Priests are backup healers... If the other ones aren't around....

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14132918154&pageNo=4&sid=1#79

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Q u o t e:
You can shift from fight to fight depending on the specifics of the encounter and the needs of the raid. If you are in a group where raid attendance is not always 100%, a priest is a wondeful thing to have. You can tank heal when the paladins don't log or hot when the druids don't log.

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Now clearly Ghostcrawler was talking about how versatile a Priest is, and how they can fill any role in a raid. However no one can really deny that a priest does not hot as well as a druid and he does not Tank heal as well as a Paladin.

This thread is about a priests role in a raid...

At the beginning of the Burning Crusade if you wanted to be a Holy Priest you were laughed at. "Go spec shadow if you want to raid". The Priest community persisted and 6 months later in Patch 2.1 priests finally had a place in raids with Circle of Healing. From Tier 5 content and on, Raid damage was incredibly high and while not as good at healing the raid as a Shaman the Priest was more versatile at doing everything in the raid. As content got harder Blizzard had to find ways to challenge the healers. With Black Temple and Sunwell, Priests suddenly found an amazing place in raids due to consistent group wide raid damage. While still not as desired as Shaman for the incredible benefit that more than one brought to a raid, Priests were still in demand for their raw ability to heal.

Priests were a powerful force through nearly all of burning crusade because of one spell. By 2.3.0 Circle of healing was the best raid healing spell in the game IF THE PARTY BEING HEALED BY IT TOOK CONSISTENT OR EQUAL DAMAGE. For situations were sporadic and inconsistent damage was hitting the raid, the shaman still remained the superior raid healer (Think of Bloodboil vs. Teron Gorefiend). Priests could not one button spam Circle of Healing because doing so was ineffective in many situations. No one complained about Priests spamming Circle of healing because Priests had to rotate other spells into their rotation or risk massive amounts of overheal.

Priests were the raid healer for all of the Burning crusade from T5 content and above. But the utility we brought was no where near as desired as the Shaman (The only thing that has changed between now and then was that Shaman Lost stackable Bloodlust and many of their totems became raidwide)

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14132918154&pageNo=4&sid=1#79

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Q u o t e:
If that type of role doesn't appeal to you, I can understand. There seem to be a lot of priests (on these forums) who just don't like priests and want them to be something else.

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The problem is that Priests enjoyed our role as being the raid healer. We brought Gimmick utility in the form of mass dispel, and only 1 priest was needed for our buffs (which the shadow priests at the time could do since they were required for healing intensive encounters). Shaman brought the real utility (And they still do). We aren't asking for stupid easy 1 button smashing, but prior to CoH becoming a Smart Heal, Priests WERE NOT 1 button smashers. But with a cooldown, Circle of healing just heals for a very ineffective amount and without any other tool to heal more than one target at a time, priests will no longer be able to effectively raid heal.

So please understand that the nerfs you are making to the priest class that if not made without a counter balance to the way we heal the raid will leave most priests feeling as if they have no purpose in raids.



For those of you who are wondering why priests keep making posts like these, Loveth on < Summit > Really nailed our problem on the head. I really recommend reading this post on Page 9 At the Top
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14287259645&sid=1&pageNo=9#160

I'm sure GC is a smart person.
I'm sure he/she is being told to say this.

But......


....But.....


He's sounding more and more like Fangtooth.

His posts are some of the lamest attempts at trying to convince people that Priests are fine.
He's basically saying if other classes don't come, then Priests are great, and that Druids can't MT heal.


But seriously. If you look at this as a horribly done PR attempt, it's actually quite funny.
I mean it's not so bad now because Priests with no alts can reroll a DK and not suffer the massive levelling, so really just look at it humorously. It's just a game.

If I hadn't read it myself, I would have a very tough time believing that Blizzard's vision for a class, ANY class, could possibly be "second fiddle healer with nothing compelling, usefull only as a backup".

Edit:
OMG Fangtooth. I used to think he just didn't care/was incompetent/had no business being in the position he was in. I wonder now if maybe he was just a patsy.

I agree. The more he speaks, the more I realize why priests are diminishing in value. Someone let the cat out of the bag that blizzard doesn't care about priests and his name is GC.

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Q u o t e:
I agree. The more he speaks, the more I realize why priests are diminishing in value. Someone let the cat out of the bag that blizzard doesn't care about priests and his name is GC.

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I don't think that they don't care about Priests.
I personally believe they just have absolutely no idea what to do with the class, and care MORE about other classes then Priests.
They don't hate Priests and don't care, we're just not their favorite child.

*Gives a high pitched whistle in amazement*

Wow, this is groundbreaking and fresh!

>.>

Hey look a post about Priests in PvP.

Well, if Blizzard made Priests the best instant-cast healers by putting a small casting time on some Druid spells and perhaps made Flash Heal instant, but then nerfed your other abilities so that you weren't pretty good at everything anymore, would that make you happier? You'd have a distinct niche for yourself where you were the best at something but with a weakness as a trade off just like everyone else, and so there would be a particular reason to bring for particular fights just like everyone else.

Somehow, I don't think that would make many Priests happy at all.

Hey at least we all need 2 priests for Instructor. There's your spot!

My main is a pally so naturally I am envious of you guys being kind of 'jack of all trade' sorts, but I suppose out of empathy I can understand your desire for identity.

Do not assume, however, that because you lack a strong identity that you are only in raids, because like, you showed up and X class did not. Not every fight requires X shammies for raid heals, X pallies for tank heals, and a druid or two for fun. Sometimes raid heals are INTENSE. Sometimes no. You are the class that can most effectively go in between tank and raid heals. Your role can change as the raid changes. Isn't that beautiful? I find priests beautiful AND desirable for a raid.

I dunno. I'm just a tank healer.

Christ, you idiots will just carve up anything a GM says and re-contextualize it for your own purposes. Did you even read the rest of GC's post or comments over the last month? Yes, that one bolded quote emphasizes that a bunch of priests have the versatility (yay, amazing quality) to make up for the absence of healers that excel at particular healing types (hots, single target, etc). That wasn't GC's one statement on priests though.

This endless nagging is starting to annoy everyone, including your fellow priests. We're fine.

I'll agree some more utility, in line with the rest of the healers, would be nice. Just cease these antagonizing thread titles that rile everyone up.

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Q u o t e:
Hey at least we all need 2 priests for Instructor. There's your spot!

My main is a pally so naturally I am envious of you guys being kind of 'jack of all trade' sorts, but I suppose out of empathy I can understand your desire for identity.

Do not assume, however, that because you lack a strong identity that you are only in raids, because like, you showed up and X class did not. Not every fight requires X shammies for raid heals, X pallies for tank heals, and a druid or two for fun. Sometimes raid heals are INTENSE. Sometimes no. You are the class that can most effectively go in between tank and raid heals. Your role can change as the raid changes. Isn't that beautiful? I find priests beautiful AND desirable for a raid.

I dunno. I'm just a tank healer.

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Well you will always be the tank healer... And you will always do it well.

We have been the raid healer for the last 1.5 years and we have done it well. With the change to CoH, priests simply won't be effective at raid healing any more. Sure we will be able to do it, but we just won't do it well. Even when a raid wasn't taking heavy damage we were still the raid healer... They guy who could adjust well to the situation.

I think my point is... Without a strong AoE healing spell, priests will not be able to adjust well to any situation... We just won't have the tools. I am not saying that CoH should not be nerfed, but it's current implementation of 6 seconds will make us bad raid healers if we do not get any other tools.

I'm running out of sig space to misquote GC ><

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Q u o t e:


Look! GC said priest can tank! I'm confrused.

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Thats my kinda post -cheer-

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Q u o t e:


Look! GC said priest can tank! I'm confrused.

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I'm honored dude. My first blue post :D Sadly it was not the kind of response I was hoping for.

But it really wasn't my intention. My intention was to point out the lack of direction facing our class. Or if our direction is to be the best at nothing but good at everything, then we need to have the tools to do that.

Putting a Cooldown on Circle of healing gives us no other out of party AoE healing spells.
You stated that you did want raids to stack groups to be effective

Taken from:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13275299935&pageNo=2&sid=1#31

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Q u o t e:
The old model of targeting a group out of a raid to heal it goes against one of the changes we tried to make for Lich King, which is that the raid structure matters, but the party structure within the raid doesn't. Almost all buff are raid-wide now, so we didn't want raiders to have to structure their groups just around things like Circle of Healing. "Um, can you put the MT and OT in the same group please, so CoH can get them both?" That sort of thing.

One of the things we wanted to do was give players more flexibility in how they set up their raids. This extends to your UI -- if you like to put the tanks in a separate part of your UI, or organize things by class or functional role instead of group, you can do that without having to worry (so much) about who is in what group.

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As a raid leader, the solution to the CoH nerf is as simple as putting one priest in each group and having them use Prayer of Healing to top off people. But this is not your design intention, then how will we heal something like decimate without a strong or spamable raid wide heal?

This topic is so stupid that it didn't even deserve a blue response, nice waste of space though.

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Q u o t e:


Look! GC said priest can tank! I'm confrused.

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I don't envy you as the person who has to be the diplomat with the community. But this response deserves a -1 for derailment and another -1 for insensitivity.

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Q u o t e:
This topic is so stupid that it didn't even deserve a blue response, nice waste of space though.

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I think that was the point. Blue responses make the threads go straight down the tubes, and this was obviously not a worthwhile discussion at this point.

Not to mention that it's been brought up in other threads.

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Q u o t e:


Look! GC said priest can tank! I'm confrused.

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Well played GC :D

In all honesty, you guys are seriously taking what he is saying hugely out of context. While some people don't like the role of jack of all trades healer, that is not for blizz to change, I believe that is why they gave us 2 healing specs, so we could choose between JoaT, and a extremely good MT healer.. He is simply saying that if one of the classes doesn't come to a raid, the Priest is designed for and can easily pick up their role.

Stop crying for the sake of crying

He probably really believes it. And in some ways, he has a point.

If you've ever played team sports, you probably had one or two people on your team who do everything. They don't excel at any one position, but you can put them anywhere and get solid work out of them. They don't draw press. They don't win awards. They get no attention outside of the team's other players/coaches.

They're also absolutely essential, because if a specialist isn't available for some reason (injury in sports, or vacations/RL in raiding), they're the person you fall back on to keep everything working.

That seems to be the design goal right now. Priests aren't supposed to outshine anybody at their niche, but you can stick us in anywhere and the raid keeps on humming.

So in some sense, we're not speaking the same language as GC is. Players say that "backup" isn't exactly a compelling niche. And they're right. GC says Priests are wanted in all but the top handful of raids that can actually cherry pick a group of nothing but specialists that have 100% attendance (which isn't representive of most of the game), and he's also right.

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Q u o t e:

We're fine.

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Q u o t e:

I'll agree some more utility,

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Then we're not fine.

Most priests (those who know what they're doing and don't just QQ about CoH) will agree that we're mostly fine. We're missing that "something" though. Most of what they're saying is "hey, why don't you expand on our hymns some?" or "give us something to secure us a spot when the shaman, paladin, and druid DO show up for the raid". I don't think posts like that are at all out of line. Especially given the most recent GC post. He's said that our holy/disc trees are going to get some work, but in the context of "we think priests are okay, your role is backup healer" it seems like that work is going to be in the form of bug fixes, and not in the form of expansion on our role.

No class should EVER be described as "an adequate backup if your first choice doesn't show". Would warriors stand for being "an OK tank if the prot paladin wasn't around"? Or "you'll get invites if the dire bear doesn't show?" I really think not.