RSS feed2008-08-14 09:46:03
This may sound crazy, but bear me out here.
As any number of the downranking panic posts have put forward, the removal of downranking has actually removed a heal from the priest's arsenal - the incredibly useful high-efficiency, mid-range heal (gh2). This heal adds a lot of fun to the priest playstyle, and really makes you feel like you're playing well when your blue bar is nice and full because you're balancing the interplay of HPS and HPM.
I understand that Blizzard feels that the method that we use to manipulate this efficiency / power trade-off is broken, but I believe (and I think most players do) that mastering mana management is both an indicator of player skill, and, more importantly, something that adds a lot of depth and fun to the game.
So, if downranking is to stay out, I suggest that Blizzard revamps the somewhat forgotten priest spell Heal (and heck, maybe even Lesser Heal) - make new ranks for Heal that bring it all the way to level 80, but make it a lower HPS and higher HPM heal than GHeal.
This will let blizzard balance itemisation and encounter design around a standardised efficiency model (preventing the problems that cropped up with downranking - in that it was a variable outside blizzard's control, and couldn't be easily balanced) while still allowing the efficiency management that is so core to the Priest playstyle.
As any number of the downranking panic posts have put forward, the removal of downranking has actually removed a heal from the priest's arsenal - the incredibly useful high-efficiency, mid-range heal (gh2). This heal adds a lot of fun to the priest playstyle, and really makes you feel like you're playing well when your blue bar is nice and full because you're balancing the interplay of HPS and HPM.
I understand that Blizzard feels that the method that we use to manipulate this efficiency / power trade-off is broken, but I believe (and I think most players do) that mastering mana management is both an indicator of player skill, and, more importantly, something that adds a lot of depth and fun to the game.
So, if downranking is to stay out, I suggest that Blizzard revamps the somewhat forgotten priest spell Heal (and heck, maybe even Lesser Heal) - make new ranks for Heal that bring it all the way to level 80, but make it a lower HPS and higher HPM heal than GHeal.
This will let blizzard balance itemisation and encounter design around a standardised efficiency model (preventing the problems that cropped up with downranking - in that it was a variable outside blizzard's control, and couldn't be easily balanced) while still allowing the efficiency management that is so core to the Priest playstyle.
Stasi
