Lost in Space and six weeks later!
Posted On Thursday, January 15th, 2009 By Jay
First, I made it through crunch.
Second, I hit 80 on my priest.
Third, I’ve raided as both discipline (very enjoyable) and holy (powerful but boring).
Fourth, I got my Valorous Shoulders. They’re hawt!
There are several topics that I’d like to discuss. 1 I’ll actually discuss, 1 I’ll mention and 1 that deserves its own post. The topic deserving its own post is a discussion on existing and possible future priest healing mechanics. As a note, I REALLY like the way discipline plays and I would like to see some major mechanical breakdown of the CoH tree… oops, I meant holy tree.
I’m going to mention the addition of the 6 second CoH cooldown and discuss briefly my feelings on it. I feel if a player rolled a priest to mash 1 button 50% of the time then they should have rolled either a paladin or shaman for healing. The largest distinguisher between the priest class and other healing classes is the sheer volume of tools available to you.
- Flash heal, quick cast
- Greater heal, long cast
- Power word: Shield, instant
- Power word: Fort, buff
- Shadow Protection, buff
- Renew, instant
- Prayer of Healing, long cast, multiple targets
- Prayer of Mending, instant, multiple targets
- Hymn, mana regen, channeled
- Fear Ward, instant buff
- and the list continues
As a brief list, all untalented, we can accomplish and heal through every possible scenario the developers at blizzard decide to throw at us. We may not be the best at each scenario, but we bring enough utility that it doesn’t matter.
I happen to be one of the silent many that welcome the 6 second cooldown to CoH. I really look forward to the introduction of the necessary smart choices that make a raider what they are. I look forward to making stupid DPS accountable for standing in the fire, moving while flame wreathed and/or standing in AoE. I look forward to bringing back smart pulls where the tank manages LoS to the raid, healers hide behind corners and hunters are more than just moving turrets that can’t kyte. Lemme tell you, when a hunter can’t kyte effectively during the Gluth encounter, my blood boils. Leave that player, you can find a similar class.
I’m looking forward to the good old days of raiding, where every player had to be aware of what was going on and still complete their task. Players that don’t just look at grid, or xperl, or whatever and access every situation for the better of the raid. Greater heal takes roughly 2.25 seconds fully hasted and talented, that’s 2.25 seconds where you’re eyes can meander around the screen, looking for the next target or danger will robinson! Flash heal provides one second, believe me, your brain can make a decision in that time, just watch out for scratches from spiders, apparently, that’s a desease we cannot abolish.
