#0 - Sept. 22, 2007, 2:02 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Intro:

    Welcome,

    Last week I asked you guys to submit some feedback regarding your current situation with the Priest class. Here’s a summary of what you guys said. Feel free to comment and provide feedback if you want (maybe I missed something, maybe you got a better idea, etc).

Summary of previous review:

    Feedback drawn from: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=771509529&sid=1

    Things coming in 2.3: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1016252424&sid=1

    General summary

      Most Priests agree on the following things:
    • Holy Priests not much wanted in raids
    • Spirit doesn’t regen much mana
    • Mana can be a problem
    • PvP survivability can be hard
    • Holy talents could use some buffs
    • Priests are a little fragile
    • And much more


    2.3

      Fear Ward
      Most agree it’s a nice change for the bigger good but there’s the case of 3 minute cooldown. Two minutes cooldown was good enough and not overpowered according to them.

      Circle of Healing
      The buff in general is nice (if he/she has more than 1338 healing) but it will still not provide the much demanded change of making it more viable.


    DPS

      Disc
      Disc DPS isn’t really the most wanted talent tree if it comes to doing DPS. With some much wanted talents in Holy like Surge of Light and Searing Light it makes this tree more of a mixed tree. The Disc tree is mostly used by Healers for the extra mana, spirit buff and Imp fortitude. Moving some talents from Disc to Holy and from Holy to Disc would make sense.

      Holy spells DPS
      With only two spells being holy DPS (Smite and Holy Fire) makes more people go Shadow then Disc. Reducing the casting time on Holy Fire and making the above changes would buff this more.


    Healing

      Equal healer as hybrid
      A good hybrid healer (Paladin/Shaman) can heal as equal as a Priest and they do it for less mana. If that isn’t enough, they even provide some nice buffs/Auras. More raid utility would help a lot. Although the spirit buff is nice, only one priest needs it and the rest specs healing. With a Paladin/Shaman they got their Auras; might be an idea to give Priests some sort of Holy aura which increases healing done by.

      Mana
      When not being in a group with a hybrid mana regeneration can be a problem. A good idea is to make a talent that gives a chance of returning 20/40% mana back of the spell on successful casting (Like the Meta Gem works). Some also say reducing the cooldown of the shadowfiend might help.


    Itemisation

      More spirit or spirit effect increase
      Priests hardly have the chance to regenerate mana during combat thus letting them rely on other abilities to do this for them (mana tide totem, VT etc). It has already been said by Blizzard that the spirit stats will be buffed in the upcoming expansion (WLK).

      A little more stamina
      Adding some more stamina to cloth healing gear would make Priests less fragile.


    PvP

      Escape being a target
      A lot of times during PvP battlegrounds the Priest will be the first target to kill; now to be able to do the job (for example healing) the Priests needs to survive. His or her only option is to fear. The fear on its own can be weak because of breaking or dispelable (by trinket). Most Priests agree that they need another survival tool to be able to do their job. A partial solution would be a stronger shield (read “Power Word: Shield” in the spells section).

      Mana regen
      Some Shadow Priests rely on the VT DOT. If there’s a healing class that dispels the DOT then the regeneration of mana is lost a little. It might be an idea to make a talent that reduces the chance that the VT might be dispelled. That or maybe give it a chance to return mana on dispel.

      Dispel the VT/VE/Mindflay/..
      The main source of DPS would be VE and Mindflay. Of course these spells can be counterattacked by dispelling them. Having a good opponent who notices this makes a Priests a lot difficult. Some Priests would like to see a talent that reduces the chance of dispelling the VT/VE/Mindflay. Of course the same can be said about Priest buffs like fortitude.


    Racials

      Night Elf
      The Night Elf racials hardly get used nor are they really that useful. The only time they might get used is in PvP Arena. A Priest in raiding who uses Elune's Grace is most of the times a dead Priest. Starshards however are used during levelling but after that hardly anymore.

      Racials in general
      Most Priests say that the racials simply don’t work that well. Most Priests want Fear Ward (coming in WLK though), most Shadow Priests want the Undead racials etc. Introducing a way to learn a racial for each Priest with a limit (two racials max) could work. This would solve the aspect of an Undead Shadow Priest being better in PvP and the Dwarven Priest being better in PvE. Remember, racials are suppose to be there as an extra and not to force people to pick a race for their abilities.


    Spells

      Power Word: Shield
      The better gear Priests get, the less useful Power Word: Shield becomes. This also is the case on the people you cast it. Letting the spell scale with +heal would help a lot. Currently the max rank (un-talented) gives 1315 damage absorption for 600 mana (un-talented). A max heal spell easily gives more then 1315 healing so the spell does get neglected a lot.

      Circling of raid healing
      Circling of healing has been much debated. It already received a few buffs but it’s still not good enough for a 41-talent spell. A good idea is to make it work for the raid instead of party. Along with that, make it like the Mage AOE limit. The more people are standing there, the less it will heal. This will buff the usage and also make it not too overpowered.

      Lightwell
      Lightwell hardly gets used at all. Although in 2.2 the well will heal more because it stacks with +heal now, some people still got their doubts. Maybe a few more charges would help. Also not breaking on damage would increase this talent a lot more. Last but not least Lightwell can’t be used in every situation. For example a tank on a boss can’t simply stop hitting the boss and touch the well. A Solution for this could be to make it more like a totem effect. It would only heal if there’s enough damage.

      Holy Nova
      The mana cost of this talent is simply too much not to mention the damage/heal aspect is very low. Priests rather spend the mana on Prayer of Healing which costs a little more mana but heals a lot more.

      Divine Spirit
      Most Priests sacrifice points in the talent build to get this buff. Some Priests say it would be a good idea to move this talent more up the tree so that more points are available for Holy. A tier 3 talent for example (like Paladins and Kings).

      Fortitude
      Only complains people have about this buff is that it costs a lot of mana. Reducing the mana cost would help a lot in terms of buffing up the group/raid.

      Mass dispel
      Making this spell have a casting time and high mana cost makes this spell hardly favourable. Adjusting the mana cost a little and making it no casting time could buff the usage of this spell. Of course to make it not too powerful add a cooldown to it.

      Fade
      A good idea towards the above problem is that Fade could also act as dispel slowing/snaring/stun effects or maybe even make Priests immune for x seconds for those types of things. This would increase the survivability a little for Priests in PvP. Also a slight aggro dump might help for PvE.


      Inner Fire
      Along with the package of Priest survivability a good idea might to change the Inner Fire to a buff of 10 minutes with no charges.


    General gear

      More +shadow damage
      A lot of items focus on +spell damage rather then +Shadow damage. A lot of Shadow Priest rather take +shadow damage then +spell damage which limits their choice of gear along with other possible upgrades.

      Something else then Shadow wands
      Most priests say that most end Wands do Shadow damage. Adding some more variety of damage types would help some. This also counters mobs/PvP situations with certain resistances.


    Tier gear

      Less crit, more damage
      The Priests’ DPS PvE tier gear focuses a lot on +crit rather then +spells damage. Seeing that Priests can no longer crit with DOTs and that one of their main DPS sources are DOTs, Priests would rather have some more +spell damage instead of +crit.

      Tier 4 mana regen
      It has been said that the stats on tier 4 don’t have much mana regeneration. Might be an idea to increase it just a little to make it more viable in long fights.

      Tier 4 process
      The process rate of the tier 4 set bonuses hardly work. Increasing the process rate would increase the need of Tier 4.

Has Blizzard seen this feedback?:

    Please note that things are not guaranteed to change even though this has been forwarded to Blizzard.

Notes: