Are you happy with the priest cataclysm preview abilities?

[kelevandros]

This is just to get the initial impact vibe... Personally I'm somewhat disappointed.

[Kaesebrezen]

Not Really.
After seeing the abilities other got, i think that warlock abilities to a lesser extent
and our are just plain boring.
Smoke Screen. Dark Simulacrum, all of the Warrior abilities have "unique" and "fun" written all over them.

We have?
A Nuke with boring mechanis and filling a niche.
A Movespeed buff (lol)
A anti-death grip grieving tool, that after the first grieving fun is gone, will leave your bars because you'll never use it. (At least in PvE, and PvP we'll probably be focused because of it)

[Qarling]

Priests have changes? keep telling yourself that, it will make cata hurt less for you in the long run.

anti deathgrip win, RMP wasnt OP enough before this. Rogue and priest are getting more pvp shit, but waht about the mage? ice nuke? "This spell brings down a minivan made of ice on that unsuspecting fucker splatting him on the sidewalk (careful wet ground)"

[Thetruth1400]

Very disappointed and leaning towards not getting Cata now.

If it's so niche that we needed it, we should just get it, not have it be something new.

The speed buff? Seriously, there's very little need for that and even in the description they label it as "very situational"

"Life grip" just what's needed, an excuse for people to not move out of the fires even more. In addition to that, the game is starting to get filled with knockbacks and pulls. It will be a miracle if a caster ever gets off another spell. Everyone is just going to be flying all over the place with the pulls and knockbacks.

Say a Rogue is up attacking a Warlock. Nope, there goes the Rogue flying off thanks to the Succubi's new talent. Okay, the Rogue is headed back towards the Warlock. Oh wait, there he goes flying off towards a DK. DK is standing too close to a Shaman, the Shaman gets spooked, BAM, Thunderstorm and the Rogue flies off again. Rogue decides to go after the Warlock again, nope another DK pulls him in towards him. Priest sees that his Rogue buddy is in trouble, LIFE GRIP! Rogue gets tossed around more than a Gnome at a Tauren hackey sack convention.

[Cjeska]

A anti-death grip grieving tool, that after the first grieving fun is gone, will leave your bars because you'll never use it. (At least in PvE, and PvP we'll probably be focused because of it)

Let me guess, you took a pound of fail and mixed it with a spoon of lacking imagination to bake this delicious noobcake. But whats the iceing made of? Tastes like lemontroll.

Seriously, if you think this will not be usefull then plz roll a class that will suit your playstyle more (e.g. ret pally).

A priest will not be focused because of leap of faith, the will be a target because of... guess what... they heal :

[anmax09]

I guess, I wouldn't be so disappointed, if i haven't seen the shaman preview first and didn't hope for new ponies for priests too.

A Movespeed buff (lol)

I have a hard time calling it a buff, because we have to give up sp bonus from inner fire to get this speed bonus. I'm pretty sure i'm going to use it only on the fights where you have to run all the time, just to save time. Otherwise i dont have a problem getting out of fires. That shammy ability to cast on run is so much hotter >

This life grip is kinda funny, but I dont see any real PvE use. I'm no mind reader or fortune teller to know, whether this or that DPS is going to stay in fire and die. Much more likely, i'm going to get yelled at, because the guy was getting out fine, but i just didn't see it due to latency. The only useful thing i can think of is helping to kite, but that also depends, whether this life grip is going to nullify aggro on target or not.

I'm pleased about PW: Barrier, but was already pretty sure they will say about it, so i waited for something totally new and exiting, and useful, like this healing rain or casting on move, like shammies got, but our preview turned to be pretty boring, that's why i'm disappointed.

[Danner]

New armor buff looks good for healers, can now chose between throughput or regen.

LIFE GRIP! (tm) looks kinda silly. I don't expect it to survive beta, but there are usecases for it. Most involve griefing your teammates.

Chakra seems like a good idea, but the devil is in the details

PW: Barrier isn't a bad idea. We'll see how it pans out.

Heal is boring, but will probably be useful.

New Spirit - I want details.

Mind Spike seems a bit uninspired to be honest.

Hot haste scaling is BIG in wotlk content, question is whether it will be that useful in cataclysm. More HP means hots will have lessened value.

SWD execute - sure. Good application.

Shadow Orbs seems like a good idea, but like with Chakra, the devil is in the details.

The big unknowns is probably the most interesting part right now. As stated, the shadow tree is mostly all about +throughput talents. These will mostly go away. The holy tree is in the same state.

[SutekhX]

I don't really know what I was expecting but what we got seems good enough to me. Chakra looks promising, PW: Barrier looks promising and Life Grip looks like fun but I feel we could of done with something with more pizazz. Also no mention of lolwell being modified :'(

[Revitalize]

Why are people whining about the changes?
You do realize nothing is set in stone and most of the ideas are rather good.

The whole chakra idea is good.
Ive always loved the idea of chakra.
The spell combination idea was something they batted around for BC, I am glad to see they are at least considering adding it again in the form of Chakra.
And this is amazing.

Stop comparing the priest changes from the shaman changes.
You do realize shamans lack mobility when having to heal or dps.

I enjoy bringing heal back, perhaps I will have to choose better between my spells.


The next expansion will really determine who's a good healer or not.

[Frozenbeef]

shadow nuke , life grip to grief people....i love it :P

[Venara]

Agreed, Danner.

Chakra could be what we've been waiting for but could also be a huge fuck-up, really depends on how it's gonna turn out.

I suspect that Life Grip has a 50/50 chance to survive the beta. Blizzard seems excited about it, most of us are too but more for the lulz than for real usefulness. Sure, there are definitely situations where it could be useful but I don't like the implication that priests are supposed to compensate for bad players by making their fails go away. To be honest, I'd rather have something else for my level 85 ability.

Heal wasn't a suprise. This has been an ongoing discussion for years. We definitely needed it but it still is boring. ^^

Overall I'm looking forward to more final changes and the new talent trees. Holy is really bloated with +throughput talents, like Danner said. There aren't much talents that are really fun, like B&S. I don't think they're going to re-do the entire holy tree and fill it with new talents, so I suspect at least a third to a half of the current talents will stay as they are.

Also, I still hope that they'll change Lightwell. Would be a great disappointment if it were to stay as it is.

[Revitalize]

It's just a reverse death grip, Im sure it'll go live and Ill become a dps babysitter.

[Beyz]

Very disappointed and leaning towards not getting Cata now.

If it's so niche that we needed it, we should just get it, not have it be something new.

The speed buff? Seriously, there's very little need for that and even in the description they label it as "very situational"

"Life grip" just what's needed, an excuse for people to not move out of the fires even more. In addition to that, the game is starting to get filled with knockbacks and pulls. It will be a miracle if a caster ever gets off another spell. Everyone is just going to be flying all over the place with the pulls and knockbacks.

Say a Rogue is up attacking a Warlock. Nope, there goes the Rogue flying off thanks to the Succubi's new talent. Okay, the Rogue is headed back towards the Warlock. Oh wait, there he goes flying off towards a DK. DK is standing too close to a Shaman, the Shaman gets spooked, BAM, Thunderstorm and the Rogue flies off again. Rogue decides to go after the Warlock again, nope another DK pulls him in towards him. Priest sees that his Rogue buddy is in trouble, LIFE GRIP! Rogue gets tossed around more than a Gnome at a Tauren hackey sack convention.

Given that it's a 5v1 combat you're trying to act out it will ofcourse be imbalanced... could say the same about 5 rogues being able to keep one player locked down forever..

That being said i'll have to agree on priest and lock abilities being slighty more boring that what the rest have gotten, especially the lock ones, must be darn boring to get a full list of spells using mechanics that are already in the game

[Frmercury]

Don't rub your Healing Priest happiness in my face Rev. I'm happy for you guys, but it was kinda teh suck for Shadow.

shadow nuke , life grip to grief people....i love it :P

No

We wish. Read closer and you'll see the only intend for us to use it during Shadow lockouts and when something will die before we can really do anything more than DoT it. I think Althor's thoughts on MSK summed it up best:

My thoughts regarding Mind Spike are thus:

1) This really needs to be our core filler spell, not Mind Flay. Unless they do some serious recoding of how channeled spells function, and they separate the damage from the snare then Mind Flay will remain a burden for all Shadow Priests that play with higher and variable latency. It's not fun knowing that your class suffers significantly more than other similar classes purely because of a technical issue and not due to other balancing concerns.

2) If Mind Spike was to be made the main filler spell then it's quite probable that the specified 1.5 second cast time would be too short. Much like Wrath for a Moonkin it would seem probable that at some point our main filler spell would become haste capped. What's more the sheer number of actions per second would seem to be heading in the direction that Maul and Heroic Strike etc. are now. Maybe a 2.0 second cast time would be more appropriate if it was to become our filler.

Also; they should remove lightwell so you guys can truly start the grieving process. They've left you guys to linger in this limbo state for far too long, unplugging the machine would be the most humane thing to do.

[Jorick]

This life grip is kinda funny, but I dont see any real PvE use. I'm no mind reader or fortune teller to know, whether this or that DPS is going to stay in fire and die. Much more likely, i'm going to get yelled at, because the guy was getting out fine, but i just didn't see it due to latency. The only useful thing i can think of is helping to kite, but that also depends, whether this life grip is going to nullify aggro on target or not.

I can think of one PvE use off the top of my head: Professor Putricide (or fights with a similar mechanic). Someone rooted and about to get smashed by that incoming attack? Life Grip to safety! Someone failing at kiting and about to get eaten by something? Life Grip to safety! Standing in fire and want some lulz? Life Grip the tank to anti-safety!

Well, the last one not so much, but I think I made my point.

[roelios]

i was a bit skeptical at first about the changes, mindspike as a replacement for mindflay on adds, a armor only pve healers will use and a babysit ability.
But after watching the other classes reviews, especially dks/rogues i feel like blizzard barely gave priests any attention. Most other classes get cool fun stuff, or abilities they wanted for a long time. I am very disappointed in the priest preview. The only positive thing was power word barrier imo.

I am also a bit annoyed at 3/4 lvl 75+ spells are holy (intended) spells, divine hymn, the new armor, and leap of faith. I was hoping to get some usefull spells

That said i know its a preview and i am really hoping they pretty much redo their plans for priests in cataclysm (unlikely i know). And if nothing major is changed between now and when the beta hits ill start considering what class ill reroll to.

[Revitalize]

Don't rub your Healing Priest happiness in my face Rev. I'm happy for you guys, but it was kinda teh suck for Shadow.

I agree with you, however the shadow orbs idea sounds nice.
Its hard to say whats really going to happen.
As none of this is completely set in stone.
Its to give you an idea of what they plan on doing and theyd like to see our feedback.

[rcastudios]

I am very satisfied with my priest right now so I wasn't looking for any major changes or anything. Am very happy that shadow is getting a nuke spell as this is really the only downside to them at the moment. Overall I like what I see. If you don't like the priest then don't play it, but if you like it now then I don't see any reason to be upset about this.

[Xelaeno]

Looks good, nothing particularly ground breaking. Lolgrip sounds fun, looking forward to try it out if it makes it through beta. As with all things, I see it as a tool, rather than a reason to QQ about more work.

Chakra thing is interesting. It might be able to fix holy to make it more versatile based on situations. Plus if they include damage spells like Smite, it'd be even more awesome. No complains, looking forward to the change.

Mind Spike is meh...nothing interesting, but I hope the graphics is cool

Its great that they are focusing on improve Disc healing, looking forward to more viable tank healing as disc in the future.

[exochaft]

I'll be happy if PW:Barrier makes the cut unlike the last time it was suggested by Blizz. I'm not really concerned that priests didn't get a move-and-cast ability like shamans, because we have quite a few instant casts we can perform while moving and shamans are really slaves to standing still to use much of anything useful.

If people don't see the value in PvE for Life Grip, they lack imagination beyond tank and spank fights. There's quite a few fights even in current content that would benefit from priests running around with Life Grip. Beyond adding a new dimension to fight strategy... c'mon, most raids have had the token village idiot that you can't replace for some reason and need to bring them despite their stupidity. Especially as a healer, you come to recognize the village idiots, and this little change (I'd go so far as to make a macro specifically for ppl) could minimize their damage to progression. In my case, it's usually the priests that need saving, so I suppose its application depends on the priest being semi-intelligent. :P