These arguments have been repeated since we first set eyes on Onyxia and Magmadar, and I do not anticipate them going away any time soon. The bottom line for the whole argument (for Fear Ward) is that fear is just too good of a mechanic - they will keep re-using it, forever - and that makes Fear Ward just too good to be limited to one faction and two races. I have first-hand experience with the power of Fear Ward. I am the best Shadow priest in my guild and on the server, bar none, and there are still scattered encounters where it is more beneficial for me to stay out of Shadowform just to cast Fear Ward. This is not likely to change. Other priest racials suffer from similar imbalances, but we're all familiar with all of them, so I won't go on with the obvious arguments for why Symbol of Hope blows Starshards out of the water, and so on. In any case, the whole situation is one that most players are unhappy with.
The obvious and oft-repeated solution is to simply give each priest equal access to the racials - either by adding them to talent trees, letting the priest choose two of six, or simply making them trainable for every priest. This may not ever happen, because in spite of how adept the developers are at balancing their game, they still adhere to a design philosophy of racial disambiguation that should have been shitcanned two years ago. Yeah, you can't shackle Forsaken anymore, and the more egregious racials have been rebalanced somewhat. Still, they want there to be a difference between the races, and not just in looks. The priest racials, as ill-conceived and ill-received as they have been, fit in too well with that paradigm and are likely to stick around for a good long while.
So, for the moment, if you would like to be just as effective as the guy who made what seemed like a meaningless decision at his character creation screen two and a half years ago, your only solution is to reroll. Sorry.
I've had many chances to regret my choice of race but rerolling is just not an option for me. I've invested far too much time in my character.
Trying to argue the racials with the developers is a pretty pointless task though. They know that the racials are unbalanced and that's how they want them to be. There's no way every developer wouldn't be able to see what every priest that plays WoW know from the moment they become aware of the different racials. Also notice that all developers avoid these questions whenever they appear. It's because an answer that some races are supposed to be better wouldn't be well received.
I think all priests should rally around the ray of hope that was giving the horde paladins - yes alliance got shamans too, but it wasn't as noticeable as horde having paladins.
The developers finally, after 2 years of gameplay, realized they would never be able to balance an encounter enough to have each faction on equal footing and continue to have faction restricted classes. Perhaps in another 2 years they will realize the same thing about the priest racials.
The funny thing is that if fear ward was the 11, 31, or 41 point holy talent priests everywhere would jump at it in a heartbeat. I would, in fact, give up all three of our talented holy spells, and both of my racials, for fear ward without regrets. It's silly that that one situational racial is hands down better than our 41-point holy talent.
I think the most elegant solution is to somehow allow each priest to choose two of the various racials. They could be grouped such that you had to take one marginal one (shadowguard, hex of weakness, touch of weakness, elune's grace, etc.) and were allowed to choose one good one (fear ward, devouring plague, symbol of hope, etc.). And obviously you should be able to pay some sort of fee to change your choices.
Doubt it'll happen though. This one has been obvious for a long time as people have said, and Blizzard in its great silent self-assurance seems set on it. Ah well.
I think most of the big points have been brought up already, but why has no one brought up how bad feedback is?
As an undead I do see some use in Touch of Weakness, if only slightly, and I love my devouring plague. I really think they went way overboard with Draenei priests though. The two racials they got are amazing, I would give Devouring Plague for Symbol of Hope.
Also as of next patch troll priests beserking will be heaps useful.
The funny thing is that if fear ward was the 11, 31, or 41 point holy talent priests everywhere would jump at it in a heartbeat. I would, in fact, give up all three of our talented holy spells, and both of my racials, for fear ward without regrets. It's silly that that one situational racial is hands down better than our 41-point holy talent.
The solution is obvious ... Circle of Warding! (if they ever did implement that in a usable fashion, the priests scrambling to respec 41 holy would probably break a few servers)
On a serious note, the racial situation is stupid ... I'm glad my priest is a dwarf, and sad that she's not a spaceman. Which race you choose should not make that much of a difference to how your class plays.
PS: three talented holy spells? Holy Nova, Imp. Death, Lightwell and Circle of Healing? I suppose the case for SoR being a holy "spell" is debatable though.
Last edited by Thelyna : 04/22/07 at 6:18 AM.
Reason: I fail at BBcode.
Imp Death is worth talent points for raids because of 5% more spirit for one point.
As far as fear in a raid setting goes, Blizzard has somewhat listened to the fear ward cries in a different manner. After Nef, there were 3 encounters with fear and none of them were really pro fear ward. The royal bug family with cute little Vem required so many tanks that well placed tremor totems were superior. Gluth was double tanked so the fear was useful for pre-planning a transition. The green dragon who feared was also double tanked, was tauntable, and sometimes required a transition anyway because of the horrible debuff.
Post-expansion, the only fearing raid encounter I've done is Nightbane, with who you really can solo dance much easier than his fellow dragons. The only strength of fear ward here is on the landing when he fears right off the bat (which can be really strong if you are struggling with this phase).
Overall I find Blizzard has done a pretty good job of trivializing fear ward in raids, but fear ward is still really strong otherwise. In Arena play, dwarves are the best of all races hands down. Stoneform, in an arena style in which rogue poisons are almost undispellable, is at least on par with Will of the Forsaken, while Fear Ward puts it over the top. In 5 man heroics, if there's no tremor totem, usually the best way to deal with the MT getting feared is to have a ranged class run away with the mob for a small time. I suppose if you kill the mob in 2 fears, fear ward would help but that's really the case of outgearing the heroic anyway.
While it would be great if Priest Racials were changed, I would hate for every Priest to have Fear Ward (makes Warlocks not so good). If it was the Holy 41 point talent, I would be fine with that.
04/21/07, 4:49 PM
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