It's funny how they reduce the cooldown on all silences except ours. It's like we don't really have one.
Silence is not as good as an interrupt. With the casting bar in the Blizzard UI, even a really tired gold farmer can interrupt your heal. Unless... your silence is tied to a global cooldown.
I don't care if you're Spider-man, you will not silence that heal if you have to wait for the global cooldown. Spider-sense is tingling? Sure, but then you gotta wait 1.5 seconds.
So you're like, what about kick? Well, kick and pummel is up every 10 seconds, and rogues have a 1.0 second Global cooldown, because they're special. And warriors, well, you've seen how much they complain about people casting stuff on them.
To make things worse, you can't really silence anyone in PVE. I think I've silenced an ethereal priest in mana-tombs once, but that's probably because he was a priest. But those channelers in Magtheridon's Lair? Those guys are like warlocks. They throw shadowbolts and just refuse to shut the hell up.
But I'm okay with that, Silence is a pvp talent, right?
Now, people don't notice this because they're busy fleeing for their lives, but if you check the Thottbot page on Spell Lock, you'll notice that it says, "Dispel Type: None". If you look up Silence, it says, "Dispel Type: Magic". I silence priests alot and it gets dispelled by their friendly pallys, or vice versa. Felhunter silence? Not dispellable. Well, wait a minute here... Why is a pet spell better than my 21 point talent? So I break out my warlock twink (shhh, don't tell anyone) and sure enough, Spell Lock has a red border and is not a magical effect.
GD It!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
On Fear
There was never really a problem with priest fear. Err, wait. Allow me to rephrase that -- there was never really a problem with alliance priest's fear.
And now there is.
Fear should not break before some mouse-clicking rogue finds his 'WotF' key. This *ACTUALLY* happened. It was on the PTR and I dot'd the guy and feared him and it broke before he finally found his WotF. Like a couple seconds after the fear broke he finally goes, Psssh! -- Will of the Forsaken noise -- and keyboard turns slowly, tosses a shuriken at me with deadly throw and starts whaling on me with this hammer. Man, it's like watching a retard play.
But first, let's get something straight. I don't have a barrage of fears, and I don't wear plate and charge into a group of people with an undispellable fear. When you get feared for 12 seconds, and then feared AGAIN, and then horrified, and then die a terrible death... that ain't me. That's some dude that actually deserves his nerf.
I only have cloth and a single fear to keep people at arm's length. Hell, even fire mages have blazing speed. Who the hell let those those book-burrowing geeks turn into track stars? Don't even get me started on frost mages with their fancy little frost shields vs. melee.
So. Fear.
Priests need something else.
And now there is.
Fear should not break before some mouse-clicking rogue finds his 'WotF' key. This *ACTUALLY* happened. It was on the PTR and I dot'd the guy and feared him and it broke before he finally found his WotF. Like a couple seconds after the fear broke he finally goes, Psssh! -- Will of the Forsaken noise -- and keyboard turns slowly, tosses a shuriken at me with deadly throw and starts whaling on me with this hammer. Man, it's like watching a retard play.
But first, let's get something straight. I don't have a barrage of fears, and I don't wear plate and charge into a group of people with an undispellable fear. When you get feared for 12 seconds, and then feared AGAIN, and then horrified, and then die a terrible death... that ain't me. That's some dude that actually deserves his nerf.
I only have cloth and a single fear to keep people at arm's length. Hell, even fire mages have blazing speed. Who the hell let those those book-burrowing geeks turn into track stars? Don't even get me started on frost mages with their fancy little frost shields vs. melee.
So. Fear.
Priests need something else.
On Vampiric Embrace
Now that spiritual attunement has been 'fixed', Vampiric Embrace needs to be returned to its former glory. That is the simple truth of the matter.
Notice that VE has been crit-healing for years and nobody really cared until spiritual attunement came along. Now all of a sudden, it's 'omigah it crits' and 'omigah its 35%'. And as you know, when there's two parties involved, always nerf priests. Spiritual attunement and Vampiric Touch having synergy? Nerf VE! Warlocks doing too much damage with shadow weaving? Nerf Shadow weaving! If circle of healing ever works with some other class? Nerf circle of healing!
Even reverted to its original state, VE is still worse than it used to be. The silent resolve nerf (part of which I personally agree with) has completely unraveled VE in terms of aggro. Now, no, we shouldn't have 50% aggro reduction on shadow spells. But VE shouldn't make us aggro magnets either. The fact is, alot of raiding priests are dropping the 2 points in improved VE because it simply generates too much unnecessary aggro.
This would be okay if it didn't affect pvp shadow priests. But it does. Because you see, in pvp, things tend to go like this:
If you can't heal, you can run. And if you can't do either of those, you can smash face. Some people, like paladins, can heal and run around with freedom on, so I guess it's no real surprise that they tend to hang out with people who smash faces.
Well, Priests can't run, and we don't really smash more faces compared to anyone else. Shadow priests can't heal, except for VE. And now you nerfed our VE.
The suggestions:
1. Restore VE to its original 25% base, +10% improved. It's all meaningless overheal now, anyway.
2. Restore VE to its original 25% base, and 2 points of Improved VE to reduce healing aggro caused by
VE. That way PVP players can save 2 points, and PVE priests can actually use the spell.
Notice that VE has been crit-healing for years and nobody really cared until spiritual attunement came along. Now all of a sudden, it's 'omigah it crits' and 'omigah its 35%'. And as you know, when there's two parties involved, always nerf priests. Spiritual attunement and Vampiric Touch having synergy? Nerf VE! Warlocks doing too much damage with shadow weaving? Nerf Shadow weaving! If circle of healing ever works with some other class? Nerf circle of healing!
Even reverted to its original state, VE is still worse than it used to be. The silent resolve nerf (part of which I personally agree with) has completely unraveled VE in terms of aggro. Now, no, we shouldn't have 50% aggro reduction on shadow spells. But VE shouldn't make us aggro magnets either. The fact is, alot of raiding priests are dropping the 2 points in improved VE because it simply generates too much unnecessary aggro.
This would be okay if it didn't affect pvp shadow priests. But it does. Because you see, in pvp, things tend to go like this:
If you can't heal, you can run. And if you can't do either of those, you can smash face. Some people, like paladins, can heal and run around with freedom on, so I guess it's no real surprise that they tend to hang out with people who smash faces.
Well, Priests can't run, and we don't really smash more faces compared to anyone else. Shadow priests can't heal, except for VE. And now you nerfed our VE.
The suggestions:
1. Restore VE to its original 25% base, +10% improved. It's all meaningless overheal now, anyway.
2. Restore VE to its original 25% base, and 2 points of Improved VE to reduce healing aggro caused by
VE. That way PVP players can save 2 points, and PVE priests can actually use the spell.
Improved Mindblast
Let's start with a brief history lesson.
Mindblast used to be instant. It was once the priest version of fireblast, or a shock type spell, and was given a cooldown accordingly. As it so happened, you used to be able to channel mindflay while running (imagine that), so a priest would never have to stop to cast. And that was overpowered.
So mindblast was given a 1.5 second cast time, but the cooldown was never fixed (mindflay was also changed to what it is today). Mindblast then became the priest version of lightning bolt, and priests never had an instant nuke again until SW:Death. And that's the end of that story.
Now, here's the issue: basic damage spells of this type are not supposed to have cooldowns. Lightning bolt is spammable, and so is scorch, searing pain, fireball, and shadowbolt. Mindblast having a cooldown is really a result of its legacy as an instant spell.
Furthermore, mindblast is the worst of its category in terms of scaling. Because 1.5 second spells share the coefficients with instant cast spells, so mindblast scales like fireblast and shock spells (42.9% according to Nightshroud's Lux et Umbra). It is also the only non-instant direct damage spell to have a cooldown, so shadow priests are really getting the short end of the stick here.
But wait, what about the 2.0 second lightning bolts or 1.5 second chain lightning? The simple answer is that these spells can be talented to cast like mindblast but retain their base spell coefficients as 3.0 second and 2.5 second spells, respectively. Even immolate, shadowbolt, fireball, and frostbolt can have their cast times reduced similarly (none of those spells have cooldowns).
The suggestions:
1. Improved mindblast makes mindblast instant. The damage coefficients stay the same anyway. Unlike
chain lightning or lightning bolt, we do not get any scaling benefits from it.
2. Improved mindblast reduces mindblast cooldown significantly. Now it's like every other nuke in the game, except it scales less with gear.
3. Improved mindblast reduces cooldown of both Mindblast and SW:D by small amount. Let's be honest: 12 seconds is too much in pvp.
A quick aside on the SW:Death vs. Shadowburn debate:
The notion that the two are comparable is ridiculous. Locks have so many spells that shadowburn is just icing on the cake. If locks want to try it out for themselves, then remove shadowbolt, incinerate, soulfire and immolate from your spellbooks. You should be left with only searing pain except it has an 8 second cooldown, and you must restrict yourself to two dots. Then, you have your beloved shadowburn, except it does blowback damage and a 12 second cooldown. So the rest of the time you just have to channel drain life except you don't have fel concentration and it only heals for 25%, assuming you have 3 points in vampiric embrace. Oh, and no fear except improved howl of terror, and absolutely no deathcoil. And... no pets and replace your lifetap button with a super mana potion, at 5g a pop.
Welcome to the priesthood. Enjoy.
Mindblast used to be instant. It was once the priest version of fireblast, or a shock type spell, and was given a cooldown accordingly. As it so happened, you used to be able to channel mindflay while running (imagine that), so a priest would never have to stop to cast. And that was overpowered.
So mindblast was given a 1.5 second cast time, but the cooldown was never fixed (mindflay was also changed to what it is today). Mindblast then became the priest version of lightning bolt, and priests never had an instant nuke again until SW:Death. And that's the end of that story.
Now, here's the issue: basic damage spells of this type are not supposed to have cooldowns. Lightning bolt is spammable, and so is scorch, searing pain, fireball, and shadowbolt. Mindblast having a cooldown is really a result of its legacy as an instant spell.
Furthermore, mindblast is the worst of its category in terms of scaling. Because 1.5 second spells share the coefficients with instant cast spells, so mindblast scales like fireblast and shock spells (42.9% according to Nightshroud's Lux et Umbra). It is also the only non-instant direct damage spell to have a cooldown, so shadow priests are really getting the short end of the stick here.
But wait, what about the 2.0 second lightning bolts or 1.5 second chain lightning? The simple answer is that these spells can be talented to cast like mindblast but retain their base spell coefficients as 3.0 second and 2.5 second spells, respectively. Even immolate, shadowbolt, fireball, and frostbolt can have their cast times reduced similarly (none of those spells have cooldowns).
The suggestions:
1. Improved mindblast makes mindblast instant. The damage coefficients stay the same anyway. Unlike
chain lightning or lightning bolt, we do not get any scaling benefits from it.
2. Improved mindblast reduces mindblast cooldown significantly. Now it's like every other nuke in the game, except it scales less with gear.
3. Improved mindblast reduces cooldown of both Mindblast and SW:D by small amount. Let's be honest: 12 seconds is too much in pvp.
A quick aside on the SW:Death vs. Shadowburn debate:
The notion that the two are comparable is ridiculous. Locks have so many spells that shadowburn is just icing on the cake. If locks want to try it out for themselves, then remove shadowbolt, incinerate, soulfire and immolate from your spellbooks. You should be left with only searing pain except it has an 8 second cooldown, and you must restrict yourself to two dots. Then, you have your beloved shadowburn, except it does blowback damage and a 12 second cooldown. So the rest of the time you just have to channel drain life except you don't have fel concentration and it only heals for 25%, assuming you have 3 points in vampiric embrace. Oh, and no fear except improved howl of terror, and absolutely no deathcoil. And... no pets and replace your lifetap button with a super mana potion, at 5g a pop.
Welcome to the priesthood. Enjoy.
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