Attempt to Clarify one Priest's Discontent

#0 - Feb. 3, 2009, 5:57 p.m.

Long winded, tangential, and full of opinions no two priests will probably agree on. You have been warned. I also make no claims to speak for any priest but me, and no priest could, because no priest really knows what a priest is, only what they think it might should be based on what they've kinda been told, somewhat recently.

I played a priest in Open Beta. A human. I switched to a night elf at release because I thought starfall would help me solo, and no one knew fear ward was required at end game, yet. Yeah, I was clueless, so? I played this nelf until BC came out, including all the end game raids. Then I jumped servers, and factions, and rolled a belf priest, which I leveled to 70, and played and raided with. So I've played a priest in three incarnations, now, basically from the time they were conceived, on both factions, in all situations, in all content, of all specs.

I'm sure that Blizz meant for them to go somewhere, I'm just not sure where, and I'm not entirely convinced even Blizz knows. Originally, Discipline was the healing tree. Sure, Holy was called holy, but the talents were just kinda silly. Improved death was just a flashy way to tell the druids where to find the corpse for battle rezzing. Holy nova was ... hilarious. Two healing trees, but only one tree of worthwhile healing talents, spread out between them.

So then BC came out.

Discipline was the PvP tree (It had hopes to become a PvP/Holy DPS tree, but never got there), now, though all priests were still required to take 14 points in it, regardless. There were lots of complaints about how the 'real' hybrids only had to spec one tree to be their best, where we were forced into two. I understood the frustration, but I was used to priest trees being arcane mazes full of pitfalls, traps, and misguided attempts at humor, so that didn't bug me much. I figured they had finally figured out where they were going, now they just needed to get there.

But then WotLK came out. And they took the PvP tree. The EXACT SAME PVP tree, added some healing talents to the very top, and called it the 'single target healing' tree. Also known as the 'shield' tree. Also known as the 'no, you really are still hybrids, we swear, don't look at the man behind the curtains' tree.

Wha?

You ignored our complaints about our healing talents being divvied, and split them some more, then you still try to claim we are hybrids when all the real hybrids have actually different trees, not two dedicated to a single non-dps purpose (imagine giving warriors two prot trees, one for tanking single targets, and one for tanking groups. Oh, that would be a laugh and a half). On top of all that, you didn't actually change the PvP tree, you just shoved some healing talents onto the top, so the entire middle needed to get there is still .. kinda useless, unless you're PvPing, and all of our good increased healing talents are still in the holy tree, none of which we can reach anymore, if we want those top disc talents.

Playing a priest is a bit like running in a circle, on ice. You occasionally kid yourself into believing you're going somewhere, but you end up right where you started, only with a few more bruises.

If I thought for half a second that there actually was a plan for priests, I probably wouldn't be as discontent. I thought you guys had figured us out, when BC was released, you just needed to polish it, but then WotLK was released and ... we're right back where we started, plus a black eye or two. I just don't have faith, anymore, I guess. I don't believe that you guys have any idea where you want to go with this class, and just keep randomly throwing stuff at us hoping some will stick. You sc#@!@ up all the stuff that didn't stick the first time, and throw it again from a different angle.

I'm tired of hearing platitudes, too. Every time I see some big priest post it's all about how there's a plan and we're almost there. I've seen that post since I first started visiting the forums. And it's always a different plan. Or in between new plans when it's confusion over why we're discontent and restless and can't even really agree on why we're discontent and restless. Of course we can't agree. Two thirds of our entire class is spaghetti sticking vainly to a wall. Does it need more red sauce, or more cream? I guess that depends on what you like on your wall-sticking-spaghetti.

I'd be happy if there really was a plan, at least then I could decide if I liked it or not. As it is, now, the plan is just gonna change next patch or expansion (No, we really have figured out the Disc tree, this time, promise!), so there's little point in evaluating and there's no recourse except to be discontent and restless.

Ghostcrawler

#60 - Feb. 4, 2009, 5:12 p.m.

This has become a QQ thread.

We are leaving it open for now because some players have attempted to offer useful feedback.

"Blizzard has no idea what they want to do with the class," or "Priests are tired of getting strung along," are not useful feedback. Those are the kind of threads we will lock.

If there are things you think can be improved in your class, by all means mention them. But you need to be concrete and constructive. If you have said everything you can say and are just venting, then my advice is not to post.

Ghostcrawler

#136 - Feb. 4, 2009, 11:08 p.m.

I will try one more time. These are the kinds of responses that we do not want to see on these forums and will lead to locks and bans. Whether or not you like that policy is irrelevant. That is our policy.

Now, if you read the above posts, there are plenty of comments that are critical or negative about priest abilities or roles. We don’t have a problem with those posts. They are helpful posts! These below are not. If you don’t understand the difference, I suggest you be a reader here and not a poster. We are not giving you a forum here to air your grievances with Blizzard. We are providing a forum to discuss class balance and mechanics.

I am not going to make any more of these responses in this post, because I frankly would rather spend my time on discussions of the game design and not forum moderation.

Q u o t e:
We have been asking for our talent trees to be looked at for years now. When we are lucky enough to get a blue to post that they'll look at them and try to make tree flow better with fewer useless talents we are given fuzzy timelines that are missed time and time again. Early in BC, it was something about "shouldn't take until the next expansion", later as the expansion started approaching, the story changed to that it would come with the expansion. Now, it's even further out, and it seems we can't even get anyone to agree that there's anything wrong with our holy tree anymore.

We have been providing good feedback since pre wotlk, there's not much option when those threads get ignored and you always reply to qq's ( play it safe more).
We have had so many constructive ideas that there is really barely anything else left to say.

There's really no shortage of constructive posts providing you with feedback; we do however have a shortage of constructive posts from you concerning priests' concerns.

You don't have any idea, this has been proven through your actions for the past 5 years.

Oh I see you want feedback. Ooooh, you mean like the feedback we gave everyday all through beta that was completely and 100% ignored? That kind of feedback. Or like the feedback we have given since release that has been completely ignored? Or better yet, passed off as QQ.

this is what hurts, that for the past 4 pages, some people did give constructive feedback, and you dismissed the entire thread as QQ?

also we would offer feedback to fixing our class but as you've said already....

the priest class stinks, our pvp talents are nonexistent, just look at the trees. priest doesn't feel like a priest, more like a random collection of powers.

that's my opinion not QQ, you can label it QQ, but it's the person that plays a priest. If your goal is to shut up all QQers, then there is no point to these threads. If i had something great to say i would, but truth is our class stinks. I can write a 5 page paper on that if you'd like, but i feel like that doesn't get you to look at priest problems either.

I would be somewhat wary of simply relegating this type of post to the trashbin in this situation. Many Priests are actually tired of getting strung along, have actually posted over many *years* (not simply since you started asking, GC) and are simply frustrated in dealing with it again.