Class Q&A Series: Priest

[Exidius]

/Facepalm

i wonna thank all my fellow priests for the support on the forums, and for fighting to make our voices heard..

Finally Blizzard confirmed they dont give a shit about S-priests.

im rerolling a retadin/dk or something that Blizz keeps OP - maybe start facerolling arena...

Shadow priest are as good as dead in this game...

Im out..

Laters.

[conceit2]

~~~

Q: Would you consider increasing or removing altogether the charges of Inner Fire?

Ghostcrawler: At that point it just becomes a passive buff and we might as well just say that priests have the armor of a leather-wearer while wearing cloth. It works a little better for mages and warlocks who are at least making a decision about which armor spell to cast. If we go ahead and add alternatives to Inner Fire ("Outer Fire"! "Inner Shadow!") then we might take off the charges. Certainly the spell requires a lot less micromanagement now than it used to.

[magicism]

That bit about dispels is bullshit. Pallies and Shaman already have 1 button to cleanse 3 diferent ailments and we have to use fucking 2 buttons for 2. And Pallies can cleanse magic with theirs. Also compared to Druids at the moment and their tab hot skillz our PoH nerf is completely unjust. Especially with their 8 4 part, druids are hardly confined to one aspect of healing and all that bollocks about them losing other spells while in Tree Form so that justifies their increased healing is balls, I don't have any of spells to cast other than my heals so what difference does that make!? Oh well there is still Mind Sothe and Mind Vision, they are a bit OP how about a nerf? No worries I will just die so I actually get some use out of my 31 point talent instead of it just giving me a stat that becomes constantly worse and worse each patch.

[crsh1976]

Nothing new, nothing surprising.

While I don't think my spriest is underpowered for PvE, PvP is an exercise in frustration; the only caveat to that is they're not alone, PvP has never been so terribad as it is in WotLK unless you play the FotM game (which isn't new, but an irritatingly persistent way to balance the game).

Priests are just plain boring this time around; their DPS is ok, but easily replaced, their healing is ok, but also easily replaced. Still no CC for PvE other than against undead mobs. Inner Fire continues to be somewhat ok/somewhat annoying (the +spell power addition made it a lot better, I'll give them that).

The huge survivability issues persist, which is intended (I can't forget GC's comment about how killing the healer first needs to stay a sound strategy). Disc priests are still stuck in this pseudo-holy-pally spot that isn't bad, but not great either - for a tree designed around mitigation, it doesn't exactly deliver.

The redesigned Hymns are still crap and/or their cooldown is too high. Lightwell continues, year after year, to be the butt of all 31-point talent jokes, and they don't see any problem with that. Pain Suppression is annoyingly ineffective (again, another mitigation idea that's poorly implemented).

I really don't want priests to be overpowered, or go back to the BC champion state they were once in, but really this only confirms once again that Blizzard has no direction for this class.

Flame away.

[Dominada]

My mouth dropped several times while reading this, shocked at the lackadaisical attitude. So many questions unanswered.

Guess my choice to level a mage for PVP was the right one. Seems mage will always be blizzards PVP caster baby. Was pretty obvious when they gave a borderline OP spec a MS effect.

The more I think about blizzard the more I hear M.I.A's song 'Paper Planes':
"All I want to do is BANG BANG BANG BANG!
And KA-CHING!
And take your money"

[FourofaKind]

Bleh, nothing new or exciting. As always is with the Priest class.

Clearly you didnt play at Patch 1.10
or 2.0.1
or 2.4
or 3.0.8

I think its funny how the Q&A has a "Do u think u guiz mite drop dat dum chargez rul 4 preezt'z inner fire" when innerfire ORIGINALLY was a duration buff, sucked ass, and granted ATTACK power...

Shadow priests are fine in pvp, they aren't a mage ya, but if you want to be a mage in pvp, be a mage in pvp. Thats like Arms warriors bitching about DKs and The Ret.

Be thankful you arent the Shadowpriest of Vanilla wow (aka, useless). Vampiric Touch made you useful for something (minor) in pve after BC Manaburn Buff+Mass dispel made you useful in pvp. Post Wotlk you have mind sear for PVE and dispersion(and all the fun talents) for pvp.

Case and point, Priest is an Easy class to play, if all you want to do is cast a heal or a bubble every few seconds in a raid. If you want to do more, its slightly more difficult, not much more, but at least enough to require you to read at least a few arena strats/not have braindead teammates.

[Onze]

Hey hey hey !

Blizzard wrote :

This Wednesday there will be an extended maintenance to apply patch 3.2.0. Please note that all European realms will be offline from 03:00 until 11:00, Paris time (CEST).

In french it says :

Maintenance hebdomadaire, 05/08
Une maintenance étendue sera effectuée ce mercredi matin afin de déployer la mise à jour 3.2.0. Veuillez noter que tous les royaumes européens seront inaccessibles de 3h00 à 11h00, heure de Paris (CEST).

Well, as a wow-addict and an IT engineer I don't read it the same way :
nothing says here that 3.2 release will be available on wednesday !

They just tell you that they're "installing" updated software on the live servers, they don't tell you that the 3.2 release will be online...

Take a look at what you have in your C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Patches\WoW-3.1.3-to-3.2.0-frFR-Win-patch folder, I only have 2 MPQ files = 450 Mb, well if this is enough for the 3.2 client patch then I may be wrong ;D

[CaptainClaw]

TL;DR version:

We realise Priests have a number of issues at the moment but can't be bothered to do anything about it

[Mairyonette]

Underwhelming... Very underwhelming.

I mean I've been waiting for this for weeks and shadow gets the same "l2p" crap we've been handed so many times before. The dev team (as I refuse to blame GC solely for this and view him more of a figure head they send out in front of the firing squad) clearly doesn't understand that our concerns in PVE are focused on the long term and not the right now. Sure we can keep up now, not as well as we did in Naxx, but the goods can tough it out. However, considering the continuing trends with progression and gear, we'll continue to /flop our way into oblivion before the Citadel is even open.

omgthxblizz.

[Hiddendart]

Q: Would you consider removing the cast time for Mind Blast to make it a more desirable direct-damage spell given that it already has a cooldown?

Ghostcrawler: No. We’d be more likely to mess with the damage rather than the cast time. Obviously if the spell was no cooldown, no cast time then Shadow priests would not ever cast anything else -- it’s a great spell. So the trick is to keep it powerful while giving the player space to cast all those other Shadow priest spells as well. We honestly don’t want too many more instant-cast spells. That suggestion keeps coming up to handle interruptions in PvP and having to move in PvE. But we don’t want you to be able to opt out of those situations -- they are supposed to be challenges. If you’re looking for high direct damage with no cooldown, Mind Flay is supposed to be that spell.

Since this question was asked, I suspect, we have announced the healing debuff component to Mind Blast as well. That’s a nice PvP buff as well as making the spell in general more attractive.

Is it me or did Crawler thought the question was to remove BOTH cast time and CD of mind blast, cause thats not what the question was.

[fords]

I'm sure my reply to this won't be unique ;-) I'm just disappointed in Ghostcrawler's general apathy and lack of knowledge. He seems to have misunderstood a hell of a lot of questions and queries from the spriest community...

[Axxies]

hmmm im so confused i dont understand how people are saying spriests are broken ect. my friend says that as well, however he's usualy top 5 dps in 25 man :S or at least on certain fights, i really think that based on ulduar dps is really situational for alot of hybrid classes especialy spriest, for example when my friend utilises the buffs on hodir, hes second on dps, and on yog he's always always first on dps and dmg, by a wack ton. I mean yeah i do agree that id like to see spriests have more burst dmg than we do now, i mean especialy on fights that actualy need it, i hate doing minimal dmg for the first 3 seconds at least of a fight. As for holy/disc, ubber pissed at PoH scaling nerf. not impressed with penance cd nerf, blizz needs to stop fixing PvP while nerfing PvE. As for holy's numbers chart wise....their decent always top 3, cause we have two lawlertree's in our raids, really dont think its fair that druids can just prehot the raid and pull 8k hps when ill go oom if i even try

[ebrandsberg]

The lightwell comment makes me think that Bliz doesn't understand WHY lightwell sucks so bad:

1. It is in a fixed position (but this isn't a huge issue)
2. You loose your current target when you click on it
3. You have to visually find it in the field of battle, and click on it... oops not the person that just ran over it trying to get a heal too... crap, I just died...

To fix lightwell, they would need to make it so that someone wouldn't need to loose focus or find it visually on the battlefield to use it. It is a great thing to use on pure tank and spank fights where no movement is done, but Bliz has done a great job at making sure these don't exist anymore. If you could set focus to it and click on it to move to it and get heals then it may have a purpose. Otherwise, it will remain so situational that priests won't take the single point talent.

In order for a lightwell to continue to be a "self applied HoT" yet be useful, there has to be an easier way to use it. My favorite thought on this is to have it applied similar to the haste buff on Hodir and have a similar visual effect, i.e. you just run through it and you get the HoT applied to you. I love the idea of the lightwell, it is just the mechanic that is used to get the benefit needs to be improved.

[pacobird]

BEARACHUTE

[Steeb]

Once again, shadow priest remains the favorite punching bag in arenas (lol spriest in arena) and battlegrounds.

[Lucione]

i read all comments here and i see many guys saying the shadow priest its ok ...i bet they never play shadow or are to addicted to see or duno
what i can say from my experience .. shadow spec at lvl 60 was not exist or just for pvp (bg`s coz arena was not exist ) in pve was useless
at lvl 70 we was ``mana batery `` a class what  you  bring in raids to give mana to others ... but very low dps except few fights
at lvl 80 ... we give  3% hit rating and very low dps aswell
Q&A show to all shadow priests how much they  don`t care about us and how the things are working ... i remember rogues been crap dps in wotlk and look now ...i remember
elemental shammy been low dps and look now same for warlock and hunter and etc
they make those talents and spells like my grandma when make a soup .. ``need more salt . .. oh  to much i `ll put more water``
so they nerf and buff almost all classes btu  for shadow priest nothing how can help me in pve dispersion cd 2 min .. durind  the dispersion i lose dps .. how help me VT dispell i never see a boss dispeling himself .. they give us those things  for pvp ?
make me laugh shadow priest in pvp it`s 0
IF YOU DON`T PLAY shadow priest please don`t comment
on single target shadow priest can`t outdps any other class not even 1 if are on same gear level
``bring the player not the class`` blizzard fail again
shadow priest`s must make a strike and  all those guys who answer on Q&A
i will like  to take him in 1 raid to see he `s  face when you have a BIS and 2800 bonus damage and a warlock with 2 pieces t8 and 2000 BD make +1000 dps if he  think this
is  fair .. then let him play  wow  woth  he`s family
sorry  for my simple english but im to pissed ..im waiting  something  for  this class for  3 years and still nothing .. if it`s a site were SP`S can QQ please leave a message  here  /mindsear target blizz emplo

[Nitroxyde]

Well...ive been playing my priest since original wow, pvp and pve wise, always have been shadow.

In original, PvP wise we did ok, not overly outstanding, PvE was just a spot filler.

We then got "boosted" and providing the whole mana battery towards raids, wich gave us Shadow priests, a more of a...free raidspot?

Damadge wise, we did fairly ok, but it has been increased in wotlk, now...

In wotlk, with our dmg being roughly about the same, so came the nerfs to our "free raidspots".

Different classes now give the mana return, to support the " bring the player, not the class" idea, but while im all for that.

But what i fail to see is, seeying it seemed ok at this point, why would u then only bring them down again?

Most Spriests, have that talent, because MB isnt our biggest, but still a big part of our DPS, and to then...let it give reduced healing?

Granted, more usefullness in pvp, but nerfed PvE wise, unless the base dmg has been boosted, wich i highly doubt.

They seem to put in the whole idea of "Holy for raids, Shadow for PvP" in again at this point.

How else is VT suppose to be dispelled?

Feels like old wow all over again, lower dps, can be replaced by 5 classes.

[Benner]

Shadow priests was dps blocked in BC due to the mana battery role.
Now in LK we are again dps blocked due to our style of damage ie dots.
They dont want to change the way we do dmg and buffing it overall would mean a huge dps buff on multi dot fights.
Since we alrdy shine on those fights (Yogg anyone), we wont be seing any dps buffs, nor haste scaling anytime soon.
Game over man!

[Brimbord]

It seems to me that most complaints about Shadow spec. are PvP based and frankly in PvP shadow is awful if not broken all together.However PvE Shadow Priest's in our 25 man's do good dps and rediculous numbers doing AoE. My main spec is Holy and the only real complaint ive ever had is the rediculously long cd on Circle of Healing. Granted when it didnt have a cd it was just plain OP,but 6 seconds takes away from its ability to raid heal. It turned it into more of an emergeny heal. Reducing the cast time of Prayer of Healing would make me feel better about wrecking CoH,or they could just fix that nasty cd.It was mentioned that Greater Heal was the primary heal for Holy and for me that just isnt the case.Flash heals are my bread and butter.For those of you with mana issue's,spirit and crit are your friends.Good resto shammys' are the the only class that make me look bad on a meter ,but that same shammy is the one crying about an innervate everytime.Remember it's a game you're supposed to have fun.

[ezzy]

Mistake that blizzard did... they stereotyped this class like a weak girly holy healer, and that's what priest class became, a weak class read on why I think that is.

There are 4 hybrid healer/dps classes/additional role (Shaman, Druid, Paladin, Priest) According to Blizzard there is no "best healer", ok so that means out of the 4 hybrids Priest is the shittiest one, with least tree abilities, no cat or bear forms, no totems, SHIT cloth armor, only 1 proper dps tree, lack of stun/immobolize ablities, just fear (can be removed) and silence for 4 seconds in spriest (good ability but doesn't apply to all classes). Oh yes and now the imba AoE spell, and even rogue has AoE too? "Individuality"? Giving classes same spell under different names?
One tree for healing, one for surivive/healing, other is DPS. Talk about balance Blizzard?

Other cloth nabs, i.e mage/warclock have way more spells, burst dps in PvP encounters (world PvP, BG's, Arenas) and escapes, immobolizes, out of action/crowd control spells and diversity. So why not make it "Battle Priest" give it Mail armor, and nerf as much as you want Blizzard. Paladins have plate, Shamans can do mail, why can't priest? EITHER give mail and make them more survivable in Holy/Shadow tree. Or keep cloth, but then give way more spells/abilities for uber healing in Holy or higher burst DPS in Shadow. BALANCE IT.

This priest Q&A demonstrates total isolation of designers view from the gameplay that people experience. WTF is a priest today in WotLK? PvE - It's a decent 1-2 raid spot dps class, on CERTAIN encounters, and a lot of the time can be out DPS'ed with a SIMILIAR GOOD geared mage/warlock/hunter etc. In TBC at least they were mana rechargers for the party, and it made them a good support class, in the shadow tree. Some hope and exclusivity was there but not for long.

PvP wise now they are a freaking joke for Arena in both talent trees, holy or shadow. They are only effective as DISC's, everybody knows that (if you think otherwise don't even play WoW). They are punch bugs in normal BG's, and again DISC is the only survivable tree. Shadow is nice in BG's but don't expect to run around freely like a Paladin or DK and survive for very long, you will be always the easy target for melee dps class, they will go for you first (easy kill). One v One duals its still meleecraft.


WTF does Blizzard do, they probably don't analyze or gather any statistics in terms of BG's played, which classes, and who did more damage, etc. Who cares about you nabs who picked to play priest... wrong choice go reroll.