Posts with tag priest
Posted Oct 10th 2007 7:22PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Priest, Warlock, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP
The pic above,
via The Nameless One on WoW Ladies LJ, shows you just how bad the state of battlegrounds healing is. In a WSG where she was healing, she topped the healing meter, and second place went to
a Warlock. Drain Life and healthstones for the win. They're already OP-- do we really need them topping healing meters, too?
Of course, this is just one screengrab from one match, but it's true that
healing in the BGs is just plain sad. And it's not surprising why-- there's a huge focus on DPS and taking the other side down in BGs, and there's almost no reward at all for healing. Out of the eight stats listed on that screen, only one of them has anything to do with healing (OK, bonus honor and HKs might get a nice boost if you're a good healer, but at this point, odds are they'd get an even better boost if you're DPS). Healers get all of the damage (since healers are targeted first), and none of the glory.
I'm not sure how we can fix this, either-- tracking "average lifespan," as a way of recognizing healers who stay alive? Providing bonus HKs, just for healing? Providing better
PvP healing talents and gear? Personally, I love healing the BGs-- I love sitting behind a tree and keeping my faction alive long enough to take the flag or kill the other team. But right now, it's pretty much its own reward. When a Lock takes second place to a Priest in PvP, you know players need a little more incentive to break out the Greater Heals and Healing Waves.
Posted Oct 10th 2007 6:00PM by Eric Vice
Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Classes
Last week
I talked about mid-level content and as expected, many of you expressed an opinion. One comment in particular from autumnbear got me thinking. Autumnbear writes:
"How about updating the overall lore for the game, and allowing more class choices for the current playable races. Still waiting for the Night Elves to teach my Human how to be a Druid, especially since he's Exalted with both Darnassus AND the Cenarion Circle."
Now that's something I can chew on. What about quests that will allow you to make race/class combinations that are not otherwise available in the game? I think this is a tremendous idea if the process is sufficiently difficult to prevent everybody and their uncle's cat from doing it. The original Everquest had epic quests that took some players months to complete. Everquest 2 had the betrayal quests which allowed you to change factions which took a really long time to complete.
Why shouldn't a human, in Autumnbear's case, who has earned significant faction with Darnassus not be able to learn the finer points of being a
druid?
Gnomes have no healing classes. Why not create a very difficult quest line for those gnomes who are exalted with Stormwind that would allow them to become a
paladin or
priest?
I know I'm going to get a billion comments about game balance. Admittedly this would likely not count as "mid-level" either, but I think that if it was properly implemented it could be a valid source of that new content that everybody is craving.
Posted Oct 2nd 2007 2:53PM by Amanda Rivera
Filed under: Priest, Analysis / Opinion
It might just be me, but after reading a recent
Blessing of Kings post about the utility of priests I am rethinking my view of them. Coriel discusses the effectiveness of priest heals, and in doing so brings up what some seem to consider a dirty word these days: hybrid.
It's interesting to contemplate, but according to Coriel priests are actually the hybrids of the healing genre. The other healing classes focus on one type of healing. Druids have their great heal over time abilities, shamans have chain heal, pallies have great single-target heals. Now the priest is able to do all these things, but none to the capacity of their fellow healing classes. Therefore Coriel says, they are the jack-of-all-heals, and the master of none. Further down in the comments to this post a commenter also brought up the fact that shadow priests are also hybrids, being a dps/healing class.
Is this why the priests of WoW have been having a tough time competing in the more challenging healing situations? What could Blizzard do to establish priests as the kings of healing once more, or is their very nature holding them back?
Posted Oct 1st 2007 7:05AM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Priest, Spiritual Guidance
There's a lot of content in
World of Warcraft that you can do all by yourself -- you can easily get to level 70 without ever joining a party. But there's plenty of content along the way that can only be accomplished in groups, and group play is, well, a bit different from solo play. To succeed solo, all you really have to do is kill your target before it kills you -- but in a group, every player has a specific role to fufill to make the group as a whole function. You've got someone to absorb damage (your tank, decked out in gear to help him or her mitigate damage), several someones to do damage (your DPS, which can come from nearly any class), and someone to prevent everyone from dying in the meantime (your healer). And regardless of whether you're healing or flaying minds, you're cloth-wearer who can't take a lot of hits. What does this mean? Well, my friends, it means you need to know a little something about keeping monsters on your tank and off you. And you're in the right place, because today we're going to talk about threat.
Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: Threat and you
Posted Sep 28th 2007 7:55PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Analysis / Opinion
With DPS, this question is simple. You can take a glance at your damage meter of choice and see how much damage they've done, perhaps combined with how much damage they've taken (hitting the top of the damage meters may be impressive -- but if the only way to do that involves being a major drain on your healers' mana, it might be better for your group as a whole if you cut back), and can have a pretty good idea of how they're performing. On the other hand, measuring a healer's performance is a bit more ethereal, as discussed in depth today on
Priestly Endeavors. Of course, you can watch the
healing meters, but they don't tell the entire story of a good healer. What about mana management? The 5-second rule? Heal timing? (Heal too soon and you're overhealing and wasting mana -- but heal too late and you may not have anyone to heal at all.) Kirk on
Priestly Endeavors breaks it down into the data you'd want to see to completely determine healer effectiveness:
- The health of every party member over time.
- Information on every heal that was cast and when it was cast (including things like Power Word: Shield which usually aren't counted).
- The healer's mana over time.
But while having a spreadsheet showing off all of this information for the duration of an instance run would certainly tell us exactly how our healers are doing, this much data would be heavy information overload. (Fascinating to sort through when you have specific questions, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it every day.) But seeing as we don't currently have access to such detailed information, I'm throwing the question out to you -- how do you measure the performance of a healer? What extra information would you like to have in measuring the performance of a healer?
Posted Sep 26th 2007 11:20PM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Priest, Patches, Odds and ends, Forums
With the bonanza of upcoming changes coming out, there are a few categories that don't have enough changes to merit posts of their own. These are their stories.
- We're adding new relics to support all talent trees in patch 2.3 for Shaman, Paladins and Druids. In addition, (not that this will sweep you off your feet), most of the arena-system relics have been renamed so there is a more consistent naming convention. (Eyonix)
- Those who completed the [Tempest Keep] attunement process will have access to the title "Champion of the Naaru". Also, the plan is to hard-cap it at 70, meaning you can't go back at 80 and "cheese" the title. (Eyonix)
- We're looking into potential improvements for earth shield, and even lightning shield (Eyonix)
- Fear Ward will be available to all priests at level 20, but there are some changes in addition. Current plans are to reduce duration to 3 minutes, and increase the cooldown to 3 minutes.
To give the dwarves and draenei something else to even it out, they'll see a new ability called Chastise (also given at level 20) which will cause holy damage and incapacitate the target for 2 seconds. (Drysc)
Yay! Fear Ward for all! Racials are still a stupid idea, in my opinion, but this takes some of the sting out of them. A new title, and some new relics are both very welcome; the current relics are in many ways a bit silly.
Posted Sep 26th 2007 5:40PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Priest, Patches, Forums
Since we've seen patch 2.2 rolled out on US and EU servers by now, we're starting to get glimpses of what's in store for patch 2.3. So far, Nethaera has
confirmed the following:
- Circle of Healing, Prayer of Healing, and Holy Nova (healing side) will receive additional benefit from +damage/healing.
- Circle of Healing's base healing will be reduced, but the amount of benefit it gains from +healing will be increased. (If you have more than 1338 healing, it will heal for more. If you have less than 1338 healing, it will heal for less.) Update: Related, Power Word: Shield's base absorbtion is being reduced for ranks 10, 11, and 12, but the effect of damage/healing gear on it will be increased. Though Nethaera didn't give us exact numbers, I'm hoping this equates to at least a small buff to the ability.
With more 2.3 info
here:
- Pain Suppression being reworked. It will be castable on any friendly target and it will reduce their threat by 5% and reduce their damage taken by 40%. Update: Nethaera clarifies that this reduces the target's current threat and not their threat generation.
- Meditation to be increased from 5/10/15% mana regeneration while in combat to 10/20/30% mana regeneration while in combat.
Changes we know are coming, but don't have any release dates on (some of them as far out as WotLK) include:
I have to say I'm intrigued by the idea of the new Pain Suppression and honestly excited about Meditation (yay for more mana regeneration!) , though I doubt the healing tweaks will be major enough to make a big deal in either direction. And the future? I can't wait for Blizzard to add some damage to my healing gear, though I'm holding out on full details on these changes before passing judgment.
Posted Sep 18th 2007 9:14PM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Priest, Fan stuff, Talents, Build Shop
Welcome, talent fans! This time we're going to try something a little different with Build Shop: an interview. We've got
Wowhead co-founder and primary website developer Skosiris to talk a bit about his priest build, so check it out and let me know what you think of the format. For the uninitiated, Wowhead is an excellent WoW database site for looking up information on equipment, mobs, quests, spells, etc. I recently started playing Dungeon Runners, and Wowhead is possibly what I miss most about WoW. It's that good.
Skosiris is getting his Shadow on with this solo/5-man oriented spec. He's a relatively casual player, having never raided, and doesn't have time to play tons. I like the build well for its intended purpose.
Eliah Hecht, WoW Insider: Hey, want to talk about your build?Skosiris of
Wowhead: Sure thing. It's been a little while since I last played my priest, but this should be fun.
Likewise. So, do you have a link for the build?14/0/47, Amory profile
here
Continue reading Build Shop: Priest 14/0/47 (interview with Skosiris)
Posted Sep 13th 2007 7:50PM by Chris Jahosky
Filed under: Alchemy, Items, Analysis / Opinion
For those that aren't familiar with
Fel Mana potions, they restore 3200 mana over 24 seconds, but also reduce your spell damage by 25 and your healing by 50 for 15 minutes.
On the surface, this seems like a bad deal, at least to me. I've intentionally not used them because of their negative side effect. Besides, a
Super Mana potion will restore 1800-3000 mana instantly -- so why wait for the mana
and incur a spell penalty?
Phaelia over at
Resto4Life recently did some math that may or may not change your mind about using them,
if you use them at the right time.
Mostly the article is aimed at discussing when healers should pop a Fel Mana potion, but good news for all you hunters out there that may not have thought of this yet... there's no downside if you use them!
Posted Sep 3rd 2007 12:34AM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Priest, Spiritual Guidance
If you've ever taken the time to peak on the official forums, you've probably noticed more than a few complaints about Priest healing ability and viability. And you have to admit that when one of the game's top guilds tells us that
they bring priests to their raids for DPS, something must be wrong with the class that Blizzard calls "
the masters of healing." However, I take the opinion that there's nothing wrong with the priest's healing abilities -- except that perhaps Blizzard's raiding strategy (or players' drive to min/max to beat it). Priests heal differently than paladins, druids, and shamans -- but I can't honestly say they're bad healers. Before saying that one class is the best or worst at healing, I think we all have to ask ourselves what kind of healers we are.
[Image via the On Notice Board Generator]
Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: What kind of healer are you?
Posted Aug 22nd 2007 6:51PM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Priest, Odds and ends, News items, Wrath of the Lich King
Apparently, Fear Ward is going to be a spell for all priests as of
Wrath of the Lich King. This is indirectly confirmed by Nethaera. In response to a post translated from German that implies a universal Fear Ward,
the candle said:
This is true that we plan to spread Fear Ward around, but don't expect it until most likely the expansion. There's a bit of a difference between "spread it around" and "for all races," but still, I'm betting on every race getting it just to end the debate. And it looks like the
URL change is not the only refreshing the
Armory is getting today; the "first phase" (ooh, there's more?) of Armory optimizations
has gone live:
- Smarter, faster results pages: The Armory's various search results pages respond more quickly when changing pages or sorting within the results. The Armory's right hand panel also takes advantage of this new speed and now remembers what page you were last viewing as well.
- Faster item tooltips: The tooltips that appear when mousing over items in a character profile or an item search results page are now much more responsive.
- Open Armory links in new windows/tabs: Now you can open links from the Armory in their own tabs or windows for quick comparisons between profiles, items, search results, and more.
- New advanced item search button: This button takes you to the Armory's powerful advanced item search options and is located in a prominent, convenient location under the main search field.
- And much more: Many more specific improvements have been implemented, the details of which can be found on the Updates page. In addition, general performance has been greatly improved in the areas of response time, loading time, and memory usage.
Neat. The Armory is an indispensible tool, and making it faster is a big plus. The item tooltips still don't work in
Camino, my browser of choice, but I'm told that's a Camino bug and not really Blizz's fault.
Posted Aug 20th 2007 1:26PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Leveling
Marilyn has
an interesting point over at WoW Ladies: if you see her grinding Consortium rep and taking on three mobs at a time in Netherstorm, leave her alone-- it's all under control. I sometimes have this same problem as a resto Shaman-- onlookers don't always realize that even though my health is low and I'm almost out of mana, redemption for me is just a huge heal and a Mana Tide totem away. Things may look bad, but really, don't worry about it-- my Earth Shield just got refreshed, and I'm good to go for two more mobs, so no, I don't need saving.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I really want to discourage people to help in this game-- I'd much rather
have them help me fight than really be in trouble and have them /laugh as I die. So I'm not sure I'd tell everyone to lay off.
Rather, the problem here is that when I pull a group of mobs, I don't want someone else stepping in and tagging them away from me in the name of help. So there are plenty of ways to help that don't include stealing my XP-- drop a DoT on something that's been tagged (I do this all the time on my Shadow Priest), or throw me a heal (always appreciated, even if my Mana Tide totem is off cooldown). And just paying attention is nice, too-- nothing burns me more as a Rogue than taking the time to sneak up on a mob, only to have them charged by an overzealous warrior who claims afterwards that they didn't see my Distract go off.
If it's legitimate kill-stealing, the best option is just to ignore and move on to a less populated area-- there's no dealing with those people. But if you do see someone fighting a bunch of mobs solo, there are better ways to help than grabbing one of their kills, and chances are they'll be more than happy to help you the next time around.
Posted Aug 19th 2007 9:15AM by Dan O'Halloran
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Classes, Talents
When the Public Test Realm is up, any player who has had an active account since November 2006 can copy their character over to help test the new update. During the Patch 2.1 Public Test phase, I copied my L64 feral druid over and respecced to Balance. Fortunately, I had a decent set of Balance gear with me and was able to give the spec a good test drive. I enjoyed it enough that I eventually went Balance when I hit L70 on the live servers.
With Patch 2.2 currently on the Public Test Realm, Blizzard is allowing players to copy up to 4 premade L70 characters to the Test Realm. This time, I decided to see what it was like to play some other classes I long admired, so I copied a shaman, a priest and a rogue.
Each toon starts out with a full set of raid gear and PvP gear for different specs as well as plenty of trinkets, rings, weapons, drink, bandages and gems. They also get epic mounts, both land and air. They have none of their talent points assigned, so you can spec them immediately, but you will have to find a trainer to get the higher levels of any spells/abilities you pick up in your talent tree.
Read on for my impressions on each class after the jump.
Continue reading Test a spec for free or try a new class on the PTR
Posted Aug 12th 2007 8:31PM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Priest, Items, Features, Spiritual Guidance
Every Sunday, Eliah or Elizabeth will bring you their thoughts on the Priest class with Spiritual Guidance. Whether it's keeping your fellow players alive or melting their faces, you can read about it here!The
archaic stuff out of the way, in part two of this two-part series we turn to the hot new stuff: the Priest sets from the Burning Crusade. BC made one tremendous improvement in the way class sets were handled: raid gear for off-specs. For us men and women of the cloth, that means Tier 4, 5, and 6, as well as Arena gear, are available in versions befitting both healing and shadow priests.
As before, I'll start with the epic raid gear, T4, T5, and T6, pictured above from left to right. They really went crazy with the shoulders, didn't they?
Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: Priest sets (part two)
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