Of course it does.
Less popular = something is wrong blizz must fix
More popular = everything is fine no work needed
This is why I said people should boycott priest if they actually want something to change.
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Blizzard deliberately tries to switch up the healer meta each season. When I was at Blizzcon I remember I asked a dev about healers and they emphasized they wanted Mistweaver/Disc Priest to be meta for S3. Mistweaver was, then they get the rug pulled under them with a -12% hps nerf in S4. Holy never got a chance to be meta because Disc overshadowed it with its revamp and there was a lot of nerfs at the start of S3. Also, we had 2 out of 4 seasons with Shadow Priest metas.
This season theyâre trying to emphasize Evoker/Resto Shaman. Then theyâll try something next season.
This is not true thoughâŠ
Holy paladin is getting another cycle of big changes and paladin is a way more popular class than priest.
Pet class exception that proves the rule imo.
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Guess I should be putting this effort in my Demo lock, since I have more Fun on it than my Priest despite my desire to main Priest.
I cannot even wrap my head around how good demo lock feels.
Every single facet of mechanics, proc, cooldowns, resource feeds one into the other in flawless harmony. Hand becomes imps, imps become bolts, bolts feed dogs, its a satisfying and intelligent cycle.
Plus the lockâs defensive package, and youâve got yourself a dreamer.
By contrast what does shadow have? Some dots you need to throw on for reasons, a clunky CD rotation, and a filler with better graphic feedback than your signature spell. Your big defensive stops your offense entirely, and functions as more of a belated death sentence, your heals fill about 10% of your health bar and frankly the capstones are dull.
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Thereâs a strong probability of Shadow being meta again this season simply because thereâs a large amount of humanoids to mind soothe in almost every dungeon. It really depends on Shadows overall dps output because it was usually close to #1 on the 2 seasons Shadow was meta.
I jumped back in for the first time in almost a year. I kept consistently hearing how bad priest got screwed over, and on top of that, they were usually lowest tier on every healing list I saw. Since my most recent main was disc priest, I started playing around with my multitude of alts. Eventually, I had to get my priest back out there. I first tried holy, since that was getting reviewed higher than disc. Maybe I just donât get the playstyle, but I was uncomfortable in dungeons and was getting my butt kicked soloing. Eventually, I got frustrated during a quest and made the switch to shadow. Surprisingly, same struggles. To be fair, possibly same issues, I just didnât know how to play it. Finally I said screw it and went back to disc. Now a few days later, I feel like I was being lied to. I freaking love it. I NEVER die while questing, and my dungeon heals feel awesome. Atonement (back when it first arrived, cata or something) was what made me fall in love with the priest. In my opinion, itâs still a ton of fun.
I do notice the lack of changes in the priest, but I suspect I donât care as much since I took a long break between expansions. Regardless, I felt the need to throw some love out there for the disc priest since it seems to be getting crapped on recently. I mean, when I google âwow priest guideâ, disc doesnât even show up on the first page.
Maybe itâll start to suck towards end game, and if it does, I will take the time to properly learn holy or shadow, but for questing up to 80 while hitting some dungeons here and there, I think itâs been great.
Pretty much anything from 1-80 is playable and largely irrelevant. If you enjoy how itâs playing more power to you stick with it. The issues with end game PVE is pretty much a lack of tuning, all priest specs are falling behind, lack of utility(a lot of it is lack of stops interrupts/stuns/etc) and mobility that would bring us up to par with other classes when it comes to M+
Disc will always have a raid spot as it is literally the only spec in the game that can fill itâs niche role so even if the spec is absolute trash, and itâs has been many times, it will still have that.
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nah that just isnât true. Both ret and holy have gotten a ton of love, but so have a bunch of specs/classes that are usually popular. Mages have gotten quite a bit, hunters have gotten 2 or so major reworks in TWW beta and are now getting some hero talent reworks, updated visuals and some spec tree changes, warlocks got a small rework in tww, iirc a couple druid specs did too, etc.
It has nothing to do with popular or not, I know that is an easy theory to believe but realistically it all depends on who is working on what spec/class. I think its just very likely they dont have a good routine for class development still, although it is a lot better now than it has been in the past (classes normally waited until a new expac to get major reworks, now they come in .05 patches or .1 patches).
From the last time ion spoke he basically said people just design whatever they play/know the most but sometimes they shuffle people around if one class is lacking devs, and sometimes those devs get pulled from one class that still needs help to another one that needs even more help.
There is also the issue of people leaving/quitting or moving around in the company. This happened in DF beta with some healer specs. A healer dev who usually handled quite a few healers (hpal, priest, rdruid i think) quit sometime into the beta cycle and so some healer specs like hpal released with alpha versions of their spec trees and didnt get fixed until later on.
I do want to say while people feel down about priest, especially shadow, the more talking we do the more they will definitely listen. The current state of people working there care a lot, and it is clear they listen to feedback a lot now I have seen them listen and implement things in spec trees/class trees specifically from feedback. I guarantee it is not screaming into the void anymore, they will read and do read. Iâm not giving any excuses here I definitely think their beta cycle class development needs to be a lot better, but it is worth it to continue posting.
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One thing Iâve noticed in the revamped old dungeons is they made nearly all the previous big CC immune casters that could only be interrupted now able to be CCâd. This change actually surprised me a bit because they âshrankâ the mobs.
In the newer dungeons, the majority of dangerous AOE damaging casts (outside of just flat out unavoidable damage stuff) or CCs come from mobs that can be CCâd. A lot of the mobs that do unavoidable group damage can be losâd except for the ones that channel something. Needing to los is probably going to be the strat for big keys otherwise youâre just going to get murdered.
Most packs only have 1-2 casters. The most annoying ones are in the Nerubian maps, but also Grim Batol has some really punishing ones that put nasty healing debuffs. You definitely cannot just flat out chain pull some of these dungeons unless the tank plays los games. When you have packs of 4-5 casters itâs not possible without voice comm coordination to chain interrupt everything without casts getting off.
The amount of pulls you can mind soothe in every dungeon is absolutely ridiculous and itâs more than any other season Iâve ever seen in M+. You can skip those nasty knockback dragons in Grim Batol and about 33-50% of the pulls in almost every other dungeon. Priests are 1100% going to be meta this season, but Iâm leaning towards it more being Shadow.
This is just my assessment of the situation.
Capstone idea:
A portal that opens above (or below) enemies that has tentacles come out and root/lash at people, giving a small chance for a 1-second fear, similar to Shamanâs Earthquake and knock-down.
Also works as an AoE spender.
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Thats a âthanks I hate itâ moment if ever there was one. Honestly wish they would just delete mind soothe because you can bet as long as this is a thing they wonât be addressing a lot of the core issues with the spec.
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Grim batol warlocks are awful and I wouldnât be surprised if they get nerfed pretty quickly after the first week or two of the season. The Nerubian maps are generally easier to deal with with smaller pulls. Several of the grim batol packs are just âhereâs 4 warlocks, lol.â and immediately give you 4 full health bar heal absorbs. The only chance of getting rid of them is curse dispel but even curse dispellers will have a tough time because you canât dispel em fast enough.
Iâm still holding out hope for a Disc update. I love Oracle PW:S build as itâs the closest weâve gotten to old school Disc priest in a long time.
A little off topic
But is there any sense in chaining penance casts with Premonition of Insight for burst?
100% worth doing. Make sure you have atonement up for the extra healing youâll get. But the burst from several penance will be great. Especially if you have the Ultimate Penitence talents you get a nice chunk of CD off those 4 minutes.
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Cheers. Didnât want to be wasting the spell.
Are there other more situational uses for the cd reduction? I see something of a Rapture-lite with a bunch of quick PW: Shields
Definitely worth considering which is needed more. But as you mentioned we already have Rapture, so if you need to spread shields before big damage, youâre more likely going to use that.
In the off chance where you know damage is coming, rapture is on CD, and you have time to spread them, sure PW shield is good.
I personally feel its more favorable for spamming Penance to improve our ability to recover when heavy damage is rolling in unmitigated.
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IMO the real answer is how youâve specced your talents and whatâs coming up.
Probably the safest thing to do is use one charge on PW:Radiance, since itâs still your highest value spell for burst AoE.
You can multi-penance when damage is somewhat low, but the burst isnât SUPER great because theyâll all be 4 bolt penances. So Iâve found itâs generally better in AoE to Radiance->Penance->Radiance->Penance and have an extra charge of radiance banked for you.
If youâve taken Aegis of Wrath, PW:S is actually really good to cast. Both for anticipated AoE and for ST healing on someone (So yeah, mini rapture) - basically use a charge and as you see the shield fall off, put your next one on them. Iâve used that for stuff like the corruptors at the end of Grim Batol who single targets out for giant damage. You can basically full shield that cast.
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