[PRIEST] Racial abilities

boomix · 04/19/07, 5:10 PM

Symbol of Hope is an instant cast spell with a 5 minute cooldown. It gives all party members 33 mana every 5 seconds for 15 seconds at level 1 and the mana regained every 5 seconds increases with level.

What are new values on this racial? Patch notes state this was getting buffed. To me this should've been Holy or Disc tree spell not a racial. This alone would make priests desirable.

Now compare this to Mana Tap and Consume Magic racial.

Consume Magic can be controlled to an extent. For example if Inner fire is at 6 minutes remaining and Fortitude is at 26. Racial will consume Inner fire, however if Inner fire was just cast and Fortitude is close to 15 minutes it will be consumed. I think that this ability looks at percentages of whole timer on all your buffs. So in 2nd case Inner fire was at 100% time remaining while Fortitude was close to 50% remaining, so it consumed one with less time remaining. Now juggling all of this becomes increasingly difficult during raids, so that ensures that this racial is going to remain luck-luster and just last ditch resort to gain some mana.

Mana tap doesn't work on bosses without mana and bosses that use mana as integral part of the encounter, for example Gruul and Curator. So use of this racial is rather limited.

I view this are bigger disparity then when Alliance had Paladins and Horde did not.

◊ Bryne · 04/19/07, 5:14 PM

You're starting an "imbalance in priest racials" thread and starting with Symbol of Hope? It's certainly icing on the horrible cake, but there's a long legacy of terrible content in this field dating much farther back than Burning Crusade, unfortunately.

boomix · 04/19/07, 5:23 PM

Well partially, main thing was to see if any Draenai priests have tested this on PTR to see new values.

Teenee · 04/19/07, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by boomix

I view this are bigger disparity then when Alliance had Paladins and Horde did not.

Seems a bit over the top IMO. A race-limited class-ability (which I suspect will be overwhelmingly shamans anyway) doesn't really compare to the entire absence of a class.

Anyway, is there much to discuss? Fearward vs. Starshards, Devouring Plague vs. Feedback, the list goes on.

Sapp · 04/19/07, 5:46 PM

This conversation begins and ends with Fear Ward and Devouring Plague.

The whole idea of priest racials is flawed, and the best way to save it would be to make it an individual specialization type thing; pick two out of six type thing, and improve them somehow to make it so PvE priests won't all be Fear Ward + Desperate Prayer and Shadow Priests won't all be Plague + Fear Ward.

Kinz · 04/19/07, 6:32 PM

While I love my Devouring plague they just need to either standardize the racials or get rid of them all. Alternativly attach the racials to the 31 or 41 point talents. Take Shadowform/VT you get Devouring plague, take Lightwell/CoH(Oh man =/) you get Fear Ward, if you take PI/Pain Supression you get Desperate prayer.

Bendyr · 04/19/07, 6:39 PM

I think the Belf racials are meh in PVE, but they're really great in PVP. In an emergency situation, when my priest is healing in a BG and runs OOM, rather than sit there and wand I can blow Arcane Torrent and eat one of my buffs with Consume Magic and bam, I have 1000 mana I didn't have before, which is plenty for an emergency shield and some healing.

Furthermore, Consume Magic doesn't share a cooldown with a Mana Potion, so I can use a macro like /castsquence [reset=120] Consume Magic, Super Mana Potion and basically save myself the consumption of Mana Potions except for in complete emergencies.

Each priest racial has its own usages, and even though I initially didn't like the Belf Priest Racials, they've definitely come in handy in battlegrounds.

◊ Bryne · 04/19/07, 6:44 PM

Originally Posted by Bendyr

Each priest racial has its own usages

You can really just stop right there. There are racials with usages (the aforementioned FW, Devouring Plague, Desperate Prayer), and there are racials whose "usage" begins and ends simply with the fact that you can "use" them.

Nobody can seriously argue that Elune's Grace actually has a "use". The discussion really begins with the base that yes, there are good priest racials, and there are awful ones, and what the course of action should be to fix the bad ones or normalize access to them all.

• frmorrison · 04/19/07, 6:52 PM

Elune's Grace rank 1 can be used as a 15 second additional buff for Purge protection.

Priest Racials for very weak ones (Night Elf) are a sole subject for those Priests.

Back on topic, in 2.0.10 the racial was buffed to grant 333mp5 for 15sec, restoring 999 mana in total to all party members - an extra 450 mana overall to the Priest. It is affected by Mental Agility.

Khaelarys · 04/19/07, 7:06 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

Elune's Grace rank 1 can be used as a 15 second additional buff for Purge protection.

Priest Racials for very weak ones (Night Elf) are a sole subject for those Priests.

Back on topic, in 2.0.10 the racial was buffed to grant 333mp5 for 15sec, restoring 999 mana in total to all party members - an extra 450 mana overall to the Priest. It is affected by Mental Agility.

Well at least they (you know who,

) also got stuck with Fear Ward - anything else would have been totally unfair.

I started a thread on this today in general, but directed more towards the infamous Eyonix quote about fear ward after reading some of the discussion in the tank threat-generation thread.

All you can say is, I suppose, that they're going for "separate but equal" and are working their way towards that goal. It is what it is, it's one of those things that arent' really worth getting riled up over, but there is a disparity.

Though I have to admit - claiming that a spell is useful strictly because of a secondary game mechanic that has NOTHING to do with the spell's effect is a bit of stretch in my book. I'm not saying it isn't useful for that purpose, but to say it's a useful spell is a bit of a reach.

Igniter · 04/19/07, 7:09 PM

Originally Posted by boomix

Symbol of Hope is an instant cast spell with a 5 minute cooldown. It gives all party members 33 mana every 5 seconds for 15 seconds at level 1 and the mana regained every 5 seconds increases with level.

What are new values on this racial? Patch notes state this was getting buffed. To me this should've been Holy or Disc tree spell not a racial. This alone would make priests desirable.

Now compare this to Mana Tap and Consume Magic racial.

Consume Magic can be controlled to an extent. For example if Inner fire is at 6 minutes remaining and Fortitude is at 26. Racial will consume Inner fire, however if Inner fire was just cast and Fortitude is close to 15 minutes it will be consumed. I think that this ability looks at percentages of whole timer on all your buffs. So in 2nd case Inner fire was at 100% time remaining while Fortitude was close to 50% remaining, so it consumed one with less time remaining. Now juggling all of this becomes increasingly difficult during raids, so that ensures that this racial is going to remain luck-luster and just last ditch resort to gain some mana.

Mana tap doesn't work on bosses without mana and bosses that use mana as integral part of the encounter, for example Gruul and Curator. So use of this racial is rather limited. In no way can you come close to comparing a faction imbalance to where horde didn't have 4-5 pally blessings in a raid, let alone judgements. Just no.

I view this are bigger disparity then when Alliance had Paladins and Horde did not.

You can't really compare racials, when you must take into acount arenas(2v2 3v3 5v5), solo pvp, solo grinding, 5man pve, 10man pve, 25 man pve, and so on. Tauren tanks have a really good hp bonus as well, but not many alliance are up in arms. In fact, did ANYONE have a priest reroll a draenei priest? Probably not many at all.

SindirHH · 04/19/07, 7:15 PM

Originally Posted by Sapp

This conversation begins and ends with Fear Ward and Devouring Plague.

The whole idea of priest racials is flawed, and the best way to save it would be to make it an individual specialization type thing; pick two out of six type thing, and improve them somehow to make it so PvE priests won't all be Fear Ward + Desperate Prayer and Shadow Priests won't all be Plague + Fear Ward.

I'm sorry but the conversation between FW and DP does not even begin or end it. The problem is that some races (Dwarf/Draenei) have great racials while others (Night Elves/Trolls) have terrible ones.

Why on God's green earth would you bring a human/night elf priest of equal gear/skills/experience over a dwarf/draenei, you wouldn't. An interesting proposal was put out by someone on the WoW Priest forums about grouping all priest racials into two categories and being able to choose one from each category.

Nakilos · 04/19/07, 8:17 PM

I won't lie, if every Priest in my guild today said "hey I am going to reroll Draenai", I'd soil myself with glee. The race is so good for Priests, I cannot understand why they actually are making them better. Its already 1000 mana every 5 minutes for your party, which pretty much destroys, well, anything in a raiding setting.

All the horrible racials are really obvious to everyone except for Blizzard employees, so at this point we probably might as well accept some races are going to be always decidedly better. My heart goes out to people who went Night Elf on character creation.

Crossbones · 04/19/07, 10:37 PM

The lack of any sort of balance on priest racials have always annoyed the hell out of me. Why don't they even attempt to fix them? A dwarf priest is straight up unquestionably better than any kind of other priest in the arena. There's optimal class/race combos like UD rogue and gnome warrior, but they can't even come close to the advantage fear ward (with DP and stoneform to back it up) gives over the other priests. It's absolutely bizarre that they would buff that draeni racial when you have crap like elune's grace in the game.

Bendyr · 04/20/07, 11:48 AM

OK, I was just posting to point out that Arcane Torrent and Consume Magic were actually really good in PVP, but yes, I'll agree that it's baffling that the Alliance gets TWO Fear Wards, and the Horde gets ZERO.

In general, though, I don't give ppl who complain about their racials too much sympathy. You KNOW what the racials are before you create a character. It's trivial to look them up, and if you do your research you should consider these racials an important part of your character's race selection.

Khaelarys · 04/20/07, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by Bendyr

OK, I was just posting to point out that Arcane Torrent and Consume Magic were actually really good in PVP, but yes, I'll agree that it's baffling that the Alliance gets TWO Fear Wards, and the Horde gets ZERO.

In general, though, I don't give ppl who complain about their racials too much sympathy. You KNOW what the racials are before you create a character. It's trivial to look them up, and if you do your research you should consider these racials an important part of your character's race selection.

I don't think it's unfair to get to play the race that you want, and still have a racial that's competitive - this is almost as simple as situational vs. always useful abilities - the situationaly ones better solve a recurring problem to compete.

Anyway, we're not really talking about them on an individual "Hey, Andy your racials suck, we know, but stop whining"... we're considering them in a more theoretical stance - my priest is Undead, and I pvp with him as much as anything - so I'm certainly not "complaining"....

But as a horde player, I can look at the situation and I feel that fear ward is the strongest, general purpose talent, followed by Symbol of Hope. Divvying that up so that the same race gets both, one race gets it as well, and both of those races fall on the same faction line just seems a bit off.

Sapp · 04/20/07, 1:29 PM

Originally Posted by SindirHH

I'm sorry but the conversation between FW and DP does not even begin or end it. The problem is that some races (Dwarf/Draenei) have great racials while others (Night Elves/Trolls) have terrible ones.

I said it begins and ends there because those compared to others show it to be a completely flawed system.

SindirHH · 04/20/07, 1:40 PM

Originally Posted by Sapp

I said it begins and ends there because those compared to others show it to be a completely flawed system.

I missed that part, my bad.

I'd love to see a here are two groups of racials, pick two.

One having all the good ones:
Fear Ward
Desperate Prayer
Devouring Plague
Symbol of Hope

One having all the not so good ones:
Elune's Disgrace
Starshards
Feedback
Touch of Weakness
etc.

Bendyr · 04/20/07, 2:53 PM

But you must admit that certain combinations of priest racials and regular racials would be massively OP. An UD priest with WoTF, Fear Ward, and the PVP trinket would have THREE fear outs. A Dranei with Desperate Prayer would have two zero-mana self heals.

SindirHH · 04/20/07, 2:55 PM

Originally Posted by Bendyr

But you must admit that certain combinations of priest racials and regular racials would be massively OP. An UD priest with WoTF, Fear Ward, and the PVP trinket would have THREE fear outs. A Dranei with Desperate Prayer would have two zero-mana self heals.

Fair enough, but they are not willing to rebalance the current racials may as well let each priest have what they want no?

I guess after two+ years it really stinks.

masteen · 04/20/07, 3:02 PM

Make Desperate Prayer the new 31 pointer, or maybe have it replace lolwell.

Fear Ward should be the new 41 point holy talent. Circle of LOL is and always will be worthless.

Make Devouring Plague a mid-tier shadow talent, and SoH be a disco talent.

Xunwael · 04/20/07, 5:25 PM

I'd pick Shadowguard and Hex of Weakness over Devouring Plague and Touch of Weakness any day. WotF defeats berserking quite easily, though, or atleast it did before the haste changes. Anyway, you're greatly underestimating alot of the racials here.

◊ Anias · 04/20/07, 5:57 PM

I would be willing to say that I love the racial feel - I actually notice the priest racial spells, and would otherwise just roll human for the diplomacy/spirit boost that are hard to notice.
So if the goal is to make each race more noticable, they did a decent job.

That said, I think the racials are in some cases too noticable (see the FW/DP discussion) and would offer as an alternative - you can train other racial spells if you faction to x with the appropriate goons. PVP concerns abound about UD and FW, and I honestly don't pvp enough to know what to do about it. If it's not gamebreaking, I'm all for equal access to the racial set of spells (so you'd have to give some horde race FW).

At the same time, a part of me would mourn the loss of unique identity, and that part of me says "buff the crappy racials". The trouble is that FW is so good where it applies (while only applying in a few places) that it's hard to buff say elune's grace for example, enough to match it.

I almost want to take FW off the racials, and drop it at 41 holy.

All of the above considered, I still view the human diplomacy bonus as far more "unfair" than any of the priest racial abilities. Nothing even remotely saves the time that diplo does.

Xaev · 04/20/07, 6:22 PM

To note - the Symbol of Hope changes are no longer listed in the patch notes as of early this afternoon.

Maax · 04/21/07, 9:11 AM

Originally Posted by Xaev

To note - the Symbol of Hope changes are no longer listed in the patch notes as of early this afternoon.

Some blue mentioned that the changes had actually already been made last patch, and the note was a leftover.