Spoiler maybe?
Maybe it’s why Anduin has basically unspecced from Holy Priest.
It was hinted all along.
I’d guess it’s less that people were expecting anything before 11.1/2 and more that people weren’t expecting such extensive changes for classes that already received tons of attention while classes that were completely ignored during development continue to be ignored.
But we have “Power Infusion”
Blizzards answer to everything.
Their explanation would be something along the lines of:
We think priest needs to be in this state. Why? Because, honestly; We really don’t care enough to make vast changes to the class because it would take too much work that is better suited elsewhere.
This is the answer to ANY ‘why is X not done?’ in any live product being developed, if we’re being honest. Every team has a bandwidth for deliverables.
Priest is not a bunching bag in pvp, spriest is very good and mostly hard to kill, disc priest is one of the best healers in the game in pvp right now and also hard to kill. Hpriest is lagging behind a bit but doing better than before after the recent PoM buff. Just correcting this, pvp priest is very good.
Guess I use punching bag a bit different than most so let me clarify. Enemies don’t have to worry about a priest blinking away or escaping them when they attack. They know once they are on a priest it will take a monumental feat to get them off considering how immobile priests are. This makes them a punching bag, now if said punching bag can swing back and do some damage idk I haven’t done any pvp on expansion so I can’t really talk about it.
You either root them with an undispellable root (they have to kill it to get out) and fade with phantasm to create some distance, or you fear them off of you. Can also stun them off of you if you need to.
edit- you edited your post as I was responding but no there are ways for priests to get away. Not saying its perfect, phantasm could do a bit more than just remove snares on initial cast, it should make you snare/slow immune either for the duration of fade or for a few seconds after using it for example, but priest doesnt just plant and die lol. Things have gotten worse with hero talents though, mobile classes got more mobile, dks got more passive chains of ice and have x2 grip+strang+sleet+mind freeze which is ridiculous. Priest will fall behind sooner rather than later in pvp if we don’t get a little something, but it is difficult to kill all 3 priest specs atm.
Shadow/holy can stun them, but that means they won’t have them for their go. Unless something has dramatically changed since I last played fade may remove some snares, but they can be immediately reapplied, and it doesn’t actually create space, which means it’s often better to depend on it’s 10% damage reduction more than the root break. That root died to a light breeze last expansion and considering the amount of AoE made it extremely weak(has this changed?), even so the amount of snare/root breaks that exist coupled with it’s long CD make it pretty meh as best.
Overall as far as I recall we do technically have some tools, it’s just the tools are really really bad compared to what other classes have meaning more often then not it’s better to just plant and do your best unless you have teammates who can help you.
Yeah fade snare break is what I said should improve. At this point it just needs to be snare/slow immunity. Too many passive slows in the game that automatically get reapplied, too many active slows as well.
In terms of the root break, you can take both. Fade DR doesnt share a node with root, root shares a node with making fear harder to break from damage but they kinda did that by default in pvp in DF so it isn’t necessary to take, meaning root is pretty free to grab. And yeah the root doesnt die in a second, it takes a couple globals if they target it right away but you can use that time to create distance.
In terms of the stun, spriest gets stun+fear+silence+root if they grab all that, so you don’t necessarily need fear for your go (you do have teammates who will be cross ccing with you for a go) so you can throw fear out to help create distance.
Like I said I do agree priest tools are weak after hero talents got introduced. Added too much mobility to already mobile classes and added far too many passive slows overall. I am just disagreeing with the fact priests stand there and don’t move when getting trained.
To clarify I wasn’t talking about how you spec. I was just saying fade seemed to work better, imo, for it’s 10% damage reduction than the snare break, meaning it was better to just fade to absorb the damage than it was to use it as a dependable root break/escape.
It’s good to hear it’s actually functional now if you can catch people without their snare/root breaks. Honestly I wish they would do more with the whole void/tentacle element of the class, especially shadow, if we are going to have so much void influence I really wish they would tap into it.
My issues with fear, and atm I’m saying this based off my experience playing a warlock this expansion, is that it simply doesn’t last. I’ve literally feared a dotted target and immediately started casting another fear just for it to break for the 2nd cast goes off. Pretty much every class has some measure of dot based damage now making it extremely unreliable and that isn’t even including classes like warrior for example who have built in fear breaks/immunities.
The issue with the tools are how archaic they are. Fear was once the single best CC in the game and now it’s extremely underwhelming and the PVP and M+ arms race means more and more classes are getting tools to lockdown enemies while keeping themselves mobile while priest is over all being left behind. The class design is showing both it’s age and a serious lack of effort from a design stand point, especially shadow which is just downright insulting at this point.
The problem is for to long we have accepted numerical balance in place of proper design. I mean just think about this. Shadow who is suppose to be spending insanity, literally only has 1 ability in it’s entire kit that spends insanity, Devouring Plague. That is the only interaction the kit has with the supposed resource it’s built around. It doesn’t interact with our utility, it doesn’t give us access to other AoEs, or defenses anything it’s just devouring plague.
There is so much design space and it’s just not being explored. It feels extremely lazy, combine that with the lack of communication and it’s easy to see why so many believe Blizzard simply doesn’t care.
Ignoring conversations about AoE for a moment, I don’t want to use my damage resource for utility or defensive spells. That’s not even something anyone else does.
I mean Warlocks use Soulshards on Soulburn, so Demonic Gateway and Healthstone being their big two but also their port can be soulburned as well as their drainlife and heal pet ability. It’s also their primary damage source via Malific Rupture.
Also if I remember correctly don’t Death Knight use their runes for Death Strike, IE healing, as well as their primary damage source?
It’s done more than you think.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying Horror/fear/etc should cost insanity, but you could easily come up with some mechanics that allows insanity to buff them, or revival old mechanics where maintaining insanity made us stronger, etc etc. Just something so the class actually feels like insanity matters beyond literally just one spell.
It is far from good. Spells deal about 2% of a players health. Survivability is fine, but spriest can’t deal damage at all. This lines up perfectly with the low sims I keep hearing about. Try executing someone with Shadow word: death from 5% and tell me priest is fine in pvp.
Actually insane. I thought i had picked the right class considering the theme is light n void and I picked the absolute worst
It is fine though, shadow priest mains are doing a ton of damage. They get countered much harder by disease dispel than anything else you could list really. They arent the best caster thats likely frost mage atm but they were doing really well in beta shuffles and wargames, thats the closest thing we have to go off of until actual season starts
I can go off the feel when I press my spells on a random bg. Shadow does not deal damage. Healthbars don’t move when you cast spells unless the opponent is undergeared. Either the damage is bugged or severely under tuned.
No we’re not.
Oh you meant PvP.
This is a pvp conversation not a pve conversation and yes shadow priest does a lot of damage in arena. edit- i do know it is quite poor in pve from what you and others have said though.
You can do what you’d like I guess but shadow priests were doing extremely well on beta and have only received buffs since beta iirc, i cant remember if they affected pvp or not though. Also I have played shadow in bgs and am usually doing a ton of damage as archon, idk what your build is though. If I go off the last time we were on beta, spriest was both hard to kill and doing good damage, and the last time I played it in a random bg and epic bg I was also doing a lot.