Dear Blizzard, Bite me.
Apr. 13th, 2007 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqAn open letter to Blizzard Entertainment:
Dear Blizzard,
Bite me. Please stop "fixing" our class. In fact please just ignore our class, because every time you "fix" something you kill us a little more.
Signed,
Plonq
After they screwed us hard in the last patch, they hinted at a wonderful "mystery buff" in an upcoming patch. They have been alternately chipping and hammering at our class in every patch since 1.10, to the extent that almost everybody who has played a priest in the game for any length of time actually dreads patch day because we know they are going to nerf something else.
Let's look at the notes for the upcoming patch:
Priests
"Binding Heal": The mana cost has been reduced by 32%. The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate it is a low threat spell, which was already the case.
This is a baby step in the right direction -- first one we've seen in many, many patches. It still doesn't make this a good spell, but it renders it very slightly less useless.
"Circle of Healing" (Holy) effect increased.
Lipstick on a sow. They have "buffed" this spell in three consecutive patches now because it has probably become apparent to them that nobody is wasting the 41 talent points to get this largely useless spell. This is a spell designed to help in places like Naxx and AQ, but it is really useless in Burning Crusade. For bonus points, name more than one encounter in BC where the strategy involves clumping the whole raid together, where everybody takes light to moderate AoE damage. [...]
Sorry, it was a trick question. BC is all about massive spike damage, and spreading out to avoid instant-death cleaves and chained spells. Even if they somehow accidentally rendered the spell halfway useful (it could happen if they tweak it enough), there's still no point in spending the talent points on it. Why? History has shown that if enough priests start using it, Blizzard will promptly break it again.
"Circle of healing" (Holy) adding a 60-second cooldown because some holy priests were managing to cast it twice in the arena before dying.
Finally, blowing the points to get this worthless spell means that you won't have enough to buy the only two priest buffs that haven't been nerfed yet (Improved Fort, and Divine Spirit).
"Empowered Healing" and "Holy Concentration" now affect "Binding Heal".
Apparently they've noticed that nobody us using this spell either. If you're taking the kind of damage where you'd even need this spell, you've pulled aggro and you are dead anyway. I suppose Blizzard deserves a half-hearted "thanks for making it suck less" for this one though.
Focused Power (Discipline) now also increases the chance to hit with Mass Dispel, reduces the cast time of Mass Dispel but no longer increases the damage against feared targets.
So they are eliminating the minor damage buff (because we are so overpowered and unbalanced) and replacing it with a couple of minor buffs to another useless spell that nobody uses. Sure, it has cool graphics when you cast it, but it takes forever to cast, costs a truckload of mana, and its effects are random. Gee, thanks.
"Holy Fire": The rank 9 tooltip has been corrected to indicate it does Holy damage.
Woo.
"Holy Nova": Rank 2 will no longer receive double the intended increase in range from "Holy Reach".
*shrug* It's a bug fix, so I don't really count this as a nerf.
"Mind control" no longer has a 100 yard range limitation in instances.
Meh. It's not a nerf, so I suppose that's something for which to be grateful. Maybe this is the "mystery buff" we were supposed to be wetting our pants over. I haven't found this spell to be particularly useful in Burning Crusade, mind you. It has not scaled well, and things resist and break it so routinely that it tends to do more harm than good the times I've tried to use it. It's useless in PvP because virtually everyone now has trinkets, or abilities that purge it anyway.
"Pain Suppression" now reduces damage taken by 65% and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 65% for the duration.
This is a marginal buff at best. It is a 41-point talent and it is one of our only decent survivability buffs, but it can still be dispelled, and it has a long cooldown. I dunno, it might be worth taking this talent if you don't mind crippling your healing for it. I've certainly thought about it.
"Power Word: Shield": The "Weakened Soul" effect will no longer sometimes be re-applied while zoning with this buff on.
This is a bug fix, but I am pretty sure they are counting it as a buff.
"Prayer of Fortitude": The range on rank 3 has been changed to match all other ranks of this spell.
Unless they had initially intended to give the higher ranking spell a shorter range, this is just another bug fix.
"Prayer of Fortitude", ranks 1 and 2, are now available on trainers.
I thought these were already available from the trainers. Ah well, good for the n00bs I suppose - saves them having to endlessly grind AQ20 for the books.
"Prayer of Mending": This spell is now affected by "Silent Resolve", "Amplify Magic", and "Dampen Magic".
Another bug fix that is probably being counted as a buff - or maybe this is part of their attempt to make up for crippling it so bad in the last patch.
"Prayer of Shadow Protection", rank 1, is now available on trainers.
Good for the n00bs I suppose. Gotta take what you can get these days.
"Reflective Shield": When this effect is triggered, the priest will no longer be forced to stand up.
The more I think about this one, the more pointless it seems...
"Shadowfiend": This pet will now come into the game with full health and mana, including that gained from a percentage of its master's stamina and intellect.
Bug fix.
"Shadow Weaving" (Shadow): Effect reduced by 1% per rank.
Yay - another nerf for shadow priests (because they didn't quite screw them enough in the last patch). As an added bonus, this one nerfs warlocks too. Oh, and don't let the 1% figure fool you, this is not a minor nerf - this reduces the ability by 1/3.
"Shadow Word: Death": Cooldown increased to 12 sec.
... and another instance where the shadow priests are being bent over the barrel. The spell already had a cooldown; extending it to 12 seconds is just insulting. This one sounds like one of the developers getting back at the priests because somebody used it to kill him a couple of times in the arena.
"Silent Resolve": Some priest spells were unaffected by this talent. They should now all be affected.
"... except for the shadow spells that we intentionally removed from it last patch." Sounds to me like they screwed up last patch and accidentally crippled spells in other trees too.
"Spirit of Redemption" and "Spiritual Guidance" now work while the priest is in "Shadowform".
...! Okay, this one just leaves my head spinning. I just can't imagine taking talents down far enough in both Holy and Shadow trees in order to find out that this was even an issue.
"Spirit Tap": This ability will no longer be triggered by killing some creature-cast totems.
Bug fix.
"Surge of Light": "Smite" spells triggered by this talent will no longer sometimes critically strike. In addition, the free "Smite" granted will not consume the effect of "Inner Focus". "Holy Nova" heals can now trigger "Surge of Light" as well.
Sadly, this is just a bug fix. I am probably going to spend the money to redo my talent tree once this patch goes live, since the only thing that made this one halfway useful was the fact that it was broken. This also begs the question of why they even bother having it trigger off of healing spells. With the crazy damage output in the Burning Crusade dungeons, I am not going to stop in mid-heal to cast a smite - especially since it doesn't do enough damage to be worthwhile if I am not dressed in my DPS gear.
"Symbol of Hope": amount of mana regained increased.
Nice for the alliance priests I suppose.
"Touch of Weakness": This spell can now activate "Surge of Light".
Gah. This is marginally useful at best - but it also raises the obvious question of why a shadow spell critical strike would trigger a holy buff. Will the priest be able to cast this Smite spell while in shadow form, or will they have to switch out for the Smite, then switch back again to resume their regular face-melting?
"Vampiric Touch": This spell now consumes the "Inner Focus buff".
Bug fix.
Dear Blizzard,
Bite me. Please stop "fixing" our class. In fact please just ignore our class, because every time you "fix" something you kill us a little more.
Signed,
Plonq
After they screwed us hard in the last patch, they hinted at a wonderful "mystery buff" in an upcoming patch. They have been alternately chipping and hammering at our class in every patch since 1.10, to the extent that almost everybody who has played a priest in the game for any length of time actually dreads patch day because we know they are going to nerf something else.
Let's look at the notes for the upcoming patch:
Priests
"Binding Heal": The mana cost has been reduced by 32%. The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate it is a low threat spell, which was already the case.
This is a baby step in the right direction -- first one we've seen in many, many patches. It still doesn't make this a good spell, but it renders it very slightly less useless.
"Circle of Healing" (Holy) effect increased.
Lipstick on a sow. They have "buffed" this spell in three consecutive patches now because it has probably become apparent to them that nobody is wasting the 41 talent points to get this largely useless spell. This is a spell designed to help in places like Naxx and AQ, but it is really useless in Burning Crusade. For bonus points, name more than one encounter in BC where the strategy involves clumping the whole raid together, where everybody takes light to moderate AoE damage. [...]
Sorry, it was a trick question. BC is all about massive spike damage, and spreading out to avoid instant-death cleaves and chained spells. Even if they somehow accidentally rendered the spell halfway useful (it could happen if they tweak it enough), there's still no point in spending the talent points on it. Why? History has shown that if enough priests start using it, Blizzard will promptly break it again.
"Circle of healing" (Holy) adding a 60-second cooldown because some holy priests were managing to cast it twice in the arena before dying.
Finally, blowing the points to get this worthless spell means that you won't have enough to buy the only two priest buffs that haven't been nerfed yet (Improved Fort, and Divine Spirit).
"Empowered Healing" and "Holy Concentration" now affect "Binding Heal".
Apparently they've noticed that nobody us using this spell either. If you're taking the kind of damage where you'd even need this spell, you've pulled aggro and you are dead anyway. I suppose Blizzard deserves a half-hearted "thanks for making it suck less" for this one though.
Focused Power (Discipline) now also increases the chance to hit with Mass Dispel, reduces the cast time of Mass Dispel but no longer increases the damage against feared targets.
So they are eliminating the minor damage buff (because we are so overpowered and unbalanced) and replacing it with a couple of minor buffs to another useless spell that nobody uses. Sure, it has cool graphics when you cast it, but it takes forever to cast, costs a truckload of mana, and its effects are random. Gee, thanks.
"Holy Fire": The rank 9 tooltip has been corrected to indicate it does Holy damage.
Woo.
"Holy Nova": Rank 2 will no longer receive double the intended increase in range from "Holy Reach".
*shrug* It's a bug fix, so I don't really count this as a nerf.
"Mind control" no longer has a 100 yard range limitation in instances.
Meh. It's not a nerf, so I suppose that's something for which to be grateful. Maybe this is the "mystery buff" we were supposed to be wetting our pants over. I haven't found this spell to be particularly useful in Burning Crusade, mind you. It has not scaled well, and things resist and break it so routinely that it tends to do more harm than good the times I've tried to use it. It's useless in PvP because virtually everyone now has trinkets, or abilities that purge it anyway.
"Pain Suppression" now reduces damage taken by 65% and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 65% for the duration.
This is a marginal buff at best. It is a 41-point talent and it is one of our only decent survivability buffs, but it can still be dispelled, and it has a long cooldown. I dunno, it might be worth taking this talent if you don't mind crippling your healing for it. I've certainly thought about it.
"Power Word: Shield": The "Weakened Soul" effect will no longer sometimes be re-applied while zoning with this buff on.
This is a bug fix, but I am pretty sure they are counting it as a buff.
"Prayer of Fortitude": The range on rank 3 has been changed to match all other ranks of this spell.
Unless they had initially intended to give the higher ranking spell a shorter range, this is just another bug fix.
"Prayer of Fortitude", ranks 1 and 2, are now available on trainers.
I thought these were already available from the trainers. Ah well, good for the n00bs I suppose - saves them having to endlessly grind AQ20 for the books.
"Prayer of Mending": This spell is now affected by "Silent Resolve", "Amplify Magic", and "Dampen Magic".
Another bug fix that is probably being counted as a buff - or maybe this is part of their attempt to make up for crippling it so bad in the last patch.
"Prayer of Shadow Protection", rank 1, is now available on trainers.
Good for the n00bs I suppose. Gotta take what you can get these days.
"Reflective Shield": When this effect is triggered, the priest will no longer be forced to stand up.
The more I think about this one, the more pointless it seems...
"Shadowfiend": This pet will now come into the game with full health and mana, including that gained from a percentage of its master's stamina and intellect.
Bug fix.
"Shadow Weaving" (Shadow): Effect reduced by 1% per rank.
Yay - another nerf for shadow priests (because they didn't quite screw them enough in the last patch). As an added bonus, this one nerfs warlocks too. Oh, and don't let the 1% figure fool you, this is not a minor nerf - this reduces the ability by 1/3.
"Shadow Word: Death": Cooldown increased to 12 sec.
... and another instance where the shadow priests are being bent over the barrel. The spell already had a cooldown; extending it to 12 seconds is just insulting. This one sounds like one of the developers getting back at the priests because somebody used it to kill him a couple of times in the arena.
"Silent Resolve": Some priest spells were unaffected by this talent. They should now all be affected.
"... except for the shadow spells that we intentionally removed from it last patch." Sounds to me like they screwed up last patch and accidentally crippled spells in other trees too.
"Spirit of Redemption" and "Spiritual Guidance" now work while the priest is in "Shadowform".
...! Okay, this one just leaves my head spinning. I just can't imagine taking talents down far enough in both Holy and Shadow trees in order to find out that this was even an issue.
"Spirit Tap": This ability will no longer be triggered by killing some creature-cast totems.
Bug fix.
"Surge of Light": "Smite" spells triggered by this talent will no longer sometimes critically strike. In addition, the free "Smite" granted will not consume the effect of "Inner Focus". "Holy Nova" heals can now trigger "Surge of Light" as well.
Sadly, this is just a bug fix. I am probably going to spend the money to redo my talent tree once this patch goes live, since the only thing that made this one halfway useful was the fact that it was broken. This also begs the question of why they even bother having it trigger off of healing spells. With the crazy damage output in the Burning Crusade dungeons, I am not going to stop in mid-heal to cast a smite - especially since it doesn't do enough damage to be worthwhile if I am not dressed in my DPS gear.
"Symbol of Hope": amount of mana regained increased.
Nice for the alliance priests I suppose.
"Touch of Weakness": This spell can now activate "Surge of Light".
Gah. This is marginally useful at best - but it also raises the obvious question of why a shadow spell critical strike would trigger a holy buff. Will the priest be able to cast this Smite spell while in shadow form, or will they have to switch out for the Smite, then switch back again to resume their regular face-melting?
"Vampiric Touch": This spell now consumes the "Inner Focus buff".
Bug fix.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 08:58 pm (UTC)This made me laugh. Everything else made me angry. Mav plays a shadow priest and said the class is not underpowered. Hopefully this will get him to see the (holy) light?
Touch of weakness is such a useless spell, the only thing I can see it being used for is to spam rank 1 casts to try and get a crit to get the surge of light proc. :\
I can't believe they are DOUBLING the cooldown on a spell that, when cast on any player who doesn't wear cloth, does like 2% health damage to them and 10% to the priest.... I'm still gonna spam it in pvp with "new and improved by amplify magic!" prayer of mendings. :\
We seriously need to all make priest alts and crash a server in ironforge. "oh hay warlock dps is too high let's fix it by nerfing shadow priest buffs/dps."
no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 10:55 pm (UTC)My passion for this class, and for the game overall is starting to wane a bit over crap like this. The changes they are putting in seem to be designed more for a self-serving agenda than to enhance the game for the players.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-14 04:56 am (UTC)Maybe I should trek to the AH and see how much I can improve my weapons and armor on 20-25s.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-14 05:07 am (UTC)