[Priest] Class Design Q&A Discussion Thread

[Kelesti]

While I'm going to be participating in as many ways as I possibly can, there's not a chance all/any of my questions can be put up. So we need an emergency collab to see if we can get some answers so it's more than just one person asking these. Any good ones that you have for the class should be put here too!

Mine:

• Holy lacks greater heal synergy when tank healing, unlike other healers. Is this intentional? Or could Serendipity be triggered from Serenity?
• If Judgement of the Pure is successful, will Discipline's Rapture see a similar redesign to keep healers focused on Spirit for regen?
• Any chance we'll see IWIN cooldowns (SLT, PWB, DH, Tranq) nerfed so encounters are no longer designed around them?

Kaesebrezen:

• How are Levitate and Evangelism going to work in Mists?

The actual Q&A:

I know this was an idea/plan for Cata, but for MoP is there any plan to give discipline priests different shields such as a shield for tanks.
Spirit Shell is a new cast-time shield spell for Discipline priests coming in 5.0, that does not cause Weakened Soul.

is the priest spell Holy Nova going to be changed to make it useful in mop as there is no need to even have it on you action bars as it is atm
We've talked about it. Its possible we may make Holy Nova Discipline only and interact with Evangelism in some way.

How do you plan on balancing healer mana management in MoP? I for one enjoyed the beginning of Cata when healing was a little more challenging but now Disc and Druids barely have any worries while shamans and Holy priests have a little harder time.

We agree. It's a nearly-unavoidable consequence of gear scaling under our current system. Fresh level 85s in mostly quest gear need to have enough mana and regen to be able to set foot in dungeons and sustain a healing rotation for a couple of minutes in the face of reasonable incoming damage. But then a healer in Heroic Firelands gear now has nearly double the stats of a healer fresh out of Uldum questing, and the mana cost of that healer's spells is unchanged, often resulting in a large mana surplus.

Our current plan for Mists is for Intellect to no longer directly increase the size of player mana pools. We intend for our mana-based DPS and Tank classes to be entirely self-reliant regardless of mana pool, so the gameplay impact for those players will be nil. For healers, Spirit will remain as the pure regen stat, and healers after multiple tiers of raid progression will clearly have far more mana at their disposal, but there will be more of an inherent tradeoff between regen and throughput stats. A healer with amazing regen will have amazing regen because of a choice to focus their stats in that direction.

Currently, Shadow Priests are very RNG dependent for Shadow Orbs. This can affect our dps a lot, especially the beginning rotation when we start dotting up the boss. It usually isn't as much of an issue mid-fight, when we can manage to keep the dots running with ES. Is there going to be any changes to the Orb mechanic in 5.0?

Shadow Orbs are random because otherwise you would always have a full stack when your Mind Blast was off cooldown, and you wouldn't even care about the mechanic. To address that in 5.0, you will never "cap" on Shadow Orbs. Mind Blast will cost 1 Orb, and have no cooldown. So the more orbs you generate "through RNG" the better, whereas currently if you generate more orbs before Mind Blast is off cooldown its kind of a waste.


In regard to healing, specifically holy priests. I love lightwell. Awesome spell. Probably one of the most OP healing spells in the game. Is it possible to give every player a macro for using it ? Kidding, but are there any changes to make it a more viable talent for Holy priests without becoming completely repetitive (click the lightwell, click the lightwell, click it damnit)

We've talked about this issue. We like that you have to look at the gamespace to click it to heal yourself, but creatures getting in the way or its hitbox can be problematic. So its possible we may get a new model for Lightwell that is "taller" and make it less of an issue to see it and click it.

Prayer of Healing only affects people from 1 raid group. So the priest has to make the raid groups accordingly. In your eyes, is this a fun design as it adds a particularism to the Priest class or is there a plan to modify it?

From a pointy-headed designer standpoint, it isn't ideal because the party within the raid doesn't mean anything in the game world (compared to say targeting an area). But we think PoH feels really different from say Holy Nova, CoH etc. and it's a fun spell so we don't think it needs to be changed.

[Kaesebrezen]

Since i'm not at home during the Q&A:

How is Levitate gonna work in MoP...

[Kelesti]

Since i'm not at home during the Q&A:

How is Levitate gonna work in MoP...

Might as well add in Evangelism into that, of course.

[nobodysbaby]

Very good if you bring up the regen systems, I would like to see an answer to why druids and discs still have most(?) of their regen based on intellect, when spirit is the stat for manaregen.

And yes! The other question I wanted to ask was also if they intend to continue the "cooldown game" for healers in the future.

Oh, edit; I am very curious if they are looking for ways to make PoH non-grouped based. As it is raid damage comes in even portions, thus it works really great with current PoH, but isn't it forcing design to balance too much around this spell?

[Backreaper]

what timezone is that 10:45 time that was announced?

few questions for shadow:
Mind blast will cost shadow orbs according to the new talents, how many will it cost?
Dark archangel will consume shadow orbs, will we still get envangelism?
What's going to happen to empowered shadows?
Will shadow orbs still be RNG roullete or will there be a 100% chance to get them in some way?
What will the 2 new spells be focused on? healing or dps?
Are there any major overhauls planned for shadow?

[nobodysbaby]

10.45 is US, 19.45 (?) is Eu (on the frontpage now).

[Arlee]

It should be starting in about an hour.

---------- Post added 2011-11-09 at 12:46 PM ----------

what timezone is that 10:45 time that was announced?

Pacific Standard Time.

[Cernunnos]

Can Leap of Faith be switched to a disc talent?

Being taken out of shadowform when i use "life grip" sucks.

[zito]

Is there going to be a mana nerf to shadow spells to clear up some of shadows mana problems in PvP? Having to use dispersion for mana and not defensively is awful and Machosim doesn't give enough mana back with such expensive spells (One VT takes that 10% mana away), this would also help be in line with shadow off healing since Ele shamans and Boomkins don't usually have problems with mana after healing.

How are dispels going to work in MoP?

[Deleted]

I dunno if this is off topic or not but i was just wondering as there's 2 pretty decent dps increasing talents for shadow at 2 different levels like 75 and 30 or something like that, which ones are gonna be the best dps increase? For Example is Power Infusion gonna be better than that talent that increases dmg below 35% or w/e it was, there was something with archangel and some other dps increasing talent.

[Purpleisbetter]

As holy a solid manapool based mechanic. Something to improve mana regain anyway.

As disc a stronger mastery or a better tank healing cooldown. Peneance able to stack Evangelism and to trigger attonement healing.

As shadow different Tier 13 bonuses

[Kelesti]

I know this was an idea/plan for Cata, but for MoP is there any plan to give discipline priests different shields such as a shield for tanks.
Spirit Shell is a new cast-time shield spell for Discipline priests coming in 5.0, that does not cause Weakened Soul.

is the priest spell Holy Nova going to be changed to make it useful in mop as there is no need to even have it on you action bars as it is atm
We've talked about it. Its possible we may make Holy Nova Discipline only and interact with Evangelism in some way.

[phenix]

From Class Q&A

Spirit Shell is a new cast-time shield spell for Discipline priests coming in 5.0, that does not cause Weakened Soul.

[Kelesti]

By Whicker:

How do you plan on balancing healer mana management in MoP? I for one enjoyed the beginning of Cata when healing was a little more challenging but now Disc and Druids barely have any worries while shamans and Holy priests have a little harder time.

We agree. It's a nearly-unavoidable consequence of gear scaling under our current system. Fresh level 85s in mostly quest gear need to have enough mana and regen to be able to set foot in dungeons and sustain a healing rotation for a couple of minutes in the face of reasonable incoming damage. But then a healer in Heroic Firelands gear now has nearly double the stats of a healer fresh out of Uldum questing, and the mana cost of that healer's spells is unchanged, often resulting in a large mana surplus.

Our current plan for Mists is for Intellect to no longer directly increase the size of player mana pools. We intend for our mana-based DPS and Tank classes to be entirely self-reliant regardless of mana pool, so the gameplay impact for those players will be nil. For healers, Spirit will remain as the pure regen stat, and healers after multiple tiers of raid progression will clearly have far more mana at their disposal, but there will be more of an inherent tradeoff between regen and throughput stats. A healer with amazing regen will have amazing regen because of a choice to focus their stats in that direction.

Boom, headshot.

[Whicker]

The just answered my regen question

[Kelesti]

The just answered my regen question

If only they'd answer mine. Glad you got up there, Whicker, I saw that!

[Whicker]

Haha thanks, I hope they answer yours too, i merely asked that one because it was my biggest concern but yours are good too, we need more priest answers and less warlock!

[Deleted]

So many warlock answers till now...and no answer to my levitate question

[Kelesti]

I've been asking it for you too

---------- Post added 2011-11-09 at 12:53 PM ----------

Currently, Shadow Priests are very RNG dependent for Shadow Orbs. This can affect our dps a lot, especially the beginning rotation when we start dotting up the boss. It usually isn't as much of an issue mid-fight, when we can manage to keep the dots running with ES. Is there going to be any changes to the Orb mechanic in 5.0?

Shadow Orbs are random because otherwise you would always have a full stack when your Mind Blast was off cooldown, and you wouldn't even care about the mechanic. To address that in 5.0, you will never "cap" on Shadow Orbs. Mind Blast will cost 1 Orb, and have no cooldown. So the more orbs you generate "through RNG" the better, whereas currently if you generate more orbs before Mind Blast is off cooldown its kind of a waste.

I feel like the person asking the question was a moron. The intro to a fight is the LEAST important factor to "affecting our dps a lot". But hey, what do I know? HOWEVER the answer is a very interesting take on what's to come, and why Surge of Darkness could be cool.

---------- Post added 2011-11-09 at 12:55 PM ----------

And another good one that I hadn't even thought of:

In regard to healing, specifically holy priests. I love lightwell. Awesome spell. Probably one of the most OP healing spells in the game. Is it possible to give every player a macro for using it ? Kidding, but are there any changes to make it a more viable talent for Holy priests without becoming completely repetitive (click the lightwell, click the lightwell, click it damnit)

We've talked about this issue. We like that you have to look at the gamespace to click it to heal yourself, but creatures getting in the way or its hitbox can be problematic. So its possible we may get a new model for Lightwell that is "taller" and make it less of an issue to see it and click it.

[Arlee]

hrm... interesting... I hope we don't turn into "ahmg if you haz orbs spmaz teh MB" spec ><

Also.. not getting more mana from int will make things interesting for spriests as well.... I mean what does he mean but self reliant in terms of mana? Does that mean our replenishment is getting buffed or something?