Priest Rune fixes/changes

Just adding suggestions I think will be greatly help Priests in SoD for group or solo play and some odd bug with A.I? that I definitely think need to be addressed especially when it comes down to the Homunculi Rune.

I’ll address instantly the Homunculi Skill issue I’m having get that out of the way,

Homunculi,
Currently I love it, but the most frustrating thing is it seems completely bugged? The AI involving the 3 clones we spawn is beyond useless and completely unreliable to the point of wasting about 80% of its uptime being idle.

Explaining the issue,
Currently the 3 clones after being spawned on a Target, will help, now I’m playing with a friend but for every other mob after unless I’m getting attacked directly or oddly occasionally standing on top of mob then finally they’ll come to help. Other then that they’ll stand next to me all ontop of eacother stacked completely doing nothing.

Solution,
Simply just make the Homuncli attack whoever I’m attack, like regular pet, for a more controlled and consistent way I’ll give a great example and explanation.

Who ever I auto attack/wand they’ll instantly attack the Target, that way I can control who my Homuncli attack. Their may be a priority target ill keep them on while I DoT others that are less priority.

Seriously 80% of the time they literally stand and do nothing.

Void Plague,
Honestly it needs more, it has a 6 second CD, barely keeps up with SW:Pain, just another DoT to press for the sake of it.

Solution,
Considering it’s not spamable with a 6 sec cd, let Void Plague do damage instantly then go into its DoT damage, this change will be huge as we literally have zero ways to tagging a mob instantly, ever been in a area with a Druid Moonfire/Sunfire everything? Mage Fire Blasting to sneak the Tag under you? It’s not fun.

Now the biggest flaw for Priests,
Priests are literally the only “Mana Using” class that has received zero ways on helping with mana management or anyway to help offset it through a Rune.

Druids,

  • Free Wrath, Lifebloom refunds half the cost in activation.

Mages,

  • Enlightenment.

Paladins,

  • Crusader Strike, Seal of Martyrdom.

Shamans,

  • Water Shield, Shamanistic Rage.

Hunters,

  • Master Marksman. (Won’t mention Chimera Shot with Viper Sting that’s Phase 2).

Warlocks,

  • Works opposite, Haunt, Master Channeler, Soul Siphon all give HP to fuel Life Tap.

I’m just saying every class that uses Mana has something, some better then others, some more minor, but it’s something.

Priests should at minimum have something to help, Shadow Word: Death, on kill refunds the Mana used or gives us 5% base mana back?. Homunculi hits restore 1% Mana to the Caster?.

I’m not asking for something to make us unstoppable but just something even if minor to keep fuel on the fire going.

Edit: For Shadow Priests if you want to make going down the Shadow Tree more rewarding and have some worth Twisted Faith needs to be adjusted especially in Phase 1 just by comparing how other classes runes are huge and insane dps boosts, which I think is fun, why can’t Shadow be just as “Fun”?

Twisted Faith (changed to benefit Mind Flay more)

  • Mind Flay deals 40% and Mind Blast deals 20% increased damage to targets afflicted with your Shadow Word: Pain.

Seriously even that might not be enough for Mind Flay when Wands from the new raid are 39 - 75 Arcane Damage, Speed 1.90 and 25 - 47 Fire Damage Speed 1.20 both doing 30.0 dps.

Mind Flay Rank 1 - 75 Shadow damage over 3 sec, 45 mana throw in the 20% it becomes 90 damage…channeled. The icing on the cake can be interrupted/less tics, cost mana and has less range then a wand. At least with it being 40% the dps be 105 slightly over the Wands making it worth its mana cost and shorter range baseline. Also not to forget to mention Mind Flay cannot Crit at all… Wands can.

5 Likes

I had a random priest question. Do we know if priest racials are still restricted to each race? There was a rumor Blizz was allowing other races to use other race’s priest skills.

They announced they’ll be doing a quest line in later phases, not sure if it’s purely faction exclusive or cross faction, like Troll getting Fear Ward or Dwarves getting Devouring Plague.

But it seems Dwarves, Night Elves and Humans for Alliance while Trolls and Undead most certainly will be getting their factions Unique Priest ability.

Just not sure if cross faction abilities will be learnt, no info on that.

I’ve seen a lot of references to these priest cross-racial quests, but can’t find a source of Blizz saying it.

Pretty sure they brought it up again in the latest SoD video on their YouTube account.

Oh thank God it’s not just me.

The ONLY way I have found to control the little guys is melee attacking. And even then it’s hit or miss and it’s SUPER clunky because…I’m a priest and when my tank goes in I need to be paying attention to healing, not trying to melee a mob 3 times so my little pet does it’s thing.

Even /petattack and /startattack do nothing.

Pls fix.

Also Shadowfiend when.

2 Likes

I didn’t understand why Homunculi doesn’t have Shadowfiends mana regen, it’s basically Shadowfiend as it is. And fixes the huge issue Priests in general have…”being OOM”.

But first and foremost they definitely need to fix Homonculi’s horrible A.I. The spell is cool and fresh, it’s great support when it works, but in practice generally doesn’t nothing.

2 Likes

Yeah, that’s my main issue rn, Homunculi needs to either have a pet bar to allow us to tell it what to do, or have it be on “Assist”

2 Likes

Does it bother you that Plague is on chest with Twisted? So instead of putting twisted on legs to fix this little problem and at least give us some damage as shadow. We are wondering why we are spamming this new plague ability to have it resist and waste mana then stand around wanding for the next 6 seconds.

Void Plague needs to be buffed, its damage is ridiculously low compared to SW:P which is spamable, imagine if Void Plague had 2 parts to it.

Example Void plague does 100 damage over 18 seconds, but it always will do 40% of its damage upfront, then go into its DoT.

So when casting it will initially hit instantly for 40 damage, then do its 100 DoT for 18 seconds. Infinitely more better then what we have now.

Having it on the leg slot would be great,
Twisted Faith - Chest
Mind Sear/SW: Death - Gloves (AoE or ST)
Void Plague/Homunculi - Legs (dps or support)

Alternatively,

They should remove Shared Pain and pseudo bake it into Void Plague as the Leg Rune, it’s a plague after all and plagues spread, after 6 seconds it will spread to a target within 10yds only applying the DoT for 18 seconds, can’t spread back on a target previously.

So you’ll still cast Void Plague to respread it, as each cast can only spread once per target.

I feel like Shadow, and their runes are designed for a bigger picture, like more synergy once we can hit 40 in phase 2 and get Shadow Form and maybe more Runes to help with it, but for Phase 1 we really have no changes that sets Shadow apart from how it is on Classic, we oom, we wand.

I’m actually enjoying plague for my usual dot and wand, it’s got a pretty low mana cost per level compared to SWP, but less damage ofc, works well for my current leveling

I think they need a bit of a nerf, of all healers so far in dungeons they seem to have the least hassle of healing, dps and maintaining mana.

I think keeping these dots weaker is just a good balancing mechanic.

But that’s my issue, the DPS side of being a Priest is so ridiculously undertuned in comparison to other classes, you’d be crazy not to go Healer in Phase 1.

What I’m trying to say and hope for is that the Shadow dps side of runes gets buffed so we are not shoe horned into healing, if they literally nerf the healing aspect currently, we do nothing.

Our dps is not even close to others to justify a slot as dps, we oom to quick and just literally go to Wanding. Healing currently is the only saving grace for us in Phase 1.

If they nerfed the healing aspect of runes and buffed our dps runes, then fair, but if nothing changes and they nerf the healing side… game over till phase 2.

Balancing classes can be a tricky, but I hope the developers take player feedback into account and make necessary adjustments. Buffing the Shadow DPS side of runes sounds like a reasonable solution to avoid players feeling forced into the healing role.

1 Like

Let me ask you this, how many dungeon groups or even groups in general has the Priest not been a healer?.

I’m insanely trying to make Shadow Work but the dps is simply not there.

I’ve been part of several dungeon groups where our Priest has been damage. Unfortunately, I don’t have details so I can’t say how they compare to others.

I’ve prob ran DM over 8 times for all the gear, zero priests for dps, SFK zero as well.

Shadow Priest do not have the Damage even close to what other dps can do in Vanilla at lvl 25, that’s not even now including Runes that are skyrocketing DPS.

Our Runes are simply ridiculously undertunded and do not assist with a major issue of mana.

How Void Plague can do half the damage of SW:P and have a cd attached is beyond me, how they left twisted Faith at 20% is beyond me.

Our only saving grace is most likely Mind Sear for AoE if the pull is large enough… when that gets discovered.

I agree with all of this. I stopped using homunculi because it wouldn’t attacked mobs until they were already down to like 20-30% hp, but then sometimes they would run off and drag me into combat with random mobs. I liked void plague at first since it was a cheap extra source of damage but it felt like it fell off as I leveled. I don’t mind that there isn’t big damage without our later talents but it would have been nice if we at least had the mana to keep casting for a while. Even if there is no rebalancing, the AI on homunculi needs to be looked at, it’s wack.

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well buffing the damage on the two spells that share the same piece isn’t enough so sad they cant move void plague to gloves where it belongs.

don’t have issues with homunculus attacking personally, just get within 10 yards of stuff your party is attacking and they’ll go ham on whatever is closer and continue to change target once their main target dies to whatever you’re in combat with.

They’re only a bit finicky when soloing in the world but that’s mostly a non-issue, you still want to backpedal so they are hitting the mob’s back anyways to avoid getting their hits parried.