How was the mark so missed on this class? There are 4 key components that literally every single one of the other of the 11 other classes have that priest don’t.
Mobility, an interrupt, a slow, and CC. (Psychic meme doesn’t count, let’s be honest, and if anyone references silence or feathers I’ll fight you).
Every single other spec has some form of all four of these, while priest has none.
On top of ALL of this, they’re the worst solo class in the game. A clothie that has no pet to tank, no way to kite, nothing.
How in gods name did this happen? How is there not a single slow (flay channel doesn’t count), no stun, no aoe CC besides a liability, absolutely no mobility.
Edit: Oh yeah and no brez or lust for the healer specs as well, so nothing mandatory there.
You’re undercutting your argument by trying to head off legitimate counters to your claim. Absolutes aren’t effective in communicating what needs changing.
We do have all 4 of the things you list. They aren’t all what we want, but they’re there.
I agree, a lot of what we have feels weak compared to what other classes have, but you’re ignoring a lot to make this argument.
This is honestly the Blizzard mentality that is handicapping the class.
Yes our class technically has a projectile weapon and something that can be called armoe to match the other soldiers. Its just they have actual guns and ours is a nerf toy, and their armor is made a kevlar while we have a leather jacket.
Technically we have those tools they are just woefully inadequate to any situation we will find ourselves in to the point of not being worth mentioning.
Their only purpose at this point is for Blizz to be able to say “well what about” when justifying how they have ignored and handicapped the class.
Priests are only EVER as good as their tuning, and nothing else.
If they’re even upper-mid pack, they’re F tier.
No ones going to invite a class with no utility outside of PI to anything unless their tuning is far enough ahead of the next closest thing to warrant it.
This is actually the key thing for me. So many times in the classes history it is “viable” due to balancing but so few people understand that is not a valid substitution for proper and good design which the class as a whole has lacked for a long time.
Which is totally fine and appreciated, that’s the purpose of the forums and why I made the post.
The forums aren’t solely to bring awareness to blizzard, and I’d argue not even primarily. They’re a place to have discussion, which was another intent.
It’s just wild that priest truly feels like the only class remaining in the game stuck in 2008.
And it’d be one thing if they were lacking one, maybe two of the mentioned things, but they’re lacking them all.
If you’re creating a group for M+, and classes start signing up. There’s actually virtually no reason to ever, and I mean ever, invite a priest over something else unless they’re far more overtuned than anything else.
They literally bring nothing that’s wanted in plus environments.
I’ve grown my roster of healers to play shaman, druid, paladin and even monk on top of my priest, and the gaps in the areas of mobility, CC, utility and interesting (relevant) talent choices between where they are and where priest is as a healer has just grown into a chasm ever since BFA.
And in the past they at least offered a rickety bridge to priest players by allowing borrowed power to shore up a couple of the pain points. That went away in DF, but now borrowed power has made its return (outside tier gear) in the form of Hero talents: but besides from the area of damage reduction in Oracle it doesn’t address any of the other concerns with its mostly passive throughput buffs.
I do agree that they’re a bit outdated, but I honestly think they’re very close to being fine. Priests absolutely do not need pets or tankiness or even a ton of movement. Many classes dont and it’s just fine. They should have an interrupt simply for encounter balance, and they should have some glyphs or cosmetic options just so some races like Trolls and Tauren and whatever don’t have visuals so at odds with the in game lore.
I think PI is part of the problem, and I think they were close to fixing it with the old Oracle spec. I don’t think PI should be baseline, but if you could balance it in a hero spec and just give priests a more augmentation-like option you could open the class up more. I love PI, I think it’s fun to use and have used on you, but I don’t think it should limit the class.
The original design concept of “glass cannon healer” could still work, but Blizz wants to balance throughput too tightly which was the main trade-off for being slow and fragile and a bit helpless in Classic.
They’ve performed an unholy resurrection of virtually every talent priest has ever had from 2004 in DF, but it doesn’t feel like anyone’s in charge with a coherent vision of why priest should still be slow, and lacking a ranged AoE stun/knockback, and lacking an interrupt, and lacking a brez, and lacking a lust and still awfully fragile and with no option to cast on the move in 2024 gameplay and encounter design.
I honestly can’t tell if it’s a conscious design choice to leave the spec in this state or if it’s simple neglect, which is believable when you consider just how many people have quit or been fired at Blizz the past couple of years.
Yeah Shaman for sure. I dunno, I don’t think classes should be entirely monolithic where every class gets exactly 3 cc abilities 2 mobility options and 2 defensive cooldowns or whatever. It’s not like priest has literally no mobility, cc, or defensives.
just to be clear, Hero talents aren’t “Borrowed power” they’re meant to be an evergreen system, likely to grow in that we’ll get more options to choose from as more expansions release with them, for it to be “borrowed” they’d need to go away