Ability Bloat: Priest Edition

[Thirteen]

Make MC baseline and replace the talent with smth that makes Shackle usable on beasts and humanoids.

I swear the world will be a better place if this change happens.

[Alanar]

Make MC baseline and replace the talent with smth that makes Shackle usable on beasts and humanoids.

Thank you, I have been saying this for how long!

[Danner]

From the front page:

The base healing spell that healers are supposed to use until they gear up enough to have a significant amount of regen and throughput might not have a role in the game anymore. They are situational after you are no longer in greens and blues.

Yes!
Die "Heal", Die!

I know I am in a minority here, but I really hate that spell!

[Thirteen]

I see where you're coming from, and it does diminish in usefulness as your gear goes up. But the thing is that if we remove it, we're going back to the WotLK model of healing with just being able to spam Flash Heal with no consequences. You know what I'd really love though? A spirit cap. Healers will finally learn to be responsible with their mana.

[Siri]

Spirit as a stat should just get removed. To my recollection they've said every expansion that they're unhappy with how it works out and it is a very boring stat to gear for. Just give all healers basic tools to manage their mana and leave it at that, easy to balance, easy to balance around. Let people gear toward throughput to combat incoming damage, not gearing towards infinite mana.

[Thirteen]

As lovely as that sounds, I don't think it'll work, simply because healers who are um, bad at managing their mana will end up going OOM and it'll take its toll on the other healers in the group, taking everyone down. While I'm all for teamwork being more important in raids, I'm not sure I'd like having to bear someone else's weight for an entire encounter just because they wanted to spam PoH early on, or just simply weren't using the right spells in the right situation.

[Archpriest]

Spirit as a stat should just get removed. To my recollection they've said every expansion that they're unhappy with how it works out and it is a very boring stat to gear for. Just give all healers basic tools to manage their mana and leave it at that, easy to balance, easy to balance around. Let people gear toward throughput to combat incoming damage, not gearing towards infinite mana.

I don't think I would like that. Gearing toward ifinite mana is part of what I like with healing. That spell which I could rarely cast i the beginning of the expansion becasue it was too expensive? Now I can spam it!
That is how I feel my power grow!
Besides, spirit is a tool that can make healers different from each other. Some like lots of spirit and cast alot of expensive spells, while others like raw throughput. Why take this away? If people heal differently, then they need different tools to do the job. Thats one of the reasons I wish you could still increase your mana pool. More tools mean more ways to play!
And unlike the dps ( and to some extent the tank role too) healers CAN choose how the want to play (without being annoyed by angry people in lfr/lfd atleast)
---
point is, I like spirit Please do not try getting it removed!

[Lilitheria]

Ok, if someone says Mind Vision is useless, I will kill him. But seriously, I love that spell.

I don't think priests have so many skills, at least shadow priests. I don't know about holy or discipline.

[Fenixdown]

priests really don't have that much ability bloat. i'd say that they're pretty solid in terms of having a good mix of abilities with their own uses without much redundancy.

druids and prot wars, otoh...

Personally, I think Flash Heal should be done away with. It's useful in PvP, except that you could just use Binding Heal for the same mana cost, slightly less healing to one target, and healing yourself. I think in the past six months in raids I've cast one Flash Heal. I just go to Binding since there's no reason not to.

Just make Binding Heal our Flash Heal, removes one spell. The other I could see is making Chakras a stance bar. That actually clears two keybinds for me right there.

While I would agree there's not really an ability bloat problem, there are definitely abilities that could be removed for more unique or interesting spells.

[Noradin]

So....
Any actual reasons why anyone thinks priests need to loose spells?
(Other than: "Others make me look bad by using spell xy which I forget about / never learned to use correctly.")
Its not like we are limited to 3 spells per fight and spend more time juggling spells for our bas than using them.
This is the same stupid logic falllancy as the one where people claim some spec is harder to play because it has more options (spells/abilities) to choose from.

[Siri]

As lovely as that sounds, I don't think it'll work, simply because healers who are um, bad at managing their mana will end up going OOM and it'll take its toll on the other healers in the group, taking everyone down. While I'm all for teamwork being more important in raids, I'm not sure I'd like having to bear someone else's weight for an entire encounter just because they wanted to spam PoH early on, or just simply weren't using the right spells in the right situation.

I understand what you're saying, I just don't think that's any different from now. A bad healer will weigh the group down regardless of how much mana they have, I guess the difference is that the bad healers would be easier to spot. I just like the idea of putting an absolute limit on mana because it forces the player to improve rather than improving their gear. Mana efficiency is supposed to be at the very core of being a healer but apart from a few brief periods of time mana efficiency has not been that important.

I don't think I would like that. Gearing toward ifinite mana is part of what I like with healing. That spell which I could rarely cast i the beginning of the expansion becasue it was too expensive? Now I can spam it!
That is how I feel my power grow!
Besides, spirit is a tool that can make healers different from each other. Some like lots of spirit and cast alot of expensive spells, while others like raw throughput. Why take this away? If people heal differently, then they need different tools to do the job. Thats one of the reasons I wish you could still increase your mana pool. More tools mean more ways to play!
And unlike the dps ( and to some extent the tank role too) healers CAN choose how the want to play (without being annoyed by angry people in lfr/lfd atleast)
---
point is, I like spirit Please do not try getting it removed!

I realize that it is controversial and I expect a lot of people to dislike the idea, especially if they're the kind of players who like gearing for much more mana than they need. I just think that Blizzard has proven time and time again that they're not able to balance mana to a point where they can say that they're happy with it over the course of an expansion. The only time where mana has felt like a real resource to me (I started healing during the wrath-patch late TBC) was at the very start of cataclysm raiding and even then it didn't last very long. If they can't balance mana to the point where it stays relevant for a whole tier, it's time to try something new.

It doesn't have to be the removal of spirit but it has to be something.

Anyway, this is off-topic. I might ponder the matter further and open up a discussion on it at a later point.

[nobodysbaby]

Make MC baseline and replace the talent with smth that makes Shackle usable on beasts and humanoids.

MC is kind of a signature spell for Priests imo, so I have no clue as why they want it as a talent choice (wich have very hard competition to). I don't agree with Shackle though, I think it's cool to have a CC for UD only;P

- - - Updated - - -

Spirit as a stat should just get removed. To my recollection they've said every expansion that they're unhappy with how it works out and it is a very boring stat to gear for. Just give all healers basic tools to manage their mana and leave it at that, easy to balance, easy to balance around. Let people gear toward throughput to combat incoming damage, not gearing towards infinite mana.

Oh, I strongly disagree. Some want/need 15k mana, some are doing dandy with 8k. That's adding flavor to the healing game and helps create personal playstyles and choices.

[Aboubacar]

I don't think class specific CC should go, there should just be more pve uses for it, heroic dungeons a couple of raid bosses etc.
Shackle, hibernate, bind elemental, polymorph, banish, and turn evil all see too little pve usage.

[Alanar]

. I don't agree with Shackle though, I think it's cool to have a CC for UD only;P

- - - Updated - - -

There is absolutely nothing cool about a spell that is only useable on 1 type of creature( undead here) remember how lame exorcisme was? Maybe lore fanatics like such gimmicks cus u might peform some exorcisme stuff, but seriouesly people who pvp dont even bother much about this spell. Just make a macro to auto target this to gargoyle or something but for the rest it's a lame spell. Fer sure could use a update.

[Hand Banana]

Personally, I think Flash Heal should be done away with. It's useful in PvP, except that you could just use Binding Heal for the same mana cost, slightly less healing to one target, and healing yourself. I think in the past six months in raids I've cast one Flash Heal. I just go to Binding since there's no reason not to.

Just make Binding Heal our Flash Heal, removes one spell.

Flash is so much better than binding in pvp its kind of ridiculous. Flash uses the 2p pvp bonus, heals for more than binding, gives a stack of grace (very overlooked) and reduced weakened soul by 2 sec through the strength of soul passive. For me its the opposite of what you said; I hardly ever use binding heal and only really use flash. They could remove flash and make binding do everything that flash does but that would be too strong imo. Free binding from FDCL, gracing 2 targets, reducing weakened soul on 2 targets, would be an overpowered ability in pvp where disc is already overpowered enough.

Make MC baseline and replace the talent with smth that makes Shackle usable on beasts and humanoids.

You know how ridiculous that would make priests in pvp where they are already the strongest class? I like MC baseline personally, but shackle being a priest version of polly would be nuts since they already have psy scream.

[Thirteen]

You know how ridiculous that would make priests in pvp where they are already the strongest class? I like MC baseline personally, but shackle being a priest version of polly would be nuts since they already have psy scream.

So make it not work on players that aren't undead?

[Supernex]

You know how ridiculous that would make priests in pvp where they are already the strongest class? I like MC baseline personally, but shackle being a priest version of polly would be nuts since they already have psy scream.

Well they would have to sacrifice one of the other two talents that they could've otherwise had...(unless they were taking DM, then I guess it's all win from there, eh?) :P

[Rucati]

I don't have any problems at all. I wouldn't want any abilities cut from the Priest spellbook, I easily have room for 2-3 more skills as it is, I really don't see any reason to get rid of any.

[Bigslick]

It would be nice if cascade/halo/divine star shared 'one spot' when put on a keybind, like shadowfiend/mindbender or holy fire/solace. Pretty annoying having to change the keybind every time you change the talent...

(If someone has a macro that would cast whichever talent is the selected one and show the cooldown for that spell, it would be much appreciated - I haven't been able to figure a way to do it)

[veiledy0]

It would be nice if cascade/halo/divine star shared 'one spot' when put on a keybind, like shadowfiend/mindbender or holy fire/solace. Pretty annoying having to change the keybind every time you change the talent...

(If someone has a macro that would cast whichever talent is the selected one and show the cooldown for that spell, it would be much appreciated - I haven't been able to figure a way to do it)

#showtooltip
/Use Halo
#showtooltip
/Use Cascade
#showtooltip
/Use Divine Star
/run local G=GetSpellInfo SetMacroSpell("Halo", G"Cascade" or G"Halo" or "Divine Star")

Name the macro "Halo" (or w/e you want, but change the bold part in the macro to macro's name).
You need to use the spell once after respecing in order for the tooltip and icon to update.