EDIT - Thanks for the dev feedback. As I said before, I can understand the changes to Shadow. For the rest of it...it's better to hear feedback demonstrating the infuriating lack of dev understanding or prioritization of longstanding Holy/Disc & racial problems than to hear no feedback at all. These are primarily design flaws within the class, not debatable inter-class balance.

Why has there never been a popular top Holy talent?

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Some of the changes are quite good. I'm most impressed by the treatment of Binding Heal which should now be highly respectable and a staple spell even if it's not something we're casting every few seconds. Dispel resistance on Pain Suppression was strongly needed.

I can understand the changes to Shadow. I don't have up-to-date personal experience with Shadow PvE raiding but from what I hear Shadow Priests were being very competitive in terms of raw damage alone before even considering the highly beneficial side effects. If so, that's unbalanced.

So why are so many of us upset? It's what the patch didn't include.

* It didn't remove Lightwell and Circle of Healing, replacing them with highly desirable talents. The Circle of Healing tweak is a good intentioned failure. Again. The very short range party-only targeting is the spell's greatest problem, not its ideal healing efficiency.

* It didn't fix having an important raid buff require 23 points into Discipline. Even if 41 Holy were incredible MANY Priests would still feel they have to skip it to spec 3/3 Divine Spirit. This also impacts our ability to spec Empowered Healing.

* It didn't make a Holy Priest a viable substitute for a Holy Paladin in a primary Arena healing role. Binding Heal helps a bit, but the reason everyone drools over a Paladin has more to do with a Paladin's cumulative ability to stay un-CC'd, go immune to all damage/interrupts, and not be fazed by spell pushback...all in plate armor. Priests don't need all that because we do have greater offensive ability (Fear, Dispel). A midway point would be appropriate.

* Deep Discipline is still a thoroughly non-raid spec. It lacks the healing of Holy and the sustained damage/effects of Shadow. I don't think it needs to be an optimal raid spec, but where's the interesting tradeoff?

* We wanted more reason to bring additional healing Priests to raids. Not less reason to bring healing Paladins to raids. After the first healing Priest (for buffs) all we add is more healing. In fact, Prayer of Mending becomes less effective per Priest as more Priests are around trying to use it. We wanted a moderate boost to our single target healing efficiency so we don't have to rely on situational group heals to keep up and we wanted stacking utility in the spirit of a Druid's battle res, or Shaman/Paladin/Treedruid group buffs. An interesting but not required tradeoff for adding another Priest if that's what a raid wants to do.

* Shadowfiend's biggest issue was AI. Was that addressed? Second biggest issue was glancing blows which MAY have been addressed but that's unclear. Would it be so terrible to guarantee hits? There's still a damage range and they are still susceptible to flat out dying or being CC'd.

* Priest racials (both base and class) are still severely imbalanced in some cases. Why did Draenei Priests get another buff to their group mana regen when it was already roughly equal to the personal regen from a Human Priest's 10% Spirit bonus...and while Night Elves and Dwarves have no regen bonus at all? And while Night Elves still have no PvE racials aside from 10 Nature Resistance.


Trying to help,
NS

"Mind control" no longer has a 100 yard range limitation in instances.

What does that mean?

Why the SWD nerf ? As is a shadow priest can not sustain the amount of DPS with out help from POTS and Druids vates. Other DPS class's do fine alone with out help.

No reason to nerf SWD. Please dont sugar coat anything.



( spelling )

Why is it that our 31 and 41 point holy talents are not on par with those of other classes?

Are you buffing Circle of Healing to the point that it is worth more to healing priests than Improved Divine Spirit?

While I understand about the nerfs to shadow priests, my main confusion lies with why is Circle of healing being buffed, and so slightly? Don't the dev's realize that our 41 point holy has to be good enough to give up DS and imp DS? Why keep this bad 41 point and rethink of something worth giving up DS and imp DS?

Also with the glancing blows does that mean our shadow fiend wont get nearly as many glancing blows?

One last question, can you please fix the AI of Shadow fiend it doesn't have to be the best AI but make it go to the target we select and make it stop attacking if the target is CC'd please.

Posting my response to NS post here too.

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Q u o t e:

So why are so many of us upset? It's what the patch didn't include.

* It didn't remove Lightwell and Circle of Healing, replacing them with highly desirable talents. The Circle of Healing tweak is a good intentioned failure. Again. The very short range party-only targeting is the spell's greatest problem, not its ideal healing efficiency.

* It didn't fix having an important raid buff require 23 points into Discipline. Even if 41 Holy were incredible MANY Priests would still feel they have to skip it to spec 3/3 Divine Spirit. This also impacts our ability to spec Empowered Healing.

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I agree completely on both accounts. This was still not addressed for holy priests.

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Q u o t e:

* It didn't make a Holy Priest a viable substitute for a Holy Paladin in a primary Arena healing role. Binding Heal helps a bit, but the reason everyone drools over a Paladin has more to do with a Paladin's cumulative ability to stay un-CC'd, go immune to all damage/interrupts, and not be fazed by spell pushback...all in plate armor. Priests don't need all that because we do have greater offensive ability (Fear, Dispel). A midway point would be appropriate.

* Deep Discipline is still a thoroughly non-raid spec. It lacks the healing of Holy and the sustained damage/effects of Shadow. I don't think it needs to be an optimal raid spec, but where's the interesting tradeoff?

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These two go hand in hand, blizzard wants us to spec disc for arena, they are slowly making that tree cohesive to reflect that.

Move Spirit to the holy tree.
Bring back Focused Casting as a 21pt talent.
Rework or more plausibly Remove CoH and replace it with something that gives us more raid utility.

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Q u o t e:

* We wanted more reason to bring additional healing Priests to raids. Not less reason to bring healing Paladins to raids. After the first healing Priest (for buffs) all we add is more healing. In fact, Prayer of Mending becomes less effective per Priest as more Priests are around trying to use it. We wanted a moderate boost to our single target healing efficiency so we don't have to rely on situational group heals to keep up and we wanted stacking utility in the spirit of a Druid's battle res, or Shaman/Paladin/Treedruid group buffs. An interesting but not required tradeoff for adding another Priest if that's what a raid wants to do.

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I agree. See above.

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Q u o t e:

* Shadowfiend's biggest issue was AI. Was that addressed? Second biggest issue was glancing blows which MAY have been addressed but that's unclear. Would it be so terrible to guarantee hits? There's still a damage range and they are still susceptible to flat out dying or being CC'd.

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Again, I agree here. It needs to be affected by spell hit, and the AI needs seriously tuned, or it needs to be controllable.

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Q u o t e:

* Priest racials (both base and class) are still severely imbalanced in some cases. Why did Draenei Priests get another buff to their group mana regen when it was already roughly equal to the personal regen from a Human Priest's 10% Spirit bonus...and while Night Elves and Dwarves have no regen bonus at all? And while Night Elves still have no PvE racials aside from 10 Nature Resistance.

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I am not sure why they are being so stubborn with regards to priest racials. They are the most imbalanced part of the class currently. Symbol of Hope most certainly was useful and didn't need a buff. Lolshards and Elune's LoL on the other hand are pretty pathetic compared to any other priest racial, or regular racial in the game. This system needs some serious retuning or reworking.

Why the 5% drop off Shadoweaving?

Why the +6 second cooldown on Shadow Word: Death?

Why the utter lack of aggro-managing options to the entire class?

Why the lack of survivability options for shadow priests?

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Q u o t e:
# "Shadow Weaving" (Shadow): Effect reduced by 1% per rank.
# "Shadow Word: Death": Cooldown increased to 12 sec.

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why? For a spell with a kickback, there was a certain risk taken with "spamming" it. The blowback needs to be taken out if there is a 12s cooldown. We are the only class that has a blowback spell in our books (and those poor poor engys), if you're going to be "normalizing" our class some more, seeing as how this seems to be the main reasons given, take out that side effect.

Shadow weaving debuff? Where the hell did this come from? Basically you guys want to nerf our dmg and utility? Currently we VE/VT at our own risk or at (for me) about 2/3 to 1/2 all out dps. Now we loose 5% of a utility NME debuff for other shadow users...


Please neth, this isn't enough. Contact the devs and have these thrown on the table as well:
# Priests with over 25 points in shadow may no longer spend talent points in the discipline tree.
# Touch of weakness is now a passive threat multiplier (this will allow the curse to be used more, as you in turn will be getting hit more).
# Shadowform is now affected by Shadow Weaving. For every stack on the current target, Shadowform looses 1% Mitigation and 2% Plus Damage.
# Improved Fade is now nessisary to have full talent points spent on in order to get VT
# Sometimes, for no reason at all, your Shadowform will consume your body and you will die instantly. There will be nothing about this in your combat log. You will take 20% durability damage for this type of death (there is super magics eating through your clothes!). We will do this so you have to run around while not in combat and look plain like everyone else. You are not prepared.

My concern is this: One can use the search function in this forum to look for posts made by "Blue". Very quickly one can find posts where "Blue" asked for input/concerns/whatever... but the search fails to find few if any replies. Why were these specific changes, in this most recent patch, made but none of the past concerns (which were asked for) were ever addressed?

You are what we have come to expect from Priest CM's nothing.

A few of my main priest concerns are as follows:
-Inner Fire, why does it still have charges? Ok armor reduction from 60-70 but how can you justify 20 charges.
-Discipline, the lost and confused talent tree. I mean what do you want from Disc efficentcy, holy dps, or survivability? The tree contains all 3 in a huge mix match of talents that just make the tree bad.
-Holy talents, CoH sucks it will never be good. Lightwell it has sucked with 1.9 when you released it and it still sucks why do we still have it? Holy Nova has always sucked since it was the 31 pt talent remove it.
-Racials, Draeni yet again receive a buff to an already outstanding racial but you refuse to look at NE racials?
-Shadow Weaving, are you joking? We already spend 2 extra talent points for a talent mages get for 3 in the fire tree, now you want us to spend 5 points for a 10% increase in damage.....
-SW:D its more of a holy PvP nerf then a shadow nerf.
You have dropped the ball with these patch notes I really had higher expectations then this crap.

Three quick questions. Please pass these on to developers.

1: Where are the "major holy changes"?

2: Why was the only response to the requested constructive feedback yet another substantial nerf?

3: Why do you keep lying to your customer base, you brain-dead, incompetent, MBA-toting, wastes of oxygen?

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Q u o t e:
Why the 5% drop off Shadoweaving?

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Because we were doing too much damage, and making warlocks do too much damage as well.

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Why the +6 second cooldown on Shadow Word: Death?

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Because this skill was intended to be a finisher. Like execute. It was never intended to be used as a staple in PvE raiding. The fact that you could SW:D, then MB, then Flay, then repeat the cycle without losing any health whatsoever was never intended, and imbalanced.

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Why the utter lack of aggro-managing options to the entire class?

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You mean aggro reducers? We have an aggro management talent, and a mediocre temporary threat reducer. This is more than some classes have. If you still pull aggro, get salvation, get KTM, then get new tanks.

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Why the lack of survivability options for shadow priests?

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Pain suppression for survivability. SHadow for dps. You can't have everything and more.

Nightshroud pretty much nailed my thoughts as well. We didn't want Paladin healing nerfed so much as we wanted an increase in *some* form to our healing utility. As it stands, we are nowhere near the single-target healer that a paladin is, even post-change. Our big heals are too slow, hit too light and are too inefficient. And just think what will happen when we start seeing Paladins in 4/5 tier 5.

Our spot-healing ability is second to a Resto druid whose HoTs and swiftmend simply destroy renew/flash/downranked GHeal.

Our group-healing is really our only "strong" suit right now as far as healing goes, and for that to be effective we have to rely on either stacking every member of the raid who will be taking periodic spike damage into the same party (forgoing any beneficial groupings for party buffs) and having the priest be in PoH range or speccing so deep in Holy that we trade our one unique buff for a spell that still relies on groupings and hits for a laughable amount versus spike damage. So really, in a guild with a good Holy paladin or two we're offtank healers at best and a shackle. While we must still be protected.

We have no active mana return. No, ShadowIdiot does not count until the AI works properly. We have no passive mana return on spellcast. 6% chance for a clearcasting proc from and for only 2 spells is not the answer. We have Spi/Mp5, but in case you haven't noticed it's really hard to build for spirit without gimping our other numbers. It is still claimed as our primary stat, yet we are not itemized for it and the talents to take full advantage of it are spread between two trees making it impossible to spec deep into either while still taking full advantage of our *primary stat*.

As of right now, if I was our guild leader and we had one more Holy Paladin who played regularly than we do right now, I would be telling me to spec shadow for a raid spot, even with the nerfs, for utility, moderate DPS and a shackle or to not expect a raid slot. And outside of undead-based instances not to expect a primary slot period.

Specifics have and will be said. From the broad view, however, our trees lack focus. Talents need to be moved, retuned, and thrown out completely.

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Q u o t e:
Specifics have and will be said. From the broad view, however, our trees lack focus. Talents need to be moved, retuned, and thrown out completely.

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The shadow tree is one of the more complete trees in the game.

Disc/holy on the other hand need serious work still.

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Q u o t e:


The shadow tree is one of the more complete trees in the game.

Disc/holy on the other hand need serious work still.

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You're a different species, stinky.