by Xias
Having a priest horde-side and loving it, I’m always curious to see what bad things players have to say about the class. I tend to be a “glass is half full” kinda guy, so class shortcomings are often a source of entertainment for me. If someone says “X specs sucks and can’t raid” I will go out of my way to spec say, discipline, and take it in to see how it holds up. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I run through and say “well it worked..but yes, not exactly optimal.” Improvements can and should be suggested to help developer’s understand class issues. What issues do players bring to the table for priests? Let’s see…
Escape Mechanism: In PvP, Priests have a rather frustrating problem…and that’s a lack of escape. Priests have one instant-cast AoE fear, and beyond that..have no real way of getting out of oncoming damage. You can try and heal through it until your friends come to the rescue, hit pain suppression until your friends come to the rescue, or…well that’s it. Many classes, such as warriors and rogues, have abilities to counter the one fear priests have. This leads to frustrating gameplay as it’s really not fun to watch yourself get stun-locked/face smashed to death with little recourse.
Holy Talents: I hate to admit it, but I’m on the “Holy Tree needs improvement” bandwagon. It’s just not very impressive. Lightwell has a lengthy cool down and it’s HoT (heal over time) gets taken away by ANY damage. It’s just not very good, and it needs to be improved. I actually like Circle of Healing a lot, I use it all the time but..is it really worth giving up Divine Spirit for…especially given the recent buff to the stat? For the vast majority of priests, the answer is no.
Discipline…what does it mean exactly? Players believe the Discipline Tree is a mish-mash of talents, some being offensively minded by too deep in the tree, some for mana regen, and some that don’t serve any real purpose. It *appears* to be the PvP focused tree..but a lot of players would like it to be more than that. Some want some PvE viability, with enough utility to be worth bringing to a raid. Some hate the power infusion nerf that changed it over from spell power to haste instead. Regardless the tree needs to be looked at and given a proper role.
There you have it, from my own priest’s view as well as a variety of responses on the class feedback thread. Priests do need a bit of love and have a few glaring issues (holy talents!) but all in all they are still a total blast to play. Maybe if I was a min-max kind of player I wouldn’t like them so much…good thing I’m not.
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