The Daily Blues

The Combustion change was to let its cooldown line up better with e.g. trinket cooldowns. It just felt awkward at 3 min.

The Fireball glyph change was because some Fire mages were getting such absurdly high crit rates that even more crit wasn't attractive. We weren't trying to make this particular glyph ridiculously powerful.

The actual dps increases are something more like adding Pyroblast to Torment the Weak and Empowered Fire. That may have missed the most recent patch notes.

I would also expect Arcane damage to fall overall with the Incanter's Absorption change. (Torment is also gratuitously overpowered, but that would be too big a change for now.) That should get Fire a lot closer to Arcane. Getting Frost up there too is harder, but we're still trying.

I've also heard mixed reviews on if Virulence even functions properly against Cleansing Totem...

Does anyone know for sure?

This is an enduring myth, but from all the testing we've ever done, Virulence works against totems.

It's comments like that which make it really hard to believe they understand priests. And the T10 set bonuses. Oh and the PoH nerf... because that was necessary, right? Those damn Holy Priests with 5% of their total healing coming from PoH. Good thing they nerf'd it or else we might be getting something like 6 or 7% healing from PoH!

Please. This isn't a gotcha moment. The question was why Greater Heal doesn't have much of a use and my answer was that Flash Heal does the job well enough that you don't feel the need to go for Gheal's longer cast time but larger throughput. If you disagree with that, feel free to point out why, but in this case I think you'll have a hard time supporting that argument. If tanks had more health, then all healers would care a lot more about HPM as well as the risk of overhealing. If you aren't using FH or Gheal, then chances are you're in a role where CoH or Renew spam is keeping everyone alive. But when you want to single-target heal someone quickly, neither of those is going to be very attractive and in fact neither is Gheal.

ITS OK GUYS! CATA WILL FIX IT! GC only reads the Damage Dealing forum anyway. :(

I read all of these forums. I just don't feel like I can contribute much to discussions where a particular class or spec just wants to preach to the choir, as it were. I get a lot more out of discussions with a little back and forth.

I would LOVE to see an educational video of GC playing a healing priest in a raid, and explaining how he does it, what he likes and dislikes... and dismissing complains by demonstrating visually that priests are fine. Devs and players are not in sync, I don't have the feeling we are playing the same game anymore !!

I won't give you a video, but I'll explain to you how I do it.

Disc: PoM on cooldown. PW:S as much as you can (esp. on the Arcane mage until 3.3.3). Use Penance often when you need burst. Resort to PoH if a lot of people need healing at once, especially in 10-player raids where you don't have a lot of other healers to pick up the slack. Keep Pain Suppression and Divine Hymn for emergencies. Use Power Infusion on a mage or lock if you don't need it.

Holy: PoM on cooldown. CoH on cooldown if there is any raid damage. Renew to handle the rest of the raid damage. Flash Heal if someone is still low after all of that. Save GS and Divine Hymn for emergencies or timed boss cooldowns. I tend to use Binding Heal a lot more than most priests because it makes me feel smart, especially when globals are in question.

What I like: Feeling smart when I mix the right tool with the right problem. Saving lives when someone thought they were dead. Sitting there at full mana halfway through a fight because I didn't heal when I didn't need to. Penance in general. Body and Soul. Borrowed Time. Serendipity.

What I don't like: Using CoH so much. Dealing with Weakened Soul (esp. as Holy). Lightwell. Seeing priests die. (In all honesty I don't die a lot, but I see Spirits of Redemption constantly. I guess as a sweeping generalization, priests have the stare-at-Grid syndrome worse than other healers.) Blowing 3 candles every wipe. Looking like a mage if I pick the wrong gear.

We can all probably agree on the point that it has been too long since we have had any feedback on these issues. They probably feel that commenting on them would result in a large QQ -fest. Healers in general are the least commented group, but no one has addressed priests in a long time.

Please don't make this a competition for forum posts. I don't make any effort to make sure I've made my warlock comment of the week or whatever, and if you ask me to do that, you're just complicating my ability to make posts at all. The easier it is for me to slip in to the forums and make an occasional post, ultimately the more I will be able to make.

Bliz's description for priests: masters of healing

that is almost laughable at this point...

The shaman description says they can tank too. You used to be level 60. Onyxia and Bolvar used to stand in Stormwind. MMOs change.

As a general strategy, I would steer against any post that is going to lead to smart players dismissing your thread as QQ and moving on. Those are the exact players you want posting in your thread. Don't scare them away.

I also have a lot of experience as a Resto druid, so I am probably just partial to hotting lots of folks. Still, it works for me. The encounters have enough going on these days, that just focusing on the biggest heal per GCD can be a mistake. If you hit a situation where you have to run or are feared or whatever, the buffer even from Renew can be a life saver until the healers are back at 100% output again.

Remember, we're not asking you to balance the game for us. We're asking for your feedback on class design and what you enjoy or don't enjoy about the game. If you have feedback on something, this is a great place to provide it. But we've never asked the community to come up with numbers for us to plug in to the various classes, tank or otherwise.

I have given my opinion before that the community tends to try and balance around estimations and simulations instead of actual experience where it matters... on the bosses. Effective Health is a very powerful concept for purposes of choosing how to gear your character and even tank encounters. It has limitations when you use it as the one true measurement for "tankiness." The community is also quick to try and give the same abilities and mechanics to every class filling the same role. If you want to be on a similar page as us, I would steer away from those two things.

In general, my advice would be to worry more about the game and less about the design process. We're confident in our process. It's not without mistakes, but it has served us well for a long time.

The Starfall change is difficult to patch note because of the nature of the spell, but I'll share the numbers so that the theorycrafters among you can plug them in. It's a significant boost to the spell's damage.

Initially, we had designed the spell to be more AE focused, but that hasn't been super useful for a class that also has Hurricane. Rather than adding another nuke we thought it made more sense to make the 51 pointer something that really delivers on damage. Yes it can be countered. PvP is designed with the intent that things can be countered.

Main shot
Base points 432 -> 562
Coefficient 0.21 -> 0.37

Splash damage
Base points 77 -> 100
Coefficient 0.12 -> 0.13

Discipline priests specialize in single-target heals and damage prevention. They are nonetheless fairly well rounded and have some fun tools, such as Power Infusion and Pain Suppression.

They are awesome and in some cases borderline overpowered. :)

--

Perhaps I should have said "single-target HEALING" since unglyphed PW:S isn't technically a heal. But any Disc priest who is trying to heal multiple people at once is probably doing it wrong. You can raid heal effectively by targeting one person at a time, and that's what Disc priests do. Shaman and Holy priests can heal several people simultaneously.

Nature's Grasp is a self buff that causes things that hit you to become rooted. That effect now has 3 charges. There is a small internal cooldown in between roots to keep say a rogue who hits you twice very quickly from wasting two charges. In your example, both the DK and pet should get rooted. If the DK breaks the roots and gets on you again, they will get rooted again (subject to the 45 sec duration).

The intent of this spell was to be a defensive tool for druids. Since it hasn't quite kept up, we wanted to try to get it to be more useful (i.e. do its job) rather than come up with an entirely new mechanic.

This week on the WoW Europe Community forums:

Xenoronin continues to deliver this week and has given us the next edition of PMUI: Episode 105!
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=12680208921

Often on the forums people ask the community some simple yet interesting questions. This week we have a couple of those, one asks which 3 items will your character never destroy?
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12680028365&sid=1

The second asks us all what our favourite mount is, so do let us know!
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12680128185&sid=1

With the Lich King felled, a shift in focus is soon to take place as the ears and eyes of all on Azeroth look to the skies... Are you ready to face the Cataclysm? Be sure to stop by Fernandó's handy Cataclysm Information thread for lots of Cataclysmic insight!
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12679928129&sid=1

Whilst on the subject of the Cataclysm, why not get creative? Do you have ideas for what would be a cool Battleground in the upcoming expansion, or just for any use? Let us know in this thread what ideas you have!
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12680128757&sid=1


Guides, Guides, and More Guides!

Optec is a budding Warlock from the Trollbane realm, and has come to share her guide on playing as Destruction in a PvE environment!
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12679978255

Prizm has written a small yet potent guide on playing as an Arcane Mage.
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12607021357

Professions change patch by patch. Dharock has tried (and succeeded we might add) to summarise the basics of professions in patch 3.3.
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12606830623

Why there no level 71-79 items with 2-3 sockets?
I mean in Outland we get tons of 60-70 blue items with nice amount of sockets. This atleast gives some nice customization options, but in Northrend there is almost no choice, just generic mainstream gear with 0 sockets :( Why is that so?

Well I'm not saying this is the reason, but I can't really imagine being very impressed with the amount of new gems I'd have to buy considering the amount of different gear we can go through between 70 and 80.

The nineteenth part of the Battlecry photo mosiac is now unveiled along with new unlockable content! Every 1,000 photos you send us will reveal another part of the mosaic and additional Warcraft artwork. When the full mosaic is revealed, your combined efforts will unlock an epic, exclusive piece of World of Warcraft art as a final reward.

Head over to the Battlecry photo mosaic page to view the mosaic in progress:
http://www.wow-europe.com/wowanniversary/battlecry/

And keep those photos coming!
http://www.wow-europe.com/wowanniversary/battlecry/#submit

Also, check out our updated special Battlecry Gallery.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/misc/battlecry-gallery.html

Today we feature the artwork of Velvian with a piece entitled: The Windseeker. This duel Thunderfury wielding rogue is poised and ready for action.
http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/community/fanart/index.html

We're always looking for new fan art and if you're an artist, you can submit your work to us here.
http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/community/fanart/rules.html

We update the Gallery regularly and encourage you to check regularly to see what new and talented submissions are on display.

Next week, Season 4 of the Electronic Sports League's Intel Extreme Masters (http://www.esl-world.net/masters) climaxes at CeBit in Hannover (http://www.cebit.com), Germany. From March 2nd to 6th, the Global Finals of the Extreme Masters will determine the winner of the 3v3 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament. Twelve teams from around the world will compete for $50,000 in prize money.

During the competition, the Electronic Sports League will provide a free non-stop video stream, allowing eSports fans around the world to watch all the matches live with commentary in English. For more details, including team profiles, rules and the video stream, see the official coverage page (http://www.esl-world.net/masters/season4/hannover).

Attendees at CeBIT will also be able to play the closed beta of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (http://eu.starcraft2.com), and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, in the Free Gaming Area.