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  1. #1

    Holy Priests and Shadowfiend

    I just saw a thread on battle.net and it got me thinking.

    how do you feel about having to use a shadow fiend as a holy priest?

    do you feel it's lorebreaking? do you feel it's weird? do you care at all?

    the example the OP gave, while tentatively humoristic, represents the action of the holye priest well.

    "oh, holy light, allow me to summon a creature of shadow and unspeakable evil to destroy my enemies, so as I can kindly heal my friends accordingly to the virtues of the light, because I am OOM..."
    personally, I'm with the OP of that thread in this one. to have a holy priest using a shadowfiend to get mana is like having a druid burning forests, a rogue wearing a luminous suit or a warlock praying for the well being of others. completely out of character and disruptive of the story told. that is, outside special cases, like archbishop benedictus (who ironically does not use shadowfiends).
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  2. #2
    Brewmaster ramennoodleking's Avatar
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    Most of us holy priests have delved deeper into the twisted darkness by upgrading to a Mindbender. But guilty? I'm so devious that if you kill me I'll come back to haunt you in spirit form.

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  3. #3
    Correct me if im wrong, but a priest in wow lore harnesses both the aspects of light and dark to weaken foes in the ally of *good*

    Shadow can also heal, holy/disc can use shadow stuff.


    Seems ok to me.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by HolyLathusDisc View Post
    Correct me if im wrong, but a priest in wow lore harnesses both the aspects of light and dark to weaken foes in the ally of *good*

    Shadow can also heal, holy/disc can use shadow stuff.


    Seems ok to me.
    nope, lorewise if you are a priest of the church of the holy light, you don't touch shadow. you just don't touch shadow. you can study it to understand it and try to annihilate it or something, but you won't be summoning shadowfiends around.

    likewise, if you are a member of the cult of the forgotten shadow, you'll not be casting holy spells, especially since the light will probably not heed to your prayers anyway.

    there are some different cases. twilight priests can use both holy and shadow energies because they are servants of the old gods, "necrophotic" (dead light) parasites. troll priests are also weird because they don't worship neither the light nor the darkness, but their crazy and numerous gods. night elf priests are in the same boat with their priesthood of elune.

    but as a general rule, holy priests should not be able to summon shadowfiends, as far as lore goes.
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  5. #5
    I'm speaking of wow lore.


    Not IRL lore :P

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by HolyLathusDisc View Post
    I'm speaking of wow lore.


    Not IRL lore :P
    me too. also, IRL there's no such a thing as a shadowfiend lol
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  7. #7
    Brewmaster ramennoodleking's Avatar
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    Leave the "pure" holy to those pansy paladins, imo.

    It's hard to say no to Yoo-Hoo chocolate drinks...the name literally beckons.
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  8. #8
    Personally I have always viewed a *priest* holy disc shadow whatever. Someone who can harness both light and darkness for the sake of good.

    I believe the.. ORIGINAL Lore of a priest was something of that nature.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by HolyLathusDisc View Post
    Personally I have always viewed a *priest* holy disc shadow whatever. Someone who can harness both light and darkness for the sake of good.

    I believe the.. ORIGINAL Lore of a priest was something of that nature.
    nope. the original lore for priests was holy only. the shadow spec was created for WoW to justify undead priests and priest dps. (later they opened up the lore for undead priests, saying that they could be holy too under exceedingly rare circumstances).

    from WoWpedia, with references:

    The Church of the Light however, seems to preach against the Shadow, which the orcs were once strongly percieved to be creatures of.* Priests and paladins of this religion are known to condemn their foes with such epitaphs as 'shadowspawn' and 'spawn of darkness'.**

    * - Of Blood and Honor
    ** - Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, quotes from the Priest and Uther the Lightbringer.
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  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by HolyLathusDisc View Post
    Someone who can harness both light and darkness for the sake of good.
    /agree

    I tend go with the idea that in order to provide the extra healing to their allies a Holy Priest will call upon the shadows in a non-mental way in the form of summoning a Shadowfiend to leech mana from the enemy but the damage is just an 'unfortunate' byproduct of that mana return. It's not that they're calling upon the mental forms of damaging the enemy as a Shadow Priest does. I have a feeling that if the mana return of the Shadowfiend could be achieved purely by means of calling upon the Light to intercede on the Priest's behalf in the form focused prayer to weaken the enemy and having that energy channeled into them. Basically a more Holy form.

    I think Solace is the more fitting form of mana return for a Holy Priest, yes. I just think that Shadowfiend is an imperfect, "road to hell paved with good intentions", compromise they make determining that as long as they don't completely delve into the Shadows the good they do calling upon a Shadowfiend far outweighs the bad. They believe that when judged even taking into consideration their use of Shadows the good that comes from it along with the overall good they have done and will be found to have lived a good, Holy life.

  11. #11
    I never thought about it this way, interesting ovservation though. I bet its tough for Blizzard to balance gameplay with lore, I also have to wonder how Disc priests fare in this discussion, since they too use mindbender/fiend and they too are practicing holy spells, albeit different ones.

    Also, Chakra isn't that holy. It sounds like it fits a monk more than a priest.
    Last edited by Blachshma; 2013-03-03 at 12:45 PM.

  12. #12
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    I always wondered how come forsaken priests dont kill themselves when healing.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Blachshma View Post
    I never thought about it this way, interesting ovservation though. I bet its tough for Blizzard to balance gameplay with lore, I also have to wonder how Disc priests fare in this discussion, since they too use mindbender/fiend and they too are practicing holy spells, albeit different ones.

    Also, Chakra isn't that holy. It sounds like it fits a monk more than a priest.
    it WAS tough for blizz to balance lore and gameplay until MoP, when they split spells in "class spells" and "spec spells". it wouldn't have been hard for them to make a holy version of the shadowfiend for holy priests. they didn't do it due to laziness, sense of preservation (it has always been like this, so why change?) or lack of thought about the matter.

    ---------- Post added 2013-03-03 at 01:39 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Saphiramoon View Post
    I always wondered how come forsaken priests dont kill themselves when healing.
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    For the undead (and Forsaken), this requires such a great deal of willpower that it is exceedingly rare, especially since it is self-destructive. When undead channel the Light, it feels (to them) as if their entire bodies are being consumed in righteous fire. Forsaken healed by the Light (whether the healer is Forsaken or not) are effectively cauterized by the effect: sure, the wound is healed, but the healing effect is cripplingly painful. Thus, Forsaken priests are beings of unwavering willpower; Forsaken (and death knight) tanks suffer nobly when they have priest and paladin healers in the group; and Sir Zeliek REALLY hates himself.
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Blachshma View Post
    I never thought about it this way, interesting ovservation though. I bet its tough for Blizzard to balance gameplay with lore, I also have to wonder how Disc priests fare in this discussion, since they too use mindbender/fiend and they too are practicing holy spells, albeit different ones.
    I've always seen disc priests as between the light and shadow, but not in the meaning of a shade of grey, as more as a guardian between the two realms. Their signature spell is penance, a spell that can both punish and absolve. They have always been the more aggressive specc, which is one of the reasons I feel them more fitting for myself. They are "battle priests" in my eyes. They are still different from paladins, that only live in the light, through a certain duality: they use whatever means suitable to fight for the light, even if the said means sometimes are the weapons of the dark.

    Also, Chakra isn't that holy. It sounds like it fits a monk more than a priest.
    It has more of a hindu sound, and no matter how much we try, our subconscious idea about priests is tied to Christianity. To a hindu person, it might sound just fine. Otherwise, if you think about the various races in wow priests, they are as different as the various religions priests are irl.

    I always had a mild dislike on the idea of choosing a race because of looks, rather than lore. I understand each has his own view on things, but I wonder how would it have been seen if certain races that are completely against a certain source of magic would not have been allowed to use those. Like forsaken priests not being able to channel holy spells, or night elves refusing to channel arcane. I know its done for game balance, but I cant stop finding something wrong about an undead casting holy spells and healing himself with them, but same time supposed to take double damage from exorcism (again, not applying to players). Will power or not, surely they should have found their own shadowy healing stuff.

  15. #15
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    I don't think it is lorebreaking, because we in real life aren't always friendly or always angry. Humans good mixed feelings and sometimes is one bigger then the other and the biggest one wins. So it's just not lore breaking

  16. #16
    I have always thought of a holy priest to be more catholic then christian by any means.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by HolyLathusDisc View Post
    I have always thought of a holy priest to be more catholic then christian by any means.
    haha. All Catholics are Christians but not all Christians are Catholic...
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  18. #18
    Brewmaster ramennoodleking's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Angeleyes View Post
    haha. All Catholics are Christians but not all Christians are Catholic...
    You could get into a debate about whether they really represent what Christiantity is supposed to be, but hey this isn't a religious forum.

    There's plenty of broken lore for the sake of it being a game, and I'd rather them not waste their time giving us a holy butterfly or something that functions exactly the same as shadow fiend. So no, I'm not guilty, and in fact embrace my naughty little deeds in raid, such as illegal use of life grip. I'm sure the Light doesn't appreciate it.

    It's hard to say no to Yoo-Hoo chocolate drinks...the name literally beckons.
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  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by ramennoodleking View Post
    You could get into a debate about whether they really represent what Christiantity is supposed to be, but hey this isn't a religious forum.

    There's plenty of broken lore for the sake of it being a game, and I'd rather them not waste their time giving us a holy butterfly or something that functions exactly the same as shadow fiend. So no, I'm not guilty, and in fact embrace my naughty little deeds in raid, such as illegal use of life grip. I'm sure the Light doesn't appreciate it.
    seriously? it wouldn't take any significative amount of dev time to get a spirit healer, paint her golden by applying simple photoshop filters on the existing textures, scale her down and make her a "cherub of light". as for programing, copy paste shadowfiend, change name, damage done from shadow to holy and change model from fleshbeast to spirit healer. done. even I could do that. it would be a welcome show of respect towards players who value established lore and abhor lolore, with minimal effort and 0 impact on gameplay (since resistances were removed).
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  20. #20
    Brewmaster ramennoodleking's Avatar
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    And while you are doing that, fix every other issue with lore/classes/specs, and disallow any race that "lore wise" shouldn't be a shadow priest from becoming one. I find it offensive that all priest races can be shadow priests!

    "Fixing" that by giving us some "cherub" (which is an utterly useless waste of time) merely glosses over the fact that we still have SW: P/D, psychic scream, mind control, void tendrils, etc etc.

    It's hard to say no to Yoo-Hoo chocolate drinks...the name literally beckons.
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