#0 - July 27, 2007, 6:21 p.m.
This week it finally happened what I was expecting to happen for a while. Raid leaders in my guild have lowered the amount of healing priest the bring to raid from 2-4 down to 1. I can understand why they have done so since that is what most of the high end guilds have done for a while. We raid to progress so why not take the best classes suited for the task at hand.
This is my post about what I think is wrong with the priest class from raid perspective. But first a few notes:
1. I don't want other classes to be nerfed to make priest get a spot in raids again.
2. I'm perfectly okay with priest not being #1 healer that can do everything the best.
3. I don't know much about shadow and PvP so I won't comment much on those.
4. I'm not saying our spells are bad, fx. PoM is an awesome spell that fits so well with the priest role. Priest has always been good at preparing for incoming damage.
Now for my main concerns:
Spirit / mp/5
My absolute main concern. We have talents to boost healing based on amount of spirit. Lots of gear with spirit. Yet it remains VERY low on the best stats on gear for a raiding priest. Why? because most encounter are designed for spam healing. Rarely you go out of the 5 sec rule. To get the most out of your spirit you have to employ tons of tricks like using the bangle trinket, inner focus and clear casting, and even then getting more mp/5 seams like the better deal in the long run. Something needs to be done with the spirit/regen model.
Tier Sets bonuses are too specific
We have several set bonuses affecting PoH, a spell that is rarely used. I just find that very strange. On top of that the Tier 4 bonus, the extra renew do not get affected by +heal. Would be very nice to see set bonuses that support what the priest is... a healer with multiple ways of healing. As it is now Tier4 is your "spam fheal for a fast gheal" set. Tier 5 is the "overheal and get a refund" set. Tier 6 is the "are we still using PoH that much set?" set. Yes tier 5 and 6 has one good bonus each, but it should be more of an overall priest healing benefit than it is now.
The X Factor
Paladins have their blessings. Druids have innervate/combat res. Shaman has totems. Priest have... what? This is the main reason we are loosing raid spots. It is as simple as that, and some of us priest even have the impDS buff.
Synergy
We have so many talents that only affects a few spells, this makes picking talents a pain. One should think "ohh I want that talent and that one", instead you get frustrated because so many talents are centered around special scenarios. Yes it has gotten better with fx. Healing Prayers affecting PoM. But it could be TONS better. What makes it worse is that when there finally are talents that has a nice synergy with each other, its impossible to get both. Enlightenment fx. could be interesting for a healing priest, if it had a much higher position in the disc tree.
Discipline Tree
A long time ago this was a tree that you could also use when raiding. Not any more. It has turned into a strange mix of PvP talents and mediocre grinding talents. The few PvE raiding talents in the mid to deep end of the tree is just plain bad. 10% extra mana and enlightenment will help you get maybe 2-3 extra greater heals casted. During a 5-10mins fights this is just far from being enough to make a difference. To make it perfectly clear how bad those to talents are a super mana pot gives about this same extra mana or close to the double, and you can do that every 2 mins.
Power Word: Shield
One of the priest trademarks which would save people from death. Since the release of TBC people has gotten more life and therefor mobs do more damage. All that is perfectly fine and makes sense. PWS just haven't scaled up with the incoming damage and is therefor not as useful as before. There are several things that could be done. Bring it back to 30sec weakened soul and raise the amount protected by at least 100%. I know this is a hard thing to balance with PvP in mind, but having PWS scale better than it does now seams quite fair. Another option was to lower the mana cost on it could be another option.
Survivability
Getting 1 or 2 shot in raids is just plain annoying, and I can surely understand why we are loosing spots to paladins because of that. Why not bring the best each time.
Primal Mooncloth Set
I thought Blizzard had learned from the meditation incident on Tier2. Now we have the same issue again. PMC is just too good +heal/regen/meditation that Tier4/5 seams bad in comparison.
Lightwell
Personally I love the idea behind those. Lightwell can help you heal dps classes without having to loose focus on your main healing targets. Giving it the buff of having +healing affect it is a nice thing. I'm just not sure its enough. Its on my concerns list because I hope it won't be remove from the game.
Circle of Healing
I'm looking forward to what will be done to this talent. As it is now its not worth getting for 25 man raiding IMHO.
Pain Suppression
It is beyond my understanding why this can't be made castable on others, that alone could help a disc priest get a raid spot. Yes it might need a tweak, but then again most of the disc tree do.
Healing priest = gank fest in BGs
I'm not saying that we should be able to kill all, but being able to escape/flee without getting ganked in 3-5 secs would be nice. AV is ok since its more PvE like, and /WSG is okay since its easier hide.
Holy Nova
A fun talent that is close to useless. Circle of Healing has some of the same mechanics, which makes you wonder what Holy Nova is for.
In the end I see 3 options:
1. Raid 1-2 nights per week and hope Blizzard will fix this.
2. Reroll or respec to PvP.
3. Quit playing.
Short term I will go option 1. But having to wait too long until Blizzard at least share some views on what is coming I guess I will have to reroll or respec. I love healing and playing my priest, thats why I have been doing that for 2+ years.
signed a concerned priest.
Lizarb
