I'm done trying to heal on the priest unless / until they make serious changes. I've experimented, gear changes, enchants, spec, usage, style etc etc. Not my first rodeo.

Man... you were right. It's horrid. PvE? Atrociously not fun. PvP? Wow... worst I've ever seen.

I'll see ya in a few days after the frustration and shock wears off. You can bet I'll be specced shadow.

--Sly

 

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Ok who bought Sly's account on ebay?

 

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lol What?! I've always respected Maxx re: priests! Known him in game forever. I actually remember the Arathi Basin where I first met him, and was impressed for the first time by a priest.

He's one of the oldest priest players I know, and has always been one of the best. Always a valuable reference point for the state of priests. I never had mine at max level, so I would be able to get a good "feel" for the class just by talking with him.

We happened to chat about the state of priests in Cata over this past weekend before I hit 85 (he was already 85) and he was telling me his opinions on the state of things. He nailed it. My experience mirrors exactly what he warned me of.

I was actually hoping he was wrong this time!!

--Sly

 

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Haha well the Sly I remember who posts here didnt seem like the type to not like something because it was challenging...

Thought maybe ebay was in the equation, you know with the holidays and all.....

 

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Blizzard is going to have to make everything a AoE fest again it's way too late to go back to the way things were. Way too many people use the dungeon finder now to leave things the way they are.

 

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Sorry patton, same guy. This isn't challenge, it's broken.

If you aren't playing a priest healing randoms with LFD, and trying to PvP and heal in a PuG BG, I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about in this case. No offense, but it's a fact.

I've not once in the entire 6 years I've played this game ever experienced such a bad state on any of my classes / roles. I'm not some guy who doesn't try to work with the issues. I've done all that. The design is terrible. It's causing healers to quit healing in droves. It makes the healer the sole point of blame for any issue with a group, and it's not fun. On top of that priests in particular are so bad that many priests are reporting being kicked as soon as they enter a dungeon with a reason of "priests suck" or "priest heals are bad".

That's not challenge.

The type of player in general who spent the effort to be 85 in under a week, who plays their class, who researches it, respecs, reglyphs, reforges, re-enchants, and re-learns is who I am. When I'm hating life, it will only be worse for the next wave of 85s.

They'll change it, and I pray soon and dramatically.

There are already reports of a stealth buff to priest mana regen, and here's a link where Blizzard basically admits their class design team already knows priests aren't working correctly.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1531763402?page=5#82

"To be fair the priest issues are well known on the class design team. Mana regen probably needs a buff or mana regen in some way needs to be addressed for ... us."

This is not about challenge. This is about flaws in the design for healing and priest healing specifically.

--Sly

 

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I trust that you are frustrated by change, but I'm always wary of a sky-is-falling-on-me / I quitting my class/spec for something more fotm type of post. I've listened to a number of trusted podcasts and seen youtube videos that prove that things aren't nearly as bad as they're being made out to be here.

Sometimes trying something different is good though, so I wish you the best with Shadow and hopefully things eventually become less frustrating for you as a healer.

 

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I agree with you on the knee jerk "I quit this class" however Sly has played the class through and tried quite a few variations - I don't think that's entirely fair to lump him in with the ragequitters.


I'm not planning on healing anything remotely high end for now, seeing how this plays out. Fyi boring story, I was a priest healer in vanilla WoW, that was my original end game choice.

 

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I'm not saying "the sky is falling drama drama". You can see by my class list I could have taken any class to 85, and I still can. This isn't FoTM. I wanted to take the priest up to heal because the style was interesting at long last. I'm saying there is a real issue here. Blizzard knows it, and the people playing priests know it (even the ones who want to be cool by saying there's no issue L2P etc know it). It's the most glaring thing I've seen in 6 years of WoW regarding a class.

I realize that you don't know me as a player, so I appreciate the thought, and I know you don't really have any reason to believe me, but I've seen the videos and so forth as well.

First, they are the minority. Second, there are specific reasons why those people are ok with putting up with this. Third, they usually have guild groups, or at least people that know and do exactly the right things, and always they have better gear. They don't post videos of the average PuG run right after they hit 85. They ran those dungeons with their guild, got geared, then jumped in a pug and made a video. That means nothing about how the class is working objectively. DPS classes can jump into a heroic at ilvl 329 and perform their job without issue. You'll notice the folks in the videos are above that gear level before they make those videos.

I've had runs that weren't horrid because every player did everything right too. I'm not saying I couldn't make a video and pretend everyone else sucks. What I am telling you is unless everyone does it right every time the class fails. Anything goes wrong, the priest class isn't currently set up to deal with anything off near perfect. It's tedious and not fun. It's a real problem. There are pages of priests posting how they are getting kicked from groups before the first pull because the community's general experience with a priest healer has not been positive. After a week. That's a very noticeable symptom if you think about it.

I'm not even talking heroics. I'm talking gearing, and specing, and enchanting to heal and at 84 it was annoying but workable, and at 85 it's a nightmare. It's like having your balls cut off in one level. Disc was unplayable for healing, so I speced holy, and re-geared, and reforged, and re-enchanted, and while I can survive, it's like fighting for your life for no reason. PvP is even worse. It's pointless.

Then I hear people in my own guild tell me - "yeah I like pally or shaman healers, and druids are ok. All the priests can't seem to cut it." None of them have actually healed anything either.

If only it were just "frustrated by change". I wish. I play all the classes I play because I like variety and change, so... that's not it. I can offer you nothing but my word on that front. There is objectively a problem here, and Blizzard has actually stated the same as I pointed out earlier.

I do appreciate the good wishes for my shadow spec play though, and I hope for a speedy resolution so that the queue times for DPS don't reach 2 hours due to lack of healers.

--Sly

 

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Just to illustrate, it's not me going "oh the sky is falling". They have already buffed priests according to this recent Blizz post.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1532043235?page=77#1532

"Paladins seem much more in line with other healers (with the exception of priests, who we have since buffed -- hotfix updates on that coming this afternoon: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1232869)."

Problem is / was very real. I hope this fixes it or at least helps. I want to heal on my priest without wanting to kill myself in real life.

--Sly

 

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