Is the state of priests right now in beta really THAT bad?

[Jaarh]

I'm just going through some of the threads here and reading up on what people are saying about our rotations, mana management, abilities, buffs, debuffs, cats and their brand name foods, etc. and it's slowly turning me into a skeptic about my class.

I've loved playing a priest since the moment I first tried it playing on a friends account. Leveled up my own after that, too. But if they're going to be shit in MoP and not a class I'll enjoy because I can't be competitive, then I won't play it, simple as that.

Now isn't the time to bring in the whole "beta is beta lolol herp derp" argument because I know how that goes.

I'm just wondering if these issues are really a deal-breaker to us.

Semi-long, didn't read version:

Have priests been changed so much that it's forcing you away from the class?

[Reg]

I'm just going through some of the threads here and reading up on what people are saying about our rotations, mana management, abilities, buffs, debuffs, cats and their brand name foods, etc. and it's slowly turning me into a skeptic about my class.

I've loved playing a priest since the moment I first tried it playing on a friends account. Leveled up my own after that, too. But if they're going to be shit in MoP and not a class I'll enjoy because I can't be competitive, then I won't play it, simple as that.

Now isn't the time to bring in the whole "beta is beta lolol herp derp" argument because I know how that goes.

I'm just wondering if these issues are really a deal-breaker to us.

I don't understand how people completely dismiss the fact that it is still beta. Numbers are not tuned perfectly.

[Jaarh]

I don't understand how people completely dismiss the fact that it is still beta. Numbers are not tuned perfectly.

I'm not dismissing it; that's why I said "don't bring in the beta is beta argument," because I know numbers aren't tuned. What my question really is: has the playstyle changed SO dramatically that people just can't stand their class anymore? Seems like bitching about shadowspec is the hip, new thing to do nowadays.

I realize that my question probably wasn't asked well enough, provoking your response. Sorry 'bout that.

[Vesur]

I too play a Priest but haven't bothered looking up much stuff if I'm honest. I'm just going to try it all out myself. BUT say they are terrible and can't do anything they will be fixed within the first week. Cata launch no healers could keep enough mana to do a fight except a paladin. And hunters were doing double everyones dps. It will be fixed once they get a bigger perspective of it at launch.

[Garricakes]

You'll want to me more specific.
DPS numbers are relatively balanced now.
Holy, I believe is still below Disc. Not sure on the numbers on the healing specs although I did hear a while ago that priests were quite low. Could have changed, should have changed, by now. I'm following shadow more closely.

I hate to disappoint but personally the class seemed to get three quaters of an mini-overhaul and left it unfinished.

Edit:

In response to your new flavour question.
Having rolled shado for dots and the fun they bring, I am considering switching out to a warlock. I probably wont because I do love my priest but it's a possibility for me.

[Celentes]

The class will be competitive (well, for pve at least). Blizzard has never really failed to deliver this.

Shadow's being dissected and crucified, the new shadow is well... something they could have done in wrath probably, in terms of how deep the design is. There's a lot of love and hate about it because there's a lot of hate and love about shadow on live, respectively. It'll be good if you didn't play shadow much.

Disc/holy idk, people seem to dislike solace and numbers are out of hand, other than that I don't see disc being in a bad spot design wise, not sure about holy, but it doesn't seem to have changed much.

[Brilynn]

Holy is doing slightly better than disc at the moment but in all raid testing, WoL shows that priests of any kind are at the bottom of the meters. Taking away divine hymn from disc is absolutely stupid. Barrier is not a sufficient raid cooldown in my opinion only because it's tight proximity limits. A shield of any kind can never take the place of a raidwide healing CD. I like where they're headed with spirit shell, however. I haven't found mana to be a real huge issue with the new Solace spell but I have only really done dungeons. I can imagine that in raids, solace would be a big use of our time. Basically we have a 2 second cast to regen 2% of our mana. Doesn't seem too terrible until we consider that in order to maintain our mana regen this way, we have to take time out from actively healing to get mana back. I think charts were saying something about a priest having to spam solace (a 2 second, non-heal) upwards of 250 times during a boss fight. That's what, eight minutes of pure mana regen and not healing? I'm pretty sure our numbers aren't balanced. Our abilities are pretty lame as far as I'm concerned and our glyph choices make me want to throw my computer out the window. As of right now, I'm not real excited to be playing priest in MoP. But I'm hoping that Blizzard will realize what they're doing to us and fix it.

[Jaarh]

Holy is doing slightly better than disc at the moment but in all raid testing, WoL shows that priests of any kind are at the bottom of the meters. Taking away divine hymn from disc is absolutely stupid. Barrier is not a sufficient raid cooldown in my opinion only because it's tight proximity limits. A shield of any kind can never take the place of a raidwide healing CD. I like where they're headed with spirit shell, however. I haven't found mana to be a real huge issue with the new Solace spell but I have only really done dungeons. I can imagine that in raids, solace would be a big use of our time. Basically we have a 2 second cast to regen 2% of our mana. Doesn't seem too terrible until we consider that in order to maintain our mana regen this way, we have to take time out from actively healing to get mana back. I think charts were saying something about a priest having to spam solace (a 2 second, non-heal) upwards of 250 times during a boss fight. That's what, eight minutes of pure mana regen and not healing? I'm pretty sure our numbers aren't balanced. Our abilities are pretty lame as far as I'm concerned and our glyph choices make me want to throw my computer out the window. As of right now, I'm not real excited to be playing priest in MoP. But I'm hoping that Blizzard will realize what they're doing to us and fix it.

Solace is one of the big things I am concerned about, so i'm glad you touched on that. What about Mindbender though? That doesn't have a big enough mana return that we can just use that instead of spamming solace?

[Thelxi]

What bothers me most is the removal of holy concentration

[Benea]

Solace is one of the big things I am concerned about, so i'm glad you touched on that. What about Mindbender though? That doesn't have a big enough mana return that we can just use that instead of spamming solace?

I've tested 10m (n+h), 25 man normal, and LFR.

The problem is when you look at pure numbers, it looks like mindbender and solace are relatively balanced with each other. In practice, since at the moment I spend a large amount of time out of mana, I have to take solace so I can spam it while I'm oom instead of waiting for mindbender cd to come up. If they improve our regen rate, then these two should be interchangeable. I don't know what FDCL does to our mana yet because I've not taken it while testing raids.

I tried discpline spec with solace, it was somewhat awkward between smite/evangelism + solace + healing + grace uptime. I liked spirit shell since you can almost treat it like raid wide CD providing you time the use correctly and mana allows for it.

There are some priests saying mana is fine L2P, but renew glyph + serenity chakra is also bugged so one can pull high numbers abusing it. I think many priests are abusing said bug =P 5 man dungeons (heroic) are also really easy (undertuned?) so a shadow priest can probably heal it.

[Synbaby]

What concerns me about priests right now is the lack of dev discussions/posts about the class in general. Yes I know beta is beta blah blah blah, but I haven't seen alot of discussion on any adjustments to priests, which lead me to think that they are pretty comfortable with priest performance in beta right now. I'm still probably going to reroll holy for MoP at launch, but may change to disc if holy doesn't improve much at max level.

[Jaarh]

I've tested 10m (n+h), 25 man normal, and LFR.

The problem is when you look at pure numbers, it looks like mindbender and solace are relatively balanced with each other. In practice, since at the moment I spend a large amount of time out of mana, I have to take solace so I can spam it while I'm oom instead of waiting for mindbender cd to come up. If they improve our regen rate, then these two should be interchangeable. I don't know what FDCL does to our mana yet because I've not taken it while testing raids.

I tried discpline spec with solace, it was somewhat awkward between smite/evangelism + solace + healing + grace uptime. I liked spirit shell since you can almost treat it like raid wide CD providing you time the use correctly and mana allows for it.

There are some priests saying mana is fine L2P, but renew glyph + serenity chakra is also bugged so one can pull high numbers abusing it. I think many priests are abusing said bug =P 5 man dungeons (heroic) are also really easy (undertuned?) so a shadow priest can probably heal it.

So, if I'm understanding correctly, Solace seems like the way to go because it's a more active style of regeneration rather than needing to wait and time for a cooldown to come up?

[Benea]

The math consensus seems that to beat mindbender you cast solace 3x/minute. You'll be oom a bit longer than 30 seconds per 5 minute fight so you'll get more mana back spamming solace at this point than mindbender. Depending on the fight, there are lulls in the damage, so you spam solace then as well.

I feel like I've spammed solace more than I've healed honestly =P Things will change though, I can't imagine going live like this. Or if we do, it'll be fixed shortly after live.

edit: The caveat here is maybe I suck (!) and I still have to figure out how they want us to heal.

[voidillusion]

Is that working like Resto shamans with Teluric Currents that spam Lighting bolt during windows of time to regen? If so it shouldnt be that bad right?

[Sakamae]

Is that working like Resto shamans with Teluric Currents that spam Lighting bolt during windows of time to regen? If so it shouldnt be that bad right?

As long as our regen isn't being balanced around it, then we're fine. Resto shamans got screwed when they were required to have and use TC to keep up with everyone else. Any of you that played resto in T11 may remember how rough it was. If I have to waste GCDs casting solace to stay on par with other healers regen, then that's an issue.

[Mazi]

Mana problems or not, I'm loving Holy atm and I've played Holy/healing since Vanilla I enjoy a challenge and right now it's definitely a challenge to keep up!

[Benea]

Don't you miss holy nova as our top tier holy talent ?

I'm staying holy priest too, and I might just buck the trend and take FDCL instead of solace just so I don't *have* to spam that thing. Just testing FDCL right now and this procs a heck of a lot and so far it's 2 charges most of the time. Sadly I haven't seen any comparison theory wise (all I've read are mindbender vs solace) and I am the world's worst math person.

It's either that or play my paladin >_> <_< (doubtful).

[Felade]

Have priests been changed so much that it's forcing you away from the class?

Honestly, if you like it on live now, you'll like it in MoP. It doesn't look like much has really changed from live. Which is to say, if you like working really, really hard just to be consistently 3rd on the meters, then Priest is the right class for you. About all that's changed is you have to use a lot of your GCDs on spamming Solace now instead of casting heals.

I don't understand how people completely dismiss the fact that it is still beta. Numbers are not tuned perfectly.

The numbers look a lot like they do on live right now, we're getting close to release, and Blizzard has made several comments saying they think the numbers are fine, which leads me to believe they like things like they are now, at least with Priests. Time will tell if they continue to nerf Pallies and Monks down to the level of Shaman and Priests.

Barrier is not a sufficient raid cooldown in my opinion only because it's tight proximity limits. A shield of any kind can never take the place of a raidwide healing CD.

Its true that the proximity needed for Barrier is an issue, but for HMs, Barrier is the better CD. In the cata model (big health pools that take a lot of healing to fill up) preventing damage in the first place is always better than healing it back up later. In HMs, your group will be coordinated enough to reliably stand under PW:Barrier. We sat our Druid several times in HM simply because we wanted AM more than we wanted Tranquilty because it was better at preventing random deaths on things like Blackhorn's big purple swirlies.

[jonish]

The class will be competitive (well, for pve at least). Blizzard has never really failed to deliver this.

You must have missed a little thing called Burning Crusade

[Mazi]

You must have missed a little thing called Burning Crusade

Hahaha, only the start of it.. once CoH got buffed we were OP as shit.