Page 1 of 2
1
2
LastLast
  1. #1

    SL Initial Priest Changes/Thoughts?

    For me:

    Disc changes: I don't think disc will be properly balanced with the addition of mind blast.

    Holy changes: CoH baseline is a fantastic change. Adding mind blast and pain? Eh. I kind of enjoyed just needing to worry about smite/holy fire/holy nova.

    Shadow: Forget it. More S2M and voidform shit. Too bad we couldn't go back to wotlk vampire casters in an expansion that has actual vampires.

    Interested in hearing more people's thoughts.

  2. #2
    if they manage to make voidform to not feel like shit (by giving us more than ~12% baseline haste by the time we're fully SL season 1 geared) and let us be able to start a fight with it, the shadow changes actually aren't too bad.

    i mean, with power infusion, we get something we've been missing since 5.0: a dps cooldown.
    and S2M also sounds like an execute-like dps cooldown. You press it in SW: D range and keep its "long duration" up until the boss dies.

    also SW: D goes back to baseline, so thats another plus. Would have loved to go back to 4.3 shadow priest design though.


    i also hope, that, generally, we will see "normal" stat values again. looking at my dh right now, i have about half the secondary stat values of what i had by this time in legion.

  3. #3
    Ive only played Shadow(never really touched healing priests) and the Shadow changes are non existent. changing S2M is pointless because no one will run it and if somehow they tune the other talents in the row to be so poor you are forced to run it than shadow will be all about that CD and nothing without it. Like seriously is Blizzard learning ANYTHING?

  4. #4
    I'm still not interested in disc's playstyle, as it seems that it will be centered about atonement micromanagement, so not much to say there. I do like the looks of the reworked covenant, but it does sound a lot like the old DPS rotation from legion, so might be a bit meh.

    Holy changes seem mostly missing. I mean, we had CoH as the default pick in raids forever now, and it does very little in dungeons to be of note. And the other talents on that row are not something I would get excited over, same for the new one. It has no impact on gameplay and is not particularly cool. But if it's decently strong, might make the spec a bit snappier. I do love that we are getting PI, holy needs a good self buff. Not so thrilled about other spells, feels like extra clutter for no reason, maybe it's time to get rid of holy fire, so I don't have to waste good binds on DPS spells as a healer. But I do appreciate SWP, even if it's too late to the party. Would of loved to have a permanent dot now, for the sake of proccing offensive corruptions. And SWD will be nice to dodge those pesky polymorphs. Also I've seen it being discussed on priest discord, seems like it will not be an execute spell by default, but might be modified by talents.

    As for shadow? I'm disappointed, as they not only intend to keep void form, but keep trying to double down on s2m. Both aspects of shadow that they failed with miserably. There is still hope, but they did dismiss all criticism of VF in BFA beta, so no reason to expect anything different this time around. As for the new talents, they both look like pointless questing stuff, can't really get excited for that. PI is good, but I see a lot of people getting excited that priest finally gets a on demand burst CD. Don't forget how it worked in legion. If VF remains unchanged, we will just tack it on on end part of void forms as a part of rotation, so nothing will change. I'm afraid that we might be in for another expansion of struggling to kill quest mobs 'till we are at least raid geared.

  5. #5
    The fact they are doubling down (tripling down?) on Voidform, Insanity, and S2M is the height and pinnacle of Blizzard's arrogance. They have received numerous feedback over the last ~5 years that the Shadow Priest community does not want this. We want gameplay choice and we want to be Shadow Priests, not Void Priests.

  6. #6
    Stood in the Fire
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    O-Town, NE
    Posts
    352
    Quote Originally Posted by Vlyse View Post
    The fact they are doubling down (tripling down?) on Voidform, Insanity, and S2M is the height and pinnacle of Blizzard's arrogance. They have received numerous feedback over the last ~5 years that the Shadow Priest community does not want this. We want gameplay choice and we want to be Shadow Priests, not Void Priests.
    Height and pinnacle to me, is that warlocks were uber good, back in TBC. So Blizzard's act of nerfing warlocks indirectly, was to nerf shadow, so the warlock forums on the official Blizzard forums wouldn't implode. They nerfed Shadow Weaving because warlocks had good synergy with it. They nerf'd warlock fear, because somehow priest fear confused people who tunneled... in PVP. Besides, shadow priests were tough cookies!

    EDIT: It's been a minute, but I think they nerf'd Improved Shadow Bolt soon after?

  7. #7
    Disc looks, like it might get some tools it so desperately needs for 5 man healing, but i never touched shadow while the degenerate suicide talent was legitimely the only way to play it, and I never will. I hate these gimmicky all eggs in one basket dps specs with burning passion.

  8. #8
    I don't well understand how S2M works with the failsafe though. If you use S2M while targetting the boss and there happens to be one mob around and this one dies before the boss, does it trigger the failsafe and you don't die, even if the boss is still alive at the end of S2M ? Or is only the "main target" when using S2M the criteria for this ? In this cass you can throw S2M on one low-HP mob even at the middle of the boss encounter, deal damage with the buff to the boss, ensure the add dies within the window and take max benefit of the buff without risking any death ?

    Don't know how they intend to balance this shit though. The interesting thing is that it makes S2M very usable in M+, depending on its cooldown

  9. #9
    Brewmaster Skylarking's Avatar
    7+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2015
    Location
    Centrelink
    Posts
    1,327
    Voidform still here. Looks like I'll be skipping spriest for another expansion

  10. #10
    From a Holy Priest perspective I am not at all liking this new (new as in the same thing from a couple expansions ago) class design philosophy.

    I think that thematically I as a Holy Priest should be pure and should not be casting any shadow spells whatsoever. In BFA we were almost there, with only a very small number of shadow spells still being cast by Holy Priests, such as Fade.
    This feels like a huge regression. I do NOT want to cast Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Pain as a Holy Priest. I want to be a pure holy healer, not some half-measure. Especially as Priests have the Discipline spec for that exact flavour.

    For classes like Paladin this philosophy works better, since all they do is holy. For classes like Warrior and Rogue it works fine too of course because a Fury Warrior is not fundamentally different from an Arms Warrior in the way that a Holy Priest and a Shadow Priest is. This design philosophy did not need to be applied to all classes.

    Another way they could have gone about it was to have different specs share a spell but have it change depending on spec. As in, the name of the spell and its animation etc changed but not the numbers.
    To take Mage as an example, the spell Blizzard could be shared with Frost and Arcane specs, but when you spec Arcane this spell automatically changes to Arcane Storm, that has a different animation. Same exact spell mechanics wise but it gives you a ton of flavour without needing to balance different spells or adding new abilities to the game.
    This could be applied to Mind Blast and Shadow Word:Pain as well, making them holy spells for Holy Priests.


    Other than that, Circle of Healing being baseline is good news, since it was something that was always chosen as a talent anyway.

  11. #11
    Thank god they kept voidvorm, looks like ill be playing SP in SL.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Ophenia View Post
    I don't well understand how S2M works with the failsafe though. If you use S2M while targetting the boss and there happens to be one mob around and this one dies before the boss, does it trigger the failsafe and you don't die, even if the boss is still alive at the end of S2M ? Or is only the "main target" when using S2M the criteria for this ? In this cass you can throw S2M on one low-HP mob even at the middle of the boss encounter, deal damage with the buff to the boss, ensure the add dies within the window and take max benefit of the buff without risking any death ?

    Don't know how they intend to balance this shit though. The interesting thing is that it makes S2M very usable in M+, depending on its cooldown
    I'm certain it'll be tied to being in combat. So if the encounter doesn't end before you run out of insanity, you die. And if for some reason the encounter ends, but you're still in combat, well, you die.

    So hopefully S2M will be as useless as it is today, because otherwise it'll be mandatory.

  13. #13
    Legendary!
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Eorzea
    Posts
    6,030
    I like it.

    Feel very Priest.

    Can't wait to join the Necrolords and do skeleton stuff.

  14. #14
    Elemental Lord Makabreska's Avatar
    7+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Streets Strange by Moonlight
    Posts
    8,425
    Ok, new S2M looks intriguing, same as that SW: D talent. I may try shadow in SL, especially when mages seem to get very little changes.
    Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.

  15. #15
    Disc is a spec many people swear by. Not my cup of tea, but so many enjoy it it's good it keeps it's direction.

    I really hoped Shadow would stop with the Voidform nonsense. I enjoyed my Shadow Priest in WoD..

    I also don't like Holy's "Power Word" focus.

    To me, both Voidform and Power Word = builder/spender mechanics.

    Shaman (that I will main), the developers acknoleged that and removed Maelstorm as a resource and went from "builder/spender specs" back to "cooldown oriented specs". I LOVE that change to Shaman.

    I wish that this "builder/spender specs" back to "cooldown oriented specs" would be their logic on Holy/Shadow too.

  16. #16
    Shadow is extremely underwhelming at best. IMO the spec needs completely torn down to foundation and rebuilt. VF for most is annoying and clunky. These changes to SWD and S2M arent bad for World content but are utterly useless in Dungeons and Raids.

    Needs to be talked about a lot during the Alpha and beta.

  17. #17
    Herald of the Titans
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    ID
    Posts
    2,557
    Power Infusion and the updated Shadow Covenant will be excellent for Discipline dungeon healing; we don't have any added utility necessarily, unless Mind Soothe allows for some extra trash pack skips, and Resto is getting Ursol's Vortex on top of everything else they already had. We'll see how that shakes out. At least we won't struggle so much at higher keys even if we don't bring as much to the table.

    For Shadow, maybe getting a few extra abilities baseline will smooth it out? We'll have to wait and see what they replace the talents with, but if they're not especially game-changing, then Shadow will be a pass for me again.

    Holy, what changes really? They're getting a minimal amount of help for 5 mans, no extra utility for raids, no pvp help...

  18. #18
    I essentially only play for M+, and have only played Shadow and Disc in Legion/BFA, and I'm looking forward to these changes. I'm hoping the couple of changes to Disc will make it a better performer in M+, and I'm excited to see how this reworked S2M will operate in a M+ environment. I especially like Power Infusion Baseline, as I've wanted a DPS Cooldown for quite a while.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Nurasu View Post
    Power Infusion and the updated Shadow Covenant will be excellent for Discipline dungeon healing; we don't have any added utility necessarily, unless Mind Soothe allows for some extra trash pack skips, and Resto is getting Ursol's Vortex on top of everything else they already had. We'll see how that shakes out. At least we won't struggle so much at higher keys even if we don't bring as much to the table.

    For Shadow, maybe getting a few extra abilities baseline will smooth it out? We'll have to wait and see what they replace the talents with, but if they're not especially game-changing, then Shadow will be a pass for me again.

    Holy, what changes really? They're getting a minimal amount of help for 5 mans, no extra utility for raids, no pvp help...
    What utility would you want from holy raid wise? They already bring 2 really powerful raid cooldowns that can get popped 2-3 times per fight if rotated properly. Just saying I'm happy with what mine brings.

  20. #20
    Herald of the Titans
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    ID
    Posts
    2,557
    Quote Originally Posted by Vyndion View Post
    What utility would you want from holy raid wise? They already bring 2 really powerful raid cooldowns that can get popped 2-3 times per fight if rotated properly. Just saying I'm happy with what mine brings.
    I think a battle rez would help them in raids a little bit and in 5 mans quite a bit. Their raid cooldowns are certainly nice, but most raids aren't looking for straight HPS; Holy's CDs largely aren't going to be as beneficial as Spirit Link and Barrier when stacked and Tranq when mobile. High HPS and raid healing are great, they'll still get spots like they do today, but they still won't be prioritized on the roster without something more. To really answer your question, I'm not exactly sure myself, but I would expect the developers at Blizzard should be able to come up with something more creative.

    Even if they revamped Hymn of Hope to be more usable like Innervate, that could go a long ways.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Just to add to this, apparently Resto druids get a beacon from the Kyrians, so Holy and MW will be out. Nice.
    Last edited by Nurasu; 2020-04-08 at 09:22 PM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •