Deceiving Hero Tree Descriptions

Classes Priest
1

There was a Blue post today about the Hero talents, inclusive of the descriptions of each. It’s quite amazing just how far off the descriptions for the Priest Hero talents are from how they actually feel.

Archon (Holy/Shadow)

Archons are highly devout and deeply connected to the Light and Shadow. Archons can be blessed from higher beings to enter into an ascended state, becoming an ultimate version of themselves.

Oracle (Discipline/Holy)

Oracles gain insights into the future and use it to protect and empower their allies. Their future sight grants Oracles the ability to bestow unique blessings and benefits upon their allies before they even know they are needed.

Voidweaver (Discipline/Shadow)

Voidweavers have dedicated themselves to studying the origins of Void magic and have discovered a way to tear open a tenuous connection to the Void. This power is incredibly dangerous and volatile, consuming anything in its path.

Archon, while it buffs the cds of Holy and Shadow, does nothing to make us actually feel like we are becoming “ultimate versions” of ourselves. It’s centered around Halo for god knows why, a spell many didn’t like in the first place, instead of our cds. Apotheosis for Holy and Dark Ascension for Shadow. “Enter into an ascended state.” For Shadow, the preferred cd isn’t even Dark Ascension, it’s Voidform. Also, where’s this deep connection to Light and Shadow? Archon for Holy has no Shadow synergy, and for Shadow, it has nothing that reinforces a connection with the Light.

Oracle, despite the main spell the Hero spec centers around being called “Premonition,” doesn’t hint at seeing into the future at all. We don’t bestow any “unique blessings and benefits upon [our] allies,” not since the initial botch of a Hero talent preview. A rotating self-buff doesn’t feel very Oracle-y, and the rest of the tree is just filled with buffs to existing spells.

Voidweaver, thematically it is great with nice visuals that make you feel that you are something more than what we are today. After repeated nerfs, however, the power no longer feels “incredibly dangerous and volatile.” The fact that Voidform has no synergy with this Hero tree and Dark Ascension is the preferred cd is beyond stupidity. Making Voidform work with the Hero spec should have been the priority from day one.

It’s really disappointing that something that could be as game-changing and impactful as Hero specs received so little thought. It’s like Blizz thinks they should just receive a pat on the back for the idea alone, regardless of the implementation.

5 Likes
2

Was really looking forward to playing SP this expac seeing the visuals of Voidweaver until I logged in and played this abomination.

1 Like
3

I will say, for hero specs, the priest healers got what I would think DESIGN-WISE hero specs should be.

One tree that doesn’t vary playstyle much but feels like a decent iteration moving forward and one tree that plays a bit different and causes them to think a bit more about what they’re doing in each CD phase.

The balance is crazy right now on these specs though, and one of them just doesn’t fit Disc’s playstyle much because of what they did to the spec tree in DF.

Shadow just got an unfortunate implementation of both.

4

Yeah, I’m not loving the choices so much either. The Halo tides look like they’re going to be visually annoying after like 10 minutes of that and I’ll probably mess with the graphics settings to tone it down. And it adds nothing much I’d call fun or thematic.

And on the other hand, if Oracle ends up being the way to go I’ll have to come up with some macro/WA combo to handle those annoying rotating buffs semi-intelligently with as zero effort as possible. Because no matter how strong it is, again that’s not my definition of fun gameplay.

Literally the only hope I’m holding out for hpriest now is the prospect that all these single target heal/Lightweaver buffs make it a fun spot healer and less reliant on holy words and PoM. If that doesn’t prove to be true, I’ve got my shaman, druid, and pally ready if I ever decide to play more real end game content again.

5

If you like resto shaman then yeah. They’re pretty much an amazing pug class going into the expac. Great HPS, great utility buttons, got a new party/raid buff, hero specs both bring something to the table and one of them is mostly just passive bonus to their regular playstyle.

Druid for me is in the dust though, that class just isn’t feeling great at all, lol.

1 Like
6

Yeah, totemic looks interesting with a lot less maintenance on Healing Rain and some of the totems. Maybe it’s just me though but I’ve always felt like the spec has a complete Swiss army knife of tools and then some for 5 man content, and then in raids I’m wishing I had some more absorbs and stronger spot heals and stronger CDS rather than the relatively limited filler spells.

And you know I hadn’t played druid since early SL. I forgot how fun the shifting was and maybe it’s my wild imagination but I don’t recall the kitty having quite so powerful a bite.

I feel like druid struggles with mana early on but since they made it so Wrath and the cat attacks return mana maybe it is a good option.

1 Like
7

I think it would make more sense if they put “respectively” in the description as I believe the intent is that each spec Holy and Shadow becomes their ultimate self within their respective paths of power.

This is why I think they also chose Halo as that is not really a dedicated Holy or Shadow spell yet it can be both already in terms of Holy making it do holy school healing/damage and Shadow making it do shadow school healing/damage.

They simply went with a safe yet uninspiring route.

I would love to be in the room when they thought this up and wouldn’t be shocked if they took less than an hour and just went with this route because god forbid they actually take the time to think about other cool directions they could take Priest in.

2 Likes
8

In terms of raw power, Archon Halo is the single most busted raid healing ability currently in TWW. It does 16-20 million healing in Mythic iLvl gear with 60% overhealing, which is literally 4-5x what Divine Hymn does, and it’s on a 1 minute cooldown.

1 Like
9

This is the main problem I have with Hero specs as they’re implemented. We don’t have one Hero spec in Archon, we have two. Holy Archon and Shadow Archon. I feel that Hero specs should offer the exact same benefits for the two specs it serves, none of this “does X if you’re Shadow and Y if you’re Holy.” It’s two different Hero specs at that point.

On top of that, the “trigger” ability should not be an optional talent, it should be a core class mechanic or new ability. If this is a true evergreen system, I wouldn’t mind some classes or specs that have multiple cds have the cds split from the spec trees into the Hero trees. Apotheosis for Oracle, Voidform for Voidweaver, and Ascension for Archon. Of course they’d need to be reworked a bit to work for each spec, and the supporting talents in the Hero tree affect gameplay outside those cds as well but in a thematically true way.

Ideally, that is what I’d like to see.

10

I just think they recognize that Holy and Shadow are the diametrically opposing forces that we are all aware of and decided to just say they become better in their own right as a way to assign the Hero Talent bridge between them.

Otherwise they would have to get really creative and somehow make both have similar gameplay elements that you use on a regular and predictable basis that doesn’t come off as intrusive or weird for one or the other which I think is a nigh impossible task at this point since they split the specs so far apart over the years.

However, this is why I have been trying to push the idea of the Angelic angle idea as Holy can take on the Archangel of Hope and Shadow the Archangel of Death as you can see in reference to Diablo 3 as those would have a central theme to center and rally behind while also keeping their identities different.

Or more easily, they can double down on the Naaru angle with the Dark Naaru being for Shadow which I again wouldn’t be opposed of and would think it fits better with wows current lore. Heck our new TWW tier gear is basically a Naaru themed without question. Sad that is as far as they took the idea and didn’t actually feel like it was good enough to use to bridge Holy and Shadow together.

I could imagine that becoming your ultimate self would make you look like an infusion of Naaru like visuals on top of your character acting like a beacon of solid energy as extensions over your head, shoulders and arms not unlike how the Shadowy figure over the Priest from the tier set bonus in Shadowlands… but this time it’s more pronounced and Naaru like in visuals and would happen during your Cooldown. Actually since Halo is the central focus, using halo should put you in that cooldown state of yours similar to how Demon Hunters go into Demon Form after Eye Beam or Fel Devastation.

1 Like
11

This is just an incredibly limiting design space to work within.

It doesn’t work for the majority of the classes in the game so long as they’re shared specs the class can take unless you make the hero spec contribution VERY scaled back, and I think most people would find that a lot less fun.

Even in your own proposal of CDs, you’re admitting yourself that they would have to be reworked for each spec, which kind of goes back on what you’re talking about. If Void form doesn’t do the same thing for Disc as it does for Shadow, we’re right back to the same spot of the hero specs being different spec to spec.

If we try and homogenize those cooldowns, ie: Apotheosis now does the same thing for Disc and Holy, well… Disc doesn’t have holy words. So do we change Apotheosis to not be about holy words? If so, we’re fundamentally changing the gameplay of Apotheosis for Holy now, just so we can fit it in. Is that good? Well, for many it’s probably not.

Problems like that would rear themselves everywhere.

2 Likes
12

Wow. You really took a small statement and ran with it as if it was supposed to be some fully fleshed out idea. Apologies for leaving out the PowerPoint presentation on how this would work for each class.

It’s safe to assume that when someone suggests changes, that other changes would need to also occur to make it happen. Pointing out that changes would be needed is not constructive at all, we already know this. It’s amazing how quick people are to jump to trying to poke holes in something rather than acknowledging the opportunities and building upon it. Says a lot about our society.

Designing a system such as this needs a base idea, a foundation to build from. That base idea is that a hero spec never relies on optional talents that you can choose not to take. So, as I said before, I believe each Hero tree should work off of either a new talent you pick up in that tree, or a core class ability or mechanic.

Archon doesn’t work without Halo, which I have never preferred to take. Blizz themselves stated when they were creating the class trees for DF that they understand there would be less optimal builds, but they never wanted people to be able to make a broken build. Making Hero trees require people to pick up optional talents in order to work opens the door for broken builds.

If it is completely self supporting, uniquely buffing the core class and the Hero spec’s core ability, it can never be “broken.” Since Archon focuses on using Halo to buff our cds (also optional regardless of the expectation that someone would pick them up) and Voidform would clearly be the thematic cd of choice for Voidweaver, that is where the thought that cds could move to the Hero trees for Priests came in. That’s it, no more thought because it should be understood that they would require some rework to work for each spec. Sorry to disappoint that I haven’t spent a couple of days running through different concepts and testing them, but it should be understood that that’s part of the design process and I’m not suggesting we throw them in as is.

13

I actually think the opposite will happen.

So if they designed a hero talent tree to force you to pick up a spell somewhere then they can predict to some level what talents you will be forced to pick up to get the required talent which then also means you have less points to pick up other things in areas completely away from the required talents you need to put points into to grab the required spell the hero talent tree revolves around.

Then take into consideration that the tier set bonuses could very well require another spell somewhere else that then would also lay out a prediction of what you take to get the required spell and what you might have to give up.

Doing this would severally limit your build customization which makes it less difficult to balance around since you would be so limited.

So each required talent to get will in fact make balancing ever more simpler due to less potential outcomes that have to be factored in.

So this might not be that appeasing to you but I’ll toss it out all the same.

So what if Halo was made to be a basline spell that can have its own synergy for each spec. Then when you take Divine Star or Cascade (Cascade would replace Halos current location) then it would replace Halo outright.

That way we can actually have a baseline ability to deal AOE damage and then upgrade it to a more powerful version (Cascade) or a more frequent version (Divine Star).

Then it would depend on each specs synergies as to which one you want most.

14

I think he means broken in the sense that the build will be unplayable, as opposed to overpowered. Like a Fury Warrior skipping Rampage (why is this still a talent???).

15

I wasn’t trying to be hostile, just saying I could foresee a ton of problems with that and I don’t think they have the ability to solve them in the current 2 year expansion cycle.

I only took the example you gave, one I think comes with a whole bunch of knock on effects. There’s not just one or two questions you have to ask here. It’s hundreds of ‘ok but what about this?’ that comes from taking inherent spec abilities and making them part of the hero system and accessible to all specs.

What I was more trying to get at was threefold:

Limiting the specs to current baseline spells won’t work without an entire talent rework for every class. That’s just crazy out of scope. I’d imagine part of the reason the talent system could even be made in the first place was the inclusion of baseline spells into the talent mix.

Making new spells baseline, particularly spells that people were already 100% taking like class CDs, or the top of the tree spell and making it available to all specs - but also making sure that it functioned the same on all specs (which seemed to be what you were saying) comes with an incredible amount of reworking needed. Most baseline spec spells are very much not transferable, so keeping them the same would require reworking the whole thing, and them being core skills means it causes cascading problems. I used the class CD and Apotheosis to demonstrate this because it’s what you mentioned. But if we were to do it with another baseline spell, say Atonement or Penance, you’ve got a totally different problem on your hands. And ultimately it’s a form of design that would end up keeping all the classes playing fundamentally the same unless you took some major risks. It just seems like taking a whole lot of unnecessary risk if we’re talking about reworking core aspects of classes that people love today so that they can fit a new system. People get SUPER mad about changes like that historically in WoW, and it feels like this would necessitate them.

And I mean ultimately you’re taking a “we can make whatever we want - something new, or something that is attached to any given spell” design space down to “we can really only make these specs off a specific set of spells” Which is inherently limiting to design.

I don’t even necessarily agree that it fits the theme of “hero spec.” Rather that just feels like something you’d call a “dual spec” system where you allow hybridized classes a-la Archeage.

16

Because the talents are built to work as both a leveling system and a gameplay style system.

So it’s not surprising to see many core abilities to be acquired in the talent trees as you level.

17

imagine forcing us to play DA because devs can’t do their jobs. I hate DA.

18

Does halo still eat all of our mana? Haven’t played it in years

19

I am aware, nor do i have a problem with that in general. No, my problem with Rampage is that is so far down the tree. About the same place other specs get their main dps cooldowns. Deathmark, Avenging Wrath, Void Form, Celestial Alignment, etc. Even Arms Warrior’s Colossus Smash occupy the same slot.

I think Fury is the only spec in the game that doesn’t get a baseline spender. You don’t get Rampage until lvl 25 at the earliest.

Idk, just weird, and i guess a bit nit picky.

No its very cheap these days. Costs about as much as Heal.