Analysis of the State of the Priest Class

The Analysis of the State of the Priest Class

By: Vhalor

70 Night Elf Priest -The Agency- :Black Dragonflight:

In a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) such as World of Warcraft, it is difficult to achieve balance. With 9 completely different classes, each supplied with a plethora of different spells and abilities, and with 10 different races, all sporting different racial abilities and passive traits, there will never be true balance. Some class/race combinations will have an edge over other class/race combinations. This is what I have come to understand and accept as the truth.

This being said, it is the responsibility of Blizzard Entertainment to provide as much balance as humanly possible in its MMORPG World of Warcraft. In the current state of the game, it has become increasingly apparent that said balance has not been achieved at all. I speak ofcourse of the Priest Class and its role as a healing class.

In the beginning, I imagined the Priest as the main healer. I know that many shared this opinion. Sure, paladins, druids, and shaman could heal. However, the healing power of the Priest would have the edge over these classes in a raid environment. Perhaps at one point or many points this was the case. However, as things currently stand, I believe Priests have been severely downgraded. Now, the priest is simply a backup healer who provides the ever favorite Prayer of Fortitude and Prayer of Spirit buff. I feel that this is unacceptable for those who chose the Priest class due to its superiority as a healer and are now stuck in a raid that no longer accepts or appreciates them.

This thread is for the holy priests who still want to be powerful healers. Who refuse to turn to the Shadow spec simply because it is now more powerful.

Introduction

In this thread, I will provide both evidence and opinion as to why myself and others believe that the priest is no longer what we envisioned it as in respect to healing. I will also show why I believe that shaman, druids, and especially paladins now hold an edge over priests in raid healing that has lead to raids choosing alternatives to priests.

I will divide my argument in 5 divisions: Survivability, Healing Power, Mana Regeneration, Buffs, and Overall Usefulness

Survivability

This is currently the easiest topic to speak quickly about and move on. Priests are currently the weakest healing class in respect to survivability. Paladins, Shaman, AND Druids all outperform the priest in respect to surviving and mitigating damage. Let us first discuss the comparison between Priest and Shaman.

Shaman wear mail armor. Priests wear cloth armor. Cloth armor is the least defensive armor type in WoW, while Mail is the second highest. In addition, while priests are forced to use Fade, an ability which does not reduce threat but simply drop some threat for a short period of time, Shaman have the ability to use a totem which reduces their threat in addition to the rest of the party.

Druids wear leather armor, which is still higher armor than cloth. They do not have many survival traits, however druids are not as dependent on said abilities due to their healing usually being more HoT dependent in nature.

Now, paladins... Paladins wear plate armor. Plate armor is the most defensive armor in the game. Priests, once again, wear cloth armor, the weakest armor in the game. Paladins also use shields, which have an extremely high amount of armor, while priests generally use an offhand which has o armor (or a staff which has no armor). While priests have Power Word: Shield as their defense, a mana intensive shield which blocks 1500 damage with 3 talent points invested, Paladins have both Divine Shield, an instant cast shield which makes the user invulnerable to all damage for 12 seconds, and Blessing of Protection, which makes the recipient immune to all physical damage for 10 seconds. In addition to their high armor and these 2 very powerful abilities, they also have blessing of salvation, which reduces their threat, thus increasing their survivability, and Devotion Aura, increasing their already high armor in addition to the armor of the entire party.

Overall Conclusion: Shaman, Druids, and ESPECIALLY Paladins have higher survivability than healing priests.

Healing Power

Priests have abandoned their place as the number one healers of WoW. Instead, Paladins have taken that spot, with shaman and druids proving to be as useful if not more than priests.

Shaman have a greater and lesser heal similar to the priests "Greater Heal" and "Flash Heal" repsectively. Their heals output the same amount of healing that priest spells do, but for less mana each. Their lack of a PW: Shield, PoM and renew are easily made up for as I will demonstrate.

Druids match a Priest in healing power, however they are given the ability to become a tree, increasing the amount of healing taken by party member