GC2007: Interview With Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan

Prayer of Mending and Renew are true healing spells but not direct healing spells... at least how I, and I'm sure others as well, see it. Any spell that is there for the sole purpose of healing is a true healing spell but everyone is entitled to their own definitions. I'm sure you don't include Lifebloom, even though it is a druid spell, as one either even though it is one of the best heals in the game.

I'm also sure Salsa was talking about instant healing spells and not utility, but if we do that comparison you can throw in Pain Supression and Power Infusion to the priests artillery of utility spells that could help others as well. Bear form? Barkskin? Well, thinking of it Dispell is also a utility spell and every debuff removing utility other classes have. See, this is getting out of hand so shall we stay with the healing spells?

The problem I see it with priests is not our ability to heal or heal instantly even though the instant heals help out some, but our inability to get out of fire as we don't really have any CC spells (usable in PvP) worth mentioning. Fear is a joke nowadays and our shield doesn't scale properly and is a bit weak anyway.

And Salsa, running around casting Holy Nova to proc Surge of Light sure gets rid of the spell pushback true but casting one HN and after that the instant Smite costs 3s in global cooldowns in which you could instead heal or mana burn and well, if you have the time to do that you are either letting your teammate(s) or yourself die since you aren't healing. One problem as well is that you have to be fairly close to the other players to get as many people inside the nova as possible to increase the chance for it to proc. And being to close to many just increases the chance of them to catch you. Especially if fighting rogues or warriors it can be problematic. The only thing I use Holy Nova (rank 1) for is to find stealthed players.

Priests need increased survivability, the healing utility as it is now is just fine and to be sort of on topic, hunters getting some sort of MS ability just sucks. I hate warriors for their MS now, now just imagine some players being able to give that effect ranged? I think priests should get some physical mending ability to cure stuff like rend, MS etc. No other class have it and I think it someone should get it and in my eyes the priest should be the class.

Quote:"Priests need increased survivability, the healing utility as it is now is just fine "

This is what I'm talking about.

Priests are good enough healers already as it is, it's their personal defences that needs to be sorted out, not their healing abilities.

Taldren, claming you can't get this or that talent in a certain spec is a weird argument. The talent is there, that you choose not to get it is a personal preference choice made by you. That you choose not to get a certain talent doesn't mean the talent doesn't exist. You might as well claim +5% holy crit shouldn't be considered when talking about the priest, because person <X> doesn't have it in his spec, a rather silly way to argue I hope you can see.

Are there some things that needs tweaking with priests? Sure. all classes still have issues (yes, even warriors and warlocks). Is the healing the problem of priests? No.

The current pvp problem of priests are their only defence being healing/shielding themselves, and psychic scream. The fun thing is, druids were somewhat in the same boat, untill they got cyclone, which helped them alot for defending themselves against single attackers (like a rogue on interupt duty).

Shammies got earthshield, but otherwise too lack a proper defence to get people out of their face. Pallies got their bubble, and that is really the only thing that makes them the 'real' survivors in arenas. As soon as the bubble is spent, however, they're left semi-vulnerable to interupts.

How to help priests then? Not entirely sure, but maybe a debuff they could apply to a single target that broke when/if they attacked the target.The debuff making the subject unable to hit the priest with any attacks for a few seconds (in other words, a cyclone that would be less usable as an offensive tool).

"Taldren, claming you can't get this or that talent in a certain spec is a weird argument. The talent is there, that you choose not to get it is a personal preference choice made by you. That you choose not to get a certain talent doesn't mean the talent doesn't exist. You might as well claim +5% holy crit shouldn't be considered when talking about the priest, because person <X> doesn't have it in his spec, a rather silly way to argue I hope you can see."

It is not a silly arguement. If someone was shadow would you complain that they don't have Healing Focus? Or Divine Fury? Certain talents just don't make sense for certain specs. In arena priests are either Shadow build or they are 28D/33H. It just is not an option to give up Focused Power for something as trivial as Circle of Healing, especially when you are just using these instant spells just in an attempt to proc Surge of Light.

"Prayer of Mending and Renew are true healing spells but not direct healing spells... at least how I, and I'm sure others as well, see it. Any spell that is there for the sole purpose of healing is a true healing spell but everyone is entitled to their own definitions."

As I said before, there are two cases when you can't define Prayer of Mending as a "Heal" spell. Case 1: When you die to the damage before it triggers Prayer of Mending. Case 2: When Prayer of Mended does not generate more health then the damage that triggered it.

In Case 2 Prayer of Mending acts just like PW:Shield in that it is a damage absorbtion ability and with the spread of healing debuffs this case is the most common in Arena PvP.

Renew is not an Instant Heal was the arguement I was making earlier. The delay of 3 seconds before any health is returned is evidence enough of that.

That all said ... on the topic of priest issues ...

1) Any class can run a priest down without anything the priest can do about it. Priests don't have stealth, invis, blink, sprint, speed chant, travel form, or any defensive abilities to prevent being run down and killed. All priests do is burn mana trying to stay alive, but that doesn't work very well when the enemy can never be run away from.

2) Priests only means of breaking from melee revolves around 30 second cooldown AE Fear which now can break for almost any reason if it isn't outright resisted in the first place or the target is immune. AE Fear is NOT chain castable warlock fear. Even if it does give them a few feet distance before it is removed by too many means to count, they are usually slowed and can't run anywhere.

3) Inability to remove movement impairing effects. Priests used to be able to dispel conc shot and so many other snare effects, but since BC they can't. They have no means to free themselves, let alone anyone else from these affects which leave them easily in enemy hands.

4) Purge/Dispel is too powerful a weapon against priests as EVERY form of defense the priest class has is considered a magical effect and is removable.

5) For some reason priests were linked to Spirit, which makes sense from a flavor point of view, but has nothing but limit the class in the end game. Currently 1 Str = 1 Agi = 1.5 Stam = 1 Spirit. 1 Spirit doesn't even come close to these other stats in terms of end game gains, especially in the arenas. Yet priests have talent after talent based on this stat. Even the developers recognized the lacking aspect of spirit when they designed the priest pvp gear. Notice, NO SPIRIT. Paladins, Druids, and Shaman all have talent-linked secondary effects for INT which is heavily prevelent in PvP gear.

6) Priests can be completely shutdown by unmanned AI pets. With a pet chewing on them they can do so very little. For some reason pets always hit that 30% bullseye to cause pushback if the pet is not stunning them, counterspelling them, dispelling them, ect. FADE ISN"T WORKING ON PETS, or I should say it isn’t working as it does on mobs. A pet MAY break away for a moment, but then it turns back and attacks the priest.

7) This is more a general caster issue, but spell casting (heals in this case) is subject to ALL forms of CC other then root on TOP of spell casting specific CC. The huge range of ways to stop spell casting is currently ridiculous. Taurens and Bloodelves both have AE means to stop spell casting as a RACIAL ability for gods sake.

In Short:

Priests are easily enveloped and have no means to escape from both melee and being run down. Priests healing ability is easily shut down by both pets and player abilities. The defense of priests due to its magical nature is too easily bypassed by dispel purge. Priest's stat of Spirit is lacking at best.

Adding more healing abilities is not going to help if we can't escape from being damaged. Even when priests had spammable prayer of mending they still died because we couldn't escape and eventually ran out of mana if they weren’t owned by Mortal Strike, Wounding poison, and now whatever hunters are going to be getting.

Taldren, you list 5 instant spells that each help you keep people alive, yet you use it to argue you have no instant spells for that purpose?

Excuse me?

How many instants spells were it the other classes had to aid with this same purpose in comparison? How many of these instants can they use to affect multiple targets? Priests aren't as bad of as people are trying to make them appear.

As for no pushbacks on smite... Ermm.... Surge of Light? Get a crit on any spell (heals included) and you can fire off an instant smite. One of my own fave tactics is Holy nova rank 1 and then smite from a SoL proc. 2 global coldowns, but can't be pushed back or interupted.

Salsa , I am afraid that I must ask you to go and actually read up on the priest class. Your post makes no sense. I said there was no "spam" heal as you has stated in your original thread. 90% of all "holy" priests are 28D/33H (or very close) and don't have CoH and only use Rank2 of HN IF they actually get it. The only "instant" spells a priest gets baseline are Prayer of Mending, Renew, and Power Word:Shield. None of which are a true healing spell for the reasons that I outlined in my earlier post.

Surge of Light has nothing to do with spell pushback. You make it sound like crit heals happen all the time ... perhaps for paladins, but not priests and especially not 28D/33H priests (no SoL) who are pigeon holed into that spec in order to PvP non-Shadow.

As for this comment, "How many instants spells were it the other classes had to aid with this same purpose in comparison?" ... Well where to begin? Healing classes? All instant cast utility spells that could help someone else?

Paladin: BoP/DS, BoF, Holy Shock (Talent), Hammer of Justice.

Druid: Rejuve, Nature Swiftness (Talent), Barkskin, Bearform,

Swiftmend (Talent), Natures Grasp (Talent).

Shaman: Nature's Swiftness (Talent), Earthshield (Talent), Totems (varies on who they are fighting).

Ok, so what was your point? All these classes have better armor and far more effective utility spells then the priest class in addition to having numerous instant spells. I don't see where you are going with your arguement.

Fixing a class by itemization is like fixing a rusted out 1950's car with a fresh coat of paint. It might look all shiny, but underneath it is the same POS you were driving before.

lol

In PvE they are needed as SHADOW as a Mana Battery as even the devs admitted at Blizcon. There is no denying this as priests heals are not mana efficient enough to compete with Paladin as the main healer.

In PvP they are needed as a counter to Paladins with manaburn/mass dispel or shadow spec for DPS.

Notice that the "core" healing class is NOT needed for healing. That is a HUGE PROBLEM.

Yet they are the only class that can spam instant heals if needed (PvP anyone?) and is also the only class that can continue healing un-interupted for a while after being downed. Not to mention the slew of AoE heals the class got compared to everyone else, as well as the low low threat generation on some of their spells (PoM actually gives the threat to other people, rather than the priest).

Priests are stuck in a rut mainly because they haven't adapted to TBC and the changes that came with the expansion. The tools are there, but only a few are actually using them, the majority seemingly prefering to continue to want to compete on spam-healing with flasheals (one of the most in-effective heals they have) and then go cry when their misuse of class skills makes them appear at the bottom of an epeen meter that favours spamhealers by a large degree (in which the priest will always loose out).

To be honest, with the rumored changes in gear for the expansion (the gear hop being equal to when we entered outland), I wouldn't be surprised if we suddenly started getting mages crying about the damage potentail of priests speccing for smite in a dis/holy hybrid build. Now that would be ironic considered popular opinions at the moment, but it's a very real possibility courtesy of it being the spell priests have that scales the best. (aside the Nelf special, but not everyone has that :p )

I'm sorry, but "spam" instant heals? I would think you would educate yourself on a class before going into a conversation on one. First of all the only instant heal a priest has is Holy Nova (talent) and Circle of Healing (talent) and both are horrible. Renew is not an instant heal, it is a Heal over time that doesn't tic until 3 seconds after it was cast and for really low amounts. PW:Shield (15s cooldown) is not a heal, for one, it is a removable damage reduction spell as in it doesn't actually change your health value. Prayer of Mending (10s cooldown) is a removable reactive heal that is only considered a "heal" under the case that a) the damage that would of triggered it didn't kill you and b) You took less damage then Pr0M will actually heal. With Mortal Strike my Prayer of Mending only heals for 700ish vs the 2k mortal strike damage. Both Pr0m and PW:S scale horribly.

And I am fully adapted to TBC in my 28/33 build with 508 resilience and 12k hitpoints. I know for a fact that the rut you speak of is fallacy and pretty much a random idea from someone that doesn't understand what it is to be a cloth healer in the arenas.

As for the itemization , no healer is going to ever cast smite for fear of shutting down the entire healing/PW:S spell line. Especially since there is no talent to reduce smite pushback and thus any damage prolongs the casting of smite which in turn increases the chance the entire holy line will be shut down.

Sorry but how exactly can you say that a core healing class is dead?

In PvE they're needed, no arguments.

In PvP, they're needed, although people don't need crap geared ones. I've seen a priest with 450 resilience, and a large amount of armor, coupled with 12k HP I think , good luck getting through that.

So my point stands, L2P.

Just to add, the healing debuff has been around for along time, just deal with it. Every class has been subjected to nerfs, the priest is still a very strong healing class. Even more so if the rumored buffs are true.

I didn't think I need to add an argument to an already foolish reply.

did I just hear that right? just for having a lvl 70 character, you will be able to roll a deathknight.

Great... so EVERYONE is going to have a deathknight

yah, that background sound was kinda annoying =\ but i could understand , just some word i could couse of the screaming ..

lol I missed your voice Nimloth. Been a while since Conquest and Aphelion ;)

Intro was nice, and Im thinking a CURSE watermark in the lower right would be appropriate. Nimloth did fine in the interview, especially since he isnt a native English speaker. I would have appreciated a little better transition between the questions though; the "moving to a completely different topic" made the interview feel a bit disjointed (although still informative).

Lythria interesting :) expect the monthly charge witch is free money:-/ whats wrong with you? :) On my account Blizzard can become the 1st World Empire :) the matter is simple you don`t like u don`t buy/pay :S and don`t flame the guy asking the questions i`m sure he was nervous and horny for Tigole :)

Main think I'm concerned about, and it may not seem big to most, is the fact that we're gonna fight Malygos. Is that saying Arthas is more powerful than a dragon aspect? We couldn't kill him because if it follows lore that would pretty much destroy the balance of the world and all that. I dunno, seems really out of place to me.

hmm is there a download option as it is clear that curse dont have enough bandwith to stream as it is impossible to actually watch this now, it just keeps buffering and never actually show anything. This is testing both IE7 and opera.

oh and should add the few seconds id did get to see was with the curse intro and it looks ok;)