nerfs
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Breakfast Topic: Why do you keep playing?
Some people call them "nerfs." Some people call them "balance." (And usually this is exactly proportional to how the change impacts your own class.) But however you want to phrase it, gameplay in World of Warcraft changes -- and it doesn't always change for to the benefit of your playstyle. So how do you keep yourself playing when you seem to have hit the bottom of the nerfing/balancing cycle? Reroll? Play alts? Explore areas you've ignored in the past? Tell us, why do you keep playing?
Step number two appears to be rioting
Here's an interesting bit of devil's advocacy for you. It seems that the best way to get what you want for your class is to hold a riot. Observe:First, nerfs are announced to the priest class that hit Vampiric Embrace and Prayer of Mending hard.Then, priests riot across the servers, as Blizzard promises to ban those involved.But a few days later, priests profit, and un-nerfs appear in the patch.The Inciter (Time for fun!) inside me says the evidence is clear: riots are how you get your way. Of course I'm sure that's not the message Blizzard wanted to send (has anyone heard of any major bans that went down because of the priest ingame and forum riots?), but, as Relmstein hints, the evidence kind of speaks for itself.I should point out that priests didn't completely get what they want-- Vampiric Embrace, a staple of facemelting, is still getting a fairly harsh nerf, and PoM is still feeling that cooldown. But it's not nearly as bad, and while I'm sure Blizzard will claim the changes came down as a result of playtesting, it makes you wonder. I don't condone rioting or any kind of griefing, but as I said, this is devil's advocacy. Maybe the only conclusion Blizzard should take from this is simply to not release the patch notes (as they would say) until they're done.
Is there hope for the priest class?
After seeing the latest patch notes, there are plenty of unhappy priests out there. Not only was Vampiric Embrace -- a key talent for shadow priests attempting to maintain group utility and solo viability -- reduced in effectiveness by a forth (and its ability to crit removed completely), but shadow priests also lost threat reduction and holy priests lost Prayer of Mending -- a low-cost instant-cast heal that was excellent for priests trying to heal in PvP combat that is now rendered mostly useless by its new 20 second cooldown. Many priests seem to think that these changes are the death of PvE shadow priests and PvP holy priests. Is there a reason for priest players to have hope? Well, Nethaera says there is. On the priest forums she's reassuring players that their feedback is important and saying that Circle of Healing is being looked at and Lightwell may be looked at. And while I'm happy the class is still under review for possible tweaks, I wonder if they don't need a little more than what Nethaera says Blizzard is offering. And like the many other players who have attempted to post well-reasoned and constructive feedback on the priest forums, I feel ignored, despite Nethaera's assurances that all feedback is read. But if that's the case, I have to wonder why abilities that made life easier for priests are nerfed while complaints on countless other topics produce neither response nor result. Thank goodness I've been leveling a paladin -- with strong healing talents and great PvP survivability, they're everything I used to think my priest could be.
