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Eyonix delivers: Focused Will, Natural Perfection, and Discipline
It goes on! In a post titled "Focused Will: The Saga Continues" (has Eyonix been reading WoW Insider? What up, drake!), we get another update on the new Discipline talent slated for patch 2.3:Feedback was read, gathered and the designers are fully aware of all that you've provided. As a result, we're making an adjustment to the talent so instead of seeing this morning's version of focused will in the next PTR push, you'll see:"After taking a critical hit you gain the Focused Will effect, reducing all damage taken by 1/3/5% and increasing healing effects on you by 4/7/10% for 6 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times."This is up from 1/2/3% reduced damage and 4/8/12% increased heals earlier today, although it stacked up to five times then. The associated change to the Druid talent Natural Perfection has been similarly buffed:We've read through a great deal of feedback and are making another adjustment to the natural perfection talent which you'll see in the next PTR data push."Now also grants the Natural Perfection effect after being critically hit, reducing all damage taken by 1/3/5% for 6 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times."It used to be 1/2/3% and five stacks as well. In related news, Eyonix has gotten a look at the Discipline tree in store for Wrath of the Lich King, and while his post is short on details, it does make me all warm and tingly.
PTR Notes: Natural Perfection and Focused Will 2.0
As of the next push to the patch 2.3 PTR, the Druid Restoration talent Natural Perfection will be enhanced:The restoration talent, natural perfection will now also (upon the next data push to the public test realms), grant the natural perfection effect after being critically hit, reducing all damage taken by 1/2/3% for 6 seconds. This will stacks up to 5 times. (Eyonix)This is in addition to its current effect: "Your critical strike chance with all spells is increased by 1/2/3% and melee and ranged critical strikes against you cause 4/8/12% less damage." Natural Perfection requires 30 points in Resto. If you have any feedback on that, feel free to drop a post on Eyonix over at the thread, which he promises to read throughout the day. Or leave a comment here, which I will read throughout the day, but no guarantees of it reaching the devs.The saga of the new Priest Discipline talent Focused Will continues. Here is the new version:The new discipline talent, focused will, has been redesigned. Once the next data push to the public test realms occur, upon taking a critical hit you gain the focused will effect, which will reduce all damage taken by 1/2/3% and increase healing effects on you by 2/4/6% for 6 seconds, and will stacks up to five times. (Eyonix)Like above, go over to the thread if you want to give Eyonix your opinion on it. I definitely like it better than the first version ("after taking a critical hit you gain the Focused Will effect, reducing critical damage taken by 10/20/30% and increasing healing on you by 10/20/30% for 6 sec"), and I do think it achieves the stated goal of providing an alternative to Blessed Resilience for those who would rather go deep Discipline. It could be a little stronger, though, especially considering how deep it is (requires 30 in Disc).
Shifting Perspectives: That special versatility
It's often been said that druids are the three-in-one class: we can mimic warriors, priests, rogues (and even mages), but can't fulfill their respective roles as well as they themselves can. While in recent times druids have been able to gear up and perform as well as their parent classes in many respects, we are far from "warriors with stealth" or "rogues that can heal" or "priests that can off-tank in a pinch."Our problem as druids is that we cannot but neglect the full breadth of our abilities when we must specialize in only one aspect of our class. Of course, any class works best in situations where most or all their abilities might be needed to succeed, sometimes even in the course of a single fight -- it's just that for druids these abilities include tanking, damage, and healing all together. If you're playing with an experienced group, each player is likely specialized to one of these three roles, and his or her whole purpose is to minimize the chance that backup tanks, healers, and damage-dealers will be needed. That leaves druids trying to compete with warriors, rogues and priests (and mages), trying to do just as well at the same task, but with fewer abilities to call upon in the fight. Locked into these smaller roles, we must gear up and spend our talents in such a way that even if we were to shift out of our main role into another when the need arose, we wouldn't be able to do very well at it at all. This brings me to the adventure at hand: Today we will go on an journey of the imagination together, exploring the potential future of druids, considering how this problem of specialization versus versatility might be approached. Indeed, as I gaze into my crystal-ball-shaped paper-weight, I see two possible futures: one, called "The Path of the Pandering Pedant," seeks nit-picky perfection in a class designed for breadth and scope, while the other, "the Way of the Multitudinous Master" brings the full manifest of all our abilities into harmonious use with one another.
PTR Notes: BG Daily = 400 honor, Focused Will and Elemental under consideration
Patch 2.3: the patch that just keeps on alternately disappointing and bringing joy to the player community. Apparently, the staggering 4000 honor that had been previously reported to be the reward of the new daily battleground quest was a typo, of the "extra zero" variety. The correct reward is 400 honor, still up from its original value of 200:It's off by a factor of 10. Battleground Daily quest bonus honor is supposed to be equivalent to 20 player kills at your level, ie 400 honor at level 70. (Drysc)The new Priest talent Focused Will, reported yesterday, is going to be redesigned, so don't bother commenting on it in its current state. This is a good thing, because as far as I know no-one really liked the talent they proposed that much.We wanted you to know that we're going to be redesigning the new discipline talent, focused will, so please hold off on providing further feedback on the ability until the new version is announced and/or it's pushed to the public test realms. The goal of the talent will still focus on survivability. (Eyonix)The intention of this talent is provide an alternative to the holy talent, blessed resilience, so the priest who desires a talent of this nature has more than one option, adding more flexibility to the talent choices they make leading up to either. (Eyonix)And finally, the changed-up Shaman Elemental tree is under much scrutiny from the dev team at the moment:Though not the best thread to plug this into give what was provided, I'd like to state that we are looking into this [Elemental] quite extensively at the moment. (Eyonix)
Who am I this time?
When I first started writing for WoW Insider I began my posting foray with a discussion about my little lock and her leveling in Hellfire Peninsula at level 55. She and her trusty Felguard have finally reached the end of their journey, recently hitting 70. Having two level 70 characters now, I face a tricky question: who holds my attention more? My mage is my main, the character that has quested with me for long before I even played World of Warcraft, and I have all sorts of time invested in her and her gear. On the other hand, the warlock is horribly fun to play now that I have come to terms with who she is. So what now?I am also leveling my third character, in between the odd foray into raiding with my mage and working on my lock. I have thought long and hard about who of the three represents me more, and despite the fact that mages seem to be less and less desirable in PvE groups and raids, I have spent so much time with her. I love the overall versatility of a mage, what they bring to a group beyond the glass cannon (the sustenance, the crowd control, the transportation.) I have been grouping recently with my lock to get her gear, but whenever a tight spot arises where we need the extra DPS, out comes the mage to power through the encounter. She's the heavy hitter I know I will always have waiting in the wings. The question still hangs in the air on my character selection screen, who do I enjoy playing more? It's no secret that DPS classes are a blast (no pun intended) to play, but because there are so many of them out there, the need for them is significantly less. Perhaps that is why my third highest character is a priest. She's leveling shadow, so I could for all intents and purposes say it's just another DPS class, but my intent is to have a more useful character for grouping with guild members. I'd also love to have a character I know would have a solid and constant spot in a raid, and it's been my experience, at least on my server, that the mages and warlocks are a vast army of pew pew to compete with.It's a dilemma I really didn't expect to face. Sure I play ten characters (at least on my home server), but I really didn't think that I would ever consider switching my main character. Now as I look toward the end of this expansion and into the next, the words of Kurt Vonnegut pop into my head, "Who am I this time?" Do you too have this debate with yourself? Or are you the type to stick to one type of character and stay loyal to them?
Spiritual Guidance: The spirit debate
Every Sunday, Eliah or Elizabeth will bring you their thoughts on the Priest class with Spiritual Guidance. Whether it's keeping your fellow players alive or melting their faces, you can read about it here!This week, we've got a special episode co-authored by your two Spiritual Guidance writers, Eliah Hecht and Elizabeth Harper. In the course of emails around the WoW Insider bullpen, we noticed that there were some differing perspectives on the utility of Blizzard's favorite Priest stat, Spirit. So we decided to sit down and hash it out the old-fashioned way: an IM debate. Both of our mains are priests in a similar situation. We're Holy-specced and raiding somewhere around the middle of Karazhan. So considering how similar are gameplay niches are, it's interesting to note the differences in our opinions. On with the show, and do let us know what your take is.Eliah Hecht: So. It's going to be a complicated issue, because you've got a lot of different kinds of priests to worry about...Holy vs Shadow, leveling vs raiding vs PvP...My take on it is that Spirit is paramount for all leveling specs, and for raiding holy priests, and not so much for the other spots on the grid.Elizabeth Harper: See, I'm of a couple of minds on it for leveling. On one hand, you get more benefit from less spirit at lower levels, so leveling, I think you get more out of it. But it's still an issue of practicality -- leveling up, i'll grab spirit if it happens to be on something I otherwise want. But the size of mana and health pools is still more important. (And if you have spirit tap, a little bit of spirit can go a long way)
Build Shop: Priest 41/20/0
It's Tuesday again -- and you know what that means. It's time for your weekly dose of talent spec dissecetion with Build Shop! This week we're checking out another Priest build, this one focusing on the much maligned Discipline tree. Though the tree is still an odd assortment of talents (some mana management, some damage improvement, some buffs for our buffs...) with no easy path to the top, it's slated for major improvements in the next expansion and is getting a bit of love in the upcoming patch 2.3. With the 41-point talent, Pain Suppresion, being re-envisioned for patch 2.3, I'm thinking Discipline may be worth a whirl for a healing Priest. And, hey, even if things don't work out, it can't be as bad as Lightwell.Will Discipline really be a viable alternative build in 2.3? Read on for my thoughts.
Priests are lacking in discipline
It's official: even Blizzard rep Eyonix says that Priests are somewhat vague on the whole discipline thing -- not the virtue, that is, but the talent tree. Responding to a forum question asking "What is the purpose of Discipline?" Eyonix said:Though some priests have found a use for the discipline tree, right now, it doesn't quite have a solid purpose/goal, but rather seems to act as a supporting tree. This is something we plan on addressing with Wrath of the Lich King. Originally, the goal of the tree was primarily intended to provide staying power, vs. the holy tree which provides throughput. Also, so you're aware, the 41-point discipline talent, pain suppression, is being changed to be usable on others for patch 2.3. I'll admit that my own priest is sadly a mere level 8, but I'm aware that this has been one of the big priest issues for a long time. One of my friends strives to be one of those special priests who have "found a use for the discipline tree" and he seems to do pretty well at it, though he admitted that he recently changed some of his talents around, leaving behind lesser-used talents in discipline in exchange for some holy talents. He refuses to give in and become yet another shadow priest, since he revels in succeeding at something few other priests try.I would be quite interested to see how Blizzard changes the discipline talents in the next expansion. Will they stick with the original "staying power" idea, or will they go for something new? What do you think needs to be done?
The sad state of BG healing
The pic above, via The Nameless One on WoW Ladies LJ, shows you just how bad the state of battlegrounds healing is. In a WSG where she was healing, she topped the healing meter, and second place went to a Warlock. Drain Life and healthstones for the win. They're already OP-- do we really need them topping healing meters, too?Of course, this is just one screengrab from one match, but it's true that healing in the BGs is just plain sad. And it's not surprising why-- there's a huge focus on DPS and taking the other side down in BGs, and there's almost no reward at all for healing. Out of the eight stats listed on that screen, only one of them has anything to do with healing (OK, bonus honor and HKs might get a nice boost if you're a good healer, but at this point, odds are they'd get an even better boost if you're DPS). Healers get all of the damage (since healers are targeted first), and none of the glory.I'm not sure how we can fix this, either-- tracking "average lifespan," as a way of recognizing healers who stay alive? Providing bonus HKs, just for healing? Providing better PvP healing talents and gear? Personally, I love healing the BGs-- I love sitting behind a tree and keeping my faction alive long enough to take the flag or kill the other team. But right now, it's pretty much its own reward. When a Lock takes second place to a Priest in PvP, you know players need a little more incentive to break out the Greater Heals and Healing Waves.
Another option for new content: factional class flipping?
Last week I talked about mid-level content and as expected, many of you expressed an opinion. One comment in particular from autumnbear got me thinking. Autumnbear writes:"How about updating the overall lore for the game, and allowing more class choices for the current playable races. Still waiting for the Night Elves to teach my Human how to be a Druid, especially since he's Exalted with both Darnassus AND the Cenarion Circle."Now that's something I can chew on. What about quests that will allow you to make race/class combinations that are not otherwise available in the game? I think this is a tremendous idea if the process is sufficiently difficult to prevent everybody and their uncle's cat from doing it. The original Everquest had epic quests that took some players months to complete. Everquest 2 had the betrayal quests which allowed you to change factions which took a really long time to complete.Why shouldn't a human, in Autumnbear's case, who has earned significant faction with Darnassus not be able to learn the finer points of being a druid? Gnomes have no healing classes. Why not create a very difficult quest line for those gnomes who are exalted with Stormwind that would allow them to become a paladin or priest?I know I'm going to get a billion comments about game balance. Admittedly this would likely not count as "mid-level" either, but I think that if it was properly implemented it could be a valid source of that new content that everybody is craving.
Are priests a hybrid healing class?
It might just be me, but after reading a recent Blessing of Kings post about the utility of priests I am rethinking my view of them. Coriel discusses the effectiveness of priest heals, and in doing so brings up what some seem to consider a dirty word these days: hybrid.It's interesting to contemplate, but according to Coriel priests are actually the hybrids of the healing genre. The other healing classes focus on one type of healing. Druids have their great heal over time abilities, shamans have chain heal, pallies have great single-target heals. Now the priest is able to do all these things, but none to the capacity of their fellow healing classes. Therefore Coriel says, they are the jack-of-all-heals, and the master of none. Further down in the comments to this post a commenter also brought up the fact that shadow priests are also hybrids, being a dps/healing class. Is this why the priests of WoW have been having a tough time competing in the more challenging healing situations? What could Blizzard do to establish priests as the kings of healing once more, or is their very nature holding them back?
Spiritual Guidance: Threat and you
There's a lot of content in World of Warcraft that you can do all by yourself -- you can easily get to level 70 without ever joining a party. But there's plenty of content along the way that can only be accomplished in groups, and group play is, well, a bit different from solo play. To succeed solo, all you really have to do is kill your target before it kills you -- but in a group, every player has a specific role to fufill to make the group as a whole function. You've got someone to absorb damage (your tank, decked out in gear to help him or her mitigate damage), several someones to do damage (your DPS, which can come from nearly any class), and someone to prevent everyone from dying in the meantime (your healer). And regardless of whether you're healing or flaying minds, you're cloth-wearer who can't take a lot of hits. What does this mean? Well, my friends, it means you need to know a little something about keeping monsters on your tank and off you. And you're in the right place, because today we're going to talk about threat.
How do you measure the performance of your healers?
With DPS, this question is simple. You can take a glance at your damage meter of choice and see how much damage they've done, perhaps combined with how much damage they've taken (hitting the top of the damage meters may be impressive -- but if the only way to do that involves being a major drain on your healers' mana, it might be better for your group as a whole if you cut back), and can have a pretty good idea of how they're performing. On the other hand, measuring a healer's performance is a bit more ethereal, as discussed in depth today on Priestly Endeavors. Of course, you can watch the healing meters, but they don't tell the entire story of a good healer. What about mana management? The 5-second rule? Heal timing? (Heal too soon and you're overhealing and wasting mana -- but heal too late and you may not have anyone to heal at all.) Kirk on Priestly Endeavors breaks it down into the data you'd want to see to completely determine healer effectiveness: The health of every party member over time. Information on every heal that was cast and when it was cast (including things like Power Word: Shield which usually aren't counted). The healer's mana over time. But while having a spreadsheet showing off all of this information for the duration of an instance run would certainly tell us exactly how our healers are doing, this much data would be heavy information overload. (Fascinating to sort through when you have specific questions, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it every day.) But seeing as we don't currently have access to such detailed information, I'm throwing the question out to you -- how do you measure the performance of a healer? What extra information would you like to have in measuring the performance of a healer?
Patch 2.3 and you: Et cetera edition
With the bonanza of upcoming changes coming out, there are a few categories that don't have enough changes to merit posts of their own. These are their stories. We're adding new relics to support all talent trees in patch 2.3 for Shaman, Paladins and Druids. In addition, (not that this will sweep you off your feet), most of the arena-system relics have been renamed so there is a more consistent naming convention. (Eyonix) Those who completed the [Tempest Keep] attunement process will have access to the title "Champion of the Naaru". Also, the plan is to hard-cap it at 70, meaning you can't go back at 80 and "cheese" the title. (Eyonix) We're looking into potential improvements for earth shield, and even lightning shield (Eyonix) Fear Ward will be available to all priests at level 20, but there are some changes in addition. Current plans are to reduce duration to 3 minutes, and increase the cooldown to 3 minutes.To give the dwarves and draenei something else to even it out, they'll see a new ability called Chastise (also given at level 20) which will cause holy damage and incapacitate the target for 2 seconds. (Drysc) Yay! Fear Ward for all! Racials are still a stupid idea, in my opinion, but this takes some of the sting out of them. A new title, and some new relics are both very welcome; the current relics are in many ways a bit silly.
Changes for Priests in patch 2.3 and beyond [Updated]
Since we've seen patch 2.2 rolled out on US and EU servers by now, we're starting to get glimpses of what's in store for patch 2.3. So far, Nethaera has confirmed the following: Circle of Healing, Prayer of Healing, and Holy Nova (healing side) will receive additional benefit from +damage/healing. Circle of Healing's base healing will be reduced, but the amount of benefit it gains from +healing will be increased. (If you have more than 1338 healing, it will heal for more. If you have less than 1338 healing, it will heal for less.) Update: Related, Power Word: Shield's base absorbtion is being reduced for ranks 10, 11, and 12, but the effect of damage/healing gear on it will be increased. Though Nethaera didn't give us exact numbers, I'm hoping this equates to at least a small buff to the ability. With more 2.3 info here: Pain Suppression being reworked. It will be castable on any friendly target and it will reduce their threat by 5% and reduce their damage taken by 40%. Update: Nethaera clarifies that this reduces the target's current threat and not their threat generation. Meditation to be increased from 5/10/15% mana regeneration while in combat to 10/20/30% mana regeneration while in combat. Changes we know are coming, but don't have any release dates on (some of them as far out as WotLK) include: A change to the +healing stat to also give healers an amount of +damage. Most recently, Nethaera mentioned that they were considering adding 1/3rd of total +healing on an item as +damage as well (though this could still change). This has to be the change I'm looking forward to more than anything else. Unknown changes to spirit to make it a more viable tool for mana regeneration were mentioned at BlizzCon, saying that "The Spirit stat in general will be improved for WotLK." Possible changes to the discipline tree to give it more focus. We don't have any detailed information about this, but it was mentioned at BlizzCon. (Says Nethaera: big discipline revamps are likely to come in the expansion.) Fear Ward to be "spread around," again, not likely until the expansion. I have to say I'm intrigued by the idea of the new Pain Suppression and honestly excited about Meditation (yay for more mana regeneration!) , though I doubt the healing tweaks will be major enough to make a big deal in either direction. And the future? I can't wait for Blizzard to add some damage to my healing gear, though I'm holding out on full details on these changes before passing judgment.
Build Shop: Priest 14/0/47 (interview with Skosiris)
Welcome, talent fans! This time we're going to try something a little different with Build Shop: an interview. We've got Wowhead co-founder and primary website developer Skosiris to talk a bit about his priest build, so check it out and let me know what you think of the format. For the uninitiated, Wowhead is an excellent WoW database site for looking up information on equipment, mobs, quests, spells, etc. I recently started playing Dungeon Runners, and Wowhead is possibly what I miss most about WoW. It's that good.Skosiris is getting his Shadow on with this solo/5-man oriented spec. He's a relatively casual player, having never raided, and doesn't have time to play tons. I like the build well for its intended purpose.Eliah Hecht, WoW Insider: Hey, want to talk about your build?Skosiris of Wowhead: Sure thing. It's been a little while since I last played my priest, but this should be fun.Likewise. So, do you have a link for the build?14/0/47, Amory profile here
A spoonful of sugar helps the Fel Mana potion go down
For those that aren't familiar with Fel Mana potions, they restore 3200 mana over 24 seconds, but also reduce your spell damage by 25 and your healing by 50 for 15 minutes.On the surface, this seems like a bad deal, at least to me. I've intentionally not used them because of their negative side effect. Besides, a Super Mana potion will restore 1800-3000 mana instantly -- so why wait for the mana and incur a spell penalty?Phaelia over at Resto4Life recently did some math that may or may not change your mind about using them, if you use them at the right time.Mostly the article is aimed at discussing when healers should pop a Fel Mana potion, but good news for all you hunters out there that may not have thought of this yet... there's no downside if you use them!
Spiritual Guidance: What kind of healer are you?
If you've ever taken the time to peak on the official forums, you've probably noticed more than a few complaints about Priest healing ability and viability. And you have to admit that when one of the game's top guilds tells us that they bring priests to their raids for DPS, something must be wrong with the class that Blizzard calls "the masters of healing." However, I take the opinion that there's nothing wrong with the priest's healing abilities -- except that perhaps Blizzard's raiding strategy (or players' drive to min/max to beat it). Priests heal differently than paladins, druids, and shamans -- but I can't honestly say they're bad healers. Before saying that one class is the best or worst at healing, I think we all have to ask ourselves what kind of healers we are.[Image via the On Notice Board Generator]
Blue Notes: Fear ward for all, and a faster Armory
Apparently, Fear Ward is going to be a spell for all priests as of Wrath of the Lich King. This is indirectly confirmed by Nethaera. In response to a post translated from German that implies a universal Fear Ward, the candle said:This is true that we plan to spread Fear Ward around, but don't expect it until most likely the expansion. There's a bit of a difference between "spread it around" and "for all races," but still, I'm betting on every race getting it just to end the debate. And it looks like the URL change is not the only refreshing the Armory is getting today; the "first phase" (ooh, there's more?) of Armory optimizations has gone live: Smarter, faster results pages: The Armory's various search results pages respond more quickly when changing pages or sorting within the results. The Armory's right hand panel also takes advantage of this new speed and now remembers what page you were last viewing as well. Faster item tooltips: The tooltips that appear when mousing over items in a character profile or an item search results page are now much more responsive. Open Armory links in new windows/tabs: Now you can open links from the Armory in their own tabs or windows for quick comparisons between profiles, items, search results, and more. New advanced item search button: This button takes you to the Armory's powerful advanced item search options and is located in a prominent, convenient location under the main search field. And much more: Many more specific improvements have been implemented, the details of which can be found on the Updates page. In addition, general performance has been greatly improved in the areas of response time, loading time, and memory usage. Neat. The Armory is an indispensible tool, and making it faster is a big plus. The item tooltips still don't work in Camino, my browser of choice, but I'm told that's a Camino bug and not really Blizz's fault.
Trust me, everything is under control
Marilyn has an interesting point over at WoW Ladies: if you see her grinding Consortium rep and taking on three mobs at a time in Netherstorm, leave her alone-- it's all under control. I sometimes have this same problem as a resto Shaman-- onlookers don't always realize that even though my health is low and I'm almost out of mana, redemption for me is just a huge heal and a Mana Tide totem away. Things may look bad, but really, don't worry about it-- my Earth Shield just got refreshed, and I'm good to go for two more mobs, so no, I don't need saving.On the other hand, I'm not sure I really want to discourage people to help in this game-- I'd much rather have them help me fight than really be in trouble and have them /laugh as I die. So I'm not sure I'd tell everyone to lay off.Rather, the problem here is that when I pull a group of mobs, I don't want someone else stepping in and tagging them away from me in the name of help. So there are plenty of ways to help that don't include stealing my XP-- drop a DoT on something that's been tagged (I do this all the time on my Shadow Priest), or throw me a heal (always appreciated, even if my Mana Tide totem is off cooldown). And just paying attention is nice, too-- nothing burns me more as a Rogue than taking the time to sneak up on a mob, only to have them charged by an overzealous warrior who claims afterwards that they didn't see my Distract go off.If it's legitimate kill-stealing, the best option is just to ignore and move on to a less populated area-- there's no dealing with those people. But if you do see someone fighting a bunch of mobs solo, there are better ways to help than grabbing one of their kills, and chances are they'll be more than happy to help you the next time around.
