to see this VE work out.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Zombina View Post
    Soo now that Vamp dominance is gone and Vampiric Embrace is a cooldown spell [loves it], will you miss/do you feel nerfed without the trickle healing we once had?

    I have to admit, the design of Vampiric Dominance made me squee a little bit, just for nostalgia sake [people would actually notice shadow heals again], but I do love the cooldown we got in return.
    I miss Wrath VE

    it got so overnerfd just cos they wanted healers to care about mana!

  9. #9
    High Overlord Nbcall's Avatar
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    Not gona lie, came to this thread thinking it would be disusing something entirely different.

    That being said i would prefer them sticking with how VE works on live because I fear change.
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  10. #10
    I wish the new Vampiric Embrace was on a shorter cooldown, but whatever.


    Keep in mind that despite flash heal popping us out of shadow form, using it while we are spectral guised or faded makes it a pretty powerful spell.

    When's the last time that you actually were able to get off some good flash heals without being interrupted?

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  11. #11
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    Time will tell, indeed. Still hoping for a solution outside of dropping form though. Just feels very clunky.

  12. #12
    I loved VE as a powerfull passive selfhealing tool back then, but VD is looking promising as well. Must play with it around first to judge things for sure.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ethas View Post
    I loved VE as a powerfull passive selfhealing tool back then, but VD is looking promising as well. Must play with it around first to judge things for sure.
    VD has already been removed! :<

  14. #14
    Vamp embrace on Live is kind of like a stacking Replenishment. Not like it makes the HPS spikes that much easier to carry, but it does save all your healers some tangible amount of mp5. Not only that but in a 25 it can stack. Imagine if Replen stacked, that'd be a bit op right?? So I can understand why they'd nerf it out of existence. There's nothing else like it in the game, and they're tuning regen to be a central issue for everyone. There'd be nothing to keep us all from stacking 5 spriests in our 25s for easier kills.

    Now, from a healer's perspective, I was pretty excited about vamp dominance, regardless of the fact that a spriest's dominance was going to be bigger. It added a smart component to all my heals, and that would fix a huge gaping problem with priest healer utility: we don't have any good tools for raid evening during aoe. Nothing even close to, say, efflo or chain heal. Hell, even holy paladins have HShock. What do we have?
    - Coh? Lowest half of your raid gets +10k hp. Not so much a raid evening tool, but it does add pressure in that direction.
    - Glyphed PoM: Aim it at the lowest health player, very effective. But most people use it on tanks. And the PoM glyph is changing.
    - Renew? Poor aoe throughput/effic (about 2/3 of PoH fully talented, and rear loaded). MoP's changes don't really fix this, although renew is definitely stronger than before - fewer ticks = less overheal.

    Really we have FH (holy) and PW:S (disc) for raid evening. Situationally, holy fire/renew. Laughable compared to the utility of efflo and chain heal, which are both also insanely mana efficient. Similar in utility to holy shock, but because of the other mechanics tied to HS it also has extremely good effic. Both of ours are mana hogs.

    I want some kind of smart component (even if it's minor) on PoH, or even a good solid mana efficient spot heal that's worth casting over PoH sometimes. Vamp dominance was going to be really, incredibly good for us healers. I do understand, though, why they got rid of it.
    Last edited by zakaluka; 2012-04-11 at 02:18 PM.

  15. #15
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zakaluka View Post
    There'd be nothing to keep us all from stacking 5 spriests in our 25s for easier kills.
    Except that even when it returned 25% of your DPS as HPS to all 5 party members (125% of DPS as HPS) it was still very rare to see very very rare (as in, I never saw it in the entire expansion that I recall) to see more than 3 spriests in a 25m raid. In WotLK it returned 15% to us and 6% to party members, and nobody stacked spriests for VE, and in Cata it returns 6% and 3%, and still no one did it seriously (that is, I'm sure Someone had more spriests than that - but they didn't do it to make progression easier, they did it for lulz or because thats what they had available).

    I don't buy the argument that VE is overpowered if stacked just because it saves healers some mp5, it's unique - but literally every class has at least one unique attribute / ability (tricks of the trade, necrotic strike, etc). Ours was that a portion of our dps returned as hps, that was a cool one - I think Vampiric Embrace is actually one of the definitive abilities of a spriest - more so than mind flay (our "core ability" we get for speccing shadow) or even shadowform (aesthetically unique, but functionally passive to many specs). Without some form of passive healing, I think we lose a lot of the vampiric / lich characteristics and move a lot closer to the "black mage" role they have been pushing us toward for some expansions now.

    Not sure I like that, WTB Vampire / Lich / Priest attributes. Though I do like the Celestial stuff they are giving us lately (orbitting Shadow Orbs, Dark Star, Dispersion, etc).
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