A little off the current topic, but has anyone does some armor value tests for the target dummies?
Yes. We determined over in the Combat Ratings at 80 thread that the Heroic Training Dummy in Dalaran has about 10900 armor. The Training Dummies in Orgrimmar have 0 armor. I can't speak for the ones in Stormwind.
I, for one, support this change. During one of the many debates about how to solve the problem of balancing Priest racials, a lot of new systems were proposed, but no one really said "let's just wipe everything out except for the stuff people want to keep."
It was never right that blood elf and troll priests got the short end of the stick. It was never right that dwarf priests were required for Fear Ward. I dislike the loss of several cool spells (esp. Chastise, and I always wanted Shadowguard as a Shadow talented ability w/o being a Troll) but giving more than DesPrayer, Devouring Plague and Symbol of Hope 2.0 would have bloated the priests' hotbars with too many abilities. It provides Blizzard with the opportunity to improve on these abilities for the future, if they should ever make a comeback.
Rundown on what's getting lost:
Humans lose Feedback 2.0, which was miles ahead in usefulness from the pre-1.10 version, but still highly situational.
Night Elves lose Starshards 2.0, which was a somewhat useful free Arcane dot, but the very fact that it was Arcane meant that it didn't scale well.
NEs also lose Elune's Grace, which wasn't much of a damage reduction and wasn't nearly as useful as DesPrayer as an oh-shit.
Undead and Blood Elves lose Touch of Weakness, which was really just bait for Purge-spam more than anything else. Same goes for the Troll's Shadowguard.
Troll's Hex of Weakness was a diet CoW without any kind of synergy. The total absence of Troll priests meant this ability wouldn't have got any play even if trolls showed up.
Blood Elves lose Consume Magic, which made sense from a BE standpoint but was also kinda silly... if you get Mana Burned enough that you have to consume your own buffs to cast anything, you're on the ropes already.
Dwarves and Draenei lose Chastise, which was a good spell-interrupt, and gave all those old-guard dwarf and new-type Draenei priests something to cherish, but I'm not sure if it was really as reliable as a well-timed Earth Shock or Counterspell. The very nature of priest spell rotations meant that they often didn't have it on-hand when it could be handy, unless you're actually rolling Smite. And everything about the Wrath version of the Disc/Holy trees means that Smite is still a very esoteric off-spec that Blizzard doesn't seem to want to put a lot of design time into.
I dunno, what do you guys think?
Chastise has been a root rather than a stun since mid S3 (I think). Its was mainly useful for getting away from melee, or trapping someone for a mana burn. Feedback was ridiculous against mages, or in any direct disc priest vs. disc priest situation (as a non-human, I basically was forced to stop trying to beat them in mana burn and LoS until the buff ended, which is painful because I tended to win mana burn wars when I was disc).
And blackout proccing from touch of weakness damage has literally won 2v2 matches for me. It's ludicrously stupid RNG, but so are a lot of other things that win matches right now.
It's kind of funny to see holy nova going in as a base skill. IIRC it was originally the 31 point holy talent. With the loss of downranking, I still don't see myself casting it very often. Especially with mind sear as a base ability. It's pretty much going to be for killing snake traps when you don't have someone else to do it for you.
1. Desperate Prayer goes from a 10min CD to 30 seconds? Are they going to kill it's health returns or give it a mana cost to compensate? Because that kinda affects the rotation for Binding Heal.
2. Devouring Plague: it's a 24-second duration DoT with a proportionately large mana cost and synergy with VE. It'll have a 30 second CD, which doesn't match with it's duration and messes with cost rotations. How will it synergize with other Shadow talents? Is the healing component still in play?
3. The same questions we've had here still sticks out: how does Hymn of Hope synergize with the new mana return mechanics? Will it be castable in Shadowform? Is the mana return intended to be so low?
Indeed. The intention behind Desperate Prayer needs clarification. Either it's now part of the design component of priests that they have a low cooldown instant self-heal with a decent output - outside of Renew (perhaps it's been recognised that the vulnerability of ProM and Renew/Shield to classes with Purge and Dispel calls for an instant heal which can't be so easily circumvented? With the propensity of priests to run with classes able to peel for them in order to prosper this may give more composition options by propping up 'staying power'. I still see Inner Fire as the real vulnerability, though I don't deny DesP has PvE application!
Devouring Plague is an oddity, name aside. If it's basically a baseline Siphon Life then I'm struggling to see how a 21 point talent can be eclipsed or equalled by a baseline flavour spell considering that by itself SL is designed with Lifetap in mind. Either I think it needs to be intended as a spell integrated into a priest's arsenal (especially shadowpriests, who could and possibly should benefit the most from this change) or it will again fall by the wayside, hampered by too many provisos tagged onto the original design decision. Some clarification as to whether this is partly intended to strengthen shadowpriests (or will be allowed to do so by becoming a genuine cast possability) would go a long way to distract concern from Shadow's significant weaknesses under pressure.
True I was using the lvl 70 base mana values, but keep in mind that SoH also scales with level. Draenei Priests get it at lvl 10 and it's like 11 mp5, 33 mana total then IIRC. So at 80 SoH would give more mana as well.
I'm aware of that. That's why I included the lvl80 value for SoH in my calculations, not the lvl70 value.
Oh wow the lvl 80 version is only 1149 mana? I just skimmed past that part of your post thinking that my value of an even 1,000 mana at 70 was incorrect.
Yes my mistake then, I concede the nerf isn't quite as bad as 60%, but why nerf it at all remains the question.
I've been following the beta for a while and one point that has been nagging me is the lack of new spells/abilities that aren't from talents.
Perhaps this is the WotLK paradigm, but a number of classes and specs are noticeably lacking in the "shiny new baseline skill" department compared to BC. I'm disqualifying skills that were reworked (i.e. Earthliving Weapon). Checking Wowhead I see Warriors: 2, Warlocks: 2, Shaman: 4 (counting Wind Shock and the new Enhancement attack), Rogues: 2, Priests: 2, Paladins: 3, Mages: 2 (Portals don't count), Hunters: 2 (I didn't check pets), and Druids: 3. That's all roughly even, but at the same time significantly less than what we saw BT.
It may be intentional on Blizzard's part, particularly given that they're adding a whole new class to the game, but it seems a little unexciting.
I've been following the beta for a while and one point that has been nagging me is the lack of new spells/abilities that aren't from talents.
Perhaps this is the WotLK paradigm, but a number of classes and specs are noticeably lacking in the "shiny new baseline skill" department compared to BC. I'm disqualifying skills that were reworked (i.e. Earthliving Weapon). Checking Wowhead I see Warriors: 2, Warlocks: 2, Shaman: 4 (counting Wind Shock and the new Enhancement attack), Rogues: 2, Priests: 2, Paladins: 3, Mages: 2 (Portals don't count), Hunters: 2 (I didn't check pets), and Druids: 3. That's all roughly even, but at the same time significantly less than what we saw BT.
It may be intentional on Blizzard's part, particularly given that they're adding a whole new class to the game, but it seems a little unexciting.
Blizzard's plan for this expansion seems to have been one new baseline skill at 75 and one at 80. For comparison, I believe most classes got 4 or 5 new baseline skills from 61-70 in TBC. After a certain point you hit ability overload where either new abilities replace old ones (why not just fix the old one?), or you spend entire fights without hitting the same button twice.
At the same time, they *are* throwing in a bunch of new spells and toys through the talent system.
They're also changing the basic style of how at least a few classes play, enough that it almost feels like a whole different character, even when in the same tree. This, specifically, I've already felt with paladins and locks both, having tested both out. Plus, throwing in even more new baseline spells means that much more that people have to adjust to as well as get balanced. I honestly didn't expect very many new spells to be made baseline. That's precisely why we have talent points, after all. And, of course, you already mentioned that whole 'new class' thing. It's not simply putting in a new race per faction so that the classes you play are evened out finally...there was a LOT of design work that went into DK's.
I think Blizz set the bar high when making this expansion, and quite nearly bit off more than they could chew. All told, they've done an absolutely fantastic job with it from what I've seen. Yes, there's balance issues. Yes, there's the usual suspects as far as bugs. But they're aggressively working on those, and they're seeking out an almost unprecedented amount of feedback from the community.
I was thinking the same thing until I really started thinking about it. Like an above poster said, eventually there will be too many abilities baked into every class that eventually some just end up becoming worthless (think windwall, frostbrand totem, flametongue totem). I'd much rather have new abilites come from talents, it makes the game feel less generic and avoids the above problem too.
"Oh he's a sad little man? He's thrown a kettle over a pub, what have you done?"
Might not be a big deal to some people, but I found it quite astounding. Lastnight I logged my Paladin alt onto the beta server, specced Prot and flew straight to Shattered Halls. Managed to solo the entire instance with no downtime. I've only got badge/t4 gear, which equated to about 13k HP and 5K mana. With Seal/Judgement of Light and Blessing of Sanctuary, I never ran out of health or mana. The hardest pulls were those with sharpshooters, as their Scatter Shot would cause me to take 6-7 unavoidable hits in a single timestamp, cutting my health down a bit. In some cases I had to rely on Gift of the Naaru to save me. I also noticed that in full Protection gear, I was rolling with 1200 AP and 880 Spell Damage. My Holy Lights were hitting for 4.5k, and FoL's were hitting for 1.5k.
At the same time, they *are* throwing in a bunch of new spells and toys through the talent system.
They're also changing the basic style of how at least a few classes play, enough that it almost feels like a whole different character, even when in the same tree. This, specifically, I've already felt with paladins and locks both, having tested both out. Plus, throwing in even more new baseline spells means that much more that people have to adjust to as well as get balanced. I honestly didn't expect very many new spells to be made baseline. That's precisely why we have talent points, after all. And, of course, you already mentioned that whole 'new class' thing. It's not simply putting in a new race per faction so that the classes you play are evened out finally...there was a LOT of design work that went into DK's.
I think Blizz set the bar high when making this expansion, and quite nearly bit off more than they could chew. All told, they've done an absolutely fantastic job with it from what I've seen. Yes, there's balance issues. Yes, there's the usual suspects as far as bugs. But they're aggressively working on those, and they're seeking out an almost unprecedented amount of feedback from the community.
Unexciting? Are we looking at the same game?
Moonkins are scarily close to their TBC incarnation. They added new AoE spells for us, but no new single-target spells. Not all classes/specs have been getting the same attention to detail this time around.
. Not all classes/specs have been getting the same attention to detail this time around.
As a holy Paladin in the BWL era I used flash/holy light and judged evey 30 seconds. In wotlk I use flash/holy light and judge every 30 seconds, I cast sheild every 30 seconds , Bol every minute,Divine plea every minute if needed and Divine illumination every 3 mins. Everything else is just cooldown changes.
As as has been said by blues (go check the MMOC tracker) both mookins and holy pallys are getting a polish pass very soon.
I'm sure the devs are very awae of this and I doubt they want to continue the TBC holy-pally mentality of "nothing new" because people don't like it. Just have to give it some time.
I don't know if anyone noticed it yet, but it seems the character sheet tooltips were updated to correctly show armor penetration. The 19 armor penetration rating on my Omen of Ruin is worth "up to 1.23% enemy target reduction" according to the tooltip (on the hit rating display).
Are shadow priests really going to be casting devouring plague? I mean, I cat it now once evey 2 minutes since it's more fun than mind flay, but without inner focus the only reason I can cast it is because of the absurdly overpowered mana returns I get, where I can basically cast prayer of fortitude several times in a fight (three times on brutallus!) and still not have to use a shadowfiend.
I tested myself a little on the PTR, on a dummy with judgement of wisdom and curse of the elements, and I ran out of mana after about a minute with no consumables or special buffs used, nevermind killing myself once before I realized the dummies only have 1 hitpoint.
"Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
- Clark's Law
They said they were gonna reduce the mana cost and cooldown of Devouring Plague, which also will cause an extra overall 5% DPS done to your target together with Twisted Faith - Spell - World of Warcraft. (Or well, less than that, since it'll only boost mind blast and mindflay).
Dont forget +60% from ebon plague, since Dev Plague is an disease.
Yes, it seems as if DK and Holy priest 2v2 baseline will be a good beginning for arenas, made viable almost entirely by this change to racials. Afaik Devouring Plague is the only other castable disease effect for PCs outside of Deathknight abilities anyways.
Yes, it seems as if DK and Holy priest 2v2 baseline will be a good beginning for arenas, made viable almost entirely by this change to racials. Afaik Devouring Plague is the only other castable disease effect for PCs outside of Deathknight abilities anyways.
My money is that Devouring Plague will be changed to a non-disease effect for precisely the reason you mention.
Inadvertently a cold-blooded water-breathing vertebrate with a mood disorder.
I've been following the beta for a while and one point that has been nagging me is the lack of new spells/abilities that aren't from talents.
Perhaps this is the WotLK paradigm, but a number of classes and specs are noticeably lacking in the "shiny new baseline skill" department compared to BC. I'm disqualifying skills that were reworked (i.e. Earthliving Weapon). Checking Wowhead I see Warriors: 2, Warlocks: 2, Shaman: 4 (counting Wind Shock and the new Enhancement attack), Rogues: 2, Priests: 2, Paladins: 3, Mages: 2 (Portals don't count), Hunters: 2 (I didn't check pets), and Druids: 3. That's all roughly even, but at the same time significantly less than what we saw BT.
It may be intentional on Blizzard's part, particularly given that they're adding a whole new class to the game, but it seems a little unexciting.
I feel the opposite way. I'm actually hoping they release fewer new skills and just change some of the situational or crappy old ones. I have 4 70s, a mage main and rogue, hunter and druid alts. The rogue and druid are fine but the mage is out of spellbar space and the hunter is almost out. Mages just have too many uncommonly used, situational spells that aren't useless so I still need to keep them on my spellbars. I think I probably have to rearrange my bars and remove spells I'm not specced into that would be highly situational.
My money is that Devouring Plague will be changed to a non-disease effect for precisely the reason you mention.
But I really wanted to abuse it so hard. A scaling Spell-power based DoT on a spellpower based primary healing class combined with a talented debuff that few classes can even remove, which provides 60% additional damage and healing? Puuuh-lease!
You already cast: "Shadow Word: Pain", "Shadow Word: Death", "Mind Flay", "Mind Control", etc. I've always seen priests as the evil healing class, unlilke druids/shaman/paladins who seem "good", even when doing their damaging spells.
Power over the mind isn't the samething as being evil. Priests have power over the mind and soul. Druids and Shamans have power from nature.
It's the same token why Priests have "Mental Strength" and "Mental Agility" for talents. Even some less obvious ones "Pain Suppression" is in the [Mental] Discipline tree. It can be seen as mind over matter sort of thing. You forget things like "Mind Soothe" too.
I hate to not be politically-correct here, but it can be seen as things priests in the real world are capable of. To try and be PC, I am not going to be super-specific, but in times past we can certainly see the church using propeganda, which can be seen as mind control. Also, the church does serve a function to calm the human mind. I am sure your local reverend/pastor/pundit/imam/whatever exerts a great deal of influence in the community -- doesn't mean its evil, though.
Our shadow attacks "Mind Flay", "Mind Blast" and "Mind Sear" aren't innately evil either, they refer to essentially psychic attacks or non-physical attacks.
We can even argue the power from "Shadow Word: Pain" lies in the ability of a priest to sort of "excommunicate" someone from the light.
But I really wanted to abuse it so hard. A scaling Spell-power based DoT on a spellpower based primary healing class combined with a talented debuff that few classes can even remove, which provides 60% additional damage and healing? Puuuh-lease!
Don't forget that its the same class that has the most powerful counter measure too: Abolish Disease.
09/16/08, 12:33 PM
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