Ok, that is a fair angle.
If it can be shown that groups with access to PI are severely outperforming those without access… that’s a discussion with merit.
IE if people are having to get a priest(s) and a demo lock to compete with other groups of equal gearing and skill, that is probably a problem.
Yet priests are virtually never a stacked class and when they are it’s due to Disc being strong as a healer/shields not PI.
And with the insane amount of nerfs the raids get any comment about “the tight tuning” is out of their mind.
I’ll guess you have not raided this tier. While you may be historically correct because every tier before this one since legion was a healer comp of Paladin, Disc Priest, Resto, X (x being something else either one of the previous three or something like a MW or Resto Druid).
This tier is the first one in a long time where most of the fights are “rot” fights where throughput healers are in demand so … you are just wrong and teams want to stack priests this tier.
Your comment about nerfs also shows you aren’t raiding as this is the single hardest raid tier ever released. Prior one being Kil’jaeden but come Aug 2 well have the numbers to show even with the nerfs this is harder partly because its also so short.
i enjoy them too…they have their uses, and do contribute to player enjoyment…but i think the minute they start impacting what goes & stays in the game…that’s an issue worthy of having a discussion about. 
(I don’t think it’s come to that, I know this is just a fun forum debate…but who knows)
To be fair, I believe Blizzard would compensate the overall damage reduction in some way, shape or form.
… But I wouldn’t be suprised if they didn’t.
I skimmed the responses. The only bottomline for PI is that SPs should be protected to not have to share it going forward.
Is it time for PI to die? meh, if enough people dislike it, sure whatever, but I think PI is fine, there should be more bard-like buffs. Make them mutually exclusive or have a diminishing return aspect so there’s no extreme funneling. I remember a time when people wanted a bard class. Now it’s like as long it buffs everybody… “When it’s not FOR me, it’s an issue” mentality. I think the argument of PI makes some classes viable versus not viable is the class’s issue, not PI…
To me, similar to a player asking a healer to “Heal Me”. A player asking to “PI me” can be somewhat annoying… but the negative social aspect of PI isn’t because of PI but the playerbase. Removing PI won’t remove the toxic people, wannabe Chad-bads, nor will it remove good players who ask nicely, or goodguy Chads who want to also help you utilize your toolkit. Removing PI will 100% lessen the value of priest’s toolkit.
WCL Parsing, for better or worse, is a part of the game, but it’s only a partial representation of the player base which makes the data skewed already.
There’s notions that PI skews data even more. Okay, WCL added the buff counter. Whatever, really NBD. So you parsed less than a player who received 20 buffs with PI, Fae Guardians, and Blessing of Summer. What’s the issue here? Of course you would, they got buffed.
Oh you parsed less than a player with no buffs as well. Blame PI, but not individual play, fight timers, or other factors. I’m sure Blizzard looks at that data, but they also have their in-house data where they can see 100% of the player base versus whatever % chose to upload.
Adding how I handle PI as a non-Priest/Priest.
My toons are mage, lock, then my SP/holyP.
In casual M+ (<20) Pugs: I don’t ask for it. I’m PI’d inside CDs, I’m impressed. I’m PI’d outside of CDs, I lol but hey that player is trying. As a holyP, I either follow my WA and watch offensive CDs or I troll PI, give it outside of CDs purposely or give to tanks that mass pull like a Guardian Tank or anyone to my entertainment like giving it to someone casting rez.
When pushing M+ (>20) Pugs: I don’t ask for it. The Priest will ask… who should I PI? wow goodguy priest, idc if someone wants it more than me. As a Priest, I ask who wants it, inspect gear, keep tabs on my WA and party offensive CDs. TBH I sat priest this past season, on a break, but I’d go in with that mentality.
With my buds in Raid and M+: We’re in comms. I ask for it precisely with my CDs. I understand that the Demo/Destro Lock will benefit more than my Arcane Mage, so I’m fine with that. I know the 2min Fire Mage, Venthyr Boomie will benefit more than my Arcane Mage, but it was decided I’d get PI over them because I’m a better DPS player in my guild. As a priest, I’d subjectively give it to the DPS that can best utilize it.
how about a…cakePI
This is the first tier holy has been in demand in like a decade. It’s been living in Discs basement for a long time.
And for both it’s more about their healing.
If it was about stacking PIs shadowpriests would get stacked, and they dont.
The raid balance comment was about “designing for PI” when it’s clear it doesn’t matter as they hack the raid to pieces with nerfs.
Warlocks are almost auto invited, solely for the lock closet if nothing else. They don’t need to have any other person que’d with them. As long as you got people signing up that aren’t right in front of the raid, Warlocks will be one of the main dudes to invite and mainly every group without a Warlock will keep trying to get 1 if it’s pugging people into it. Now, there are a few exceptions, like if it’s a guild group with no warlocks and you’re not going to add anyone else to the raid even if others have to go, then yeah there’s no need for the closet.
If your raid’s already always right in front of the raid before raid time and again you’re not planning on adding more people to it, yeah you don’t need a Warlock for the closet, though Healthstones are always enjoyed so there’s that aspect, too.
Either of those, plus gateway puts Warlocks at a very high chance of getting invited, especially since for some reason a lot of pugs tend to either have many Warlocks, like 3+, or they have 0 Warlocks and are trying to get at least 1.
It’s odd, but often times that is what I see in pugs, and I get invited within 15-20 seconds, at most, of applying to pugs.
I don’t think anything is more mandatory than this one, in particular. It’s a raid wide CD, though, and honestly if they made PI basically the same thing, a smaller raid wide CD rather than party buff or single person, that would be fine, too.
They could change it from Haste to main stat, keep it Haste or put any other secondary in there ad that would be fine if it was a raid wide thing.
This is the problem, because they’ve proven time and time again with their spec designs that they actually are bad at it. Affliction was fun in Legion, BFA it was a very terrible 3 minute burst spec, SLands it has probably a 40/60 split on those who enjoy it vs those who don’t. It’s better than BFA but still just terrible by design by those who simply want a DoT spec to be a DoT spec, fully, like it was in Legion.
They do this for a lot of specs. MoP had a lot of specs designed around fun and if you ask people what expansions they loved class/spec design the expansions you would see most often referred to, in my opinion, would be Wrath, MoP and Legion. MoP probably holds the most, followed by Legion with Wrath very closely behind it, I think, would be where a lot of spec designs fall in.
It’s a big trust issue with the playerbase and with the devs. They keep saying every expansion “we will listen more” and then you get to alpha/beta, with players giving very very detailed information, theorycrafters telling them, high end players telling them, etc. Everyone in the top telling them things going wrong, and they turn around and go “You guys don’t have the full picture, we do, we know it doesn’t seem like it but it’s not that bad” or something to that effect. They ignore it, then end up either changing it because people find those decisions to be bad, or they overhaul the next expansion anyways.
Both yes and no. The talent trees so far have displayed so much of the Shadowlands’ abilities for a lot of the specs so far that you’re not fully playing a spec that is that different from what it is now. You have a choice, for some specs, as to what you have utility wise and others have no choice. Example being: if they kept the Priest tree like it is right now, anyone not taking PI will be removed from most raid groups. If they threw Hero in for the Mage/Shaman/Hunter trees as a talent and you seen them not taking it, those players will be told to take it or be kicked. Most people will not go “That’s fine if you don’t have Hero” no. They will tell you “go back and respec into it or get out of my group.”
I agree, but it doesn’t need to come at something like this. Support can be something from random procs, it can be adding a few stats upon certain button presses, it can be anything else and that’s fine. PI, as a talent, is not something that should stay in the game even with the talent to double it’s effectiveness.
I like bards, but blizz already said a few times bards don’t fit into WoW and it’s not going to happen, at least Ion said it long ago I think in one of the Legion interviews they did? Killed me inside right there, as those are some pretty fun things to play.
I’ve been trying to get this done for years, kept constantly getting told to knock it off. FF does it well, but yeah I don’t think WoW will go that route, though maybe one day.
You’re actually spot on I think, too. It is def a mindset difference.
Yeah, which is why just avoid the drama in the first place. It’s an annoyance to deal with.
I do have an issue with PI, but yeah I enjoy debating things more and just having general discussions about WoW designs itself, mainly class and spec designs are the most fun and enjoyment.
That’s still here, blizz still keeps denying us though 
Well after seeing folks complain about PI, I think that shows that this community doesn’t fit with the idea.
Shaman were the OG ‘Bard’ in a way and they have been gutted of most empowerments for the group.
Naw, this was back like in Legion when we weren’t as bad as we are now. I say this to a lot of people. Getting older makes me impatient. WoW’s instant gratification stuff makes me impatient. Like, I tried to play classic and I was looking around going “mannnn, I don’t have a mount to mount up on at level 1, I gotta read the quest to see where I need to go, run over there to it, then run back?” I made it to like level 15, then I was done. I was way too bored with how long it took to level, way too bored with how long it took to travel distances over being able to mount up right away, etc. The QoL and conveniences WoW retail has/had vs classic, I was like nahhhh.
The easier things get the lazier people get, myself included in that. When I first played this game I spent hours upon hours questing, enjoying it. After the 350th character over 9 accounts (Because Recruit a Friend was fun to do) I’ve seen all the things, been there and done it so much I just want to be at the end game instantly and on the grind.
But yeah, after picking this game up my patience went out the window. Before I could wait 45-75 minutes IRL for people to get ready n do things they need/desire to do then be good to spend time with. Now, if I gotta wait 5 minutes I’m like “nahhh, I’m out.”
I don’t see the correlation with you becoming more impatient with the bard not meshing well with the community of today.
PI kind of proves that certain members of this community cannot handle team members getting empowered to help the group defeat a boss.
The correlation is: with convenience/QoL/otherthings happening, it gives rise to the mentality that you have today, of “me, myself and I” which is not “for the team” mentality, it’s “i, myself” mentality.
Like, it’s never just one thing that’s to blame, its a lot of things coming together that changes people and it’s never a change all at once, it’s something that happens over time.
Does it affect everyone? No. Does it affect a lot of players: Yep.
No. The only thing that needs to die is the pathetic mindset that if an ability upsets raiders or lopsides the parsing, it 'needs to go.
Or option C: Since balancing a bosses hps involves at some point making a decision, a problem ability like Power Infusion to some degree effects the number (Either a group with PI can blow through the dps check, or a group without it struggles - just imagine a line where you can place the dot towards either edge, no matter where you place said dot it simultaneously effects both sides relative to where you place it)
Its an interesting thought experiment that reveals why PI is not good for the game.
I absolutely love PI. If you’re doing content where PI is required to be cast on a specific player, then you’re also doing content where you’re min/maxing everything. You should be used to requirements like that to progress and farm whatever it is you do.
I don’t participate in high end gameplay, so don’t ruin my fun.
I do participate in high end gameplay and this ability is making my life more stressful reducing my fun. So now we have to weigh the impacts ya?
Seriously, it’s like the last empowerment buff we have in this game. We don’t need RPG flavor removed because of a 3rd party database.
The impact is that bosses die 
Considering how Blizz is constantly nerfing raids, the tuning isn’t toeing a tight enough line where PI is the difference.
The massive skill gap in raiders is where to look at improving to kill bosses, but of course it is easier to scapegoat things like PI than for players to admit maybe they could just play better.
No. Your choice to participate in high end gameplay means you need to sacrifice some “fun” in order to win. That’s why high end played choose specific races with racials, specific talents, and specific gear. This is how it’s always been, and high end players understand that.
The issue is with the middle end players who mimic high end players. They’re the ones complaining and demanding change.
If PI is actually stressing you out, maybe high end gameplay isn’t for you. You’ve got to adapt and do your best with the cards you’re dealt. You don’t demand the cards get dealt again just because you aren’t enjoying your hand.