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Q u o t e:

If this is how you would summarize the answers provided in the Q&A, I would almost question whether or not you were prepared to take nothing but that out of the Q&A before even having read it.


You might as well ask why every popular question wasn't included. We're providing quick feedback on player concerns and trying to keep these Q&As going as we continue to make changes to the game. I have a feeling we could write an entire book responding to player-submitted questions, all the while sharing every last detail about our plans for your class. Even then, there'd be a certain percentage of players that would come back and sum up every nuanced response with, "lol, he said we're fine and to L2P."

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Zarhym why is it every time I've read a blue post about priests that it seems they have no clue what they're doing with the class? The Q&A stunk of clueless answers. Lightwell has been a problem since pre-bc why has it never been fixed? 3+ years now people have been calling it out? It might be better that you admit your mistakes then lying to your community.

knowing our damage takes a long time to get rolling, but not offering us the survivability to live to see that damage rolling is mean.

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Q u o t e:

If this is how you would summarize the answers provided in the Q&A, I would almost question whether or not you were prepared to take nothing but that out of the Q&A before even having read it.


You might as well ask why every popular question wasn't included. We're providing quick feedback on player concerns and trying to keep these Q&As going as we continue to make changes to the game. I have a feeling we could write an entire book responding to player-submitted questions, all the while sharing every last detail about our plans for your class. Even then, there'd be a certain percentage of players that would come back and sum up every nuanced response with, "lol, he said we're fine and to L2P."

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Q u o t e:
Q: Would you consider removing the cast time for Mind Blast to make it a more desirable direct-damage spell given that it already has a cooldown?

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Questions such as the one above were answered, I'm pretty sure this wasn't asked half as much as things such as scaling, yet it gets answered and scaling doesn't? Who exactly chooses what questions get asked, 'cause they really did a crap job on the Priest one.

While i am aware that the Q&A Addressed alot of issues, GC seemed to just acknowledge the problems and not really say much else about them.

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Q u o t e:
[inner fire] Certainly the spell requires a lot less micromanagement now than it used to.

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In the current pvp environment inner fire is having to be reapplied faster than ever, even with the glyph+imp IF talent. While we aware you are hesitant to make IF a ‘passive armor’ buff, would you consider greatly increasing the charges the spell has?

Currently inner fire is being removed (via melee attacks) in only a matter of seconds, particularly in 3v3 + 5v5 games where there are two or more melee classes. Furthermore you are trying to encourage more arena participation in larger arena brackets (as opposed to 2v2) and larger encounters (BG’s). A foreseeable problem here is that IF charges will be removed faster than ever.

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Q u o t e:
[Shadow PVP] It takes a little bit of set-up time to get all of them working in PvE and PvP, but that’s actually something we’re trying to push more classes and specs into instead of going to just instant, burst damage everywhere.

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So you’re aware currently our DPS takes time to establish (in casting the DoT Effects). Would you consider merging VT + VE into a single spell to reduce the GCD’s required to set up our damage (+ the utility attached to VE in a pvp sense). Obviously such a change wouldn’t make us a ‘burst damage everywhere’ class, but it would help out.

You have stated Shadowfiend seems to be OK in PvE, How do you feel it is performing in a PvP environment?

Currently there are a large amount of concerns that Shadowfiend is not returning enough mana in PvP, as it is easily kited, cc’d or LoS (Pet pathing mechanics in Dalaran arena or Blades edge for example.. ring of valor), on top of this it’s AI is sketchy at best often switching targets half-way through its duration or simply not attacking who it was cast on/told to.

Do you have any plans to address this?

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Q u o t e:
[Shadow PvE DPS/Utility] increased its damage-dealing potential to make it near that of a primary damage-per-second (dps) caster -- such as a mage -- while also retaining some of its unique utility which made it cool during The Burning Crusade.

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Shadowpriests unique utility (mana battery) was reduced, and given to other classes aswell as you were aiming for raid groups to “bring the player not the class”. While i agree with your reasoning here, many priests feel like we lost alot of utility that came from being shadow but didn’t receive the ability to DPS to compensate. Currently Shadow DPS is very low compared to other classes and yet we don’t have a huge amount of utility either.

Any plans to look at increasing either Shadow DPS or Utility? VE Healing and Replenishment is also brought by Retribution paladins (among others), yet Retri’s also bring another paladin buff to the group and aura, aswell as an aura, and still offer significant DPS.

Still no word on Haste-Scaling, yet you continue to pile haste onto the gear. What's going on?

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Q u o t e:

If this is how you would summarize the answers provided in the Q&A, I would almost question whether or not you were prepared to take nothing but that out of the Q&A before even having read it.


You might as well ask why every popular question wasn't included. We're providing quick feedback on player concerns and trying to keep these Q&As going as we continue to make changes to the game. I have a feeling we could write an entire book responding to player-submitted questions, all the while sharing every last detail about our plans for your class. Even then, there'd be a certain percentage of players that would come back and sum up every nuanced response with, "lol, he said we're fine and to L2P."

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You said we have strong HOTS.. we have ONE and it's FAR from strong half the time it's not even worth casting. We can spend up to 6 talent points on it and it's still far far far from being near as good as rejuv.

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Q u o t e:
not to sound completely ungrateful.

its nice that shadow is getting attention, since its extremely subpar right now. but most of the "As" in the "Q&A" didn't really tell us anything we dont already know. there's still a lot of questions unanswered.

and i was very disappointed to see there wasnt even a peep about disc's single target throughput post 3.2, nor was there any mention of priest mobility in PVP.

the Q&A seems to be more like an introduction to the class for newcomers, rather than answers for people who play the class and have concerns about it.

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In the past I have found if Blizzard is talking about something they will be making the necessary changes to that skill or talent. It will take time for them to fix it, and probably won't come around until there are even more problems for priests. It's still alot better than what I was used to playing vanilla wow.

Anyway, my 2 cents:

Renew is fine, I like the T9 set bonus a lot. I think the renew glyph should be changed to actually provide an increase to healing done instead of just making it happen quicker. It can actually out heal ProM if you use it correctly. The problem people are talking about is that it is hard to make it viable and in a lot of fights PoH is better. Especially after the patch.

Also, somebody mentioned having lightwell give a haste bonus or healing automatically. Lightwell seems like a good name and perhaps it should generate a well of light and heal people standing in it automatically. Although this poses large similarities to other spells (tranquility, etc). Perhaps it heals like blessed recovery does or heals the lowest hp in range every tick. That would add some skill as to placement and positioning giving it much more viability.

Shadow seems fine but doesn't scale with gear. I dunno blizz, more dot power? Like vanilla wow where the 15% extra dmg was calculated in after the +dmg from SP was added. I won't ever see myself at the top of the DPS, nor will I see myself at the bottom.

Survivability in PvP...This is a tricky one. I can survive in PvP most of the time. Its a fine line to surviving or dying. I play holy and pair me with a disc priest and neither of us will die easily. Usually the only way I die is if I am overwhelmed by CC's and cannot get a single heal off. I think were fine and with the changes to resilience it will help us tremendously (perhaps more than other classes).

Psychic Scream...I have found myself using this very rarely in WoTLK and feel if anything it should get a slight buff. In PvE its pretty useless. I would only use it to slow dps on the tank or protect a party member (fade is much better for when they attack me). In PvP it seems to never fear more than 1 person (out of 3+ people). Most classes anticipate it or others just don't even seem to notice it.

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Q u o t e:

To the contrary, the questions were specifically gathered from players all around the world. Similar posts were made in every region and language requesting class feedback. Whether or not we addressed the most pressing concerns is a matter for debate, though each player's opinion on this is subjective.

There is one argument that could be made about the class Q&A's that's absolutely true though. Every Q&A will be followed with criticism that the most important class concerns are not addressed in full, if at all.

We do what we can to make sure the most important and frequently-asked questions are touched upon in every Q&A. That said, your individual questions are no more or less important to us than questions from players in Korea, Russia, Latin America, France, Germany, Britain, or any other region.

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well, to be fair, I saw some of what I wanted asked, but the answers were... not answers.

Light well, for example. Unless your developers are scheming some intricate plan to get damage dealing classes to care a little bit less about their dps, the answer should not include telling us that the healing numbers are in favor of keeping lightwell. We know this: it's purely an issue of practicality only. Why is the theory being brought up as a valid counterpoint?

moreover, the only reason anyone takes dispersion is not because it is useful: it is because after you have spent 50 points in the shadow tree, what exactly are you going to put it in after that? the holy tree? There is simply no alternative. Personally, the only time I use dispersion is when i change specs, so that I have enough mana to cast shadowform before I fill up on a drink. But none of this was considered: the numbers say most shadow priests take dispersion, therefore it must be worthwhile? Do the developers not understand how little synergy there is between shadow and any of the 21 point talents of the other two trees?

Prayer of mending was compared to tranquility - I hope that wasn't a serious comparison. I'll admit it has pulled me out of a bind once, but for having a 10 minute cool down, it really wasn't worth it.

Finally, what I didn't see is some sort of wipe recovery tool for priests. All healers have a resurrection - but only priests lack some sort of last-resort wipe prevention tool. Paladins have DI, druids have combat rez, shaman can self-rez. Priests have nothing of the sort.

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Q u o t e:

You said we have strong HOTS.. we have ONE and it's FAR from strong half the time it's not even worth casting. We can spend up to 6 talent points on it and it's still far far far from being near as good as rejuv.

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The problem is that druids have an on par HoT heal, and a lesser HoT heal that can be used up for a very large heal. Renew just ticks away and then fades. Maybe the new renew glyph could increase healing done on targets with renew?

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Q u o t e:


Finally, what I didn't see is some sort of wipe recovery tool for priests. All healers have a resurrection - but only priests lack some sort of last-resort wipe prevention tool. Paladins have DI, druids have combat rez, shaman can self-rez. Priests have nothing of the sort.

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Spirit of Redemption, although I have to die to be able to use that...

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Q u o t e:

If this is how you would summarize the answers provided in the Q&A, I would almost question whether or not you were prepared to take nothing but that out of the Q&A before even having read it.


You might as well ask why every popular question wasn't included. We're providing quick feedback on player concerns and trying to keep these Q&As going as we continue to make changes to the game. I have a feeling we could write an entire book responding to player-submitted questions, all the while sharing every last detail about our plans for your class. Even then, there'd be a certain percentage of players that would come back and sum up every nuanced response with, "lol, he said we're fine and to L2P."

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but, seriously - you could probably say the majority of the (say) shamans were happy with their Q&A. Surely this indicates that it is possible for the community to be satisfied. Surely this further indicates that the fact that most priests are not may indicate a problem with the Q&A session (mostly the "A" part, to be accurate).

Personally, I didn't expect much, anyway. To be honest this is actually more than I expected. It just bugs me when people do the politician thing of answering questions other than what is asked.

I'm almost always fine with Blizzard's philosophies and opinions that differ from mine.

But to this day, ever since its introduction so long ago, I simply cannot find merit in their approach to lightwell. No matter how many times they explain their approach, their words are hollow.

It continues to vex me. I'm terribly vexed.

Anyone else find it hilarious how, after 9 other Q&As, people are till "disappointed" and "amazed at the lack of information"?

Seriously, did you guys even read the other class's? Or at least the responses? Hint: NO ONE liked their own class's Q&A, you're not any different.

Two observations:

1) Reviewing the first 25 pages of questions (many questions per post), about 60% included SPriest DPS scaling with Haste. Yes, I counted. Does this suggest a level of worldwide interest that might tie into a larger mechanic plan regarding Haste and DoT's that would be worthy of addressing?

2) The answers on Spriest DPS seem to be from a point of view that "trash mob" dps is viewed as important by raid leaders and guilds. Bosses are generally single target DPS. The 3.2 instances won't have "trash mobs" to deal with. Doesn't this suggest that SPriest will be in a bit of a pickle when 3.2 comes out (tomorrow)?

Thank you

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Q u o t e:


Spirit of Redemption, although I have to die to be able to use that...

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so... our last-ditch recovery tool is basically a mana potion and 12 extra seconds of being alive?

I think "I got Jimmy" needs to be every priest new battle cry. I ... GOT...JImmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

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Q u o t e:
I'm almost always fine with Blizzard's philosophies and opinions that differ from mine.

But to this day, ever since its introduction so long ago, I simply cannot find merit in their approach to lightwell. No matter how many times they explain their approach, their words are hollow.

It continues to vex me. I'm terribly vexed.

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yeah I've always been Holy..I tried to use lightwell for a bit, but it really just doesn't happen unless the DPS knows what to do with it..which seems to be never.

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Q u o t e:
I think "I got Jimmy" needs to be every priest new battle cry. I ... GOT...JImmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

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ima name my DK that.

May as well go with the flow, It's the only class that blizz seems to be interested in atm.

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Q u o t e:
So basically the response to every question was

"It's fine L2P"

My favorite part was



Apparently this is how we're supposed to use GH, by communicating on vent when we're healing the tank. This works for which encounters btw? General and.....?

All I know is I GOT JIMMY!

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Back in 40 man raids we used to designate a healer to every 5-6 people in raid healing, not giving 3 healers all 20 people and just leaving it at that. It was a method that worked very well and it only changed when Naxx came out and mana wasn't a problem and 1 heal topped everyone off. Since then I have been very unhappy with any raid I have been in. Nobody seems to take the time to skillfully delegate healing rotations or healing groups. We also had healing rotations on tanks so people could regen, but that last patch destroyed any possible thought of using that trick again.