Supermerkicus

Are you serious?

We can dredge up the math showing that Inner Fire is far from cheap over a 30 minute period if it's never lost. Furthermore, we can show you the average number of recasts that will be needed when taking damage so that the spell's effect is actually used make the spell far from cheap or 'dirt cheap'.

Furthermore, I could use the same argument with the Rogue poison skill and 'laziness' but it was warranted 'unfun' enough to remove. And I think I speak for everyone here when I say IF charges are really 'unfun'.

Lastly, as someone else pointed out, Koraa pointed out the manacost as the balancing point of IF not the charges - he said that it would have to cost more mana to be balanced, and to that:
1) It could have no charges and remain exactly the same as it is now otherwise and be perfectly balanced
2) I'd rather pay a higher mana cost for an IF that didn't have charges.
3) The IF cost vs benefit is way out of whack when compared to other caster classes self armor buffs.

These things have also been discussed at length and ignored without any rational counter from Koraa , which is where a lot of player frustration is coming from - he basically said "lalala, I don't care" and that's sad.

 

Shan

Before TBC, Inner Fire was really good. I remember having 33% absorption with it alone (or thereabouts). The charges were really needed to keep it balanced back then.

Then TBC came and we lost a big part of the absorption. At that point the charges should have been removed. I suspect that Koraa and some others might not be aware of this, and still believe that Inner Fire is exceptionally strong and needs an exceptional drawback to remain balanced.

Instead, armor was added to arena gear which is overall the better choice, but comparatively Inner Fire remained weak with an excessive drawback.

Edit: bottom line is, Inner Fire isn't the same spell it once was when charges were added to it. It's significantly weaker now.

 

• constantius

Pretty much. There's a couple of good items, but most of them are bad.

For example, there are a number of options for gear slots where you have to choose between:
Stam/Int/Haste/Spellpower/Mp5
Stam/Int/Spirit/Spellpower/Hit

... Hit. So if I want the "better" item (i.e. with Spirit that scales to give me more spellpower and a ton more regen than Mp5 could ever offer), I need to gain HIT on my gear. LSKGDJLSKGJLSKJG. Idiots.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

Raglu

I do, that makes perfect sense and I do see why you do what you do. However, I then wonder how you deal with spell pushback if you do not use Power Word: Shield. Since the first time I played a priest, as soon as I got PW:S, I used it in every fight because it kept me from losing spell casting time. Since it would be used for that reason, the damage absorption and its synergy with Inner Fire (PW:S keeps Inner Fire up for longer due to no loss of charges, Inner Fire keeps PW:S up for longer due to shield taking less damage per attack) seemed more of an added perk.

If you use Psychic Scream to combat spell pushback, then perhaps your playstyle is just as if not more valid than mine. I don't like using fears as CC due to risk of adds, so PW:S is an obvious choice for me, and I built my spec preference (Disc) based on the spell.

 

Incoherence

I also like how the priest healer set is sta/int/spi/spell power/RANDOM STAT (mp5/crit/haste). At least that's better than spell hit.

Martyrdom. Alternatively, in WotLK spell pushback is being reduced by a great deal. At any rate, the fact that you basically end up spending as much mana and as much time keeping Inner Fire/PW:S up as you would to just burn things down means that both routes work out roughly the same.

 

cruumash

There is exactly 1 gear slot where you get +hit if you want spirit (cloak). Two if you don't count the set hands as being available as an option.

 

Incoherence

I see three: cloaks, offhands, and mainhands (although technically the staff is both a mainhand and an offhand).

 

Starfire

Power Word: Shield was never intuitive to me.

For the first couple of levels wanding was always better and wand does not suffer from spell pushback. And in terms of HPM, Renew is/was far better than Power Word: Shield.

Personally, I think it would be tragically flawed no matter what spec you are leveling with to never get Spirit Tap, that said since Spirit Tap is more effective when you are out of the FSR, you should attempt to not cast spells 5s before a mob is killed. That usually means wanding or finishing off mobs with DoTs.

Holy Fire -> Smite -> Mindblast -> Wand or some variation always worked. (Holy Fire -> Smite -> Shadow Word: Pain -> Wand, etc). And since Renew was always more efficient, I'd just "eat" the damage.

Afterwords, if you have VE, you really need needed to heal again, so might as well use Psychic Scream.

Further, if you wanted to increase your DPS and use water to regain mana, it seems awfully inefficient to not just eat while drinking. And if you're going to eat, you might as well take damage too.

 

cruumash

Since I only see one 1H mace, and its a melee DPS mace, I think its safe to assume the loot table is not filled. In summary, much ado about nothing.

 

Starfire

I seriously want to know why they are even putting mp5 on cloth gear, at all. And I would greatly appreciate it if some of you Beta members would bring this up.

 

Ana

I'm actually hoping there will be a better spread of items in the 25 man and the less then optimal stat itemization will be the "penalty" for just raiding the 10 man.

 

Ellyh

Looking at those items Holy really really needs some way of utilising crit because we're going to be stuck with a lot of it. Also be ready to beat your mages and warlocks over the head with a club while shouting "NO I roll on that stuff as well." I'm hoping like hell that this isn't the final itemisation as a lot of that stuff looks badly designed for ANY class.

 

PowerBaton

About itemization, that our set, with that all silly hit and bonus can be aswell very well gear option for a Mage/Warlock. Agreed with constantius in that its really stupid. I remember our supposition that we'll gonna have tons of haste and even crit in WoTLK, now we'll itemization steer in totally bad direction, for us of course, will see it gonna change, tho don't think so

 

cruumash

There is no hit anywhere on the Naxx 10 Priest Healer set. You are not forced to take hit anywhere except the wrists (and apparently the weapons). Stop propagating nonsense. The loot table is incomplete.

 

Shan

Looking at the priest healing set on mmo-champ, it looks like it's more made for a disc priest as four pieces have spellcrit, and as well know spellcrit is the least useful caster stat for a holy priest.

What does everyone think about this? Do holy priests need to benefit more from spellcrit, or should the set be redesigned to sta/int/spi/spellpower with all yellow sockets to allow for gemming either for haste as holy priest or for crit as disc priest?

 

Nogun

The itemization I have seen over the weekend really has me worried, so many things remind me of the same old situations where design team X doesn't know or care what team Y is doing.

My biggest gripe with itemization is the mp5.

I really don't understand Cloth, Held in Off-hand and Wands with mana per 5sec, every spec that would potentially use these items gets in Lich King more benefit out of Spirit and even Intellect thanks to how it scales with the new Replenishment. Maybe Paladins and shaman are considered to be potential users of these items as well, but personally I thought 11 specs over 4 classes that could be interested in getting the same item was more than enough.

This is not a brand new problem of course, if you look at some of the Sunwell itemization:
[Shawl of Wonderment]
[Book of Highborne Hymns]
[Sunglow Vest]
I tried to rationalize these poor mp5 over spirit choices, that they were trying to make the items intentionally a bit weaker, i.e. a kind of performance cap without making class changes that would affect other parts of the game. But now this shows up again... did the item designers skip the patches that made spirit superior over mp5 for everyone with 30% in 5sr regen?
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...0_loot_063.jpg
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...0_loot_027.jpg
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...0_loot_058.jpg
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...0_loot_049.jpg (this last one especially, the name... should items really get handicapped so that Shaman and Paladins might have a use for it despite shields being vastly more beneficial for them)

This might not have a massive impact on player's performance but it annoys me beyond believe that I'm playing a game developed by people that don't understand their own game. Raid loot should appeal to their target audience obtaining it should feel great not a confrontation with incompetence.

A second sour taste was the crit rating.

The vast amounts of crit rating on most items was to be expected, it is kinda disturbing that a Resto Druid now gets a greater benefit from it (Nature's Grace was moved to Tier3 and works on all spells) than a Holy Priest. But even before alpha ever started I was convinced we would see a redesign of "Surge of Light" or at least see an addition to it so it would appeal to more players than the rare Healer/Grinder spec and even for them it's incredible poor value for a Tier 6 talent.

Maybe naively I'm still expecting that change to come any patch now, sure my trust in item designers is lost for the moment but class designers really can't be making the same mistake on Holy Priests they did with Affliction Warlocks and Shadow Priests in TBC. The only direct benefit Holy Priests get from crit now is Inspiration and that is something shared with Discipline Priests and Restoration Shaman who both have extensive additional benefits from crit nearly beating Paladins at their own game. Having a single healing spec out of four that gets practically no benefit from crit would be again such a big mistake and cause scaling problems that I don't believe it can go live as is.

So for now all the crit on gear doesn't disturb me too much, they will have to hurry up on that deep Holy crit-benefit talent though because they are already talking class tuning and doing that before design is done is questionable to say the least.

 

Ellyh

The best use for crit for holy priests is currently with serendipity. The odds are fairly good that any crit will trigger the cost reduction but it's not inspiring and the stat really needs another purpose. It will however allow us to solo well in healing gear. As to the mana/5 that should really be reserved for pally/shammy gear as they have made it quite clear that casters should be favouring spirit.

 

Plea

Bad itemization is not necessarily a bad thing. I am pretty sure that Blizzard, too, knows how to construct a maximization LP for a certain budget; but they obviously choose not to itemize accordingly; and I'm content with it. Actually they may randomly fill in many stats, waste half the budget of a caster item on literally useless stats like armor penetration, agility or expertise and even then I wouldn't complain much about itemization. Itemization is not perfect, it can't be. Not that it's impossible, but because it shouldn't be perfect. I used on my warrior a mail headpiece with intellect, spirit and fire resist for the entire t1&t2 era and you know what, it felt good more than it felt odd.

If itemization budget was that perfectly distributed we would just check the ilvl and equip the higher one, like we do now with talents. Disc tree has many good enough talents, although no great ones, and now we complain about the bloat. If enlightenment wasn't buffed, or to a lesser degree twin disciplines never existed, we most certainly wouldn't be complaining this much.

Perfect design is your carrot on a stick, you never reach it.

 

Lanlaorn

I find your thoughts a bit baffling. While I didn't much care about the resists on my Tier 1 and 2 wasting stat points, after all everyone had to put up with that, I was very much annoyed when I got my Arcanist Robes and they had AGILITY on them. Mages don't need agility! If I looted a new WotLK item on my Priest and it had Armor Penetration I'd be just as upset.

For something like itemization perfect design is not a carrot on a stick, it's a pretty easily found solution to a little algebra. You admit yourself that it's not impossible and even if you "felt good" that your warrior had items with intellect on them, I don't think that's much of an argument to the rest of us who don't want to see blatantly wrong things.

Lastly, you say that if everything were perfectly itemized we'd just check ilvls and wear the higher tier gear. How is that different from one item being designed by a moron and another item not? We again glance at both items and instantly know which is superior.

I understand what you're driving at, but terrible design that shows lack of understanding of their own game is not the way to do it. Things like [Earring of Soulful Meditation] are. I absolutely love that trinket and while you can assign it an equivalent stat value and compare to other trinkets that way, it's power depends on how you work it into your play and so for different people it was worth more or less than its ilvl dictated based on different tastes. So I think what we need is more clever item design, we should demand more thnking from the developers to create items that demand choices and not be content with terrible design, telling ourselves that perfection wouldn't be any fun anyway.

 

Starfire

I find it amusing, this stat consolidation seems almost the reverse. And the downranking change. Everything so far leads to LESS thinking and LESS creativity.

Now we will spam 1 heal. Our items are more streamlined, we don't need to decipher which is better and/or which is better for different situations. In that the items are less diverse.

Of course, on the otherhand, this is quite possibly the best for the game as a whole. Who knows, we can only tell in hindsight. This change coupled with sharing debuffs/buffs coupled with 10 man raids is one way to massively change the game -- and create more raiders, and more addicts, and more subscribers.

 

KalistraMerged

But then it all comes back to playstyle and talenting surely?

Crit+serendipity seem a good way to go, plus add in healing people on really low health... good chance of a nice heal

On the disc side crit+DA... I'm still scartching my head on itemisation for disc though

 

Palendior

Surely Circle of Healing benefits greatly from crit too? Especially the WotLK version that will affect the lowest health targets in it's area.

And since Blizz are dragging their feet with giving us a replacement Heal for the downranking, CoH spam is looking even more like it will be the signum of Holy than ever, which is ironic since they clearly wanted to move in another direction with the initial cooldown on CoH.

 

Shan

It doesn't benefit any more or less from it than other holy spells. Crit rating is the stat we scale the least with.

For Inspiration uptime, Test of Faith + crit raidbuff should be more than enough.

 

Liths

Lolz, heal many target! crit good!
Seriously, we've been through this so many times in this thread. Crit is a horrible stat for anyone with a 1.5 multiplier and no additional benefits to it. It's balanced for classes that have a 2x value for it with additional benefits, doesn't take rocket science to figure out it's terrible for holy priests. It's even worse for CoH than other heals since the base heal is so low, haste or additional healing is far superior for it. It's slightly better for things like PoH with a larger base heal, but it's still not a good stat for it. There's more exacty math on the subject earlier in the thread if you're interested in the specifics.

I'm a little bit annoyed about the direction the itemization of naxx is heading in, it's just dumb right now. Like the KT dagger, why couldn't they put spell haste on it instead of hit? would make it good for all classes involved, instead i bet the only healing weapon is going to be yet another mace with paladin stats on it. Casters are gonna be so happy when they have to compete with me for that and noone wants the mace.

I'd be okay with the crappy stat alocations if it was like that across the board. Instead some classes have close to perfect stats while other gets shafted. Our class set is the thing that annoys me the most, if they have decided that holy priests should continue to get no benefit from crit while disc priests really need it they'll need to make three different sets for priests instead of just two. One for dps, on for discs priests with healing stats and crit and a holy with haste.

 

tasha

Actually, shadowpriests could use the same gear as holy, if gems are enough to get to the hit cap (raidbuffed). Or if it turns out that crit is good, same gear as disc (doubtful).